Philippians: Part 8

Philippians: Part 8 - A Caring & Content Heart

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are wrapping up our series in Philippians today and I'm so thankful for the Spirit's leading through this series as he's provided us with truths that we needed to hear, and reminders that guide us through life and guide us to endure. And clearly, God knew what he was doing as he gave us. He led us to this series and led us to these words that I think we need more now, yeah, more than ever. And so it's a series that has, through it all, through the four chapters, has encouraged us to rely on Christ in every situation, to see the joy in all things, which means trying to see things from God's perspective. It's helped us to recognize the need we have for spiritual examples and spiritual role models in our lives, while also at the same time recognizing that we may be that for other people. It's encouraged us to shift our perspective to see the positive, to see the good, to see the work that that God might be doing. And it's a series that has called us to be honest with God and to lay before him our desires. As Paul wrote to the church in Philippi from his prison cell, we can be thankful that God gave him the clarity and the words to encourage the church that needed to hear the truth and the fact that we need to hear that truth today. So as we mourn through these times of sorrow, I think the words of Paul will help us in grieving and offer a glimpse of Jesus in the darkness.

Paul is wrapping up this letter, giving his final encouragement, signing off. As we know from the Apostle Paul from this series and really also from Romans, he likes to talk. He is a talker. He's a bit of a rambler. I learned in my marriage that when leaving some kind of function, my wife and I had different approaches. And at one point, it caused a bit of tension. We're very much now on the same page. But if we were to be somewhere and she said, "I'm ready to go," she could be in the car in five minutes. And what I didn't know is that she had already done all the prep to leave at that point. I would hear that and say, "Great!" And I would talk for another hour, and be there and be there and talking and wrapping up and all this stuff. And so I would linger, I would say goodbye, because I hadn't done that prep work. I would just--and even if I were to say, "Hey, I'm ready to go," I wouldn't mean right then. I would mean later on, I'd be ready to go. So I think Paul is kind of like me. I think he says something earlier. He's like, "Hey, we're coming to the end of this letter," but he just keeps going. He just keeps writing and he's getting more thoughts. And so we--even though we're wrapping up this letter, there are some new ideas, even in this conclusion that we're gonna dive into today. And so just pray with me one more time as we focus here on God's word. God, again, we come before you, Lord, and our desire is to know you and know your truth. So be with us as we read your word, give us insight and understanding. And God, I pray that you would help us to see how this truth right now is needed for our lives, for our church, but also for where we are individually. So God, we give this to you. Amen.

Alright, we are going to be going verse by verse through the rest of this chapter. We're starting in verse 10. You guys can follow along. I'm going to go ahead and read just this first verse. It says, "I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it." Pause right there. "Some of us are great at being ready. We leave the house and we are prepared for anything." I was a Boy Scout for one year, so always be prepared. So I'm kind of ready. I'm not super ready. I didn't go all the way, Eagle Scout or whatever. But some of you guys know you're ready. And so Paul is saying, you know, it is important to be ready as we walk by faith with Christ in our lives, to be ready to respond to God in any way that He may bring before us. And he's encouraging the church who was ready, who had the desire to help Paul, there just was no opportunity. So as we think again about this scripture and applying it to our lives, do you have desire? The first question is, do you have that desire to help? If God were to put an opportunity in front of you, do you have the desire to step up and meet that need? He says, "Now after desire, you still need that opportunity, right?" The church in Philippi didn't have that. Eventually they did, we'll get to that. But as you think about your life, again, just do a quick survey. Are there opportunities in your life that you're passing by, that God is bringing before you, to say, "Hey, you have the opportunity to help someone, to provide for someone, to be there for someone." And then when the opportunity did arrive, and we'll get to this in a little bit, the church did act, and they did step up. And as Pastor Chris said today, I want to encourage you, you have done this. You have done exactly this. And if Paul were writing about you, he would be full of praise, that this week you stepped up immensely for the Morgan family. Be encouraged. Feel the appreciation. And I also want to say with all grace and love, don't become complacent. Stay ready. When that next opportunity comes about, be just as ready as you were this time to give in whatever way that would mean. Don't become so callous that we no longer want to provide when God brings about that opportunity. Don't think, "Last time I did something, so someone else has turned to be God to those people, to be Jesus." Or, "Don't think, 'God, I'm dealing with so much stuff right now, so I just can't do that.' Can you have someone else provide for those people in need?" Again, we'll get some more of what that looks like, but I just want to encourage you to be ready. Stay concerned with God's people and caring for others, and be ready to step up when the time is right.

Paul continues in verse 11, he says, "I'm not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. Paul shares some of what God has taught him through his own life, which is to be content in all situations. This is back to back weeks now of really difficult positions of the heart that Paul is calling us to have as believers. A couple things about being content in all situations. One, it is learned. I want you to have grace with yourself. I think oftentimes we can beat ourselves up when we say, I'm just, I'm not content and therefore I'm a failure and therefore I'm not doing what God is calling me to do. But Paul says that he had to learn how to be content in all situations. This means going through experiences that will leave us feeling unfulfilled, empty, broken, confused, desiring more, and it is a process. Just as Paul talked about last week, as we lay our desires at the feet of Jesus, and we learn to surrender, and we walk with Him with those feelings, then we can learn to be content. But it's a process, it is learned. Secondly, he says, "Whatever the circumstances." This is an all-encompassing list. These could be the hard times, the bad situations that we face, like financial issues, mental health, poor friendships, loneliness, tough work situations, persecution, faith issues, loss of loved ones. And Paul's writing from experience, I mean, to his credit, in his time of following Jesus, He has experienced so much of this. But it's also in the good times, in the good experiences, in all situations. So this could be a better work situation where you got to raise a promotion, a better living situation, successful friendships, a new car, a vacation, a growing family, or a growing faith. And you may be wondering why would we need to be content or to learn to be content in the good times. Well, sometimes the good times grow that desire for more. And we're never content. We're never thankful. We're never praising God for what we have, but we're just continuing to reach and say, "This isn't good enough. And I want more of this." See, whether dealing with a lot or a little, the temptation of discontentment can be present, can be very real. And it can start so subtly, but it grows and grows quite rapidly. Paul knows this. He grew up in affluence and abundance, and after coming to saving faith, his life changed, but he still had moments of having a lot, but also having very little. And he learned to be content because he knew that God was everything that he needed, and would give him everything that he needed. be it physical food or spiritual guidance or mental fortitude or just provisions that he needed, Paul had experienced the love and the compassion, the provision of God, and had come to such a deep-rooted faith and trust in Christ.

To the point where he writes verse 13, which says, "I can do all this through him who gives me strength." You probably heard that verse before. It is well referenced, sometimes out of context. But we understand now reading this passage that that context is through all things, especially the hard times and especially in times when you have to endure. Paul lives with this assurance that he will get through anything because of Christ in him. the Creator of all, the King of kings, the giver of life, God the Father, Holy Spirit, the Comforter. Like it says in verse 9, "The God of peace is with him." God is with him through all those situations and has taught him to be content. But again, to reach this place of contentment, Paul had to endure some of the most difficult situations here on earth. And so it's just such a good reminder for us that as we strive to be content in Christ, one, we need Christ. We can't do it without Him. We need Christ to be content. And it will mean going through some of the hardest things we will ever face. And our goal at the end is, as we walk with Jesus, to become content. So as He endured, there was more and more opportunity for God to provide for Paul.

Let's continue in verse 14. He writes, "Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles." This can be so hard, because for Paul, he first had to share his troubles with the church. In order for the church to then respond and provide, Paul had to share, "Here's what's going on with me." And this is really hard, because, as you know, I know you have shared what's on your heart before, it can take a lot. There are often reasons why we don't want to share. And those voices can be really loud and sometimes we wait too long to share before we really enable others to reach us. But it requires us to be vulnerable, to be honest, and to trust with those whom we share. Because in our minds, there can be this fear, there can be this risk of being judged, of being ridiculed, of being condemned, of losing face or losing a friendship. And oftentimes, those things where we feel the affliction or the struggle are just things that we don't often talk about. Maybe it's finances or maybe it's relationships. It's usually some area of weakness or insecurity within us, where we don't want to appear weak. We don't want to appear in a certain way, and so we just hold it within. We say, "God, you and I can deal with this. I don't want anyone else to help me deal with this." And yet Paul recognized the need to share his troubles. So as we talked about earlier in the passage, by doing that, it provides an opportunity for God to work and to provide through other people. There can be miracles where just out of nowhere God will give something, but oftentimes He works through other people. And part of that may mean that we have to share. He continues to praise the church and Philippi that they had a desire to help. And as the opportunity came about, then they acted. And it was so good for them to practice being in a church in that way.

And so in verses 15, let's read about Paul's testimony of what happened. It says, "Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, "Except you only. For even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid more than once when I was in need. Not that I desired your gifts. What I desire is that more be credited to your account. I have received full payment and have more than enough. I am amply supplied now that I have received from "Paphroditus, the gifts you sent, they are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God." So Paul shares that he's so thankful for the gifts that the church provided. He's being careful not to infer more. We read this and we were like, "Great, he doesn't need anything." In other cultures, once you compliment someone, they may have the response of just giving it to you, because maybe you would only compliment by saying, "I actually want that." And so Paul's just being careful to say, "Hey, thank you so much for the gifts. I don't need anymore. Don't send me anymore." But he's just trying to encourage them in the evidence of their growing faith. The fact that they did this shows evidence that the gospel took root in their lives and that God was working through them to provide for Paul. And at the end of verse 18, Paul describes all this support, all this provision, as a fragrant offering and acceptable sacrifice pleasing to God. And this language is pulled from the Old Testament in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Ezekiel, of moments of sacrifice. Moments in the Old Testament where they would have to slaughter an animal, put it on the altar, and burn it. It's a moment where the people in the Old Testament were making a sacrifice for their sins, coming before God to follow Him. And those sacrifices are an act of obedience and worship. And that smell of a burning carcass, which may not have been pleasant to anyone around, was so pleasing to God because of what it symbolized and what it meant. That His people, who were meant to love Him, who had gone away and sinned, we're coming back to Him and wanting to make right their relationship with Him. Obedience and worship to God. It's something so pleasing to God. It brings Him such joy. So Paul is reminding us that sincere Christian service, which at times means sacrifice for us or self-denial, not only spreads the gospel, but it strengthens those who serve. It's an act of worship to God. It's this picture of a moment where everything is right, where we are in God's will, doing just as Jesus did. Loving others, sometimes at the sacrifice of ourselves. It's accepting that partnership with Jesus on earth, and loving for God's kingdom.

Paul wrote something similar in Romans 12:1 which says, "Therefore I urge you brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship." And so we no longer are in the Old Testament. We don't have to go to a temple and bring an animal and sacrifice it on the altar. But the way that we live our lives, the way that we love other people, the way that we sacrifice and serve others and serve God is our way of worshiping and our way of making an aroma that is pleasing to God. So we should strive. We want to live a life that as we go about our day to day in our work, in our families, in our neighborhoods, the way that we're talking, the way that we're interacting, All of it is just a rising scent to God, an aroma that He's looking down saying, "Yes, that is pleasing to me. That is a life that is sacrificing for the gospel, for me, for my kingdom.”

Verse 19, Paul writes, "And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus." I love this because Paul gives the assurance that what God has done for him, God will do for the church in Philippi. We read this today and we know that God will do the same for us. Even if it means continuing to give, when we don't have a lot to give. It doesn't say that explicitly in our passage, but referencing other passages in the Old Testament, we come to know that the church in Philippi wasn't well off. They weren't giving from this like storehouse of excess saying, "Well, we got a lot. Just go ahead and take whatever you need." They were also struggling and yet they continued to give. It's that part of sacrifice. It took sacrifice on their part. And Paul is saying that God will meet your needs. I think we often struggle with that today. That we want to give from a place of security. We want to give when it doesn't mean a lot to give. We have a lot. We have extra. Yeah, it's easy. I got some extra things to give for the food pantry. the food pantry, that's fine, I'm not using that anyways. That's not the kind of giving that God talks about. There's no verse in the Bible that you'll find that says, "Hey, once you have extra, then I want you to start caring for others." He says, "Give, I will bring opportunities in front of you. I need you to step up. And as you do that, and as you trust me, I will also provide for you. You will give and you will still have need. Let me provide for you." Trust me that I will provide for you. That's hard. That means that we're not in control anymore and we often wanna be in control. I know that if I don't give, I will have enough, so God, I'm not gonna give. And maybe we can even justify it with some spirituality of saying, God, you wanted me to be a wise steward of what I had. So that means saying no to someone in need because I gotta take care of myself. I think Chris, Pastor Chris used this analogy earlier in the series of being on a flight, and I just flew this week, and I heard the safety protocols, and they say, you know, in case of when the mask drops, and you have someone that you take care of yourself first, and then put the mask on the person next to you, the child. You don't put it on a stranger, but the child. And I think that's how we go about our spiritual life. "God, let me make sure I'm good first, and then as I see need, I will then take care of other people." And that may work on a plane, but it does not work for the Christian life. Give. Be generous. Step up when God provides the opportunity. And watch God provide for you. I'm sure you know this or maybe have experienced this. I think some of the most generous people in life are those who have very little. I was talking with Becky this week and she brought up the point that it's probably because once you're in that place of having little, you know what it means to have very little. And so when you have anything to give, you know what it means to receive. And what a blessing that is. And you're just more likely to say, "Yes, I know that you need this right now." And what a blessing this will be for you. And I know that I'll be taken care of. will somehow provide for me. I think of a family at a previous church I worked at who just always lived within their means, but their means were very small. But whenever an opportunity at church arose, whether it be a meal train or someone was in need and we collected something to give, they were first. And they didn't necessarily give a lot, but they were so faithful to give. And it was just such an example to me that I knew that they had worries. We were praying for God to provide for them on the prayer team that we had for that church. And they were concerned about rent or whatever. And yet, whenever the call came in, they would be first to give. And it just exemplified a trust, a deep rooted faith, just like Paul, that God will provide. God is their biggest need. They need Him, and by their need in Him, they'll experience and witness God providing for them.

So this is what Paul wants us, this is how he wants us to live. To be generous no matter what we do or don't have, and as we give, that we can trust God and trust that He'll meet our needs. According to the riches of His glory. Because we know that He is sovereign, and He knows what we need and when we need it. There's this common thread through Philippians that as we go through our own hardship, we have to learn to trust God. And as we go through our own hardship, we are also still called to care for others. And if we're all doing that, despite what we're going through, we're still reaching out in whatever capacity we have. It may be very little, it may be a lot, but as we continue to rely on Him, love others, That is a beautiful picture of the church. That we're coming together, gathering on a Sunday, knowing that everyone here in this room is going through their own things. And yet we're receiving love from people, and we're giving love to others. And Christ is in the midst of all of it. And as we each, we have to each rely on Christ, because our tanks are finite. We'll run out of energy. We'll run out of love. We'll run out of just whatever to give. We'll just say, "I don't have anything to give." But if we are all relying on Christ as we walk, we can continue to support each other, to be there for each other, to encourage each other, and to just be the church for each other. I think that's happening here, and I love being a part of it.

As we end today, and as we end our series, I just want to ask a few questions. From verse 11, "What situation are you going through that you need to learn to be content in? I'm not saying you can't voice your frustration to God or to others, you can't share your discontentment with God, but are you continuing to work on surrendering and trusting Him? I shared about this last week that this is my situation, I'm learning to be content. And once we learn to be content in one situation, Sure enough, there's another situation where we're going to have to learn it all over again. But hopefully as we learn and more and more it becomes easier, and maybe we reach that place of surrender quicker. So what situation are you in where you are needing to learn to be content? Secondly, from verse 14, what trouble are you facing that you might need to share? Maybe you need to share with the church. Maybe you need to share with your spouse. You haven't even shared it with them yet. Maybe you need to share with that close, trusted group of friends. Maybe you need to share with some pastors. But it's going to require you to be vulnerable. It's going to require you to be honest and to trust. But then by doing that, you'll be opening yourself to seeing how God can work through others in your life. So what do you need to share with someone? Maybe this week your spirit is prompting you to say, "You've been keeping this in. You've been thinking that you can handle it. You didn't want to share. You don't want to be embarrassed. But now it's time. It's time to let other people know and let other people by the work of God come to support you." And lastly, from verse 19, where has God met your needs lately? It is so important to take time to pause and reflect and thank God for what He has done. The needs will be never-ending in life. We will always be in need, and so we'll always be praying, "God, I need this. God, there's another thing." But if we don't ever pause, if we don't ever just look back for a second and reflect, "God, I have seen how You have done so many things," those prayers become heavy and there can be doubt that works its way in and say, and say, "God, I don't know if you're working." But if we pause just for a moment and say, "God, I still have a lot of things that are concerning me, "but I have seen, I do recognize that you met this need, "that you loved me in this way, "that you met me in this place," it's so good for our hearts. It brings us closer to Him, and we're more likely to recognize the work of God in our day-to-day lives. Those mercies that are new every morning. I mean, that can be a prayer, just, "God, let me see you work today. Let me recognize something today, just one thing that is of you, and I can give you praise for it, as evidence for the faith that I have. That can be an encouragement, that can be an affirmation of following you. So as you reflect back on your week, on this month, on this last year, where has God met you? Where has He provided for you? And give Him praise.

Our goal in this series, as we just finished Philippians, was by the end of it, that we'd be able to connect and reinforce in our minds that being a Christian means in some way participating in the life of Jesus. Through every aspect of our lives, whether joy or sacrifice, that it could all be used for God's kingdom. And in that, that God would use whatever we go through, enduring hard times or the best of times, there's joy that we are a part of God's plan. That as we serve, as we give, as we're generous, that we are deeply transformed by the work of the Spirit. And so even though we're done with this series, there is an ongoing invitation to us to participate in the life of Christ, to partner with God and the work that He's doing. And so we started this series with a question, and we'll end with this question. Will you accept that invitation from Jesus to partner with Him in the work that He's doing in your life and in the lives of those around you? And that way we can endure with joy. Let's pray. God, Again, we come before you with probably a lot racing through our minds. And I pray that you would cut through all the noise to make clearly your voice and your truth. And God, through your spirit, you would put on our hearts so clearly the truth that we that we need to focus on, that we need to remember, that we need to grow, that we need to be more like You, or maybe that we need to implement this week.

God, I pray that You would make it clear to us the work that You've done in our lives. We do want to praise You. We want to see the things that are of You, so that we can recognize that You are at work. And God, I pray that you would help those here who are feeling alone, struggling with bearing the weight of their life all by themselves. It's not what you meant. That's not what you intended. So I pray that you would, through your Spirit again, that you would encourage them to share that burden with someone this week. Give them the confidence, the courage to share, knowing that they won't be judged, that they won't be condemned, that they won't lose face, but that they will be met with love. That they will be embraced and say, "Yes, I'm so glad that you said that. I would love to help you." And maybe we're on the other end of that, God, and maybe we're going to hear someone say that they need something. I pray that you would encourage us to step up and to provide. Granted, we have our own needs, and we may not know how those are going to be met. But as we serve others, as we meet others, God, I pray that you would encourage us and give us a peace, a deep, deep peace, that it will all be okay, that you will provide for us. God, we want to be your church. For each other, for those who are not yet believers, for those who are not yet in this church, we want to be Christ to others. So help us, guide us this week to do so. We love you and we give you all the praise and glory because you are deserving. Amen.

Philippians: Part 7

Philippians: Part 7 - Learning to Ask and Trust God

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Welcome this morning. Glad that you're with us. My name is Andre, I'm one of the pastors here, and excited to be together. Missing everyone who's streaming from home. I know there's a few of you, so welcome from afar. I want to begin today by going back in history for a second. November 22nd, 1873. Would anyone randomly know why that date would mean anything to anyone? I don't expect to. I didn't know this before this week. So it's a date that, on this date, a steamship was heading across the Atlantic, and on it, this man, Horatio Gates Spafford, had his family besides him, his wife and four daughters on this steamship. And tragically, another vessel, an iron vessel, collided with this steamship, and 226 people perished, including all four of Horatio's daughters. A couple weeks later, he finds out because his wife sends a telegram when she arrives at her destination across the Atlantic, sends a telegram back to Horatio that says, "Saved alone." He goes to fix another ship a couple weeks later, and he goes out to meet his grieving wife. And while he's on his journey, his ship crosses the point where his four daughters perished. And he was inspired in that moment to write the hymn, It is Well with My Soul. I wanna read the second verse of that hymn. It says, "When sorrows like sea billows roll, "though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, "let this blessed assurance control "that Christ has regarded my helpless estate "and has shed his own blood for my soul. "It is well with my soul." How could someone enduring such grief write the words, "It is well with my soul"? I believe it's only possible for Spafford to have written those words because of his deep, deep trust and faith in God. A faith that endured one of the most challenging moments of his life up to that point. And I'm sure Spafford had to ask God to sustain him daily, to carry him through each moment as he was grieving the loss of his children. I don't know if you've ever had to do that. If you've ever been in a place in life where you have to ask God daily just to get you through that day because of what you're going through, because of how little you feel you you have of your own energy, strength, confidence, whatever it may be, and you are depending on God saying, "I don't feel like doing anything, "so God, I need you to get me through the next minute, "the next hour." Have you ever, think of a time in your life when you've had to ask Him for that and then trust Him. You've had to ask and then wait in that trust that He will provide. Paul definitely has, the apostle Paul, who has written the book of Philippians, I think has gone through that multiple times in his life. We're getting to the end of our letter in Philippians, and he's wrapping things up. And as a reminder, our series is called "A Joy That Endures." Paul knows what that's all about from experience. He's in prison, unsure of his future, whether he's going to die soon, or if he's just gonna be kept in prison alive. But he's writing to the church of Philippi, persevering through his difficulties to continue the work of the gospel.

And I began with the story of Spafford, it is in this hymn, "It is well with my soul," because I wanted to preface this morning with the uncomfortable truth that for many of us, at some point, there is tension in our lives as we are devoted to following Jesus, and how that interplays between the realities that we face and what it means to follow Jesus. There can be tension in different seasons. Or maybe there's just, you're thinking like, I felt tension ever since I've been conscious and I just feel this tension of following Jesus and the world around me all the time. We are people who tend not to like tension. I don't know about you, I avoid it at all costs. I am very uncomfortable when it comes to tension, whether it's between another person or a situation is making, I feel the tension, I have to resolve it, or I have to do my part to get away from it, remove myself, or whatever it may be, but I don't like tension. Sometimes tension is good because it informs us that something's off and something needs to be addressed. But the uncomfortable truth is that other times, God wants us to just sit in tension. I think of the Psalms, and so many of the Psalmists have tension in those passages. There's deep despair and anguish, and yet they're also praising God. We'll get to more of that in a bit. If I'm being honest, one of the most frustrating parts of following Jesus in the day-to-day life is dealing with this tension. By the way, Jesus felt tension throughout his life, being fully man, fully God. There's a moment that I'm sure we recognize of when that tension becomes unbearable. It's in the Garden of Gethsemane. when he's praying to God, if there be any other way than what has to happen tomorrow or that morning, please let that happen. Jesus felt the tension. The tension in our Christian life too, doesn't have to be between just a bad thing and a good thing that's probably less tension. We just know that there's a clear cut right answer. There's a direction that God wants us to go. But sometimes the tension comes in two good things and trying to discern, God, What do you want me to do? Maybe you've been in situations where you're wondering, "God, is this a moment to humbly suffer for your kingdom, or do I stand up for justice here?" Or maybe it's, "God, are you calling me to my dream job across the country, or do I stay put in my community with my family?" Those are two good things. What is God calling you to do? There's tension in that. "God, do I continue in my friendship with a person who's not a believer, and I know that I am the only Christian friend they have, or do I distance myself because it's unhealthy for me?" "God, what do you want me to do?" Or maybe it's more focused on what we want to happen, like Paul might have prayed as he's sitting in prison. I think God had - or Paul had many prayers to God, thinking, "God, can you just either - can I join you in heaven? I'd rather be dead, can you just have them kill me so I can be with you in heaven, or have them release me so I can go about fulfilling my gospel mission. I don't like being here in prison. But sometimes the tension means sitting in silence, waiting to hear from God.

And although we feel the absence of clarity or direction, we can know that He is in the waiting with us. Oftentimes, our hearts experience the most transformation, the act of being molded by God in the midst of tension. So as we'll find out today, even in the midst of tension, of having to endure things, there is a call on our hearts to rejoice. What does that mean? Let me go ahead and pray. We're gonna dive into Philippians 4, and we're gonna find out what Paul's talking about. So would you guys pray with me again? God, thank you for our time this morning, And as we come before you, we pray that your word would illuminate our hearts to your truth and that we would understand better the life that you are calling us to. Speak to us through these words in Philippians, God, and I pray that we be encouraged and empowered to follow you with everything that we have. We pray this in your son's name. Amen. Well, if you have your Bibles, you can turn to Philippians 4. We're going to start in verse 2, or you can pay attention to the screen. I'm going to read the first couple of verses here. Paul writes, "I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the Gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the Book of Life." Paul is here admonishing them to seek and strive for unity. Again, this has been present throughout the entire book, But he wants the church, again, to understand that the biggest threat to God's church is divisiveness that comes from within. And one of the best ways to unify people is to get them together around a common cause. To unify them, have them have the same target in mind and say, "Hey, I need you to all to focus on this because you understand how good this is for the church." And so Paul tells them to have the same mind, there's unity, and then to help the women who have helped him. There's also a beautiful reminder here and request by Paul for the church to work out conflict as a community. And I love that picture and that idea.

The modern church for the past several decades has really emphasized an individual faith in Jesus, which is good. But sometimes they've emphasized it at the point of losing this communal aspect of our faith. And there are things that need to be done as a church, as a community. We just finished our community group about fasting, and in there we had a beautiful reminder too of the need to fast together as a church, and how that's different than just fasting alone. Jesus meant for the Christian life to be done in community, and so that includes conflict resolution sometimes. This is a part of bearing each other's burdens, of exercising love and compassion and understanding and forgiveness. So I want to remind us today that we at Spring Valley believe that, that if the situation were to arise and it was needed, we would be a church that would want to resolve whatever conflict together as a church. So that's Paul's little snippet there. And then we go into another final encouragement, summarizing the point of this whole entire and it's a lesson that is easier said than done. Let's go ahead and go to verse four. It says, "Rejoice in the Lord always. "I will say it again, rejoice." Guys, we could have a whole sermon on just this verse. I can't, I have to go through more verses, but this is, there's a lot to unpack here. This is easier said in the good times, right? Rejoice in the Lord. If you're in a good place in life, you're like, amen. I can do that. God's been blessing me, I'm in a great place, I'm feeling his provision, life is good, I'm gonna praise him. And you should, we should be praising God in the good times. But the reality is, the good times, I think, are one of the smallest percentages of our life. Pure, just great, a great time where there's nothing else that's going on in your life that's bringing you down, that's a very small percentage of your life.

The reality is, for many of us, it's not often - I would venture to say it's not often - that we just feel like rejoicing and praising God. More often, I think more likely, life is complex, full of difficult-to-parse situations where there is good, but there's also something else going on. All of our lives are connected, And so, when you feel stress, anxiety, disorder, or chaos in one area of life, it often affects the other areas of life too. So the question becomes, what does it look like to rejoice always in those times? How do I rejoice when maybe there's seemingly nothing to rejoice over? Hence the tension that I was talking about at the beginning. Well, I want to restate what we've talked about earlier in the series that rejoicing is not just being happy, having a smile on your face, though that may be what happens sometimes, but that's not what Paul is talking about here. Paul is saying to rejoice always and not in everything. He's not sitting there in prison saying, "Man, I'm a rejoicing guard. Can you give me another lashing? This is great. Love it here in prison." It's not what Paul is saying. He's saying, "Rejoice always." So what does that mean? And before you may quickly have this answer of like, "This is what it means," and that's good, hold that answer. I want to throw some scenarios at you, and I just want you to wrestle with maybe how you would answer. If this is someone you knew, and they were saying, "This is my situation. How should I rejoice?" So what does it mean to rejoice always when someone you love is slowly dying? What would it mean to rejoice always when a relationship in your life continues to cause you pain and hurt over and over again? What does it mean to rejoice always when your job is no longer feeling fulfilling and you're starting to feel the sense of loss? And just what am I supposed to be doing? What's my purpose? How do you rejoice always when you look at your budget and you're wondering how you're going to afford the necessities of life or how to provide for your family? What does it look like to rejoice when your faith in God starts to feel full of doubt and questions? I'm sure you have your own situations that you can fill in the blank there. How am I supposed to rejoice always, whatever you're going through or have gone through? Can I confess something to you? I'm still figuring this out. I mentioned tension in the Christian life earlier, and this is one of those areas that I feel tension. I don't always know what it means to rejoice always. There are situations we face where we may know we're supposed to rejoice, but as much as we want to muster it out of our own strength, there's just not, there's nothing there. Sometimes we may ask, "How do I bring myself to do that?" We may feel like we have conflicting emotions or desires within us. I do think we often think of emotions as all or nothing, in the sense of, "If I'm feeling happy, then I shouldn't be feeling sad. If I'm feeling this, then I can't be feeling this other thing." But you may already know this. I did some research this week. We, our human bodies, God created us to feel multiple emotions at the same time, hence more tension in our life.

For me, one of these situations where I feel this tension, People will ask how my dad, who has Alzheimer's, how he's doing and how I'm doing with it. And I love, I always appreciate people caring for me, but that is one of the hardest questions to answer. Because it's a mess inside for me. While I'm feeling so sad and grieving the loss of someone who's slowly dying and forgetting everything, I am also so happy and grateful to be getting time with Him, for that my family, my daughter, can be getting time with Him and making memories with Him. So the sadness I feel does not mean that there isn't any happiness, and the times that I am happy doesn't mean that I'm not deeply grieving. It's just both, and there's tension there as far as what I'm supposed to be feeling, and what I feel the most, and what I want God to do about it. I think rejoicing often means sitting in the tension of multiple emotions or desires and realizing that we aren't in control, that God is, and that the outcome that we may want, we can express to God, but ultimately we'll have to surrender it to God. most basic level, I think it means trying to see things from God's perspective and resting in His sovereignty. That's a working definition for me, so in a year I may have a different definition.

But there's so much and there's so much more we don't have time for. There are people, amazing pastors and theologians who write books on this about rejoicing always. So this is a very condensed version, but again down to its essence, I think a part of rejoicing always means rejoicing in the fact that we're trying to see God's perspective and we're resting in his sovereignty and the fact that he's in control. I think that could include praising him in that moment for who he is and what he's doing in our lives. It could mean rejoicing in the sacrifice that Christ made for us and the provision and the and the salvation that he offers us. It could mean rejoicing. Rejoicing could look like, well, we cannot see and understand everything. We serve a God who does see everything and understands everything. Rejoicing always could mean rejoicing in the temporary duration of this life and knowing that eternity is spent with God. Or rejoicing always just may mean thanking God for this day and that we're looking forward to the very next day. And that's it. And I understand that some of these things during the hardest times, if you were to say this to someone, it might sound cliche. It might sound like lip service. But at the very least, when someone hears this, hopefully, and even the mere attempt to do any of these things, to look at God's perspective, to try to see what God is doing, to try to rejoice, The mere attempt of this is turning our eyes and our hearts to Jesus. Even if we aren't successful in the sense that we don't start singing, maybe we don't start singing, maybe we don't become very happy in that situation, but we're at least looking in the right direction towards Christ. And we may not be bounding to Jesus, running to him, being, "Praise you, God, love you, everything's great." We may just be crawling. But even a slow crawl is us heading toward the Almighty. The implication of this verse, when Paul writes, "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice," the implication is that we will be suffering in this life. He knows, that's why I think he says it twice, right? He's, "Rejoice always." They're like, "Yeah, yeah, good times, we're gonna rejoice." Again, I say, "Rejoice." See, your life as a Christian means suffering. Another pastor spoke on Matthew 16:24, where Jesus tells his followers to take up their cross and follow him. And the pastor pointed out that people don't often think about what that really means. If we were to pause and think about the journey that Jesus took with the cross, after being tortured, beaten, then he had to carry his own cross to the hill that he would die on. And Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me.”

That's not life is gonna be great, we're gonna be Christians, it's gonna be so happy. He's inviting us into suffering. He's inviting us into trials, difficult times. 1 Peter 4:12 says, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange was happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed." It's encouraging to know that both Peter and Paul are on the same page here. always, no matter what you are going through. Alright, we're not even close to halfway done. That was just one verse. The rest will go quickly, I think. Verse 5 says, "Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near." Paul is instructing the church in Philippi to continue in their compassion and love towards other people. It's one of the markings of the church, it should be something that stands out about a Christian, a follower of Jesus, is that they are prone to gentleness, to caring for other people, extending grace and mercy, as opposed to maybe the chaotic spirit as one who is prone to selfishness and stirring up strife and is all about their own pride and their own gain. Paul says, "Continue in gentleness. Be compassionate. Have a godly approach, a Christ-like approach. And he says the Lord is near trying to spur on urgency saying this is so important. We don't know when Jesus is coming back but you need to, he's coming back soon, so you need to live your life, this Christian life, with urgency. Don't slack off on this. Don't think you can push this off until like let me get some stuff figured and then I'll start being gentle and compassionate and gracious.

I think we need that reminder today. That this is, that life that we are called to live needs to be lived right away. All right, the next two verses bring us right back into the tension that we can feel as we walk with Jesus in the midst of difficult situations. It says, "Do not be anxious about anything, "but in every situation, by prayer and petition, "With thanksgiving, present your requests to God, "and the peace of God which transcends all understanding "will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." I hear this verse, and it makes sense to me on a head level. Like up here, I understand. I even have a piece of art over my desk that has Matthew 6:26, says, "Look at the birds of the air. "They do not sow or reap or store away any barns, and yet the Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Meaning God will provide. There's no need to worry because God will provide for you. God is in control. Do not be anxious about anything. That's what Paul says. That is so tough. That is really tough. Paul is writing this from prison. So it's not like I can say Paul you don't understand. He's in prison. He's got a lot going on. I think he's battling anxiety. Our series is about a joy that endures through all things. Oh man, Paul is writing this and he's well aware of the hardships that the church of Philippi is going through, just like God is very much aware of the things that we are going through. And yet, we are to trust and depend on Him daily. Another plug for the practice of fasting is part of the growth that I experience, I think others experience too, is in this practice of fasting, you're learning to trust God with something small. You skip a meal or a couple meals, and you are trusting that when you're hungry, when you're feeling low energy, He will provide for you. He will give you what you need. And by doing that, if you do that over and over again, it's like a muscle, right? It's easier for us to depend and trust in God so that when something difficult in life happens, We are ready, we are more prone to trust and depend on Him in that situation. So I think it's kind of what Paul's talking about here. Don't be anxious about anything. Trust in Him. As you do this more, it's going to get easier to not be anxious because you're going to realize all that you can trust Him with, which is everything.

The end of verse 6 instructs us to present our requests before God. Now, this is, again, I'm confessing a lot to you. I start to have trouble here. This is hard for me. I grew up learning to trust in God's sovereignty, like that Matthew verse, trust. God knows everything that I need, so why do I need to tell him? Why do I need to err? Like, "Hey, God, you know, you see me, "and you are gonna look out for me. "You say you're gonna provide for me. "I don't really need to tell you what I want "or what I need because you know. "So God, please just give me what I need." But recently in the last six months, in the last month a lot, I've been challenged with the thought of being specific with God in our prayers. Let your requests be made known to God. Now I know that God answers specific prayer. There's so many examples. I love being a part of the prayer chain here at this church because we see God answer prayer. I mean, just this morning we were talking about Arthur's housing situation. How God provided a place for him. Shelley, who's not here with us, but prayer came in that she was given notice for 90 days that they were going to have to move. And within five days of that notice, they found a new place, a better situation. Amazing! I know that God answers specific prayer. I even think of, we go back in church history, George Mueller in England who ran an orphanage And he started this orphanage and he didn't have anything. And daily he would pray, he's like, "I have no food for all these kids tomorrow. God, we're going to pray right now that you would provide a meal." And over and over again, the next day, someone would show up who had no relation, he had no idea, but there would be money or food to provide for these children. countless stories of God answering specific prayer. Even in the Bible, and this is a passage that I've just been dwelling on for a month now, it seems, Matthew 20:29, Jesus and the crowd are leaving Jericho, and he's walking along the path, and there's two blind men, and they cry out, "Jesus, have mercy on us!" And the crowd hushes them, says, "Hey, can you stop, knock it off? We're trying to listen to Jesus here." and they cry out even louder, "Jesus have mercy on us!" And Jesus says, "What do you want me to do?" And they answered, "We want our sight." And the verse says, "Jesus had compassion on them and healed them." Now I read that, and I say, "Why?" Jesus, you of all people would know what two blind people want. They probably want to see. Why are you asking them what do you want? And it starts to become clear to me, even though I'm wrestling with it, that it's a heart issue. God cares about our hearts and getting us to this place of trust and surrender. See, but putting all this is difficult for me.

We're not supposed have any anxiety and yet we naturally have expectations of what we want for life and what we want God to do for us. We hope that God will provide certain things. We are to pray for what we want and yet we are to trust that and surrender that He will just whatever God sees best. And mixing that all together is so difficult. God I'm supposed to pray specifically what I want and yet at the end of this prayer I'm supposed to come to a place where I just surrender if that happens or not I'm going to praise you?" I think the answer is yes. And some days I'm okay with that, and other days that's really frustrating to me. So how do we surrender our will and our desires to God? Trying to exercise trust and yet present requests before Him. Well, He says in verse 7, When you do this, when you present your request to God, it's like Paul knew what people are going to be wrestling with, then the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts. I love that phrase "transcends all understanding." I think that's a really fancy way of saying you're not going to understand. You're not going to get it. It's not going to make any sense to you. God's going to work in a way that you will not comprehend. I like to comprehend. I want things to make sense. This is challenging for me. But it is true that the peace of God will guard our hearts. See, I'm just formulaic. I want 2+2 to equal 4, and that's not how prayer works. It's not, "God, if I pray this, then I will receive this." If I present this request, and I surrender, then God will give me ultimately what I wanted. I think of Solomon and I'm like, "God, can I just have that? You offered him money, you offered him power, you offered him wisdom. He was supposed to choose wisdom and he got everything else. God, can I do the same thing? Can I get the wisdom and everything else if I got to that?" No. It's about this process of learning to trust God with our hearts, of surrendering our wills and saying, "God, your will be done," just as Jesus prayed. And as we voice our hearts when we're vulnerable with God, and we trust him that he'll provide however he sees fit, whether it's what we wanted originally or not, the peace of God will guard our hearts. Paul is bringing the imagery of a soldier guarding our hearts against fear, anxiety, and doubt. So when we pray, petition, we reach this place of surrender, then we trust Him, and then we can praise Him. Because we know that only He is in control, and we know God's character. And there is no one better to be in control of everything than God. And in there, there is room to praise Him. There is reason to praise Him. All right, I hope and pray that that made sense. Because that was a lot and it is still stuff that I am processing in life right now. as I wrestle with this passage. But we have this pattern developing here. Don't be worried, rejoice in all things. Don't be anxious, God will give you peace.

And then to help remain in Christ, Paul says do the following and we come to verse 8. "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you." Oh, we don't have enough time. There's so much good in here. Okay, this list, "True, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy." This is a good list. it has been proven that the most successful way to stop doing something that you don't want to do is to set yourself a new target, to focus on something new. For example, if you were to eat a donut every morning, and you want to stop eating a donut every morning, you couldn't just not eat anything. You need to replace that with something else and say, "I'm no longer going to do this. I'm instead, I'm going to do this." That's this list right here for Paul. He's giving us something new to focus on. If when you are living like Christ, if you need something, you're going to stop, you're going to refrain from doing these other things, here's what you want to try to do now. And he's also saying, "Look at how I have followed Jesus. Do as I do." Not in a boastful way. He's not saying, "Look, I'm really great at this. I'm kind of awesome at following Jesus." He's just saying, "I know it's helpful to have someone to model it for you." Jesus is ascended, He's in heaven. Look at me as an example of what it means to follow Christ, to live like Christ. And then it says, the most amazing part is that He assures us that God will be with you. Did you notice this? That earlier in our passage, it mentions that the peace of God, the peace of God will be with you. And now He assures you that God Himself will be with you, who we know to be the Holy Spirit. How amazing is that? Now we can have comfort and peace in our hearts knowing the Holy Spirit God is with us in everything we go through. Even more reason to not be anxious. God knows what we need and what we need is Him and He gives Himself to us. So in the midst of this tension we have the God of peace with us and as we wrap up I want I want us to reflect on what God is calling you to do and what areas of your life need to be re-centered around Christ.

And so I just have a couple of questions I'm gonna ask you. Just think of these things this week. Number one, what situation are you in right now that you need to rejoice in? Whether it's a good one and you need to praise God for what God is doing or whether it is one of the most challenging situations in your life. What is that situation? And what does it look like to rejoice always in that situation? Second question, what requests do you have that God needs to hear? Are you being specific with God? I'm asking myself that question every day. How can I be more specific with God? And then as you ask that, Are you trusting and surrendering your will to His? Saying, God, this is what my heart desires. I hope that this desire comes from you, that this is a godly desire, but ultimately your will be done, God. Third question is, who is your model? Paul was talking about him being a model. And I love that last week, Pastor Lauren brought up this idea of spiritual godfather God and mother, that we are an example to other people. I'm gonna flip it this week and say, who's your example? Who is your model of the Christian faith? If you don't have one, this week, this is your specific prayer, ask for one. God, give me someone I can follow in life. God, give me someone who has walked with you longer than I have, that will help encourage me, that I can go to in times of trouble, of anxiety, that I can lean on and depend on. And if you have one, I would encourage you to connect with them this week. If it's been a while, just ask them out to coffee. Text them, thank God for them. But who is your model? And then lastly, which one of this list from verse eight, the whole list of just good things to focus on, which one do you need to focus on in life this next week? Right, our hearts are prone to wander. And so we need to focus our hearts on something good, excellent, praiseworthy, noble, true, whatever that list. Pick one, pray about God, which one do you want me to focus on? Our prayer as a church, as a staff, as pastors, knowing that so many of you are going through difficult situations, is that you walk with Jesus in that tension, whatever tension you're feeling, and that you are trying to see things from God's perspective, and that you're able to rest in His sovereignty, and the fact that He is in control, and that ultimately that you can rejoice.

Let's go ahead and pray. God, we are so thankful for who you are, what you've done, and how gracious and patient you are with us. So much of this Christian life of trying to live like you, we don't do perfectly, we're trying to figure it out. We're wrestling with things of, what does this mean? How do I do this? And yet, I think that you love that we are trying our best to live like Jesus. And so as you empower us through your Holy Spirit to live like you, I just pray that you would also encourage us, God. There are so many things that are happening in this world, in our lives, that easily just bring us down, that bring discouragement, that bring discontentment. And God, we pray that as we surrender our expectations, that we lay our desires before You, that You would give us a peace that surpasses all understanding. and that You, God, that we would feel You with us. God, be with us this week in every situation. We love You and we trust You. We pray this in Your name, amen.

Philippians: Part 6

Philippians: Part 6 - Our righteousness only comes through Jesus

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas. I know that today can be difficult for some people for a variety of reasons, but I do want to make sure that we celebrate the moms and the grandmas and those that have children in their care. You all are amazing. And to those of the moms that aren't here, maybe you're streaming with us this morning, welcome, happy Mother's Day, or you're catching up later. We're just so glad you're here, and we hope you feel loved and honored and celebrated today. I got chosen to preach on Mother's Day as the resident mom here, I guess. I'm just kidding. It was, I volunteered. But I'm excited to be with us, be with you all today. It's not gonna be a traditional Mother's Day sermon. We are back in our Philippians series. So that is gonna be our focus, but I'll try to wrap in some mom stuff for us today.

So, Philippians, our series, The Joy That Endures. we're talking about, through this whole book, about how we can have joy in Christ and what that looks like. What does that look like for our everyday lives? The book, or Paul specifically, talks a lot about this throughout, how we can live this out, how we can find joy in Jesus, regardless of our circumstances. So we've covered chapters one and two. We're gonna be in chapter three today. So if you wanna get ahead and pull that up on your phones or your Bibles, There's Bibles underneath your seats. We'll also have it on this screen. And you can go to Philippians 3. But our buddy Paul here, the early church leader who wrote Philippians and much of the New Testament, packs a punch in this book. All right, we have only covered two chapters in the five weeks that we have been in this series. And we have already gone over partnering with God to spread the gospel, choosing joy and positive attitudes despite difficult circumstances, falling after Jesus, becoming more like him, pointing other people to Jesus, being an influence to those in our lives, and more that I'm sure that I miss. And that's just the first two chapters, all right? There's only four chapters in this book, but it is a lot.

Paul has a way of doing that. He just kinda just packs it in, has a lot of run-on sentences, if you've ever noticed, lots of therefores. He wants to get his point across. In chapter three, we're gonna cover the whole chapter today. We won't read it all, but we will cover it. And so just a little synopsis of the beginning verses. He is calling out legalism in this early church. Now, I'm a rule follower by nature. I don't know if it's just personality or being a firstborn or maybe a combination, but I am a rule follower. I like to police people. I like to know what is what, where I'm supposed to be. I want to do it the best. I want to be the best at it. And usually that requires following the rules. But I will say there is one particular area where I do not follow the rules. And that is my driving. I get it from my father. Completely honestly. But I like driving in the left lane. And if you are not going at least five over, please get out of the left lane. Can I get an amen? Okay, all right. Now here's the thing. The people in the left lane, we got places to go, right? I'm usually late, all right? So that's probably why I'm driving in the left lane. And I'm still a people pleaser, so I don't wanna be that late. So I'm trying to get there as least late as possible. Okay, so that's why I'm in the left lane. I'm just trying to get there quickly. People in the far right lane, I think you're holier than the rest of us, because you're following the rules, you're practicing road safety, we love you, we need you, do you? The people in the Middle East, I'm not sure what you're doing. I don't know. That's fine. I just don't understand it. But I just struggle to follow the rules. I haven't got a speeding ticket, though, so praise Jesus for that. (Laughter) Maybe I need one to learn my lesson. I don't know. The problem is not following rules. That's not a problem. That can actually be really beneficial when it comes to learning how to live rightly. There is a right and wrong way to live in a lot of issues that we see in the Bible. And so being a rule follower can be really helpful with that. The problem comes when we fall into legalism. Legalism is essentially where we are trying We need to follow the rules so closely that we lose sight of the end goal. It's to the detriment of the end goal. And the end goal as believers is to have a relationship with Jesus. And so if we are so caught up in legalism and following the rules that it is at the expense of our relationship with Jesus, we're missing the point. Paul here is addressing an issue where Jews at the time, Christian Jews, were telling Gentiles, these new Christian believers, that they had to become circumcised in order to be a Christ follower. They weren't truly a Christian if they weren't circumcised. And essentially they were saying, "You have to become a Jew before you can become a Christian."

They were adding to scripture, if you will. Now here's the thing, God used, in the Old Testament, when he was developing this nation of Israel, he chose circumcision as a way, as a sign, that the people would be set apart. Why he chose this particular sign, I am not really sure, but this was the sign, that they were a set apart people. They were different than the nations around them. So there was nothing wrong with the Jews choosing to follow that and be circumcised. The problem came when they were saying that it was required to be a Christ follower. were falling into this legalism. And Paul is flipping the script here and saying that those who follow Jesus who are Christians are the circumcision. They don't have to be circumcised, they are the circumcision. They are the ones set apart. They are set apart to God, Jew or Gentile. If they are a professing follower of Jesus, they are the circumcision. They are the set apart ones. See, what Paul knew is that if anyone could claim that following the rules would save you, it was him. He was like the best Jew. He grew up this good Jewish boy. He was a Pharisee, which was like the cream of the crop of the Jews, and they knew scripture inside and out. They followed all of the rules. They told everyone else how to follow all the rules. He was so passionate about following the law that he persecuted Christians in the early church because he believed they were going against the law. went to their homes and pulled them out to the street to be stoned, persecuted them. That's how passionate he was. That's how in line with the law he was. So he's saying, "If that doesn't earn me my salvation, if that doesn't earn me my righteousness, you have to understand that that's not it. No amount of legalism or keeping the law will justify us. We're not made right with God by anything we do, but only by the blood of Jesus. And that's just the first six verses of this chapter. Okay, three to jump into verse seven.

All right, so follow along with me. We'll have it on the screen. Verse seven of chapter three. "But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith." Our righteousness, our right standing with God comes from God by Jesus, by the sacrifice of Jesus. Paul knows that everything else, compared to being in Christ, everything else is trash. And that's the kind word, the kind version of that word. He uses a much stronger word in the Greek, but it's garbage. It means nothing compared to being in Christ. He's not trying to make rule followers out to be the bad guy, 'cause that's not the issue. The issue is not following the rules, it's when it's the only thing that's important. That's when it becomes a problem. We miss the mark when we are so focused on following the rules that we miss the relationship with Jesus. Romans 5:9 says, "Since we have now been justified by His blood, "how much more shall we be saved "from God's wrath through Him?" It doesn't say been justified by our works, been justified by circumcision, been justified by how good we follow the law, by how closely we follow all the rules, by how good of a Christian we look like, it says, "By his blood." Friends, that is good news, 'cause it's not on us. The thing is, if we believe that we can save ourselves, if we believe that legalism and following the rules to a T can save ourselves, we're gonna be in a world of hurt, 'cause one, we're gonna fail miserably and still not be reconciled to God. And two, we are in effect denying the sacrificial work of the cross of Christ. If we, we may not say we believe that, we may not actually even think we believe that, but our actions speak loud. And if we are living in such a way that we are saying that we believe that we can earn our justification, we can earn our salvation, we're saying that what Christ did on the cross isn't enough. I don't think we want either of those options in the Christian life. That's not what we're looking for. So how do we do this? How do we move away from legalism into the freedom that is found in Christ?

Well, Paul goes into this in verse 10. I want to know Christ, yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His and suffering, becoming like him in his death. And so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead, not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Paul's whole goal was to know and love Jesus, full stop. Nothing else mattered, nothing else compared to knowing Jesus. As Christians, we can be a Christian, we can say we follow Jesus and say we can know a lot about him without knowing him. We can look like a good Christian. We can go through the motions and follow all the rules and do all the right things and still not have a relationship with Jesus. Paul had his priorities straight. He knew that becoming more like Jesus was more important than just checking a box and following the rules. He knew his calling. He knew where he was going, and he understood the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here's the thing about this power. This resurrection power is what justifies us. The debt has been paid. The sentence that we are supposed to, that is put on us for our sins has been served. It's done. Can I get an amen? That is some good news, people. Thank you. Okay, we're awake. The sentence has been served. We are justified by His blood. That resurrection power has been given to us. The same power that rose Jesus from the dead is in us because if we profess Jesus as Lord and Savior, we have Holy Spirit in us. And so no amount of legalism, no amount of doing what we think is right will justify us because the work's already finished, friends.

Have you ever tried to give directions to someone who just took things a little too literally, maybe didn't quite understand, maybe it was a child, maybe it was a coworker, maybe it was your spouse, no judgment, I don't know. I think of my kids sometimes, I try to give directions, and it just doesn't quite go the way I hoped. Imagine you're giving directions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. To someone who's never made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before. So you say, "Okay, put the peanut butter on the bread." So they put the peanut butter on the bread. And then you realize, okay, you're gonna need to back up a little bit. So then you say, "Okay, no, take the bread out of the bag." So they take the bread out of the bag. Didn't actually tell them how to open it. Well, so next time maybe give the instruction to open at the seal, but it's fine. They follow the rule, right? So then you say, "Okay, put the knife in the peanut butter." Doesn't work so well this way. So you gotta tell them to take the lid off, and then they can put the knife in the peanut butter. And then you tell them to spread the peanut butter on the bread. And then you say, "Okay, now it's time for the jelly. "Put the jelly on the bread." So they do the same thing, 'cause you didn't give the explicit directions to take the lid off the jelly. "Yeah, will they make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? "Maybe eventually, but it's gonna be messy. "It's gonna be harder than it probably should be." But here's the thing, they followed all the directions. You said, "Put the peanut butter on the bread." They put the peanut butter on the bread. Now, okay, every analogy falls apart at some point. So, you know, God is much better at giving us directions than we are. But the point is that if we are following the directions to a T, but losing the forest for the trees, it doesn't do us any good. It's gonna be messy, it's not gonna be perfect, and there's no freedom, and the end result isn't what we thought it would be. 'Cause when we follow the rules, we live a good life. We live a right life. But at what cost? Are we getting the end result that we hoped we would? Might look a little messier than we thought.

The reality is that we are sinners and that sin separates us from God. God is holy. He is perfect. And so in order to be in relationship with him, we must also be made righteous. And we can't do that on our own. but thankfully we serve a God who loves us enough to send that sacrifice for us. And he sent Jesus to be that sacrifice. He was sinless, so he could pay the price. He served our sentence. The sacrifice has been made so that we could be reconciled back to God. Legalism can actually, contrary to what we may think, Legalism can actually keep us in bondage. But Jesus offers us freedom. Legalism is not freedom. Legalism is an obligation. It puts the work of salvation on us, which is a heavy load to bear. We can't handle it. We may think we can. We may try sometimes, but we cannot handle it. In fact, legalism can create so much bondage because it leads to other sins. It can lead to pride, thinking that we got this, we can handle it. It can lead to idolatry, that we are putting the rules up on this pedestal, or we are putting ourselves, we're making ourselves these little gods, if you will, that we are the one doing the work. Now, this doesn't mean we do whatever we want. This doesn't mean we just have free reign, forget the rules, throw them out the window. That's not what I'm trying to say here. And that's not what Paul's saying. But it means that our relationship with Jesus, out of that love for Him, we naturally start following the rules, because we want to, because we love Him so much that we want to live the way He tells us. We want to live the way that He commands us to. It's not out of obligation, but out of love and out of freedom. The joy, our joy is not found in following the rules or being the best Christian. There's no award for best Christian. Sorry. But our joy is in our relationship with Jesus. That's where we find our joy. And let's be clear, we get to live abundantly.

We get to live in freedom and abundance within the boundaries that we have been given. There's so much freedom there. God gives us a lot of free reign. And it's wonderful, we are promised an abundant life, not an easy life, not a carefree life, not one without hardship, but abundant, full, full of joy, full of peace, full of Him and His presence within those boundaries that He has given us. And when we walk in freedom, when we are walking in this abundant life within those boundaries, we look different naturally. We naturally look different and we point people to Jesus. Paul talks about this. So let's go on to verse 15. He says, "All of us then who are mature "should take such a view of things, "and if on some point you think differently, "that too God will make clear to you. "Only let us live up to what we have already attained. "Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, "and just as you have us as a model, "keep your eyes on those who live as we do. "For as I have often told you before, "and now tell you again, even with tears, "many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their God is in their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. And then he ends with chapter four, verse one, saying, "Therefore, my brothers and sisters, "You whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, "stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends." We get to be examples of Jesus to the world. And that may seem a little scary sometimes. I say we get to, some of you are like, "Do I have to? "Is that a requirement?" Yes, it is. We are all called to be ministers of the gospel. We are all called to be examples of Jesus to others. And Paul is saying here, I'm following Jesus and I've had some experience, I've had some real encounters with Him, so follow me as I follow Jesus. Let's figure this out together. Naturally with today, I think of mothers. Mothers are a great example of this. Christian moms disciple their children, they raise them up to follow Jesus. Their children model after them, for good or for bad. Sometimes it doesn't always work out the way we hoped, but we are modeling Jesus to our kids. I'm very blessed to have a mom that loved Jesus and taught us to love Jesus. I learned what it looked like to walk with Jesus from my parents. I was homeschooled, so I was with my mom more, but with both of them, Both of them love Jesus and modeled that for me. But whether you're a mom or not, whether you have biological children or not, you can still model that for others too.

Author and speaker Lisa Bevere calls these people godmothers or godfathers, these spiritual parents. Now, the idea of godparents is not unusual in our culture. many through the Catholic faith tradition or even just in close relationship with people, choose godparents for their kids. They identify them as someone that they want to pour into their children's lives or be there if something happens. But we can be spiritual godmothers and godfathers. We can model our faith to those who are maybe not as far along in their faith. Maybe they're not actually younger than us, but maybe they just are newer to their faith. And if you are newer to your faith journey, may I encourage you to find a godmother or a godfather. Ask them to lunch, buy them a coffee, spend some time with them, ask them questions. Watch them live their life. Watch them parent, watch them interact with their spouse. Watch how they talk to people, do life with them, and model after them. You're not worshiping them, you're not idolizing them, you're not putting them up on a pedestal because you and I both know they're not perfect and they know they're not perfect. But they've had some more life experiences, they've had some more encounters with Jesus. And sometimes as we're navigating life and learning to walk in faith the way Jesus did, it's helpful to have someone who's practically living that out, so we can learn how to do that ourselves. Paul wraps up this section of Philippians by acknowledging that there are enemies of Jesus. We know this. There are enemies of God. Take five minutes on social media and you will see it too. There are those that want to lead Christians astray or push their agenda. There are evildoers, as Paul called them earlier on in the chapter. They're ones that, maybe it's as simple as encouraging legalism, like the Jews were around circumcision, or maybe it's something more extreme, like things we're seeing in the Middle East. but there are enemies of Jesus. So he tells his people to stand firm. Stand firm.

Going back to the very end, chapter four, verse one. "Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, In what way? In the way He just laid out for them in the whole chapter. Choose freedom over legalism. Walk in the power of the resurrection and model a biblical and faith-filled lifestyle. That's how we stand firm. It doesn't have to be complicated. It's not always easy, but it doesn't have to be complicated. We have been given the word of God. We have been given a fellowship of other believers. We have been given everything we need for a godly life. And we just have to choose to stand firm in that. So this is how we stand firm. We won't do it perfectly, but we will do it out of freedom. Amen? Amen.

Pray with me. Heavenly Father, we thank you for who you are. We thank you for the way you have given us everything we need for life and godliness, your word, your people, your spirit. God, we are so grateful for the sacrificial blood of Jesus that has justified us, that has saved us, that has taken the burden off of us so that we can be reconciled to you, not out of anything we do, not of our own strengths, not of our own efforts to earn, but simply by accepting your gift. God help us to walk in that freedom, help us to live in this abundant life that you have given us, and help us to model that for others. Lord, we thank you for moms. We thank you for those who have gone before us and who love us so deeply. May they be honored today. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Philippians: Part 5

Philippians: Part 5 - Living A Life of Influence

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, good morning. It is my privilege to be with you. My name is Phil Stevens. I'm a friend of your pastor, and so he every now and then lets me come in and chat a little bit. So it's good to be with you. We are actually going to be going back. I know we took about four weeks off on a relationship series, and we started out in Philippians back in early February, I believe, or sometime in February. So I want to do a quick review of what we did in Philippians, up to the point where I am at this time. I think we have that on slide form up here so we can see that real quick. So first of all, week one, Philippians 1, 1 through 11, we talked about partnership. And partnership with each other is one of God's gifts to experience a joy that endures. Then we went on to the next part of Philippians chapter one and we talked about attitude, that we can choose to have a right attitude regardless of our circumstances. And then we moved on and we went into Philippians chapter two, we talked about imitation, We are to imitate Jesus for our entire life. And then week four, just before we took the break, we talked about being a beacon, be like a beacon, pointing the way to Jesus and a relationship that can be found with Him. And then we had the four-week hiatus, if you please, and then we come to where we're at this morning, and we're going to take a look at influence. What does it mean to be an influence to people for the gospel?

And we're going to be in Philippians chapter 2, verses 19 through 30. So we're kind of wrapping up chapter two. And we're going to start there and kind of take a look and see what God has for us in this area. Now, back in 1969, and now as soon as I say that here's what I know looking at here, some of you have no idea about 1969, okay? But it existed, okay? Some of you may not even been here yet or you were so young you don't recall 1969. Well, in 1969, there was a movie out called Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And it was with Robert Redford and Paul Newman. Now, somebody was saying, who? Yeah, well, they were movie stars, OK? So anyway, this movie was actually based on a real story about two outlaws called Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, interesting enough. And what happened is they were train robbers, and they had a train robbery that went wrong, and so they fled to South America. And that's where this story is all about what happened in South America. But, of course, they wanted them to be caught, so there was a special posse, or a group of people put together to chase them, to kind of capture them. And throughout the movie, one of the themes of that movie, or theme lines, was this. They would be trying to get away from this posse who was chasing them, and every now and then they would stop and they would look back and they would... the big, the kind of common theme line through this was this. Who are those guys? They weren't sure who they were. They'd be going this, do this, and all of a sudden they look, and they look down in this valley, and there they are, and they go, "Who are those guys?" They never could figure that out. So this morning, however, we're going to talk about who are those guys? Because in Philippians chapter 2, we are introduced to a couple of guys that are great examples to us. And we have a sense that there is one guy named Timothy, who we're going to look at. Paul introduces to us. And then the other one is Aphrodite.

Now, all of us in our professions, I believe this, or in school, whatever it might be, you get out, you go to school, you prepare for a certain profession, and then you get out into the workforce and you encounter some things, and you might find yourself saying, "How come they didn't tell me about this when I was in school?" Because they try their best. They just can't. And I gotta tell you, my background and my preparation as a pastor and being in ministry was, they never told us how to pronounce people's names. I wish they did, because you know, in the Bible, they go off the rails when it comes to names. Whatever happened, just, you know, like Timothy's a great name, but this other guy, you know, Aphro-phroditis, that's a whole, what is up with that? But anyway, that's just my own angst I wanted to share with you as we get into this. Well, first of all, before we find out some examples Timothy and Aphrodite said to us. Let's talk a little bit about them. Who were these guys? Real quick, Timothy was actually very well connected with Apostle Paul. We know in Scripture, back in Acts chapter 16 verses 1 and 4, that Paul went to this city of Lystra and there he encountered this young man whose name was Timothy. And he was very intrigued by this young man because he had a great reputation with those folks there, and as he started to talk to him, they had this common bond. And so he decided to invite Timothy to join him in his ministry, and he did, and they spent a lot of time together. We also know that Timothy really became a mentee, if you please, of Paul. Paul was his mentor. It says in 1st Timothy chapter 1 verse 2, he says, "I am writing to Timothy my true son in the faith." In fact, the whole two books, 1st Timothy and 2nd Timothy, are actually primarily letters from Paul to his mentee Timothy, who was leading a church in this area and he was instructing him about how to lead well. So they're very well connected. Now the other gentleman here, which we'll call "Epa," just because I don't want to try to pronounce that whole name, he only knew Paul by reputation. And so frankly what we know about him is that in Philippians chapter 4 verse 18, which you'll look at later, he was sent by the church in Philippi to bring gifts and some things to Paul to minister to him. And so when And when this young man showed up where Paul was in prison, they had never met before. He knew Paul by reputation. But yet he will find out, forged a unique relationship with Paul. In fact, it was Ephedra who actually took the letter that Paul has written that we now call the book of Philippians. And he took that letter with him back to the church in Philippi. So he was sent by the church in Philippi to take some gifts and represent that church to Paul, and then Paul, in turn, after a season, sent him back to the church in Philippi with this letter that we now have, again, as a book of Philippians.

Now, I'm gonna make a couple assumptions this morning. Actually, three assumptions. The first assumption is this. I think, I think, all of us here, we want to be people of influence. and what to influence other people. That's an assumption I'm making. A second assumption is this. We want to be people who others enjoy being around. No one likes to be around grumpy people. Well, maybe you do, I don't know. But for the most part, there are certain kinds of people that we just want to be around. We're kind of just attracted to them. And so I'm gonna make the assumption that we wanna be the kind of people others enjoy being around. And thirdly, I want to make this assumption. We want to influence people for the gospel. So those are three assumptions as we look at what I'm going to be sharing this morning, that we're gonna base it on those three assumptions. That we want to be people of influence, we want to be people who others enjoy being around, and we also want to influence people for the gospel. And so as we dig into this, let's talk about influence a little bit.

We said we want to influence people for the gospel. Well basically, if you want a formal definition of influence, here it is. To have an effect on the condition or development of something or someone. In other words, influence is you have an effect on something. You have an effect on someone. And influence basically has kind of two sides to it. We can influence others, but then at the same token sometimes others influence us. We understand that. And so as we look at this, we're going to see that Paul just as he's writing to the Philippi Church, he is talking about Timothy and Aphrodite, and he is describing a little bit about them. And in that, I believe that we can pull out some principles of of what it means to be people of influence. And so we're just going to kind of walk through Philippians chapter 2 verses 19 through 30 and we're going to just make some some observations. And the first thing is this, the first trait or characteristic, if we want to be people of influence is this, be genuinely concerned for others. In verse 19 through 21 we read this, "If the Lord Jesus is willing," Paul says, "I hope to send Timothy to you soon for a visit. Then he can cheer me up by telling me how you are getting along. I have no one else like Timothy," who, ready for this, "who genuinely cares about your welfare. All the others will care only for themselves and not for what matters to Jesus Christ." So influence then we need to genuinely care for others. Now there are times that we care for others and sometimes it's out of obligation, sometimes it's out of duty, or sometimes it's just completely out of necessity. But even under those circumstances we can still have a genuine concern for people. Now here's the reality. Not all of us are bent or more, I guess, drawn towards concern, towards mercy. And just about, I am not. Well we don't have that, this would be a personal testimony. I am not naturally drawn to being concerned for people. And sometimes I find myself just thinking, "Man, that's a terrible situation, I'm glad it's not me. But yet over the years, because I have, I think I might have shared when I shared with you last time, I just retired last July of 48 years in some form of pastoral ministry over the last 48 years. And early on in my ministry, I had, not only did I not have genuine concern, I had no concern for people sometimes. That was just my natural bent. But just because we are quote-unquote, "bent a certain way" or we have a certain propensity in our personality doesn't mean we're right and doesn't mean we shouldn't change. And so over the years God has been very gracious to me and helped me be drawn more to genuinely being concerned about other people. And it's still not an overly quick natural type thing. But yet you can do that and people know. People know if you're generally concerned for them. And when you care for others out of a genuine heart concern, you appreciate the situation to influence them because they know you care for them and ultimately you want the best for them.

The second thing is this, if we want to be people of influence, we have to be a person of integrity. It says in verse 22, "But you know how Timothy has proved himself. Like a son with his father he has served with me in preaching the good news." Integrity is proven over time. Integrity is when what we say and what we do match up. That we're in them for the most part in our life we are consistent in who we are and what we do. Integrity is simply being where we said we would be and doing what we said we would do. Integrity is simply being dependable. Paul tells us in, excuse me, James tells us in James chapter 5 verse 12, "But most of all my brothers and sisters, never take an oath by heaven or earth or anything else, just say a simple yes or no, so that you will not sin and be condemned. See that's integrity. Your yes is a yes, your no is a no. And sometimes we forget that but when people know they can depend on us, when people know that we are individuals of integrity, that if we say that we'll do something, we'll do it. Yet we're also honest that there's something we're unable to do, we'll tell them we're unable to do it. Then that builds us an opportunity to influence them because they know we can what? Be dependent on. Where we understand what we believe and we understand who we are and we want to live that way and it doesn't mean that we're perfect but we're consistent in our lives. We have to recognize that and see that.

The third thing is if we want to be people of influence we need to be trustworthy. Verse 23 and 24, "I hope to send him to you just as soon as I find out what is going to happen to me here and I have confidence from the Lord that I myself will come to see you soon. Why does that talk about being trustworthy? Because Paul knew that if he sent Timothy to this church of Philippi, actually a church that Paul himself started back in the day, you can read about that in the book of Acts, where he started this church himself in Philippi, and he can send Timothy, who is not the part of that started in that church, but yet he could send Timothy, who would represent him well. There is something to be said for people who are able to represent another individual well. And we can be trustworthy. We're worthy of trust. Here's what we really know deep down. We know this. Trust is a very difficult thing to attain. Sometimes it's simple to lose. And once it's lost, it takes a long time, if ever, to restore that sense of trust. And maybe you've had that in a relationship, that you were hurt badly in a relationship with somebody and they violated the trust that you had in them. And if you think about it, how long might it have took, if ever, were you able to restore that that trustworthy relationship with them. But when we know we can be trusted, when people know we can be trusted. Then we have influence in their life.

The fourth thing we see here, I believe, is that we need to be relational. Verse 25, "Meanwhile I thought I should send Epaphroditus back to you." Again, remember I told you the Philippi church sent him to Paul. "He is a true brother, co-worker, and fellow soldier, and he was your messenger to help me in my need. Why do I see that as relational observation? It's because of this. As I mentioned, Ephrodite did not know who Paul was. He knew him by reputation, never met him to my knowledge. Scripture doesn't indicate any way that he had. So he went there for the first time and he meets this giant of leadership in the early church. And as As Paul describes him as a brother, co-worker, fellow soldier, I'm thinking something happened in that time they got there. They built up this relationship with each other that I have to believe, and maybe I'm making some underlying jumping to conclusions on this, but they had to have times of just conversation of sharing with each other and sharing their hearts and their vision and their plans and what's going on. And as a result of that, all of a sudden this gentleman that Paul had not known until he came to him was able to embrace him as a brother, a co-worker, a fellow soldier. And then he's letting the church know when Ephraimus brings that letter back, that he had done his job well in representing the church. John Maxwell, who's a writer and a speaker, says there are friends, There is family, and then there are friends that become family. We understand that. There's relationships. We have friends, and we have family. And sometimes those friends that we have, they just become a part of our family. And as we build relationships with other people at different levels, we are going to be able to have influence in their lives through the relationship that we have built with them.

Next, if we wanna be people of influence, we need to be committed. Verse 26 and 27, "I am sending him "because he has been longing to see you," and I'm sending him back to you with this letter, "and he was very distressed that you heard he was ill. "And he certainly was ill, in fact, he almost died, "but God had mercy on him and also on me "so I would not have some sorrow after, "one sorrow after another." You see, it was his commitment to Paul. It was his commitment to bring this gift from the Philippian church. It was his commitment to them that he held, even in illness, even in distress, he still was gonna maintain his commitment to be there to represent the church of Philippi to Paul. You know, there are some things that we may be interested in but we're not committed to. And there's a difference. I had a friend who contacted me and he was going to, the church that he attends, they were gonna offer a Hebrew class. So he calls me on the phone, he says, "Hey, Phil, I'm gonna take this Hebrew class. "Would you like to join me?" And I said, "Well, that sounds interesting, "but no, thank you." Absolutely not am I gonna do that. You gotta be kidding me. They're not even real letters, at least what I'm aware of. And so there was something maybe I was interested in, but not really overly committed to. I'm interested in camping. Camping in concept sounds interesting, but I hate camping. In fact, last time I can remember I went camping, it was with Kevin and Cheryl Snyder, a long time ago. And they're experts at camping. And we went, had a good time, hate camping. They can attest to you that I would get up earlier than anybody else. We weren't where we were camping, was not too far from a town. I drive into the town, have coffee and read. Well, they were all sleeping. They come back when they were all getting up and that sound like a good idea to me. So anyway, we have that. We have things we think are interesting to us. We have things that seem like a good idea, but they're not. We all have those. But yet what we're talking about here is being committed to something. Committed no matter what. Committed because you said that you would do something. Committed because even though you are not maybe most enthusiastic on a certain day for certain things that you've committed to, you still do it because you're committed. And when you are committed, you can influence people because you're speaking out of that commitment.

Now, this next one is very important. It's be respected by those who know you best. If you want to be a person of influence, you have to be respected by those who know you best. It says in verse 28 and 29, "So I am all the more anxious to send Him back to you, for I know you will be glad to see Him, and that I will not be worried about you. Welcome Him in the Lord's love with great joy, and give Him the honor that people like Him deserve." You see, the people who knew him best, Aphrodite was the Philippian church. And Paul knew when he went is that he is coming back to you. And they were going to be enthusiastic and excited to see him. You know, we can impact people from a distance, but we can only influence people up close. And if the people who know you best don't respect you or don't see who you are really in your life, then it's going to be hard to influence other people. And since I started off with a blast from the past for some, I'm going to go back a little bit. There was a song out called "Cats in the Cradle." And it was a song roughly, exactly, about a little boy who wanted time with his dad, but his dad was too busy doing other things to other people-- his job, his career, his profession. He was just zooming on through his life. And it tells at the end of the song, of course, again, if you've heard it, if not, go ahead on YouTube. I'm sure you can find it at the very end of his life. In essence, he did influence his son because his son became just like him. And his son did not have time for his father because his father didn't have time for him. So no matter what his dad did, it made no difference because he had not neglected his family. He neglected the people who knew him best. And we best influence people as we are known and we're respected by those who know us best.

The last one is be authentic. Verse 30, for he risked his life for the work of Christ and he was at the point of death, while doing for me what you couldn't do from far away. He risked his life for the work of Christ. He did not merely have a good faith or talk a good faith, he lived a good faith. He was willing to risk his life for the work of Jesus. He was authentic in every way. Authenticity is something that, In our world today, people long to truly see. I read someplace, and it's one of those things, I either read it, I heard it, or I made it up. I'm gonna give it to you anyway. That the new leadership is authenticity. The more authentic you are with people, the more authentic you are, warts and all, with people. in essence, the more influence you have with them. Because if you're willing to share your life with people, as a fellow sojourner in the gospel with Jesus Christ, that influences other people. It was probably two weeks ago, maybe a bit longer ago, where on Facebook I saw this post about a gentleman named Keith Drury, who was a mentor of mine, really more influential in my life back in my early years, in my 20s, the 80s, long time ago. And he had passed away. Suddenly, 78 years old. And I got to tell you this. Some of you who are younger think, wow, that guy lived a good life. You get to be my age, you're thinking, dude, that's young. What's all going on? And so we found out he just had a stroke. Just boom, unexpected. For the most part, healthy and all that stuff. And I remember reading that post and I thought, oh my gosh. And I began to think about Keith Drury's influence in my life. And again, it was back when I was in my early 20s, I was early in ministry and this guy named Keith Drury who was in a leadership position in the Wesleyan church or the Wesleyan movement which Spring Valley is a part of. And he had a heart for the next generation. And so he gathered, I think there might have been about 30 or 40 of us. And he just reached out to us, and we were from all over the country. And most of us, frankly, were youth pastors. That in itself was a scary thing, okay? And he decided to gather us together, and he just decided to call us that we were in his cadre. And basically he said, "I'm going to pour into you, young men and women." And he used to tell us way back in the day, he used to say, "There's going to come a day where all of you are going to have some kind of a leadership position in the Wesleyan movement." And we would look at each other and think, "Who'd want to be a part of something we were in charge of?" Because we were young, we were brash, we were youth pastors, We were idiots in a lot of cases. And he just kept telling us that and then he kept pouring into us, and there's still things that he has said they learned. And you know what? He was right. Most of the individuals who are in that cadre back in the day, some of us like myself are already retired after all that. But we have led in certain areas of influence in the Wesleyan Movement, local church, wider district level, denominational level, whatever it might be. We had that. And I can remember all the accolades again pouring in, people talking about Keith and reminding each other about Keith. And frankly, over the last several years, probably the last 15 or so years, his influence primarily in my life, it still was there, was secondary through his writing. Before he relocated to Florida where he retired to, he lived in the Indianapolis area. When I was in the area, I'd go by and to visit with him and talk with him and just chat with him about things I was going through and struggling with and wondering about. And he always was very mindful and willing to take time for me. But there was a phrase he used to use. In fact, he used to sign off in all of his correspondence. I don't mean email. They didn't have it back then. Letters, notes, whatever it might be. But he had the same phrase he used to end up and you simply say this, keep on keeping on. Keep on keeping on. And I got to tell you, over the years when I got discouraged and disgruntled and disrupted, disruption in my life and different things going a certain way, I remember Keith saying, keep on keeping on. Because the influence they had in my life.

Every single one of you here has the ability and the opportunity to influence other people. Through some of the things that we just talked about this morning, about what it means to be a person of influence. You already are influencing people. It may be at your school, it may be in the workplace, it may be in your family, but you're influencing people. You're influencing people to make better choices. You're influencing people to have deeper meaning. You're influencing people toward a relationship with Jesus Christ. And here's the interesting thing, you don't know the influence you'll have in other people's lives that you don't know because the people you have influence now. As you influence people now, they will influence people. I can guarantee you there are people who I've had the opportunity and privilege to influence in their life and it's because of people like Keith Drury and they don't know Keith Drury, but it's the influence he had in my life, the influence the people I had and other people's life and I like to think that they'll influence other people who will have no idea who I am, who will influence them and it's the same for you. You can influence people in their lives right now and then you have no idea that ripple effect that influence is going to have throughout about generation after generation after generation. Be people of influence.

But before I wrap up, I have to ask this question. Do you know Jesus? We talk about influencing people for the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. Do you know Jesus? And if you don't, this is the opportunity you have to recognize that you do not have a relationship with Jesus and you're short of the grace of God. And you grab a hold of that grace by simply telling, God, I need you. I'm a sinner. Forgive me. Come into my life. Transform my life. From this point on, I will walk with you. And if you haven't done that, I want to give you the opportunity right now to do that. We're not going to bow our heads. We're not going to close our eyes. We all kind of talk and think out loud, and our minds are wandering here and there. I'm sure some of you have wondered and since we've been talking up here. She's okay, I probably have to. But just take a moment right now, in your own way, in your own words, simply let God know. If you don't know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you know that you know. You may be religious, you may have some idea of religion, you may have some idea of Bible, but you don't really know Jesus as your Savior. Maybe you're like a friend of mine named Dan who was raised in the Catholic Church, disengaged. And I was, through a certain ministry, he came to know Jesus Christ as personal savior, and I had the privilege to disciple him. And as I was discipling him, his understanding of spiritual stuff and God was pretty incredible for a brand new person of faith, at least as far as relationship with Jesus. And I said to him, I said, "Dan, "how do you know all this stuff?" I hope I don't forget what he said to me. He said to me, "Oh, Phil, I always knew there was a God, "and I knew all this stuff about God. "I just didn't know I could know him personally. "That was a game changer for me." And maybe that's you. Maybe you know all these things about God, and you believe these things about God, but you've never walked into that personal relationship with him. That's what I'm asking you to consider this morning before we wrap up. Simply, do you genuinely, deeply know Jesus? And if not, just gonna pause for a short moment and give you the opportunity right where you are to ask Christ to come into your life, in your own way, in your own words, and receive him into your life.

Father, I just thank you and praise you for this morning. First of all, I want to thank you that we can be influencers for you, that we can see the example of Timothy and Aphrodite of what it means to be just influencers. We're normal people, nothing super supendous about us, we can just influence people in our lives. And Father, I do pray for anyone here who asked Christ to come unto their life for the very first time. They came to that point of decision this morning. Lord, I ask first of all that you would affirm that with your spirit. You would affirm that they are in your household now. That they are family and they've been forgiven. And Father, you would just give them that confirmation, affirmation through your spirit that you provide for us. We do give you honor and we give you praise and we ask you in Jesus' name, amen. And the last thing I'll say for Pastor Chris comes up here is if you prayed to Jesus and asked Christ to come into your life, tell somebody. Tell somebody. Tell 'em.

Philippians: Part 4

Philippians: Part 4 - Lights in the World

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Good morning. We are so glad you're here today. If I haven't met you, I am Pastor Lauren. and I'm just one of the teaching team here. I'm often back with the kiddos, but today I get to be in here with the grownup kiddos. So that's fun. So we are in our Philippians series. If you haven't been around yet, we are on our fourth week, and we're talking about the joy that endures. So really just, Paul talks a lot in Philippians about maintaining a joyful heart and letting that endure despite our circumstances. So some things we've covered. we talked about being grateful, just a general attitude of gratefulness. We talked about choosing joy despite our circumstances, that happiness is really circumstantially dependent, but joy is not, that is eternal. And then last week, Pastor Andre talked about imitating Christ and how he came as a human and he died on the cross, and so his obedience, we can imitate him in our obedience. So today, we are going to continue on with chapter two. and we're gonna be in verses 12 through 18, so if you wanna pull that up in the Bible or the app, we'll have it on the screen. We're gonna be jumping around to a bunch of different scriptures today, so we'll make sure we have them up on the screen for you, but if you wanna follow along in our Philippians passage, you can do that. Chapter two, 12 through 18. And we're just gonna kinda break down more of the how-to of imitating Christ.

So first off, before we get started, I'm just going to read the whole section of scripture for us, and then we're gonna dive deeper into it. So read along with me. Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Do everything without grumbling or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain. But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me." All right, so let's break this down.

All right, so verse 12, "Therefore, my dear friends, "as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, "but now much more in my absence, "continue to work out your salvation "with fear and trembling." If you haven't noticed, in a lot of Paul's writing, he likes the word therefore. He refers back often. Basically, the book of Romans is just a constant therefore over and over again. And same with Philippians. I was scrolling back up and I was like, "Okay, that section has a therefore, okay, that section." We're just gonna keep going all the way back to the beginning. But here, he is referring back to the earlier passage in chapter two that Pastor Andre talked about last week, the imitating Christ. And he's connecting it back because he wants us to make the connection that Christ's obedience should be connected to our obedience. Because of Christ's death and resurrection, because he was obedient to God's will, we too must be obedient to God's will. And we can choose obedience as we work out our salvation. Now notice this doesn't say work for your salvation. We're not doing a workspace salvation here, okay? We're not trying to earn our way to heaven. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourself. It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast." It's by God's grace and through our faith in Him that we have been saved, even before we do a thing. We work out what God works in us. So God has done the work of salvation in our hearts. He has gifted us. It is a free gift that he has given to us. And we accept that gift. And then we go out of that gratefulness, out of that love, out of gratitude for the free gift. We work out our salvation. It's kind of like a muscle. If you don't work the muscle, it'll start to atrophy. Working out doesn't create muscle. It builds it. But if you don't work out, if you never use it, it's just, it's gonna atrophy and be not functional. Another word that we can use here is to activate. We are activating our salvation. We're living it out in our everyday lives. A kind of a churchy word here is holiness or sanctification where it is to be a part, to be set apart for God's purposes. Upon our salvation, we are consecrated to Him. We are set apart for Him and for His will. And then we activate our salvation by partnering with Him. We allow him to make us more like Christ. That is working out what God has worked in. And it goes on to say that we do this with fear and trembling. This isn't like a fear of failure or a fear of like punishment in hell. It is this all reverence of God. One commentator said, it's an awful reverence of God and a trembling with joy of an encounter with the glory of God. I loved that. You know, when you get so excited, you just like can't even handle it. That's how it is when we have an encounter with the glory of God. You should be different when you encounter God. God is working in us and He will never leave us the same.

Onto verse 13. It says, "For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." Again, God is working in us for his glory and for our good and the good of those around us. God is doing the work, but we are receiving his power in order to activate our salvation. Second Peter 1:3 says, "His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness, everything we need. So by His grace, we are able to receive salvation. And then by His power, we are able to live it out. We are able to work out that salvation. So good news, guys, it's not up to us. It's not reliant on us. We don't have to be enough. He is enough. He's the one who gives us the grace and the power to live out what he has done in our hearts. John 14:18-20, just a paraphrase of what Jesus said. He said, "I will not leave you as orphans. I will be with you and you will realize that you are in me and I am in you." He has given us the Holy Spirit. We have our own work to do as followers of Jesus, but he gives us the power. He indwells us with the Holy Spirit so that we are able to work out our faith.

All right, now onto verse 14 and not gonna lie, it's a bit of a doozy, so hang with me here, okay? It's only six words, but it gets me every time, okay? Do everything without grumbling or arguing. Some translations say complaining or arguing. I'm gonna say it again. do everything without complaining or arguing which things? Everything, all of them, all the things. Do them without complaining or arguing. I recently had our kids memorize this verse and I memorized it with them. And if I could just tell you or show you the I rules that are in my house, when I bring up this verse and I remind them of this verse, when we start to complain, It stinks sometimes. It's easy to complain, right? It's easy to get caught up in what's going wrong or what's just frustrating or not right. First Thessalonians 5:18 says, "Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ." How many circumstances? All of them. All of them, every last one of them. Doesn't mean we're gonna like it all the time. Doesn't mean it's gonna feel good. I tell my kids all the time, you may not feel like doing something. You may not enjoy this particular thing, but hard doesn't mean bad necessarily. We can still give thanks. We can still choose gratitude. Psalm 119:1-2 says, "Joyful are people of integrity who follow the instructions of the Lord. Joyful are those who obey his laws and search for him with all their hearts. Psalm 3:1-2. Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight. That's us. For those of us who have received the gift of salvation, this is us. Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty. Because we have been saved by Jesus, we always have a reason to be joyful. It doesn't mean it's always gonna be easy. We may have to be really intentional in choosing that joy, but we always have a reason for it. Why, why though? Why should we choose joy? Why should we give thanks in all circumstances and do everything without complaining or arguing?

Well, good news, Paul gives us the answer right here. Verse 15-16, "You may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life." It's so that you look different. As Christ followers, we're not supposed to look like everybody else. We're not supposed to look like the culture or the world around us. We're supposed to look different. These words blameless and pure, it's like the innocence of children, or it can also have this connotation of a sheep that doesn't have horns, a hornless sheep that can't even do harm if it wanted to. Our words, our complaining and grumbling could do harm, maybe to our own souls or maybe to those around us. So if we are blameless and pure, we can be like innocent sheep who are not doing harm. This even goes back to chapter one of Philippians, verse 27 says, "Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ." Complaining, arguing, grumbling, that is not in a manner worthy of Christ. Now, a little caveat here, this is different than processing. This is different than maybe stating facts for a situation that you may be experiencing. Sometimes we need to share what we're going through. Sometimes we need to process with someone. But there's a difference. When you are just complaining or whining or trying to be difficult or divisive, You're not looking for a solution. You just want to be upset. That's different than crying out to God. There's a whole book of the Bible called Lamentations where the author is lamenting to God. It's not called complaining, it's lamenting. He's pouring out his heart to God. There are seasons that we're gonna go because it hurts just plain hard. And we can lament, we can bring those things to Him. We can say, God, here's what is going on. Can you help me please? But we're looking for a solution. And more importantly, we're looking for more of Him. We're taking our circumstances to Him. We're taking our struggles. We're taking our list of complaints maybe, and saying, God, I really wanna complain about this, but can you help me with this? Be enough for me. Be with me in this situation. We don't have to look very far to find complaining. It's an election year. We don't have to look very far to find complaining, arguing, divisiveness. It's easy to find. But we're called to be different.

Paul here in this passage, there's quotation marks. I don't know if you've noticed in your Bible, what it says, in quotations, it says, "Children of God without fault "in a warped and crooked generation." Here he's quoting Deuteronomy 32:5. And this is Moses talking in the Deuteronomy passage. He's talking about the nation of Israel. At first I thought, just thinking, not without researching it, I thought, oh, he must be talking about the neighboring nations of Israel. No, no, no, no. He was talking about Israel, the chosen people of God. He was saying, "You are a warped and crooked generation." Because they were grumbling. Because they were constantly complaining to God and not trusting Him with their circumstances. Paul saying, "Don't be like rebellious Israel." The thing about complaining and arguing is that it's a form of rebellion in our hearts. When I was reading this passage and I realized that Paul was referring to the Israelites here, I thought, "Oh man, these are the people of God and they're complaining and they're rebelling." So when we complain, when we grumble, when we choose that over gratitude and over trusting God, it is a form of rebellion in our hearts and all that hurts, I hate that. because I can't tell you how many times I have a spirit of arguing and complaining and grumbling. But when we choose to be joyful, when we choose gratitude, when we flip the script and say, "I could very easily complain about this, but I'm gonna take it to God instead," we are pushing back against our innate bent towards rebellion. And then we stand out like stars, like light in a night sky. I love what a commentator wrote on this part of this passage. He said, "We are to fulfill our place as lights in the world." Lights are used to make things evident. Lights are used to guide. Lights are used as a warning. Lights are used to bring cheer. Lights are used to make things safe. Paul knew that the lights were in a bad place. Instead of excusing the lights for not shining, Paul knew that their position made it all the more important that they shine. Being in a dark place is a greater incentive to shine. We don't need an excuse to not shine. We need to go out into the dark world and be a light. I'm not talking about toxic positivity or brushing things under the rug because you wanna put on a face and look like you have it all together. I'm saying true joy, when we experience true life transformation, we shine. We can't help it. And we do this by holding firmly to the word of life. Scripture, the Bible. We have to be in the word, we have to study it, we have to know it. So when we are tempted to go towards that bent of rebellion, when we're tempted to complain or be divisive or argue, we have scripture to call upon. That's why I had my kids memorize it so that they know, oh no, I'm complaining or arguing, but no, I can choose a different option. We hold fast to it. We hold strongly to it and don't let it go. so that we are prepared and equipped to choose joy.

Paul wraps up this section by saying, "And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain. But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you." So you too should be glad and rejoice with me. Paul here is saying that if the people of Philippi, people he's writing to, the church he's writing to, if they choose joy over complaining and they continue to work out their faith, all of his sacrifice will be worth it. He has poured himself out. He has emptied himself for this ministry to spread the gospel and he's saying, I'm good. It's worth it because you're working out your salvation. you're paying it forward and spreading the gospel beyond what I can reach. He knew Christ was coming back. He didn't know when, but he knew that Jesus was coming back.

So his heart's desire was that the people that he ministered to would live out the heart transformation that God did in their lives. He hopes that whatever transformation and the therefore behavioral change that came of that, that they would go and continue to spread the gospel, that they would share what God did in their hearts and lives and that other people would hear about Jesus. So how do we have hope or sorry, how do we have joy that endures? We work out our faith like a muscle. We work out our salvation. We choose gratitude over complaining, even when it's hard and even when it's unpopular. It's easy to get caught up in the gossip or the complaining when you're hanging out with friends or when you post on social media and you just wanna jump in. So easy. Maybe unpopular to change the conversation or to not partake in it. But we can choose gratitude instead of complaining. And lastly, be a light to those around us. Like a star guiding others to Jesus, pointing them to Him. Because He's our joy. He is our joy regardless of our circumstances, regardless of what we're going through. So like Paul, we can know that Christ is coming back. And so therefore we should choose joy too. When we're working out our faith, when we're striving to be more like Christ, and then others around us will see it. Be like a beacon, like a lighthouse, pointing the way to Jesus and a relationship that can be found with Him.

Philippians: Part 3

Philippians: Part 3 - Imitation & Limitation

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

The great philosopher Aristotle says, "To imitate is code natural to human beings from childhood. And in this, they differ from other animals because they are the most imitative and produce their first acts of understanding by means of imitation. Also, everyone delights in imitations. I was a great philosopher, Aristotle. If you think of a baby's first memorable interactions, some of them, most of them, are probably when they're imitating mom or dad. When they're growing up learning and maybe mom or dad are in their face saying "mama" or "dada" and then they say and they're imitating, and they bring such joy. Babies imitate facial expressions, tone of voice.

For any parents or those of you who have been around children, you know that part of their play is sometimes imitation. Whatever happened in their life, they're gonna imitate it and they're gonna play that out. I know for us, when Kinsley was going to preschool a couple years ago, we noticed that when she started coming home, and just from coming from preschool, she would want to play preschool. And so she'd bring all of her stuffed animals into the room and that she'd line them up, and she was imitating preschool. And so she was the teacher though, and one of us back here, I was a teacher's aide, and then all the stuffed animals were different kids, even to the point where some of the stuffed animals were ones that got in trouble, like the ones that got in trouble in real life. So she's like, "Hey, go put that bear in timeout," because it was not following instruction.

So imitation is a part of how we learn. You may have also heard this other quote, which is, "Imitation is the greatest form of flattery." You guys heard that? Yes? Well, I didn't know this, but did you know the full quote from Oscar Wilde says this, "Imitation is the greatest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness." Yeah, a little more negative outlook on things. That imitation is only a shell or a shadow of the original greatness. And at the same time, or sometimes people who imitate, people will think, does that person have anything original themselves? Are they just imitating because they can't do something great themselves? But at the same time, we know that imitation can be really positive. It can help someone become great. You think of an athlete or an artist. An athlete, someone who maybe is a kid who looks up to one of their favorite athletes, are going to do all the same drills, all the same techniques. Maybe they'll have the same diet. They want to practice how they're--maybe it's Steph Curry in basketball or something like that. They're going to shoot the way that Steph Curry shoots because they want to be like him. or an artist who is learning how to paint, they're going to imitate their favorite art. So they're going to paint the same scenes, they're going to use the same tools or the same kind of paint. Imitation can help people to become great. Imitation is a key in our cognitive development. Again, think of those babies or those children. They're learning for years and years from imitating emotion or responses, language, skills, even more. And so in many areas of our lives, we are called to imitate until we can do it ourselves, until we can own it and say, this is the way that I do it. Like artists finding their own style or even parenting. Are you parents out there? You're maybe copying what your parents did until you kind of find your own rhythm, figure out now this is the way that I wanna do it. But you start in a place of maybe imitating. Imitation is something that God created. It's a fundamental part of how humans learn, and it's also a fundamental part of the Christian life. As followers of Jesus, who do we imitate? Maybe we imitate someone who's discipling us or a mentor. Maybe we have a favorite character in the Bible and we imitate them. Ultimately, we are imitating Christ. However, unlike these other areas of our lives where eventually we move on from imitating, in the Christian life it's a bit different. We never grow out of imitating Jesus. We imitate Jesus for life. Imitation of Christ as God has been in the Bible since the beginning.

In Genesis, the Trinity says at creation, "Let us make humanity in our image." We have examples like Elisha who imitated Elijah. Some of the good kings in the Old Testament were trying to imitate the best kings, David and Solomon. In the New Testament, we have the disciples who were taught to imitate Jesus. In our passage today in Philippians, Paul is instructing them to imitate Jesus as well. The problem is when someone is a new believer today and they don't know who Christ is, how can they imitate someone that they don't know? And people today don't have the privilege, as the disciples did, of walking with Jesus, being around Jesus, they gotta spend three years with him, learning the way he responded, learning his characteristics and his thoughts and how he processed. We don't have that. So how are we supposed to do it? How are we supposed to imitate Christ if Jesus isn't walking the earth today? Well, Paul addresses that in his letter. And so the goal for us today is to learn who Christ is in order to imitate Christ in our lives. Just pray with me again. God, thank you again for your word, for your truth. We pray right now that you would open up our hearts and minds to receive what your spirit is guiding us to. We want to have a deeper understanding of who Christ is and what he does, and so that we can live out being Christ in our lives. God, I pray that through your spirit, you would convict where conviction is needed. You would encourage where encouragement is needed. that we would rely on you for everything. We pray this in your name, amen. All right, so we're gonna go, if you wanna open up your Bibles to Philippians chapter two, and we're gonna start in verse five, and we're gonna go verse by verse and see what Paul says.

So it says in verse five, "In your relationship with one another, "have the same mindset as Christ Jesus," verse six, "who being in very nature God "did not consider equality with God "something to be used to his own advantage." We'll pause right there. First of all, we see that Paul is explaining that Jesus is God. We believe in the Trinity, three persons, one God, and Jesus is God. And so for the Philippians hearing it, knowing that there was a God out there, and if they're Christians, they know of God, and they think of the Old Testament, and all the stories they may have heard of the God of the Old Testament, the God of Israel who did all these things and was this certain way, Paul is trying to make the connection, Jesus is that God. We know that God is loving and kind, compassionate, slow to anger, a redeemer, merciful, a sustainer, and so much more. And Jesus is that very person. Jesus is God. And almost immediately, Paul also gets to Jesus's humility. Jesus does not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Paul here is trying to compare Jesus to all the people who came before who made that mistake of trying to, who considered equality with God something to be achieved, something to be had. If we go all the way back to the very beginning in the garden, we think of Adam and Eve. When they took that fruit, we're thinking, this is what it's gonna take for me to be like God. I want this. I can be like, I can be God. I can do this on my own. We think of the Tower of Babel, and them building this tower to the very top, to the heavens to say, I can be at this, we can be at the same level as God. We can be like God. Think of Pharaoh in the Old Testament, another cheap imitation of a God who thought himself at that level of God. Or the Israelites making their own gods kept falling away from Yahweh and trying to do it themselves. All of them considered equality with God something to be grasped. And Jesus, who absolutely is equal with God, because he is God, well, he, even he knows his role and knows what he has to do and he humbles himself.

You're taking notes on who Jesus is and therefore what you're supposed to do. First note, don't consider equality with God something to be grasped. It never works that well. Let's continue in verse seven. It says, "Rather, he made himself nothing "by taking the very nature of a servant "being made in human likeness." He didn't arrive as a king. He didn't arrive as a demigod or some sort of in-between, but he took on the lowest role, a servant. Jesus empties himself to serve humanity. And we see Jesus instruct his disciples to do the same in Mark 10:45, it says, "For even the Son of Man came "not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life "as a ransom for many." So that instruction that Jesus gives his disciples goes for us today too. We are to serve others. Jesus emptied himself to serve, taking on human flesh, what we call the incarnation, what we celebrate every Christmas. Jesus came to do that, lowered himself to serve others. Verse eight, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. We are now moving from Jesus' pre-incarnate humility to Jesus' incarnation and passion. So in verse six, we see what Christ did not do, which was consider equality with God, something to be grasped, but in verse eight we see what Christ did do, and he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

And Paul makes that emphasis because he knows that his audience, the church in Philippi, would know that that punishment, that death on a cross, is beyond just "he died." That death on a cross says something. It was significant because it was reserved by the Romans for the worst slaves, the most gruesome and horrifying and humiliating death. Cicero, a Roman philosopher and statesman, writes this about crucifixion. He says, "Crucifixion was the worst extreme of the tortures inflicted upon slaves. To bind a Roman citizen is a crime. To flog him is an abomination. To slay him is almost an act of murder. To crucify him is what? There is no fitting word that can possibly describe so horrible a deed. And while Christ isn't a Roman citizen, that description of Christ's death still is true. This was absolutely the worst thing that Christ could have endured. Paul also says that Christ was obedient to the point of death, And so thinking of Christ's obedient death brings us to one of the most significant moments of Christ's obedience, and that is in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus is having a conversation with God. If you remember, He took His disciples there, and He went off a little bit farther, and they were supposed to pray, and they fell asleep. So it's okay, even disciples fall asleep. Just know that today. But He goes a little bit farther, and he's praying with everything he has to God, asking God, "Is there any other way?" And he knows that there isn't, but he's having this intense discussion and he submits himself to God the Father and carries on. And the rest we know. He's taken away, goes through the trial, he's punished, he's tortured, and he's crucified. "but Christ was obedient continuously." Gordon Fee, a theologian writes this, "Here is where the one who as equal with God "has most fully revealed the truth about God, "that God is love and that his love expresses itself "in self-sacrifice, cruel, humiliating death on a cross "for the sake of those he loves." Paul is writing to the Philippians, hammering this home in their heads that the Christian life is one of humility and sacrifice. Humbling yourself, even to possibly humiliating extents, sacrificing yourself to love others. That's what the cross represents. That's what we are called to. It's the life Jesus lived, and that's what we are to imitate.

Verse nine, "Therefore God exalted him to the highest place "and gave him the name that is above every name." Paul has shown how Jesus has emptied himself, humiliated himself by obedience to the point of death on a cross. And now we see that God the Father drastically changes the status of Jesus, exalting Jesus to the heavens. God exalts him to the highest place and then gives Jesus the name that is above every name, Lord or Christ. In verse 10, that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. So we have this picture in our minds of all of humanity, all of creation, bowing down to Jesus, worshiping and submitting to the sovereignty of Christ. And then in verse 11, and every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. You think of all the times that humanity's words, God's own creation has spoken against God, has rebelled against God, has paid lip service to something evil, to themselves, to their own desires, and how much that pains God, how much that hurts Him and saddens Him, And yet there will be a time when all of heaven and earth will be praising Jesus. It's a beautiful picture. And going to our larger series of Philippians, it's one that gives us hope and joy in the midst of suffering. So Paul has answered this question in a very short form. Who is this Jesus that we are supposed to imitate? Well, Jesus is God. He humbled himself by becoming a servant. He was obedient to the point of death and then exalted by God and will be praised by heaven and earth. So we follow kind of a timeline of Jesus. He starts up high, he goes to the lowest of lows and then he's exalted again. We are to imitate that. We don't start up high, we start here on earth, which is a lowly place. But then we have the same destination. If we believe in Jesus, we also get to be exalted with Christ to heaven. So this section, verses six through 11 that we just read, is actually an early hymn. We don't know if Paul wrote it or if he's quoting someone, but it is a beautiful synopsis of the gospel. You get everything. If someone ever asks you, who is Jesus? You can bring it right here. Philippians 2:6-11. They'll tell you exactly who Jesus is and what he did. And it's really, this part is also pivotal to the whole letter. It's kind of the central point that Paul puts at the center of his letter. And the whole theme of unity, of joy, of enduring suffering is gonna come back to this. If you understand who Christ is, it will help you in whatever situation you find yourself in.

As you try to imitate, as you try to endure, as you try to be unified as a church, as we remember that the Philippians were dealing with the possible division, if you come back to this, if you remember who Christ is, and therefore who you are supposed to be, it will tell you and instruct you and guide you in those situations. And so, now I wanna go back to the beginning of our passage. Given that we have this understanding of who Christ is, let's read verses one through five. It says, "Therefore, if you have any encouragement "from being united with Christ, "if any comfort from His love, "if any common sharing in the Spirit, "if any tenderness and compassion "that make my joy complete by being like-minded, "having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind, "do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. "Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, "not looking to your own interests, "but each of you to the interests of the others, "and your relationship with one another "have the same mindset as Christ Jesus." If you were to even go back to chapter one and read, now having read verses six through 11, there'll be more for you to get out of those passages. But Paul gives three specific requests or instructional asks to the Philippians, and it's what we as a church need today too. So the first one is be unified with Christ. Have the same love. Be one in spirit and mind. Again, remember the church in Philippi is going through a rocky time There's possible division, and Paul has spoken for the need for unity before in this letter, and he's emphasizing it again. As Christians, we are to be unified in Christ, in spirit and in mind, and have the same love that Jesus had. Be unified with Christ.

We talked about this in week one, this partnership that we have with Christ. We are partners in the ministry. He is doing a work for his kingdom, and we get to partner with him and do that work as well. So work together with Christ. Number two is be humble. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Value others above yourself. Now we hear that and we're like, yeah, got it, done. I will try to think of others. It's a lot easier said than done. When we get into life, when we were at work or whatever situation, we very quickly think of our needs. We very quickly become selfish. I don't wanna do that. That does not benefit me. That's not gonna happen, 'cause I will then suffer in this way, so nope. But Jesus lived a different life, and Paul is calling us to also live a different life. Be humble, value others above yourself. You know who doesn't do this? Are people who consider themselves the best, or people who think that they are the most important and the world revolves around them. People who, whether consciously or subconsciously, might consider equality with God something to be grasped. So don't do this, be humble. And if you're thinking, man, it's really hard to be humble, to humble myself, think of Jesus in the garden before dying on the cross. And if Jesus can humble himself to that point, surely we can humble ourselves in the moments that we have in our lives. And why do we need to humble ourselves with the third point that Paul says is to be a servant. Not looking to your own interests, but looking to the interests of others. We need to serve as Christ served. And Christ served and loved and reached everyone, not just the convenient people in his life, not just the ones of a certain status or who made a certain amount of money. Jesus served even the least of those around him. The ones, and those are the ones that we should have in mind for us. As we go about our days and our lives, we should be looking to serve those who are in need. So, like Christ, as we imitate, we are to be unified in Christ, be humble like Christ, and be a servant like Christ. And I wanna end with some questions. Just as you are taking this all in, as the spirit I'm praying is working in you, I want you to reflect on your life.

So the first question is this, in your situation in life right now, whether at work or in your marriage or in friendships, at school, with your neighbors, as a leader, or maybe as a follower, how are you participating in the life of Jesus? Do you have the same heart and mind that Jesus had? Are you imitating Christ in your situation? Now you may not be called to die on a cross, please no, we don't want that, but are you dying to yourself every day? Becoming humble and becoming focused on serving others. I said at the beginning of our series that Paul over and over again is going to invite to participate in the life of Jesus. And after hearing who Jesus is, he immediately says, all right, are you gonna do this? Are you gonna be like Jesus? Second question is what would it look like if we imitated Jesus in every aspect of our lives? This is the point where you just kind of, you play that out in your head, whatever situation that you were drawn to, that is maybe that God is putting on you, what would it look like if you were to truly imitate Jesus? I don't know if you grew, I grew up with this certain bracelet and it was called, "What Would Jesus Do?" I loved it. I had a book, used one as a bookmark, had like four of them on my wrist growing up. And it's a simple question, but I love the question. What would Jesus do? Whatever situation you find yourself in, whether it's the need to respond or whether it's to act or not act or whether it's processing inside, what would Jesus do? How would Jesus process what just happened? How would Jesus respond to what just happened? What would Jesus not do? I want to do this, maybe Jesus wouldn't. What would it look like if you imitated Jesus in every aspect of your life, being selfless, loving, serving others? You're not considering equality with God, something to achieve in that moment, but your obedience to God, even to the point of earthly humiliation. Being humiliated is not easy for anyone. None of us like it. It's not good. Not a fun situation to be in.

But I like this quote from Charles Spurgeon, a great English preacher. He wrote, "Do you expect to be honored "in a world where your Lord was crucified?" I read that one and I was very convicted. What am I expecting of the world? How am I expecting the world to view me if even the world crucified our Lord and Savior? Part of partnering with Jesus in this life is accepting the fact that we may be humiliated as we serve, as we love. Next question is, do you live with the future hope of being glorified as Christ and being with God in heaven. I have a dad who is slowly fading away due to Alzheimer's. And heaven is on the mind a lot, not for me, but for him. And I was having this conversation with Chris Lindsay this week, just more about heaven and how close it really is. So does the future reality of your exaltation to be with God in heaven bring you joy in your current situation? Does being with God in the future bring you joy in your suffering, knowing that this is whatever experience, it has an end. It's not gonna be forever. And that God tells us, he gives us glimpses of what being with him is gonna be like. no more pain, no more suffering, no more sadness, no more sorrow, no more brokenheartedness. I know for me it makes me so joyful to think of my dad whole again with God. So whatever situation you find yourself in, Think of that future joy and cling to it. Rest in it, rejoice in it. And the final question for you this morning is are you trying to imitate Christ on your own? You see, our imitation of Christ has limitations. We can't be like Jesus without Jesus. We need him to pour into us, to give us strength, love, mercy, compassion, grace, whatever it is, in order for us to give that to other people. We are finite, we have the limits, we have an end. So after loving so much, we're like, I'm drained, I'm done, I have nothing else to give. Exactly, maybe some of you are coming here this morning like I'm exhausted, I got nothing to give, I'm showing up. That's okay, be poured into in this moment. That's what this is for. But even throughout your week, You have to rely on God. You have to rely on him to be your source in order to love other people. So whatever situation, again, that you find yourself in, the one that is testing you the most in life right now, depend on Jesus, rely on him. Ask him to give you what you need. If you know you're going into a situation, you're like, "God, I got nothing. "You know where I'm on, the tank is on E." Pray, "God, give me what I need right now. Give me words to say, give me the energy, give me love to have with these people who are annoying to no end. Give me the grace, ask God, be talking with him, but you can't do it on your own. You have a limitation, you're finite. It's just the way it is. And that's okay because really that's a good thing that makes us rely on God. So remember that you're not God, but we have God within us through his spirit who dwells within us and gives us what we need and guides us through our day. And for that, are we not grateful? Amen?

Let's go ahead and pray. God, thank you again for your word. Thank you for Paul's words, who gives us a very clear image of who Jesus is and how we need him, how we're not God, but how we are called to be like Jesus. And that's our desire. I pray that that desire in each of us would grow. And God, I pray that through this week, you would help through your spirit to guide us. Whatever we find ourselves in, in conversation or in a situation where we have to make a decision or with our kids where we need to be a good parent or be a good husband and wife, whatever it is, God, I pray that you would help us to know how to be like Jesus in those moments. Such a simple thought and yet it's so hard. Help us to rely on you. Give us what we need. We pray that prayer of the Lord, give us our daily bread, not just physical food, but Lord, what we need to get through each day. God, you are good. We praise you for that. We trust you. We know that you are working things out for your glory. Thank you for the opportunity to partner with you. God, I pray that you would encourage us along the way, empower us along the way. And that you would use each of us to further your kingdom. We give you all the glory. We pray this in your son's name. Amen.

Philippians: Part 2

Philippians: Part 2 - Moving Toward A Positive Attitude

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Just a great opportunity to be here and share with you this morning. Now last week, we started this Philippians series that was started last week by Pastor Andre, and I had a chance to listen to that online because I wanted to get a little idea of what he was talking about. He did a great job of giving an overview of how the church in Philippi started, but he had a statement that he used in there that was kind of the key, I believe it was, to what he was sharing with, and he said that we have talked about partnerships that we have, and he says we have a partnership with Christ and with each other. And that's vital to grab a hold. I want to remind us of that, that we have a partnership with Christ and with each other. And that's so vital to a faith community, to understand our partnership with each other and with Christ. And I'm excited to be a part of this series because Philippians is my favorite book in the Bible, and my favorite verse in the Bible is Philippians chapter two, verse five. I remembered it and memorized it out of what's called the J.B. Phillips translation when I was in high school, and that was about a minute ago that I was there. And here's how I memorized it. I've never forgot this. It simply says this. “Let Christ Jesus be your example as to what your attitude should be.” And that's what we're going to talk about this morning.

We're going to talk about how Paul helps us to understand the imperativeness and the importance of having the right attitude. And I love the fact that Paul talks about this because you think about where he's writing from. He's not writing from an ivory tower. As was mentioned last week, he's writing from being imprisoned. He is chained between two guards. He can't go anywhere. And then around him swirling is all this controversy that's happening in the church. And so he's writing from that perspective, and I think that's important for us to see and to hear, because sometimes we think, well, only time people talk about having a good attitude and when things are going well for them. And Paul talks about this in his context. And I will say this. This is something I've learned, and maybe you've learned this as well, is that it is It's much easier for me to have a positive perspective about your problems than my problems. Ever find that to be true? Oh yeah, when with someone else's problems we have a good attitude towards that and we also somewhere if you're like I am in the back of your mind you're going, "Man, I'm better you than me in that situation." And so we're going to talk about how Paul talks with us and shares with us about how how we can move towards a positive attitude that we can choose, foundational in our relationship with Jesus Christ. And we, you know, we hear like today, you know, some people will say, "Well, it's partly cloudy or can it be partly sunny?" We say, "Is the glass half full or half empty?" My dad used to always say, "A tire is only flat on the bottom." Which is actually true, but still odd, by the way. So we have these perspectives that we begin to gear in life. Sometimes we say, well, we have all these problems, and some people say, no, you really have opportunities. And a lot of times that's just it. It's just very contrasting kind of situations that we find ourselves in.

And Paul, as he is talking about this, he gets to a point where he allows us, through his word as he's writing this letter, and we're going to be looking at Philippians chapter 1 verses 12 through 26 as we begin to look at this and as Paul talks to us. So if you have a Bible with you or if you happen to be having it on your app or whatever it might be, open it up as we can follow along together. Now I'm using the New Living Translation, so if yours is a little bit different than what mine says, that would explain that particular thing. And I just want to share several practical things about how you and I can move toward a positive attitude as Paul talks to us from his situation. And I want to remind us again, even though I've already said it, that he is writing from a difficult situation. He's writing from prison. He's where he doesn't want to be. He's in a situation and his circumstances are not the best. And in the meantime, around him is all this controversy, and it's from this context that Paul writes and we can pull principles for us from his life as he shares it along the way. The first thing is this, if we want to move towards a positive mindset, then we need to change our attitude, or excuse me, change our outlook, change your outlook. Verse 12 says this, "And I want you to know, my dear brothers and sisters, that everything that has happened to to me here has helped to spread the good news. For everyone here, including the whole palace guard, knows that I am in chains because of Christ. And because of my imprisonment, most of the believers here have gained confidence and boldly speak God's message without fear." So what was he doing? In the midst of this situation, he was saying, "Yeah, I know where I'm at here." But he chooses to look at the, I guess you could say, the bright side of the situation. He changes his outlook. He moves from just where he is to what's happening out there. He says, "Well, yes, I'm here, "but the gospel's being spread." He said, "I'm here, but the believers who are not here "are getting boldness and confidence in their sharing." He chose not to look at his current reality, which was his imprisonment. Instead he looked at what that imprisonment was providing for the greater perspective. You see, Paul refused to see him as a captive. In fact, here's what I think I think. I think he actually saw the guards as the ones that were imprisoned. You see, he's chained between these two guards, and he's there and he's sharing his testimony. He's telling about Jesus. They can't go anywhere. Maybe you're at the office sometime and you have the opportunity to share your faith story and people say, "Well, excuse me, I've got to go over here right now." They can't do that. They're more in prison than he is. Because they have a job, they have to stand and listen to him as he shares his story. And so, as we go through our life, there are times when we just have to simply choose to change our outlook.

Now, some of you here know Joni, my wife, and we've been married. Are you ready for this? I haven't said it yet. This is pretty good. I know. Well, this coming June, we'll be married 49 years. We got married when we were 10, but that's okay. We're, you know, 49 years. And back in the '80s, this is the 1980s, not the 1880s, okay? Back in the 1980s, Joni was having some problems with her neck. We didn't know what it was, and she was, we were going to some doctors and chiropractor and everything, and trying to get this. She even went to a dentist and he said it was your wisdom. Anyway, all these problems in her neck. And finally, we got it diagnosed. And we found out that she had had, in her top part of her spinal column, the vertebrae had collapsed on itself. that's what was causing it, she didn't have any feeling in her hands, the whole thing. We found out really in all intents and purposes, she had a broken neck. And so when we got it taken care of, of course we saw we had to get it taken care of, and we found out later that the problem was that she had this slow growing tumor that had been there, benign thankfully, that had been there since she was probably a little girl because it's typically there in the lives of young people, kids, not adults. And so the perspective was that probably over all these years, slowly this tumor was growing and hollowing out this vertebrae, and it collapsed upon itself. So she went in for surgery. They had to pull her neck, stretch her neck like this, put in a-- she actually has a cow bone in her colon. I said, well, I thought it might be the bone of an ass. I'm really glad that that's what it is. We won't go any further than that. Anyway, and so she had to be in some form of a neck support for a year, for 12 months. And so when we were-- finally she got home. We had some friends of ours, Jim and Mary Ann. And Mary Ann was a wonderful lady, a good friend of Joni's. And so for many weeks, she came over at least once a week, and she cleaned the house. Because Joni couldn't do it. She looked at me and said, I know you're not going to do it. We had little kids, of course, at that time. So she came over every day and cleaned the house and was and would visit with Joni Well, we were with them just about a week ago Hadn't really hadn't seen him in many many years. We reconnected that actually had a memorial service So mutual friends and so we got together and Mary Ann told this story She said when I would come over and and and Joni would have this neck brace on She said Joni would always say to her I can be a pain or I can be a blessing and I'm choosing to be a blessing. You see Joni changed her outlook in that situation and then Mary Ann went on to say she goes Joni I've never forgotten that. In fact, I tell people constantly when they're going through challenging times you can be a pain or you can be a blessing.

So that's what we're talking about here in everyday life and situation that we encounter and circumstance that we don't anticipate And it may not even be that big of a thing in your life, but it's big to you. Here's the thing Problems are always bigger when there are problems Which is true But yet Paul says that regardless our situation we can change our outlook Then he goes on and gives us the next thing that we can do and apply to our lives that we want to clarify the situation In verses 15 through 17 it says it is true Now look how Paul lays this out He says it is true that some are preaching out of jealousy and rivalry But others preach about Christ with pure Motives they preach because they love me for they know I have been appointed to defend the good news Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition not sincerely intending to make my change more painful to me So so what are you doing? He is he is laying out the reality of the situation see sometimes people say when you have a more of a positive than a negative bent in your life is Because you are a pie in the sky kind of person which means that you just are living in a dream world world. That's not what it means. Paul is so aware of his situation. He's imprisoned. Some are preaching the gospel out of pure motives. Some are preaching because they have an ambition to be known as a speaker or a preacher, whatever it might be. And so he's very well aware of his situation. But the difference is that he's going to to make the decision to be positive anyway to look at what really is happening in all this situation he doesn't ignore this situation he is simply refuses to allow the situation to inform how he is going to respond and I recognize this is much easier said than done because well you're in the fire of a situation. Even though we know that we can be the ones to choose how to respond, it can sometimes become very difficult for us. And this was what Paul was talking about. I love the story. It's a parable. I don't think it's true, but it makes a point. There were two shoe salesmen that were sent to an island to sell shoes, to expand the business of the company they worked for. When they got there, they discovered that everybody there was barefoot. So one of the gentlemen texted back to his company, said, "I need to come back. Everybody here doesn't wear shoes." The other salesman texted his company and said, "Send more shoes. No one here wears shoes." Same situation, different perspective. That's all it is. And Paul says that here's the situation, but this is going to be my perspective. Thirdly, he says, choose response, choose your response to life. Because he just laid out all these things that are going on. Some are preaching the gospel for good reasons, Some are out of impure motives and selfish ambition.

And then he says in verse 18, "But that doesn't matter. Whether their motives are false or genuine, the message about Christ is being preached. Either way, so I rejoice. And I will continue to rejoice, for I know that as you pray for me in the Spirit of Jesus Christ helps me, "This will lead to my deliverance." I love that. He says, "This is what's going on, but what does it really matter? The important thing is happening. Jesus is being proclaimed. The gospel is being preached. That really doesn't matter. We'll let everything else sort itself out at this point, but we see what's really going on here." And I love how he says this. He says, "Christ is being preached either way." And at least this is how I kind of see or sense how he might be saying this. He says, "So I rejoice." And then I kind of envision him pausing for a minute and thinking, "And I will continue to rejoice." Like, "Let me give you some thought, "and I'm gonna keep doing this, "'cause it's the right thing to do." James Clear, who is a business author, I don't know if he's a believer or not, but he wrote a book called The Atomic Habits, and here's what he says. He says, "I can't control the other person's behavior, but I can control my response. Their actions may be rude or unacceptable, but I will want my response to be measured and thoughtful. Even if they aren't doing what is right, I will want to make sure I'm doing what is right. That's what Paul is saying. He actually is parodying Paul. He may not know it, but he is. I used to tell my kids, and now I tell my grandkids, I say, "You cannot control what people say about you. you can control if what they say is true. That's all you can control. People may say, I mean, I can call all kinds of things. Probably you have too. Throughout my life, some things have been said to me that I knew were rightly not true, but you know what? I can't control that. All I can control is what that person has said is true. And the same with any of us here. People may talk about us and talk about you or whatever, but you can't control that and try to go back and try to control it, it will just cause frustration. Instead, all you can control is if what they're saying is true. Number four, he says, he has confidence in the outcome. Confidence in the outcome.

So, verse 20, "For I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed, but that I will continue to be bold for Christ as I have been in the past and I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ whether I live or die." See, Paul was confident. He had an expectation that everything was going to work out well. It's another thing I learned from my wife. She always says everything's is going to work out. Sometimes when she says that, I'm thinking, I think you're really wrong on this one. I'm not really sure everything's going to work out, but it usually does. I can remember as a kid, and my dad was a roofing contractor, self-employed, had his own business, and those of you who have had your own business know this principle in life. When you don't work, you don't make money. So when I grew, growing up, I never knew what a vacation was. 'Cause we didn't take vacations. We'd come back from summer break, and of course you'd get to school, at least when I was a kid, they'd always say, tell us about your summer vacation. And I always thought, well, it was pretty much like it was before I left, I didn't, nothing. However, we did do one thing most summers. We lived in San Diego, by the way, and we would make a trip to Disneyland up in Anaheim. We'd drive up there. Now, back in the day, we didn't have the freeway system that we do now, so it was a little bit longer to get there. And back in the day, Disneyland wasn't surrounded by all these hotels and other things going on. As we would drive up there, the thing that you could see first was always the Matterhorn. Do they have the Matterhorn anymore? I don't know, but Mountain, the Matterhorn. And so as we got closer, my dad knew we would be getting closer, he would always say, "Who's gonna be the first one to see the Matterhorn?" So we had this expectation and we would anticipate it, and we would look because we knew as soon as we saw the Matterhorn, we were almost there. And here's Paul talking about, "I have this expectation that I will not be ashamed. I will continue to be bold for Christ." He has this expectation and when we have that we can have more of a positive mental perspective on things. And then lastly he says we have to be controlled by Christ. See when when you hear this and if we don't we don't understand the foundation of all of this, I think well that's just kind of a rah-rah positive mental attitude kind of sharing. No, it is, but it's not because what we can conjure up, it's because of that we are controlled by Christ.

It says in verse 21, "For to me living means living for Christ, and dying is even better. But if I live, I can do more faithful work in Christ, so I really don't know which is better. I'm torn between two desires. I long to go to be with Christ which would be far better for me, but for your sakes it is better I continue to live. Knowing this, I am convinced that I remain alive so I can continue to help all of you grow and experience the joy of your faith. And when I come to you again, you have even more reason to take pride in Christ Jesus because of and what He has been doing through me. See, knowing our standing in Christ allows us to stand in any circumstances that we encounter, but the foundation is our relationship with Jesus Christ. Knowing God is sovereign, which literally just means He has everything under control, ultimately. Even though there are times it seems like He has nothing under control. But he has everything under control. When we know that God is sovereign and ultimately he has everything under control, we can rest and trust in what he is doing and will do. When we know Christ, we know that he wants to do things in us and through us. In Ephesians chapter 5 verses 15 and 16, we read these words. So be careful how you live. Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Because we know Christ. Because we have a foundation in Him, then we can live wisely. We can make the most of every opportunity that comes across our paths in Christ. Now on most school days, I would go over and pick up my nine-year-old grandson to take him to school. when I drop him off on the curb at school, I always say two things, always, two things to him. I say, "Miles, I love you, and," ready for this, "make it a great day." And I want to emphasize the fact that I ask him to make it a great day, because what do usually people say? "Have a great day? That kind of leaves a lot to chance, doesn't it? Have a great day, well maybe something goes on you don't want, but I don't know if I can have that great year, but if I say, make it a great day, I'm communicating, no I get it, I get it, he's nine, I get it. So maybe it's more for me than for him, I don't know. But when I say, make it a great day, I'm saying, Miles, you got a lot of choices during this day, you're gonna have a lot of opportunities. Make it a great day. You choose the kind of day you're gonna have. You take responsibility for your day. Now again, I don't say all that stuff, but that's the underlying meaning. Maybe when he gets older, he'll understand that. I get it. Like I said, he's nine. When we begin to look for the best things that can happen daily, it's making the most of every opportunity. So no matter what encountered throughout the day because you may have a foundation in Jesus, you can look and say, "I'm looking for the opportunity in this. I'm gonna look and see what God is doing in this. I'm gonna see how I might be used by God in this. I want to see what God has to teach me in this." And so you begin to understand that life is and Jesus is what we make it and as we're open and responsive to him as I mentioned before foundational to all of this foundational to all that Paul was talking about in this passage was he had a relationship with Jesus Christ that he knew Jesus in an intimate way and he had the relationship with Jesus so that in In all these challenging times, he can be confident in who he is and who Jesus wants to be through him.

Now this morning you may have a, already have a relationship with Jesus, but yet maybe there are things that you haven't begun to realize that you can trust Jesus with, that he can help rearrange how you look at the things happen in your life. And this morning you may want to realize that, "Boy, I want to do what Paul says. I want to make sure I have more of a positive perspective because of what Christ is doing in me and through me and all the things that I encounter throughout any given day." Or you may not know Jesus in a personal way. You may know about Jesus, but you don't know Jesus. And you would like to have the opportunity to ask Christ to come into your life and to begin to transform you from the inside out. And I wanna give you that opportunity. So there actually are two things I'd like you to consider doing this morning. The first one is this, if you are a follower of Jesus, but you haven't really locked into the fact that God wants to use every situation in your life to build you up, to glorify his name, no matter how difficult they may be at any given time, then you want to commit yourself, Lord, help me to see things from your perspective. Help me to look for the positive in anything I come to grips with. Help me to know. And if you don't know Jesus, Very simple. You just gotta ask Him to come into your life and transform you and restore you in the right relationship with God. So in a moment, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna ask you to bow your heads. And prayer is simply talking to God. There's no magic formula. It's simply in your own words talking to God. So I'm gonna just give you just a few moments, And if you've not asked Jesus Christ into your life in your own way, ask him to come into your life and begin to transform your life. And if you know Jesus, then take this opportunity to just ask him to empower you to have the right perspective in the life that you encounter going out through this week. Just take a moment, quiet and do that. Father, you're doing a work in people's lives this morning. Father, for some it's the realization that they really haven't known you. They've known about you, but they haven't known you, and today they asked you to come into their life and to transform you, transform them to forgive their sins, and make you into the person that you, Lord, created them to be. And then, Father, there are some here who have been walking with you, but yet they've not trusted you in situations that they've encountered, they may be encountering right now. So God, I pray that you would simply confirm that you are present in their circumstances, confirm that they are your children, and that you want to be with them in everything, no matter what it may be, no matter how difficult it may be, that you want to be there with them. So Father, we give you honor and glory for what you've done in the lives of people this morning. And we ask that in Jesus' name. Amen.

Philippians: Part 1

Philippians: Part 1 - The Gift of Partnership

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I want to tell you a couple quick stories. In 2009, the CEO of Taco Bell began thinking that they needed to prioritize fresh new ideas for their business. They were doing well, but he thought they needed to keep pushing new things for Taco Bell customers. And a partnership was made in 2009 with another big company to collaborate on a product. That product is still around today. Any guesses on what Taco Bell and this collaboration might have, what they could be? Yes, okay, so this product wasn't introduced for another three years, but finally in 2012, the famous Doritos Locos Taco was introduced to the menu, and it quickly became a staple. The immediate success was so great that Taco Bell had to hire 15,000 new employees and start four new production lines at the Doritos Taco Shell company. So this, it was just huge. And yeah, it's still around today. Maybe some of you have had that taco. Different partnerships, Starbucks. Starbucks and Kraft, we all know crab, maybe mac and cheese, used to be partners. And Starbucks, great coffee. Kraft, massive food production company. And so they partnered together to help get Starbucks into the homes of people, not just at the stores, but they wanted to start selling whole beans to people so they could take them home and grind them up and have coffee at home. Well, in 2010, Starbucks wanted out of that partnership. They wanted to start making K-Cups for people that those new machines were coming out. And Starbucks said, we want that too. But they couldn't produce the K-Cups with Kraft, because the contract did not have that in there. And so Starbucks wanted to get out of their agreement. Before the contract was up, Kraft was not agreeing. And so they tried to have this settlement of, hey, we'll pay you this much if we can get out now. And Kraft said no. So Starbucks decided it was worth it anyways. They broke their contract and started making K-Cups. And it ended, or it went on for three years. This clash between the two companies, and it ended with Starbucks having to pay Kraft $2.75 billion.

So, I share these stories to say that a partnership can make or break a business, an adventure, and a good partnership, a healthy one, is beneficial for both sides. And today we're going to talk about the importance of good partnership. We just finished our Pre-decided series. We are very excited about that. How many of you from that series were encouraged or challenged to follow God in a new way? Or just, how many of you think that your year this year is going to be better because of the quality of your decisions? Yeah, raise of hands. Good. Yes. That is our prayer, that God would continue to speak to you and guide you through His Word and our time together. Well, as is our rhythm at Spring Valley Church, we're shifting now to go through a series, through a book of the Bible, and we're going to be beginning our series in Philippians. You may ask, "Why Philippians? How did we arrive here?" Well, as a pastoral team, a few months ago, as we were planning out this year, what we were going to cover on Sundays, we were praying about it and trying to decide or discern what God had for us. And we kept coming back to conversations that we were having with many of you. And at that time, the conversations revolved around hardships that you guys were going through, or hardships that you foresaw in the future going through. And the common question was, "How do I go through this hardship honoring God? How do I go through this thing well? Can't get out of it, this is kind of inevitable, it's happening right now, or I foresee that it's going to be happening, I know this is coming up and it's very difficult. How do I do that in a way that glorifies God?" And so as a team, as we were praying about that, we were drawn to the book of Philippians. Because as you were all talking about family or work or health-related issues, finances, living situations, children, the list goes on, we wanted to say, "What's a series that can meet all those things and talk about how to endure hardship?" And Paul writes a letter to the Philippians about having to endure hardship with joy. And the secret is that that joy is founded and sourced by Christ. So we're going to start this eight-week series. We're going to do it in two parts. We're gonna go four weeks starting now, then we're gonna stop for Easter, have a little Easter series break, and a small series after that, then we're gonna come back at the end of spring and finish our book of Philippians. And we're gonna be doing so, going verse by verse, an exegetical series, just drawing the truth out. And so our goal in this series is to connect and reinforce in our minds that being a Christian means participating in the life of Jesus in some way. Jesus lived a life of service, of suffering, of compassion, of generosity, of kindness, ministry, and so much more. And our lives in different seasons reflect some part of Jesus' life. We're going to learn that every aspect of our lives, whether service to sacrifice, can be used for God's kingdom, and in that, there is joy. And as we participate in the life of Jesus, We are deeply transformed by the Spirit's work in us. So there's an invitation at the beginning here, there's our series, to partner with Christ, and will you accept that partnership, that invitation? It's a foregone conclusion, as you well know, that we face hardships in life, but we have the decision, how are we going to endure them with joy? So that's what we're going to discover each week.

Let me go ahead and pray as we get started. God, thank you again for our time together. Thank you for everyone here, everyone who's watching online. We pray that you would meet us. As we come with humility and joy and eagerness to hear your word, we pray that through your spirit you would speak to us, draw us closer to you, and transform us to live more like Christ. We love you, God, and we pray this in your name, amen.

Before we get to our actual series, I wanna help us understand more of where Paul, the author of this letter, and the church of Philippi are at, the recipients of this letter. So, we have Paul. This is happening long, long ago. Around 8051, Paul's been doing ministry in Asia Minor, and he makes a big decision to shift gears and head towards Europe. And so, he starts heading in a new direction. His first stop is Philippi. And he meets a group of faithful women. He preaches the gospel, and he establishes the first congregation in Europe. Timothy, at this time, if you've heard of Timothy, there's other letters in our New Testament addressed to Timothy, played a huge role in this period of Paul's ministry. And the Church of Philippi is among the first believers to serve alongside and suffer with Paul. Specifically, Lydia, Euodia, and Syntyche. Don't check me on those. Those are people. Paul was in prison during this time for preaching the gospel. But God is with him because when he's in prison, the jailers were converted to Christianity. And this is evidence of how much the Spirit is at work through Paul in his ministry. Paul's then asked by the authorities to leave, and so he leaves the church in the hands of Luke, and he heads to Thessalonica, and it's a difficult trip. It's not easy. And so while he's there, the church of Philippi, that he's left, sends materials to Paul. And it's of great encouragement to him, both physically with those things, but also just spiritually, having that support from Philippi was a huge encouragement to him. Then Paul flees to Berea, to Athens, to Corinth. He's there in Corinth for 10 months where he again receives help from the church of Philippi, and then he returns to Antioch. And so Paul has this continued relationship with the church in Philippi. Wherever Paul went, despite the hardships that the church was facing, they had pre-decided to be generous and to support Paul. And so whatever they were going through, they were facing their own hardships. They still loved and encouraged Paul. Well, Paul's away. Unfortunately, the leadership of the church of Philippi falls into the sin of dissension. There are two leaders, two leaders that worked very closely with Paul, start to be pinned against each other. And so there's division, cracks of division in the church. And the general health of the church has just deteriorated. But here's where they made a great decision. Instead of letting that happen and letting the church divide and crumble and fall, they reach out for help. They know that they needed some spiritual help, and so they sent out Epaphroditus with a gift and asked Paul to say, "Hey, Paul, here's a new servant that you can use, a new helper. Can you send back Timothy? We love Timothy. Timothy was here with you while you were here. Can you send back Timothy to help?" Unfortunately, there are some complications as Epaphroditus gets sick, and he's unable to reach Paul, and Timothy wasn't able to return, and so, given all that, that storyline, now we reach the letter to the Philippians. This letter is what happened in lieu of all those things that were supposed to happen. Paul wanted to be there, whether by, in person or by sending someone, but the best he could do was write this letter to the church to encourage them. So, we haven't even opened the letter yet, but hopefully we have a fuller understanding of where the church is at, where Paul is at. The church needs help. They have a desire for truth and restoration and guidance, and Paul can't be there, but he wants to give that to them. So now let's open up.

If you would turn with me in your Bibles to Philippians 1, or you can read along the screens. Today in our passage, Paul is going to teach us that partnership with each other is one one of God's gifts to experience a joy that endures. Partnership with each other is one of God's gifts to experience a joy that endures. Let's take a closer look at Paul's opening words and how important his partnership with the church of Philippi was. I'm gonna read the first two verses. It says, "Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all God's holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We'll pause right there. So again, Paul and Timothy, beloved disciples, give the Philippians their greetings. And compared to other letters, Paul at the beginning of other letters we'll read in the New Testament, he usually flexes his apostolic authorities. Like, hey, I'm Paul, I'm a big deal, and this letter is not good news. You're in trouble, let me set you straight. But this is different. This letter of Philippians is a friendship letter. Given that these were people, this was a church that suffered with them, served alongside him, he approaches them more as peers and say, "Hey, brothers and sisters in Christ, beloved ones." Also, Paul is trying to unify the people, reminding them of what connects them together, their partnership with Christ. As with any situation with tension or possible division or dissension, Paul wants to bring everyone in and get them on some common ground before addressing the issue. "Hey, all of you that I love, that you guys love each other in Christ." So he's establishing some common ground. And now Paul shares his thanksgiving and a prayer for the church. Let's continue reading in verse 3. It says, "I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the Gospel from the first day until now. Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you since I have you in my heart, and whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. Paul's now speaking in encouraging and loving words to his partners in ministry. I want to pause here and just ask what does a partnership in Christ mean? Well, as believers, we have a partnership with God. 2 Corinthians explains that we are co-laborers with Christ.

So we partner with God, serving God in His kingdom. Well, because we have a partnership with God, it also means that we have a unique partnership with each other. We are co-laborers too. So just like Paul is expressing to the early church in Philippi, we today have a special connection with each other as believers in the same church family, serving the same God and on the same mission, to serve His kingdom. Well, outside these walls, outside of a Sunday, we all kind of go our own way. Sometimes our lives intersect, but we, despite all that, we don't necessarily see each other every day like family typically does. We are a church family because we share this unique connection. We serve along God. We serve God alongside each other. And so this partnership in Christ with each other is essential for our Christian lives. I'm I'm gonna highlight a few things about this partnership. Partnership in Christ with each other is to be appreciated. Partnership in Christ with each other helps us endure. And partnership in Christ with each other encourages inner transformation. So that first one. Partnership in Christ with each other is to be appreciated. This is found in verses three through six. Paul is giving thanks for his ministry partners in Philippi. and he expresses that even in his difficult situation, being imprisoned, the thought of this church, miles and miles away, supporting him, praying for him, is of immense encouragement and brings him joy. And he takes time to appreciate them. We've preached this here before at Spring Valley Church that it is so important to appreciate good things in life, specifically those things that God brings into our lives. The world is so full of negativity, of complaining, of bickering, and this is what comes naturally. We are selfish, sinful people, and our hearts lean towards our own desires and can revolve around what we want, and we can make the whole universe revolve around us, and this usually ends up with us being discontent. But gratitude and thankfulness are vital to combating that. The more grateful we are, the more perspective we have, the more we surrender to God and realize that things are out of our control, the more trust we have in him. And so we can take Paul's example here and see that having partners in Christ is something to be thankful for. If you belong to this church, you can look around this room and say, "These are all people to be thankful for in your life." We have a community here at Spring Valley, a community based solely, primarily, on our belief in Jesus. We are united together in our love for him. Praise God for that. Partnership in Christ with each other is to be appreciated.

Secondly, partnership in Christ helps us endure. Remember that Paul is in prison during this time. He's in the midst of serious challenges and hardships, and yet he is remaining faithful to his mission to share the gospel, and he can do so because of the encouragement and support from his partners in Philippi. You see, on our own, we will come to the end of our limits very quickly. We have no one to lean on when we need rest. We have no one to encourage us when facing discouragement. We have no one to spur us on when we have no more desire left within us. On our own, it can be so hard to see the hope that is found in Christ. We are not meant to be alone. God acknowledged this with Adam in the garden all the way at the beginning of our Bibles by creating Eve as a co-laborer in the garden. I'm not just talking about romantic relationships. He gives Moses Aaron, he gives Naomi Ruth, He gives David, Jonathan, he gives Paul, Timothy, and Barnabas, other partners in ministry. God has created his people and his church in the same way. We are meant to be together. And it helps us endure all the hardships that we inevitably face. Romans 12 says, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, "weep with those who weep, "live in harmony with one another." Those words are instructions for people who are meant to live in community, partnered together in Christ. Like I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon, we're all going through things. The common theme for many of us is going through situations that call for us to endure. They're not just one day problems that, hey, this one thing is coming up. It's, we're often going through seasons, long seasons of hardship. And that is taxing. Maybe it's a thing that we got from COVID, but some of us got used to being alone. Some of us hated the distance that COVID kind of put in this world and we missed people. We missed the relationships, we missed seeing people. Some of us didn't mind it, if we're being honest. Some of us were like, "Oh, less people, this is nice. I haven't seen people in a long time, no stress.” But maybe some of you got stuck in that, got used to something that wasn't good for you, and that's isolation. When you're isolated, you can't endure the hardships as long as you can with partners in Christ, in a community with Christ, at least not in the most healthy way. And the enemy loves to get people isolated. He wants them to feel alone and hopeless. If you go back into the Old Testament, into the Bible, so many of the issues where the enemy is confronting someone, they are alone. They aren't around the community they were supposed to be with. All the way back to the garden, and Eve, where's Adam at that point? She's alone. Enemy loves to get us isolated. But the Bible says, "A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated. Two can stand back to back and conquer, but three are even better, for a triple braided "The immediate cord is not easily broken." Partnership in Christ with each other helps us endure those things. We are meant to be in community because in community we can endure.

And then thirdly, in verses nine through 11, partnership in Christ encourages inner transformation. This is found in the prayer that Paul prays to the people in Philippi. You see, there is work that the Spirit does within us that only really happens in community. How can we practice having compassion if not around people who need compassion? How can we practice generosity if we're never around people and have the opportunity to give? How can we love like Jesus has first loved us if we're not around people who need the love of Jesus? The opportunities that come from being in community are unique and are necessary in order to experience the inner transformation from the Spirit. Notice Paul's words here at the end. It says, his prayer for the church is that, their love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. That love that Paul is talking about is not just an intellectual understanding, but an experiential understanding, acquired through acts of loving other people. Church, it's one thing to know that Jesus loves us through reading his word. That is good, and it's necessary, but it's a whole other thing to know Jesus loves us by experiencing the love of Jesus. And one of the biggest ways we experience the love of Jesus is through other people. And when this happens, what's produced within us is a sincerity of faith in Christian living. It's often easier to love others when first being loved, receiving love yourself. And so if you are a believer, if you claim to be a Christian, and you've received the love of Jesus, you are then able to share that love with other people. The language here that Paul uses also shares this idea of love that grows exponentially, abounding and existing in abundance. Paul wants the Philippians to have lots and lots of love in that church. A theologian, George Guthrie, writes, "Paul wants the Philippians to have loads of love "in their community. "He prays that this dynamic, super abundant love, "might be ever increasing, as the Philippians themselves "grow in the faith and as the community grows in size "through the advancement of the gospel." That should be our desire too. Here at Spring Valley, we want to be growing in faith and size as a community as we share the gospel. And also that our church here is known for how much we love each other. If people come and visit and they see how much we love each other, that is pointing them directly to Christ. And there's something that draws them in, I need that love, I want that love. Paul is praying that for the church in Philippi, and that's our prayer too. Partnership in Christ encourages inner transformation from a life of sin to a life following the way of Jesus, being able to love other people. Partnering with Christ means knowing who Jesus is. And as we know who Jesus is and what he does more and more, we have a better understanding of what we're supposed to do as followers of Jesus, and therefore we know how to live. So as we live like Christ, each of us inside can experience the work of the Spirit, and that just happens more and more as we are together in community.

So, what's the relation between Paul's opening words of his letter and us today? Well, I have a couple things that I want us to reflect on today and going forward in this week. Remembering that partnership with each other is one of God's gifts to experience a joy that endures. I want to ask you this first question. Who are you thankful for? Who are the people who have encouraged you in the faith? Maybe in life, or maybe recently. Who are those people that you're thankful for? And have you shared your appreciation with them? Take the time this week. Send a text, write an email, whatever it is. Take the 30 seconds it takes to share with them your appreciation for them. how you were encouraged by them. Show your appreciation for your fellow partners in ministry, because without them, you wouldn't be able to endure the things that you have endured, or the things that you will have to endure. Secondly, are you relying on your partners in Christ to endure? Don't make the mistake of being the lone wolf in life who just goes it alone, says, "I can handle it all," Because at some point you will reach your limit. At some point you will be feeling like I wish there was someone here with me. I wish I had support, encouragement. Depend on your fellow partners in faith. Allow them to encourage you. Be vulnerable, let them support you. Remember, a strand of one can break easily, but a cord of three, not easily broken. So are you relying on your partners in Christ to endure them? The last question, how are you experiencing the transforming work of Christ through community? How are you experiencing the work of the Spirit that happens when you are living life with your partners in ministry? If you're having trouble thinking of how you're experiencing that, then ask yourself this. Are you involved, participating, partnering with God's people enough to the point where you're noticing work of the Spirit within you? Do you need to be more involved? Do you need to immerse yourself more into a community where you can feel their support? I invite you to do that. If that's where the Spirit's leading in any of those answers, follow the Spirit where He's guiding you.

As we contemplate these things, know that we as a church, we're here. This is our prayer. We want to to be a church, a community that supports each other, that helps each other endure. Just this morning we were praying and things that go out through the prayer chain, we know that people are going through tough things. We know that people are battling seasons of sickness or recovering from surgery or are dealing with hard family issues. And we are so thankful when we get the chance to pray for you. When you share with that and say, "I need prayer for this." That is you leaning on this church family, and that is so good. We wanna do more of that, so keep that coming. And if you haven't shared yet, do that. Lean on us. Use this family around you to help you endure whatever you're going through. As we do that, we can rest assured that Jesus will provide a joy for us that can endure through all things. It doesn't change the situation. It doesn't mean happiness, that all of a sudden you are no longer in that difficult time, but it's a deep, deep joy knowing that God is using you, knowing that you are a part of His plan, and knowing that you're not alone. And that joy can just help you get through the next moment, to the next day, into the next week. Pray with me.

God, thank you again for your word that encourages us, that lifts us up. And as we begin our series, our prayer is that we would know or remember that we are partnering with you for ministry. God, that we, our lives are to be used for your kingdom, even the hard parts of life, even the difficult moments. God, we want to surrender all of it and say, "God, use it, Lord, for your kingdom." And we pray that you would help us. Give us what we need, whether it be energy, whether it be joy, whether it be wisdom, guidance, discernment, whether it be a change of heart, a change of attitude, words to say or the discernment of not to say anything. God, give us what we need. We want to rely on you and we want to rely on each other. I pray that no one in this room would feel that they are alone, but they would know that these people are here for them. We are here for each other. We want to be known for our love that we have that comes from you that we pour out to each other. Help us to love each other well. Help us to support each other well. God, we trust you with our lives, knowing that you have good for them and knowing that you will finish the work that you have started. We pray this in your name. Amen.