Summary
Pastor Safrit concludes the series on Colossians by focusing on Colossians 4:2-18, emphasizing the importance of prayer and partnership in the gospel. He urges the congregation to devote themselves to prayer, highlighting its power and necessity in their lives. The sermon also discusses the significance of supporting, strengthening, and serving one another within the church community, encouraging members to actively engage in their individual ministries while remembering to pray for each other and the spread of the gospel.
Welcome and Church Information
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. Thank you, choir, for that.
Thank you, church, for singing along with that as well. If you have a child that wants to be dismissed to Children's Church, that's available for you at this time. I'm first grade and younger.
If you have your Bibles, we'll be in Colossians chapter 4, and we'll be in verses 2 through 18 this morning. Be our concluding sermon of the book of Colossians.
It's been a privilege for me to be able to go through this and preach through these verses and just be able to go through an entire book. I've loved going through it, and I hope it's encouraged you.
I hope it's helped you in your journey as well, and I hope you've gotten a lot out of it.
I have enjoyed the feedback. I've enjoyed the ones that have told me the things they've gotten out of it and the conversations that this has sparked as well, and I've appreciated that as well. So Colossians chapter 4, verses 2 through 18.
There are some names in here, some fun names to go through, and so bear with me as I go through some of these old names as well. Bear with me. I'm just a country boy from Rowan County that struggles with even regular names, much less Old New Testament and Old Testament names.
And so we're going to stand and read this this morning before we pray again. The Bible says, It says, All my state shall Tychus declare unto you, who is a beloved brethren,
a faithful minister and a fellow servant of the Lord, whom I have sent to you in the same purpose, that he might know your estate and comfort your hearts.
With Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you, that they make known unto you all the things which are done here. Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, salute to you, and Marcus, the sister's, Marcus's sister's son to Barabbas,
touching whom you have received commandments. If he come unto you, receive him. And Jesus, which is called Justice, who are of the, I'm sorry, of the circumcision,
they are also my fellow workers in the kingdom of God, which have been a comfort unto me. Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you.
Also, always laboring and fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. For I bear him record that he hath great zeal for you. And them that are in Laodicea, and them that are in Heropolis, Luke, a beloved physician, and Demas greet you.
Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea and Niphas, and the churches and the houses.
And when this epistle is read among you, calls it to be read also in the church of Laodicea, and ye likewise read it from the epistle of Laodicea. And I say unto Archippus, take heed unto the ministry which you have received of the Lord, and thou fulfill it.
The salutation by the hand of me, Paul, remember my bonds. Grace be unto you. Amen.
Father, we love you. We thank you again for this day. I thank you for the opportunity to preach your word. Lord, I never take it for granted, never take it lightly, that you've given me this opportunity.
And I pray that you'll be with my words this morning, help them to glorify you. In your name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated. The last couple weeks we have been talking through the supremacy or the preeminence of who Jesus is.
Being Alive in Christ
We've talked about the knowledge of who Jesus is. We've talked about ruling and Jesus ruling in our life. We began talking through being alive in Christ. Christ and being alive brings freedom.
And having this freedom that is in Christ from our past, we have new life in Christ. And then last week we talked about Christ and the home and how Christ comes into our home and how Christ honors our home. And we talked about moms and dads and children.
And I hope I heard from one that children obeyed really good this week.
And so I don't know if that's Christmas season coming along or if it was the message from last week. But we'll chalk that up to the Word of God empowering our lives and working in our lives as well.
And today, as Paul concludes this letter, he begins to talk about prayer and the partnership of the gospel.
And I love the endings of all of Paul's letters because it's like he gives all these theological things and then he just sort of unveils just a little bit of his humanity. He begins to pour his heart out of where he's at, what he's struggling with, and some things that he's dealing with.
And in all of his letters, he ends in this same manner of just a personal touch. From my own hand, I wrote this. From my own lips, I spoke this.
And so this is Paul sort of bringing in this intimate gathering together. And he begins to talk about prayer and partnership and what that looks like. And as I was thinking through this, November 22nd of 1963, 60 years ago.
Anybody remember what happened? Let me ask you this. Was anybody alive in November 22nd, 1963? All right. Not yet. We're real close, but seeing several hands.
It's a big historical event that happened on this day. Does anybody know what happened November 22nd, 1963? President Kennedy got assassinated.
Very good. So this was a time in our nation that rocked our nation. In our lifetime, most of your lifetime, my lifetime, I've never had a president assassinated. And so it was a huge time. Kennedy, in the precipice of his presidency and his bringing into office,
was this new stellar, the king of the world, this new young royalty coming into office.
And there's a lot of history behind that that I'm not going to go into. But when he took over into office,
it had been the first time in 80 years in our country's history that a president had a child while in office. And so the nation was stunned. There were these children in the White House and there were children that were close to the president.
And as I was thinking through this, the image came to my mind of this image right here. It's the very famous image that most people have seen before, right? John F. Kennedy and his son right there underneath the Oval Office. They opened that door and he's just sitting there, right?
And as I was thinking through this picture, I thought, were there any other pictures? This is the one that I've always seen and probably the one that you've always seen. And I came across this picture
and it reminded me of my own life because this is John F. Kennedy as well.
And it was that same day they were taking pictures and John Jr. is sitting here at the feet of the president. And I want to say he's asked for some candy because if you look really close to his hand, there's something in his hand that he asked for.
And my mind began to think, how often is it that I'm in my office and my kids are in there and they'll ask me for candy or they'll ask me for gum? And what do I do as a parent most of the time?
Unless it's eight o'clock in the morning and they're here and they're asking for candy, what do I normally give it to them, right? I fulfill the wishes that the kids asked.
This is the most powerful man in the world. He's got his little kid here and he asks his dad for something, the most powerful man in the world, and he gives it to him freely. This is our picture of Jesus.
We're the kids sitting here and we're coming before God with these requests and we're saying, God, I'm struggling. I need you this morning. And he's like, what do you need?
I'll give it to you. What is your heart desiring?
That's what I can give to you this morning. And as we think through this image of what a child in this time were to ask of us, it would be small and insignificant for us to give it to them. And that's the prayer request to God.
He says, you know, I know it seems big to you, but in my eyes, it's just a little sliver of what I can offer you if only you come to me in prayer. That's why Paul begins this last portion of scripture where he says, continue in prayer.
One version says like this, devote yourselves to prayer. And so I begin by saying, what is the power of prayer in our life? Verse two, Paul urges the church in his final words. We spoke a couple of weeks ago about last words being powerful words.
The Importance of Prayer
Paul's last words to the church were this, continue in prayer. Don't forget about the prayer in our life because prayer brings the power.
And prayer, the hard part about this is prayer is hard work. It's hard to devote yourself to prayer. It's hard to get down and you begin praying and your mind begins going a thousand directions. Your phone begins to go off. You get a phone call. Life begins to happen.
And it's difficult for us to salute ourselves in solitude of prayer to God.
But Paul says here as he urges it, he says, it's hard, but we must give importance to it.
We always give time for what is important in our life. We spend time practicing over and over and over the things that we want to accomplish because we want to be good at it. We want to be successful in it.
But oftentimes we fail to give that same amount of time and effort to prayer. Because in our minds, it's not something that we need to be successful in.
But prayer should be the same way as a sport or something that we give devotion, not just a simple checklist of, well, I got up today and I prayed. Well, I got up and I said a little prayer before bedtime and I prayed over my food so I'm pretty good today.
The Bible says here, continue in prayer. Devote yourself in prayer. This is a sense of overwhelming. You can't do anything other in your life than to pray about it and to pray for it.
I often mention this and you'll hear me over time say it, but my kids will come up to me and you've probably asked me something and I'll say this, let me pray about it.
Hey, it's my way of saying, well, let me think about it for a while. We pray about it.
But my kids often will say, well, if dad says, let me pray about it, that means it's going to be a no.
And so then I have to be like, well, not everything I say is going to be no, so then I have to give a couple of yeses.
But it's a way for me not to just give a knee-jerk reaction answer because it gives me time to step back and say, God, what is valuable in this situation? What is valuable in this area? And so being prayerful
and having this power attached to our life says to be devoted about it. I mean, he says this, in this prayer, there are some things that we should do in our prayer life. The first one is this, be watchful.
Look in verse two again, continue in prayer and watch.
As Terry said this morning, we are to be watching for what is going on around us, watching for the end times, watching for the things that are around us. And this is a correlation. Paul is writing this and he's thinking back to the disciples.
Again, he wasn't there, but in the garden, when Jesus took his disciples down to the garden, in Matthew 25, he makes this statement. He says, I'm going to go and I'm going to pray. And you disciples, stay here and watch.
And Paul is saying, this is this thought of watching for what's going around us, praying and watching and keeping watch for what is going on as we see the day approaching. Be watchful of these things. Be watchful of those that are around us that need us to pray for them.
Be watchful of the things that are around us that have been answered prayers. You see, oftentimes we'll pray for something and it may be hard on our life. It may be something difficult. It may be something stressful. And I'll give a practical illustration. For the last two and a half years,
me and my wife have prayed for the opportunity to be a senior pastor. And we have prayed for God to unveil what that looks like and how that works in our life. And we prayed and we prayed and we prayed night after night, day after day. We said, God, give us the opportunity.
Different opportunities came up and we were excited and then they fell through. And then this opportunity came here and we began praying and we felt the peace of the Lord and we accepted the call to be the pastor here. And oftentimes in our prayer life, that's where it ends.
Well, God answered a prayer. We're good. But I'm a firm believer in this. I'm a firm believer in the amount of time that you spend praying for something, you should spend that same amount of time thanking God for it.
So in that, the last couple of months we've been here, I don't know of a night where me and my wife haven't prayed and thank God for leading us here.
Thank God for putting us in this position and the families that we've been a part of and the outings that we've done and just thanking God for what He's done and will continue to do because we've got to be watchful for what God's done.
I had a professor of mine that taught me this in college. He said, for 10 years at that time and I don't know if this has ever been answered in a prayer request but he's a pastor now in Winston-Salem now and he said this, he said, I have prayed
for 10 years for my dad to come to know Jesus.
He said, my dad lives in Hawaii or California and he's turned away from Jesus, he won't accept Jesus and he said, I've prayed for 10 years and he said, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt if the Lord ever answers that prayer,
I'm not going to say, God, thank you and walk away. He said, I'm going to spend the next 10, 20, 30 years thanking God for what He's done because prayer is not just saying, God, I need this
but it's watching for what God has done and remembering that as we go through our life. So be watchful for these things and then sort of goes hand in hand, right? He says, be watchful and in the same manner with thanksgiving.
See, Paul gives this illustration that he goes into this immediate mode of thankfulness.
He says, as you're watching for what God has done, don't forget to be thankful. Grace and gratitude in the root word of the Greek are the same root word.
They come from the same word because we should be thankful if grace has been shown to us. Our prayer life, church, should be filled with thanksgiving. Should be filled with thanking God for His mercies,
His blessings, His goodness over and over and over again because the power of prayer is so powerful and we often forget this weapon, I could say, in our Christian life and we must be reminded again as Paul reminds the Colossi church, continue or devote yourself in prayer.
But not only do we see the power of prayer, we continue to see as he goes on in verses 3-6, the praying for the preaching. The praying for the preaching.
He says, with all praying also for us that God would open the door of utterance to speak the mysteries of Christ for I which am in my bonds.
And Paul began to say, listen, I began this letter for us, it was seven weeks ago when we began to go through the book of Colossians. He said, I began writing this letter by saying, I have not ceased! I have not ceased to pray for you. Remember that?
He said, in my bonds I have not ceased to pray for you, the church at Colossi. Now at the end of his letter he says this, don't forget to pray for me. Don't forget to pray for me in my bonds. Life is difficult, life is hard.
And I'm asking you now in this end of this letter, will you do the same for me? Will you pray in return for me? Will you pray now for what God is doing in these opportunities where the gospel has been spread and the preaching of the gospel is going out?
Are you praying also for the preaching? And I don't want it to think like this, I don't want you to think I'm asking you even though I want you to pray for me. I don't want you to think this is just praying for the preacher.
This is simply saying are we praying for the gospel to be spread, the preaching or the sharing of the good news, which all of us should be doing, right?
We should all be going out and we should all be sharing the gospel. And so what it's saying here is asking God to open the doors for us to share the gospel. Finding those unique opportunities to go and to share the gospel with someone. Finding those unique opportunities to say, God,
you've touched my life in this moment and I just feel like I've got to go talk to that person at the gas pump,
right? You're standing there in this weird, awkward three to five minutes and you're pumping gas
and you're just sort of looking at each other. What do I talk about? Do I talk about the weather? It's raining. Yeah, everybody knows it's raining. Like, well, what do I do? Well, it could be, hey, is there anything I can pray for you about? Just a simple mode of,
hey, they may say, well, some kind of weirdo? Like, don't talk to me. Okay, cool. Or they could say, you know, life's been hard lately. I've been struggling.
Yeah, I do have some things I'd like for you to pray for me about. And all of a sudden in that opportunity, because we were listening to the Holy Spirit, God opened the door for us to share the gospel. This is what he's talking about.
He's saying, look for ways to show some things and these are some things in verses six and seven that he begins to share in verses five and six of ways that we can share the gospel.
Grace in Our Speech
The first one is this, grace. Look at verse six. He says this, let your speech be always with grace.
This is showing grace to those that are around us. This is showing grace to the people that are closest to us. My wife will often tell me, you wasn't graceful in your speech to your daughter today.
And I'll be like, yeah, I know, I made her cry. And I felt like I'm a good old mean dad and I got her to cry. And then she was like, no, you heard her spirit. You need to go and show grace.
And oftentimes, this is how we get in our life where we show grace to other people. But when those that are closest to us, the grace begins to fade away. And he says, in your life, in your journey, ask yourself, how is your communication with other people?
Is your speech grace? And are we showing grace often?
Are we, again, praying for grace in our life to be shown to those that are around us?
See, oftentimes, this is one of those difficult things because Allie will say to me all the time, and again, I'm picking on her because she's my closest person. She's the person that critiques me all the time. How many of y'all have a wife like that? Hey, man, I am not alone. Hallelujah.
All right. So she continues to mold me in this area because as a coach, as a dad, as a, you know, coming from a more of a legalistic background, I can be a little more hard-nosed. And that's not saying that's wrong, but at times,
we've got to ask ourselves, am I showing the grace that is appropriate in this situation? And asking ourselves about that.
So not only does he say showing grace, but then he continues on as we continue through the text.
In verse 6, he says, let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt.
Seasoned with salt. Right? What does salt do? It enhances, the flavor changes when we put salt on things. And he's saying this, season your speech season your prayer as you pray for others with salt.
I see it like this, it's the building up of others. It's the edification that happens in our life as we begin to season our lives with salt. Have you ever been
eating something and someone brings it out to you and you're, man, it looks fantastic on the plate. You're like, man, this is going to be so good. And you take that first bite,
you're like, man, they forgot to put salt in it. Has that ever happened to you? It's happened to me. It's happened to me oftentimes. Okay, I'm not a big salt person. I don't put a lot of salt in my food anyways.
But when there's not any salt, you begin to, your palate begins to taste that quickly. Right?
For me, I'm a baker. I like to bake things. I like to cook. I like to cook desserts. By the way, I made my brookie for tonight. Some people were asking about that. It's downstairs. It's cooking.
It's going to be great. I'm ready for it right now, but we'll wait a little bit longer while you continue to listen to me preach. But have you ever taken a bite of a cookie
and it was like super hard and super tough? Not that they burned it, but you realize that the little ingredient of salt was forgotten.
Man, you put everything in and you put the sugar, you put the bacon soda, everything except the teaspoon of salt that it calls for and the cake didn't rise and the cookies didn't turn out right all because of one little small ingredient of salt.
Something that is so seamless, meaningless in our life, Paul begins to make this illustration of
it's so small, but it makes such a huge difference. And in our life and our journey and our Christian journey, our spiritual life must be seasoned with salt so that we are building others up. We are continuing to edify one another.
We are continuing to help each other in this journey because we are not on an island. We are here for the purpose of helping and building each other up. And then he continues on by saying this,
seasoned with salt so that you may know how to give an answer to every man.
This is the education side of it. I know I'm an alliteration guy, but I couldn't find an E word for grace if you were looking at that, but I tried my best. So education, this is being able to give an answer.
Okay, this is ourselves growing. So we've looked at the way we talk to others. We've looked at building each other up, but now we're asking ourselves, am I growing? Am I able to give an answer?
You see, I love it so much when Brody and Jade will come up to me.
Hudson, he doesn't quite understand theology yet and the Bible, and so it's difficult for him to do this, but they'll come up to me and they'll say, Dad, why is this in the Bible? Why do we do this?
Man, it helps my heart so much because they are wanting to know the essence of Christianity, the essence of Scripture.
Man, I love it so much when you will come up to me and you'll say, hey, I appreciated that thought or that point or whatever that verse was or a thought in Scripture in times or whatever it may
be and say, hey, can we have a discussion about this?
One of my favorite things to see is as I stand at the back at the end of the service that I'm shaking hands and I look up and to see little groups sitting around and discussing. I don't know if you're discussing like Christmas presents or what you're doing for dinner.
I am just naive enough to think, you know what, they're probably just talking about the Bible. Okay?
And I'm just going to keep telling myself that because it's our part of education. It's our part of growing in Scripture and building each other up and it's our value of understanding. Paul valued the same thing. Always learning.
Always understanding not to be content where we're at but can grow in physical and spiritual and emotional continuing to grow in our faith. We must grab a hold of this as well.
Partnering in the Gospel
So he spends these first couple of verses on prayer but then he spends the last couple of verses on our partnering in the gospel and what this means to partner in the gospel verses 7 through 18.
And I'm not going to spend a lot of time here but I'm going to give us three basic points as we look at it but this is the reaching and teaching of others. This is helping us to fulfill the Great Commission. This is the gospel in a nutshell.
It's reaching out to others and Paul knew he could not do this by himself. That's why at the end of almost every letter that Paul writes he lists name after name after name because he said I'm not doing this alone. I'm bringing others beside of me.
There is a partnership. There is a growth of people around me.
Whether you like him or not there's a pastor out in California by the name of John MacArthur.
Have you ever heard of John MacArthur before? A couple people. John MacArthur has been pastoring the same church for 50 plus years. So for me how did he do it?
I want to learn from him. I want to learn how he did this because it's my wife and my goal is to pastor a church and to see families get married and kids grow up and get married and grandkids grow up and get married and see this generational faith
go forward in the church. And so as I look at John MacArthur and I say okay how did he do 50 plus years still pastoring today as well in his 80s 50 plus years great theologian and in his most recent podcast that they
put out for him they asked him this very question how have you endured in ministry?
And this was his response. He said after 50 plus years of serving I've endured in ministry because I've had friends in ministry.
I have had partners in ministry where I've been able to call them and say hey I'm struggling in this area. Hey I need some advice on how to deal with this situation can you help me? And he said I do
he said I fully believe that if I would not have had those friends in ministry I would not have survived 50 years at this church. He said we had some hard times.
He said after 10 years of been there the church almost split and they tried to fire me. So it's not like these 50 years were great it was they were tough but through God's grace he endured because he had friends in the ministry. And he said I have to implore other young men
surround yourself with people in the ministry. And so this is encouraging for me but it should be encouraging to us as well is who were our friends?
Who are we going to? Who is our prayer partners in the ministry? And he lays out simply three things here. The first is this support one another.
These are the one another's as I talk about so often in scripture is support one another. And he lays out Tychus and he says this in verse 8. You ready?
It says in whom I have sent to you the same purpose that you may know his estate and comfort your hearts.
He says I have sent six or seven people here to help you in your labor because Paul knew the value of having other people around him to comfort him in his afflictions. Right?
I'm thinking as I'm sitting here and I'm preaching this morning of Miss Pat over here who was here just the other day putting the tree up and decorating and she's going to have to have a hip surgery in
just a couple of weeks. And she's got people that are around her supporting her praying for her loving her because that is what the church is about. It's about growing together and supporting one another.
And we as a church must be gracious in this manner of always putting other people needs above our own.
And ask ourselves am I only consumed about my own thing or how can I look for ways to help the body? And our context may be completely different than what Paul's was. Ours may be how can I help someone spiritually? How can I help someone relationally?
How can I help someone that maybe they've got a family that's fallen out and their relationships are falling apart. How can I come alongside them and support them? Maybe it's emotionally.
Maybe someone's struggling just in their mental state. Maybe it's physically or financially that you can come alongside and you can say I want to help you.
I want to be a blessing to you. Because the church is here to support one another for the ultimate sake of sharing the gospel. Don't want us to forget that. It's for sharing the gospel.
And when the church does that the people outside of the church they see that. And they begin to see how did you make it through? I often wonder this. Me and my wife have never experienced
something that's near and dear in our life as far as having kids is a miscarriage. We've never experienced that.
But my mind has always thought and often thought how does someone who doesn't have a good family support who doesn't go to church anywhere how can they go through a miscarriage without a support system around them?
Thinking you know if we were to have had a miscarriage we've got family around us we've got churches that have been around us we've got churches that have loved us when we had kids.
And I begin to think how can these people go through these things without the love of Christ without the love of the church because that is the body of Christ.
We come alongside of one another when someone else is hurting when someone else is struggling.
So he says are we supporting one another and I'm sending you support as we partner but then he goes on in verses 12-14 and he says this this is for the ultimate reason of strengthening one another.
Verses 12-14 he talks about Epaphras and how Epaphras came and he says this in verse 13 he had great zeal.
You see this is the person that most people believe actually planted the church at Colossian and actually planted another church that was close by because the Bible says here he was a worker.
One commentator said it like this I'm going to read it verbatim it says as we strengthen one another we must learn to rely on the same driving forces.
We must allow our sincere care for one another and the Christ church to be a true labor of love.
In addition the transforming power of the gospel and the glory of Christ must serve as the ultimate modification of our sacrifice and our faith must be totally dependent on his strength that allows us to accomplish more than we
are even capable of on our own. These motivating factors will not only enable us to serve Christ they will allow us to encourage others to do the same. When we look at our life when we look at our church we must ask ourselves are we strengthening one another?
Supporting one another is very vital but how are we strengthening one another? You see I don't work out like I should I don't work out really at all I used to work out three times a day and as years go on and life gets busy it doesn't happen but I can
often remember when I would go to the gym many many years ago and you can laugh there it's okay we can joke a little bit when I would go to the gym I hated going by myself
there was no motivation there was no motivation for anyone really pushing me to lift more weight or to go stronger to go faster or whatever it was but when I had someone else there with me do one more
rep do it again you got this one more time one more time they would encourage me they would strengthen me they would push me beyond just my own strength
and this is what it's looking like here in a practical manner of strengthening one another it's you know hey let's pray one more time let's persevere one more time let's pray for that person when you're at the end of where you're at they come alongside of you and they begin to
Serving One Another
encourage you they begin to strengthen you in your journey of this faith and then he continues on in verses 15-18 by saying serve one another he uses this last person as he begins to talk about archipus and serving one another and he he says here look
you are just one church in a region of many churches see Paul understood that churches were not just designed to be in competition with each other they were designed to serve one another he said there's Laodicea right beside
you when you get done reading this letter go to that church take them this letter and let them read it and while you're there grab their letter and read that letter go to the church over here share that letter with them he was cultivating an intentional
fostering of cooperation of churches we are not in competition but we are in cooperation for the sake of the gospel
and when church when we begin to get that in our mindset that we're not in this competition to see who's better who's stronger who's got the best looking church but we are in a cooperation for the sake of
the gospel that's when God says I want to use those people I want to use that church to reach that community because they don't care about themselves they care about others they're serving they're reaching out they're doing the
things that Christ wants us to do as Terry comes I want to give some concluding thoughts because these last two verses for sake of time begin to direct us individually you see most of this has been corporately corporate
prayer corporate partnerships but he ends this letter by bringing it all the way home and saying how can this be applied individually
and he says this in verse 17 and 18 and I say to Archippus take heed to the ministry which you have received of the Lord
and you fulfill it he begins to say this is a singular form of individualism at this point because each and every one of us are called to serve the Lord in some way shape or form whether that be through giving serving whether
that be through the hands and feet of Jesus whatever it may be we are each individually called to serve the Lord and we have to ask ourselves this what is that calling
what is it that God has called me to do maybe I can't serve physically like I used to
but maybe I can serve as a prayer warder maybe I can't serve in a financial kind of capacity but man I can work I can sure lift up a shovel I can sure paint a wall I can serve
in some way shape or form what is it that God is calling you to do in your ministry
Paul's Final Encouragement
he begins to further and treat them one last time and he says personally I have written this letter with my own hand and then he says remember my bonds don't forget to pray he can't go another word without saying remember pray
don't forget it he starts out by saying continuing prayer and he ends by saying don't forget to pray because often times prayer is forgotten in the church one of my favorite writers that I've read
pastor up at Brooklyn Tabernard Choir he said when a church can get a hold of the throne of God the church will then begin to change their community but it's only when they get a hold of God's throne when they learn to pray when they learn to reach out to God
will God begin to use that church as we looked over every single week the preeminence of Christ Paul ends with this great statement you ready grace be unto you one version says grace be unto you by our Lord because he wants us to remember the
supreme authority of who Christ is in our life nowhere in this letter does Paul ever go to anywhere else but Christ's all sufficient power and as Paul in his entirety
was focused on others the question we have to ask ourselves is this are we focusing on others
or are we simply just focusing on ourselves are we focusing on how we can reach out to others and how we can serve others and strengthen and support others or are we just focusing on ourselves
have you enlisted in this journey with Jesus maybe you're sitting here today and you said you know Pastor James you've preached every single week about taking this step of faith and stepping out and trusting in Jesus and I've
wanted to every week and maybe I thought I was and had a conversation this week where ladies said you know I've got it settled I know that God is my savior I know I'm going to heaven but I've
struggled these verses and all throughout this chapter all throughout this passage have continued to talk about how we can know that Christ is with us but we have to step out by faith and trust him maybe you're sitting here and you're saying Pastor James I'm really good on some of these areas but I struggle working with others
I've got a lot of me centered thoughts I've got a lot of me how can I grow my kingdom maybe we need to come and say God help me to think and to reach out to other people as we stand and as Terry plays
respond to the Lord how you see fit Lord we thank you for this day we love you pray that!
your will be done in every situation you pray Amen Thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio of Pleasant Grove Please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week desk ¡Me scholarships enh fluteriters biscuits neuroscience
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