Again, good morning. Great to have you with us in worship today. Excited you're here. We have a lot going on over the Christmas break. A lot of anticipation of the birth of Jesus as we celebrate that. You can see down front here. We have a lot of empty seats. Those are for our light comers. They come in and they get to sit in these seats. Actually, I was a joke that didn't work, but that's okay. I'm used to that. It's for our choir concert, which is tonight at 6.30. If you weren't able to come last night, I pray that you would take some time to bring your family to enjoy worshiping the Lord tonight as these guys lead us in our awesome concert. Awesome concert to the glory of Christ. Thank you for all your hard work. I haven't seen you yet. So I'm looking forward to tonight. So thank you and encourage you to be here at 6.30 for that this evening. Also over Christmas over the years, we have helped hope for the inner city. Provide toys for children and also food donations for hope. And on December 13th, that's a Saturday. We will go and decorate hope for the inner city so that families can come and shop there. So let me explain this because I never really understood this when I hear this announcement. Essentially what we're asking is we're collecting food and toys. And if you're buying toys for children or grandchildren, take your kids to Walmart or wherever and say, hey, let's pick out a few toys that we can give to hope for the inner city so that when those who are less privileged come in, if we buy a $20 toy, maybe at hope they charge them $10 or $5 for it. But maybe use it as a ministry for your children and for your family to go and buy some presents for kids at hope so that they can have their parents can come and shop at a discount of price to provide for their kids this Christmas. So you can leave those out in the connector and we look forward to to that. We also have a great ministry here at the church that our diet and it does. And Melissa Gwen is going to come and share with you a little bit about faith and finance as she and Shad have kind of helped lead in that along with lots of other folks. Good morning. Faith and finances is one facet of our diacinus ministry to serve those who walk through our doors looking for financial assistance. The Palmer Center developed this curriculum. So churches would be equipped to do this work two years ago when my husband took the course to become a facilitator, along with a few other deacons here at the church and started teaching in this class. I had no idea what impact it would make on us personally. Let's just say we needed the class just as much as anyone else attending. Do you know over 50% of Americans do not live on a budget? No tracking expenses, no idea of how much is coming in or out of their accounts. And let's just say we were not on the right side of that 50%. This is where many of the people who attend our class live. We are by no means perfect these days, but we have a much better grip on our finances and are more intentional about our money and where it is going. We have margin and it's a beautiful place to be and we're very thankful for that. About a year and a half ago, Pastor Tim preached a sermon titled The King Who Is Satisfied by Knowing the Lord. It was back in April of 2013 if you want to look it up and listen to it, I would highly recommend it. I'm going to give a few short statements from that sermon. Pastor Tim was talking about a king not having a lot of wealth. In our finances, we each have to come to the conclusion of how much is enough and then what am I going to do with the rest. As we know from second Corinthians 418, place your hope not in what is seen but what is unseen. Continuing in this sermon, the point this point was stressed, being satisfied with God produces great safety, where you are not satisfied with God, that opens the door to temptation to have power in your life. If you're completely satisfied in an area, you're not tempted in that area, you're at rest, you have complete joy. It also produces great safety with your finances to be satisfied in the Lord and it allows you to be generous in helping others. The sermon really hit home with me when looking at how the work is being done through this class because learning to be a good steward allows the kingdom to grow. So how much is enough and how is the kingdom going to grow through the choices I make with my finances? That is the key theme in what is taught in faith and finances. Jesus is making all things new, including our money and relationships, and God has chosen to use our money to accomplish his work in the world. So this class is really too bold, we are all learning and growing together. No matter how much or how little money you have, it has to be managed well to be honoring the Lord. Not one of us is better than anyone else looking for help who walks through our door, and not one of us has anything except that the Lord is gracious and gives it to us. So I would encourage you to come and visit our class and get to know those who are coming into the church through the outreach into our community. We're investing not just in resources, but in time with those who are looking for help when they walk through our doors. Drop by one Sunday morning, we meet on the third floor of the tower building starting at 9 a.m., or feel free to contact me or my husband for more information on how to get involved. Lastly, if you are thinking, how in the world could I be qualified? I'm not a financial expert. Remember, God doesn't need experts. He will equip those he's called, and I'm grateful he called us because he most certainly have equipped us. And I would encourage you also to please continue to pray for and ask the Lord where you can serve our church, our city, and our world. Thanks. Thanks, Melissa. This morning, I wonder how many of you are anticipating Christmas. Raise your hand. Everybody? Kids, are you anticipating Christmas? Especially. Yeah, we all have this anticipation and excitement as that day builds like a giant snowball. We're right now kind of got this little snowball and it's going to roll and catch them a minimum. And as Christmas Eve and Christmas Day approach, the excitement in your home builds. Children come home and as kids get ready and they see everything, they're about to open and all of that. Well, I just wanted to make it really clear because sometimes we use Christian words that we really don't understand or we never have defined. And one of those words is advent. And we celebrate this season as an advent season. And really it's an anticipation leading to a celebration. And so the rank and family is going to come this morning and light our advent candle. But what this is doing, what we're hoping as the body of Christ is that the anticipation continues to roll. And then Christmas Eve, when you come here and we celebrate together, the excitement comes to a crescendo as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. And there's a second advent coming too. So if the rank and family would come up and light our candle this morning. Today we light two candles, the candle of hope illuminates patience in the areas of our lives where God's called us to wait. The candle of love extends the promise of strength to all who feel weary and weak in the shadows of this world. As we continue our advent journey, may our hope be kindled as the light grows brighter. Our scripture reading is Mark 1-4. John appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Father, we long for a deep, meaningful Christmas, something more than activities can provide. Help us today to focus on the things that are truly honoring to your Son. Father, we light these candles to thank you for your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the way. We who, like sheep, have gone astray, have found the way to you through Jesus Christ. We give you thanks and praise in Jesus' name, amen. Would you please stand for our call to worship? Our call to worship not only anticipates the Lord's coming, but recognizes His presence with His now so that we may worship Him. Our souls magnify the Lord. The mighty one has done great things for us. Holy is God's name. Let us worship God. For God is our nature and our redeemer. From generation to generation, God is mercy. To worship you and praise you, we come to bring you honor and glory. We come in the power of the Holy Spirit as we've been convinced and new. Even this morning, we've been convinced again of your great love for your people. And so we come humbly, but we come boldly. We come with the sense of the greatness of King Jesus. Holy Spirit, please help us. Help us open our eyes, open our hearts. That we might see and love Christ more deeply. For we offer our morning prayer as a prayer batteration for Jesus. You are everything to us. And if we had nothing except you, we would have much more than enough. We pray in your name, Jesus, amen. To the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, He is our great hope. And so the more we fill our minds with the truth of Christ, the stronger our faith is, not necessarily that our faith grows, but our knowledge of our trustworthy Savior expands day after day after day. And so, Christian, I ask you, who is Jesus? It is the end of the first Lord of all creation. For I am in all things created in heaven and honor. This is all I need to do is all. But the ground is for divinance over rulers or minorities. All things are created, rooted in and important. And He is the Lord of things. And He is in all things so together. And He is the end of the line, the first. He is the beginning, the first Lord from the dead. And everything in my deep regret. You may be seated. When we see the greatness of Christ, magnifies our sinfulness and leads us to confess our sin. Would you please join me as we confess our sin together? There is no one who calls on your name or attempts to take hold of you for you have a hidden your face from us and delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the play and you are our Father. We are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord. And do not remember our iniquity forever. Let's turn our faith to the Lord as we confess our sin. And one called to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of Him who called. And the house was filled with smoke. And I said, woe is me? I am lost. I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me having in his hand a burning cold that he had taken with tongues from the altar. And he touched my mouth and he said, behold, this has touched your lips. The guilt is taken away in your sin, atoned for. Lord Jesus, we thank You for the promise that Isaiah the prophet wrote down that points us to the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Or thank You that You touched the lips of the guilty and You take away guilt and shame. Lord, we respond by praying to You that prayer that You taught Your disciples to pray saying, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Then to go to children's church through these doors. But if you want your children to stay in worship with you and make noise and cry, that's great too. If they make noise and it's beyond what we can handle, then use your common sense. But you can go back in the back and rock them or whatever. We just don't want you to feel like this is a place that we don't want babies and kids in. So they're welcome to stay. Great one another in the name of the Lord. Before we go to the Lord in prayer, I wanted to focus our prayer on the hope of the second advent as we're in the midst of celebrating the first. The anticipation of Christ coming and what that brings for us as Paul looked forward to it in Philippians and talked a lot about attaining to the resurrection of the dead. I wonder how often we focus our minds and our hearts and our longing that someday we attain to the resurrection of the dead. So let's pray for that and also just remember Miss Carla Brown. She was at the good news club this week and fell and broke her hip in several places. And so she is in the hospital right now. And so we just need to be in prayer for her and two little boys were playing around at good news club and accidentally bumped into her. And she was at the guilt that those little kids are feeling and we just need to pray that God will use this for Carla's good, for their good and for the good of his kingdom. So let's pray together. Lord Jesus this morning we come to you asking for you to help us to see you at work in our lives. We ask that we you help us to savor the glorious work of Jesus Christ. Lord we ask that you would help us to share that work more freely with those who need to hear it. Lord this morning we come during this Christmas season anticipating the celebration of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Lord we are ones who kind of live with one foot in this world and one in the other. As followers of Jesus we already have this sense of the already but a longing in our hearts for the not yet. And so Lord we long for the day to be like Paul who considered everything as rubbish except for knowing the Lord Jesus Christ and that by any means possible he may attain to the resurrection of the dead. Or this was the prize this was the goal of the upward call of God and Christ Jesus this was Paul's prize he was longing for was the resurrection of the dead. So Lord as we anticipate I was we are in this second Advent season living in anticipation of the return of Jesus. Well Lord we long and strive and strain forward to what lies ahead because we know that our citizenship is in heaven and from that we await a savior. The Lord Jesus Christ who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body because he has the power that enables him to subject all things to himself. Lord Jesus Paul saw the resurrected Jesus with his very own eyes and it changed his life forever. May you give us a clear understanding that we too through the power of the Holy Spirit have witnessed the amazing power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and because of that we have hope. We have hope that you will use a situation like Carla Brown who sits in pain in the hospital right now. We have hope that you will use the suffering of Carla to transform the lives of two little boys at orchard knob elementary. We have hope that you will use this to transform their families. We have hope that you will bring great strength and zeal and courage to that whole team who ministers at orchard knob that they would be refreshed and not discouraged from this. That they would see this as opportunity for kingdom growth. Thank you for our sister Carla who has that perspective as a follower of you. We pray that you bring healing to her body quickly Lord and give doctors wisdom as they treat her. We pray the same for the Cravens family and for Miss Virginia Turner and for Catherine Helms. We pray that you would bring healing to their bodies and that they would most of all long for attaining the resurrection of the dead. Lord lastly we pray for those men and women who serve in our armed forces as we remember today the attack on Pearl Harbor so long ago. We know that many folks sitting here were children when that happened much like myself in college and remembering the incidents of 9-11 Pearl Harbor is a thing that's on our folks mind today and as their sons and daughters and family members served in the military during that time. We pray and thank you for what you have done to them and we thank you for the freedom that we have to even pray publicly and to worship together freely. So Lord we pray you're blessing upon those families as well. Lord lastly we ask that you take these tides you own the cattle on a thousand hills you make the grass to grow so that they can eat it and you put food on our tables. So this is your time. This is what we owe and give back to you. So we pray you bless it and if those there here this morning also provide offerings. We pray that you use those greatly in your kingdom as well. May you bless us as we give back because you have so abundantly given to us. May your grace be upon each family here today. May they use this day to bring glory to you and come back tonight and rejoice in singing with our brothers and sisters who lead us to the throne room of heaven by singing songs of praise to you tonight. It's in the Lord Jesus name that we pray the Alpha the Omega the seed that crushed the head of Satan the strong name of Jesus Christ.
The scripture lesson today is found in Colossians chapter one beginning in verse 24. Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh I'm filling up what is lacking in Christ afflictions for the sake of his body. body that is the Church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the Word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to its saints. To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ for this site toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. This is the Word of the Lord. You may be seated. Well, she was about 30 years old and she had a baby on a hip and a toddler in her hand and bumped into her, not literally, but was walking past her and I said, would a beautiful little family. It's just beautiful and the children are so excited to be here at church. It's fun to see this beauty and excitement in your family and she said, well, thank you. And then I looked at her and said, so how are you doing? And she said, if I have another sleepless night, I think I'm going to go crazy. The cost that a mom and a dad, when they have a little one, there's a real cost there and there's a lot of joy and there's a beauty and there's an excitement. There's hope, you know, what's she going to become or how's he going to do? But there's also a deep cost. If you talk to somebody who is the proud parent of a high school student, you might say, well, wow, that's great. She's driving. She's kind of out on her own now a little bit. How are you doing? They would probably say, well, you're right. They are, they are driving. They're out on her own a little bit. But I miss the times when they were just little kids and I miss tying their shoes for them. I miss needing to cut up their food. Just a little precious things that a mom and a dad do for their children. And then if you talk to somebody who's an empty nester, you'd say, oh, you must be so proud, your children have grown up and those who are supposed to be employed have jobs and how exciting that must be. And yet some of us who are empty nesters say, well, I miss that day-to-day contact with the children. I really do wish they were around more. You know, there's this growing up is beautiful and it's exciting. And there's also a cost associated with it. And the apostle Paul is being called to parent the church of Colossi. And he knows there's a cost and he also knows there's a great joy. Even of Jesus said this in John chapter 16, he said, when a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come. But when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish. For joy that a human being has been born into the world, so also you have sorrow now, but you will see me again and your heart will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you. So the apostle Paul is in labor. I know that sounds funny to say that a man is in labor unless he has a kidney stone or something, but he's in labor. He is going to parent these new believers of Colossi. And if you look at the text, you'll notice in verses 24 to 26 that God is the one who gives Paul stewardship for these people. It's clearly said in our scripture, it says, now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, much like a parent would. And in my flesh, I'm filling up what is lacking in Christ afflictions. Well, let's stop right there for a moment, filling up what's lacking in Christ afflictions. Now, we know that the Lord Jesus Christ, His work, His life was redemptive. It was all sufficient. There's nothing that needs to be added to the work of Christ in terms of our redemption for us to be justified before God. What is Paul saying? Well, Paul isn't adding to the work of Christ, but he's extending the work of Christ, the sufferings of Christ to the people that God intends to bless. So what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ is not that they're deficient or they lack worth or merit. It's that the work of Paul, he's sharing in the afflictions of Christ as he ministers to the people of God. Just like many of us share in the afflictions of Christ when we minister to the people of God, we come along a side of young families whose children are quite a blessing and also quite a cost. We come alongside parents who have teenagers and we want to walk with them through this time of transition. And then we come alongside the rest of us, the singles, the empty nesters are older, more mature saints because we all walk along and in some ways we are suffering. We're sharing the sufferings of Christ in our body for other people. What a privilege that is, you know, suffering draws us to one another. If you're going through a difficult time, many times you can have a friend come and sit with you and they really don't need to speak. There's a ministry of presence just to be with you. No need to say much of anything other than a word of encouragement in Christ, Christ suffered. And so it shouldn't surprise us when we suffer. And suffering does unite us. It unites us as the body of Christ. On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese attacked our military and Pearl Harbor Hawaii and it unified our nation. About 2400 people died in that attack. About 188 of our aircraft were destroyed. Many of our vessels were destroyed. And what happened? How did the American people respond to this suffering and this attack? The American people were galvanized together. They stood together and said we are going to walk with each other in this suffering and we're going to move forward and we're going to move forward in such a way that we bring unity and in hope that we will bring peace. Paul is doing a similar work and that God has appointed him the work of suffering. We shouldn't be surprised when we suffer. In fact, many say that suffering is the graduate school of Christian education. But often people ask me, how do you get the truth of God from your head to your heart? And often people say, you know, I missed heaven by this much. I had the head knowledge, but it never made it to my heart. And what I have found personally in my life that through suffering, head knowledge moves to your heart. You truly believe what you know to be true in your mind. It becomes literally true for you personally. It becomes contextualized within that moment of your life and it moves to your heart. And you not only are able to stand in the clear truth about God that are in a way independent of you in God's word. You're able to stand and say, yeah, I know that's true. He's a good God. And he walks with us through some valleys that I would never have chosen to go on my own. But he's a good God. And he walks with us. And he moves these truths from our head into our hearts when we walk through suffering. Paul is now the mother and the father of these dear folks at Colossi. God has made this so because God gives his people shepherds. The second point I want us to recognize is that God charges Paul to make the word fully known. He does this by proclaiming Jesus. If you look carefully at the text, many people wonder, well, what am I supposed to do? Okay. If I am a minister for Christ or or I am a parent or I'm a member of the body of Christ, how do I make how do I do what God's called me to do? Well, we make much of Jesus Christ. We speak of the Lord Jesus Christ in verse 25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God. That was given to me for you to what? To make the word of God fully known. Look at verse 28. Him we proclaim warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom. Why that they may present everyone mature in Christ. So we have to how we make much of Christ through his word and we have the why or the result that everyone will become mature in Christ. And so Paul is in this place of making much of Jesus Christ and earlier in our service we had an affirmation of faith. And this is Paul making much of Jesus Christ. And I literally just scribbled down eight truths about Jesus from these four verses. If you look at verse 15 and you can use your bulletin or your Bible, the exalted Christ is now and continues to be what he was in his own nature as the word before he became incarnate. In other words, Jesus has always existed as the person, the second person of the Trinity, but he became known when he became incarnate. Secondly, the words visible and invisible stand in contrast to one another for emphasis. Paul is saying that Christ himself is a visible manifestation of the kingdom of God. Jesus has always existed, but we could not see him. And so he's a visible manifestation. Paul's basically saying that the invisible has been made visible. And the pattern that Paul's developed is that the invisible being made visible through Jesus, he was once hidden that now he's manifest. Jesus has always existed as God, but now we can see him with our own eyes. Thirdly, the word first born is a title recognized for Messiah. It's this picture of Israel that was called God's first born in Exodus 4 in Jeremiah 31. And now it's transferred to Christ. And what does the first born have, and this is my fourth point, the first born has a designation in terms of priority and in terms of sovereignty. The first born in a family is the person who is the one with the greatest privilege and there's a priority placed on their life. And there's a sovereignty in terms of their rule within the family. Jesus is the absolute authority because he's the first born. He is the heir and we are co-airs through Christ. And he's the sovereign, absolute master of creation. So what happens is Paul is just letting these things roll out of his mouth or out of the pen if you will. We're building up our understanding of Jesus Christ. When he says he's the master of all creation, basically what they're saying is that Jesus is the creator and everything else is a creature. Jesus made himself visible. And one day Jesus is going to make everything that's currently invisible visible for us.
The second coming of Christ. Can you imagine if you're walking down the street and then all the sudden everything that's invisible becomes visible. Poof! This morning driving in when the sun was rising, it was one of the most magnificent sunrises I've ever seen. I literally cried out. Jesus! I thought Jesus was coming back. It was that magnificent and my wife is leaving town. I called on the phone and I told her if Jesus comes back today, I will find you up there somewhere, baby. Imagine the invisible immediately becoming visible. What if that happened in the sanctuary right now? We might be surprised. Another thought was Jesus's transfiguration, remember in Matthew 17 and after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John as brother and led them high up on a mountain by themselves and he was transfigured before them and his face shone like the sun. What's happening? The invisible is being made visible right before these disciples and his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light and behold there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking and Peter said to Jesus, Lord it's good that we're here. If you wish I'll make three tenths here one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah and while he was still speaking behold a bright cloud overshadowed them. What's happening? The invisible is becoming visible and a voice from the cloud said this is my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased. Listen to him when the disciples heard this they fell on their faces and were terrified why because the invisible became visible. The glory of God was manifest to them and they saw it in such a way they never imagined. They couldn't take the heights of who Jesus is. If you look back at Colossians 117 this verse highlights Jesus's pre-existence. The Greek in this text actually says he himself is what does it mean? It's emphasizing that Jesus was pre-existent before creation. He's above all and because he's pre-existent before creation and he's the one who holds all things together. Jesus maintains creation's coherence. We cohere because of Christ. He holds us together and then in Jesus's relationship with the church he's the first born, he's the heir so he's head of the church and therefore he is pre-eminent. Now Paul goes goes directly from this passage earlier in Colossians 1 and what he begins to talk about is his stewardship of the lives and gospel for the people God has given him but he also calls each and every one of us to discipleship. Do you know what this idea of discipleship, this idea of investing truth in another person's life, this idea of walking alongside someone while they're suffering so that in both of your lives their head knowledge becomes heart knowledge. Discipleship is a visible manifestation of the kingdom of God. When one woman sits down with another woman and they have a cup of coffee and they begin to talk about their life in the presence and power of Christ, guess what? The invisible just became visible. When men sit down around God's word or they spend time together and they're speaking, one of them is pouring out the heart and the other one leans in and says, you know Jesus and he speaks Jesus into the conversation. You know what just happened? The invisible became visible, a manifestation of the kingdom. Tonight at the concert when our choir and musicians lead us, do you know what's going to happen? The invisible is going to become visible and we're going to have eyes of faith and the longer you walk with God and the longer you have the spirit within you walking in community with people around God's word there's a manifestation of the kingdom of God that was invisible and it's now visible. Many of you are going to deliver points said is after the service there may be two or three left that need to be delivered. You can run and sign up and deliver those. When you walk to the person's house and you knock on the door and you hand them and point said, guess what? The kingdom of God just became visible to them. We walk together, we steward God's grace. We don't own it, it owns us. We steward God's grace and his kingdom. The last point I would like to make is the spiritual work requires spiritual strength. You cannot do the work of God in the power of the flesh. We know from Romans 8 and I know a lot of you are memorizing either the book of Romans or Romans chapter 8. That's great. It's encouraging because there's moments when you have either a temptation or you have this open spot in your calendar you're sitting there thinking shall I post something on Facebook or pray and maybe both but manifestation of the kingdom. But there's a reality to the fact that when you have a moment and you simply close your eyes and say there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death for what the law could not do. Weekend does it was and you just roll that around and you're praying and it's the kingdom being made manifest in your heart in our heart and so it requires a spiritual strength. We must fill our minds with scripture which is nothing less than the sort of the spirit. When you see the word spiritual in the Bible it is almost always referencing the Holy Spirit. The spiritual work is the work of the Holy Spirit unless the Lord builds the house those who labor and labor in vain and so it's a spiritual work of of word of prayer of communion with God. Now what happens with us and it's a normal part of the Christian life is that we struggle. I was extremely impressed and gripped by this last verse. Paul says for this I toil struggling with all his energy, the work of the Spirit, that he powerfully works within me, this idea of struggle and I went back to that mom and that dad and I thought about their struggle and you know in our struggle the focus of our lives should be to see the beauty of God and so in conclusion I want to want to give you a little bit of a story and then an illustration. Phil Visser who was the creator of Veggie Tales, I don't know if you many of you know Veggie Tales. I see a lot of people nodding children, parents and grandparents. Yes Veggie Tales. Phil had a, had a mercurial career in the sense that he rose to tremendous success but then he also fell to deep deep despair and Phil spoke at Wheaton College Chapel earlier this week and I was so impressed with this. I wanted to put it at the end of this sermon to help us to think about things. The impact God has planned for us does not occur when we are pursuing impact. It occurs when we are pursuing God. There's a difference. If we are program minded as a church we'll come to the idea of well we're doing this for God and I pray that God blesses it and here we go as opposed to the idea of pursuing God. Phil became wealthy almost overnight and he became so wealthy that he needed to hire other people to gather around him to help him with his work and Phil's a strong Christian. He wanted to honor Christ with his work. He wanted Veggie Tales to be a visible manifestation of the invisible kingdom of God. He really did but his business model failed and demand wasn't strong enough for supply and lo and behold he lost pretty much everything and when he was sitting in despair one day he was crying out to God and he was saying God you could have saved this company. God you could have maybe I could have come up with another Veggie tale or maybe we could have managed things better and then Phil realized that he was more about trying to impact people and he was pursuing impact rather than pursuing God and it humbled him and now he walks with a limp in his soul but he walks with a limp and he has a smile on his face because he's pursuing God and if God wants his work to be profitable and important and significant then God will do that but as for Phil viscer he is going to pursue God. Now last week I asked you to ponder the work of Jesus Christ and this week I want to encourage you to pursue God to pursue him to urgently pursue the creator and sustainer. Now sometimes and I'll close with this illustration sometimes when we go through life and we struggle we think God is against us. We say what have I done wrong? Why did a couple over rembunctions kids bump into me last week and now I'm in the hospital or I'm trying to serve the Lord what's going on? Struggling is part of living. If you're struggling you're alive and if you're struggling you're normal because we're broken humanity we will always struggle it'll always be hard for us we're broken inside and we can try to find satisfaction and other things and it might work for a little while but ultimately it will break us again it will break us over and over and over again until we transfer our trust from ourselves and from stuff to God and he becomes our great hope but the struggle is normal if you're struggling right now and I want you to know you're in a very good place Jesus Christ struggled when he walked on this earth last week I told you that Jesus did indeed crushed ahead of the serpent but the serpent did bruise his heel he suffered he struggled and you're suffering and struggling too and I want you to know in this church you do not have to hide your suffering and you do not have to hide your struggles we want to continue to be a community of fellow struggling we traveled together we're free to be ourselves we're free to speak into one another's lives the work of Christ there's a story about this little boy he was playing outside and he found a caterpillar he picked it up brought it in to show his mom he asked his mom if he could keep it she said he could keep it if he would take good care of it the little boy got a jar from his mom put some plants in it for the caterpillar to eat and he put a stick inside for it to climb on inside the jar every day he watched the caterpillar and brought it new plants to eat one day the caterpillar climbed up the stick and started acting strangely the boy worriedly called his mother who came and understood that the caterpillar was creating a cocoon the mother explained to the boy how the caterpillar was going to go through a metamorphosis and become a butterfly the little boy was thrilled to hear about the changes his caterpillar would go through he watched every day waiting for the butterfly to emerge one day it happened a small hole appeared in the cocoon and the butterfly started to struggle to come at first the little boy was excited but he soon became concerned the butterfly was struggling so hard to get out it looked like it couldn't break free it looked desperate it looked like it was making no progress the boy was so concerned he decided to help he went and with the help of his mother he caught some scissors and he snipped the cocoon to make the hole bigger and the butterfly quickly emerged as the butterfly came out the boy was surprised it had a swollen body and a small shriveled wings he continued to watch the butterfly expecting at any moment the wings would dry out in large and expand to support the swollen body he knew that in time the body would shrink and the butterflies wings would expand but neither happened the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings it was never able to fly butterflies are supposed to struggle and when they struggle and they break through the cocoon it pushes the fluid out of its body into its wings without the struggle the butterfly would never ever fly the boy's good intentions hurt the butterfly it's okay to struggle it's normal to struggle don't see be surprised if you struggle it's really the normal Christian life that we struggle but in our struggles the Holy Spirit is at work and he is moving the truths we know in our head into our heart and they are becoming unified in such a way that in many ways we don't know the difference he unites our head knowledge with our heart in such a way that they're unified and when you're struggling have faith that God is making something beautiful in you you can't see it it's still invisible to you but with eyes of faith know that he is at work and one day one day one day even in us fellow struggling we will be made and we will be beautiful we will be made beautiful on the day of redemption that they Jesus returns so struggling be calm don't be surprised don't think that God is attacking you you're being developed and you're being crafted you're being crafted handcrafted by God and you're being made beautiful don't hide your struggle share your struggle don't hide the kingdom manifest the kingdom as the spirit is at work in you so mom I hope you do get a good night sleep tonight but even in the midst of your suffering you're being united to your child to your husband you're being united to Christ rest in him enjoy tying little shoes and changing diapers and cutting up meat because one day you'll no longer be able to do that and your little one will grow up and one day they'll drive away enjoy the stage of your life that you're in right now with all of its hardships knowing that God is always at work to make you beautiful through the work of Christ let's pray together well Jesus this is going to take some faith for many of us because we truly are discouraged and we we are overwhelmed with the idea of parenting or the idea of just cycling another person the idea of reaching out into another person's life knowing that eventually if we get close enough to them they're going to see our brokenness they're going to hear our list and they're going to watch us limp and so may we always make much of Jesus Christ because Jesus is the image of the invisible God the firstborn of all creation for through him all things were created in heaven and on earth whether visible or invisible whether thrones or dominions rulers of authorities all things are held together we have coherence because of you Jesus and one day you're going to open our eyes and we will see the coherence of the universe and we will fall down and we will fall down at the beauty with excitement and we will know that our suffering is over strengthen us we pray in the name of Jesus and all those who walk with the limp said together amen would you please stand if you're able and receive the benediction
and now may the Lord bless you and keep you may the Lord cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you may the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace both now and in the life of everlasting amen