And in Jesus Christ

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info visit us at thrive-fl.org. Good morning. How are you all? All right, we are in week three of our series and I think this one's fun, Foundations. And if you want to look up online under the You version of the Bible, you can look under the More area to the event and you'll look at Thrive Community Church. It'll come up if you've got your location services on and there is notes for this sermon all right there. So if you want to, and you can even add notes in yourself, type them in if you can. I don't do a good job of that but yeah you can. And then kind of just kind of follow along and get kind of more out of it I think that way. But we're gonna start with prayer. Lord God on this day we rejoice in your goodness and mercy in that Lord Jesus you are King no matter who is on any earthly throne that you are the King of kings and Lord of lords and that you O Lord are the one who on your throne of the cross wore that crown of thorns for us and rose from the dead. And so we celebrate you today. We focus on you. We rest our lives on you. We pray Lord God that you'd fill this message with your presence, that you present yourself here fully to each one of us. And we pray Lord for all the churches in our area, all the Christian ministries at FGCU, that you create a kingdom movement among us all for the sake of your glory and that something happens here in the Estero, Fort Myers, Bonita Springs area that you alone can get credit for. It's not because of us and our ingenuity but all because of your mercy and grace. All this we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Our text today that we're kind of look kind I know we are looking at okay is from Colossians chapter 1. It's an early creed actually. So there are creeds and actually 300 times in the New Testament it says Jesus is Lord. And that is the simplest creed, the simplest statement of faith. Confession saying yes you are Lord, you are my Lord. But then Paul expands at a times and in Colossians chapter 1 verse 15 to 20 he says this he is the image of the invisible God the firstborn of all creation for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and for him and he is before all things and in him all things hold together and he is the head of the body the church he is the beginning the firstborn from the dead that in everything he might be preeminent for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross so we confessed the Apostles Creed earlier today we stood we shared that confession and the Christian Church throughout history has been doing that for well since for 15 16 17 1800 years in one form or another and today 2 billion Christians across this world the vast majority of them have stated that creed and what we've done throughout time what the ancient church did at the time they did two things when they confessed and spoke those words of the creed first of all they were rejecting the narratives of the Roman Empire and whatever Empire they were in they were rejecting what was going on and saying that is not the reality that defines our lives they were saying that is not who we worship or what we worship or what we bow down to or what we have our allegiance to and secondly they were confessing and saying this is whose we are in whom we believe so they both rejected the narratives that were around them and they actually pledged allegiance you might say to the one true and living God Father Son and Holy Spirit we do the same thing today we reject the narratives of our society in our world our culture around us which is really propaganda many times time and again confessing professing that this is the way to live this is the way to have meaning in life this is what life is all about and so we reject materialism and militarism and nationalism and empiricism and scientism and socialism and every other ism that would in one sense try to define who we are tell us how to live and be the end all and be all of our lives now we don't reject science and we don't reject the nation but we just put it in its place it is not Lord okay it does not define us it does not direct us it is not our foundation it's not in whom we trust okay finally and ultimately it is the God who created us the God who redeemed us and the God who makes us holy this God that we say in the Apostles Creed that's the narrative we follow okay so we started two weeks ago with just that first phrase I believe I believe and we said it is not I know the Creed doesn't start up with knowledge in your head but a belief and trust in your heart that you can rest and fully rest and your God and then last week we went through I believe in God the Father Almighty creator of heaven and...