Life Worth Living - Ben Stuart

if you've got a copy of your scriptures on you we're in colossians chapter one let me read to you a couple verses uh from colossians chapter one starting in verse 24. and this is the apostle paul and he says this now i rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh i'm filling up what is lacking in christ's afflictions for the sake of his body that is the church of which i became a minister according to the stewardship from god that was given to me for you to make the word of god fully known the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints to them god chose to make known how great among the gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery which is christ in you the hope of glory him we proclaim warning everyone teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in christ for this i toil struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me when i was a college student at texas a m university i decided to take a class on the new testament at a state school but i found out right before class was going to start that the professor who normally teaches the class had a family crisis and had to uh not teach and so they in a last minute substituted a professor from the philosophy department who had never taught the new testament was not a believer in jesus was not particularly familiar with the text of the new testament but he wanted to do honor to the course material he wanted to take it seriously and so he would study hard and present to us every week and it was a fascinating thing to watch this person who was not a believer in jesus not familiar with the text wrestle with the life of the apostle paul and i remember one point as he was teaching us the new testament he stopped at one point and just very publicly in front of us was dealing with the apostle paul and he said you know i i've had many people come to me that have claimed to have religious experiences to to have claimed to have profound spiritual experiences to have met god he said i've had a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds say that and he told stories of i've had people sitting in my office that were on drugs and they'd met god and believed with full conviction that if they jumped out the window they would fly and he said so i've talked to people who believe what they believe or convicted about what they believe or even willing to risk their life for what they believe but then he said but i've i've never encountered anybody who is willing to suffer over a long period of time to deliver that message to their enemies he said i know people will suffer to build their kingdoms build their empires but he said i've never seen someone do what paul did to suffer over years to give a message to people who would persecute him he said i just i've never seen anything like that i don't know what drives a man like that and what's fascinating is he said i don't know what drives a man like that but he's reading it i'm like it's right there in front of you man if great what's produced great why's he's like what's the what that drives this enormous why of paul what is it and that's where we are today in colossians paul is showing us but look let's be honest even if you don't believe this book even if you're not a christian you have to admit that only a handful of people have profoundly impacted the course of humanity like the apostle paul jesus christ paul paul changed the course of the planet through his correspondences through his letters and if you want to understand how does someone change the world like that what motivated a man like that we're about to see what did it and look i know some of us here maybe a lot of you are like ben i'm not really looking to change the course of the entire globe with my life but if we can be honest all of us want a life that means something we want a life that accomplished something of value that lives on beyond us all of us want to live a meaningful life and what we're going to see here is a life that had extraordinary meaning we're going to see a life that had extraordinary power because it had an extraordinary purpose and for us as we look at his life what i'm praying is that our lives would have the same as well that you would live a life of extraordinary power so you could live a life of extraordinary purpose all of us want that and we have an opportunity to see it on display and then be affected by it today but we're going to do something weird today that i don't normally do we're going to teach this passage rather than from the top down we're going to start at the last verse and go up and here's why because i don't know if you caught it that first verse that we read paul says something really crazy it's the biggest dilemma in this passage he says i'm filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of christ it's a crazy sentence for the apostle paul to say hey jesus christ sacrifice there was something lacking in it and not just lacking i'm gonna fill up what's lacking jesus paid it all except for a little bit and i'll kick in on the back end you're like is that what he just said that jesus sacrifice was somehow insufficient and so paul's filling that up what do you mean paul like that that borders on blasphemy and we got to figure that out and i just want to keep the tension going so we'll figure it out last and uh so we'll work from the bottom up because what he says there sounds really crazy and he says not only am i filling up what's lacking i rejoice in the suffering i take on to fill up what's lacking it's just a crazy thing to say i'm filling up what's lacking what jesus did and it's costing me suffering and i rejoice in that suffering he sounds really weird and here's the deal i want you to sound like that too by the time this message is over so we're going to jump in starting in verse 29 and do what honestly i watched john piper do this i think he gave the best answer to this dilemma in that verse and so we'll follow a similar path to get to what i think is the right answer in the end but what we're going to do is we're going to look at the source of paul's power we're going to look at his life's purpose and the nature of his pursuit and my hope is these will all affect our lives as well but we could live a powerful life and a purposeful life but then we need to count the cost of that pursuit so let's look at paul's source of power he says in verse 29 for this i toil struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me paul says i toil that's the language of a beating or exertion he says i physically exhaust myself in severe labor i'm putting in work and then not only does he say that he adds the word struggling or striving it's the word of an athletic contest i'm straining to reach an aim or a goal he says i'm working hard to strain for something paul's not idle in life he's going hard after something and he's using all his energy and here's what's crazy he's not alone he says i'm striving for this and then he says his speaking of god his energy is powerfully working within me i'm not just working god is working in me god is fueling paul's mission which is crazy to think about because a lot of us pray for god to fuel our missions we just do i've watched documentaries where musicians backstage will pray that god will be glorified and then they'll come out and sing some crazy stuff on stage i've been in huddles where we've prayed that god will empower us to win a football game some of you at school you prayed before a test oh god please help me remember everything i studied or even god bring into my mind things that i have never encountered before right we ask god to empower our purposes all the time and what's crazy is paul here is saying i got it i got the purpose god empowers i have god's power working on behalf of my purpose so the question is how did that happen what's his purpose you see it in verse 28 he says him we proclaim warning everyone teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in christ paul says i'm proclaiming jesus god empowers the proclamation of his son now we'll talk more about that proclamation in a minute but here's the first point god releases god's power for god's purposes if you want god's power in your life if you're asking god to help you accomplish this that or this let me just let you know something god releases god's power for god's purposes so if you want god's power flowing in your life you need god's purposes to aim your life because god empowers his purposes you see in the book of acts simon at one point sees the holy spirit's power working through the apostles and he comes in and says i want that power and offers them money and they chide him for that they said you want to harness god's power for your pursuit of wealth they said you need to repent and pray that god forgives the evil intent of your heart he says you be careful are you asking god to empower your pursuits that have nothing to do with his look all of us empower pursuits that matter to us that that's how we live like if you have money and you want to give away money philanthropically who do you give it to you give it to causes that you believe in i believe in that cause so i'll put some of my power my energy my money behind that cause all of us empower purposes that we believe in and god is just doing what you and i do god says i've got power and i want to put it behind my purposes and so don't come to god and say god will you just kind of peel off some of your power so i can be rich can you peel off some of your power so i can be famous he's like hey you don't peel off your power for some purpose that's crossed with yours i have a purpose i'm accomplishing something in the universe and i unleash my power for my purpose so here's the deal if you want a divinely empowered life you need to be about the purposes of god if you want god's power be about god's purposes he strongly supports those who eyes are fixed on him right so here's the question what's god's purpose if i want to be about his purposes what are they well notice he said him we proclaim now this is something interesting about the greek language by the way in english our word order is usually consistent the subject the verb the complement in greek you can move all those words around and sometimes you take a word and when you put it at the beginning of a sentence it's to emphasize that word to make sure you get your eyes locked on it and that's what happens here that's why we translate it this way him we proclaim what purpose does god empower the proclamation of his son jesus him we proclaim paul says i got god's power coursing through me why because i got god's purposes in my view i'm proclaiming his son jesus christ i want the world to know him and so i proclaim him like a herald i'm announcing jesus and look how he does it he says and i do it through warning and through teaching he says i warn people when you come to know christ i start to tell you there's a right way to see the world and a right way to work within it and so then he starts to warn and the word warning means there's ways you used to live and used to think that are wrong so i want to correct wrong thinking there's ways to see the world there's a way to treat women there's a way to handle kids and do money that are wrong and you need to stop thinking that way and stop living that way and he said so we're warning everyone and he says we're teaching everybody there are right ways to think there are better ways to live there's better ways to make decisions with money there's better ways to make decisions with your business or with men or with women or kids there's better ways to live your life and so when you come to jesus you know what god is doing in the universe with him and then it impacts how you live and how you make decisions and there are certain ways to live that are no longer appropriate there are certain ways to live that are better ways to engage the world and so he says when we preach jesus it's a holistic ministry meant to change your life so we proclaim warning everyone admonishing everyone teaching everyone in all wisdom so we might present everyone complete in christ that we're complete as whole you'd have an integrated life that's the goal see christianity is not just hey jesus died for your sins and if you believe in him you won't go to hell so who wants to believe in him raise your hand great and then you go on and live your life however you want it's not how it works it's not just an altar call it's an altered life that yes you come to the altar of the finished work of jesus that when i trust in him he forgives me cleanses me makes me new but that's just the beginning then his power works in me to alter the course of my life and there are things i used to think i don't think anymore there's things i used to do i don't do anymore there are better ways to think and i want to think that way they're better ways to live and i want to live that way so as a church we keep teaching and keep warning so we can be complete in christ that you don't outgrow him you grow in him do you want to be fully who you're meant to be it's in christ that our message begins with his forgiveness and then it moves with him moving and changing inside of us that we mature in him it's not just an altar call it's an altered life and this message did you see it three times is for everyone everyone everyone it's not just a message for some religious elite every person no matter what you've done no matter what you've been a part of whether you grew up in a church home or not whether you've made all good decisions in life or you've made a lot of terrible ones the message for you is that jesus has come and he wants to change you from the inside out that you can be fully who you're meant to be in him so paul is empowered by god for this purpose what's the purpose that drove paul what motivates him well here's what's fascinating he calls that motive a mystery what motivates paul the mystery that's what he says in verse 26 which sounds a little frustrating to say that like oh ben you're talking about how we get motivated to change the world and now you're telling us the mission is a mystery that's not helpful well here's the good news in paul whenever he uses the word mystery it's not something that's hidden from us it's something that's revealed to all of us that's why every time like 17 times when paul mentions mystery it's connected with words like reveal or made known proclaimed what's the mission that drove paul to change the world you see it in verse 26 and 27 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints to them god chose to make known how great among the gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery which is christ in you the hope of glory what mystery drove paul's mission what mission had the power of god behind it it was making known the riches of the glory of this mystery christ in you the hope of glory and what i love about that and it's just a small thing too is i love that paul didn't just want to make the mystery known he wanted to make the riches of the glory of the mystery known paul's so excited about what god has done in jesus he just doesn't want to give you facts about jesus he wants to tell you about the riches of the glory of the mystery of jesus we do this too like if you really like a movie you don't just tell me facts about the movie you want me to know the riches of the glory of the movie how epically transcendent this series was right you do this with people you find attractive you don't just want to tell your friends about the features of this person their hair color eye color you want to tell them about the riches of the beauty of the glory of this person and that's what paul does he says i don't want to just tell you facts about jesus i want you to see how profoundly amazingly gloriously beautiful are the things that god is doing in jesus what is god doing in jesus that motivated paul to suffer with joy it's christ in you the hope of glory that he looks at the gentile the ethnos the nations and says jesus christ the son of god wants to be in you wants to be with you and give you hope that there's glory for you now what's interesting about that is the old testament talked about some of this that in the old testament god had a purpose for the nations and not just a purpose for the nations he wanted to bless all the nations but paul here says it's a mystery all that god wanted to do in jesus so so if we knew about it house is a mystery this is a little confusing well in the old testament you see god had a purpose i want to bless the nations and you see that blessing's gonna come through the jewish people you see that in the book of genesis it's coming through abraham and his seed and and you know somehow it's gonna come through this boy the messiah we start to look for a chosen one that will in some way bring the spirit of god and yet there's all kind of mystery in the old testament of how does god want to bless us how does god want to meet with us how does god want to work in us there was knowledge of it but there was mystery around the mechanics of it and that mystery was longing to be made known way to explain it would be this it would be like star wars episode three i don't know if you remember episode three it was the last movie in the some would say unfortunate prequel series it was the movie where we saw anakin skywalker become darth vader that movie if you don't recall um globally grossed a billion with a billion dollars in the movie theaters question why would we spend as a global community a billion with a b dollars to watch a movie that was going to show us what we knew was going to happen was anybody surprised wait what why is anakin putting that helmet on darth vader what like how many of us were surprised very few we knew what was coming but we didn't know the mechanics of how it was going to come we didn't understand so much of the details around it we were collectively as a community willing to spend a whole lot of money to discover and here paul says we always knew god had a purpose for the nations he said it through isaiah it's too small a thing that my servant my messiah should raise up the tribes of jacob and restore the preserved ones of israel i will make you a light to the nations we knew he was going to be a light isaiah said later there's going to be a root from jesse who will rule over the nations and in him the gentiles will hope we knew that light was going to give us hope but what we didn't understand was that the son of god was going to become a man and as a man he was going to come and say i want you to be in me i want you to be in a relationship as close to me as your own breath we didn't see the beauty of him that he would purposefully go to a relationally and sexually broken woman and sit with her and offer her grace and kindness and restoration we didn't know he would walk the roads with us and pursue a man who through his greed had devastated his whole life and to offer that guy redemption and hope we didn't see that he was going to ride into jerusalem not as a conquering king to crush his enemies but humble on the foal of a donkey we didn't see that he was going to bleed out on the cross taking all of our sin and shame upon himself so that yes he would be a conquering king but not conquering rome conquering death he had a much bigger enemy in view and we didn't understand fully that he was inviting us that by faith in him we would become knit together with him like a body is knit together with a head that christ would be in us the hope of glory we would be connected with him like a husband to a wife like adopted children into a family that god wanted us to be knit together as a multi-ethnic community a family because of the grace of jesus the beauty of that the glory of that the opportunity of redemption to the dirtiest among us the knitting us together past every wall of hostility there's a richness to the glory of that that we didn't fully understand until we saw it in the face of jesus christ and that when we know him he gives us hope of glory that yes this world's full of pain but one day philippians 3 says he'll change our lowly bodies to be like his body of glory or romans says that all of creation was subject to frustration but one day he will break those chains and bring the liberty of the glory of the children of god we didn't know what revelation declares that behold the dwelling of god is with men and they shall be his people and god himself will be with them he doesn't just offer forgiveness forgiveness moves sin out of the way so he could offer us himself that you could have intimacy with god that you can know him in a personal way not just facts and theories about him not just religion on a page but a relationship as close to your breath a love that will never let you go we didn't understand the riches of the glory of the mystery of christ in you the hope of glory and when paul understood that he said my whole life is about this i am built for this verse 25 he said of which i became a minister according to the stewardship from god that was given to me for you to make this word fully known when i understood that this is what god was doing he says that god chose to make this known and that i could be given the stewardship of disseminating that then god's will determines my work god wants the world to know what he's doing then i want the world to know what he's doing and i will use whatever skills i can to make him known i want the world to know what god is up to and paul used his preaching skills his writing skills and his tent making skills to fund and proclaim the ministry of jesus and god's given you abilities and skills and opportunities and when you understand what god is doing in the world you are meant to say god's will determines my work and you may not preach like i do you may not do what your friend does or your dad did but god has given all of us abilities and those passions and abilities are meant for a pursuit to let the world know what god is doing in jesus and god's power moves into that pursuit do you want his power in your life be about his purposes in this life to proclaim the person of jesus to a dying world that needs to hope that there's glory that's come in him john wesley went to college university came out to be a minister got on a boat to minister into america but was not a believer and yet he was going on his way to be a preacher and he confessed in his journal on his way to america my chief motive is to learn the true message of the gospel by preaching it to the heathen he said i don't really know what god's about maybe i'll figure it out while i'm preaching it to these heathens on the boat ride to america he was the chaplain meant to preach about jesus to the crew but a storm hit the boat it looked like the boat was going to sink john wesley did what every other human on the boat did and what any other human would do freaked out completely lost it and yet in the middle of that community were the moravians on this boat being lashed by the storm they were calm they were peaceful they were singing hymns to god and it shamed john wesley he said i'm the preacher but i have no peace in the midst of crisis you people are just on the boat and you have a peace that surpasses understanding so he went to them struck up a relationship with augustus spanenberg i said how did y'all do that and spanenberg said to him do you know jesus as your savior and wesley said i know he died for the sins of the world then he said but do you know he died for you he said i hope so his ministry in america was a complete failure wesley got run out of town and when he went back to europe or broken man he looked up those moravians and he walked into one of their bible studies and as they proclaimed the fact that we are justified made right with god because of his kindness that i can have the hope of glory because of the finished work of god in jesus it's strangely warmed his heart i'm not earning god's approval i've been giving it i'm not earning acceptance i have it i'm not preaching to find grace but i can preach because i found it that changed wesley and once that message landed in him god's purposes became his purposes and god's power became his power and that man preached sometimes 15 times a week he would preach when crowds were cheering him he would preach when crowds were throwing bricks at him but that man preached the gospel throughout the world published a book a year but was a part of a profound awakening of spirituality why because god's will was his work and god's power was working through his pursuit you want a life empowered by god be about the purposes of god making his name known but let me tell you as we close the nature of that pursuit it will not be easy you see in verse 24 paul says now i rejoice in my suffering for your sake and in my flesh i fill up what is lacking in christ's afflictions for the sake of his body that is the church what does that mean let me say a couple things one notice this proclamation involves persecution to get the message out means we make suffer pain that serving involves suffering paul sees that it's going to hurt to get this message out it's going to cost me but i'm willing to pay that cost and in doing so fulfill what is lacking in the afflictions of christ so let's solve that one what does it mean christ's afflictions were lacking what i don't think he meant what i think is clear so far is he didn't mean that there was a lack in the merit or worth of what christ did christ jesus payment for our sin on the cross was sufficient to forgive all of your sin to cleanse us from all unrighteousness so what's he talking about here that he's filling up what's lacking in the afflictions of christ well this is where piper helped me he pointed out similar language in philippians chapter 2. in philippians chapter 2 paul's writing to the philippians and thanks them at one point about a gift they had given him through epaphroditus the philippians were all about paul's ministry and so they gathered up money or gifts or books or whatever some support that they wanted to give the apostle paul but the apostle paul was nowhere near philippi so they had gathered up these these contributions they wanted to give to paul's mission because they were all about paul's mission there was this one problem they needed to get it to paul and so they gave it to epaphroditus so he could deliver it to paul and paul's writing to them and he says in philippians 2 verse 25 i thought it necessary to send to you epaphroditus my brother fellow worker fellow soldier your messenger and minister to my need for he's been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard he was ill indeed he was ill near to death but god had mercy on him and not only him but on me lest i should have sorrow upon sorrow he said hey this journey to me almost cost him his life and stressed me out stressed him out i'm just thanking god he's alive and i'm sending him back to you and praise god everybody's alive and we're good and then he says in verse 29 so receive him in the lord with all joy and honor such men for he nearly died for the work of christ risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me do you see the similar language there he says his service completed what was lacking in your gift what was lacking did epaphroditus kick in a few extra bucks no his service was to deliver the gift to paul the philippians had gathered it but paul was way over there and epaphroditus said i will deliver the gift and that delivering was difficult he had to walk on foot for miles he got ill almost died there was suffering in that serving but he took on the suffering took on the serving to fill up what was lacking in the philippian gift namely the contributing of that gift to paul the delivery was lacking and i think that's the same thing we see in here christ purchased our salvation now we proclaim his salvation that's what paul was doing that was filling up what was lacking christ purchased it i proclaim it christ suffered to purchase it so i will suffer to proclaim it because here's the reality to proclaim jesus is costly it's difficult it has always been that way you see it in the book of acts that jesus told them you will proclaim my name in jerusalem judea samaria to the ends of the earth it's very motivating verse as the gospel spread in jerusalem the christian community was building there it was happy there but then stephen was martyred one of their brothers died in the streets and persecution drove christians to scatter but in that scattering the gospel went to judea and to samaria the gospel spread suffering and serving went hand in hand persecution led to proclamation it's always been that way when the apostle paul was called jesus said i'm going to make you proclaim my message to kings and i'll show you how much you must suffer for my name it's interesting i played football in high school and there was a song the band would always play during the game and the song would go some of you have maybe heard that song and uh the cheerleaders would always kind of dance to it they would just kind of pump but then when it got to the end they would always sing this chant and so the song would get to the end then the cheerleaders would go blood makes the grass grow kill kill kill bump and um they don't sing that anymore i think it disturbs some people but when i was growing up you'd sing things like that and it was adorable they would just sing there blood makes the grass grow kill kill kill you're like wow that's uh that's dark but um what they were saying is your suffering is going to be what brings victory so suffer because the cause is worth it and really what they're saying is what tertullian said at the early church the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church and you saw in the early church men like lactantius said there's a cause why god permits our persecution to be carried out it's that the people of god may be increased when we suffer well we serve well and you see that when christians suffer well we talked about this last week when people watch us suffer with grace and with poise like the moravians people will say there's something supernatural in you that lets you suffer like that i want to know what you have and so our suffering well serves to adorn the gospel but this is a step further than last week paul's saying here and so i rejoice to take on suffering for the proclamation of the gospel i will embrace inconvenience to let people know it i will step into the awkward conversation with my roommate i will write that letter to my family member that says hey this isn't judging you i just want to tell you about the hope i've found this will approach that conversation over lunch as someone explains to you what they're going through and you say hey i don't want to make this weird for you but where is god in that for you can i tell you about the hope i have and you approach the message of jesus and be willing to take on the inconvenience for the sake of his name that's how the gospel expands we suffer to serve we're persecuted to proclaim that's the nature of this pursuit do you want a life of purpose purpose that lasts into eternity do you want a life with the power of god behind it that god moves in power through you then it will be a life that involves persecution but the reward is so great you can rejoice even in the suffering i told you i went to texas a m and at a m there's a tradition called the 12th man and the way the 12th man works is it's a tradition from football that way back in the day there was a a time where the football team a lot of guys were getting injured and so there was a basketball player up in the stands named e king gill and the story goes and one of the coaches came to the stands and told him e king gill we might need you to play will you suit up and so he was he did didn't end up playing but but he put on a the outfit ready to take on what the team needed to accomplish its goal so now if you go to a m the entire student section will stand the entire game four hours of football they will stand there no matter the cost to your knees you do it right and you do it as a symbol i am the 12th man i like e king guild i'm standing at the ready for you to put me in should you need me coach and the entire student section stands ready to serve and i always laughed at the possibility of like what if they called you up on that what if one day now 2021 the coaches looked up and were like susan suit up we need you wha what would you do it might be kind of scary there's some 300 pound dudes out there but i would imagine for some members of the 12th man that would be a dream come true i get to not just cheer on the team but be a part of the team i get to not just celebrate them but contribute sign me up suit me out and then what if they put you on the sidelines and said hey you're not just gonna stand on the sidelines we're putting you in the game what i get to play i get to play on this hallowed field yes and what if they told you hey we want to give you the ball 10 yards to the goal line we're going to do a sweep and pitch the ball to you we want you to take it in and score for the team how exciting would that be i get to score as an aggie for a m but then what if they told you yeah i don't know man i don't know if we give you the ball you might someone might bump into you and that might hurt your feelings maybe not you'd say i'll handle it i'll get over it i'll take advil i'll survive give me the ball but what if they're like i don't know man you're running you might get a charlie horse you might get a cramp it might be inconvenient you should just forget it if you were a passionate aggie you'd say i don't care the cost i would rejoice to suffer for this cause and i will take on whatever pain may come if i can contribute to the mission of my team and paul here says god is on a mission god is on the mission of letting everyone know you're broken because of sin but there's hope you're not too far gone and that hope has a name in his name is jesus and he lived for you and he died for you and he beat death for you so he could change you from the inside out warning you teaching you to complete you and to give you hope that there's glory on the other side of all this pain there's purpose and the pain of this life and right now you can have meaning in the midst of the mundane you can wake up every day with a sense of purpose not purposeless and you cannot just have purpose you can have god's power coursing through your body that god will empower you for a purpose that will never end and race into eternity there will be cost there's persecution in this purpose but the cost is worth it so you can rejoice even in the suffering because he suffered to purchase let's suffer to proclaim because i'm telling you that's when life is worth living when you realize man he atoned i announce he purchased i proclaim there's joy in suffering for his sake last story i've told several stories about john patton the minister to the new hebrides because his story is fascinating of him choosing in his 30s to go to an island where no one knew christ they were in the throes of a terrified religion of animism where they would kill and eat their enemies and they would sacrifice women as part of honoring the gods and honoring men and and they were completely caught up in a slavish fear and he wanted to let them know about a god of grace but the last missionaries that went there were murdered and so john patton decided i'm going to go and i'm willing to risk my life for these people and he told a group of people he was raised in support and at one point as he's describing it to them there's his famous stories he's kind of eliciting support before he's gonna leave his native land mr dixon spoke up and just went cannibal's john you'll be eaten by cannibals and i love john patton's response he said mr dixon you're advanced in years now and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave there to be eaten by worms i confess to you that if i can but live and die serving and honoring the lord jesus christ it makes no difference to me whether i'm eaten by cannibals or by worms and in the great day my resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen redeemer his trip to that island cost him tremendously enormous physical cost to his body relational cost financial cost but by the end of his ministry in the new hebrides 85 percent of the population of one of guanajuato put their faith in jesus christ generations of families stopped doing horrible things and started doing beautiful loving things because of transformed life by the grace of jesus christ that came through the proclamation of the gospel by a man who was willing to take on suffering for the name and at the end of his life patton even adding up all the suffering he had endured wrote this and this is where we'll close he said oh that the pleasure seeking men and women of this world could only taste and feel the real joy of those who know and love the true god a heritage which the world cannot give them but which the poorest and humblest followers of jesus inherit and enjoy my heart often says within itself when when will men's eyes at home be opened when will the rich and the learned renounce their shallow frivolities and go and live amongst the poor the ignorant the outcast and the lost to write their eternal fame on the souls by them blessed and brought to the savior those who have tasted this highest joy the joy of the lord will never ask again is life worth living life is hard life is filled with pain but you can rejoice even in the suffering because life is worth living the person of christ has come to give us hope of glory and when we take his pursuit as our own his purposes is our purposes his will is our work he will empower us he will use us and we will rejoice in that opportunity

Channel: Passion City Church DC

Views: 13,854

Rating: 4.9108634 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: ZxJ5Ka97G_c

Length: 44min 49sec (2689 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 22 2021