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At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
Thanks for tuning in to the Sandals Church podcast. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, god, and others. We're glad you're here, and we hope you enjoy this message.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:When it comes to the spiritual life, there are many temptations that come our way on any given day or really any given season. Oftentimes, these temptations come as it relates to money. We face temptations in the spiritual life as it relates to the misuse of power and how we use the power we all have in our lives. There's temptations as it relates to our sexuality. There's temptations as it relates to the truth, and will we be people who walk in the truth as the Bible says.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But there is a temptation that I think is so universal and also, at the same time, so undetectable that all of us experience, and it's a temptation to lose the wonder of god. We miss out on the wonder. And this is why the Proverbs say that the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom. You guys might be familiar with that phrase. Now fear, you gotta understand, is not about being afraid, but it has to do with awe.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It has to do with wonder. So the wonder of god is the beginning of wisdom. So life begins for you and I as we rightly see God, the world, ourselves, when there's a sense of wonder and awe about who God is, then we begin to see ourselves. And that's what we gotta keep in mind, that when the bible speaks of fear, it's it's getting that wonder and this idea that you are in awe or something that you're seeing is rare. It's unexpected.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:There's a bit of a surprise to it. And I would imagine that all of us in our lives have had moments of wonder. I could think back to when I was 10 years old. I started playing basketball at the YMCA. As you would imagine, I rose to superstardom pretty quick as a 10 year old, And my parents gifted me my first pair of Air Jordans.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I had the Air Jordan thirteens. I opened that box, and you know what I saw? I saw wonder. I saw wonder. When Ash and I moved back from, Louisville, Kentucky back here to California in 2012, We stopped on our way home to see the Grand Canyon.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We'd never been there before. And when we walked up to the site that we were at and just took in the immensity of what we were seeing, what that was was wonder. To be in the presence of something so grand, so beautiful, you you couldn't help but get out of yourself for just a second. And I remember specifically, there was, like, this silence that was so loud and profound to be in front of something so massive and beautiful. You know what I saw that day?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I saw wonder that day. I can think back to 2007 on a Sunday night in my old room, on my knees crying because I tasted the love of Jesus for the first time. You know what that was for me? That that was wonder. I tasted wonder.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:All of us at some point in our lives know what it's like to experience wonder, but then at some point to lose that wonder. Why? Because we drift, and the wonder naturally, it begins to fade. And the danger that I would suggest for all of us is that as you and I begin to lose the wonder of Jesus, you actually had a ton of consequences come our way. The first being that we actually start to lose a sense of who we are because we've been in this series called image when we've been wanting to rightly understand who we are in Jesus and what it means to live from an identity that is fully alive and free and and full of Jesus in us.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And and if we lose a sense of who he is, we will constantly be fighting for a sense of who we are. We will we will naturally begin to misunderstand who we're called to be and the life that he has for us, and Paul makes this warning very clear there in Colossians too. Many people think this is why Paul wrote this letter to the church in Colossians where he said there, see to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. Now I find it ironic that Paul would say, see to it that no one takes you captive by hallow and deceptive philosophy, because Paul wrote this letter from prison. He was in captivity, and now he's making this warning, see to it that no one takes you captive, which tells me as a reader something that Paul understands, and it's this, this is a principle that is very true of life, you can be physically free but spiritually in captivity.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You can be bound by lies. In the same way, Paul can be physically in captivity, he's in prison, but he is spiritually free, And his concern for the Colossians is that they had lost sight of Jesus, they had lost sight of wonder in him, and that's why he goes on to say, for in Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form. And then he goes on to say that the fullness of God is in you too. Like, in other words, you've been made complete in Jesus, And his concern for the Colossians, listen up now, is not so much that they were dismissing Jesus, but that they were tempted to add to him. This is the temptation for all of us.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:As wonder starts to fade in your life for who God is, the temptation is not just to do away with him, but to try to add something to him. And anytime you and I add to Jesus, we take away from him. You subtract. It's addition by subtraction. You actually lose who he is because he is sufficient in himself.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Amen. The the good news of Christianity is that all that you can possibly need is found in the one who's inviting you to follow him. There's nothing to add. There's everything to to give up and to lose and so much to take as we find ourselves in him. And so today, what we need as we continue in this series is a fresh vision of who Jesus is and a deepening of wonder of who he is in our lives so that we might, again, rightly see who we are.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so with that in mind, I would ask that if you are willing and able that you would stand with me for the reading of God's word today. We take you in Colossians chapter 1 verse 15. Paul writes these beautiful words. The sun is the image of the invisible god, the firstborn over all creation. For in him, all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him, and he is before all things.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And in him, all things hold together, and he is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead so that in everything, he might have the supremacy. For god was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. This is God's word. Let's pray together.
Danielle Crowley:We are so glad that you are with us today. If this message has served you in any way or you would like to be a part of the work that we are doing here at Sandals Church, I wanna invite you to give today. You can do that by going to give.sc@anytime. And for right now, let's get right back into the message with pastor Fredo.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Father, what a gift what a gift it is for us to gather here today and to hear your word read, and we ask now, god, that you would speak to us from it. That as Jesus said, you would give us ears to hear and eyes to see so that we might become all that you've called us to be in Christ. We pray these things in his name. Amen. Amen.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Thank you so much. You may be seated. Now as I mentioned, Paul is the, writer of this letter to the church in Colossae. What what you gotta understand though is even though he wrote the letter to the church, he did not plant the church. This is one of the few letters, that we have in the New Testament in the library of scripture where Paul is writing to a church that he didn't plant.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What's interesting, a man, we're told in chapter 1 by the name of Epaphras, is the one who planted this church. And so he's the one who started this community, but what he began to notice was that there was a drift. There was a loss of wonder, and so he reaches out to Paul for help. And so Paul writes this letter and and is designed to help this church once again discover what it means to be in Jesus and, more specifically, to see that Jesus is more than enough for us. And the structure of Colossians 1, I think, is brilliant.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It it goes from what I would say is like a a prelude or a prologue to, a prayer and then to the poem that we just read together. Colossians 115 by many is regarded as this kind of piece of poetry that the church had early on, and it's great because it starts with a prologue though. In Colossians chapter 1 as Paul normally does when he writes a letter, he gives us 2 fantastic, beautiful words that all of us need to live by, and it's this, grace and peace. Grace and peace. There's no better way to start a letter than to say grace and peace.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:No better way to start your day than to say grace and peace. Like, imagine waking up and the first thing you you say to your spouse is grace and peace. Now go brush your teeth, right, or something. Or when your kids are knocking on the door because they want waffles, respond to them with grace and peace. And I realize that illustration sounds a bit personal, but or you get on the freeway.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Grace and peace. You get to work. Grace and peace. How might your life look differently if you have the capacity to start as Paul did with this letter with those two simple words, grace and peace? He moves in from that prelude or prologue into what many refer to as this prayer for Colossians where he's praying that they would be filled with the knowledge of God.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What a beautiful way to be praying for people that that all of God's knowledge and and all of what you know about him would continue to grow in such a way that you continue to walk in the way of Jesus. What a way to pray for someone that the knowledge of God would fill your entire being. So he goes from prologue to prayer and then now to this beautiful poem that we read starting there in verse 15. And this poem, as you start to see, is a way for Paul to help recover a sense of wonder in Jesus. The first thing that he does to help us there is by telling us that Jesus is the one who holds together the picture of what god is like.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Jesus holds together the picture of what God is like. He says there in verse 15, the sun is the image of the invisible God. Meaning that when you look at Jesus, do you know who you're looking at? You're looking at God. To see Jesus is to see God.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:To to to understand that all of what God is is to see Jesus for all who he is. There is no subtraction in him. Everything that makes God God, Jesus himself is. And so if you're asking, what is God like today? Look no further than the man Jesus.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And I would imagine many of you who who have come here to Sandals Church, you've you've maybe stumbled in with all kinds of, questions, issues, ideas even about what you think about god. And listen. That's very natural for a lot of us. In fact, all of us at some degree throughout the course of our lives have built in us a a picture of who we think god is like, and we've done that, combination of stuff from things like culture, family background, previous religious experiences, even movies shape the way we think god is like. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You watch Bruce Almighty and then you convince yourself, god sounds like Morgan Freeman. Like, that's a real thing. Other people ideas about God. Right? I remember being a high school teacher for a number of years before I came here to work at Sandals, and, I would love to have conversations with students where they would tell me why they've rejected Christianity, and then I would surprise them with this statement.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Well, I don't believe that either about God. And then I would ask him, who told you God was like that? And I say that not because I'm the pompous teacher who knows it all, but I'm simply saying allow scripture to speak for itself because all of us have kind of put together a picture of what we think God is like, and Paul is saying in verse 15, all of that might be wrong, and Jesus is the truest image of who God is. Right? He's the exact representation of the invisible God.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He goes on in this poem to say that he's also the firstborn over all creation. Now what he's not saying at this moment is that Jesus is the first one created by God. If you ever have a J Dub come to your door, a Jehovah Witness, we call them for shorthand, J Dub, they're out. Especially when it's hot, they're dressed very nice. They're incredibly kind people.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But at the same time, I would say, humbly, that that they have a misunderstanding about Jesus. And they use this verse actually as a way to try to convince you that what they know about Jesus is actually more accurate than what maybe you've been taught. They say because Jesus, he's the firstborn. He's not God. He was created by God, and they'll take you to this verse, the firstborn of creation.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But what you gotta understand is that this word here, firstborn, it it's referring to the language of preeminence, not of chronological birth order. Order. The same thing is said in Psalm 89. If you're familiar with that psalm, it's a psalm where, god is describing how he's using his servant David and and this kingly role that David plays and, ultimately, who David points to, which is Jesus, eventually. And it says there in Psalm 90 9 that David was anointed by God, that he is the servant in God's hand, and then it says that he made David the firstborn.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Now, any of you who might read that would would say, well, wait a minute now. Is David really the firstborn? Quick bible quiz. What's the order of David in the line of his family? It's all quiet in here now.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He's the last. He's the youngest. It's safe to say, he's the he's the youngest. Right? He's the last born, and so what the psalmist is saying is the same thing that Paul is saying in Colossians 1.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's not a issue of chronology. It's an issue of ranking. He is the preeminent one, and and Paul is saying that there was essentially no one above Jesus. He's the firstborn of creation. In other words, he ranks above everybody else.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:There was no one like him. There was no debate to be had about Jesus. The person that we're dealing with is, in fact, the one who is preeminent. He stands above everything. There's no debate.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Now in culture today, we know a lot about debates. We're about to have a lot more coming up this fall, but there's some lighter ones. Right? Like Pepsi or Coke. That's really not a debate.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's Coke. I'm sorry, guys. It's Coke. The debate I have with my son, Messi or Ronaldo. And he's like, Ronaldo.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Then he hits me with the suey, you know. The debate I'm familiar with is, MJ or or LeBron. MJ or LeBron. I'd like to just see Kobe in the conversation a little bit more. He should be in there, but that's a different sermon for a different time.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We have debate about Handles ice cream or Thrifty's ice cream. There's a brand new Handles by the house, and I'm there probably every other day of the week. I go to Windows 6, I order online, I'm so quick to get in. So when I say, hey, Pastor Fredo, I'm not Fredo that day, I'm just a regular bystander wanting my banana cream pie real quick. But we have all these debates, and they will go on for the rest of human history.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Debates about Star Wars or Harry Potter. The answer is Star Wars. Right? We got 1 1 person. But what Paul is saying here, if he's in fact the firstborn, the exact image of God, there is no debate about Jesus.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:There was no one quite like him, no one who can heal like him, no one who can save like him, no one who can forgive like him, no one who can restore like him. He is, in fact, the preeminent one, the supreme one. He is, as the the the Bible tells us, the king of kings and the lord of lords. Jesus is simply the one, and there is none like him. Amen.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And then he goes on to say that he is the head of the body, that is the church, meaning there's no personality that leads this church. There's no celebrity that leads this church. The church isn't rooted and fueled by social media influence and who's cool and what's the nice thing to do today. The church is led by the resurrected lamb, Jesus. He's the head.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? He runs all of it, and so our leaders, they submit to Jesus and we're all here because they do a good job of submitting to Jesus. He's the head and he's more than a teacher. Paul's making that very clear. He's more than a healer.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He's more than the exact, you know, kind of best religious guru that you can think of. He is, in fact, the image of God in human form. Now, if Paul is saying all of that to help stir up our wonder and maybe you're still sitting there a bit like, okay. My my question to you is this, if if you believe that all of that is true of Jesus, why is he simply someone you only deal with on Sundays? If in fact, he is the one that's ranked above everything else, why can't you trust him with your sexuality?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:If he in fact is is worthy of everything bowing to him in creation, why would we think we're in the right to question him? Now I'm not saying you can't bring questions to Jesus, but be careful to question Jesus. And I'm saying it's okay to have doubts about Jesus, but allow those doubts about Jesus to not be a cliff that you fall over, but to be a bridge that you actually cross to better understand who he is. He is, in fact, the preeminent one. And if he is the firstborn, my god, he needs to own more of our lives than just Sunday or Saturday night or when things are rough.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He is not like the little, you know, rabbit's foot you pull out your pocket when you're having a hard day. He is the one who is walking with you in the hard day. He knows what it's like to be you because he is like one of us, the the preeminent one. So wonder is what we need. And the second thing that I want us to see is not only is he holding together the picture of who Jesus is, but Jesus holds together meaning and purpose for my life and all of life.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Notice carefully the language here in verse 16. All things have been created by him, through him, and for him, meaning Jesus was the agent that made absolutely everything. The Bible says God made the world. He created it all, and it also says that Jesus made it all. What's the answer?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Yes. But not only that, it says that Jesus is the one for which all these things were made, which means he's the point of absolutely everything. Jesus is the point of oceans. He's the point of sharks. He's the point of seashells.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He's the point of mountains, of sunsets, of insects, of human history, of the arts, of music, of movies, of television, of tacos. Jesus is the point of all of it. He is the absolute reason for why everything exists. It's him. It's him.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It always was him. It will always be him. Everything is for Jesus, which means then he is in fact one that you can turn and say thank you to once in a while for all the stuff you have. And so to find yourself in him and to realize that your image is a reflection of him, that is a beautiful thing. That means to enjoy life as he made it for himself is a good thing.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:There is nothing restrictive about this Christian view. This is full liberation. This is what life is to the full. It's to see it was all for him, by him, and back to him, Paul says. So then then to find yourself in him, which is a lot of in him's, I know.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It is to actually be set free to be who you're called to be. And I say this because so much of our world today is convinced that meaning and purpose must be found within yourself. And I'll be honest, it's a very liberating and empowering statement today that you are to look within yourself to discover who you are on your own terms and to do whatever you most want to do. And, again, that that sounds exciting at first, but the danger is you don't take into consideration how fragile you are as a person. So that if you actually define yourself by this desire, what happens when that desire is gone?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Or if you just, kinda define yourself by this, you know, career path, what happens when that's gone? In other words, all of these various kinds of identities, they are not strong enough to hold up what Jesus can hold up. They won't last. He's before all things, and Paul even tells us that in all things, he's holding it together. He's holding it together.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:This is the phrase that I want just to to sit in for the rest of our time today. Jesus holds all things together. Amen. Why is this good news? Because if Jesus is holding all things together, that means you can stop trying to.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You can stop trying to. That's good. That's good. I like it. And my hope then is that you would be able to take a deep breath and understand that you don't have to hold it all together.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You don't have to have it all together, and you could confess that you don't have the capacity to do it on your own. This is a wonderful invitation to see the one who actually is holding it all together. You see, oftentimes, we tend to view ourselves and our identities, the various things that we say are true about us, and as we kind of attach ourselves to things like I'm I'm a dad or I'm a pastor or I'm the man of the house or I'm an independent woman or I'm a young mom who's discovering all the way all the right ways to raise my kids, so you should follow me on social media. All of these various identities, though they might be partially true, they are not the deepest truth. And all of these identities begin to convince us of this lie, which is that the false self will convince us that because I am blank, whatever that is, that I must be able to hold it all together.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So let's you know, the man of the house. You're the man of the house. You're the provider. You gotta hold it all together. It's all riding on you.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That is a lie. That is not true. For you young moms out there, it is a beautiful thing to to raise that child, and it is so true that most of your life will be given as a sacrifice for the well-being of that child, whether they are grateful or not. But to convince yourself so early on that you must be the one who holds it all together is a lie that will crush you. For those of you who are finishing college and you got this idea that, man, by 22, you have to have it all figured out, that is a lie that will crush you.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:To be stepping into middle school, thinking that, man, I better find my place with whoever I think is great around here or else, like, you know, it's all gonna fall apart. That is a lie that will crush you. Somebody else is much more qualified to be Jesus, and it's not you. He's holding it all together so that, real practically now, you and I can embrace our limitations. As great as the various ways that we tend to identify ourselves are, they're all very limited.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They're all very limited. And guess what? That's a gift. We are not meant to do everything and to be everything. Our bodies, they cannot keep going at this rate.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You can't hold it all together. And I wanna imagine that that so many of you, you need to come to a place where you can say, man, I can't hold this all together, but Jesus can, so let me let me step away. You know what that's called? It's called Sabbath. You should try it.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You know, for some of you, you have convinced yourself that this is who you are, and so what you do now is you add more to your plate. And you you realize that, you know, week in week out, you find yourself crushed and crushed again by the weight of the world. And and so we need this word, I think, because all of us at some level, young or old, we know how to over function. Meaning you start to do for someone else what they should be doing for themselves. We do this in our relationships.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We do this in our jobs. We do this in our calling for god. We start to over function, meaning we start to do things that god has never called us to do, and then we get resentful afterwards. Like, god, what did you make me do? He never asked you to do that.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Some of you today, you're carrying something that god has not asked you to carry. You need to let it go. That's right. He's holding it all together. Some of you are trying to walk down a path that god has not called you on.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You need to stop and turn around and go a different direction. You're trying to do too much. Now, I I wanna be careful here. There's a little bit of nuance, and the first thing is this, This isn't a verse that just relinquishes us all of responsibility. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Like, you just say, well, god's holding it all together. I'm gonna just relax for the rest of the day and watch some Netflix. It's not the idea here. But the idea is that this verse appeals to the reality that we have responsibility, but to also notice all the ways in which we have crossed the line in our lives with god. And we have ignored the wonder and awe that Jesus is actually holding it all together, and we haven't embraced some of our limitations.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Some of you have situations right now in your life that are bogging you down, and guess what? They should have never been there in the first place. Maybe it was an attempt for you to hold together more than what you're being invited to hold together, And the false self, that that old version of who we think we are, is is trying to convince you that this is who you must be for other people. This is who you must be for yourself, and and the reality is God's never called you to that, and so set it down. What you're carrying right now, set it down.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What what's frustrating you right now because you don't know how to fix it, set it down. Just just set it down because the weight of living under that will make you an ugly person, a frustrated person. Guess what? A person who has lost the wonder of Jesus. Because suddenly, what you have started to believe about yourself and God is that my life would be meaningful if I had Jesus plus this.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Whatever it is you've convinced yourself you wanna hold on to, Jesus and not my singleness anymore, or Jesus and a comfortable life, or Jesus and the attention I believe I need at this point in my life. You got you got to let it go. It's crushing you. It's crushing a lot of us, and so as you take in these words that he is the preeminent one, the one above all things, Be released to know that there's there's really one Jesus, and he's really good at being Jesus, and and we can we can let things go, including the false ideas we have about ourselves and the kind of people we're called to be. And I said it because I would imagine that today, some of you have walked into church and you are falling apart.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You're falling apart. And so the good news for you today is that not only is Jesus holding all things together, he's holding together the parts of me that are falling apart. Listen to verse 18. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead. Meaning, he's not only the preeminent one in all of life, he is the preeminent one over all of death.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He stands above everything, both living and dead, which is why Paul says so that he might have the supremacy, meaning in any part of physical reality or spiritual reality, Jesus stands above it all. Like, even if you are separated from God forever, you know who's king down there? Jesus is still the king there. Yes, sir. He's still supreme there.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He is the the one who stands above every component and molecule in all of reality, and he's very good if he is the firstborn from among the dead. He is very good at bringing things back to life that are dying, which is why we can say confidently that Jesus is holding together the parts of me that are falling apart. And to receive the invitation to allow Jesus to do for you and in you what you cannot do in yourself today. So the parts of you that you're that you are realized, like, is dying, let Jesus hold that together, and let him make it new, not you. The the parts of you that you feel like are slipping away right now in your life, let him hold those things together, not you.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:The the parts of you that you know for sure like that's dead, That friendship, dead. That career dream, that's been dead. Right? There's no more money either for that. Whatever that is, know that if he is the firstborn among the dead, then he's very good at making things new in your life.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And not in the sense that he starts over with you, but that he actually using he he he uses what has died, and he brings it back to life. That's what's great about Jesus. He's not good at doing do overs. He's good at using what's dead to make alive again. Amen.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so confess what in your life is falling apart and know that he's here to mend it. Know that he's here to to to put you back together. Know that he's here to make you new in in such more of a profound way that the only response you can have is with awe and wonder, to be amazed at at what he's done. If you don't choose that, here's our other options, and we know them, because so much of human life is our attempt to be held together. This is why people, when you think about it, they turn to drugs, they turn to alcohol, They turn to addictive behaviors.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Why? Because life gets very difficult. Amen, somebody. Life gets very hard, and so we try to hold ourselves together in these moments. So what do we do?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We turn to alcohol. We turn to drugs. We turn to our distractions. We turn to busyness. We turn to work.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We turn to overfunctioning. We turn to sex. We turn to pleasure. We turn to vacation. The summer will fix us, and then you hit August, you got 0 money, and you realize you are not fixed still.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We turn to all kinds of things as an attempt to hold ourselves together, but then you realize that you're just in a deeper hold than you were when you first started. And so the invitation now, as we rediscover who we are in Jesus, is to allow him to hold together the parts of you that are falling apart. And here's how this works real practically now. We're held together in prayer. Prayer is not a practice of you just getting before God, giving him a list, expecting him to do it.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Prayer is about union and communion with the God who loves you and sees you. The next time you go to pray, just say, God God, would you would you hold this part of my life together right now? This is why we we go to scripture. We are held together in scripture. Words, the words of god are nourishment for the soul.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They're meant to hold us together. We read not because we we wanna feel good about ourselves, because we wanna text our friend what we read that day. We read to be held together by the very words of god. Words hold us together. They're holding us together.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We're held together by community. This is one of the most profound ideas in the new testament is that Jesus holds you with Jesus's people. This is how you're held together. You you allow God to hold you up and and to to hold the parts of you that are falling apart as you give yourself to people. We're held together by worship.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We're we're held together when our minds are pulled apart and distracted in all kinds of places, and so each and every week and throughout the course of our week, we give ourselves time to sing words that are true about God because we need to be held together. And you find yourself that you you have to take a moment to sing, you gotta take a moment just to cry out to God what your what your soul needs to say to him, and songs are a profound way to be held together by god. This is this is one of the reasons why I've I've lately, I'll be honest with you, I'm a terrible singer, I love to sing with my staff, but I'm so bad at it. But then when it comes to Sunday, I do struggle to sing. It's weird.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So I was like, what I can't do on Sunday, I try to do in the office, you know. But I've I've lately taken the practice of of just trying to open my hands and I lift them. And I say that not because, the bridge is coming. I'm like, alright. Here comes the bridge.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:The bridge. Hands. You know? Which is I know a lot of us. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That chorus hits. Here come the hands. But but I'm opening hands and I'm lifting hands because this is a way for me to acknowledge how I need to be held. When you think about singing, singing almost produces, like, very little efficiency. Like, when you're broke, like, what's singing gonna do?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But in and of itself, it is a good. Right? In in other words, it doesn't have to have something that's productive afterwards. The the very act of singing is the good itself. And so lifting hands for me is a way for me to say, god, you're actually holding all things right now, and I'm distracted.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I'm thinking about this or that, and and so I got I got to physically open my hands, and I gotta lift them from time to time, whether I like the song or not, whether I think it sounds like whole play or not. Right? I lift the hands because it's a way for me to say, man, through singing, God is holding me, and he's particularly holding the things in my life that I know and sense are falling apart. And and so when you ask this very simple question, what is holding you together today? Whether you realize it or not, it is Jesus Christ.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Amen. The person that is holding your family together today, whether you realize it or not, it is Jesus the Christ. What is holding your mental health together today, it's Jesus Christ. What's holding your spiritual life together today? It's Jesus Christ.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:If you're falling apart, I got good news for you today, friends. Jesus is here to hold you together. He's here to hold you together. And maybe for some of you, you're still thinking, well, why should I trust this Jesus? And lastly, this this is why.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Jesus holds us together because he allowed himself to be torn apart. He allowed himself to be torn apart. Verse 20, Colossians 1, and through him this is now Paul speaking about Jesus again. Through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace, listen now, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. So what Paul is saying is that as the world, because of sin, your sin and my sin, falls apart, Jesus steps in, dies on the cross, and pulls it all back together.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:How does he do that? By allowing himself to be torn apart. This is the mystery of the gospel. This is what makes Paul say in Corinthians, what we preach is foolishness to the world. It's stupid to the world.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You win by losing? You live by dying? Yes. Jesus actually proved to the universe that he was in fact holding it all together when he allowed himself to be torn apart. So that as you deal with real situations in your life right now and you're maybe still skeptical as to whether or not Jesus can hold it together, consider for the moment that he actually he can bring it he can bring it back together.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He can put those parts of you back together and bring new life. And and what's so comforting to me as I read that passage is when Paul says, by making peace. By making peace. The word in Hebrew is shalom. It is what we're told the garden was like before sin, peace.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Peace is that sense of restoration that all things are in alignment again. It's not so much that everything is going according to plan, but that it means that you you in fact are walking in what God has called you to walk in. He's made peace, and he is continuing to make peace in the world through this one great act. And so the invitation for us as we close today is to ask god, would you hold me together, and may I experience that peace? Many of you, I would imagine, are in lives that are not just falling apart, but they are chaotic in a lot of ways.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:The good news for us is that Jesus has made peace today. He's made peace, and you can walk in that. So let's receive that together today. Let's go to prayer. Heavenly father, what a gift it is to consider the reality that you are holding all things together.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Because you are, we can have peace. And so, god, I pray now specifically that anyone who is hearing this word might in their own moment of confession, humility, and courage cry out to you and ask you to hold them and ask you to give Jesus's peace to them. God, would we find ourselves not as the kinds of people who can keep it all together, but as the kinds of people who are being held together by Christ. Would you do that work in us now by the power of your holy spirit? We pray all these things in Jesus name.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Amen.