[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] You probably heard of the announcements for getting our Sabbath lessons started once again, and I couldn't help but be reminded of a story that I had heard from a little boy that got excited about some Sabbath lesson that he had heard. He came home and started to tell his dad about it. He said, “Well, what did you learn in class today?" He said, "I learned about the Exodus." He said, "What about the Exodus?"

He said, "Well, Moses and the children of Israel they were getting ready to leave Egypt, and the Israeli Air Force came and they bombed Egypt. And so then the Egyptians they retaliated, they tried to come after them with their laser bearing helicopters. But the Israelis counterattack and blew those helicopters to smithereens and so then Moses and the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea in triumph." Dad was pretty amazed by all and said, "Are you kidding me, is that what they taught you in Sabbath school?" Little boy said, "No, but you wouldn't believe the story they actually told me."

Well, does it matter what you believe? Does it matter what you're taught? Some might hear the story. Well, what's the difference? He knew that the children of Israel got out of there somehow, but does it really matter? That if you think about it a little bit you've probably heard it before.

I mean, you've heard it. What difference does it make what you believe? It's whether you're a good person or not that's what really counts. You've heard that before? Or perhaps, well, as long as you're a decent person, you're doing your civic duty, you respect other people, really it doesn't matter what you believe.

I mean, as long as you're not hurting anyone else, right? So long as you're not hurting anyone else then it really isn't that critical, is it? Or perhaps you've heard, you know, it's not that important what you believe just as long as you're sincere. As long as you're sincere well, then it really doesn't matter. Or if you take that to the logical extension. Well, all religions are fine, you know, don't all paths lead to God?

Maybe you've heard that before, all ideas, you know, they're acceptable we should find value in all of these things. Or perhaps you're like, "Well, all Church of God groups are all equal. They're all the same anyway, aren't they?" You see, when you begin to think about it in those terms where does doctrine enter into the picture? Does what we believe really matter?

Does it make any difference what teachings you hold as truth or is it just something that's kind of ancillary? It's not that critical because certainly in the last 70 years or so there's been a big ecumenical movement out there in the religious world. Trying to bring all religions together, it doesn't matter if you're a Catholic or Protestant, or whatever it may be Evangelical, some are trying to bring all the groups together. Well, what happens when that comes about? Well, teachings and what you actually believe kind of go on the sidelines then, so certainly the question has to be is doctrine primary? Is it really that critical or is it something that's secondary?

Let's take some time this afternoon to look at several reasons why doctrine is so valuable, why it is so critical and important, and look at several ways that it is vital to each and every one of us. If we claim to be God's people if we claim to be a Christian. It is something that is so important. One indication of that comes from what the apostle Paul told Timothy and what he told Titus as well, in those letters that he wrote to those two young men. Sometimes they are called the Pastoral Epistles because the elder apostle is teaching the younger men how to pastor, how to be a good minister.

And in 1 Timothy 4:13, he tells Timothy something interesting. So if you’d like to turn there with me, 1 Timothy 4:13. We’ll, notice what Paul writes to the young minister, the young man who is now going to be taking over many spiritual responsibilities in helping guide God's Church and His people. And in 1 Timothy 4 picking it up in verse 13, notice what he tells Timothy, the young minister. He says, "Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. And don't neglect the gift that is in you."

So one of the things Paul says for Timothy to give attention to is doctrine. And he's not just saying “Oh, don't forget about it” or “It'd be nice if you recalled a few things about right teaching.” When he says, “give attention to” he's telling Timothy something more important than just “Oh, keep this in mind.” Some translations say “pay attention to doctrine.” That word in the Greek can also mean to be cautious about it or to apply yourself to it.

Or by extension, it can mean to adhere to it or stick to it. Stick to Christ-like doctrine, to truth. Stick to truth so this isn't something that you can just kind of give or take. You can neglect it, but he's telling Timothy, he's telling us by extension, "Don't neglect it. Don't neglect doctrine." In fact, when you think about the importance of doctrine and especially when the New Testament church began, what was the apostles' perspective when it came to doctrine?

Do you remember some of those scenarios early on in the Church when the disciples were preaching, teaching, they're giving the message that Christ gave them preaching the gospel. Often times, they got picked up by the authorities, the learned men of the day, they appeared before the council. What did they do? They beat them, they admonished them to quit preaching in Christ's name. They were willing to give their life for doctrine, they were willing to sacrifice themselves because they didn't stop teaching, they didn't stop preaching, they were happy to be in a way criticized for preaching the truth. They were happy in that way to stand for what Christ taught, they were willing to give their life for it. So it's something that we certainly can't minimize when you think about doctrine.

Of course, you might say, "Well, what is doctrine anyway?" When you think about defining what doctrine is, kind of a buzzword, you might say it's something we just talk about maybe don't think oftentimes. What does it really mean? Well, fortunately, it's really not that complicated. If you'd look it up in a Greek dictionary or even look it up in an American word dictionary it gets it pretty accurately when it talks about its instruction. Where it talks about the fact it's a principle that's taught.

Most dictionaries will tell you something like that, and when you boil it all down it really comes down to teaching. Really comes down to a teaching and oftentimes if you look in different English translations of the Bible they won't translate the word doctrine, they'll substitute the word teaching. And of course, when we think about doctrine in the church or really in the Bible for that matter, we're not just talking about a single particular teaching, but in general, we're talking about the whole package. The whole package of what is God's truth?

Like sometimes people will swear by that. Well, I'm not supposed to do that, but it gives you that, what is God's truth? What is the truth of the word? And so when we consider that I think we also have to then consider where does right doctrine come from? From where does it come?

Well, it's got to come from this book, it's got to come from Scripture. It can't come from anywhere else. We know that passage, we probably have it memorized 2 Timothy 3:16 and you can turn over there if you want to. 2 Timothy 3:16 it says that "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." We know that Scripture is God-breathed, that's what that literally means. It's given by His inspiration, He spoke it, it is the truth.

And, of course, what was Timothy told there? That doctrine or teaching the Scripture is good for that very thing. It's profitable for doctrine, it's profitable for reproof, the teachings of God, Scripture itself is good for instruction in righteousness, it's good for correction, it's good so that every one of us, as Timothy was told, “…the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” So God's instruction, God's truth. Doctrine is good for those very things, like when you begin to think about it, think about the early Church think about think about those 12 guys that hung out with Jesus for all those years.

Do you remember what they were called? Before the apostles, they were called disciples. Well, what's a disciple? It's a student. A disciple's a learner. Well, what did the disciples, what did the learners, what did the students learn?

Well, they learned God's teachings, they learned doctrine straight from Jesus Christ. So it's interesting that as disciples, as students and learners they were taught truth. They were taught God's truth. And so hopefully we begin to see we can't minimize the importance of the truth, we can't minimize the importance of doctrine, it becomes so valuable and so important for each and every one of us. So let's think about a couple of specifics for just a moment.

Doctrine is critical because first of all it forms the basis for what we believe, doesn't it? Doctrine forms the basis for belief and if you had to turn to a section of the Bible they talked about basics of what we believe through a particular passage, perhaps in the New Testament that might come to mind it talks about… okay, it doesn't say fundamentals of belief. But really that's kind of what it's talking about. It's over in Hebrews 6. In Hebrews 6, if you turn there right at the very beginning of the chapter, chapter 6 verse 1, talks about the basics, talks about the basics. And it's interesting part of the message of what I believe Paul is telling us some wonder who exactly the author is.

It seems to be Paul — some of the arguments can certainly be made for that, but notice what he says here when he talks about the basics. Hebrews 6:1, he says, "Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let's go on to perfection." So when we talk about the ABCs, the elementary principles or kind of that. The elementary principles, the ABCs of what the truth is all about. He says, "Let's go on to perfection."

So what are some of these elementary things, the basics, the fundamentals? Well, he lists some of them. He says “the foundation of repentance from dead works,” he talks about “faith toward God,” he talks about verse 2 “of the doctrine of baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.” In fact, he even says, well, we'll even add to these things if time permits.

But this little list gives a beginning, it gives the basics, the elementary principles that form the foundation of what we believe. And I was kind of interested to see that it mirrors in many ways the mission statement of the United Church of God. Because in our mission statement we have a couple of things that are mentioned there. Do you remember what our mission statement is in the United Church of God? The mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and it begins like that.

And it's interesting that Hebrew 6 starts like that. It lists the discussion of elementary principles of Christ. Because if you don't know who Christ is, you don't know who the Savior is, you don't know who the Master is, you don't understand who is High Priest, who is our King, who's coming back to this earth to establish the King? Where do you start? And of course, the mission statement also talks about the fact we're preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God, we're preaching the message that Christ Himself preached as well. In all the world we do that also to make disciples in all nations, and to care for those disciples.

And so our mission statement reflects the doctrine that forms the basis of what we believe, and of course, here in Hebrews it reflects the fact there are many different doctrines, many different teachings, and yet this forms a beginning. It forms those elementary things that help show us, here's what we believe. Christ taught these things, God inspired these things, the apostles taught these things as well. These reflect what true followers of Christ, true disciples of Christ actually believe and when you compare these things to what Christ taught… but it's an amazing thing when you see how they are reflected in Christ's own teachings.

I'll give you one example, over in Matthew 22:29, Matthew 22:29 is one example of Christ's teachings. In fact, if you begin to think about the things that Christ taught sometimes it confused people what He taught, often times he spoke in stories and not everybody understood the story. He talked in parables and yet those that had ears to hear heard those teachings, they understood the doctrine and they based their beliefs on the doctrine that Christ taught. Well, here's another example of that Matthew 22:29 where there was a misunderstanding. All the Jews didn't believe the same thing, some believed in one thing, some believed in another, some believed in the resurrection some didn't, some believed in angels others didn't.

So they're trying to trap Christ and He answers the question… we'll kind of jump in the middle of the story, but He answers in an interesting way. He says in verse 29, Matthew 22, "You're mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God." He says, "Where in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' God's not the God of the dead, but of the living."

Now, people were taken back by that, because not everybody who was on the same page. He astounds them. But it's interesting what Scripture says, what was inspired to be the astounding aspect of what He said. Look at verse 33, "When the multitudes heard, this they were astonished at His teaching." They were taken back by the doctrine of Christ.

He was taken aback by that and as we read this and read other passages 1 Corinthians 15 among others, our belief in the resurrection is supported and based on the teaching of the doctrine of Christ. On… well, like they say here, astonished at His teaching, at His doctrine. If Christ hadn't taught this, it might be a little tougher to believe in the resurrection. And so in a way His teachings or maybe you could say He was indoctrinating the people. Okay, that sounds kind of negative, doesn't it?

I don't know why there's a negative connotation with indoctrination — it can be a good thing when you think about instruction, indoctrinating can also mean to implant or instill those sound more positive, don't they? Or to train. It's through God's teachings, through Scripture Christ indoctrinated — instilled the truth of God. And all too often people don't base what they believe on Scripture, they don't base it on the teachings of God.

You're probably familiar with the man who does all these religious surveys, you'll often hear about them. A man named George Barna and the Barna Group surveys all kinds of religious people that are out there.

And he's done these surveys for years, and years, and years, and years, and oftentimes at the end of surveys he'll give his own summaries, his own input, his own perspective on what the results came back bearing. And so one of the surveys I was reading about he made a couple of comments and one of them was kind of interesting because he was talking about elections.

And one of the things that he could surmise from the results that came in he said that most Christians were more influenced by their economic status in voting than doctrine. Kind of looked at that and, "Wow, that's kind of interesting." You know, who cares what we teach? I'll do what I want to to do based on my circumstances. That was one of the things that kind of caught my attention.

One of the other things that may be a little more connected with the topic today was what he had to say about teachings. One of the things he said is… “Please hear…” this is a quote from George Barna, "People hear a lot of religious teaching and they buy millions of religious books, but there is as much theological confusion as there is understanding." I think we look at the religious world out there and it's certainly the case and I think it all points back to the fact that doctrine forms the basis for what we believe or the opposite is true too. It doesn't form the basis for what we believe, I just go with what I want to believe. And so it becomes very critical of that, but it doesn't stop there. Another aspect of the importance of doctrine.

Secondly, doctrine forms the basis for living or to maybe say a little bit differently, why do we do what we do? Doctrine should form the basis for what we practice, for how we live our life, for how we think. Example of this if you're still here in the book of Matthew, turn over to chapter 16. Chapter 16 in the book of Matthew verse 6. We're going to find some instruction, some doctrine, some guidance of Christ teaching the disciples.

And they kind of get it wrong off the bat, they're not sure what in the world He's talking about as He begins this little discussion with them. Matthew 16:6, Christ says to the disciples, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." What did they think? Verse 7, "They reasoned among themselves saying, 'It's because we've taken no bread.'" They got it all wrong.

“Jesus being aware of it, said to them, ‘O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you brought no bread?’" Kind of saying to them “No, you got it wrong. That's not what I'm talking about.” Verse 9 he says, "Don't you yet understand, or remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up? Or the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many large baskets you took up?" Kind of looking back at some miraculous circumstances.

Verse 11 He says, "How is it you do not understand that I didn't speak to you concerning bread? — but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." He says the same thing again, but now, the light bulb comes on for the disciples. Verse 12, “Then they understood that He didn't tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” See, He was very specific, it was their teaching. Why? Because of what they believed, because of what they taught.

Did that affect their behavior? Well, of course, it did. Of course, it did. The teachings of the doctrines of the Pharisees and Sadducees formed the basis for how they live their life. For all these commandments so they came up with… “Well, don't do this, you better light a candle on the Sabbath. You’d better not take too long a walk on the Sabbath.”

They came up with all these rules and regulations because of their belief, because of their teachings, and it led them to wrong conclusions or incomplete practice. Wrong application turned into wrong ways of living. And so here Jesus is saying, "Watch out. Watch out for wrong doctrine because it could take you to live your life in the wrong way. But true doctrine, right doctrine should help us to live a godly life, a godly life."

And of course, we think about our commitment to living a godly life. Of course, where did that begin? Well, maybe it began long before. But the defining moment probably all of us would point to would be the time of baptism. Baptism was the starting point of the rest of our lives, striving to live by God's way more completely, more thoroughly.

Now, in the book of Romans, it talks a lot about that. In fact, Romans 5, 6, 7, 8, those chapters are really key chapters in baptism counseling, and perhaps you spend a lot of time reading through some of those sections of Scripture as you were counseling for baptism. There is one section that I think is particularly important when we think of it in terms of doctrine forming the basis for our practice, for how we live, and it's in that section of Scripture. Romans 6:17. Romans 6:17, if you'll turn over there.

Here Paul is making that critical point, much in the way that Christ talked about doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees influencing and affecting us. Paul was certainly worried about the ways of the world that can indoctrinate us, can turn us the wrong way, can cause us to have the wrong focus. And Paul points out the way of life we used to hold dear. Look at chapter 6 verse 17 of Romans. He says, "God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin," you know, that's the way we used to be, maybe we didn't even know any better. May not have known at all that we were instructed in a wrong way and it reflected in our actions.

We were enslaved to sin probably didn't even know it. But when God called us, when He opened our minds what was the impact? Well, here we see that "Once you were slaves of sin yet..." the implications "...yet now, you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered." That's kind of a cool image when you think about it, isn't it? Here we are, we're out in the world, we're slaves of sin, God's grabbed us, kind of gave us a special delivery, we were delivered to true doctrine.

To right teachings. You were delivered out of sin to the truth, and so he says, verse 18 he says, "You've been set free from sin, you've become slaves of righteousness." And so how critical is that? What we believe impacts what we practice, what we believe, what we obey should be the truth. In fact, oftentimes, we'll say that very thing.

“Well, when God called me to the truth” which in another word to say when I began to understand true doctrine, it changed my way of life, it changed my perspective, it changed the way I thought, it changed the way I acted. And so doctrine should do that very thing. And so here we see very clearly that not only apostle Paul, but certainly Jesus Christ taught more than just teachings. They taught the application of those teachings so those instructions should teach us how to live and that way of life was defined by the doctrine that they taught. And so doctrine does define the way we live, our pattern of life, ultimately, our behavior — our behavior.

In fact, an interesting example of this is the apostle John. Outlived all the rest of the apostles and when you consider his life, consider perhaps the things that were on his mind as his life was coming to an end. He had a long time to think about this, probably lived into his 90s and when he wrote these general letters of 1st, 2nd, 3rd John I wonder if some of those things that he really wanted to impress on all of us, that were so critical were the things that were on his mind as he was nearing the end of his life. You wonder about those kinds of things, you wonder about the perspective that he had in these various things.

He was also inspired to record something I think amazing for us when it comes to true doctrine. Now, this is in the Gospel of John, the Gospel of John 7. John 7:14, he records an instance here that isn't recorded in the other gospels in the same fashion. In this particular section of Scripture, Jesus tells his brothers that they need to go and keep the Feast, and then Jesus goes to keep the Feast as well.

And in John 7, we find Jesus Christ in the middle of the Feast of Tabernacles teaching getting up to give truth, give doctrine. And so John 7:14, it's recorded for us here that “In the middle of the Feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught. The Jews marveled saying, ‘How did this Man know letters, never have studied?’ Jesus answered them and said, ‘My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it's from God or whether I speak of My own authority.'"

Which is kind of an interesting thing. Oh, I can do my own thing or I can follow the truth of God. Says the end of verse 18, “…He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him." What's the implication?

Well, you can do your own thing, you might be able to get by for a while, but you want the truth, you want the facts, the right way to live, the way that leads to eternal life, the way that He says here, Christ Himself says leads to seeking glory. “He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true.” We seek eternal life, we're motivated to live rightly. Well, then we obey, we follow God's doctrine, we model our life, we imitate Jesus Christ. His pattern of life and we come to understand and have a right relationship with God. And so, I think it becomes pretty clear and there's probably example after example we could turn to show how doctrine impacts what we do.

I mean, think about well, what are we doing here today? Well, we’re observing the Sabbath. Well, why do you observe the Sabbath? Well, doctrine determines our practice. And why do we congregate together?
Doctrine determines our practice.

Why do you keep the Holy Days? Doctrine determines our practice. What about what you eat? What impacts your diet? Well, doctrine determines what we avoid eating and what we eat. And so all of those things point to the fact that doctrine forms the basis for how we live our life. And when you think about the connection of what we're doing here this is a critical aspect of what doctrine does as well.

The third aspect, doctrine forms the basis for worship. Doctrine forms the basis for worship. I mean, it's probably a simple way to think about it, well, do we build statues? Do we worship icons? Do we, you know, pray to saints? Well, all of that's directly impacted by doctrine, by teachings. You know, whether we gyrate all around or we will lay down on the floor in holy roll or holy laughter if you've heard of that one? Holy laughter, you know, just people break out uncontrollably laughing for minutes on end.

Okay, what forms that practice? Well, we worship the way we do because of doctrine. And so it's an amazing… if you think about especially the early Church. You know, the Romans in one way were kind of willing, you know, to go ahead and include Jesus as a god. What's the problem with that as a Christian?

Well, He's not just another God, He's not just another guy, you know, they're really, "Okay, we can include in the pantheon sure. Put them in there, we'll throw them in there with the whole mix of all of our versions of the Greek gods, and he could just be another..." Early Christians say, "No, we don't do that." And because of doctrine, because of the truth, because they wouldn't put the true God on the level of all these other pagan gods they were persecuted, they were killed, they were martyred. And so it meant, you know, obviously how their worship was impacted in what the truth really was.

And so when you consider those types of things it has to form the basis for how we worship, why we worship, when we worship. Even Christ Himself talked about this to the woman at the well. A great example of this is over in John 4:21, if you'll turn there with me. The backstory is the Samaritans, Jews hated Samaritans remember the story the of the good Samaritan? The Jews weren't going to help him, the priest wasn't going to help him. They hated… why do they hate the Samaritan?

Why do the Jews hate the Samaritan so much? You could probably boil it down to one word it was doctrine. They didn't believe… they kind of mixed things up and added things, and they had this in syncretism of all kinds of different beliefs, and so the Jews didn't want anything to do with them. Yet they had a form of truth, wasn't exactly right. So here Jesus gets into a discussion with the Samaritan woman at the well and as a conclusion.

Verse 21 in John 4, here's what He says to her. He says, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

So we must have the right doctrines because right teachings and often times, we'll say just that, the truth. When God opened my mind to the truth, well, what do we mean? Well, when God showed me His true teachings. And so that does determine how we worship, how we worship in spirit and truth. And so whether we handle snakes during church services or whether we preach about them — that's defined by doctrine, isn't it?

Whether we cut ourselves, we abuse ourselves, we, you know, whip ourselves, all those… what defines that? Well, doctrine does. The days we worship the, you know, whether they're commanded to keep or whether they're just a nice suggestion is defined by the truth. Whether we keep Christmas, or Easter, or Halloween, or you name it.

All of those things are determined by the truth of the word of God. And so when we consider those things it becomes absolutely critical, absolutely critical. And when you consider that we can take it to another step. Another facet of why doctrine is so important.

Doctrine also forms the basis for fellowship. A fourth aspect of why doctrine is so critical. It forms the basis for fellowship. Is that true? Is that true or is it just we just kind of hang out with everybody and anybody? Well, there's something interesting that occurred right at the beginning of the New Testament Church.

Right at the very beginning, you turn there, Acts 2, we have that first Pentecost when God's Spirit was poured out. New Testament churches beginning. Of course, what happens during that whole event? The apostles are accused of being drunk, you know, they're hearing all these languages being spoken. Peter starts explaining what was going on, he talks about God's word being fulfilled kind of goes through a history of God's plan and His purpose and goes through the basics.

Points to Jesus Christ as being the Messiah and ultimately convicted those who are willing to listen. And as he comes to a conclusion in verse 37, we see the impact on the people who were willing to hear. It says, "When they heard this..." this is verse 37 of Acts 2, "they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’" Of course, Peter doesn't hesitate, he says, "Repent, let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." Has to begin with repentance and then you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and so he points to this very fact and thousands were baptized. Thousands were baptized.

He says, "They gladly..." down in verse 41. He says, "Those who gladly received the word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them." Phenomenal, you know, they understood the truth, doctrine impacted them. But was that the end of the story? No, it was just the beginning.

Notice what their response to the truth is. Verse 42 going on from that highlight of huge numbers of people being baptized, what was their action? Verse 42, "They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers." So what brought them together? What caused them to fellowship, and that's a great word, fellowship there.

They're fellowshipping together, it's a koinonia, they're fellowshipping, that's the same word that we read often times over, and over, and over, again at the Passover. It's the word for communion, they were communing together. Another word for sharing, another word for partnering. They were partnering together and what was the basis? Their common belief. Their common belief, the apostles' doctrine which wasn't just the apostles’ — it was God's truth.

It brought them together in fellowship. If they didn’t... but well, why weren't all the other Jews there? They didn't believe this stuff, they weren't a part of that. They didn't believe the doctrine, so why would they have this fellowship? Now, we're not just talking about a social interaction, yeah, we can socialize with everybody, anybody, we, you know, we should set a good example in that way no doubt.

No doubt, but here it's pointing to a deeper bond, it's talking about a bond of the Spirit, not just intellect. And so they couldn't have that same bond of godly fellowship with those who didn't accept the Messiah. They had a whole different set of doctrines, they didn't have that belief. And so this formed the basis that they could continue steadfastly in the truth and share it together at a spiritual level.

And so it's a powerful thing that was going on here and so the impact was tremendous and that fellowship we can read in so many different passages throughout Scripture is not just with each other. It goes beyond that, doesn't it? Our fellowship is with God the Father and Jesus Christ. You know, 1 John 1 talks about that over, and over, and over, that we could have fellowship with God the Father and Jesus Christ as well. But if we don't hold the truth, how can we have an intimate relationship with God?

How is that possible? You see, it limits us then and so doctrine defines how Jesus Christ lived His life. Think 1 John tells us that very thing that we should walk as He walked or live as He lived, and so if we don't hold that truth we walk a different direction, don't we? We go a different direction. In fact, it's so critical even as following Peter's example, what was he doing?

Well, to those that would listen he was preaching the gospel. Does doctrine have an impact in preaching the gospel? Absolutely. Talk about a fifth impact that doctrine has. Doctrine forms the basis for preaching the gospel, or you might even say preaching the truth.

There's a great example of this, one of my favorite is in the book of Acts. Acts 13:4. If you turn over to the book of Acts. Acts 13 we'll begin in verse 4, here we find at the beginning of the book this kind of amazing church that was at Antioch and how Barnabas was there, and the apostle Paul was there, and they choose Barnabas and Paul, and they send them out to preach the gospel. They sent them out on a journey and so picking up the story we find this amazing event, Paul's just kind of getting started here seems at this point Barnabas is still kind of the lead guy. But they're “Sent out” it says in verse 4, “by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they went to Cyprus. Then they went to Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues.”

John was there as well. Now, verse 6 says, “They went through the island of Paphos” and now there's opposition. They face opposition there. Verse 6 in the middle it says, “they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew who's named was Bar-Jesus.” So how convenient is that a guy named Bar-Jesus to bring a wrong message, a false prophet. But anyway, it says, verse 7, "He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man."

So now the sorcerer, this false prophet, has an in with what we might say the governor. Well, how in the world can you preach the truth to somebody that's infected by a false prophet? Well, it's kind of interesting the governor calls it says in end of verse 7. "The governor called for Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God." Here's the problem, verse 8, "Elymas the sorcerer," that's the guy's name, the false prophet, "withstood them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith."

Because of course, if he turns to the faith that means he turns away from the false prophet which probably meant he wasn't going to get paid and, you know, he'd be in trouble. But notice what happens, verse 9. “Saul, who's called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at the sorcerer and said, "O full of all deceit and all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness.” You know, Paul was kind of timid, kind of shy, like to pull punches a little.

Wow, he just — bam! There it is, take that, right? Snap on that one. You enemy of all righteousness. Wow, he just lays it on the line. He says, "Will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord? And now, indeed the hand of the Lord…”

If that isn't enough “the hand of the Lord is upon you, you should be blinded, not seeing the sun for a time." Now, what's going to happen? Well, immediately it says, "Immediately a dark mist fell on him and he went around seeking someone to lead him by the hand." You know, he was groping all around immediate… wow, talk about a curse falls on him just, boom! Just like that.

Okay, think about the impact watching this, you know, I'm the governor kind of interested in what this, you know, gospel's about and that this is kind of interesting too. You know, how would that impact you? What would you think about this? I think I'd be astounded. Wow! Can you imagine this?

Wow, it seems like you have to have say this Paul he's got some special power there, doesn't he? Well, it's interesting the reaction. Verse 12, it says, "Then the proconsul believed,” of course, if we stop right there we'll say, “Well, yeah, of course, you'd believe. I just saw it with my own eyes, the guy is blind he's groping around, he can't see. Wow, of course."

But that's not the case, at least not the whole story. Notice verse 12, "Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had been done, being astonished at the teaching." And that word teaching even in the King James it says "doctrine." What astounded the proconsul more than this false prophet going blind was the truth.

This guy was trying to twist and pervert the truth, Paul taught the doctrine of the Lord. He preached the gospel, he taught the truth, lead others to God, showed them the way of life and that impacted the proconsul. He was astonished he was taken aback by the gospel, by the truth, by true doctrine of the Lord. He was astonished at the teaching of the Lord, that true doctrine. This doctrine has to be our basis for preaching the truth, for preaching the gospel, and throughout Scripture, we're reminded of that fact.

Even Paul reminded Titus about that very fact, kind of in an Elymas kind of a way because there were certainly a lot of detractors from the truth during those early days of the Church. And you can notice his instructions to Titus in Titus 1. Notice Titus 1:6. Titus 1:6, we find some instruction that Paul is giving Titus. And oftentimes we just focus on the fact well, he's talking about leadership in the Church and Paul should choose men that are right-minded, right-acting in order to be leaders in the Church, in order to be elders. And certainly that's part of the point here, but it's interesting that that's not just a goal of in and of itself.

Titus 1:6, let's notice what Paul instructs Titus. He says, "If a man's blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of dissipation or insubordination." He says, "A bishop must be blameless." Of course, an elder, yeah, this is the way it's supposed to be. We see “as a steward of God. not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine,” the list goes… Well, how do we know these things? Well, because doctrine tells us that.

Doctrine reminds us that we should be exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit, that it affects our way of life, that we should be patient, we should be kind, we should be loving, we should be exhibiting all of those attributes of God's Holy Spirit. One of the things he also talks about is because of this aspect of leadership. He says in verse 9, Titus 1:9, "Hold fast the faithful word as he's been taught." Not just to hold it and keep it, but it says "that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and to convict those who contradict." So in a way we're talking about preaching the gospel, that we can exhort someone and it says, of course, he delineates, not just by any old doctrine, but by sound doctrine, right doctrine.

Some translations say healthy teachings, wholesome, the truth of God. And so we see this aspect of doctrine forming the foundation for the true teachers, for the gospel of God. And so over and over, in fact, maybe you could take some time later on the Sabbath to even add to this list of how many times we see doctrine forming that basis for the preaching of the gospel. Because certainly, it sets us on that right path, in fact, you take it to its logical extension. Critical aspect of true doctrine, it also forms the basis for salvation.

I mean, just preaching the gospel we just don't preach it for the gospel says… yeah, there's a warning in a witness message that has to go out no doubt, but Christ also said to make disciples. And of course, part of our mission statement is to do just that for those that God's calling. So whose minds he's opening that we teach and help, and we work with people and it becomes a basis for salvation as well. And when you think about it for a moment, how can I be a member of the family of God? How can I be in the Kingdom for all eternity if I believe God's a fish?

That doesn't really seem to work if I believe he's a jackal, or a snake, or some cosmic blob, or cloud, or… how's that possible? You see the truth, the doctrine of God teaches us who God is, what He's like so that we can have a relationship with Him and ultimately be saved, ultimately be in the Kingdom of God, become a full-fledged member of God's family and be a divine being. And so it forms that basis ultimately, in a sense for understanding what real life, what eternal life is really all about. So Paul reiterated that fact over, and over, and over, again. In fact, if you remember where we began with Paul's instruction to Timothy in that same area of Scripture he ties it into the big picture.

There's this big picture of ultimately being in the Kingdom of God. So go back to 1 Timothy for just a moment, 1 Timothy 4, a little bit later on in the chapter near the end of chapter 4. After Paul got done saying to adhere, to stick to this, hang on to it, have the truth, teach the truth, know the truth, live the truth. In verse 16 notice what he says, he once again says how critically important this is. He says, "Take heed" or some translations say, "beware," or "watch out," see implication. What do we watch?

He says, "Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine, to the truth." He says “Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.” So we've got this preaching the truth, preaching the gospel, and this path to eternal life. This path to eternal life, so doctrine, I mean, doctrine's not going to save us we need a Savior. But doctrine's intricately tied to salvation.

How can I be saved if I don't know the truth? How can I be saved if I don't understand that I have a Savior who died… how can I be saved if I don't understand I need to repent and I need to change? How can I be a part of the family of God if I don't even understand those very things? So it becomes so critical in that way. In fact, Paul reminded Timothy once again a little bit later if you turn a few pages over to 2 Timothy, similar kind of exhortation here.

2 Timothy 4:1, right at the very beginning of that particular chapter. Paul doesn't just say, beware, watch out, or stick to this. Now, he gets even a little bit stronger he says, "I charge you," and like it sounds in English it's in the Greek it's a similar type of thing. “Here's a warning, I'm the commander you're the soldier, I'm giving you an order.” That's kind of the impact of what he's saying here.

Here's your orders, he says, “before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, He's going to judge the living and the dead at His appearing in His Kingdom.” Alright, what is the exhortation? What's the command? He says "Preach the word! Preach the word! Be ready in season, out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and doctrine, and teaching… and teaching.”

He says, "The times going to come they're not going to endure sound doctrine." Now, they're not going to understand wholesome, right, true, teaching, but according to their own desires because they've got itching ears. They'll heap up for themselves, teachers, and so like George Barna said, "Yeah, you can read whatever you want, wherever you want, about whatever kind of belief you want to it's all out there. All you're going to do is google it and buy the book from Amazon, there it is.

But he says, “Wait a second, you've got to stick to God's truth” and so no wonder he says in verse 5, "You be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry." So here's Paul nearing the end of his life, recognizing at least for the apostle Paul the Kingdom was right around the corner, right? He's going to be taking a rest soon and what's on his mind? Well, salvation, the Kingdom of God.

The family of God is on his mind and so he's talking about this basis for living unto salvation. Having that kind of salvation, that kind of faithfulness, that's going to last for all of our life until the return of Christ. That's on Paul's mind and he's urging Timothy, he's charging him, he's commanding him. Keep these things in mind, keep the true teachings. Keep it close and live by those teachings because doctrine forms the basis for salvation.

Now, it's great to know all these things, in fact, I'm sure that you could add numerous things to this list of why doctrine is so important, why true teachings, why the wholesome instruction of God is so critical to us. In fact, you might want to make a Bible study out of it, and do that very thing. But hopefully, it also moves us to ask ourselves, "Do I really understand true doctrine? How well do I understand even the basics that were mentioned in Hebrews 6? Do I really get it or have I just taken it for granted? Maybe I haven't really looked into some of those fundamental things in a long, long time?"

Well, we have a wonderful booklet. You can get it at beyondtoday.tv. Okay, maybe that doesn't fit. But the fundamental beliefs of the United Church of God is a valuable resource if you haven't read it for a while or maybe you've never read it because “Well, I know this stuff.” It's important. It's critical because it's not just the beliefs of the United Church of God, the amazing thing is when you read through this it takes you to the Bible, it takes you to the Word of God.

It references why we believe what we believe and it all revolves around the true teachings of God, and how critical it is that we study these things and not… well, be like Paul said to Timothy, devote yourself to it, don't take it for granted, stick to it. And if you've been wondering what, “I don't know what to study, I don't know what to read, I don't know…” This is great beginning. It's a great beginning, it's kind of like I don't know, already a self-made Bible study. We can go through and see exactly why we do what we do like you go on our website what a phenomenal tool we have? That you go on our website and type in any topic and they'll be a multitude of things that will come up.

I mean, we have an amazing array of doctrinal study papers that are on the website. Everybody… anybody can access them. If you've never done it, you ought to do it. You ought to do it because it helps us in so many ways to be cemented to the truth which, ultimately, is not just being cemented to the truth, but being connected to God. Having that right relationship with our amazing Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ because it does.

Doctrine forms the basis for that relationship as well. And so how well do I really understand? Not so much what this booklet teaches, but what the word of God teaches. How well do I know it? One other instruction that Paul gave Titus if you go back to Titus 1:9, I think it's kind of an admonition for him as a young minister, but certainly also an admonition for all of us.

For each one of us not just for elders, but let's rehearse this just one more time. Titus 1:9. He told Titus… you know, as people of God, as men of God, what do we do? Verse 9 he talks about “holding fast the faithful word.” Holding fast the faithful, the true teachings.

Says “as we've been taught.” He says “that he may be able, by sound doctrine, true teachings, wholesome words.” I can exhort first and foremost, myself. Myself so that I can get myself back in line into God's way of thinking and God's action to be repented myself because sometimes, you know, I contradict what I'm supposed to be living and I've got to be living God's way. And the impact, I think, is absolutely phenomenal.

It'll kind of be like a Sergius Paulus, like a proconsul in a way. In fact, we're promised that very thing, there's a promise maybe as a final passage over in Proverbs 2. There's a, I think, a wonderful promise that God gives us as we devote ourselves to understanding the truth, learning the truth, and living the truth. Notice the promise right here at the beginning of the Proverbs.

Proverbs 2. Let's see, let's begin in verse 2. Proverbs 2:2, it says, "Incline your ear to wisdom, apply your heart to understanding." So what we want to understand God's way, His word, His will, His teaching. “Yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver, search for her as a hidden treasure; then…” what's the result when we want to understand the truth? We want to repent, we want to live by the… what's the impact then?

Verse 5 he says, “then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth… and from His mouth come knowledge and understanding; He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; and He's a shield to those who walk upright; He's a guard at the path of justice, and preserves the way of his saints. Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path.”

And so what an amazing promise. As we strive to dedicate our lives to living God's way, to being faithful disciples, faithful learners, faithful students of God, understanding the truth of His teachings. Certainly, we recognize doctrine's pretty important, God's teachings. It matters, it definitely matters and for so many reasons.

Doctrine forms the basis for what we believe, it forms the basis for why we do what we do, how we live our lives, forms the basis for how we worship, when we worship, how we fellowship, who we fellowship with. Forms the basis for preaching the gospel and ultimately frames salvation itself. So let's take these words and look at the truth of God. Let's be sure we're striving to hold fast to sound teachings, to wholesome words, to true doctrine.