Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Hey New Life Gillette Church. We are thrilled you decided to listen to our teaching on your favorite podcast app. If you made a decision to follow Christ today, would you let us know by visiting? Yes.newlife gillette.com Here is this week's teaching.
[00:00:24] Morning.
[00:00:26] Hope that you are doing well this morning.
[00:00:30] I wrote myself a note to remind myself to announce something, because last week I was supposed to say something at the beginning of my sermon, but I forgot. Here's what I'm supposed to announce this morning. You guys know this Easter is coming. We are just a few weeks away from Easter and I'm incredibly excited about it for a couple of reasons. First off, because we get to celebrate. Celebrate the fact that Christ died and rose again and everything is different because of that. Here's the second reason. We are expecting a full house here on Easter. Why? Because there are a lot of people that this is the one time of year they'll let their friend or mom or grandma or cousin guilt them into coming to church in exchange for lunch afterwards. And we get to share the gospel with a lot of people on Easter. We are incredibly excited about that. In fact, that's why we're here, right? Why are we here if not to share the gospel? Amen.
[00:01:23] Because there are people who need to know that Jesus loves them unconditionally and he died to give them new life. And on Easter, we get to proclaim that truth to a lot of people who might not hear it any other way. Now, you heard this earlier. Lindsay said it. We're having three services on Easter Sunday and then a fourth one the Wednesday following. So three services on the fifth and then one on the eighth. And what that means is we need a lot of volunteers.
[00:01:50] We need a lot of people to work together to make this a hospitable environment for the new families and people who will be coming to hear the gospel maybe for the first time. It makes a huge difference when people walk in and there is someone to open a door for them when they walk in and there's an excited person to take care of their kids when there's coffee made. These are the things we do that communicate the love of Christ to someone before they ever hear a note from a song or a word from a sermon. So here's what I'm asking you to do this morning. If you do not serve at New Life, would you seriously consider signing up to serve on Easter Sunday? In fact, the place where we always need the most volunteers is our kids ministry. It takes a lot of people, I think like 60 adults. A service to operate our kids ministry. They're going to need a lot of volunteers. So would you consider signing up to serve in the kids ministry on Easter Sunday? Now, some of you are thinking, listen, diapers, not my thing. I get that. Me too. There are lots of places to serve in the kids ministry. Sign up. We'll get you plugged in. If you do it once and you love it, you can keep going. If you do it once and you hate it, we'll find a different place for you to serve. Consider serving in the kids ministry because there are a lot of people who don't know the love of Christ and it's our responsibility to take. Tell them on Easter Sunday. Amen. Amen. All right. Sign up to serve on Easter. Colossians, Chapter one. We are picking up right where we left off last week. We're going to start reading in verse 24. We're reading the verses today that inspired the name of this series, that we're in hope of glory. And while you're turning there, I want to say good morning to everybody joining us online at Church307. We're stoked that you've joined today. Want to say welcome to our friends down at the prison. We're so glad that you're joining us us online. You're watching the service and we are. We've already felt the presence of God. We're expecting God to move this morning. So Colossians chapter one, starting in verse 24, here's what it says now. I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions. For the sake of his body, which is the Church, I have become its servant. By the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord's people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery which is Christ in you the hope of glory. He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.
[00:04:42] To this end, I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me. I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not met me personally. My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom knowledge. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine sounding arguments. For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.
[00:05:28] Let's pray.
[00:05:33] Jesus, we love you.
[00:05:36] We're here for you this morning.
[00:05:39] We are here to experience your presence, open your word, worship with your people. So we ask that you would speak to us this morning.
[00:05:49] God, any of my opinions that are in this sermon, let us notice them so we can reject them.
[00:05:55] But if there's anything that's consistent with your character and faithful to your word, would you plant it in our hearts? Jesus, we are here to become like you.
[00:06:04] That's why we're here. We love you.
[00:06:06] Amen.
[00:06:08] I have a question for you. Have you ever had part of a song stuck in your head, but, like, just part of the song and you can't remember what the song is?
[00:06:20] Just like two lines or maybe the melody or something like that, and it goes through your head all day and it drives you absolutely nuts. You go through Spotify, searching every song that might possibly be the right song, and you can't find it. Your friends start recommending, oh, no, it's this song and you look it up. Definitely not that song. Why are you even friends with that person? Right? Like, have you ever had that happen? I have this tick where if I hear a song twice, it's in my brain forever. At least part of that song is in my brain forever. And what that means is that if you say words that are in a song, especially like a hip hop song from the early 2000s, then that song is now playing in my brain for the rest of the day. I can't turn it off until I figure out what the song is. Honestly, even if I hear a sound, if I hear some, like, pans in the kitchen falling and they go, do, do, do, do, that song stuck in your head now for the rest of the day too.
[00:07:11] If I hear that happen, it is just playing in my brain and there's nothing I can do about it until I hear the song or figure out what it is, and it drives me absolutely bonkers.
[00:07:23] Here's another question. Have you ever been craving food?
[00:07:28] But not just hungry, like, craving something specific. You're craving pizza, but you're not just craving pizza. You're craving that greasy, nasty pizza restaurant that you ate at. At midnight on Thursdays when you were in college. You want that exact slice of pizza.
[00:07:45] I think about all the time. This place I went to twice in Louisville, Kentucky, called Spinelli's. Sketchiest restaurant I've ever been to. And that's saying a lot because my favorite restaurant is Waffle House. And you guys in Wyoming don't know what Waffle House is, But it's where 90% of crime in America is committed. Don't fact check me on that. It's true.
[00:08:05] But you're craving Spinelli's. You're craving that slice of pizza, man, that place, they gave you these slices of pizza that were so big, they put it on a paper plate, and the paper plate could not contain the pizza. It's draping over on every side, grease running down your arm. You just want to lick your arm because it's so delicious. I mean, just so good. Anyway, you didn't need to know that. But it's important. If you're ever in Louisville Spinelli's, it is in an alley, down a graffitied staircase.
[00:08:30] That's how you know you're in the right place. There's a gremlin. You have to know the password.
[00:08:35] Well, you're craving that, right? So what do you do? It's not around. You order dominoes, and you eat dominoes, and it's almost right, but it's not it. And it would have been better to just get a salad, right? It would have been better to not get anything close to what you were craving than to get almost it and not have it. And now it makes you want that thing even more, and it's absolutely driving you nuts, right?
[00:09:02] Actually, not to take this in a weird place, but that is kind of how addiction works. That's kind of how we develop addictions as humans. Most of the things that we turn to in addiction, whether it's work, drugs, pornography, anything like that, it's because we're craving something good. We're craving something that humans naturally and rightfully desire. We're craving fulfillment. We're craving meaning, we're craving joy. We're craving some sort of real human connection and love and acceptance.
[00:09:33] So we find something that feels almost like it.
[00:09:37] We find something that stimulates a little bit of the thing that we're desiring that we're craving. But the problem is it's not quite feels good for a moment, but it doesn't last.
[00:09:50] It gives you pleasure, but it doesn't give you connection. So what do we do? We go back to that thing again. And we convince ourselves that if I can just get a little bit more of that thing, if I can just dial it up a little more this time, then I'll get what I was longing for. And we go back to it again, trying to increase the experience and increase the intensity to find the same thing. And each time it almost gives us what we're craving now in the Roman world, in the Greco Roman world, one of the things almost everybody craved was glory.
[00:10:26] Paul in this passage in Colossians uses this odd word that we don't use that often unless it's in a movie title or in a song or something like that. Glory. We don't often talk about having to have the glory for the college basketball game or something like that.
[00:10:42] In the ancient world and actually for much of human history, even until recently in American history, the world existed in what a lot of people would call an honor shame society.
[00:10:55] To varying degrees, an honor shame society. And what that means is that the most important thing a person could have, the thing that defined a person and set them apart, was honor. Another way of saying that is glory. The interesting thing about glory is that it's something you can't get for yourself. Glory requires other people. Other people have to give it to you, right? You can't get the glory for putting the team on your back in the high school volleyball championships unless there was a team and there were people to see it happen and tell you and know that you got the glory for it, right? You have to have other people to assign that glory or to assign that honor. And much of human history was an honor shame society. That's why you read In American History, or if you watched Hamilton, that's why you saw duels, right? Someone attacks the honor of another person, so what do they have to do? They fight about it. They break out swords or guns to defend their honor.
[00:11:51] In the Greco Roman world, honor was one of the most important things. Honor was generally considered almost the same as wealth or status. In fact, honor often followed those things. If you had honor, if you had glory, if you had significance in culture, then it naturally followed that you were also going to be wealthy, that you were also going to have position, you were also going to be famous. All of those things kind of followed from honor. And that was the thing that people desired. And honor was generational.
[00:12:26] It wasn't something that you earned just for yourself. Honor was passed down from generations. That's why you read in the Old Testament. Things that seem weird to us about someone putting a curse on A family for generations, they curse the person and their descendants because they did something shameful. And that shame is going to live in that family for a long time. Because honor and shame were generational. If you were born without honor, the primary thing you wanted to do was get honor. If your family had shame, you kind of had two options. You would just steer into it, because how are you going to prove people wrong? Or you would devote your life to trying to turn the family legacy around.
[00:13:03] The problem was that was complicated because if you were born without honor, if you were born in a low class in society, then the likelihood of being able to attain the thing everybody wanted, very low. Maybe through the military, something like that.
[00:13:19] If you were born in high class, you had it whether you did anything right or not.
[00:13:26] Now Paul is writing to a church, to a new church in this complicated situation, because it's a church that has people from all classes, people that have honor and people that don't have it. People that have glory and people that don't. Poor, rich, slave free, different races, different classes. They're all present in the church, and they're all still competing for honor, the thing that their culture wants more than anything else. They're all still trying to figure out who has the most glory and who has the most respect.
[00:13:58] Now, you and I don't talk about glory that often in our culture. That's not a word that we use very often. But have you seen the cinematic masterpiece Napoleon Dynamite?
[00:14:11] Yeah. Listen, if you don't think Napoleon Dynamite is funny, then I don't want to talk anymore. I think it is just comedic genius. It's chef's kiss. 10 out of 10, no notes. It may be the best movie ever made. I watched it when I was about 14. And that probably tells you a lot about who I am as a person. It probably made me who I am today.
[00:14:29] Who's seen the movie?
[00:14:31] Okay. Praise the Lord. We got a lot of Christians here. Good.
[00:14:37] You remember Uncle Rico?
[00:14:39] All right. Do you remember what Uncle Rico kept talking about back in 85?
[00:14:46] Yeah, back in 85. My favorite scene in the whole movie, when he hits Napoleon in the face with a stake.
[00:14:52] Gosh, it's so good. And he Sundays, back in 85, I could throw a pigskin over that mountain. Right?
[00:14:59] Uncle Rico was always talking about the glory days, right?
[00:15:05] He was always talking about those days back then, when he did something that mattered.
[00:15:10] When everybody knew how important he was, how meaningful his life was. When everybody honored him for what he accomplished.
[00:15:20] We know people, most of us do. Some of Us are like Uncle Rico. We might not talk about it all the time, but we're constantly thinking about back then when I did something that mattered. Back then in high school, when I was really at the top of my game. Back then when I was younger and people really respected me. Back when I was more athletic, Back when I had money before my divorce, back in the glory days.
[00:15:46] We don't use the word glory. We don't even use the word honor. But we talk about it and we think about it. We think more about. I want to do something that matters with my life.
[00:15:57] I've got to spend my life doing something that really matters. I don't want to waste my life. And then we spend a lot of time thinking, am I in the right job? Do I really want to keep working this job that's not making a difference in the world? Am I too old to change?
[00:16:12] We'll consider.
[00:16:13] Did I peak already?
[00:16:16] Am I on the downhill side of life? Is it just downhill from here?
[00:16:21] In fact, I would go so far as to say with a lot of confidence that there are a lot of us in this room. Might not admit it, but when you're laying in bed at night and everything's quiet and you can't sleep, you think a lot about whether you've wasted your potential.
[00:16:38] Think a lot about whether you're in the wrong job or maybe in the wrong marriage. They were the dream person back then.
[00:16:45] But life has happened, and you're both a lot different now. And you're not sure if it's going to work anymore.
[00:16:52] Did I waste everything God gave me? Maybe you think a lot about that time. Your dad or your mom or your uncle said, hey, why don't you got so much potential? Why don't you use it like your brother does?
[00:17:05] You spent the last 20 years trying to prove dad wrong and live up to that potential that you know you have.
[00:17:17] The problem is, all of those things require other people to have meaning in life. I have to have someone give it to me.
[00:17:28] To have meaning in life, I have to do something other people notice. To marry the right person, I have to find the right person. And who decides what the right person is? Usually it's other people who tell me whether they live up to the standards or not.
[00:17:45] And if I can earn it, if I have to prove it to other people, if I have to get it by recognition from others, then I can lose it.
[00:17:56] If my life matters because I work the right job, what do I do when I get laid off?
[00:18:02] If my life matters, if I Find my meaning in my marriage.
[00:18:07] Then what happens when a medical diagnosis comes along that changes my marriage, changes who I thought I was going to be and what this was going to be like.
[00:18:17] If I define myself by my athletic ability, by being different than other people, what happens when I'm 30 something and I'm just not as athletic as I was when I was 16 and my life isn't going the way I thought it was?
[00:18:33] If it's given to me, if it's assigned to me by other people, if I have to earn it, if I have to do something to accomplish it, then I can lose it. Then it's incredibly, incredibly fragile.
[00:18:48] So what does Paul say?
[00:18:51] What does Paul say to the Colossian Church that he also says to us today?
[00:18:58] Christ in you is the hope of glory.
[00:19:03] We're right about one thing. We do have to have that honor and that glory given to us. It's not something we can create on our own. We can't just manufacture it and tell ourselves that we have it. It has to be given to us, has to be assigned to us by something. How is it assigned? How is it given? It's Christ in you. The hope of glory. Why? Because everything else we're looking for is like that song that's almost it that you can almost remember. But the more you try, the farther away you get from it. Everything else that we chase in life is like that craving. When you almost taste it, you almost have the thing that you're looking for, but it's not quite it. So you have to keep looking. Think about it like this. How many people do you know who made 1 million and decided they were good without 2 or 10?
[00:19:49] How many people do you know that bought the dream house and then were satisfied and didn't need to fill it with toys?
[00:19:59] How many people do you know who got the dream in their 30s and then were just content for the rest of their lives?
[00:20:06] No. Because if meaning is something, if purpose is something that I gain by what I do or by what I accomplish, then I have to keep doing and I have to keep accomplishing in order to keep having it. And it's never quite enough. There's always going to be a bigger elk I need to kill or another continent I need to hunt. Or another person who's more attractive or successful than the person I'm married to right now. Or another job that might give me just a little bit of a leg up on society or a little more in my savings account that'll make me feel just a little bit More comfortable. It's always almost what I wanted, but not quite. And I keep going. It's what we call addiction.
[00:20:47] So Jesus gives us the answer. Christ in you, the hope of glory.
[00:20:55] I think that verse causes us to need to ask a question. It's this question right here. It's been on the screen the whole time.
[00:21:03] Do I live for meaning or from meaning?
[00:21:11] Do I live in order to get meaning or do I live because I have meaning?
[00:21:22] Do I go to work every day to prove that my life matters, or do I go to work every day because my life matters?
[00:21:34] Do I serve in the church to make God love me, or do I serve in the church because God loves me?
[00:21:43] Am I living my life in order to find something, prove something, accomplish something, or am I living my life because it's already been proven and already been accomplished? Am I living my life for meeting to make something matter? Or am I living it because I have meaning and because it already matters? What we're talking about here is the difference really between a kid who plays sports and they try really hard in order to make their parents notice and be proud versus a kid that plays sports and tries really hard because their parents do notice and are already proud.
[00:22:19] One of them. They'll probably both do pretty well. They'll probably both be pretty driven to achieve and accomplish a decent amount in sports. The problem is one of them is going to be paralyzed by the fear of failure and is going to be driven to perform because of anxiety, and the other one is going to be driven to perform because they know they are loved. And even if they fail, they'll still be loved. They're not trying to earn anything by what they accomplish. They're accomplishing it because it's already been given to them. They're not afraid of failure because they know failure doesn't define them. So they're happy to give it all they've got even if they fail. That's the problem with living to earn something is eventually we become crippled by the thought of losing it.
[00:23:03] See, this is what we all want from our. From our kids, right? If you're a parent, this is what we want for our kids. We want our kids to know they are loved and not try to prove that they're loved. We want our kids to know that we care for them no matter what, instead of trying to get us to pay attention and get us to notice. This is what we want for our kids. This is what we want for them to know that they're loved, for them to know that they're accepted no matter what. And this is what your heavenly Father wants for you.
[00:23:31] This is what our Heavenly Father wants. For all of us to know that we're loved, to live because we have meaning from meaning, not for it. Can you imagine what it would be like if we parented our kids without being afraid of failing?
[00:23:55] If we parented our kids without taking everything they do personally, because we're not defining our success as a parent based on their success as a child?
[00:24:07] Can you imagine that?
[00:24:08] Can you imagine how freeing it would be if we could love our spouse without needing our spouse to prove that we're lovable?
[00:24:18] Can you imagine how much freer that would be if I could love my spouse not because I need her to give me something, not because I need her to prove that I'm successful at something, but because I know God has loved me and I just love her? Can you imagine how much freer that would be? Can you imagine how much more freedom we would have if we went to work because God has told us everything we do matters instead of to prove that our lives matter?
[00:24:55] Can you imagine how much freedom we would have if failure wasn't something we were afraid of because failure never defined us?
[00:25:05] Can you imagine that?
[00:25:07] You might take the risk, you might start the business.
[00:25:10] You might.
[00:25:12] You might go out on a limb. We might actually share our faith because we're not worried about what people think. We don't need someone to approve what we say or to approve what we do. Why? Because we are approved in Christ. And the crazy thing about this is that the only way that we actually find the freedom that we're looking for is through knowing that we are loved already, that we are already accepted in Christ. If you want freedom from sin, you have to know that God loves you, even if you never find it.
[00:25:41] If you want freedom from addiction, what you have to know is that God loves you even if you never find the freedom from addiction, it's the only thing that will actually set you free. That's the thing about addiction, is you are never actually free from it until you find the thing that you were always craving, right?
[00:25:58] You're never free from addiction until you find the thing that you were trying to fill with the alcohol or drugs or work or pornography. You're never free from it. So the thing that sets us free is realizing that we are loved no matter what. That we are accepted no matter what. That God has forgiven us no matter what. That you could fail at everything you do for the rest of your life. And your life would matter Exactly. Exactly as much as it does right now.
[00:26:23] It would have no effect on God's love for you. It would have no effect on your significance.
[00:26:29] It would have no effect on your meaning. You are loved.
[00:26:33] This has been a long way of me telling you one thing.
[00:26:37] You are loved more than you could ever know or ever imagine. There's nothing you can do that will ever change it. There's nothing you can do that will get in the way of it. Paul said in a different letter, he said, what can separate us from the love of God? I am convinced nothing. Neither heights, nor depths, nor angels, nor demons, nor powers or principalities or things on or above the earth, or on the earth or below the earth can ever separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. You are loved beyond what you can imagine, and that is the freedom that you are looking for. Your life matters. Why? Because God says it does. What you do matters. Why? Because Christ is in you and with you. Fail, don't fail. Go bankrupt. Don't go bankrupt.
[00:27:28] Your kids do everything you want them to do or they don't.
[00:27:32] Your life matters because Christ says it does.
[00:27:38] You are caught up in love that will never let you go.
[00:27:44] You know, almost every night for a long time still, sometimes I would tell my son this really horribly cheesy dad thing.
[00:27:52] I would say, if my love for you is water, the whole earth would be flooded. And then he would say, then how would I not drown? And I would say, good call.
[00:28:02] I'd say, it's love water. You don't drown in love.
[00:28:09] Some of you just need to hear this this morning.
[00:28:12] And look, let all of the distractions go for a second.
[00:28:19] Don't let anything get in the way of this.
[00:28:23] If the love of God for you was water, the whole earth would be covered in it.
[00:28:28] And you wouldn't dream.
[00:28:32] There's nothing that can separate you from the love of God.
[00:28:36] Fail at everything you ever do for the rest of your life. It will not separate you from the love of God.
[00:28:41] I know this sounds crazy. I know some of us cringe at what I'm about to say. But commit every sin possible for the rest of your life. It will not change God's love for you.
[00:28:49] It won't do it. He'll still be begging you to accept his forgiveness.
[00:28:54] He loves you more than you could ever imagine.
[00:28:59] Success or failure, free or addicted. He loves you.
[00:29:08] Everything else you're looking for, everything you're longing for, is found in the knowledge that Christ is in you and he will never let you go.
[00:29:19] That Christ loves you more than you can ever imagine. And he will never let you go.
[00:29:30] No one can take it from you because Christ gave it to you. You can't do anything to lose it because you didn't earn it.
[00:29:39] It's given to you by Christ through his death and resurrection.
[00:29:45] You are caught up in a love that will never let you go.
[00:29:51] The thing that you are longing for, the meaning that you seek, is yours.
[00:29:57] Live because you have it not to earn it. Parent because you have it not to earn it. Parent your kids like you love them no matter what. Because Jesus loves you no matter what.
[00:30:14] And they don't have to do exactly what you want them to do for you to be a good parent.
[00:30:22] Love them the way Jesus loves you.
[00:30:25] Love your spouse unconditionally because you are loved, not because you need them to love you back.
[00:30:31] When you can open up your hands and not try to control the world around you and let the love of God be given to you instead of trying to take it.
[00:30:42] That's the freedom you're looking for. It's the scariest thing you can do because it's the acknowledgement that we couldn't control it anyway.
[00:30:52] But it's where the freedom, the meaning, the significance you're looking for lies Christ in you.
[00:30:58] The hope of glory. I don't have some crazy application for this sermon. I don't have three things for you to go home and do.
[00:31:05] I just want to ask you, do you live for meaning?
[00:31:10] Do you wake up every day trying to prove that you matter?
[00:31:13] Or do you live because you have it, because you know you do, because of Christ in you?
[00:31:21] If God's love for you is water, you're drowning in it.
[00:31:26] You'll never get out of it.
[00:31:29] Let's pray.
[00:31:34] Jesus, you love us no matter what.
[00:31:45] Jesus, our lives matter because you say so.
[00:31:54] Jesus, I thank you that we didn't have to earn your love, that we didn't have to prove ourselves to you to get your love, that you give it to us generously and freely.
[00:32:06] And that because we didn't earn your love, we can't lose your love.
[00:32:12] God, would you just let us see how much you love us?
[00:32:18] For those of us who, no matter how much we hear it, we can't believe it. We wake up every day feeling like a failure. Would you just pull back the curtain just a little to show us that we actually are loved? And would you do me a favor? Would you tell us again and again and again? Because you can tell us today and tomorrow. We're going to have a hard time believing it all over. Would you tell us again and again and again how much you love us?
[00:32:46] Thank you, Jesus.
[00:32:48] Amen.
