Colossians 4:7-18 - The Fellowservants of Paul

All right, well we are in Colossians chapter 4 verses 7 & 8 and we're taking this little trip with Tychicus through Paul's missionary journey, one of the missionary journeys, and learning what

Tychicus would have learned by just walking with Paul. And so we've covered several things.

The first thing he learned was the proper attitude of a pastor, and we talked about that a little bit.

Then we learned the proper order of the means of salvation, and we saw Paul how he gave the gospel.

It wasn't just Jesus died for you, was buried, and rose again. There was more to it than that as far as the method that he used to preach the gospel.

So we talked about that a little bit, and so then we talked about the proper posture of a pastor.

What is a pastor supposed to be like? What's he supposed to live like? And so forth, and we covered that in pretty much detail.

And then last time, if you remember, what's the proper answer to those who think they know God's will for you? Anybody remember the answer to that?

The answer is to know yourself God's will for you, because they may not know.

And so always remember you're the one that needs to know, not other people. All right, so that brings us to, if you would, turn to 2nd

Timothy chapter 4 verse 10, and we'll pick it up here.

And this point is he learned a lesson about the sin of unfaithfulness.

Now Tychicus was faithful. He was a faithful man, but he saw others who were not, and he saw the effect that that had on the

Apostle Paul, and he also saw how the Apostle Paul handled it when other men were not faithful to him who had been his supposed friends and helpers and so forth.

So we'll see that here in 2nd Timothy chapter 4 and verse 10. So follow along with me.

It says, For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto

Thessalonica. Crescens has departed to Galatia, and Titus unto

Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Take Mark and bring him with you, for he is profitable to me for the ministry.

And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus. So here's our friend Tychicus. So he was obviously with Paul, and he was sent to do something for him, a mission for him in Ephesus, which we know what that is, but we'll talk about that in a minute.

But then he says, The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when you come, bring with you, and the books, but especially the parchments.

So let's just stop there a minute and see what Tychicus might have learned and what we can learn together with him about Paul.

So the first thing is, there was this gentleman named Demas who not only forsook

Paul, but he forsook the Lord, because it says he loved this present world.

Now how many enemies do we have as Christians? We have three main enemies and a bunch of subsets under it probably, the world, the flesh, and the devil, but the world system is what

Demas had a problem with, and that was before billboards. So imagine what he would be like today, before the internet, before television.

Imagine what Demas would be like today, but there are a lot of Demases out there, and we don't want to be a

Demas, we want to be a Tychicus. We want to be a faithful person who's not only faithful to the

Lord, but to the people in our lives that God has called us to serve with. And so this man forsook

Paul, but he had already forsaken the Lord, and he just got into worldliness, and that was his downfall.

And when you read the phrase, he loved this present world, it seems to imply that a person that does that also has lost sight of the future world, because in that future world where you're going to have perhaps a multi -dimensional body and be a very powerful person serving together with the

Lord as king -priests with him, and either having received rewards or suffered loss of them for eternity, you lost sight of that if you're like Demas.

You're not even thinking about that. You're just thinking about the next thing you can grasp hold of that brings joy to you in this life, or maybe it's fun, or maybe it's just powerful, or maybe it's whatever.

And you're focused on right now in this very moment of time which the

Bible says is like a vapor that's here today and just passes away, and focusing on that rather than all of eternity with the

Lord, with his saints, and with your rewards, or losing them like Demas did. From the human viewpoint, he lost his rewards.

Well, that's Demas. Now, so what about this though? In the same sentence,

I mean, in the Greek, I doubt, in fact, I know you don't have a semicolon, you don't have a comma, you don't have scripture chapters and verse markings, it's just a paragraph.

And the sentence says, for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed to Thessalonica, Crescens to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia.

Well, what's interesting is that the same Titus is who wrote the book of Titus. Well, perhaps. So did

Titus totally forsake the Lord and go after this present world? Well, I don't think the

Holy Spirit would have used him to write a book of the Bible if that were the case, unless this is a different Titus.

Sometimes that's difficult to tell. But let's assume it's the Titus who wrote

Titus, and so did he leave

Paul because he had forsaken the Lord and gone after the world system? Probably not. So it may just be that Paul mentions those two men who had left him and gone to minister somewhere else.

It's interesting, if you look at verse 11, Mark talks about there, Paul had gotten upset with him at one point because he left and went and did something else.

Now, see, that almost goes back to the point we already covered where Paul thought he knew God's will for their lives, but he didn't because it was

God's will for them to go serve somewhere else, and Paul just wanted them with him. And so it upset Paul because Paul was human.

And we can learn lessons from that, that sometimes when friends and co -workers leave and it upsets us and we think they're out of God's will because he would obviously want them to stay here with us, we're not always right about that.

So I think probably at least Titus falls into that category and probably this other person that you'll never hear of again other than this one verse, probably

God just sent them to do something else. So Paul is writing to Timothy, his young man that he led to the

Lord and who is preparing for the ministry, and he's asking him, first he tells him,

Luke is still with me. Well, Luke is the one who wrote the book of Acts, who tells the story of Paul. And so he's with Paul, and later the

Holy Spirit would inspire him to write the story of Paul's journeys, three missionary journeys.

And he tells Timothy, who is at a different place, to come to him and bring

Mark, this man that he once had been upset with and now he's not. So they reconciled, and that's why

I think Paul adds this, bring him for he is profitable to me in the ministry.

He's telling Timothy, I'm not mad at him still, right? Very human there, but this is what happened.

Now, Tychicus was there and observed this, I believe, but then he was sent to Ephesus, and he was sent there to let them know the estate of the apostle

Paul so they wouldn't worry too much about Paul. They would know he's well, you know, he's sometimes in prison, but he's okay, he's well, and so forth.

And I think at this point he's on a prison wall, maybe, or at least in prison, but look what he asks for.

He says, bring me a cloak. So he's in a cold place, maybe a dungeon, he needs his coat.

And then he asked something very instructional for all of us. He says, bring the books and especially the parchments.

The parchments are the Old Testament scriptures, and the books are other books, perhaps theology books, perhaps books of science, mathematics.

Paul was a well -educated man, and that teaches us that these people that sometimes will criticize us and say, well, you know, you're reading all these other theology books, you should just stick, read the

Bible only, that's what I do. And I've met people like that, where they look down on you if you read anything other than the

Bible, or if you study anything other than the Bible, and Paul studied stuff other than the Bible. So that means we have the right to do it.

The Holy Spirit inspired him to write that, let us know that it's okay to read theology books, it's okay to study science as long as it's true science, and to read anything to make us a better rounded person, to be a better witness to all kinds of people, but always hold everything up to the scripture and leave the scripture above all of that.

And all of that has to answer to the Bible, not the other way around, and it's a real temptation among young men studying theology to get caught up in philosophy and be led away from scripture, and they let their theology make them unscriptural, and you can never do that.

You've just got to guard against that forever, and check every philosophical statement for the presuppositions to see if they're true according to scripture or not, that's usually where the mistake is.

But other than that, we can learn things from everybody, can't we? You can learn something from a lot of different people, and even the books we read usually will have some error in there because humans wrote it, and it's okay, especially if you're reading the older books.

It is interesting that not only was the Word of God given down through time, not all at once, but theological development happens down through time, not all at once.

And I would say that our way of expressing the Trinity is more developed than it was in the first century, yet they did talk about it in the first century.

Now you can look at it the other way. They were closer to Christ and the apostles. Their view might have been perfect, and they maybe didn't have some of the questions we have.

But there are many cases in theology where, for example, John Calvin certainly advanced the study of the sovereignty of God and put it in a way that's easier to remember, easy to find the scriptures that deal with it, and the context of those scriptures.

He was a wonderful teacher, but that doesn't mean you would agree with sprinkling babies or some of the other things that the

Lutherans and the early Presbyterians believed. They were wrong about things, so you don't have to buy into what they're wrong about.

Just buy into what they teach if it fits the scriptures soundly, and then you can benefit.

I'm reading a book Ben gave me for my birthday by John Gill who wrote the 1700s, and my goodness,

I've read a lot of theology works on the Trinity. Usually they fall so short,

I just say, well, that's disappointing. I didn't learn anything new from that. They didn't even help me on the questions

I have. But this man, this book, I'm going, wow, does he have insight into this that I never saw before.

So it's out there. You just have to find it, but hold it all up to scripture. Unbelievable things, like I remember a psalm he quoted.

And remember, he had no internet. He had no concordance probably. When was the first concordance?

I don't think they had one in 1700s, but they might have. They had some tools, but nothing like what we have.

And yet he quotes a psalm where the Bible is talking about the face of God upon us, and you look it up in the

Hebrew, and he said most people don't notice it, but in Hebrew it's plural. So it's the faces of God, and he said that's an allusion to the triune existence of God, even in the

Old Testament. In many places, he brings it forth out of the Old Testament that you didn't see. I mean, we all know the one in Elohim, you know, in Genesis chapter one is plural.

We know those basic ones, but he brings ones I've just never seen, and it's magnificent. So you can learn so much from other books.

Don't ever let some pious person say, well, you should only read the Bible, but hold everything up against the

Bible. So that's what I think we learned from 2 Timothy 4, 13. All right, I'm going to go to the next point.

It's in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 17. Please turn there, and we're going to see Tychicus there. I never noticed that until this little study

I've done on the end of Colossians there, where this relatively unknown man pops up in a lot of places.

All of these places that I've gone out to, Tychicus is talking about him and his experience with Paul.

So Ephesians chapter 6 is the famous spiritual warfare section of Scripture, and Tychicus may well be learning this for the first time in his life from Paul as he walks with Paul.

And I'm not going to read the whole section on spiritual warfare because it's not a sermon on spiritual warfare and how to deal with it, but most of you have been through that section if you've been in this church very long at all.

You've been through that section, so just go up a few verses and read down through it, and you'll get all of it. But I want to focus on the end of it here and what you learn just from verse 17 through 24.

So Ephesians chapter 6, verse 17, and this is sort of the last part of the armor, the spiritual armor, and it talks about take the helmet of salvation.

Now imagine you're Tychicus, and you're hearing this for the first time because you don't have a New Testament Bible yet, but the

Holy Spirit has inspired Paul to write these things, and Tychicus is with him when he's writing these things, most likely, and so he's learning this.

Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Now we know from another

Scripture in Thessalonians that this is the helmet of the hope of salvation, which is a little different than just salvation itself.

What do you think the difference between just talking about salvation in general or talking about the hope of salvation?

What's the difference? Somebody give me a thought on it. So the rapture, yeah, the fullness of it, the finality of it, perhaps.

What happens at the rapture? You know, we are changed in the air. Our flesh no longer pulls against God or us.

It pulls with God. It's just the old man, it just falls off of us, right, and the new man is in complete control together with the

Lord, and so that is the great hope of our salvation, and we should live today like that's coming.

Very soon, we don't know when, we should live like that, and so that's what the hope of salvation is.

So what's the difference? Well, obviously, a helmet in warfare is something you don't wear all the time.

You take it on and off, correct? So it cannot be a reference to your salvation because you don't lose your salvation and then put it back on again, right?

Everybody with me? So it's not talking about a helmet of salvation, but the Bible sheds light on the

Bible, so when you find the other passage about that, then you will see that it's really talking about the helmet of the hope of salvation, and the hope of salvation is the end of your life when you meet the

Lord, that you are prepared, you're like a bride, pure and clean, and you are saved to the ultimate.

You're literally glorified and in your glorified state, standing before the Lord without sin, serving with him forever.

That's the hope. Now, what does it mean to put it on and off like a helmet? Well, it means when

Satan is attacking you with fiery darts, is what it describes it as up in the context of this, one of the things you should do is put on that helmet.

When you see him attacking, put that helmet on, and what is that telling you? Get your mind in the right state.

Your mind is, I have eternal security. I cannot be lost.

No man can kill my soul. They may kill my body. They cannot kill my soul, and they can't kill my body unless it's my moment that God picked for me, so I'm invincible until that moment, and so put that helmet on, the helmet of the hope of salvation, the helmet of the hope of immortality, the hope of glorification, the hope of the old man being gone and you being perfect and living with the

Lord forever, and then all of a sudden, those fiery darts just bounce right off of your head. They don't get in your mind and get you all depressed, and get you down, and how hard it is in this life, and all that stuff.

It just takes you right to the next level. It takes you right into the heavenlies where you are currently seated with Christ in the heavenlies.

That's the helmet of the hope of salvation, so that's just one part of the armor. The other thing, and many others up above it in the context, then it mentions the sword of the spirit, which is the

Bible. Think about that. The only offensive weapon listed in all of that is the one thing, the

Bible. This is what you attack with. When Satan comes against you, put the helmet on first.

Realize you're invincible. He cannot mess with your salvation. He can't mess with your soul.

He shouldn't be able to mess with your mind, because that's what the helmet's for, and then grab your sword and go after him.

You never turn your back and run from Satan. You resist him with the sword, and he will flee.

That is a promise. It's not like he might flee. He will flee. Remember that when you're being attacked, and we get attacked from time to time, and usually when it happens to one of us, it happens to a lot of people in our circle at the like a shotgun rather than a rifle.

I've said that a million times. So these two parts are the last two parts of the armor that we're supposed to have, and very two important parts, but then verse 18 says there's another element, and it's called prayer, and I want you to notice the specific prayer this is, because this still has to do with the armor, the spiritual warfare battle we're in.

This particular kind of prayer, look what it is. Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, so don't ever pray in the flesh.

You know, be sure you're holding Jesus' hand, and you're praying for things he would ask for.

Praying with him. So praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and this next word is the spiritual warfare word, watching.

Therein too with all perseverance, like a soldier who's on watch while the others sleep at night.

He cannot get sleepy and take his eyes off the horizon, can he? So he has to have perseverance and stay awake and stay alert, and he has to be paying attention and watching, and that is what we're supposed to do, but look who it's for.

Watching therein too with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. That means all the saints that you know, and the saint's not a

Catholic saint. A saint in the Bible is a Christian, a born -again person. So all the born -again people that you know in your circle, and Paul's listed several, you know, through some of these letters.

He lists the people that he's working with. Tychicus is one of them. That's who you're praying for, that in their spiritual battles they will conquer.

They will have power when Satan comes against them, and then be watching when you see a brother or sister who is down, and I'll say this, and maybe some of you guys will agree with me.

Several of us took a tactical shooting class in the

Dallas area two days ago. It was intense. I am still tired from it, and we each individually shot 250 rounds with an instructor right behind us yelling at us.

I mean, not in a bad way, but in a firm way, like quit jerking the trigger, Mitchell, you know, whatever, and while you're trying to hit the target, but I noticed when we left, and he's a brother by the way.

He had Christian, he had John 316 there. He had all kinds of stuff, and he goes to church. I don't know if he goes to the same church with John, but John Quinn is very close friends with him, and I just noticed he was down, and he had to leave early because of some family issue, which was fine.

We were done. We had plenty by the time he left. Go take care of your family.

Thank you very much. This was great, but I mean, I just noticed he was, I just noticed he was down.

I don't know what it's about. I don't know anything about it, so I've been praying for him for a couple of days on and off.

That's what this means. When you see your brother down, for whatever reason it is, if you can find out what it is, and if they don't want you to know, and they don't tell you, that doesn't matter either.

The Lord knows. You just pray for each other, and so this is right in the spiritual warfare passage, so we're supposed to be watching and praying for each other.

Very, very important that you leave no man alone on the battlefield ever, and now look at the specific addition to this prayer.

Paul says, Paul says, and pray for me so that the utterance may be given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.

Paul, of all people, said pray for me that I'll have boldness to witness because if I'm not bold,

I won't say anything to anybody. Isn't that interesting that he needed that prayer? You wouldn't think so, would you?

So we need to pray for each other that we have the boldness to say something with your mouth.

I mean, a huge important part of your witness is your life. I agree with that, but there are times we're supposed to speak to people about the

Lord, and we need to have the boldness to do it, and we should pray for each other to have that, and that was part of the specific prayer, not only the watchfulness and the helping of the spiritual warfare when a brother's down, help lift them up, but also that we might all speak boldly the gospel to the lost world around us.

But that ye also may know my affairs and how I am doing,

I'm going to send Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the

Lord. So we learned additional information about Tychicus here that we had not seen before. Paul doesn't just count him as a helper, he's a beloved helper.

He is like a close friend in Paul's circle, one of the best friends of Paul.

Think about this, along with Luke and Mark and Titus, who all three wrote the part of the

Bible, this man is counted as dear to Paul as those men. And there's women that were very dear to Paul as well that helped in the ministry.

Some are listed in elsewhere in the scriptures, in Paul's letters. So he's going to send

Tychicus, this very close friend and brother of his, to the church at Ephesus so that they can know

Paul is okay. Even though he might be in prison, he might be beaten, right now he is okay, and the

Lord's working powerfully, and he wanted them to know his status.

So he's going to send Tychicus, a very trusted man obviously, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the

Lord, shall make known to you all things, and what he means is all things about me, how it's going as I witness to the

Gentiles, how many Gentiles are getting saved, how many of them are starting to grow, and give a full report to the church at Ephesus.

Verse 22, Tychicus whom I have sent to you for the same purpose, now remember this is the letter to Ephesians, Tychicus may well have delivered this letter.

Think about that, isn't that interesting? Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose that you might know our affairs, and that he might comfort your hearts as well.

So he's also going to minister to that church. Peace be in Paul's absence, right?

So Paul had duplicated himself in Tychicus, now he delegates to him to go minister like Paul would, if he could be there.

That's what all of us are supposed to be doing. We don't just lead people to Christ, we start to help them grow.

We bring them over to the house and give them a Bible study, you know, get them in the basics, and as quickly as possible, and get them out serving the

Lord. So Tychicus here is a duplicate of Paul. So he sends him to this powerful church at Ephesus, and then verse 23, he closes this with peace be unto the brethren, and love with faith from God, two gifts the

Holy Spirit gives you at the moment you're saved, love and faith, Jesus's faith, Jesus's love, from God the

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, that's where the love and the faith came from. It's God's love, it's

Jesus's faith. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, not with those that are faking it.

That's implied. Amen. Okay, so there's that.

Let's see what time it is. All right, so let's go to the next one. Turn with me to 2

Timothy 4 and verse 16. So we just kind of talked about those who had been unfaithful to Paul and how

Paul dealt with it. And then we talked about the spiritual warfare lesson that Tychicus learned along with everybody else

Paul was with and the church at Ephesus. Now, this is the eighth point we can learn with Tychicus and it is this, know who will never forsake you.

So this also has to do with how Paul dealt with it when Demas forsook him and other men and the only person left with him was

Luke. Out of all the people he had walked with in the ministry, Luke was with him and that was it. Well, he still had

Timothy and Mark, but we don't know how many left him and went a different direction or just quit.

And I know missionary stories I've read where missionaries stayed on the foreign mission for years translating the scripture and finally got one convert in India and that he discipled this convert for a year and after a year the convert went back to Hinduism.

So he had nothing, it seemed like no fruit. The home churches cut off his money so he had to become entrepreneurial and work with his hands to live while he stayed there the rest of his life translated the

Bible into, I don't know, 21 or I don't know how many dialects. Amazing.

So you can't go by what you think are good results. Dave kind of talked about that in his

Sunday school lesson this morning. You don't always get to see the results. What's the famous missionary to India, Ben, do you remember?

William Carey. See, I know all these things. I have forgotten so much, but I know it's

William Carey. Amazing story if you ever want to read a great book. Pick up any biography on William Carey and just read it.

It'll blow your mind. Well, anyway, so look, here's how you deal with it if everyone leaves you.

2 Timothy 4 16, at my first answer, no man stood with me.

So Paul was in a debate, right? He was in a debate and he lost the debate.

No one believed his position. I love reading that because I hate it when I explain something plainly to somebody and they just won't change.

They just won't change their mind. It's plain as day. You're wrong. I'm right. Plain as day.

And they won't change their mind. Well, it happened to the apostle Paul. No man stood with him, but all men forsook me.

And look how he responds to it. I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.

You know how I pray, Lord, vengeance is yours. Take care of that person.

That's how I pray. And I was reminded, you know, when I put this together a month or so ago, that is not the right attitude.

You know, they go against you. They call you names. They try to split your church. They do this, that, and the other.

God take care of them. No, that's not what Paul meant when he said take care of them. He meant, you know, make it go well.

Don't hold it to their charge. Wow. Uh, Paul was, I guess, the greatest

Christian that's lived since Christ. And we can work towards that, right?

I'm not there yet. We can work towards that though. My goodness, look at that. So, so no man stood with me.

All men forsook me. And I pray God that it might not be laid to their charge. One of these days, maybe you'll save them.

Lead them to Jesus. Wow, that is so powerful. Verse 17, notwithstanding the

Lord stood with me. So what was his answer to being forsaken by the world, being forsaken by so -called

Christians who had walked with him and pretended to game? I mean, you think about Paul was famous, wasn't he?

How many people do you think want to walk with a famous person for a while, but then when trouble comes and tribulation or threats or danger, what do they do?

They go right back to the world. How did Paul deal with that? When no, no man stood with him, just by himself all of a sudden, and he spent his whole life in ministry and he's by himself.

Can you imagine that? That's what happened. But he said, notwithstanding the

Lord stood with me and he strengthened me that by me, the preaching might be fully known and that all the

Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of a lion. Who's the lion?

Satan. I mean, Tychicus got more than one lesson on spiritual warfare when he walked with Paul, didn't he?

So who will forsake you? Men will, who won't Jesus? He never forsakes you.

It doesn't matter if every man, woman, everybody in your family, it doesn't matter what happens.

If everyone forsakes you, Jesus never will, as long as you're in the word and you're walking with him and you're sincere and you love him and you can count on that.

And Paul was not worried about it. I think of Dr. Freeman, by the end of his life, very few churches would invite him back to preach anymore.

It had started out when I met him, they would have him for two week revival meetings. Then it got to where they would have him for one week revival meetings.

And then it got where they would have him fly in on Wednesday to Wednesday night and leave Sunday night. And then it got where he got a few invitations and then he died and went to heaven.

And had he lived another 10 years, he would have been broke because he lived off of love offerings.

He wouldn't have been broke though because he loved entrepreneurial stuff. He would have been, he would be doing tradeways, what he would have been doing.

I just know he would have. I mean, if he did multi -level marketing with me, he would have done tradeway.

I mean, he tried Market America. It was great. You should have seen him do the products, man. Anyway, bless his heart.

I love him. Miss him every day. But if everybody forsakes you, who do you have?

You got the Lord. So what does it matter? It doesn't even matter. Oh, it feels like it matters.

But in reality, Paul knew it didn't. And two things, he said, number one, I've got the

Lord and he is standing with me. And then number two, that one standing with me just delivered me from the mouth of the lion.

So now it continues. That's not all that he gets from Jesus being with him.

Look at verse 18 and the Lord shall deliver me. He just delivered me from Satan and he will deliver me from every evil work and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom to whom be glory forever and ever.

Amen. What is that? That's eternal security. That's the hope of salvation. He put that helmet on when he was being attacked and he realized, wait a minute,

Jesus is standing right here. Satan hadn't killed me yet. You know, eventually the

Lord allowed that to happen, but not yet. Not till it was his minute. Not till it was the minute

Paul was supposed to have his head severed from his body. And he knows he has eternal security.

And he also knows what Jesus had taught that whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die.

He wasn't worried about the sword. He wasn't worried about the Roman sword that was going to take his life because Jesus still delivered him from the world of flesh and the devil.

He totally delivered him from the world when he died physically. And he totally delivered him from Satan when he died physically and from his old man when he died physically.

And he was instantly with Jesus. That's just how it works. And Paul knew it.

He wasn't worried when everybody forsook him. Grace be with you. Amen, he says.

All right. So let's cover one more because I'd really love to be done with this study.

Look at this. Here's the next point. Expect effects from those who claim to have experienced the cause.

Think about that and you'll know what I mean. People claim they're saved, right? Some of the demons probably claimed he was saved.

He wasn't saved. He was lost as a goose. So people claim to be saved.

The cause is when the Holy Spirit regenerates them and awakens them and they're alive spiritually, right?

And they say they're saved, which means that is supposed to have happened. But the truth is when there is a cause, this cause, there are always effects.

And the effects are what you've heard me call the of salvation. The greatest of all is love for the brethren.

Next behind it is kindness. Next behind it is truth. Like I will not bow down to some book

I've read or whatever the world thinks if it contradicts scripture. There are all of these symptoms of salvation and they're all effects of the salvation.

But if you have the cause, the effects should be there. And we see that in Titus chapter 3 verse 8, which

Ben has taught on recently, I think. Look at what it says in Titus 3 8.

This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works.

There's the effects. They maintain, they think about it. Careful means they're thinking about it so that they'll actually do something rather than just believing something.

They'll go do something for the Lord. And so that they affirm constantly that they which believe in God might be careful to maintain good works.

These things are good and profitable unto the people around us. All right.

So but avoid, now here's the 10th point, and it starts with verse 9. Avoid foolish debates from those who do not speak truth from the inspired text.

So if people come in with philosophical things and they're talking about stuff that the Bible doesn't even specifically mention, and they want to harp on that and talk about that, and they'll write books like that too.

There's one I'm thinking of which I'm not going to mention because a friend of mine thinks they're good and I don't, but it's because it's just full of minutia that it's not even in the

Bible. A lot of times they'll pull it from the Apocrypha, you know, parts that are uninspired books that they think are history, but those could just as easily have been first century fiction.

You don't know that it's history. It could be fiction, just good reading for your kids or something. Bible stories that aren't, you know, fictitious, little stories for kids.

And so you look at that and all of a sudden you put that equal with Scripture and you say, well, it'll even embellish the

Scripture. That is so dangerous. Don't ever do that. But here's what it says.

Look at verse 9. Avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions, things you could argue about that the

Bible doesn't settle clearly and easily. Strivings about the law.

A lot of these people were legalists. Oh, well, you need to be worshiping on Saturday instead of Sunday.

We're going to argue about that for a couple of hours. I don't think so. You know, because the

Sabbath means rest. I rest in Jesus every day. I don't need you to tell me what day to worship on.

So avoid that. For they are unprofitable and vain. Unprofitable means it's a waste of time.

Vain means it's sinful. For the other person who's wanting to talk about this stuff, it's sinful.

It's vanity. It's useless. Verse 10 says a man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition, reject him.

Give him two warnings and then say, go find another church. You know, pick whichever pastor you don't like and send them there.

Oh, I don't see that in the scripture. Wait a minute. Let's see.

I've never done that, by the way. Seriously, I've never sent them to. I don't know anybody

I don't like in the ministry, really. Not in Coruscant anyway. So what is a heretic though?

A tick with hair. A hairy tick. What is it? Preaching false stuff.

Doesn't the root word have something to do with division? Or am

I thinking of a different word? Okay. So the root word means someone that has parties, like Democrat, Republican.

So you got my party over here that believes that Moses, when they didn't find his body, that they actually found it and they found it near the

Red Sea and stuff. And I'm going to argue that. And then you got Paul Davis over there says, no, that's nonsense.

The Bible doesn't teach that. And then, so I'm going to pull everybody. Well, Paul's a bad dude. So come with me.

And he's going to say, well, brother, David's ignorant. Come with me. And we've just created two parties in the church.

That is a heretic. That more so than teaching false stuff, but also guess how they usually do it,

Dave. They usually create the parties by teaching false doctrine. Something that's new and kind of cool, like these genealogies and these things that Paul is saying to avoid, right?

Foolish questions and contentions and strivings about the law. And they know something that the other guy doesn't know.

So here it is. Now, Paul says very clearly what you do is you go to that person. I mean, it can be the elders.

It can be the deacons. It can be anybody in the church can go to that person and warn them once if they keep doing them, you can warn them twice.

Let's make sure we get this right. Uh, after the first, okay. After the second one, that means they get three chances.

That's funny. I've practiced. I have practiced that in business and just got it right. But there it is in scripture.

I generally give people three, three warnings. And on the third one, they get fired in business.

So that's how we do it in church. And if you don't do that, they will cause division.

So they're already trying, obviously, and they got warned twice. So that is scriptural method that Paul gives us knowing that he is such a person who is like that is subverted and he's sinful and he condemns himself by what he says, he will contradict himself.

But what does it mean? He's subverted. He's been drawn away by, by another false teacher and he fell for it.

Now he wants to teach that stuff and he is sinning while he does it. The scripture says, now here's our friend.

Look at verse 12. When I shall send Artemis unto thee or Tychicus.

Now, I don't know if that means he had two names or he's sending one man or the other.

I don't know that we can tell that, but anyway, I'm going to send

Tychicus be diligent to come into me to Nicopolis where I have determined there to winter.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to get a message from Paul says where he's going to be all winter and you could go stay there with him.

Yeah, that would be something. Charlotte wouldn't like it, but it, it would be something unless she could go with me, which

I would take her with me. Do you hear that Charlotte? I would never leave you for Paul. All right.

So, he's going to spend the winter there. He sent

Tychicus to, to let them know, you know, and so forth. Um, and then verse 13 brings

Enos, the lawyer and Apollos on their journey diligently that nothing be wanting unto them.

So help these other missionaries that are out doing God's work. Let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses that they may be not unfruitful.

All that are with me, salute thee, greet thee that love us in the faith, grace be with you all.

Amen. So Tychicus was quite the messenger for Paul, wasn't he? He would go and tell different churches that Paul's doing well and here's the report.

Um, okay. I'm going to, I'm going to take three more minutes and that's a lie when I say that, but I can totally finish this.

Turn back to our book of Colossians that we're supposed to be finishing and we're in chapter nine.

I mean, chapter four, there are nine chapters. We're in chapter four, but verse nine, and we had just seen the verses about Tychicus.

And so let's follow this with Onesimus. Onesimus. Now, wasn't he the one that was

Philemon's slave? So he's mentioned who was born again with Paul, a faithful and beloved brother.

He's not listed as a slave, but a brother who is one of you. He's just like the rest of you.

And he was released as a slave after that though. And they shall make known to you all things which are done here.

So these are other people that Paul sent to different churches and groups of people to tell his estate and the report on how many souls were being saved among the

Gentiles. And then, and then he mentions Aristarchus.

He was from Thessalonica and he was actually seized in Ephesus by a mob.

And, but I think he survived that, but this is a man who was mentioned elsewhere in scripture.

And so this man was Paul's fellow prisoner and was arrested and, you know, for telling the gospel together with Paul.

And then Marcus, we think maybe this was Barnabas' nephew. We also think

Marcus was also known as Mark, who wrote, who was the

Mark that was with him on the first missionary journey. And he says he's sister's son to Barnabas.

Well, that's how we know that, right? Got ahead of myself. Touching whom you receive commandments, if he come unto you, receive him.

And Jesus, which is called Justice, who is most likely a

Jewish believer, who are of the circumcision. Now these are, some of these names are never mentioned again, but they're people who were close to Paul and worked with him.

And the Holy Spirit saw fit to mention their names in the word of God, which is an eternal book, which is pretty amazing.

So these were great servants together with Paul. These only are my fellow workers unto the kingdom of God, which have been a comfort to me.

Don't you think it's interesting? How many did Jesus have as apostles? How many apostles did he have?

He had just 12 men change the whole world. And you look at the apostle Paul who went all over the entire

Gentile world of that day, preaching to enormous numbers of people sometimes, or discipling a small number sometimes.

And yet he ends up with these that we just named, which is just a handful, a handful of men and women.

These only are my fellow workers. He ended up with a very small, he was very unsuccessful by today's standards.

His mega church had these six, seven or eight people. And that was it.

And then, then the Lord took him home, but he changed the whole world forever and wrote much of the

New Testament under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So these only are my fellow workers unto the kingdom of God, which have been a comfort to me.

So was he depressed about that? Maybe, but what would he do when he got depressed?

He would put on that helmet of the hope of salvation and realize Jesus is at my side and he has delivered me from the mouth of the lion.

And so I'm okay. I've done what God called me to do. I've preached the gospel to thousands of Gentiles.

I just don't see the results in this life and I'm okay.

These only are my fellow servants, workers unto the kingdom of God, which have been a comfort to me.

Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, salutes you always laboring fervently for you in prayers and that they may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.

For I bear him record that he hath a great zeal for this particular church and them that are in Laodicea and them in Hierapolis.

Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you. Now see this, this book was written prior to the book we quoted a minute ago because Demas was still with Paul and later left him.

Isn't that interesting? Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea and Memphis and the church which is in his house.

Now I find this interesting, well it was in 2nd Timothy when Demas left him, but I find this interesting in verse 16, and when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the

Laodiceans and that you likewise read the letter that I wrote them. So don't ever let someone tell you, well if you're so big into context, this was only written to the church at Laodicea or whatever or the church at Ephesus, so it doesn't really even apply to us.

Well Paul wanted them read to every church, so Paul's writings apply to every

Christian. Does that make sense? This verse proves it. If you didn't have this verse people could argue that against you. So there we have it.

And say to Archippus, take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the

Lord, that thou fulfill it. Isn't it interesting that Demas was walking with him when he said that, and Demas didn't obey that, but hopefully

Archippus did. They think maybe he was the son of Philemon and Aphia.

So say to Archippus to take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfill it.

The salutation by the hand of me, Paul, remember my bonds, grace be with you, amen.

We finished the book. The main thing to take away today is if everyone leaves you, you're okay.

If you're walking with Jesus, you're okay. If they're taking you to the gallows, you're still gonna be okay.

And if we live long enough, it could get to that. It could get to that in the next presidential election in this country.

So are we ready? We just got to be walking with the Lord now so that when we get there, we're ready.

And that's the great lesson with the wonderful apostle Paul is our example, not to mention

Jesus is our example. Think of the world they were in. The world you were in is no different, if not worse, but hidden by certain niceties and laws that we currently have, but it's the same.

The world thinks about you just like it thought about Paul. The politicians of this world would put you in prison and have you killed if they could under the laws they live in right now, as much as they did him.

And we get to put to sleep with how easy it is here. Although I think we're waking up, don't you?

Don't you think the church is waking up to the times that we live in? And things like Charlie Kirk helped that, bless his heart.

Wow. What a year, you know, be kind of nice to move into next year.

And speaking of that next Sunday, uh, brother Ben Mitchell is going to preach a

Christmas message for us. And the following Sunday, brother Dave is going to do a new year's message for us.

And I'm excited to hear both of those. All right, let's stand and have prayer together. Lord, thank you for your word.

It is so amazing. The Sunday school lesson in among the adults today was incredible.

There's so much in that Psalm. We could be in it for three years, but, um, thank you for every word in your word.

Thank you for every inspired word you've given us. Thank you for this Bible. We can't, I shudder in fear when

I think about what if we didn't have it. And so Lord, thank you for each other. As we always say, uh, the way we strengthen one another and pray for those who are ill today, lift them up,

Lord, bring strength to their bodies. And we thank you for the food we're about to have. And we pray in Jesus name.