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  (COLOSSIANS) THE CHURCH'S PURPOSE
  by Brian Brodersen
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Summary: Brian Brodersen emphasizes the church's purpose of worship,
edification, and testimony, highlighting Christ's supremacy and the
church's nomadic nature in fulfilling its mission.

Duration: 50:25 Topics: "Church Purpose", "Spiritual Freedom"
Scripture References: Colossians 1:14

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DESCRIPTION
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In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of being right
with the Lord and being freed from worldly attachments. He encourages
the listeners to have a vision of what the church is meant to be and to
be a part of it. The preacher highlights the contrast between seeking a
city built by man versus seeking a city built by God. He also emphasizes
the temporary nature of this world and the need to serve the Lord
wholeheartedly and bring others into His kingdom. The sermon challenges
the listeners to let go of worldly desires and focus on doing the will
of God.

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CONTENT
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Once again, looking at verses 14 through 20, picking up in verse 14,
Colossians chapter 1, speaking of Jesus Christ, in whom we have
redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image
of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, for by Him all
things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible
and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers,
all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all
things, and in 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 may have the preeminence.
For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and
by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him whether things on
earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His
cross. Now, Paul is taking an opportunity here to clarify just who Jesus
Christ is.

The Colossians were coming under the influence of some heretical
teaching about Jesus, some teaching that was undermining His supremacy,
His preeminence, His divinity, and so forth. And it was happening in a
very subtle manner. They were teaching that Jesus was, of course,
important and that He was a representative of God, but they were looking
at Him as being one of many emanations from the true God, rather than
looking at Him as being the true God.

And this whole idea of several thousand spirit beings descending from
Him is an idea that's not found in the Scriptures. It was more of a
Greek kind of a way of thinking about the gods. Although they did not
deny the fact of one God, they exalted these beings that they referred
to as emanations from God, and they considered Jesus to be one of them.

This false teaching became known later as the Gnostic heresy. And so
Paul is refuting it by simply declaring the majesty and the glory and
the supremacy of Jesus Christ, showing that Jesus Christ is the very
God, the true God, the only God, and that this whole idea of Him being
an emanation is not at all true, and showing that this whole idea of
there being this kind of a divided-up concept of God is an inaccurate
one. And so that's what Paul is doing here.

He's basically stating his case very positively for the supremacy of
Christ. And he says concerning Christ that He is the image of the
invisible God. He is the picture that we have of the invisible God.

He is the one who is supreme over all creation. He is the firstborn. We
saw how that word means that He is the one who has supremacy and that He
is the creator.

He Himself is the creator, and it was for Him that all things were
created, and He is the one who is presently holding everything together.
So stating the deity of Christ, really, the divinity of Christ, His
majesty and His honor, He is before all things. And now in verse 18, he
says, And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the
preeminence.

So Paul is putting forth Christ in all of His glory, in all of His
splendor, rather than dealing with the false teaching by answering each
specific aspect of it. He just presents Christ in all of His glory and
all of His majesty, and that solves the whole issue right there. And as
we pointed out many times before, in our evangelism, it's important to
present Christ because He answers all of the other questions.

He solves all of the other riddles and so forth. And you get into
talking with people, you can discuss philosophies, and you can discuss
politics, and you can discuss religious theories, and you can go on
endlessly discussing those things and get nowhere. Present Jesus Christ
in all of His glory and all of His majesty.

Present Him biblically, what the Bible has to say about Him, and He
alone is a refutation of everything else, for the Bible presents Him as
being God. He is God, and that's why He is so important. That's why He
holds that place of preeminence.

But now Paul is taking it down to the church. He's presented Christ as
the image of the invisible God. He's presented Him as the creator, the
one who is holding everything together.

And now he says, and He is the head of the body, the church, who is the
beginning. So in other words, the same one who has brought the universe
into existence is the same one who has brought the church into
existence. And He is the head of the church, meaning that He is the
source from which the church has been birthed, also meaning that He is
the head in the sense of being the authority over the church.

Jesus Christ is the head of the church. There's no man that's the head
of the church. It was a sad day in the church's history when a man
claimed to be the head of the church.

Whenever you find a man being in the position of authority within the
church, you find something that is no longer the church. The church is
that body of people who are under the lordship of Jesus Christ. He is
the head.

He is the director. He is the one who holds the authority. He is the
source from which the church's life has sprung, and He is the one to
have continual sovereignty over the church.

Now the church, you remember, is made up of a multitude from every
nation, every tribe, every tongue, every people. The church is that vast
company of men and women, boys and girls who have been born of the
Spirit, that vast company of people worldwide who have submitted
themselves to the lordship of Jesus Christ. That is the church.

That is the church collectively. We have the church locally, which is
represented in the local assemblies of people gathering together who are
there because Jesus is Lord. And then we have the church individually,
each one of us as individuals submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

The church is not an organization that you can join. It's an organism
that you have to be birthed into. We do not have a membership here at
Calvary Chapel, and we've had in times past people wanting to become a
member.

We want to sign up, and we can understand that because that's where so
many churches are. You have a membership, you sign up, and you're part
of the church. But we firmly believe that the only valid membership in
the church is a membership that comes through being born into the family
of God, not signing on the card and, you know, being placed then on the
roll.

So this is an organism. The church is an organism. We've got to be born
into it, not...we can't be joining it as an organization.

We have to be born into the family. Now you can be born into the family,
and then, you know, if the structure of the church is such that there is
that organizational aspect to it that allows for membership, I'm not
saying that that is something that's horrible or, you know, I'm not
putting that down. I'm just simply saying that that is not what it's
primarily all about.

And yet, many, many people, unfortunately, are deceived by thinking that
because they have a membership at a certain church that everything is,
of course, going to be okay in the end. You have to have membership in
the of Christ, and you can only have that by submitting to the Lordship
of Jesus Christ by being born of the Holy Spirit. So the church.

What is the church? What is the purpose of the church? Why are we here
today? Why are people gathered together around the world? What is the
purpose for the existence of the church? Well, there's a threefold
purpose in the church's existence, and that's what we want to
concentrate on today. The threefold purpose of the church. Purpose
number one is that the church is a body of people who worship the living
and the true God.

We worship the living and the true God, and so the first purpose of the
church is to worship the Lord. God calls out for creation to worship
him. Read through the Psalms.

You find over and over the exhortation is given, let everything that
hath breath praise the Lord. All of creation is to be singing forth the
praises of God, and all of creation does, except the highest created
being, man. Man is the only one of all the created beings in this
material universe that refuses to give glory and honor and worship to
the Lord.

Man consistently resists that and worships and praises himself instead
of God. That's the great sin of man, worshiping himself, worshiping
himself above God. The church is a people that God has called out of
this world, redeemed them, given them a knowledge of salvation, and now
calls them to praise and to worship him.

So Peter tells us that we have been called out of darkness into his
marvelous light that we might show forth the praises of him. So we are a
people who is set apart to praise and to worship the Lord. That is to be
our objective, to praise and to worship the Lord.

And you know, when you think about all that God has done for us, when
you think about what's said here concerning Jesus, the fact that he has
revealed God to us, the fact that he is God the son and the creator, our
very existence we owe to him. We need to think about that. We need to
realize that consistently, the very existence that we have we owe to the
Lord Jesus Christ.

But going beyond our existence, the redemption that we have, being made
the children of God, being taken from this place of separation from God
and enmity toward God, we've been reconciled, we've been brought into
the family, and now we're children of God. And so when we think of the
fact that God is our creator, that we exist because of him, that he is
our sustainer, that everything that we have and enjoy comes to us as a
blessing from him, and then when we think of all the spiritual blessings
that God has bestowed on us through Christ, all of this should provoke
in us a constant flow of praise to the Father. You see, that's what the
Lord is looking for, a people who will show forth his praises.

So the church is, first of all, a place of praise. The first purpose of
the church is to praise and to worship and to glorify the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's our first purpose.

Our second purpose is to testify to the world concerning Jesus Christ,
to testify to the world concerning Jesus Christ. That is the second
purpose of the church. Now, the third purpose is for the church to be
built up, and you might actually put that as far as, you know, under
the...if we're going in a chronological order, you might actually put
the third purpose in the second place because without the body being
built up, its witness is ineffective.

So let's reverse that. The first purpose is to worship and praise. The
second is for the body to edify itself, for the body of Christ to be
built up.

And here's what God has done. He has given us each a place within the
body. And of course, this term body is analogous of the human body.

That's what he's...that's the illustration that's used so consistently
in Scripture, the human body. And the human body is a unit. Our human
bodies, they function in unison in order that the body might, you know,
be all that it's supposed to be under the direction of the head.

So for the body to build itself up, that means that every member of the
body does its part. We each have an active part. And being in touch with
the head, being in communion with the head, receiving instructions from
him, we do our part, and so the body is built up.

The body is made strong. The body is brought to maturity and to its
ultimate place of functioning. So that's the second purpose, really, of
the church, that the church might edify itself in love.

And then the third purpose would be to testify to the reality of Christ.
You see, God has us in the world for those three things, primarily. To
worship and praise him, to build one another up, and to testify to the
world of his reality.

That's what the church is all about. That's why we're here on earth,
primarily. Now, when you think of this third purpose of the church, to
reach out and to touch other people, isn't it interesting that the Lord
has most of the church scattered throughout the world? There's a small
segment of the church that is not isolated from the world, but to some
degree, you know, removed from it and concentrates its gifts on building
up the body.

That's the leadership, the pastors, the elders, the spiritual
leadership. The primary role of the spiritual leadership of the church
is to build up the rest of the body. But the body itself, for the most
part, is spread out into the various communities.

So you see, there's a handful of us that are here on a regular basis,
and there's a large number of you that come here a couple of times a
week to get edified, to get strengthened, to get built up. And then
where do you go? You go right back out to where you were before. You go
back out into the world.

Why are you out there? You're out there because the Lord has placed you
out there. He's put you out there with a purpose, and the purpose is to
testify of Him. You see, it's so important that we understand what the
purpose of the church is.

The church is not just some additional thing that one adds to life to
make life more balanced. But yet so many people think of it in those
terms today. Oh, we want to add, you know, religion into our lives
because that'll give us a healthy, well-rounded experience in life.

No, the church is really...it is the life. God has called us to a new
life. He's called us out of the world.

He's called us to worship and praise Him. He's called us to build one
another up, and He's called us to testify to the world of His reality.
And everything in our lives as God's people ought to be working toward
that end in each of those three areas.

And everything that's detracting from that, everything that's preventing
us from doing that needs to be dealt with, needs to be put in its proper
place. The church of Jesus Christ is to be nomadic. The church is to be
nomadic.

It's not to be stationary. But you see, that's a problem that all of us
struggle with to one degree or another. We want to be stationary.

We want security. We want stability. We want permanence.

But that is not what God has called His church to be. He's called His
church to be nomadic. He's called His church to be on the move
constantly.

Now, remember this and keep this in perspective. Jesus is the Creator of
all things, and then He created the church. He created the church to be
the instrument through which He would accomplish His work in the world.

That's what the church is. The church is the instrument of God through
which He will accomplish His work in the world. He's going to accomplish
His purposes through the church.

Now, not all of them. There are certain purposes that He will accomplish
on His own. The setting up of the kingdom of God is His work and His
work alone.

He will come back to earth, and He will establish God's eternal kingdom.
But in the meantime, He is wanting to draw out of all the nations more
and more people to become part of His family and to ultimately inherit
this kingdom that He will establish. And He's chosen the church to be
the instrument through which He has done it.

But here's where the dilemma comes in. The church so often is trying to
be stationary. The church so often is looking for security and stability
in this world and refusing to be nomadic that it's not fulfilling the
work that God has for it.

Jesus said to the apostles, He said, The Spirit will come upon you, and
you shall be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the
uttermost parts of the earth. The Spirit came upon them, and they were
witnesses in Jerusalem. And they were witnesses in Jerusalem, and they
were witnesses in Jerusalem, and they were witnesses in Jerusalem.

They just got stuck in Jerusalem because it was a great place to be.
Jerusalem was the place where all the people of God were. Who wanted to
leave Jerusalem? It's a happening place.

But you see, the Lord said, You're going to be witnesses beyond
Jerusalem. And yet it seems that they were not really wanting to go.
They forgot the nomadic call of the church.

They were settling down in Jerusalem. And so what happened? Well, we
read about it in Acts chapter 8. A great persecution arose against the
church. And because of the persecution, the believers were scattered
abroad, and they went everywhere preaching the gospel, and they went
down to Samaria.

That's what Jesus said to do. Go to Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. And
so then they went to Samaria, and then they went to Caesarea, and then
they went to Antioch, and eventually they went out into the farthest
uttermost parts of the earth.

But you see, they had to be reminded of that. They had to be stirred up.
They had to be provoked and sent out through persecution.

The Lord has called us to be a nomadic people. Remember Abraham.
Abraham, the Bible tells us that he dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob,
the heirs with him of the promise.

Now, why did Abraham dwell in a tent? Is it because there were no cities
at the time, as some people have speculated? No, that's not why. Abraham
came from a great city, actually. He came from one of the most advanced
cities of ancient civilization.

He came from the city of Ur in Chaldea, modern-day Iraq, over in that
region, but a very advanced society. Abraham came from this great city,
and there were plenty of other cities that he could have gone to, but he
never did. He lived in a tent.

He was nomadic. He went from place to place, and in doing so, he was
making a statement. And this was a statement.

He said, I'm looking for a city that has foundations, whose builder and
maker is God. So he lived as a sojourner. He lived as a pilgrim on the
earth.

Abraham did that as an example to us. That's what we're called to do.
We're called to be so free from being tied down in this world that we
can just get up and go wherever the Lord leads us to go.

But look what we do. We want to settle down. We want security.

We want stability. We want those comforts of life. And there's this
great conflict that goes on.

The Lord has purposed that through His church, He's going to touch the
world, but His church is stuck. They don't want to go anywhere. They
want us to settle down.

Now, I'm not saying that everybody has to get up and go somewhere. What
I am saying is we all have to be free enough, if the Lord calls us to do
it, to be willing to do it, because that's what the Lord has called the
church to be. The Lord has called the church to be freed from the things
that bind people to the earth so we can get up and go as He leads.

In the book of Revelation, there's a constant reference to those who
dwell on the earth. We're earth dwellers, and it's a contrast with God's
people. But what has happened? Many of God's people have wanted to
become earth dwellers.

We want to settle down. And we want to live out the American dream. And
I think, you know I'm a highly opinionated person.

This is another opinion of mine. I think one of the greatest curses on
the church in America is this wanting to live out the American dream,
wanting to experience what the Constitution laid out for us, the freedom
to pursue liberty and happiness and, you know, all of those kinds of
things. Those things are wonderful things.

I'm not putting them down. But those are not the things that God has
called us to. Those are the things that God has prepared for us in the
millennium.

But you see, the church is to be like an army marching through the
earth, marching through the earth and bringing the knowledge of Jesus
Christ wherever it goes. That's what the church is to be. But in this
particular country, we've got a very distorted view of Christianity and
what the church is.

And you hear it all the time. You hear it on the radio. You read it in
the Christian publications.

And I think it's seen most clearly in the movement known as the
religious right. The religious right has a concept of Christianity that
is not biblical. It's not a biblical concept of Christianity.

It is the settle down and, you know, let's dig in and let's, you know,
make a wonderful nest for us to enjoy life in here. That's
understandable. Those things appeal to me as well as they do to the next
person.

But they do not line up with what the scriptures teach. And that's the
problem. I was listening to a radio program the other night as I was
driving home.

And it was focused on the family. And there was a man who was speaking,
a good man. I'm not, this has nothing to do with putting a person down
or, you know, he was talking about the values in America and the fact
that, you know, we've fallen on hard times and what we need to do and,
you know, getting out there and being active and getting the right
people in office and all those things that we all hear about so often.

And he kind of summed it up. He said, you know, when it all comes down
to that, I'm just like every other guy that I'm addressing here. He
said, you know, I want to just have a nice place to lay my head at
night.

I want to be able to enjoy my kids, my family. And, you know, basically
what he was saying is I just want to be able to be content and to settle
down and to live out the American dream. The American dream of just
life, liberty, happiness, all those things.

And that, you know, he was expressing that and people were cheering. And
the sad thing is that people think that, yeah, that's Christianity.
That's what the message is.

That's what it's all about. That's not it. You don't find that in the
New Testament.

As wonderful as those things are, and believe me, those things appeal to
me as well as they do to everybody else, I think. I like a nice, safe
environment for my kids. I like the thought of going on vacation and
just enjoying life.

I mean, all that stuff is wonderful. That's great. But listen, the
millennium is a thousand year vacation.

You're not on vacation right now. We're not here to do that right now.
That's not what the church is all about.

And we have to break free from that mentality. And remember, the church
is nomadic. The church is to be on the move.

The church is an army marching through the earth, not setting up the
kingdom as we go, but drawing people out of the world to be part of the
kingdom when it comes. That's what we're to be doing. And all of this
thrust toward, you know, getting our traditional values back and doing
all of those things, I understand from the human point of view why we
would want to see that happen.

Because again, just like the next guy, I want to live in peace and
prosperity and all that. Who doesn't? But the question is this, is that
the call of God for His church? And the answer is no, it's not. You
don't find it in the pages of Scripture.

This isn't what Jesus told us to look for or to go out and seek to
establish. The church is to be on the move. The church is to be going
with the message of Christ.

And my personal opinion is this, because the church has lost its focus
and doesn't understand what it is to be doing and has this great desire
to settle down. That's why the church has so many problems. We have to
break free from this mentality.

Christ is the head of the church and He wants to lead us. You remember
what was said about Jesus in the Gospels? Actually, Jesus Himself said
it. He said, foxes have holes and the birds have nests, but the Son of
Man has nowhere to lay His head.

The Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. And then Jesus said, He said
to follow Him. Follow me.

Follow you where, Lord? Wherever I want you to go. Doing whatever I want
you to do. But we all struggle with that.

We all battle with that. We want the security. We want to settle down.

We want to be earth dwellers, although we don't want to admit it. But
you see, the church has a purpose. The purpose is to worship and glorify
God, to edify itself and to get the message of Jesus Christ out into the
world.

And I want to challenge you in that area today. And again, I'm not
saying pack your bags. You got to leave.

What I am saying, though, is is remember that you're not. Are you
settled down here? Is this is what is this what you're living for? Is
this what you're striving for? Are you ready if the Lord says, hey, I
want you to change jobs? Oh, but Lord, I've got so many years in here,
I'm just ready to retire and then I can go fishing. It says, no, I want
you to change jobs.

Oh, but Lord. You see, we have to be open to things like that. I want
you to move from this area over to here.

Oh, but Lord, the weather over there, you know, I hate that. But you see
what what's happening again? We want to settle down. We want the
comforts.

We want the ease. It's it's a it's a curse. It's the American curse of
prosperity.

And we, as God's people, have bought into it. Now, when that happened in
the early church, persecution came. And the persecution stirred things
up and the believers were thrust out of their nest.

Could that be where we're headed? Could that be what's going to happen
in this country? It could possibly be. Persecution might come, but it's
almost like persecution needs to come because we won't take the
initiative on our own. We won't let the Holy Spirit stir us up, get us
going.

We know we can't do that now. We don't want to think about that. You
know, we're in this comfort zone.

It it might take some persecution. It might take some really, you know,
riling up of things to get us to realize we're not supposed to settle
down here. That's not what we're here for.

I don't know if that's going to happen or not. I hope it doesn't. I hope
we can allow the spirit of God to move us without that kind of thing
needing to happen.

But maybe we can't. Maybe the church is is stuck in this place. It seems
to me that it is in many ways.

Jesus is the head. He has a plan. He has a purpose.

We are his people here for his purpose. And his purpose is to get his
message to as many people as possible, that they might hear it and that
they might be saved. That's why we're here.

Are you a Christian? Is that your understanding as a Christian? Is that
your purpose? Is that where you're at? Do you realize that I'm here for
for this purpose, this threefold purpose? I'm here to worship God, to
build up other believers and to get the gospel out. Do you understand
that about yourself? That's what we're doing here. And anything else
that we do ought to be incidental.

I mean, we all have to do other things, right? But in each of those
other things that we do, we can have these things as the priority. You
all have to go off to work. We all have to get up and go do our thing
every day.

But again, as I was saying earlier, why are you out there? God has you
out there. That's a mission field for you. It's supposed to be.

The Lord has you out there to show forth his praises and to testify to
his reality. And you come back here or wherever you go for your
edification. We gather together consistently with one another to build
each other up so that we might go out again in strength and minister and
show forth the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his
marvelous light.

Is that your understanding of the church? If it's not, then I want to
tell you, you have a misunderstanding. You know, for some people, the
church is a club. You used to belong to one club, and now you belong to
another.

And you come just to see your buddies. And for other people, it's a
place where they find purpose. You know, they find some kind of meaning
to life.

They sense that they're needed over there. So they're coming to meet
their own need to be needed. For other people, it's just a social thing.

For other people, it's something that, again, they add as, you know,
just some additional thing to balance their life out. They want a well-
rounded, a well-balanced life. So church is going to be part of it, too,
and balance it all out.

All of those ideas are contrary to the biblical understanding of the
church. The church, being part of the church, being part of the body of
Christ, it means being vitally connected to the head, being under his
authority, submitted to his instruction, allowing him to lead and guide
your life, and just basically understanding that the reason you're here
is because he made you and he redeemed you for his purposes and not for
your own. Peter tells us that we spend enough of our past lifetime doing
the will of the Gentiles, doing our own will, doing our own thing.

That's what we did before we were Christians. Have we come out of that?
Are we living to do his will now? That's what the church is to be, a
community of people living for the will of God, to praise him, to build
one another up, and to get his message out into this world. That's the
church, the church over whom he is the head.

He is the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may have the
preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him all the fullness
should dwell. Paul is just, you know, putting forth Christ as Christ is
the ultimate.

Now, for some people, they say, now, you know, this is sounding
fanatical. What about my hobbies and what about my leisure and what
about my career and what about all those other things? Hey, listen to
what the Bible says. Christ is the ultimate.

He's the preeminent one. In him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells
in bodily form. You now answer the question, what about all those other
things? They're meaningless.

Who cares about them? I'm not saying that you can't do them, but what is
the place they hold in your life? Are they so important to you that
you're going to take away from that which belongs to Christ to fulfill
your desire toward those things? As Christian people, we have got to
understand Christ is preeminent. The whole universe is winding down to
him. What are we doing with our lives? We're part of this thing we call
the church.

What does that mean? Are we actually part of it? Are we truly fulfilling
what it was created to be? Jesus is the beginning of the church. He
began this church for what purpose? As a community of people that would
testify to him. He said to the apostles, as the father has sent me, so I
send you out into the world.

And that same word that he gave to them is passed on to each and every
one of us. As the father sent him, so he's sending us. He's sending us
out to do his work.

And we all have a different task to perform. We all have a different
purpose in one sense. There are people that I'm going to reach that
you're not going to reach.

And there's people that you can reach that I'll never reach. There's
people that you can testify to that I'll never get an opportunity to do.
And vice versa.

You see, it's this body all working together, each person doing its
part, and God getting his work accomplished. You know, when I think
about the whole missionary call, really, the Great Commission, you know,
as you well know, I'm more and more compelled in that area. But you
know, I often, I just sit and I think about things like, you know, all
that we have and all that others don't have.

And I wonder quite often, what are we doing? Why are we hoarding this to
ourselves? And why aren't we getting it out? Why don't we have a greater
missionary vision? It's because we don't see things biblically. We're
trapped by the world that we live in. Why is it that we give so little
of our financial resources to getting the gospel out, and so much of it
goes in our pocket to feed our own lust? I mean, that's the truth, isn't
it? I'll be blunt and honest here this morning.

That's the way it is. We give a little bit here and there. Oh yeah,
those missionaries, we got to make sure they've got a buck or two.

But we hold on to the majority of what we got for ourselves. Oh, I can't
give too much because I've got to do this, and I've got to do that, and
I'm not going to be able to go on vacation here. And where are we at? It
just shows you that we're not understanding the purpose of the church,
and our part in it, and what we're here in the world to do.

We have been deceived by the world to think that we're here to have a
good time. We're here to enjoy life. We're here to just basically be as
content as we possibly can.

And sure, we want to do a few good things. We want to affect a few
people here and there, and help a homeless person out, or go down to the
church and volunteer some time. I'm afraid that's the thinking of much
of American Christianity.

God is calling us to something else. And I've said it a million times,
and I'll say it again. We cannot for one moment expect any change until
we're willing to change.

We cannot expect the world to lay hold of Christ if we, his people, are
not willing to lay hold of him entirely. How is it possible that we
could expect the world to be any different? And you see, that's the
curse when it comes to the religious right and the whole, this American
traditional Christianity. That's where the curse lies.

The church itself wants to have its cake and eat it too, basically. We
want to live out what the forefathers had planned for this country. We
want to live in this utopia.

We want to live in this capitalistic society, free enterprise, and all
of this kind of stuff. We want to do that. So what? So we can enjoy
life.

But remember the words of Jesus, he that hates his life in this world
will keep it to eternal life. Oh, that's a hard word, isn't it? But it
was said by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. What does that mean? That
means that we leave those things behind.

Those aren't the things that are important. We can't expect any change
to come. And I'll tell you right now, Bob Dole can get into office, the
Republicans can rule this country, and nothing's going to change.

Nothing's going to change at all until God's people, the church, become
who and what we are supposed to be. And then things will change. Things
might not get any better.

We might never get back to being able to live out the American dream. It
might be just the opposite. It might be persecution and suffering and
all those kinds of things.

And why not? They've happened historically. When you study the history
of the church, most of the Christians throughout history have suffered
for their faith. And we've been living in this interesting period of
time where there's been little to no suffering for the faith.

And it's quite possible. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but I
think you've got to be a fool to think that it couldn't happen, that
there could be a great persecution against the church. Well, what would
that mean? What would that mean for us? Where would we go? What would we
do? Are we ready if those kinds of things happen? The only way we can be
ready for them is to be right with the Lord right now, to be freed from
all of this stuff, to be released from it, to not be bound.

We need a vision of what the church is to be, and I hope that today
you've gotten a little bit of a better perspective on what it is. This
is the church. Do you belong? Are you part of it? Are you a member of
Christ's body? If you are, are you trying to attach yourself to the
world? Are you looking for a city whose builder and maker is man? Or are
you looking for a city whose builder and maker is God? You realize that
this world is going down, and there's only one thing to do, and that's
serve the Lord with all your heart and draw as many people as possible
into His kingdom.

And as I said earlier, the vacation is coming. We're all working hard
toward that great vacation that the Lord has planned called the
millennium, a thousand years of joy and feasting. And oh man, talk about
a vacation.

We haven't known anything. You know, how many of you have gone on a
vacation and got home and said, that wasn't what I was hoping it would
be? You know, our best vacation, sometimes we come back disappointed, or
we're just frustrated because it was so short. The Lord Jesus has a
thousand-year vacation coming up for His people.

That's what the millennium is. It's a time of just rejoicing and
feasting and glorying in the victory of Christ, and our work is done,
and now we rest. But we don't rest today.

The church is an army marching through the world. Are you part of that
army? That's why Paul could say to Timothy things like, no man who goes
to war entangles himself in the affairs of this life. No man who goes to
war.

What is he talking about? Timothy, you're in a war. This is a battle.
Don't entangle yourself in civilian affairs, but rather live to please
the one who called you to be a soldier.

That's his admonition to Timothy. And that admonition comes down to us
today. Endure hardship as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.

And he talked about the athlete who did not obtain the prize unless he
competed according to the rules. The prize is coming in the future, but
there's certain rules that we've got to live by now. He talked about the
farmer who would eventually partake of the crop, but before he could
partake of the crop, there was labor involved.

And in each of those things, Paul was illustrating what the Christian
life is all about. It's like being a soldier. It's like being an
athlete.

It's like being a farmer. There is labor, there's intensity, there's
warfare, there's difficulty, but there's a victory at the end. There's a
reward at the end.

There's an enjoyment at the end. We're trying to enjoy the victory
before we've won the battle. We're trying to enjoy the reward before the
race is over.

We're trying to eat the fruit before we've got the crop planted. See,
that's what's happened to the church. We need help.

And you know, I'm a human being like all of you. And I'll tell you, I
can get stirred up and determined, convicted, and committed, and yes,
that's right, and I'm gonna. And three days later, I'm right back where
I was before.

But you know what I've discovered? Every single day, I have to
determine, I have to commit, I have to submit myself to following Jesus
that day, every day. Because I know if I'm trying to live off Sunday
morning's excitement, I'm not gonna make it through the week. It'll wear
off.

It's just human nature. We just gravitate toward the flesh. We gravitate
toward the things that are pleasing to us.

And so Paul said, I die daily, and we're beginning to understand why he
said things like that. Every day, we've got to determine this is what
I'm gonna do. And that's what I want to exhort you with today.

Maybe you're getting stirred up, maybe some of you are fed up, and
you're saying, I'm not coming back here. Because I want to have fun, and
I want to live, and I want to be on vacation. Well, you can do that.

You have the right. You are a free moral agent, and you can do that if
you want to. But know this, when the judgment comes down, you'll have no
place in what's gonna remain.

But if you're stirred up and you're saying, yes, I want to change, don't
just go out of here with that. Go out of here with the determination
that, Lord, yes, every day, God, deal with me. Begin to ask the Lord
about your life.

What are you doing? What are you involved in? What do you have? All
these things. Lord, what about these things? You know, I gotta make a
confession here. You know, with the prospect of us possibly moving and
so forth, I was cleaning up the house yesterday, and I cannot believe
how much junk we have in our house.

I mean, absolute junk. You know, you're walking around with junk,
looking for a place to put it. Now, I want to put it in the trash can.

That's where I want to put it, but my wife has a hard time with that.
She's getting much better. But I just want to put it all in the trash
can.

But I just think, where did we get all this stuff, and why do we have
it, and what does it mean? But you know, it's just like you just
accumulate stuff, and you obviously don't need it because you haven't
seen it for two years, and now you find it and you go, oh, wow, I better
put this away. You know, I found a couple things under the couch
yesterday, and I looked at them for a minute. I thought, man, there that
is.

And then I'm throwing this in the trash. It's been in the couch for a
year. I haven't missed it.

Why bother to put it away? But you know, this is what happens to us. We
just, you know, we're earth dwellers. We're here.

Oh, yeah, our citizenship is in heaven. We know all that theoretically,
but we don't live that way. We just accumulate stuff, and we got more
stuff, and oh, my goodness.

God, help us. So when it comes time for the Lord to say, hey, I want you
to do this or change here and go there and that, oh, but Lord, what
about all this stuff? We're weighed down. We're earthbound.

We are the church, the church, this majestic thing, this glorious
community. At the head of the church is Jesus Christ, the creator of the
universe, the God of all creation. He's at the head of the church, and
he's saying, come on, let's go through the earth.

I want to take my message. And there we are with our tent stake driven
so deep in the ground we can't even pull the thing up. It's a sad
picture, and it needs to change, and it needs to change with us.

It has to start with us right here today, a determination on our part to
follow the Lord, to follow him completely, and to be done with this
world, to let it go. Because it's vanishing, it's perishing. Soon it's
going to be gone, and only those who do the will of God, they're the
only ones that will go beyond it into the kingdom of God.

Let's pray.

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Audio: https://sermonindex1.b-cdn.net/11/SID11745.mp3
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/brian-brodersen/colossians-the-churchs-purpose/
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