We are in Colossians finishing up Colossians actually, chapter 3, we're going to start in verse 15. Go through chapter 4, verse 6. Apologize, we don't have a bolt in there for you which would have a sermon outlined. So you can use your imagination on that. Make mental notes. We'll hopefully have that corrected for next week. And by the way, I apologize for the error. The AC was not working, but it feels like it's come back on. So by the time you leave, you'll be nicely cool and refreshed. Here this morning. But look, as we are looking at Colossians 3, we're looking at Christ-centered families. I want to ask you a quick, how many of you know what is the big holiday coming up? What's the big holiday coming up? Well, not that big. Not that big. What's the big one coming up this week? No. Thank you, Dave. April Fool's Day. One of my favorite holidays of the year. Not nearly as big as Easter. You know, good Friday and all that. Well, I'm not mistaken for saying that. But for this week, it's a big one. April 1st. I've had so much fun over the years with that. I have to say honestly, though, it was taught to me well by my mom, who's sitting right over here who would... I remember one year woke me up saying, you're not going to believe it's got it snowing outside. It's snowing. School's been canceled. I'm like, what? What? Open up the blinds. Well, I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, okay? It's not. It doesn't snow on April 1st in Atlanta, Georgia. Anyway, she had a strange sense of humor that I'm still trying to recover from today. But I thought it was interesting looking at April Fool's Day, because it is the one day of the year that you're kind of excused, okay, for totally inappropriate behavior for different things. And so I wondered as I looked over that, what are some of the best April Fool jokes of all time? And as I found a list, there's actually quite a few there are lists on the internet here. I saw in the top 10 of one list some that I even remember. Maybe some of you do as well too. How many of you remember, and I think I've slide some pictures for all these? The Taco Liberty Bell. You might remember this ad. This was back from 1996. There's an ad for that. Where Taco Bell made the claim that they had actually purchased the Liberty Bell. And they were going to rename it to the Taco Liberty Bell. This really happened. Anyway, there was hundreds of outrage citizens called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell was housed to express their anger before Taco Bell had a chance to say, we were just kidding on that. Another good one here I thought was the planetary alignment one of 1976. The British Astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio that at 9.47 a.m., a once in a lifetime astronomical event was going to occur, the listeners could experience in their very own homes a lesser degree of gravity. The planet Pluto was going to pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract a lesser nearest gravity, and that if you were to jump at that exact same moment, you would experience a greater sense of weightlessness. The amazing thing is people actually called in saying, yes, at 9.47 I did it and felt like I floated longer than normal in mid-air, including one group of ladies that said that they as a group floated around for what seemed like several minutes during that time. I'm not sure what else was going on at that party, but here's another one here too. The last one I'll use this morning was in 1992, National Public Radio's talk of the nation program announced that Richard Nixon and a surprise move was running for President again with his new campaign slogan, which was this, I didn't do anything wrong and I won't do it again. During that show people actually called in an outrage at such a thing would actually happen. Well, as you can guess, there were quite a few fun good laughs about some of these, and maybe you'll have one of your own in store coming up in just a few days. But how about this? What are the guidelines for living rightly and godly in the community? All right, we can look at some of these things that you would do foolishly on April Fool's Day and say, all right, one day you get away with that kind of stuff, that would be inappropriate to be, you know, saying things that are untrue, you know, on the radio and the newspapers and so on. But what are the right things? What is the way that a community is supposed to be like? Supposed to act towards one another? Then what is the way? I mean, a lot of the ones you can see by the way are office pranks. There's a whole list of April Fool's office pranks, but you can imagine with your colleagues and co-workers or students, you know, classmates at school, you can have a lot of fun there as well, too. But how are you supposed to live and act, you know, as a subordinate to an employer? How are you, if you are the supervisor, how are you supposed to treat those under you? Well, these weren't just questions for us here today. These were questions 2,000 years ago when the Apostle Paul was writing and he addresses some of those just like we talked about in regards to the family last week. He's going to talk about in regards to community relationships. And so as we look at that here this morning, we read this text, be reminded of what God is saying here and we're going to start back up at the beginning of verse 15 of chapter 3, just so we can get the full context of how this happens. But as we read God's word here this morning, here what God is saying should be guiding us and directing us in our relationships right here on earth outside of the family. So I'm going to read from 3, chapter 3, verse 15 through chapter 4, verse 6. And this is God's holy and inspired word. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts since as members of one body you were called to peace and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and ammonish one another with all wisdom, as you sing songs, hymns and spiritual songs of gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or indeed do it all the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Wives submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children obey your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord. Fathers do not forbid your children or they will become discouraged. Slaves obey your earthly masters in everything and do it not only with their eyes on you to win their favor but with the sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It's the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong and there is no favoritism. Masters provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a master in heaven. Develop yourselves to prayer being watchful and thankful and pray for us too, that God may open a door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains. That I may proclaim it clearly as I should be wise in the way you act towards outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone. Well, this is God's holy and inspired word that he gives us here this morning. Three things I want you to remember I want you to think about to go home with here today. Number one is the serve Christ as you serve those over you. You see here at starting in verse 22 he talks about slaves and how they should act and treat their masters. Well two thousand years ago and don't think by the way might like civil wartime slavery. Slavery was a little different thing and was actually a respected thing two thousand years ago, at least in the Palestine area, in a very different way. People would want to come in and be servants in the household. They would have their needs men be taken care of. But it was it's the closest thing that we have in a comparison to our work in the past. That we have in a comparison to our work relationships here today. If you didn't have your own property back then, you probably worked for somebody who did have their own property. And you came in and they provided for you and you came and worked the fields and you had a chance to be to eat, to stay under the protection of their roof, to be guided. You be part of a large family there. There would be protection and safety in that. It was for us kind of what is modern day employment here now where you come and you work under somebody. And that's what was going on here. And you see some specific instructions that are given as how you're supposed to serve those that are actually in a position over you. So I want you to think right now who is in a position over you, whether or not you're a child and it's a parent, a child and a some type of a student that has a teacher or a professor over you. If you're employed at all, you have an employer, somebody that you call your boss or supervisor that is over you. If you're in some kind of organizations or in some kind of groups or if you're playing sports or in some kind of a group like that, you have a coach, you have somebody that is in authority to some degree or another over you. And realize that God has some specific instructions just like he did 2000 years ago that would apply to us here today that we're going to look at. And look what he says there in verse 22 through 25 specifically again. This slaves obey your earthly masters in everything and do it not only when their eye is on you to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart is working for the Lord, not for men since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. This is the Lord Christ you are serving. Serve Christ as you serve those over you is what the commandment is from God's word. This could look like lots of different things in many different ways. One way I remember hearing about this is, I mean I read about this, if you look at, because he's already talked about wives, husbands, children, first Peter 3, 1 through 2, tells us, a whole other writing in the Bible in the New Testament tells us that wives in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by behavior of their wives when they see the purity and reverence in your lives. We're told at least one example even within the household is that when you do serve Christ in your motivation when you're serving those that are in a position of headship or authority over you, you actually can be powerful used by God to work in their midst there. God has a plan to use you. It's not just to keep things in order. God is going to do some amazing things. Things that impact eternity, a wife's faithfulness to follow under the headship of her husband can actually lead to him coming to faith in Christ is what this text here specifically. But as we're not talking about specifically in a family but in the other relationships here, I want you to think about how that plays out in the places that you are under authority. So put yourself in those positions, whatever that is, but yourself at work right now, that's where you're at. And think about that for a second. Put yourself in the classroom if that's where you're at. I remember hearing a read about a story about a guy who was retired. When you're retired, you have a lot of extra free time to do different things. And this guy went to his local mall where he would hang out and do stuff and he saw that there was a whole construction going on in one different wing of the mall. And he had lots of free time so he just thought as he came around one day, I'll just stop and kind of watch the construction process here for a few hours. Well, he became fascinated with the construction process. He had plenty of free time so the next few days he kept coming because he wanted to see the process go. And he got really tuned in on one guy who was operating some piece of large machinery who was using very, very careful precision in working on building this part of the wing of the new mall. And he was just focusing on this one guy and it was in all of his expertise on it. Well, over the course of the week, this guy's job came close to an end and before it was coming to an end, he just thought, I got to come up and say this guy. And watching him for a week, I got to come up and say, look, I'm just really impressed what he did. He came out and said, hey, I just couldn't believe the work you've been doing and how precise and how careful and how cautious you've been the whole time in trying to work on this particular part. It's just a mall and it's just an addition to it but you treated it as though it was a chapel of some type. And he said, well, who are you? He said, well, I'm just retired guy from the community. He says, you mean you're not the site supervisor? This whole guy had thought he had the eyes of somebody on him the whole week and so he worked extra hard because he was being under the watchful eye and care over and over. You know, this is reminding me a little bit of when Lauren, I might go on a date or be off somewhere where we have to put one of our older children in charge babysitting some of the younger children. And what we often will do is we'll let the younger children know who are not the babysitters. Hey, but hey, Michael, Riley or Conor of the case might be there in charge. They have our authority. What they tell you to do, you've got to treat it as though it's what we're telling you to do. And we will tell them that, encourage them that because it's important for them to know that if there's a safety issue, you know, and whether they like it or not, we can discuss it later at the moment of point. Whoever's in charge and has the authority, they should follow that and they should follow it knowing that it's coming really from mom and dad even though we're not physically there at the time. Serve Christ as you serve those over you realizing he's the one that's in charge ultimately with that. Remembering a story about one time about a taxi cab driver and a lot of taxi cab drivers in different cities own their own taxis. So it's not uncommon, you know, because of course, if a taxi driver owns his own taxis, he's going to take better care of it, right, is the thinking then if it was just somebody else's taxi cab. So part, a lot of taxi cab companies will have the driver actually own their vehicle. But this one guy was sitting in a taxi cab and thought, this is not an ordinary taxi cab. This one is in pristine condition. I mean, he doesn't smell. I mean, the seats have obviously been waxed and taken care of. It's been vacuumed out and this guy who traveled a lot was really amazed that this is this is way off the chart. You know, a nice taxi that's brand new or this guy definitely is one of the ones that owns it. So he asked the guy, he said, so you own your own taxi, huh? And the guy the driver said, oh, no, no, it's not my taxi. This is God's taxi. You see, when it belongs to your king, to your Lord, and when you understand who he is, it takes on a whole different meaning, doesn't it sometimes? Serve Christ as you serve those or you. I remember I had my first real encounter with this to really understand what that looked like for me was back in the summer of 1989. I was between my junior and senior year in college, and I had chosen for the summer to spend my time working at a Christian camp in kind of rural Lafayette, Alabama. Camp called Camp Maranook. And as I was there over the summer, you know, I knew we were going to have time studying the word and learning. We're going to have time working with counselors through the summer. And I thought, yeah, I knew some people had done this. They had a good time. It should be a fun time. Well, what I didn't realize is quite how rigorous it was. It felt a little bit more like physical training in many ways because we got up early. We would spend as much as eight or ten hours a day sometimes studying God's word, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but we're not used to doing that. I don't know when last time you've done that eight or ten hours a day. When you would stay up late working at night, trying to get the camp ready for campers. And when the campers were there, you were like working like crazy because you're dealing with a bunch of little kids that are totally under your care. Well, one of the things that we had that along it, each camper in his cabin had a list that actually gave you standard operating procedures. So it wasn't just that the camp itself was intense. It was a lot of work, but you had responsibilities within your cabin. And one of the ones, because I mean most of my thought were legitimate, you know, make sure that things are straight, make sure that things aren't broken in the cabin. One of the ones that was every single time you leave your cabin, you're supposed to unplug your fan. You know, we didn't have really AC in there, but we had these rotating fans in there and you were supposed to unplug it. And I remember thinking to myself, unplug it. Why do you need to unplug a fan? I mean, I can understand, turn it off, save electricity. But no, the procedure that we were supposed to follow was to unplug it. And I remember talking one time to one of the directors of the camp saying, you know, I'm having a hard time. You know, I'm trying to follow the guidelines and stuff here that you've asked me to do here, but can you help me understand this one? Well, they said, well, you know, it's kind of a safety issue. You know, it just reduces the chance of any kind of electrical fire that could happen. And we want to do things as safe as we possibly can. And I just remember thinking, I mean, when's the last time, you know, that this happened at camp, it had never happened. I mean, I couldn't even think, once the last time I've heard of a fire happening from a fan being plugged in, especially ones that are in good condition that are fairly new. So I did what pretty much other counselors were doing. I kind of just ignored that part of the guidelines for the first few weeks of the summer. Well, it wasn't long before I began to feel like I felt this bird in my heart of thinking, you know, it's not like you just kind of forgotten about that. You are purposely Scott totally disregarding a complete rule. And because other counselors like yourself think it's stupid. And it's a lot of extra work because in my cabin, by the way, as luck would have it, my plug was actually behind a dresser. So I'd have to actually get on my knees, crawl under, unplug it from a dresser. You know, I've got some weeks, like, you know, six or seven little, you know, five year olds that I'm in charge of, that we're trying to get dressed, we're trying to get to meal time on time, we're trying to get our activities on time. And you want me to unplug a fan, but I had this kind of that voice inside that kept saying, you know, you're just though, you know, willingly, defying a guideline that you've been placed under here by the authority here. You've questioned about it. You've tried to go through the right channels on it, but it's not being changed. And it was amazing being that happened for the first time in my life. I really thought, look, there is no way I'm going to unplug fans. Unless, I really believe God is really totally aware of all that's happening in my cabin. Unless I really realize that God is as much a clear spectator of my heart, as if the entire camp programming staff was in my cabin every single time I left the cabin to go out with my campers. And I had this overwhelming sense of conviction that, you know, Scott, you have an opportunity here to unplug fans not for or the camp director who won't know whether you did or did not. Not necessarily for anybody else and your campers could care less whether you do it. But you could do it just for me, because you know, I'm the only one that's going to see it. I'm the only one that will ever know. After a couple days of mulling over that by the grace of God, the Holy Spirit pricking my heart, they get non-plug fans. You know, I'm coming in out of the cabin six, seven, eight times a day. I'm plugging them, plugging them back in. I'm plugging them, plugging them back in for weeks. This went on. But you know what? Over a period of time, I was amazed that I began to, it became worship. I'm like, the only reason why I'm doing this is because God, I know you're watching. Because I know you and I have already had a conversation on this. And I know it's what you want me to do. It's the most meaningful thing in my summer looking back. I still remember here today because my heart for the first time began to realize that when you are serving those over you, really understanding that you're serving Christ, it changes everything. And my guess is, it might do that for you as well, too, if you're like me. Let me give you some quick practical suggestions on how to do this, because I want you to go home with something you can really take with you. Here's some practical suggestions on how to serve those over you. First, visualize God's presence constantly as you work under someone. Visualize God's presence. Now I understand if you're not a follower of Jesus Christ here this morning, this is not going to make sense. I'm not talking directly to you. I'm inviting you to listen in, though. I want you to hear what God is saying his followers should do because that's important. We'll tell you a lot about God. God is saying, though, visualize his presence. See him behind it all. This text says serve is serve people over you as if you're serving Christ because that is who you're serving ultimately in doing that. When you finish work on something, ask yourself this question. Not if your boss, supervisor, teacher, parent would be pleased with your attitude and effort, but ask yourself, is God pleased with my attitude and effort? And what I've just done. One of the persons in history that has done this most and it's known best about this is God and brother Lawrence. He was a 17th century monk who wrote a book that's still widely read today called the practice of the presence of God. And he wrote this. He said, the time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer. And in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament. What is he saying? He's saying he invited the presence of God into the ordinary routine of his life as much as if he was in a place of worship. Because you know what? The ordinary routine of life is to be a place of worship. That's what it means to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And he understood that. He understood what it meant to practice the presence of God. Well, you start life with people over you, all of us start life that way, but it's not long until you have also people under you. Secondly, serve number one, serve Christ as you serve those over you. Verse four, I mean chapter four, verse one says this, masters provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a master who's in heaven. God goes on, he says, it's not just important for you to serve Christ for those over you, but it's important for you to serve Christ for those that are under you. So I want you to think right now, who are you in a position within your life that you have people under you? If you're a parent, you've got children, alright? And kids, if you're in school, you might have underclassmen, you know, or you might have some responsibility if you are like in charge of something at school, or you have other classmates that have to look to you. Or if you're obviously an employer, you might have some idea that you supervise, some idea that reports to you, some idea that you have responsibility for. But figure out where it is, because I bet all of you here can think of somebody that has, that you have some authority over that serves under you. And God is saying, serve Christ as you serve those under you. I mean, even we talked about it for wise, but this is much true for husbands. Ephesians 5 says, husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. Again, we mentioned this last week, you know, I mean, it could sound like God, it's a bad end of the deal for wives. They have to submit to their husbands according to God. You know what, there is no more submitting, no greater submission. I can think of, then somebody laying down their life for somebody else. And that's what God calls the Christian husband to do, to lay down his life for his wife as Christ laid down his life for the church. Imagine if that happens, you have that attitude serving those under you. Or children, it says, you know, we're told as fathers do not embed your children or they will become discouraged. If you're a parent, you have a responsibility to make sure that your kids aren't embedded. But that, as we talked about with Joe and Tiffany, that your kids are encouraged to see who really is holy and perfect, who loves them unconditionally. More than you do as a parent, you have that responsibility to those under you. Well, how can we make this real practical because this gives us some suggestions in the one verse it says, do it being just and fair and it says how knowing that you have a master in heaven, justice, fairness for those that are under you. And all along with the mindset and understanding that you have a master over you, God in heaven, who has loved you, who's holy, who's righteous, who's just always with you. Some of you may have heard about the first governor general of the nation, Australia, back in 1901, his name was Lord Hopetown. I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that exactly correctly, but he had a 300-year-old ledger that he had inherited from an ancestor, John Hope, and the hope had owned a business in Edinburgh. When he first used this old ledger, he had been handed it down to his descendants, and it came to Lord Hopetown. And on the front of it, that he kept closely as one of the prized possessions and said this on the front of the ledger, quote, oh Lord, keep me and this book honest. Now I've got to somewhat think that part of the reason why this guy was being placed in a position to rule a country here is that he had taken that seriously. And he had as his one of his prized possessions, one who an ancestor who had simply had the mindset of God, keep me honest and the things I do honest. He took that position to be a good leader of a country. He took that responsibility seriously of serving Christ and those under them as well in the process. Probably no better example when you think of somebody with authority, somebody who was an employer than a guy named Oscar Schindler, made popular by the recent movie, not too many years back. Who said this as he was hiring Jews left and right to come work at his facility, which was an ammoware and ammunition factories that he owned, trying to get as many as he possibly could, he says this and I quote, I hated the brutality, the sadism, the insanity of Nazism. I just couldn't stand by and see people destroyed. I did what I could, what I had to do, what my conscience told me I must do. That's all there is to it, really nothing more. That was the attitude of a guy who saw there was a serious need for leadership to come in and to be an employer who wasn't just trying to make a successful product, but went well beyond that was saving lives of what's estimated 1200 Jews that would have probably been killed during the Holocaust. Because he took it seriously, his responsibility, which holds a serve Christ as you serve those under you. I remember one of the churches I worked at, actually before I even moved here, I saw this put in action, this was a small church and maybe similar to our economic times now, was going through a difficult economic time, at least our church and community was. I remember there was times that we were not getting enough money coming in the offering as what was needed to pay the bills, but this pastor took the initiative, I've always remembered this, that when that came down we weren't sure who was going to get paid on staff and who wasn't. I was just the youth singles director, the church kind of low man on the totem pole at that time with the other staff that were there. I would have been a likely person to have gotten let go or whatever else, but no, that didn't happen. He actually made sure all the employees under him were paid full amounts, and he took a salary cut until the weeks and months ahead things got better. And I thought, man, there's somebody there that had a value for those working under them, serve Christ as you serve those under you with that. It doesn't have to be big spectacular ways that you might do this. I remember another church that Laura and I were at where we just had a sunny school teacher working with one of our children was in there, and they didn't even realize that we overheard them on this, but I think it was me or Laura came or which that was actually coming up to get our kids out of class. It overheard the two workers in there speaking, and one of the workers said, can you believe what so-and-so did, and he's a pastor's child. Now, of course, you can imagine parents ears are like, hello. What kind of comment is that, and before I think it was Laura, before she could come in and intervene, heard the other lady say, wait a minute, what does that mean? They're just a normal child, just like your child and my child is. Kids are kids, give me a break. And in that moment, somebody who had a position of authority, not a big one, since the class teacher stepped in and served Christ as they were serving them under them. We had a chance to talk to them later and just say thanks, but it was a way that we saw the love of Christ at work and moving there. Well, you don't have to look any farther than the example of Christ himself serving those under him. You know, on, in John chapter 13, before Jesus was betrayed, just the night or two before, says when he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. He says, do you understand what I've done for you? Jesus asked them. You call me teacher and Lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am. But Jesus didn't stop there, he goes on, he says, now that I, your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Jesus was not washing their feet as if to say that they were greater than him. Jesus was saying the responsibility of the one who is the Lord and master is to take care and to serve those under him. Well, that's a different view of authority. And if you're a husband and you exercise authority like that over your wife, you'll find a very different relationship with your wife. And husband and wife, if you are parents and you exercise that kind of authority over your children, you'll find a very different relationship with your children. It's true in the home, it's true outside the home. Well, some real practical suggestions on this one, kind of make this kind of life a little bit. Let me just say this first, become a lifelong student of Christ's headship over you. Become a lifelong student of how did Jesus exercise authority over you? What did it look like? What kind of things did he do? How do you spend his time? You know, he never once rejected people that would worship him as the Son of God because he was. But he was constantly meeting the needs of those around him, serving others, displaying grace, but yet truth at the same time with it all. I mean, Jesus said things like this, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I'm gentle and humble and heart, and you will find rest for your souls. From my yoke is easy, my burn is light. Jesus exercise that kind of grace, that kind of truth all the time. You know, some of the places you don't often see grace and truth together are in the environment of the free market enterprise, especially when it comes to things like selling soft drinks. I don't know how many of you are around back. I think this was this mid-80s when something called New Coke came out. You might remember this? New Coke. I was growing up in Atlanta, so I was right in the hub of it all, with the headquarters of Coke there. But a guy named Sergio Zyman was the guy that was going to make his big name with marketing advertising, introducing the brand new product here that was to launch Coke, which had closing market shares with Pepsi to the next generation here with that. Well, as most of you know, and some of your younger kids are like, what's New Coke? You're picking up on this there. It was not a success, was it? It bombed completely. And in most companies, you would have taken a marketing guy like that, that had taken risks like that, that had lost money like that. And you would have said, somebody's got to be the fall guy and you're out of here. You led this baby, you drove it, it was your idea out of here. But Coke did an interesting thing. They didn't fire him. They allowed him to come along and take his team and observe what had happened, what was going on, to come up and make a correction strategy with it. And as most of you know, I think it was like 70 days later, classic Coke came back and was offered to the community on that. And actually, the resurgence of that, with all the energy and all the people that were upset about Coke being taken away here, there was a new found energy, new loyalty had been found with Coke. And the amazing thing happened, what had turned out to be a total bomb turned out to be an incredible marketing thing. That wasn't by design, but pushed Coke. Their market shares the next year or so was double that of Pepsi's in growth and increase. And Coke continues to lead as I understand as well here too. But listen to what Roger Enrico, who was the president CEO of Pepsi company said at the time. This is what's interesting. Here's what he said about the Coke decision. Had people been fired or demoted over new Coke, it would have sent a message that risk taking was strongly discouraged in the company. Even Pepsi realized there was an amazing thing that happened there when there was grace and truth displayed in that moment there. See your authority over someone not as a freedom to exercise power and self-exaltation, but see this freedom to exercise responsibility and to reward others. Some of you have read Jim Collins book. Good to great. It's been a New York Times bestseller now for years. If you haven't read it, it's one of my favorite books has nothing to do with Christianity directly or anything like that, but it has everything to do with it as well. What the book did is studied companies that had been just kind of average companies that had grown and sustained growth and success over a long period of time, both in the stock market as well as both the just actual production and shares and everything else. What made these companies stand out? What was different about it? You know what the number one thing was? Above it all was whoever was in charge, the CEO, the president, the leader, there was something amazing that happened with those leaders. They called it servant leadership and something amazing and many of them actually were open to share. They actually had a real active faith in God that was a part of that, but they were servant leaders. But he even says in the book he says, you know, we didn't want to call it servant leadership though because people would misunderstand and think it was a formal weakness. It was a company's greatest strength, so they decided to call it level five leadership. What's level five leadership, level five leadership is when the heads of the companies had a window in a mirror and every time something good happened in the company, they would treat it like a window. And instead of looking at themselves like a mirror, they would look through the window to see those that were working under them and they exalted those that had been part of the process. They didn't take the glory for themselves, but they were quick to point the glory to those that had worked hard underneath them. This was true of all these companies that were found to be not just good but great companies. And when there was something bad that happened, it was like they were holding up a mirror. They were not quick to talk about anybody else, but it takes full responsibility of themselves when bad things happened, when things that were not good, even if somebody else was there to blame. This is true in reality. This stuff works in the business world. I'm telling you, it comes from the throne of heaven because there is the ultimate leader God himself who came and who was the servant leader of all leaders, Jesus Christ, he is the level five leader of all. Serve Christ as you serve those under you. Well as common as it is to have people over you and people under you, you know what is even more common is to have people beside you. One augure here probably today and your relationship with one another is one of just community, you are one of people that know each other, friendships with one another. And that's the last thing that's talked about here in this text. Jesus Christ is, you are to serve Christ as you serve those around you, those with you as you serve those and most of those in real life are those without Christ, those without hope. Serve Christ as you serve those without hope and they are all around you. They are the ones kids are sitting next to you in school. They are the ones that you sit next to when you are watching the movie at regal cinemas. They are the ones that are sitting not by you at the lunch table during the break room at work. They are the ones that are walking to the community that you are seeing on the sidelines with when you are watching your kids soccer game. They are the people that you are interacting with and the vast majority of them are without hope, the hope that comes through Jesus Christ. What is chapter 4 verses 2 through 6? It says some very specific things there for those that aren't necessarily an authority over you but are equals with you. It says this, number 2, devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful and pray for us too that God may open a door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should, be wise in the way you act towards outsiders, make the most of every opportunity, let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone. See God doesn't just want you to know how to handle those in authority or be those in authority under you but those that are just going through life with you, those that don't have the hope of Jesus Christ. That was what was concerning to God and the Apostle Paul as you wrote here. Serve Christ as you serve those without hope and how do you do that? He gives you several things here. He starts off saying devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. What things in life do you devote yourself to? Devote. That is the key word here. What are things that you do? What are things that you are interested in? What are things that you devote yourself to? There have been some that have studied those that had become the masters in their field because they represent in our world, those that are the most devoted. And I looked at guys like Mozart to say, all right, here's a guy that was devoted to music. All right, what goes in the makeup of guys like that? And they looked at all these different things and psychologists, Anders Erickson had a study which he made some conclusions. He said the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That's it. And what's more, the people at the very top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder than anyone else. See, they're kind of debunking the whole myth that some people are just born with it. Neurologist Daniel Levitan goes on to say, the emerging picture from such studies that they've done on some of these masters is that 10,000 hours of practice is required to achieve a level of mastery associated with being a world class expert in anything. And study after study of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what had you, this number comes up again and again. No one has yet found a case in which true world class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to simulate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery. So you want to be a master in your field. All it takes is 10,000 hours, just 10,000 hours. Those people are devoted. So when God says devote yourselves to prayer, you get a picture of what's involved. You're going to master what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ is to be devoted with that the serve Christ as you serve those without hope. And how does he say to do that, not just to be devoted, but being watchful, devote yourselves to prayer being watchful. Watchful, looking and praying for a right moment to share where God has opened a door is what he's saying here. Some of you have been watching the news recently know that Natasha Richardson, the actress, died of a skiing accident. If you've been watching keeping up with that, where she was actually had a minor, what seemed like a minor head injury at the time, but then a couple of days later turned out to be something that would take her life. Well, some of you heard of you've been watching the news that was Morgan McCracken who was out just playing baseball with her brother and her dad and her dad hit a line drive and it hit her right above the left temple. Now of course she cried and she had a lump they put ice on it but after a little bit of ice it went down the pain went down she went back to school for the next two days fine she made a plus and her spelling test everything was looking fine, but they were watching the news of that night hearing about more investigation and Natasha Richardson death and as they'd already put her to bed as they were watching the news they thought, hmm, you know, Morgan's acted just fine to the last couple of days, but gosh that was a pretty hard hit to the head. They just happened to go back up and check on her even though she was already in bed. She wasn't asleep yet. She was complaining about a headache because they thought, well, that's a little bit and she hadn't had a headache for a couple of days. Could be nothing who knows they get on the phone. They talk to the pediatrician and he's like, well, you know, that's a good point. You keep an eye on her. They go back up to check on her again and now the headaches excruciating. I know I go, oh my gosh, when you take her in they take her in the emergency room. They airlift her from there to another hospital and sure enough she had the exact same injury that took Natasha's life would have taken Morgan's life, but except for watchful parents who were paying close attention and by God's grace saw a newscast and took it to the next level. If she had gone to sleep that night she probably would not have woken up. Dr. said, watchfulness, it's important. It saves lives in some cases. You know what, it saves souls as well too. Being watchful, devoted, caring for people who are without hope. You know, our biggest mistake, I think today, we're not even looking much less praying. We're not even looking for those around us. They're looking, they're missing hope. They don't have hope. They kind of hope that we talk about we have in Christ, devote yourselves to watchful prayer. Serve Christ as you serve those without hope. And he says, go on and says, be thankful. Watchful and thankful prayer. Always dwelling on God's grace and truth. Always thinking about how good God has been to you. And he goes on to say, do a clarity, praying for a clear proclamation. Does that not strike you as funny here that the Apostle Paul is saying, hey, pray for me, that'd be better able to proclaim the gospel. And where is he? Where is he? He's in prison. I'm in chains, okay? He's not in maximum security prison somewhere here in the United States where he can watch TV and get three square meals a day. He might have to make some ice and play a certain course of the day. He's in chains. And what is this prayer? Not pray that God would have me released. Pray that I'm with clarity will proclaim the message of hope. No, don't get it wrong. I'm sure he'd rather be out of chains and he'd be more effective probably to share the gospel out of chains. But that wasn't what was on the surface and the heart of what he desired. It was to be faithful to with clarity to proclaim the good news of the hope that he had. And hope was sustaining him. Hope will sustain you when you're in the chains of life if you have that kind of hope that he did. And it goes on, it says, but be wise, verse five, be wise in the way you act toward outsiders, making the most of every opportunity, let your conversation be always full of grace, season with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone. Be wise in how you act. You know, wisdom, the best definition I've heard of wisdom I like is applying truth to the complexities of life. Wisdom is probably the number one thing that is missing what I see in our culture here today in Western United States of America. Wisdom. And I'm talking into Christians in the church. We do a much better job at finding out the very clear things that God says and his word to do or not do that shout not kill. That's clear. That's obvious. You know, but how do you go about applying God's word in the moments of your day that come up in trying to figure out how you're going to respond to a conflict crisis with a friend or somebody who's you're working with. What are you going to do about when you want to be the rest of your life? What do you think God's calling you to do? What career path are you going to take? How are you going to pay your mortgage this month? Wisdom. Being able to apply God's truth and the complexity of life. The Apostle Paul here is saying, hey, be wise in how you act. Look at a couple of t-shirts examples here. Can we just kind of end this discussion forever now and say this is probably not the wisest way for you to share your faith with people. I'm not sure if you can read that one. That one's blood wiser. The wise man knew his bloods for you. These are actual t-shirts by the way and you probably have seen some or other ones are out there. Turn or burn different things like that. Are these messages true? I mean, the one on the left even has a verse at the bottom though your sins were read as scarlet. They should be made white as snow. I mean, there's a verse. It's good stuff. It's God's word. This is not wisdom and how to proclaim the message of hope. At least not today. Maybe there'll be some extreme moments in cases that would be wise. It's not 99.9% of the time. Let me just go ahead and be bold. If you own a shirt like this, you know, get rid of it. It's not wise. But there's an edge so often to Christianity, especially in this culture, where we don't worry about wisdom. It's like just get the word out there and it's their fault that they don't listen to and respond to it. And if they do, then, yeah, it's about time. Let me tell you, that was not the attitude of Jesus Christ. Could anybody have come out and laid it on people directly more than Jesus Christ? Nobody could have. Nobody could come out and say, look, I'm perfect. I'm the son of God. Follow me or you're going to get a hell. He could have said that just more accurately, more rightly than anybody. But no, he took the moment to touch people that were the outcast who had a disease called leprosy. He took the time to reach out to people like this next picture, the woman at the well who was there because she was a prostitute. And what did he do? He was wise and how he acted and he was wise, how he spoke. He pointed out in reminder that he knew that she had been with five men and the man that she's with now is not her husband. But she also said, look, you're thirsty for something. I've got the living water that you need. And just by virtue of the fact that he was talking with an outcast in a prostitute, he was saying, you know what, my reputation is not as important as you knowing who I am and the life that you can have through Christ. You see, Jesus got it, right? He's perfect. Of course, he gets it. But where has followers? Be wise. How you act? What you say? Sir, Christ, as you serve those without hope. Whether they're people that are over you, you have a responsibility. Whether they're people that are under you, you have a responsibility. Whether they're people that you disrupt shoulders with. And normally they have life. You have a responsibility to do that. God invites you to do that. Let's pray. Father, I pray that as we respond now to your word here now, as we look to you and as we come to your table here, God, do you show us, remind us, God of our great need. Would you remind us, God of how you have come and you have served us as our Lord and Savior. Creator of the universe has come and has washed the feet of his followers and has gave his life to them. The one that who is the Lord and Master of all was servant to the Father in heaven. And Jesus Christ submitted himself to the will of the Father and died on the cross in our place. And God, you invited us to come and to transform our community with this kind of love, this kind of reality. So while you come and let your presence fill us and lead us and guide us and direct us and pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.