[Mr. Darris McNeely] From his house imprisonment in Rome, the apostle Paul had received a report of heresy going through the church. One of the churches is in Asia Minor, the church in Colossae. Turn if you will over to the book of Colossians with me. This is the letter that the apostle wrote to the church at Colossae after a messenger had come to him with news that the members of the small congregation, likely a house church—30, 40, maybe 40 to 50 people, probably more than that, but still a thriving congregation—they had become mixed up on certain teachings. And as you look at the book of Colossians, the letter of Colossians, you can get an idea of what it was that they had their problems with. They had gotten mixed up about God, the nature of God. And so, Paul, in the first chapter, starts to talk about God and how all things were created through Christ, and the preeminence of Christ. And so, they were mixed up on God and Christ, which we know from church history, and even into our modern current church history, can still get people mixed up. God and Christ can create problems if people don't properly read the scriptures. But Paul addressed those in some very clear teaching here.

They had another problem. It appears that some were teaching about the worship of angels, and so Paul deals with that here. It's very clear that the beginnings of a lot of gnostic teaching were coming in and filtering into the church. Probably some of the members were thinking, "I'm not being fed at church. We're not getting good meat. So I’ve got to find some other idea that excites me." And so they were listening to other teachers and then coming to church and talking about that and being influenced because of whatever was going on in their mind and life not being grounded in scripture, so Paul deals with that.

In chapter two, he talks about the Sabbaths, the festivals, and not so much from a...trying to prove it, but to show why we keep the festivals, why we keep the Sabbath, why God's teaching on that was important for a Gentile to understand and to move away from all the other festivals and days that paganism had, and he basically shows them why.

And then, in chapter three, he moves into some very clear teaching about Christian living and principles. So you see in the first few chapters of Colossians that Paul deals with some pretty heavy doctrine - God, Christ, angels, Sabbaths and festivals, all of which are, with the exception of angels, we have fundamentals of belief that cover. We don't talk about angels in one of our 20 fundamentals. We do believe in angels. We have a booklet on angels, but it's not embedded in our 20 fundamentals, other than if you want to talk about the doctrine about Satan. But we cover God and Christ. We cover the festivals, the holy days. And doctrine is very, very important, and Paul goes to great lengths to show this here. And when you get down into chapter three especially, he begins to talk about some of the practical application of when you have proper doctrine.

One of the things I teach, I teach the fundamentals of belief, the doctrines of the church at ABC, and we'll be getting back into that here in a couple of weeks now as we begin the next year, and I always try to show students that doctrine is more than just a list of scriptures to prove something. It is much, much more than that. It's truth, but it also should have a practical application.

And Paul shows that here in Colossians and why, when you get God right, when you get the Sabbath right, then you get a lot of other things right in your life. And it goes to great lengths to show the practical beneficial benefits that come out as a result of doctrine and getting it right and having it working properly within the church. And so Paul writes then, through three chapters in this way, and he wrote this letter, interestingly, when he put it all together while he was a prisoner in Rome under what we would call house arrest. He had a lot of freedom to have people come and go. You find that at the very end of the book of Acts. And he had traveled there after a very long journey on the sea, which two chapters in Acts talk about. And on that, Paul had learned a great deal about God, God's grace, and God's guidance to get him as a prisoner from Israel to Rome, being shipwrecked and everything upon the sea that that story talks about there. And so he knew God's hand was upon him and it was upon any and all of his people.

And I think when he writes this letter, Paul was writing it from a wealth of experience including what I just mentioned here, and I think that it can help us as...we're going to focus on a portion of this letter, just understanding to see the guiding hand of God in our lives, something that we really do need to focus on more than ever, I think, right now. We've come through and we're still in an interesting period of time. There's been a great deal of stress, mounting stress, it seems, with the shutdown, the pandemic, uncertainty, fear that has been created, a lot of change.

The isolation. I mentioned, you know, it's good to see a lot of you. We hadn't seen each other for a while. And, you know, to get back into fellowship and services is essential for the body of Christ. But there's a lot that we're facing, job loss and the uncertainty of the future. We've turned the Feast of Tabernacles upside down. Not that we have changed the feast. We're going to keep the feast, but all these sites that have been cancelled, new ones coming on. Debbie and I are still going to our original site which has been canceled, and it's going to be interesting. It's going to be what we call a boutique site now. Oceanside is an unofficial boutique site. Boutique it means just kind of small, exclusive, beachside, California, sandals, palm trees, and things like boutique. It's an inside joke with this, but anyway, all of this has come upon us this year. Scott Moss is here visiting and he's just telling me that he'd seen something somebody had written that the biggest mistake that the guy made this year in 2020 was buying a planning calendar. Think about it. How many plans have gone awry as a result of what we put down and thought we were all going to be doing at the beginning of the year? I thought a lot of things at the beginning of the year, and then it just all kind of changed.

And so, along with this comes a lot of stress. Now, Paul came to a point, I think, in this letter. If you look at chapter four, beginning in verse two, I think he laid down his quill after writing a lot of heavy doctrine, and he thought, "What do I need to say to put a close to this letter, this heavy letter?" And I think what he did, under God's guidance, as God inspired this to be written, I think that he put down a few verses here that seem to be a practical summation. Five verses beginning in Colossians 4:2 that sum up what it means to know the true God and Jesus Christ, the creative order of life, angels, the festivals. And he begins to turn to certain things that in... amazing in five verses. I've kind of centered on this a few weeks ago and just kind of reading through this passage of Colossians, and I thought, "Wow, there's a lot right here in these few verses to encourage you to focus on practical steps that, in a sense, activates the doctrine that he would have been writing about and the practice that we have. In these five verses, he talks about prayer and he talks about watching. He talks about Christ, talks about time, and he talks about grace. Let's read them very quickly, and then we're going to look at them more in-depth, beginning in verse two.

Colossians 4:2-6 He says, "Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving. Meanwhile, praying also for us that God would open to us a door for the Word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I also am in chains, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with Grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one."

And then he closes with a few more verses that mentions people and what some of his plans and thoughts are and then closes it out. Five verses, beginning in verse two, that to me stood out here, and looking at this that activate, if you will, the doctrine that he was talking about, kind of the heavy topics that he had to discuss in the earlier verses and chapters of this letter. So let's take a few minutes and let's go through these verses and let's kind of dig into it a little bit to see what Paul is really saying and the benefit to you and I right now in our own life as we deal with whatever it is that's stressing us out, with what we have been through and learned a few lessons as a result of this. And so, looking back in verse two. Let's go there.

Colossians 4:2 He said to "continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving." Prayer, be vigilant, continue earnestly in prayer. Now, I think Mr. Tannert mentioned the importance of prayer as a pillar in his sermonette here earlier. We understand prayer is a very important tool of Christian development and Christian growth. We all pray, and we have our times and our ways and our methods of how we pray and where we address God and how we pray, and that's a very personal, very intimate aspect of our life and our relationship with God that we cultivate, develop. Sometimes we are very earnest in prayer and sometimes we might slack off in prayer. But Paul says to continue in prayer, to continue in that.

You know, in the early days of the church, we read that the church grew exponentially there in the book of Acts, and the caring, the needs of the church just grew. One day, it dawned on the apostles to tell the church, "Look, find a group of men, a group of people, and separate them, men who are led by the Spirit, who are wise and understanding, and let them take care of a lot of the administration of the church while we will ourselves continue in prayer and in the Word."

And so, they created this class of people we typically called deacons today to take care of a lot of the physical details of the church so that the apostles would, as they said, continue in prayer. They recognize the nature of their job and their role, but in that, it's the same word here, that Paul says to continue earnestly in prayer. We have to continue on in prayer and in our approach to God. The Apostle said that, "Find some capable people to help out while we continue with the Commission that Christ gave to us." And so, they organize the church and the routine of the church so that they could prioritize, in that case, their work or their spiritual work to prayer and to the Word.

And so, as Paul tells us here in verse two, "Continue in prayer, stay with it. Order your life so that you're staying with that prayer." It's a good thing for us to look at and to examine ourselves on. Is our lives ordered in such a way that we are able to continue in prayer? Prayer is really the first step toward grace, if you will, because it establishes that relationship with God as we talk to him and say so much to him about our life and our requests and our needs and our praise to God.

Ask yourself whether, in your prayer, do you pray so that you can move on to other things in your day or do you get things done so that you can pray? Ask yourself that. To continue earnestly in prayer. In other words, is our life organized around our conversations with God and our petitions to him? I think that that's a part of the meaning here that is inherent in this idea of continuing in prayer, and one of the commentaries that kind of breaks this verse down, it shows that it is really is meaning to persist in the siege. To persist in the siege is what continued means. It's interesting when I saw that. A siege, we all understand, if we played Risk, or watched any type of movie, it's when, you know, two armies are fighting, a city is under siege. The walls are keeping the enemy out. The enemy, or the good guys, or however it's all set up, trying to batter down the walls, get through the gates. And Christ said to his church that the Church will batter down the gates of hell. Prayer is our siege with God. If you will, that battering around that we have to just keep slamming against the gate, to open up our life, to open up a relationship with God, to break down the gates of this world that work against us. Persist in the siege as we pray to God.

I think Paul meant that prayer was the battering ram that goes against the gates and against the walls. He considered himself at war. He wrote about that in Ephesians 6, a spiritual war, and prayer was his chief weapon, and it's the only weapon that he had. When Paul stood accused in the court of the Roman Empire, the only weapon he had was prayer. He didn't have any legions, he didn't have any Centurions for him, he didn't have a band of men that were fighting for him. All he had was prayer, all he had was God, and that's what he organized his life around.

Remember, he's writing this letter of Colossians from prison. And so he tells them to continue earnestly in prayer. Prayer is our offer of grace to God. The latter part of verse two here.

Colossians 4:2 He says, "Being vigilant in it with Thanksgiving." Vigilant. The New King James will say vigilant, if you have an Old King James on your lap, it will say, "Be watchful," and both are legitimate. The term watchful we may be familiar with as we see that term used in Scripture. Ezekiel was to be a watchman. God appointed him as a watchman to Israel to stand on the walls and to report an oncoming calamity. Jesus uses the term quite a bit in his messages to the church and in the gospels, to be watchful, to be praying, to watch and discern.

One of the more interesting parts of it, and I think it applies here, you remember on the night that he was arrested after they had been in the upper room, they'd had the Passover meal, they went out into the garden, and he told them, his disciples, "Wait here for a while. I'm going off over here," maybe across, you know, the distance of the lawn here, halfway, like there. He left them in a spot, he went off, and he prayed for a while. Then he came back, and what were they doing? They were asleep. And he said to Peter, "Couldn't you have even watched with me for an hour?" It's the same word that is used right here telling us to be watchful, vigilant in prayer.

There's calamities that can come upon us. We can slip in our spiritual lives. There can be tests and trials and matters that come quickly upon us. We can enter into a period of stress like we have had during this period of time, we have to be vigilant. We have to be watchful in prayer, first of all, and in other ways as well, but we have to stay awake. We have to stay awake to what is in front of us. Remember that, again, Paul here in this letter to the Colossians, he lays out the order of the universe, all created by God, by Jesus Christ, and God's purpose was being brought to pass in that. And "Christ is our hope of glory," he tells in chapter one. And he lays out the whole order of the cosmos in describing how the created order works.

And God is aligned, the Father and the Son are aligned in a purpose and all life has to be in alignment with that mind as God has laid down that plan. And this is what Paul is showing and saying, as you continue in prayer, you persist in the siege, be watchful, be vigilant to it all. And the doctrine, the teaching about God, the Holy Days, and you can throw in every other part of the teaching that we understand, sin and law, tithing, and baptism, the sacrifice of Christ, and everything that lines up this order of God's purpose and plan we call truth. That is not only the framework of our life and of the house that God is putting together, it's everything behind the walls, the plumbing, the electricity, the lines that run mechanically to make the building work. And in this case, the house, the body, the church, the people. When the doctrine is right, taught properly, understood, adhered to by the people, then there's an alignment. And as we are in watchful tune to that, we know that it works.

You know, nothing can be more upsetting than to go through your home, you flip a switch and nothing comes on. I guess that's what happened today. You flipped the switch here and nothing came on, right? Wow. I'm glad that got fixed for us this afternoon for many of our brethren this morning, especially with no air conditioning. Must have been a hot sermon so... But if the light doesn't come on, uh-oh, what's happened? Ninty-five degrees outside and the air conditioning goes off. You turn up the water faucet and there's no water. Something goes down in our house, we got a problem, you got to get on it right away. It gets everything out of alignment. We all know how that can upset our routine in our life in our house. Look at the truth, teaching, doctrine, everything that we know about what God teaches us about himself as he's revealed Himself to us, and how we are to worship him, how we are to relate to him, everything from honoring him with the first 10th of our substance and all the way down the aspects of teaching, that lines us up with God, and life then goes well. Life then goes right. Paul is saying be vigilant, be watchful. Keep your house in order. Be prayerful. Be vigilant about what you know, believe, and how you walk. Live a holy life. Live in an orderly holy life, the structure will function properly as it should.

Living a life of grace requires that we are vigilant about what we believe, what we teach, and then how we conduct ourselves and how we live. And then he says, "Be thankful about that with thanksgiving." Paul's awareness of what God was doing for him in prison in Rome was never far from his lips, and you see that in his writings. When we have God's truth revealed to us it opens our minds to see the key to the mystery of life. And for that, we should always be thankful. And it's a good practice to practice that. My wife, we were talking about this point this morning before coming over and she reminded me of her routine, part of her routine. She's had kind of a study journal that she's used and a few of them trading in and out through the years, but one of them made the point continually to write down in the journal every day something to be thankful for. And when, as she said, you do that, you're mindful of being in a state of thanksgiving, and you have to find something in your life to be thankful for, and it helps to order your life. Sounds trite, and it sounds like, well, you know, nice, but maybe it doesn't always work, but you know that it does because the Scripture tells us to do that and to find something in our world, in our life, and among ourselves, regularly, daily to be thankful for. That's what Paul says to do as we persist in the siege, and as we are watchful for what we are involved with.

Colossians 4:3 "Meanwhile, praying also for us." Now, remember, Paul's in prison. If you were in prison, what would you be praying for? To get out of jail free. You want that get out of jail free card, wouldn't you? You wouldn't want to be in prison. Now trust me, Paul wasn't in the worst of a Roman prison. As again, I said, Acts tells us he was in a house and people could come and go. So it's not like he was chained to a stone wall somewhere and just, you know, left to rot, which a lot of Roman prisoners were. Their prisons were basically... in Rome, if you go to see what is called the Mamertine Prison where Paul spent his second imprisonment, it's a hole in the ground, and that's not what he had this time. But still, he would have wanted his freedom. He would have wanted to be released, but that's not what he asked for.

He says, "Pray for us that God would open to us a door for the word to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am also in chains." And from prison, that's where his heart was, to be praying, asking members to pray not for his release, not for a better lot of food to be brought in, but for God to open a door for the Word. That's an amazing thing to think about. He actually was doing quite well, if you read again the latter part of Acts. We find that a contingent of the Jewish community came in and he spoke to them. At the end of Philippians, Paul sends his greetings to the church at Philippi and he says, "Those of Caesar's household say hello." Now, what that might mean, scholars discuss and debate, but it would say that there were some in the household of the Caesar who were of the faith and likely had had contact with Paul.

Paul, you know, he was always told by God, it's from the very beginning, "You'll stand before kings." Did he stand before Caesar? We don't know for sure. That's a speculation he may have. He may have even had access to the court or to the home of the Caesar probably and very likely through at least members there, and he says they send their greeting. But Paul wanted a release for broader activity, and that's what he asked the church to give to him.

You know, today, the collective work of the church, what we do in preaching the gospel through all the various forms of media that we have, through the transmission of the words of explanation that you, the members, provide to people who ask what you believe, or through the example that you set as a Christian. The collective work that we do needs our prayers continually, fervent prayers, continuing, persisting in the siege. If there's one metric for success to measure the value of what we do as a church in preaching the gospel, it really does come down to the prayers of every single one of the members of the body of Christ and the church, and the active support, the prayers and the active support. What do I mean by active support? I mean the words of encouragement. I mean, the words in prayer to God for help and the words that we talk about of each other about our church and about our message and about what we do as we proclaim the message of the truth on all the various truths of the Scripture for us to be supportive of that. That's what is the biggest metric for success that we could ever have because God will honor that.

Every time that, you know, we like to get letters of request for literature, we like people to come on our website and click through and order this, download that. We air the "Beyond Today" every week and we look at those numbers that come back and we have what we call a CPR, a cost per response. And we've talked about that not really being the true measurement of how successful we are at what we do with the dollars that are allocated toward the direct preaching of the Gospel. I think that there are other metrics that we don't always measure. Sometimes they're just not measurable, but this one to me is probably the most important that I've mentioned, the prayers of you, the support in private and in conversations of the work that we do, to be in a sense proud of what we do as a church, and that total effort is what I'm talking about, that we do offer the truth and we make it available in all the forms that we do on the web, in print, and we seek to help people to understand God's purpose, God's plan, this world, this life, this craziness, and how to access God in the very way that Paul was talking about.

Paul knew that he could rely on the members and Colossae. They had his back. They had his back. He knew that, and that's the biggest metric of success that he probably had. His preaching...he was imprisoned for preaching the Gospel. Do you know that? That's why he wound up there. He was there because he preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God, which when you study what Paul did and what he said, it was a message about a coming King to whom all obedience was due now, at that time, and in the Roman period, that was a message of sedition or treason. It upset the order of Rome. It also upset the order of the Jews. We read that his biggest clashes initially in the church were with the leadership of the Jews in Jerusalem. With the apostles John and Peter and the church there, and then Paul, they followed him all over the place. Paul went into a city, the Jews would get stirred up. He'd get kicked out. He'd go on down the next city, start preaching. A few days later, they'd follow in, get everybody stirred up, and get Paul kicked out again.

Sometimes, you know, what is needed to be understood when you really understood that the hierarchy of the Jewish community of the first century—I'm talking about the chief priests, the Sanhedrin that we read about, the ones that engineered the death of Christ, the persecution of the church, the imprisonment of Paul that finally got him up against the Roman Empire—the Jewish hierarchy was nothing more than a mafia clan. They were the ancient equivalent of the mafia. They were corrupt. They had a form of religion, but they didn't have the truth and they were as corrupt and vile as you could imagine. Murdering each other, political. It's a horrendous story from that period. Paul was a threat to them. That's what got him into prison because he threatened the order of all of that. And he understood that, but he kept a positive approach in that he didn't let it get him down. And he said, "Pray for us that this will continue to be...there will be open doors," and looking back at verse three, "to speak the mystery of Christ, the mystery of Christ for which I am also in chains." Again, the Gospel of the Kingdom and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that's what he preached and it got him in chains, but he wanted to be able to do it more, stronger.

The mystery of Christ, you know. He understood that Christ's life, death, and resurrection were the missing parts of the picture of God's plan that had come into place. That's why he calls it the mystery of Christ here, not that it was still a mystery. Paul understood it from the very moment that he was struck on that road to Damascus and came face to face with the resurrected Jesus Christ, he got it. Everything fell into his place. It wasn't some radical conversion. He was already keeping the Sabbath, he was already keeping the holy days, he already believed in the God of Abraham. He got Christ. That's why Christ said, "Why have you been working against me?" He got it. And from that moment, it was all locked in. The puzzle in front of him made sense in living color, and that's all he could do. And that's why he was where he was. It was the mystery of Christ, the life, death, and resurrection. The God who reveals mysteries that Daniel talked about when he went up to Nebuchadnezzar in chapter two of Daniel and Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar, "There's a God who reveals mysteries." Paul knew that God, and he had come face to face with him, and it was no longer a mystery. The true understanding was what he had said back in Colossians 1:26 and 27, "Christ in us, the hope of glory."

That was it. That was the very essence of the Gospel that electrified Paul and ignited his passion. That was the heart of the Gospel message and is still is, that the Word had become flesh, had lived the perfect life, had died for our sins, and was resurrected. That Christ resurrection had opened the path for mankind to be fully formed in the image of God and through a resurrection to be born into the family of God. That's the mystery of Christ. Or put another way, that the eternal spirit had been joined to flesh so that flesh could become spirit. Let me say that again, the eternal Spirit had become flesh so that flesh, you and I, could become spirit. That's the mystery of Christ. That's it. That is what should get us out of bed every day. That's what we should live by. That is the atheist dilemma. That would put and stop the mouth of every gainsayer, every atheist who could see in the life of a Christian, of a follower of Christ, a firm conviction of that very truth, that very mystery of people who live each day with that belief and live like they believe it. That's how we should be living. That brethren, is what it means to be woke. It really is. You know, it comes from Ephesians 5, "Awake, you who are dead in Christ," is what Paul says. That's what it means. Have our lives awaken and to understand and believe. That's the point. That is the mystery of Jesus Christ.

Colossians 4:4-5 "That I may make it manifest as I ought to speak." He wanted more opportunity to preach that. And in verse five, he says, "Walk in wisdom, toward those who are outside redeeming the time." Redeeming the time. Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside. Paul is building towards something here. That should tell us how we relate to people that are outside. Who's outside? Who's outside? Well, we have our own terminology for that being in the church or out of the church, converted or unconverted, to explain ourselves, to explain the world, those that are not in the church, those that are not called, et cetera, those that are not firstfruits. But Paul says walk in wisdom toward them. We have to and we do deal with people all the time, family and neighbors and co-workers, to walk in wisdom toward people. To understand God's purpose and plan, not to think that we're better, because we're not. Not to think that we are more righteous of ourselves, because we're not, but to have an understanding about those who are, if you will, outside, and those that are the opposite, if you're going to use the term, inside. We should be wise about what we say and how we think about those that are outside or not in the church, and to walk in wisdom toward them. Like so many of us, I read a lot of commentaries and other works by biblical scholars and teachers, theologians that have written many, many libraries full of books about scripture, God, the Bible, Greek, Hebrew, etc, and I find some that are very good. I actually find some that they say parts of the truth.

And I'm reading along and I'm thinking, "Wow, they get it." This page, this paragraph, this half chapter could probably pass doctrinal review in The United Church of God." But then two chapters later, they're talking about the Trinity. Okay. And I find that all the time, so I take what is valuable and inside, and I recognize this. And I guess through the years I've concluded that, you know, there are certain, as I said earlier, basic truths that have to be lined up, God, Christ, who and what is God, that He's not a Trinity, in order to have it all, the whole package and everything functioning and working together, so I can learn from someone who has studied scripture and studied cultural context and background and all of the matters of theology and I can learn from them, but I don't have to become a Sunday keeper. I'm not a Trinitarian. I don't throw my belief out the window. And as I've done that through the years, I recognize that, yeah, Paul says we have to walk in wisdom toward those. It comes back to the mystery of Christ.

That is really the key that. Through the Spirit of Christ in us, God is bringing many sons to glory and that is a defining doctrine for the first fruits of God as to why now, why this calling is now rather than later, that is a defining aspect, and God opens the mind to understand that, but it takes an alignment of the truth for it all to come to an understanding. Great understanding the Psalm says, "They who will obey or keep the law." And so we have to obey, we have to have it all in a complete package, and God does His work there then to open our minds to truth and to doctrine and to a practice that others can't see completely. And we understand that in the purpose and the plan of God that it all begins by knowing the one true God, and Jesus Christ who was sent, and understanding that without the idea of a Trinity.

He says here as well, the end of verse five, “Redeeming the time.” Redeeming the time. You know, Paul had a lot of time on his hands in prison. By the time he wrote this letter, he'd already been in prison for more than two years because... Before he ever left Israel, Judea, he was imprisoned for a period of time in both Jerusalem and then down in Caesarea. And essentially what God did with Paul was to just kind of pull him off the track. "Pit," he said. "Time to pit. You need to rest."

And Paul had time then to kind of step back and to survey the work that he'd been doing. He'd been running around Asia Minor and Greece and starting churches, doing this. doing that, busy life. And it came to a stop. And he had time to write, he had time to think and do a lot of other things that we might not see normally from what we're told here in the scripture, but he had time to think and to write some of his best stuff from prison. He was downshifting in that sense and focusing in a different way, kind of like what we have done in recent months. We've downshifted. We've had to pit. Shelter in place, shut down, whatever. It's been good, been great. It really has in some ways.

What have you learned? What have you learned during this period of time? About yourself, about God, as you look at the world, what have you learned during this shutdown? This long period of examination? I think God's given it to us in one way and it's been a gift of God, so it's part of the grace of God. It's the beginning of this when we finally closed up here at the office and taught the last day at ABC and I pulled a bunch of notebooks and files from my office and walked out the door realizing I didn't know when I was going to come back, maybe a few weeks, and it turned into a few months. And I said at the beginning...I told my wife, "I was built for shutdown. I can handle this, all right. Just lock me in my room, give me my books, and I was built for this." Okay. And first weeks, man, I loved it, you know, shorts every day, t-shirt, no commute, and work actually got busier than I ever had been, and you meet with Zoom and everything else.

But you know what? After a few months, a couple of months, I began to get stir crazy. I said, "I need somebody other than my wife." And she was saying, "I sure need somebody other than you." And when we finally opened up, man was I glad to come back that first Sabbath and see some other people that I hadn't seen in a few months. It's good to see a lot of you. And we need each other. We're not built for shut down forever. We kind of need to go off for a weekend or whatever, and retire or not retire, but just retire from the routine. And in some ways, Paul says redeem the time. It means to buy back your life.

So what I'm saying is don't let this opportunity pass that we've had, look at it as an opportunity, even during the times of stress and trial that we've had. We've not necessarily been robbed of time, but we've been given an opportunity to recalibrate. And hopefully, we will use our time more wisely with each other and appreciate certain things or what we have been through. Make a list for yourself as to what makes your life worth living. I was talking with my eldest son a couple of weeks ago. He's not in the church and he's going through his own life and he was locked out of his office for a while and things were back into a normal routine there, but we were just talking about how it all was going and he realized and he said, "Dad, people aren't going to put up with this ongoing forever and ever because it robs people of the things that make life worth living." Whatever that might be for each individual, contact, a baseball game with real people. I mean, have you seen the cutouts that are in the stands? Give me a break.

I look at movies. When I watch a movie anymore and I see all these...even if it's made two years ago and I'm looking at a movie, I'm realizing that was a different time. Things have changed. And I find myself thinking about that, and you think there has been a big change. But what is it about your life that really makes your life worth living? Find that. Appreciate that. Cultivate that. Don't let it be ripped away. We've been in what is... One writer called a dress rehearsal during this period of time. I think that's a pretty apt description, a dress rehearsal for bigger things to come. So what have we learned? We're really only running with the footman right now. The horses are coming over the hill yet. We're still running with the footman. And then in verse six, Paul goes on to conclude this passage.

Colossians 4:6 He says, "Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one." This scripture has always fascinated me. I've only heard one other sermon given on this scripture in my whole history of the church, and that minister just focused in on verse six and gave a whole sermon on it. But let your speech always be with grace seasoned with salt. That word grace there is the word Charis, which means kindness, attractiveness, pleasant charm, and all that we would think about with the term grace.

Again, in my research, Blue Letter Bible is really great for opening up very quickly a lot of behind-the-scenes meaning of these words. There was one meaning there that said this grace seasoned with salt is describing what they called a hallowed pungency. A hallowed pungency. I had never thought of it that way, never heard that put together, a hallowed pungency. So I looked up, what's pungent? Okay. What is pungent? Well, it means strong, powerful, something that's pervasive, it kind of fills the room. Penetrating is another way to understand pungency. "Let your speech be with grace seasoned with salt," and we know what Christ said about “we are the salt of the earth,” and salt is, you know, a very important seasoning. You know how many kinds of salts there are. There's lots of salt. We used to occasionally go into this little salt place there in Jungle Jam, Colonel D's...is that what it's called where they had all?

And we'd splurge every once in a while and buy some exotic salt. And I remember looking at one salt there, and a guy told me what it was. It was a Norwegian smoked salt. Wow, Norwegian smoked salt. Where did they get that out of? Did they dig up some Viking ship that had been down there for hundreds of years and there was salt there? Well, then he explained it all to me but there are all kinds of salt and there's some very good salt that just opens up food in a right way. But pungency.

You know, the other day, we said, "Let's make a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch." That's another great thing about being home, you can just, you know, have lunch with your wife at home. All right. Well, we've had three or four different cheeses. We pulled them out, and I said, "Hey, let's make an adult grilled cheese sandwich. Let's slice real thin some shallots, and let's cook them with some olive oil real slow and kind of caramelize them."

And you know what happens when you do that on a stove? You get this pungent odor going through the kitchen, through the house of cooking onions. It's great, isn't it? That's what pungent means, and try it. It really made a great grilled cheese sandwich. Paul says let your speech be kind of like that. It's strong. It's powerful. It's pervasive, you know. It lifts. It's good. Your speech should be like that. Mine should be like that as well. To give an answer, to speak to people, to engage people with words that are graceful, kind, uplifting, encouraging, yet strongly salted, if you will, in a right way with just enough. To be kind, but strong and direct. Gets to the point so that we know how to do that. And when you stop and think about that to give an answer in the right way, it means to speak with good language, but it also means to listen well so that when we do answer, because this is what he says, "That you may know how you ought to answer each one. We have to give an answer for the hope that lies within us. We do have to respond to each other as we engage with each other, and at times, in some very strong, direct pointed conversations from time to time. It means not only to speak with grace, seasoned with salt, but we have to listen first to be able to understand so that then we can speak to the need, speak to what the person is saying, speak to what the person really should hear, but do it with grace seasoned with salt.

When I think about this verse, I think of a lot of things. I think of the speech of a gentle kind person whose words have meaning. I think about speech that covers the other person I hear with kindness and hope and courage, words that banishes fear, uncertainty, speech that lifts the spirit, speech that's kind of like the sun that breaks through the gloom of a cloudy day, or like the sun that pops through rising on a clear morning after a night of rain, speech that motivates you to be a better parent, a better employee, a better Christian, speech that just lifts you kind of like a good song. You know, you can't hear a peaceful easy feeling without tapping your feet or just being lifted momentarily. You can't. I dare you. You just can't. The other day, a song popped up on my iTunes list. I don't know why. I guess I have it in my own personal collection, but it popped up. I hadn't listened to it for years. It's a song called "Voices on the Wind" done by an obscure group called Little Feat, but Linda Ronstadt did the vocals with them, "Voices on the Wind."

I heard that song 30 years ago, and it was at a time when I had a dip, all right. We had just moved to a new church area. The church had been kind of abused. We were brought in, and they didn't like me just for walking in the door before I even said anything. And so, there was a tension that I had to deal with. My dad was dying of cancer, and I was at that point in life, and I thought, "Oh, man, I just went into a dive for a few...a couple of three months." You know, just cloudy day, every day. And that song I found, "Voices on the Wind." I found a few other things, a lot of prayer and a lot Bible study, but I found that song and I started listening to it and along with everything else, it kind of helped me pull out of the dip. We all have those things that do that.

That's what it means to me to have words of grace seasoned with salt. We're in an interesting period of time and Paul wrote this letter to help the church pull it all together and to say, "This is how you get through it. This is how you maintain your faith, get your doctrine right, hold it all together. be prayerful, be watchful, keep Christ as the center of your hope, the sacred center of your life, use your time well, and live a life filled with grace. And doing that Paul is saying here we'll get through it all. It'll be all right. It's a good letter. It's a good passage. Good points for us all to keep in mind as we deal with our life.

[Steve Myers] When we lived in Minnesota, there was a river that was not too far from our home. And on one occasion heard a story about two young men who were fishing there and they were so involved in their fishing trip. And what was going on, they got so concentrated on catching the big one that they got distracted. They were unaware that their boat was drifting and that it began to move closer and closer to the dam. When they finally began to realize their situation, they had already passed the warning signs, they had passed the buoys, and they were heading downstream at a rate that they couldn't control. They tried to throw an anchor, they tried to paddle, they tried to get out of there, they even had a small motor that just would not get them out of the flow from the pull of that dam.

Eventually, they just got caught up into the swirling waters and got pulled down in through that dam. And it was a horrible circumstance. And for days following that event, the divers were searching for the bodies until finally, they found one, I think it was about three or four days later. And then it was a number of weeks till they actually found his friend far, far down the river. In fact, I was looking a little bit to find out, see if I could find a little more about that particular story that happened a couple of years ago, and come to find out last week on that same river at the same dam another fisherman lost his life. And it was a reminder to me the dangers of just going with the flow. The dangers of drifting isn't just limited to fishing near the dam, it's not just limited to the physical world as well because it's a spiritual issue that we all have to deal with as well.

If you turn with me over to Hebrews 2:1, you might say here's one of those danger signs that are on the shoreline of this river of life that we're navigating. Hebrews 2:1 has a warning for all of us. And it's not just a warning about a fishing trip, it's a warning about something much more serious when it comes to our spiritual journey. Notice what Hebrews 2:1 reminds us of. It says, "Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away." A new Century version says, "So we must be more careful to follow what we were taught. Then we will not stray away from the truth." I think that brings in an important aspect.

If you were to look this verse up in the amplified version, notice verse one again, in amplified, here's what it says, "We ought to pay much closer attention than ever to the truths that we have heard lest in any way we drift past them and slip away." Sadly, it's not an uncommon thing, and I looked up about that story. It seems like about every other year, someone gets caught up in the river right near that dam and ends up losing their life. And so I think it's important for us to consider as God's people, do I just go along with the flow, is there potential for me to be drifting. In fact, would I know it if I were, how would I recognize that?

I thought it might be helpful to take a little time this afternoon to examine this issue and look at our own life, look at ourselves, as we consider this danger of just going with the flow. When you think about it, what does it take to go with the flow? Does it require a lot of effort, a lot of enthusiasm, struggle? Is there much exertion to go with the flow? Well, I think that's an important thing that we have to recognize. It doesn't take anything. It doesn't take any effort. It doesn't take any struggle. It doesn't take any energy. All I have to do is, well, nothing. I don't have to do anything.

And so if we were to stop using those oars, if we stop battling upstream, what happens to the boat? Well, if I do nothing, it starts to drift downstream. And so, no wonder we're given the admonition here in Hebrews 2. Because you know what happens? Well, it just happens, it just happens. And one of the things that was interesting about this particular story about the two men that were fishing, they didn't know they were drifting. They were unaware of it. And so you don't have to be mindful to find yourself in a spot that you didn't intend because it's just an unconscious process, it just occurs.

And so, one of the amazing things about the stories of those that get caught up in the current and get pulled down the river, those undercurrents, they're just not that noticeable. It's not something that you would recognize. You look at the surface of the river, looks the same. It doesn't seem to be that much different. And so that drifting, that going with the flow can just happen. And maybe it happened to you on the way to church today. And if you driving down the road and suddenly you get caught up in a conversation with someone and then you're getting off track and it's like, "Get back in your lane!” Had it ever happened anybody? Okay, why am I the only one raising my hand?

Okay, maybe I'm a little less attentive driver than I need to be. But drifting our lanes when we're driving is a similar kind of thing. It doesn't take much. It doesn't take much to get off course. In fact, just a little bit off course can lead to disastrous circumstances. And you know, that same concept is true in the spiritual realm. When we begin to get off course a little bit it can lead to circumstances that we slowly go with the flow, we don't notice it, and then we drift away. And gradually, we may fall into some kind of error, some kind of challenge, some kind of personal sin, and before you know it, we find ourselves far removed from God and His way. And it just doesn't take that much.

You know, what does it take to go with the flow? I mean, did you ever see anybody drift upstream? No, you always, you know, where do you drift you know? Where does the flow go? Well, if you're top of the hill, what happens to a landslide? Well, it all ends up in a pile of mess at the bottom of the hill and that's what happens when we begin that action of not doing anything, inaction. We follow the current downstream. And we're probably familiar with this. Maybe it's something we’ve recognized at the Feast.

If you've been to Panama City Beach. If you've been to Panama City Beach and ever got in the water, and you get carried away playing, maybe play with your kids or your grandkids or just with each other and you're out there having a good time, and then all of a sudden you look up and there's the Edgewater Beach Hotel, like a mile down the beach, "How did I end up over here?" Ever happened to anybody? You see that undercurrent just kind of takes and you don't even notice it. And before you know it, you're far removed from where you began.

And as you consider what it takes to go with the flow, it doesn't take much. It just seems to be a natural consequence of being in the water. It can take us somewhere where we don't intend to be. And if we're going to be faithful, it's kind of like paddling upstream. Life is kind of an upstream battle, isn't it? I mean, we're told about this over in 2 Peter, a familiar passage, 2 Peter 3:18. What does it take to go against the flow? Here's a familiar passage that Peter recorded for us. It kind of describes where we need to be in verse 18, 2 Peter 3:18. We know this verse, this is what we're supposed to be doing, this is what we're challenged with every day of our life, and ultimately, this is kind of the destination of our life in a sense.

Peter records for us, "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." That's what we need to be doing. That's what we're paddling for. We're paddling for growth. We're paddling for a close relationship with God. We're paddling toward the Kingdom of God and His way and the character of Jesus Christ. That's what we want. But you know that doesn't happen naturally, does it? It doesn't happen naturally.

In fact, if we back up a verse, look at verse 17. Peter says, "You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked." You see, he's pointing out how are you going to get to growth? How are we going to grow in grace and knowledge? How are we going to put on the character of Christ? You see, he's telling us, it doesn't happen automatically. It's not just showing up at church and so then everything's cool, that's all I have to worry about, that's all there is, everything will be fine. You see, that's just not the case. We know beforehand that it's going to keep, it's something that's going to have to keep moving us forward to the destination we need to go. Because the moment we stop paddling, you know, the moment we stop growing, what happens?

Well, we begin going with the flow. We end up drifting away. And the challenge is sometimes we don't recognize that that speed of the flow of water can become more and more dangerous. You know, for the fishermen, they didn't realize, I mean, it looked like everything was fine. They weren't right in the middle of a rapids when they were too late. The water looked the same. But the danger increased even though they didn't notice that the water was flowing that much faster as the river got smaller. And when you lose sight of that, it's tough to discern that you're going with the flow, that you're drifting away. And the farther you move from the truth, the farther we fall into wrong ways of thinking, the farther we remove ourselves from God and go down that river in the wrong direction.

It seems like, well, we could become less careful. We care less about what we do. We care less and less. We care less perhaps about what God thinks about the whole situation. And then it becomes even more dangerous, because it's not just a danger to ourself. You may have heard in the news this last week about this iceberg that has broken off of this area in Antarctica. And it's supposed to be gigantic, just huge. I was reading this article from an English newspaper about this particular iceberg, and they said it's one of the biggest icebergs that may have ever broken off and it's something like four times the size of the city of Greater London. So it's monstrous and now it's adrift in the sea.

And what this article went on the point out is that it's not just that it's there, but that these experts feel that it could pose a hazard to shipping and ships could, you know, be in danger if they come too close to this particular iceberg. And so it's just a reminder to me as I was thinking about this whole topic that here you've got an iceberg adrift, but who's at danger from this particular iceberg? Well, it's a hazard and it's out there and if a ship isn't careful, it could hit this iceberg and run into massive problems. And we know about ships and icebergs from history, not a good track record against icebergs that ships have. And so when you consider that what happens when you get out in the ocean?

I mean, we're out there in the ocean, are we just adrift or are we on a mission? Do you have a destination in mind? You see, when we're not moving forward, there's a chance that a storm could come up at any time. That's what they say about shipping. You get out in the middle of the ocean and it's amazing how quickly storms can come up, how quickly danger can present itself. And it certainly sounds a little bit like Ephesians 4:14, Ephesians 4:14. We know this particular passage. We get out there in the water and we're not moving forward. We're not progressing. We're not growing in grace and knowledge. We don't have those oars in the water where we're moving ahead. We're just adrift. What can happen? Well, that storm can come upon us and we can become unaware of our circumstances.

And Ephesians 4:14, we could be tossed. We could be carried about by every wind, every wind that would damage us personally, “every wind of doctrine” is what Ephesians 4:14 talks about. In the Amplified Version it says “We shouldn't be children, tossed like ships to and fro between gusts of wind, teachings or waverings with every changing wind of doctrine.” We have to be on our toes. We have to be wary of those types of things. Because once you get in that situation, it's like the fishermen in the dam. You get to a certain point and it's the point of no return. You're not going to get out of it and you can't help but be taken away by just the power of that water, that wind, and those waves.

And so, what happens? What happens you get hit by an iceberg? What happens when that storm comes upon you? What happens when you get too close to the dam? It's a disaster. What happens you go too far out of your lane when you're driving? You're going to get in an accident and you're going to end up over the rocks. You know, when you hear that sound of the water, it's too late, it's too late. And so if we go adrift by our own neglect, Hebrews 2, reminds us of that very fact. That it's tough to escape that. There are consequences and there is real danger if we go with the flow. And so I think it's an important question we each have to ask ourselves, am I just going with the flow? Am I drifting? So let's take a self-test for a moment.

What are the indications that I might be drifting, that I may be going with the flow in a negative way, in the wrong way? Are there indications that I can look at my own life and say, "Yeah, maybe I'm not as committed to God's way. I need to repent. I need to change. I need to make sure that I refocus." Well, let's think about a couple of those things. Let's take a self-test and look at a couple of indications that may point to the fact that I may be going with the flow.

Two words kind of summarize a number of things that we can talk about for a moment. The two words that I came up with were meager motivation, meager motivation. What's my intention? What's my passion? Is it tending to dwindle? Do I have the eagerness and the desire to continue to strive, to continue to keep that oar in the water and continue on? We've got to do that. That's our calling. But do we have meager motivation when it comes to the Word of God? Let's start there.

Number one, do I have meager motivation to study the Word of God? What is my passion? Is it for the Word of God? You know this is an amazing book. The Word of God is a phenomenal book. Where would we be without God's revelation? How would we know? What am I doing? What is the purpose of life? Why am I here? What do I expect down the line? What is my destiny? Why was I born? This book tells us these things and gives us phenomenal details of how to deal with life, how to handle situations, how to deal with circumstances. It tells me what happens when I sin, what's the consequence of sin. And maybe even more importantly, how do I overcome sin.

How can I deal with sin? You know, God's got a solution for sin. And if I don't read this word, I don't study God's word, I get off track. I could begin to drift. I can begin to head down the wrong way down this river of life and end up in a place I don't want to be. And this book, it gives us the direction. It tells us how to navigate these difficult waters. It tells us how to live a happy life, a useful life, a productive, spiritual life, and it helps us when we even lose sometimes that desire. It helps us to get it back. It tells us how to put that word into practice. So that when we find the waters are getting pretty difficult, this word can help us to gain back the passion that we need for God and His way.

And so it's a good thing to step back for a moment and ask ourselves, do I have the kind of motivation that I need that I should have when it comes to the Word of God? Now, that could certainly be a whole sermon in itself about studying the Word of God. But I believe if we haven't read the Word for a while, we're at risk, we're at risk of heading down the river in the wrong way. And so, what is my motivation when it comes to the Word of God. Now, the concept of meager motivation can also be another step in our self-test. We can ask ourselves, do I have meager motivation when it comes to prayer? Am I praying the way I need to? And what a fantastic blessing, we can go before God any time at any moment, at the drop of a hat we can be in the presence of Almighty God, and we can cry out to Him, we can talk to Him, we can share with Him anything that's happening during our day.

What an amazing blessing. We don't have to go to some priest. We don't have to bring a sacrifice. You know, we don't have to figure out “What lamb will I bring? What turtledove?” We don't have to do those kinds of things. We can communicate with our great God, the awesome Creator of all things at any time, and we can bring Him our successes, our joys, our problems, our difficulties, our challenges, our shortcomings. What an awesome blessing that is. Even the things that don't seem to go away, we can keep bringing to Him and we come to Him more than once. In fact, over and over and over again.

You remember the story of the unjust judge and the widow, the squeaky wheel widow you might say, right? She had a problem and she was going to keep coming to him and keep coming and she kept coming and coming and coming until he finally relented. And Jesus connects that to prayer in Luke 18. You don't have to go there. But it just tells that story about continuing to paddle, that current is against us and wants to hold us back, but we keep coming to God. We keep coming before Him. Is He going to hear those prayers? Is He going to help us? Is He going to give us an answer? I mean, that story reminds us that there's no doubt. And so, what's our motivation when it comes to prayer. Is it one of a passionate motivation or is it a fading motivation? You know, how much, how often, how willing are we to engage our great God in prayer?

Now, I think there's another aspect to the self-tests that we can ask ourselves that may be an indication of whether we're just kind of going with the flow. And that's this concept of meager motivation to be with the people of God. What's our motivation toward the Brethren, toward being together? I mean, it would certainly include the Sabbath, being together as we come to worship God. Certainly, that would be a part of the motivation that we should have, but is just showing up on the Sabbath the be all and end all of our motivation? You see, if that's all it is, that can be a challenge too.

So what's our motivation? Well, maybe we can start there. You know, our motivation to be together. Certainly being together at Sabbath services is key, you know. It's an opportunity to really fulfill the command of the Sabbath. We know the Sabbath Command says rest, it says to cease from working, right? Remember the Sabbath. We keep it holy. You know, we've got all these other days to do our jobs, to do our work, but the Sabbath is a day of rest. So certainly that's part of the fulfillment, but we also know part of the Sabbath command is to keep the holy convocation. That means collectively we come together, there is value in worshiping God altogether as His people, singing the same songs, praying the same prayers, being together, supporting one another, fellowshipping with each other. There is strength as we worship together. A power that can't happen when we're just napping or just resting by ourselves. And so there is power in being together.

Psalm 122, is one of those psalms that is a great reminder of what our attitude should be, what our motivation should be. In Psalm 122, it's a famous psalm I think you could say, one of those that points to the kind of motivation that we should have as we think about coming together. Especially as we think about it after a long week. “It has been a tough week. There's been so much going on. I think I'll just stay home and veg and I'll rest and catch up at home.” Is that a problem? Well, it can be, it can be. Now, certainly, there are circumstances that come up when we can't be there. But our motivations should be that we want to be there. Psalm 122:1, notice what it says. It says, "I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord.’" And of course, as we come together on the Sabbath, that's exactly what we're doing. We're coming into God's house. We're coming into His presence.

And all too often I may find myself going, “Oh no, not another Sabbath, not another… oh, I got to drag myself out of bed. I got to get going, I got..." Yeah, life is tough sometimes but what's most important? What's most critical? What an amazing attitude this is: I can't wait to go before God. I can't wait to come into the presence of God with His people because this is where we collectively come together. And what a blessed opportunity we have. And if we don't enjoy coming together, if we don't appreciate the opportunity that God's given us to share our lives on the Sabbath together, to talk about His Word, to sharpen iron with each other. We don't appreciate that. We don't appreciate coming together and worshipping God could that be an indication that we're going with the flow?

Because this life, this society that we live in, the pressures that Satan mounts against us is like that current of a river going against us. And we've got to fight that current. We've got to fight that tendency. Coming together can help us as we fight upstream. And so that that opportunity to be with God's people and not just on the Sabbath either, that opportunity to fellowship, that extends beyond services. That we can edify each other. We can build each other up throughout the week as well, because those right friendships, those godly relationships build us up in a way that our friendships outside just can't do.

And of course, that reminds of maybe another area we need to ask ourselves about when it comes to that self-test that we're taking, indications that we might be drifting, indications that we might be going with the flow, the distractions. The distractions of life — the busyness of life, the busyness of life. You know, those fishermen were so busy fishing. They were so excited about catching them the big one. They didn't see where they were. They didn't recognize where they had drifted to.

And sometimes when we're after the, you know, the next big thing, the next success, the next ride on the roller coaster of life, you know, the thrill-seeking, sometimes there's so much going on that we forget where we're at. And I don't think any of us would disagree that we live in a world that is focused on entertainment, it's focused on the things that would distract us and there's nothing wrong with entertainment. It's always good to relax and veg out for a while, but we don't want to be so distracted we don't recognize where we're at. And sometimes, we're in this mode of constantly being the need to be entertained. Constantly wanting those distraction and it can take us off course. It can take us off course from what's most important and what's most critical, that we're just after the next thing for enjoyment.

And it is interesting that Paul warned Timothy about that very fact. That in the kind of times that we live in, the perilous times that we live, 2 Timothy 3, he talked about those types of characteristics that would be evident and is sure evident during this time that we live in. And it talked about the fact that Paul warned Timothy that there are those that live at this time of our lives, that are focused on the pleasures of life rather than what's most important, you know. He said, those that are “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God," 2 Timothy 3 talks about that very fact. We don't want to be in that category. Yeah, we want to enjoy yourselves and God made us that we should enjoy life. Christ came that we have life and have it abundantly have a good life. But we don't want it to distract us. We can't let the world take us downstream to its priorities, to its entertainment, to its ways of looking at things.

And so we constantly have to be on guard and that's the challenge. Because I take this test, I fall short, I fall short and perhaps you do too. Well, how can I make sure I don't end up downstream? I don't want to go over the dam. I don't want to be down there. What's the antidote to going with the flow? Is there a fix for drifting? Fortunately, God gives us a fix, He does. He says there is a way. He says we don't have to end up at the wrong end of the stream. We don't have to end up where we don't want to go. So how do you remain close to God? You know, what is the answer? Well, God gives us several ways that we can continue on in His way. Let's think of a couple of these things that are really antidotes to going with the flow.

In fact, the first one, kind of was right there, Hebrews 2. In fact, the apostle Peter expounds on that. If you go over to 2 Peter 5… or I'm sorry, chapter 1 verse 5. 2 Peter 1:5, he gives us a little bit of insight into how we can resist that downstream pull. That pull of society against us, that pull of our own selfishness that's against us. Gives us some insight into how we can overcome this river that's constantly flowing, 2 Peter 1:5. I suppose you could summarize this section of Scripture in two words, what's one of the antidotes, antidotes to going with the flow? Keep paddling. That's kind of what… well, Peter doesn't say it that way, but that's really what he's saying. See if you see it here as well, keep paddling. 2 Peter 1:5, “But also, for this reason, keep paddling.” Well, he says it this way, "giving all diligence… giving all diligence,” and we know this section of Scripture, "add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control…"

Can you imagine this river? This river with all of these amazing attributes in it. I'm paddling. I'm paddling down this river, I don't want to go down with the flow of this world, so I'm paddling toward faith. I'm paddling toward virtue. I'm paddling towards self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly love, kindness, love. You know, that's the destination I'm heading for. I don't want to get sucked downstream. I’m paddling toward all of these godly attributes and I've got to keep paddling. And He doesn't say just paddle once in a while or paddle when you feel like it or paddle on the Sabbath and don't worry about it the rest of the week. No, he says, “keep paddling, give all diligence” and that's an amazing word there. Be tireless that can mean. Be tireless in our efforts to continue to paddle, to give that kind of diligence. Be persistent.

It carries that aspect of persistence and attentiveness, that I know that’s… “I'm not going to go to that side of the river because that bank hasn’t got anything for me. That stop over there, I'm not going to go to the right hand of the left, I'm going to stay right in midstream because that's where I… I know there's rocks over there. I know the water gets too shallow over there. If I quit paddling I'm going to go the wrong direction.”“So he says “keep going” because if we don't, and he even says this, He even says what the consequences are if we do if we don't. Notice if we do keep paddling, verse 8, he says, "If these things are yours and abound, you'll neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." That's where we want to go. That's the destination. That's where we're heading because if we don’t: if we pause, if we stop, if we kick back, we relax, what happens? Yeah, we know it's trouble.

You’ve probably… you ever watched the Olympics in those rowing competitions? They get those really long boats and I don't know how many people are on there and they're all paddling, they're going like crazy, right? They're going crazy. But you ever noticed that when somebody gets ahead that they look around and go, "Hey, we'll probably go sit back, relax we've got this thing in the bag." I mean, they don't. I mean, they're out there and they're just paddling away, every one of them on that little row boat that long and skinny thing and they don't give up. They go all the way to the finish line. And I think that's the amazing thing, because if they sat back and relaxed what would happen? Next guy would come up and they’d lose, they'd lose the race.

And I think that's exactly what Peter's saying here. We've got to keep paddling, keep that diligence because he says in verse 9, "He who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness… even to blindness." And so, if we continue paddling what are we going to achieve? Well, we’re going to keep changing. We're going to keep growing. We're going to keep repenting. We're going to keep growing in the kind of character that God would have us have. So those kinds of things that are all listed here, we're going to achieve those goals because that's the promise. Otherwise, we head back and relax and we flow, we drift. He says, “it's barrenness, it's unfruitfulness, shortsighted.” He says “even to blindness.”

So what does he say in verse 10, “Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call an election sure, for if you do these things you” won't end up over the dam, right? “You'll never stumble.” You'll keep on track for the Kingdom of God. I mean, that's an amazing thing. I mean, it means growth. It means achieving those things, and it also means doesn't matter how far I've paddled upstream, does it? I mean, we might look back, where do we start? You can look back there's no… I can't even see where I began. I've come so far. Well, just because we've come a long way, does that mean, "Ah, I can relax. I can kick back. No problem.” The river might be really wide right here and you know when the river widens out, that current isn't as strong.

“Well, can I just forget paddling and just relax?” Well no, there's still a pull, that downward pull is still there, it's still there? May not be as strong but it's still there. I think it points to the fact, there's no retiring when it comes to God's call. You can't retire from Christianity. Means that tireless, that careful, that persistent paddling, that diligence that we're to have has to be there, has to be because we know the other result. We know the result of not moving forward. Doesn't mean we'll just stay there. No, it means we're going to get pulled down river. We don't want that. So I think that's one of the things that's key, if we're not… if we're going to fight against going with the flow, we've got to keep paddling.

I think another important aspect of this, we have to beware, we have to beware. If you've been to Panama City Beach for the Feast, you know, sometimes the green flags are up, it's beautiful, no problem, but every once in a while those red flags come up. And what does that mean? Means it's rough. It means it's rough waters. Usually, it will mean that there's some riptide out there, you know, there's an undertow. If you go out there and you're not aware of it, you could get pulled under the water. And in the same way, spiritually we have to beware of the undertow. Sometimes it's really obvious, other times it's not that obvious. You know, for those fishermen it wasn't obvious they were that close to the dam, and by the time they realized it, they even tried to throw an anchor in to slow them down, it was too late, it was too late because the power of that water took them right over.

Now, when you consider that undertow, that current that's always there on this river of life, it's always there, beware of it, beware of it. I think it connects with the temptations that we face. You know, there are times we are strong and the temptations, no problem, no problem. That river is very wide and the water is very calm. Doesn't seem to be hardly moving at all. We've got this thing under control. But when do we really totally get rid of our fleshly nature, our human nature. I mean, that's not happening until Christ returns until we are spirit. So we have to beware that its the… yeah, we know when the river is narrow, that current is strong and we've got to fight against that. And sometimes it's when it seems like we could relax that it can be the most dangerous. When that river is wide and doesn't seem so rough, it can deceive us.

And so Paul talked to the Galatians about that deception through chapter 5, chapter 6, 7 and 8, all talk about the deception of human nature and how it can fool us. Where it seems like we've got it all under control. But if you remember what Paul said, you know, the one who wants to do good, what's right there at the door? Yeah, evil's right there. We have to beware of the undertow. We have to beware of the current that's against us. If you go to Galatians 5:16, notice the reminder here of how we can overcome. Yes, be aware, have it on our mind. Constantly recognize the fact that I'm a human being and I can get caught up in these things. I can get off track. I can fall in the wrong concepts. I can start thinking the wrong things, and I have, and I have. And I have to repent and change.

We all have to beware of these things so that we're not caught under and taken over the dam of temptation. And Paul in Galatians 5:16 says, here's how we can overcome, how we can make sure that it's on our mind. Notice what he says in verse 16 of Galatians 5. He says, "I say then, paddle in the Spirit." Okay, it doesn't exactly say that but he's walking, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.”

So if we're spiritually got those oars in the water, we're going to be able to head toward the Kingdom and we're going to paddle against the pull of human tendencies because that is our tendency. Naturally, normally, we don't do anything, we're going to go with the flow and we're going to be taken in by all those wrong attitudes, emotions, feelings, actions. But he says, “Keep it going, beware it's there.” The lust of the flesh is still there no matter how long we've been paddling the river, it's still there.

Notice what he says verse 17, "The flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.” So that has to be on our minds because once we let it go, once we get so involved in all the other things, watch out, watch out. And Paul makes that story live throughout the next few chapters of Galatians. Verse 18, though, he reminds us, we're aware of it, that undertow isn't going to get us, that riptide won't take us under, that current isn't going to take us over dam. Verse 18 he says, "But if you are led by the Spirit, you're not under the law."

You see, there won't be the consequences of the penalty of breaking and violating God's law. Why not? Because as I'm paddling I'm repenting, I'm changing. When I veer off course when I start relaxing and I'm heading down the river and going with the flow that I shouldn't be drifting that way, I notice it, I recognize it, it's on my mind, I repent, I change. I get back on course again. I'm led by the Spirit of God. I'm paddling that boat in His direction. He says, "I'm going to be with you, I'm going to help you, I'll give you the strength you need,” to continue to go His way. And so we have a remarkable promise that God's giving us the means to overcome the current of life that's against us. In fact, I think it's one of those things that we have to be ready to realize that it's going to happen, it's going to happen.

There are going to be these times that we have to face a really rough current. And so not only do we have to keep paddling, not only do we have to beware of it, third thing, expect it. Expect it. Expect that it's going to be tough rowing sometimes. Because I'm strong and healthy, no problems, everything's great. But that doesn't mean that a physical trial, a health issue may just be there totally unexpected. There may be a temptation that comes right before us that we had no recognition that it was coming. But if we're paddling, if we're aware that these things could happen and in fact, we're anticipating it, you think we'll be prepared for it?

Well, yeah, absolutely, we'll be prepared for it. It won't take us off guard. We'll recognize that very fact that "Okay, the river is narrowing, I know it's going to be a little tough going, better paddle a little bit harder now because life is presenting me challenges and difficulties. My own human nature is flaring up in a way it hasn't for so long. I'm going to take on that challenge. And I can't say, ‘Well, God what are you doing? Why are you doing this to me? What did I do to deserve this?’" See that's when we're going to the wrong shore. That's not staying in the middle of the stream.

Peter warned about that, 1 Peter 4:12. Notice 1 Peter 4:12. He's telling us, anticipate it. Recognize that these challenging sections in the river of life are going to be tough, it's going to be tough. And our mindset toward those difficulties, we've got to recognize it's part of life. It's part of our calling. It's part of our calling. So, no wonder Peter puts it this way in 1 Peter 4:12, he says, "Beloved, do not think it's strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you,” he doesn't say, "Listen up, everybody, someday you might have some problems on this river that God's called you to paddle up." He doesn't say it that way. He says, "You're on this river that God's called you to, you will have trouble. You're going to find there's going to be a bend in this river that gets so narrow. You're going to wonder how you're ever going to get through it." He says expect it, recognize, don't think that is strange.

As though some crazy, wonderful, weird thing has happened, oh to just me, God why did you do this. He says, "Don't think that way because you know there's many obstacles." Just about the time you think you have it in hand, wow, there's one of those swirling weird, little, round things in the river that, oh yeah it's an eddy, you get into an eddy and it's going to… I thought it was fine and suddenly there it is over there it was just me right there and what happens? You get caught up in those things. It'll take you right down to the bottom, just like that. He says watch out for that. And that can appear in so many different ways.

Just about the time, we think we've got it in hand, overcame this difficulty, I'm on the other side of this health trial, God has really blessed me, here's a doctoral thing. I got off track. How did I end up over there? I've got to get myself straightened out. I've got to repent. I've got to change or maybe it's not that. No, I want to be known, I wanted the pat on the back. I want to praise of, I get caught up in that sort of an attitude, can't do that. I get caught up with worldliness, with the wrong ways of thinking, or I just get apathetic. I get indifferent. I lose my real sense of concern for what's most important.

You see I think, this should help keep us on track to recognize that it's going to come. We're going to get to a narrow part of this river of life, and that's when we give our full trust and faith and put it on God. We cast all of our cares on Him. In fact, that might be the time that we cast out an anchor, because we have to have a strong anchor in God, and that's part of the antidote as well. Not only do we keep paddling, not only do we recognize that something could happen, we're anticipating that it will happen, but we cast our cares and God. We throw out that strong anchor in Him. And when we do that, that's solid ground, that is solid ground. It's not going to take us downstream. There might be times that the current is so strong we've got to set that anchor. Colossians tells us about that.

Go over to Colossians 2:6. This is a wonderful reminder that God gives us hope. And that hope is certainly realized that we can succeed, we will overcome. He won't desert us. He won't leave us. So in Colossians 2:6, he says, "As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,” keep paddling, “rooted and build up in Him." And when we throw out that anchor he says, we are “established in the faith.” He says “as you've been taught abounding it with thanksgiving.” So when we are rooted, we're grounded, we're built on Him. We have that anchor in Him. Are we going to be all right? Can we succeed? Does it stop to drift? Absolutely. Absolutely. And when we are grounded and rooted in Him, we're grounded and rooted in the truth. And we're told so many times through our Scripture, not in those specific words, but we're told about how to overcome that going with the flow kind of an attitude. That we are grounded in the truth, we are secure. We are secure in His way.

There's a passage that's in Ephesians, that speaks to this very fact, Ephesians 3:16. If you go over to Ephesians 3, I mean, this is a beautiful section of scripture. Maybe we'll even back up just a touch, we go to Ephesians 3. This whole chapter talks about the plan of God. Talks about this river of life that we're on. And Paul gets to a certain section here around verse 14 or so, where he's talking about God's plan. He's talking about His purpose and as he speaks to this, Paul worships and praises God. And in verse 14 he says, "For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named."

There is a purpose to life. God's bringing many sons to glory. He wants us all to be in His family forever. And so he says in verse 16 “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with the might… or with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what's the width and the length and the depth and the height—” he says, “to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Talking about an anchor. That's where we are anchored. We are anchored in our Savior Jesus Christ. We are looking forward to be full sons of God the Father in His Kingdom. When we recognize that strong anchor that we have, does that going to help us not to go with the flow? I mean, we have this hope. This hope is spelled out throughout the book of Hebrews. You could write down Hebrew 6:19. It says, "We have an anchor of the soul." An anchor to our life. That's really what that's talking about. That this hope, this plan, this purpose anchors us in life so that we're not distracted. We're not taken off course. We're not drifting downstream. And that takes us right to the Kingdom of God. That's the destination.

And so what a wonderful blessing that we have in the calling that God has given us. And so, we don't want to go with the flow. We don't want to because the danger is real. The danger is real. So, ask ourselves, any of these signs of drifting in my life? Any of these indications that I may be going with the flow? What is my desire? What's my motivation for studying God's Word, for being a part of God's family, His brethren? Am I too enamored with what's going on in the world, all the entertainment that's out there? And if I find I'm not getting the score on the test that I should, we can repent. We must repent. We must change.

We must give the more earnest heed to the things we've heard. And as we do that, we have the antidote. We have that spiritual paddle to make that journey upstream because God's going to be with us paddling right along the way. So let's make that dedicated effort to continue to strive more fully in that stream of the truth of God. Let's continue to paddle the river of life, to fight against human nature, to fight against this current, and more fully stay right in the stream of His truth, in His love and His way. And when we do that and we are focused on Him and the ultimate goal, we will certainly go against the flow.