Who We Are Right Now
Notes
Transcript
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
Welcome - continuing series
Last week - Pastor David considered one of my absolute favorite passages of Scripture. It is such a wonderful revelation of Christ. The cosmic Christ Who is the source of all things and the reason for all things.
This week we are going to look at a few verses that build on what Paul just said about Christ.
We are going to move from Who Christ is to what it means for the Colossians, and for us - we are going to go from the what to so what - or maybe better: from the Who to the who - Who Christ is, to who we are because of Him.
Because. brothers and sisters, we are who we are because of Him.
Let us say with Paul, “by the grace of God, I am what I am.”
But here’s the thing: it is human nature to lose our awe over that. To just get used to what that means.
Remember when you first came to know Christ, and everything was just different? I remember my drive to work the next day and how I couldn’t stop looking at the trees against the sky and wondering how I didn’t always notice how beautiful that was.
I remember not long after that being at a light on route 23 and seeing a weed coming up through the asphalt and thinking about how amazing it is that this little piece of greenery was strong and persistent enough to break through a manmade road.
Everything was different.
Except everything wasn’t different. It was me that was different.
Now, decades later, I usually just drive to work. I think about what I have to get done when I get to the office and I drive by a hundred trees without noticing.
Now, I just get annoyed when weeds poke through the asphalt of my driveway.
And it isn’t that I am any less in awe of what Christ has done for me when I think about it. Praise God that He loves me like He does, and that He did for me what I didn’t deserve.
You know what I think it is?
I have gotten used to who I am. I think I often take for granted the new creation He has made me.
I don’t recognize often enough who I really am.
Paul wanted the Colossians to remember who they were. He wants us to remember who we are.
That’s why He says what he does in this passage right after his wonderful Christ hymn about the supremacy of our Lord.
So let’s see how this all goes together. Let’s go back a little bit. Paul begins verse 21 with “and” - which means this goes with what came before it. So let’s start back in verse 13. Paul talks about how God - not ourselves but God - has qualified us to share in the inheritance of our brother, Jesus, and then he says:
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
Eight verses, and 14 times Paul points us to Christ. So Paul’s focus is on Christ. He wants the Colossians focused on Christ.
He wants us focused on Christ.
And so, after telling us Who Christ is and what He has done, he wants us to see ourselves in light of Him, and he says:
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,
Let’s stop there.
He contrasts the He of Christ throughout that whole previous passage, with the “and you” of verse 21.
And, please, don’t forget, Paul isn’t just talking about you. This is a plural you. He is talking to the whole church in Colossae. He is talking to all of them.
Because they, and all of us, and every Christian - we were all once what every non-believer still is.
We were - all of us - sinners by nature, hostile to God, both inwardly and outwardly.
And remember the order here. It starts inwardly. People sin because they are sinners, not the other way around.
And before we knew Christ, we sinned because we were sinners. It was who we were. Our sin nature defined us. That’s who we used to be.
And it was our nature because it was inward - it was inward first. What we are inwardly dictates what we do outwardly.
We were hostile in mind towards God and His ways, and so we did evil deeds - we were evil so we did evil.
And that because of that, we were alienated, Paul says. We were separated from God. We were estranged from the One Who made us to worship Him and live according to His Word.
And we did neither.
We were not His children. Unbelievers are not children of God. The idea that everyone is a child of God is a lie straight out of hell meant to lure people into a false sense of eternal security.
No. We were objects of God’s wrath, not His saving love.
We were not His, and He wasn’t ours. We had no inheritance in Him.
What we had, is what we earned. And we were headed - and rightfully so! - for eternal separation from Him.
We were headed for hell.
We were alienated.
And we liked it that way. Because we were hostile in mind. Hostile inwardly toward God.
⬇️Paul has already spoken a bunch in this letter about the mind - about knowledge and understanding and wisdom. Here, he tells the Colossians that before they were qualified for the inheritance God provides His children, they were actually enemies of God.
And it started in their minds.
Because knowledge without a knowledge of God, is not knowledge.
Understanding without an understanding of Who God is, is not real understanding.
Wisdom apart from God - wisdom according to the world - that’s not wisdom.
But all of that defined what our minds were. We were hostile in mind, which is why we acted hostile toward God.
Paul says elsewhere that the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot!
It cannot.
Not only doesn’t a mind set on the things of the flesh obey God - it cannot. It doesn’t have the want to or the power to do.
It is hostile toward God.
So we see here what we see often in Paul. Paul throughout his writings assumes what Jesus always taught. There are only two types of people. Those who know Christ, and those who don’t.
Or, those who share in the inheritance of God - who are His children - and those who are hostile to Him and alienated from Him.
When the Apostle John came to Jesus and told him that he and some other disciples saw someone casting out demons in the name of Jesus, he said they tried to stop him. And what did Jesus say to him?
“Don’t stop him - the one who is not against us is for us.”
Yet, when the Pharisees accuse Jesus of working in the power of the devil, he tells them “whoever is not with me is against me.”
There are two options: for Jesus, or against Jesus.
Jesus never leaves any room for a middle ground.
He never speaks of a third way between the wide road that leads to destruction and the narrow road that leads to life.
There are only two types of people.
We used to be one type. We were alienated and hostile in mind.
We were against Him.
So we walked the road that led to destruction. We were alienated and hostile in mind, so we lived like it.
We did evil deeds.
And, Jesus never left room for a middle ground here, either. He said either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad.
Good trees don’t bring forth bad fruit. Bad trees can’t bring forth good fruit.
What the tree is determines its fruit.
What we did - evil deeds - those were the symptoms of our sin-sickness. The fruit of our hostility towards God. The sin within that made us who we were - that was the issue.
What we were inside - in our spirit - in our mind - that determined our fruit.
What we are inside always determines the outward fruit.
Paul has spoken a lot in this chapter already about the Gospel bearing fruit in us and through us.
Because as God’s children, as those in whom the Word of truth has borne fruit, we are now to bear the outward fruit.
And we can!
We are to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. And we can!
We are to be filled with a knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we can be!
We are to walk in the light - in the kingdom of God’s Son that is our real home. And we can!
Because we have been changed.
What we are right now, is not what we were.
See, Paul offers a reminder to the Colossians of what they were.
Because he wants them to know what they are.
⬇️I love hearing a good testimony. I know the women’s ministry this year is focusing on testimonies - on the stories of how God changed people.
And I love a good testimony.
But have you ever heard two Christians get into a testimony war? Trying to outdo each other with the horrible things they used to do.
I hate when that happens.
They are literally arguing over who had the more rotten fruit. They are so focused on what they did that I think they miss the entire point of their salvation - that they’re not who they were.
When we are regenerated and brought into the family of God, we aren’t made into people that do different things.
We are made into new people.
We are something completely different. That’s why we do what we do.
And to remind the Colossians of that, Paul focuses on Christ, and then reminds them of who they were, because he wants them to know who they are…
…and he wants them to never forget how they became what they now are.
Look at what he says:
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death
He now couples the “and you” with the He of Christ.
They were once alienated, they are now reconciled.
We are now reconciled - we are no longer alienated.
All because of Him!
Back in verse 14, as we saw earlier, Paul tells the Colossians that in Christ, they have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Sins.
They have been forgiven for all their evil deeds that were the result of who they were.
And in verse 13, Paul told them that they have been changed positionally - they have been moved. They have been moved from the domain of darkness - where they all once lived - and they have been moved - transferred - into the kingdom of Christ Who has redeemed them and provided the forgiveness of sins.
We are forgiven of our sinful deeds, if we are in Christ.
We are moved out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of Christ.
And we are reconciled to God. Our estrangement has ended.
⬇️And I think that’s why Paul comes back to the He of Christ here.
I think we often make too little of what Christ accomplished for us.
What do I mean by that?
We tend to think of Christ’s work as forgiving our sins and getting us into heaven.
That’s usually how we evangelize, isn’t it. We want to get people into heaven by having what they’ve done paid for by Christ.
This was what I was taught in my first church. That’s basically all I was taught. This is what the Gospel was.
Every week in my first church was a salvation message - John 3:16, Romans Road, raise your hand if you accept Jesus - and that was the Gospel.
There were marks against us, so we had to be punished, but Christ took that punishment, and our ticket to heaven is punched.
And so the cross of Christ becomes a means a avoiding the punishment we deserve.
And - yes - Christ did pay the price for our sins. We just saw that. Paul just said that.
And yes, we who were alienated and hostile in mind and rightfully headed for hell - we are now undeservedly headed for heaven.
But if we stop there, and think about the work of Christ only that way - that makes us think in terms of what was done and what will be done.
My sins were paid for and I will go to heaven someday.
It makes the Gospel affect our past - and affect our future.
Who we were, and who we will be.
But Paul isn’t writing to the Colossians just about their past and their future. He is writing to them so their present - so their “right now” - would be affected.
That is what the Gospel is meant to do.
Affect our right now.
It’s not just about who we were. It’s not just about who we were and will someday be.
It’s about who we were, who we will someday be, and who we now are.
Because who we are right now is what will affect the world right now. It is what will bear fruit in the world right now.
We who were once alienated from God, hostile in mind and in deed toward Him - He has now reconciled us.
The word literally means the present. We are now - at this moment - reconciled to God.
We are right now in the kingdom of our Lord.
We are right now granted knowledge and understanding and wisdom.
We are right now children of God - right now qualified by God for our inheritance.
And we need to let that affect our “right now” at every moment.
Because we are right now - at this present moment - who we are because of Him.
Because God the Son stepped into time.
He has reconciled us, Paul says, in the body of flesh by His death.
He has reconciled us because He came for us, as one of us.
As I’ve said before, in order to pay for human sin, God the Son had to become human.
In order to change the human condition He had to become human.
Very simply, in order to save humans, He had to become human.
He had to become just like us to make us just like Him - sons of God.
That’s who we are, right now.
The writer of Hebrews lays out very clearly that God the Son had to come as one of us.
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
This was the only way to reconcile us - by making up for Adam’s sin and our sin - to change who we were if we are in Him.
This was the only way to pay for our sins - for our deeds as those alienated from, and hostile to, God.
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death
We are reconciled by His death.
He had to take on humanity - a body of flesh - because He had to die.
He came as one of us to die.
⬇️We are going into Easter season, and on this side of the cross, we can celebrate even on Holy Thursday and Good Friday because we know how the story ends - we know He walks out of that tomb victorious.
But Jesus still paid the price.
He died for us.
He died so we could live.
He died to erase our past.
He died to ensure our glorious future.
And He died to change our “right now.”
He died so that our old man would be put to death.
He died so that we could be made new creations.
He died to make us who we are.
He changed us from a bad tree, to a good tree.
And a good tree bears good fruit. There is no middle ground.
A tree that was planted - even way in the past - if it’s alive, it still bears fruit today.
And we are alive - made alive by Christ. Made alive by His death.
And Paul tells us why:
he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,
We are reconciled - we are no longer alienated - because we are changed. We are new creatures.
And as new creatures, we are called to new deeds. We are made able to do new deeds.
And Christ wants to present us as what we are - holy, blameless, and above reproach. This is what we are because of His holiness, His blamelessness, and His innocence before God.
This is what we are.
Is it what we do?
Does our fruit match our tree?
Do our outward deeds match the inward person?
Because consider our “right now.”
We are reconciled to God. We are alienated no more. And we are hostile in mind no more… we can know, understand, and have wisdom all of the Spirit who gives us the want to and the power to do.
The Word of truth has borne fruit in us - and does bear fruit in us - and gives us the power to bear fruit outwardly.
The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Being saved - as in - right now.
As Paul also wrote:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
The Gospel is power.
It is power for right now.
It is the power that leads us to live by faith, “right now.”
It is the power that helps us live, as Paul says to the Colossians:
holy and blameless and above reproach before him,
Holy, blameless, and above reproach.
We have been made holy - and we are holy - so we must be holy.
the Holiness of God study - we are to be holy as God is holy, but how we don’t count Him as holy
Peter writes something very similar to what Paul wrote here. Look at how he puts it:
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
He says, you are not what you were in your mind, when you did evil things. The same thing Paul says in our passage today.
Now, because you are holy, you should live holy - your deeds should be holy.
Why?
Because He Who calls is holy, and calls us to that holiness.
Peter points us to God’s holiness to understand our call to holiness.
How holy do we consider God?
Like I said, we get used to who we are sometimes. We even forget who we are at times. And that’s why Paul wants the Colossians to see themselves in light of Who God is.
And that’s what we need to do. If we remember Who God is, we will not forget who we are.
Yes, God is our Father, and Jesus is our Brother, and we can call on our Abba Father like little children.
Yes, we are family, and we can and should come together in fellowship, to bear each other’s burdens and to lift each other up, and enjoy each other.
But when that call to worship goes out on Sunday morning, we enter together into the presence of a holy God to worship Him. To exalt Him and praise Him.
We enter into that presence that - when Isaiah entered it - he recognized he deserved to die.
We enter into that presence that - when John in Revelation enters into it - he falls down as if dead.
If we come here on Sunday mornings and don’t have that awe and reverence for Him as we bow ourselves before Him, we simply are not considering Him holy like we should.
We have forgotten Who He is.
And we will forget who we are in light of Who he is.
Paul wants the Colossian church to remember who they are in light of Who God is.
And, remember, Paul is writing to a church when he says this:
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,
They needed to do this as a church because of who they now were.
And so do we because of who we now are.
We need to be holy before Him. In His presence. In His sight.
As the Old Testament saints would have said it - we need to do it to God’s face.
When you read in the Old Testament that men do things before God - like when the Psalms call us to bow down before Him or pour out our hearts before Him - that “before Him” is literally “to His face.”
I like that. And even when we forget, that’s exactly what we do.
What we do, we do it right to His face.
Tough guys “say it to my face”
And when they are hostile in mind toward each other, some really nasty things get said and done.
What do our actions say to God’s face?
What do we say when we come together to worship?
What do we say when we leave here on Sunday and go live the rest of our lives as new creatures?
Do we forget the holiness of God?
Do we forget that this holy God reconciled us to Him in His body of flesh by His death?
Do we forget that He did it to make us holy, right now?
In the words of Paul: God forbid.
We have to be holy and blameless and above reproach - or another way to say it is “unaccusable.”
We need to live holy. We need to live so holy that we can’t be blamed for any wrongdoing. We need to live so holy that we can’t even be accused of any wrongdoing.
We need to live out what we are.
And if we don’t do that before God - we will not do it before man.
We have to strive for both.
Because we are unaccusable before God. Our sins have been paid for - they’ve been punished - they are gone.
So we have to live unaccusable before man for the Gospel to bear fruit.
That’s what living by faith means.
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith…
This is about living by faith “right now” at every moment. Continuing in the faith, as Paul says here.
And that is the power of the Gospel. That is the power of the Word of truth that has taken root in us to bear fruit.
This is the “right now” of the Gospel.
As James wrote:
Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
Why?
So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
And for all the historic debates about this and how James contradicts Paul’s teaching on faith, this is exactly what Paul teaches:
For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
⬇️We have to be so careful to do this.
It’s hard to do.
And we really have two problems - two reasons we don’t always live out what we are.
First, we are really good at rationalizing our own sin.
We can all too easily rationalize not doing what we know we should, or rationalize doing what we shouldn’t.
And I don’t think that we develop any sophisticated arguments in our head why what we do isn’t sin. I think that, for the most part, we just tell ourselves that it’s no big deal to be like the world at times.
It’s no big deal to talk like the world when we’re with those of the world.
No big deal to do the same things they do.
No big deal if we don’t stand out as any different than they are.
No big deal to live like what we used to be.
But here’s the bigger problem. The second problem.
Too often, we don’t even notice we’re doing it.
Falling off the sidewalk into the gutter in Roanoke - very Polish of me - I wasn’t focused on the sidewalk - looking around
That’s what we do. The edges of the straight and narrow path get blurry - the edges of it look just like the wide path. We let the edges of our lives look just like the rest of the world.
And that makes it so easy to misstep.
It’s so easy to miss the very real difference between the defined limits of the path, and the gutter right next to it.
Especially when we aren’t intentional about staying on the path. When we are distracted by things - even good things - and forget that we are living to God’s face.
This is when we walk by sight, and not by faith.
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith
Christ wants to present us holy, blameless, and above reproach.
Because He has made us holy, blameless, and above reproach by taking our reproach, and our blame, and dying on the cross.
And He has gives us His holiness. We are holy. We are the saints - the holy ones of God.
That’s what He did.
And He will yet present us to the Father holy, blameless, and above reproach.
When He returns and fulfills all things, and completes our redemption and the redemption of all things and hands the kingdom over to the Father, He will presents us holy, and blameless, and above reproach.
He will present us as His bride, without spot or blemish.
This is what He will do.
But there is also what He is doing.
Right now.
He is calling us to be holy, and blameless, and above reproach before Him.
He is calling us to do it to His face.
And we can, as Paul goes on to say:
if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard
“If we continue in the faith.”
Very simply, the word “continue” here means to remain where you are. To stay in the faith by which we are called to live.
We are already here. Right now, we are in the faith.
We need to stay here at every moment.
And our faith is shown by what we do, by how we live.
And living in that faith keeps us firm and steadfast.
It means we do not change.
We don’t change what we believe based on our circumstances.
We don’t change how we think when we’re with those who are hostile in mind toward God.
We don’t change the lines of the path by looking to this world.
We walk by faith, not by sight.
We live like we are who we are.
And it isn’t just the believing that does this. It isn’t faith in the abstract.
It is the concrete faith we live out.
That is what keeps us stable.
"stable” = established or founded - verb from of the word that means foundation - and what is our foundation?
Paul says this in Ephesians:
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
We are no longer alienated, but we are in the kingdom of God - like Paul says in Colossians.
We are holy ones built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets - or on the Word of God - the Word of truth Paul opened Colossians talking about.
We have been founded on the Word of God - on the Gospel that has borne fruit in us.
On the revealed will of God found in His Word.
And yes, I will keep coming back to that, because the Bible keeps coming back to that. We are called to be built on, and stable in, the Word of God.
And that will make us steadfast.
It means literally “sitting” or “sedentary.”
It means not moving from where we are.
We don’t move from where we are - we are set firmly on the foundation of Christ’s Word, and we sit there.
We park ourselves there and never move. Because that is how we will work for the kingdom. That is how God will bear fruit through us.
When we move from the foundation - when we aren’t steadfast - when we work in our own power, or in the wisdom of the world, or according to sin and not according to God’s will -when we get our eyes onto the world and off of Christ - we start moving.
And when we move with our eyes on the world - just like me walking around Roanoke - we are going to fall off the path.
It’s only by not moving off the foundation that we stay focused - and only then do we really work.
Only then will we bear fruit like we’re called to.
Only then will we not shift from the hope of the Gospel:
if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
I have said, that hope is part of the Gospel, because our hope is in Christ and what He will yet do, which we can be sure of because of all He has done and all He is still doing.
He will present us holy and blameless.
And if we don’t shift from that hope, we will live holy and blameless right now.
And we will bear fruit for the sake of the Gospel.
⬇️God is bearing fruit by the Gospel. Right now.
He was doing it when Paul wrote to the Colossians. The Gospel that saved them was being proclaimed in all creation under heaven - it was spreading throughout the whole world.
It is doing that still.
We may not see it in the western world. But in most of the world - where most of the people are - the Gospel is still bearing fruit right now.
Not here. We are moving in the wrong direction in our culture!
And you know why?
Because so many Christians have moved off the foundation of Christ and His Word.
We need to stay on our foundation
Because the Gospel needs to be proclaimed in all creation under heaven.
This is another Old Testament idea that Paul is bringing out here. Something happening, under heaven.
This “under heaven” is mostly used to describe judgment for sin in the Old Testament.
And in the New Testament, the phrase is used only three times. Once here in Colossians and twice in the book of Acts.
We are told in Acts that people from every nation “under heaven” heard the Gospel, and that they were saved because Jesus is the only name “under heaven” whereby man can be saved.
Here, Paul is calling for this to continue. He tells the Colossians that by standing firm in faith - by staying where they were, planted in faith and not moving - that they would be part of this proclamation of the Gospel in all creation under heaven.
Because in Christ, what is under heaven goes from judgment, to salvation by the Gospel.
Sins are paid for.
Faith is implanted by the Word of truth.
And by that faith we can live holy, blameless, and above reproach… stable and steadfast not shifting from the hope of the Gospel that we heard.
Gospel* - did, will do
Don’t know Christ - know that placing your faith in Him isn’t just about what will happen someday - it will change your right now for the rest of your life
If you know Christ:
And this has made us what we are.
Brothers and sisters, let’s not forget who we are right now.
Remember who we were - remember what Christ did to change that - and remember Who He is.
And when we continually see Him as He is - holy, blameless, steadfast… faithful - we will not forget who we are.
Reconciled.
Holy.
Steadfast.
Faithful.
This is who we are, right now.
Praise God for making us what we are.
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Holy Week Services:
Palm Sunday - 3/29
Holy Thursday Communion Service: 4/2, 7:00 PM
Passover Seder: 4/3, 6:00 PM (desserts!) (need help day of)
Candlelight Easter Vigil: 4/4, 11:00 PM
Easter Service: 10:00 AM (followed by Easter Egg Hunt)
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New Member Intake:
Diego Coya
Mark Newell
Ben and Elise Berube
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
Do you affirm your personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?
Do you agree with, and will you uphold the mission of Montclair Community Church and use your gifting to help us carry out the Great Commission?
Do you affirm that as a representative of the ministry of Montclair Community Church, you will strive in all areas of your life to live for Jesus Christ.
Would you like to become a member of Montclair Community Church, and will you commit to serve and love your fellow members as called and gifted by God and to contribute to the needs of the church.
Do you affirm your commitment to these newest members of our church family, to serve and love them as called and gifted by God?
Do you commit to help bear their burdens, to suffer when they suffer, and rejoice when they rejoice?
Do you accept these brothers and sisters as members of our church?
