Search Results for: Sunday Sermon

Sunday Sermon-Being Smelly

2 Corinthians 2:12-17

12 Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened to me by the Lord, 13 I had no rest in my spirit, because I did not find Titus my brother; but taking my leave of them, I departed for Macedonia. 14 Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. 15 For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. 16 To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? 17 For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ.

There were several things pastor talked about in relation to these verses, but one of the most striking was his description of the “triumphs” of Ancient Rome. These were massive events that lasted about 3 days. The wealth of the conquered nations was displayed, along with their armaments and the captives, including the vanquished king. This is the kind of victory procession Paul was talking about when he said God leads us in triumph. It’s a noun, not an adjective!

We should lie in such a way that the smell of Christ is on us and in us, that we are part of Christ, inseparable. This he compared to a fruit smoothie. It is so mixed up together that you can no longer pick out the separate elements, it has become one thing.

Finally, he discussed the term peddling. The Greek word for this implies dishonesty, and selling shoddy goods for a quick buck. So Paul’s point was that he was offering the true gospel, and not doing it for personal gain.

sunday sermons, Grace Point Community Church

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Sunday Sermon-Untitled

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Colossians 3:18 to 4:6

18 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. 20 Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. 22 Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. 23 And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ. 25 But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality. 1 Masters, give your bondservants what is just and fair, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.

2 Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving; 3 meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains, 4 that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.

5 Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. 6 Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

I was unable to take notes Sunday, as I was holding my daughter. I am surprised to find that I remember most of it. I did miss the title, though, LOL.

Submission in this passage means to willingly put yourself under authority. Husbands are not commanded to make their wives submit. That’s not the responsibility they were given. The husbands have the more difficult task here, because the love that is spoken if is the agape love. It is to be a sacrificial love.

Pastor shared with us something he had read about how to frustrate children. Children get frustrated when you

  1. ignore them (don’t pay attention)
  2. indulge them (give them everything they want)
  3. or insult them (don’t respect the contributions they can make to the family).

When we work we need to remember that our job is really a gift from God, and that we always do our best. In the workplace, there are many opportunities to witness, and one way to do that is to perform our duties thoroughly and pleasantly. If we are the employer, we should be fair with our employees.

Pray for your pastor(s), that God would open doors for them to share the Gospel. Be wise and use your time well.

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Sunday Sermon-What Defines Us as a Church

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Colossians 3:12-17

12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. 14 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

There are three areas that will define us as a church and they are
~our relationship with God
~our relationship with others
~our relationship with The Word

1)We must understand who we are in Christ. We are

  • elect, called out and chosen by God. God has called everyone and it is our response that determines this relationship.
  • holy–set apart and acting it, knowing it and living it.
  • loved by God.

2)We are ambassadors for Christ, representing Him in a foreign land. We are to take off those things discussed last week, and put on

  • compassion for one another
  • kindness
  • meekness-the ability to no over-react when someone wrongs us, and to love them anyway
  • longsuffering-having a long fuse and being willing to endure
  • forgiveness-involves fro getting, moving on, putting it totally in the past so that it doesn’t matter anymore
  • love-the glue that bonds us together

3)Our relationship with The Word should result in

  • peace-the supernatural presence of God in out lives. See Philippians 4. this peace defines who we are emotionally and guards our hearts and minds.
  • the Word of Christ living in us, and us living in it.

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Sunday Sermon-Identity Crisis

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Colossians 3:1-11

1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

5 Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, 7 in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.

8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, 11 where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

1) You as a believer are identified with Christ. Jesus is an example to us, a model, and also a challenge. Paul is telling us to be careful to act like Christians, to put away the the acts of the natural man. Even Paul struggled (see Roman 7:14-21).

2)You are responsible for your condition before God. He provides the opportunity for relationship and He holds us in that relationship, but we are responsible for taking off the old man and putting on the new.
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Sunday Sermon-What does a Christian Look Like?

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Colossians 2:11-23

11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. 18 Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God. 20 Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations– 21 “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” 22 which all concern things which perish with the using–according to the commandments and doctrines of men? 23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh

Be careful about both abusing grace and human requirements. Baptism is a symbol of submission to Christ, of accepting His Lordship. The question is this: are we doing what God calls us to do?

A Christian, by Christ, moves:
from guilt to forgiveness
from defeat to victory
from requirements to relationship

Failing to use the power of Christ is like pushing a car rather than turning the key and letting the car carry you.

The point of the sermon was that “checklist Christianity” is not going to give us the power of Christ, that we must move from the requirements to the relationship. When we accept His Lordship, it will give us a circumcision of the heart, and this will lead us beyond the legalism.

I apologize for the scattered nature of today’s sermon notes. For one thing I was very tired and had a hard time both listening and taking notes. Secondly, I was tired, and had a hard time both listening and taking notes. Yes, I know both reasons are the same. I said I was tired.

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Sunday Sermon-Our Church

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What can make our church what it needs to be? Side note: Paul was under house arrest when he wrote this letter. Pay special attention to verse 9, because it reveals who Christ is.
Colossians 2: 1-10

1 For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and F5 of Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

4 Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. 5 For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. 6 As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. 8 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.

1. We should have an encouraging fellowship:cultivate an attitude of edifying, helping and building one another up.

2. We should live by faith *and* be faithful: just as a bush has a root system, and the roots give rise to the fruit, so our faith and faithfulness should give rise to Christian fruit in our lives.

3. We should hold fast to the truth and guard against falsehood: cheat comes from the Greek word meaning captured or led away, and deceit comes from the word that means fish hook. The picture is that of one trapped painfully and being pulled into a direction he does not want to go because of his own actions (greed for the worm).

Pastor also delivered this nugget. I’ll not explain it, but simply let you mull it over. We should not apply our knowledge to the Bible. Instead we should apply the Bible to our knowledge.

Sunday Sermon-Who is Jesus

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Today’s notes are very brief, as my boys had a hard time today, and I had to jot the main points down really fast as Pastor Chris wrapped up.

Colossians 1:15-23

5 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. 19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight– 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.

Jesus is:

  1. God
  2. Creator
  3. Lord of the Church
  4. Reconciler

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Sunday Sermon-What Motivates Us

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No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny…©Kingsway/Thankyou Music

Colossians 1:12-18

12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, F3 the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.

Why ought we to live a life that please God?

  1. because of what He has done
    • qualified us
    • delivered (rescued) us
    • conveyed us

    He has changed our lives

  2. because if the power of creation
  3. because of His authority
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