Well, I'd like to invite you this morning to take your Bible to the book of Colossians, and we'll find our way to the very end of the fourth chapter. It seems that just a few weeks ago, I stood and had the privilege of being before you to preach the very first sermon in our series, Christ in You, the hope of glory. And I have been looking at that red paperclip the entire semester. And I have it in a place in my office and I see it regularly. And it's been a reminder to me that as we have been making our way through the book, there is a central application to a primary truth that Paul has been talking about for four entire chapters. And that application is this, we need to hold onto our hope. and that hope is Christ in us, the hope of glory. This has been an encouraging reminder to me as I've been reading through the book of Colossians these past numbers of months and then coming to this very end and looking at the text that is before me. Now I have to admit when I got this passage I thought what in the world am I going to do with this? Let me read it to you and you decide what we might do with this together. This is right in the very last half of the final greetings that we start in verse 7. So really, if you're kind of wrapping up the book of Colossians, the application part of it appears to end in verse 6. And then all of a sudden, Tychicus, who is apparently the scribe that Paul is using, because you remember, Paul is writing this from prison, and he is in bonds, and we're gonna see that at the very end. And so he has somebody writing down what he is saying to them as he is talking in his heart and from his heart to the church at Colossae. I've often wondered what that would look like. I have in my mind the Apostle Paul. sort of walking up and down in this confined place, maybe just barely able to move around, perhaps chained to a Roman soldier. Tychicus there as a guest, visiting Paul, giving the report that has come back from the church at Colossae, certainly Epaphras as well has communicated to Paul what is going on here. And Paul, after taking a moment to pray and reflect, starts talking. And out of his heart comes the incredible truth that we have been looking at for the entire book. And then at the end he starts giving these final greetings. And in my mind sometimes we look at this part of a letter sort of like what we would do when the movie that we've been watching has its closing scene and then all of a sudden the credits start rolling. And I think sometimes in our mind, that's what happens. And so in verse seven, Tychicus is introduced to them and Paul says, he will tell you about all my activities. And then in verse nine, he mentions Onesimus, who is going to become the subject of the entire next little letter that Paul is gonna dictate, the letter of Philemon. And then he mentions Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, and Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. And then we read about in verse 11, Jesus, who is called Justice. And then Paul says, now, these are the only men of the circumcision. These are the only Jews who are among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God. And I want you to know something about them. They have been an encouragement to me. And then of course, as we heard last week, as Dr. Hankins reminded us and sort of unfolded the ministry of Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Jesus Christ. And then down in verse 14, Luke, the beloved physician, and then Demas is mentioned. And then here's the portion that was assigned to me, verse 15. Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea and to Nympha. We really don't have any real idea who she is. and the church in her house. All we know about Nympha is that apparently she was in the city of Colossae and she was someone who had enough substance and enough wealth to have a house that was big enough for the believers at Colossae to meet it. And then verse 16, when this letter, the one I'm writing to you, has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans. And see that you also read the letter from Laodicea. And say to Archippus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord. And then in verse 18, I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you. I took these verses and began to meditate on them and I began to ask the Lord, help me to understand what the Apostle Paul was trying to do in this section of the book. Now I want you to think for a moment about the central message of the book of Colossians. There is one overarching truth that the Apostle Paul is determined to keep before the Colossian believers, and it is a very simple truth. Jesus is supreme. I mean, if you want to boil the entire theological truth that Paul is trying to drive home into the heart of believers who knew Jesus, who loved Jesus, and who were following Jesus in the city of Colossae, but were struggling with one important reality. That reality was this, you need to make sure that you understand and that you see and that you embrace this overarching theological truth, Jesus Christ is supreme. And there's no better place where Paul has unfolded that than right away in the first chapter. So let me have you turn back very quickly and I want you to see this truth because it's going to come into play as we think about how Paul closes out the letter. Look at chapter one and notice how Paul begins to drive this truth home to the Colossian believers and really to our own hearts. Look at verse 15. We find there that Paul reminds the Colossians that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. If you want to know who God is and what he is like, God has given to you an icon. That's the idea. He's given to you an exact image. If you wanna understand what God is like and who He is and you wanna understand His heart, there is no better representation of it than in the person of Jesus Christ. In verse 15, He is the firstborn of all of creation. He is the highest ranking person in the entire universe. In verse 16, He is the creator of all things. In verse 17, he is the sustainer of all things. In verses 18 and 19, he is the ruler over all things. And then in verse 20, he is the redeemer and the reconciler of all things. So it's no wonder that at the end of verse 18, the Apostle Paul sort of brings out this truth, Jesus is supreme, therefore he must have the preeminence. So as you and I read the book of Colossians and as we've been listening to preaching from this book, that's the heart of the Apostle Paul. His burden is that we would recognize a truth that we have heard and we have known and that we embraced as believers, that Jesus Christ is supreme. And because he is supreme, he must have the preeminence. in our own lives, in our own worlds, in our own personal domain. Paul put it this way in chapter three, if you have then been raised with Christ and you have, seek those things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. That's the application of what it means to have Jesus in the preeminent place in our lives. And that brings us to what we want to examine this morning. And I wanna begin that examination with two very simple questions that I think I have had to ask myself and I hope that you'll ask yourself this morning. Number one, how has this series changed our lives? We've been together now for many weeks listening to the book of Colossians being preached to us. We've been reading it in our own personal time before the Lord. How has what we have heard, how has this series actually changed our life? What are the spiritual takeaways? that you have gathered from the Spirit of God as you have listened week after week to the messages that have come out of this book. What are the takeaways? What are the truths that God has helped you to see? How has this series changed our life? And then number two, how are we incorporating what we've learned in our life so that we actually not just read and heed, but actually remember? these truths for the rest of our life. In other words, how has the book of Colossians interacted with you so that it has made a permanent impact and what God has taught you and what God has taught me are being personally and presently reflected in our life? And I think that's the purpose that Paul has in mind for this closing. And I think as we look at the text that begins in verse seven and goes down to verse 18, Paul is actually giving you some takeaways that ought to really bring the book of Colossians to life for you and that will help you as you live your life to reflect the truth that Jesus Christ is supreme. So let's look at those truths. Let me give them to you very quickly. Number one, one of the main takeaways I think that we find in these last verses that we have before us is the importance of being connected to the fellowship of believers. And you can see that in verse seven, going all the way down to verse 11. Paul sends greetings to the Colossian believers, and as he greets them, he reminds them, and he reminds us as we read this, that they and we are part of a great and growing fellowship of believers who, like them, have become convinced that the glory of God rests in the face of Jesus Christ. In other words, he looks at the Colossians and he says to them, you've heard the gospel, When Epaphras came in your midst, way back in chapter one, you heard the gospel, you understood the gospel, your eyes were opened. You saw the truth, you received the truth, you believe the truth, you embrace the truth, and you have been transformed by the truth. And when that happened to you, you became part of something much bigger than a small group of believers in the city of Colossae. You joined a universal fellowship. You know what, this morning as we sit here, we are members and regular attenders of Calvary Baptist Church and it is a great thing. I remember when my family came to Greenville a few years ago and we were in the process of looking for a church and we came to visit Calvary Baptist Church and we never visited another church. This is where God had us. This is where God connected our hearts. This is a great church. When I travel and I have the opportunity to preach and teach and talk to people about the church, this is the church that's on my heart. This is the church that our family loves. But do you understand that we are not the only church? We are part of a great universal fellowship of believers all around the world. And this fellowship goes way beyond racial identity or social status. I mean, think about the names that we read about in verses seven down to verse 11. I mean, we read about Jews and Gentiles. We read about Jews like Aristarchus and Mark and Justice and Gentiles like Epaphras and Luke and Demas. We read about slaves like Anesimus and noblemen like Archippus. This extends way beyond a person's religious background. When you think about these names, some of them are raised up in Jewish monotheism and others came out of pagan idolatry. And it extends way past past reputation and past offenses. We're reading about a man named Onesimus, a runaway slave. And Paul says to us, he is a faithful and beloved brother. He is one of us. Paul says if you wanna take a truth away from the supremacy of Jesus Christ, understand that you are connected to an amazing fellowship of believers. When you think about this fellowship and the people that are in it and the backgrounds that they have and what they have and don't have in common, everybody in this universal and unique fellowship has been convinced of one reality, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, that He was the Son of the living God, and that He really is the way, the truth, and the life, and that nobody comes to the Father except by Him. And that is what unifies the entire worldwide fellowship together. Paul says, if you want to take something away from the book of Colossians that will help you remember the supremacy of Christ and give him the preeminence, remember to be connected to this incredible and amazing fellowship. of believers. But there's a second thing that we see here in the text, and that is this. Not only are we to be connected to an amazing fellowship of believers, but we are to be transformed by the ongoing power of the gospel that we believed and we heard about Jesus. Notice what we read in verse 12. Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God, for I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and Hierapolis. Now we heard a phenomenal message last week from Dr. Hankins where he unfolded in great detail and with great impact the ministry that Epaphras had in prayer for the body of Christ. But do you realize that as you came into this incredible fellowship that that began with God opening your eyes so that you would believe something unbelievable. I mean, has it ever occurred to you how unusual it is that you actually believe with all of your heart things that you would never believe in any other realm? Let me give you an example. If somebody were introducing to you a young lady and her infant child, and they were saying to you, now this child was actually born to this woman, and when this child was born, this woman was still a virgin, would you believe that? I mean, the average person with any sense of understanding about how biology works and how life happens is going to look at that and there is going to be an immediate disconnect. Or if you were introduced to somebody and the people who were introducing you to this person said to you, now, I want you to know an unusual fact about this person. There was a time when he was dead and we actually buried him. And three days later, he rose again from the tomb. There would be an immediate moment of disconnect in your mind. You would be disconnected from that statement, but you would also wonder about the person who was telling you these things. But when Epaphras came and he told you those things about Jesus, an amazing thing happened. You believed. And you didn't just like nod your head and go, okay, You opened your heart. These truths seized you. They wouldn't let you go. And the gospel captured you to the point that you are willing to put your life on the line for these truths. And these truths have been growing in you and they have been transforming you so that people who see you know that something is different about you. Paul says, now you take that away from this book. You are connected to an amazing fellowship of believers. You are being transformed by the ongoing power of the gospel and all of this is happening because of something that is coming to you. And this is the third thing we see in the text. You need to be submitting to the word of truth. Look at verse 15. Paul says, give my greeting to the brothers at Laodicea. There is another group of believers gathering in a church, maybe a home, very similar to the one at Colossae, and they have been reading a letter that has come into their possession that has been written by the Apostle Paul. Now most of us think that that letter was probably the letter in our Bible that is the letter to the Ephesians. Many of these letters were circular letters and they would go from church to church and there apparently was a letter that was being read in the city of Laodicea and Paul was burdened that the Colossians get that letter and have it read in their midst. and he was burdened that this letter that he was sending to them would be read in their midst and then would be sent to the believers in Laodicea. You say, well, what in the world are we to make about this interesting detail? And I would suggest that a detail like this in our Bible helps us to recognize the importance of Scripture. Paul is actually using very strong language here when he says to these Colossian believers, now you make sure, you make sure this is happening. You make sure to accomplish this. When you have read this letter, we'll talk about that in just a moment, make sure that it gets read in the city of Laodicea and make sure, see to it, that you read the letter that I left with them. They needed to hear about the supremacy of Christ and you need to hear about the significance of the church. You need to understand the truth that I put in the letter that I wrote to Ephesians, which is different than the truth that I'm committing to you. And so as we think about the way that Paul wrote the letters that make up a significant portion of our New Testament, each of them is designed for a congregation that needs to know a certain aspect of the larger truth of the Christian faith. That's why we need all of the scripture. That's why we read what we read out of 1 Timothy, where Timothy is reminded to give attention to the public reading of the scripture. It's not just that we need to recognize the significance of the scripture, we need to read it publicly. Now, let me stop for a moment and have you observe something in verse 16. When this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of Laodiceans and see that you also read the letter that is with them. Sometimes I think when we talk about reading our Bible, we talk about it in a very different context than what we have here in the first century. When you and I ask each other, are you reading your Bible? Most of us read our Bible regularly, but I would venture to say, I would almost bet that hardly any of us regularly read it out loud. When I read my Bible, I sit at my desk and I open up the Word of God and I read it. And I read it silently. I read it reflectively. I read it prayerfully. I read it repentantly. And that's a very, very important part of how you grow and how I grow as a believer. But I don't think that's exactly what the Apostle Paul has in mind. I think that's a very important component of our own personal walk with God. But what I think Paul has in mind here is the public proclamation that needs to happen at the heart of the regular gathered assembly of the believers at Colossae and at the believers. when they gather together in Laodicea." In other words, I think Paul is talking about the proclamation and preaching of the Word of God in an authoritative way. I think it has to do with what he wrote in Ephesians chapter 4 when he talked about having given gifted men to the church, and at the heart of those gifted men, the thing they all have in common is the Word of God that must be announced, it must be proclaimed, and it must be taught. It must be proclaimed authoritatively, it must be taught accurately, and it must be applied in a life-giving way to the body of Christ. So I would suggest to you that one of the big takeaways that you and I need from a book like Colossians as we think about the supremacy of Jesus is there needs to be heavy attention and concentration and weight given to the significance of his words. When we come together, the last thing that you should be interested is what I have to say. My words have no ability to give life. My opinions matter very little in the eternal scope of life. And you know what? We all have opinions, don't we? I mean, I have them, you have them. We all have our own views and our own ideas. And one of the difficulties for somebody like me who stands behind a desk like this one, a sacred pulpit like this one, is it's sometimes very hard to separate what is my opinion and what are my ideas from the thoughts and the intents of scripture. That is why the preaching of God's word is something that must be done with great reverence and great care. Because at the end of the day, what I don't wanna do is stand before God and have God say to me one day, why did you tell him I said that? Why did you imply that? Why did you tell them that? That isn't what I said. And you are very equipped to know what that text says. So why did you say that? For somebody who stands up and handles the word of God, that is a very, very important and weighty question. There needs to be the public proclamation in an authoritative and accurate way so that the applications that are brought to life are really the applications that come out of that text and not just the ones I wish were there. You know, sometimes when I parent, you know, you parent as well and you come to a text of scripture and you wish Paul had said it differently. Like Paul, you know what? When you say children honor your father, I wish you had gotten a little more specific there. I could give you some suggestions. I got two kids and you know, you were probably single. So you know what? I probably got a couple of suggestions for you there. It would make it so much easier on us who actually have kids. What's this honor bit? Well, you know, can't you say something like, do exactly what they say all the time? You know, it's so easy, isn't it, for us to come to a text and sort of bring our own personality and our own applications. And I think this is an important piece that is a takeaway for us as a church. that the single most life-giving thing we do as we come together and we sing and we pray and we celebrate together is to listen to the words of the head of the church and to listen to what he actually said. And I think Paul is making a point there. We must recognize the significance of it. We must read it and respond to it In our personal lives, we must heed personally what we hear corporately. And that brings us to the fourth thing that we see this morning. Paul says, you are connected to an amazing fellowship of believers. You are transformed by the ongoing power of the gospel. You need to be submitted to the word of truth. But fourthly, you need to be engaged in the work of the ministry. All of this Word that is growing you and transforming you and giving you life and joy needs to do something in you. And you can see it in verse 17. and say to Archippus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord. It's an interesting thing that happens here. Paul is in the middle of giving extended corporate greetings to the church, but he gives a very personal greeting and a very personal encouragement. to a man named Archippus. We know very little about this man in the scriptures. He is mentioned one other time, and it's in the book of Philemon, chapter one. And in that chapter, verses one and two, Paul mentions Archippus again, and he describes him as a fellow soldier in the Lord. Now we have some surmisings about the way that Archippus is mentioned and how he's connected to Philemon and there's some speculation that he was maybe a member of Philemon's home. He might have even been the son of Philemon. There's all kinds of speculation about that. Certainly would have been in a very prominent and prestigious position, but what Paul wants you to know about this man is he is described as a fellow soldier of Paul. And then Paul says, I want you to know something about him. He's not just a fellow soldier. He has been given a specific ministry to do from the Lord. And then it's like he looks down at Archippus and it's almost like he speaks directly and in such grace-filled terms, he says to Archippus, fulfill, complete, do the ministry that God has given to you. What an incredible description. I mean, here is the Apostle Paul and think about what the Colossians have heard about this man, the incredible labors that he has engaged in for the Lord, the accomplishments in the gospel that the Spirit of God has wrought through the ministry of Paul. the sufferings that he has endured. I mean, way back in chapter one, he says, I want you to know that I am filling up what is remaining of the afflictions of Christ. In other words, when Jesus suffered and he paid for our sins, that didn't put an end to Christian suffering. There is going to be more suffering to come so that the gospel that he procured on the cross will be advanced in the world, and I am a part of filling up some of that remaining suffering." And he looks at Archippus and he says, now, he is a fellow soldier of mine in the Lord. It's an incredible description. I mean, think about what happens when a commanding officer of great fame, a general comes and he singles out a soldier in the ranks and he says in front of the entire organization, an entire group of soldiers, now this soldier I want you to know about, this is a soldier that has been a fellow soldier with me. And you know what I believe? I believe this verse is in our Bible because that is the position that the Apostle Paul wants you to see yourself in. You are not just another sort of lost individual in the crowd of this universal fellowship. Paul says, I want you to know that there are people, you are one of them, like Archippus, and they are fellow soldiers, and they are filling up the suffering that remains. You know, some of you in this room have suffered greatly, even this semester. You are in the midst of trials that are bearing down on you. There are things that are happening in your life about which you have no control. And if the Apostle Paul were dictating a letter to Calvary Baptist, it might be that he would look down at your life and he would call out your name and he would say to the rest of us, I want you to know something. I want you to know that this person is a fellow soldier. of Jesus. Have you ever thought of yourself like that? Sometimes we look at our life and we see all of the places where we fall short. We see all of the places where there's maybe an inconsistency or a failure spiritually, and we kind of would never dare to talk about ourselves that way. We would never use this description of us because we know too much about ourselves. I know too much about me. But the Apostle Paul might come alongside us. and he might put his arm around us in spite of all of our failings, and he might say, this one is a fellow soldier. This one, that maybe nobody else knows about, has been given a gift that has been measured out by the head of the church, Ephesians chapter four. And as they are a part of this universal fellowship of believers, as they have been transformed and they are being transformed by the power of the gospel, as they are submitting to the Word every week, There is a ministry that God has given to them and I want you all to know it. I want you to encourage them to fulfill that ministry, to complete that ministry. I don't know what your ministry is. I do know that the head of the church has given you one. Ephesians says that he measured out to every believer a gift. Peter talks about those gifts in two basic categories when he talks about them. There are gifts of the word and there are gifts of ministry. There are gifts of labor and of service. You say, man, I'm not an upfront person. I could never stand up and teach. Well, there's some of you that have gifts that I could never do. I sit every week that I'm here and I listen to the music that we hear every week. I was listening to Katie this morning and Caleb as they were leading us and my heart was just overwhelmed and I thought, I could never do that. I could never do that. And you would go, you know what, you're right. We would never want you to do that. But God has given to you a gift. I came in the door this morning and there were people greeting in the door and they were using their gift. And I said to them, you know, it's an awesome thing to come into church and have people like you greeting us. I mean, think about all of the things that happen in a body like this that most of us never know about, we never see. And on top of that, think about all of the suffering that comes in the context of the lives of those people so that the church can grow and the word can flow and the gospel can go. And all of a sudden, Paul would look at you that nobody else sees, and he would say, now I want everybody else to know, this is a fellow soldier. This is a fellow soldier. What an encouraging truth. Jesus is the supreme head of the church, and the Apostle Paul is looking at people like us, and he's saying, your fellow soldiers, now go and do the ministry that God has given you. How in the world am I gonna do that? Well, look at verse 18. The way you're gonna do that is by being unashamed of the testimony of Christ, and that's the fifth thing that we see in this greeting, or in this closing, rather. Notice what Paul says in verse 18. There's a very unusual thing that happens. It's almost like he reaches over with his bound hands and he beckons Tychicus and he gets the pen or the quill from him and he scratches out the lines to this last verse. I, Paul. Well, who else has been talking? No, no, no, I want you to know. I, Paul, myself, am writing this greeting with my own hand. And then he says this, remember my chains. You can almost see him lifting his hands. Remember my chains. This is not just a request for prayer. This is not Paul saying, don't forget me, I'm in jail and I need out. I don't think that's really what he's talking about. Go back up earlier in the chapter, look at verse three, Paul says, at the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us the door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I am in prison. Here's what I want you to pray, verse four, that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak, Paul says, remember my chains. When you pray for me, pray that God will use these chains as an opportunity to advance the gospel. It is through these chains that I'm filling up what is lacking in Christ's suffering. Chapter 1, verse 24. It's by these chains that God is making the Word of Truth fully known among the Gentiles, chapter 1, verse 25 through 27. And it is in these chains that the power and glory of the gospel are triumphing over every earthly power. Remember my chains. This is an opportunity You know what I need and what you need as fellow soldiers of Jesus in the midst of our trials, as we do our ministries? We need this mindset, don't we? Lord, this affliction, this burden, this opposition, this trial, this tribulation is an opportunity for me to publicly glory in your supremacy. I am having an opportunity with Paul to be a good soldier in the gospel advance so that your name is glorified and your character is recognized and your grace is embraced. Remember my chains. And that brings us to the final thing, and that is this. Be energized by the grace of God. be energized by the grace of God. And you can see that in the very, very last word that Paul leaves with the Colossians, and it's a prayer, it's a wish, it's his heart to them. Grace be with you. This is where Paul began in chapter 1 when he opened the letter. In chapter one, verse five, he said, you heard the word of truth when Epaphras brought it to you. It's interesting how in the very first part of chapter one, there are things mentioned that come up again at the very end of the book. It's like a bookend. When Epaphras came and he announced for the very first time the word of truth, you heard it and you understood that it was the grace of God. And this word of truth today is bearing fruit in all of the world where it is preached. It has come to you, and it is bearing fruit in your life. In other words, grace is more than just Paul's customary way of closing his letters. You know, when you and I write a letter, we get to the end and, you know, you've got to figure out how you're going to open it. you know, deer, or whatever, whatever, how you gonna open it, and then you gotta figure out what you're gonna say, and then you gotta kinda close, and then you always got this little part at the bottom, sincerely. or blessings, or depending on who the person is, you have some way of closing it. And there's sometimes, I think, as you read enough of Paul's letters, that almost in every case, he ends with this phrase, grace to you. And it's almost like, in our minds, we read it so often, it's almost like, okay, it's the sincerely Paul kind of thing. I don't think that's at all what Paul's doing. I think this is his testimony of how he has lived the Christian life. You look at Paul and you say, how in the world did somebody manage to survive and thrive in the kind of pressure and circumstance that Paul found himself regularly? I mean, think about the sheer physical abuse that he suffered on his body for the gospel's sake. I mean, he runs out of Philippi. He is in prison. He is beaten. And he runs to Berea, and instead of keeping his mouth shut, he says, hey, maybe I should say the same thing here. And he says it. And you're like, Paul, you just got beat for that. And it wasn't like a minor beating. I mean, you were, you suffered a Roman beating for that. to the point that people were so worried in Berea about his own physical ability to survive that they snuck him out of town. And the next place he goes, it's like, now, Paul, when you get in there, just pray. Just pray. And he opens his mouth up at Thessalonica. And then he goes down to Athens and to Corinth, and it's like, no matter what happens to him personally, he is going to open his mouth boldly, just like he asked them to pray, and out is gonna come the gospel, and the grace of God is gonna be the strength for all of that. Grace is the unmerited favor of God, and we ought to rejoice in that, but it's so much more than that. It's the energizing that comes from God. Listen to Paul in chapter one, verse 29. Paul says, for this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works in me. Grace is the unparalleled power from God that works in us so that we are not merely sustained, we are actually strengthened. So let me ask you this question. Have you received this grace? I mean, that's the whole point to the book of Colossians. You will never see Jesus as supreme until the grace of God opens your eyes and you see the truth that to human eyes is unbelievable. I'll be on a plane tomorrow and I'm sure I'll sit next to somebody. This has happened regularly and you've had these experiences where they ask you, so what is it that you do? And all of a sudden you start talking about what you do and they begin to realize, okay, this guy's a preacher. It changes the entire conversation. Entirely. People either get really religious or they get really quiet. It's pretty interesting when they don't know you're a preacher and they start talking. I had one time, I sat on a plane, I came down, and the guy next to me said, oh man, I was hoping I'd sit next to a cute girl, and you came. I couldn't wait till he asked me what I did. You know, you start talking to people about the gospel, and it is immediately evident that they are looking, sometimes they look right at you, and they're like, that is absolutely ludicrous. I mean, what you believe is like ludicrous. I know that it's good for you, but I am at a place in my life where I stopped believing myths a long time ago. So how does a person like that get saved? And the answer is the grace of God opens their eyes, and they believe something that's unbelievable, just like you did, just like I did. So the question for you this morning as you sit here is, has that happened to you? I'm not asking if you prayed a prayer, I'm asking did the grace of God that Paul is talking about in Colossians, has that grace arrested you? Has it amazed you? Have you received that grace? You say, what do I gotta do to get it? You can't earn it, you know that. It's the Spirit of God that draws you to the beauty of Jesus and the incredible power of what he did on the cross. And you fall on your face and you're not just sorry that it happened, you are repentant that it happened because of you. And you are amazed that the God who did this would love you. And you just say to God, God, I'm so sorry. and I want that forgiveness. I can't believe that you're extending it to me. Yes, I want it. Has that happened to you? And then are you daily living in the strength of that grace? I'm gonna end with a very personal story. My wife and I had dinner recently with an amazing woman. This is a woman whose whole life was upturned. Her whole life was upturned by an act of immorality that took place between her husband and another woman. And I'll not go into the story. Her identity is very, very private. But what amazed me as I listened to her tell her story And I told Beth after, I said, I cannot comprehend this. But as this was unfolding and her whole life was falling apart in every conceivable way, God put in her heart a desire to sit down with this other woman and say to her, I forgive you. And as she was praying about this, an email right as she was praying came into her inbox and it was this woman saying, I am sorry. And she in great joy before the Lord wrote her back an email saying, I have prayed for this. I have prayed that God would bring you to a place where I could tell you how much I forgive you. Now that story that I just told you in less than two minutes has been the unfolding of many years of affliction. And I stood there or sat there And I was stunned because to be truthful with you, I could not do that. And to be honest with you, she could only do that because of grace. That's what we're talking about. That's what Paul means when he says to you, grace, that kind of grace. be with you. Father, thank you that you are supreme, that you matter more than any earthly pleasure or treasure or possession or person. Thank you for these four chapters that elevate you to such a wonderful place in our thinking. So Lord, as we close out this series and we think about these amazing realities, and we come back to this very incredible thing that you have extended grace to us. Lord, we are so thankful for that. We celebrate it. We want it. We long for it. We're amazed by it. So Father, take that grace and grow us in it, strengthen us by it, fill us with it so that it flows out from us in our own broken lives, in the midst of our pain and our sorrow and things that have happened to us and things that have been done to us. Lord, may that grace be with us so that your gospel would go forth. and that we in our own place would be good soldiers fulfilling the ministry that you've given to us. Maybe you're here this morning and God has been at work throughout this series and you begin to realize, you know, I know a lot about Jesus. I know a lot about the gospel. I've heard a lot about this. But I don't know that I've ever personally come to that place where I've looked at the supremacy of Christ and been overwhelmed that he would step down from heaven to that cross for me. And I repent. I repent. When I see that picture of him on that cross and I recognize who he really is, that he would do that for me sets aside all of my pride. All of my rebellion is broken. And I repent. And I wanna belong to him. And Brother Sam, as you close this morning, I want you to pray for me. I want you to pray for me. Is there anybody like that this morning? You slip your hand up. I wanna pray for you. This is an amazing grace. Don't miss it because it's common. Don't miss it because you've heard about it your whole life. Make it yours. Maybe you're here this morning and you would say, I've never really thought about grace that way. I need the strengthening of that grace as a Christian because Jesus is supreme. to pour out of me like it poured out of that lady you talked about. I need these takeaways to be real. And I want you to pray for me. I want Colossians to be a letter that changes me. Would you pray for me? I'd like to pray for you. I've got my hand up. How many of you would say, you know what? Brother Sam, I'll join you there. I need that in my life. Father, you see our hearts, you know our state before you, our every weakness, our every brokenness. And we're so thankful for grace. And we celebrate it and we want it. So grant it to us in abundance. Lord, as we've worshiped and prayed and sung and listened and submitted to your word, we ask that you would be glorified in all of this, in Jesus' name, amen.