Sermon Notes - 09/16/12 - Part 1

This is Week 2 in Bro Mike's 3-week series on Discipleship -- the Mission of the Church.


Main Text, Colossians 1:24-29, this week concentrating on verses 26-28:

(26) the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.

(27) To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

(28) Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.


Introduction: The Church is responsible for taking a person from where he starts his journey in Christ on to maturity. We want to take every member and help them grow.

Do You Appreciate Your Salvation?

Appreciate --

• to grasp the nature, worth, quality, or significance of;
• to judge with heightened perception or understanding;
• to be fully aware of

Sometimes we need to stop and have our salvation appraised --
Bro Mike's illustration was the popular Antique Roadshow.

You can take items to knowledgeable, expert antique dealers.
An item might even come from your attic, tucked away, without any value or use. An expert will look at it and, describes it in great detail, and then asks, "Do you want to know what it is worth?"

It is usually good news for them, and fun for us to watch.



I. Did you know that the gospel of your salvation was once hidden from even God's choicest servants?

     Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of
     the grace that was come to you, searched intently and with
     the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances
     to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he
     predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would
     follow.... 1 Peter 1:10-11


Your salvation: when you die you will be delivered from death with sin to life with forgiveness. That is salvation.
 

To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven--things which angels desire to look into. 1 Peter 1:12
 

Angels, looking over the balcony of heaven, saying, "Hey, that is
a rich, rich gospel down there."   It is not accessible to them.

"Wow, tell us more about that - what we see from a distance!" they
might be saying.

Angels wonder about it and marvel.

Prophets - it was revealed to them, but it was not for them. All the prophets -- Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah -- all of them worked diligently and faithfully for others (like us)  to be blessed.

That means they had a kingdom mentality.

Do you have a kingdom mentality? Can you serve God when
someone asks you to do something that will bless someone else?
Maybe sometimes we have a slight hesitation if we are not to be the recipients of the blessing.

The prophets searched carefully for something they could not put their hands on.


II. Do you know the mystery behind the gospel being hidden? (v. 26-27) Christ in you! 


Perhaps on Antiques Roadshow a person might be told their item was made in Paris in 1814. So how did it end up in my attic? they might wonder. How did it come into their possession?

What had been hidden for centuries, was, as Paul said in verse 26,  now revealed to his saints.

The term saint can be a huge issue for some of our brothers and sisters in Christ in other traditions. We are saints...saints with a little "s".

If I am not a saint the day I die, God will say, "I never knew you!"

The Greek word for saint means  "separated unto God."

Over 100 times in the New Testament the term is used to mean that if you know Jesus as your Savior, the Holy Spirit has come into your life and separated you unto God.

Look at the word now: Bro Mike tells us he highlights words and phrases in his Bible, often in blue, but the word now here should be highlighted in red!

Now....could you tell another human being that at one time you were in one position and now you have moved to another position....or..."once I didn't understand that, but now I do" ....or "once I knew I was lost, but now..."

This week's assignment is to think about that...how are you different now?

It was hidden to Isaiah, but you get to have it!


This was really a powerful message -- I have listened to it  on line, parts of it twice, to help put these notes together. There is much more....

I will finish notes in Part 2. If you want the whole thing right now, go to fbc-bc.org and hear it!