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 Well, friends, it's such a blessing, is it not, to hear these testimonies and to think about

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! the fact that God in each of our lives is painting a picture. And each painting has many, many brushstrokes.

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 And that brushstrokes creates a portrait of God's work in our lives. Thank you for those of you who

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 shared this morning. What a blessing it is to hear. I just want to reflect briefly, I promise you, on

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 a question of what would you want the brushstrokes of your life to be, of your portrait,

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 as you seek God to know Him and to love Him. I want to look briefly at Colossians chapter 1,

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 verses 9 through 12, to see what God would have us pray for in our own lives to be a part of our

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 portrait. So, let's read this together, Colossians chapter 1, verses 9 through 12.

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 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with

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 the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy

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 of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge

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 of God. May you be strengthened with all power according to His glorious might, for all endurance

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 and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of

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 the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of

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 His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

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 Friends, briefly, there are four things that I want to encourage us to pray for.

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 The first is that we might live a life worthy of the Lord, pleasing to Him and bearing good fruit,

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 that our lives might be a place where when our neighbors and our family and our co-workers see our

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 lives, they see God at work in us. This is not an exhortation for performance so that we might be seen by

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 others, but it is a prayer, a desire that God might so work in us, that He would produce this fruit like a tree

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 produces fruit naturally in a healthy way. So may we produce fruit in our lives that shows others what an

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 amazing God we serve. This is the second thing that Paul prays for the Colossians and for

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 us that we might increasingly know God more and more. And this knowledge is, many of you know this,

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 it's not merely knowing about God, learning facts and information that's good and important and right

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 and necessary, but it's actually also about knowing God in a relational sense. In the way that I get to know

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 my friend who, when I first met them, I knew nothing about them, but as I've grown, I not only know about their

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 hometown and what their preferences are and what movies they like, but I know their character and we have a

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 relationship of trust and love that grows. So too, even more so with God. God wants us to not nearly know about Him, but to know Him in this ever-increasing,

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 deepening, deepening relationship of trust and love as we meditate on His Word, as we go to Him in prayer,

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 as we worship Him regularly.

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 May our lives have this portrait as well, that not only would we bear fruit, but that we would know God

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 increasingly. I'm so thankful for the saints among us who have been doing this not just for five years or

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 10 years or 20 years, but for 40 years or 50 years or 60 years. We have so much to learn from them,

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 and I'm encouraged to see them pressing on to know God still more. Thirdly, Paul encourages us

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 us that we would have endurance in our faith through challenges and trials. We often pray for deliverance,

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 and this is right, because we serve a God who does deliver us, and so God does provide in miraculous

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 ways, and God does meet us in times of need, in provision completely unlooked for, and this is true.

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 And yet we also know that God often provides for us in ways that we didn't look for, and sometimes God

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 provides for us in time frames that we didn't prefer. That's a nice way of saying it, right?

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 God's provision is not always instantaneous or complete, and the life of faith is not a sprint,

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 but a marathon. But knowing that God is with us through it,

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 God gives us the ability to be those whose portraits are filled with, strengthened, and endured with joy,

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 because God has proven himself faithful to us through it all.

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 And of course, as George so rightly said, God does this so that it might be seen

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 that God is at work in us, because if he just simply made our lives easy, it'd be very easy for us to think

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 our lives are just easy, and God would be removed from the picture. But through the trials we face,

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 God shows his power in our weakness. What a glorious thing it is. And then the fourth thing that Paul

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 enjoins and prays for here, and pray would be my prayer for us, is that we would live lives of daily

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 gratitude for our salvation, because that's how Paul ends this passage, right? And so often we overlook the

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 basic things in life. We overlook the fact that we have air to breathe, and we have roofs over our hands,

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 or all the other things. And just like physically in the way that God has provided for us so much,

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 though we tend to focus on the things we lack, but he's provided for us so much, how much more so

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 spiritually? We think of how much more we want, but can we look back and see how much we already have

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 in Christ that he has delivered us from the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of his beloved

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 son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

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 The gospel is that we are lost in our sin and under God's condemnation,

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 and God has come and rescued us from that

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 through Christ because of his death on the cross and the resurrection,

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 God has come and fulfilled us from that. And so we are going to be able to do that.

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 And so we are going to be able to do that. And so we are going to be able to do that.

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 So that we might have a hope of eternity.

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 Oh friends, daily, daily, may we add brushstrokes of thanksgiving and gratitude and praise to God

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 that the joy of our salvation may be daily in our lives.

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 A brief encouragement from Paul for us this morning.

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 And it leads us to baptism because this morning we're going to have a baptism. Guy is going to come.

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 Guy, why don't you come on up while I talk about it a little bit. Guy is going to come up and be

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 baptized this morning. Right? And baptism was instituted by God to celebrate that great salvation.

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 Come on up here. Come on. You got to stand with me for a minute while I talk. Right?

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 It was instituted by Jesus in the Great Commission. Matthew 28, he said,

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 go and make disciples, baptizing them. Right? It's a public profession of faith

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 that the one being baptized guy is going to testify that he is trusted in Christ for his

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 salvation. And I just want to encourage you, if you're here this morning and you're trusting in

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 Christ and you haven't been baptized, come talk to us. We'd love to celebrate this with you. We'd

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 love to help you follow through with this command that God has given us. Baptism, in our understanding,

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 is one of the key passages is Romans 6, 3 and 4. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized

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 into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism,

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 into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might

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 walk in the newness of life. That is, by faith in Jesus we are joined with Christ. And what we picture

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 in baptism is this death to sin and to the old self and rising to a new life that God is giving us in

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 Jesus Christ. It is a beautiful thing that we do when we baptize people that pictures this internal work that God has already done in believers.

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 Guy has met with the elders. We happily and joyfully affirm his profession of faith this morning and are happy to celebrate with you.

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 So we are going to invite Guy to come and share briefly his testimony and then we will move ahead with the baptism.

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 So

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 So

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