Like Paul writing in my favorite book Colossians, or John writing Revelation, for an uncertain amount of time we're still unable to gather in the flesh as the body of Christ. I trust like Revelation 1:9-10, you were in the Spirit this last Lord's Day. Like him, I pray we'll be able to see more of Christ when we can't see each other. I also hope the Lord will help us to be thankful as Paul was in his homebound chain-bound state (Colossians 1:3 and following). In our new identity and family in Christ, there is much to help us be grateful as well as prayerful in these times.

As a follow-up to the blogs on worship and "Sunday's coming" (click here and scroll down for past blogs), I wanted to write a follow-up about "what we can do on Monday" for this coming week. With our relational rhythms interrupted, I want to communicate more to encourage you, and hope we can all increase our care and communication to each other. I'm praying specifically for your strengthening, endurance and patience with joy (Colossians 1:11), and ask you to please pray the same for me and for our leaders and church.

There is much from Sunday we need to keep before us, above all, keeping a view of Christ over all, and His gospel of grace that helps us bear fruit (v. 5-6). Applications to help keep before us:

1. Read Colossians this week (at least once in one sitting, and/or in daily reading)
2. Pray Colossians this week (1:9-12 could be used in conjunction with church photo directory, and/or contact people to ask how you can pray more specifically). Pray also for Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Placerville and that Pastor Oliver will be able to travel back from the UK.
3. Apply Colossians this week. Click here for application questions for personal or family or group use to discuss further how to put into practice truths from the message.
4. Fighter Verses memory verse for next Sunday is Hebrews 13:5-6, timely for us to memorize and also use to encourage each other: “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (For resources on these and others, go to www.fighterverses.com)

Also something I would ask your help with this week: I'll be preaching Sunday Colossians 1:3-8 on the theme of thankfulness and love and gospel fruit. For my sermon, I'd like your participation if any of you have time to comment or email me:

1. What is something you've been thankful for lately in light of all that's going on?

2. How have you been encouraged to see people loving each other in the family of Christ?

3. Where have you seen the Gospel bearing fruit in recent weeks in those you know?

Feel free to email by Thursday afternoon to [email protected] as I'd like to include some of your thoughts in my sermon (anonymously of course:) Also if you have any questions as you read that passage, or ideas on ways our church could pursue something in #2-3, let me know!

Some have asked how to share just the weekly sermon with friends. Sermon videos are available here (click here for playlist) or past sermon audio and manuscripts at www.gcb.church if you go to resources in the upper right and click "sermon archive" (also has past classes, like the biblical finances class that will be resuming).

By way of encouragement, I saw our SermonAudio site downloads in the last month includes listeners in crisis countries like China, Spain (21 downloads), France (53), and Arab countries! God’s Word is going forth from our small town, even as it did from the small town of Colossae!

My last encouragement at the start of this week is to keep our missionaries in prayer. I just got an audio update from Pastor Didier that I put together in a video to share for prayer. If the video at the top of this page doesn't work, below is the link for the Congo video you can click on or cut and paste to share:

https://youtu.be/8DqjWQMyWik

Grace to you and peace,