16 Sep Fake News | Part 4 “It’s All About Jesus”
Trunk or Treat – Please start thinking about your Group’s theme! I have added a registration page to PCO (Planning Center Online) for each Campus. Once you have picked out your theme, you can register your group. Only one person (leader or apprentice) per group needs to register.
Continue to pray for the Diamond Hill Property for Woonsocket so they can have a permanent home.
We will be collecting new and used clothes to help bless poverty stricken areas in South America. You can drop them off the first week of October from Monday – Thursday 9:00a – 4:30p, office entrance.
Key Verse: Colossians 2:6-23
SERIES THEME VERSE
SEE TO IT THAT NOT ONE TAKES YOU CAPTIVE BY PHILOSOPHY AND EMPTY DECEIT, ACCORDING TO HUMAN TRADITION, ACCORDING TO THE ELEMENTAL SPIRITS OF THE WORLD, AND NOT ACCORDING TO CHRIST.
Firm Foundation, Full Life, Formed for Mission, Forgiven and Free
Colossians is a letter Paul wrote to the church in the city of Colossae . The church was being pulled away from Jesus. The moment we come to Christ, the devil goes to work to pull us away from Jesus.
Q. When you received Jesus, how did the devil try to pull you away from Him?
TWO EXTREMES AGAINST SOUND CHRISTIAN FAITH:
1. MYSTICISM: I NEED TO EXPERIENCE SPIRITUAL POWER.
Jesus is the experience, we do not need another experience. People buy into this stuff because it takes God off the thrown and puts them on it. It is the same lie from the Garden of Eden ‘you will be like God’. Mysticism has been going on since Orthodox Christianity has been around. Jesus is all we need. Jesus is the author and the finisher of our faith and we need nothing more than Him.
“IF IT’S NEW, IT’S NOT TRUE.
IF IT’S TRUE, IT’S NOT NEW.
What is true has always been true because it is rooted in the eternal God who never changes from Everlasting to Everlasting.
2. LEGALISM: I NEED TO EARN SPIRITUAL POWER.
There is nothing more appetizing to Americans than the idea of earning something. One reason we struggle with the gospel of grace is because our country has us programmed to make us earn it. There is a scriptural principal to earning your own money, food etc. (2 Thessalonians 3:10 ESV) but the gospel of grace says that we receive all that God gives us according to His grace and not our goodness. Legalism may have us thinking we don’t pray enough, go to church enough, fast enough etc. What God starts, God completes and our completion is not dependent on our coordination. Our hope is in His goodness not our own.
Q. What, if any of these two categories, have you fell into and what was your experience? What is the danger in falling for either of these two extremes?
1. JESUS IS MY FOUNDATION.
We did not earn Jesus. God reached out to us. He found us. We were lost. If we did nothing to earn Jesus, then we do nothing to keep Him. We are rooted and built up in Him and we should respond with resounding Thanksgiving. Coming to church does not earn us brownie points, we come to hear from God and thank Him. There is nothing more attractive to an unbeliever than a thankful Christian.
Q. How has your thankfulness brought others to ask you about your faith?
2. JESUS IS MY FULLNESS.
Colossae would say that there are other spirits that you need to encounter and Jesus is one but there are others and Paul is telling them that is nonsense. Jesus is the fullness of God and in Him we have experienced fullness. Our world wants to have fullness. People feel empty inside, empty in their life chasing after things.
His fullness comes to us through grace. Our hearts were empty and we get filled in Jesus.
Q. Pastor Tim told us of a man who owned 4 ‘billion dollar’ companies and still felt alone. Have you ever felt alone even when you had everything you ever needed and why? How has Jesus filled that emptiness in your life?
I EXPERIENCE THE FULLNESS OF GOD IN CHRIST:
A. WHEN I PARTICIPATE IN HIS FAMILY, THE CHURCH.
God is a big believer id doing this thing together. If we insist on doing it on our own, we will feel very empty. Some say there are too many hypocrites at church and for that reason they don’t come, but hypocrites are everywhere. We should not let someone else’s failures keep us from the best thing we have.
Q. Have you ever stayed away from church because of someone and why? Why is it so important that we do not let other’s failures keep us from coming to church?
B. WHEN I EAT OF HIS WORD – THE LIVING BREAD.
The word of God is rich food. It will feed us and fills us and we will experience the fullness of God.
C. WHEN I PARTICIPATE IN HIS MISSION.
When we give our lives to the mission of Jesus, it fills us up.
Q. In what ways have hearing God’s word and serving in the church helped you experience the fullness of God?
3. JESUS IS MY FORMATION.
Paul uses circumcision as a spiritual factor of what Christ is doing in us. He is cutting away from us the stuff he does not want to stay in us.
No one signs up for surgery. God says we need this or we are going to die. He wants to do great things in us.
Q. What ‘surgery’ is God performing in your life and why?
At the cross our life died with Jesus so that our sinful selves would have no power over us and that we would not be slaves to sin. We have been set free from sin. We sin because we choose to. Before Christ we couldn’t not choose sin. In Christ we have been set free from the power of sin, in Christ we are now free to not sin. When temptation comes we need to say, ‘I am set free from you, get away from me’.
Q. What temptations come your way that you need to tell the enemy you have been set free from?
4. JESUS IS MY FORGIVENESS.
Guilt weighs on us. Jesus cancelled the record of debt that stood against us. The cross sets us free from the sins of our past. No one goes to hell because of sin, people go to hell because they refuse to believe Jesus paid for it.
Q. What guilt is weighing you down and why? How can you overcome the guilt you are holding on to?
5. JESUS IS MY FREEDOM.
Do not come under a bondage of legalism. He is not giving us permission to say ‘don’t judge me’, he is saying in regard to food and drink, dietary laws etc. That (in the OT), was a shadow. The substance is Christ. The Sabbath was a picture of who Jesus is. He is our eternal rest before God. He is our rest from spiritual work for God. He is the once and for all final sacrifice for our sins. The Bible is about Jesus! The work is finished.
JESUS IS THE ANSWER TO THE LEGALIST.
JESUS IS THE ANSWER TO THE MYSTICS.
In Christ we have everything we need. He is our foundation, our fullness, our formation, our forgiveness and our freedom.
PRAY FOR EACH OTHER, THE LOST, WOONSOCKET AND OTHER UPCOMING CAMPUSES, THE CHURCH, THE NATION AND LEADERS AND 15 WISHES AND GUATEMALA MISSION.
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