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Emily Pahl
Welcome to the weekly podcast of Sisterhood at River Valley Church. River Valley is an exciting and thriving church where you will find friendly people, a casual atmosphere and relevant teaching. We believe in a life-giving, positive church culture where people worship God, connect with one another and find purpose in life.
Welcome to Sisterhood. We have yet another day where we get to bask in God's presence. We get to read his word, and because his word is alive and living and active, he promises that every time we open it up, he will reveal something to us. And so I trust and I know that's what he's gonna do today as we hear, as we listen, as he speaks, as I speak on his behalf that God has something for each and every one of us, whether it comes from my mouth or it comes directly from his word or it comes from somebody at your table, somebody in the room with you. God has something for you today.
Speaker 1:I know that to be true because every single day I have been in my I have been alive in my life. He has said something to me. He has never been still. He has never been quiet. He has been still.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. He has never been quiet. Maybe I haven't listened, but he's always had something to say to me. And I think that's just what I was praying on the way here. God, that the women would hear from you, Jesus.
Speaker 1:That they would leave with something that you spoke just directly to them. Thank you, Lord. Well, as many of you know, I have three girls that I have the joy and privilege of homeschooling, and I love them dearly most of the time, and they love me dearly most of the time. But there are moments. Right?
Speaker 1:The other day, I was, doing something with a lot of you know what? I'm gonna skip that. I'm gonna go back to a different story. So I I was sitting this this goes back. I was thinking about a story that my youngest one had told me, and she was like, mom, remember when I didn't like my name?
Speaker 1:I was like, yeah. Yeah. I remember. I remember that. You didn't like your name.
Speaker 1:In fact, you kept telling your dad and I that we didn't hear the Lord and that we gave you the wrong name when you were born. And she was bound and determined that she was gonna change it. And I said, I'm sorry. You can't. Like, that's just not your right to do that.
Speaker 1:You can't change it. I'm sorry you don't like it. But we prayed and we thought that's what the Lord told us to give you, and she argued with me. And this went on for months, you guys. And, finally, I looked at her and I said, hey.
Speaker 1:You know what? The Lord has only given two people on this earth the right, the privilege, the authority to give you a name. Only two. That's not you, that's not your sisters, that's not your friends, that's your parents. Only two people.
Speaker 1:And then as I was prepping for this lesson, I thought, you know what? That's the same that's true with our father, God. There's only one person in this entire universe that has been given the right, the privilege, the authority to give us a name, to give us an identity, to tell us who we are. It's not you. It's not your friends.
Speaker 1:It's not even your parents. It is only him that has the right to name us. That's regardless of what we called ourselves. It's regardless of what other people have called us. It's regardless of what the word has said.
Speaker 1:Only he has the right, the authority, the privilege to give us a name and to give us a new identity, and that's exactly what this curriculum has been. Who does God say I am? I have the mind of Christ. I'm greatly loved. I am healed.
Speaker 1:I am set apart. I am redeemed. I have the peace of God. I am complete in him. You are complete in him.
Speaker 1:Full, filled, enough. No matter what somebody else says, no matter what books say, no matter what talk shows say, no matter what the news says, no matter what the world says, you are complete in him. That's our lesson today. Not because of what we did, ladies, but because of what he did for us. Let's pray.
Speaker 1:Lord, we thank you for what you did for us. We thank you for giving us a new name, a new identity, Lord. We thank you that when we call upon you, you answer. Lord, I thank you that you give us revelations in your word. And so, Lord, that's what we pray today as we as we learn who we are, that we are complete in you, that when we leave today, we would feel different, we would know that we are different, that we have a new name, a new identity in you from you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, if you have your bibles, you can open them.
Speaker 1:If you don't, you can look at the notes, and you can see that we are starting in Colossians chapter two. We're gonna read verse 10, which is packed full of goodness and greatness and fullness. I'm gonna read from the, the passion translation. For he is the complete fullness of deity living in human form, and our own completeness is now found in him. We are completely filled with God as Christ's fullness overflows within us.
Speaker 1:He is the head of every kingdom and authority in the universe. Amen. Let me tell you what it literally says. You've been made full. You've been made full in him, from him.
Speaker 1:There's nothing missing. Christ fills you up. There isn't anything that you yourself can add to that. Complete by definitions means total, having all the necessary parts. Not one thing can be added.
Speaker 1:In the Greek, it's It just means complete. Complete, lacking nothing. This was a revelation for me this week, and here it is. Maybe it is for you too. I think sometimes we struggle thinking we're complete because we think there's always something we have to do.
Speaker 1:We're always striving to, if I could just do that, or if I could just do that, or if I could just do that, or when I do this, then I'll be complete. And God's like, no. That's not a complete is not your ending point. Complete is your starting point. He said, when I said that you are complete fullness, that's the spot where you work from.
Speaker 1:You work from complete fullness. And he gave me a picture of a glass of water, a full water, not a mom pore full, but a really full glass of water. So full, so filled, so much that if you put one more drop of water in the cup, what's going to happen? It's gonna spill out. That's the fullness that he's talking about.
Speaker 1:You are full. You are so full with him that when we come in community, when we read his word, when we pray, that's the drops that then spill out. We are full. Earlier this semester, Laura spoke on the miracles of healing, and we are healed in Christ. And I believe that sometimes maybe we get caught up on the physical healings and the emotional healings, but don't forget the spiritual healing that comes with Jesus Christ as well.
Speaker 1:He makes us physically well. He makes us emotionally well. He makes us spiritually well too. And that's why on most of the weekends at River Valley Church, we give an altar call or we give a time for people to raise their hand for salvation. Why?
Speaker 1:Because we believe that when we confess with our mouth and we believe in our heart that Jesus is Lord, he makes us spiritually whole. He makes us spiritually well. He saves us from anything that we we have done in the past. Not because of what we did, but because of what he did for us. When we receive Christ as our personal Lord and savior, you became complete, full, filled, period.
Speaker 1:No buts. No but but what about this? No. You are complete. But what about that?
Speaker 1:No. You are complete. And there's freedom in that because it allows us to not feel like we have to keep striving to survive. There's nothing we can do that will make us more complete and nothing we can do that will make us less complete. We're just complete by him.
Speaker 1:Okay. We're gonna keep reading in Colossians. Ladies, Colossians is just a tiny little bible that you find in the back of the book, four chapters. It's written by the apostle Paul. He was imprisoned in Rome when he wrote this book, and he's writing to the Colossian church.
Speaker 1:He's writing to the church of believers, and he's telling them, hey, I'm hearing that there's some false teaching that's going on there, and I want you to write. I want you to know. I want to write to you so that you know that everything is all about Jesus all the time. Don't get tripped up on these false teachings that you're hearing. I need to straighten you out a little bit here.
Speaker 1:And that's what he does in Colossians, and sometimes I need to be straightened out a little bit too, and that's why I'm thankful that this piece of literature is alive and acting because it doesn't matter if it's written for the Church of Colossians or if it's written for the Church of River Valley. It's alive and acting, so the words that Paul wrote way back in such and such time will still stand true for me. So when he says in Colossians two eleven through 12, it's just as much for me as it was for the people then. Verse 11, through our union with him, we have experienced circumcision of heart. All of the guilt and power of sin has been cut away and is now extinct because of what Christ, the anointed one, has accomplished for us.
Speaker 1:Because of what Christ has accomplished for us. For we've been buried with him into debt into his death. Our baptism into death also means we were raised with him when we believed in God's resurrection power, the power that raised him from death's realm. The first way we are complete is through salvation. K?
Speaker 1:Circumcision of heart. Circumcision in the Old Testament was a sign that you were in a covenant, a committed relationship with Christ. Right? It was symbolic of cutting the sin away from someone's life. Now, we live in the new testament, that's no longer a requirement for us.
Speaker 1:Now, Christ took all that on the cross. What we see now is our new sign is baptism. So once we have confessed that Jesus is our Lord and savior, the next step is baptism, to die to our own sinful nature, to be raised up in the new life in Christ. And let me just say this, if you have accepted Jesus as your savior and you have not been water baptized, do you want to do it? The answer is yes.
Speaker 1:Don't tell me you need to pray about it because God's not gonna tell you no. He's gonna say yes. Do it. Raise to a new life in Christ. Something supernatural happens.
Speaker 1:I don't know how God does it. I don't know how he does a lot of things. But there's something supernatural happens when you go down in the water, when you make a public declaration of your faith, and you get dumped down, you're dying to your old self coming up new. There's something that changes within you, and it's not just because it's water, because I have a pool at my house, and I put a lot of people underwater and pull them up, and they're not changed at all. But it's something that only God can do.
Speaker 1:I got baptized when I was on a global team to Uganda. The church was huge, tens of thousands of people, and I remember it very clearly. Actually, clearly is not a good word to use because the water was not clear at all. In fact, there's probably about 500 people that went before me. It was not chlorinated.
Speaker 1:It I could barely see through it, and I just kept telling myself, don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. And as soon as I got there, I forgot all about the dirty water. In fact, it was almost perfect that it was dirty because it represents my dirt.
Speaker 1:Do you know how much grossness we carry with us? Lots. We carry so much dirt with us. We weren't made for that. So when you go down into that water and that dirt stays, that water should have been dirty because everybody that went before me released it.
Speaker 1:So I went down in the dirty water, and I came up crying because supernaturally, God did a transition in my life. He makes us whole. It's nothing I've done. It's only what he's done. The second way we are complete is through forgiveness.
Speaker 1:Verse 13 through 14, this realm of death describes our former state, for we were held in sin's grasp. But now but now, we've been resurrected out of that realm of death, never to return. Could you please, like, star it, circle it, scribble it, make it in 18 font for yourself? Never to return, for we are forever alive and forgiven of all our sins. He canceled out every legal violation we had on our record, and the old arrest warrant that stood to indict us, to charge us, to accuse us with.
Speaker 1:He erased it all, our sins, our stained soul. He deleted it all, and they cannot be retrieved. Everything we once were in Adam has been placed onto his cross and nailed permanently there as a public display of cancellation. You guys, that's exciting. Past, present, future, sin, gone, erased, canceled, never to return.
Speaker 1:Are you getting that? The more I read that this week, the more excited I got as you could tell. I mean, if really, truly we could grasp that. Past, present, future, gone. Total, complete forgiveness, the instant, the moment you believe God forgave you.
Speaker 1:Acts ten forty three backs it up. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. See, I think the reason that it's hard for us to believe this is because we tend to remember what God's already forgotten. And when we remember it, then we think it's impossible to forgive him, but he's forgotten it. His forgiveness is what makes us completely free.
Speaker 1:It's the reason I don't have to strive to be more so I can earn his favor. I'm considered righteous because of his forgiveness. We cannot be complete without it. Let me tell you about his forgiveness. It's gracious.
Speaker 1:You didn't earn it. It's a gift of grace. Romans three twenty four, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. He's eager to forgive. I don't think once God has ever said, Tracy, I can't believe you did that again.
Speaker 1:Now I have to forgive you again? No. He's eager to forgive. Psalm eighty six five, dear lord, our forget you, lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call on you. God's forgiveness is certain.
Speaker 1:You can count on it. No questions, no doubts. Acts twenty six eighteen, to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God so that they may receive forgiveness of sins in in a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. It's unequal. He'll never find a forgiveness that's equal to him.
Speaker 1:It's total. It's complete. It's forever. So we're complete through salvation. We're complete through forgiveness.
Speaker 1:And the third way that makes us complete is through victory. Verse 15. Then Jesus made a public spectacle of all the powers and principalities of darkness, stripping away from them every weapon and all their spiritual authority and a power to accuse us. And by the power of the cross, Jesus led them around as prisoners in a procession of triumph, of victory. He was not their prisoner, but they were his.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you something, a public spectacle. Okay? It was a parade, a procession of his victory, of his triumph. It was a way of giving the people a picture of how complete the victory over Satan was because in the Roman times, when they had a Roman triumph, when they had a Roman victory, what they would do is they would have a parade, and they would have a procession, and they did this for two reasons. Number one, so that the hero would be celebrated, and number two, so that they would show you who the enemy was, and they could say, hey, this is the enemy that's defeated.
Speaker 1:You never ever ever have to worry about that enemy defeating you again because it's done. So Jesus is saying there is a parade, there is a procession because we never ever have to worry or fear the enemy. He has already been defeated. Jesus will be celebrated. He will be defeated never to be able to have victory over us again.
Speaker 1:That's good news. Amen. First John five four says, for every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. We are complete through salvation. We are complete through forgiveness.
Speaker 1:We are complete through victory. This is what completeness in him means. Apart from Christ, we are nothing. With him, we are everything. Apart from Christ, there is no salvation.
Speaker 1:With him, we are saved and have eternal life. Apart from Christ, there's no forgiven. With forgiveness, with him, we are totally and completely forgiven, past, present, and future. Apart from Christ, we have no victory. With him, we can't lose.
Speaker 1:Apart from Christ, we have no wholeness. With him, we are completely hold, completely filled enough. We are enough because of what he did. Jesus Christ was crucified, he rose from the dead, the Lord is over all, including us. We lack nothing, not one thing.
Speaker 1:May we never forget that? I was praying before I got here today, and tears just began dripping down my face. I said, God, I never ever wanna forget what you did for me. Because, see, I think what happens is we get so caught up in our daily lives and so caught up in just expecting things That we go on living our life, like, forgetting really, really, truly forgetting what he did. And he just brought to remembrance, Emily, I took Jesus to the cross, mocked, bruised, beaten, nailed to death, just so I could have life, so you could have life, so we can be called complete.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know. There was something that just switched in my mind that I said, God, I never ever wanna lose that wonder of your goodness, of what you really truly did, and what it truly means to be complete in you. And God, if I know what it means to be completely true in you, then I better live differently because of it. Because see, what we just went over was why we can call ourselves complete, how we can call ourselves complete. And so if that's our starting point, then how are we going to live differently knowing that that's our true identity?
Speaker 1:Since we are complete, we are not moved by the opinions of others. We take negative self talk, we replace it with truth. We take opinions of others, we throw them out the door. We take old names that God and the world or I'm sorry, we take old names the world has given us, and we replace them with God's name for us. Broken to whole, shamed to forgiven, defeated to victory.
Speaker 1:Since we are complete in Christ, we don't seek the approval of people around us. Paul said in Galatians one ten, obviously, I'm not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my God, I would not be Christ's servant. In everything, we are Christ's servants, that's to remain our mindset. We serve an audience of one.
Speaker 1:A pastor said this week, when we come to the end of our lives, we will not stand before people, but before God. Since we are complete in Christ, we walk in confidence. Confidence that he will give us exactly what we need in every situation. We have access to his wisdom because we are complete in him. Just two days ago, I was sitting helping one of my daughters with math, another one I was telling for probably the twenty fifth time that she needed to complete a chore that was still unfinished, and yet my third one was whining just a little bit because she stayed up way too late, and now the rest of us were paying the price for it.
Speaker 1:And I don't know, in that moment, like, every fruit I ever bared of patience fell off me completely. I didn't even have a blueberry. Nothing. Nothing was left. It was gone.
Speaker 1:It was like I forgot how to be a mom, I forgot how to love, I forgot how to say anything nice, and so I did the only wise thing I could think of, and I excused myself from the situation. I went to my room, and I slammed my door because I needed some quiet. If even just thirty seconds of quiet, I needed it. And I fell on my bed with my arms straight out, and I just said his name super loud, and I said, Jesus. Jesus.
Speaker 1:Because I don't know everything, but what I have learned is there's something that changes when we change our posture. Whether it's at home, whether it's at work, whether it's at church, whatever it is, when we change our posture, when we realign our thoughts, our actions, our words to the things of him, something changes. And I opened up my bible and I read this verse about 375 times, and it says, if you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. And I read it again, and I read it again, and I said, God, I need wisdom.
Speaker 1:Thank you for not rebuking me for asking. I need it. I need it. I need it. And I got up from that place, and I went back to each child, and I spoke to this one, and I spoke to that one, and I spoke to that one.
Speaker 1:See, because when we ask, he gives, and then we just obey. And even the whiny one came back three minutes later, and she was crying, and she said, mom, I'm so sorry for talking that way. Do you forgive me? Of course, I do. But it wasn't me, it was him.
Speaker 1:It was the wisdom that he gave me. I asked, he gave, I spoke, he did the work. Bill Johnson says, God already has solutions and answers to every problem we will ever face in our lifetime. Hallelujah. He leads, we follow.
Speaker 1:He takes care of the rest. We can walk in confidence because he gives us his direction. Proverbs three five and six, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.
Speaker 1:We seek, he guides, he directs. He gives us his authority. See, we have access to his authority because we are complete in him. A friend of mine took her husband to the airport to drop him off for our global team, and she texted me about thirty minutes after, and she said, Emily, we are under a spiritual attack. I just got home.
Speaker 1:I have a migraine. I need to take care of the kids. My husband, as soon as he got out of the car, his back went out. He is in so much pain. He can hardly walk, and he's getting on a fourteen hour flight to Africa.
Speaker 1:So what did we do? We took the authority that's given to us in Luke 10. Look, I've given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you. We stood on that verse and we said, God, you have given us authority to ask for this stuff to be removed from our lives, from distractions to be removed, from pain to be removed.
Speaker 1:And we began praying and interceding on her behalf. And two hours later, she called us, and she said, my migraine is gone. And fourteen hours later, she told me, my husband stood up on the plane, and what he was expecting to do was not be able to walk, but instead, the pain was gone, and he had just soreness. Hallelujah. We walk in God's authority.
Speaker 1:Since we are complete, we have a new name and a new identity. See, ladies, the old is gone, the new is common. When we acknowledge our new name and we believe in it, we will approach our daily lives differently. Complete, saved, forgiven, victorious. We need to train our brains to know that's who we are, and when we fully recognize it and understand it, I believe our lives are gonna look different than they did before we knew that.
Speaker 1:I was walking down the hall with a friend. We were at a hotel, and there were some other girls in front of us that we knew, and she my friend starts yelling, Mary. Mary, Mary. I said, what are you doing? And she said, I have to tell Mary something, and she's not listening.
Speaker 1:I said, well, that's because her name is Nancy. K. Ladies, Nancy had trained her brain to only answer to the name that the Lord had given her. When the world calls out different names that don't belong to us, do not even give them the time of day. Don't turn your head.
Speaker 1:Don't pay attention. Don't look their way. Train your brain to answer to the one name that he has given you. You have a new identity, a new name. You are complete.
Speaker 1:You are saved. You are forgiven. You are whole. Let me pray that over you. Lord, we thank you that you do give us wholeness, that we are complete in you, from you.
Speaker 1:Lord, I pray that if anybody in here had a name when they came in that wasn't from you, that that would be removed, stripped, gone from them today, erased. Lord, you delete it. You take it away and give them the new name that you speak over them, Lord. We thank you that we can walk in confidence because we are complete in you. Lord, I pray that you would direct, you would guide, you would lead, you would give us authority to live out the daily lives that you have for us.
Speaker 1:We thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen.