We Are God's Children First B Jackson 2022-08-28 Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record. ---- Good morning, church. How are you? I'm getting the signal that it's time to start. So, hey. Would you would you stand with me, and and we'll sing together from from Psalm a 107. This this is what I feel is a great verse to lead us in worship. It says, let the redeemed of the Lord say so. So in other words, it's saying, if the Lord has made a difference in your life indeed, let it be known. Let the let the redeemed of the Lord say so. So what do you say we start by singing? Let the redeemed. Hey, man. You can have a seat here for just a moment. We've got a few announcements for you. Think maybe starting with a Monday night announcement. That's right. First announcement is Monday nights, which is tomorrow night, Carl. What are we gonna be about? Yep. So we're, at the end of Philippians. We'll have a pizza night, and, he's talking about living as citizens of heaven. What does that mean to be unified in spirit and in purpose, fighting together for the faith? So an excellent passage tomorrow in Philippians. Please know it's a worship gathering that we have on Monday nights, 06:00. And it's meal, music, and message. So join us beforehand to come eat some dinner eat some dinner and fellowship. Between speaking of fellowship, between this service and next service down in in the Fellowship Hall, there's the connect hour. There'll be some food and some beverages, coffee, a chance to get to know each other and visit with one each other between this service and also the 11:00 service. Sisters Saved by Grace is a Bible study that's led by Nancy Baxter every Thursday. Nancy, are you in the room? She she's right there. So if you have any questions, you can ask her about it. I know that there's a handful of ladies that meet every Thursday and, it really fills their buckets. So please ask her if you have any questions and would like to join. And speaking of sisters saved by grace, there's a woman study that's starting September 7 for Wednesdays. It's gonna be a number of Wednesdays. It's gonna be teaching by Deborah Buckingham and also some worship service, so feel please feel free to join or ask questions in the office if you have any questions about that. Sound booth volunteer is needed. If you have any interest in speaking from a microphone in the back of the booth, Please see me or Nick Stern. We'll be friendly and we'll be very grateful for your help. Dinner in a movie, The Chosen season one at 6PM on Fridays in the fellowship hall. The Chosen Ray's talked about it a lot from the pulpit up there. It's a really good show about Jesus and his disciples, and there'll also be a meal involved. So please know that you are welcome and invited to that. And in the back of the seats or the seats right in front of you, you'll see a little welcome, we're glad you're here, first b card. And if you're new, please fill that out. Or if you have a prayer request or just wanna connect with the body of the church, fill that out. You can put it in the offeratory as we pass that around or drop it off in the office and know that we are glad that you are here and you are welcome. Also, Old Bills Fun Run. You've heard Ray talk about this a lot, and if you've been in Jackson, you know what Old Bills Fun Run is. It's you can donate through Old Bills, and if you're donating to First B Jackson, we have something called the benevolence fund. So when someone comes into the church in need, whether it's need of gas, need of a hotel room, in need of anything, the church can, through God's grace and your donation and help through old bills, say yes. So know that that's coming up, and when you donate a dollar to that, it's often amplified to a dollar and 0.5 or sometimes even more. And speaking of old bills fun run, every single year, Chuck from the Good Samaritan Mission comes and tells us about their mission at Good Samaritan and how you can help them by donating to them through old bills. Chuck, take it away. Yeah. It's been a couple of years, and I I see some new faces here. So I'm gonna give you a rundown of what we do at the mission, and then I'll tell you a little something personal or yeah. After I tell one of the stories. So it'll they gave me five minutes of fame. So there's 30 beds for men and five for women for sleeping. People are required to work. We want people to move forward with their lives, not just come in. That's not a flop house. But if they wanna move forward with their life, I'm gonna do everything I can to help them. So we've get food out. We've got breakfast in the morning at seven and dinner at 05:30 seven days a week. On a good year, we'll do over 16,000 meals in that place. We have food boxes out the back door. One of my favorite programs, though, is the Totes of Hope program. It's where we give 40 bags a week to the children over at the Children's Learning Center. You know, when it's minus 20 degrees, though, you have to kinda pump yourself up to do it. So I think of it feeding little kids, feeding because my hands are cold. You know? And I get the one I'm the one that delivers it on Wednesday over there every week. So but that is such a good program. And then at Christmas time, I play Santa Claus, and and we give toys for all the kids in the in the program. There's over 40 kids in that program, and their parents have that the families have been identified as food insecure. And then that's all good and well. But you know what? The purpose of the mission is to change lives. And I was just talking to a lady the other day and that came in the mission, and she we were talking back and forth about Jesus. And she finally stopped me, and she says, you know, I can't do what you do. And I said, that's well, you're not supposed to do what I do. You're supposed to do what you do, what God calls you to do. And she didn't think she could be a witness to anybody. And the next day, she I she came in. She had bought a a Hispanic Bible and her own Bible over at the no. They gave them away free at Browse and Buy, and she got one of those, and she gave the Hispanic Bible to one of the guests upstairs. And I said, that's what you do. You know, we just wanna share Jesus with everything. My whole goal in life is one more person being led to Christ. And if I can do that, my life is gonna have meaning and purpose. And because of what I do, it's gonna be a lot more than that. So on a personal note, though, I hit I don't know if it's good or bad or whatever, but on a personal note, I've got I lost my wife last year. That was pretty traumatic. It's like when you've been together over thirty years, you it takes a hole in your heart. God said, blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. I need a lot of his comforting during that time. I still hard to walk work go home to an empty house, but that's what it is. And then besides that, I've got stage four cancer, but it's in remission. And it's going good. I take Lupron shots. But I have a talked to the board, and I asked them, I'd like to do this until I die. And they said, well, who else would we get? I I got them really buffaloed. You know? Anyway, so that's that's what's going on. And so I'd like to close with one thing, though, that I do every time when I close. Good Samaritan Mission, Old Bill's Fun Run. Good Samaritan Mission, Old Bill's Fun Run. Good Samaritan Mission what? Old Bill's Fun Run. Alright. Thank you. Thanks, Chuck, for sharing that about Old Bill's and the Good Samaritan Mission. And, if we could all join together, stand up, and Carl, if you could lead us in some more worship. Let's sing about multiplied. From Psalm one thirty six, give thanks to the Lord. He is good. His steadfast love endures forever. Let's sing it. God, as we sing about love this morning, I am thankful for your brand of love. Your self giving, others focused love, unconditional love. God, thank you for loving us with that kind of love. God, would you remind us? Holy Spirit, would you work in us a love like that to show to one another? In Jesus' name. Amen. As we sing that song and you think about, you know, the author of the song singing, I searched the world, but but nothing could fill me. And have you been there? Yes. Where you've looked and you've searched and you go, I just nothing's working here. And then in humble faith, you turn, you you shift your gauge your gaze, excuse me, toward Jesus, and it just it changes absolutely everything. Isn't it beautiful? So good. From the psalmist. Listen. Listen to his heart when he says that you've turned my mourning into joyful dancing, and you've taken away my clothes of mourning, and you've clothed me with joy where I can recognize the grace of God. I've recognized the grace of God. It doesn't depend on my circumstances, but I've recognized the grace of God so I can have his joy, the recognition of his favor in every circumstance. It's a beautiful thing what Jesus does. You can have a seat here for a moment. We're, this is the worship through giving part of the service, and I'll invite the ushers to to come forward here. And, we're gonna sing here's my heart, a simple song, but a beautiful song. From Jeremiah twenty nine thirteen, God says, you will seek me and you'll find me when you search for me with all your heart. So before we sing, I'd like to to just pray together and give thanks. God, I just wanna say, we just want to say thank you. Thank you. We've sung of your love, but, God, may we experience it like no other time. And just as the song says, you are strong. You are sure. You are life. You endure. You are good. You're always true. You are light. You're breaking through. This is what is true about you. God, thank you for drawing us to yourself, for imparting the gift of faith, birthing the gift of faith in us that we would be able to know you to be transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of your son. Amen. Because of this, may we continue to seek and find as we search with our whole heart. And by all means, God, would you use the gifts that that land in these plates and otherwise? God, you have gifted the body of Christ to do the work. And I am so grateful for each and every gift that each and every person right here sitting in these chairs bring to the body of Christ. God, bring them out in us and use them for the advance of your kingdom. In Jesus' name. Amen. God speaking of speaking what is true, God, I'm so thankful for this this this man right over here on the piano and his entire family and for your call on his life. And we pray that as he prepares to speak that you would, Holy Spirit, speak to us through him. Use his personality, his experience, and the truth of your word that we might be encouraged, that the church would be encouraged, but God, that you would be glorified. In Jesus' name, amen. No? Yes? Yes. Yes. Okay. Although you're gonna hear of your letter more. I'm very excited to be here this morning, and it's a privilege to, again, to stand in front of the church. If you are visiting this morning, I am so sorry the pastor is not here. He's he he doesn't look different. He's just a little bit different than me. Probably twice my size. And and he he used that pulpit from there, which is way too big for me. So that's why I put this on here because it's way easier so you can see me. So I'm sorry that pastor, I couldn't be here this morning, but I have the privilege to be here to share with you something from the the the word of God. Amen? It is easy for me to have a little conversation in English at one on one, but when it comes about preaching in English, I'm more confident to speaking the Romanian language and having my sweet, beautiful wife, Violetta translating for me. So it's gonna be a little bit different. Thank you for your patience. I'm gonna preach in Romanian language, but Violetta will translate for me. So thank you for adjusting to this. It's gonna be well, thank you. I'm happy to be here this morning with you. It is a privilege for us to be able to be in the house of the Lord. And believe me that I know that there are so many places in this whole world that people don't have the freedom or the privilege to meet together to worship God. But as for us, we have such a wonderful building, a wonderful view out the window up to the front. We're very, very blessed to be here this morning. And my desire this morning is that as we are here in the house of the Lord, we would have the open, heart to learn something from the word of God. May it not be just the time where we meet you with each other. And not just the time where we say hello to each other, we greet each other, we talk about life during the week, and then we just go home. But I hope that this is a time and a moment where we meet with God. And that at the moment that we enter this building, the house of the Lord, we would ask God that he will speak to our hearts. And we would say, God, please talk to my heart. Talk to my life. Tell me something from your Holy Spirit. And if there is something in my life that is not according to your will, please change my heart. And if there's something in my life that needs to be strengthened and encouraged, please encourage me and strengthen me and help me change it in my life. And now back to what I was saying at the beginning, even though pastor Ray is not here, I hope that as you come here, you come with the attitude. I want to hear from God. I want to learn from his word, and I wanna worship him. He'd really promised that if we make a step close to him, he will make twice or three steps towards us so we can meet with him and feel his presence in our life. Amen? Amen. Okay. I I can go a little bit back and forth. Yes. Yes. I chose the as a passage for this morning from the book of Colossians verse chapter one from verse one through four. And I have to admit that I chose this passage because it is really fresh in my mind. Pastor Carl did a wonderful, wonderful job at presenting, through the whole book of Colossians during the Monday night services. And as a parenthesis and shameless plug, please come to Monday nights. It's a wonderful service. It is my favorite worship of the week. Why I'm saying that? Because we gather, we chat about stuff, like general stuff, and we know about each other. And and and it's a way to have fellowship, food. As you can see, it's good. And and great time with the Lord. Amen? Oh, yeah. I was waiting for you to In the book of Colossians in chapter one, I have discovered something very interesting. And it's that if we, put our faith and our trust in God and if we trust God, no matter what our circumstances And if we learn to persevere and endure through whatever circumstances God will bless us in our everyday life. And God will give us strength to bring forward the gospel of Christ. One of our biggest priorities as Christians Other than getting together and fellowshipping and worshiping God it is to present to others the good news of the gospel. To present the gospel, the good news, to everyone. Dear brothers and sisters I really like the term sisters and brothers. People pass us by, in our daily life. People come and go in our life. And sometimes I think we are so, so busy with our daily things and our daily endeavors that we forget that God is with us and he's present every day with us. In Jackson, distracted And I think here in this town in Jackson, we have the most distractions ever to distract us from long hike. We need to make time to go for a hike. Need We to go for a walk. Go hiking upstairs. Maybe go visit this summer too. Have to go to work too. And little by little, there are things that just come in our life and distract us and take our attention away from God. And all the things that I just said earlier, they're not bad things in themselves. They're good for our life. But may God give us the strength to maintain our focus on him all the time. So that when we are focused on him, we can present the gospel of Christ to other people. And in verse one, Paul says And I think Blake will work on the This letter is from Paul chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. And from our brother Timothy, we are writing to God's holy people in the city of Colossi. Oh, May God our father give you grace and peace. How important it is that Paul recognizes God's will in his life? Paul is not just mentioning who he is just to show off a title of what he has done and accomplished, but it is to show that God's will is important in his life. And as you know, the apostles were the ones who were present during the ministry of Jesus on earth. And so many people have probably and perhaps, said that Jesus is not really all the things he said he was. No. You're contesting the authority of Paul. Okay. Okay. So Paul was always addressing or saying about himself that he is the apostle of Jesus Christ. Because he had a personal meeting with Jesus Christ. He had a vision with Jesus. And as is mentioned, perhaps he did have a vision. He was taken up to heaven to be shown the vision. But I won't go into details about that. It might just be a confusing passage. What it is important, and I would like to address is that Paul is the apostle of Jesus Christ that's chosen by Jesus Christ. And all that we are brothers and We are through the will of God. And all that we are and all that we have, the food, the everyday life, it's through the will of God. And in verse two, it says, we are writing to God's holy people in the city of Colossi who are I'm sorry. Sorry. Who are faithful brothers and sister and and sisters in Christ. May God our father give you grace and peace. There are two important qualities in this When we accept Jesus in our lives and in our hearts, Jesus makes us holy people. He makes us his holy chosen people. Hallelujah. Can we hear hallelujah? Amen? Amen. Yes. First b. We are holy by what Jesus did on the cross. We can't do anything for God through our own sin. No matter how good we are or no matter how much we try to do. These are just beautiful and pleasant qualities of our day. But when we put our trust in Jesus The key the key word here. Trust Jesus. The keyword is to trust. When we put our trust in Jesus. Bring. Through his blood and through what he did on the cross of We're considered holy. What a beautiful hope and wonderful hope we have. And then he continues on to sing that they're faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. Our position in who we are, it's given to us by Jesus. And through our daily walk in faith, we learn to be obedient And Paul is praising the church in Colossians saying that you are holy and you are faithful. Paul has heard from Epaphras that the church is doing good, that they're walking in faith, and that they're obeying God, and they he heard about his faith. But at the same time, they were trying to put their trust in their own wisdom and understanding. They were trying to add teachings about how to put their trust and worship the angels or how to astrologia. She fell the to leave all the pagan worship and practices coming into the church. And sometimes, nowadays, we have about the same problem. It is possible that we meet each other in fellowship together at the church. That when we meet, we do proclaim Christ, and we do have a good fellowship time together. But at the same time, it's possible that our life outside of the church building gets different, we don't worship God through our daily life throughout the week. Let us search our hearts and our lives. And remember that our time of meeting here, it is to worship God to learn about God and to search our heart and see if we're seeking God's will. Always. Always. Oh, We should always let God and his will tell us the things that are not good in our We should allow God to say, hey, Florin. This is a sin in your life. You should remove it. Try to fight against the sin and try to take away all the garbage out of your life. Little by little, the church at Colossi was allowing things from outside, from the world, to come into the church of Christ. And Paul continues on and says, you have to search God and his will because we have a hope in Christ. We have a hope in the gospel of Christ. And this hope is not only for life on this earth, but with the hope that we would have eternal life and live with Christ forever. And with this being said, I think it's worth it to fight against our sinful nature. And not just for our own good to feel the presence of God in our life. But also because we have a hope of eternity with Christ. And the main theme of this book, if I would put it in one phrase, it's the supremacy of Jesus Christ. This is the Jesus that we have. And God has revealed his, gospel to us through Jesus Christ. He gave us the good news of salvation with the hope to spend eternity with him. And we were dead in our sins and without hope. We were wandering far away from God. But when when we have reached the knowledge of Christ. Our Holy Spirit is in us now. We are alive, and we're God's children. We are God's children. We are God's children. One more time. One more time. We are God's children. Knowing this comes a big joy in our life. But with this joy also comes the responsibility. The responsibility that we know the good news, we know the gospel, and we have to present it to the people around us. Okay. And in verse five, it says, you have this expectation ever since you first heard the truth of the good news. The same good news that came to you is going out all over the world. This good news of Jesus, of God, of the gospel that we are saved has transformed our lives, but when we present it to others, it has the opportunity to transform other people's lives. And I have to admit that when it comes about, us going back to Romania and our no our main goal would be to present the gospel Sometimes I just sometimes I'm gonna go like Jonah. Maybe you should just go the opposite direction and somebody else do that. It is so easy to think that, oh, other somebody else can do it. It's so easy for another person to do what God has called them to do. But when I lay my head down on my pillow at night and think about what God has done for me and what he has called me to do, I feel the responsibility that I have to do what God is asking me to do. And I would like to transmit the same desire to share with you the same desire in Maybe that you're not called to go to Romania or to Mexico or to any other country. But the gospel and the good news that Jesus has put into your heart, you can share that here where you are. We can all be part of this calling as long as we live the Holy Spirit, be part of our life, and lead our life. And in verse seven, we have Paul praising the person who is working with this church in Colossi. And further on, he says that this person has been sharing with us how your love has been growing for each other. And ever since the apostle Paul has heard about this good news, he's praying for them constantly that he that their love will grow more and more. And that they would grow in wisdom and, spiritual understanding. And wisdom come when we spend time in our daily life with God and in his presence. And our spiritual walking is shown through our daily walk with Christ. Dear brothers and sisters, I would like to ask you this morning. How is are you standing with God? How is your relationship with This past week when I was working, pastor Carl came to my work and asked me, how is your life? How is life going for you? But he wasn't just asking, hey. How are you today? How are you doing today? How are you doing in your daily life? How's life going? And it made me think about it. And it made me think about it because it's so easy for me to just say, oh, I'm fine. I'm always at work happy interacting with people that makes me happy. It's my happy place. After he left, I asked myself, God, how am I standing with you? How is my life in relation with you? Myself. How was my walk with you? How was my faith in my daily life? Am I walking with you, or am I just going on the side all by myself and forget about you? And I would like to ask yourself this morning and ask you this morning, how are you standing in your relationship with God? How is your relationship going with God? And why am I asking this question? If we're asking ourselves this question more often in our daily lives and we keep a prayerful relationship with God and we keep reading God's word every day. And that's when what it says in verse 10 has a more close relation with us when we understand it better. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord. And your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. Verse 10. Okay. And then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better. That that's the only way that we can do it. That's the way that we can be successful in our in our Christian life when we stay like this with our savior, when we walk hand in hand with him. Amen? When we feel his presence in our life and day day by day. It's gonna there there are gonna be days when we walk like this. There are gonna be days when we walk like this, but Christ is always there with us. Amen? I have a good friend at work, and she is from Romania. And she knows that I come to church. She knows that I try to talk to people about, God every day. She And she will always try to make some jokes, sometimes unpleasant ones. Just to pull me in so I can do the same kind of jokes like her. And one day, because I just didn't want it to look weird, I just I just started the same thing, the kind of jokes that she I was starting to make the same kind of jokes. And you know what her answer was? Hey. Hey. I thought you were a Christian. How come you're making this kind of jokes? So do you see what happens? Do you notice? It's It's very important that we keep our standard. We maintain a good standard in our life every single day. And let me tell you honestly, brothers and sisters, it's not to impress somebody. It has nothing to do with how well people think of us, how much we impress them or not. It's not about how good you look as a Christian and how wonderful and godly you are. But I am telling you that the people, they look at us and they notice. They look at how we talk. And they look at how we interpret and how we take the things they say. In other words, it matters how we live our life in the community we live. And it's not just to live better to say, oh, I'm live a better life than you. I'm better than you. But it is because Christ, Jesus Christ lives in us. It's because he will transform our lives. And when others will see our different manner of living they will wonder. They will start asking, what's going on with you? I know I said this before, but I will say it one more time. I promise that I'm not trying to praise myself. But I am so happy when people at work just out of the blue come and ask me, what church do you go at? Because they asked me this because they see something different. And it's not because I'm a great person or a nice person. It is because because Christ lives in me. He knows all my problems. And he knows that when I go to bed at night, I have to take all my burdens off my shoulders. He knows that in the morning, it brings a fresh new beginning. It's a new start. A new beginning. Yes. He knows everything about us. There's nothing that we can hide from God. And if there's something that we can praise about and glory, ourselves about is our sins. But when we lay our sins, in God's hand he will transform us little by little. What I would like to say to you this morning, brothers and sisters. In verse 11, I would like to share verse 11. We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious powers so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. So these things that talk about in the verse 11, patience and endurance, they come little by little, day by day as we learn to walk with him. And there are also two wonderful promises in this verse. We have an inheritance in Christ. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Not just a good life on this earth. But we have an inheritance with him in the kingdom of God in heaven. Okay. Okay. In September. This year in September, I will turn 46 years old. And if there is one thing that I regret not doing until now is that I haven't served God more that I have set my sight on things that are perishing in this world. Do you remember the time when you were 20 years old? Do you remember when you were 40 years old? 60 years old. And it feels like years are going by so fast. Let us cherish the time that we have today. Let us present ourselves and come to God today. Maybe that now is the day today before we leave here from church. Maybe there is a time that we have to ask God, God, show me your way. God, show me your will. God, I think I focused on so much on the things that I wanted. I focused so much on having a good career. I focused so much on buying a house and cars, a couple cars. And the years went by and passed me by. And I feel like at this point in my life, we're not that close friends anymore, God. If If this is what is going on in your life. I would like to tell you that today is the day when we can draw closer to God. Today is the day when you can say, God, from now on, I would like to walk hand in hand with you. And in verse 13, it says, for he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his dear son. Who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins. As you have probably noticed, pastor Ray, he has this gift where he goes verse by verse and he stays focused on what he has to say. He doesn't know the left or And so does pastor Karl. They're very orderly, but I like to go left and right wherever I feel like it. I like to have the freedom to say or transmit to you what God is telling me, what God has laid on my heart today. And I know that their style is very good because it keeps you in line with what you want to say. And because I've been in this church for so very many years. I think I'm a Bible student for sure. And all that, thanks to the pastors that have kept us in the Bible all the time. May God bless you this morning. And I would like to thank you from all my heart for the patience you had with the translation this morning. May God bless you, and have a wonderful rest of the day. Amen. Thank you. Do you stand? We'll sing another song together. Thank you, Florid. It is so good to hear from you. And I just don't you feel like you've just been overflowed on? Like, he was pouring out and you just you got it. You got whatever he had. That just got tipped over onto you in the best way. I think right in line with Colossians, this is a good song. We'll make it our our prayer and our song. It's I want to know you. How about this closing benediction here? And it's right out of Colossians, right where he was, but being strengthened with all power according to his, keyword, his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience and giving joyful thanks to the father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance. God, thank you for the inheritance that you have given us in the kingdom of light. In Jesus' name. Amen.