Confidence in a World of Chaos - Ben Stuart

well when i was in high school i was part of a ministry that went to camp in colorado and since i lived in texas we drove on a bus for 20 hours which if you've never spent 20 hours on a bus with a bunch of high school kids it is a test of all that you believe and it's pretty confining so by the end of that time we had just been trapped in this capsule of pringles and farts for 20 hours as soon as they opened that door into the rocky mountains we went exploding out into the hills and i remember me and a little group of us we just started charging towards this mountain peak we thought let's just run to the top of that real quick which really betrayed our lack of perspective as texans we just thought oh we'll scamper up to the top of that not realizing those weren't little shrubs those were actually full-grown pine trees we just were farther away we lacked critical perspective and yet we went running off into our freedom and about an hour later it dawned on us hey we're lost like now we can't see the mountaintop anymore we can't see our camp anymore we're just somewhere in a forest the sun's beginning to go down and we realized our pursuit of freedom had actually not only failed to give us freedom it actually had created some problems and there is we realized that in the midst of the chaos a billion causes were birthed suddenly somebody was like hey we need to break all these branches so we know where we've been and somebody else was like we need to start a fire to keep warm someone else said it's it's key we built a shelter before nightfall someone else said what no we need to keep going to get to the top of this mountain for perspective so we can see the valley someone else said no we need to turn back and run back and they're in the midst of the moment chaos was breaking out break build burn run back all these different ideas until finally in the midst of the chaos an old man emerged and when i say emerged we had no idea where he came from but from this ridge above us this grizzled mountain goat of a man just stepped out onto a rock and with such clarity and conviction he said young people your camp is that way and all of us could see just by his sinewy muscle this man lives among these hills there was no question as to his authority but there was this wonderful comfort that came in from his clarity i know where to go and sure enough we followed that man's hand all the way back into safety and with some greater appreciation and clarity now why do i mention that because we're in a fascinating day right now in america and as a church and as individuals where march has begun and we're sort of marching back into a new era of society we can start being around more people we can start doing more things maybe covet is lifting we can start interacting with other humans none of us quite know the rules anymore do i talk to you do we shake hands can i make eye contact it's all still a little confusing sometimes for all of us and it can be really disturbing and producing of anxiety and as a church we ask the question well what should we be doing in these days and as individuals how do i navigate an anxious day and here's what's great about the text we're in the apostle paul is talking to a disturbed community that a bunch of different philosophies has come in of how they should conduct their life to live a valuable life and in the midst of all this disturbance paul's going to give them simple beautiful direction and for us in the midst of chaos we're going to see some clarity in the midst of a day of trouble we have a trajectory and i want us to see where god is calling us how we're going to get there and what pitfalls to avoid that's what kind of where we're going the basic fundamentals of a life of faith presented to us by paul and we're going to see our struggle then we're going to get some tips on strategy and then we're going to see the dangerous seduction around us in the world our struggle you get in the first few verses paul says it in chapter two verse one he says i want you to know how great a struggle i have for you and for those that leo to see it and for all who've not seen me face to face that word struggle and greeks the word agone it's where we get agony but it's the idea of i have something great i am toiling for i'm striving for i've been given a great cause paul says i have a struggle something worth fighting for and then you see what it is in verse two he says my struggle and our struggle as a christian community our struggle is that your hearts may be encouraged being knit together in love to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and knowledge now let me unpack some key principles paul's saying about what he's struggling to do he says i'm trying to do something here number one is i'm trying to encourage your hearts i'm trying to put courage inside of you it's the word para kaleo para means to come alongside kaleo's to call i'm coming outside you trying to spur you on move you forward i'm trying to stick courage into the deepest parts of you and the way you get that courage is in community he says that you'd be knit together in love he'll use this imagery later of a body a body knit together how do the muscles get stronger it's when they work together that each individual muscle gets strong how are you going to be a courageous person in the world it happens in community you need an us it's interesting probably many of you have seen in the news japan just instated a minister of loneliness because japan has seen the increased isolation of humanity has not led to human flourishing in japan it's led to an alarming rise in suicides and so now they've hired a minister of loneliness to try to help people get back together it's it's created a haunting aspect to that verse in genesis it's not good for man to be alone that we can't be fully ourselves without each other and so paul says my struggle is i'm trying to build a community that has strong hearts courageous people and that they might reach the full assurance of understanding and knowledge i'm trying to create a courageous and a competent community it's ambiguity that leads to anxiety when i don't know what's happening in the world or how to navigate it so paul says what i'm working for is i'm creating a community that is competent and thus courageous that they're stable because they're informed there's knowledge about what god's doing in the world i want you to have and there's understanding of how it fits together in the implications for your lives i want you to grip and so paul says what i'm working hard for is i'm trying to create a competent and confident community it's a great calling card for a church this is a great mission statement for the people of jesus this is what god is doing in us this is why you get together as a church that ignorance leads to anxiety but if we can get together and get knowledge of who god is understanding of what he's doing in the world and then walk out into the world courageously together that's a meaningful life that's the life you and i want everyone wants to be well informed everyone wants to be confident in the way they enter the world and want to have people around them that they care about these are fundamental longings in the human heart of meaning and purpose and community and paul says that's my struggle to build a confident competent community rooted in christ that you'd get the understanding and knowledge of god's mystery which is christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge he says what you long for god has given you in christ that god is on the move in society and he is building a community through jesus christ and it's in christ that you can get the knowledge of the world that you need the community that you are meant to enjoy and the courage to step out of the world with a sense of purpose the struggle of the christian is a confident competent community in christ this is what you want this is what we need and it's found in him that the fullness of the treasure of wisdom and knowledge is found in that man we don't outgrow christ we grow in christ if you want to be a good spouse you want to be a good husband you can read a lot of books about husbandry that's not bad or you can say i want to get great at knowing my wife and the more i pursue knowing her and enjoying her and serving her the more i naturally find myself to be a good husband you want to be fully who you're meant to be in the world the more you know god and understand god and enjoy god and serve god the more you become what god has made you to be and here jesus christ he is all that you and i would ever want to be he was courageous and he was humble he was strong but he was gentle he was full of truth he'd tell you how it is but he was full of grace never casting any person aside he's the lion and he's the lamb jesus christ is the fullness of what a human being was meant to be because he's the god man he's everything you would want to be true of a spouse he's everything you'd want to be true of yourself he's everything we need and a savior it's there in him so the struggle of our community in this day is lord how do we become a confident competent community built on christ that's our goal it's not novel but it's solid and can endure even in the midst of an anxious day we are meant to be strong in him because the fullness of god dwells in him i had a friend once that she grew up in a religious home christian home but that religion was um performative and shallow and so she abandoned it and through her 20s she was just sort of living life to enjoy whatever came her way and and then realized man just sort of enjoying the physical world isn't really feeling this ache in my soul so she started looking at different eastern philosophies and western and all different kinds of theories about why the world works and she said the most fascinating thing happened even as i was searching all these different theories and philosophies they would all periodically quote jesus it's like there was this intrinsic sense of we need to co-opt him to our cause and she said but whenever they would mention him i found him more alluring and so finally it led her all the way back to the bible and she began to read the gospels it led her to watch a movie about the life of christ and there she knelt down in her living room and put her faith in him that all that i'm looking for in the world is found in that man and whom are the treasures of wisdom and knowledge a confident competent community built on christ that's what you're meant to be a part of that's who we are meant to be now the question is how do we get there because so far this is basically like saying you should get in shape yes i should been how how do we do it how do we be these kind of people under god well he tells us this is not a passive environment you're doing this in verse 4 he says i say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible argument there's going to be different arguments that slant and distort things that try to mislead you he says but i want you to be firm in your faith in christ how does that firmness happen how do i get strong in him you see now that we've got our trajectory he's going to give us some tactics now that we know our struggle what's our strategy you get in verse six and seven he says therefore as you received christ jesus the lord so walk in him how do we pursue being a confident competent community in christ the same way you received him so walk in him it's interesting that word he uses received there it's a semi-technical term for paul it actually comes from deep jewish tradition it carries this idea of there's a body of teaching that was handed to me and i received it and as part of receiving it there was this obligation that i'd deliver it to you and then you have to make the choice if you receive it that i'm delivering you some information and as you hear it you have to decide i'm going to take that i absorb that i receive that it's a choice you make and paul will often use that language if there was some key information about who god is what he's doing in the world that i've delivered to you and you must receive it you see the most famous of which is first corinthians 15 where he says i would remind you brothers of the gospel i preached to you i preached it and you received in which you stand by which you're being saved if you hold fast to that word i preached to you unless you believed in vain for i delivered to you as a first importance what i also received and here you get the essence of the teaching that christ died for our sins according to the scriptures he was buried and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures paul says our essential message is that jesus christ really lived on the planet and then he really died on that cross and he was truly buried and then he rose and that event had spiritual implications for you and i that what he buried was not just his body but your sin and mine all the broken tragic things about us were buried with him and when he paid the penalty of our sin and then rose from the grave now we have the possibility to live a life outside of the weight of all our failure and shame we can be made name made new too through faith in him paul says that's the message christ did something for you that changes you do you receive it you see in first corinthians 11 he says i received from the lord i delivered to you that the lord jesus on the night he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and said this is my body which is for you do this in remembrance of me and in the same way he took the cup after supper and saying this is the new covenant in my blood do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me he's talking about communion and saying hey jesus said man let me deliver this to you when my body breaks it's for you and as you take this bread and eat it it's a symbol if i receive that into me this cup it's like my blood poured out for a covenant it's going to establish a relationship between you and god and when you drink it in it's the symbol of saying and i take it into me i'm offering you a message of life in god through the person of jesus will you receive it and christianity begins the moment we say yes that i know i'm broken and can't heal me but he can i know i'm lost and can't find me but he has come i know i am guilty but he can make me forgiven and clean i receive it i receive him now paul will say what happens next he says as you received him so walk in him the same way you received christ walk in christ you don't slump into marriage you make a choice you walk into an altar and say i am binding myself to you and then every day the rest of your life you're meant to continue to make that choice and i choose you i choose to pursue you as my friend i choose to enjoy you as my lover i choose to serve you as my companion in the grace of life i choose you it's the same as the christian i choose jesus christ i say yes and then every day i choose to walk around in him i am his and he is mine how did you receive him you received christ he's the messiah the hero of god's story and i received him as lord the ruler of all things in my life i received christ jesus as lord that's what he says here lord means i believe he rules this place and i believe he knows what's best for my life and how life should be lived so as i receive christ jesus as lord i so walk in him if i receive him as lord i walk with him as lord no lord is an oxymoron it makes no sense if i call you lord then you get my unreserved yes that's how lord works it's interesting louis told the story years ago of going to a church where over and over again the people in the church sang the chorus yes lord we say yes lord we say yes lord and then the pastor got up at the end and said lord you've heard our response now tell us what to do and that's the right way to do it once you understand he's lord he knows how the world works and how to best work within it the only natural response is yes no lord is an oxymoron if you're my lord you get my yes if i've received you as lord i should walk with you as lord and let me tell you something the world expects to see this from the people of jesus they expect to see a change in life if i claim to have intimacy with the almighty it should impact my activity so if i receive christ jesus as lord i should walk with him as lord the world expects it from us and they should now the question is what does that look like to walk around in him the word walk is literally the word walk around it's that everywhere i go is inside of him what that means is as a christian i don't receive christ but then leave him on the nightstand when i go to work i don't say i receive you as the savior of my soul but you have no bearing on how i conduct myself at the office i receive you as my lord but you stay out of my bedroom you don't get to speak into my sexual effort i receive you as the savior of my soul but you don't get to have any comment on what apps i download and what i do with them it doesn't work that way if he's lord then you walk in him he has implications for all this you don't leave jesus on the nightstand you don't lead him on the bus you don't leave him in the car as you walk into work you walk with him everywhere you go he is with you and you are his it's interesting in dc uh all around town as restaurants are kind of opening back up they want to let people sit together and eat but they want to keep you protected from the virus and so there's these spheres all over the place that kind of surround tables outside at restaurants and so the idea is we want to give you freedom to to leave your apartment but we want to protect you from these contaminating elements in the world so you enter this bubble these spheres and then within that bubble you eat and talk on your phone and visit with friends and maybe work so there's freedom within this protection and that's the idea seven times paul says you are in him in him in him you are in christ surrounded by him everything you do is surrounded by him it protects you from some corrupting ways of thinking but it's meant to shape and cover all that you do all my life has lived in him now let's get practical what does that look like how does that work out in my life well in verse seven it gives us four participles which if you recall class participles are verbs that participate in the main verb he said walk in him well how do i walk in him he's going to give us four ways help rooted built up in him established in the faith just as you were taught abounding in thanksgiving so he says we walk in him rooted in him it's interesting because paul kind of mixes metaphors you walk but then he uses roots imagery of a tree so i guess it's to mess with your mind because he does it a lot in the bible where it's meant to be walking trees get that in your mind you're an end but he did this actually at the beginning of the book where he says you're meant to walk in a manner worthy of the lord bearing fruit in every good work but back then it was a prayer and it's interesting i love that paul prays for the outcomes but now here there's a shift he will preach the inputs as paul talks about walking with christ at the beginning of the letter he prays for the outcomes but here in the middle he preaches the inputs i'm praying that god will help you bear fruit as you walk with him but i'm preaching you get rooted as you walk in him and i think there is something spiritual to that that paul understands in the agrarian image there are aspects of the fruit growing process you don't control paul said it spiritually he said i planted apollos watered god makes things grow that ultimately when i plant seeds on the dirt there's aspects of growing trees i can't control and yet the farmer knows there are things i can do and i should do those things and so here paul says bearing fruit of love joy and peace these are spiritual things that you have to ask god to help bring to fruition in your life yet you are not helpless there are things you can do so he prays for the outcomes but he preaches the inputs as you receive christ so walk in him rooted established and built up in his word you get rooted in his word how do you do that it's in the perfect tense you make that decision to be planted and let the implications work their way out in your life i am rooted in christ and he uses tree imagery that i get my roots dug deep into the soil of the message of jesus you see this in buildings also in dc if you want to build a building high you got to dig that hole deep why so it will be solid and so let me encourage you how do we grow into confident competent people in the world that we're not shaken by every anxiety we're not suddenly worried by every doubt we're not carried off by every philosophy how do we be strong confident people in jesus the first way you do it is you get rooted in him you get solid at the fundamentals that we mentioned earlier of the death burial and resurrection of jesus it's interesting when i would disciple high school kids when i was a youth pastor even if they'd been in my ministry in years and were leaders if i took them on as someone i was mentoring i would always sit down in our first meeting and i would explain to them the basics of jesus being the god man who lived for us died for our sins was buried rose from the grave i would draw them that as a picture write verses next to them and often i would see in their faces they're like ben i already know all this i trusted jesus when i was a kid i already know all this and if they were a little too dismissive like that i'd say okay well um then you explain it and i would give them a blank piece of paper and say you share the gospel with me and interesting you saw a lot of we're like um well there's a verse somewhere in here i remember this guy said i'm like oh okay you don't really know something until you can teach it can you explain to someone the basics of where we came from what's wrong with us how is it dealt with why we exist the basic fundamentals of the gospel are you solid on those do you know him chapter and verse get rooted in the essentials and then he says built up in him here's what's weird about that that built up all through the ancient world isn't used of trees it's used of buildings and so again paul mixes the metaphor he says you get rooted like trees and then built up like buildings you add steel and girders and strengths to a structure so it can stand and withstand the elements why does he mix the metaphors he does it a lot i mean he did it again to the corinthians he said you are god's plants no excuse me he says you are god's field you are god's building you know why does he do that well i think because he's trying to appeal to his agrarian and his metropolitan audience he says hey christian you want to know you're meant to live the christian life you rural go outside you see that tree be like that you city go outside you see that building be like that get rooted in the fundamentals and then build up with the same solid stuff built up and established in him that i want you to be established in christ to the roots of your faith you add knowledge and understanding of that same faith you don't plant a tree and then go look for fruit somewhere else if you've rooted a tree you look for fruit to spring up from that root you don't dig a deep hole to build a building and then go start stacking the girders somewhere else and build over there if you've poured the foundation here you build here and it's the same with the christian you don't build a foundation of faith in christ and then go build your sexual ethics somewhere else you don't get a base in christ and then they'll figure out how to handle money from some other philosophy you don't build a life of faith on christ and then look for significance in your social media where do you find your significance how do you handle finances how do you handle your body and sexuality the same place you got rooted is the same place you grow if you're gonna dig a foundation there you get built up there don't live for how to live life apart from the person you've built your life upon if you're rooted in christ you get built up and established in him that i get strong in his word i understand it that i see how it connects that's the word built up and established that the joists so tied together there's truth in the trunk steel and the girders and that that this assembling of understanding strengthens the support structure i remember for me when i entered college i'd been a christian for years and as such i just kind of figured i knew it all but then it dawned on me in my 20s i was like you know i've been a christian for years like i've never actually read the gospels the life of jesus maybe i should do that and so i started reading the gospels and i remember as i did that i came across the name of the disciples and i thought you know i've never uh memorized these guys names they were like jesus's key guys i'm gonna memorize these names and so i started memorizing who the disciples were and then as i did that i realized hey mark's not one of them and i was reading the gospel of mark as i come to think of it luke's not one of them either and i was like wait a minute two out of the four gospels weren't disciples well then who are these guys and then i realized i've built my life on the testimony of dudes i don't even know what i've made huge decisions based on the advice of strangers and i realized my faith was really wobbly and shallow and i realized i had a full-blown crisis of faith because yeah i was rooted in christ but i hadn't built myself up in him very much and so a couple questions freaked me out and the more i started going to classes and reading the bible i got even more freaked out i entered a full crisis of faith as a young man and i remember i would go into the park and i would write out all these questions i had about god and the universe and my life and and wrestle with him and i remember at one point i wrote out a question in my notebook and i wrote next to it no answer because i felt like i had finally asked the question for which god had no answer and i went to the mall later that day thinking my faith might be over and i'll never forget there was a book sitting on this pedestal illuminated by a lamp and i walked up to this book to see this strange thing and it was a bible that had questions in the margins next to a text and then answers to those questions underneath him and as i walked up to the bible there was the text i had been reading that day that puzzled me so there was my philosophical question and there was the answer and i remember as i read it i went ha maybe there's some answers out there i don't know as a 21 year old and i remember over time as i began to read the bible as i began to go to small groups in my church as i began to read other writers like francis schaeffer c.s lewis as i began to read i realized throughout the christian story brothers and sisters in christ have asked the same questions i was asking and found answers and they had asked harder questions and found answers to those and what dawned on me as a young man as i realized the christian faith isn't shallow my christian faith is shallow that i was rooted in him but i hadn't been built up and established in him that i needed to add to my faith the steel of his truth and i want to encourage you christian this isn't novel but how many of us don't actually do it it's one thing to read about working out it's another thing to work out because reading about it won't make you strong it's one thing to know what to eat to get yourself healthy but unless you slide up to a plate of broccoli you're not gonna get healthy and for many of us we know where spirituality can be found but the truth is between the scripture and the screens often we are soaking into some anxiety and sensuality and then wondering why we're blown over by every wind of anxiety we need to be built with sterner stuff that i get this in me that i'm rooted and established and built up in him in the faith that i was taught and then at the end he says an abounding in thanksgiving that i don't just grab information it becomes transformation that it goes all the way from learning about him to becoming praise of him it's information for exaltation it's a tree soaking up the nutrients so that it can explode into fruit that can feed others that i want to be built up in him so i can explode into thanksgiving to the world i can offer them the hope they need so we're meant to read this word but with the view for it to change how we interact with the world this just happened in the stewart house uh i remember my my son got up the other day was having a very hard morning and uh was was speaking in rather rude way to some people and and we got to breakfast and we were reading our devotion a devotional book by bear grylls and as we read it it was about how to use our words and i just kind of read it hey we should use kind words not bad words kind words can be a tree of healing harsh words can be like the thrust of a sword okay so good words and then i shut it and was about to move on and it dawned on me wait a minute ben it's not just information push it all the way through to application so i stopped and i said owen how do you think if we were to obey these words it would impact how we talk to mommy today how would it change how we talk to our sister what kind of words do we like people to say to us what do you think might be different today if we used those same kind of words to our friends or to our teacher and we started thinking through how does this apply to our life and then he left and my oldest daughter who was staying home that day uh i was reading first john chapter four and she came in while doing my devotional time and so she sat down we did it together and i read about how christ loved us and through him we love other people so let us love our brothers in christ as he loved us and i read that to her i explained it and then i shut it and then it hit me again no wait a minute ben you push it all the way through and i said we're supposed to understand deeply hannah how much god has loved us and his love was manifest in christ dying for us so we're supposed to think about how he sacrificed himself to bring us life and then we ask the question if we're loved like that how do we love other people so what would it look like to love owen like that today what would it look like to love mommy like that today what could we do and we started talking about that and let me tell you something it started changing the way we thought about how we were going to spend the rest of the day it's not complex but it is profound you can read about working out but if you don't work out you're not going to get strong and same here we're meant to take this information and turn it into transformation that i get rooted in his word established in it and then it abounds into praise and i want to encourage you it's the fundamentals here get the word of god into you that's why we've been encouraging you write out the book of colossians and then what i do is i'll get a different colored pen and write out ben's feelings what will the implications in my heart and my mind and my life be as a result of my interaction with this text how will my life change and it's in this consistency that we'll see a transformed life i want to challenge you what you soak in will determine what you put out your inputs determine outputs so let's evaluate our own lives here before we move on statistically studies show us that a steady diet of sensuality and sexually explicit images undermines in us the belief that monogamy is even possible that if i'm soaking my mind in sensuality it actually unravels community or the belief that happy marriage is possible so if you're soaking in that sensuality it's having implications for how you treat women and men you need to know that if you don't like that output we need to change the inputs the pr firm weber shandwick does a study every year on incivility in america and as in every other year they found incivility is growing hostility cruelty to one another as in epic proportions and getting dangerous and yet what was interesting in their last report is they saw incivility is on the rise americans across the country say it we are being so harsh with each other but then when you're asked the question but is your workplace uncivil the vast majority eight or nine out of ten said no and that's interesting to think about you're like that's where you spend more time than anywhere else like the mass of your waking hours are at work with other human beings and you're saying this country is in an epidemic of incivility but work isn't uncivil so if my human interaction with others face to face isn't uncivil where is this tidal wave of instability coming right here and for many of us we are constantly taking in anxiety and it's becoming anger we're constantly soaking into our roots all this frustration and it's coming out in some ugly ways let me ask you something if you don't like the outputs assess your inputs you might know the right things but are you doing the right things we're meant to be rooted in christ built up in christ established in christ so we can overflow in thanksgiving to christ the world needs to see the impact of christ from root to fruit in our lives don't settle for anything less because the reality is there are lesser philosophies out there so paul warns us see to it that no one takes you captive carries you away by philosophy and empty deceit by a way of thinking that seems wise but is really empty and not just empty but deceitful according to human traditions according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to christ we could spend time getting into what was happening in colossae we'll do that later but the reality is as is true throughout all of human history there were human philosophies of trying to understand what life is about and he said a lot of it was tethered to the elemental spirits of the world that there's a sense of i want to be in touch with the world but i intrinsically know there's there's forces out there that control my life that i don't control so i have to try to manipulate them it's interesting we watched a movie last night with our kids where they don't want to mention god in movies anymore so they say the universe the universe gave us this and the universe is trying to tell us this you're like how does the universe have all these active verbs but anyway so the reality is there's forces out there controlling my life i got to control them so i can feel in control of my life and throughout the human world there's a sense of dissatisfaction in us so we pursue control in other philosophies and paul says those are going to come at you in abundance here's how to get that satisfaction you want here's how to get the acceptance you long for here's how to get the sexual fulfillment you crave here's how to get the financial success that will give you the peace you long for there's going to be all these philosophies that are drawing you and to try to find stability and comfort and he says but they're deceptive they're going to lead you to a place that's empty why because they're not built on christ he said here's the seduction as we pursue the struggle god's given us to be competent confident people we have a strategy that the same way i was rooted in him i walk in him i choose christ but we need to know the seduction people will try to get us off base to leave him behind to knock us over from being settled in christ you have to resist that why how the reason why in verse 9 is for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily we're longing for fulfillment and paul says don't let anyone show it to you somewhere else why because the fullness of the deity is in him and you have been filled in him don't start with christ and then try to find fulfillment somewhere else the same place you planted your foundation is the same place you find your fullness don't root your life in christ and then try to find your sexual ethic from some other place don't root your life in christ and try to understand financial success from someone who has no allegiance to what god is doing in the universe don't plant your hope for heaven in christ and then try to find fulfillment on social media don't try to find your fullness somewhere other than your foundation build where you're planted soak in where you've been rooted and find that it's the fruit you need you don't outgrow christ you grow in christ because the fullness of deity dwells in him bodily and you've been filled in him who's the head over all rule and authority there is nothing over your life that he is not over there is no power controlling your story that he does not control you don't need to look for this person's acceptance that person's approval that person's idea of what it is you'll find fulfillment every other philosophy is subject to your king and it's in him you've been made alive it says in him you were circumcised with that circumcision made without hands which sounds really crazy but briefly made without hands in the bible when something is made with hands every time it means i'm trying to find spiritual fulfillment by something of my own making if i can just get this acceptance just get this approval just get these people to notice me and he says god is not looking for you to build something with your hands only god builds without hands and what you and i need is something deeply spiritual no hands can make we need god to do for us what we can't do for ourselves and he uses their circumcision which kind of sounds crazy but but in the old testament it was a physical symbol of a covenant relationship with god and it was not meant to just be a physical symbol it's meant to be a spiritual one that god cuts away a dead part of my heart so i can be alive and paul grabs that imagery of the covenant and says you have a covenantal relationship with god because he took away all that was dead in you the shame the brokenness the guilt he buried it just like in baptism you go under the water so when jesus went into the grave all the broken sad things about you the dead things were cut off and laid in that grave and when christ rose victorious over death you can rise too you can have hope and future beyond your failures but it comes in him you don't need to look for those answers outside of him those answers are in him the fullness of deity was in that man so all your fullness is in him you were made alive in him you need not look for life anywhere else don't buy the seduction that your satisfaction is outside of your savior what you need you already have in him when i was a kid there was this song that was really popular and it went if you like pina coladas and something about rain i don't remember all the lines but i remember as a kid it's a catchy song it was everywhere in my childhood if you like pina coladas it wasn't until later in life that actually listened to the lyrics and discovered that that chorus was an ad he was putting out there to attempt to have a tryst he was unsatisfied with his wife he wanted a more thrilling life and so he put out an ad to try to find someone to have an affair with kind of disconcerting for me to learn that and then someone responded to the ad i like pina coladas and so they decide we're going to sneak away and have this illicit affair and then the song resolves spoiler alert by him showing up and his wife is there not to catch him in the act of cheating but because she's the one who answered the ad and what they realized was we were bored of each other and so we were looking for life and excitement and fulfillment and we both think thought we had to look for it outside of our covenant and the reality is what we longed for we actually had in each other the whole time and so it resolves with kind of a happy ending i guess but part of you is like i don't know it seems like y'all aren't done like you should get some counseling work done but the good news is all that you longed for you didn't have to find outside of this covenant relationship it was in the person you had all along and let me tell you something christian all that you long for confidence competency understand the world and how to work within it you feel confident that you have a sense of purpose to have a community that loves you and you can love right back those basic elemental fundamental longings you have in him you don't outgrow him you grow in him so make the decision today excel at the revealed things as you chose him in the beginning choose him every day i will root in you this morning i'll be established in you i will build up in you and i will thank you and the world will see a solid stable people in the midst of a shaky day and they need to see what we have all the fullness of the deity is in him and in him we are made full do you know him then walk around in him

Channel: Passion City Church DC

Views: 11,572

Rating: 4.8878503 out of 5

Keywords: Passion, Passion City Church, Passion Sermons, Ben, Stuart, Washington D.C., Passion D.C., christian, sixsteps, (six), passion conference, passion, passion city church worship, passion church, passion music, worship, jesus, ben stuart, Colossians, Above All Earthly Powers

Id: kJd2aPZ1-ys

Length: 45min 12sec (2712 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 08 2021