Thank you for joining us for a sermon from Sojourn North.
Well, I'm Chad Lewis.
I'm a pastor here.
So thankful that you're here.
We are celebrating a lot of the change that's been going on around.
I got a few slides for you.
The first slide, this is what things looked like last week.
Looked very different, but we found something as we when I say we, the company we contracted, but we'll just say we we pulled up the carpet.
This next slide.
So obviously there's a lot of glue.
Um there were some uh I was gonna make a joke about something we found, but I can't think anything.
But we did find something very interesting.
The next slide, it's gonna be hard to see.
What was underneath the carpet, underneath the glue, were some scripture passages.
This one's 2 Corinthians 5.20, we're ambassadors for Christ.
And the next one is clear, Romans 8.39, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Now, these scriptures have been where you've been walking every Sunday.
I had no idea.
There's probably people who are here for a long time that maybe maybe knew that.
So as you were coming into the sanctuary, Romans 8.38 or 839 was on your feet.
Isn't that cool?
And so then Marcy Haggard had the idea, we still haven't put up our soundproofing wall back here.
And it's like, what if we after service Sunday and then uh with S2 tonight had people come up after the service?
I'll move these uh gray sound things out of the way, but I stapled up some uh Sharpies, and you can sign your name.
I'll put a verse here for myself later, but usually you don't get to write on walls, but I think that's pretty cool.
But we can write your name, you can write a scripture passage, uh, you could write a prayer if you want to.
And I'll I'll I'll capture all those through some pictures.
And then next week we'll have our sound paneling up, which will look really good.
Uh it's already not yet again, so imagine that.
Just everywhere.
If you close your eyes, maybe you can see it.
But that'll be sweet.
We gotta get a curtain for the baptistry.
Right now, that's just a drop cloth, some kicks, kicks, toe kicks for the uh stairs.
And next week I'm gonna say some big thank yous to a lot of people who put in so much blood, sweat, and tears with this project.
So those thank yous are coming next week.
But praise God.
This is sweet.
This is just let's let's praise God for what he's done.
When I put this before y'all some months ago, uh, I talked about how our desire, I gave you a handout that said form on it.
Uh, we desire to be people that are formed in Christ.
And what we were seeking to do with our Sunday gatherings is have formational preaching.
I've been preaching a long time, but I talked about I still desire to grow, trying to make things more uh digestible in sermons and take away sentences and give you things to work on during the week like that.
So that's a that's a portion we talked about open, engaging worship.
Brian's been doing an amazing job planning and leading us, relational welcome and connection.
That's the R, and that's that's going on, and minimizing hindrances with the new technology.
So I just want to say, man, praise God for all the work that's been done as we continue to pursue those things.
This summer, now that this is here, I'm gonna be sprinkling this idea, but I want you to be thinking about this.
Uh, we met with the the elders, we met Thursday night and we were praying and said, okay, what's next?
And what we desire to do is to form two committees a committee for community groups and a committee for events.
And so community groups, what we have community groups, but they're pretty much all filled.
Um we need new community group leaders, we'll give you the information you need to be equipped for that.
But we want anyone who comes into our body, especially new members who are saying, Yeah, I'd like to be plugged into a community group.
We want to be able to plug them right in right away.
So I'd like a committee of a few people that meet with me, pray with me, strategize with me, and then we'll recruit some things.
Okay, so be praying about that.
Subsequently, what we want to do is build relationships in our community and with each other.
So an events committee, we already have potlucks that we do periodically, but that would be part of that committee, uh, and just other events like uh maybe coming out here to play kickball, having a movie night, whatever it may be.
But if you have interest in either of those committees, hit me up.
You do have to hang out with me a little bit in some meetings, so it will be a uh a burden to do that, but just kidding, you know you'll like it.
All right.
I can't hear the laughs as much with the new carpet.
It's I I don't know what it is.
Something else.
So okay.
Hey.
We finished Galatians, we're jumping into Philippians now.
And so I have a huge heart as we've gone through Galatians thinking about this.
Some letters that you read in the New Testament, they have a lot of correction, they have a lot of intensity, and it seems like everything's about to fall apart, and maybe Paul's just fighting for the gospel and saying, no, this can't be, this can't be.
So Galatians is a letter like that, but then Philippians, as we get to it, it feels so much different.
And it's not because the gospel has changed, it's because now we are applying the gospel to everyday life, and that's what the book of Philippians is all about.
Uh Galatians asks, what sets us free?
Philippians begins to ask, what does that freedom look like in everyday life?
And it's interesting because Paul writes this letter to the Philippians while he's in prison.
It's called a prison epistle.
And so he is not writing in great circumstances, he's not writing in earthly comfort, he's not worldly successful because he's landed, but this is this was the plan of God.
But his heart is overflowing with joy as he writes from prison.
And so Philippians helps us ask the question as we look at it from an airplane view this week.
We're just looking at the whole and trying to whet our appetites for the weeks ahead.
And next week we'll parachute down and start looking at the first several verses of Philippians 1.
But as we look at the whole, we see that how do you live the Christian life in suffering?
How do you live the Christian life in relationships?
How do you live the Christian life in the midst of conflict?
This is reality.
There will always be conflict.
What about when you're disappointed?
What about when life is ordinary?
Most of your life will probably be ordinary.
That's just what life is.
Ordinary life.
Philippians is a deeply human letter, and it's written from prison.
And one of the first principles we'll continue to come back to is Christian joy is not the absence of difficulty, it is the presence of Christ within it.
And a lot of us fall into the temptation sometimes.
It's like once life settles down, then, then.
I remember when I was a kid, it was like once I get out of high school, then I'll be able to breathe.
And then you got the pressures of college, the pressures of work.
I remember working at UPS early mornings to help pay for college, 4 to 9 a.m., and they said, this is the best job because you can do it and it won't mess up your classes.
Then they didn't realize, maybe they did, they didn't care.
But if you work from 2, 3 a.m.
till 9 a.m., you're not very aware in classes, but hey, that's that's kind of how it goes.
But then it's like, okay, if I can just get graduated, then I'll get my first job.
And you know the story.
It continues to go go.
Once life settles down, then I'll be okay.
But what if the bigger question is this what if life never settles down?
How do you live in the midst of that?
Well, Philippians answers that question.
So I have three quick points for us to go through here on this family Sunday, and then I'll have some assignments for you at the end of the sermon, encouraging you to do some things as we continue going through.
But I want to start it and use kind of a similar outline to we did with Galatians, because every letter in the New Testament, you can read it very sterily, but each one is birthed out of a story.
Each one is birthed out of relationships.
And so the first point is we want to find ourselves in the story.
We don't want to just study Philippians, we want Philippians to study us.
We want to not just say, open your word to me, Lord, that's a great prayer, but open me to your word so that I can hear and Holy Spirit speak to me.
So as we find ourselves in the story, let's see what story this letter is rooted in.
Because Philippi was a real place, it was a Roman colony, it was in northeastern Greece, it's located on one of the major roads in that area of Rome and so of the Roman Empire that is, but many of the residents are retired Roman officers and officials, so they're wealthy, so it's a prosperous city, they're citizens of Rome, and so they are highest status.
And so this is where Paul comes along with Silas and preaches, and a lot, a lot goes on.
It's from this and the ordinary people of Philippi that the church is birthed, and so they're just like you and me, just like the Galatians.
So we need to be reminded of that so we can come away from the drift.
With the Philippian church, same way.
They're trying to follow Jesus, remain faithful.
They're trying not to drift.
They're learning how to live differently in the midst of a culture that's consumed with wealth and status and popularity.
Does that sound similar to our culture?
It does.
And Paul, as he's writing the Philippians, he's writing 10 years after he was there.
So a decade has passed since this church was launched.
And you can still hear his affection.
In Philippians 1, 3 to 5, he says this at the beginning of the letter, and we'll hit this again next week.
But he says, I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you.
Every remembrance.
I can, in my holy imagination, I can just imagine Paul sitting in prison, remembering Lydia, remembering the slave girl who had the demon cast out, remembering Timothy, remembering all of these relationships that were birthed from this trip, the second missionary journey.
And as he remembers them, what happens?
He gives thanks to God for that.
And verse 4, always praying with joy for all of you in my every prayer.
Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day a decade ago until now.
So this is Paul's heart.
So this isn't just a list of things that we want to read a book of Philippians and just write things down.
I need to do this, this, and this.
There will be some things, some action steps from it, but to be remembering, this is rooted in relationship, in the larger story, the redemptive story of God.
So we have a map that'll come up.
Paul first visited Philippi during his second missionary journey.
Philippi's up there with the red circle.
The starting point for his missionary journey, he ends up doing a loop over a few years.
But he he starts around Antioch down there.
There's a couple of Antiochs.
The Antioch up north is a different one.
And then starts going up.
But I find it fascinating because this second missionary journey is told about in Acts 15 and 16.
15 is the Jerusalem Council, where they come and say, hey, no, you don't have to be circumcised.
And then there's a schism at the end of 15 with Barnabas and Paul about taking John Mark because John Mark had deserted at one point.
And so Paul and Barnabas can't agree on it.
It's such a sharp division that they decide to go separate ways.
And so Paul takes Silas and starts this journey.
And as they go up, Paul has in his mind what's going to happen.
And I'm going to hit this in just a little bit, but what why Paul was rerouted and why that's important to us.
But what happens in Philippi as they arrive, there's a woman named Lydia, and she's a seller of purple.
She's high up in the area.
And Paul meets a group of women gathered by a river, and so he shares the gospel, and salvation comes.
And we know Lydia helped support Paul's ministry.
In a short time, he's going, and there's a slave girl who's demon-possessed, and she's making a lot of money for her owners.
But she keeps bothering Paul, saying, This is, look at them, these are servants of the Most High God.
And then Paul gets so frustrated he casts the demon out.
Now this was a big deal because now the girl is freed from the demon and she doesn't have whatever ability she had to make money for her owners.
And so they get very angry.
And so Paul and Silas are beaten, they're arrested and thrown into jail.
And there's a famous scene in Acts 16.
Paul and Silas in jail.
What do they start doing?
They start singing.
They're singing and they're praising God that they have the opportunity to suffer for the sake of Christ.
And as they're singing, the earth shakes.
An earthquake comes, they're freed.
There's a Philippian jailer who's in charge who draws his sword because if you let prisoners escape, you would be executed, and he was going to take his own life.
And Paul yells out, We're still here, don't do it.
And an amazing thing, he goes with the Philippian jailer.
And the Philippian jailer and his family.
They treat his wounds, him and Silas, and they come to know the Lord Jesus Christ.
Salvation has come to their home.
This was God's plan.
And it's amazing.
Through all of this, what we want to see is the second point is that we are seeking to learn the way of Christ as we find ourselves in the story.
And many of you, I know so many of you, you follow the way of Christ.
But what I say all the time is that we can go more deeply down into what that means, what it means.
And I use that illustration of knowing God.
Could be like a young girl knowing the ocean because she read a book.
And then you say, Have you ever been to the ocean?
And she says, No.
It says, Let's take a trip to the ocean.
She knows the ocean, but then she goes to the ocean and then she goes into the ocean.
And the waves start knocking her about and she comes out and someone says, Do you know the ocean?
I say, Yeah, I've read a book and now I've been in the ocean.
And then she has such love for the ocean that she decides to go and study the ocean in college.
She knew the ocean.
But her knowledge of the ocean grows deeper and deeper in her love.
And she figures out so much stuff.
And then she wants to go down deeper into the ocean, so she learns how to scuba dive, sees things underneath the coral reef, all those things.
And then she gets in one of those pods that the pressure can't push.
And that pod is so strong, and she goes down lower than anyone.
Discovers, still, I know, I know, the signals.
We're still working them out with the mic.
It's like the last thing.
Uh I'm gonna keep rolling with this illustration.
It's one of my favorite.
I made it up many years ago.
She goes down to one of those little things.
She sees a fish that no one has ever seen.
And she's amazed, and she comes home, and then she writes about it.
She becomes an old lady, she becomes a professor, and she knows the ocean.
Did she know the ocean as a little girl?
Of course she did.
Does she know it as an old woman?
Oh, yeah, she does.
She's a world's expert.
But still, 80% of the ocean has never been explored.
The parallel is in our Christian life.
Any of us can say, Do you know the love of God?
Say, yeah, yeah, and it's good.
Do you know the depths of the love of God?
Not a chance.
That can either discourage you or it can encourage you that there is more to see.
If you sit and talk with Dawana and you say, Dawana, tell me about the love of God.
You better have a couple hours on your plate because it's going to take a while.
But can you imagine the depth of what she would share with you from life, from experience, from seeing her work and then seeing how he was always faithful.
From the time she was a little girl, and how God brought a music man to come do some music at a revival.
And I'm not going to tell too many details because I'll get them wrong, but 16, 17 years old, something like that.
Changed the trajectory of her life.
That was God's plan.
This is what God does.
He's in our midst.
And in the way of Christ, we want to learn to trust and obey, even when things are unclear.
Let's go back to Acts 16.
So hear the movement.
Paul has an idea of what his life should be.
Paul and his companions first were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go into Asia.
That's what they thought they wanted to do on the second missionary journey.
They attempted to go north into Bithynia and Bithynia, and that didn't work out because the spirit of Jesus did not allow them.
So we don't know the details to all these things, but it was closed door.
And this is what happens to us sometimes in life: closed door, closed door, closed door.
They eventually arrived at Troaz because of all these closed doors, and then Paul receives a vision, a vision of the Macedonian call.
In this vision, he sees a man from Macedonia saying, Come, help us.
And that is the reason why they are redirected to go up towards Philippi.
Did Paul know what was going to happen when he got to Philippi and then go on to Thessalonica and all these areas?
He didn't know.
He just knew that was the next step.
The way of Christ is trusting and following.
Many are the plans of a man's heart, but it's the Lord who directs the steps.
It's Proverbs 35 and 6.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Don't lean on your own understanding.
Our understanding is so limited.
We're acknowledging Him in all our ways, and He's going to direct our paths.
So, an application for you here today, do you find yourself at this point in life with closed doors all around you?
Are you filled with anxiety because of it?
You're in good company.
Because the closed doors are there and God is still working.
He never sleeps or slumbers.
Just like God closed doors to lead Paul and Silas to Philippi.
He's closing doors in our lives, and quite often we don't see where he's going to take us.
But he's still moving, brothers and sisters.
We want to continue to learn this way of Christ.
Philippians 2, one of the central passages for us that we'll think about.
But Paul says this: adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus.
Have the same attitude as Christ Jesus.
And we'll dive in and look at all of those things, what it looked like for him to not grasp hold of his power as God, but to relinquish that to come live on this earth for you and for me.
Throughout this whole book, you're going to hear statements like stand firm, imitate this, practice these things, consider others, rejoice always, don't live under the yoke of anxiousness.
None of this is about pressure or performance, but he wants us to live freely.
And this takes time because we have so often, I talk about it with a friend that we we don't even necessarily know how much our culture is affecting us and the day that we live in.
It's easy for us to look back at other cultures and times and say, hey, they were just affected by their affected by our culture.
And for us to be able to step back and just let the word of God read us and hear how are we affected?
Because we can live in ways that just are about self-protection and we get hurried and we never slow down.
We can compare ourselves to others, we can seek to control our lives, we want to prove ourselves.
And all of these things are natural.
But to be able to slow down and say, Lord, where is this true in my life right now?
Because I don't want to be driven by those things.
I want to be led into your way in a deeper way.
And all along the way we'll find greater freedom.
Greater peace.
Not necessarily change circumstances.
Sometimes circumstances become more difficult.
But I'll tell you what, the sweetness of life is this.
When we can have peace even when there are storms around us.
And that is a gift of God.
So we hit the last point.
We want to participate in this bigger story together.
I think as we go through the book, it's just going to be beautiful because I want you to think about this.
The differences of the people in Philippi, even the ones that we see in Acts 16.
Lydia, a well-off business owner, prosperous.
You got the jailer who's working for the government, who is about to take his life, and now him and his whole family are safe.
You got the slave girl.
What happened to her after the demon was cast free?
I mean, all of these people heard Jesus.
They heard the message of the gospel.
And then from the poor to the rich, they gather together in diversity.
So it makes it more powerful when you hear Paul talking about humility.
Have humility with one another.
Be in unity.
Be united.
You're going to be a people that have different thoughts, different philosophies, but we come and we center around what is precious, which is the gospel message.
And when he uses terms like this constantly, be together, be side by side.
Have one mind in the midst of you all.
Have one mind like that of Christ Jesus.
Have one love that you share with each other.
This is a communal life that we have.
So we learn the way of Christ by being beside each other.
We learn it through encouragement.
We learn it through patience.
We learn it through forgiveness, through showing up, through bearing burdens.
And here's my application for you today.
This is just a real surface look at the book of Galatians.
I'm going to go back to Galatians, Philippians.
Surface look.
We've flown over, saw a tree here or there.
My goal for you this week is this.
I would like for you to read Acts chapter 16 this week and the first chapter of Philippians.
Acts 16, Philippians 1.
And find yourself in the story.
You reading, Mark, write out some verses that mean something to your heart.
Acts 16, Philippians 1, immerse yourself.
And this summer my desire is that you would immerse yourself in the book of Philippians.
God is at work in our midst.
I promise you that.
And what we want to do is slow down and have ears to hear and eyes to see and follow in obedience.
That's a beautiful life.
That is a beautiful life.
So your first assignment, Acts 16, Philippians 1.
Second assignment's on your bulletin.
This book is going to talk to us about encouraging one another.
I want you to do this.
And I want you to put some effort into it.
I've been giving you simple practices on your bulletin.
Call this simple practice side by side.
I want you to pray about someone, just say, Lord, who needs encouragement from me this week?
It might be someone who lives in another state, another part of the world.
It could be your neighbor, it could be, but to pray first and let the Lord lay someone on your heart.
And in the simple movement, you can send a text, you can write out a prayer, do a phone call, a quiet act of care.
Move towards them with something small.
And the beauty of it is this the smallest of encouragements rooted in prayer, God can use in amazing huge ways.
I have received encouragements over the years that have kept me going for months and years.
And if the person heard that, or when I did tell them later, they'd be like, oh, I didn't even realize.
I just wrote you a note of encouragement.
Note of encouragement from God's hand.
Amazing things can be done.
Don't underestimate it, but make a movement this week towards that.
Our sentence to carry for today, and as we move into this series, is this Christian maturity is learning the way of Christ together.
Christian maturity is learning the way of Christ together.
So as we embark on this, I'm excited.
And we'll jump into the first part of Philippians 1 next week.
But we're reminded again, week after week, that we have this encouragement because we have all this modeled, because Christ Jesus came emptying himself, living a life of a man, fulfilling the law perfectly, laying down his life so you and me could have eternal life.
So if you're a Christian here today, after I pray, I'd invite you to come up.
You can take some juice and some bread back to your seat and just hold on to it.
And just reflect on the song that's being sung.
You can sing along or just close your eyes and reflect.
But just listen.
What is the Spirit speaking to you today?
And then after everyone has their uh the elements at their seat and the song ends, I'll lead us to take communion all together.
Become expectant.
God is at work and He hasn't forgotten your address.
Let's pray together.
Father, I thank you so much for this journey into Philippians.
I thank you for all the grace of what we found in Galatians, the life that we found there, the reminders to not drift.
And as we jump into the beauty of Philippians, Lord, I pray that you would teach us to be a people of joy, Lord, a people that aren't bound by our circumstances alone, but that in the midst of whatever is going on, that we find joy and peace in you, and that we do this together.
And I pray that this summer, by your grace, that we be knit more closely together.
As a people, as we love you, that we grow deeper in loving each other.
And Lord, that whatever you're doing here, that it would be, it would catch fire, and people would come and be part of a community that's seeking you humbly, who does real life, who messes up in life, and who just want to be together.
So, Father, move in our midst.
We love you, and it's in Christ's name we pray.
Amen.