Colossians 3:22-4:9 Prayer & Staying Alert with Thanksgiving

The speaker shares a personal anecdote about their phone going off during a funeral, but they were fortunate to have turned it off beforehand. They mention that they have written 37 pages for an upcoming sermon about the history of the church. They recommend a book by Virginia Reedy but note that it was published in 1998. They mention their plans for future sermons on the book of Philemon and the topic of slavery. They explain that the concept of slavery during biblical times was different from more recent forms of slavery and discuss how Paul addresses the issue in his writings. They emphasize the importance of treating others with respect and value, regardless of their social status. Anyway, I was preaching at his funeral and my phone went off, and I didn't know what to do. I started to say, yes, Lord, I was just about to say that, you know, but I didn't do that. But I'm very fortunate. I just turned my phone off so it wouldn't ring while I'm up here. Anyway, next Sunday is going to—I have 37 pages written because I felt like that I needed to be able to refresh my memory. And so it's kind of a running summary of the history of the church, and it will be in the archives. I thought it was just in case somebody wants to read an abbreviated part. By the way, Virginia Reedy's book, People in Purpose, I believe it's called, is really a good book, good history for us. She did a great job, but it was published in 1998. So we have 24, 32 years transpired since that was written. So I updated that just a little bit. But I will get on time. I asked Brother John if he could give me an extra 30 minutes. He said, no, couldn't do that. Last time Randy preached, he said, can I have all the time that you gave Dad? He said, no. So anyway, it'll be fun to reminisce. John called me and he said, look, I want you to reminisce on the first, just kind of things you remember. Of course, by that, I mean the things I've read about in the histories and all that we have, information in the past. And he said, I don't have a text for you, but I just want you to reminisce. I said, well, I got the text. Psalm 77, 11, and 12 were to remember the wonderful works of the Lord. And that's what the history of this church is. It's just a history of God intervening. Those who were previously here, nor are we smart enough to do what has happened. If anything really good and spectacular has happened, it's because God did it. We have a way of screwing things up. But anyway, it'll be fun. And we'll remember some special things. Now, we are at Colossians 4 and verses 1 to 9 today. Now, next week, when I get through preaching, we'll come down here and do it again, finish up Colossians 4. Now, Brother Jack and I are not clear in our minds. Now, it may be clear in his. I was just saying, in my mind, exactly what we're going to do with Philemon. So I think this is what it is. He's going to give us an introduction to Philemon. If you don't know the context or something, you're not going to understand it. So all kinds of heresies come out of people who don't understand. Who got this? What did it mean to them? How do they relate? So he's going to give the introduction. And when he gets through, I'm going to do Philemon. Same week. Now, everybody believe that. Stand on your head. That's kind of what we're playing with. I'd be happy if he just go and do the whole thing. That's what I thought we could do. But anyway, Philemon is an important book. And the whole issue of slavery, of which Paul comes back to today. Paul mentioned slavery in Ephesians 6 and then Colossians 3. The last verses of Colossians 3, starting with verse 22, deals with slavery. And then the first verse of the fourth chapter begins, Masters, deal with your slaves justly and fairly, since you know you too have a master in heaven. So my first thought as I was reading it was, there probably shouldn't be a chapter break between the last verse of chapter 3 and the first verse of chapter 4. And I think that's true. I think it probably, by the way, the chapter divisions are not inspired. Catholic priests, somewhere centuries after Scripture was written, did that. So it would be easier for us to find things. Can you imagine when Jesus, in Luke chapter 4, took the scroll of Isaiah and scrolled over to Isaiah 61? How did he do that? I mean, think about a big scroll. You've got 61 chapters, and he quoted Isaiah 61, 1 to 3. So the chapters and verses are for our benefit. But then I thought again that he has mentioned it often in his writings. So there has to be something here that is more than meets the eye. We understand slavery's not good. We have one view of slavery. I think I dealt with this when we did Ephesians. And I'm going to kind of review a little of that today because it's important for us to understand the master-slave concept because it's much broader and much deeper than we often think. When we mention slavery, it doesn't really register with us. But anyway, look at that. Look at that. Paul is in the homestretch. He's nearing the conclusion of his letter, and here he mentions slavery again. Now, my opinion is that people often put the most important things just before they quit whatever they're writing. And it had to be extremely important. He's dealt with it several times. It was an issue that needed clarity on what it meant to be a slave and what it meant to be an owner of slaves. And Christianity makes a difference in both of those things. Remember, he's writing to believers. He's not writing to a social structure of the area of the Roman Empire. He's writing to believers. Now, the issue of slavery, let me tell you, I said this back when we talked about Ephesians. It was much different back then than it is in recent centuries in Europe and in America. The slaves were in a totally different posture. They could own property. They could save and buy their freedom. Banks, for instance, owned by wealthy Greek and Roman families, had officers in charge that were slaves. In fact, we know the name Silas Felix, who was governor in Paul's day, and he's known because he threw Paul in jail. He was a slave who became governor of the country, of the province. So slavery was totally different. The kind of slavery we read about is justifiably the most awful thing we could imagine, and Christianity and slavery has nothing in common and cannot coexist. And so slavery was very dominant in the time of the Apostle Paul. In fact, the slaves, many of them were well-educated, and the education of the children often was done by the slaves. So we're not talking about an oppressed class that didn't, you know. American slavery, there was a thing going around even back then, not to the extent now, that slaves really weren't people. They were not valuable. They were owned by someone else, and a slave master could do anything he chose with his slaves. Now, the culture, the economy of the day in Paul's day was that it was an advantage for slaves to do work that you didn't want to do. They put slaves in positions of responsibility. Imagine a slave going to church with a slave owner. Now, it obviously created some little uneasiness and frustration. That's why Paul is dealing with it, and what he's saying is that slave owners, even though the culture did not support what the Bible said, needed still to treat their slaves like the Bible told them to. And he had talked about the slaves in chapter 3. Now in verse 1 of chapter 4, he's talking to slave owners, believers. Keep this in mind, this is not two businessmen talking. He's talking to believers, and what he's saying is slaves, he just said in chapter 3, you ought to be the best slave possible. You ought to work hard, please your master in everything, because that's what you're doing. You're working to the Lord. And come to chapter 4, verse 1, he said, now you slave owners. He didn't let them off the hook at all. He said, you treat your slaves fairly and justly, kindly. And so he had a word for slaves, and he had a word for slave owners, just like in chapter 3, he had a word for fathers and mothers and husbands and wives and children. He had a word for slave owners and slaves also. And basically what he's saying is don't let the culture determine how you're going to act. You're believers, so act like believers. Treat your slaves with courtesy. And so this probably is the reason why he mentions it so often. Sixty million people were enslaved in Paul's day. That was approximately one-third of the population. And in some communities, slaves outnumbered non-slaves three to one. So it was a common part of the economy and the culture of the first century. It was not the kind of brutal, ungodly treatment that slaves in the last couple centuries in Europe and America experienced. It still is not something nobody want to be a slave. But Paul said you need to treat your slaves like Christian brothers. And you slaves, you need to be the best slaves around. You need to do the best anybody could do in your position. Now, pause a minute. I believe that the implications, because of what I've just said, I believe that the implications of slave owners and slaves applies very deeply into our own culture. If you work for someone, they pay you. You ought to be the best employee they've got. A Christian employee ought to be head and shoulders above every other employee in a business. I think that's part of this principle. What he's saying is all of us have a relationship with God. All of us have a master in heaven who is a heavenly father, and he's our ultimate master. And all of us are accountable to him. And he goes so far in this passage as saying that whatever you do in this life, you do as under the Lord. Now, let me tell you what that means. Listen carefully. Secular does not exist in the Christian life. Nothing is secular. Everything is spiritual. There is no such thing as secular life for the believer. Everything we do is under the Lord. That means whatever we do, whenever and whyever and however, it's like the Lord. So we have a responsibility. It's a responsibility to God because Paul says you do it as under the Lord. And that's an important principle. That would solve most of our cultural problems today. If every believer treated every other believer with the same kind of respect and the same kind of admiration and value that the Bible says we ought to have. There are no second-class citizens in God's kingdom. I've told you before, there are no unimportant people in the kingdom, no unimportant people in the church. I think that's all wrapped up in this because slavery is not something we are confronted with visibly in our day, in spite of the fact that over 22 million people are slaves in the world today. We have a great amount of slavery that may be from women who are put into sexual slavery, to children and families that work in sweatboxes, sweatshops, producing things that we want. There are 22 million people today who are in that kind of slavery. And it's very prevalent in our society. And so it does have a relevance to us, but I believe it's broader than just what we might call slavery. He told the slave owners, you may be a slave owner, but you've got a master too. You need to realize you have a master in heaven, and he's the one whom you're working to please. Paul advocates three biblical principles that ultimately destroyed slavery. He denied the commonly held concept that all slaves were inferior to their owners. They didn't really practice that because most of their kids were raised by the slaves. But nevertheless, there was that idea that slaves were just not up to par with their owners. Second thing is that the obedience of slaves to their owners would lead the born-again slave owners to free their slaves. And third, in the New Testament church, it is often in the New Testament, there is no such thing as slave or free. Christian slave owners and slaves were members of the same body, the church where Christ is the head, and they all treat each other like believers. So this is a huge, to me, is a huge concept because we can get lost and say, well, we don't have slavery anymore. Well, no, but the principles that he's talking about fit every relationship we have. Whoever we're relating to, treat them with kindness. Treat them fairly, justly. That's how we all do it. And whatever we do, we ought to do it not just to please our employer or please somebody else, but because we're doing it under God and we want to please God. I think that's a principle that Paul clearly gives here. The instructions are clear. If you can't change your circumstances, you have to work and serve as under the Lord. And the only limitation there, God would never want you to do something that's immoral or unethical or illegal. So there may come a time when you're asked to do something you can't do. We see that today in our whistleblowers. And by the way, they get beat up pretty well. The enemies of whatever they're blowing the whistle on don't like that. They treat them poorly. But if you're ever told to do something in your work that you know is not something that is the correct thing to do, don't do it. It would be a good idea to explain why and let them know you're doing this because this is part of your relationship to God. Well, in 323, he kind of laid down the simple statement of what I'm talking about. He declared, whatever you do, do it from the heart. It's something done for the Lord, not for people. We don't work for our boss. We work for God. When our boss is not always right, God is. So if the boss tells you to do something God tells you not to do, don't do it. Use it as a spring box for witness. And we're seeing a lot of people today, you probably have the same kind of stuff on the Internet that I get. There's always somebody because they wanted to do what God told them to do. They got fired. So this is a principle that's very valuable today. Now, some people will ask, why didn't Paul advocate the end of slavery? Well, there are probably a lot of reasons. I would say the main reason is that God never told him to change culture. He told him to preach the gospel. And so even in this chapter 4, it's obvious that he is focused on proclaiming the gospel clearly. And his prayer that he asked for prayer, he says, pray that I will. He didn't ask to be free, which is interesting. He said, just pray that I'll have more opportunity to preach the mystery of Christ. But what was the mystery of Christ? Gentiles and Jews, no difference. And they all belong together through Jesus Christ. That's what he's in jail for. So I thought it was almost humorous. He asked him to pray to give him the opportunity to preach the gospel, which means they'd have to set him free to do that. But he's going to preach the same thing he went to jail for anyway. So he wasn't going to change. And so the church focused on proclaiming the gospel. The end of slavery is in the gospel. And though it took centuries to get to England, to the United States, it took Wilbur Wilberforce, who struggled for decades trying to get anti-slavery through the parliament in England. And they did three days after he died. But he spent his life trying for that. We were not quite as smart as the English. We had to have a civil war to settle it. And even then, sometimes the civil war is not settled. I had a trustee at Sanisky Board who pastored over in Virginia. He was a typical southern gentleman, spoke with an almost unintelligible slowness. And he told me one day, he says, we keep opposing the outcome of the civil war because if we fight it long enough, we're going to win. And, you know, it took us going through the agony of thousands and thousands of our own citizens killing thousands and thousands of other citizens over a four-year period and cost Abraham Lincoln his life, which it seems strange to me today that the opponents to many of the things that we stand for also don't like Abraham Lincoln. Why on earth? I mean, do you remember the lecture that Bill Anderson gave us on Abraham Lincoln here a while back? In fact, I found a book. Bill's read every book on Abraham Lincoln. I found a book he hadn't read, so I got it for him. But do you know they had to smuggle him to Washington because the Yankees were going to kill him? They were never going to let him get to Washington. That's kind of funny to me because he was a pretty tall guy. He's probably about Thompson's height. How do you disguise a guy like that? But the whole book is about him getting to Washington and how the Yankees were fooled and he got there and didn't get killed then, got killed later. But he was a guy that literally gave his life, and his speeches were brilliant. Read the Gettysburg Address again. He did that off the cuff. I mean, he stood and just delivered the Gettysburg Address, which is one of – I remember it when I was in speech class in high school. We had to learn the Gettysburg Address. It's not that many words, but brilliant. But anyway, I'm not sure when we got off on that, but if you know, tell me. We'll never get back to it. So anyway, but here the instructions are very clear, and people worry about, why didn't Christianity just do away? If Christianity had attacked slavery, they would have attacked the Roman Empire. They were an outlaw group that barely existed in the shadows. If they had opposed the culture that was in the Roman Empire at that time, it would have made a whole lot of difference in the response to the gospel because they wouldn't have made it as far as they did. So the lesson this teaches us is that social and moral changes are not going to be solved by law. They're going to be solved by changed hearts. The law is not going to be effective in making us feel or think differently. It may be a factor in us acting differently. We all have that choice to make every day. I drive down a street coming out of Keller into Collierville. The speed limit is 35 miles an hour. I'm the only one in my neighborhood who obeys the speed limit. I mean, they just whiz by me like they were going to a race. The law says 35. Now, do I always drive 35? If I'm thinking, I do. If I'm talking, it's up for grabs. Because if I'm talking, I may not only drive faster, I may not even remember where I'm going, no telling where I end up. Our conversations are not very long in the car. But we all have a choice every day. Are we going to obey the laws? Now, the law, even though the law says 30 miles in Collierville and in Keller, it's 35, if that's the law, it's not going to make me drive 30 or 35 miles an hour. That's got to be something I choose to, something that I choose to act that way. So, Christianity didn't change slavery issue because laws can't do that. But it did change the hearts. This is a good example. He told the slave, be good slaves. And he told the masters, you treat your servants right. And they were already more freedoms than slavery had in the last couple hundred years in Europe and America. But he still said, if you're a slave, be a good slave. If you're a master, be a good master because you have a master in heaven. That's a good principle for treat everybody. And by the way, let me just let me just pause a minute. We've had a rash of well-known pastors who crashed and burned. Now, you find someone who's been sexually abused and they have a very strong feeling about what happened to them. Let me give you my opinion on something. When this happened at Gateway Church, it is an elder-led church. They did not choose to give him any severance. I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm just saying they chose to give him no severance. They chose to see him terminated. And they made no attempt to minister to him at all. Galatians 6, 1 and 2, which if I get that far, we'll end in today, says, if anyone is overtaken, stumbles and sins, you who are spiritual, restore him. Oh, and be careful to watch out for yourself because you too may be tempted. Now, in my judgment, the elders of Gateway Church failed at obeying that. Did he deserve to be removed? Of course. It should never have happened. He knows that. Think of him living with that for 42 years before it became the kind of knowledge it is today. But the elders of the church should have had a plan to help him be restored. Not approving what he did, but to restore him. That's what Paul tells us to do. And so we've got, you know, and many of these guys that have fallen are guys I know. Not bosom friends with any of them, but they're men that I've either appeared on platforms with or for one reason or another we've been together on occasion. You know, this thing of what the slaves and slave owners, how they ought to act, is a broader reminder than it appears. He's really saying the only way you can be a good slave is if you are a believer and you ought to be the best. And the only way you can be a good slave owner is to be a believer and you treat your slaves like God tells you to. Those very words soon, within a few hundred years, destroyed slavery. Not because laws were passed, but because people's hearts were changed. And so we, you know, I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but, you know, the whole issue of slavery and what he's talking about, he's talking to believers and he's simply saying, treat each other like believers. Just treat each other like believers. Every once in a while Paul will say, that's not how you ought to treat fellow believers. There ought never to be a reason for us to be ugly, unkind, disparaging, slanderous, or anything else about someone else, and especially someone that has fallen into sin. Well, I think this is all wrapped up in this thing about slavery. It's just too fresh on his mind because slavery was not the evil that it is today, but slave owners did have complete control of their slaves and they could have an easy life or they could have a terrible life based on how the slave owner felt. So what Paul is saying to the slaves, don't give your owner a reason to treat you in a bad way. And he's saying to the masters, don't ever treat your slaves in a bad way. And so in all of our relationships, you know, I used to have a guy that I, he visited with me often when I was here at Ulysses. He was always unhappy about something, negative about something. And every once in a while I just had to say, look, could you not come back and see me for a while? I mean, I've got enough negativity in my life. I don't need you to come in here and do all this complaining about things. You know, give me a rest. We just ought to treat each other kindly, graciously. And I don't think this is why God has blessed me over the years, but I'm not a mean person. I don't jump on people and beat them to death, and I don't use a bully pulpit to tell them what to do. I'm a pretty nice guy. And when I was president of the commission, I learned there were a lot of folks that didn't like me. And I said, well, if you knew me, you'd like me. Because I'm going to treat you like a brother, like a sister. I told you that Cecil Sherman, who was the strongest opponent of the conservative resurgence, we disagreed on everything. We also swapped letters until he died, handwritten. My dad always said, son, strong convictions don't have to be brutal. Don't compromise, but don't be ugly about it. And so really, that's kind of what Paul is setting up here. You need to learn to treat each other like fellow believers. He's talking to the church, not talking to the culture, not talking to the senators in the Senate at Rome. He's talking to the church. And that still stands today. We ought to treat each other decently. And we ought to be able to disagree just without being disagreeable. I met with the committee that just hired the new state executive for the Baptist Center of Confession of Texas, which we're not members of the Baptist Center of Confession of Texas anymore, nor would we be if I were here. But I knew the people, and they said, would you come and speak to our committee? They have about 15 members on the committee. Well, first thing, that's too many, but still, what do you think I can do about that? But I told them, I said, look, let me tell you how you act on a committee. I said, I've been on this committee. I was on the committee called Bill Pinson here to be state executive director. I mostly don't know Bill Pinson, but that's all right. I said, here's how you act as a committee. And in our case, here's how we act as a church. Number one, you vote when an issue comes up, and when you vote, you give your vote away. It's no longer yours. You gave it to the committee. And you may not agree with what the outcome was, but you gave your vote, and you can't complain about it, because you had your choice. They just didn't vote your way. So you gave your vote away, and that belongs to the committee. And whatever the committee determines, since you're on that committee and you had your chance to cast your vote, you ought to be for it, even if you don't like it, because you gave your vote away. I think that's the way it is in a church. Did you know the church did a lot of things I didn't want them to do? You all voted to do some things I didn't want to do, but you voted to do it, so we did it, because that's the way a body acts that has people whom all are on equal status to make decisions. Now, maybe I'm getting too far straight here, but we ought to, within the church, and this is what he's pleading for, whatever your status is, do what God tells you to do. Treat each other nice. No place for any kind of violence or ugliness to erupt in your fellowship, because you're part of the same body. Can you imagine the hand getting angry at the foot and smashing it with a hammer? Well, you know, I even could feel that. I have neuropathy in my feet, but if you hit it with a hammer, I would know that. We don't treat people like that. We don't treat ourselves like that. So, anyway, this is a powerful statement that is far bigger than slavery, and we're probably never going to get through this chapter today, but that's okay. By the way, according to this, the International Labor Organization says that 22 million men, women, and children around the world are in some sort of slavery today. But let me tell you what the Bible says about how you ought to look at slavery. Exodus 21 deals with slaves and gave many restrictions on the issue of slavery. Exodus 21, 16, for bad and condemned forced slavery or kidnapping of anyone for the purpose of slavery. In fact, this is what that verse says. Whoever kidnaps a person must be put to death, whether he sells them or the person is found in his possession. Oh, the next verse says the same punishment for children who curse their parents. Well, Moses instructed the people to give refuge and protection to slaves who fled from an abusive master. Deuteronomy 23, 15, and 16, he says, Do not return a slave to his master when he has escaped from his master to you. Let him live among you wherever he wants within your city gates. Do not mistreat him. Doesn't sound like that anywhere in the Bible it condones the kind of slavery that puts someone under the complete control of somebody else. And he's doing the same thing here in Philemon. He's asking Philemon to receive Onesimus back. And he says Philemon toward the end of that short book, No longer is a slave, but more than a slave as a dearly loved brother. So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would me. Pretty strong. Paul's response to slavery was not trying to fight it. He preached a gospel that would end it in the only place it could be ended, and that's in the human heart. His focus is on proclaiming the gospel. New Testament never sought to overturn the political or general culture of the world at that time. It was focused on declaring the gospel. The gospel and the lives of the believers did that as time passed. You know, in the first century, when the Christians were persecuted greatly and martyred often, one of the, you know, Scott Latteret in his History of Christianity, six volume set, he said the amazing thing was that said that the people of that day, the leaders of that day, said that the Christians never retaliated. They never tried to strike back and hurt them like they were hurting the Christians. In his words, they outlived and outdied their critics. You know, we live in a hostile, laminous society. You hit me, I'll hit you. Paul says, treat each other like believers. That's why it's possible for two men that disagree on everything to be friends, because you treat believers differently because you are a believer. So how you even view your enemies is going to be a testimony to your faith in Christ. We ought to stand against the evils of society in our day, and we will do that. Spirit-filled believers have a different approach to every problem, much so than the culture, because man's basic problems are not political or social or economic. They are spiritual. Here's what he said, our response to every relationship is mutual submission. That's only possible through the Holy Spirit. So in the church, and by the way, let me just issue a warning. It's in our nature to want to idolize somebody. And the thing I have noticed about these preachers who have been disgraced by their actions is that they got to believing what they were hearing. The church put them on a pedestal. A preacher doesn't belong on a pedestal. He walks the same hot asphalt you do. He's liable to make the same mistakes you're liable to make. That's why you ought to pray for him. Now think of how often Brother John has to mess up. He meets in a committee. He meets in a deacon's meeting. He meets in an equipped meeting. He preaches twice on Sunday. I mean, he's got more chances to mess up than any of us do. We ought to pray for him, but we don't need to put him on a pedestal. He's been here a long time now. He's going to be here a while, but one day he'll retire. We hope not die. We hope he'll retire here someday. But don't put him on a pedestal. Just know that he's God's man and he speaks for God, and we ought to respect him. We ought to respond to him. And when Hebrews says that we ought to obey those rulers over us in Hebrews 13, he's not talking about slavic obedience to some rules. He's talking about you ought to give them the respect and pay attention to what they do and let God use them to guide you in your own growth with the Lord. But it's always tough. And what Paul is saying here is that the Lord's always present, and we serve him and not anybody else. In the process, we need to be the best we can be wherever we are because we're actually serving the Lord. Now, he has, we'll hopefully get to this at least. The importance of prayer is always mentioned. Paul always, he wrote 13 of the books of the New Testament, and he always emphasizes the importance of prayer. Romans 12, 12, he urges believers to be persistent in prayer. Ephesians 6, 18, he said, And for the intercession for all the saints. In 1 Thessalonians 5, 16, 17, he says, So this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. He emphasizes everywhere that prayer is a necessity. And I believe with all my heart that the blessings of God upon this church was the prayer emphasis, intercessory prayer ministry. We began in 1976. And over a period of the years till we went to Nashville, we had over 3,000 specific prayer requests and over 1,000 record of answered prayer. And I believe that God blessed this church. We had double-digit growth in finances, membership, and attendance from 1975 up in the mid-'80s. And I believe it's because we were a praying church. Now, Paul says, look, there's never a time when prayer is not appropriate. He gives you how to be. First of all, it's to be continual. He says, devote yourself to prayer. Stay alert with Thanksgiving. Point is, we need to always be in a spirit of prayer. Prayer needs to be continual. It needs to be specific. Stay alert. In other words, you're looking for specific things you need to pray about. No more just God bless everybody that needs prayer. No more Tiny Tim prayers. God bless us all. You know, we need to be specific. And then we need to be grateful. He says, stay alert with Thanksgiving. Everything in our lives are things that we ought to be thankful for. How long has it been since you thanked God that you could breathe? You don't even think about breathing until you can't. I remember Charles Baldwin, many of you all knew. Sweet couple. He enjoyed it. He died just about the time I left to go to Nashville. In fact, he called me to his house while we were in the process of moving. And he was not going to live much longer. And he wanted to know if I'd come back and do his funeral. And I said, of course. And I did less than a month later. But he talked about how difficult it was for him to breathe. He said he just couldn't. He said, I can take a breath in, but I can't get it out. What is that, COPD or whatever? How long since you thanked God you can breathe? For air that you had to breathe. I mean, I see your hand back there. I know you do. You've got oxygen today. So, you know, that's a gift of God that we could do that. How long has it been since you thanked God that you can swallow food? We had a man in Dallas, a counselor, who had a 50-minute radio broadcast. And I was on the radio with him. And I don't know how we got talking about this. But he said, my dad, the last months, maybe several years of his life, could not swallow his food. And his dad told him, he said, you know, I never thought about swallowing food before. He said, I now can afford to eat anything I want to eat, but I can't swallow food. How long has it been since you thanked God that you can swallow food? How long has it been since you thanked God that you're still mobile and vertical? That you can walk and that you can be mobile? I thank God every day that I, because that's getting harder for me. Very honestly, I follow a whole lot more than I'd ever want you to know. Because it's just hard for me to do some things. But I thank God every day that I can walk. And that we ought to be grateful for the things that God provides for us. It also put energy and passion in our prayers. And six times in this epistle, Paul urges the Colossians to pray with thanksgiving. Six times. I thank God every day for my wife who's put up with me for 68 years. I don't know how she does it. But she does. So every day, my first prayer every night is for Carol Ann. I thank God I have great-grandchildren. And I've got believing children and grandchildren. My kids, look at Randy, that's our kids. That's what our kids are like. We don't know how it happened that way. Because we had no guidance except the Bible. And we determined not to argue in front of them or be unreasonable with them or treat them in a way that would make them respond in a way that they didn't need to respond. And so we were honest with them. I thank God for that. I thank God I had the privilege of being a pastor. The night I left here, when I resigned on Sunday night, my heart went out of rhythm before the news came on. It's still out of rhythm. We've been on a long journey. First, I'd take medicine when I could tell it. And they'd give me something, and that would make it go back in rhythm, but it never would last. I've had two cardioversions where they try to shock my heart back into rhythm. It lasted a day or two. But my heart has basically been out of rhythm since 1991. Now, I thank God that my heart's still beating. What if it stops? Well, I won't know that either. I don't even know that it's out of rhythm now. And the doctor said, AFib's not going to kill you, but it's like skipping. You can either walk or you can skip. Well, your heart's skipping. You know, Paul's just telling us, be specific in your prayers. If you're not specific in your prayers, you never know when God answers a prayer. Now, let me give you an illustration. We'll quit. I don't know what's next, but we're not. So we're going to let Brother Jack pick up. No, I'm preaching next. Well, I can come back and pick up some of it next week then. But let me give you a good illustration. Now, you think, she always prays for parking places. You know, people say, well, why would God care about where you park? Well, let me give you one. Oh, by the way, she always gets really good parking places. But let me give you what happened just in the last 90 days. My son, Bailey, is a avid deer hunter. When he was 16 years old, he asked me to go deer hunting with him, and I had never been deer hunting, never fired anything but a .22 rifle, and that was just in play, you know, target shooting. And I didn't know anything about the five love languages, but I knew that if he wanted me to go hunting with him, I ought to go hunting with him. So we started hunting together when he was 16. And until about three years ago, we hunted together every year. Now, he's 63 now. So we've hunted together for 47 years, and he loves the outdoors. He's a builder, and he builds big houses. He just closed a house last fall that took three and a half years to build, $7.2 million, and the guy that built it paid cash for it. Now, so he loves, he can fix anything. I mean, anything goes wrong in our house, we call Bailey. Everybody ought to have a Bailey. But anyway, he has the doctor he built that big house for. They've become best buddies. He's a tall guy. He's from India, and he's Hindu. And Bailey still believes that he's going to get saved because anything he needs, he calls Bailey. So he called Bailey one time about a year ago, and he said, you know, he said, I want to buy a ranch. He said, I don't know anything about a ranch. He said, would you help me buy a ranch? He said, everybody I know back in India doesn't own anything. Nobody owns a lot of land. He said, I want to buy a ranch so I can send pictures back and tell them I own this land. And so Bailey said, okay. So they looked, and sure enough, they found a place about 300 acres just south of, just west of Weatherford a little bit, and they bought that ranch. And on that ranch, there were five donkeys, small donkeys, but nevertheless five, and real, real donkeys. I mean, they were, you know, you couldn't corral them. You couldn't drive them anywhere. If you're going to feed them out of the back of a truck, they'd follow you, you know. Anyway, so they had five donkeys. Well, Bailey gets a phone call one day, and he basically takes care of the ranch for this doctor. The doctor knows nothing about ranches or donkeys or anything else. And so the state game warden called Bailey or his office and said, do you own land, do you own donkeys on land out, and then described where it was. And Bailey said, well, I don't own it. But I said, yeah, those are my donkeys. He said, well, you better come get them. They're out on the freeway, and they're going to get killed if you don't come get them. And Bailey said, I'll be right out there. So he called his buddy Brian Kramer. You all know Roy and Kramer anyway. Brian is Bailey's age. He called Brian and said, what are you doing? And he said something. He said, well, get your shoes on, because you're going to go to the ranch with me. So they went to the ranch. They found the donkeys. They had come back into a bigger pasture that was not their property. It was another one, one of the neighboring pieces of property. So they secured it so they couldn't get back on the freeway. And then they tried to get them into the property that they should be on. Well, they're on four-wheelers. You can't herd donkeys. I mean, it's like trying to herd cats. I mean, you know, catch cats. I mean, you can't do it. And so they get close to them, and they took out a section in the fence that was about 10 feet, 12 feet wide. And they said, we'll drive them toward that section, and maybe they'll go in it. Well, they tried for several hours, and those donkeys would not cooperate. So Bailey said, he told his mother, he said, I remember that you always prayed for parking places. So he said, I prayed, God, I really need help. I cannot get those donkeys back in that land, and I don't know what I'm going to do if they don't help me get those donkeys. And Bailey said he had no more than finished that prayer. And here came five donkeys in single file walking across the pasture and walked right through the gate. And they put the fence back up, and they were on the right property. But do you believe God's interested in everything, even donkeys that don't know where they are or where to go? No wonder Paul encourages us to pray. I told you this before, but I still can't get over it. I had meningitis about 12, 14 years ago, 15 years ago, and I was in ICU for a week. I asked my doctor, I said, how sick was I? He said, you're not in ICU unless you're critical. I said, oh, okay. But anyway, by the way, I had a, some of you will appreciate this, some of you may not, but it's okay. I had a nurse who was from Kenya. And I saw him. He said he was from Kenya. And I said, jabobwana, habayako. And Bailey said she thought I was speaking in tongues. But I was just speaking a little Swahili. I know. His face lit up, you know. So anyways, amazing things that you do that are useful later on. It's just praying specifically is very, very important. Pray specifically. God bless our missionaries. What good does that do? Which one? I hear God say, you know, be specific and be continuous and be thankful. That's really the essence of what he's saying. Now, we'll pick up somewhere near there next Sunday and go to the end of the chapter with the, we'll finish up Colossians. And then we'll have a week at Philemon. And then we really haven't decided where to go next. So if you have any suggestions, you can pass them along. Of course, Jack's been doing this for 30-some odd years. So you can't mention many books he hasn't taught you through before. But we'll be moving ahead and finishing up Colossians. Philemon will be the end of the Prison Epistles. We may just stay in the Epistles of Paul. That would be something we could do. Then the movie Forge, he saw Friday, came out Friday. We saw the movie Firing Squad and told you about that. And several of you saw it and remarked. Well, Forge is by the Kendrick brothers who did Fireproof and Facing the Giants and all of that. It's Forge, F-O-R-G-E. And I don't know much about the script or anything, but Glenn says it's really good. Do you realize that we're living in a day where companies like Sony are producing Christian movies every year? That is amazing. Anyway, Father, thank you for the time together. We love being together. And, Lord, it's always hard to quit. So we just thank you for giving us this opportunity today. Open your Word to us and live it through us, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.