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Weekend Recap – Community and the King

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Today was a great Lord’s Day. In the AM, we wrapped up the book of Colossians by looking at Colossians 4:7-18 and a sermon entitled Gospel Community, showing how God intends for the church to relate to one another.

In the PM, we looked at how the OT promises to David as God’s forever king in 2 Samuel 7:8-16 point to Jesus in a sermon entitled God’s King.

Both of these sermons get at glorifying God by submitting to all that God is for us in Christ. In the AM, we flesh out the Gospel in community. In the PM, we need to remember that Jesus is God’s forever King and live in that reality. Much grace was shown by God in unfolding these words to us.

Weekend Recap – Reformation Day.

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I hope everyone enjoyed a Happy Reformation Day in corporate worship today. I had the honor and privilege of speaking at Calvary Baptist Church in Lenexa, KS on Christ Alone (that sermon is online here). It was a blessing and a joy to be with old and new friends on this great day. I hope all left worshipping and exulting in Christ.

My sermon focused on Colossians 2:6-7 and on the call to live for Christ alone by receiving Him as Lord, continuing in the Gospel and walking in Him. I hope all here were edified and built up.

We are back in the room resting this afternoon. Looking forward to a fun evening and then returning back to Hutch tomorrow.

Weekend Recap – Missional

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Yesterday’s sermon, A Missional Church, from Colossians 4:5-6 is online. In the closing appeals of the book of Colossians, Paul is enfleshing what the church should look like. In 4:2-4, we saw that they are to be God-dependent: A Praying Church. This week, we see that they are to advance the message of Jesus with wisdom: A Missional Church. Next time, we will see that they are to act a certain way towards one another: A Community Church.

The focus yesterday, though, was on how we can contextualize this message with outsiders. I hope you found it helpful and can use the truth presented from God’s Word to advance the Gospel in ways that don’t detract from the message.

Devoted to Prayer…

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Today’s sermon, A Praying Church, from Colossians 4:2-4 is now online. The sermon surveyed 4 elements of a praying church:
1) She makes prayer her habit
2) She perseveres in prayer
3) She prays gratefully
and 4) She advances the Gospel through prayer.

While we should not minimize our role in taking the Gospel to unbelievers (See next week’s passage Colossians 4:5-6), we often fail to realize the amazing Gospel-advancing work that is ours in prayer as we pray for what I called: open doors, open lives and open mouths. So, join your church in advancing the Gospel through one means: prayer.

Pray for Us…

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This Lord’s Day, we will be looking at Colossians 4:2-4. Among other things, this passage will encourage us to be a praying church.

Today, would you pray for my family. Gabe has to have surgery on a bump under his eye (1 stitch to remove it, but he does require anesthesia). Pray for him and us…

We anticipate all going well, but would appreciate your prayers. Thanks!

Weekend Recap – Lordship & Salvation

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Yesterday’s sermon, Lordship for Society, from Colossians 3:22-4:1 is now online. The big idea of this sermon was that we are called to live for Christ’s supremacy in everything we do, including the “small stuff.” Paul appealed to the Colossians to live this out in this way. He pressed slaves and masters to not get hung up on their current status, but to become so focused and consumed with the Lord that He would permeate their lives. I tried to reflect that in what I said yesterday.

In the evening, at small groups, we discussed Thabiti’s mark 5 of a Healthy Church Member: a healthy church member is a Biblical evangelist. One article I mentioned in my group was on Tim Keller’s talk on Defeater Beliefs. Check out that link and be edified and encouraged in your conversations with unbelievers. But at the core and leading to where we’ll be this coming Lord’s Day is the call to pray for openness to the Gospel and boldness to speak it (see Colossians 4:2-4 for more).

Weekend Recap – Lordship for Parents/Unbelief

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Yesterday’s sermons are now online:

AM: Lordship for Parents from Colossians 3:21
PM: Jesus in the OT – Unbelief from Numbers 13-14 and Hebrews 3-4

I thought the AM message, in particular, was very convicting personally. The call to not lead our children to discouragement is a hard line to keep. I also looked at Ephesians 6:4 and how it brings a positive admonition to the discussion of parenting in leading our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. I urged parents to lead children to this through teaching and example. So, there was much to live from there.

In the PM, we continued looking at the OT story and how it points to Jesus. Specifically, the sermon dealt with the unbelief of Israel in the wilderness. I tried to show how the author of Hebrews points us to persevere in belief and not repeat the mistakes they made. The application for me from that message was to persevere in the message of first importance: the Gospel.

I hope you had a great Lord’s Day as well.

Weekend Recap – Children

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Today’s sermon, Lordship for Children, from Colossians 3:20 is now online. This sermon is really the 4th in what is shaping up to be a nice series on the Lordship of Jesus and its ramifications for us in relationships.

Today’s sermon focused on how the fact that Jesus is Lord has implications for children. Really two points emerged as being how children show Jesus as Lord: 1) They can obey their parents completely and 2) They can set as their motivation pleasing Christ. We walked through the text and ended up practicing the Lord’s Supper together.

Tonight, we will meet in Small Groups and discuss Thabiti’s chapter 4 in Marks of a Healthy Church Member (A Healthy Church Member is Genuinely Converted).

What I found striking this AM was how honoring parents is a continual lifestyle for us to pursue. Also, most relevant was the application to parent children well, so that they can obey and, thus, please the Lord.

Hope you had a great weekend worshipping.

Weekend Recap – Husbandry

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Today’s sermon, Lordship for Husbands, from Colossians 3:19 is now online. The sermon sought to flesh out the implications of Jesus being Lord for the husband. It seems that the compelling vision of Colossians 3:17 where we read that whatever we do in word or deed, we are to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus is actually meant to be applied to husbands in their role as well.

So, the sermon was pretty simple with 2 ways a husband honors Jesus as Lord:
1) … by loving their wives
and 2) … by not being bitter toward their wives

To help with application, we got special permission from Focus Publications to copy Stuart Scott’s chapter The Husband’s Responsibility: Love from his book The Exemplary Husband. If you didn’t get a copy and are interested in one, let me know.

Hope you have a great week living out Christlike love for your spouse.

Weekend Recap – Lordship For Wives

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Yes, today’s sermon, Lordship for Wives, from Colossians 3:18 is online. After calling women to submit to their husbands, talking through the distortions and pointing to how this magnifies the Lordship of Christ, we pressed through to some applications for different groups. I hope this was helpful. There is so much for us a local church to live in light of this text and what it means. I hope women were helped and looking forward to talking to the men next week in v.19.