Fifth Avenue Baptist Church 11/24/2024

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (01:18):
And it's not the the not the an.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
The Lord is King robed in majesty. God has established
the world. It shall never be moved. More majestic than
the thunders of mighty waters, more majestic than the waves
of the sea. Majestic on high is the Lord. Grace

(03:34):
to you and peace from him who is and who
is and who is to come, and from Jesus Christ,
our faithful witness, the first born of the dead, the
resurrected one, the King of kings and Lord of lords,

(03:55):
to Jesus who loves us and frees us from sin
and made us a kingdom. It made us prise serving
one another in his name, serving his God and Father.
To him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Amen.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
The ass.

Speaker 4 (06:13):
S S S S S S, S, S.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
S S.

Speaker 5 (07:42):
Let us pray, Heavenly Father, as we come to you
in your presence today in reverence and all. Let us
come to you and praise and thanksgiving for all that
you supply to us in our lives, yesterday, today and tomorrow,
our church, family, friends, homes, the earthly and heavenly, and

(08:04):
most of all our spiritual needs. Let's be thankful that
you supply the mercy and grace when we need your forgiveness.
Let us be thankful for strength when we feel we
can't go on during temporary struggles. Let us be thankful
for your comfort when we need your arms to lean on.
Let us be thankful for love that is unmeasurable and unconditional.

(08:27):
For each of us. Give thanks to the Lord, for
he is good. His love endures forever, a love so
strong that you gave us your only son, that taught
us the prayer our Father, who art in heaven. How
Lord be thy name, thy kingdom, Come, Thy will be

(08:48):
done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us
this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who try us facts against us.
And lead us not temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the

(09:11):
glory forever.

Speaker 6 (09:13):
Amen, it is so.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
So so so.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
It's time.

Speaker 7 (10:39):
To start.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
So so.

Speaker 4 (11:00):
Stoo STI song.

Speaker 7 (11:22):
So it's.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
Against sing songs.

Speaker 7 (11:40):
Us uster, so.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
Song.

Speaker 6 (12:36):
Would you pray with me?

Speaker 8 (12:39):
Got our father and God, our friend. How do we
give thanks for all that we have been given? How
do we recognize with humility that all that we have
does not belong to us, but to you. With thanksgiving
and gratefulness on our lips, how do we find a
way to return that which we feel we have worked

(13:00):
so hard to gain? We ask you these things knowing
that not one question or request has ever gone unheard.
We ask knowing that you urge us to seek you
and find you. With these questions, we ask, knowing that
humility and generosity come not from ourselves, but from leaning

(13:20):
into you. Help us to lean, help us to rest
or worry, lay down our greed, and walk freely with
your generosity, move us to remember that we are all
just a few bad moments away from losing everything we
feel as ours. And with that in mind, we turn
to you as a child with their hands in the air,

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asking to be held and guided into giving what is right,
to give back what truly belongs to you, and to
do so freely. We ask that you take our small
dandelion and turn it into a garden of change for
our community. We ask that you use these funds for
your plan, not ours, And we ask that when you

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take our small gift and multiply it beyond what we
could even begin to imagine, you give us the eyes
to see it and to rejoice with thanksgiving for all
of the ways in which you use us for your kingdom.
In Jesus mighty name, we pray. Amen.

Speaker 6 (15:46):
So let us pray.

Speaker 9 (18:54):
Almighty and Everlasting God, as it has already been said
several times. This morning, we come to you with thanksgiving
and praise for who you are and who you have
called us to be your chosen people, loved by you,
to love the world. This morning, Father, we come to

(19:16):
you as your children, asking you, in moments of need,
to heal our broken hearts, to show us that you
love us, to fill us with your compassion and care,
to aid us and our patience, and equip us to

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forgive the way that you have forgiven us. We pray
God that today as we sit here, that we know
that you are with us, that you love us, and
that you want to be with us and our joys
and our pains. In this moment, God, we place those
things at the foot of your feet, knowing that as

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your children we have a father who deeply loves us.

Speaker 6 (20:04):
We thank you for your many gifts. It's in your
Son's name, we pray, Amen.

Speaker 10 (20:20):
MHM.

Speaker 11 (20:30):
Listens to sell, sell, stay.

Speaker 6 (21:17):
All.

Speaker 7 (21:20):
Standing fall.

Speaker 10 (21:33):
Scene s S, spec sanc time, siste.

Speaker 4 (21:52):
Seek its sad.

Speaker 7 (22:02):
S fund two cents, s s two sides.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
From two.

Speaker 6 (23:32):
Thank you choir for leading us in worship.

Speaker 9 (23:37):
Our scripture reading comes from Colossians Chapter three, verses twelve
through seventeen. Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved,
clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear

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with each other and forgive one another. If any one
of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the
Lord has forgiven you. And over all these virtues put
on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since

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as members of one body, you were called to peace
and be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among
you richly as you teach and abonish one another with
all wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit,
singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

Speaker 6 (24:45):
In whatever you do, whether word or deed.

Speaker 9 (24:50):
Do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
giving thanks to God the Father.

Speaker 6 (24:57):
Through him. Let us pray.

Speaker 9 (25:02):
Clear our minds and our hearts, Lord, so that we
may sense your spirit Amen. So some of you can
believe it and some of you cannot. But whether you
believe it or not, the holiday season is among us.
This year, we do not have a Sunday following Thanksgiving,

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so you might feel a little bit rushed to celebrate
Thanksgiving in order to go into Christmas. As Darren already
shared this afternoon, this sanctuary will be transformed into the
time of Advent, and Christmas is here for us, ready

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or not. This week we will celebrate all that we
are thankful for for the year that has passed and
the decades before that we gathered around a table with
people we deeply loved. This season also reminds us of
those we have been able to share a meal with

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before that no longer sit beside us. Just yesterday, my
mom and I pulled out recipes with my great grandmother's handwriting,
my great grandmother, who Kathleen and I are named after,
our name, after the one who I never got the
joy to know, but still is very much ingrained in

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the family that I'm.

Speaker 6 (26:29):
A part of.

Speaker 9 (26:31):
Those recipes, those memories, those handwritings are a reminder that
we are part of something much bigger than what we
are experiencing in this moment and for that we can
be grateful. Over the years, Thanksgiving in my family has
not always been not only the day that we gather

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around the table, but it's also the day that we
gather around a camera anybody else else, It is the
day that we take our family Christmas picture. In recent years,
we have benefited from my sister in law, Sam our
family photographer, who not only takes our picture, but also

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sends us a color palette of clothing that we can
coordinate with.

Speaker 6 (27:20):
For the picture.

Speaker 9 (27:22):
She has helped us over the years capture the picture
that would emphasize our growing family that is now at
twenty one. She has helped us come a long way
from black and white only flannel and denim on denim attire.
But what makes this picture perfect to us is not

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the clothing that we are wearing, but that we are
all in it together. Today's passage in the Book of
Colossians talks about the WI, and we're going to talk
about the Wei today that we are God's chosen people
and how we are to dress as His children. This

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letter was written during one of Paul's many imprisonments for
preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ as Lord. Unlike his
other letters, this is addressed to a group of people
that he had never met, in a community that he
did not start. The Church of Calise was started by Ephorus,

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who was from Calise. Ephorus had recently visited Paul in
prison and shared how the church was doing. He also
shared that the cultural pressures that embedded in the church
were turning their attention away from following Jesus. Culture was

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more important than Jesus. Paul wrote that this letter to
encourage the Colossians address the concerns of him had raised
and encouraged them to a greater devotion of Jesus.

Speaker 6 (29:12):
The letter has four parts.

Speaker 9 (29:15):
The movement focused on Jesus as exalted Messiah, followed by Paul's.

Speaker 6 (29:21):
Description of his suffering in prison.

Speaker 9 (29:23):
Then Paul addresses the pressure tempting them to turn away
from Jesus, and then finally, Paul explores the new way
of life of Jesus's resurrection that he has opened for
all of us. Paul begins his letter this way with
a song of thanksgiving. We always thank God, the Father

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of our Lord, Jesus Christ when we pray for you,
because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus,
and the love you all have God's people, the faith
and love that springs from the hopes stored for you
in heaven, and about which you have already heard, the

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true message of the Gospel that has come to you.
In the same way, the Gospel is bearing fruit and
growing throughout the whole world, just as it has been
doing among you since the day you heard it and
truly understood God's grace. He goes on to say, for
this reason, since the day we heard about you, we

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have not stopped praying for you.

Speaker 6 (30:37):
We continually ask God to.

Speaker 9 (30:38):
Fill you with the knowledge of His will through all
wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you
may live a life worthy of the calling that you
have received, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in
the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according

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to His glorious might, so that you may have great
endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father
who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of
His holy people in the Kingdom of Light.

Speaker 6 (31:17):
Paul is giving thanks to the.

Speaker 9 (31:20):
People who gathered in Colisse, and they were sharing and
then inheritance as his children and the same is true
for us.

Speaker 6 (31:31):
We are chosen, We are God's people.

Speaker 9 (31:36):
In verse twelve of today's passage, the Greek word for
chosen is ek letose.

Speaker 6 (31:42):
Which is the ecclesea, which is though we are, which
is the church. The passage first reminds us that we
are chosen, we are God's people.

Speaker 9 (31:59):
I think it's important to not only know here that
he is not just talking about me, Jana, I am
the church. Mary Lou, you aren't just the church. Tony,
you are not just the church. I'm not singling you out,
but you're right here in front of me.

Speaker 6 (32:20):
But we are the church.

Speaker 9 (32:23):
This letter is written as a we, the tire group
of gatherers who are living in community trying to figure
out the new way of Jesus. In the book Cup
Overflowing by doctor Gessler Kraigngler, she writes about a new

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way to look at the church and how oftentimes we
look at the church as individuals instead of the collective we.
She writes, the world in which Jesus lived is a
world that beckons us to a life of a close
knit family, a community. They were people who saw themselves

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as God's chosen people before they saw themselves as individual believers.

Speaker 6 (33:17):
It's hard for.

Speaker 9 (33:18):
Us to imagine how they would have understood themselves. We
live in a time for generations where we have been
taught to think of ourselves as individuals, long before we
think of ourselves as a member of a community. In church,
we are taught to remember our baptism, but are we

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also taught now that we primarily.

Speaker 6 (33:44):
Live that out through a new family of believers.

Speaker 9 (33:49):
The Bible is addressing us as the we as the
body of Christ, and each of us as individuals make
up the total picture. We are chosen a part of
the picture of picture much bigger than ourselves, and because
of this, Paul reminds us that we need to be

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dressed in spiritual clothes that we represent.

Speaker 6 (34:17):
We collectively need to be dressed.

Speaker 9 (34:23):
It is interesting that we were wearing what we are
wearing are not just on our own, but instead we
are wearing these things in relationship to one another. The
way we live out life in context to one another.
First compassion being aware, informed, knowledgeable, conscious of others and

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their distress, but then a desire to alleviate it.

Speaker 6 (34:58):
Compassion is not on only seeing with our eyes.

Speaker 9 (35:01):
Someone who is experiencing homelessness, but also mobilizing ourselves the
we as believers to lessen, improve, or lighten the load
of the human condition. Kindness, moral goodness, integrity, showing courtesy

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and grace, mercy and favor to someone. Kindness goes past
the I should have let that person in front of me,
I should have texted a friend who was struggling. I
should have dropped off the cast role to the action
of being kind. It is also the we of equipping

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each other through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to show
up in a world as people of kindness.

Speaker 6 (35:54):
In all aspects of the highs and lows of life. Humility.

Speaker 9 (36:01):
Humility an act of fighting against arrogance, pride, self importance,
and superiority. It is holding one another accountable to be
sure that in the We, the Chosen People, that everyone has.

Speaker 6 (36:17):
A voice and not one person is more important than
the other. Gentleness.

Speaker 9 (36:26):
Gentleness is understanding that no one of us knows what
someone else is going through, and the we we offer
one another a state of gentleness when we approach one another.
Patience patience being willing to wait our turn when we

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don't want to, being willing to not go ahead of
somebody else when they're lingering behind the we, helping somebody
through a time when their patience is running thin, and
praying for them through the process forgiveness, bearing with one another,

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and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against
each other, forgiving as the Lord forgave you, asking for forgiveness,
receiving forgiveness even when you don't want it, and even
when it's not offered to you, forgiving as the Lord

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forgave you, in the context of the we, and over
all these things, Paul says, put this into the love context,
which binds them all together in perfect unity. We can
only do all of these things being dressed in these

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things because of the love of God that God has
for us, and the love that He wants us to
have transformed in our hearts as His people. This past week,
a great Christian leader passed away who challenged us as
a church to live out what Paul was saying in Colossians.

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So so many of you, myself included, heard this pastor
preach from this pulpit many years ago. Tony Campolo, an
American Baptist minister and socialists who spent decades trying to
convince evangelists and other Christians that their faith should motivate

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them to address social issues like poverty and racism.

Speaker 6 (38:55):
Passed away this week at the age of eighty nine,
of Philadelphia.

Speaker 9 (39:01):
Campolo was known for his charismatic preaching and certain words
in the pulpit that I will not share today, and
his sense of humor, which made him a popular speaker
at colleges, campuses, church and Christian conferences around the world.

Speaker 6 (39:20):
And yet he was equally at home.

Speaker 9 (39:23):
Doing ultra calls and singing praises within his own congregation.
He authored over thirty five books, was a pastor professor
at Palmer Theological Seminary my Seminary at Eastern University.

Speaker 6 (39:42):
His message was consistent.

Speaker 9 (39:45):
Campolo wanted to reach people with the Christian Gospel and.

Speaker 6 (39:51):
Inspire them to go out and change the world. Period.
He wanted paeople to be reached with the Christian gospel
and inspire them to go out and change the world.

Speaker 9 (40:11):
Tony Campollo shared in an interview that it was because
of a Baptist mission his life was changed. He said,
my father couldn't find a job and they were totally impoverished,
and a Baptist mission in South Philadelphia, reached out to them,

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got my father a job, got them a place to stay,
put their feet on solid ground, and really saved them
from despair and destruction. People often asked me, where did
you get your social conscience? Where did you get your
commitment to the poor? Before it was really fashionable. My

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mother and father saw in the word that they were
treated by a group of Baptists that this is what
Christianity is all about. It's not about just getting a
ticket to Heaven. It's about becoming an instrument of God's
transformation in the world. Campolo witnessed first hand the we

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of Christian community dressed with compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience, forgiveness,
and most importantly love, and he inspired a decade of
believers to do the same. Once we are dressed, it's time,

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as Tony Campolo empowered us to do, through Jesus Christ,
to be about the work of justice and mercy in
the world. We need to get going and being grateful
along the way. It was about six weeks ago when

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I received a phone call from my sister in law, Sam,
the photographer.

Speaker 6 (42:15):
She was on the other end of the line and
she was crying, and she told me that.

Speaker 9 (42:21):
She had not stopped watching videos of everything that was
happening in North Carolina, in all the devastation she had
been experiencing.

Speaker 6 (42:31):
And for those of you don't know, Ryan and I
and the kids, we have a camper, and so she
asked if she.

Speaker 9 (42:37):
Could borrow our camper, load it up with toys, and
drive it down to North Carolina to deliver it to children.

Speaker 6 (42:44):
I told her no, that that might not.

Speaker 9 (42:47):
Be very reasonable, but I encouraged her to think about
how she could make an impact and told her that
if God was placing something on her heart, that she
couldn't ignore it. And that's a lesson for us. When
God places something on your heart, don't ignore it. He

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has something that he wants you to do. So Sam
got to work and right down the street from her
was a good friend and that good friend had thirty
family members who were impacted by the flooding in North Carolina.
She called her friend and said that God had placed

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this on her heart, and she said, can I help
your family? And for the next three weeks, Sam did
everything she could to empower us as her family and
also her friends to help those family members in North Carolina.
She worked hard and raised funds, and last Sunday morning,

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she and I loaded up into a vehicle and we
drove to North Carolina to deliver Christmas and other things
for that family in need because of ministries at FAB
Like many of you, I've been a part of disaster
relief efforts around our country. I have stood in places

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like Hurricane Katrina disasters where Rita blew through Mississippi, and
I have seen the devastation like many of you, of
an F five tornado that hit job in Missouri. But
last Sunday, I saw destruction into photography, changes that I
have never seen before in my life. The picture of

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western North Carolina will never ever be the same. But
what I also saw was people working together, people working
on roofs, fire stations that had turned into relief centers,
and a family that was gathered together at Grandma's house
at her homestead. When we arrived, we didn't hear stories

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about their devastation, but we heard stories of the many
people who were showing up dressed ready to help.

Speaker 6 (45:07):
Not just one, but the we who are called who
were dressed and ready to serve.

Speaker 9 (45:17):
This Thanksgiving, our entire family will not be together, and
so we will not take our typical Christmas card picture.
Our outfits are not going to be color coordinated, and
most likely it will not be sent out on time.
But that's really nothing new. But I think what Sam

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was able to do for us last week, feeling convicted
by the Holy Spirit, helped us get dressed for the
holiday season better.

Speaker 6 (45:47):
Than we ever could. Amen.

Speaker 9 (45:51):
Let us pray, Almighty and Everlasting God. I can't believe
you chose us. We chose us, the we, the ones
that are sitting here today and across this world who

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are worshiping you. Thank you for choosing us.

Speaker 6 (46:20):
We need to get dressed.

Speaker 9 (46:23):
Help us to be dressed with all that you have
for us, with your love that binds it all perfectly together.

Speaker 6 (46:34):
And help us to move.

Speaker 9 (46:37):
Help us to move the way that those who interacted
with Tony Campolo's family moved many many years ago. And
help us to be about your work in this world
of showing the goodness of who you are. In Christ's name, Amen,

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we will sing together or hymn of commitment. And if
there's anybody who wants to come forward to pray or
to join this family of faith, or if you've.

Speaker 6 (47:14):
Never accepted Christ, today is a good day.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
To do that.

Speaker 6 (47:17):
Let's stand together and sings.

Speaker 9 (49:59):
Let us pray as we leave this place. Holy Spirit
go with us, dress us, empower us to be your
hands and feet in this world. In Christ's name, Amen.

Speaker 7 (50:16):
Mm hm

Speaker 1 (53:41):
Us