Change of Plans

I had hoped to preach at First Presbyterian Church, Hattiesburg, through the Ten Commandments in the morning and Colossians in the evening. As I continued to pray and wrestle over these texts, how to preach them, and what God might be doing with us, I've decided to flip-flop. Tomorrow morning, I'll begin preaching through Colossians; and, dv, next Sunday evening (January 10), I'll begin preaching on "Using the Law."

As I've wrestled with all this, I want as many people as possible to hear the message of Colossians: the sufficiency of Christ and his Gospel for every aspect of our lives. That happens best on Sunday mornings. And in particular, I've had a growing burden for us to become a praying congregation--not only for the prayer needs that come to us from the sickness and suffering we endure, although that is important, but also and mainly for the advancement of the Gospel in our midst. If God does not come to us by the power of his Spirit and strengthen us to live the Gospel life, nothing we do will make any spiritual impact at all.

And so, tomorrow morning, we'll be looking at what it means to pray in the light of the Gospel (Colossians 1:1-14). This will link together with articles that I'm sending to the officers as pre-reading for our retreat in a couple of weeks, including one by Tim Keller on "Kingdom-Centered Prayer." My longing is for us to get to the place where we might be able to have an entire week dedicated to praying specifically for the Gospel to "bear fruit in every good work" in and through us.

But above all, I want us as a people--and me specifically and individually--to fall deeper in love with Jesus. He alone is sufficient for every spiritual need we have; he alone can satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts; and he alone is worthy of our best efforts and thoughts.