Open—David So
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I'd like to turn to the 4th chapter of Colossians.
Colossians, chapter 4.
Our brother spoke about standard.
What I had on my mind, on my heart this afternoon is reputation.
We're gonna read some verses from this chapter, but I'll preface it.
It's interesting to see that sometimes we think we can hide in the shadow and no one knows what we do and how we do things. But yet we all know the real truth, don't we? That if someone were to sit here with a report, I know our brother here said he had a little notebook. Do you wonder what he writes in his notebook? What if he stopped writing Yoni? What do you think he'll write about you?
And where I'll do that, don't we? We have an opinion about certain people, what they do, what they say, whether they're very quiet, very vocal, very active, very however you view them. There's a reputation out there, isn't there?
Even if we don't do anything.
I know someone say that if you just don't say anything, don't do anything and no one would notice.
Well, they noticed you don't say anything and don't do anything. That's your reputation, that's what you do, isn't it? So I thought with the Lord's help.
There are names mentioned. You'll find in the end most epistles.
Their names mentioned, and there's a little commendation the apostle would write about that person.
Now there are many lessons we can learn from that and here I'm just gonna take a small portion to apply to it because some would take the names at the enrollments and see the long list of names and as the chapter as the pistol go on, you see the names start to go down in numbers. That's different reason. But here just I thought at the end of Colossians is very appropriate just to take example of some of the names of how the apostle would.
Say something about that person.
Let's just read that for connections there. Colossians chapter 4.
Umm.
Perhaps we can begin with verse six. Well, we'll begin at verse five. Walk in wisdom to what them that are, without redeeming the time. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer Every man. All my stay shall fatigue us. Declare unto you who is.
I notice as we read through this you say the name.
And what he thinks of them. So here's the first one who is.
A beloved brother.
That's not enough. And a faithful minister.
And fellow servant in the Lord, so we know that what the apostle Paul thinks of him, verse 8, whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he might know your estate and comfort your heart.
With omniscience.
Uh, faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you, they shall make known unto you all things which are done here.
Iris, talk to us, my fellow prisoner. Salut saluted you and Marcus, sisters son of Bonne Barnabas, touching whom you receive commandments. If you come unto, you receive him.
And G Sauce, which is called justice, who are of the circumcision, These only are my fellow workers unto the Kingdom of God, which have been a comfort unto me. Apophis, who is one of you, a servant of Christ.
Saluted you always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in order. Will of God, for I bear him record that He had a great zeal for you and them that are in Laodicea, and them in.
00:05:20
Hieropolis, Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you.
So we're just gonna stop the full moment? A few more names. I really didn't have much preparation in the sense of this, so I don't know how long it will take. I trust that someone will wave their hand if I went over time there.
So we find some of these names. Now can we find it interesting So far, almost everyone. Now notice I say almost everyone, the lo uh, the apostle has a commendation.
Now I'm giving you a hint as we go through them. Not everyone he named here. He commanded with something nice. OK and see if you can find that before we get there. So we find some of them just going through quickly the key cuts how he declared that a beloved brother wouldn't it be nice if someone found.
Another notebook. A plain notebook. I know I shouldn't say blank. A notebook with the name of every one of us sitting here tonight.
For this afternoon and you look up and I know what we're doing. When we see a list of names, it's like an address book. First thing we do is we look up our name first, don't we? Just to make sure that we're listed and it's listed properly, right? I have the privilege to update the address book at home and I know people do that. And sometimes you misspell the name. You get a phone call very quickly when you misspell their name or have the wrong address or phone number.
People like to know about themselves.
So Can you imagine that perhaps another brother or sister have that book out or left out? And by the way, if you do, please don't leave it out.
And first thing is you see your name and the name and beside it it put in something like this a beloved brother.
I suppose you have a sister. You would like to see the word sister on it, but you know what it means. A beloved.
Precious to see that, but that.
Part by yourself is nice, but.
It goes on to say he is a faithful minister.
Wow, we we don't even hear the word faithful being used much today. When was the last time you even used that word about someone who is faithful? I think that's a great commendation to be known as faithful.
Do you faithfully coming out to meeting? That's nice.
Do you faithfully be at the prayer meeting? Well, maybe. Oh, that's a big issue, isn't it? Are we faithful in following what the Lord would like us to do here? No questions, just a comment.
Faithful Minister.
Faithful servant for our Lord and fellow servant. Oh, the apostle says he works with me, He's one of us. Isn't it nice to see that?
Who's the next person we see on this Onissimus? Well, he too got that na, that that description Faithful.
And beloved brother, who is one of you?
Well, we see.
Uh, we said risk talkers, we'll just skip down there because it, it talked about sister, uh, sister, son of Barnabas and his receiver. Oh, don't leave him out. I think that's important too to, you know, sometimes we see people that are new, you know, we, we've been coming to this conference now for almost 40 years.
Yeah, before you were born.
A long time, isn't it? And, you know, we feel like we know.
Everybody here. But then there are times when you come and you look at someone and say, say, I don't know them. What do we receive them? Like someone whom we know well or children. We see that we have children that used to come with it. And they will say, oh, they'll go to places and they'll say, I don't know anybody there. I I don't wanna go because they don't feel welcome.
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But then we sometimes say that the children now be careful. You're gonna find friends.
And when you find a friend, don't just stick to the friend, not because you don't want them as a friend, because you don't want to isolate the rest of the children who are looking for friends. So we need to learn to receive others too, don't we? One of the very important attributes that the Word of God want us to have is to be given in hospitality.
It's nice to remember that so we won't go through 1 by 1 just for time sake. Nor do I say I know all these people well.
Then we find this man named Jesus.
Or justice. Paul pointed them out. He's different. He's one of the circumcisions. You know what that means? He's he's one of the Jews converted and became saved and he's no longer a Jew because the word of God said there are really only three categories of people as far as the word concern, as far as the word of God concerned, there are Jews. If you're not a Jew, then you are Gentile.
But then if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
You are a new creature, you become part of the church. So whether a Jew who is converted and believed or Gentile like us, well, we're part of the church. We're no longer a Jew or GE Gentile. We are part of Christ. So he's one of them and he specific specifically mentioned them. But here's something that's very interesting. At the end he said of that verse, he said he has been a.
Comfort unto me.
I know some of you.
Or perhaps I should say, some of us have gone through various trials.
It's difficult, isn't it, when you feel that.
Trials and difficulties before you. And often we feel we are alone, don't we? Why would the Lord allow that? Well, and then we find someone who's able to comfort us. Isn't that wonderful to think that? Especially someone who has gone through perhaps similar circumstances, similar trials?
Overcame it and now they can come and say certain things so that you're comforted.
That's a very important gift in a sense to comfort someone. You know, I, I, I was going to say we as men, Perhaps I should say I know I myself often I'm not sensitive to people's needs.
And sometimes we know that women blame men for not seeing things well. It's a great gift to see that someone's going through difficulties.
And be comforted. So his name was marked down in there, that he comfort the apostle himself. Now the next one in verse 12, Aprophus.
I really enjoyed this portion. I think we can speak on that a little bit. In fact, he's the one or his exercise is what I had on my heart, more so than the rest of the names given here. Let me just read verse 12 again. Apophis, who is one of us.
A servant of Christ salute you.
Always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. Now I think this one verse is loaded with information for us to digest.
He's one of you.
Interesting.
Is the person you're looking at besides you, one of you? Or are they just a stranger? But more so, he's a servant of Christ that make us unique.
We belong to the one body. Here's another great truth. The word of God, especially the apostle Paul, brings out to us that there is one body, every believer.
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Who accept, who have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as the Savior is part of that body. We are of one body, so that one body have different members. But there is one body. And of course we know there is only one God, one Spirit, 1 Savior. And this morning we had the privilege.
Of showing a public testimony that there is one body. This morning we were here with the express purpose of remembering the Lord Jesus in his death for us. But how did we do that? We had one loaf.
One loaf, yes, we can say, the Lord said, take each. This is my body which is given in death for you. But then that one loaf too should remind us that there is one body.
So Acrophys was part of that. One of us is part of that body. But then it says a servant of Christ salute you.
Always laboring fervently for you in prayers.
Perhaps aquifers couldn't be everywhere to help.
But he pray. Did you realize He prayed and.
Sometimes we do that too when we remember our brethren, we pray for them. But he, he, he didn't just pray and and I would confess something with you.
We often say to someone after we're here, certain difficulties and we'll say we'll pray for you. And I'll confess a lot of times when I get home I forget.
I didn't really pray for them.
But here the word is fervently. Oh, he didn't just pray for them, He prayed for them fervently, always laboring that He treated that as that's his job, praying earnestly, fervently for them in prayer.
Do we pray one for another?
Do we pray?
Or do we pray when we hear someone is so sick, someone, especially someone we love is so sick that we pray and say, Lord make sure you make sure he's or she is better. Now I want to re read the latter part of the verse because it tells us how he prayed and what he prayed for. I don't think we hear the word they will say. Lord, I pray that they will be healed. I don't see that in here. Let's read that again.
What is he praying for?
Laboring fervently for you in prayers, comma.
That ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.
Oh, is it to make us better when we're sick? Perhaps.
But he prayed that we may be all, that we may stand perfect and complete in the will of God. So the first lesson we should take from this is when we pray, we should pray according to His will, not just our will.
You know, we have children, we raise children, and sometimes people say, well, your children are older, you don't remember what it was like. And you're right.
Especially I know our older children would remind us how we're not being fair, that they used to get punished for a lot more than the younger one, of how they get away with things. Well, now we brought some of our grandchildren with us and we find that they're not much different.
We need to pray for them too, don't we? They're not much different in that that we pray. We have to learn to pray, But according to the will of God, now what we want, we're children and we're reminded, and some of you may see that we have a little show going on in the back there with the three of them and they want something.
There's a whole bag of raisins there. They would like to have the whole bag. That's the will.
Well, do we let them?
We could, but we pay for a great price afterwards.
So God do similar things to us too, that we as children, we have our own will.
When we see that big bag of Dum Dum, we may want to eat the whole bag. This tastes good and we become a real Dum Dum after that, right?
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So as parents we know or at least we should know what is good for them so we know when to say no. We might say after the 4th dumb dumb you should stop. Well some parents might think after one you should stop. So here God knows what is good for us and what we want should be according to the will of God. So sometimes I know someone you may not like this phrase. I know some love it. They say certain ones that pray they said these are.
Warriors, I'm not too sure if I like that phrase, but we should pray so that our brethren, every one of us may come to the full knowledge, so that our prayer would be that that ye that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.
So.
I'm going to go down a little bit here. I'm just looking at time here, verse 14, Luke, well, we've got Luke in here, but different. Luke has preservatives, the beloved decision.
Doesn't say much, but he's beloved. I think that's nice.
In fact, I'll tell you a little story and I'll speak that more so to young man when I was younger in my teenage years, I I remember few brother exalted me to go to care meetings. So when you said I remember saying to him is he don't need to be there. I'm too young to say anything. He said that's not the point. You should go to care meeting to learn.
Because it's gonna come a day before you realize it. You are one of the older one.
And require to take care of the matters in the assembly.
And I remember sitting there one time and someone asked for a letter of commendation.
And my brother said, well the only wording we can put in there is that he is in fellowship with us. Period. Very short letter and I go wow. But we usually say a few nice things about the person.
Well, we don't have anything nice to say about that particular brother, so we'd rather not say anything and state the fact that he is in fellowship with us.
So now with that in mind, let's read this verse here, verse 14, Luke the beloved physicians. Now the part is this and Dimas.
Comma.
And Dimas, that's it. Greed you.
What do we know about Dimas?
How would you feel now that you got a hold of that list that somebody left and on your name there's nothing bad that is said about you?
And Dimas.
That's it.
But the rest you see beloved, faithful, and so on.
Hmm.
That should touch our heart, shouldn't it now?
You're young enough.
There's still time. As if it were.
How someone gonna write something about you really is dependent on how well you behave because.
You don't need any pistol in a sense read and known by all men. So in many ways you have our choice. Now we know the Lord knows our hearts. We don't do things so someone would say nice thing about us.
We don't buy nice dresses so someone would say we are nice looking or pretty. Now don't get me wrong and go home and tell your mom and dad that you don't want to wear any nice dresses anymore. That's not my thought neither. But your demeanor, the way you behave are known and read and and use what else is interesting. Now this is an epistle the apostle wrote to the Colossians.
To the yes to the Colossians that you would think, Oh well, so other words.
Only the Colossians know about this. No, that's not quite true. Let's just look at one more verse here, verse 16. And he said, and when this epistle is read among you.
'Cause that it be read also in the Church of Laodicea, and that you likewise read the epistle from Laodicea. You see, we're gonna read each other's letter, so you might say, wow only.
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Collage. No. Now the Laodicean's gonna know about you.
My thought is not here to chide anyone, but to exhort that we are to walk. We are heavenly citizens. We have to be reminded. Why are we here?
You, if you have been redeemed, you are fit for heaven. Why I believe the Lord is leaving us here for just a little while to be a testimony for His namesake. This morning we talk about that armor of light. We are to be the exhibition for Him. We don't need protection.
But protection by walking in a way that is proper, being faithful.
Righteous and holy, and that often speaks louder than words. Again.
#36 in the back of the book.
36 independence we go to meet the Savior, his glorious pain to see what manner of behavior does with this overcreated. May God elimination God's heart and walk arise that so our cooperation.
Decision in size 36 to the back of the floor.