John: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Eagle Community Church of Christ podcast. My name is John Gunter. This week, we wrap up our series on, that we've been calling fix your focus. We finish with Romans chapter 8, first Thessalonians 5 and we loop right back around to where we started in, Colossians 3 verses 1 through 4.
And hopefully, you've gotten the challenge through this series. This is a challenge for all of us who have, put on Christ in baptism, a challenge to live what we've said we're gonna live, to live in a way that our life is hidden in Jesus, that we get out of the way and let Jesus shine through us. And so, again, hopefully, it's helpful for you, and, we'd love to have you visit us anytime you're in the area. Have a great week. It's also interceding for us.
The person you need interceding for you is sitting right beside God right now. When those prayers go up, you remember when we read about this that that the spirit searches our souls and and and knows what what what we need. That you may pray and you may think, well, I I don't pray right or maybe I need to get better at that. No. The spirit that lives inside of you searches your heart and soul and ask God, intercede for you with groanings that we don't even understand, that He is able to translate that and the person sitting beside God is Jesus Christ, who God sent for all of us.
That warms my heart and helps me when I pray. Do you ever feel like your prayer gets no higher than the ceiling? These verses here tell us otherwise, don't they? That God has shown you how much He loves you. He said, look at how much God loves you.
If God is for you, if He's that much for you, who can be against you? Who can stop this? And the answer is, no one or nothing. Right? No thing, no one.
No one condemns. Christ Jesus who died, more than that who was raised to life is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Pray those prayers. Jesus is there, talking to God on your behalf. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written, for your sake we face death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No. In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Because of him, because what he has done. We are conquerors. We can get through it. He asked all these questions. Do any of these things keep you from this?
The answer is what, church? No. It doesn't matter the hardship, it doesn't matter the sword, the battles, the nakedness, the things I'm struggling to get that I need. God loves you, and because He loves you, no one can conquer you. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of god that is in Christ Jesus, our lord.
I don't know. Some of y'all heard that this morning. Neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of god that is in Christ Jesus our lord. Amen? Part of that is your attitude towards him.
That if you want to cling to him, this is the promise. The question is, are you clinging to him? Have you decided, yeah, I'm gonna go where you go. I'm gonna let you lead me in my life, right? Now, we put Jesus in our pocket and hopefully, we baptize everything we come into contact with.
That I want to do this evil thing and we'll just call it good. No. That we follow Him, that as we follow Him, this is the promise. That God loves you. And again, God is not this God hovering over the book of life just waiting to get you, waiting around the corner trying to trip you up and see, John doesn't have it this week.
Out of the book of life, God loves you. That is the story of Scripture. God loves you. Do you understand that this morning? Nothing is going to separate us.
And that brings us back to a familiar passage, Hopefully, very familiar by this point. Since then, you have been raised with Christ. Set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Amen? This all comes back to this point, right? This point of, I pledge my allegiance to Jesus Christ through baptism into His life, death, resurrection. That I have pledged my life to this.
My life is now Him. There are a lot of things we plan for our life, but our life has to be in the image of Jesus Christ. This series has been Fix Your Focus on Jesus. Back in the late 90s, early 2000s, everybody had a What Would Jesus Do bracelet. We need to bring that back, don't we?
Just a reminder. Because a lot of times what we do is we read scripture and we compare scripture to either what we do or what other people do. We may read something in scripture and we go, well, what do you do in that situation? I am not the standard. He is the standard.
You are not the standard, He is the standard. And if what we do is come to Scripture and we're trying to get out of all the things that Jesus tells us to do, that is not life with him. That is not a life hidden with Jesus Christ. That is a life trying to be lived apart from Jesus. I'll bring up my Jesus whenever I feel like I need Him.
But our lives have to be hidden with Him. One more discussion from 1 Thessalonians 5. Paul says this, he says, Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates, we do not need to write you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like what? A thief in the night. We went through a whole Revelation series and throughout that series, I told you if you're trying to figure out when Jesus is coming back, you're doing it wrong.
Jesus says nobody knows but the Father. And we got folks blasting out on social media and TV and everything else, telling you, well, I know the next date. No. The day of the Lord is going to come like a thief in the night. You are not going to know.
And so you better prepare. We live our life not wondering what we do is maybe you don't do this, but I think what most of us do is, we we get told something from Scripture and we go, but where's the line? I can walk right beside. Where is that line? How close can I get?
I know it says 65 out there, but is 67 breaking along? Right? That's how we that's how we live a lot of time. But I wanna I wanna find the line. And what Jesus says, you know, live your life in a way that when the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night, you're not worried about that.
You are prepared because you have chosen to live your life for Him, do it. Just live it. Right? Maybe that would make a has anybody copyrighted that? We should just live at Eagle Community Church of Christ.
I am going to go trademark that in just a minute. Y'all don't beat me to it. But he's gonna come like a thief in the night. Be ready. Be prepared.
Live your life his way. He says, while people are saying peace and safety, destruction will come on them suddenly as labor pains on a pregnant woman and they will not escape. This is another way for us to say, it's been 2000 years. Yeah, Paul thought it was very soon, but it's been 2000 years. It's probably going to be 2000 more.
You don't worry about it. Have peace, You know, be safe. Don't live your life like that, Oh, He's not coming back, so I'm going to live a different way. That's what is implied here. No, live your life according to Him.
Peace and safety. Be ready. Live like Him. But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You don't live in darkness.
This shouldn't surprise you. Okay? You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then let us not be like others who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober.
Do you see, prepared? Awake, sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
He died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him. That is a big promise right there. What happens then when Jesus comes back and I'm not physically here? Paul says no. Whether you are awake or asleep, this is for you.
We may live together with Him. Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. This is a big point because we often think about this in such an individual manner. We are so focused right here that we forget that we are all in this together. Right?
We talked, I wish you were all in class, but we talked a few weeks ago about remember the story about the man who was lame and his friends brought him to the house and there were too many people in the house, and they said, I will come back next week and see if Jesus is still here. No, they didn't do that, did they? They lowered him through the roof. Can you imagine? It doesn't say what the homeowner did there.
He is calculating the call. My goodness. But it said Jesus says, their faith has saved you. Their faith. This morning, we read about a Roman centurion who didn't feel like I mean, he's from Rome.
He's not from Israel, but he didn't feel worthy to even go to Jesus and ask for his servant to be healed. He didn't even think he's worthy, especially not to come under his own roof, he tells Jesus that. But the faith that this man had saved the person he was concerned about. We are all in this together, Encourage one another and build each other up, just in fact you are doing. Sometimes we are really good about that church, and sometimes the church is more focused on tearing people down.
That's just the truth. Those of you who have been in church a long time have probably experienced that to some degree. That I am out to for my agenda or I am out to get get over on you or something. But it has nothing to do with encouraging and helping people come to Jesus. It is about getting what I want, what I desire.
Encourage one another. Build each other up. And luckily, for the Thessalonians, he says, Just in fact, you are doing. Great job. Keep it up.
So as we come to a place like this and we come to worship, we don't just come as individuals trying to hopefully worship was great. We come not only to worship God ourselves but to join in others, to worship Him together collectively, to encourage, to build up. You ever sat beside someone when they are gone, you really missed them in church? How about those people who are now asleep, they have gone on before you? How many of you can think of somebody right now that you would love to be sitting right beside you?
Yes. Maybe they were your loved ones, maybe they sang well, maybe they were just a fantastic person, you would love to have them right there. How much encouragement did you draw from them? Maybe you didn't even know it until they were gone. They moved away, they passed away, something.
But we draw encouragement, we draw strength from one another, and until we get that through our heads, we're never gonna get it. These chairs ought to be full of people that understand that. But I'm here for you, you're here for me to encourage, to build up, because God loves you. He cares for you. And, church, since you have been raised, live a life according to Him.
Do that. We're gonna finish as we have the last few weeks, reading from Hebrews 12, verses 12. I'm gonna ask you to stand, please. And again, I just wanna encourage you if your heart is not in this scripture this morning, which I think can be used as a prayer, why don't you take this time to pray to God to convict you, to want these things. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. He did all of this for you, sir. You've moved away from him, and we'd love to pray with you. We'd love to encourage you, as Paul has just asked the Thessalonians to do. We love to build you up, to let you know that you're not alone in this, in whatever you're going through in life, but to know that God loves you so much, this is what Jesus did for you.
If that doesn't touch your heart this morning, I don't I've got nothing else for you. But as we've prayed that this morning, let it affect your life. That every day that we come to scripture and we encounter God, that hopefully we walk away a better person. We walk away a person understanding God a little bit more and understanding his love for us. And as we understand his love, we take that into the world and show it to everyone we come into contact with.
We don't just love people that sit in this room. We love people outside. We love people that are hard to love. And some of the people that are hard to love may be in this room. But we understand the love of God for us.
We got an invitation song, picked out if you love the prayers of this church, love to pray with you, encourage you to, start to walk with him if you haven't done that, as we sing together.