and turn to your Bibles to the book of Colossians. And I'm going to bring all of this together as succinctly as I can and as quickly as I can with the Lord's help. In the book of Colossians we find that Paul had a burden for this church because there was trouble and problems in the church. Paul writes this letter from his Roman prison cell, probably chained to a guard who has already been saved or will be saved. And Paul has already probably won Onesimus to the Lord. And he's won Philemon to the Lord because he told Philemon that you owe me your life also. And so there's some characters here. The pastor of the church at Colossae, which was destroyed by an earthquake two or three years after the letter was written, had a real concern. But he's mentioned here his name is Epaphras. verse number seven of chapter one, as you also learned of Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who was for you a faithful minister of Christ. They're meeting in Philemon's house. Philemon is there and he's the master and the brother of Onesimus. And so we have a picture here in the church of visible reconciliation between two believers. And so Onesimus gets saved and all of a sudden he's no longer a servant but he's also a brother. And Paul says, if he owes you anything else you put it on my account and remember you owe me your life. And so Paul had some clout right there. And so there's other characters that are involved that know about this church, and this church has a wonderful testimony. But there's some people that have come in that have caused doubt and friction in the church. And this is why many of our epistles, this is the reason we have many of our epistles, because not long after the establishment of each of the churches, you had people on the heels of the founders of those churches that would come in and try to add to or take away from the truth of the gospel. And that's a heresy. That's a heresy. To add anything to the gospel is no longer the gospel. To take anything away from the gospel is no longer the gospel. And so these, and each one, each one had a different thing, but the thing was to diminish your faith in our Savior. Let's read some of the scriptures here. And Paul's gonna remind the church here about our Savior. That's who we're here for tonight. He's going to remind us of some things about the Savior. He says here in verse number 13, speaking of our Savior, he says, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. for it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. And having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself, by him I say whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you this evening, Lord, for this story. that Paul gives us, that the Holy Spirit gives us, Lord, about a group of people that love you and have a testimony of their love for you and a testimony of the gospel and the power of the gospel to reach others and even the whole world at that time. And Father, we praise you, Lord, that we have the word of God that elevates our Savior to where he's supposed to be. And there can be no doubt that there is none greater than you, Lord. And we pray, God, that when we hear that there's something missing, and that there's something that we haven't gotten yet, and we know we're saved, God, that we will disregard that quickly. And we'll remember that in you, all fullness dwells. and that we are complete in you, and there's nothing lacking. Lord, we pray that you'll help us to be protected, help us to guard our hearts, and help us to remember, God, that what you started in us, that you're gonna complete it until the day of Christ. And I pray, God, you'll help me as we pull these things together, Lord, and that you'll stir our hearts, Lord, to be ready to receive from you what you'd have for us. And we'll thank you for how you help us in Jesus' name. Amen. And so here we see that Paul has lifted up the Savior. Now get the, this is what I believe the picture is. The church is meeting in Philemon's house. The troublemakers would have been there as well. The letter is read. Paul has asked that the letter be read in the church and the churches surrounding it. And so the letter would have been read from the platform, from a pulpit, from a place of preaching and so forth. church that is being victimized and those victimizers that are there with their false doctrine would have all been present. Philemon and Onesimus were sitting next to one another. Like I said, maybe a picture of our reconciliation to one another when we have a problem and so forth that God's given us, you know, the ministry of reconciliation. By the way, the ministry of reconciliation is the Gospel for those that are lost. You say, what is that ministry? It is the Gospel. know, we're not casting out demons. We're not, we're trying to win people to Jesus and leave the rest of that to, to Him who can finish the work in you. Amen. And so, and so, and so, and so all would have been present. And so Paul is, is, he is, he is encouraging the church with the person and the proper place of our Savior, exalted above all. Amen? None greater than Him. And we exist for Him. And by the way, we belong to Him. Amen? And so because we exist for Him and we belong to Him, and that we are His precious, we are precious to Him. and so forth. And so Paul has quickly elevated our Savior. And the church would have been on their haunches like, tell me more, tell me more. I want to hear more about him. Amen? But Paul doesn't. He takes us from the precipice to the exalted Savior. And he reminds us about who we were. And look what he says in verse number 21. He says, that were sometime enemies and alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. And so he takes him from this elevated position of our savior and I'm excited, I'm wanting to hear more about him and now I'm reminded about who I am and we should never forget that. Now we don't live there. If God, if God wills, And I lived till August the 2nd this year, Pastor, I will have been saved for half of my lifetime. I got saved 32 years ago this August the 2nd. I'll be 64 on that day, but I turned 65 on the very next day. And so I was born again the day before I was born, okay? And so... Anyway, but I'm very thankful for that. And I want him to have that position, and I want to be able to say that I've lived for God more than I didn't. If I ever had a regret, it's that I didn't get saved earlier. And I'm just so thankful for the God that I serve is a long-suffering God. And by the way, y'all are being very long-suffering with me tonight. Thank you for your patience with me. Let's see what God has for us in the Scriptures here. Get the picture. Paphras is a pastor. of a beautiful church, and others are telling Paul about him, and Epaphras, about it, about the church, and Epaphras is having a problem with these people that are making, that are saying that there's something more than Jesus that you need. It's great that you're saved, I'm glad that you're born again and baptized and a member of the church and so forth, and that things are moving forward for you, but you know, there's these other things that you haven't attained to yet. And you're just not quite there yet. Have you ever had anybody make you feel kind of small as a Christian because you didn't have something that they had? You need to remember that they're forgetting about who our Savior is. We are not lacking in any good thing. And so he reminds them though, because it is good for us to remember what a wonderful message this morning on humility. The man that led my pastor to the Lord, Brother George Law, he said, the mark of any good Christian is humility. Now, if you say that you're humble, you're not. As soon as you say it, we need to start working on it, and so forth. It just means I'm not the most important one. You know, there's one greater than me that I'm to exalt, and he's far from me, and will always be far greater than me. Amen? And so forth. But anyway, he reminds us about where we were and who we were before. I was an enemy. I was outside of the family. I was an alien. And in my mind and in my deeds were wicked works that were against Him. I was the enemy of God. And every one of us here were the enemies of God. And the problem is that sometimes we forget that. and we don't let god remind us of that chapter 2 he begins to talk about this he's first of all in verse 7 chapter 2 says being rooted and built up in him established in the faith as you've been taught and abounding there with thanksgiving are you thankful tonight are you rooted in him are you abounding and established in the faith and so forth. But then he begins to say, I want you to be warned, beware. He says, beware unless any men spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men and after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. He puts down their intellectualism by calling them rudiments. Rudimentary means the very basic things. And so human wisdom is very rudimentary. It never has any answers, it only has questions and so forth. And those that speak those bounding words over and over again that never come to any kind of conclusion, they're not gonna help you. They're there to cause you to have doubt. And so this intellectualism. And then verse nine, for in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead. What's the next word, Church? Bodily. Arianism started here. That Jesus somehow, he wasn't holy God in the flesh, but in the spirit he died on the cross and it was the spirit that paid for our sins and that he was created. a heresy. Exactly. And it needs to be called out so. And so, wait a minute, but he was a real person and he was born, he was born of a virgin church. No man was born like him. Ritualism. All of these isms in whom also are you circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. And so the Judaizers they came and and just about destroyed the churches in Galatia. And they made them think that there was something, well the Bible says that you're supposed to be circumcised. Well, the Bible rightly divided doesn't say that we're supposed to be circumcised and so forth. And so, all of these things that cast doubt, legalism, verse number 14, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that were against us, contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. Every ordinance, all 613, every last one of them nailed to the cross. Every last one of them fulfilled. Nobody could fulfill all of those things. Jesus did. And so, , all of these places sabbath day worship with no men there for judging me and recurring perspective and holy day of the new moon of the sabbath days We choose to. It's not a command. We choose to because we want to honor Him. We want to honor the resurrection. We serve a resurrected Savior, amen? And we're here today for that reason. And then asceticism, you know, we got to leave off eating this and we can't touch these things and so forth. Does any of these things sound familiar to anybody? They are current today. And these people that are caught up in this, that think that they're righteous somehow because they do these things, are less than righteous. They're more unrighteous than they could ever imagine. And they're on their way to hell and they need Jesus. Amen? But these are false teachers trying to cause doubt. So what happened was Paul heard of this story. He would have heard about it from Onesimus. He would have heard about it from Epaphras. A wise pastor went to Rome to get help for his church. And so he would have heard about it from Epaphras. And Paul writes about the church. He's never been there. But he says in verse number 1, 3 of chapter number 1 to He said, we give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you. What would cause Paul to pray for a church that he'd never been to? Somebody told him a story. Somebody told him an account about some people that were hurting, about some people that needed some help, about some people that need to be reminded about how wonderful our Savior is and what we have in Him and so forth. And I need something to give them to help them to realize that they don't need to doubt. They don't need to regard any of these things, but they need to rest in their salvation and rest in their Savior. Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, he heard a story that told about their faith. And since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have to all saints, I tell you what, that's a mark of every Christian. By this shall all men know that you're my disciples, that you have love one for another. There's no other thing that tells the world that you love the Savior than by how you express your love towards your brothers and sisters. I'll just wind it up this evening and say that God gave Paul a burden because somebody told him a story. God gave Shreya a burden because she read a book. God gave us a burden because we read the prayer letters. God gave Laura a burden because she followed her husband. And my burden is her burden, and it's all hers. When you go to South Africa, you'll see the burden that Laura has for those dear people and the love that she has for them. And it's an amazing thing. It's a marvelous thing how much she loves them. By the way, I'll give you a little insight. When you come and something goes wrong, it's never their fault. It's always my fault. And that's OK. I like it that way. I want them to know that she loves them unconditionally, and she does. She heard a story about her husband, and she went and she saw for herself. God gave her a burden and so forth. And so that's how it happens. And God wants you to have a story, but he wants you to have a burden. Paul had a burden. Where did the burden come from? Did it come from Epaphras? Well, yeah. Did my burden come from Dave and Carol Richards? Well, yeah, kind of. But who had the burden first? I think about Matthew chapter nine. And I read in my Bible. You know, our Savior, you know, he was just a couple of days from the cross. Depending on what timeline you go by, it's another conversation if you want to. But the Bible says that after he had had been ushered into Jerusalem there on the back of the donkey and across the coats and the palms and so forth. But he looked on them, but when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. A sheep without a shepherd will die. A sheep without a shepherd cannot protect himself. They will wander off. They will become prey. They'll fall into the water and drown. They can't swim. If you soak a sheep, you've sunk a sheep. They can't swim. Who had the burden first? You know, we can go back to Genesis. Our Lord, he rested on the seventh day. When Adam sinned, He began the work of trying to win souls to Christ, and he's still doing it today. And he's not resting right now. He is busy at work. What is Jesus doing right now? He is building his church. Somebody ask you, what's your God doing? My God is building his church. That's what he's doing. My God is praying for me and praying for you. Amen? He lives to do that. He ever liveth to make intercession for the saints. And so our God's at work. He has not, ever since Adam sinned, He has not stopped working to win your family and my family and our children and their children and so forth. He's not stopped. And He's being long-suffering with us right now. And we could expect His return at any time. We should expect His return at any time. And we ought to be busy about his burden. He had the burden first. We love him because he first loved us. What was his motivation? I mean, was it his justice that caused him to take that burden? Was it his holiness that caused him to take that burden? You know, I was in a church like this and I was a lost man. And there was something about that church, and I couldn't put my finger on it. But I couldn't stop going to that place. And one night, a man that was my helper in construction, he had invited me, and he knew I was lost. And the whole church knew that I was lost, and I didn't know they knew it. I thought I was putting on a pretty good front, you know? in the And it didn't have anything to do with the death, burial, and resurrection of the Savior. But I had been attending that church. And while I was attending, I was hearing the gospel on a regular basis. And I was seeing people get saved. And the people were at the altar. And we were from a different church. We didn't go to the altar. We didn't even take a Bible. The preacher had a Bible. We didn't need one and so forth. But I was kind of getting used to it. But there was something about those people And I didn't know what it was. And that night when Mike preached that message, I came under deep conviction. I realized that I was enjoying the people of God. And I was enjoying the truth of God. And I was enjoying the, you know, the house of God. And God smoked my heart that night, said, you're enjoying all those things, but you're not a child of God. and you might be like that, And, but maybe you're not a child of God yet. I left the church that night knowing that God wanted me to be saved. And I was too proud to go to the altar. I knew that if I went to the altar, somebody would say, do you need to be saved or whatever, you know. And I left the church and I went out, I went out that door. And when I went out the door, I said to myself, I need to go back in there and have somebody show me from the Bible how to get saved. And I got in my car and turned the car on. I said, I need to turn the car off. Go back in there and sit down. And I was sitting over there. Miss May, I was sitting about where you are, OK? And I went and I said, I need to go back in there and sit down in the pew and ask somebody to show me from the Bible. And I kept going. I drove down the road. I could turn around here and go back to the church. And I kept going. I came up on an exit on the highway, Weston House Road. I could get off right here, go across the bridge, and go back down that road and ask somebody to get back to the church. Ask somebody to show me from the Bible how to be a Bible Christian, how to be saved. And I got almost all the way home. And I got ready to make the last turn home. And it just occurred to me, if I go home, I don't know if God will give me another chance to get saved. And so I just kept going. I made the long way back to church, did a big circle. And I went back and sat down over there in the pew over there. And Mike was still there. And there were about eight or 10 people left in the church. And he came sitting down next to me. He said, Richard, I'm so glad that you waited for me. And I said, I said, well, Mike, I said, it's not exactly like it. And I knew what I wanted. I knew what I needed. I said, Mike, it's not exactly like that. I said, I got almost all the way home. And I just want to come back. And right then, the devil gave me a lie. and I wasn't even thinking about it. And it just came out of my mouth like I've been practicing it. I said, Mike, I just want to come back and tell you that I'm going to keep reading the Bible and reading that material and coming to church. I just want you to know that. And Mike's a wise guy. And like I said, I think the whole church knew I was lost. He said, well, you know, Richard, it's good to do those things, but it sounds to me like you want to be saved. And he said, if you want to be saved, I can take the Bible and show you how to be a Bible Christian. I was too afraid to tell that man who cared for me and loved me to tell him what my greatest desire was. And God put my words into his mouth, so all I had to do was say yes. And I said, that's what I need, Mark. And we didn't skip anything. We went down the Romans road. We went to the cross. We didn't skip sin for all of sin. And I was there. I knew it. in the end of the god committed to prove as well I knew it I was there but we got over to Romans chapter 10 verse 9 to 10 And when he got to those verses, God kind of opened my heart right there, and I called on the Lord, and he saved me that night. And I'm so thankful. You see, Mike had been my friend for eight months. My boss hired him to be my helper. For eight months, and every once in a while, he'd tell me about what the preacher preached, and he knew I thought I was religious, and he could've, any time, he could've said, you know you're a lost sinner going to hell, you're gonna bust it wide open if you don't get born again. He could have said that. But he waited on the leadership of the Lord. And God engineered the time and the place. And God convicted me that I needed to be saved, and I'm thankful for His long-suffering. And maybe you're here tonight, and you're enjoying all of those things of God, and you're not a child of God. And you're among people that love you. And you're among people that they may know. They may know. And, but this is the place. And the Bible never says tomorrow's the day of salvation. It says today is the day. If God is making it known to you today, then you should take care of that. There's no reason to leave here the same way that you came. What happened was God gave that man a burden for me. And he didn't let it go. I was a tough nut to crack. He didn't let the burden go. He held on to it and he prayed for me. pastor saw me, he said, Brother Richard, he said, you got set? Yeah, pastor, I'm so thankful. He said, would you mind coming at the end of the service next week? Just let our people come down, shake your hand and so forth, you know, and just make it public. It'll be good for you. Make it public that you got it. Of course, pastor, I'll be doing it. Laura Kane sat with me. She wasn't safe yet. And so next Sunday, I stood there and Laura next to me, and just about the whole church came by and shook my hand. Oh, Brother Richard, I'm so glad you got saved, almost without exception. I've been praying for you. I've been praying for you. I've been praying for you. He shared his burden with the whole church, and the whole church was praying for me. God's waiting for us to carry His burden. And it may be that we're not carrying the burden that He wants us to carry. It may be that we've gotten kind of used to it, our Christian life, and we've got a routine. And by the way, routines are good. I have a habit of being in church on Sunday and Wednesday. I don't like to travel on Sunday if I can help it. I like being in the house of God and so forth. And I have a habit of reading my Bible and I have a habit of praying. I have a habit of giving. I love doing it. And I have a habit of trying to share the word of God with others. But God gave me those things and I didn't used to be me. Do you have those burdens? Jesus Christ carried the burden for you to the cross he carried the burden for your soul to the cross