Thankful for Grace

Message Transcription

It is good to be with you this morning. If you have your Bible, invite you to turn over to Colossians chapter three. We'll be there together. You can follow along on the slides, but if you have a Bible, invite you to get one that you can mark in. Take some notes by. I hope this message will be an encouragement for you to do so. We're in a series we're calling Season of Thanks, as we want to take some time to to think about what it means to be grateful people. In fact, I was going to ask you, how's your how's your gratitude going these days? How'd it go this week? I brought my gratitude journal. I don't know if you have one. I encourage you to get one. If you don't have one where? I'm just trying to take some time each day to daily think about something I'm grateful for. In fact, I'm kind of following along a little series that's instructing me to to think about some different ways of being grateful, not only in the good things, but in some of the challenging things, the overwhelming things. I hope you found that and encouragement. If you haven't done so, I invite you to start doing that. For some of us, it may be helpful to get someone to do that with us, to say, Hey, I'm trying to be a little less cranky these days as we head into Thanksgiving. In that season of gathering around the table with the people that we love of thinking about all the ways that God has been a blessing to us, has been faithful to us.

It might help you to have a partner that can help hold you accountable to that, who you can share back and forth with about the ways that you have seen God working in your life, repairing your heart and your mind, all with the hopes of us becoming the kind of community that's reflected in the pages of Scripture, the kind of community that takes seriously our call to be a light in the midst of darkness. And so we're trying to ask ourselves, as we take this gratitude challenge, what might happen in our city, in our home, in our school if we intentionally tried to become more grateful people, to live with gratitude as an emphasis, as a way of life. This is a song that Scripture has been seeing all time throughout the centuries. In fact, Psalm 100 was written with this idea in mind. We come across these words, maybe a familiar psalm to you, shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us. And we are His people. The sheep of his pasture enter his gates with Thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise. His name for the Lord is good and His love endures forever.

His faithfulness continues through all generations. It's a psalm that calls us to worship Psalm song that calls us to remember all the ways that God has been good and faithful to us. And for centuries, the church has used these words to be a reminder to us, in fact. How many of you saw a song in that reading? And if Gary were up here, I bet he could start five or six different songs that come from that one psalm alone. Be thankful Our God is so good. His love endures forever. Something about the heart filled with gratitude that as we draw into worship, it becomes an opportunity for us to express that thanks to God. So in the series, we're challenging ourselves. What would it look like if we would take this more seriously, if we'd be more intentional about being grateful people, not just in this season of the year? It's certainly a good time to be, but but as we move forward from this place. Last week we started with being thankful for the peace that God provides. And one of the classic passages in all of Scripture, Philippians four, six and seven, where Paul reminds this young church who's struggling and growing and trying to understand what does it mean to live in a world and especially in a community that doesn't value what we value, that doesn't necessarily believe what we believe? How do we live as faithful followers of Jesus? And Paul directs them to this beautiful picture, this humble image of Jesus, who didn't consider his position, his authority, all that God had given him as as something to be used to his own advantage, we're told.

Instead, he puts others first. He takes on this posture of a servant. And so this church that's wrestling and challenging themselves to take that seriously. In fact, we find out there's a couple of folks in that church, a couple of women who are arguing, and that argument is threatening to tear and divide that church apart. And so Paul draws them back to this beautiful image of Jesus and says, have that same mind. Have that same mind. So as we. As we approach this reconciliation, as we approach being partners and reconciliation, part of our vision statement here at Broadway to to partner with God in his reconciliation of all creation. My Paul says to be a part of that, we're going to learn to pray prayers that help alleviate the anxiety that's so quick to overwhelm us. In fact, he says, pray in all circumstances, pray about everything. And and in doing so, we give thanks that we serve a God who invites us to pray and who listens to us when we pray. But not only that, he says, I want you to think about the things of God's good creation. Whatever is true, whatever's noble, whatever is lovely or trustworthy.

As we're praying these prayers and freeing ourselves from that anxiety that cripples us and said, he says, Let your mind dwell on God's good creation, but don't let it stop there. In fact, if you've seen anything in me, Paul would say. If you've heard anything that I have said that that sounds to be of Jesus and then live it out. Follow me. Live the way that I live this powerful challenge. Today, we're going to look at another one of Paul's letters to another young church, the church in Colossi, as a little community that was located about 100 miles east of Ephesus in modern day Turkey, is on the banks of the Lucas River, just south of the Persian road that ran from east to west. It was a major trade route. And so for a number of years, in fact, for many hundreds of years before Paul's time, colossi was the center of Asia minor. It was an important city. Now, once Paul was around and those days it has started to shrink in its significance because a couple of other cities in that area had grown to more prominence. But it was still a place where the gospel had found its home and a young church, a group of people that Paul, I don't think had ever met. In fact, Chapter two leads us to believe Paul never met these folks face to face. He'd only heard about them from their kind of senior leader, pastor, teacher, preacher Apophis, who's been in Rome.

He's searching for Paul to get some advice on what to tell this young church. And Colossi, who, like those in Philippi, are living in a culture and in a time and in a day in an age that they don't respond to the same things, they don't value the same things that we value. In fact, one of the challenges they were facing were some heretical statements coming into the church. My friend Randy Harris says, you haven't done church well until you've got a few heresies going and that shows you really wrestling. You're really struggling with some things. And so it's happening here at Colossi that they've got some heresies coming in. One of the most popular ones, kind of a fancy term is called syncretism, and that's simply Jesus. And they're facing a church that said, Yeah, Jesus is great, but you need a little bit more, You need to make sure you're following these rules or Jesus is good. But but have you heard about these angels? Pretty incredible. Or Jesus. And there's a little bit more knowledge. And you just need the super secret answer to this super secret question. And if you have that in Jesus way, you're good to go. And so Paris is saying, Paul, it's been a challenge. It's been a struggle to help this church navigate. Can you give me some advice on what to do? And so Paul writes this beautiful picture, much like he did to the church in Philippi.

Chapter one of Colossians is one of those seminal chapters in all of the New Testament. If you haven't read it, invite you to go back and read it this week as he talks about Jesus being the Supreme above all creation. In fact, Paul will tell the church, Look around you, there's not a person you'll lock eyes with. There's not a thing in in in outside the outside world that you'll see in nature that was not created by him. And for him. And to him and through him, he says he is the image of the invisible God that when we look at Christ, we're not just seeing another man, though. He was a man. We're seeing the image of God at full. His presence fully dwelt in Jesus again, this beautiful picture that he sets the stage to say, Now Church, this is why this matters, is if we're going to try to live out what it means to be people who are grateful, we're going to have to put some things off. And Paul talks about in the first few verses of chapter three, this clothing you're going to have to take off, and instead you're going to have to put on some new things. And so to any who might doubt who Jesus is, he reminds them, he gives them some assurance of Jesus is not just some guy, it's not Jesus and something else.

That is enough. He says, It's only Jesus. And with that in mind, he says this is had he read for us just a moment ago. Therefore, as God's chosen people listen to how he begins drawing them into the story again. Therefore, as God's chosen people wholly and dearly loved. Clothe yourselves with compassion and kindness and humility and gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another. If any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you and have all these virtues put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart since as members of one body, you were called to peace and be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms and hymns and songs from the Spirit singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Did you hear those references? Time and again to gratitude. Be thankful. Three different times in the last three verses, Paul says, Be thankful. It's as if he's trying to say that living in harmony and in unity with one another in Christian community, we're going to have to not just understand gratitude, just understand that it's a good idea.

Or we talked some last week about the preeminent researcher on gratitude, Dr. Robert Emmons at UC Santa Barbara or UC Davis excuse me, and how he has shown time and time again that the way of gratitude is actually a better way to live. It's better for you physically, it's better for you relationally and emotionally it's better for you socially and psychologically. And here Paul sang. It's like he's tying these things together that if we don't understand gratitude, if we miss the boat on this, then it's going to make it really hard to live in faithful Christian community and live in unity. It's going to be hard to be thankful for the community that we have and to get past the arguments and the conflict that come up with just being in community if we're not grateful people. I know this may not be true for you. Sometimes in my family, gathering around large tables and big groups, conflict comes up. My people say some things and you go, Oh, why did you say that? Or they do some things. And we think, Why did you do that? Well, if I'm not a grateful person and I'm not saying, God, thank you that I have this family. Thank you, that I'm a part of something much bigger than me, it's going to be much harder. I'm going to start getting into us and thems and you're over there and I'm over here.

Paul says how we live in community is going to be tied together on our ability to encounter and live into a way of gratitude of thanking God not only for the blessings that He gives to us, but in particular for the blessing of you. And the blessing of me. Foss says One of the ways that we live out this Christian community that we learn to navigate living at such a challenging age is learning to be grateful, people to be thankful. But, he says, notice, be thankful for a couple of things. He reminds these young Christians that their chosen. Because you are God's chosen people. You're not random. It didn't just happen. They got has chosen you. And not only has he chosen you, he has sanctified you. He's made you holy. He's provided a way to move past the sin and the brokenness and the devastation that you've experienced in your life. Some of it the cause by your own hands. Some of it has been caused upon you by the hands of others. Paul says You're chosen, you're made holy, and you are dearly loved. That at one time, he says Just a few verses earlier, you were on the outside looking in. You were alienated from God in your minds, like even how you thought, how you saw the world, you saw it so differently. That had nothing to do with the ways of God says you were so gone that you were dead and sin.

But Christ has made you alive. He's chosen you. He's sanctified you by his death and his resurrection. And you're deeply, deeply loved. See, Paul knew if they would allow these this reality what we sang about just earlier, this amazing grace to sink down deep into our hearts. That we couldn't help but be thankful. Have you ever been in a situation where you were facing a challenge and someone just showed you grace? They just showed you Grace. And it changed everything. I've been thinking a lot about this with the situation my mom and my dad and facing these health challenges where I'm feeling overwhelmed and uncertain and afraid and people just simple act of grace. Thank you, God. In the midst of some really hard things, I encountered God's grace in some amazing, powerful ways. And I can't help but say thank you. I remember when Kayla and I, Gabe was born and was in the Nike for 11 days, and we were in the elevator. We were riding up to see him. And I mean, our hearts are broken. It's been about a week and a half. And so we're just wrestling and the elevator door opens. And once you get past a certain level, you kind of know where folks are going because it's on the top level. So you're like, Yeah, you're with me, huh? Yeah. Yeah. So you kind of realize, yeah, we're in the same boat. And this nurse wheels, this woman who's clearly just given birth, still in a gown and everything, and her eyes are red and puffy from crying.

And there was an older couple on sitting kind of standing next to us. And so the doors closed and up we go. And we we know the road, right? We're we're on this together. And this older couple looks at this young woman. It says, Kate and Nikki. Yeah. How many days? First one. That's tough, but it'll get better. Hang in there. They looked over at us and said, How long you been in? And I'm thinking. We're the OGs here, bro. Ten days. He's like, That's good. It's going to get better. Hang in there. I said, How about you? Said six months. We got six more to go. I said, hang in there. It's going to be okay. That is moments that have life that happened. Where you encounter this grace. Sometimes it's not the grace that that everything healed and was okay. Sometimes it's the grace of knowing I'm not alone. I'm not having to battle this on my own. I'm never having to face this challenge, this overwhelming obstacle, this life circumstance, this health challenge on my own. There's someone there. God, Thank you. That I'm not alone. Thank you. That my pain and my suffering. It's not lost on you. See if we really understood the amazing grace that got us poured out into our lives. We couldn't help but for it to overwhelm and thankfulness.

And so Paul says, instead of the anger and the rage and the lust and the malice and the deceit that it exists in the community outside of the kingdom of God. Said, What if we were a community marked by compassion? And kindness and gentleness. But if there was a community so marked by patience that whenever insults were flung, that instead of being met in kind or with bitterness and with rage, instead they were met with patience. And forgiveness. And bearing with one another. I mean, who wouldn't want to live in a community like that? Who wouldn't want to grow up in a family that was so committed to that? Who wouldn't want to be a part of a church family that was committed to or live in a city whose church leaders and whose city leaders were committed to that? Who wouldn't want to live in a home like that. Paul says that's the way of gratitude expressed in the world. And remember, you had to have your West Texas translation here as he's talking about these qualities that are being lived out live this way. He's not talking to us individually. Certainly it includes us individually, but he's talking to us as a community that church, these qualities are not expressed simply on their own individually, but they're expressed in community. They worked out in community in the midst of conflict. Learning how to bear up with one another, to forgive one another when we say stupid things or do stupid things, that we find that accountability and that grace, it all comes together in community.

He says this time. We need to live differently. And we talked a few weeks ago. It's ironic to me that sometimes Christians are seen as weak or wimpy because have you ever tried to live this out? We talked about kindness the other day. Have you ever tried to drive kindly in Lubbock, Texas, and not let the crazy drivers me? My wife will tell you I'm a pretty patient person until I get behind the wheel. And it's like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Like, what is your problem, Karl? I don't know too much. Have you ever tried to drive? So that's why we're taking this gratitude challenge. Have you ever tried to live grateful? Every day. It's hard. There's so much in the world that's built upon filling you with fear and anxiety, and they're coming to get you. Right. And then what's the saying? It may not be paranoia, but that doesn't mean they're not coming to get you. Have you ever tried to just say, I'm going to live today and just be grateful for each of the circumstances and the people that I encounter? It takes incredible courage because it's so much easier to just let things devolve and to say, forget you. Fine, go on, do your own thing. I don't care. Paul says that's not how we're going to live.

In fact, over all these qualities, this way of life, we're going to put on love. Agape, that word. It binds them all together in unity that love is this perfect bond because our tendency is toward breakdown. But love doesn't fail. It bonds us all together in community to one another. And Paul said there's a part that Jesus plays in this. This type of change, this pursuit of a grateful life. You can't do it on your own willpower. And I'm committing daily to be grateful. Can I tell you I've missed a couple of days. It's only been like ten days, Carl. See, my own willpower won't. Won't solve it alone. And it won't for you either that the Holy Spirit is going to have to be at work in your life. And for that to happen, you're going to have to create some space, create some room. Holy Spirit, would you work in me today as I get behind the wheel and as I drive to work? Help me to be grateful. He says, Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart. I love this image. It's an athletic image Paul uses here, one of like an umpire. There's a famous for those baseball nerds out there may recognize the name of Bill Klem. He's an umpire, maybe one of the most famous umpires in baseball. He's the guy who started all the hand motions and gesturing. He was the first one to do that so that people would know what the pitch was.

There's kind of an old legendary story of him being behind the plate and the pitcher winds up, throws the pitch, catcher, catches it, The batter never swung. He's just sitting there. And after a couple of seconds of awkward silence, he turns and looks at Bill and he says, well, what was it, a ball or a strike? And he said, Sonny, it ain't nothing until I call it. Oh. Paul says, Allow the peace of Christ to rule in your heart. And when those emotions well up, when that circumstance happens, when that person and you know that person who says that you know that thing right, when that happens, it ain't nothing until the peace of Christ calls it. We say, no, no, no, we're going to let Christ make the call on this. Be thankful, Paul says. Be thankful with gratitude. In fact, that last gratitude there in verse 17, the word there is Eucharist. So I sound familiar? And we just gathered around the table and celebrated the Eucharist. Michel reminded us it's a giving thanks. It's living with a heart of thankfulness. His piece will keep us in the way of love. Be thankful, Paul says. Remember, you're chosen and you're holy and you're loved. And because of that, now you've been freed to live a different way of life. The way of gratefulness. And so let God's Word dwell in you richly.

As you teach, as you admonish, as you worship, as you sing. Thinking about this this morning in our conversation in Bible class, how how important the community of faith is, how important it is that we're a part of a church of God's people, that we're discerning and learning together how important it is that we have all the different voices contributing to the conversation. You know, we're thinking specifically about Acts 15 in this incredible conversation happening in the Jerusalem Council. Can Jews and Gentiles really come together? And the wording of the the elders is they send a letter out to all the churches. They say it seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit. There was this conversation happening. They didn't say God said so in Genesis chapter one and said, they said, We had this conversation as we're trying to wrestle with the implications of of the scriptures that have been passed down from generation to generation. And as we're trying to think about, how does this best fit who we are and where we're living in the time and in the day and the age, we had to wrestle with that together. And so it seemed good to us and that the leading of the Holy Spirit working in and through us and we say, thank you God, that we have a community to discern your will together. To read your scriptures and to hear the challenge and to to figure out how best do we live this in the midst of our day, in our time, and in our place? That they were doing that in the church in Colossians.

Paul was helping. But centuries later, we're doing it right here in Lubbock, the Broadway church, trying to wrestle with the implications of God's word and say, how do we live this out? It seems good to us and to the Holy Spirit that we would be people who are grateful. That we would determine our way. We would set our course to be grateful people. So Paul ends this little section here, as he did in the one of Philippians, if you've ever seen anything in me. If you heard anything in me, follow me, he says. Here to the church and colossi. And whatever you do church. Word or deed. Whatever you say. May it be done in the name and for the sake of Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through him. So this week perform this little self test as you're about to operate as you're about to respond is you're about to say something. Just ask yourself if it's an action. Can I do this? Calling on Jesus name, asking him for help. This can be hard to say. Lord, give me the strength to punch this dude's lights out. That may be what I'm thinking, but. Right. Christ is ruling in my heart, so it ain't nothing till he calls it.

And he's calling it peace. He's saying be grateful. God. Thank you. That you don't just leave me to to be selfish and live life on my own, but that I have encounters every day that remind me I'm not the center of the universe. And that's a hard pill to swallow sometimes. Lord, thank you. That I'm not just left to my own devices. Or maybe this test for you if you're about to say that word. Are those words or that comment? Or type that response on Facebook or wherever, can I say it? And then the same breath name Jesus name. Can we say, remembering that Jesus is here? Is it? And see we're going to allow Christ in his peace and his gratitude to rule in our hearts. So. Church May we be thankful this week for the grace that God has shown to us? Maybe be thankful for that grace that has changed our lives and allowed us to become the people that we have always wanted to be who've been created to be. And may we live in light of that grace. Father, help us to be those people. Help us to be people who are thankful. Who allow you to rule in our hearts. Yeah. Thank you for the grace of accountability and confrontation by your Holy Spirit. And sometimes it doesn't feel like a gift. But, God, it's a gift because it reminds us that you're not leaving us to our own devices to draw further and further away from you.

But, God, you are giving us a chance to walk back into the light. To remember who we are. Do you remember that we are your chosen people. That we are here, sanctified and holy people. That we are your loved people. I got made that well up. Gratitude in us. In such a way that we begin to see the people around us differently that we might show to them, extend to them the same kind of grace that you have shown to us. Father, may we be thankful for your Grace this week? Lord, help us to live it. I know there's going to be a conversation that's going to come for our folks this week. Or a circumstance that's going to put it to the test. Holy Spirit, would you be that umpire in their heart? Would you teach them and show them the way of Christ in that corner? Mcwhorter second. The Holy Spirit moment. Just remind him you're loved. You're chosen. You're holy. What this person says or doesn't say does not define who you are. Will he get passed up or promote it? It's not the definition of your identity. And said, Father, help us to be grateful. To be grateful. Thank you, Father. For Jesus. For the life that we share in His name. In the life that we're trying to live more fully into garbage. You bless us, strengthen us, Give us courage. This week, in Jesus name, Amen.