 Well, hello, Radiant Church. Good to see you, good to be with you. My name is John. I'm the campus pastor here in Richland. I do have the privilege being one of the teaching pastors and part of this series that we've just begun. And if I look different, I know I look thin and slim up here. That's not true, I'm just tan. And I live by this. If you can't tone it, tan it. Like those are the words I live by. That's like my fit family slogan right there. So I just got back from Florida. So totally jet lag. Oh wait, same time zone, nevermind. I'm just tired, no, I'm just kidding. So honored to be here and be a part of what God's doing in Radiant Church and all literally across the world. And so yeah, we have our Rise Shine conference. It starts on Monday and Tuesday. We have some incredible speakers, workshops. And so I'm really speaking because Pastor Lee is preparing for that. He's doing a couple of the sessions as well as interviewing some of our keynote speakers in some of the different formats. So please keep him and keep the conference in your prayers. It's not a show, it's not an opportunity for us to be like, look at us, we do conferences. It really is equipping so many people, so many churches to do ministry and to really be a part of something that God is doing in our midst. And so 2020 was a challenging year for so many pastors. And so we're just grateful to have Pastor Lee and others be able to speak in to them. So please be praying for that. And we are in a 16 week series which is crazy through the book of Colossians. And I love when we teach through books. It makes us maybe address some things that ordinarily we might not. If you do topically, you can kind of hang out in the things that you're comfortable with or in your wheelhouse. But sometimes when you just teach through a book, you have to address some things. And this is the first time I can remember where we've been this kind of micro in our teaching, just a few verses at a time. And I love that. Sometimes I think speed can be the enemy of depth. And I'm excited about going deep into the book of Colossians, which was written 2000 years ago to a church sort of plant in the city of Colossians, but still is so relevant today. And that's because the Bible's unlike any other book. It's alive and it's powerful. And it's sharper than any two-edged sword. And it discerns the thoughts and the intense of our hearts. So even though it was written different time, different era, the Holy Spirit brings it to life for us. And I'm super excited to teach out of it today. So if you brought your Bibles, you can turn to the book of Psalm body once, told me, sorry, I won't do that again. They got three laughs. I told my wife I was gonna do that. She told me not to. And I said, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to help myself. So don't turn to Psalm, turn to Colossians. Know to self I won't do this tomorrow. See, I practice on you guys, not enough 90s smash mouth fans in here. Hey, it's fine, no worries. Turn to Colossians, chapter one. Chapter one, as you're doing that, I'll remind you of this. The book of Colossians was written by Paul. But if you recall last week as Pastor Lee sort of began the series, it was really a church that he'd never visited. A paparize was someone who had received Christ under Paul's ministry in Ephesus. He went back home to Colossia where he's from. And a church began to form there. And the people heard the message of Jesus and they received it. And they were born again and they had this experience with God. And there was spiritual momentum that was taking place. But then some false doctrines started to creep in. There started to be some other philosophies and other ways of thinking that were beginning to creep in and dominate the progression of the church. And so a paparize was concerned. He brought it to Paul. He didn't know exactly what to do. But basically they were dealing with syncretism which is adding something to our faith. So the people in Colossia, they were young. They were, it was very kind of a melting pot city. And they wanted to know, what do I have to do to like grow? What do I have to do to advance? And what do I have to do to go further in my faith? And so they were saying things like, yeah, I know Jesus is my main guy for sure. But maybe I should adopt this philosophy. Maybe I should look into that. Like I've got a neighbor who's Jewish and he prays way more than I do. And so maybe I should follow his kind of holiday observations or maybe I should follow his dietary rules. And I have this other neighbor who's an Eastern mystic and he does some weird yoga in the morning but he seems to really love his family. And maybe I should sprinkle a little of that on Jesus. And there's a guy down the road who's like says, Rome is the answer to everything. The government's the answer. Maybe I should sprinkle a little nationalism into my walk with Jesus. And there begins to be some concerns and some challenges among the church. And so we're gonna talk about that more in the weeks to come but I wanna look at the first eight verses and we're gonna unpack a little of what Paul says as he begins this letter to the church in Colossians. So it says this in Colossians one, if you're following along, I'll find it here. Eventually, here we go. Paul and apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy our brother to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossians. Grace to you in peace from God our father. We always thank God the father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel which has come to you as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing as it also does among you since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth just as you learned it from a pastor as our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and he has made known to us your love in the spirit. Paul writes this and again, he's never been there. And so he says, look, I've heard some things about you and he begins this letter by commending them on some things, encouraging them. I think we can kind of take from Paul's leadership example. He didn't, there's some major issues that the church is facing but he doesn't come out blasting. Doesn't come out guns blazing. He doesn't come out saying, what's your problem? He says, no, there's some good things I've heard. I thank God, Timothy and I for your faith that you have in Christ, the love that you have for one another, the way that you've heard the gospel of truth. And he begins by encouraging them and saying, look, I see what God's doing. I see the momentum the gospel's having among you and I'm encouraged by it. And I think that's a good way to start a letter. It's a good way to start a meeting. We try to do that here at Radiant Church. We have what's called a weekend review where we go through the weekend that just happened, talk about the weekend that is about to happen and we don't wanna just jump in with everything that went wrong, right? Like John tried to do a smash mouth joke in the beginning and it was terrible. Like we can't start with that, right? Why is there so much fog, Pastor Sean? What is this, gorillas in the mist? I mean, what's going on? You know what, how come worship leaders' genes aren't skinnier? What is happening? Like we don't do that. We start out with some positives. Look at all the people who gave their life to the Lord. We had baptisms. We talk about testimonies from people who serve and we're encouraged and built up. And Paul's doing that here, but even at the same time he's dropping some subtle truth bombs and some subtle hints that he's going to address later in the letter. And so today I wanna look at three things that Paul talks about and then I wanna end with some good news. You guys okay with good news? Portage, can you have some good news? Portage, okay, good news. I was supposed to say hi to Portage. Portage, we love you. Good to see you. Sorry, I forgot about you. I do love you. Just not that much. No, I'm just kidding, I do love you. I'm kidding. All right, that's right. Father, take these next few moments. And as we look into your word, God, I pray that you would use it to encourage us, admonish us. Most of all, we want to bring you glory. We want to bring you the honor that you do, Father. Holy Spirit speak to every single heart in Jesus' name. Amen. So again, we have this letter and they're moving, they're trying to move from Christ to something else. So Paul literally says, no, no, no, Jesus is preeminent. Jesus is before all, he's in all and he's above all. You don't move on from Jesus to develop as a Christian. You move on in Jesus. You don't grow apart from Christ. You grow in Christ. In chapter two, verse six, he says, just as you received Jesus by faith, so now walk in that faith, live in that faith, rooted in it and built up in it. That's the entire premise of the book of Colossians is that Jesus Christ is preeminent. He is above all, in all, and he is worthy of all. And so Paul's explaining that to them. And in these first few verses, look what he says. First he says, we always thank God, the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and we pray for you. Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for the saints. So I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this, but I wanna just mention it. In the New Testament, there is an inseparable link between faith in Jesus and love for people. Love for the church, love for the body. Paul says, I thank God, why? Because I see that you have faith in Christ and that there's love for people. And so I wanna just tell us and remind us, you cannot have the mindset, I love God, I love Jesus, but I don't love church. I don't love people. I'm good with God, but I think church is corrupt and it's just an institution. And they're just after that. And they don't understand. Like, listen, I'm not here to defend every single church and every single theology out there, but I will say this. First John 4 says that anyone who says I love God but hates his brother, he's a liar. And the truth is not in him. There is an inseparable, when you love God, true faith in Jesus Christ will result in love for people and love for the church. We're his body and we're his family. And family doesn't always agree. Family doesn't always get along. Family doesn't see eye to eye and everything, but family stay united through thick and thin. Family stay together in the midst of this. And Paul right off the bat is saying, look, your faith in Christ and your love for people, I've seen that and I thank God for it. I think that's another thing I just wanna highlight. Notice what he doesn't say. Hey, I wanna thank you guys for your faith in Christ. I'm gonna thank you church for your love for people. No, he says I thank God. And it's another reminder that the very fact that we're able to say yes to Jesus through the Holy Spirit is a gift from God. The very fact that we have the ability to have faith, the ability to even say yes to Jesus as Savior is not something we come up with. It is a very gift from God the Father given to us. And so Paul's reminding the church, I thank God that he gave you the ability to say yes to him, that he gave you the heart to love other people. Because if faith is something we can just muster up or then we can control it, we can own it and we can take credit for it. But Ephesians two says it is by grace you've been saved through faith and not by works, but it is a gift from God so that no one can boast. There is not a single Christian who understands Christianity that should be arrogant or boastful or saying, hey, I accepted Jesus, why don't you? Hey, I'm a Christian, how come you have all these issues? That is not the heart of God for us and it's not God's heart that we're supposed to have for others. So there's an inseparable link. I noticed your faith, I thank God for your faith in Christ, I thank God for your love for people. But then he says something I do want to spend a little time on after that. Look what he says, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, verse five, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Paul is literally linking the church's faith in Christ and love for people to something and it's called the hope that we have in heaven. He's saying the reason for your faith in Christ, the reason you have love for people isn't because you're so great, isn't because you mustered it up, isn't because you're worthy of any, it's the hope that you have in heaven. And the reason sometimes I think we can gloss over that or not understand it is because we don't understand biblical, especially New Testament hope. And so I want to just spend a minute on that. What does he mean that it's the hope of heaven that drives you to faith, drives you to love people. So there's basically two kinds of hope and there's worldly hope. So when we use the word hope right now, most of us in society, it doesn't mean what the Bible means. It means like a wishful thinking. It means like a kind of a random, sort of act of hope, if you will. We'll say things like, well, I hope I win the lottery. But how many of you know the odds of that happening are not very good, right? Or we'll say things, well, I hope, I hope you have a good vacation or I hope the weather's good next week, we have that golf outing. And it sort of almost becomes a fond gesture or a goodwill greeting. Like, hey, I hope that works out for you. That's not what biblical hope is. Biblical hope is this. It is a certain confident expectation of what's going to happen or what is to come. So anytime you read about hope in the Bible, it's not, gee, I hope that happens. No, it's absolutely going to happen. It may not have happened yet. It may not have manifested completely, but the hope that the Bible talks about is a confident expectation that God's gonna do what God said he would do, that the promises of God are yes and amen. And worldly hope is, the reason it's finite is because ultimately it's built upon the strength and the wisdom of man. So we can't have 100% expectation or 100% reliance on worldly hope because things can happen. So we can say things like, okay, let's pretend that you're a student. Raise your hand in here if you go to school at all. Portage, no one goes, okay, there are, okay. Yeah, okay, so you go to school. Now imagine you're in math class. I was terrible at math. I feel like math in and of itself is a complete, like, bait and switch for me. Like, I'm in class and they're teaching like five plus five equals 10, got it. 10 plus 10 equals 20, got it. Then you take the test and it's like two trains carrying cattle or traveling different directions. One at 27 miles an hour, one at 37 miles an hour. Exactly how many ounces of gold will you need to purchase both cows? Like, what, 10, 20, right? They lost me. But let's say you're in math class and you're killing the assignments, you're acing all the quizzes. You can say, I have hope, a reasonable expectation that I'm gonna do well in the final exam because I have this history. But how many of you know, you can't know for sure. You could oversleep, miss the exam. You could get an offender bender on the way. You could get in class and like I said, all of a sudden he's teaching something that you never covered before. And so our hope in this world cannot fully be confident because it's built on human strength and human wisdom, but that's not true of God's hope, of biblical New Testament hope. The guarantee of hope in the Bible is God who has no limits, who is not finite, who is not a man that he should lie, who doesn't change, there's no shadow of turning in God. And so every time that God says this is going to happen, this is a promise, it is going to happen. And our hope is not built on anything man-made or anything finite, it is in the living God and his word to us. And so we can stand on that. And so what do we as Christians, and what is Paul talking about? What are we so hopeful about? Well, let me just give you a couple of things just by way of reminder. What do we have hope for? Number one is salvation. Look at 1 Thessalonians 5, 8 and 9. Paul writes this, and I'm gonna go fast, so if you can't find it in the Bible, let's find it. I think it's gonna come on the screen. Paul says, but since we belong to the day, let us be sober. Having put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. Verse nine, for God has not destined us for a wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. The hope of salvation is this, that God is going to judge evil. God hates the evil in the world, just as we hate evil in the world. But we are saved from the wrath of God. We experience salvation from the wrath of God. Why? Because Jesus Christ became sin for us, and he willingly hung on a cross. And because of that, we have a hope of salvation that I don't have to pay the penalty for my sins. I don't have to pay the price for my sins. Jesus Christ already did, and we have that hope. We have that reality. We have that surety and that expectation. The second thing we have hope for is righteousness. Look at Galatians 5.5. Paul writes, for through the spirit by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. What is righteousness? It's right standing with God. It means we're not gonna stand before God someday and be obliterated because of our sins. He's not gonna zap us. He's not, we're not gonna stand before God someday as Christians and wonder, oh no, he's gonna drop the hammer. Oh no, we have right standing with God. 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, he who knew no sin, Jesus, became sin so that we could become the righteousness of God. The hope of righteousness is God sees me through the lens of the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And my insecurities and my sin and my shortcomings and my wrongs are not what define me. It's not my performance. It's my position, and I'm in Christ. And every time God sees me, he sees me as righteous. That is a hope that we have as Christians, that we hang on to. The third thing we have hope in is a resurrection. Look at 1 Corinthians 15. Paul writes this, I tell you this, brother, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable and this mortal body will put on immortality and when the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass. The saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your victory? Oh grave, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have the hope as Christians, if you're a follower of Jesus, the hope you have is that this world isn't all there is. That this world is not the final destination, that your bodies are going to be resurrected, that you're going to live forever in the presence of God with Jesus, that there is going to be a day where if you don't die and the Lord comes again, should he tarry, we will be caught up together with the saints, first Thessalonians says, and we'll be together with each other in the presence of God. And so when we say goodbye to people that we love on this side of eternity, we grieve, but Thessalonians says we don't grieve as those who have no hope. We have hope of a resurrection. Last Tuesday, my dad's anniversary of his death was the 27th. And 17 years ago, his life was cut short by cancer and one of the greatest gifts God ever gave me was the ability to reconcile with my dad because I was a rough teenager. And I had five years after I gave my life to Jesus before he passed away, but I know there's going to be a day where I'll see him again. And cancer won't have the final word, the cross will, and will have resurrected bodies. And we'll be joined together. And the Bible says we can encourage one another with those words. So we have salvation, we have righteousness, we have the hope of the resurrection. And that's what Paul is saying drives us to a place of faith in Christ and love for other people. And this is the last thing I wanna say about hope. It frees us to love others. When we recognize that this hope is not, oh, I hope so, but that it's a reality in our lives, then we are free from the bondage of worry, a bondage of am I done enough, am I good enough? Does God really like me? Will God really save me? When you're confident of who you are, it frees you from self-absorption. It frees you from always worrying about yourself. Always like, oh, I don't know, oh, no, I messed up. Oh, no, am I good enough? Have I done enough? When you have this hope, you can begin to see other people and say, no, I have the hope of Christ and I want you to have the hope. It moves us in the direction of loving other people. But if we're constantly worried about ourselves and we're constantly self-absorbed and we don't have eyes to see the hurting and the broken and the lost in others. And so the hope that Paul's talking about frees us to love and care and help other people. I just got off a plane. I'm not built for travel. My wife can literally do yoga poses in her seat and I am like this. And so I'm in an exit row, thank God, right? And the lady comes around, she's like, are you willing and able to help in case of an emergency? And I'm like, I need a verbal confirmation. I'm like, dang it, yes. And it's not that I don't want to help, but I'm not very mechanically inclined. And I just feel like, so I told the guy next to me, like, look for real, bro, if something does happen, I'll help, like I'll pray. I'll probably speak in tongue. I will give an altar call in this plane. But as far as like literally working that door and stuff, like that's probably gonna have to be you. But you can see I'm huge and I need to sit here. So we're good. Okay, fist palm, there you go. We're good. But we're in a plane and you know, you gotta sit there and you gotta hit, she's gotta give you the directions. You know, this is how you do a seatbelt. And you're like, wow, that's a mate. Can you do that one more time? You know, no one's paying attention. But I felt the Holy Spirit when she said, she said, if the cabin should lose pressure, a mask is gonna come down. And you're gonna put it over and you're gonna do this and you're gonna put it over your mouth. And don't worry, even if the bag doesn't inflate, you're getting oxygen. And then she said something, the Holy Spirit spoke to me. She said, make sure you fix your own mask before you help your neighbor. And I thought, that's a picture of the hope that we have in Christ. When I'm not worried about my own mask, when I'm not worried about, do I have this right? Can I breathe? Is this gonna work? I can help other people. I can help my neighbor. I can say, no, no, no, I can breathe. No, I have hope. Here, let me help. Let me help. But if I'm like, oh God, oh no, what did she say? We're constantly absorbed. We miss the ability to help other people. Hope frees us to be able to do that. The second thing he says is that the gospel is true and all truth is found in Jesus. Look what it says. It says as this, verse five, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of this you have heard before, the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you as indeed the whole world, the word of the truth, the gospel. Paul says to them in the very beginning, look, you've heard the truth and I'm gonna tell you what it is. It's the gospel. It's the good news of Jesus Christ and we are living in the 21st century and truth is under attack, church. Truth is under attack and we have to know what has Jesus said. Truth is not an opinion. Truth is not relevant. Truth is not someone else's idea. Truth is not personal. Truth is a person and his name is Jesus. The truth is in Jesus. In John 14.6, I am the way, I am the truth and I am the life. If we want to have a true north, a moral compass of who we are and what we're following, it is Jesus Christ and his word is truth and we have to know it and we have to believe it and we have to walk it out as such. Otherwise the whole world is getting us, trying to get us to believe something else, trying to buy into a different definition of truth, of reality or of what's right and we have to as Christians understand truth is found only in a person and his name is Jesus. He doesn't change. There's no shadow of turning. I want to read out of Ephesians chapter four. Look what it says about chapters four verse 17. You can follow along. Paul again says, This I say and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk on the futility of their mind. Having their understanding darkened and alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance in them, the blindness of their heart, their past feeling. They give themselves over to lewdness. They work uncleanness with greediness. Here's what he's saying. Look, there it's gonna always be. Darkness in the world, uncleanness, lewdness. There's always going to be people who are alienated from the life of God who harden their hearts to the truth of God. That is a reality. It was in Ephesus and it is today in the United States of America. Like that's a thing. Paul's saying, don't worry about that. That's not, there's not gonna be a time where that isn't a thing. But verse 20, you have not learned that in Christ. If indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him. Look it, look it, underline this. As the truth is in Jesus. The truth is in Jesus. So what do we do? Then you put off concerning your former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts. You put that off. You put your old person away. You don't follow the deceitful lust. And you nine words and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Renew your mind to the truth and put on the new man created according to God and righteousness and true holiness. The truth is in Jesus Christ. This is truth. This is our true North. This is our standard. The words of Jesus Christ in red are the truth that the world needs and they don't always like it. They're not always wanting it but it doesn't change the fact that Jesus is truth. And deceitful lusts are always going to be a thing. You read in Genesis, it doesn't take long. What did the enemy, what did Satan come and say? Did God really say to you when he attempted Eve? He started by questioning the word of God, the truth of what God had said. And deceit always has a little truth mixed in it. He didn't come up and just say, I want you to renounce God right now. No, he massaged it. He worked it in. And that's what's happening in our culture. And too many Christians are buying into it and wondering, well, maybe that is true. Maybe that is true. Maybe that, it's not right. And we have to know what God has said. Deceitful lusts are always going to be a reality. I shared this a long time ago, but it was probably 10 or 12 years ago. I swear the advertisers do this to us. They try to deceive us. They try to make us think something that isn't true. I was washing the dishes in our sink in our first home because that's what good husbands do, right? There were some pans in there and I'm washing them and I'm looking out the window and I happen to look over at the like little bottle of dish soap and it was called joy. And I don't know why it just graded me that it was called that. Like, the joy of the Lord is my strength. The joy of these dishes is not my strength. And so you could have called it something else, like kind of happy or could be worse or something. But I was like, don't call it joy. There is no joy in doing these dishes. And I'm serious, I just got, I got weirded out. And I told Kendra, we're buying palm olive from now on. And then I started going on a mission in our home and I looked under our sink in the bathroom and we had magic toilet bowl cleaner. I was like, it's not magic. You still got a scrub? You still got to get that nasty wand out and it's got water on it. And if it's magic, I want to be like Calabam or Shazam and the whole toilet is clean. And I'm like, we're not buying this anymore. And then I went in our basement and this is true story. We had sheer laundry detergent. I was like, what am I gonna get pom poms out? You know, laundry, laundry. It's the best. Let's make Kendra do the rest. You know what I'm not, like, you know, sorry, I did the dishes, you can help out a little. No, I'm just gonna, that's terrible. I was like, we're not buying cheer anymore either. They're trying to make me happy about doing work in the home and it's not gonna happen. Right? And, but seriously, look at our world right now. And what is it saying? What is culture saying about things like alcohol? To young people. Oh, it's the elixir of happiness. So you need it. It's such a good time. And I'm not here to condemn anybody, but I am shocked at the number of whatever these like marijuana things are that are popping up. There's one literally everywhere. I'm like, certainly the market has to be flooded at some point, but no, there more and more and more. And I don't know, maybe you need it. Maybe you have a person, I have no idea, but here's what I know. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's wise. And that's where I'm standing on this, but we have an entire generation that's like, it's fine. It's fine. And what is culture saying about sex to our children? There's no limits. It feels good, do it. It makes you happy. Great. Doesn't matter who it's with. Doesn't matter if you're in covenant. Doesn't matter if you're committed. What is our culture saying about marriage? If it works for you, great. If it doesn't get out. Doesn't matter who you marry. It doesn't matter what gender they are. It doesn't matter anything. What is culture saying about the Bible? It's archaic, it's outdated. Maybe even hateful, bigoted. The problem church is that those are all lies, but they're becoming, they're gaining momentum in our culture and people are patterning their lives after these lives. And when you pattern your life after a lie, it's not that God gets mad at you. It's not that God shakes his fist at you. It's that you get hurt and we have an entire generation that doesn't know truth, doesn't know their identity and doesn't know who they are in Christ because they bought into the lies of our culture. Truth is in Jesus Christ. If you want to know truth, here's where it is. But we have an entire generation that's trying to rewrite the Bible somehow to make it more loving as if we love people more than God does. We don't need to rewrite it, we need to reread it. And then we need to do what it says. And then we'll see revival in our nation and in our country and in our world. And listen, we don't beat people up with it. We're not arrogant, we're not on a high horse of Christianity. We don't point the finger at people that aren't like us, but we don't waver from truth. We don't waver from who Jesus Christ is and what he said. He said, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. It said, if you want to follow me, here's what you do. You take up your cross and you deny yourself and you count the cost. That's what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Last thing I want to share, and this is good news, you guys, you all right with some good news? Look what Paul says at the end. Truth is in Jesus. But then he finishes by saying of this you've heard before the word of truth, verse six, which has come to you as indeed, it's come to the whole world and it's bearing fruit and increasing as it also does among you since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from a path that is our beloved fellow servant, a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf. And he's made known to us your love in the spirit. Here's what Paul is saying. This gospel came to you. You heard it, you received it. It reached you and it touched you and it affected you personally and that's amazing but that's not where it ends. It's also bearing fruit, not just in your life but literally in the whole earth. Paul's like, this isn't just a little group setting. This isn't just a little message for a few of us. It's literally going out into the whole world and I'm telling you 2,000 years later nothing could be more true than what Paul has said. It's bearing fruit in our lives and in the entire world. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a global message that is increasing in its numbers, increasing in its impact and daily millions of people are putting their faith in Jesus Christ and we need to recognize that we are part of a global family, that God is moving in our midst, that there is power in the name of Jesus and it is bearing fruit in the world. And I know we can watch the news and it's depression on repeat and it's anxiety after anxiety and it's us against them and look what's happening. I'm gonna tell you something ironic. As Paul's writing this letter, Nero is coming to power in Rome. Nero is a psychotic dictator. He's slaughtering his enemies, his own moral decadence is bringing Rome literally down in a moment. He would have made the headlines on every single paper and he would have dominated cable news. And Paul is just some guy who's in prison writing letters. But if I handed out a three by five card to each of you today and said, I want you to fill this with everything you know about Nero, none of you would be able to do it. But the words of Paul have changed lives for thousands of years because the spotlight isn't always on what God is doing. And so we can watch the news and we can say, oh God, we can rip our hair out and clench our teeth and it's so bad. But I'm telling you God is doing something in our midst, in the middle of all of this chaos. And if we will take our eyes off of the news, off of the headlines, off of the politics and look to Jesus, we'll be able to see what God is doing. We'll be able to sense that this message is global and God's word is impacting lives and bearing fruit all over the earth. That's what's happening in our midst. Listen, we got a lot of work to do but I want to just read you a couple of things. The Center for the Study of Global Christianity, I did some research for you guys said this, there's 7.5 billion people approximately on our planet, 2.5 billion identifiers Christians. So roughly one third of the world population and it's growing. Christianity right now is outpacing the world's population. So we're seeing more and more people being born but there's more and more people coming to Jesus faster than people are being born. The number of Christians is growing at a faster rate. This particular study said atheism has actually peaked. Like it's not, in a world of skepticism you'd think that more and more people are becoming atheists, they're not. But I want to just read these statistics to you because I think sometimes we can become very tunneled in America or even our kind of like ethno and Eurocentric thinking. But I want to tell you that the gospel is all over the world. It started in Jerusalem obviously in the Middle East and it moved out into Ephesus and into Asia and eventually into Rome and then it came to Europe and then to North America and sometimes we can think like hey this is kind of an American, Christianity is kind of our thing, it's not our thing at all and I mean that in love. It's literally going, the center of Christianity is moving to the global south and I'm telling you, listen to these numbers. One quarter of the population of all Christians are in Europe, one quarter are in Latin America and the Caribbean, one quarter in the sub-Saharan and Africa, 13% are in Asia and 12% are in North America. So what does that tell you? It tells you that this message is crossing national borders, ethnic barriers, tribal institutions, whatever we've built, the gospel is permeating all of those in our midst. Listen to the top 10 countries with the highest percentage of Christians right now, well actually 2015, listen to this. These are the top 10, the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, the Philippines, Nigeria, China, Congo, Germany and Ethiopia. What do those have in common? Nothing, literally nothing. It's not like oh it's us, it's us four and no more. No, it is a global movement and God is building a global family where we're coming together under the banner of Jesus Christ for his glory and our hope is in our salvation, in our righteousness, in our future resurrection and our hope is what drives us to faith in Christ and love for others and I'm telling you, do not let the news cycle, do not let social media dampen and darken your mind to what God is doing because his glory is covering the earth as the waters cover the sea and you're a part of it and your prayers matter and our downtown center matters and our intercession matters and God is preparing us for the greatest harvest the world has ever seen and as Christians we need to wake up, we need to wake up and we need to say God I wanna be a part of it, I wanna be a part of it, I wanna be a part of it. It's bearing fruit in your life and God says it's bearing fruit in the entire world. You gotta stand up with me please. I just wanna encourage you. God gives us a divine invitation. Paphras heard the message from Paul in Ephesus and he went back home and he told people and they believed he was bold in his faith, he was bold with the message. The gospel of Jesus Christ is bearing fruit across the whole earth. God is building a global family of every tribe, every tongue, every nation, every people group. Revelation 7.9 says we'll be surrounding the throne in that day saying worthy is the land, worthy is the land. I wanna pray for us. You just close your eyes if you would. I really felt the Lord lead me this way in my office before service and we're talking about hope, we're talking about how our hope is in Jesus for our salvation, our righteousness. And I wanna just ask you right now with your head bowed, your eyes closed. I want you to ask yourself, what is my hope in? Where have you placed your hope today? There's so many in our country, so many that I've talked to personally and you'll ask them. Do you have a relationship with Jesus? I think so. Do you think you're gonna go to heaven? I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. Hope can be a surety but if you put your faith and your hope and your ability to be a good person, if your hope's in the fact that you're better than most people, if your hope's in the fact that you're in church right now, so you must be okay, that's a hope that can be shaken but if your hope is in Jesus Christ, he says everything else can be shaken but that is unshakable. And I wanna just give you an opportunity, maybe you need to give your life to Jesus, actually put your hope in him as a savior. You know the Bible says that your good works, your righteousness, they're like filthy rags to God. Anything that you've tried to do to make God happy or to appease God in some way, he sees it and it breaks his heart, he's not impressed by it, that's how bad we need to cross. It's not just our bad works, it's our good works. And God says the only hope you have is to put your faith in my son Jesus Christ and when you do, you're righteous, you're holy and you're made part of the family of God. And if you're here today and you say I need to put my hope in Jesus, I just wanna pray with you. Don't let the enemy rob you of one more moment. Today is the day of salvation. If that's you, just raise your hand right now and say include me in that prayer. Include me in the prayer, I need to give my life to Jesus. Thank you, anyone else? Raise your hand right now, thank you young man in the back, awesome. I wanna pray one more thing. I wanna pray for spiritual boldness in the body of Christ. Boldness is not a personality type. Boldness is not for just loud people. Boldness comes when you're with Jesus. Boldness comes when you're confident in who you are so that you can be bold and spread the message of God to others. And I wanna pray that for us. I want you to think right now who's a person you work with? Who's a person in your family? Who's someone you have relationship with that the Lord might be nudging you to be bold, to speak to, to pray with, to ask a question, to start a relationship? All of us have people in our lives. I just want you to think of who that is and then we're gonna pray. And then I want you to be obedient. I want you to put God to the test and I want you to experience what it feels like to be used by God for someone else. Father in the name of Jesus, we thank you for the hope that we have, the certain expectation of our righteousness, our salvation, our resurrected body, and the kingdom that is to come. Thank you, God, that the truth is in Jesus Christ. We want to be messengers of that truth, God, carriers of that truth, God. We are partnering with you. We're ambassadors and we're witnesses. We're not called to just stand on the sidelines. We're not called to just keep it private, God. We're called to go, reach the world with this message, God, that it would bear fruit in our lives and in the world around us. So I pray that for this church. I pray that for the people who are followers of Jesus that a supernatural courage, supernatural boldness would well up in us and that God, we'd be obedient to the voice of the Holy Spirit, saying this is the way, that's the person. I want you to pray for them. Whatever it is, God, we want to be vessels of honor, sanctified and useful for you, God, prepared for every good work. In Jesus' name, amen.