The Branch Church
Acts 19:1-10
All right, good morning. Make your way back to your seats. Good morning. By way of introduction, my name is Stephen. I serve as the lead pastor in one of the elders here. What I love about what we've had so far is Andrew's announcement to scoot in and scoot up on Labor Day weekend. We didn't really need to do that. If you don't know the church world at all, there's one job that you don't want and it's the pastor of announcements. You don't want to be that guy week after week after week. That's why we try to rotate it. So Andrew's church background and my church background are very similar and so I love that he was responsible for our scoot in and scoot up. We're trying to get you in the routine habit for when a lot of our students are back in town, just to make room for those who aren't here yet. So way to go. You nailed it. All right, we're going to start this morning by praying for Bangladesh. If you're new to the branch, back in January, we sought to become a people with eyes bigger than our location. We wanted to be people who were thinking about praying about and eventually be activated towards the end of the earth, bringing the gospel to make disciples to the end of the earth. And so part of that vision, part of that rhythm has to be intentionally about praying for maybe folks that we haven't ever thought about to pray for unreached people group, which is basically a demographic or a geography, a location of people who have never heard or don't have access to the gospel. And so if you've noticed our rhythms are kind of the same, we pray for a few of the same things week after week, regardless of what the situation of the country is, but we pray for healthy churches and we pray for strong leaders. So we're going to do that today for Bangladesh. Here's what I know so far about Bangladesh. There's 174 million people in a primarily Islamic nation, just east of India, right? 172 million are unreached people, people who haven't heard or have rejected the gospel to this point. These numbers all come from the Joshua project and radical David Platt's group. Bangladesh is located in what's called the 1040 window. And as I was thinking about this this week, we haven't actually explained what the 1040 window is. So we're going to do that today to help us understand this area in the world, this massive area in the world, where there really is a resistance, a strong resistance, whether it's political, geographical, or cultural resistance to the gospel. And so the 1040 window is known as the resistance window. It's this rectangular area of like Northern Africa, the Middle East, and Asia between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north, or 40 degrees latitude, latitude, something like that. You guys get the picture? Okay? I'm not. It's a rectangle. All right. Bangladesh is in it. Okay? I do have a map for you today, so I'm off to a good start. All right, so get ready for that. Anyways, here's my prayer. I know that there are people. I've been at a church that has sent a team to Bangladesh. And so I know that there are gospel workers there. And so let's pray today for their encouragement, for a fresh move of the spirit in their lives to capture their imagination of what this country would look like if it was committed to the gospel of Jesus. Let's pray for humanitarian relief, where it's necessary. And let's pray that that relief would be joined with a gospel movement. So let's pray now, and then we'll jump into our text for the day. Father, we are thankful for our time together this weekend. Thankful for a long weekend, a time where we can rest and enjoy friends and family. And so I pray for those who've ventured back home to spend time with their families. We pray for safe travel. We pray for a renewal and refreshing restful time for them at this point in the semester. God, we pray specifically today for our brothers and sisters in Bangladesh. We pray for Christ to be magnified, for Christ to be the center of their life. And so I pray for those missionaries who are rooted in Bangladesh this morning that they would be faithful, that they would be courageous, that they would be persistent. And I pray that they would never give up on the good work that you've called them to do. I pray that you use churches like this one who have a vision to serve alongside of them, to equip them, to encourage them, to love them, and to join them in your mission in the world that these people in Bangladesh would become followers of Jesus. So we thank you that we have a place to meet today. We thank you for seats and HVAC and all the things that sometimes we take for granted. And so we pray for brothers and sisters around the world who are meeting in different circumstances. So we love you, we trust you pray now that you give before us as we dive into your word. We pray in Jesus' name, all God's people said. Amen. Okay, here's what we're going to do as we start. So we are officially kicking off our series, our study, of Paul's letter to the church in Colossae, the letter to the Colossian church. And before we actually dive into the Colossian text, we're going to spend two weeks kind of laying a contextual backdrop of what's going on kind of behind the scenes. So as we dive into Paul's letter, we have an understanding of who the letter was written to, the people, we have an idea of the culture, have an idea of the location, i.e. maps, right? And so this week and next week we'll be doing that. And so today we're going to start in Acts 19. Before we do that, I just want to do a quick recap. So if you haven't been here, if this is your first Sunday, we just, we're on the back end, we just finished up our church's vision series or our church's identity series. And so if you miss three weeks, I'm going to give it to you in 30 seconds, because I think it's important, I think it's important for us all to be reminded, for us to be encouraged, for us to kind of let this language dig deep into our souls. And so this church, the branch church here in Lumpkin County exists to preach Christ. And so we're going to do this in family groups, we're going to do this in college Bible study, we're going to do this when men and women gather together, we're going to do it here. And we're going to do it with all of our vigor, with all of our effort, with everything that we have inside of us, we're going to preach Christ. And so when you come in here, you can expect to hear the Gospel week after week after week. And we believe firmly that all of scripture is properly interpreted once it points you to Jesus. And so until we've gotten there, we haven't fully preached the Gospel. And so as we preach Christ, then we're called to do some other things. And one of those things is to live in biblical community. And so what we seek is deeper than friendship. It's a Christian friendship which scratches below the surface of neighborly love and to familial love. And that's what we're really after when we talk about biblical community. And so that plays itself out in family groups and other environments here. With the end that we would be a people who are sent into the world to make disciples by loving with compassion. And so those are our big three models. So you're going to hear them all the time, you're going to see them on signs. And we're going to just continue to talk about preaching Christ, living in biblical community, loving with compassion, because we believe ultimately our purpose here in Lumpkin County, our purpose of being a driver, a straight driver, but a driver away from the campus, is that we exist for those who aren't here yet. And that doesn't just mean that we exist so that they would come into the gym and our house would be packed week after week after week after week. But we do mean that they would become lifelong devoted followers of Jesus. That is our primary task. And that's what we're going to commit every bit of energy that we have towards doing. And so why do we preach Colossians verse by verse, not skipping over hard stuff and just digging into the stuff that everybody already knows, because we believe that Jesus is better. And so we've been in basically, we're in kind of like just on the backside of halfway through a two year series on Paul's prison epistles. So we started with Ephesians, we finished up Philippians in the spring, I'm diving into Colossians now, and then we'll finish up Philemon later in the year, or next year, a spring of 2025. So that's kind of the road map of where we're headed. If Philippians was all about Jesus is better, right, you guys remember? Yes. Okay. We do, although it's just a couple pages away, like we can go do it all over again if you need to. If Philippians is all about the supremacy of Jesus, then Colossians is all about the sufficiency of Jesus. And so the statement goes from Jesus is better to now, Jesus is enough. And I can't think of a more important message right now in our current cultural context than this, to be reminded that no matter what's happening in the paper or on your Twitter or whatever it's called now, is Jesus is, he's enough. He's enough for you and he's enough for me. He's enough for my kids. He's enough for your kids. He's enough for your parents. He's enough for the believing brother or sister who's kind of, who's turned away from the gospel. Jesus is enough. He's enough to sustain you in your classroom. He's enough to sustain you in your workplace and your home, whether it's together or divided. Jesus is enough. So if you hear one thing over the next 18 to 20 weeks, I hope you hear that week after week after week after week after week, Jesus is enough. Because he is better, he is enough. And so today we're going to read Acts 19, which we also did when we launched into Ephesians. But you guys have already forgotten that, I know. So we're going to do it again. This is, we're going to study today versus 1 through 10, really with an eye on what's happening below the surface of this text. So we're going to have to do a little bit of hermeneutical digging. We're going to have to read the text and see what's actually going on. That's our task for today. So in the context of what's happening in Acts 19 finds its place when Paul's third missionary journey. So I'm going to read it now versus 1 through 10 and then we'll come back in and we'll do some more introductions into Colossians. This is the word of the word. And it happened that while Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples and he said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" And they said, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." And he said, "Well, into what then were you baptized?" And they said into John's baptism. And Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him." That is Jesus. On hearing this, verse 5, "They were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. They were about twelve men in all." Verse 8. "And he entered the synagogue, and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But then some became stubborn, and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the way, W." Before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Taranis. Verse 10. This is where we'll spend most of our time today. This continued for two years. So that, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks, so that the nations would come to Jesus. This is why we're going to Acts 19. So if you've been around and you were here for Ephesians, you were here for Philippians. Acts talks specifically a lot about those two places. It doesn't talk a whole lot about the church in Colossae. We're a people. We don't get a ton of names in Acts about what's happening in the Colossian Church. We don't really know a lot about who they are. But what's happening here is that Paul is seeking to bring the gospel to every square inch of Asia. And Colossae is right there, about 80 miles east of Ephesus. And so during this third missionary journey, Paul's Acts 19 is recording specifically his ministry in Ephesus. And here's what's beautiful about how we've, like, again, we're not that smart. It's just kind of the way it works out, and you can see beauty on the back end. Here's what's beautiful about studying Colossians after we've studied Ephesians. It's that the impact of Paul's ministry in Ephesus is continued to be felt. It's a ripple effect into Colossians. So the work that he's doing there impacts a town 80 miles away. Which, back then, it's a long ways away. So for two years, he's teaching, he's rallying disciples, both Jews and Greeks. In Paul's strategy, his church planning strategy was to go to these primary cities and to raise up leaders into plant churches. As far as we know, Paul never went to Colossae. He never went to see the Colossian people. Now, he desired to. We see this throughout some of his other letters. He desired to go, but he was never afforded the opportunity to go. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to turn back on you. Not because I don't love you, but because I love you. And I'm going to show you the map, okay? All right. So you can kind of see up top. I know in the back, it's really difficult to see. Just trust me. Although I've proven I'm terrible geographically, so don't trust me. You can look it up later. Okay. Ephesus is down here at the bottom. Okay. So kind of like right there at the bottom of the screen. Okay. And Colossae is towards the right, okay, or towards the east. It's about 80 miles across the Meander River. Okay. So those other cities right next to Colossae, lay out to see you in Hieropolis. Those are key cities. All three of those. It's like a strategic tri-city impact of the gospel. So Paul's effort there was to get the gospel through the river to where the people were. And so he's spending all this time in Ephesus, which is over this way, to train up people who would be sent. And then it would be those people who would go. And that's what's happening in Acts 19. Some of those disciples are ones who are being trained up who travel eastward with the gospel. And the reason that we have a letter to the Colossian church is because there is a people that came out of Paul's teaching in Ephesus that planted a church in Colossae. And they were committed and fruitful in the spirit, blessed their work. And there's a healthy church that was planted there. You see what's happening. So a lot of times, I don't know if you've got you, but like when I was a kid and I wasn't paying attention on Sunday mornings, I would just look at the maps. Anybody else ever do that? Go ahead and raise your hand so I don't feel like I'm the only one. And it wasn't until I got to seminary and gave the school a lot of my money that I realized how important maps were. It was more than just like to keep the, "Hey, welcome back." Sorry. Ty and Elena are here. And it's great to see y'all. I'm sorry. I just, that's not here and I didn't know you were going to be here. I'm glad to see you. Okay. That's how we do church. It's kind of like a family a little bit. All right, it's perfect. Maybe it should have been in here. I don't know. All right. I don't know what I was talking about, but there's the map. Okay. So in school, thank you. I appreciate that. In school, like you're first in like when you, when you, anybody get in a grad program right now, anybody in graduate school or doctorates, do we have any doctorates, students, a few of you, physical therapists? Anyways, when you get to that level of education, you're like, you're really trying hard. You know, like you're, you feel like you've kind of arrived and you're kind of intimidated by the task at hand, but you're like, you're committed to doing the work. And so we get through like the first kind of a couple introductory classes in seminary and then you get into like the deep Bible study classes or what we call hermeneutical classes, the Bible exposition, right? And one of the first things that we had to do was pull out colored pencils and draw a map, like color, like we were in the fourth grade. And I'm like getting frustrated. I'm like, what? Why are, like, why are we spending time doing this until I began to realize the significance of locations geographically? You can't really understand what's, it's not there anymore. It doesn't need to be there anymore. But you can't understand the effort that Paul is putting in and the intentionality in which he's raising up leaders until you see the distance between Colossae and Ephesus. And when you color it, it gets ingrained in your mind and you see the significance of what's going on. And so those significant places, layout of see a hieropolis in Colossae, we're right off of this river, which is a main channel. And so as Paul's teaching and training these disciples, he doesn't hold on to them and hoard them for himself for the Ephesian church to grow bigger and bigger. As soon as he raises them up and he sees the fruit in their lives, what does he do? He slingshots them out and they're sent and they go and they plant churches. And so while he may have never gone, you can trust that Paul deeply love the Colossian people. And if you've never read his letter, you're going to read it over the course of the semester and you will see the great care and intentionality in which he had for the Colossian church. So during his three years in Ephesus, Paul meets a guy. We know this from some other places in Scripture and we know this from some extra biblical stuff. His name is not to be confused with a guy from Philippians. Epaphroditus. Anybody remember Epaphroditus? Sound like something's growing on your neck or something? He meets a guy named Epaphras. In Epaphras, he's a Colossian. He's a guy who journeyed westward to hear what Paul was teaching. He was a skeptic. He was curious. He was eager to learn. He was one who was baptized according to John. And as the spirit comes into his life and he becomes a follower of Jesus, he then carries the message back to his hometown. And he's the catalyst of the church in Colossians. So who is Epaphras? All right, we know that he's mentioned three times in the New Testament, twice in Colossians. So we're going to see him again and once in Philemon, so we'll get to see him in the spring. You guys are going to know Epaphras really well by the end of the school year. So as he's traveled to go here, Paul preaching the gospel, he becomes a follower of Jesus. He goes home and now it's the hard part. It's easy to sit under someone's teaching. And I don't mean that I'm not like calling anyone out. But it's easy to sit and to hear and be like, man, that was really good. Although I don't ever see any of you doing that. It's really, that's a good thing. The hard part though is once you get up out of your chair and you stack it because that's what we do here at the branch and you go out the door and you get in your car and you go back to real life. And so Epaphras sits under this teaching. He is mightily transformed. Praise God for that. And he is released and he's engaged and he's courageous and he goes. And now the hard work begins. So Paul and Epaphras, they become friends. Paul reveres him. Here's how we know this. Every time Epaphras is mentioned, it's always qualified with fruit. Okay. So here are the few examples that we see Paul describing Epaphras. Our dear fellow servant. Pretty cool. A faithful minister of Christ. A servant of Christ Jesus. Always wrestling in prayer. And the last one for all you type A people, working hard. Working hard. So this is a dear fellow. A servant. A faithful minister. A servant of Christ. A man committed to wrestling in prayer. And someone who is willing to go put in the work so that the people that he loved, the people from his place would come to know and follow Jesus. So as we look at Acts 19, we have to kind of scratch below the surface to see that what's happening in Ephesus is ultimately, I mean, we said this before, but what happened in Ephesus? The reason that we're here today. Okay. The movement of the church that's catalyzed from Acts 2 onward is the reason that we're here. And Ephesus was a huge part of that. Peter, Paul, Timothy, Luke, these are heroes, giants of the faith. But if there's not a Lydia, if there's not an Epaphroditus, if there's not an Epaphras, we aren't here because the gospel never comes to us. Paul can't, he's not omniscient. He can't be in all places at one time. But if you look around the room, and it's been a little bit lighter than it has been, but if you even look around today, like if all of us go to our places with this mission, how different would the world look? That's the point. That's what's happening in Acts. We gather in, we take a deep breath in, and now as we exhale, we are sent out into the world. Okay. So here's what else we know about Epaphras. Later in, when Paul's arrested in Rome, when he's writing the letter to the Colossian church, Epaphras is there with him. Okay. So Epaphras comes back from Colossae to meet with Paul, and he's going to give him an update. He's like, hey, here's what's going on in our church, and Paul's devastated because the heresy of the world, the message of the culture has infiltrated the church. Have you ever heard of this before? Okay. It's happening in our world today. And as Paul hears a false teaching creeping through the doors of the Colossian church, he writes this letter, and Epaphras is eventually released from prison, and he takes the letter to his home church. And that is what we have in our Bibles today, the letter to the Colossian church. That's where it came from. So Paul writes it, sends it, and it makes it eventually Epaphras returns home, and he serves faithfully for the rest of his life until he's martyred. Okay. So what do we learn about Epaphras? We learn that he demonstrated an incredible faith. We learn that he had a robust prayer life. Those two things can't be separate, by the way. Okay. I don't believe that you can faithfully follow Jesus apart from having a robust, vibrant life of prayer. Okay. Those things coexist. He also had courage in sharing the gospel in the face of suffering. His name doesn't show up in Hebrews 11. Okay. So we don't put him along with Paul and Timothy and Luke, but he's there and he's important. He was faithful and a great example of a disciple maker. That's what ultimately, that's what we've been talking about in our church identity series, is we're not just a sent people, we're people who go and make disciples. And Epaphras gives us a great example of what it looks like to be a disciple maker. Okay. So now let's shift into, I'm going to give you a brief introduction to Colossians. Okay. So now in your Bibles, flip over to 2 Corinthians chapter 11. Okay. This is going to help set the stage for kind of what was going on in Paul's life. Okay. If you don't remember the intro to Philippians or Ephesians, we're going to kind of do some of this again. So Paul is in prison. Okay. He's been accused of teachings that are not according to the ruling authorities of the day and they're persecuting them. They're trying to shut him up. They're trying to keep him from spreading the gospel of Jesus. Okay. He's chained to another man. All right. He is, he's being held against his will and yet he never stops the work. So his level of suffering is laid out here in 2 Corinthians. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read verses 21 through 28. And what I want you to do is I want you to listen here as Paul is explaining exactly what he's gone through to continue the ultimately the work that God has called him to do. This is verse 21, 2 Corinthians chapter 11. He says, "Whatever else anyone dares to boast of, I am speaking as a fool." Okay. So what he's trying to do is he's trying to like play off his how qualified he is to be in this position. Okay. This is, he's not trying to demean himself. He's just trying to put himself out humbly before the people. Okay. I'm speaking as a fool. I also dare to boast of that. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one. I'm talking like a madman again going back to deflecting on his qualifications here with a far with far greater labors, far more imprisonment with countless beatings and often near death. Listen to verse 24. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the 40 lashes less one. Five times. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I was adrift at sea. Verse 26, "On frequent journeys in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers, in toil and hardship through many a sleepless night in hunger and thirst often without food, in cold and exposure. And apart from other things, there is the daily pressure of me on me of my anxiety, my worry, my concern for all the churches. Who is weak and I am not weak, who is made to fall and I am not indignant? If I must boast one extra verse, I will boast the things that show my weakness." Now in what I consider, maybe one of the second greatest acts of humility, obviously the first one is Christ's sacrifice for us, is this. All that Paul endured in the rigor in which he continued his effort. Here's what I'll speak of my life. I like an excuse to get out of hard stuff. As soon as I can find one, oh, okay, I don't have to do that anymore. Right? And I would imagine a lot of us are that way too. Particularly when it comes to gospel work. Oh, my neighbor is not home today, so I've been praying for them. We've had a good conversation, but I'm going to go over there and I'm going to share them the news that God's safe sinners. Oh, but I don't see their car in their driveway. We like to deflect hard work or put it off to procrastinate. That's not the example that we see in the Bible. Paul, whether it's wrecking a ship, which I'm like, dude, stop getting on boats. You know, I mean, like how much more like imagine Paul if he had had an iPhone, you know, like man, they're the whole world. We have no unreached people. That, to put you put it in the context for us and how easy it is for us to communicate globally. All we need is just an ounce of courage that Paul displayed over and over and over and over and over and over again. Five times he received lashes, 39 less or 40 less one, right? Because if you get that one more is going to kill you. So they would beat Paul to the point of death. He would clean himself up. He'd stand up and guess what the next thing he did? Preach the gospel. Now here's what we did when we did the preach, Christ saying that's not just my job. That's all of our jobs. Because I have been called to the same places that you've been called. And you haven't been called to the same places that I've been called. And so as we go, we are to go proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. Richard Phillips says this. He says, "Ephesians centers on the blessings of God through union with Christ. Philippians highlights the believer's joy in Christ. It's Colossians that adds the tapestry of a stunning portrait of the ultimate supremacy in all sufficiency of Christ. That's where we're headed. That's where we're going. Colossians is about the all sufficiency of Jesus Christ. He is enough. This book is a treasure. It's a gift to us. And we should treat it as such. I would encourage all of us. It's not very long. It's every week. Just read it and reread it and reread it and reread it. It's going to take us a while to get through it as a church. But you can come to it often and you should. We all should. We get some of the most beautiful, rich, exalting, drawing us to worship words about who Jesus is then maybe any other book in all of the New Testament. This book is centered on praising Christ for who He is and what He has done. This is a, this is a hymn book not set to melody but set to the rhythm of everyday life. We get a practical guide for modeling life with Christ which is, I think, is something that we all desperately want. Just tell me what to do. Just tell me what to do. I know what to believe. Tell me what to do. Colossians helps us do that. So here's the last little backdrop and I'll close this for the morning. We know that Paul was writing to address a specific heresy. We don't know exactly what the heresy was. We have some people who have guesses. Here's my answer. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Herecy squeaks its little way into the church so easily. It doesn't matter what it is. It just matters that it was. And any time we see it, we should do the work that Paul's doing to root it out and to crush it. And so here's what, here's the way this looks like. Maybe not in our church. Maybe in our church. I don't know. But it's little, little whispers of a lie of like, Jesus is, He's enough but you also need this. Right? It's Jesus plus something else. It's Jesus plus family Greek. It's Jesus plus servant. Those are good things. They're not bad things. But as soon as we think that our salvation is dependent on our participation in a family group, we've missed the point. As soon as we think that our salvation is rooted in our Sunday morning attendance, we've missed the point. As soon as we think that, oh, to be sent to the ends of the earth means only picking up and packing all of our things and moving across the world, that's a good thing. But as soon as we root our salvation in that, it's not enough. You will get there and you will fall short. If Christ isn't the center, if He isn't sufficient, if He is not enough for you, nothing else will be. And in a world that we live in that says, hey, this thing is better for you than what you think is better for you, we have to root out the lie. And just like Paul is writing here, we must do everything we can to center on the person and work of Jesus. We must preach Christ to the ends of the earth. And we must do that in that alone. I don't care what environment or where you're called. If we ever come with a message of Jesus plus, we've missed it. We are no longer a Christian church. So regardless of what the heresy is, his message is resoundingly clear, Jesus is more than enough for you. And so maybe you're in here today and you don't know about that, you don't trust it yet, that's okay. Here's what I believe, life and community, you will see it. That's why we live in biblical community because Christ is enough. F.F. Bruce, who wrote a commentary on, he's a prolific writer, but he's written a lot of commentaries around some of these prison epistles. He says a firm grounding in Christology, here's what that means, is a belief or a study of Christ. A firm grounding in Christology, in its practical implications for the daily life of the believer was the best defense against the illusory attractiveness of the Colossian heresy. So in our world, we're going to look at things and be like, man, that's nice. I would love to have Jesus plus that. Come back to Colossians, root in the gospel, root out the idol, okay? And here's the, I have them, I have them. I want it to be Jesus plus. I'm a sinner and a hands of a God who loves me more than I should ever be loved, right? This is what Tim Keller's quote of like, here's the fruit of the gospel. You are far worse than you ever thought you were, but you're far more loved than you ever dreamed of, okay? If that is actually true, then it is Jesus plus nothing. Jesus plus nothing. And I hope my prayer, my hope and prayer for us as a body is that that message wouldn't stay in these walls, that we would have the confidence and the courage of a paphras to go the 80 miles, to bring it to the people that we love. And maybe some people that we don't love, but who just happen to live in our hometown, okay? Colossians teaches us how to orient our life around Christ-centered worship, all that we do, pound for pound. I think Colossians is one of the strongest books in the Bible on the sufficiency and supremacy of Christ. And so if you're struggling to proclaim or to believe that Jesus is King, come to Colossians. If you're struggling with Jesus plus something, come to Colossians. If you're struggling with communicating the gospel to someone that you love, that you feel like you've been called to share it with, come to Colossians. Because this book will give you everything that you need through the power of the Spirit, for the movement of the gospel to go to the ends of the earth. He is enough and he is better. Jesus is enough and he is better. So I pray that we will see the true Christ and reject the fictitious lies of the world, that we would trust him, that we would follow him, that you would grow in not only your knowledge and understanding of who he is, which I, guys, I love theology. I love teaching hard things. But as soon as we just let all that stuff stay in our head and it never seeps into our heart, into our hands and our feet, we haven't learned a thing. So my prayer for you is that your knowledge and understanding of who Jesus is will grow your adoration and worship of him. So this morning, as we respond and we go to the table and we take communion, we sing some songs, I pray that for you. I pray that for me, that it wouldn't be just to go in through the motions. So yeah, I'm going back in the most standing line, line shorter today. That's good. Take the bread, dip it in. If you're not, if you're not going through the table, just declaring that Jesus is enough and he is better, maybe don't go today. Maybe you need to sit, maybe you need to come into the back and pray with one of our pastors or elders or me or someone else. And just let us pray over you that Jesus is better. Jesus is enough. Jesus is better. Jesus is enough. What a great prayer that would be. And so as we respond now, that is my prayer for you. And so we will be, some of our leaders will be in the back of you who would like to pray. The tables will be open, the band's going to come, and we're going to sing some songs. After the service, we're going to celebrate some folks who've taken this step, who are going to declare through baptism that Jesus is enough, that Jesus is better. And there happened to be husband and wife today. So Drew and Abby Jones are going to come at the end of the service and be baptized. So when we dismiss, I'll give you a little bit of direction at the end. So if you'll help follow the lead, that would be really helpful. But we're going to move our worship from inside to outside, which is kind of cool. But Drew and Abby are here, and their story is incredible. And they're also expecting their first child. So that's pretty amazing too. All right, let's respond now, let's pray and go to the table on worship. Father, we're thankful for who you are. We're thankful for all that you have called us to do. We pray that we would be a faithful body, committed to preaching Christ and living in community and loving with compassion. I pray that you would help us always have an eye for those who aren't here. Help us to love people who are hard to love because we ourselves have been hard to love. I pray that the fruit of this study of the letter that Paul wrote to the Colossian Church would change the trajectory of this church in a mighty way. That each of us would feel the same type of courage and conviction that a paphras had. To take the long road, the hard road with the best news to people who are desperate to hear it. And that a faithful community of Christians would rise from the dust. And so I pray now for these brothers and sisters as they respond at the table, would you remind each of us that Jesus is enough, Jesus is better, and that we are nothing without Him. So I got to pray that you would forgive us for times where we like to do the equation our own way, where we like to add on to our own salvation things that we think are necessary that you've declared and demanded or not. So help us to walk in faithfulness, help us to walk in fruitfulness. We love you. We trust you. We now give this time to you as we respond in worship. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]