Hope Church LV Sermons
The Incomparable Christ :: Colossians 1:13
I don't know about you, but when I was growing up in school, English was not one of my favorite subjects. I don't know if anybody can identify with me if we have any English teachers in the room. I deeply apologize to you. It just was not -- and I'm sure after if you've listened to me speak for any length of time at all, you picked up on the fact that English was not one of my favorite subjects, right? This wasn't something that I enjoyed. I mean, all the pieces and parts of it, from studying the grammar, the adjectives and adverbs and diphthongs and all that other stuff, the part that I probably hated the worst was the field of literature, and then the piece where out of that we would have to get up and give speeches, and we would have to write things and then share them in front of the class. This was just a constant battle for me. I know you see me today up here speaking, and you think I'm joking, but literally by the time I reached my 11th grade English class had had such an issue with this, I thought I was going to fail 11th grade English because I did not -- I dug my heels in the same -- I did not want to get up in front of the class and speak. I didn't want to say anything. I didn't want to do any of that kind of stuff. I know you laugh at that now, but I'm telling you the gospel truth. I was terrified to get up in front of people and speak like that. So I had this one 11th grade English teacher who it just kind of all came to blows with this English teacher. I'll leave her nameless today, but let's just say that she did not appreciate my lack of appreciation for the English language. We had a mutual lack of appreciation for each other. And one day she gave us an assignment, and I don't know what clicked in me, but there was an epiphany that happened for me on that day that just some things clicked for me. She gave us this assignment. It was around one of the patriotic holidays, and she gave us an assignment to write an original poem on the subject of freedom and then to get up in front of the class and recite that poem from memory. And when she gave the assignment, it was like something just clicked all at once. And I was inspired, and she had accomplished her objective as an English teacher. She had inspired me to write. Unfortunately, it really probably wasn't what she was hoping for. But I went home, and man, I put it all down on paper, and I memorized it, and I came back to class and I couldn't wait for her to call on my name. And I thought this being July 4th week, it'd be appropriate for me to share a little bit of that poem with you this morning. All right? Here's the way it went. I'm not going to give you the whole poem because there's about five paragraphs, but I'm going to give you two of them. Here's how it opened. It said, "The freedom of which I'm about to tell is not about flags or the Liberty Bell. It is that freedom which comes each June when the school bell rings its final tune." And I went home for a few paragraphs and I ended it this way. I said, "There it goes. The bell just rang. It is time to kick off summer with a bang." As the great Dr. King spoke in the past, "Thank God Almighty, we're free at last." Now, my English teacher was not too thrilled, but she did have to give me an A because I did exactly what she asked us to do. Now, this morning with great apologies to my 11th grade English teacher and all the English teachers that had to put up with me through my years of education, I have come to greatly appreciate the beauty and the complexity and the power of the English language. I never dreamed in my lifetime that I would give as much of my time studying words and phrases written in the English language and unpacking those words and phrases. But as I was preparing for this weekend's message, if you're visiting with us, we're studying as a church family straight through the Book of Colossians. If you have your Bible, you can open to Colossians chapter 1. As I was preparing to study this week, I read the text of Scripture. When one of us is going to teach your preach the Bible to you on a given weekend, one of the things that we do in preparation is we'll read the passage of Scripture over and over and over, sometimes 50, 60, 70, 80, 100 times. We'll just read that passage of Scripture over and over and over to let it saturate in our hearts so that we can understand what it's saying. I've read this passage of Scripture many times, but when we were preparing, and I don't know which translation you'd read out of, but I read out of what's called the New American Standard translation. A lot of people ask that question. It's just the first Bible that I was given when I came to Christ as a freshman in college, New American Standard. It's what I cut my teeth on. It's what I've been using now for 22 or 23 years, and I'm just comfortable with it. If I was starting today, I would probably start with the ESV. I love the new ESV translation that is out. It's a very strong literal word for word translation, but I've just learned all my verses in NASB, so it's what I keep reading, but the New American Standard, one of the things that they do in the context of the Scripture is with some of the paragraphs, they've added some headings that they give you to kind of describe the paragraph. And when I got to the paragraph of Scripture that we're about to begin the study, there was a heading above that paragraph, and here's what it said, the incomparable Christ. And it just stopped me dead in my tracks because the word incomparable is an adjective that I must be honest with you, I do not use every day. It's not one of those words that is just a regular part of my vocabulary. As a matter of fact, the first thing I did when I saw that little phrase in my Bible was I went to Google and typed in that word to exactly understand how to pronounce it. Was it incomparable? Was it incomparable? Well, I wasn't sure exactly how to pronounce it, so I began to look at this adjective because an adjective is a word that is used to add description. It's literally from a Latin word which means to throw more at. It's the idea of bringing light to a particular noun or pronoun and unpacking or giving some description about what that noun or pronoun is. And here the New American Standard translators have given this section of Scripture that's heading the incomparable Christ. So I took that word incomparable and I looked it up in a dictionary. My 11th grade English teacher would be thrilled today to know how much time I spend in a dictionary. But I looked this word up in a dictionary and I want to give you some of the meanings and some different dictionaries of this word incomparable. Look at them on the screen. In Webster's dictionary, this word is defined as imminent or standing out beyond comparison. In McMillan's dictionary, it's defined as being so good that nothing else can compare. In the American Heritage Dictionary, it's defined as being such that comparison is impossible and, lastly, in Colin's dictionary, it's defined as beyond or above comparison, matchless, unequal. And when I look up a word like that, sometimes to help me get it, what I'll do is I'll substitute the definition for the word in the phrase that I'm reading instead of saying the incomparable Christ. I will say the beyond or above comparison Christ, the matchless and unequaled Christ, the being such that comparison is impossible Christ. And the more I did that and the more I meditated on that word incomparable and began to think about the person of Jesus, I came away with this conclusion. There is absolutely no one like Jesus, amen? There's nobody like Jesus. And as we open the book of Colossians, the book of Colossians was written to a church, a group of believers, a church that had been founded in the city of Colossae and it had been founded upon the great gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel being the person and the work of Jesus, all that Jesus is and all that Jesus had done. It was that powerful message of the gospel that had brought about this new fellowship of believers in Colossae. Paul had sent a young man named Epaphras out of the city of Ephesus to go and Paul sent him and Epaphras went to Colossae and preached the glorious truth of Jesus. Epaphras, after some time there in Colossae, discovered that some false teachers had come into the church at Colossae and they had begun to attack the person and the work of Jesus Christ. They had begun to teach things that took the truth about Jesus and just ever so slightly twisted it. They didn't come in and say, "Oh, forget about this Jesus." No, they took the truth about Jesus and they began to twist it just ever so slightly so that it kind of sounded the same, but Epaphras knew it was vastly different. So he went to Paul in Rome in prison and he said, "Paul, what do I do? This false teaching is crept in and it's begun to undermine the truth about Jesus." And it was out of that motive with that response in his heart that Paul sat down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God and he penned the very words that you and I call the book of Colossians in the Bible. This book was written as a treatise, if you will, to re-establish and to found the church once again in Colossae and the truth about Jesus. You see, the great dividing line that separates Christianity from all other faiths and religions and belief systems. The great dividing line is what we believe about the person and work of Jesus Christ. And the same thing that was happening in Paul's day is still happening in our day today. Listen to the way Warren Wiersby says it. He says, "The false teachers in Colossae, like the false teachers of our own day, would not deny the importance of Jesus. They would simply dethrone him, giving him prominence but not preeminence." What happened in Paul's day still happens in our day. I'll give you two examples. On a global scale, the fastest one of the fastest growing religions in the world is the religion of Islam. Islam would not discount Jesus. Islam would not say, "Don't follow Jesus." Islam, as a matter of fact, would say Jesus is one of the five major prophets sent from God. They say that Noah and Moses and Abraham and Jesus and Muhammad are the five great prophets of Islam. They would give Jesus a place of honor, but they would not give him the place that the Scripture gives him. Here locally in our own city, we understand the context of the religion of Mormonism in our city. Mormonism is a religion that would give place and honor to Jesus as a matter of fact, they would say of themselves that they are the church of Jesus Christ. The issue though is that Mormonism gives Jesus a place of honor, but it's not the honor that the Bible gives him. The Mormons would call Jesus one of humanity. They would say he's the firstborn of humanity, but he's one of human beings who became God and just like Jesus became God, they would say that you and I could also become God at some point of our own world and our own planet. It takes the teaching of Jesus, all the other faiths and all the other belief systems, takes the person and work of Jesus and they use the terms and they use the same vocabulary, but they twist and ever so slightly distort the meaning of who he is. Here's the problem. The problem is the Bible says that Jesus is way more than one of the prophets. The Bible says that Jesus is not just a man. As a matter of fact, the Bible says Jesus is not one of anything. Jesus is the only true and living God. Unfortunately, there has been such a dearth of preaching of the Word of God in the context and culture of America that our churches are filled with people who are biblically illiterate when it comes to the understanding of the doctrine of the person and work of Christ. And so we are easily misled and deceived by people who come in saying the same things, using the same words, but with slightly different meanings. Listen, it's very important that you understand our enemy is not going to come dressed in a red suit and carrying a pitchfork. The Bible says he comes as an angel of light, interesting that it says angel of light when you understand our context. He comes as a deceiver to take the truth and ever so slightly twisted. So beginning this weekend and for the next seven weekends, we are going to walk through verse by verse a section of Scripture in the book of Colossians in a series that we are simply calling the incomparable Christ to lay a foundation for us in all that Jesus is and all that Jesus has done. I encourage you to invite your friends, your family members, your co-workers to attend as we lay out from the Scripture who Jesus is and what he's done. Before I read our text for the morning, I want you to hear what John MacArthur says about the text of Scripture we're about to dig into. He says the Bible is supremely the book about the Lord Jesus Christ. Out of all the Bible's teaching about Jesus Christ, none is more significant than Colossians 1. This dramatic and powerful passage removes any needless doubt or confusion over Jesus's true identity. It is vital to a proper understanding of the Christian faith. With that, take your Bible to Colossians chapter 1 and we're going to read just one verse of Scripture this morning, verse 13, "For He rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son." I want you to read that verse of Scripture off the screen, it's so short I want us to read it together today, here we go, 1, 2, 3, "For He rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son." Now I told you a moment ago when we're studying to prepare to preach a text of Scripture we read it over and over and over again and as late as this Tuesday I was reading these verses again and I noticed something that I had never noticed before. I mean you'd think after reading it all those times you'd have already noticed this, but I didn't notice this until reading it Tuesday morning very, very early. Over and over in the verses verses 13 through 23 which is what we're going to be studying for seven weekends, the word He and Him is used to refer to the person of Jesus. But in verse 13 the He of verse 13 does not refer to the person of Jesus, who does it refer to? Well, the little word for at the beginning of the verse points us back to verse number 12 to understand the context for the little word He in verse 13, so look back at verse 12 giving thanks to the, what does it say, father, giving thanks to the father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in life. Here the Bible gives us the context for the pronoun He in verse 13, it is the father, God the father. And here's what that helps us understand, everything that we're going to understand in Colossians chapter 1 verses 13 through 23, what we're reading is everything that the father has accomplished through the person and work of Jesus Christ. And verse 12 gives us the big umbrella. The Bible says that everything that we're going to read is the context for how the father has qualified us. The word qualified is a beautiful Greek word, it's a word that means to make worthy, to make suitable, to make acceptable. How many of you have ever been to Washington D.C. and visited the White House? How many of you have ever been and walked around and seen it there? A lot of you have been to Washington D.C. From, I made my first trip there about five years ago, about five years ago I was on a speaking thing through the state of Virginia and I had about six different stops where I was speaking and I had a day right in the middle where I didn't have to be anywhere. Mr. Travis was traveling with me and so we decided we would drive down to D.C. and go, "I've never been as a tourist to just visit Washington D.C." So we go down to Washington D.C. and we're looking at all the sites and all the things you can see there. We make our way and find the White House. Now if you've been there, you know that the White House is surrounded by this huge fence and it's very clear that you are not welcome on the other side of the fence, right? I mean they don't make any bones about it. And we were there as nobody's like everybody that goes as a tourist and so just like everybody else that was a point where hey that's as far as we could go and we were not welcome beyond that point, right? Why? We weren't qualified to go in. Now two years ago, about two years ago, two and a half years ago, maybe I got an invitation to come back to Washington D.C. with a group of pastors and meet in the White House with the current President, President Obama's faith-based initiatives leadership team. So I went back to Washington D.C. and because of my previous experience and having been there and having seen how intimidating that fence and all those guards and then all the nuts on the outside of that fence, right? I mean if you've been there, there's some nuts that need something to do with their life. I mean they just sit outside this fence and they have signs and placards and billboards and some have built little makeshift houses. I mean it's just a crazy thing if you've never seen it. So we're going back this time and all that's in my heart and I'm thinking oh my gosh you know all this stuff's going on and so this time we walk up there's a little booth over there on the side by the gate and you can walk up there and you give them your name. And I'm there and you know I'm kind of shaking on the inside because I mean it's not every day you get to go do something like this and I give them my name and immediately they give me a pass and we and these this group of pastors about six of us walk in the doors together and then we walk and we're escorted right into the White House, we're taken into this meeting, we sit down, we have this meeting and then we get to just kind of roam around. They turn us loose. I couldn't believe it. Here we are a bunch of yahoos roaming around the White House. I mean we're just walking up and down hallways and I guess there were places where if we went there to stop this but we're just kind of roaming around the place like we own the joint you know just walking around and just enjoying. Now what made the difference from the time I went five years ago and couldn't even get close to the fence to being able now to be allowed on the end so let me tell you what made the difference. That was qualified through a relationship with somebody on the inside, verse 12 tells us that the Father has qualified us to be members of the royal family not just allowed in as guests but we have been qualified we have been made acceptable to God to the degree that he said we will share in the inheritance of the saints in glory. Now chapter 1 verses 13 through verse 23 is the unpacking of everything the Father did in Christ to qualify us. So with the next several weekends we're going to unpack this one piece at a time. I want to give you two introductory thoughts this morning. We're going to be finished. First one through the incomparable Christ we have experienced the mercy of God. Through the incomparable Christ we have experienced the mercy of God. Did you hear it? For he rescued us from the domain of darkness. That phrase speaks of the mercy of God. What is the mercy of God? It's very important that you understand it because we use it often interchangeably with some other terms in the Bible but the word mercy here means something very distinct and it's set apart. Here's a definition of the word mercy. Here's what mercy is. It's God withholding from me what I deserve because of my sin. Mercy is God withholding from me what I do deserve because of my sin. The Bible says he rescued us. The word rescue is a word that means to drag away from danger. It's the picture of grabbing somebody in a burning building and dragging them to safety. The Bible here is speaking of the biblical reality that you and I because of our sin face imminent danger. It's a danger that is imminent because of the choices of our own lives. You say, "Wait a minute, Pastor, I'm a pretty good person. I hadn't killed anybody. I haven't robbed a bank, I'm not perfect, but I'm not that bad. Why would I be facing imminent danger?" He says he rescued us from the domain of darkness. What does that mean? To help you understand what it means, I want you to turn over to Ephesians chapter 2. It's important that you understand that at the same time false teachers had crept into the city of Colossae and the church there, they had also crept into Ephesus. Paul wrote the letters of Colossians and Ephesians at about the exact same time and many believed their parallel letters were Paul writes some things in the book of Colossians and he expands on them, says many of the same things but expands on them in the book of Ephesians. That's why Colossians is four chapters and Ephesians is six. Many of the same things, but he just gives us more description in the book of Ephesians. In Ephesians, he's saying the same thing that he's saying here in Colossians and I want to read it to you. Ephesians chapter 2 beginning in verse 1, listen what he says, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins." He's describing here what it is to walk in the domain of darkness and the first reality is that we were dead in our sin. Here's what it means. Every one of us since Adam and Eve has been born into this world, dead to God and alive to sin. That's why you don't have to teach us how to do bad. You have to teach us how to do good, right? We come into this world, dead to God and alive to sin. Here's what it means. There's no appetite for God. We have no capacity for God. We would never seek God on our own unless God draws us and woo's us to himself. Paul says being in the domain of darkness is to be dead to God, but then look what he says. "In which you formally walk according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the heir of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among them we too all formally lived in the lust of the flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind." Here's what he's saying, "Because I was dead to God, I lived a life that was dominated by sin and it may not have looked on the outside as wicked as somebody else's, but because my life was dominated by the things he mentions here, the world and its system and its ways and the enemy, the devil and demons and all the temptation and deceit and my own flesh, the wickedness of my own heart." He said that before Christ I was dead in my sin and I was tossed to and fro by the ways of the world, the deception of the enemy and the wickedness of my own heart. I was driven by my desires, not God's desires. I was driven by my pleasure, not God's pleasure. I was driven by what I wanted, not what God wanted. And look what he says, "And were by nature children of wrath even as the rest." You see, not only because of my sin I was dead to God and I had no power to obey God in my life, but I also had no hope of escaping the wrath of God. I was doomed. He says I was a child of wrath. Listen to me, don't ever forget that God is holy. And because God is holy, he cannot and will not fellowship with sin. The holiness of God demands he pour out his wrath on sin wherever it may be found. Because I was dead to God, I had no appetite for God because I lived the life dominated by the world and the flesh and had no power to obey God. I was sitting as an object under the wrath of God. I was awaiting God's wrath in my life. The Bible says because of my sin I'd earned something that was something that I deserved. Let me show it to you in the Bible, Romans chapter 6 and verse 23 says, "For the wages of sin is what? Death." You know what a wage is? A wage is something that you earn. If you make $10 an hour and you work 40 hours this week, you earn $400. That's yours. It belongs to you. You deserve it. If you don't get it, you're going to say something about it, right? Because I earned it. It's mine. The Bible says because I was dead to God and dominated by my flesh and the world and had no power to obey God and I lived the life of sin. The Bible says that I'd earned something that was mine, I deserved it. It's the wrath of God. It's wrapped up in that word death. That means yes, physical death, but ultimately eternal death, separation from God. Here's what the Bible says. If you and I, if you and I really got what we deserved, we would all spend eternity separated from God in a place called hell. Now if that rubs you the wrong way, you got too high a view of you. If I got what I deserved, me, I would spend eternity separated from God in a place called hell. That's what he said. Look back at it in verse number one, chapter two of Ephesians. You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formally walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that's not working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formally lived in the lust of our flesh indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature, children of wrath, even as the rest. But look at verse number four. What God. That's a good place to say amen. But God, being rich in what, say it with me, thank God that he is rich in mercy. It means that he is super abounding, he is overflowing, there is mercy that is oozing out of the person and character of God, but God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead, made us alive together with Christ by grace, you have been saved. Here's what the Bible says, on the cross, Jesus took all of the wrath of God against sin for you and for me. Jesus literally became sin. Remember what I said earlier that God is so holy that wherever he finds sin, he must pour, even when it was found on his own son and it did not belong to him. It was mine and it was yours. God the Father, that's why the Bible tells us that darkness covered the earth. God veiled the eyes of humanity from seeing the son of God experience the full blow of the wrath against sin on himself. On the cross, Jesus Christ did what? He died. Why? Because the wages of sin is death. He did in my place what I could not do left to myself, but he didn't stay dead. He rose again, why, as a testimony that the Father accepted his sacrifice for my sin and now because of Jesus, I can experience the mercy of God because my wrath has been taken care of. I can receive God's mercy and I'm no longer a child of wrath. Now I'm a child of the king. I've experienced the mercy of God, but let me give you the second one this morning. Through the incomparable Christ, we now enjoy the grace of God. Mercy is good, but without grace it's only half the story. You see, mercy is God withholding from me what I do deserve. Grace is God giving me what I don't deserve. The mercy of God in Christ has removed the wrath that belongs to me. Oh, but the grace of God has given me everything in Christ to which I do not rightfully own, but because of Christ it is now mine. That's why he said he rescued us from the domain of darkness, but listen, and he transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. You know the problem with a lot of Christians? You're walking in an identity crisis because you only understand the first half of what I've shared with you this morning. You're like the prodigal son who out there in the pig pen understood, hey, this ain't working out. I'm going back to the father's house. I know the father will forgive me, and he'll just let me be a slave in the house. See you think the father's forgiven you. You think you've experienced the mercy of God. You think that you no longer going to stand under his wrath, but you think you've been accepted in as a slave in the house. That's not what the book says. You see, not only in the mercy of God have you not been given what you do deserve by the grace of God. You've been given what you don't deserve. You've not just had the wrath of God extinguished, but now the Bible says you've been invited into the royal family. You've been invited into the household of the king. You've been made a part of the father's house, and now you're awaiting the inheritance as a full child of God. Through Christ, we've experienced the mercy and the grace of God. Let me share with you two things that that little phrase I think speaks in our lives out of the book of Colossians. Here's the first one. It speaks to my position in the kingdom. The word "transferred" is a word that is two Greek words put together, and it literally means half of it means to change, and the other half means to place or to stand. So when you put it together, here's what it means. To change my standing, read it that way. He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and he changed our standing in the kingdom of his beloved side. You see, before I was on the enemy's team, I was an enemy to God. I was at war with God. I lived in opposition to God, but through Christ and the grace of God, he's now changed my standing, and I love this. "Transferred" is in the past tense. It means it's already done. I want to show you how done it is. Turn over to back to Ephesians chapter 2. Y'all got to listen fast, Ephesians 2, 11 o'clock. God bless them. There's no service after that one, so they're in trouble. If you want the whole sermon, come back at 11. Chapter 2, look at verse 6, "And raised us up with him." And seated us with him. I want you to read it off the screen with me, because I want you to believe it. Look what it says. Before we read it, let me say this. You know the best thing could happen to most of us today? You'd start believing about you, what the Bible says about you. That's the truth. You'd start believing about you, what this book says about you, instead of what your heart says about you, or your flesh says about you, or somebody else says about you. If you could start believing about you, what this book says about you, it would change the way you look at your life. Listen what the book says. Put it back up there. And he raised us up with him and seated us with him. Now read it out loud, in the heavenly places in Christ. Now, those of you that are the English scholars in the room, raised us and seated us, past tense or future tense. Come on, it's not a trick question. Past tense, right? Do you hear what that says? It's so done. It's so done that the Father already sees you, seated in heaven with Christ. It's done. I've already been given glory. I'm not trying to earn it through my performance. I'm not trying to measure up to God, no, because of Christ, the grace of God. Listen, what it says, look back up at it, seated us with him in the heavy and places in Christ, so that in the ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. You know what that means? In heaven, for eternity, I'm just a trophy of the grace of God. People know I don't belong, they just know I'm there because I got a relationship with somebody who's on the inside, and he qualified me. That's right, I do, amen. Second thing it tells us, not only about our position in the kingdom, but it tells us about our mission in the kingdom. I won't close with this, we've got to close, we have to. Others are coming, they need your seat. I want to read you your future. I was in New Orleans a couple weeks ago at a convention, and there were these palm readers all over the street wanting to, for about five bucks, read your future. I'm going to give it to you for free, you ready? In chapter 5 verse 9, listen to what it says, "Now, if you're a child of God, I'm reading where you're going to be one day, and they sang." That's going to be new for some of you. I see you stand here when we're worshiping, and they sang a new song saying, "Worthy, worthy are you to take the book and to break it's seals, for you were slain and purchased for God with your bloodmen from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, you have made them to be a, what, kingdom." You see what's happening right now? God is at work all over the world, and every tribe-tongued people nation building a kingdom to himself through the blood of Jesus Christ and his redemption, which we're going to talk about next weekend, and his forgiveness, which we're going to talk about next weekend. That's verse 14 in our text in Colossians 1. Through Christ, the Father is building a kingdom from every tribe-tongued people nation, one day around the throne of Jesus will gather, will worship, will celebrate the King. Here's our mission now, to open our mouths and tell as many people as we can about the glorious person and work of Jesus, that's it, that's our mission. That's what we've been called to as Christ followers, to share the good news of the kingdom. That's why Matthew 24, 14 says this, "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached among all, on the whole world as a testimony to all the nations and then the end will come." One day, I don't know when it is, but the Father has it fixed by his own authority. One day, the last soul will repent and put their faith and trust in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Listen, it's not going to matter what's on your agenda for tomorrow. When that happens, it's over. The world, as we know it's coming to a cataclysmic end, the Bible says the Lord's going to send from heaven with a shout. So I've got two questions for you. Have you ever repented of your sin and put your faith and trust in the gospel of Jesus and been had your identity changed? Have you ever met God? Do you have a relationship with Jesus? I'm not asking if your religious has been to church. Have you ever repented of your sin and been born again in the relationship with Christ? Are you in the kingdom and then secondly, when's the last time you opened your mouth and told somebody else the glorious good news of the King? Everything else in life is secondary to that. Everything else you are in life is simply a platform to do that. Your job's not your identity. Your identity is your child of the King. Your job's a platform to tell people about the King. We have received the mercy of God through the incomparable Christ and we have now enjoyed the grace of God through the incomparable Christ.