My name is Corinne. Brodnicki and I have been here before. If I haven't met you, I would love to meet you at some point. I am a mom, that's what takes all of my time and most of my energy, and in the little bit I have after that, I am a therapist. Everyone always says, "What kind of physical therapist?" I don't know why that's the go-to. No, I am a marriage and family therapist. And then I also served as a pastor, gosh, it's been about a year, alongside Andre actually at the Hub. But I'm not really pastoring right now, so primarily a therapist. How's everyone doing? Anyone tired out here? You're smiling, so you're not tired, or you're faking it. For the last two weeks, one of my kids have a two and a four year old. We have a two and a four year old, have woken up with consistency. It's one or the other, coughing in the middle of the night, just like dry allergy cough. So every night I go to bed, I'm like, "God, please, please let no child wake up." And of course, the one that didn't wake up the night before wakes up. So I had a middle of the night wake up, but it's great. I always get an opportunity to pray. So I was able to pray for today and what God has for us. So I am privileged to be able to share part three of this relationship series. I want you to know I'm not an expert on relationships. I just probably have a lot more training than a lot of us, but we're all learning about relationships.

Relationships are without a doubt the most difficult thing that we'll ever do, right? Like engaging with people is difficult because people are sometimes difficult. So last, two weeks ago, Pastor Lauren talked about obedience and humility and how we need to encapsulate that in our relationships so that we can lead people to Christ. Chris then tackled that very large topic of boundaries and just really scraped off the top of that. We're going to talk about boundaries a little bit more in the workshop. And so now I have the privilege of coming in and saying, well, what else do we talk about relationships? Obviously not everything was covered. So we are going to talk about something that I'm not gonna tell you yet. So I wanna start with a little story. So growing up in some of you, like Cheryl and Kevin, knew me from the we days in my young life. People always said, "Gosh, you're so gregarious, "you're so outgoing, you just connect with people "so easily, you make friends easily." And I think without realizing it, I used that from middle school to really into college as this almost like yearly conquest to make a new best friend. So in the process of that, and I didn't realize it till college, in the process of that, I would literally dump a best friend at kind of the end of the year, maybe not even make it that far, move on to a new best friend, and then I would do that year after year. And it really was fun for me. I don't mean that in a, like, "Oh, I love hurting people." But it really filled me up because I had these new relationships and it was kind of this like new experience. And it wasn't until middle of college that I met my now best friend, and God just used her tremendously to help me grow from that. And it was from that point on that I really stopped that behavior. I -- and it was about that time that I started looking back and not actually about a year ago even, I messaged somebody from college and said, "I am so sorry for how I treated you." Somebody that loves people and wants to invest in people and wants people to be a priority. And I was just kind of like throwing people away at the end of the year, like I said, if that. And then what's so beautiful, this redemptive beautiful thing is I have a friend now and she came to a church event. We go to Crossroads and she said, and I spoke a little bit about kind of what I'm gonna talk about tonight. And she said, "You know, you are one of the best friends that I've ever had." And she's like almost 30. So that's a really large compliment. And in my head I said, "That's only because I'm trying to be like Jesus. It's not because I'm this wonderful person who just hasn't figured out. I'm very broken, just like the rest of us. But I'm just trying to be like Jesus." And I say that not to say, "Wow, look at me. I did it. I'm really good.”

I say that to show you that I want to share these things with you so that we don't have a trail of pain behind us like I did. And I'm really ashamed of that. I'm really ashamed of how I hurt people and I lost really good friendships because I just kind of tossed them out because I didn't value people enough. And so that's what I want to talk about today. But before we talk about that, let's talk about just relationships in general. So I mentioned this earlier, relationships are the best thing we have in our life and honestly the most difficult. Don't look at your kids or your spouse as I say that, right? So one minute, right, I said I have a two and a four year old, our four year old is a little more difficult than our two year old, and I'll look at him sometimes, I'll just look into his cute little face, which he is so cute, and people tell me that all the time I say he has to be or he wouldn't survive. And I look at him, I'm like, I couldn't love you anymore. And then I turn around, and then I go back, and he has the record player, and he takes the record off, and he double hand scratches it on the floor looking right at me. And I am a very calm, pretty low anger, pretty high anger tolerance, and I was so mad. It's like we can flash from, I can't even imagine loving anything more to, I don't know what love is, get in your room, right? And that's the same in all of our relationships. They're the most beautiful thing and the most difficult thing. And that's why we have to spend a lot of time talking about it. And that's why there's a whole job surrounded on helping people have healthy relationships. Jesus models relationship well, right? He doesn't do ministry alone. In fact, as he's going into ministry, he says, "Hey, I need some guys around me to," they pray for him, they support him, there's women that do the same, they pray and they support him. The Trinity, right? That's so intentional that God says, there's a Trinitarian reality to the Godhead. Even that is relational, right? Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Jesus exemplifies relationship. The whole essence of God is relationship, relationship with you, and then in turn relationship with one another. And yet, there's an epidemic, there's literally terms for it called the loneliness epidemic. One in four people identify as really lonely. And I was looking through a lot of statistics, and a lot of them were coming up from the COVID times, and I know we've moved outside of quarantine, but honestly, a lot of people, I think, still have the repercussions of that isolation time of quarantine. So one in four people, millions of people in the US have chronic loneliness. This is a UC Berkeley article, which is then associated with lower physical health, mental health, quality of life, higher levels of depression, anxiety, insomnia, suicidal ideation. And yet social connection is hardwired into our DNA, right?

We cannot survive well without social connection. Even if you're an introvert and you say, I wanna spend about three minutes of my day with a person, you still need connection. We still are wired to belong. I mean, it's just such a biological component for us. Another, from the University of Cambridge, so you know she's in England, so she's extra smart. She says, "Human beings need social connections to thrive, "and being embedded in strong supportive networks "can protect our well-being "when we're faced with difficulties in life." So loneliness leads to depression, anxiety, insomnia, all these negative things. Connection, and we're not talking Christians here. These are, well, maybe they're Christians, but they're not speaking from a Christian perspective. They're saying, and on the other hand, connection is what brings us together and contributes to well-being, right? So hopefully you're connecting with the reality that relationships are important. And I think that loneliness, and I don't think this is dramatic in saying, I think loneliness is kind of like an infection that slowly sneaks in. You might think, oh, I'm okay. And then eventually you're just like, I think I'm not okay. And I think Satan loves to use loneliness because it disconnects us from each other, obviously. And when we're disconnected from each other, we all of a sudden don't have that marker to know what's true and what's not true and lies feel true and we get confused and lost and I think it's one of Satan's greatest tools. But be encouraged because there is a cure for loneliness and that's authentic connection, right? Authentic relationship and healthy connection. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind and your strength. Command one. And the second is this, love your neighbor as yourself. There is no command greater than this. He gave us two instructions, many instructions. But he says, all right, it comes down to these two, love God and love people. By the way, love your neighbor as yourself, so you have to love yourself as well. That's important too. Love God and love people. Okay, it's important. So how do we do that? How do we do that? Man, if we're gonna talk about Jesus and how He exemplifies loving others, we could talk about so many things, but I think there are three that I've kind of honed in on that maybe we need to be better at, myself included, we all need to be better at, that I think is kind of the key to showing people how Jesus loves. So those are, I always like to give you the answer right at the beginning, so if you want to go to sleep, now's your chance.

Okay, loving others like Jesus requires three things, vulnerability, perseverance, selfishness, among other things, but I I wanna talk about those three today. Okay, vulnerability. For some of you, you just got anxious, your heart dropped, you said, "Vulnerability is a dirty word. "It's scary to be vulnerable." It is very scary to be vulnerable because it is risky. Of course it's scary to be vulnerable because it's risky. You put yourself out there, you don't know what might happen. But down in a safe, mutual, healthy relationship, it's one of the greatest gifts that you can receive, right? a return on vulnerability. And I think Satan's been lying to us for so long. What if I get rejected? What if I'm misunderstood? What if I get hurt? What if no one loves me? Why waste time with vulnerability? I don't need to do that. I can figure stuff out on my own. But that's what leads to that isolation and loneliness that I just talked about is really unhealthy for us. Brene Brown, have anyone heard of Brene Brown? So she's a psychologist, well, she's a social worker actually and a writer, and she says, "Vulnerability," Oh, sorry, she says, vulnerability is uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. She also suggests that vulnerability is the birthplace of joy, creativity, and belonging. To find joy, creativity, and belonging, you must face shame and fear, right? So if we want vulnerability, or if we want connection and health, we have to move through the discomfort of vulnerability. So how does vulnerability benefit us? Okay, I think it opens the door for three things. If you're a note taker, this is a great time to get out some notes. I think the first thing is vulnerability opens the door for others to know us and see us. And being known and seen is one of the greatest gifts that you can, I think, receive. Does anyone like the show The Chosen? And people don't just like the chosen. Usually when you talk about the chosen, you guys must be asleep. Because people are like, oh, the chosen. Like, it's such a beautiful depiction of the personhood of Jesus. And I think what people truly, if I've kind of like really put my psychology hat on, what I think people really love is that Jesus sees people. Like, he stops and he looks and he connects and there's love and compassion in his eyes. Because when we are seen, we can, And again, in a safe relationship, man, that opens the door for so much. We have this biological need to be seen because being seen, I think, is the beginning of connection. Depth of relationship, aka intimacy, is directly correlated with the level at which you let others in, right? We all have, we have people we just kind of say hi to, we have acquaintances, we have deep friends, We have best friends, we have spouses, right? It's a continuum. And I am not the same level of intimacy. I'm not talking about physical intimacy. I'm talking about emotional intimacy. I'm not the same level of emotionally intimate with my husband or my best friend that I am with you guys that I haven't met really, right?

Because the more open I am with people, the more open they will hopefully be and the more connected we can be, the deeper our relationship. and it's the depth of relationship we're going for. We're not just going for, I have a room, I have a hundred friends. How many times have you heard someone say, "I'm in a room with people and I've never felt lonelier." So it's not about the number of people, it's about the depth of that connection, which is precipitated by authentic vulnerability. So it lets others know us and see us. Number two, it allows others to care for us and meet our needs. If you don't open up, no one will ever know what you might need and know how to help you. So this last couple months, I have been going through some eye issues. If you've seen me before and you're like, something's different, I can't quite figure it out. I have glasses right now. And I've been going through all these like, what's going on? Is it this? Is it that? I mean, all the way to the point where I had a brain MRI just to make sure nothing was going on, significant, which thankfully nothing is. And I had so many people praying for me. And you get to a point, I think, in desperation where you're like, I will tell you anything because I just want prayer. And I had a friend recently say, "Gosh, but you're just like good at being vulnerable." I'm like, "That's born out of desperation for healing. Like that's born out of a desperation for like, I want to be healed. I want God to move. I want these things more than I care about looking stupid." And I think we need to get to that point sometimes when it comes to others being able to meet our needs. And unless we open up, they will not be able to meet our needs. And third, vulnerability opens the door to personal growth.

Proverbs 27:17 says, "As iron sharpens iron, "so one person sharpens another." When we're vulnerable, we're admitting we don't know it all. We're admitting we haven't figured it all out, and we're saying, "Can you come and help me? "Can you fill the gaps in the areas "where I don't know what I'm doing, "I don't know what I'm talking about, I need more help." And I wanna say this, growth often follows confession. Confession is another one of those words that's like, But confession is a form of vulnerability. In fact, the Bible says, "Make this your common practice. "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other "so you can live together whole and," let's do that one more time, "whole and." So confession proceeds, I'm not saying this is the only thing, but confession significantly proceeds healing and wholeness. And confession is a form of vulnerability. It's coming to someone saying, "I need help. "I have a problem. "I don't know it all. can you help fill my gap? Can you help me? Can you teach me? Can you help me grow? And in that we can grow. So if you're hearing all this and you're saying, "Ah, I hear you, I think that's really good, "but vulnerability, it's not really my thing, "or I don't wanna do it, "or I've had to have this protective wall." By the way, there's a reason you've had a protective wall and you don't wanna be vulnerable. To protect yourself. But I'm saying when you have a wall, nothing can get in, which is good, but nothing good can get in either. And so if vulnerability is hard for you, start somewhere, practice, share some feelings with somebody, share a heart thing, share a dream, a goal. It doesn't have to be ooey gooey feelings all the time. Vulnerability is the range of things. Could be, I love you because, you're so wonderful because. That's vulnerability, I'm opening my heart to somebody else. And I'll say this too, for those of you that just lean a little more naturally open book, a little more naturally vulnerable, lead by example. A lot of times in relationships, I would say I'm probably more vulnerable naturally than my husband. And so a lot of times I think, hopefully this is true, a lot of times I will be the first to lead and say, here's where I'm at, here's how I'm feeling. And I think that opens the door to kind of invite that from him too. So if you're somebody that's just naturally more vulnerable, keep doing that because it's a great model for other people. Okay, that was only one point. Are we still, we're still here?

Loving others like Jesus requires vulnerability, perseverance, selfishness. So I'm gonna keep saying that so I can get it really good in that brain there. Okay, number two, perseverance. So perseverance requires consistency and loyalty. Or sorry, reliability. And in that, we're talking about loyalty. So have you guys heard this term cancel culture? We live in this cancel culture, which I didn't really know what that means. Basically what it means is you do one thing that someone doesn't like, or a couple of things that people don't like, and you're canceled, your podcast is done, your show is over, whatever other things you're doing, done. It might be one thing. And we live in this culture where it's like, "Nah, done with that, moving on, done with that, moving on." We're really quick to dispose of people, or dispose of things. But Proverbs 17, 17 says something very opposite. It says, "A friend loves at all times." And a brother is born from a time of adversity. "A friend loves at all times." It's not conditional on are they annoying you this week. All times. And now, really quick, I just wanna say, there are times where a healthy goodbye is necessary. I'm not saying keep toxic people in your life. That's good. That's not what the Bible is saying. But the Bible is saying don't quit on people because it's hard. Follow through. How many times have you said, someone's like, oh, this is what I'm going through. You're like, I'll pray for you. And you never do. It's like the simplest thing. You could pray right then. You could be like, okay, done. And yet we don't do it. We don't even do that. Myself included. Call people, text them, maybe you even think about somebody and you're like, "Well, I really should reach out to them." Just do it. But we don't. So I think we need to be a little more persistent. Like my son, who is the most persistent in everything he ever does, what did he ask for yesterday at 9 o'clock? Do you remember? Ice cream. Mom, can I have ice cream? Probably four times before 10 o'clock, mom, can I have ice cream? because he got ice cream the night before. So let's be persistent for people and for relationships like my son is persistent for his ice cream. You're probably gonna, that's the only thing you're gonna remember from today, some of you. And don't wait, don't wait for people to initiate. Just initiate, just initiate. Sometimes we're like, "Oh, I don't know if anyone likes me. "I don't know if anyone cares about me." Just initiate. It's not, I know it's sometimes like emotionally difficult, but it's generally not that difficult to send a text and say, "Hey, I'm thinking about you. How are you doing?" "Oh yeah, you told me this thing last Sunday that you're going through some..." "Let me text her and check in on that." Or him and check in on that. How many times do we see Jesus being the initiator? Sometimes people are coming to him, of course, but he goes to the woman at the well and says, "Hey, I want to meet with you." And there's so many other stories where Jesus models that. Initiate with people in persistence. I think just way too often people are waiting for someone to initiate. Like no one cares about me. No one loves me. Man, I've heard that so many times, which is totally a lie. So let's do the opposite. Let's be people who stick around and we don't just give up on other people when it's boring or hard or exactly what I said at the beginning, what I used to do to people. Maybe it got a little boring. Maybe there was a new, more interesting person. Man, that's not how Jesus loved.

And then the second part of this is persisting through conflict. Another word people often don't like. And people say like, oh, we don't have any -- when I meet with a couple or a person and they say, we really don't have any conflict in our relationship, I'm like, something's wrong. Conflict is normal and healthy. We're living in a relationship with another person who is very different from us, Very different from us. And we're trying -- that was my husband on the screen, if you don't know. And we're trying to figure out how do we do life together when we are so different. My husband loves to be quiet and do alone things and sit and ponder. And he's very smart and gets deep, deep, deep into his brain. And I'm like, let's have fun. Let's be together. Let's just do fun all the time. So we have to, right, figure that out. There's conflict in that almost every weekend trying to kind of navigate that. But that's good because that allows us to grow. And I think, I want to think about it this way. Instead of running away from conflict in relationships, let's run together into conflict. We're not fighting each other, we're fighting a problem. Clark and I are fighting, not even fighting, we're working to try to figure out how do we manage this difference in personality. We're not against each other. So let's be in it with people. Let's come into conflict rather than run away because we don't want to. Like let's just not be conflict avoiders. We don't need to do that. And with that I think comes forgiveness. We need to be people who forgive. Colossians 3:13 says, "Bear with each other and forgive one another. And if any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the?" You guys are doing really good. Let's do that one more time. "Forgive as the Lord." Okay. So as the Lord forgives us, we should also forgive other people. And that is gonna help us through conflict, right? Remember who Jesus says is the rock? And you will be my church, you will lead my church. Remember that guy? Also, his Peter denied Jesus three times. And still, Jesus said, you're gonna lead my church. I'm gonna forgive you for that, and you're gonna lead my church, right? If Jesus can do it, we can definitely do it for these things that people do. And by the way, forgive us, Sometimes we have this misconception like, forgiveness means I'm letting you off the hook. No, forgiveness means I'm letting me free of the bondage of whatever that was and saying, you can work out your stuff, I'm done, I'm free of this. And lastly, in that kind of like pouring out grace, I think persistence means, or sorry, I keep saying the wrong word, perseverance means pouring out grace, pouring out grace, pouring out grace. That doesn't mean we say it's fine what you did, It just means I have grace for what you did, now let's grow together. When someone hurts you, you don't say, oh, I have grace, no big deal. It's I have grace for your growth, right? So we wanna persevere through those ways, with consistency, reliability, conflict, and with forgiveness wrapped up in that.

So loving others like Jesus requires vulnerability, perseverance, and? - Selfishness. - Selfishness. Who likes that word? Oh yeah, that was a good test. Selflessness, sorry, woo! That is wrong, selflessness, yeah. Because love requires action. We see this in 1 John, it says, "If anyone has material possessions "and sees his brother in need, but has no pity on him, "how can the love of God be in him? "Let us not love with words or tongue, "but with actions and in truth." We have to love with action, right? We have to love with action, and that starts with making sacrifices. And we're gonna talk about boundaries, like I mentioned, another teaser. That doesn't mean we abandon ourselves fully to make sacrifices for other people. That doesn't mean we just do whatever anyone else wants, even if we don't have the capacity for it. None of that is what that means. What that means is, I'm willing to make sacrifices for other people. We're all busy, but we make times for things we prioritize. When I hear people say, "I'm too busy for that." No, you're not too, you might not, you might be, you're probably not too busy for that, you're probably just prioritizing things differently. Who here, all right, I'm gonna do a thumb rating, this is what I do when I teach. Who here would say, "Exercise is important." This is yes, hmm, no. Exercise is important, I'm just asking, exercise is important. Okay, who would say they invest that same level of energy and how important it is in actually doing it. My husband is a personal trainer, so he does, but he's about the only one. Right, so we're not, is it because it's, are we not exercising because it's not important? No. Oftentimes it's 'cause we're not making it a priority. Usually, and if you need any tips on exercising, just talk to my husband, that was unplanned. But usually, right, we can find a couple minutes here or there to do something, move our bodies, right?

So again, it's not a matter of, is it not important? It's a matter of we're not prioritizing it. And I think the same is true when it comes to sacrificing for other people. And I had this idea, like, what if we all kind of took a time inventory of our day and our week and our month? Where are we spending all that time? Like, what does our agenda say about our priorities? We often talk about that with money. What is my checkbook or my debit card or my bank statement? What does that say about my priorities? I would say, what is your agenda, what does your calendar say about your priorities? And maybe that needs to be adjusted. I know for sure I can make adjustments there. So if anyone wants to watch my kids so I can take care of other people, I would really enjoy that. And maybe it's as simple as like, let's just try to serve one person a day, just in a simple way. Let me just buy the coffee of the person behind me in the drive-through or find a creative way to love somebody or serve them in action. And then we also have to practice humility. Philippians 2, what a beautiful verse talking about Jesus's humility. He literally was God, and yet he took on the very nature of a servant so that he could one, model that for us, but two, because he loves us. But I also want us to be mindful of our own needs too, right? Like we also have our own needs. It's not selfish to take care of yourself. So we need to be humble, but also there's a reality of like we have needs too. It wasn't until I had kids and I started taking them on planes that I realized this, when a flight attendant comes by, so we've all heard this, like, put on your mask before you, put on the mask of somebody else, right? But when you're on a plane and you have littles, they will walk up to you, they will look at you, they will say, "Ma'am, you gotta put your mask on first before I..." Every time I've heard it. Because they want you to really know, because they know you're a mom, what you're gonna wanna do is fling that mask on to one of your kids first. But right, like we have needs too and we have to take care of our needs so that we can pour out well for other people. Again, we're going to talk about them down when we talk about boundaries later. And then I think we also, another way that we can be selfless is to celebrate other people. Especially when they have things we want. This is really hard. And it's okay to grieve if there's something you want and you don't have it yet. But we also need to be celebratory of other people, especially other people in the kingdom. Because the reality is we are all on the same team. We're all on the same team, and God gives us all really different gifts and abilities. And so we need to celebrate with other people in that. First Thessalonians says, "Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up just as in fact you are doing." What a great way to love other people, celebrate with them.

All right, loving others like Jesus requires vulnerability, perseverance and selflessness. So I have a couple of questions on here. At Crossroads, we always do this end of service worship time I didn't know that wasn't happening. So what I would encourage you to do, Shelley could you pop that next one up? You can put them all up. If you would be willing to write them down or maybe take a picture of it, what I know without fail is if we don't have kind of an action step, you're gonna go and you're gonna say, that was really great. I learned some things by lunchtime, you're gonna be like, "Yeah, I don't remember any of them," which is fine. That is not a reflection of anything other than we are humans and we forget things. But I do know that God wants to grow us and growth requires action. So here's some questions to kind of guide you based on those three points. And maybe an area you could find, maybe I can really work on this one thing to be a better friend, partner, parent, so that I can be more vulnerable, more persevering, and a little more selfless in my relationships. You can keep that up, Shelly, till we're done. Because we have to model this as Christians, because the world, this hurting world is desperate, just like my friend, not a Christian that I mentioned earlier, desperate for healthy relationships. And again, I'm not perfect, I don't do it great, but I just try to be like Jesus. And so if we can do that, what a message that is to the world. Lauren said this, Pastor Lauren said this a couple of weeks ago she said we're called to point others to Christ in all our relationships and what better way to do that than through relationships marked by vulnerability, perseverance, and selflessness. So pray, pray, pray. Let me pray, let me pray and then Chris is gonna give us some instructions for after.

So Lord we come before you, we are grateful for, gosh, that you display the love first. You show us how things go. You show us what is important. You show us how to love. You show us how to be vulnerable, persevering, and selfless. And so I pray that as we go to lunch or home or to the workshop or wherever we're going, Lord, that we will take one step to being a better partner, a better friend, a better parent, employee, so that we can exemplify these wonderful qualities and lead people closer and closer to you. Amen.

April 14, 2024

Pastor Chris Snider

Relationships 101

Relationships 101: Part 2

April 14, 2024

Pastor Chris Snider

Relationships 101

Relationships 101 - Boundaries in Relationships

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Excited to be here today to teach and to continue in our new relationship series that we kicked off, Pastor Lauren did last week. And our heart and desire in this is really what it says, is a refresher course that we all need. 'Cause the reality is that we all have relationships. We all, excuse me, we all, wow. We all work and have relationships in our life. And Pastor Lauren did a great job last week kicking us off, talking about this idea of humility and obedience in our relationships within Christian community. and that our relationships are really about encouraging and spurring one another on towards holiness, to allow God to transform not us alone, but also our relationships. And I'm gonna talk a little bit more on that this week, but she left us with a really good question last week. And I don't know about you, I wrestled with this one and it really stuck with me, but she left us with this question of who is on the throne of your heart? Who is the one that's sitting there? Who is the one that has control? Who is the one that we think about the most? Who is the one that decides our decisions or is the one that influences our priorities? Who is that one? And I think for us, this really influences how we have relationships.

And today I'm gonna be really talking about boundaries in our relationships. And what does it mean to be, have boundaries in our relationships? Whether that's with people who are believers and those who call themselves Christians within the church or those who have yet to become believers or haven't made that decision yet for Jesus. How do you have boundaries in relationships and what does all of that look like? We all have different types of relationships in our life, whether it's family, whether it's friends, maybe those you have close friends or maybe you just have acquaintances, maybe you have close friends that you used to have. So you might consider them former close friends, whatever has happened, maybe season of life, distance, things have changed. Maybe you're in a new season where you have new friends in your life and you're trying to figure out kind of where you are with them and where things stand. We have work colleagues, we have neighbors, we have church friends here and in the world of the church, we have those in our lives who are somewhere easy to talk with. Some are hard to talk with. Some are kind of maybe get defensive if we start talking about something real heavy or maybe they're just, their maturity isn't there compared to where your maturity might be. And maybe your maturity isn't where their maturity might be. We have these different unspoken expectations, right? We have these within our family cultures, our social circles, our work environments. And sometimes our personalities are just different. Some of us are fine with conflict. And some of us, I just said that word and it made you uncomfortable inside. And you run far and fast as quick as you can from any sort of conflict. And that's okay, I'm right there with you. I struggle with it. But some of us are introverted and we just don't have enough juice to be around people. And we only last so long where some of us, we thrive on being around people. And if you were to lock us into a room, we would die inside. And some of us, if you're like me, you're split 50/50. Somehow God decided I'm gonna put half of introvert and half extrovert in there, have fun. And life is all crazy.

But when we look at relationships, we all have them. And on this topic of relationships within boundaries, it's one that I get asked about a lot as a pastor. People come to me with life and family situations and work situations and you're like, "You're a pastor, what does God want me to do in this place?" And some people are really good about asking boundary questions and others, they just kind of go, "Here's my life." And they're asking about, what does it mean to have a boundary in this space? But they don't even know what boundaries are or how do you even use that word? Or they don't even know sometimes the questions to ask. And so we're gonna take some time to talk about these today. And again, Pastor Andre mentioned it, but I'm gonna mention again, if there's anything, any questions that come up as you guys are sitting here and even next week, write them down, drop them off. If you go on our website, right at the top, it talks about register for the workshop. If you click on that button right at the top of our website, takes you to a page where you can register, but it also takes you to a place where you can submit one of these anonymously to ask a question as well. So you're like, hi pastor, I'm not right now, I don't think about it, but during the week, you're like, I got one. Go to our website, check that out, write that down.

But the big resource, I'm gonna talk a lot about focus on scripture today. We're gonna be going through a lot of different verses and kind of helps us in our relationships and boundaries. But if you wanted a resource to kind of further and go a little bit deeper, I'd recommend this book called "Boundaries." It's written by Dr. Henry Cloud and John Townsend. This book has probably, if you've been around maybe in this world, you've seen this before. And this is an incredible, incredible book. They're both psychiatrists and they go into some great depth and study of what maybe the next practical step. And I would even encourage you, if you find yourself in that place, make an appointment, go talk to a Christian counselor, talk with somebody who could help equip you and give you some tools. That's why we're bringing Corinne in next week. She's a licensed marriage and family therapist. She has more tools and resources than, I mean, We all know how smart Pastor Andre is who gave the announcements. He's so smart, but he just doesn't have that extra training that Corrine does and that's why we're bringing her in next week. But this boundaries and they even have like boundaries in marriage book, they have a boundaries with kids, boundaries in dating, boundaries for leaders. I mean, they've taken this boundaries thing and multiplied it out into all sorts of different situations. So if you want a resource to check out, I'd highly recommend this book. But here's the reality on boundaries. We got another 20 minutes or so together. And I don't have enough time to even scratch the surface when it comes to boundaries and relationships. We were playing in the series and boundaries kind of fell on my lap for Pastor Chris to talk about. And I was like, you want me to do that in like 25 minutes? Like how do you even begin to do that?

And so, but I really want to first, when we think of boundaries, we initially think of other people, right? We think about maybe the people in our life who, there's a little too much drama. there's a little, maybe some natural toxicity. Maybe there's just like, we just don't mesh. We just don't, we just not feeling it. And so I got to put a boundary up. I got to put a boundary and I'm going to keep them over there and that's going to allow me to live my life over here. But I kind of want to flip that on our head a little bit. I want to first talk about boundaries. I want to start with ourselves. 'Cause the reality is we can't control everybody around us. Right? We try to sometimes, but we can't. But what can we control? We can control ourselves. We can control our own choices. We can control our own actions. We can control our priorities. Who's on the throne of our heart. We can control those things. And so I love what the Psalmist says in Psalm 19:7-11. He says, "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right. Rejoicing the heart, the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether, more to be desired than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey in the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned and keeping them there is great, great reward." I think when thinking about our relationships and thinking about those in our lives, the question first comes to us as Lauren set up, Pastor Lauren last week, of keeping God the center of your life. The first and foremost thing, when talking about relationships and setting up boundaries and having those in our lives, is really to put God first always. And you might think, well, pastor, that really doesn't help me in my relationships, but it does. And we'll get there, okay? We're gonna fully get there in the next few minutes. But when we center our lives on Christ, when the number one priority is the number one thing and the number one top priority in our life is God. Everything else flows out of that. Everything that we do, everything that we say, how we act, what we spend our money on, how we live our lives, how our attitudes are, how we love other people. If it's first centered in Jesus, then everything is in its order and will rightly flow out from there.

Before we even think about talking our relationships around us, we first need to have a DTR with God. If you don't know what DTR is, is a term that means defined relationship. You might've heard it in days of your dating, that you would be in serious trouble sometimes when that significant other goes, "We need to have the DTR." And you're like, "Oh no, this isn't gonna go well." But you need to have the DTR with God. You need to figure out who is on the throne of your heart. And I love what this Psalmist says. It talks about the life that is led when God is first. Did you catch all that? It says, when God is first in our life, we have God's perfection. We have His testimony. We have His precepts, His commandments, His righteousness becomes our righteousness. When we focus on living the way that God has called us and His perfect will, it leads us to a place of enlightenment, of everlasting rejoicing. Something more that is to be desired than gold. And not just gold, fine gold. I'm talking about that 18-carat legit gold. And none of that fool's gold or all that stuff you can find when you go up to the foothills And you see that shimmer in the water, you go, "I found it again, it's here. Sutter forgot about it, he left it just for me." No, I'm talking about the legit, most precious thing in the entire world. And when we put God in his rightful place, there is great reward. The Psalmist says, "Makes wise the simple." Man, I need wisdom every day from God in my life. And it's hard to be found, it's hard to learn, and sometimes it takes going through some really, really bad situations until you come on the other side. Do we learn wisdom? It's there for us to revive our soul. It's God's perfection in our lives.

And this is only accomplished when we allow and keep Jesus the center of our life. How do we do this? Joshua 1:8 says, "The book of the law or the Bible, God's word, shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success. There is so much in life that this book talks about. The question is, are we reading it? Jesus and God gave us this word to help us guide our life, to make the right decisions and make the right choices, to help us figure out how these messy relationships in life, how we're supposed to navigate those. I remember the days of MapQuest, or actually even before that, Thomas Brothers. And if you know Thomas Brothers, it was a giant book and it just had all of the interstates across the United States. It's a map, an old school paper map. Thankful we don't have to use those anymore. But technology kind of developed a little bit where we got MapQuest, right? You could print off directions. See with the Thomas Brothers, they didn't give you any directions. I'm here, I wanna go here. How? Here, okay, go here, go over here. And then they had little arrow markers and you'd have to add up the distance and then you'd have to do the math in your head. And then if there's an accident, You just never knew when you were gonna get to your destination. Then MapQuest came out, and then I remember, we probably were all there, where you took time to get on the computer, dial up, (imitates dial-up) and then you would put in your original spot and your destination, you'd look at it, and you'd go, "Sweet," and then you'd be in the car 10 minutes down the road, and you'd go, "I didn't click print." You're like, "No!" You're like, "Okay, can I figure this out, "or do I have to turn around?" Is anybody home called the landline? hopefully nobody's on the internet. So then someone can answer the phone. You're like, "Hey, can you just read me those directions on MapQuest? The web browser is still open." And you just chicken scratch, write it down real quick and hope that your palms don't get too sweaty 'cause you're like, "Was that a left or was that a right?" And now we live in a world where we just boop on our phones, pop in. I do all this time. I pop in my car, throw my phone up on the mount and it sometimes will say, "Would you like directions home?" Even before I say anything, I'm like, who's following me?

But this is God's word, but it's the old school kind of Thomas Brothers map quest. You gotta print it out, you gotta make sure it's a priority, you gotta take time for it, you gotta focus in on it, you gotta make it a priority. Yes, we have Bible apps on our phone and they're great. Sometimes we'll get notifications, "Hey, haven't read the Bible today," or, "Hey, here's YouVersion's verse of the day." Those are great, but it takes time to focus in on them because we have to keep Jesus the center of our life. I love what that verse said. "Make your way prosperous and you will have good success." Does anyone wanna have success in their life? I do. I wanna have success in my life, but it starts with answering the question, who is the center of our life? And I wanna have success in my relationships. I wanna have success with my family. I wanna have success with my church family. I wanna look back and go, when we followed God's word together and look where it took us. We kept Jesus the center of our church. We kept Jesus the center of our vision and our mission. We kept Jesus number one and look what God did. But we have to ask Jesus to direct our lives, to direct our choices, to direct our heart.

We have two types of relationships in this world. If you were to divide into two categories, you have two types. One would be those who are believers, those who would call themselves a follower of Jesus, that their priority is to be a disciple of Him, to learn from Him, to grow in Him, to live their life like Him. And then you would have those who are yet to make that decision. We have those who are yet to make the choice for Jesus. And in our lives, there's characteristics of both of them that are similar. And there's characteristics of them that are different. We're gonna go a little bit deeper in that, but I first wanna talk about how are they similar? Well, both of these relationships we should have a heart for. We should have a heart and desire to have relationships with those who are believers, those who are in the church and those in our lives that haven't met Jesus yet. We can't put up boundaries and go, oh, they just don't believe that they're not following Jesus, that I don't have a relationship with them. It's actually quite the opposite when we look at the words of Jesus, and if we were to not have relationships with those who haven't chosen Jesus yet, the gospel would never spread. Whoever shared Jesus with you, if they had lived that way, you would not know about Jesus because of that relationship. And we should be actively seeking both of them in our lives. Because if we have Jesus on us and we have the promise of the Holy Spirit that's been given to us, we are a light. And each and every one of us is called to take that light wherever we go, where we live, our neighbors, our family, where we learn at work and maybe school, where we play, the things we do that are fun. Maybe it's going to the gym, maybe it's going to the coffee shop, maybe it's going out and playing disc golf, maybe it's going out and doing all sorts of different things. We take Jesus with us. And we are called to be a light to that world. See, I can't go and be at your job. I might be able to pop in and say hi, or if we were to grab coffee or lunch, you could take me by your work and I can meet some of your coworkers, but they're not gonna listen to me. I don't live in your house. Some of you I'd like to, you can really, God, it's got some really nice setups. But I don't live in your house. I don't have your neighbors. You have your neighbors. I don't go to your school. I don't go and sit where you eat lunch. I'm not in those places, but you are. And you have Jesus with you where you go. I remember one of the first sermons that I preached here, I had this bucket of water and I was just splashing it everywhere. My Bible still, there's one section that has just all these watermarks in it. But I had this analogy of this sponge and I said like, the water is God and we are a sponge. And when we pursue Jesus, we soak up him and then we take Jesus wherever we go. And there's little droplets of Jesus that go everywhere. You leave a little wet spot of Jesus with everybody you come in contact with every single day. Hopefully you're not just like, psh, on top of their head. And maybe it's just a little spritzy spritz, missed. But that's our calling. And if we didn't have relationships within and without of the church, we wouldn't have the opportunity to share Jesus with those people.

Jesus showed us the ultimate example of this, right? We read his account and the stories of how he lived his life. He ate with believers. He ate with the outcasts, which was so forbidden. He cared for those who actively lived a life in direct opposition of who he was and who he represented. And he loved those in his tightest circle, his 12 disciples with the fiercest love. He did not let their judgment or their perspective from either side sway or influence his choice in his calling that he had from God the Father. And then we have relationships that are different. The biggest one in these, the difference between these two camps would be the level of influence. I had a saying my parents gave me growing up, was the friends we choose help us win or lose. And it doesn't mean that you can only, you should only choose friends that help you win, but it's the level of influence that's the determining factor. And this is easier because when we're in the church, we should share the same vision and mission to share the gospel, to grow in Christ, to make disciples that should be shared. That's very easy, common shared thought.

But in the Christian and those who are yet to become believers, should somewhat be a one-way street. The way that we live our lives is different than those outside of the church, right? If we call ourselves Christians, we should be different. If we're trying to actively follow Jesus the way He's called us to live our lives, we should look different than the world around us. Our choices, our priorities, our morals, our ethics, our language, our mindset, our generosity should be different than that of the world around us. It doesn't mean we can't learn or grow in friendship or begin to understand more or or even care for one another, or that we can't be there for each other in thick or thin. The difference here is influence. These relationships should be in a way that when they look at their relationships with those who are believers and those who are non-believers being outside the church, Do we look the same as those who are yet believers in their life? Does that make sense? When maybe your friend who doesn't go to church looks at the friends in their lives, they see you and then they maybe see another friend of theirs who doesn't go to church either, do we look different than their other friend? I hope we do. We should. Again, to be that shining light of Jesus, to leave a little wet spot of God on their lives when we interact. Jesus should be the center, not only of our lives, but the center of lives of relationships of those who call themselves believers. This one, this is a little hard sometimes because unfortunately there has been, since the beginning of the church and the time in the life of Jesus, People are going to try to leverage and manipulate this shared faith in Christ to their own advantage. It's called church hurt. And it flows through the church like an epidemic. And it breaks my heart. This is when those healthy boundaries in Jesus come into place. And I'm looking at some of you and I know your stories and you're saying, "Yep, I've been there." I've been hurt by someone who I thought was a fellow Christian, a brother or sister in Jesus sitting next to me every single Sunday. And one day they flipped a switch and my relationship was over and it was gone. And I was so confused because I thought we were all about Jesus together but they were in it for their own gain.

So how do we even begin to deal with that? How do we walk through that? Well, Philippians 4:8 Paul writes this great reminder for us "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there be any excellence, If there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Unfortunately, in the church, in our life, as we're dealing with people who are trying to figure out how to follow Jesus and are wrestling with their selfishness and wrestling with their life, we have to not let others pull us away from Christ. There's a difference between someone who is trying to force you into something and there's someone who is encouraging you to make the right biblical decision. So in this situation, real quick context, if someone tells you you should be in church more often, they're not forcing you to attend church. They're trying to encourage you to find yourself in a place where spiritual growth happens. But unfortunately, that's been manipulated in this world. Jesus was the incredible example again. Always pointing people to God time and time again, sitting with the disciples, helping them to try to learn and to grow. And even when they didn't get it, he didn't say, "Forget it, I'm out of here." No, he sat there with patience and compassion. And he is the example of the type of relationship that we have to have with one another, because ultimately it's about caring for one another and to growing to have this level of trust.

Maybe you've heard it before, the fruit of the Spirit out of Galatians. It says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and against such thing there is no law." How are we speaking with one another? Is it covered in the fruit of the Spirit? The way we talk to each other, the way that we care for one another, the way that we love each other, is it covered in the fruit of the Spirit? Are we building bridges or are we breaking bridges? Because the idea and the hope and desire I believe that God has for his church is to create a place that is a judgment free zone because we're all at different levels in this growth of Jesus. We're all at different places trying to figure this stuff out and some of us are further along, some of us are brand new, some of us are still trying to figure out where the bathroom is at church. And that's okay. You never know what somebody is going through in life. You never know. I'm continuing to learn of the stories of life, of what people were walking this church and I am amazed. God is working some incredible things in your life. And some of you are in the thick of it. And I'm over here frustrated I get stuck in traffic on 65. We're all growing, we're all learning. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. You've probably heard that before. Are we caring first before trying to throw some obscure Bible verse at them to tell them that they're not living their life perfect yet and yet we're over here not doing it?

Our Christian relationship should be centered in Jesus and we should point each other to Jesus every single day. It's called being a person of encouragement. Galatians 5:13 says, "For you are called to freedom, brothers and sisters, not only to use your own freedom as an opportunity for the flesh or what I want to do, but to serve one another in love." But being a person of encouragement is hard. And if they only understood how smart you really, really are, their whole life would be fixed, right? They only understood how much you truly know that you have all their problems figured out and fixed, their life too could be fixed. This is a hard lesson to learn in marriage. Laura and I had this saying that was given to us before we got married, and I tried to pass this on to other people. I had a buddy call me randomly a couple of weeks ago and said, "Dude, I will always remember what you said to me before I got married." And I was like, "Sorry, I don't know what I said." He's like, "No." He said, "You always told us, when my wife and I are frustrated or we're trying to figure out that I need to ask her the question, does she want to fix her or does she want a friend?" And he goes, "It's changed our marriage." I was like, "Whoa, I said something wise, cool." But this is true, my wife, Lauren and I, we have to constantly use this. And lately I'll admit, I've struggled with this, it's hard, but we'll be in a situation, I'll go, "Okay, babe, what do you want? You want a fixer or you want a friend?" And she goes, most of the time, she just wants a friend. She just wants someone to sit there and go, "Man, life is tough. And I'm going over here, you could fix this, you could do this, you could change this, you could change this." And she could look at me and go, "You need to change this, you need to fix that, you need to do that." But maybe we need to use that more in our relationships with one another. We come into church and we're like, "Man, life is, my week was hard. Okay, what happened? How can I fix it?" You're like, "No, no, no, no. I just wanna tell somebody, I got nobody else I can tell about this. Just need you to listen." And when she comes to me and says, "Hey, babe, I need a fixer." Let's go. I am pumped, fired up. I have a spreadsheet. I got a video presentation. I got YouTube help videos. I have four books and I have next steps available right now. Just call $19.95, your first payment. We will get you on our plan to perfection today. No.

But we have to be there for each other in a way of encouragement because this leads us as Romans 12:17 and eight says, "Repay no one evil for evil, but give thanks or but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all." All does not always include me. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Galatians 4, 15, "Rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head into Christ. Just because we are believers doesn't mean we don't have to have spiritual boundaries with one another. Everybody's different. If we were all the same, it would be a room of robots. I don't like robots, unless they clean my floor, vacuum, move around. God's created us all different. We all have different, I have a pastor friend relationship that is phenomenal. I love the dude to death. He runs at a hundred miles an hour every single day. I don't. And he kills me. 'Cause he is flying, flying, flying, flying. And he is so extroverted. They need another word to describe who he is 'cause he is off the charts. And I am here split 50/50 where I can come up here, I can do this, this is great. But this afternoon I am done. Just do I am, that's how God made me. It's not 'cause I'm a bad pastor, it's just how God made me. But what's great about us is he's going so fast, he gets frustrated with me 'cause I'm slowing him down, but it's healthy for him to slow down, but it's also healthy for him to help me speed up 'cause sometimes I'll just sit in my introvertedness and go, "No, thank you, goodbye." But we compliment each other and we're better pastors because of it. That's how we should live our lives, having healthy conflict resolution, loving one another, caring for one another, but going the extra mile for each other. Sometimes we need to make the first move, even with boundaries. Sometimes we have to forgive others, even when they even haven't asked for our forgiveness. Not, "No, I'm trying to slap you in the face way. Oh, I forgive you." But to live the way that Jesus did. Healthy relationships and boundaries are not passive. There's something to be said about an active relationship, trying to fix it, trying to do what we can, but then still having that boundary, not as something to hide behind, but for us to help protect ourselves, but then also on the flip side, so I did everything I could. And what do we do at that point?

We pray. We pray for one another. Colossians 1:9 says this, "And so from the day that we have heard other people outside of this church in Colossae, we have not ceased praying for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will, God's will, in all spiritual wisdom," not personal earthly wisdom, God's spiritual wisdom, "and His understanding." 1st Thessalonians 5-11, "Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are during the Church in Thessalonica figured it out. Paul was excited about it, and he was saying, "Keep on doing it. "Don't stop praying for one another." Prayer is a powerful way to share the love of Christ towards others while still keeping boundaries. Others, people's crisis are not your crisis. We wanna be there for one another. We wanna love each other. But sometimes we need to go, I'm not being pulled into your drama, it's midnight. Let's talk in the morning. And that is okay. And you stop and you pray in that moment and you let the Holy Spirit lead and guide and direct on what you're supposed to do. Sometimes He's gonna tell you, nope, you need to go right now, even though it's midnight. I've been there. And sometimes he goes, "Nope, you need a good night's sleep because you need to be 100% there for your friend, your family, your loved one in the morning. And you going right now is not gonna help anything." You gotta listen to the Holy Spirit in prayer. So what do we do real quick? We're talking about those who are yet to become believers. You've heard that word, the phrase to be in the world, but not of the world. You might've heard that it comes from two different verses. Romans 12:2 says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Not minds of others, but your mind. "That by testifying, you may discern what is the will of God." What he's asking you to do. And all of that always is what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Jesus himself prays for his disciples just before he starts his journey to the cross. and he specifically praised this in John 17. So kind of put these two together, you'll get where it says in the world, but not of it. It says, Jesus says, "I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I, Jesus, am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, just isolate them, put them by themselves and boundaries all around by themselves, no, but that you would protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctifying them by the truth. Your word is true. We talked about that. And as you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world also.”

This tells us from the words of Jesus that we cannot completely self isolate and shut off everybody in all these relationships in our life if they are not founded and founded in Jesus. But it does talk about this work when it comes to boundaries in these relationships of like I said before, not letting others pull you away from Christ, keeping God priority, keeping Him number one, keeping your church attendance, keeping your scripture reading, keeping your prayer, keeping your quiet time, keeping your Christian disciplines, keeping your time with Jesus, sitting in his presence going, "God, how do you wanna form and change "and make me more into who you are "and what is my calling today for you?" Keeping your Christian relationships and keeping your relationships and family a priority. You were not created to be a doormat. God didn't create you to be a doormat. Yes, Jesus tells us to go the extra mile and even the extra mile beyond that, but you can also share the love of God with those without being physically, mentally, emotionally and verbally abused. Hear me out. And if you find yourself in this place trying to navigate a really tough situation, I would encourage you to go meet with a Christian counselor who also is a follower of Jesus, who also knows the word of God, who also is in their life trying to walk in the way that God has called them. And they can guide and direct because some of this stuff gets so nuanced and so messy and so hard, but there's people in this world, even including Pastor Andrei and myself, that if we can walk with you in this, we want to help you to become who God has called you to be. but you have to set up boundaries within that.

Jesus tells us that honestly, when we signed up to be a follower of Jesus, that that stuff was gonna come at us, right? We're gonna have trials, we're gonna have tribulations, we're gonna have hardships, we're gonna face tough things in our relationships because you and I have said yes to Jesus and the world doesn't understand that. It's not the world's fault, they just don't understand. And so it's not for us to close them off, but then also for us to live in this healthy place because ultimately the reality is that Jesus has already won. Amen? We just celebrate that a few weeks ago on Easter. He has risen, He has already won. He has already taken on the greatest enemy of death and He has won. And in that we get to share His victory. So you and I don't have to be preoccupied with how we have to figure this thing out or to have the final word because that's Christ's job. And in our relationships, we're still called to be an encouragement. Whether we're outside the church or inside the church, we should look different to the world around us and how we are ourselves. And not in like the obnoxious way of like that friend who just started like that new hobby or diet or exercise or vacation plan or brand new car, sometimes it feels like. But in a way that is loving and is caring and has the Holy Spirit covered in it in a way that is just the peace of God follows you wherever you go kind of influence, right? Covered in love, grace, mercy, kindness, joy, fruits of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Everything that we do and say and our actions should be covered in the fruit of the Spirit. We should be like that messy jello salad that grandma brought to every Thanksgiving meal. And when we do all of this and we live in this place where we love God and we put Him first, where we do God's will and He has the purpose for our lives and we're a person of encouragement, it leads us to the place where we do the things that glorify God. And that's ultimately what's about. That in our relationships that people would see Jesus. I don't have it figured out, I'll figure it out. Pastor Andrei doesn't have it all figured out. Every pastor doesn't have it all figured out. They might have a few more miles on their tires, but none of us have figured out. We're not gonna figure it out till we see Jesus. But what we can do is we can be intentional along the way. We can be intentional in the way that we use our words, how we encourage each other, how we have our actions, how we love one another. Because being in a relationship with Jesus and relationship with those around us is active, not passive. That's the way that God has called us to live our lives.

Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for this morning. God, so grateful for your word and your reminder for us to step in and to follow the calling that you have for us. And God, I'm so thankful that you've given us your word as we've read so many scriptures today that you would continue to guide us, that you would continue to lead us, that you have equipped us with those of us who have called Jesus our Lord and Savior, and we have the Holy Spirit on us. You have given us everything that we need to live this life here on earth with relationships that are glorifying to you, that have healthy boundaries, that live in a space where we care for one another, even if we're from afar through prayer, God, that we are are living in a life that gives glory to you, Jesus, that you would look down on our relationships, whether we're inside the church or outside the church, God, and you would just smile because you would just see how much your goodness, your love and your mercy is being shown in our communities wherever we go. So Jesus, I would pray for us this week to think about our relationships, that we would be intentional, that we would be active, that we would think about, God, how do you wanna use this relationship to give glory to you? And that God, we would have healthy boundaries, not to shut us off from those who we don't like, or we don't wanna be around them, or they're not a Christian yet, so I can't be around them. No, God, that we would use these spaces and these moments to give you glory, even if that means all we do is pray for them. You tell us in your scripture to pray for our enemies. God, are we praying for our enemies? Jesus, work in our heart, work in our lives this week. We're excited for what you're gonna do in our relationships. We look forward to next week, coming back together. Jesus, we love you, we praise you, we thank you. Everybody said Amen.

April 7, 2024

Pastor Lauren Snider

Relationships 101

Relationships 101: Part 1

April 7, 2024

Pastor Lauren Snider

Relationships 101

Relationships 101 - Marriage & Singleness

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We're heading into a relationship series. Tell me you're married without telling me you're married. when you show up to church in the same color. (audience member speaks off microphone) Generally unintended. We were getting dressed this morning, we're like, "Uh, this wasn't planned." That's okay, it's appropriate, 'cause we're talking about relationships today. We took a break from our Philippians series to have Palm Sunday and Easter. We will be heading back into that here in a few weeks, but we are doing our Relationships 101 series, as you've heard this morning, and we are just so excited about this. This has been something that's been on our hearts for a while and just something that we think is really valuable that we can all glean something from. We're all in relationships of some shape or form, right? So we can all grow in this area. So we're gonna be kicking off today talking about relationships in general and also I'm gonna be touching on marriage and singleness. And then Pastor Chris is gonna come in next week and hit on boundaries in relationships. Yes, believers can have boundaries, it's good. And then week three, as he mentioned, Corinne will be here on Sunday morning and then our workshop in the afternoon. But if you have questions about relationships or about anything pertaining to relationships, we would love for you to fill out one of the question cards in the back over the next few weeks and just drop it in there. And Corinne is gonna hit on those during the workshop. So we would love for you to leave your questions. We're gonna be covering a lot of different kinds of relationships and relationship situations, But relationships are as unique as the people in them. So there's no possible way in this three week series that we can cover every unique situation and scenario. So as things come up, as we're talking, as you're thinking, maybe you have some questions that are just kind of brought to mind. We would love for you to drop those questions in the back and Corinne will be able to get to those during our workshop.

Our goal with this series really is just to equip you. We want to equip you with biblical principles for all of your relationships to help you have strong, healthy, kingdom-minded relationships. That's the goal with this. We want them to be strong, healthy, and kingdom-minded. Now that doesn't mean that every relationship you're in will be with other believers, right? You can be in relationship with other believers and that naturally would be a kingdom-minded relationship because you're growing together in your faith. But when you're in relationship with a non-believer, who's someone who doesn't know Jesus, that can also be a kingdom-minded relationship in the way that you speak to them, act around them, respond to them. That can point them to Jesus. So we want all of our relationships to be kingdom-minded. So that's our goal for this series. So let me open us up in prayer. Jesus, we thank you for this day. We thank you for this topic. God, you created relationships. And so we pray that you will help us to have the best relationships that we can that are glorifying and honoring to you. Bless this time together in your name, amen. Well, ironically, we are on a break from our Philippians series, but our passage today is from Philippians. So we are going to actually just dive right into that here at the beginning. But this part that we're talking about is in chapter two. And it really, when we reference this verse, it's really about Christ as it should be. The Bible should be mostly about God, right? We see, we try to put ourselves in the Bible and really we should be looking for God in the Bible. And this is referencing the nature of Jesus. But something, a little shame to admit, that I had not caught before, like until very recently, like embarrassingly recently, is the first line of this verse, all right? So let's read it together. This is chapter two of Philippians. We're gonna start in verse five. It'll be on the screens. You can pull it up on your phone or in your Bible. The first verse, “In your relationships with one another,” that's the part I missed, okay? “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature, God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” Y'all glad you showed up today? Y'all ready to be like Jesus in your relationships?

He is a prime example of how we should be in our relationships. It is not very likely that we will have to die for our relationships, but are we willing to be like Christ? The key things that I wanna pull out here are humility and obedience. He humbled himself. He took on humanness. He lowered himself to be like us. And then he was obedient to God's plan, to the point of death, to sacrifice for us. So in our relationships, we can be humble and have humility with others while having obedience to God. When we have humility and obedience in our relationships with God and others, it's gonna solve a lot of the problems just right off the bat. It'll just take care of a lot of things, right? So we want to practice humility and obedience in our relationships. It's interesting, statistically in the church, the number of single people is actually rising. People are getting married later. We have, you know, there's other circumstances such as divorce or death, but people are just staying single longer. And so we have, in our congregation, we have a lot of married people and we have a lot of single people. And then we have a lot of unique situations within that. Maybe you've been married for a long time, maybe it's just been a short time. Maybe you are divorced, maybe you're widowed, maybe you're on your second marriage. For singles, maybe you are single out of choice, or maybe you're single not by choice. Maybe you are, again, widowed or divorced. Maybe you just haven't found the right person yet. Lots of different scenarios. but both are so valuable. And that's, I want you to hear me on that. Both are valuable in the church and in the kingdom of God. The ground at the foot of the cross is level. Okay, we all have something to bring to the table. Both are good and both are hard. Each of them has their own things that are hard about them. We're not gonna play the hard Olympics to see who has it harder. But we understand that there is hard parts of marriage and there's hard parts of singleness, just like there is goodness and joy in marriage and there's goodness and joy in singleness.

Romans 12 talks about how we're all part of the body. It says, "For just as each of us has one body with many members and these members do not all have the same function, So in Christ, we though many form one body and each member belongs to all the others.” We're all part of the body of Christ. It is not about our relationship status. It's about the status of our relationships. How healthy are our relationships? Our romantic ones, our friendships, our familial relationships, even coworkers and neighbors, how healthy are our relationships? So talking to the married people here for a minute. Married people have certain obligations to their spouse, to their family, if they have children, that often means priorities look different with work and finances. It's a beautiful picture of the gospel. You know, the church is called the bride of Christ. So it's this beautiful image of marriage, of how the church is married to Christ.

Paul talks about this in Ephesians, talks about marriage, says, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord." He goes on to say, "Husbands, loves your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy." He quotes back to the Old Testament, says, "For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ in the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband." He's laying out here what a marriage relationship looks like. It takes humility or mutual submission and obedience to God for the way the marriage should be. Marriage is good. Marriage is God ordained. The Bible basically starts off with God creating marriage with Adam and Eve. He says, "Adam, it's not good for him to be alone. I'm gonna give him a helper. I'm gonna give him a mate." And so he creates Eve. It is good. There is value in that. But for the single people, it is good and there is value in singleness. I don't know if you know, but Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament was single. There's a lot of single people in the Bible. Most of the disciples were single. People in the Old Testament, Rahab who helped the spies, the Israelite spies, she was single at the time. She ended up getting married because we know she was in the lineage of Jesus, but she was living in her parents' house when she helped the spies. God can use you regardless of your relationship status. Jesus was single. Let's not forget, There is nothing lesser than or greater than marriage or singleness. They're just different, but they both have strengths.

Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians. He says, "I wish that all of you were as I am," being single, "but each of you has your own gifts from God. One has this gift, another has that," meaning marriage or singleness. "Now to the unmarried and the widows, I say it is good for them to stay unmarried as I do." Did you catch that though? He called it a gift. Both marriage and singleness are a gift from God. Those who are single have different obligations and responsibilities. A lot of you have more resources that are just available because it's just you. Maybe not finances, yes, but even just your time and your energy, You're able to live differently, to give differently, to meet people's needs differently. If there's someone in the church who needs a meal or needs a ride or needs help, you very likely may have more availability than a young mom with a million kids who just can't. Hi, I'm that mom with a million kids. But you just have a different availability And that is beautiful. And that contributes to the kingdom of God. Both though, the singleness is also a picture of the gospel. Because it is this image of being complete in Christ. Marriage, you don't get married to be complete. You get married to compliment each other. But in singleness, you get to live out being fully complete in Christ and being that picture that you are whole and complete in Jesus. Your identity is in Christ, whether you're married or single, it should be in Christ. It is not in your marriage, it is not in your singleness, it is not in your divorce, it is not in your past, it is not in any of your relationships, it is in Jesus. Both are good, both are hard, both require humility and obedience and selflessness.

Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians chapter seven, verse 17, says, "Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them." He's called you to your relationship status. Now that doesn't mean it can't change. Single people get married, and unfortunately, sometimes married people become single again. It happens. So he's not saying your identity is in your relationship status, but he's saying that you should live as a believer in whatever situation God has called you to be in. In this season of life, you can do it so well in whatever season you're in. We're called to steward our lives well and point people to Jesus in all of our relationships. but strong relationships require that humility and obedience. For married people, there's a selflessness that comes with living with somebody else, with considering your spouse's needs and desires, thinking of others in that way, of those that are in your home, and what is he maybe making sacrifices of what you want to provide for your family. For single people, there's a selflessness in the sense that you could very easily do whatever you wanted. You have less to other people to consider in your home. It's just you. But you don't live on an island. You can choose selflessness by how you interact with the people around you, by how you choose to spend your time, by getting out of your home and into the community or into your church. That still requires selflessness.

Humility and obedience are required for relationship within Christian community. So Christian community is this, it is the church. It's coming on Sunday mornings, it's being in relationship with other believers. This is Christian community. And we're all broken human beings who bring our own stuff to the table. And so it requires us to choose humility and obedience to God. We were created for community though. God is a communal God. He is triune, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is in relationship within himself. And so our communal triune God created us for community with Him and with others. When we are pursuing holiness, or sorry, pursuing humility, it allows us to pursue holiness in a much better way. Holiness is the process of becoming more like Christ. It is growing in our behavior, in our heart posture, and allowing Jesus to transform us to be more like Him. And the best way to do that is in community. Some ways that we do this through discipleship, small group, midweek small group, diving into the word, Bible study, practicing spiritual disciplines, accountability relationships, to hold each other accountable to the things that we say we're gonna do or not do. coming to church, being here, serving on a Sunday morning or in the community.

All of this is you growing in holiness. But all of these things outside of a few spiritual disciplines you do in community. When we invite Jesus into our relationships, Those relationships become more fruitful. They're thriving. They can be more intimate. We can be more authentic with each other and they build the kingdom. 'Cause when we're in relationship that has Jesus at the center of it, we're gonna build each other up. We're gonna be encouraging. We're gonna pray for each other. We're gonna be honest with each other and hold each other accountable. We're gonna allow people to speak into our lives as we speak into their lives. But it only works if we have the mindset of Christ. If we choose humility, if we put on the nature of a servant, he became like us, but in order to have healthy relationships, we have to become like him. and becoming obedient to God, in whatever that looks like.

I was listening to a podcast this week, specifically it was about singleness, but there was some really good stuff for everyone. And he wrapped up the podcast episode with this analogy. And he talked about, some of you may even have heard a similar analogy before, but he talks about who is on the throne of your heart. Right, so if you imagine you have your heart and it's Jesus' or someone is on the throne, it should be Jesus, spoiler alert, but someone is going to always be on the throne. Is it you? Is it another person in your life? Is it something you love very much? Perhaps it's a goal or something that seems good, but it's become higher than God in your heart. Is it a sin? If it's anything other than Jesus, you're gonna have problems. He said, when we are on the throne, we play defense because everything is about protecting your own little kingdom. When Jesus is on the throne, we learn to play offense. We get to be on offense when Jesus is on the throne of our heart, because we're not trying to defend our own little kingdom. We're not worried about other people being a threat to us and a threat to this kingdom we have set up. Because when we're on the throne, everyone is a threat to that. Can't really have real, authentic, kingdom-minded relationships when you see everyone else is a threat to your own personal kingdom. But when Jesus is on the throne, He can defend Himself. You get to go on offense. You get to go into relationships and love people. Out of His love for you, you get to love people. You get to walk confidently into those relationships to have the strong, healthy, kingdom-minded relationships that we're after. Because your identity is in Him, not in anything you can do, not in the relationship itself, it's in him. He is on the throne. So you get to be confident in those relationships and you get to continually choose humility and obedience and Christ likeness. So that together, either on your own, if they're not a believer or with that person, you get to grow in holiness. You get to be more like Jesus. And those relationships can help you grow as well. So who's on the throne of your heart? The beautiful thing of it is it can change. If it's not Jesus right now, you get to pick, you get to decide. You get to put him on the throne. And you're gonna be able to enter into relationships in such a healthier way. and a healthier mindset and more like Jesus.

Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for this time. We thank you for this topic. We thank you that you created us for community, for relationships, for marriage and singleness. We thank you that you created the body to work together, that everyone brings something to the table that is everyone is valuable. God, we thank you for the relationships you've given us. We pray for the ones that are struggling. God, help us as far as it depends on us to live at peace with everyone. God, that you will just change our hearts so that we can infuse love and kingdom mindedness into our relationships, God. And the ones that are doing well, God, continue those relationships, build them up, grow them, help us to grow in holiness because of the relationships you've given us. We thank you. We thank you for Christian community. We thank you for community with you, that you, the God of the universe, want to have a relationship with us. Help us to walk in this truth this week as we head into our relationships. Help us to bring peace and your love into our relationships this week. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

March 31, 2024

Pastors Andrei & Chris

Easter Sunday

March 31, 2024

Pastors Andrei & Chris

Easter Sunday - Hope is RISEN!

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Easter morning, a Sunday school teacher to ask the kiddos what they knew about Easter. And so she said, "Does anybody know what Easter is about?" And this one little boy raised his hand, he was so excited, he said, "Yes, yes, Easter is when "all my aunts and uncles come over to my house, "eat turkey, watch football, and take naps." And I said, "Well, no, that's kinda not it. "You're thinking of Thanksgiving." And then Susie, she raised her hand, she goes, "Oh, oh, I know, I know." She goes, "We celebrated Easter last year. "We decorated a tree and we had presents and there was milk and cookies. And the teacher goes, "No, I think you're probably, you're thinking about Christmas. Does any," and she's real nervous by this point. She's like, "I don't know if any of the poor kids know what Easter is about." And so she goes, "Okay, anybody know?" And Mina kind of sheepishly raised her hand. She goes, "Well, well, Easter is really about the special day when Jesus hung on the cross and he died and they put him in a tomb for three days. And the teacher goes, "Mina, that's awesome, that's great." And then Mina says, "And then we wait "and Jesus, when he comes out of the tomb, "if he sees his shadow, there's three more weeks of winter." That poor Sunday school teacher. Yeah, yeah. Right. Got some work to do. Yeah. So we're not talking about Groundhog Day today, we're talking about Easter. And before we get started, I love to just pray with us once more. Jesus, thank you for today, God. We continue to give you praise, the honor, the glory, God, that you rose that very first Easter and we celebrate that today. God, we are so excited to be here with you. You are here present, we know it. Your Holy Spirit has been felt this whole morning in this space. And so Jesus, we give you the praise, the honor, and the glory. God, be with us. Help us to transform who you want us to become. God, you have something for each of us today. Maybe we knew that, maybe we're here not by our own personal choice, but we're here maybe with somebody else who invited us, or we woke up and jumped out of bed and we couldn't wait to be here at church today. God, you have a word for each of us. God, may we leave this place different than when we walked in this morning by your power. Pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Before we get to our passage this morning, I just wanna get us all on the same page as far as what's happened in the life of Jesus. So we're going to recap what's happened to Jesus since he was betrayed by Judas in the garden of Gethsemane. So since that time, Jesus was handed over, he went through a couple trials, and Pilate, even though he was found innocent, they couldn't really find anything wrong with him, because of the pressure and the politics, he handed him over to be crucified. And at that time, the Roman soldiers mocked him and tortured him to extreme extents. And at that point, after dealing with all of that, and physically reaching the point of exhaustion, his body being tortured, he then has to carry his own cross to the top of the hill. He can't make it all the way. So Simon of Serene helps him carry that cross to the top. And at that time, having to endure all of this, having gone through all of this, reaching this point of exhaustion, he speaks with some women there, Mary and Mary and some of the other women. And even in this moment, he's being Jesus. He's meeting them where they're at, comforting them, offering them grace and love. Pilate puts this sign on Jesus's cross that says, "This is Jesus, King of the Jews.”

He's then crucified and bystanders continue to mock him. A criminal hanging next to him asked Jesus to remember him. And Jesus, again, hanging there on the cross, Dying offers salvation and promises that he will see him in heaven that very day. Jesus dies on the cross. The women have been watching the crucifixion from afar. There is an earthquake and the veil in the temple is torn. And at this point, even some of the dead from nearby tombs are raised to life. Soldier wants to make sure that Jesus is dead And so he pierces the side of Jesus, confirms that Jesus is dead. Joseph of Arimathea, who opposed the crucifixion of Jesus, he's a leader, he asked Pilate to take the body of Jesus and Pilate agrees. And so Jesus' body is placed in a tomb. And at that point, the rock, the stone is rolled in front. It is sealed and there are guards placed to make sure that nothing can come in or out. And then this time, this journey from the cross to the cross, and it just shows what Christ had to endure, what he had to persevere. It's the ultimate humiliation for the Creator being humiliated by His creation. And then on Holy Saturday, just yesterday, this is a day of grief, of sorrow, of pain, of mourning, Jesus is dead, and it's Sabbath. And so no one can do anything about the body. Imagine this agony for the people who love Jesus, his followers, having to take a Sabbath, having to take a day of inactivity, just sitting in their emotions. I don't do that well. I'm a person that if I'm feeling something, if I'm feeling off, I need to resolve it. I need to go make it right. If that's talking to a person, I will drive over, I will text them and say, "How do we do this right now?" I don't do well with sitting in emotions. And I can't imagine the followers of Jesus having to sit in their agony. When they wanted to do something, they wanted to address Jesus' body. They just wanted to do something to express their grief and their love. Saturday must have been one of the hardest days after losing Jesus. It had to be overwhelming to the point where their emotions are swelling and so the first thing after Sabbath was over, they wanted to do something.

So we're in our passage, Matthew 28 verse 1 says this, "After the Sabbath at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb." The very next morning. They finally get to do something for Jesus, for their savior who had died. So the women wanted to go embalm Jesus. We know this from Mark's gospel, that they had brought spices to start this process. They were there to grieve, but they were not at all prepared for what was about to happen. They went there to continue their mourning, to honor and to continue in their adoration for Jesus, but instead.

Verse two says, "There was a violent earthquake, "For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven "and going to tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. "His appearance was like lightning. "His clothes were white as snow. "The guards were so afraid of him, "they shook and became like dead men." This was not the scene that they expected to find when they showed up. They had expected to find, honestly, quite the opposite. another gospel talks about is the women are on their way, they're like, who's gonna move? Oh yeah, who's moving the stone for us? We can't move it. But God had other plans, right? God had a different plan. He wanted to do something different that day. He wanted to do the unexpected. The tombs of those days were much different than a mausoleum or maybe a traditional grave site that we think of today. These were basically caves that were hewn into stone by hand and were basically corked or sealed with another rock because as a body decays, it lets off an unpleasant odor. And so these places were basically to be the only way that they could have something to be sealed in the manner that would not disturb the rest of life around smelling dead bodies all the time. And so this rock, in a sense, there's a couple different theories of what these rocks were like. We have the traditional round stone and the kind of rail that kind of rolls back and forth, but when you say stone, we don't realize like how big these things were. We're talking one to two tons, eight feet in diameter, one to two inches thick. There's even some studies in archaeology that did this and they found these tombs that were sealed with basically just ten-foot boulders. And they were just kind of like shoved in there almost like a cork.

And so for Mary and Mary to show up and to see this thing moved was pretty impressive. This is not what they expected to find whatsoever. And I love what even it says, this verbiage here, that the stone rolled back. There's some scholars that actually see that in the tense of the original language and the original account written down. Some would translate as thrown aside. So this rock just wasn't just like, "Oh, nice. Nice little ramp it rolled over to." literally thrown aside to a place where like you walk up and go, "That rock's not supposed to be there. That's supposed to be over there." And so they show up and this is the absolute unexpected. The rock was trying to hold Jesus back. As Pastor Andre said, there were guards there keeping watch. The Pharisees and Pilate were so scared that Jesus was either gonna do what he said he was gonna do or that someone was gonna try to steal Jesus to make it look like like Jesus had done what He said He was going to do. And so they had the elite of the elite, the top soldiers of the day keeping watch over this tomb. I'm sorry, but no fisherman is taken out of it, a Roman soldier in that day. And then on top of all of that, it is actually sealed with a royal seal that basically says, "Do not enter upon death," essentially. This was not traditional. This was out of the ordinary. This was strange. When people buried people, they put the stone there and they walked away. There was no further activity that took place at graves. But there was something special that God was doing. See, they put Jesus in the ground. They rolled a stone in front of the entrance. They proclaimed a royal decree to seal the tomb. They had guards watching and yet it was all undone. Hope that very first Easter overcame anything that humans tried to do to stop Jesus from being alive. Hope has overcome. So why do we say all this? Everything humanly possible was done to contain Jesus in that grave. And yet the hope of that very first Easter overcame it all. Physical barriers, soldiers, kings, political leaders, powers, authorities on earth said, "This story is over." But God said, "I still got something to say. I still have something to say about this and the resurrection of Jesus was not a quiet one. We just read about earthquake and shining like lightning and divine heavenly beings, angels coming down. This was a loud, loud event. There was not one person, thing, power, anything that was gonna do to push back against that. The hope of Christ was proclaimed that very first Easter. Hope overcame everything in order to change everything for the glory of God.

Our passage continues in verse 5 when it says, "The angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who is crucified. He is not here. He has risen just as He said. Come and see the place where He lay. Then go quickly and tell His disciples He has risen from from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him. Now I have told you." In Luke's account, it says, "In their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said, 'Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he has risen.'" Church, hope is alive in the person of Jesus Christ. For the women at that moment, all they were trying to process was that their friend, their beloved, their Messiah was still alive. Just a complete 180 in their hearts and minds. I don't know if you've ever received good news after maybe expecting or sitting in the worst news, but it kind of takes a while for your heart and mind to catch up with what you've just heard. And you're just, wait, hold on, I was in this place and I was prepared for this, my mind was already here, I was making plans for that. And then you get told the opposite And it just doesn't like, "Oh great, now we're good." It takes a while, like, "What? What are you saying?" And so I think in this moment for the women, hope is sinking in. In Jesus, there is hope. And because Jesus lives, hope is alive. In the past three years of Jesus' life, he was sharing the good news, the good news about the kingdom of God, about how he would reign, and what this kingdom would look like. the news of salvation. But that news changes now. We go from the gospel, which used to be this common word in the Roman Empire, talking about this herald that would go from town to town, sharing the gospel, meaning any victory that the Roman Empire had, that's what they would share. Rome won, that was the gospel. Well, Christianity hijacked that word, which I love and said, this is ours now. We have the best news. And we're gonna go and share it with everyone. And so gospel goes from little G to the big G. The gospel is the best news that Jesus is alive. Their savior, their Messiah, their Lord, their teacher, their friend, their hope is not dead, but is alive. Hope is alive.

And church, I want us to realize this too, without the resurrection, there is no hope. Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 15, he says, "For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. You are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life, we have hope in Christ. We are of all people, most to be pitied, but Christ indeed has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. See, without the resurrection, our faith is worthless. True faith has power because of who we believe in, not just in the fact that we believe. A lot of people will just say, if you believe in something, that'll get you somewhere in life. No, true power comes in who we believe in, which is Jesus. Without the resurrection, we don't have the forgiveness of sins. Without the resurrection, there is no hope of heaven. But because the resurrection is real, because Christ did indeed raise from the dead, we have hope. We have hope that we are forgiven. We have hope that our faith in God matters. And we have hope of a future where there is no more sin, where everything that is marred and stained and damaged and destroyed by sin will be undone. Hope is alive. And in our passage, the angel had instructions of what to do with this hope. And what are they to do with the news? With this new reality as it's sinking in, well, they're to go and share the gospel. These first witnesses, these first believers, We're tasked by the angel to go and tell. And so what do we do with that news today? Well, for us, when our reality has changed by meeting the one who is hope, Jesus, and the one who gives us hope, we too have been tasked with the responsibility.

Matthew chapter 28 continues on in verse 8. It says, "So the women hurried away from the tomb, "afraid yet filled with joy," these paradoxing emotions. And they ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly, Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. I almost wanted to use salutations. The most formal way of saying hello. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go, tell my brothers to go to Galilee. There they will see me." Jesus's resurrection that very first Easter changed eternity. For the very first time, death had been defeated once and for all. We have the account of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead, but at some point, Lazarus dies again. 'Cause that was not a permanent resurrection. That was a temporary. See, up to this point, All that people knew was temporary hope. You get good news one day, you have hope, and then the next moment it's shattered. You wake up and you think this is gonna be a great day, and then something happens. You get the phone call, you get the email, you get the text, and our lives are thrown into ruins. But the hope that Jesus brought that very first Easter was one that was permanent, was one that was eternal, the one that was everlasting. So what is our response in this hope that is eternal? Our first response is the same of those who saw Jesus along the way. They bowed down and they worshiped him. That's our response. They came face to face with this eternal hope in Jesus on that encounter, and Jesus changed their life. and they fell down and they worshiped. They understood the weight, the significance of Christ in that moment and saw very much of when they last saw him being different. See, the last time that they saw him, they had put him in the tomb and walked away. Very much dead, very much permanent, very much hopeless. And then on their way, He shows up and says, "I'm alive. I'm risen. The story's not over." the temporary in that moment became eternal.

The second way we can respond is to go and tell. Our calling and our purpose for each and every one of us is to spread this hope all around. Your calling is to be a hope dealer. Your calling and where you live, where you learn, where you work, where you play, wherever you go, you are taking this hope of eternity with you. And you are sharing it with everyone that you come into contact with. That's what Jesus said here to go and tell. For those of us who have experienced this hope in Christ, we have to be sharing it with others. The world around us is hurting. The world around us is in dire need of Christ. There's hurt, there's misery, there's panic, there's uncertainty, there's despair all around us. And I see it this way. I see it as us standing on the shore of a rushing river, in a river that is filled with fear and trepidation and worry and anxiety and pain and stress, suffering and failure. And these waves are trying to pull people down and to drown them in this rushing river. And you and I, for those who have the hope in Jesus, are standing on the shore with a rescue buoy in our hands. That is the gospel of Jesus. Would we not throw it to save those who are drowning? See the best part about that is we don't have to do the rescuing. That's the buoy. That's Jesus. Jesus does the rescuing. But we have to throw it. We can't help but just stand there and hold it in our hands. Who needs to know? Who in your life needs to know this story of hope? Maybe for others of us, you'd say, "Pastor, I'm in that river. I'm drowning every day. day. I got fear, I got anxiety, I got worry, I got stress, I got problems on top of problems, on top of problems. There is no hope in my life. Well I want to tell you today that Jesus has a life buoy to rescue you today. Now Now it's not gonna fix everything overnight, but what I will tell you is the temporary hope that you cling to from moment to moment as you drown will become a permanent hope in your life, a hope that is eternal, a hope that nothing can ever take away, a hope that will be with you through every single thing that you walk through in every single thing that you face. And I'll tell you, it's the greatest hope that you could ever have. And until you experience that hope, and step into that hope and say, "God, you know what, I'm done. "I can't do this anymore, I need you." You don't know what this true hope is like. There's so many of you in this room that are just nodding along with me, 'cause you know that hope. You have that hope every single day, and it changes your life. Not only here, but it changes your life in eternity. This hope continues on forever and ever and ever and ever. That very first Easter, God's love shone through the cross in Jesus's death. And the darkest day that we thought all hope was lost, God said, "I still have something to say." And love conquered death. In Jesus conquering death, you and I can live in this new life. We can have this new life free from pain, suffering, uncertainty, despair, hurt, fear, to live in a new life with purpose, with freedom, with hope. This is the story of Easter. This is the story that God wants you for this moment and right now. And that feeling that you're having inside of you with struggle and uncertainty, but there's this drawing that you have. That's the love of God. That's Jesus saying, I want to take care of you. I wanna fix it. I wanna make it right. You just gotta let me in. Let me, God is saying, give you new life today.

Our prayer is that all of you would be reminded or would know undoubtedly that hope has overcome, that hope is alive and that hope is eternal. And we have hope because Jesus shares his resurrection with us. And so we know that even as we endure this life, that is full of pain and sorrow and man, There's just so much sadness that doesn't end. But we know that after we die, we too will experience what Jesus experienced, where we get to be with God in heaven. We're so thankful for the fact that Jesus shares in his victory with us. And that's what we celebrate on this day. We celebrate Jesus' victory and the fact that we are a part of that victory too. So as we close in prayer, Let's remember and praise God for the hope that we have in Christ. If you guys could bow your heads with me. God, we come before you with joy, with humility, and with full confidence, knowing that you raised Jesus from the dead, that the resurrection is real, that the resurrection has very real implications for our lives, ones that bring us joy and hope, a hope that allows us to endure through this life, to live it for you, to join you in eternity. Lord, we praise you because without you we have no hope. We praise you for defeating sin and death and extending hope to us. And we pray that you would fill us today with hope. There are some in this room who need hope desperately. You know exactly what's going on in everyone's life. You know those who came here with joy, and for that we praise you. We know that there are some who came here barely being able to come here, Lord. Just took everything for them to show up. And God, I pray that you would fill them with your hope. Church, if you're here with your eyes closed, heads bowed, If you're here and you are in need of change in your life, if you're in need of Jesus and you're in need of that hope, I want you to pray this prayer silently to yourself in your heart. Repeat after me in your heart, say, Lord, give me hope. I need you and I can't do this life without you. The only hope in this world is in you. "God, forgive me of my sins as I surrender my life to you. "Thank you for your salvation." And God, we pray for anyone who just prayed that prayer, we praise you, God, that you can look forward, that they can look forward to an eternal life with you. And in that eternal life, in eternity, in heaven, they are free from pain, free from suffering, despair, and hurt. God, give them a new life with purpose, freedom, and hope.

And church, for the rest of you, as Pastor Chris shared, I want you to think of someone in your life who needs to know about this hope that is found in Jesus, only in Jesus. And I want you to pray this in your hearts, just quietly to yourself. God, give me strength and boldness and humility and vulnerability in moments where your spirit is leading me to share. God, give me a heart that cares more about others' eternity than any judgment we can face here on this earth. God, help my heart to yearn for this hope to be seen through my life, the way I live and the way I talk. And Lord, give me the words to say to share this hope when that time comes. God, we give you all the glory. We give you all the praise. Thank you for Jesus's life, death, and resurrection. And thank you for the hope that we have in Him. Amen.

March 24, 2024

Pastor Andrei Yaholkovsky

Palm Sunday

March 24, 2024

Pastor Andrei Yaholkovsky

Palm Sunday - Jesus’ Triumphant Entry Into Jerusalem

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Welcome! We're so excited that you're here joining us on Palm Sunday. Wow, it's so full, I love it. If you're new, we would love to meet you. So Pastor Chris and I will be under the green tent after the service, and if you could just introduce yourself, we would love to say hi and get to know you. So thank you for being here this Sunday. We're taking a break, as Pastor Chris said, from our Philippians series. We'll come back to that in about a month and finish off the letter, but for now we're going to turn our attention towards this final week of Jesus's life as we approach Easter.

I want to begin by telling you a funny story I heard from another pastor recently. It tells a story about a five-year-old boy named Sam who one weekend gets sick. And so he decides to stay home from church, and he stays home with his dad, and his mom takes his two siblings to church. And when they get back, Sam notices that they're carrying palm branches in their hands. And so he says, "Mom, what are the palm branches? What do they mean?" And his mom said, "Well, today was Palm Sunday." And when Jesus walked by everyone, waved palm branches, and said, "Hosanna, praise the Lord." And the five-year-old Sam thinks about it for a second, and he says, "Great, but one Sunday I don't go to church and Jesus shows up.”

We want to be like Sam. We don't want to miss what God is doing on Palm Sunday. And so that, like, again, Pastor Chris said, this begins Holy Week. And our prayer for all of us is is that this week we pay attention to the ways in which God wants to meet us this week. We want to begin with this question today of what is Palm Sunday all about? Why do we, meaning even the global church, take time out of whatever series, whatever we're covering, and everyone around the world is taking a break to have a Palm Sunday? Let's acknowledge its significance. And so this is the day, as you know, that Jesus was hailed as king, and he would bring a new kind of kingdom to the world. At the time, where this is happening, there were two separate ideas of what that kingdom would look like. The one that Israel had in mind, and the one that Jesus knew, he would be ushering in. From Israel's perspective, you have to know their history a bit. And so, hundreds of years before this, they've fallen away from God. The Israel's kings over and over again have rebelled against God, have chosen their own way. The people would not listen to the prophets that God had sent to try to get their attention, to try to get them to repent. And so God eventually let them suffer the consequences of their actions by letting them be defeated by other nations, by letting them be taken captive. And in captivity, God is still sending prophets to say, "Hey, I have a plan. I have a plan of redemption." And these prophecies pointed to a future redeemer, a savior, a Messiah, a rescuer, a king. And so in their minds, if you're Israel over hundreds of years, you kind of have these pieces to the puzzle. And for them, they assembled those pieces in a way where they thought of the future king being a warrior king, someone who would establish a new earthly empire.

They thought that this new king, this leader, this rescuer, would release them from any oppressive regimes and kingdoms that ruled over them, that this new king would conquer anyone that opposed them, just like the kings of old, like Saul and David and Solomon. However, Jesus, in a different perspective, in the true perspective, he taught about a different kind of kingdom. He was also teaching and showing them that he was gonna be a different kind of king, though they didn't realize that at the time. So he'd been teaching for three years. He's had run-ins with religious leaders. He's performed miracles. He's been discipling a close group of people. And now as we come to our passage this morning, the pace of Jesus' story quickens at a breakneck speed to the climax at the cross. So I'm gonna go ahead and pray, and then we're gonna dive into our passage this morning. Would you guys pray with me?

God, thank you for this day. Thank you for the chance to gather with each other, to praise you, to learn more about you. And we do come before you, Lord, with humble hearts on this Palm Sunday, recognizing your triumphal entry to Jerusalem. And God, I pray that as we study your word, you would help us to realize the significance and the sanctity of this passage and what is happening here in the life of Jesus. And at the end of this time together, we'd be drawn closer to you and have a deeper appreciation and understanding of who you are and what you've done. We pray this in your name, amen.

All right, I'm just gonna go verse by verse. We're gonna be in Matthew 21. We're gonna start in verse one. And so you can follow along. I think we'll have the verses on the screen. But verse one says, "As they approached Jerusalem and came to Beth, Bahaag, I cannot say this word, Bethphage, on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples. Pause right there. The disciples, if you picture this scene, the disciples and Jesus are on the final ridge at the Mount of Olives and they can see the city in the distance. But they're not alone. This is Passover season, where thousands of people are heading to Jerusalem by the same route. And Jesus knows, is aware of this upcoming scene and what this will look like for the people that are with him and for the religious leaders that are in Jerusalem. He knows the scriptures and the prophecies, so this is a very loaded scene for him. He knows what is happening. But for the people, this is a huge group, thousands upon thousands outside, going with Jesus to Jerusalem. Verse 2 says, "Saying to them," to the two disciples, "Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. "If anyone says anything to you, "say that the Lord needs them, "that he will send them right away." This is, this little scene right here, even just with this donkey, is hundreds of years in the making, and we'll get to that in a second. But this is where those expectations for the people of Israel come into play in approaching Jerusalem.

Right here in this scene, scripture starts to be fulfilled. Prophecies begin to be fulfilled. Jerusalem is of huge significance. It's the capital city, it's the central place of worship, it's the central place of politics where people would travel for Passover, it's where the king back in the day would reign. It's the central location for Israel's self-understanding of life under God. This will become truer than ever imagined. Jesus coming to Jerusalem means so much, And Jesus' approach is full of purpose and meaning, and the Jewish people pick up on that. They just have a different conclusion than what Jesus is actually saying and doing. Verses four and five say, "This took place to fulfill "what was spoken through the prophet. "Say to daughter Zion, 'See, your king comes to you, "'gentle and riding on a donkey, "'and on a colt the foal of a donkey.'" Right here, Matthew is quoting Zechariah 9:9. Old Testament prophet from long ago, telling that this is how the Messiah would enter. I wanna focus on how this king is described in this passage here. It says lowly, which can be translated as peaceful or humble or gentle. And this picture of humble and peaceful is in stark contrast with the aggressive military and leader of popular messianism. Instead of aggressive and offensive, Jesus is gentle and compassionate. Instead of overpowering and power hungry, Jesus is approachable and humble. This hearkens back to earlier words in the Gospel of Matthew, as Matthew has tried to paint a picture for the readers of who this Messiah is. In Matthew 12, quoting Isaiah 42, he says that Jesus is a servant. In Matthew 11, he says that Jesus has a gentle and humble heart.

Again, just trying to paint the picture that even though people are expecting this kind of leader, one that will take over, one that will lead an uprising, Jesus is actually a very different kind of leader. And if his demeanor and character are any indicators of how different of a leader he is, it also shows just how different his kingdom will be. Verses six and seven, we continue, it says, "The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. "They brought the donkey and the colt "and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on." So disciples show a lot of respect and reverence. I don't know, how many of you have ridden a horse before? Yeah, oh wow, quite a bit, oh my goodness. All right, I've only ridden a horse like once or twice, But I was very thankful for a saddle. It was very comfortable, and I can't imagine doing it without. If you have, props to you. That seems pretty legit. But in this scene, Jesus gets the treatment, right? He gets some cloaks, makes a very soft saddle for him. And again, just more painting the picture that this is special, right? This is something to be revered.

Verse eight says, "A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. This is like the red carpet scene, right? We see, kind of have images maybe of people lining whatever street they're on, and now the road is just covered, and Jesus is on this donkey, and he's approaching the city. I was trying to think of something similar, and maybe it's like those motorcades. Maybe, I don't know, we don't live in San Francisco. But the last time the San Francisco Giants won the World Series, the city celebrated, and all the team is in the streets, and people are crowded around the streets, and the confetti's falling down from the sky, and it's just a party. It's like, yeah, I was cheering, and yay for the team. That's kind of maybe similar to what is happening here, but probably tenfold, because the meaning of this scene is way more important than the Giants winning a World Series. But this is huge fanfare. This is massive, and it's a crowd. It's exciting. It is a huge scene, a joyous scene. Verse 9 says, "The crowds then went ahead of him, and those that followed shouted, 'Hosanna to the Son of David! "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, "Hosanna in the highest heaven." Hosanna is a Greek form of the Hebrew word translated save us which sounds like a plea, but in this case, it's more of just an exclamation, acknowledging of who this person is and what they could do. Save us, Hosanna. And they're shouting, save us, son of David, which is a reference and a way of saying king, sent by God. They are giving praise to the Lord of Heaven, to Jesus, which is the right response. This is what they should be doing. They get this part right. They have the Messiah before them that God sent, and they are just praising him with everything that they have. They just have a misunderstanding of what this next week in Jesus' life will look like.

This is 10 and 11 read, "When Jesus entered Jerusalem, "the whole city was stirred and asked, 'Who is this?' "The crowds answered, 'This is Jesus, "the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.'" So once this crowd reaches the city, the city itself is like, what's going on? There's a party coming towards us. Who are we celebrating? What's happening? And so the crowd informed, you know, the rumor just starts spreading, like, hey, this is the prophet, this is Jesus. And prophet of Nazareth doesn't sound as exciting as king, But for the people, this would definitely have overtones of this is the Messiah. This is the one that we have been waiting for. After years and years of silence from God, finally, He has sent the one that we've been waiting for. Jesus was here to bring about His heavenly kingdom into reality, but the road to glory for Jesus has to get a lot darker before it gets any better. because he knows what entering Jerusalem really meant.

I wanna walk through the life of Jesus together in this week following Palm Sunday, in our week coming up here. Jesus would enter into the city on what would become Palm Sunday, then the following day is Monday, and on Monday, Jesus enters the temple, and he's angry, he's very upset. He's upset that the religious leaders have allowed the temple, this place that is supposed to be holy, that is supposed to be a very unique place where God and humanity meet, where there is shalom, which means everything that God intended, it's happening there, but instead the religious leaders have let the temple become a place of worshiping money and corruption, and Jesus is not having it. And so he expresses his anger, And he would further upset the religious leaders who were already pretty upset with him. And the tension between them would reach a point of no return.

Tuesday, in Jesus' life, he would continue to teach at the temple, trying to heal the corruption that had been present for so long. Teaching this is what it's supposed to be. Teaching about his kingdom, what's going to happen. But as he's doing that, the tensions continue to rise.

And then Wednesday of Jesus's life, this is the day where plans are set in motion to capture and to kill Jesus.

The next day, Thursday, Jesus's life, we call it Maundy Thursday. Maundy, which comes from the Latin to mandate. And he would gather his disciples. He would wash their feet. He would break bread with them. And then he would command them or mandate them "to serve and love one another." What he knows is such a significant meal with them, that's his most important command, "to serve and love one another.”

And then that night, things get very dark. And he goes to the garden to pray, and then we go into Good Friday. And as Pastor Chris said, it's a very dark day. This is the day where people's cries turn from, From Hosanna, praise Jesus, return to crucify him. He would stand trial that morning, he would be tortured, he would carry his own cross to the top of the hill, and there he'd be crucified and give his life, becoming the ultimate sacrifice to save people from the punishment of their sins. It's the darkest day in history. It's the day that the Son of God died. And yet, it's a part of God's plan. As dark as it is, this is what God intended. And Jesus, who has been given the royal treatment almost a week before this, on Palm Sunday, knows that this is coming. He's entering the city, being celebrated, Having people shout Hosanna and knows what this week looks like.

And then in this week of Jesus' life, there's Saturday, what we call Holy Saturday. And this is a day of in-between. This is a day of lament, between lament and hope, where Jesus is still in the grave, but we, being on the other side of this whole event, know that he wants to come the next day. And so it's just the day of in-between. we're in between sorrow and joy, between grief and hope, between loss and gain, between death and life. We don't wanna rush past this day. Everyone is so excited to get to Easter, and rightfully so. It's the biggest day, as Pastor Chris said, the Super Bowl of our Christian faith. But being present in each day is so important. And so this Saturday, be present in this in-between, where we're grieving what happened and yet hopeful for what is about to happen, what we're going to celebrate.

And then on Sunday, Easter Sunday, we know that when the tomb, this is when the tomb where Jesus lay would be found empty. And the world would discover that Jesus lives, that he is truly God, that Jesus would begin his reign in this new kingdom. And so next week we get to celebrate the best day. And it means that death is defeated, that Satan and sin do not win. And that means for those who believe, we have eternal life with God. So I wanted to walk through this week, and especially today, because for Jesus, Palm Sunday ushered him into the toughest week of his life. And on this day, in this passage, we learn some important things about Jesus. Palm Sunday teaches us, first, that Jesus is the fulfillment of prophecy. God is sovereign and he is in control. And he has had a plan of redemption since Genesis 3, when sin entered into the world, he had a plan. And that plan was fulfilled in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. The savior who has been foretold for years, all throughout the Old Testament, comes to fruition here. And God's plan never fails. What he says will come true.

Secondly, Palm Sunday teaches us that Jesus is worthy to be praised. Just as the people were praising Jesus on the road, shouting Hosanna, giving their utmost respect and reverence to Jesus, this is truly what he deserves. Jesus is worthy and requires our worship. He is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, our Redeemer, our Savior, our Messiah. What other response do we have but to praise Him for what He's done for us.

And thirdly, Jesus, Palm Sunday teaches us that Jesus is not always what is expected. The Jewish people, when praising Jesus on this Palm Sunday, on the road, we're expecting this new earthly kingdom. And we're expecting this in the next days for it to go very differently, for there to be an uprising, for them to be in weeks time on top of the world. this is the new power that's in place, our lives are gonna change, we're gonna become top dog in the known world again, just like we were back in King David and Solomon, we're going to reach new heights of earthly glory, is what they thought. They were thinking like Caesar or King David. You see, often when it comes to leaders, we're drawn towards big personalities, powerful communicators, result producing leaders. rather than persons of beautiful character. Jesus is humble, meek, lowly, and gentle. Maybe not the first words that we would use to describe a great leader. And yet Jesus is the ultimate leader.

An author and pastor, Paul David Tripp writes this. He says, "Do we really look for leaders "who are known for their gentleness? Do we esteem leaders who have their vision and emotions under control so that they're not controlling, demanding, or easily corrupted? In Jesus, we no longer need to look horizontally for what can only be found vertically. Jesus wasn't the militaristic leader or influential political leader, but he was gentle and lowly, peaceful, a servant come to sacrifice himself. The next week in Jesus' life is not at all what the Jewish people expected. It's not the kind of leader they expected, it's not the kind of kingdom they expected, and yet it's exactly what they needed. It's exactly what God had planned.

So, given what we've learned about Jesus from our passage, let me ask a few things that you can talk with God about this week as you reflect on these truths. First, do you trust and live knowing that God is in control? It's easy to say it. Yes, I know that God is in control. Yes, I believe that. But do we actually live that way? We are all fighting worries and anxieties. And oftentimes those worries and anxieties lead us to wanting to take more control. The more the world around us seems out of control, our grip gets firmer. We say, "I gotta do more." But we have to remember that Jesus knows everything, knows us, knows the situation, and he has a plan. Even when we think we have control, and then things, often things later go sideways, things get chaotic, it becomes very challenging, overwhelming, we have to remember from the very beginning that Jesus is in control. So do we trust and live knowing that he is in control? Trusting that the plans that he has made and the work that he is doing in us, he will finish. Sometimes we do. If you're reflecting right now, you're like, yeah, sometimes, that's good. And that's part of the Christian faith and the Christian life, is to learn how to do that more and more. To continually give up control, to surrender to him, submit to him. All right, that's the first question.

Secondly, is Jesus king in your life? Is he receiving all the praise, all the reverence, all the worship that he deserves? It can be easy for us reading these, the Bible and the stories here, to criticize the Jewish people for turning their words of praise, of hosanna, to words of crucify him. but can also be easy for us today to go from praising God on a Sunday in the middle of a service, to then the very next day living a very different life. To living a life that is not at all dependent on Jesus, where he is not reigning over our lives, where we are living out of selfishness, out of pride, independent from God, only giving God a few moments of our day, if that, when really we should be living with him as our king every moment of every day. So do we give him our praise continuously, worshiping him with every facet of our life, living for him daily? Is Jesus king in your life all the time?

Last question. What are our expectations of Jesus? Do we try to define who we think Jesus should be and what he should do? Maybe like Israel, we have thoughts as to what Jesus will do for us. It's like, oh, God, I'm sick again. Can you, Jesus, I think you should make me better right away. This is my plan. These are my thoughts that I think are great. So if you could do that for me, I think we're on the same page. Or Jesus, I'm having relationship issues. Can you please help that other person to see that I'm right? That would be great. This is our will, right, God? Maybe we're feeling stuck at work. We're like, Jesus, if you could get that promotion going for me, get that ball rolling, please. I've been working faithfully, being quiet about it, just a humble worker, can you please do the things that I want you to do?

We often think that we know who Jesus should be and what he should do in our lives. But just as he was a different leader than the Jews expected, different from the way of the world, we must recognize that Jesus works in our lives Probably differently from what we expect or what we may think is best. Because he calls us to the path of compassion and love. He calls us to serve and to sacrifice. He calls us to put others before ourselves. And he calls us to endure and to submit. Heading into different seasons of life, we think, God, I think this will go best if, and fill in the blank, and we give God the answers and expectations, when really our hearts and our prayers should reflect what Jesus taught us, which is, "Lord, not my will, but yours." It's a prayer that Jesus would pray himself in the garden before being betrayed, and it's hard. It's hard to pray that prayer, "Not my will, but yours." but we wanna walk like Jesus as He has walked before us, walk in His footsteps and surrender to God. So that's our prayer this week. We wanna be aligned with what God is doing in our lives. And again, our prayer today and this week is to pay attention to the ways that Jesus wants to meet us this week. We went through those days of Holy Week to encourage you to walk that with Jesus this week. So tomorrow when Jesus years ago gets angry, think about those emotions. Think about what Jesus is going through. He's got angry at the temple. He has a righteous anger because he wants the people to have a place to commune with God. And then on Tuesday, he's trying to heal. He's trying to make things right and sit with that, dwell on that, meditate on that on Tuesday. And every day this week, Wednesday, where plans are made for his capture and his death on the cross. And then Thursday, the command for all of us to serve and love one another. Sit with everything that Jesus did this week so that when we come together on Friday to mourn and to grieve, we can be there with the full emotion of what is happening. And then on Sunday, we can come together with the biggest praise that we can ever muster because we know fully to the best that we can what that meant and what Jesus endured through this week to get to that point on the cross and then to rise again. This holy week, pay attention to where Jesus wants to meet you.

Let's pray. God, again, thank you for your word that encourages so much. And God, we do wanna walk with Jesus this week. It's so encouraging to know that every emotion we feel, Jesus has felt. And so this week I pray that we would feel close to you, God, wherever we're at, whether it is a great week and we're having lots of joy and excitement and happiness, God, I pray that we would be rejoicing with you. And God, if it's a difficult week, if it's challenging, If we feel like we're the end of ourselves, God, I pray that we would be reminded of what Jesus endured and be close with you in that, to suffer whatever we're suffering through with Jesus by our side. God, I pray that you would deepen our relationship, that you would deepen our love for you so that we can come together and worship fully with you in this next week. We give you all the praise. We love you with everything we have. Help us to worship you. Help us to recognize that you are king. God, make us better servants of your kingdom. We pray this in your son's name, Amen.

March 17, 2024

Pastor Lauren Snider

Philippians

Philippians: Part 4

March 17, 2024

Pastor Lauren Snider

Philippians

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.

March 10, 2024

Pastor Andrei Yaholkovsky

Philippians

Philippians: Part 3

March 10, 2024

Pastor Andrei Yaholkovsky

Philippians

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.

Relationships 101: Part 4 - Workshop

Relationships 101 - Afternoon Workshop

Relationships 101: Part 3

Relationships 101 - Loving Others Jesus’ Way

Relationships 101: Part 2

Relationships 101 - Boundaries in Relationships

Relationships 101: Part 1

Relationships 101 - Marriage & Singleness

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday - Hope is RISEN!

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday - Jesus’ Triumphant Entry Into Jerusalem

Philippians: Part 4

Philippians: Part 4 - Lights in the World

Philippians: Part 3

Philippians: Part 3 - Imitation & Limitation

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Messages

Relationships 101 - Afternoon Workshop

Relationships 101 - Loving Others Jesus’ Way

Relationships 101 - Boundaries in Relationships

Relationships 101 - Marriage & Singleness

Easter Sunday - Hope is RISEN!

Palm Sunday - Jesus’ Triumphant Entry Into Jerusalem

Philippians: Part 4 - Lights in the World

Philippians: Part 3 - Imitation & Limitation

WELCOME

NEXT STEPS

MINISTRIES

MEDIA

QUICK LINKS