Four Signs of a Spiritual Life - Ben Stuart

well if you're not in the dc area you may not know that uh it's been snowing we had several inches of snow this last week and so monday was a snow day for my kids which was very exciting and you should have seen them uh we are native texans and if you've never seen a texan in the snow it's a lot like seeing a puppy in the snow a lot of excitement and also a lot of ignorance they're just not familiar with the substance and so my children were ecstatic and went running out into the yard and what donna and i picked up fairly quickly was as their parents we need to equip them to engage the world and so all week long we were telling them hey you have to put shoes on you can't run out there barefoot put your jacket on put a hat on top of your head we weren't trying to overly shelter them don't go out there because you might get sick we want them to engage the world go out there and sled build a snowman have a snowball fight eat a little bit of it we want them to engage the world but we realized we have to equip them so they can engage it in a meaningful way to protect them from some of the dangerous elements and to equip them with what they need to engage that world and be creative in the midst of it so all week long we were telling them things like did you put socks on did you zip your jacket up put your hat on we were trying to gear them up so they could go out now why mention that because that's where we are in colossians paul's writing this letter to young believers in jesus and and at the beginning last week we looked at his thanksgiving for them he was thanking god for them and now this week he's praying for them that god would equip them and these were normal parts of a letter back then of a thanksgiving and then a prayer wish but paul like we said last week loves to cram these things with theology and with deep feeling and we saw last week he was looking at them and thanking god for them because they are true sons they are true children of god and how do you know that well normally when paul thanks god for people he's thanking them for the evidences that they're the children of god no one's born a christian everyone's made in the image of god every human being therefore has dignity because they are made in his image but there's only one begotten son of the father and it's not you and it's not me we are born again into the family we become christians through faith in jesus christ right we enter the family through adoption and paul normally when you see his thanksgivings at the beginning of his letter he's thanking god for the evidence that people are true children of god so we saw it last week he said all the evidence is there namely you heard the message of the grace of god the kindness of god no one earns their place in his family it is a gift bestowed by the free grace of jesus christ he said so you heard the message of grace you believed it you believed in jesus christ and when that happens the very spirit of god enters into you and when it does it begins to manifest its fruit namely love how do we know you've got the real disease we see the symptoms and he said the message came to you you said you believed it and then we saw the evidence of it that your faith began to become love we've got confidence your true sons god's really worked on you the miracles happened uh charlemagne when he was conquering wanted the heathens to know christ and so he pulled out swords and has his soldiers lead them into the baptismal waters by swordpoint and yet when they came out they still acted like heathens and he's like what's going on with these people i baptized them and you realize no god has to change their hearts and so you don't need to just give people religious technique you need to pray that god would change their hearts justification comes before sanctification a change of identity precedes the change of activity so if you haven't put your faith in jesus christ we're not trying to teach you how to play the game if you've never put on the team jersey we want you to come into the family of god and that's by the grace of god through jesus you believe that message and it changes you from the inside out and so paul had heard about the colossians that happened to them they put their faith in jesus it became love for the saints you are true sons and so now he prays god equip your sons god equip your people so they can engage the world it's a different kind of way to pray god supplies and we're meant to apply it and so what we're going to see in this passage is he's going to ask god to equip them and then we're going to see the way the people of god engage the world namely four ways we step out into the world so this is going to be a good diagnostic text for test for those of us who would say we're in christ he's going to say god equip us and then there's four ways we're meant to engage the world as the children of god do you look like a child of god do you look like your daddy we're gonna see four ways but how does he equip us you see it in verse nine it says and so from the day we heard because remember paul had not met these folks paul's co-worker epaphras had shared the gospel with them and he said he came and told us about you guys and he said so from the day we heard we have not ceased to pray for you asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding we've seen the evidence of your faith now we're asking god to equip you what's he asking him to equip him with knowledge and wisdom and understanding now it's interesting paul uses this word phil that god may fill you and he's going to use it a lot in this letter to the colossians because you'll find out later it was what the false teachers that were in colossae were talking about the the filling of the fullness in the greek it's the word play roma and we find out through other literature that there were many that believed in a play roma of gods a fullness of gods that you could access through gnosis through knowledge namely secret knowledge that only we possess and so if we give you that secret knowledge you can access the fullness and so the critique was okay epaphras taught you about jesus christ but if you want to step into the fullness you need our secret knowledge paul will tell us later no the fullness of wisdom and knowledge is in him it's in christ you don't outgrow christ you grow in him you don't grow outside of him you grow with him that all the fullness of the deity dwells in that man and so here paul is challenging them already at the beginning by saying i want you to be filled and where does that fullness come from it comes from the knowledge and you use the word epignosis the on top of knowledge the true knowledge of his will of knowing christ because he'll say later the mystery has been revealed it is christ in you the hope of glory there's no secret knowledge that you need to gain outside of jesus jesus is the answer christ was publicly portrayed as crucified you saw it happen he told one of the rulers he was trying to convert he said this thing christ dying for your sins it did not happen in a corner god did not have jesus christ crucified off in madagascar which no offense to madagascar but it's kind of off like not many people visit there he put them at the center of the nations in jerusalem this major land bridge between three continents the message that the son of god came for us and died for us happened at the center of every trade wrote route in the ancient world why so the message of the salvation of god could go out it is not a secret hidden off somewhere it is in christ and i publicly portrayed him so you could know him and gather the fullness of knowledge that is in him you'll see it later in the book in chapter two he prays for us and says i'm working for you that your hearts may be encouraged knit together in love to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of god's mystery which is christ and whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge do you want wisdom and knowledge it's in him you don't outgrow him you grow in him it's interesting my son came to me the other day my son's five years old and he came up and he said dad i need to learn how to punch i need someone who can teach me how to punch we got a punching bag in our garage and he was like i need someone to teach me i need someone to teach me how to punch and i said son that's that's my job i can do that and he said you know how to punch i was like yes son as your father i know how to throw a punch and then we had to talk about this for a minute i was like son you don't need to go outside your dad to learn some of these skills i possess the knowledge you want and the only reason i haven't given it to you yet is not because i lack information it's because of your immaturity you weren't ready and to quote zorro when the student is ready the master will appear so the fact that you haven't learned this from me yet is not evidence of my lack of information it's evidence of your lack of maturity and it's the same with many of us maybe some of you said man i've been a christian for years but but i want to level up in my life i want to hit the next level i want to grow more so you're searching out different spiritualities different techniques to grow and you're trying to grow outside of him the reality is there's so much growing to be done in him so much more knowledge to gain in him and for many of us the fact that we haven't been growing in knowledge is not because of a lack in jesus but because of a lack of maturity in us so paul looks at these people and says you don't begin with jesus and then move on to somebody else you grow in him because in him is all the fullness of wisdom and knowledge and we'll learn more about it really starting next week but as he jumps into this he says man i'm praying that you would get the fullness be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding which i don't know about you to me when i first read that it just sounds like a pile up of bibley words okay knowledge wisdom spiritual what exactly are you saying but it makes sense as you think about it what does god want to equip his children with he wants to equip us with these three things knowledge which knowledge is data facts i know the information right but then he doesn't just want to give them data he wants to give them understanding understanding means comprehension or insight i understand how it all fits how many of you know you can be in the presence of knowledge and lack understanding for many of you that was maybe your entire educational experience you sat in classrooms and said knowledge is being presented truths being spoken in my presence some of these other students seem to be comprehending it i however do not there's a big difference between being in the presence of knowledge and understanding it and so paul prays god give them knowledge about what you're doing in the world and then help them see how it all fits together help them see how it connects and then he also prays for wisdom wisdom is street knowledge if you read the wisdom literature in the bible it's about how to handle money how to handle sex how to handle friendships and business it's knowledge applied it's ethics out in the real world it's street level that the bible is not meant to be something you just pontificate in a classroom it is meant to affect the way you live it's not just sitting at a desk it's in the lab that it's education for action so when paul looks at a young believer he says lord i'm praying you would fill their mind with information about you and what you're doing in the world and i pray they'd understand it and then i pray they'd learn how to apply it that it would impact the way they live paul is praying for us that we get educated so we can move out into action right which incidentally is why you're here this is not just a tv show there's more entertaining tv shows out there but we know about the grace of god through his truth and so if you're with us right now on this screen it's because this is a possibility god is using means like us to get this knowledge into you so that your life would be different as a result incidentally it's why we pray at the beginning like i did praying and asking god that we're going to present this knowledge we're going to talk about this book but we're asking god but will you let these seeds of truth sink deep into the soil of our hearts and change us that's what paul just did i'm praying for you that you get knowledge and understanding and wisdom and it's a gift of the spirit he gives it that he grants these things through these means so we can change and here's the fascinating thing we don't have time to go into this but it's a spiritual knowledge he says this is what the spirit of god loves to do that the first man who was ever said to be filled with the spirit of god in exodus chapter 31 was a guy bezel and god said i have filled him with the spirit of god with ability and intelligence and knowledge and craftsmanship to devise artistic designs to work in gold and silver and bronze back in the book of exodus when they were building the tabernacle to worship god god says i'm putting my spirit inside of him to give him knowledge and understanding and then skill to work with gold and silver to build these implements you see god says i'm putting my spirit in you so you can understand and then build skillfully with what i've put in front of you here in this passage paul takes that same idea and says god wants to fill you with the spirit of god to give you knowledge and understanding so you can live a skillful life the same language is used in the prophet isaiah about the person of jesus when the messiah comes it says the spirit of the lord will rest on him a spirit of wisdom and understanding of counsel and might a spirit of knowledge and the fear of the lord the christian is meant to live an informed educated action-oriented life that the spirit of god fills me with information for transformation he wants to fill me with knowledge so i can live skillfully in a way that pleases him that's where you see paul go i'm asking that he fill you with this knowledge with all spiritualism and understanding so as to walk in a manner pleasing to god uh worthy of the lord pleasing to him i want you to walk with me it's education for action fill me with knowledge god so i know how to live as a child of god in the world that's what paul's saying and so then he's going to talk to us about how to do that we're meant to live in a way that's pleasing to him once i know him i want to walk in a way that's worthy of him namely do the things he likes it's interesting when the missionary john patton was bringing the gospel to the new hebrides it was to uh tribes that had practiced cannibalism and uh the murder of widows so that they could serve their husbands in the afterlife and so as he's bringing them the gospel of grace these were people who were terrified of demons and animating spirits and he's like no the god who made all is a god of grace and a god of love who wants to transform you from the inside out and so we don't murder and kill one another we love and serve one another and so he began to teach them about the grace of jesus but he tells the story of one of the first times he led people to christ they were so impressed to hear about jesus christ they said we will trust him and we will follow you and we will slaughter all your enemies and he was like yeah no no no no no uh i'm glad you want to trust him but the way you serve him needs to be in a way that pleases him and he does not want you to murder and eat his enemies so once you come to faith in christ now i walk in christ in a manner that pleases him it's education for action it's equipping so we can engage the world in a meaningful way so how does the christian engage the world that's what we're about to find and this is the exciting part for me is we kind of round the corner on this message he's going to present us four things these are the steps of the sons of god these are the ways the children of god connect with the outside world and so i want to challenge you these are diagnostics about your life right so as i talk about these four things they're four participles they're verbs that participate in the main verb of walking how do i walk out four ways and as we see those four ways i want you to contemplate your life not your neighbors don't be like yeah you need to hear this let's make this about ourselves and let's learn about how we walk with the lord the first one is what does the walk of the children of god look like it looks like fruitful work fruitful work he says walk in a manner pleasing to him bearing fruit in every good work notice that he's praying god let them bear fruit in every good work what's the first thing we do is we do good work the christian as they enter into the public square we do good things we do things that god would identify as good and yet he's praying but god would you make it fruitful would you make it spiritually helpful for those around us it would be like a fruit imagery like he's saying if i drop a seed in the dirt there's no guarantee it will become a tree and grow and flourish but if i never drop seeds in the dirt then there is a guarantee that you'll never see fruit and yet farmers know there's an activity for me i drop seeds but then there's also a place where i have to have humility and saying but god will you make it grow that's how paul did his ministry paul said i planted meaning he would evangelize and he said apollos watered he would teach people but then he said but god makes things grow and paul understood that i got to share the gospel with everybody but i can't change your heart god has to do that so i preach this word and i ask the spirit of god to do a miracle inside of you like lydia says paul explained to lydia the gospel and the lord opened her heart god works the miracle you can't change your mom's heart your dads your brothers your co-workers you can't make them know the grace of god but you can show them the grace of god in good work you can teach them the grace of god in truth and then you ask god as i drop these seeds would you make them bear fruit would you make them grow i preach would god open their heart that's what epaphras did he heard the truth from paul and he shared it in his hometown of colossae and paul says and when that seed landed it bore fruit you guys and that's what the christians supposed to do i do good work paul told the ephesians that you are god's workmanship created in christ jesus to do good work that he prepared in advance that you would walk in them so the first diagnostic question is are you doing good work are you doing things that you believe jesus would say that's good just think about your last week did you do anything that god would say that was a good thing for you to do i prayed for my co-workers i encouraged a friend i texted them and said i'm praying for you today i called somebody to check on him i volunteered for a serve opportunity at my church i'm asking you are you doing good things you can't ultimately decide if they're spiritually fruitful that's the spirit's job but if you're not dropping seeds in the dirt you're not going to see a plant grow and so if you're wondering why am i not seeing any fruit in my life but you're not dropping seeds hey man that's just how it works if you want to see fruit in your life you drop seeds in the dirt do you want to see people's lives changed and encouraged and growing because you exist then you do good work and then you ask the spirit of god to bear fruit if he does it i'm telling you this is my prayer for our church all the time as we spend money and time and energy to do stuff like this i'm asking god god let us be faithful to cast your word out into the world and to love people and then will you bring a spiritual harvest and yes we've seen a lot of people come to our church we've seen a lot of people track with us online but i'm praying god it's great that there are people here but will you change hearts and i gotta tell you it thrills me every time i get messages like i did this week of someone telling me i was in a dark place in a hotel room on the other side of the world and i patched in with passion city dc and the spirit of god convinced me to not take my life but to live and to parent my kids and to love my friends and to grow thank you for intersecting me at a key moment i am spiritually vibrant because the word of god was planted in my heart i'm praying for stuff like that we continue to see growth i love it when i hear about people yes watching online but seeing them say i know more people now i've had people tell us here in town hey when we had a difficult week a few weeks ago i had hundreds of texts of fellow people in the church saying i'm praying for you i'm here for you i love that it's fruit being born because of our good work church is that true in your life are you doing good god makes fruit grow but he uses means are you dropping seeds in the dirt second thing is we have fruitful work and then increasing knowledge he says to walk in a manner worthy of the lord bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of god and these two go hand in hand really paul at this point is kind of biting on psalm 1. psalm 1 says blessed is the man who meditates on the law of god he's like a tree planted by streams of water he bears fruit in season he says how am i a fruitful person in hard times and good times i am rooted in the word of god and here paul says how do you know a child of god a child of god is bearing fruit they have fruitful work and increasing in knowledge they're knowing god more it's not just i heard the gospel as a kid and then that's it and went on with my life i am ever increasing in my knowledge of god it's a process like planting seeds once you drop a seed in the dirt you have to water and feed and weed and help create an environment where that seed can sprout when you learn the truth of god's word it's a continued cultivating of your soul that i can keep learning keep growing keep being educated every expert in any field of study is constantly learning about their field any healthy marriage or relationship is constantly pursuing to know each other better to grow together healthy things grow in knowledge healthy relationships grow in intimacy and knowledge and here he says how do you know the children of god they are constantly increasing in their knowledge of god they want to grow in him they are trees planted in his word so that they're soaking up the nutrients and growing so are you increasing in the knowledge of god if you're not i would challenge you what are you feeding your soul there was a movie years ago called uh idiocracy about the world kind of gone crazy and it's the future where nobody's really intelligent no crops are growing and a man from the past our day with average intelligence shows up and as an average intelligent person he's trying to look at why are your crops not growing and he finds out it's because they were watering their crops with essentially gatorade and all the salt was killing the soil and he told them try to explain to them you need water for these crops to grow if you keep pouring gatorade on these plants they will never grow you're feeding it with the wrong stuff and it's the same with you and me if you are filling your mind with the chaos of the world and wondering not why you're not growing in confidence and knowledge of christ you're pouring gatorade onto a plant you need to pour the water of the truth of god's word if you want to see your soul sprout and grow fruit and bear fruit and season we need to water it with the word paul the last letter we have from him was to his young protege timothy and at the very end of the very last letter is paul knows he's about to die he tells timothy come to me soon bring the scrolls particularly the parchments at the end of his life even knowing death was near paul wanted to keep reading and keep learning william tyndale the first man to translate the new testament into english was put in prison for doing that for giving the bible to the people and when he was imprisoned in velvet or castle in brussels he wrote a letter in 1536 begging the governor for warmer clothing his woolen shirt and his hebrew bible grammar and dictionary and i think about all that all the time if i was locked up in prison for my faith would it occur to me to beg them please give me my hebrew grammar book i don't know that'd be my first thought but someone who was deeply soaked in the word of god and helped deliver it to all of us who speak english even in a place of prison he was saying i gotta keep learning i gotta keep growing i got to keep increasing in my knowledge of god and let me tell you friend as a church we're committed to help you do that that's why we're doing sundays like this we're going to open the word and put it into you that's why we do community groups it's another place for you to increase in the knowledge of god paul will say later to the colossians that we speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs so that we'll grow that we're meant to do this with each other and so if you're not involved in our community group please do that's a place you can increase in the knowledge of god i challenged all of you as we began this series to write out the book of colossians and i would encourage you again to do it and you're saying write it out like by hand yes because it makes you go slow it allows the seed of god's word to sink deep in your heart you could write out a verse a day two verses a day and you'll roughly keep track with where we are as a church just start writing it out and as you do it move slowly through the text and let it slowly sink into you as a church we're trying to help you to resource you to give you knowledge so you can increase in your knowledge of god so you can be fruitful in all of your work but like the old saying goes you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink that's your job so are you increasing in the knowledge of god it's been given to us in his word and the children of god begin to look like their father god because they are soaking in his word the third thing is empowered endurance how do you know a child of god how do you know god is really working in a human life because you see them endure he says being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy he says i want you to endure and these are beautiful words endure and patience the word endure is the word hoopo monet in greek monet means to abide and hupo means under that means even when a heavy weight lands on me i can stand up under it and the word patience there is macro sumia sumia like thermometer it's about heat macros a long time that i can take the heat for a long time one of the most frequent evidences of a converted heart in the bible is someone can endure with patience i can bear up under a heavy weight and i can handle the heat for a long time one of the ways you know a christian is they can endure with patience and even joy how notice it doesn't tell us endure it tells us be strengthened with all power that i have a supernatural power that allows me to endure patiently even when life gets hard it's one of the great signs of a believer it was one of the great evidences of our first brothers and sisters when nero the emperor uh was reigning over rome he would throw crazy parties and i won't go into all the details of them they're really disturbing the way they would use women in the way they would uh use other people in the culture nero was uh crazy in the way he led and at one point as he was leading a party uh rome burst into flames and nero wanted the heat off of him so he blamed it on christians now at the time christians were seen as an awkward backward group of people there weren't a lot of fans of christians they thought they were weird uh in the larger roman culture and yet as nero blamed the burning of rome on christians people thought well the christians are weird but they probably didn't light our capital city on fire but nero began to persecute christians he would light them on fire and use a christian as torches for his big parties he would cover them in animal skins and have ravenous animals attack them and eat them alive he did horrible sadistic things to christians and as the wider roman world saw it they thought well that's messed up but then as they watched the christians endure with patience as they watched them pray even as they died when they asked them to ask god to forgive their persecutors even as they were murdered people saw that and said wait a second a lot of people get murdered a lot of people die and they scream and they cry and they beg these christians pray for us what's going on with you and the roman world began to take great interest in the person of jesus christ because they watched the christians suffer well what's different about you what do you have that makes you so different from us the way you handle suffering is differently the roman culture was like the roman centurion at jesus's cross as he watched jesus not do what anyone else did on crosses scream cuss cry begged jesus prayed for his enemies and the roman centurion said surely that's the son of god and as the christians looked like their christ as they suffered with great endurance and patience the roman culture began to take their message seriously and romans came to christ they embraced a message they saw cost people their lives why because i saw the power evident in the people of jesus you endure well how do you do it it's because we're being strengthened with all power by his glorious might something powerful is working in us and through us and it'll be the same with you many of you you have friends that might make fun of your allegiance with jesus you think a carpenter from the first century who got murdered you think his death was some kind of spiritual transaction that changed things inside your soul that's the dumbest message i've ever heard some of you might have friends that dismiss your faith like that and yet when they watch you handle a year like this well when they watch you pray rather than attack your enemies online when they watch you forgive rather than hold resentment when they watch you handle a setback at work with grace and kindness i promise what they'll do is they'll come up to you and they'll say usually it's something like uh like do you have like a book i can read or something is there some like uh something you'd recommend because when they watch you suffer well and then when they hit suffering and they look inside and they don't have any internal resource they're going to try to figure out how do you have it and it's because we are being strengthened with his power when i was in high school a very popular student that all of us loved took his own life it was devastating for our whole community why would he do that and something fascinating happened our our class in high school broke into two groups when the news spread of howard's death a group of us gathered together and we began to pray earnestly and another group went off and just got drunk but over time this group realized we have no internal resource and what was fascinating is i had a little bible study that met at my house that was just a handful of guys maybe half a dozen guys and that next week that bible study had tripled in size and i had a guy that used to mock my faith and would openly challenge christians with his atheism he said as we drove to the funeral maybe maybe i could start coming to your bible study too and the reason he said that is because he watched us suffer and it was real suffering but suffer with endurance and patience and joy we had a resource when he looked inside he didn't have and paul says what do the children of god look like we endure all the same suffering that others do and and maybe even more because of our faith but when we suffer we endure we bear up under the weight we have patience we can handle the heat a long time without popping off and going crazy we can be joyful why because we are strengthened with his power and his glorious might we have a source so we can be a source the children of god look like their dad we have a supernatural source of power and patience is that true of you are you suffering well could your co-workers come to you and say the way you handled that setback at work was clearly supernatural do people see a patience in you that they cannot describe with any other reasoning other than divine intervention that's the way the christian's life is supposed to look people look at you and say something about your god must be real because something about you is super natural do they say that about you they're meant to the children of god we bear fruit we increase in knowledge and we are strengthened to endure with patience and joy the last thing we do is we have a joyful gratitude giving thanks to the father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light he's delivered us from the domain of darkness transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption forgiveness of sins god equips us to engage the world how does the christian engage it we bear fruit in every good work we increase in knowledge we are strengthened passively to endure patiently and we give thanks to the father we explode with gratitude as paul was explaining to the romans how all of humanity went astray he said of our first parents back in the garden he said they neither glorified god nor gave thanks and their foolish hearts became darkened where did all the chaos in the world begin it started with a lack of gratitude for god and let me tell you something if you don't actively have gratitude for god in your heart the human heart like all of nature abhors a vacuum and if gratitude is not there let me tell you something entitlement will rush in to take its place i deserve this i deserve that and entitlement always becomes resentment i deserve this i deserve this and if i don't have it it's your fault or your fault or that community's fault and entitlement becomes resentment and that resentment becomes attack and the world is filled with chaos and anger how do we keep ourselves from that we pull back into gratitude let me focus on the beautiful things let me see the things that will help me be patient and joyful and humble that's the way the christian looks and how do we do that paul ends by giving us exhibit a the thing we can be the most grateful for we give thanks that we have a father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance we weren't qualified in ourselves we didn't fit the criteria to be an heir of god and so what did god do he equipped us he fitted us he made us adequate he suited us for eternal life it's interesting i talked to a lawyer one time who who does a lot of family uh law when it comes to the passing away of a father and he told me one time he said you know what's crazy is he said it is the norm that when a father and mother pass away that when it comes time to receive an inheritance you see jealousy and selfishness break out in the hearts of children and it tears a family apart what's fascinating about this text is it says god is like a dad and we find out later that all the father has goes to the son jesus christ and jesus christ wasn't selfish with that inheritance not only was he not selfish with it he said i want to go and find co-heirs that rather than hoarding the gifts of god jesus christ says i am not only going to be willing to share it i am going to actively recruit co-heirs i want to adopt people who will share the inheritance of heaven with me and i will take on whatever i must take on to go get them well they're lost in the darkness then i will descend into the darkness well they're buried in sin and shame will then bury me in their place they're dead in their trespasses and sins then i will take that death for them i will take all their infirmity so they can be healed i will take their death so they can live i will lay down my life so you can have life as a coheir with christ in the kingdom how can we celebrate even in the worst of days jonathan edwards used to say this he said whenever i endure some particularly painful thing let me remind myself this is the closest to hell i will ever get the christian can be joyful no matter what pain we experience why because we know god has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints and light we have a home we have a future why because the true heir the son of god was sent for us and he delivered us out of the domain of darkness we were captured in the dark he descended in the dark to set us free and he transferred us into the kingdom of the beloved son in whom we have redemption the forgiveness of sins we were bought out and set free we have movie night every friday night with our kids and lately all we're watching is hero movies of a hero who will sacrifice their life to set people free and last night was another one there was a group of people who were refugees terrified their life was under jeopardy so the hero risks her life to give these people transfer out of darkness and pain and give them a home and a future and christian we have a hero and we fix our eyes on him jesus christ who stepped into our shame and our darkness and he redeemed us bought us out and transferred us into the kingdom of the beloved son we have a home we are not orphans we are children loved and in the home of god we have god as a dad and that father is equipping us let me equip you with knowledge and understanding that you would know who i am and know what you have let me wrap you up with the knowledge of the god who purchased you so when you engage the world you will bear fruit increasing in knowledge that you will give thanks and you will endure and the world will see a supernatural life because the supernatural has landed in your life do you know him before you walk with christ you got to know christ and intimacy with god is a free gift from god it's by believing in the son that we become sons and daughters and if you haven't put your faith in christ that's the best gift we could offer you he lived the perfect life you could not jesus died the death you deserved so you could be transferred out of your darkness today and into the kingdom of the beloved son today to be loved by him equipped by him to engage the world in a new way and christian for us as we increase in that knowledge of god we bear fruit we are a light to the world as we endure well suffer well and serve well and they see that supernatural god working in us then the world will be better because you and i exist and that's an encouraging thought

Channel: Passion City Church DC

Views: 13,364

Rating: 4.9426932 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: obhbkW7Rjy0

Length: 43min 16sec (2596 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 09 2021