So I'm sorry to do this right out of the gate. But all of you guys are liars. How do I know this? Because every single one of you on your computer has clicked the button that you read the new terms in agreement? All right. Can we agree that just seems like one of the most pointless things, right? You're purchasing something. You're signing up for something? 01 more thing. Read war and Peace and then click the box that you understand, right? I, I, I'm with you. Ok. I'm a liar too. I always click the box. Uh, my favorite though is when you click the box. Uh, I mean, there's just, there's just so many words, right? Like I'm all, I'm just like you should be happy that I'm just signing up for whatever the service is. Like, I don't need a novel, you know what I mean? Um, but my favorite though is when you have to prove that you're not a robot, you know what I mean? It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, one more step. Let me give them something that no robot will be able to figure out. We have a, I we have systems that are almost as smart as humans. But what a I cannot do apparently is identify the number of stop signs or crosswalks or bicycles. Apparently in the image. Uh I'm always afraid I'm gonna get that wrong. Anybody else get actually nervous with that. They're like, like I'm like, checking it. I'm like, what I, so if I get this wrong and then I was like, am I a robot? Like, am I like, I don't know. And uh anyway, where was I? No? The reason it's so quick to just skim through those things is because it's just at the end, right? A lot of details and we just click the box and move on. Here's the thing. We've come to the end of the book of Colossians. And it's very common, especially in Christian world just to kind of skim the last couple of verses of a letter because in those last couple of verses is usually a, a list of people and we don't know the people really. And so we just kind of skim over it and move on to the next book. But in studying in preparation and, and for this series and for this message in particular, I actually found such great blessing. And that's why this morning's message is entitled Faith In the Fine Print. Faith in the fine print because I believe in the inerrancy of scripture and that every word that was put into what we have as the Holy Bible has a purpose. And so I asked myself in prayer in, in preparation, God, what is the purpose of the end of this particular letter? And there's actually a lot more practical advice than what you might think. See, don't think of the end of the letter with just a list of commands and a list of people as like a grocery list. Right? And I need to make a list because if I don't make a list 100% will forget the one item I went to the store for. Right. Also, side note, and I learned this last night, it's not smart to go grocery shopping when you're hungry because you end up with a lot more junky foods in your cart. Well, how did that get there? I don't know. Um but it did and it's delicious. Ok. Just saying, I don't want you to think at the end of this letter as like a grocery list of items that Paul forgot. Instead think about the final words of a coach giving to his team in the locker room before the big game, right? If you're trying to inspire, try, trying to instill confidence and courage into your team before the big moment, you're gonna come back and you're gonna rally them. You know, I think of March madness right now, especially uh in those big games, those big moments. And I don't know if you fell out the bracket but your boy, top 675,000 right now. The San I want a ribbon, by the way, I want a ribbon. I want a ribbon that says top three quarters of a million. I don't know. I felt really good about that. And then I saw the actual ranking. I was like, oh wow. OK. Actually there's a lot of people doing this. Um Anyway, picture a coach giving a talk to the players before the game. I had a coach who would try to do that, but we, we didn't understand what he was trying to say because he would say things in an inspirational way, but he would just take a statement and then repeat it and then based on his inflection assumed it meant more. And so no joke. We were in the locker room before a game one time and our coach came in and he was very charismatic. He was a good guy, but he came in and he goes, all right boys. It'll come, it'll come boys and when it comes it'll come, let's go. And like we're like 123,? Like, we didn't quite understand what to do. Well, here's the thing, Paul is getting to the end of his letter in actuality. He's getting to the end of his life. He's in prison. He's right to this church about how it's about Christ over everything that Christ is. Pre eminent. Christ is supreme Christ is sufficient. And when he gets to these last few words, he says, remember this? OK. And so if you take a note, you can write this down. That spiritual transformation is a team sport. Spiritual transformation is a team sport, especially in today's culture. We need to be reminded that faith is meant to be done in community. Another way to think about this is that the church needs you and you need the church that you were created on purpose with a purpose. But that purpose wasn't just for you. That was for the body, that was for the world. And so the church needs you and what you bring your gifts, your personality, it needs you. But then you also need the church. We need each other. That's why uh one of the most common descriptions of the church is a body that we need each other, that we're different parts of the body. And so spiritual transformation involves community and that's why we say it's a team sport. And so here's how this morning's message is gonna go. We're gonna see some of these final commands. Hey, remember to box out, remember to rebound. Remember this play, right? The scouting report coming in and then he's gonna give some assignments and some shout outs to some very specific people that normally we just kind of brush over because they have some unique names. But actually, there's some really practical principles in there for you. And I, and so first, let's jump into these final commands. He's wrapping up the letter Colossians chapter four verse two. He says, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving in the same time, pray also for us that God may open up for us a a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear, which is now how I ought to speak, walk in wisdom towards outsiders making the best use of time. Let your speech always be gracious season with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. And so what we see here in this picture, what we see here in this story is the, is the value of prayer to put it another way. Paul writes this. He says to pray with consistency, to pray with gratitude and then to pray with boldness, to pray consistently day in day out to pray with gratitude and then to pray for boldness and, and I don't want you to miss this because we opened the letter with a message of how to pray for yourself and how to pray for others. Paul actually said the words in the opening of the letter. He said, I often remember you in my prayers and I pray that you would walk in a manner worthy Lord, I pray that you may be strengthened in his Lord. I pray for you. And then he gets to the end. And he says, now I'm asking you pray for me. And can we just agree on something here? If Paul needs prayer, we need p we sometimes think that we need somebody more spiritual than us to pray for us in order for prayer to work. But the person that's praying for you isn't the one answering your prayers. It's God answering your prayers. And so what we do is that we're collectively bringing the needs of our community before the God who can change everything. But notice also too what Paul prays for. He is in prison. He's not gonna live much longer, but he prays with consistency. He prays with gratitude and then, and then he prays notice he's not praying for safety, it's not bad to pray for safety. But I just want you to notice this, right? We all pray for safe trips, right? And, and safe moments. And I get that I'm with you. I got kids, I understand, right? But in this difficult situation, he prays for boldness. So what he's doing here is that faith doesn't sidestep suffering but actually strengthens you through it. And so if Paul needs prayer, we need prayer. But also Paul was doing what was right and was still experiencing suffering. That means that if you're walking through a difficult circumstance right now, that doesn't necessarily mean you're outside of the will of God. But what it does mean is that you're gonna need faith to get you through it. I think people sometimes mistrust Christianity because when they hear the Prosperity Gospel, when they hear this message that if you accept Jesus, everything in your right life will go. Right? Well, my life isn't right. So why would I want that thing that can't come through on its promises. When in reality is saying Jesus is gonna come and take care of every circumstance at some point. But in the meantime, he's gonna give you meaning in the middle of your suffering and he's gonna give you the strength to get through whatever you're walking through. See if one of the devotionals in our upper room, Easter devotional. This week, we talk about the fact that here Jesus is gonna go to the cross, he's gonna die. But then he talks to the disciples about the joy that's available to them. And what I've realized is that a joy that is tested is a joy that can be trusted. It's very preach. So I'm gonna say that again. It's, it's fun. I like words, a joy that is tested is a joy that can be trusted. And so we can take that with us that faith doesn't sidestep, suffer. And we're not like who Juke. All right. I avoid that one, but rather strengthens you gives you perseverance to overcome instead of being overwhelmed. And then he continues on and he says, simply walk in wisdom, especially towards outsiders and then to speak with grace. What does that assume? That assumes that you're actually walking and talking with non Christians. We have to avoid the concept of just getting into our own little bubble and avoid the world at all costs. I get boundaries, I get protection, I get close relationships. You need to have a team, right? But collectively were called to serve in Ephesians. Kind of the sister letter it says in there to redeem the time in Ephesians five to walk with wisdom. What's the right thing to do? Do you know how much your life would change if you just a ask yourself and answered every single day? What's the right thing to do? And then you do that, right? Are you making the most of your time or are you wasting it? And then when you speak, do you speak with grace? I do not understand why some Christians come across as jerks just a quick show of hands. Have you ever encountered someone who used religion? But was kind of a jerk? OK. And how quickly you raised your hand is an example. And this, this is the church. We are the church people that means you are the jerks. We are the jerks. We are. Imagine how much more quickly people outside of the church are raising their hands, right? Paul's saying you have the answer, you have forgiveness, but speak with grace. I want you to hang on to this verse and I'm gonna reread it here the end. And I want you to think about, I don't know this little thing called the election coming up. Think about this. Let me reread it. Walk in wisdom towards outsiders making the best use of time. Let your speech always be gracious season with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Does that mean scream at each other online. No, I'm not saying, don't have an opinion. I'm not saying don't have healthy discussions. But remember as Christians, we're called to walk in wisdom and to walk with and speak with Grace, Paul is like, I don't got a lot of time left. The game is here. This is our moment, but it's been going on for the church. It's not March madness. This is Millennium madness here, right? Like this is in the fourth quarter, right? We don't know when Jesus is gonna come back, but in the meantime, here's what we need to do, right? And then he's gonna give specific assignments to people, right? Kinda like you would in a game in a scouting report, ok? You're gonna run this play. You're gonna go here, look for this, go here and this is where it gets to this list and our, our eyes start to glaze over because we don't really understand who these people are. Paul lists 10 different people. I'm gonna highlight four of them for you. I'm gonna share with you four encouraging examples of fearless faith. And then I want you to think about which one of these four represents you. Each person is trying to answer a separate question and each person could represent somebody in this room or somebody watching online. And so let's walk through these people together. The first one was a guy named Tais Tiger Kiss is really trying to answer the question. What are you carrying? What are you carrying? Here's what I mean. Let's, let's, let's read these verses here. Verse seven and eight. Taika Kiss will tell you all about my activities. He is a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I have sent him to you for this very purpose that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts. You know what's cool about Tyus because Paul's in prison, right? So Taki delivered the letter to the church, right? You got doordash. We got Doctrine Dash here like he's literally taking it, delivering the Bible to a church. Now, he might have known that Paul was a big deal in those days, right? He started all these churches, seeing all these things happen. So I'm sure Tyus had some semblance of value of the importance of his job. But there's no way he could have known that the letter that he was carrying would be used to shape the church for the next 2000 years. He delivered a letter, you know why? That's important. It's because he was simply faithful with what God placed in his hand. A simple act of obedience made an eternal impact. I mean, if somebody is in prison and it's a far journey across the land where you're getting persecuted and could be killed for having a letter preaching the gospel that put the guy that wrote the letter in prison. So I'm just saying, would you be a little bit tempted? Paul says, hey, I want you to go back. You know who, who I made the journey here, Paul, I'm with you. That's my job is to be with. You said, no, I want you to go all the way back and I want you to take this letter. Wouldn't you be a little bit tempted to be like, cool. Yeah, I've heard that before. Hey, I've been done, right? Have you ever given a task to um one of your kids? And they run back and immediately like I'm done? Like there is no way, there's no way you clean up that quickly, right? Aren't we so glad that Taki didn't do that with his letter that he valued the simple act of taking the letter to a church that needed it? That his name is forever written in the book of life. So let me ask you a question. What are you carrying right now? Is it a relationship? Is it a responsibility? Is it a seemingly mundane task? You see ministry is mundane we always are looking for miracles but growth happens in the mundane. The daily watering, the fertilizing, the pruning. Are you being faithful and responsible with the people and the job and the opportunity that God's placed in your hands? T A kiss was Paul saying and you should too. Second name Onesimus, Onesimus. He is trying to answer that question. What's your challenging circumstance? I love these names. By the way. Last week. Stay tuned. We're gonna share more about our Mexico mission trip. We went down last weekend. It was awesome. We'll share some videos and pictures in the weeks to come. But uh what I noticed is that, you know, you have, if you've ever been down to Rocky Point or you have those people selling the bracelets with the names and stuff on there, right? I did not find Taika Kiss or Anissa on there shocking those names have not caught on. Um But here is Onesimus, what's your challenging circumstance? Well, here in verse nine, it says, and with him, Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you, they will tell you of everything that has taken place. Now that seems pretty basic except Onesimus was a slave, he was a slave, but Paul didn't address him as Onesimus the slave. This Onesimus, my fellow brother and servant. And in fact, there's another letter called Philemon in which Paul is writing to the slave owner, Philemon saying, hey, Onesimus left as a slave, but I want you to receive him back as a brother in Christ. You know what that tells me is that you are not defined by what happened to you. You are not defined bye. Being a victim of somebody else's sin. You are not defined by being put in a situation of poverty, of stress of attack. First question is what are you carrying? The second one is what, what is the circumstance that you've come from? Because you are not defined by your past? We know that because Onesimus is a leader in the church. Can you imagine how culturally crazy that would be that in the Roman Empire, the largest world power of the time. So this is how things are done. And one of the early church leaders is a slave that then is not called a slave, but then called to be set free, changes everything. I love that third person I want to bring up to you. Boring name, Mark. We have a mark in the front row. Sorry, Mark. Actually, I think he really lucked out on that one, right? We got, you know, Tyus onus Mark somehow Mark carried through like that one like, oh we can get by Mark. I like that mark has lasted 2000 years. OK. Now what is the question Mark is trying to answer? And it's, do you need a second chance? Do you need a second chance? Verses 10 and 11? It says Arius again, like what, what name is that and my fellow person or greet you and mark the cousin of Barnabas concerned with whom you have received instructions. If he comes to you, welcome him and Jesus who is called Justice. Now, that would be a challenging name to have in that time, right? Like his name was Jesus, but it's not the actual Jesus. And that's why they called him Justice because can you imagine being that guy whose name is Jesus at the same time, Jesus was there, right? You go to a wedding. Oh, Jesus is at the wedding. We remember what happened? No, no, no, no, no, no. That's a different Jesus. I'm Justice. OK. And so I'm sorry, I just how my mind works anyway, says these are the only men of the circumcision uh among my fellow workers of the kingdom of God. And they have been a comfort to me. Why is this important? Because in acts chapter 15, Paul and Barnabas have this huge disagreement over who over Mark? Why? Because Mark in a time of ministry deserted the team so much. So that Paul got up and said, well, I'm not taking him with me next time and bars like please come on. It's my cousin. He's like uh uh I'm out. I am not taking Mark and it's so bad that they split and they go their different ways. But then we get to the end of his life and Paul in prison in his last days. He's like, oh, but if you see Mark, welcome him because he has been a blessing to me. Isn't that awesome? That tells me that we have a God of second chances. So you're not defined by what happened to you and you are not defined by what you previously have done. Not only did Mark get a second chance, but Paul actually got a second chance. I am. I'm sure somewhere along the journey through the power of the spirit and the, and the value of community around him, I'm sure someone at some point spoke into Paul's life and really Paul, you're gonna judge, I get that Mark deserted you, but you were persecuting Christians before you came, one, God gave you a second chance. You're not going to give Mark a second chance. Ah, ok. There's, there's disagreements in the Bible. There are, there's humanity and reality in the Bible and what we see is that God works through community and in the case of Mark, we see, Mark got a second chance. I wonder how many of you need a second chance today should be encouraged by that. One more name. Here is, um, Archippus Arch in here. And he's really wrestling with the idea of what is, what is God's calling in his life. And so we asked the question for you. Are you wrestling with God's calling? Now, there are other names. He mentions Luke, the guy who wrote the gospel of Luke. And uh acts, he names Epas, the guy who probably started the church at Colossi because he referenced him in Colossians chapter one, he references other people and like a lady named Nimah who was hosting the early church back then. And so he gets to the end of the letter and he writes this in verse 16 to 18, he says, and when the letter has been read, among you have it also read in the church of the Lao Deans. That's the neighboring town and see to it that you read the letter from Laodicea and say to Archippus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord and I Paul write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my chains, grace be with you. So he's writing notice that the value of even in those early days of reading scripture and community, he says, give this letter to them, take their letter and read it. Now there's some debate as to what that letter to the church in Laodicea actually was some say it was the early letter of Ephesians that was circulating around. There's another theory working on that. They're saying that the Lao Deans didn't pass on the letter appropriately and didn't follow it. Which is why in revelation, potentially they're the church that's described as lukewarm. I don't know, but both are interesting cases. But what we know is saying, hey, what you read, share this with others. And then he pauses and says, and archivist do the thing that guy called you too. What is the thing? We don't know some speculate that since a Paris wasn't there, that maybe Archer was supposed to step up and become the new lead pastor of that early church. We don't know exactly what he was called to, but what we know is it was important enough for Paul to include him in the letter. To end his letter, say, look, Christ is over everything Christ is before with in all things, you know, be rooted in faith, be built up in him. Don't be taken captive by this philosophies of the world and archivist do the thing. It's fun to say, just turn to your neighbor and say, hey, do the thing. OK? Look, we don't, we don't know what Archippus was called to do, but you know who did Archippus? Let me ask you, is God calling you to do something? Do you have this little stirring in your heart that you're wrestling with you? Like, ah, I think I'm supposed to, I'm leaning towards, I think I, I think this is it. I'm not sure what if God's leaning into you saying, do the thing, go for it, seek a spiritual transformation as a team sport. Paul in his final moments in his final words, mentions all these people because even Paul needed a team and you need a team. The church needs you and you need the church. And that think about the early practices, what did they do? They prayed together, they suffered together, they read scripture together, they encouraged each other to obey what God is calling them to do, to then walk in wisdom and to speak with grace. This early picture of the church is what we're called to be today. This is why we say it's faith in the fine print because even in chains, even in isolation, Paul says you need people. Let me share with you. Some of my people go and be those people as the band's coming up. I just want to reflect on those four questions and I want you to think through and ask yourself those questions. What are you carrying right now? Is it heavy? Is it a relationship? Is it a responsibility? Are you being faithful with what God placed in your hand? Secondly, what, what challenge do you need to overcome? What is the situation or the circumstance that's holding you back? You are not defined by what happened to you just as onesimus, a slave was an early leader. He was not defined by his past. But thirdly how many have been here or watching along online need a second chance. You messed up. Paul messed up, mark, messed up and guess what God still use them. We have a God that believes in second chances. Take that second chance today or maybe offer that second chance to somebody else in your life today. And the last question is, are you wrestling with God's calling? Are you wrestling with the calling of God? Do the thing, do the thing that God has called you to step out in boldness. Ask for prayer, surround yourself with community and see how God will move in a moment. I'm gonna pray and then we're gonna end today, Palm Sunday in celebration of people who are doing the thing. They're taking that next step of faith and they're going public and they're getting baptized. See, baptism is an outward expression of an inward belief is a public declaration of your personal doctrine of a per just a personal belief that I am committing my life to Jesus. Jesus was baptized and then Jesus tells us to be baptized and then to go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the father, son and the Holy Spirit. There's nothing magic in the waters. But what it is is a symbol of Christ's death, burial and resurrection. And so we're gonna stand, we're gonna sing. We're gonna get in a position to celebrate. We have one this service, we have four or five next service as well. And so let's celebrate, let's cheer when she comes out of the water today, when someone's taking that step, doing what God has called them to do and let us be encouraged to do what God has called us to do this week as a church where you pray with me, dear father. Thank you for who you are and what you've done, we praise you that you can speak to Paul and speak through all those names at the church in Colosse speak and work through us now. And God as someone comes forward to get baptized, to declare her faith in you. May we celebrate with her and may we be encouraged and challenged by her courage to go and live out our faith as a public? Thank you and declaration for our trust and belief in you in your senses and we pray amen.