Philippians: Part 8

Philippians: Part 8 - A Caring & Content Heart

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Philippians: Part 7

Philippians: Part 7 - Learning to Ask and Trust God

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Philippians: Part 6

Philippians: Part 6 - Our righteousness only comes through Jesus

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your "Yes!" & Baptisms

Your “YES!” & Baptisms

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

So we have, today there's a big piece of Pastor Shane and what's happened this past year, but more so kind of like what God is taking you on this journey this past year and where he's taken you and he's grown you and so many amazing things that God has done and we're gonna get to see some photos and to celebrate with you guys. But tell a little bit for kind of the newer crew here, who you are, where you come from, your life, your situation, and then kind of share a little bit of kind of where we're headed this morning.

Well, now I hail from Florida, so there's that. But I'm originally from here, actually was part of a church plant that came out of here called Hub Church. That is no longer an existing church, but have known a lot of you guys. And if I haven't met you before, it's awesome to be here. This is a phenomenal church. There's so many great God stories that come out of this place, mainly 'cause I get to hear it all from this guy. So a little background for me, I was not raised in the church. Anybody not raised in the church and now in the church? Okay, I like that. So that's kind of my story. My wife was actually raised in the church and so we have a cool mix and background of like church history versus no church history. And for me, a lot of my family's here today because my niece is getting baptized today. Woo, woo, that's awesome. So excited about that. So a little backstory. So I grew up in a non-Christian home, I would say. My mom actually is a cancer survivor. - Let's go. - Come on. My brother also has a heart condition. He wasn't supposed to live past five years old and he's currently old, I'm not gonna tell what he is. But he's got two of his own kids and two step kids, and I love it because his life is pretty awesome right now. And my dad was an alcoholic, he's actually gone home to be with Jesus. But I was this kid growing up that, I didn't have any problems. So I made my own up as I went along. And I did, I made a lot of my own problems up. And I'm gonna say it this way, I didn't know what I was doing, but I wanted attention. So has anybody ever done something for attention just out of curiosity, we should all raise our hands. It's something that we do often. And here's the thing is I kind of caused my own problems. I got into problems because I think I wanted some sort of attention. And I just wanted to be seen, valued, loved, heard. I wanted all these things, and I was seeking all the wrong places. I know I needed God, but I didn't want to admit it. And so through kind of being duped, I finally got invited to go to a church, actually one of our sister churches here. I got duped 'cause I was told that I was going a car show and the car show was happened to be actually at a church and he just kind of suckered me into it. But anyway so I fell in love with the people at the church. I got invited into this men's discipleship group and I was a young business owner and I was kind of an entrepreneur. Any entrepreneurs in the room? Anybody that actually likes to go out and make some money, have a job, you know, buy their own things, have nice things. Yeah, I was doing that at a young age and I was actually at the age of 13 I had my first job. At the age of 16 I I was managing the place and then at the age of 17 had the opportunity to buy it with my family and then went on to start another company and then went into business management. Really enjoyed all those parts of life but I was just kind of entrepreneurial. And have you ever been, and I'm just curious, have you ever been on the right path for the wrong reasons? Like you know that you're on the right path because it definitely fits your bill, it fits definitely who you are as a person but it's for the wrong reasons.

So here's the thing, for me, that's kind of my story. I was on the right path to entrepreneurship. I was on the, I think on the right path to make an impact, to do something, but it was for the wrong reason, it was for me. Like I wanted to go make money, I wanted to go make a name for myself. And when you wanna go make a name for yourself, sometimes God kind of blindsides you, or sometimes just blinds you. Really similar to a story that we see in scripture, actually in Acts, we see this conversion story of Paul. Right road, wrong reason. And that's kind of my story. And so we're gonna, I wanna share a little bit of scripture today, if that's cool. I think, you know, Pastor Chris and I talked about what we wanna talk about today. And today is not actually about shame, which is really good. It's actually about Jesus. And it's really important to hear that. And we're gonna end with baptisms, which is also more about Jesus in people's lives. But the reason I'm sharing the story with you is that there's kind of been a series of saying yes that I didn't realize I was saying yes to until I said yes to Jesus. I didn't know what that looked like. I just had no idea. So.

That's great. No, we're, and I don't want to share that story from Saul into Paul. And we're gonna start in Acts chapter 9 if you're gonna be following along with us today. Acts follows the story of Jesus here on earth and what we call the Gospels, the four books and records of the New Testament. And here we are in Acts and it says, "Meanwhile Paul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. So Paul here or Saul here at this moment is out trying to off Christians. He doesn't like the teaching of Jesus. He doesn't like what they stand for. He doesn't like that they have come following the leading of Jesus to shake up what was then the religion of the day. And they don't like what he is doing. So Paul here or Saul is actually out trying to right their wrongs. He sees them in a way that they're not doing what's right. And so the only way to do that is to kill them, is to get rid of them. And it says, "He went to the high priest," so the top religious dude of the day, "and he asked him for letters to the synagogues," the local church in that moment, "in Damascus. So there, if he found any of those who belong to the way, or Christians or followers of Jesus, disciples of Jesus, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners back to Jerusalem, ultimately to be killed. So as he neared Damascus on his way, the road there, it is journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground, he heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked. Saul knew, who are you, Lord? "I am Jesus, who you are persecuting," he replied. "Now get up, go to the city, "and you will be told what you must do." The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless. They heard the sound, but didn't see anybody. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he couldn't see nothing. So they led him by the hand into the city of Damascus.

Now, this is a pretty radical conversion, right? Like, does anybody have this? Like, they just got blindness and then, like, you know, Jesus spoke to them? Most likely not, like, but you've probably had a situation. Like, has life ever thrown you a curve ball? You're like, what is happening right now? What are you doing, God? Like, and even people that don't believe in God usually ask the same question over and over, which is, why God? And the reason I love this story, actually, and the conversion is that he's on his way to Damascus for a very like sold out reason. Like he's going there to persecute Christians. Like that's his mission. And he believes it's for the right reasons, you guys. He's not like questioning, like he's on his road, right on this path. And he's a pretty ambitious fellow. Like if you learn a little bit about Paul as you probably learn a little bit later, you're gonna see that Paul writes pretty much half the New Testament for us to understand and read. He's a pretty ambitious guy. And I'm gonna tell you this just like in a contrast, in that story, Saul is still getting up and going, led, like humbled, led by the hand into Damascus, was headed there to persecute Christians. All of a sudden Jesus shows up and is like, dude, that's not cool. Like this isn't my plan for you. And I'm telling you in a very similar story, I was on this road to entrepreneurship and God kind of blinded me. Anybody remember the financial crash of '08? Anybody lose anything? House, cars, status, anything? I lost everything. So, like to the point where I was literally living on, like, my best friend's couch for a while. And that wasn't a great feeling, to go from making a lot of money to, like, having nothing. It's really humbling. But when you realize that God didn't do that to me, but he was trying to get ahold of me, sometimes it's a humbling experience to understand why. And I'm gonna tell you, it came from a series of yeses. that actually those yeses weren't my yeses. And so I'm gonna tell you this, actually to me it's really important, even in this story, you'll see that he got up and was led by the hand. Led by the hand 'cause he was blind, right? And it took somebody's yes to say, listen, I just heard some voice talk to this dude that we've been following, we were about to go persecute some Christians, and they actually grab him by the hand and lead him back into Damascus for very different reasons.

Paul continues on in here in Acts and said, placing his hands on Saul, he said, oh, sorry, excuse me, "Lord," Ananias answered, "I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people." So as Paul is in Damascus, Jesus actually goes and speaks to a guy named Ananias. And this guy is leading the local church. He's leading the Christians. He's making disciples. He's furthering the spread of the gospel in the area. And God comes to him and says, "Hey, you know this guy who's harming you? I need you to go to him." Like, I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where you heard God audibly say something that you do not want to absolutely do. And you probably sit there okay, excuse me, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, I got water in my ear, I don't think I heard you right in what you said. And he says, no, he says, I want you to go and to this man. He has come here with authority from the chief priests, the religious leaders, to arrest all who call on your name. And I was just like, God, do you know why this dude's here? Do you know why He has traveled? Like, the word spread fast that, hey, heads up, the Jesus-following police are coming and they're going to arrest all of you. And then God says, "Oh, no, you need to go to Him." And I was just probably thinking, "There's no way. I need to protect myself. I need to protect my friends. I need to protect my brothers and sisters. I need to stay as far away from this dude because if I go there, he's gonna arrest me." But the Lord said to Ananias, "Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." So then Ananias ignored God and went home and took a nap. That's the alternate. - That's the alternate ending? Yeah. No, it says, "Then Ananias said yes "and went to the house and entered it.”

I think the important part here is you're seeing somebody else's yes in the story of Paul. See, we know Paul, but we probably don't really pick apart who Ananias is very often. But God shows up to Ananias, and then Ananias gives God his yes. And it's really important because he's looking for obedience in all of his followers, not just one. It's not, the whole story is not about Paul. And I'm gonna, we're gonna continue on in this, but I just wanna peel back a couple layers here. I only know Jesus today because my grandparents prayed every single day for me. I'm telling you right now, I'm sold out and believe that. There's no way that I know Jesus without them. And then when I went into a church, through what I thought was actually gonna go back and prove them wrong, that they just wanted my money, and I was, seriously, that's the reason I went back to the church. And I went back and I found people that loved me for me and I didn't even realize why. And until someone said, "Well, it's not that I love you, "it's that Jesus loves you, "and he's called me to love you too." And I was like, "Your authority to love me is not yourself?" Like that's like the most selfless love I've ever heard in my life. And it was at that moment I was convinced, and I came back. And so I just want you to know that the series of yeses is not, it's not about Paul actually, but Paul gets to continue, and so we're gonna kind of continue on in this, but it's really awesome to hear that it started with someone else's yes.

Yeah, so Ananias goes, probably a little anxious, stressed out, worried, not knowing what's gonna happen when he goes to see this guy. And so Ananias goes to him, and then it says here in Acts, placing his hands on Saul, he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, "who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here, "has sent me that you may see again, "and you may be filled with the Holy Spirit." Immediately, something like scales fell off of Saul's eyes, and he could see again. He got up, he was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. Paul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus, and once again, he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God, And all those who heard him were astonished and asked, "Isn't this the man who raised havoc," I love that word right there, "raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on his name? And hasn't he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?" Ananias goes to Paul and says, "Okay, God, if this is what you're calling me to do, I'm gonna do it." And he gets there and he prays over him. I don't even know what Ananias is thinking in his head. Like, to be a fly on the wall in that room in that moment. - I imagine he doesn't have a steady hand at that point. I think he's probably shaking a little bit. - He might have to change his robe a couple more times after that moment. But he prays over him, and he sees this radical transformation in Paul. And then he goes and he takes him to his other disciples. Probably the best April Fool's joke in the world to show up with Saul. Surprise. But then he starts talking and teaching and all these people are coming to Jesus and being saved and life transformation is happening because Ananias stepped out and said yes. And because of that, then Paul has a chance to say yes to Jesus through Ananias faith and his yes. And these yeses just begin to start to compound one after another, after another. And then it changed the city courts. It changes people there in Damascus, and it starts a movement in Damascus that continues to this day.

I mean, it's insane. I think to think about the series of yeses, like first of all, most of us don't make a decision to say yes to Jesus and then get baptized like the next minute. And then after you're baptized, start preaching in the temple courts. Like, I mean, it would be like in Spring Valley, but whatever, you know what I'm saying? Like most of us don't do that. And I'm here to tell you that the series of yeses, God's just waiting on you. He's just waiting on your yes. And after this yes, right, it takes a minute for a little conversion for Paul because Paul obviously was breathing out murderous threats. And so like maybe three days was just an ample time, but like lots of people go longer than three days with some trials. And he was just blinded and didn't eat for three days. So that's pretty, I mean, it's pretty phenomenal to see the kind of life transformation. But here's the thing that I love is after this series of yeses, we come into knowledge with a number of other people about in scripture. And some of these names, I'm just gonna throw some out. Like, does anybody know who John Mark is? How about Barnabas? How about Timothy? Right, how about some of these names that we see throughout the Bible? And then we learn about city names and locations. And you see how the gospel is growing and the way is taking off, all because of the one person who is out killing Christians and persecuting them, actually turns to him. Like clearly there must be something going on there. Like all the conspiracy theorists in the room, I'm gonna tell you right now, if you're a conspiracy theorist today, the time in that moment right there would have been, I mean, maybe just maybe there's some truth then, maybe about this whole God thing, because I mean, if they got a hold of Paul, maybe there's something real or tangible about this that I need to consider. And so where are my married people at really quick? 'Cause I just need to know where I'm talking to. Okay, so here's the thing about being married, all right? At some point in your relationship, you said yes, but did you know you were saying yes to snoring? How about dirty socks on the floor? - No. - Okay, how about-- - Mine or hers. - Yes, absolutely. How about the fact that you were saying yes to in-laws? Okay, hold on a second. Listen, oh, I might have struck a chord for a second. - Careful, careful, bring it back, bring it back. - Bring it back, okay. Here's the thing, like, I didn't know I was saying yes to picking up Starbucks so much. Like, there's lots of things I didn't realize I was saying yes to, But I still said yes. I still said yes. And you still said yes. I didn't know I was saying yes to three kids. I didn't know that those three kids were gonna talk back as much as they do. I had no idea. But I'm telling you that there's something important about your yes and you would still go back and do it again. And here's the reality. The reason I'm painting this picture is sometimes saying yes isn't about knowing the details. Saying yes isn't about knowing the details.

Sometimes we wanna have it all figured out before we can say yes. Sometimes we wanna have a full financial plan before we can say yes. We gotta have our careers fully dialed before I can say yes. I need to make sure that if I'm gonna say yes, I'm not committing to showing up to church every Sunday. Like there's lots of things, but it's like sometimes you just gotta commit. God's waiting on your yes, not your maybe, or I'll think about it to get back to you tomorrow. He's waiting on your yes now. And here's the reason I say that. See, when I got called into full-time ministry, I didn't know what I was saying yes to. I showed up to a church, right? And I kinda got saved and I got baptized and some things. I just kept on saying yes. I didn't know what I was saying yes to. I just thought I was going to a life change and I wanted eternity in heaven with Jesus. And then one day I walk into an Ash Wednesday service at Faith Legacy Church down in Sacramento, sister church of this church. And I said yes to a full-time call into ministry. And I was like, I don't even know what I'm saying yes to, but I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be having a career and making six figures and ministry doesn't do that. So where am I going here, God? Like, I'm pretty sure you made it clear that I'm called into this ambitious life and Jesus comes to me and says, "You're no longer gonna be ambitious for me," or, "No longer be ambitious for yourself, "but you're gonna be ambitious for me." See, I didn't know what that meant. I didn't realize that was gonna be a call into ministry. But see, God has given me kind of an ambitious personality. And I was on the right path for the wrong reasons. And so in the series of a number of yeses, I got called into this ministry position. So I kind of came in as like an assistant youth pastor, I was already volunteering as a youth leader. Any youth leaders in here? Youth pastors, anybody who worked in youth? Nobody? Okay, get into it. It's awesome. Andre needs your help. I didn't say that because he, yeah, anyway, I love you, Andrei.

So I wanna say this, that it's important, is that you step into something and you don't know the details of what you're saying yes to. So I said yes to youth pastor, then I said yes to some district youth president thing that I didn't even know what that meant, but I got to get to know a lot of people who became really good friends with Pastor Andre through that same exact cohort. I didn't know that, but that led into another series of yeses and saying yes into a senior pastor position at Hub Church. And then I said yes to selling our house, which was so dumb of an idea, but it was such a God call on our life. And we sold our house and went to a 400 square foot trailer. Like that sounds pretty dumb, like I'm not gonna lie, but yet it was just another series of yeses that I didn't realize was gonna happen. And so what I wanna share that like in this, the series of yeses, there was like a really big yes. And it's not my works, it was all God's. Like God was just interested in my yes. And so as you've probably heard me say the word yes a thousand more times today, I'm gonna ask you a question, begin to think about what God is asking you to say yes to. Ask the question, maybe it's big, maybe it's small, right? There are things that we're really, really like to hold on tight to, our time, our money, our hobbies, our identities. There's so many things that God is like trying to pull away from us saying, I've got a bigger identity and purpose for you. You're ambitious, but I need you to be ambitious for something bigger. It's not just you. And so in that, we bought this RV thinking we were just gonna get closer to the church we were pastoring at. And then we ended up falling in love with this community of people that I didn't know I was gonna say yes to. I'm not gonna lie. We just said yes to an RV. I didn't realize that it came with an entire community of people that we hadn't met yet. I'm telling you, I had no clue. And last year I shared some stats with you. I'm talking about just in the state of Arizona alone, there's a million RVers that show up for winter. That's just Arizona. It's unreal how many people live in RVs and vans and buses across the nation. And we started to ask a question, how are we going to plant a church? How are we going to build a church or build some sort of ministry in a community without a zip code? And it kind of began to kind of unfold. We had no idea what we were saying yes to, but this is what it looked like. And so if we're gonna plant this church, maybe we're not gonna use the word church, we're gonna just call it a ministry name. And instead of calling them like gatherings, we're gonna call them chapters. And we're gonna have extensions where we all work together, very similar to a church, but when you have no zip code and you basically sprawl across the entire United States, Canada and Mexico, you begin to have to think different. And God said, "See, remember those ambitions? "Right path, wrong reasons. "I sent you to figure this out. "And I need you to go out and do this. "There are people that don't know me "and they're living nomadically "and you're gonna go find them." I didn't know what that meant. I just was like, "Hey, this sounds like fun. "Let's try it. "Throw some things at a dartboard and see if it lands." I don't know. But God began to reveal some things. And so in this last year, I think it's really important to understand this. our ministry is called Gathering of Nomads, and that's really what we're doing. We're all about finding nomads and gathering together. And sometimes it just looks like hanging out.

But Hebrews 10:24 actually says, "And let us consider how we may spur on one another "toward love and good deeds, "not giving up, meeting together, "as some," and I'm gonna say in America, "a lot of people are in the habit of doing, "but encouraging one another and all the more "as you see the day approaching." And there's something to be said, like sometimes we show up to gather here on a Sunday morning and it's a check in the box, but I'm telling you, don't forsake the gathering. Like the fruit of the gathering, the purpose of why you're here, to break bread with one another, get to know other people's stories and actually dine and get close with one another. See, the easy thing to do when you're out in the middle of a campground and people don't have any community is they wanna join you for a fire. Or you wanna go, "Hey, we're just doing a potluck. You wanna come over on Tuesday?" And there's like an instant, "Yeah, we're not doing anything, why not? Come on over." And community becomes just to start falling into place. Things that we couldn't even, I couldn't even tell you that we don't even try that hard, but I'm gonna tell you that we just say yes and then God shows up. So it's not even about how hard you wanna try, it's about saying yes to it. And so in this last year, actually this last week, this number's a lie on my notes here. This last week we've had 13 people say yes to stepping into full-time ministry and being a chapter. 13 people. I'm telling, that's not me, that is just 100% Jesus, but it just came with a yes and then one invitation to say it. Do you wanna say yes? And this last one actually, I'm just kind of a sidebar rabbit hole. This last one who just said yes, they were so skeptical of the ministry. They were like, I don't know who you are, we're gonna wait till you show up and we show up, we spend three weeks with them, they see us pray for hundreds of different people and doing different types of things, and they go, "I just wanna do that. "That looks like simple ministry, and I'm in for that." And then they called me like a week after we left, and they said, "Hey, we wanna be a chapter. "We wanna do what that is. "Whatever that looks like, I'm in for that." And because they just didn't understand what they were saying yes to. So sometimes you need a glimpse of what you're saying yes to, and I get that. but that's the luring love of Jesus, not you. We've had 12 baptisms, we've had tons of reconciliations, and just in all this within 16 minutes, we've had hundreds of different families, we've paid people's groceries bills, we've repaired tires, replaced air conditioners, bought refrigerators. I couldn't tell you all those different stories the way we just help different people in different ways, but at this point, we are reaching well over 1,000 people every single week. And that is all because of Jesus and a simple yes. But I didn't realize that it came down to a hitch point of Shane's yes. And all these other people are beginning to say yes. And so I'm inviting you into this. I'm gonna show some pictures here, if you can, just for gatherings. I just want you guys to kind of see, like pictures-wise. Like, these are what our gatherings look like. You go, "Dude, you don't even have folding chairs?" Like, "No, they gotta bring their own." It's simple, I'm telling you. This is how it works. I mean, imagine if you had to bring your own chair to church. or your own chair to church. And so, yeah, so this is what some of them look like. I think there's a couple more here. These are just some of our meals. You know, this is actually Mother's Day. This is a year ago, exactly on the far right here, of us actually just doing Mother's Day with three families that we met in Tennessee. And you know what they wanted? Fellowship and someone to break bread with. You know, don't forsake the gathering, my friends. And then here, and this is what it looks like sometimes to gather when it's cold. We got inside of our little tent here, it's called a clam. We're not sponsored by them, but we should be, because we talk about the clams all the time. But then on the left-hand side there, I don't know why my son's wearing a Christmas beanie, but that was actually Thanksgiving in the Florida Keys. - He was ready. - He was ready for Christmas, apparently. - Make it happen. - But that's Thanksgiving in the Florida Keys, and we had a number of families that just didn't have a place to go. And it's just a small conversation, the next thing you know we're breaking bread together. And then the very following week, I think we got some pictures of a night gathering here. Oh, this is another, these are more gatherings.

They're just, I'll tell you, I can't tell you how many different gatherings. Sometimes it looks like just inviting people out to the beach so that way the very next day you can invite them over for Bible study. Like they just want to hang out and get to know one another. We had Easter Sunday inside of an office there. This top picture here, this is our very first French Canadian couple. I've never met a French Canadian couple. I don't even want to try their accent. I could try, but I would botch it up. Chris is better at his Hispanic accent. And so anyway, this couple, they actually gave us their spot because they were leaving in two days and their spot was bigger and fit our rig better. And so they were generous enough to give it to us. And then we prayed for them on their travel day. They had never prayed before. Never, like never in their life have prayed. And we prayed for them. And it was such a weird experience as we prayed for them. They're like, in Jesus' name, amen. And they're like, thank you, thank you. That was the first for us. It was like, okay, well, I guess, I'm glad it was first. And they follow us on social media. We've connected with them a couple times on there, which is awesome. But one of the things that we love to do on here, you can see, this is actually some of our chapters in us. We pray for people on their travel days. Like if you're ever telling like a 45-foot fifth wheel or 30-foot trailer behind you or driving like a 40,000-pound bus, it's kind of nerve-wracking on travel days, I'm not gonna lie. And one of the ways we wanna offer peace is not the peace of us, but the peace of Jesus. So we just offer to pray with people. I know it sounds simple you guys, but those are just the little yeses. And the reason I'm sharing these stories isn't, it has less to do with us and more to do with the fact that he's interested in looking at your yes. He's interested in you saying yes in your context. Like what does it look like for you just to go and pray with your neighbors? What does it look like for you to go and pray with people that are at the store? You can seriously see struggling. Maybe instead of saying, hey, here's five bucks out the window to the guy asking for change, looking at the guy at the grocery store and saying, hey, before I give you this money, I just wanna pray for you that God would do more with it than what I actually can give you. Like imagine if we just said yes to those uncomfortable moments, it's simple. I'm not saying it's easy, but I can tell you it's simple. And he's just looking for your yes.

And I wanna talk about this, Chris, I'm sorry, for, we'll make sure we have time here. Ephesians 2:10 is such an important part of this. In Ephesians 2 10, it says that you, you and me, but you are God's handiwork. You are God's handiwork. I'm gonna tell you right now, and actually in the Passion translation, it says you are God's poetry. Like you are such a unique component in creation that you are considered God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. Are you ready for this one? This blows me away. Which God has prepared in advance for you to do. The work is there, He is just waiting on your yes. Holy buckets. Man, that takes a lot of pressure on us because like, I don't wanna say yes 'cause I don't know what I'm saying yes to. My friends, my family, I'm telling you it's important because you don't know what your yes is gonna translate to. Actually, what I love about this story is, and I'm gonna just kind of boast a little bit, and then we're gonna get into some really cool baptism pictures. I want you guys to know this on a Shane story. I see, this is my family right here in the center table. But listen to this, what I love about all this is that Jason Donald said yes to inviting me to some stupid car show that I got duped into going to, and then years later, my brother actually ends up marrying his sister, and that family, who actually led me to Jesus, is now my family. It's just a yes. I'm just gonna tell you because a yes is so important to understand that you don't know what it's gonna look like. And actually, if you did know what it's gonna look like, you wouldn't say yes. You wouldn't. So try to practice saying yes. And the series of saying yes is what I love about this is that baptisms happen. I didn't realize that baptisms were gonna happen. I thought I was just gonna go out and love people for Jesus. And in some way, some reason, people started really saying yes to Jesus and like, I wanna do it and I wanna self-proclaim it to the world and let everyone know that I'm gonna say yes to it. I wanna show you some pictures here really quick, 'cause you just don't know. See some of the baptisms that happened while we're on the road. Both of these are actually in Texas, very different locations. Texas is a huge state. And so the two bottom pictures here is a family, actually after getting to know them for like a week and a half, they invite me over to their trailer and we're talking, having late night conversations. And the dad goes, "You know, I've never been baptized. "My kids have definitely never been baptized, "but I know they know Jesus "and they wanna know him like forever." And so we had this long conversation over the course of the next couple of days. We basically unpacked what scripture says about them. And they said, "Yes, I want to accept Jesus." And then they proclaim it. I said, "Well, do you guys wanna get baptized like you thought about that?" And they're like, "Well, we're gonna get baptized then." I said, "Well, there's a lake, it's kinda stinky, but like we can go out in the lake and it was cold." And so we got out in the water, we just baptized them. And there was literally, it was just the family and one other family there to witness it. And it was so intimate, it was so awesome. And it was such a celebratory moment. This top picture here actually is, there's another picture in there somewhere, but there was two young ladies, part of a family who grew up in a Catholic church and stepped away from the church and have been trying to find and rediscover their faith on the road. And the parents actually said, "Well, we're thinking about doing like the, you know, the thing with the water and where they, you know, like they were like, you know, they're gonna like get like whatever that's called." I'm like, "Baptized?" They're like, "Yeah, baptized, that's the one." And they had no idea what they were talking about, but their kids have been talking about God for so long that they were finally introduced to Jesus, that God wasn't just a concept, but he was a reality and there's a relationship. And so two of the kids got baptized and then one of their kids actually got dedicated, which was super cool, Teddy. And so anyways, we'll go one more picture here. This is what it looks like sometimes to baptize people when there's just nothing but a spa 'cause there's no lakes around. So you just use whatever water's around you. Sometimes it's a horse trough and it's here, just so you guys know, the water's warm. But this is what it looks like, you guys.

This is just a series of people who said yes, and they had been waiting to get baptized because there was no one willing to say yes to baptize them. How crazy is that? And so I'm telling you guys all this now. What's important as you see baptism pictures is that you just don't know what you're gonna say yes to, but you need to say yes where you live, learn, work, and play. Like you have to say yes where you live, work, learn, and play. It's important for you to do that. And so no matter what, I know this, because of the yes I try to give God every day, there are people's lives who are greatly being impacted. And with your yes, you don't know how God may use you to actually reach the lives and families around you. And you don't know, like if God's called you to say yes to any capacity to supporting people, like for us, we're a fully like fundraised ministry. And so I just encourage you, like if God's calling you to partner with us on a financial level, like we wanna keep doing this. And we don't ask a lot of it because we're just a simple, you know, really low funded ministry and we're all good with it. We actually love that. And a lot of that money goes in and goes right back out and saying yes to helping people. So anyway, that's a lot of that. And really excited about baptisms here in a second. So if you need to say yes to some baptisms, like if you're curious, like today's the day 'cause the water's warm.

Absolutely. You're gonna hear the stories here in a moment of people who said yes, and people who said yes to Jesus. And they wanna share that yes with you today. And this is what this Sunday is about. I know some of you in here, I had the pleasure of baptizing recently. And I know a lot of you have been baptized in your life. And as we get to celebrate, I told the team this morning, as you get to watch these people celebrate their yes with you and you saying yes to them and encouraging them and being in life together as a family, remember the yes that you first chose. Remember the yes that you had the opportunity to say to God because somebody else said yes, 'cause you wouldn't be here unless somebody else shared it with you, right? And so I want to encourage you as we see these people get baptized and as the kids come in to witness this and we're just celebrate as a big family, that remember that yes that you had. And then to think about, as Pastor Shane said, who in your life do you need to say yes to, to then have the opportunity to share Jesus with them? And so Alicia, how you guys wanna come forward, we got a couple people. this morning that we're gonna be baptizing. And I'm gonna have, let's have Alicia go first real quick. And this is exciting, this has been, I would say, a couple years in the works to be able to have this with you. - 16 years in the works. - 16 years in the making. And for you, for them to understand, how are you guys connected? - This is my niece, I understand that she looks like she's taller than me, but that's because she's wearing boots. Oh wait, no, I'm wearing boots. I have no excuse, I'm just short. But yes, this is my niece. I've known her entire life, but if you can, can you give us just like a short little testimony?

Yeah. - So I went to camp for the first time two years ago, and at camp it was a very emotional experience, and I was able to start opening up and develop a relationship with God. And then last year it hit me hard. It was very perplexing and I just had a really rough time and I kind of lost my way, but going back to camp, I was able to reignite my relationship with God and completely commit to my faith and say yes to God.

Yeah, I'm just gonna tell you, I need to piggyback on that. You guys, I have known this girl obviously her entire life and I have seen her go from every stage of life that you could imagine, but lately, even just to the moment where she says she wants to call and pray with her friends. Like, are you kidding me? Those yeses are so profound. Like, her entire friend group is gonna change because of this yes. Like, the generations of family will change because of her yes. And so, I'm so proud of her, and so this is kind of an emotional moment for me, so I'm just gonna turn the mic off and stop talking. Love it.  That was awesome. Congratulations, this is amazing.

Hao, Come on, buddy. Oh, man. So I'm gonna say, I got to meet this guy probably, what was it, last, the Christmas time, right? And you guys moved over in these condos, and you were looking for a church, and you looked across the street, and here we were. And you walked in one day, and we got to hear your story. And I know you want to share some of that today, but God is doing so many things in your life right now. And we got to-- Pastor Andra, I met with you this week. And we got to hear your heart and what God is calling you to as you lead your family with your wife and your kiddos here. But yeah, share a little bit, kind of your story, where you're at, and why today is your day you want to get baptized.

Hello, everyone. My name's Hao. I already used Steven because it's easier to remember. And then today I went to declare my faith in our Father God and in Lord Jesus Christ, and to fully surrender myself to God through baptism. So a little bit story about myself. So I spent the first 25 years of my life in China, which is a country with high surveillance and observed restrictions on religions. So I was never fully exposed to Christianity until 2021, which is pretty recent. So in October, 2021, my mentor and my best friend at work, whose name is Alex Kim, he left the firm, unfortunately, and he gave me a bilingual version of Gospel of John. And I don't know if any of you have ever had such a moment or a period of time, maybe, and when you feel just so useless and so aimless and powerless that no matter how hard you try, no matter what you do, you just cannot make it. Unfortunately, or fortunately in some sense, such a hard time hit me really hard in 2022. At that time I was a new father to two born infants who are standing there with their mommy. And then as young parents, as you can see, we are pretty young and we had very limited financial resources at the time. And then it was right at that time I become unemployed. And not because of anyone's fault, I was definitely above average employee and my boss wanted to keep me there, but the Army agency, the USAS, was simply overwhelmed and unable to grant me the work authorization timely, so I lost my job there. Well, I was more than devastated. I had my pride. I graduated from best university in China and I often regarded myself as the top 0.1% students in China and I was definitely the kind of person I fight really, really hard to gain control of my life. But I failed. I had never failed so hard. And the worst part of the failure was that I couldn't do anything to fix it. There's not anything inside my control to fix it. So it was right at that time I finally decided to open and read the gospel that Alex Kim, my friend, gifted me. And I had nothing to do anyways at the time because I was important, right? So I spent a lot of time and put a lot of efforts in reading, actually studying the Gospel of John. I made my notes, I made my marks, and wrote my questions, and asked a lot of questions to Alex Kim, my friend. And he was really nice and patient. He answered my questions. And we set a meeting, actually, and I could still vividly remember that Alex told me during the meeting that even if the Lord asked me to die right now, At this moment, at this time, I think I'm ready. So, you know, there at that time, that starts my journey of Christianity. As for over the past two years, with a lot of love and with a lot of help, I think I finally reached this point to say that I am ready too. And I'm ready to submit my life to God and to our Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to surrender myself to God and live the rest of my life to serve God. And I praise God that he has found me when I was lost, that he has shown me his great mercy and love and he has led me to faith and brought me to here to be baptized, to declare my faith. So thank you, Lord Jesus.

Amen, amen, thank you. So Hao, here in front of everybody, your friends, your family, you're telling us that Jesus is Lord and leader of your life. - Yes. - And you are telling us today that your proclamation of faith, for now, forevermore until you meet Jesus face to face in heaven that you're gonna follow Him every single day and every single moment.

Yes! How amazing is that? How amazing is God? Amen. So I wanna pray for us real quick and I'm gonna pray for lunch. I know you guys are hungry. Everybody's excited. We're excited for tacos. Grab these guys afterwards. Tell them congrats, give them a hug, tell them you love them, tell them you're praying for them. And because right now them making this decision that they just put a target on their back because Satan doesn't like what they just proclaimed. And so they're gonna be walking through some hard stuff and they know it, we've talked about this and we're encouraging them, but they're gonna need your prayers. They're gonna need your prayers every single day. So when you think about your week, think about them, lift them up in prayer, lift them up before Jesus. And as they keep walking forward, you see them next Sunday and the week after that, and the week of that, continue to encourage them, continue to give them the words that they need to keep walking on this faith, 'cause we all need it, right? We're all figuring this out. We're all trying to take it one day at a time, one step at a time. And their yes today has changed all of us, right? Amen, so let's live our yes out.

Jesus, we thank you for this morning, God. Thank you for so many people and generations before us that said yes to allow us to come to this point that we get to celebrate Alisha and How's yes before us. God, encourage us as we go out, give us the boldness to step out where we live, learn, work and play to say yes to God, whatever you want us to do. Whether that means you're praying for somebody, you're doing a random act of kindness, you need to call somebody, text them, just tell them you're thinking about them and you're praying for them. Reach out. God, you have people in our lives specifically that you have placed there for us to share Jesus with them. Not in a preachy, bang them over the head, in their face kind of a way, but just to show up in their life and give them the love that you have given us. Jesus, let us go with boldness and go with our yes. We love you, Jesus. We pray over lunch. Continue to help us. Have a great week and a great time together. We love you. And everybody said, Amen.

Philippians: Part 5

Philippians: Part 5 - Living A Life of Influence

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Relationships 101: Part 4 - Workshop

Relationships 101 - Afternoon Workshop

Relationships 101: Part 3

Relationships 101 - Loving Others Jesus’ Way

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

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.

Relationships 101: Part 2

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.