(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

All right. Amen. Colossians chapter number one. Now before we get started in going through the chapter and really digging into it, I'm just going to kind of give you a little bit of a breakdown of the overall letter here to the Colossians from the Apostle Paul. Now let's go over the title here real quickly first. If you look down at verse number 23, the Bible says, If you continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made a minister. Okay. So you can see the goal there just right off the bat. What Paul's agenda is for the Colossians is to make sure that they're grounded and settled in doctrine and the faith. So that that way they can continue to build a good church, which is basically growing up in unity and kind of the same things that we talked about when we read the letter to the Philippians. But there's also a whole lot more going on here. And again, before we start, I just want to give you maybe like five different facts about this overall letter and just some information here just so you kind of know where you're at. So the this area here, Colossi, is basically modern day Turkey. If you were to look on that globe back there, about 350 miles south of Istanbul is where you would have found this place called Colossi. It was destroyed by an earthquake in the first century. And actually, just if you study this out, going back through history that it was something that they struggled with a lot were earthquakes. Let's see here. So we know where it's at, where it's applied today. This is another one of Paul's prison epistles. So as he is in Rome, as he's going through that process to see the Caesar, basically he's writing letters. He's still doing the work that God's given him, still having a lot of victories. But this would definitely go into that time frame, just like we talked about with the Philippians. Let's see here. Number four, this here is, let's take a look at why this letter exists. What prompted this writing from Paul? Look at verse number seven, chapter number one. So Paul says this. He says, as he also learned of Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ. So one thing that you're going to see here in this letter is that this is unique in the way that Paul didn't visit, at least not that we know of, didn't visit this church, didn't start this church. A lot of people think it was actually founded by Epaphras. It definitely could have been. Go over to chapter two and look at verse number one, just to kind of prove that point. So in chapter two, verse one, he says, for I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you and for them at Laodicea and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh. And so Paul gets this report from Epaphras about how the condition of the churches and the things that are going on in the church. Just one quick note here, though, about Epaphras. So go back to verse seven real quick and look how Paul describes him. So again, he says, as he also learned of Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ. Now, keep your place right here in Colossians chapter one and go forward in the New Testament to Philemon. The book of Philemon is a very small book. So after Titus, right before the book of Hebrews, go to Philemon and look down at verse number twenty three real quick. Right after Titus chapter three. So look at how Paul describes Epaphras here in Philemon. So Philemon is also a Colossian and I don't have time to break that down. But this was Paul's letter to him to restore a relationship between Philemon and a guy named Onesimus. And at the end of this letter, Paul says this. Verse twenty three says there, salute the Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus. So again, you know, chapter one, Paul describes him as a faithful minister. During Paul's letter to Philemon, he's described as a fellow prisoner. He's only mentioned one other time in the New Testament that we know for sure. And that's Colossians chapter number four. So it could be that Epaphras wound up perhaps getting in trouble for his faith and basically meeting the same faith as Paul, which could be a reason for that language there. Or Paul could also be, you know, this is another theory that people have and it could be true, that Paul's just using that language to basically describe Epaphras as a prisoner, meaning he's devoted his life to serving Christ. But that's how some people look at it. It doesn't say the way. I just wanted to kind of highlight that to show you that Epaphras is definitely somebody who was faithful, doing a lot of work, serving God, and definitely had something to do with the start of the churches in Colossi. And, of course, with Laodicea, which they're like right next to each other. If you were to look at an old map, Laodicea right next to Colossi, probably like 11, 12 miles, something like that. So let's move on here. Go to chapter number two. And another thing about this, this is the last bullet point that I'm going to mention here before we get started, is that you can tell by the counter emphasis in chapter two and really throughout the entire letter that Paul does have some concerns about some heresies that they were exposed to. And you can also tell just kind of by the way that it's written that they haven't wholeheartedly like gone after these things. They haven't like pulled a Corinthian or worse, like the Galatians. They hadn't been sucked into these. But there were people bothering them with certain things. And Paul's concerned about this. And Paul definitely addresses these isms, if you will. And the first one here is going to be humanism. And we're going to talk about these next week. But I just kind of want to bring them out so you kind of have a good understanding before we get started. With the foundation tonight, look at verse number eight of chapter number two. So Paul says, beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. OK, so we basically take that verse there and talk about a subject called humanism. We'll get into it more next week. But that's one of the heresies that was trying to creep its way in to the Colossian church. Go to verse number 11. Let's look at the next one, which is going to be legalism brought in by the Jews. Look at verse 11. It says, in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made, look at this, without hands, in putting off the body of sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. And so you can see right there, not only were they dealing with humanism and philosophers and things like that, but also apparently the Judaizers had started to bother them as well. And so Paul's going to break down what real circumcision is. And we're going to get a whole lesson on legalism next week as well. And the next one we're going to call mysticism. Look at verse number 18. Paul says, let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. And so mysticism takes many different angles. And we could talk about that a lot. Basically, when we get into this, it's going to expose a lot of Catholic doctrine and it's going to expose a lot of Pentecostal doctrine. Basically, this whole idea of mysticism is that you can basically get knowledge, wisdom outside of the Bible. So in other words, it could be possible that you have an altered state of consciousness and you reach this certain level of knowledge and you can see things. You know, like people that talk about taking drugs, like DMT and, oh, I got this revelation. You know, that's mysticism. Where people say, well, I had this conversation with an angel. I fell into a trance. That's what Paul's talking about there. And then last but not least is what's called asceticism, which if you look down at verse number 20, he says this. He says, Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as the living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances? And so basically, if you don't know what asceticism is, it's basically this. It's this ism that promotes, what is it, depriving yourself versus denying yourself. That's what it is. Depriving yourself versus denying yourself. So with asceticism, the idea is if anything's pleasurable, if anything's fun, then it's satanic, that it's evil. And so we'll get into that. That's probably a new one for a lot of people. We'll get into that one next week at all. So just a little preview into next week. Now go back to chapter number one and we'll get going here. We'll start to dig into this. And what you're going to see now is you're going to see the way that chapter one's laid out. Obviously, you're going to see Paul's gratitude for the Colossians. You're going to see Paul's prayer for the Colossians. And then what you're going to see is you're going to see some foundational truths about Christ. And I really want you to pay attention to this because it's paramount. It's so important that we understand deeply who Christ is as it is written before we take on all the other isms. This chapter is laid out in the way that it is so that we can take on the false doctrines and heresies that they had to deal with, which are really just the same things that we deal with on a daily basis around here. So keep that in mind as we're going through this chapter here. So let's look at verse number one. It says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God and Timotheus, our brother. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago. And we answered the question, are there still apostles today? And the short answer is no. There's no apostles today. There are people that call themselves apostles today, but the people that call themselves apostles today are made apostles by men. Paul's here. He's right here clearly telling you that he was chosen by God for this ministry. And he's reiterating that to the saints here. Now look at verse number two. It says, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ, which are at Colossae, grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. OK, again, some people might say, well, this was just for them and it's only for our historical reference. That's false doctrine. OK, that's promoting humanism. That's promoting human achievement. Because if you look right off the bat there in the verse, what's the first group of people mentioned? Saints. Who are the saints? The believers. People that are saved. This is for us just as much as it was for them. Now look at verse number three. Paul says we give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you. You're going to see that distinction being made by Paul throughout this letter as well. God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, obviously promoting the doctrine of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost. These three are one. It is a mystery. But Paul wants them to get familiar with this language. And with that being said, really in this chapter, there's going to be quite a few things that pop up that are introduction that we're not going to have time to get into. But it's going to get us familiar with these things so we can dive into them later. And I'll call those out as we read over them. Look at verse four. So Paul says this. So again, look at that verse there and you can tell just by that alone that Paul heard of their faith. He heard of their faith. So he's telling you that he didn't start this church. Someone else did. Obviously, he has part in it, though, because he was an apostle and he was training people up. He taught all these guys, taught Epaphras. And he's saying, hey, since we heard of your guys' faith, you know, we heard that you guys got saved. But what's exciting to him is not just the fact that they got saved, but that they got saved and they love the brethren as opposed from stealing from the brethren, as opposed to running around trying to wreck and destroy the brethren. They have love for the brethren. They love the saved. They're trying to promote the saved. And he's got gratitude for that. He's thankful for that. Verse number five, he says, Now, remember, gospel means good news. Okay. Again, going back to the two religions of the world, you have the religion of human achievement, which teaches probation. Put you on probation. They put you on this period of good behavior. And at the end, if you're a good little boy or girl, then you'll make it to heaven. Okay. Whereas Paul's giving them assurance right off the bat, because our religion is divine accomplishment. It's what Jesus Christ did on the cross, paying for our sins. And that religion, which is the religion of the Bible, teaches salvation. Okay. Gospel. Good news. The fact that once you're saved, you are always saved, which is why he can say this with absolute confidence. Hey, verse five, Right now, laid up for you in heaven. Where have you heard before in the word of the Lord or the truth of the gospel? Verse six, Okay, so again, what is he doing here? He's declaring that he is thankful that they believe the gospel. But they took it to the next level. They started applying the truth of the word of God that they had and started loving the brethren and doing the twofold mission of the church, which is to evangelize the lost and edify the brethren. Okay. Verse number seven, Again, I just threw that bit out there and finally I'm going to kind of just show you that about Epaphras. It could be that he wound up being a prisoner like Paul later on in his life. I think that's very likely. I'm not saying 100 percent. I'm not super dogmatic on that. It's just something I noticed. Look at verse number eight. He says, Okay, so notice all these great things they have going. Got saved. They love the brethren and they love truth. Okay. That's what Epaphras is reporting. And so that's what got Paul kind of going here because obviously, Epaphras probably told him, hey, you know, they are dealing with these people coming in and saying this, you know, they got this Jordan Petersons of the world, the philosophers, you know, they got the mystics, they got the Catholics knocking on the door, they got the Judaizers over here. You know, they're starting to get surrounded by all these isms. And so Paul's getting ready with this chapter to lay a foundation so that he can lay the ultimate smackdown on those false doctrines. Okay. Verse nine begins his prayer. He says, Oh, wait. That's not what he says. I'm sorry. That's what somebody told me this man. For this cause. In all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Okay. That's the idea. That's the goal. That's the prayer that Paul has for the saints here, for the saints everywhere. Okay. Not that they would get this so-called supernatural falling of the spirit where it takes over your volition, takes over your body and you flop around like a fish. And then you have this heavenly prayer language, which we are going to talk about on Wednesday because I'm sick and tired of it. Okay. That is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible. It is crystal clear here what is important. What makes, what are the three things that Paul desires for the saints to thrive? Let's look at it one more time. Verse nine. He says that she might be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom. So the knowledge of his will, all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Okay. It's about understanding the right things. Verse number 10. He might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. Another way you could say that or look at that is having a healthy fear of God. The Bible says the fear of the Lord, again, like I said this morning, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. The fear of the Lord is also the beginning of wisdom. We want to fear the Lord. Okay. Have a healthy fear of God and that's going to increase our knowledge, increase our wisdom and get us these things that Paul's talking about. Verse number 11. Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long suffering with joyfulness. Okay. Every church needs people that has these attributes. Patience, long suffering and obviously joys. You know, if we can have these three things abounding in church, and of course we do here now, you know, we're not going to have problems retaining people. We're not going to have problems as opposed to a church that say has a lot of clicks and it's kind of, you know, clickish and things of that nature. Okay. People that are short tempered, not willing to put up with newbies, not willing to be long suffering when people just constantly have issues and things of that nature. Okay. But if we can learn, like Paul's saying here, to have patience, long suffering and still be joyous in those things, man, you're going to have a great Christian life because the things that the devil throws at you, the things that just happen to you in everyday life, you know, aren't going to be able to affect you. I mean, think about this. Paul's in prison here. Paul doesn't have the ultimate freedom to go and do what he wants. He knows that he's got a certain date. He's got a court date, if you will. He's got a hearing and there's going to be a decision made about his life. Okay. But he hasn't let that get to him. Okay. He still is displaying tremendous patience, long suffering and joyfulness and he's trying to pass that on to the saints. Verse number 12, Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints and light. What does that mean there? Which hath made us meet to be partakers. Well, suitable. Okay. Again, this is the idea here. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. None of us are able of our own accord to work our way to heaven. So if you think about that real quick and look at verse 12 again, Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us. You understand what that means? That means that God made us something. God made us something. What is it? Well, he made us suitable. He made us eligible to be able to have everlasting life. Why? Because we were not able to make ourselves meet. We were not able to make ourselves eligible. That comes from God and you see that on every single page in the Bible. You just have to know how to look for it. Okay. Verse 13. What did we learn this morning? What did we read in Luke chapter 17? What did Jesus say about the kingdom of God? He said the kingdom of God dwells within you. Okay. And because of that, because of that reality, guess what? The power of darkness cannot remain over you. Okay. Whenever you meet a, you know, a saint and I meet these guys all the time and maybe you've been there. I know I've been there in my life. Where you feel like the powers of darkness are just gripping you. Okay. You really feel like you can't go anywhere. You're just stuck. Okay. There's darkness. You have these fearful thoughts. Your mind is out of control. I'm here to tell you right now that is your flesh making that possible. Okay. Because the Bible says very clearly right here that God has delivered us. Look at verse 13. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness. So the real power of darkness does not have dominion over you. It can only have dominion over you if you let it. Okay. And so remember that you have to be the one to let it. Verse 14, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Okay. And he's talking there forgiveness from sins past, present, future. Another word would be remit. Okay. They are remitted. They are canceled. No longer having any control or power over us. And again, we'll have to do a study on that a little bit deeper another time, but let's look at verse number 15. And so he's saying these are the things here, verses nine through 14 that Paul's praying for the saints about. Okay. And of course we read this here. A lot of application, a lot of great truth, a lot of assurance from just the short passage here. So verse 15, he says, who is the image? Okay. He's talking about Christ here. Okay. Who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature. We say, well, how can that be? Jesus wasn't born to listen this year. Yeah. But he's from everlasting. Okay. He's from everlasting. He's always been. People say, you know, we'll really try to twist these things up here. The thing that we need to understand is what this says. That Christ is the image of the invisible God. You know, because people try to pitch you against the Bible and say, well, you know, the Bible says nobody's seen God at any time. And then people seen Jesus and Jesus God. And how does that work out? You can just read in this verse here. Well, he's the image of the invisible God. Okay. What did Jesus say in John? You know, if you've seen me, you've seen the father. Okay. If you've seen me, you have seen the father. And if you have the preserved word of God and you read it, guess what? You've seen Jesus because he is the word of God. So just a little bit of food for thought there. Let's move on. Verse 16. He says, for by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him. So an interesting thing about this verse here is Paul's talking about things that are visible, things that are invisible. Obviously, everything's created by Christ because he's the image of God. Jesus Christ is God. And he says whether they be visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities. Okay. Well, we have physical dominions and thrones. We have leadership. There's governments. There's kings. There's, you know, all sorts of seats of power in the earth, people that fill those positions that we could look at. But it's the same way on an invisible level as well. Okay. We do wrestle against principalities and powers of darkness, which we've read about in Ephesians. And so we need to understand who created all of that. Okay. Well, God did for his glory and for his purpose, for his own reasoning. Okay. So, therefore, none of those things can have any power over us unless he authorizes that. Okay. It's kind of like the Book of Job. We took a quick look at it this morning. You know, a lot of people think that the devil is just the opposite of God. He's just as strong as God and he's, you know, and it could go, you know, either way. That's foolishness. Okay. The devil reports to God. When God says, come, he comes. When God says, do this, he does this. When God says, you can't touch this, he can't touch that. Okay. That's just the way it is. Why is that? Because he is the creator of everything, whether it's visible or invisible. Look at verse number 17. And he is before all things and by him, all things consist. The reason why you and I are alive today, why we're breathing, why we're able to even come inside this building and be together is because of him. Okay. And the mere fact that you have a lot of people today mocking God and trying to spit in the face of God is a very serious thing because the only reason they even have breath is because God, the Lord Jesus Christ, has allowed them to live another day. But yet today, no one thinks about that. It's virtually untouched. People do not want to talk about those things. Look at verse number 18. He says, and he is the head of the body, the church who is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in all things he might have preeminence. Okay. Christ needs to come before everything. In our own lives, in everything. Okay. The decisions that we make. And he's laying this foundation, again, because of the problems that they're dealing with, which we're going to learn next week. Okay. How do we solve problems? How do we know if something is true or something is false, something is wise or something is unwise? Well, because of Christ, because of the word of God, because of who he is. Verse 18 again. And he is the head of the body. Okay. Well, he's the head of your body. You're saved. But he's the head of the body of Christ. Okay. He's the head of the local church, is what this is saying. He's saying, hey, guys, when you guys come together to fellowship, when you guys have your services, you need to understand that Jesus Christ is the head of that. Not some man, not somebody, not some quorum of 12 apostles or anything like that. No, it's Christ and what he said. Okay. And virtually, again, today, people aren't thinking like this. Okay. They're not thinking like this. People tell us this all the time out sowing him. Well, I just want to go to the church that preaches the Bible and where the word of God is lifted up. And we tell them that's what we have. Okay. And maybe they come and visit or they look us up online and they just, I can't believe you said that. I can't believe what you just said. I can't believe you. You don't like sodomites? You don't like this? You don't like that? And it's like, no, all that stuff's against the Bible. You're telling me that me turning from my sins and all the good works I've done is not going to get me to heaven? That's right. That's what I'm telling you. Because that is what this is. You're telling me my aunt can't be a preacher? How dare you? Yeah, because that's what the Bible says over and over again. Go read Titus. Go read Timothy. There's requirements for that. Oh, how dare you? Okay. Well, look, if we could just get there thinking in the right way that Jesus Christ is the head of the body. He is the word of God. Okay. You put that together. We go to him for everything because he gets the preeminence. And guess what? When we do that, we don't have these issues. We don't get upset about the wrong things. And we can move on with our lives and not be snowflakes, not be offended over every little single thing. Amen. Verse 19. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. Okay. The Bible says that the fullness of the Godhead dwells within Christ Jesus, the man Christ Jesus. Proving what? Again, we say this almost every single day. Jesus Christ fully man, fully God. Okay. Verse 20. And having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself, by him I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. Now, that statement there might seem like a mouthful and it kind of is. And it's going to tie into this mystery that we're going to read about in verse 26. And we won't have time to really get into it today, but hopefully next week. So again here, he says in verse 21, he says, And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your own mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. Okay. And so basically he's saying, you know, for a lot of us, you know, unless you maybe grew up in church, but even then, you know, there was a time in most people's lives where wicked thoughts and things had had just basically been what you believed or thought could be true or things that were maybe preventing you from really understanding the truth. And he's saying that you guys were sometimes alienated and enemies by those things, by those wicked works. And, you know, he's saying now God hath reconciled that. Not you, but God hath reconciled that. He made it right. He reconstructed it. Verse 22. In the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight. So again, who makes us unblameable? Who makes us unreproveable in his sight? Jesus Christ did. How? By his death, burial and resurrection. When you get saved, you are a new creature. There is a new person inside of you, the new man. And that new man is what is unblameable, unreproveable and perfect, made by Christ, not by your own efforts, not by your own merit. He says, verse 23, If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled. Notice what he says here. And if ye continue in the faith grounded and settled. Meaning if you keep up with the fundamentals, you stand firm on the foundation of the word of God. Okay, you're grounded, you're settled, as opposed to being just a free thinking spirit kind of person. You know, well, I go to this church, you know, I go to the Mormon Church on Wednesdays, I go to the Catholic Church, you know, and there's people out there that do that, and I've met them, okay? That's not being grounded and settled, okay? How do you get grounded and settled? Again, who gets preeminence? Jesus Christ. Who is Jesus Christ? The word of God. This is everything. So he says if ye continue in the faith grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made a minister, who now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of all afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church. So he's basically saying, you know, if you continue, okay, his goal here is for them to continue in the faith, but you can only do that if you're grounded and settled. You're not blown around by every wind of doctrine. This means you go home, you know, and somebody sends you a little video clip of something that's contrary to what the Bible says. You're like, oh, maybe that's the truth. You're just over here this day, and oh, there's this doctrine, and oh, there's this doctrine, and oh, there's this, you know, and you're just constantly all over the place, okay? That is disastrous, okay? We wanna be grounded and settled on the things in the Bible here. And then so Paul in 24 here, verse 24, he says, who now rejoice in my sufferings for you. So he wants them to understand that he is suffering for them. You know, he's working for them. He's doing things for them. He's got great conflict, he'll say in chapter two, for them. He's got great desires to help them in their spiritual battles. So he says, who now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church, okay? The church, the gathering, the congregation, the local New Testament church, okay? If you're gonna suffer in life, might as well make it for the church, might as well make it for the kingdom of God because those actions are what produce rewards that last forever, okay? We kinda touched on that this morning. Verse 25, he says, whereof I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you to fulfill the word of God. Remember, Paul the apostle was chosen, handpicked by Jesus Christ, specifically to go to the Gentiles, okay? Which I'm sure a lot of people, and sometimes you'll hear this say, well, that's crazy because of Paul's Pharisaical background and all his knowledge. But God used that deep knowledge that Paul had of the Judaizing religion, of the Jewish religion, rather, to go to the Gentiles and to clear up the things that they had heard, okay? Clear up circumcision, clear up what all these rituals were and what they meant, and to give the Gentiles clear hope that, hey, you're saved just like we are in Christ. There's neither Jew nor Gentile. We're all one in Christ Jesus. That was his mission. Verse 26, so then he says, even the mystery, which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints. Now, to really do this serious justice, this mystery here, in short, I'll tell you, it's basically the gospel. That's what it is. It's the gospel, okay? The Bible says that the gospel is a mystery to them that believe not. And think about it. You know, you go out and knock on someone's door, you give them the gospel, okay? Most of the time they're like, whoa, you know, they might be tracking with you, but they don't quite understand it, you know? You have to explain it to them. It's a mystery. They don't know. You can't just hand them a Bible and say, here, figure it out, okay? You're not gonna hand them an invite. You're not gonna hand them a track with Bible verses on there and say, here, here's how you be saved. No, they need it preached to them. That's why Paul keeps bringing that up, okay? The gospel, which was preached unto you, explained thoroughly unto you. Why does it have to be preached? Why does it have to be explained thoroughly? Because it's a mystery and people need mysteries laid out so they're not a mystery anymore, okay? So in short here, he's talking about the mystery of the gospel, but it actually goes deeper than that and we have to go to Ephesians and really do some digging around. We don't have time for that tonight. Look at verse number 27. He says, He says, Okay, so again, another part of that mystery when you read through Ephesians is the fact that Gentiles and Jews are now in this new nation, which is really the Israel of God, okay? That was a mystery back then because for so many years, for what, a couple thousand years, if you will, that Israel was in existence, a few thousand years, the whole world just knew God's people as Israel and then it was the Jews after the northern kingdom got taken over and so on and so forth. And so now they're saying, well, anybody can be part of this? Okay, that's a mystery. It's something that needs to be explained. And honestly, it's a mystery today to a lot of churches. They're like, what do you mean the Israel of God? I've never heard of such thing. There's only one Israel and God only loves the Jew and they're the seed of his eye and they could do no wrong. And they don't have to be saved. They're already saved because of their ethnic background, okay? That's lies. That's false doctrine. That's not what the Bible teaches. That's called glorying in the flesh is what that is. It's absolutely ridiculous, okay? So he's kind of bringing that up here. See, don't let anybody take you down this road that you're not as good as a Jew, okay? You're in Christ. You're all the same, basically. Verse 28, talking about Christ, what does he say here? Whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus, okay? So here's the idea. Who do we preach? We preach Christ. We preach the gospel, warning every man. That's why sometimes we say, you know, we're going soul winning, but we're actually, we might say, well, today we didn't do any soul winning. We didn't win anybody, but we won, okay? We're out there warning. We're out there teaching, you know? Sometimes we go knock on people's doors and they'll say, I don't have time, but then they ask you a quick question, okay? What do you think about drag shows? I love that question, okay? Now I'm gonna go into teaching mode because you said you didn't have time to hear the gospel. Now give them the reprobate road and tell them the truth. I'm like, wow, that's great. That's great, you know? But, you know, you say, well, you didn't get that person saved. No, I didn't get that person saved, but the only truth they were willing to listen to was the truth in response to their question. And sometimes that's the only victory you're gonna get, but at least you have the answers because the fact that you've got the answers from the word of God, what does that do? What does that prove? Well, that tells these people that you know what they're talking about, that you're talking about, okay? And in the future you have no idea what that could do to somebody, okay? You know, a couple years down the road, things might line up right and they'll remember somebody came to them and it was from this church and they had the answers and they'll come walking in here and they might be the next apostle Paul. They might be the next person that just turns the world upside down. You have no idea, okay? And so, again, I think what I take away from this here is that warning, that word right there, warning, okay? You know, we go out soul winning, we call it soul winning, but it's really soul warning. We are warning people, okay? That this delusion that's being propagated by the media, by the government, is a lie and one day we'll come to a screeching halt and you need to wake up and see truth for what it is. It comes directly from God. So he says about Christ, verse 28, whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, okay? What does that mean? Well, we wanna be people that are thought of and respected for teaching the entire counsel of God. We don't wanna be skipping things. We wanna teach the whole Bible because as, you know, you've probably heard this saying, it's taught to a lot of kids at Sunday school, the Bible has the answer. And it's a very simple way to put it, but it's definitely true, the Bible has the answer, okay? Why? Why do this? Well, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus, meaning complete in Christ Jesus, okay? You got salvation, but do you have wisdom? That's the idea. That's how we operate. We wanna make people perfect as incomplete. We wanna get people saved, but we also wanna get them discipled, which then will create a perfect person. Not a person that doesn't ever sin because we all sin, okay? But it's just saying here that we wanna present people perfect or complete, okay? How do you get a complete believer? You get a believer to hear the complete word of God over time. Last verse, verse 29, he says, where unto I also labor, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily. And he's not ashamed to say this. He's being very bold here and saying, hey, you know, because I labor for the kingdom of God, I see the kingdom of God, I see Christ's power working through me. And of course, you know, this is a church that believes the Bible, believes the word of God as it's written. We believe that it's preserved. And we see Christ working. You know, you say, well, how come you don't have thousands of people? Well, there's several reasons for that, okay? Part of its culture. But we have in the last four years, I would say probably over a thousand victories on some level, easy, okay? Whether that be prayers for things that have been turned into praises, just seeing people saved, clearing things up for people, helping people, all these different things, okay? They all add up. And again, the idea here isn't how many people show up to a building, but it's how is Christ working through those people that are showing up through the building. That's where it's at. And so, again, all that stuff that we just covered, okay? The gratitude, the prayer, the deep information about who Christ is. He is fully God, fully man, okay? The mystery of the gospel. I mean, just over and over in this chapter, okay? It's we can't save ourselves. God did all the work. He's the one that made us. Okay, those are the foundational things that you're gonna need in order to really understand next week's sermon, which is gonna start debunking a lot of these isms that are out there in the world today. So, of course, we're gonna stop here. We'll pick it up at chapter number two next week. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you again so much, Lord, for this church and for everything that you do for us. So just pray that you bless the fellowship after the service and bring us back again safely this week. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.