Forever Faithful - Part 1

This is Michael Carbone with the Truth Network. We're partnering with Bible League International on Open the Floodgates, Bibles for Africa.

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That's 800-937-9673. Thank you for caring. This is Robbie Dilmore from The Christian Car Guy and Kingdom Pursuit, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Enjoy it and share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. on Finding Purpose, a local triangle ministry glorifying God by helping men find their purpose for living. For more information and to connect with Russ Andrews and Finding Purpose, you can visit us online at findingpurpose.net or connect with us on Facebook.

Now let's listen to Russ Andrews as he teaches us how to be a Christian without being religious. How's everybody doing? I want to welcome all you men here tonight, and I'm just thankful you showed up with the weather as nice as it is. I thought maybe you'd be out playing tennis or something, but glad you're here. And do you know what night we start?

It's usually the first Tuesday after Labor Day next September. We're going to start an incredible study on the Gospel of Luke, and we want to pack this house, okay? And I believe we're going to. So everybody, you know, do like Andrew did. Remember Andrew? He went and got his brother. What was his brother's name?

Peter. That's what the Billy Graham Association is. It's called Operation Andrew.

When they get ready to do a crusade in an area, they go out and get all these people to invite friends and family members. So that's what you guys have got to do. If y'all believe that showing up here is worth your time, which I assume you must believe because you show up here, we've got the good news to share, and we want to pack this place out, okay? And so next year, hopefully COVID will be gone, and we'll be able to meet here in person, and we will still be doing live stream because I believe that God is expanding our reach through the Internet on live stream. And so it's amazing, though, you think about how fast this year's gone by. We finished the second half of Mark. We went through all 13 chapters of Hebrews, and tonight we end Colossians. And so that's just amazing.

You think we've covered a lot of ground. So let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word, the Bible, which You preserve for us, and it's Your Word. It shows us what You know to be true.

It's Your mind that we can actually pour into our mind so that we might begin to think like You, that we might begin to look at the world the way You look at the world, that we might be able to be able to avoid being pulled down the wrong path, that we might know You intimately and personally, because that's what salvation ultimately is, is knowing You. And so, Lord, I pray that every man in here knows You, and if they don't, that they would come to know You tonight. Lord, thank You for bringing these men here. Thank You, Lord, for teaching us Your Word. And Lord, I pray that Your Word will go forth tonight and accomplish the very purpose for what You intend. I pray, Lord, that I would decrease, that You would increase, that the men would see You and not me. And so, Lord, I ask You, dear God, to speak through me tonight the words that You want me to share with these men. It's in Your name that I pray. Amen.

Okay, I've entitled tonight's message, Forever Faithful. We're going to be looking at Colossians chapter 4. Early on Sunday morning, October 23, 1983, terrorists drove an explosive-laden truck into the marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 220 marines, 18 sailors, and three soldiers. Moments later, 58 French paratroopers were killed in an attack on their barracks. It was the single deadliest day for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. And Americans were shocked as they witnessed the devastation of these scenes where the building collapsed and they were pulling soldiers out of the rubble. It was all over the news. But at the time, very few people grasped the significance of the deadly bombing as it marked the emergence of a frightening new form of terrorism never seen on this scale.

Unfortunately, we've seen more and more of this in the last, you know, 20 years. A few days after the tragedy, an incredible story emerged from the rubble. Marine Corps Commandant Paul Kelly visited some of the wounded survivors then in a Frankfurt, Germany hospital. Among them was Corporal Jeffrey Lee Nashton, who had been severely wounded in the attack. His wounds included a cracked skull, a compound fracture of one leg, a puncture wound in his chest, two collapsed lungs, and a crushed arm. Nashton had so many tubes running in and out of his body that a witness said he looked more like a machine than a man, and yet somehow he survived. When Kelly walked over to his bed, Nashton grabbed the general's camouflage coat and felt his way up to the collar to fill his four stars. Struggling to move and wrack with pain, Nashton motioned for a piece of paper and a pen because he couldn't see.

His face was covered, you know, with gauze and bandages and tubes. When he finished writing, he passed the note to the Commandant. On it, he had scribbled two words, semper fi, the Marine Corps motto that means, always faithful, forever faithful. With those two simple words, Nashton spoke for the millions of Americans who've sacrificed life and limb for the country that we might sit here tonight in freedom.

Those soldiers who have remained forever faithful. If two words could convey the message that Paul wanted to convey to his fellow believers in the little town of Colossae, it was these two words, forever faithful. You see, Paul's single desire for this small church and for everyone who has ever read this epistle was and is men to remain forever faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ who has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom men we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins.

I thank the Lord every day for the fact that He has forgiven me of all of my sins, and He remembers them no more. Our theme over the past few weeks has been about running this race known as the Christian life, and we run it to win the prize. And so tonight I want to continue this theme as we conclude our study of this wonderful short epistle by the beloved Apostle Paul. Now keep in mind that as Paul wrote this, he was sitting in prison. He was under house arrest so he could have visitors.

The date was approximately 60 A.D. Even while in prison, Paul was concerned about believers everywhere. Why was he so concerned? Because perhaps he more than anyone else understood that we have an enemy, Satan, who wants to destroy our lives. He knew firsthand that Satan is out to destroy the lives of those who claim to be Jesus' followers. He wants to take us down, and if we don't keep up our guard, he will.

Just look at Ravi Zacharias. Just look at so many others. Do you know what the greatest desire in my life is right now? Whatever race I have left before me, I'll be 67 in June, June the 19th.

If you come up after I give you my address, you can send presents. I'm getting ready to turn 67. So I'm looking at, you know, the lifespan is shorter than what I've lived so far, but I want to run this race without being disqualified. And the only way I can do that is if you guys pray for me, and if I pray for myself and spend time in God's Word. So how do we do this?

How do we run this race in order not to be disqualified? Well, let's read Colossians chapter 4, and we're going to see how to run the race. Look at verse 1. Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a master in heaven. Devote yourselves to what? Prayer, being watchful and thankful, and pray for us too that God may open a door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I'm in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders.

Make the most of every opportunity, and let your conversation always be full of grace, seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone. The other day, I think it might have been last weekend, I can't remember, but I was kind of just sitting there for a few minutes, and I was watching what I didn't realize at the time, but I researched it. It's one of the greatest films ever produced, The Bridge on the River Kwai. It's four stars. In 1957, how many men were born in 19... had been born by 1957? Raise your hand.

This group is way too old. In 1957, The Bridge over the River Kwai won seven Academy Awards, including best picture. In this movie, a battalion of British soldiers has been captured by the Japanese, and they are being held in a POW camp in Burma, and they have been ordered to build a bridge over the River Kwai so that the Japanese can ship back and forth supplies and artillery. And the scene that I was watching was of two men, Colonel Nicholson of the British Army and Colonel Sato of the Japanese Army. Of course, they were enemies, but they had kind of joined together to build this bridge, and as they stood together one afternoon on the bridge, all by themselves, just the two of them, they stood there, and there was a beautiful sunset.

And Colonel Nicholson was leaning over the bridge, the railing of the bridge, with his back to Colonel Sato, and he was reflecting on his life. Tomorrow it will be 28 years to the day that I've been in the service, he said. 28 years of peace and war. I don't suppose I've been at home more than 10 months in that time. Still, it's been a good life.

I wouldn't have had it any other way. But there are times when suddenly you realize you're nearer the end than the beginning, and you wonder, you ask yourself what the sum total of your life represents. What difference you being there at any time amounted to anything, or if it made any difference at all, really. And I was sitting there, I said, those are really great questions, and I was captivated by them.

These are questions, men, that we all need to ask ourselves, and we all need to give an answer. And so, have you ever asked yourself what has been the sum total of your life? What difference has my being here made for anyone? Has my life counted for anything of eternal value? Now, some of you men may be looking back at your life, and you feel like it has been entirely wasted.

I talked to a man who came to see me a couple of weeks ago, and boy, his life was a mess. And I know he feels like his life has been wasted, and most of it has been wasted. And maybe you can look at your life and say, well, a lot of it's been wasted, and maybe it has.

But let me give you some good news. God is in the business of second chances. I can look at sometimes in my life when I totally wasted the opportunities that God gave me. My colleges, for example, were a waste academically. Do you know why? Because rarely did I go to class, and when I bought my textbooks, I paid a fortune for them, and at the end I hadn't even opened them up.

That's not a good thing, is it, Jeff? Okay, well, I did better in seminary, okay, just for the record. But it was a waste because I didn't apply myself. And I'm going to tell you something, man, I regret it to this day.

And there are plenty of other examples I could put forth when I squandered the time that I had. But here's the good news for me, and here's the good news for you. And I remember reading this years ago. I thought, gosh, I love this verse. It comes from Joel chapter 2 verse 25, and it says, God says, I will restore to you the years that the swarming locusts have eaten. Did you all hear that? Some of you feel like you've wasted your life.

You've got some years you wish you could have back. You see, that's what God is in the business of doing. He's in the business of redeeming those wasted lives. He says, I will restore to you all the years that the swarming locusts have eaten. Do you know what locusts do when they invade a field of wheat? They eat it up. They leave nothing.

It's barren. It's wasted. But God can work a miracle with a wasted life.

Do you believe that? All you have to do is bring your life to God, all of it. The productive times, the wasted times, the good years, and the bad years, and God promises to give those wasted years back.

He promises to redeem the time in your life. There are a lot of men out there who are making a fortune, and they're wasting their lives, and yet the world applauds for them. If you have a lot of money, people tend to flock to you.

You know what you're flocking to? A lot of the time, not all the time, there are a lot of men who make a lot of money. I know a man who's done extremely well. His son-in-law told me he gives away 90% of the net income of his company, and it's a company that does millions in revenues. Ninety percent he gives away. He's not wasting his time. But a lot of people… men out there are wasting their time. I don't care how big a house they have.

I don't care how fancy the car is. They're wasting their lives. The Bible says, if you do anything that's not done in faith, it does not please God. Nothing done without faith pleases God. See, our God is the God of many second chances. Do you need a second chance tonight? Would you like to start over one more time? Who would like to start over one more time? If your answer is yes, then let me share tonight five commitments or five resolutions that, listen, I'm going to make these tonight.

We can make them together, and we can commit tonight by making these five resolutions that we want to be forever faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ who has rescued us. That's why you're sitting here. God has plucked you out, and you're sitting here not because you chose to be here, but God chose you to be here.

Do you realize that? You had nothing to do with it. And so if you're sitting here, it's not by chance. You're sitting here because God rescued you. The reason I'm here is because He reached down and He rescued me. And I want to pay Him back with my life, not that I'm trying to earn His favor. He's already given me His favor, but I want to live for Him the rest of my life. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of our lives. Would you like to live the rest of your life worthy of the Lord?

Then listen and commit your life to Him completely. In verse 1, Paul addresses the issue of masters and their slaves. And I don't want to spend a lot of time on this because it's clear that slavery is evil.

Did you all hear me? Slavery is evil. Anytime someone is kidnapped and held for labor against their will, that is against everything that God meant for us in this life. And it's evil, and God hates it. In Paul's day, though, slavery was not exactly what you think of when you think of the evil slavery that we've had here in America. Here's a wonderful website, guys, if you have questions you want to ask and get really good theological answers, there's a website called gotquestions.org, and it's theologically sound. And so I went to gotquestions.org, and I just typed in slavery in the Bible.

And this is what it says. There's a tendency to look at slavery as something of the past, but it's estimated that there are today over 27 million people in the world who are subject to slavery, forced labor, sex trade, inheritable property, and it goes on and on. As those who have been redeemed from the slavery of sin, followers of Jesus Christ should be the foremost champions of ending human slavery in the world today. That's what the Bible stands for. But the Bible does not specifically condemn the practice of slavery. Instead, it gives instructions on how slaves should be treated.

But it does not outlaw slavery altogether. That was just not the purpose of the Bible. The purpose of the Bible and the reason Jesus came into the world was to share the gospel to save slaves and freedmen.

Because one day… You see, when a person gets the dreaded call from the doctor that contains the C-word, most people get gripped with fear because they think they have cancer. But we have something greater that can cure something even greater that's more difficult to cure than sin… Excuse me, than cancer. It's sin. And Jesus came to set us free from it. In Romans 1 16, Paul writes, I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. In other words, the gospel has the power to save a man. Because when you hear the gospel, you come to know who? If you yield to it, you come to know Christ. Did you know that atheists and agnostics are usually not very impressed with our faith? Do you know why? Because they look at us and they say, well, if you really believe what you say you believe, you say you believe, then how come you haven't shared it with me?

And they've got a good point. Why do you keep it to yourself? Why do I keep it to myself? Do you know why most Christians aren't willing to share the gospel with a friend or family member?

Because they fear the sneer of the peer, and they might be ashamed of it. So if you're having trouble opening your mouth, what should you do? Look at verse 3. Paul says, pray for us too that God may open a door for a message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ. Here's what we need, guys. We need to ask God that He will first of all give us the desire to share it with others, and then that He will give us the courage to share it. Are you willing to do that? Do you have that desire?

Only God can give you that desire. Paul writes in Ephesians 6 19 and 20, pray also for me that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should. See, even the Apostle Paul wanted courage to share the gospel.

See, here's what I believe. If you want to see God's spiritual blessings in your life, if you want to run to win the prize, then you must be willing to pray fervently and then share your faith frequently. And then you will see how powerful God really is. You see, I believe God supplies power to those who are out there sharing the gospel with others, who are out there in the name of Christ helping others. If you're just going to Bible studies and collecting knowledge, then you're like the Dead Sea. Did you know the Dead Sea has seven rivers that flow into it and nothing flowing out?

That's why it's dead. So if all you're doing is going from one Bible study to the next and collecting knowledge, but you're not giving it out, you're going to be dead. God wants you to be alive. Jesus said, "'My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me.'" In other words, He found nourishment for His soul. He found joy in life by doing God's will.

And God's will for us men is to not keep this to ourselves. You've got to go out there and share it with your friends. And all you have to do is say, hey, I go to a Bible study and teach tonight. It's really helped me with my life. It's helped me to be a better man. You ought to come and join us.

Third is men. We must be wise in our encounters in our encounters with unbelievers. Look at verse 5. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders. Let me say just a few things about dealing with family members and friends who don't know the Lord. Anybody have a family member or friend who doesn't know the Lord? Don't argue with them about Christianity.

You can't argue people into the kingdom of God. You love them and you show your love and concern for them by being a good listener. You show them that you care. How many ears did God give you? And how many mouths?

One. There's a reason for that. James 1 19 says, my dear brother, take note of this.

Everyone should be quick to listen and slow to speak. If you want to win your friends to Christ, you win them by showing that you love them. And as they observe the grace of God in you, then perhaps at some point they may ask you for the reason for your hope. And this often happens when they go through what?

Trials, hardships. Years ago I was walking into this church, although we were meeting at Broughton and my cell phone rang and I did not recognize the number, but I answered it. It turned out it was somebody that I knew, but we were just acquaintances. And he had never called me in his life. But the reason he called me was because he had gotten a call from the doctor that told him that someone that he loved had cancer, one of his children. And he called me because he believed I had some answers.

And that's what happens. People will call you who may not be interested in Bible study right now, but they go through a difficulty and they see you going to a Bible study, they see a change in your life, and they'll call you when they go and it gets tough. They're not going to call the people they're partying with.

They're going to call you. And 1 Peter 3.15 says we should be what? Always prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope that we have. But we should do this how? With gentleness and respect.

Gentleness and respect. Fourth, be careful how you spend your time. Look at verse 5 again. It says, Make the most of every opportunity. Time is our most precious commodity. And in this world there's so many distractions.

And some of these distractions are actually very good distractions, or at least good distractions. But I wonder how often we pursue what is good rather than what is best. Paul writes in Ephesians 5, 15 through 17, Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. John Charles Ryle says, What we weave in time, we wear in eternity. What we weave in time, we wear in eternity. Dr. Erwin Lutzer says, and by the way, he's one of the greatest preachers in America, only eternal values can give meaning to temporal ones. Time must be the servant of eternity. Now, when I look at my life, one of my greatest time wasters has been watching way too much what?

Television. So where do you find yourself wasting too much time? We could be so much more productive.

I'm guilty as charged. Psalm 90 verse 12 says, So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. We only have so many days left. The clock is ticking. So, man, let's resolve to live our time for Christ. Remember what C.T. Sudds did, only one life to assume be past, only what's done for Christ will last. Do you believe that?

Everything else is going to burn up. But, man, what you do for Christ is going to be glorious, and that's what God will reward you for. And you will have that glory emanating from you for all eternity.

Number five, be responsible in the use of your tongue. Look at verse six, Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. Have y'all heard the old saying, what's in the well comes up in the bucket? Anybody not heard that saying? Do y'all know where that saying comes from?

Where most of them come from? The Bible. Matthew 12 34, Jesus says, For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. What did he mean?

What's in the well comes up in the bucket? And so, listen, if you claim to be a Christian and your friends hear you using filthy language, telling coarse jokes, gossiping about others, what do you think they're going to say about you when they hear you going to a Bible study or you're an active church member? Well, he's nothing but a what?

Hypocrite. And you will lose all credibility with them. I mean, we need to ask God to give us wisdom because the days are evil. Guys, we're living in some very evil days. And so, we need to be wise towards those who are not yet in the faith. We need to be wise with our time. We need to be wise in our conversations. You see, what we really need in every area of our life is what?

Wisdom. Being a Christian is not about being religious, but about having a dynamic, alive relationship with Jesus Christ. You've been listening to Finding Purpose with Pastor Russ Andrews, a local triangle ministry, glorifying God by helping men find their purpose for living. You can discover more about finding your purpose in life by checking out the resources at findingpurpose.net or connect to Finding Purpose on Facebook. Pastor Russ would also like to extend a special invitation for you to join him and over 300 other local triangle men to study God's Word together every Tuesday night at 7 p.m. in downtown Raleigh. Find out more at findingpurpose.net. This is the Truth Network.