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This is the First Mustang Pulpit Podcast, a podcast of the weekly preaching and teaching at First Mustang. Thank you for joining us.!
I'm leading worship in John's place. He'll be out of town. And you should know that on any given Sunday that I happen to fill in for him, 99% of that work has already been done before I ever get here.
I'm ever a part of that. There's very little to do with me. I'm just simply standing in his spot on the stage and making sure the service moves forward as it should. John does an incredible job. I'm so grateful for him, for all of our musicians. Michael is in London today, and I'm not sure exactly where, but he has preached.
So for us, it was the middle of the night. For him, it was the morning. But he has preached, and he is preaching multiple times this week, so keep him in prayer. Next week, he will be in Jersey, England, preaching on a Sunday morning, so please continue to pray for him.
So, Joey Snodgrass, our student pastor, is in Colorado with a group of teenagers, and you may have heard by now they've had some difficulties with their vehicles. Everyone is safe and sound in Westminster, Colorado right now, and they are at church this morning and getting ready to start serving.
However, we do have a church bus or van or something that's stranded somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I don't know. It's there by itself. No students or sponsors are with it.
But you could pray for Jeff as he is going to figure out how to get all of that figured out as they come back this way. Colossians chapter 2. We're going to be through in verses 6, and Lord willing, I'll get through verse 15 today.
It's a great privilege and honor to get to be here and get to preach and get to share God's word with you. Verse 6 of Colossians chapter 2 says, Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.
And there's this idea of walking in Christ that Paul is about to take us through. And this is one of those things that we have heard a number of times, but I feel a burden to explain what that means to walk in Christ.
This brings up the question, what does it look like? How do we walk in Christ? What does that mean? There's a number of things that we say as Christians to hear from the Lord, feeling the presence of God, to walk in Christ or to walk with the Lord, that can be lost in translation if we don't explain what we're talking about.
And at times, this can create confusion. Confusion. And I think this confusion is to our detriment a number of times. Very often, it's to our detriment.
Especially for those that are outside of the church, looking for Christ, looking for religion, looking for some sort of faith practice, whatever context they may be in.
Recently, Chelsea and I have heard some stories of some people that we grew up with here in the Oklahoma City area. Both of these individuals, not related to one another or connected to one another, but both of these individuals were born in Christian homes here in the Oklahoma City area.
One of them into a pastor's home. Both of them were raised in church. They served in the church. They were involved in a part of what was going on. You might say that they were what you would expect a typical Christian young person to look like, to live like.
Good friends of ours. And today, one of them is a professing Roman Catholic. And the other one wants absolutely nothing to do with the church to the point that she will not let her children even hear Bible stories.
And why is this? It's because they were never truly walking with Christ. They never truly knew Christ in a real salvific way.
Never came to know Him as their Savior. They couldn't truthfully sing the song, All I have is Christ. They were putting their hope and their trust in other things.
And Paul is going to point us away from that today. He's going to help us understand what it means to walk with Christ.
We read Romans 10 earlier. And I'll reread portions of it. It says, Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer is for them that they may be saved.
Paul is crying out to the Lord, Please save these Israelite people, my kinsmen. These are people that he knows. He says that he bears witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
They love the things of God, but did not know God. And I don't know if there's anything that describes Oklahoma better. We love the things of God, but so many of us do not know Christ.
We're walking through a false religion series in our Crossroads class on Sundays. And we've talked about Hinduism and Buddhism, the Jehovah's Witness and Mormonism.
Next week, I'm coming up on the prosperity gospel, and then finally, cultural Christianity. Spoiler alert for you Crossroads students. All of these religions are all the same thing.
It's all the same deception that we see in Genesis 3, repackaged, marketed as something new and different. And there are people all around our city and our state that are falling victim.
They're being taken captive by empty deceit of false religion. So what does it mean to walk with Christ? I believe we will learn that today.
As we arrive at Colossians 2, there's some background that I think we need to understand. So in verses 1, 15 through 23, Paul is proclaiming that Christ is the preeminent one.
He is over all things. He's before all things. He's over all things. All things were created through him. He is the preeminent one. And then Michael just preached over that passage just a few weeks ago.
So please, go back and look. Listen to that. It's a very, very important portion of Scripture. Verses 24 through 29, Paul warns of the struggle of the Christian life and the things that Christians will face, but that that struggle does not compare to the reward.
In chapter 2, verses 1 through 5, Paul speaks of the way that we can encourage one another and sustain one another through the midst of those trials. As we were singing about through the midst of those storms, Colossians is written from prison by Paul to a church that he doesn't know.
Epaphras, who was under the teaching of Paul in Ephesus, likely started this church, and they have false teaching that is beginning to swarm them, to come in from different places.
And it primarily shows up in two ways. One, the Roman Empire is beginning to put a lot of pressure on the Christian church because they worship Caesar, and they will worship no other man but Caesar.
And for the Christians to proclaim that Christ is a man means that they are worshiping someone other than Caesar. So persecution is coming their way. Hardness is coming their way.
Struggle is coming their way. They are living in the storm. And then there's this funny religious group called the Gnostics that are coming to town, and they are teaching of these extra things that you have to do and these things you have to learn.
Their name literally means the ones that are capable of extra knowledge. And they believe they have this supernatural knowledge that nobody else has, and they're trying to indoctrinate the Christian church, the New Testament church that is under the apostolic teaching and trying to drift them away from sound doctrine, trying to add extra things.
They're entrenched in legalism. And even in that, I feel like we identify so much of our world.
There are so many lost people around us that are worshiping self or government or organizations or movements, people groups.
They won't say that they are actively worshiping it, but that's what they're doing. They are worshiping these other things. So many of us want to add extra things to our religion, to our Christianity.
Jesus plus something. And that's false. If you have an ESV, a copy of God's Word, then this section is called Alive in Christ, Walking in Christ, one and the same.
I have four headings for you today. Four headings. First one is to walk with Christ, is to receive Christ. To walk with Christ is to receive Christ.
Second, to walk with Christ is to grow in Christ. It is to grow in Christ. Thirdly, to walk with Christ is to deny false teaching.
It is to deny false teaching. And fourth and last, we'll look at to walk with Christ is to find our identity, our hope, our victory, to find our identity in Christ.
Christ. To walk with Christ is to find our identity in Christ. So to walk with Christ, number one, is to receive Christ.
Verse six, it says, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. And that word received is very important. In the Greek language, it implies that one is an associate or a companion.
There's implications to that word, and that is to accept or acknowledge one as being as he professes to be. So if we receive Christ, we must confess that Christ is who he proclaims himself to be.
It is to not reject or withhold obedience from Christ. Paul is very specific with the wording that he uses, and this word is very important.
I think there's three ways that we receive Christ. I think we see this all throughout Scripture in various different ways. I think that we can look at the word as we need to hear the message of Jesus.
We receive it by hearing the message of Jesus. Just as Michael has been doing on Sunday mornings, he is walking us through the narratives of Christ. To receive Christ is for us to receive him through hearing the narratives of who Christ is.
For the Colossians, oral tradition would have been very important. In a lot of ways, it's true for us today. Ancient Jews, they passed on the stories of the prophets of the Old Testament orally through telling their children and their loved ones.
Our homes should have an oral tradition about them. We should be sharing the gospel with our spouses, with our loved ones, our families, with our children and our grandchildren.
That should not be a strange thing in your home. One thing that I love about my daughter Calvin is she gets hung up on certain words and she doesn't always use them correctly.
And several months ago, maybe six months ago or more, we walked through the book of Jonah as a family around the dinner table. And now, anytime we go to open our Bibles, she's always saying, Pa, can you learn me about Jonah?
And that is, can you teach me about God's word? She wants to learn the Bible. And that should be a normal thing in our homes.
Are you learning your children about Jonah in your home? Because that should be normal. Our children should not be thrown off when we sit down on the fireplace and open our Bible.
They should think that's a normal thing to pray together, to have music playing in the house. There is an oral tradition that should take place in our homes.
And for us, as believers, at some point, we encounter this oral tradition of we heard the gospel for the first time. I was just at a wedding a couple nights ago and talked to a guy who's getting ready to head up to New Hampshire to do a mission trip.
He's from another church in Texas, and he was asking me about the culture of the Northeast. And it's amazing, the culture of the Northeast, it is not uncommon to find somebody who has never encountered the gospel whatsoever, never heard of Jesus.
And I think what happens is we take those things for granted. What happens is one generation says, oh, they've got this, the church is teaching them, they've heard it from other places, they're good, and parents don't pass down to their children.
Well, those children aren't grounded in Scripture, and they don't know or know how to pass it on to their children. And within just a few generations, the gospel is lost, and Jesus' name is no longer mentioned, and you're suddenly an unreached, pre-Christian group of people.
May that not be true of Mustang, Oklahoma. May that not be true of this Oklahoma City metro. Do not fail to pass down this oral tradition of sharing the gospel with one another.
Paul uses some similar words in 1 Corinthians 15, 1 and 2. He says, now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, same word, in which you stand, by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you unless you believed in vain.
In Mark 2, 9, it says, after six days, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain by themselves, and he was transfigured before them.
He took them with them. He received them, took them with them. They were companions. They were all together as they went up, and Michael just preached over the transfiguration. They were all together as they went up to the mountain where Jesus was transfigured.
similar words. We see this received constantly throughout all of Scripture. It's a regular thing.
Second way we receive Christ is we receive the moral code or the standard of living which Jesus presents. It was a few weeks ago or I guess a week or so ago, we were in Utah on a mission trip, and I got to teach some of the kids there about Zacchaeus.
And Zacchaeus, he was a wee little man. Yes. So in the LDS community, they don't teach about Zacchaeus very often.
They tend to steer away from the Bible stories or the real Bible stories. They focus on the Book of Mormon and some of their other writings. And so I had a group of kids that either came from an LDS background or an agnostic background, one or the other, and none of them around this table had heard of Zacchaeus.
And I kind of loved that because we kind of focus on the wrong thing with Zacchaeus. Yes, he was a wee little man. Yes, it's kind of funny. It keeps the story going. And certainly, you can't sing a song without it.
But what was so impactful about the story of Zacchaeus is not Zacchaeus at all. It's Jesus. So here is Zacchaeus, a tax collector, a guy that nobody liked.
Nobody wanted to spend time with him or hang out with him or be around him. They prefer him just go elsewhere. Jesus comes to town. He goes to Zacchaeus and seeks Zacchaeus out.
He goes and spends time with him. There's a standard of living that we see from our Lord that we must receive and obey and we must mimic that in our own life.
We can't be content to be in our Christian circle and never speak to anybody else again. We must go out and share the gospel with other people.
It's the whole point of the Great Commission in Matthew is that we go to other places, go to people who don't know Jesus and share it with them. We live the gospel out in our lives in the way that we behave and the way that we act.
I should be living the gospel out for my wife each day in the way that I treat her, the way that I love her, the way that I care for her.
But it says something different if I'm not doing that. If I talk one way here and go home and live a different way, if I instruct on morals and on the things that we should be observing and watching and all of those things and I go home and do something different, I'm not living the gospel for her or in front of my children.
And that's a hard, difficult thing to do. We all fail at that all the time. But we receive the gospel and we see, we hear the gospel and then we see the way that Jesus is living and then we implement that, we obey that.
We see that in Matthew 22, the Pharisees come to Jesus and they're trying to trick him up on the Ten Commandments and which one's more important because the Pharisees are all about law and rules and trying to figure out what's the best and which rule will get me closer to God and closer to heaven and all of these things.
And Jesus shuts the whole thing down by simply telling him, love God with all your heart, soul, mind and love others as yourself. We should be living that way.
Why? Because it is the standard that has been set by our Lord. I think Paul is reminiscent of this in 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 and 2.
He says, Finally, brothers, we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you received from us how you ought to walk to please God just as you were doing, that you do so more and more.
for you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. He is passing instructions down to them, sharing with them this is how you should live your life.
And we receive that from Christ Jesus, from his word. Last is surrounding the narratives of who Christ is and the moral code in which we should live.
We should put our faith in Christ Jesus. We receive Jesus by putting our faith, our hope, and trust in him and him alone. Paul says, For I delivered you as first importance what I also received.
What Paul also received, he has delivered to us. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
And we know of course that this only happens by the working of the Holy Spirit in us. But we receive Christ first to walk in Christ.
We receive him by hearing the gospel, by obeying the gospel, and by putting our faith in the gospel and that alone. We go on to verse 7.
Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. And this series of words here is actually the second time that Paul uses this in this book.
He will also tell them to walk in Christ, rooted, built up, and established in the first chapter of Colossians. In Colossians 10, in chapter 1, verse 9, it says that he's praying for them.
And then in verse 10, it says, as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing in him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father.
Father. So Paul is praying this process for the people, and now he's giving them instruction to live like this, to walk with Christ. I have prayed that you would walk with Christ, and now I'm telling you to walk with him.
Do it. And it's a great model of discipleship. It's a great model for teaching. And I would ask you, Sunday school teachers, are you praying through your lesson before you give it?
Are you praying through it and applying it to your own life before you get up in front of other people and share that lesson? Before you give instructions to others, are you praying that God would be at work in them?
We should be doing that. Paul models that. I don't know if you know, but Paul's a good guy that we should model in our life. That's a joke. So model him.
Pray those things. As you are giving instruction to your children, pray through what you are giving them instruction in. Make sure you're applying those things to your own life. Don't tell your children to live a way that you are not already living.
And that's a hard thing to do. Again, we fail at this all the time. But we have to do that. So in 1, 10, and 12, 2, 6, and 7, walk in a manner worthy, so walk in him, bearing fruit, or rooted, that's an agricultural reference there.
Increasing or growing, being built up, and then strengthened or established, giving thanks, abounding in thanksgiving, same series of events there. And it also models that there is a continuation of the Christian life.
So often, we want to just receive Christ, done, I'm good, I've got it. There's some sort of religious experience, you've walked an aisle, you've been baptized, you've said a prayer, you've done something.
Like I've said before, that was my testimony. And then, there's no continuation after that. There's no growth after that. And Paul's gonna walk us through what it means to be walking, growing with Christ.
First of all, you have to be rooted in him. Psalm 1 says, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of the sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord.
And on his law, he meditates day or night. And that's gonna get very agricultural here. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season.
And its leaves do not wither, and all that he does, he prospers. We have to be rooted, connected, to the source of life for us to be able to walk in Christ.
If you want a life that resembles that of Christ, you must first be rooted to him. You receive Christ, and then you are rooted to Christ. And if you've ever pulled up a tree, an old tree particularly, you know that those roots don't just stay one size.
They grow. They continue to get bigger. And then that tree dies, and it falls over, but the roots are still there. And then you have to wrestle the roots up out of the ground. It's much too difficult for me, so I call Ashton Vickers, and I pay him to come get my roots out of the ground.
And it's hard work. But that tree is rooted there. It's staying there. It's connected to the source, and it's growing and flourishing. Why? Because it's rooted.
And we as believers must be rooted in Christ. Christ. He's going to tell us to be built up in him.
We're rooted in Christ. We are built up in Christ. Now he's going to go from agricultural to an architectural metaphor here. He's talking about a building being built here.
So why is he switching between the two? Well, I think it's because when we come to know Christ, when we receive Christ, there are some things in our lives that are going to change day and night, immediately.
There's going to be conviction of sin for the first time that we've not experienced. There are going to be things in our lives that we are drawn to, like a church gathering and the preaching of God's word and wanting to sing songs that glorify God.
That's going to change overnight, and it should. But there's also some things that have to be built up in our life. You need to have an older person who is helping you figure out, here's some pitfalls in my life.
Here's some things that I'm not doing well. Here's some ways I can learn and grow and be built up in Christ. We can't stay stagnant. We all get frustrated when a construction company pours a foundation and then nothing happens.
We see this all the time in construction, right? Guys say, oh, we're coming, we're going to go and do it, and there's just nothing there, just a slab. Nothing's being built up. Nothing's happening.
That slab is pointless and useless unless something is built up on top of it. And as believers, we are useless and pointless if nothing is being built up on the foundation of Christ Jesus in our life.
We have to be built up in him. Ephesians 2.20, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.
Paul is explaining to the people, look, we're the apostles. build yourselves up on the teaching that we have proclaimed to you from Jesus himself.
Lastly, he says, to be established in the faith. Established in the faith. And this is what occurs when you are rooted and you are built up.
You become established. We have a little bitty tree in our front yard. It's a little magnolia tree. It's all of about four feet tall. And every time a storm comes, it would be blowing wind and raining and all this stuff, Chelsea and I just stand at the window and stare at the little tree.
Because we're scared to death we're going to lose this little tree that Ashton Vickers also planted for us. Very worried about this tree, but as time goes on, every time there's a storm and the little tree survives, the next one gets a little bit easier and easier and easier.
Why? Because that tree is continually being established and grounded. We should do that as believers. Have you met that believer that is facing just a horrible, brutal situation and they've got a smile on their face?
And they're totally fine with it. It's like it's just rolling right off of them. Like, oh yeah, my car erupted in flames and my house is underwater. Oh, good. That's because they are established in their faith in Christ.
When we face hardship in life, there should be believers around us that are established showing us how to live and how to walk with Christ in the midst of that.
And we should apply it to our own life and be established. So as we are rooted, we are built up, we are established.
There is a continual thing. So when Paul speaks of walking with Christ, it is doing those things. It is a continual thing. Like I said at the beginning, we're not always clear with the language that we use.
Bring clarity to what walking with Christ is. It doesn't mean that everything is easy. It doesn't mean that everything goes seamlessly.
It doesn't mean that we don't have issues and problems. As Christians and as believers, we are going to face things that are very difficult. And I think that's one of the big lies of Christianity today is that so often we just say, walk the aisle, pray the prayer, get dunked, you're good, life's going to be grand.
So what happens? People do it. It's easy to do that part. No big deal. And then the hardship comes. They say, wait a second, I was not promised this.
They walk away from it completely. What is going on? So often, we're going to see people in life that seem to be rooted. And they seem to be built up.
We're investing in them. We're teaching them. They're learning things. They're getting things. And when push comes to shove, we realize they were never established in Christ. That they went out from us because they were never of us.
in the story of the two individuals I told at the beginning, that is exactly what happened to them. They appeared to be rooted. They appeared to be built up.
They were never established in Christ. And they did not know him. Then in verse seven, at the end of verse seven, it says, just as you were taught abounding in thanksgiving, the natural outpouring of our life, when we receive Christ, we walk with him, we are rooted, built up, and established in Christ, in the faith, is we are going to abound in thanksgiving.
Why? Because of what Christ has done for us. We sing of that all morning. Who Jesus is and what he's done for us.
That he has died for us. That he has done all for us. You can see the excitement on so many people's faces in this room when we sing those words because we, so many of us, have experienced what it is to know Christ and to put our hope and our trust in him.
Verse eight, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental or the elementary principles of the world and not according to Christ.
For in him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily and you have been filled with him who is the head of all rule and authority.
So number three, to walk with Christ is to deny false teaching. And as we come to know Christ, as we're being rooted and built up and we're beginning to be established in him, false teaching will begin to creep in.
We'll be told other things that must be done. Other things that we have to do. Other processes we have to be a part of. Those things are false. Paul also is telling us that we shouldn't fall captive to the philosophies of the world, to human tradition, to those elementary principles and all of which are not bad things in themselves.
But he's saying that these things are not according to Christ. I send my son to elementary school. Why? To learn the basic things. Makes sense.
He's got to learn the basics of mathematics. Or he'll never be able to do algebra. It's simple. And even as believers, we learn those basic things.
Because we will never understand the richness of the hypostatic union if we don't understand that Jesus was born. We have to understand those basics, those basic tenets of our faith.
philosophy is not a bad thing. That is the pursuit of enlightenment and wisdom. But when it is not based in Christ, it's wickedness.
And what does it turn into? It turns into empty deceit. Human tradition is not a bad thing. We have a lot of traditions. How long have we been singing A Mighty Fortress from Martin Luther?
Well over 500 years. We should keep singing it. It's a great song with a powerful lyric. It reminds us that the enemy that is at hand will not prevail against us.
That Christ has already won over him. We should keep singing that. But when we begin to fall into tradition that is not based in Christ, based on God's word, those things become empty deceit.
We need to be very aware of the things that come out of this world and the fact that this world is trying to take us captive. Verse 9, it says that for in him the fullness of deity dwells bodily because these Gnostics were trying to separate the deity of Christ.
They were trying to separate Christ, his deity from his humanity to tear apart that doctrine of the hypostatic union, trying to claim that Jesus was not who he confessed to be.
He says that you have been filled with him who is the head of all rule and authority. He is over all things.
This is about the third time he's said this in this book so far that he is over all things, over all authority. No one compares to him, no one compares to his glory and his honor and no one deserves praise like our Lord Christ Jesus.
Be warned that this world will come against us and walking with Christ means discerning the things that are of God and the things that are not.
How do we do that? How do we know what is false teaching and what is not? This book. That's why every ministry in our church always comes back to this book.
Next week we have day camp and Kylie Mitchell came to me and asked me to teach on three of the Beatitudes and I thought that was day camp that those just those three Beatitudes oh that's cool I like that I was thinking like a 10 minute lesson no they're going to have four 30 minute sessions on learning Beatitudes in our church next Monday and Tuesday or tomorrow and Tuesday because everything we do is based on scripture we owe it fun and games is good that's great we're going to learn God's word it's one of the things that excites me about my children growing up in this church because if nothing else they will learn God's word they may not know all the very coolest songs on the radio they may not have listened to all the very coolest preachers that are out there but they are going to know God's word and that is a great great thing if you go to verse 11 it says in him also you were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead and you and listen to this and you who were dead in your trespasses and uncircumcision of your flesh
God made alive together with him having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands this he set aside nailing it to the cross he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them so circumcision in the old testament this is number four by the way to walk with Christ to find our identity in Christ in the old testament circumcision represented God's covenant and a promise that a person was a part of God's covenant people today we have baptism as a sign that we have been circumcised of our sinfulness through what Christ has done for us we are under the new covenant of Christ the removal of our sin and Paul wants to remind these believers in Colossae that this has already happened for them there is nothing else need be added they don't need anything extra
Christ is sufficient and what he his work on the cross is sufficient notice there are five past tense statements in this passage in verse six it says as you received Past tense verse 10 you have been filled with him past tense verse 12 you have been buried past tense you were also raised past tense verse 13 you who were dead past tense 15 he disarmed the rulers and authorities past tense believer this passage should be a comfort to us that what Christ has done he has done in fullness he has fulfilled what he came to fulfill There is nothing left for us to do our salvation rests secure in Christ Jesus I also know that there are some today that verses 13 and 14 you need to come to understand that in a real way today!
Having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh there are some of us that are dead in our trespasses and sins!
today and it is through Christ Jesus if you will hear the gospel obey and apply the gospel to your life and put your faith your hope and trust in the gospel of Christ Jesus that is that he came and he died after living a perfect life and three days later he was resurrected paying the price for our sinfulness because we deserved hell for the sinfulness that we have committed against a holy God and if you will come to understand that today put your hope and your trust in Jesus and him alone you will be saved and then you too will be in the audience of this Colossian church as Paul describes how to walk with Christ our identity is in Christ because he has accomplished our salvation on our behalf there is nothing more for us to do despite what the world may say around us we know that
Christ alone is our salvation so how do we walk in Christ we receive Christ we grow in Christ we continually walk in him continually grow to get to know him we deny the false teaching of the world around us and we find our identity our hope our salvation in Jesus alone I know there are some people in here that feel like you're struggling with your walk with Christ today I want to give you just four things to think about as we close one have you truly received Christ have you heard the gospel and applied the gospel to your life are you truly putting!
your faith in the gospel second where are you finding truth is it in Facebook or your favorite news station or your friend at work where is truth for you where do you find seek truth is it in Jesus is it in him alone are you continually growing are you are you taking real steps to continually grow in your knowledge and understanding of who Jesus is as you've been rooted are you are you being built up so that you can now be established in your faith so that way when the hard time does come you are not blown off course or revealed to be a non-believer and we can do this in a number of ways we seek out discipleship from other people people that are older than us
John and I go to the gym a lot together and I teach you a lot right no he teaches me a lot and it's good it helps me stay on course and there's a level of accountability there so like last Thursday when I slept in I thought man John knows it's not good is there someone in your life that's holding you accountable that when you mess up and you fail you think okay they know I've got to get this right I have to correct this in my life because I know they know and if they know certainly the Lord knows are you growing Do you have a daily Bible study a practice which you put in place that you can continually be learning God's word regularly we should be growing and being built up in Christ and fourthly for those believers that know
Christ but are struggling with your walk where do you put your rest when you think about your salvation and your hope for eternity where are you resting are you looking at the things you're doing are you looking at the people that are around you are you looking at how many areas in the church you're serving are you looking at how much you know or are you simply resting in Christ Jesus and him alone if you have questions about salvation who Christ is please do not hesitate to come and find a pastor find someone and ask us there's a card in your bulletin you can fill out let us know that you have questions drop those in one of the giving boxes and we will follow up with you this week and we can answer questions about walking with
Christ or discipleship or growing or you need a reading plan or you want to know Jesus in a real Father we come before you in the name of Jesus grateful for today and grateful that we have a written instruction on how to walk with Christ what it looks like to be a believer in a harsh broken world that we can rest in what you have done and what you have done alone Lord we're so thankful!
the salvation that we find in Christ Jesus Lord I pray that we would be a people that is rooted built up and established in you that we will deny the false teaching in the world around us that we will continue to find our hope and our security in you and you retra end