Summary
Pastor Safrit continues the series on Colossians, focusing on Colossians 1:15-23, emphasizing the supremacy of Jesus in our lives. He challenges the congregation to consider the role Jesus plays in their decisions and daily actions, highlighting that we are created for God's glory and called to live in a relationship with Him. The sermon encourages believers to recognize Jesus as the head of the church and the one who reconciles us to God, urging them to actively share the gospel with others.
Welcome and Announcements
thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church sermon audio for more information please visit our website pgbcronda.com or visit on all social media platforms great job young people thank you
for your work thank you for your time putting all that together and singing thank you for our leaders for helping out if you are a want to send your child to children's church that'll be dismissing at this time
if we have anyone that wants to go to that first grade and under you're welcome to be dismissed
if you're a first-time guest I want to welcome you thank you for being here we don't do this every Sunday with our youth leading but the fifth Sundays we try to have our youth lead worship and it's
a blessing if you are first-time guests there's a card in front of you we'd love for you to fill it out and turn it in so we can have a record of your visit can reach out to
you and help you out in any way we can but we are continuing our series in Colossians if you have your Bibles we're going to turn to Colossians chapter 1 verses 15 through 23 this morning I want to thank Mr.
Roy for providing the cross again this year for us it's a great job as a reminder for Operation Christmas Child and that ministry coming up be praying for how you can help and our packing party that'll be coming
up in just a couple of weeks and so thankful for that but we are continuing our thought here in Colossians we started last week in Colossians 1 the first 14 verses and we talked about knowledge is power and
knowing who God is can affect every part of our life and today we're going to continue that in the second part I'm entitled that Jesus rules and this is simply understanding our interaction with him and his absolute supremacy
in our life and I want to ask this one question as we get started and I want to we're going to come back to it a couple of times but this is the question what is the role that
Jesus plays in your life what is the role that Jesus plays in your life and that's what we're going to look at this morning and we'll stand and read verses 15 through 23 if you don't have your Bibles
the words will be on the screen as well so let's all stand out of honoring God's word and we'll start that way says this in verse 15 he is the image of the invisible God and the firstborn of
every creature for by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are in earth visible and is visible whether there are thrones or dominions principalities or powers all things were created by him and for him
Jesus' Preeminence and Authority
he is before all things and in him all things are held together he is the head of the body of church he is the beginning of the firstborn from the dead so that in all things he might have
the preeminence for it pleased the father that in in him all fullness should dwell verse 20 and to reconcile all things to himself by him having made peace through the blood of the cross by him I say whether
they are things in earth or things in heaven and you were all formerly alienated and enemies in the mind by the wicked works yet now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through the death to present
your holy to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in his sight if you continue in the faith grounded and settled and are not removed from the hope of the gospel which you have heard and which I
preach to every creature which is under heaven of which I Paul have become a servant father we thank you for this day lord we pray God that you would help us this morning as we have read your word
as we preach this morning what you have given us that it would be an encouragement to us and that we would understand who you are and what you are in our life in your name we pray amen you
may be seated as we ask that question what role is Jesus playing in your life I want to give a simple analogy a simple illustration that I heard a couple of years ago when we went to youth camp
a guy by the name of Greg Boone was speaking at a camp called look up lodge as we're trying to take our youth this year to that and he had a young lady came to him and had made
this statement she said Greg I'm trying to figure out where I should go to college she said I want to go to the greatest college that's ever existed United the UNC Chapel Hill right and so she she goes
to him and she says this and and he said she said I've I've sent my letter in and as they do the process they sent me back an acceptance letter what should should I go to this college or
not and he looked at her and he said I think her name was Sarah he may have gave her name he said he said I'm gonna ask you one question he said are you a Christian she said yeah
I believe in Jesus he said I'm gonna ask you one more question have you prayed about this decision and she looked at him and she made this sort of startling decision of well I've always wanted to go here
since I was a kid right all my family went here like this is this is where I'm supposed to go like this is where I'm gonna go for my profession and now I've been accepted of course this is what God wants me to do and she held her head and she said
I haven't actually ever prayed if this is where God wants me to go and he looked at her and he made this statement to us he said basically Sarah that day was looking at me and she basically said
she was a Christian practicing atheism and she stepped back and now every one of us that were there were sort of like
okay well what does this mean and he he presented this question to us and I asked myself this question often think back in January of this year February March April May we're almost at the end of the year
and look back on your life and look at the decisions that you made from January until the last Sunday in October and ask yourself if you were not a Christian how different would those decisions have been or would
you have made every decision the way you did and if the question is I wouldn't have really changed much are we just simply Christians in name only and this is the question this is the the process as we
begin to open up this thought this morning of what is the role that Jesus has played in our life are we fully truly saying I'm going to be a fully devoted follower of Christ as we learned this morning
in Sunday school through Job's life and we begin to look at his life and say you know what it didn't matter the decision or the problem that came in his life he trusts in the Lord he followed in
the Lord's leading and the guiding in his life because the role that Jesus played in his life was supreme authority over all and we've got to ask ourselves this morning is that the same thing that Jesus plays in
our life and as Paul writes out this this passage here I believe he gives us five points things to think about things to understand who he is that ultimately leads us to understanding what role he plays in our
life and the first one is this in verses 15 and 16 he simply lays out and says that he Jesus created everything see Adam and Eve were a perfect representation of Jesus Christ they were perfect in every way
they had a relationship with God that was not broken that was completely perfect they had a a fertile garden that they didn't have to have sweat imagine that man not having to have to sweat in the garden humidity
was not a thing okay imagine that imagine going outside I've gotten to experience no humidity one time in my life and it was amazing we were in Idaho doesn't have humidity okay Idaho doesn't have wind chill or humidity
and it was fantastic and I'm just all when I was there I was thinking man this is what it must have been like in the garden I didn't have to sweat as much it was awesome and this is
how Adam and Eve were they were created perfect and then they messed up God created them and the Bible says that he also created us he formed us in his mother's in our mother's womb which simply tells us
in verse 16 if you ever doubt where you're at in your life this is what verse 16 says for by him all things were created that are in heaven and earth visible and invisible whether they're thrones dominions principalities
Created for God's Purpose
or power ready all things were created by him and for him
church this morning we are created with a purpose we are created with a reality of understanding that we are created for God and for his glory and when we think there's nothing to live for when we think the
world's on the brink of collapse when we think that our life is falling apart as we looked at this morning in Job and he didn't understand what was going on he understood that he was created for God's glory
and he began to think through his life and when we understand this when we understand that we are created for God's glory and we have a purpose in him it will change the way we think it'll change the
way we act it'll change the way we talk it'll change the way you live your day-to-day life when you fully understand who we are created by and what we are created for we understand this created thing
that God created us and when we do that it it really truly changes the way we pray it changes the way we interact with God I read a book years ago I've picked up since then every book that
he's written but a guy named Jim Cimbala somebody in here ever heard of Jim Cimbala before okay you've probably heard of the church he pastors which is the Brooklyn Tabernacle Church in New York City the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir
has anyone heard of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir all right it's a fantastic book it's called Fresh Wind Fresh Fire and he wrote this in one of his chapters and I've never been able to get away from it because
this is what he said and I typed it out so I didn't bring the whole book up here but he wrote this he said in Genesis 4 26 right after Cain and Abel and Seth were born it says
that at this time men began to call upon the name of the Lord and he said think about that until then until this moment in history people had not known God mainly as only simply the creator but at
this moment they realized that he was no longer just the creator of the garden and Eden and the rest of the world but that he was the creator that had a relationship with them and it came to the
very first beginning when this first collected relationship happened with the Almighty before the Bible was available before the first preacher was ever ordained before the first choir was ever formed a godly strain of men and women distinguished themselves
from their ungodly neighbors by calling on the Lord Cain and his posterity had gone their own way and they were independent from God but contrasting this to this people they were affirming their dependence on God by calling out
to him in fact God's first people were not called Jews they were not called the children of Israel they were not even called Hebrews in the very beginning the original name were those that call on the name of
the Lord and on some unmarked day at some unmarked hour a God-placed instinct in humans hearts became alive people sensed that if you were in trouble you can call out to God and he will answer you he
will intervene in your situations and I love this illustration he says I can imagine one woman saying to another woman during this time have you heard about God the one that you can call on he's more than just
a creator he cares for us and he responds to our needs he actually understands what we're feeling and that woman will maybe respond what are you talking about God does whatever he pleases people cannot influence him one way
or another and that woman responds no no you're wrong when you call out to him he doesn't turn a deaf ear he listens he responds and he acts
remember when you were a child you began to to experiment and make things I can remember as a kid as a as a as a fifth grader I'm pretty sure I was fifth grade and we were there was
one I was one of five uh we were very very poor growing up I did not have a lot uh my dad was the only one that worked my mom didn't work and and I can remember always wanting
a go-kart always wanting a four-wheeler Brody asks me about every other day dad when can we get a four-wheeler when can we get one and so so we're we're trying to think about some of the
things but but I can remember going as a kid about fourth or fifth grade me and my brothers and my sisters and then all of our neighbors we got around our house and we got my dad's shop and
we found some plywood and we began to screw this plywood together and we found some old bicycle tires and we took them off the bike and we my mom has a video of this so if you ever want
to know it I can call her and she can find it for you but but we we began to screw these bicycle tires to the side of the of this this plywood makeshift go-kart we found a steering
wheel that didn't attach to the wheels at all and we somehow attached it to the frame and so we come around the back side of the yard and around to the front and I don't remember who was on
it I'm sure it wasn't me I think it was my sister Stephanie was on it and we came around man we were excited we were pumped like we had created something out of nothing it was awesome we were
proud of this and as it came around the corner the sides just collapsed in the wheels fell off like everything fell apart okay and what God wants us to understand is yes we're we're proud of it and yes
this is awesome and God says this is sort of what happens when man tries to do things on their own it just sort of falls apart God said I created you perfect I created you in a perfect world
and yet man interceded and man fell and God didn't say I'm just going to end there he said I'm going to step into that and I'm going to send a way to fix it and in that moment when
that goat cart fell apart we didn't have anyone to fix it there was no way to fix there wasn't even a motor on it and God says yes but if you can trust me in that brokenness that's when
you can see the healing and it goes from not only did he create everything but number two in verse 17 it says that he wasn't created but is supreme over all some people in today's modern era will and all throughout history it's not just today will say well how can Jesus
be supreme if he was created right and verse 17 lays it out and says that he was before all things and in him all things were are together and so we can simply see here that he is before
all things you see Jesus is holding everything together when you think your life is falling apart remember he's holding it together when you cannot imagine when things are bigger than you can ever imagine he is stronger than you
can ever think he is supreme above all creation the other day I was reading a quote by Charles Spurgeon and Charles Spurgeon the prince of pastors the prince of preachers the one of the greatest orators that ever lived
one of the greatest writers that ever lived in the preaching side of it he wrote this down and and I could not get away from him because he wrote this and he said this he said I have learned
to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages think about that I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages when we can learn this same thing it's because we
have placed our hope in who Jesus is and when things are not going the way we want them to go we understand that he created everything he's supreme over all and he is doing these things in order for
us to turn our eyes back to him and to trust him more this is why when we begin to understand who God is and we can as I said last week can begin to take the attributes of God
and apply them in every single way of our life we begin to understand that he is supreme over all not only is he supreme over all but verse 18 and 19 Paul continues to define who Jesus is by
saying he is the head and the leader of the church verses 18 and 19 he is the head and the leader of the church the church is his creation and this is a great thing a comfort for us
because we can understand that the church will live on not because of my hands but because it's because it's Jesus's hands that are holding it God says that he is the head of the church and unless he ends
the church ends and Jesus never will end and so therefore there will be no end to the church because he is the head he has preeminence I am just the under shepherd I am just following what God has
led me to do what God has called me to do he has the rule he is the ruler over all we are simply his bride and we are simply heirs to the throne of God then he says this
as it continues on in verse 19 he says then he says that the father is pleased that everything dwells in him go back to that first question what role does Jesus play in your life are you dwelling in
him are you dwelling in God as sovereign over all or are you simply just trusting in God as the spare tire where you don't really think about it you go on your day and you begin to ride down
the road in the interstate and and and life begins to happen and you hit something and you blow a tire out and then you remember oh yeah I've got a spare tire that's there to help me and you
go back and you pull it out and you use it then is that how we're treating God or are we living a complete dependence on who he is we must dwell in him all the time day and night
every second of our day we must dwell in who God is and who Jesus is God put everything that he had into Christ the Bible says there in verse 19 that God put everything he was into Christ this
includes God's character his nature his power he was full of God the father in John 14 verses 8 through 10 no part of God was missing out of Christ Paul repeated this over and we'll read it again here
in Colossians 2 in a couple weeks but he repeated this because he wanted them to understand that no part of God was missing from Christ Christ is unique and different than any other person that has ever existed because
Reconciliation Through Christ
he's the only one qualified to reconcile us back to God not on our good works not on anything that we can do or say or or give to others but he himself is the only one that can reconcile
us back to God I was talking to Kim the other day and my mind began to think about superheroes and and you know Marvel I'm a huge Marvel fan I'm a more DC fan than I am a Marvel
fan when it comes to superheroes but have you ever thought of the storyline that every superhero I may spool this for some of people they may have never thought of this but every superhero movie is written one exact
way okay I'm gonna spool it for you ready here's what it is one person or whoever it is the the hero the story is born they live this great life they they've turned the world around a villain comes
in to ruin everything right the villain comes in let's take Batman whatever it is Joker comes in Joker ruins the ruins Gotham Batman has to make an ultimate sacrifice and that ultimate sacrifice is to redeem Gotham maybe he
dies or in Superman Superman dies and the story ends and then somehow some way they bring Superman back to life and the next movie Superman comes back to life and what does he do he's stronger he's more powerful
and he defeats the villain and he restores order back into the world Hollywood didn't think of that on their own this is a a God-given instinct inside of all of us because this is the Bible that's what
Jesus did right Jesus was born he lived a perfect life in a sinful world he came into this world he died for us and he his disciples when he died abandoned him and went and hid because they were
afraid that they were next and then all of a sudden Jesus comes back to life and redeems the world and brings us back into the eternal brotherhood or union with who God is this is the overarching narrative of
scripture and God says that this is indwelled inside of us and Hollywood's making millions out of retelling the story of the Bible because it is the essence of who we are there to worship
right we're we want to worship something we want to worship someone and God says we need to worship Jesus and so therefore Hollywood remakes it into a way that they can sell it in a way that they can
reach it out and so we get to this point where we understand that God is there for us he is there with us and he is there so that we can glorify him in everything that we do so
not only is he the head and the leader of the church but number four the Bible says here in verses 20 through 22 that God himself made a way for us to get back to God he made a
way to God for us you see as I said earlier and this is your first note there if you got that down man sinned man sinned in the garden Adam the first man Eve the first woman sinned because
they did not obey God they could not become friends with God anymore they became God's enemy and sin separates men and women from God there verse 21 it says that we are alienated I want you to think about
that word alienated this is someone who does not have a right relationship or is a foreigner in that land and God says because man has sinned we are alienated ourselves from who God is sin affects us in every
way shape or form it affects our spiritual world it affects our our physical world it affects it affects every area of our life our relationships everything that we do in our life is affected by sin one way or
another and sin hurts sin is painful and yet we understand that Genesis 3 tells us that Christ's death affects people as well it affects everything that he created Romans 8 verses 19 21 says that one day the physical
world will be free from the effects of sin and hallelujah I can't wait for that day to happen because we will be able to live eternity in heaven with Christ where there will be no sin where I can't
mess things up because I mess things up often and yet God says that through that sin man is separated Ephesians 5 6 says this that God is angry about sin you ever had a parent that was angry that
you didn't do what they wanted you to do maybe they they lashed out in in in just a moment of the flesh where they they said something they did something maybe it cut a little harder than what it
should have and and that parent said that thing to you and you just sort of I just you couldn't sit right that's happened to me with my kids and I've said that it's happened to me with my father
he said some things that just hurt and God says that when sin happened God was angry at that sin because sin is a result of death and so when man sin God said I've I want to to to
mend this world I want to mend this creation that I love so much and so I'm gonna send my son to die for this world and sin not only causes a separation from God but it calls the death
of his only begotten son because Christ died on the cross for us he had every right to punish us for every sin that we ever created every sin that we ever did but instead God looked down at humanity
and said I'm not gonna punish you I'm gonna punish my own son and so therefore Christ took on human clothing and became perfect man it was a perfect man that became our punishment for us because Paul was reminding
them in Colossi that he had made them clean from their sins and so often we want to live in our sin we want to say this is what identifies me I've done these things that are wrong and God
can never use me because I've done too much wrong and Paul said no no no no I killed Christians and God still used me Peter stood up and said no I denied Jesus three times I cursed his name
God's Grace and Our New Identity
and God still used me to plant the church we have to understand that God has rescued us from our sins so that we don't live in our sins God was not angry with us he was angry at our
actions he was angry that we rebelled against him and they became God's enemy and it separated from God and ultimately after God was angry about their sin God rescues man these verses don't mean that Christ's death saved everyone
but it simply means that he made a way for everyone to come to know him
you see God in in the last part of verse 22 I'm going to read it again here it says this and in his body his flesh through the death presents you holy blameless and above reproaching his sight you
see when we accept God's free gift of salvation this is what God says you are now identified as you ready you are holy you are perfect you are now made back into a complete relationship with who God is
and then the next one he says you're without blemish yeah there may still be effects of sin on your life but he says I look at you as a new creation as a new creature there are no more
blemishes there's no more accusations against you there are no more effects of sin on us in that sense of our spirituality because we are without blemish and then this last part of verse 22 got me this week because
it says this we are free from accusations he has created us free from accusations how often as a husband or a wife will you hold something over your husband or wife for years because they did something that year
long ago or maybe as a father or a son to your child or maybe it was a mother to a daughter or to a son where you said well you know three months ago you did that was wrong
and Christ says here through the writing of Paul you have no longer had this burden of accusation in your life because I have removed that accusation from you and I have placed it onto Christ he has freed us
to live a life that is free from accusation I want you to think about because often we it's hard for us to put into words
the the span that Jesus did to redeem humanity and you can think of it in multiple different ways and I want us to think and maybe you can pull a map out in your mind and you can visualize
for a moment where North Carolina is on the map right we see North Carolina we see that it's right there on the eastern seaboard and we began to look around the globe and and just try to look up
where where Iceland's at right has anybody ever been to Iceland Greenland no one I haven't either so one day we'll all take a church trip there and we'll experience it okay but uh so North Carolina and imagine to
Iceland imagine some some great brilliant architects say you know what I've got this great plan the cost of a boat the cost of a flight is just astronomical to go there so what we're going to do is we're
going to build a bridge into the Atlantic from North Carolina to Iceland okay we're laughing because it would be impossible right it would be impossible for a bridge to withstand the weight of the ocean to withstand the span
of going that far the depth of the ocean in some of those moments there would be no way for us to lay that foundation for that bridge and yet God and his sovereignty in this sense says where you
think it's impossible I can solve the impossible where man could never get themselves back to God we tried the power tower of Babel we tried over and over and over all throughout history to get ourselves back to where
God is at and we couldn't do it we failed and God says there's nothing that you can do but it's only through my son that I can fill the gap between man and God and through his son made
a way for us you see I understood this when I was five years old young young kid gospel light there in Salisbury and the Sunday night when I realized that there was no way I could make myself get
to where God wanted me and I had to put my trust in who Jesus was and who he is and my mother on that Sunday night brought me down to the altar and led me to the Lord that
night and I trusted in him that he made a way for us I didn't understand all theology I still don't okay I didn't understand everything that I meant in trusting in God in that moment but what I did
understand was God loved me enough to send his son to die for me to rescue me for my sin maybe you've never done that this morning maybe today's were the days where you're gonna maybe trust in him this
morning I don't know what it is but but as we get to this point we get back to this thought of what is the role that Jesus plays in our life he made a way for us but ultimately
not only does he want us to stay there but in verse 23 he says this and if you continue in the faith grounded and settled and are not removed from the hope of the gospel which you have heard
he says I want you to continue in your faith I don't want you just to get saved and understand what that means as a Christian and stay there I want you to continue on in what God has for
The Importance of Faith
you Christians that Colossians here had heard the true message of the gospel and they believed it he says this he says I'm glad that you believed it and that's awesome I want you to continue in it he said
this but don't just live there tell others also he said why are you holding this to yourself why are you not going out and telling others it would be like someone coming to me and saying you know what
my grandpa on my mom's side when my mom was 11 days old died of hogsman disease lymphoma cancer my mom was 11 days old she never met her she met him but she doesn't remember that my dad when
I was four or five years old actually I'm sorry I'm six years old was diagnosed with the same disease hogsman disease the hogsman disease lymphoma my dad was given it two months to live because of the the the
the severity of the cancer stage four found out in October November they said this will be your last Christmas and if someone would have came to me at school when I was in six when I was six or
seven years old and said hey you know what my dad's been working on this really cool project and and he solved the problem and he can cure hogsman disease lymphoma with one shot
I would be like great can I have it no sorry we solved it like we we figured out it we've we've done the research we've done the tests we know it works but we're just going to keep it
in our garage no one's going to get it I would be angry I would be mad now my dad he he went through the chemo and he he went through the two years and and he's cancer free now
but it was a long process and if it could have been solved with one simple shot with one simple moment would have been a whole lot better
and yet he's still alive today and he's still around and if that could have saved my grandpa and I would have been able to meet my grandpa would have been to change the world completely and Christ says you
have that answer for the humanity and we must not keep this to ourself we must go out and we must tell others also Paul said that you have been taught a heritage here as we talked about last week
you have been preached the genuine message of the gospel and now we must have the responsibility to go out and to tell others also the true message of the gospel will spread and did spread oftentimes people will say
well how do we know that the gospel is true how do we know that this book that's 2,000 years old some parts of it are 4,000 years old how can we trust it how can we prove
that it's true how can 12 uneducated fishermen go out into the world and spread one gospel message and it spread to America 2,000 years later the reason is because it's true and because God has put his hand
of blessing upon it because he knows that this is the true message and it must spread and it will produce fruit church we must be Christians that are producing fruit Jesus said in his disciples in his very last
conversation with them right a couple weeks ago when I was preaching I talked about our our last talks our last words that someone says to one another Jesus's last formal conversation with his disciples that we have record of
is the abide in me passage in John 14 15 16 17 18 okay that whole five chapters is one conversation and Jesus makes this statement here he says how are the is the world going to know you're my
Loving One Another in Community
disciples it's your love toward one another and it's an everyday ongoing process that we develop the love for one another we begin to go into our community and we begin to love those who are unlovable to us we
begin to show charity to those that are not charitable toward us and when the world begins to come to you and say how are you able to love that person in the the vile things they've said toward you
the things they've said against you the things they've said against your family and yet you still show them love we're able to look and say because Christ compels me to love them and to be a disciple of Christ
we must show the love to others not only to us but to others and we must go into the world and share this love to others as Terry comes and plays I'm gonna conclude with one concluding thought I
don't do this often I don't like to bring a lot of extra biblical statistics into my messages but I came across this statistic out of COVID and I wanted to bring it out because I thought it fit in
really well with our thought here but one of the newest trends one of the newest fear or anxiety bringing things in our young people as it's youth Sunday so I felt it was fitting is FOMO FOMO has anyone
ever here heard of FOMO in here a couple people it's broken down like this fear of missing out F-O-M-O Barna did a study out of COVID and they began to see how this fear was enticing
every one of our young people through the inventions of cell phones and constantly been a been connected to everyone said that the fearful missing out of a text message or plans been made or an email that was sent
or parties or even the latest fad was gripping and is gripping our young people
they began to take this study and they said that they began to see that kids were waking up at two in the morning and at two in the morning they were not setting an alarm to wake up but
their body was waking them up because they were afraid they were going to miss out on something and they would wake up and they would check their phone at two in the morning and that's where they lived they
were just constantly enamored by what was going to happen one statistic said that as kids were begin to they brought in a group study and they said they took their devices away from kids and that after a couple
of minutes of them been away from their device their heart pressure their heart rate and their blood pressure began to go up they said one kid actually began to shake and convulse because their device was not in their
hand because they were so afraid they were going to miss out on something that their friends or family was doing because they couldn't be connected to them
and as I began to look through that as I began to study that I began to think about that my mind began to ask myself this are we that fearful of someone missing out on Christ
are we that fearful that I wake up at two in the morning and I say
my family my friends they don't know Jesus I gotta go tell them I gotta go do something to tell them about Jesus or am I just sleeping through the night like a baby that just had a bottle of
warm milk and no care in the world or are the people around me that don't know Christ
what is burdened in my life I've got a book on my shelf it's called praying hide
was an old 1800s preacher whose name was John Hyde
and he had what was called camel knees because every night he would pray for hours and hours for his family and friends and he said I'm not only going to stop with prayer but God I want to make a commitment to you that every day I tell someone about Jesus
and so for his years of ministry he would find someone new to tell about Jesus
he writes in his book that one day he was in England and he was traveling and he was preaching and he had a busy schedule that day and he he went and he preached and he was doing everything
he was doing and he came home he came to his apartment to his to his hotel room and he went to lay down and he realized that he had never personally told someone about Jesus that day
and he began to reason in his mind God I got up and I preached today
and I gave some invitations and I did some things that were good and so I'm going to go ahead and say that I told someone about Jesus
he said God began to work in his life and began to work yet he could not go to sleep that night without going out and telling someone about Jesus
because he made a commitment that commitment was so deep in his heart that he had to do it
so as he was sitting there already ready for bed he got up and redressed himself went back outside and as he walked out of his hotel
a young man was standing at the corner of a bus stop waiting on the bus to get there and he went up and he began to tell him about Jesus he said that person didn't accept Jesus
but I fulfilled my commitment to go and tell someone about Jesus that day
and I was so convicted as I was reading that because how often do I go days and weeks and months without personally telling someone about Jesus yes I get up and I preach and I have opportunities to share
Jesus on social media but how often am I simply going up to someone and saying I can't sleep tonight because I have to tell someone about Jesus
is that the fear that we're living in or are we living in the fear of the newest fear I'm afraid we're going to miss out on a party or a new fad or a new video
or are we saying God I want to have a fear of knowing that I've got to trust in you and I want others to trust in you as well so we have our time of invitation
Invitation and Closing Prayer
the Lord's dealing with you on salvation come today have it be today if not you want to pray in your seat or come forward
to pray this morning the altars are open Father we thank you for this day Lord I love you and I pray that your hands of blessing will be upon this message that you would allow us to live in
the gospel every day and that you rule and I pray God that you would help us to ask ourselves this question who are you in our life in your name we pray Amen
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