Costly Commitment to Christ's Church

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. If you would like to learn more about us, please visit us at our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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You can also find us on Instagram, Grace Church, Y -E -G, all one word, or on Facebook.

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You can also find us on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever else you listen to your favorite podcasts.

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Please enjoy the following sermon. We're told that in the year 55

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A .D., the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar, along with several legions of his army, landed on the shores of what is now modern day

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England. In his conquest for world domination, Julius had sailed with his men to the furthest reaches, the farthest reaches of the known world, to claim the

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British Isles for himself and for Rome. But as the legend goes, as Julius Caesar and his soldiers filed into their ranks to begin their conquest of the land, they were confronted by a rather unsightly group in an overwhelming sea of Celtic warriors, fierce

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Celtic warriors that vastly outnumbered them and had a gruesome reputation for violence.

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And so as the Roman soldiers saw these Celts, they broke from their ranks and quickly sought to return to the ships.

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But as they approached the steep cliffs that hang over that wide ocean, they were shocked at what they saw below, that as they looked down, floating on the surface where their ships once were, there were just balls of yellow flame on the sea.

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As it turns out, Julius Caesar, anticipating that the violence of the

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Celts and the impression that it would have on the Roman soldiers, once every last soldier had exited the ship, ordered that all the ships be set ablaze to remove any possibility of retreat and to secure the absolute commitment of every

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Roman soldier. And so with no alternative for these soldiers, they looked below at the ships, they turned their faces at the

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Celts, and they did battle with them. And against all odds, they won the war against these fierce warriors.

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And this is how. Though they were greatly outnumbered, they were no longer engaged in a battle of expansion and conquest, but a battle for their survival.

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And as such, they were fiercely committed to the cause. Now there are many today who would question the veracity of this claim.

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In some respects, it is a bit of a legend, and not all the details we know for sure.

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But it has not stopped people from telling this tale over and over again.

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And I would suggest this is why. Because it appeals to man's innate admiration for courageous commitment.

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Isn't it true that we love to hear and we desire to emulate those who are committed to a cause and stake everything to keep that commitment?

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But perhaps more than that, we are intrigued and perplexed by these stories because we live in a culture that is devoid of such noble commitment.

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We love to hear these burn the boats, these no turning back kind of stories because such principled resolve in our day is rare.

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And deep down inside, we all long to hear about anyone who actually believes something so resolutely that they are prepared to die for it.

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It is sad but true that we live in a convictionless and commitmentless culture today.

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I was looking at stats this week that in Canada, for instance, the commitment that is marriage is at an all -time low.

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That last year the number of people who were married, we have a few couples in this church, you're numbered among these, the number of people that were married last year is the same number that were married in Canada in 1938 when the population of Canada was only 11 million.

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Similarly, the commitment required to have children and to ensure the survival of our nation at the most basic level is nearly absent with birth rates lower than at any other point in history at just 1 .26

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children per family. What's more, this troubling trend extends to our careers in our workplaces, our residences and how long we live in our homes, how we keep our friends and even our commitment to the local church.

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Statistics tell us if we look at them carefully that we live in a day with record low church attendance, record low church membership and amongst those who are church members record low commitment still.

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Our world has a commitment problem and this mindset has crept in and infected the church.

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Whether we like it or not, whether we admit it or not. So that it must be said today and I think you would agree with me if you looked and surveyed that I guess the horizon we might say of the church and of those members that belong therein.

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That there are few things more counter -cultural than genuine commitment to a biblical local church.

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But I ask you, is this what Christ had in mind when he exclaimed that he would build the church?

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When he said upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

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When he issued this promise that he would build his church did our

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Lord envision a fickle half -hearted band of lukewarm believers whose love for and commitment to Christ and to one another is easily overshadowed by even our commitments to our favorite sports team or political party?

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Was Christ here prognosticating about an unreliable and inconsistent ragtag assembly that is always church hopping, always church shopping, that never commits to consistently loving and serving

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Christ wholeheartedly in a body of believers? Today, as we look at Colossians 124,

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I want to combat the lukewarm, skittish, commitment -leery mindset that is in truth baked into each and every one of us.

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I want to target that sinful impulse that we all have to keep

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Christ's church at arm's length, near enough, but not too near.

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I want to show you that the biblical norm when it comes to the Christian and Christ's church is radically different from that which we see around us today.

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Now, I could have picked any text in the world, any theme in the world for this week.

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Why did I pick this text? Dear brothers and sisters, this church has now existed for almost four years now.

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And one of the things, one of the dangers, one of the risks that is lurking at this very moment, not outside of these walls, but in this room, in our own hearts, is a trend towards complacency, to settle into a rhythm that treats this church just like every other person in the

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Western world, professing Christian at least, seeks to treat the church with a cold and casual attitude.

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I am so grateful for what the Lord has blessed us with in this church, and I desire not only to keep it, but to promote it, to increase it, to expand upon it, that we would be a true church that glorifies the

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Lord Jesus Christ in our individual commitment to her. Today, as we look at Colossians 124, we're going to see that Paul offers us a compelling example of what costly commitment to Christ's church looks like.

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And today, as we look at this example, I want to call you to follow the example.

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This is the kind of sermon that, as I prepared it, it worked me over. I pray that it would gently work you over also.

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And so, with our attention turned to Colossians 124, let's read the text.

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And then, after looking at the text, I want to take us through a logical sequence, that we will look at three important truths.

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The Christian's call to sacrifice and suffering. That we are called to this costly commitment.

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The church's worthiness of that joyful sacrifice. And then, finally, the

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Bible's blueprint for church commitment. So, looking at Colossians 124, this is what we read.

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Now, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my body, sorry, for your sake, and in my flesh, there it is,

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I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.

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I'll read it one more time. Now, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh,

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I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.

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The first important truth that I want to show you today is this. The Christian's call to sacrifice and to suffering.

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As we begin in verse four, we come to what is arguably the most difficult verse in Paul's letter to the

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Colossians. At least the most difficult to interpret. One technical commentary, as I was looking at it this week, summarizes it this way.

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They write, this verse has been an exegetical crux since the earliest time.

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And has no parallel in the rest of the New Testament, at least in its vocabulary.

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What in the world does Paul mean when he states that he not only rejoices in his sufferings, which is peculiar enough, but that these sufferings are filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions.

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For the past two millennia, theologians have tried to make sense of this passage. And the obvious questions that arise when you read this text look something like this.

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Is Paul here indicating that we must add to Christ's substitutionary work on the cross to be saved?

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Or in other words, was Christ's suffering on the cross in our place insufficient to pay the full penalty for our sins, therefore requiring that we fill up what is lacking?

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Some have looked at this passage and they have thought exactly that. In the early 1900s, a

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German theologian named Hans Windisch contended that this phrase meant that there was still something lacking in Christ's vicarious sacrifice, which had to be completed then by the

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Apostle Paul. He wrote that Paul bore the sufferings, and I quote, which

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Christ could not carry away completely. Now, you and I were familiar with singing that song,

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Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Well, according to Windisch's theory, it would go more something like this, that Jesus Christ paid almost all and the rest

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Paul owed. And so Paul paid the penalty. Now, this isn't a strange and unserious theory that we can cast aside, though it has been held by many over the years.

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Others have argued that Paul willingly suffered as a response to Christ's suffering, that he saw it and wanting to reciprocate, he too suffered.

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Or that he suffered in the place of the Colossian church so that they did not have to. Now, there are at least half a dozen interpretations of this text.

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I don't want to waste your time surveying all the wrong ones. I will simply say this, it is possible to arrive at the correct interpretation of this text, and that when we do arrive at the correct interpretation, it helps us to understand.

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It is an important key to understanding the whole of the Christian life and of the relationship between Christ and his church.

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As Paul writes to the Colossians in these early chapters, he is writing, if you know anything about the book of Colossians, to argue against Jewish legalism and pagan asceticism.

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And the chief thing that Paul is trying to convey as he writes to this church is this, to establish with them the perfect sufficiency of Jesus Christ.

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If you have an ESV, I have an ESV that I'm reading out of, you'll see the heading that reads above verse 15, that likely reads something like this, the preeminence of Christ.

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And that's not inspired, but it does speak to the theme of the passage. And the reason that title, that subtitle is there is because Paul wants us to know in this text that Jesus is the visible image of the invisible

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God. That it is in him that all the fullness of deity dwells bodily.

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And as it says in chapter 1 and verse 22, that this Jesus has reconciled us to God in his body of flesh so as to present us holy and blameless and above reproach before him.

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Everything, everything that Paul is arguing for here craters the suggestion that there was anything lacking in Christ's atonement.

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What then was lacking? As Paul indicates that he is filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions.

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In verse 24 he uses a Greek word that is never even once used to describe

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Christ's vicarious suffering. But is only ever and always used in reference to the

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Christians suffering for Christ. Here he uses a that was often employed if you were into reading

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Greek tragedies to denote the great difficulty that would befall a man and then that man would have to ultimately accept these difficulties.

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It was a body of suffering appointed for that individual. He could not fight against it, he simply had to accept it.

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And here Calvin captures all of it in one sentence. I looked at, as I went through this text,

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I think just shy of a dozen commentaries. Trying to find, because oftentimes

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I must confess, the commentators just summarize it better than I can.

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And so sometimes it's easier to quote them. Calvin had the most succinct and clear summary.

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And even then I think I need to translate it from English to English. He says, as Christ has suffered once in his own person, so he suffers daily in his members.

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We are his body. And this is the key. And in this way there are filled up those sufferings which the

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Father has appointed for his body by his decree.

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Translation. Just as it was decreed that Christ, the head of the church, should suffer to make atonement for sins,

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God has also decreed that Christ's body, the church, should suffer.

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And as she suffers for him, she is completing what remains in her suffering by God's decree.

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We have all seen those thermometers when they are raising money and people color in with the red ink the thermometer as the dollar amount goes up.

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What here Paul is arguing that the church by decree as Christ's body has one of those thermometers.

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That there is a certain amount of affliction that God himself has decreed for the church as an extension of the suffering of Christ.

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Not to make atonement, but simply to suffer before a watching world.

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And as Christians suffer, that thermometer is being colored up until it reaches fullness.

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What is lacking in Christ's affliction is not, sorry, what is lacking in Christ's affliction is not the suffering of the head that is

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Christ. His sacrifice is complete. But what is lacking is the affliction of the body, the church that must be fulfilled throughout the remainder of her time on earth.

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As Matthew Henry put it, both the suffering of the head and of the members are called the suffering of Christ and make up as it were one body of suffering.

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Now we often hear, brothers and sisters, Christians say that God called me to this, that God called me to that.

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We hear men say God called me to the ministry or God called me to serve him in this far off country.

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Sometimes we hear young men say I would like to marry you because God called me to marry you.

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I think young women say that less often than the men. And some of these things may or may not be true.

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But one thing is for certain, that God calls all of his people to a life of costly, sacrificial, and committed service to him.

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It is by his decree. And this theme punctuates again and again the pages of scripture.

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Now I had a long list. You'll be glad I deleted most of my list. But I'll share just a few of the passages that punctuate scripture here.

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From Philippians chapter 1 and verse 29. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe, what does it say?

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Believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake. That the calling of Christ comes itself with a cost, a costly cost of suffering.

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Or in Romans chapter 8 and verse 16. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

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And if children then heirs. Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. Amen.

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Who does not want to be an heir of Christ or an heir with Christ? And yet he continues.

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Heirs of Christ, provided we suffer with him, in order that we may also be glorified with him.

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We often talk about the Romans 8 golden chain of redemption. That those who are called are justified.

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And those who are justified, they are glorified. Here in Romans 8 we see another aspect of that chain of redemption.

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That when we are called and then we are justified. We are called to affliction and then to be glorified.

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Christ himself taught that every one of his believers must deny himself, take up his cross.

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You know how this goes. And follow after him. This is a call, dear brothers and sisters, when we look at this.

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That there is an affliction that needs to be filled in the midst of the church,

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Christ's body. This is a call, not to a casual Christianity.

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But that one is that is marked by absolute commitment and a willingness to endure affliction for him.

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Don't ask me why. But I was recently reading a page on the internet of Joel Osteen's quotes.

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I found myself on the page and was reflecting on how, really how nice all of these quotes seem.

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They're very promising. Very rosy. There's a lot to look forward to in your best life now.

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At least as Joel Osteen would have it. And I stumbled upon a quote that's listed as one of the most popular quotes in his book,

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Your Best Life Now. And it reads like this. When you walk in God's love, sorry, when you walk in God's favor, there it is, his blessings will chase you down and overtake you.

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Doesn't that sound lovely? That when you walk in God's favor, it's not a monster lurking under your bed, but blessings.

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They are hounding you down that you might receive them whether you like it or not.

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But does that square with the teaching of our Lord? What does Christ say in Matthew chapter 10 and verse 22?

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As I was thinking about passages that speak to the Christian being chased, what does our

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Lord say? In verse 22, he says this. And you will be hated by all for my name's sake.

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But the one who endures to the end will be saved. Now for the part about chasing.

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When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next. For truly

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I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel. See, this chasing is continuing from town to town to town through all the towns of Israel before the

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Son of Man comes. Oh, that God would explode us out of our comfortable

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Christian bubbles to see that to live as a Christian in this world is to answer the call to a costly commitment to him.

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A call to sacrifice. A call that is, frankly, completely at odds with the comfortable and affluent churchianity that we are surrounded by today.

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Now some of you might be asking, so we're called to hardship.

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We're called to suffering. We're called to difficulty. But what does this have to do with commitment to the church?

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I'm glad you've asked. Because the next thing that we're going to look at is the church's worthiness of this joyful sacrifice.

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That we are called to suffer for Christ. But more than that, we are called to suffer for his body, for his bride.

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The church's worthiness of joyful sacrifice. As Paul writes these

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Christians, to these Christians in Colossae, there's something very interesting that is happening here.

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If you know about this letter that Paul wrote, you'll have some appreciation for this.

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That he is writing from prison. We see that if you turn the page to Colossians 4 and verse 3.

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He says, pray also for us that God may open a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which

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I am in prison. That here he is imprisoned either in Rome or on his way to Rome.

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And he is writing to a church that he has likely never met before. We look at Colossians chapter 1 and verse 4.

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We see this. That he speaks about this faith that he has heard of. He has not seen it for himself.

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Epaphras planted the church we see later in chapter 1. And Paul has heard of this church.

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And so he writes to encourage them. And yet despite his less than ideal living conditions.

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As he writes to a church that in some ways he doesn't know from Adam. He tells them in chapter 1 and verse 24 that he is rejoicing in his suffering for their sake.

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And again we must ask the question, how can this be? What is going on?

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Paul does not indicate that he is rejoicing in the midst of his sufferings.

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That makes sense. That we endure at times hardship and in the midst of that hardship we try to make the best of it.

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We try to rejoice. No he does not write that as if he is learning how to rejoice in spite of his difficulties.

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But rather he writes that he is rejoicing in. Think of this.

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That he is rejoicing in the substance of his affliction for the

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Colossian church. That he finds great joy in enduring the marrow of suffering for a church that he has not yet met face to face.

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And he gives us a clue as to why he is prepared to joyfully endure such suffering at the end of verse 24.

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Where he references that this church is

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Christ's body that is the church. It is because he recognizes that it is for the sake not of some ordinary group, ordinary community in Colossae.

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But Paul is suffering because this community in Colossae is the church.

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The church of the Lord Jesus Christ. His very body on the earth.

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Here Paul recognizes that the church, because of her identity, is worthy.

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That the church is worthy of joyful sacrifice and suffering. Paul understood that Christ was worthy of such a costly commitment.

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That doesn't surprise us. But here Paul demonstrates that the church too is worthy of such a commitment.

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That it is something to rejoice in when one not only is committed to and pays the cost for following Christ, but is committed to and pays a great cost for loving and serving

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Christ's church. His body, his bride, his house, his field, his family.

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It is not because Paul has some affinity for these people in Colossae.

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It is not because of what they have done or can do for him. But it's because of who they are in their very essence.

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They are the church. Do you see for a moment, if you look at this, the imprisoned

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Paul suffering and yet rejoicing in and for the church.

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Much of the casual attitude that we see today surrounding the church is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of her identity.

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Years and years ago, an author wrote a book entitled, Your God is

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Too Small. A man named Mark Buchanan came years later and wrote a book entitled,

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Your God is Too Safe. The Lord, in some strange providence, used that book for all of its strengths and weaknesses to influence a brother who preached the message that the

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Lord used to convert me. Our God sometimes is too small.

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He is too safe. I would suggest too that your view of the church is too small.

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Some of you, if you are honest, you get more excited to go to a movie or a concert or a hockey game than you do when it is time to assemble with the household of the living

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God. Some of you, without even realizing it, harbor a tragic and pitiful attitude towards the church.

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A beggarly sentiment that keeps you from esteeming her as you ought to.

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You treat the church and her people just as you do a softball team with its weekly practices.

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It is just another group of people and another get -together in your schedule.

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You can almost take it or leave it depending on the day. But I ask you, can such an attitude about the church even begin to make sense of Paul's willingness to lay down his life and to rejoice in it for the sake of the church?

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Oh that God would give us a biblical view of the church that perhaps for the first time ever even that you would see the glory of the church as the body of the

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Lord Jesus Christ in the world today. R.

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A. Torrey writes about this glory. He says the church as the body of Christ is a divine institution established by God to manifest his glory on the earth.

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Spurgeon, if we were to consult him, he says the church like the moon reflects the glory of the father of lights and so is glorious by the borrowed splendor which her

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Lord puts upon her. Hear me, open your hearts to see the glory, the beauty, the wonder of Christ's church.

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The whole world, Calvin writes, is a theater for the display of the divine goodness, wisdom, justice, and power of God.

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But the church, but the church, he says, is the orchestra as it were the most conspicuous part of it.

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He adds elsewhere, Christ confers on the church the very highest honor that she shines with such brightness as to attract to herself nations and princes.

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And I simply pose this question to you. Is she still attractive to you?

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Is she worth your costly commitment? Do you so prize the church that you would rejoice to suffer with and for her?

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There is no institution, organism, or entity quite like the church.

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And how can I say that? Because Christ did not die to establish an earthly government.

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Christ did not die for a nation. Christ did not die even for an individual, a worthy one at that.

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But Ephesians 5, 25, one of my favorite passages as a husband, tells me that Christ loved the church and he gave himself up for her.

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And if Christ loves the church and gave himself up for her, what are we to do with this church?

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Thomas Watson says, has Christ waded through a sea of blood and wrath to purchase my peace?

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Has he not only made peace, but spoken peace to me? How should my heart ascend in a fiery chariot of love?

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How willingly should I be to do and to suffer for Christ?

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And Paul would add, and for his blood -bought church. Christ has called us, yes, not only to a costly commitment to him, but a costly commitment to his church.

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And it is through this commitment, it is through this sacrifice, it is through this suffering that we fill up Christ's afflictions and reflect the glory of Christ as the moon reflects the light of the sun.

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It is through the filling up of these afflictions in this devotion that Christ's people play in the orchestra that is in the theater of God's created world.

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It is in this filling up of the afflictions of Christ for the sake of his body that his church is seen to be most pure and good and lovely and noble and honorable.

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Maybe, just maybe, the world is so easily able to ignore the church today is because they look at us and they can see through our half -hearted, tepid, and listless devotion to Christ and his people.

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Maybe, just maybe, because of our casual churchianity, the people can hear the message of Christ and take comfort that it can't possibly be true.

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Just look at the church today. There's a story from church history,

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I think, that in contrast proves this point. At various times, you have heard me speak about Adoniram Judson, the famed missionary to Burma.

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And he knew what it meant to suffer for the church. On one occasion, he was arrested for preaching the gospel and discipling new converts amongst the

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Burmese Christians. And following this imprisonment, this terrible and intense suffering that he endured in a filthy prison where he was beated and mistreated nearly to the point of death.

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After all that he endured in this imprisonment, he was released. And one of the things that he did after a time of recovery was go to the king of Burma to ask his permission to go to a certain city to preach the gospel there.

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And what did the king of Burma do? He looked Adoniram Judson up and down, top to bottom, and he said,

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I am willing to allow a dozen preachers to go, but not you.

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Not with those hands. And pointing at Judson's hands, he could see the deep scars that ran through from the beatings, the repeated beatings that he endured in prison.

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And the king of Burma said, my people are not such fools to take notice of your preaching, but they will take notice of those scarred hands.

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What scars, brethren, do we bear for the exaltation of Christ, for the edification of his church, and for the advancement of his kingdom in his bride?

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Dear brethren, what afflictions are you enduring even now for the sake of Christ's body, the church?

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Does it cost you anything at all to be a member of the church today?

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It must. Perhaps what is needed now more than ever before we seek to fill these afflictions, before we seek to engage in this costly commitment to Christ's church, perhaps more than ever what is needed is heartfelt repentance at our cool and calloused relationship with Christ's bride.

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Now, what do we do with this? Sometimes we preach and we linger, we have a long text and we do lots of exegesis, and we get to the place where we can only dwell on application but for a moment.

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What I want to do is to show you not only that Christians are called to sacrifice, that the church is worthy of this sacrifice, that this is normative biblical

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Christianity, but I want to look together with you for a moment at how do we carry this out.

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The third truth I want us to look at is the Bible's blueprint for church commitment.

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The Bible's blueprint for church commitment and it could just as easily be called the

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Colossian blueprint for church commitment. There are, as you know, 58 one another's in the text of scripture.

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We could make a 58 -point sub -point or set of sub -points in point number three and look at each of these.

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We don't have time to do that and so what I want to give you is what we might call the church commitment starter pack.

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Something to begin with, something to strive for, something that is low -hanging, you don't need a step ladder to reach.

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You can begin the moment this church service ends to apply these.

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Begin even now. They are nothing, nothing in this list is extraordinary and yet if you do these four things, if you do these four things, you will be one of the, and mark my words, the most radical

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Christian that your peers have ever met. If you do just these four basic things to be committed to Christ's church,

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I have them listed as this, commit to blank. The first is this, commit to assemble.

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That sounds very basic, doesn't it? Where do I get that from the text? Well, as Paul is writing to the

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Colossian church and he says, that is for the sake of the body, that is the church. That word church in the

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Greek is ecclesia. I think most of us are familiar with that word. It is a compound word that is made up of two

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Greek words. One is ek, which is out of, and kaleo, which means to be called.

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And so the people in Christ's church, those who belong to him, those who belong to the church local and the church universal are

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Christ's called out ones. Now, the etymology of the word sometimes doesn't take us really to the true meaning of the word.

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I want to look at how it was used in the biblical times, in the Bible, both and then into culture.

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In the biblical and the cultural use of this word, it was used in ancient Greece to speak to an assembly of Greek citizens.

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You had to be a pure Greek citizen and a man in this case. Thankfully, the church is not limited to that, who were to gather or assemble for political purposes.

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In our very name as a church, to be called the church, to be called an assembly is to imply one of the most important aspects of our existence as the people of God.

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And that is that we are called to assemble, that we are called to come together.

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For 2000 years, the church has been practicing this exact thing of meeting every single week on the first day of the week, what the early church called, what we still call today, the

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Lord's day. Dear brethren, if you want to be radical, if you want the lowest hanging of the costly commitments required to serve

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Christ and to love his church, let it be this. Make a commitment to assemble with God's people as the greatest priority of your life, at least of your schedule,

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I'll say it that way. Don't make the church's assemblies one of the events in your week, but make it the event of your week.

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Job made a covenant with his eyes, we're told, and many young men have followed him.

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I have made a covenant with my eyes that I might not look at a woman with lust and sin against you. Brethren, make a covenant with your calendar that when the church meets, you will be present with her, that she is the body of Christ, that we live in a godless,

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Christless, gospel -less world, and that this is the place where we can be together as God's assembly, his assembly of called out ones.

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There is, and you know this, don't you, that there is no activity in the world that is as exalted and as close as the activities of heaven, as the assembly of God's people on the

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Lord's day. And yet, don't we know it?

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It is so easy to neglect this assembly. In fact, it is so easy that when we begin to do it, we fall into a habit of doing it, as we read in Hebrews 10, 24, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, verse 25, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some.

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If you are, this is a gut check moment, if you are constitutionally opposed to the corporate worship of the church, then you must ask yourself, is heaven for me?

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Is an eternity of eternities in God's presence really for me?

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In Colossians 1, 25, we read what we as a church are to do when we assemble.

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Paul writes, which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known.

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Lloyd -Jones once said, the church is always to be under the word. She must be, and we must keep her there.

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We see this continued in chapter 3 and verse 16, as we engage in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, as we are rich in the word of Christ, admonishing, encouraging, edifying one another.

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Oh, dear brethren, if you want to demonstrate just the first step to a costly commitment, assemble with God's people and assemble for the purpose for which he called us to assemble.

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Spurgeon has a rather interesting poem. It's part in jest,

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I think, and yet on the other half, it is deadly serious. He wrote at one time, some go to church to take a walk.

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Some go there to laugh and talk. Some go there to meet a friend.

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Some go there their time to spend. Some go there to meet a lover.

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Some go there to fault a cover. Some go there to doze and nod.

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The wise go there to worship God. The second thing that we can commit to as Christ Church is this.

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Commit to edify. Commit to engage in wholeheartedly, fully, and at great cost to your time and energy.

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Commit to participate in the ministry of edification and discipleship in the local church.

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We read in Colossians 3 and verse 16, where Paul speaks to this.

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I just mentioned it a moment ago. And let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

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How many of us come on the Lord's day? This is, by the way, in reference to the assembly of God's people.

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How many of us come on the Lord's day saying, I am going to come to the assembly of God's people today, read up, prayed up, rested up, memorized up, filled rich in the word of Christ, not solely for my own advantage, but for the advantage of those around me.

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That when people meet me in the assembly of God's people, that they leave encouraged, strengthened, helped and blessed.

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How many times have you thought, dear Christian, or prayed, oh Lord, make me a

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Barnabas, make me a son of encouragement, that when people interact with me, they leave blessed, helped and built up.

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You want to be a radical Christian. It's like I say to my children, when we go to church, we need to be clothed and in our right minds.

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Well, we'll just take one step up from that, clothed in our right minds, well rested and ready to serve the saints.

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And then, dear brethren, we are so good, I'm grateful to God for this. We are so good at staying late on Sundays.

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It is a great blessing that my wife cautions me don't stay until nine o 'clock tonight, if you can help us.

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That's a huge blessing. But what are we doing during the week in our ministry of edification and discipleship?

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How often are you reaching out to brothers and sisters in the church to say, hey, can we meet?

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And let's just read scripture together. Let's meet and pray. Let's meet and reflect on this.

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Let's read a book together and discuss it. Let's seek to apply this in our marriages, brother, as husbands, new husbands in our family.

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Let's seek to strengthen, to sharpen our abilities as godly husbands.

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We should, number three, commit to pray. I almost built an entire sermon around Colossians four and verse 12, because there is that much there.

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Epaphras. The interesting thing about Epaphras is we're told in chapter one, I'm just framing, you don't have to go there, that Epaphras played a vital role in the establishing of the church.

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That's why Paul had heard of the Colossians and had not seen the Colossians. He said, just as you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, he is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf.

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Do you want to be a faithful minister of Christ on God's people's behalf, on the church's behalf?

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Verse 12, Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God, what would be come of the church if we lived as it were between two worlds, with one foot in time and another foot in eternity, keeping our eyes and ears open to hear the needs of Christ's people around us and then to bring them to God in prayer.

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I'm reminded of something that Leonard Ravenhill said. He said that the most important ministry in the church is the ministry of intercession.

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And that is a ministry that any man, woman, or even child can engage in.

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That you do not need to stand behind a pulpit to intercede. You don't need to be the most eloquent to pray for another brother or sister.

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You don't need to be the most intelligent or well -versed even in the Bible, but to open even

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Colossians 4 .12 and to pray for a brother or sister, O Lord, that they might stand mature and fully assured in the will of God.

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Or lastly, perhaps most costly, commit to love.

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Well, how many times do we read in Scripture God's commands that we love one another, that the world will know that we are his disciples by our love for one another.

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In Colossians 3 .12, see I'm getting all of these from Colossians, he says, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another.

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And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

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And then 3 .14, above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

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There's a story of one man, a man named Robert Cleaver Chapman. He was born in a wealthy

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Anglican family, a merchant family. At the age of 20, he moved to London to study as a lawyer.

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Actually, it was in 15 he moved to study as a lawyer. At 20, he became a lawyer.

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And while in London, the Lord saved him. And being a new creature in Christ, God gave him, instilled in him, an insistent and compulsive desire to serve the local church.

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So much so that eventually he left his law career in London. He moved some 350 kilometers west to a port town, a small city named

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Barnstaple. And there he became known. What a blessing it would be to be known by this title, the apostle of love.

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And why did they call him that? Not because they believed in apostles, but because they could not help but to see his love for the church and for those around him.

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He labored with George Mueller to care for orphans. Spurgeon said of him that he was the saintliest man that he ever knew.

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And one day, someone asked Robert Chapman, would you advise young Christians to do something for the

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Lord? And what did Chapman answer? To their surprise, Chapman said, no,

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I would not advise them to do something for the Lord. I would advise them to do everything for the

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Lord. And Paul might add everything for the Lord and for his people, that not many of us, not all of us have families who are still alive.

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Not all of us have families who are nearby. But even for those of us who do and have families who are not yet in Christ, who we know,

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I know that you are the closest people to me in my whole life.

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That I have no one that I love, who I love more than you.

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And I trust that you love me. Dear brethren, should we not give not only our very best to our employers or to our hobbies, but to our family, to the very household of faith that we have in Christ.

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F .B. Meyer, who was a 19th and 20th century pastor, he spoke about the costliness of this love.

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He said, it is urgently needful that the Christian people of our charge should come to understand, and how often we act this way,

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I might say, as a company of invalids to be wheeled about, fed by hand, cosseted or pampered, nursed and comforted.

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But the church is called to be a garrison in an enemy's country, every soldier of which should have some post or duty at which he should be prepared to make any sacrifice.

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And Meyer lived what he militantly preached. As he visited church after church, preaching and the gospel, what was remarkable is that as he would preach, all of the brothels and saloons would close down after he left, so that hundreds were left closed because he sought to point the people to Christ.

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And that their new family, their new community, it was not the drunks in the saloons, it was not the ladies at the brothel, it was the church of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. The Christian is called to costly and sacrificial commitment.

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The church is worthy, make no mistake about it, of such commitment. And the Bible shows us what this commitment looks like.

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Now, look around just for a moment. I don't mean it hypothetically.

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We may not be, by any of the world's metrics, an impressive group.

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We may not have a beautiful building, as we were speaking about seeing someone perform in a Presbyterian church yesterday with unbelievable acoustics.

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We do not have this, with this suspended tile ceiling.

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We may have very limited means, but make no mistake about it, brethren, that Jesus Christ, the only begotten

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Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds,

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God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the

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Father, by whom all things were made, this Jesus Christ died for this church.

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We sang it earlier today, from heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride.

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With his own blood he bought her, and for her life he died. Dear saints, let us place our faith in that Christ.

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It is not by commitment to the church that we are saved. It is by faith in that Christ, and by his vicarious sacrifice, and placing our faith in that Christ.

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Let us now love his church, his people.

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Pull your boats up to the glorious shore that is the church, and there burn the boats so that there is no turning back.

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Commit to loving and serving Christ in her midst all the remaining days of your life.

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Be true churchmen by God's grace and with his help. Let's pray.

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Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church. If you would like to keep up with us, you can find us at Facebook at Grace Fellowship Church, or our

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Instagram at gracechurch, y -e -g, all one word. Finally, you can visit us at our website graceedmonton .ca.