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Thank you for joining us for a sermon from Sojourn North. Last week we dedicated this space, and when I walked up to the this temporary pulpit, I was like, man, I want to say the same thing again next week because a lot of people are out of town. But last week we dedicated the space. I started with thank yous. I listed out what these people did. A lot of people helped out. But Sean Tippett, Chris Barnes, Leah Sladen, Melissa Horne, Troy Haggard, Troy put this whole project on his back and amazing. Then we did a prayer dedication, and it was an amazing prayer dedication because it dedicated the building through prayer. There you go. You can watch that online. But on a more serious note, we we showed some of the things that were on because we had people sign this back wall before we put up the sound paneling. But there's a so it was like this. I took pictures of all these things individually, tons of great verses, beautiful truths. I showed some last week, but I didn't show these two. I thought these were amazing prayers that are here always for us. May all who enter this room feel the presence of the Lord. That really is our heartbeat. Like people come in down and out, wherever they may be, they come in and there's something different here. There's a sense of community, there's a sense of acceptance because we all know what it's like to be beaten down in our lives. And this other one's similar. Jesus, may this place be filled with your presence. May the Spirit enter this room and change lives to grow to know Him. Come, Holy Spirit. And that is a heartbeat. And as we've been jumping through Philippians or jumping into it, you know, we we started this uh called into a bigger story series, and we went all the way through Galatians. And so that's uh Paul in his mid-40s, and now we're at the end, close to the end of Paul's life when we look at Philippians, he's 60, 62, and he's under house arrest. And so he's gone through a lot more suffering, and he's been beaten down, but he continues to have redemptive remembering to look up at what God has done. And so as we continue, I the main thing I want us to continue to think about is what is the bigger picture? Because the bigger picture is essential. It's really easy to get focused on the smaller pictures, and they do need our attention, and they do matter, but everything has to be anchored in a bigger story. So I have an illustration, it totally connects with my mind and my brain. I'm gonna see if it connects with yours. If it doesn't, it's okay. Because he who began a good work in you will bring it about to completion, even without a connecting illustration. But we have this wonderful sanctuary, and I love doing woodwork. I've been doing wood art for a long time, and I was like, I want to make a cross right there. I want to make a pulpit. Leah Slayden's staining our communion table, so that'll come back. She's been mixing all the stains to get uh pillar color, that's what we're calling it, the pillar color. And so we'll have that, and I want it to come to here and then there because the cross is central. And so I thought, Lord, you've given us all we need in Christ Jesus. Now I'm stretching this illustration, it's true, but it's like, Chad, you can go to Home Depot, and it's like, yeah, you can go to Home Depot. But I was like, I want to take everything that's just in this building and only let that be present for me to build something. And so we had these sound barrier things that Joe Petron, our brother, built, and uh, it's like he's a master craftsman, so he used nice pine wood from New Zealand. That's what the sticker says. It's it's I don't know if pine from New Zealand's better or not, but so I was I was just like, okay, I'm ripping, I love to destroy stuff. So that that happened, and from that, got some uh got some boards and so brackets, screws. So I was doing all that, so I got these things, and I'm like, I'm gonna use these things to make a cross. Only what I have, and then so I had a hand saw up here, I had a chisel, and I had a drill, and while I was building it, I was like, it's cool, I'm not even using electricity, and then I was like, I'm using the drill that's battery powered, charged by electricity, so I'm cheating a little bit, but I was like, okay, what do I do? If you would have come into my office this week and seen, because I on Monday it's my day off, and it's like I'm gonna I'm gonna get on this. So I'm laying stuff down, I'm I'm just like, should it go like that? Is that too fat? What do you do? I want to have a little pizzazz in there, but I want it to be simple and thin, and so I was like, what happens if I put some of these things in there and do this? And so I built a cross. So I taping around, I got a picture here of a version of what I had going on, and so the blue tape is just like really cool, isn't it? It's like you want blue tape. So that was holding stuff together actually before I started gluing. But if you look at that, it's like Chad, that's that's not real cool. That's a that you're gonna make that a centerpiece of our nice new. And it's like, yeah, I think I'm gonna try. And gotta keep the bigger picture in mind, because I kept sawing and cutting, and and then I it's not done yet. But I was like, okay, what am I gonna do? So my thought was I wanted some negative space, so there's a cross, and there's a cross. So got that. So I was using these brackets and stuff that I'd found on the things, and I did have wood glue up here too for some reason. I wasn't sniffing it, I was just using it. But put it together, and I was like, how do I join this together with only these things? And it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. And so the thought would be that this might get a little precarious, but hangs under here. I still gotta sand it like crazy. I've got to fill holes first. There's a lot of holes. Sand it like crazy, do a little sort of hanger right here. So if anyone else wants to build a cross, we could have rotating crosses up here. We really could. Uh, one for each season, and we'll still drape them because that's really cool with the liturgical calendar. But in theory, it's gonna be this color, and we'll see, you know. And I was like, what am I gonna do with the pulpit to have some sort of maybe I'll have like a peephole that you can come up and look and you see the cross, and I'm gonna go ahead and set this down so it doesn't fall and shattered during the sermon. But now, why do I share all that with you? Because if you come up and look at it, or you look at something in the middle of the process and you're like, Chad, that it's like, yeah, it's got holes and there were staples all in it. The way you put it together, Chad, it's it's like it's not to look at close, it's just a symbol in the background, but it's to remind us. And when you look at it undone, I'd say, take heart. The wood-finished art is not completed. It's not yet done. When I worked old men in carpentry, they'd always say this with gruff voices. They'd say, Chad, only fools and children judge a work in progress. And the reason they said that is because they were probably making a lot of mistakes and they didn't want people to it's like I'm not done yet. I I do that all the time when I'm doing, I'm not done yet, babe. It's just I'm in progress. So let me just keep taking it. But it's mid-story. If you come in here while we were doing construction, mid-story. It's like it's not not finished yet. And last week we looked at he who began a good work in you, you can take heart. He who began it will continue it, will bring it about to completion, that's his work. That's his promise. Take heart. And one of the challenges, I believe, of our life, our lives is that we look at our lives and we're mid-construction. It's a process. And it's like I am where I am. A year ago, I was in a different place ten years ago, 20, 30. And it's it's a work in process. And so often our circumstances shake us to and fro. And are there circumstances that should shake us? Absolutely. This life is brutal. Relationships can be crazy. There's loss, there's death, there are so many different things. But what is the deeper story? Paul's going to remind us today that we are not bound by circumstance, and he's he's gonna be doing this all through the book of Philippians. But before, like we said last week, before Paul gets to anything that's you need to do this, do this, do this, or I need to correct this, or correct that, he roots them and anchors them redemptively and remembering the bigger story. And so last week we did this. He said, remember God's grace among us. And then he said, Trust God's work within us, and then participate in God's love through us. And that's where we were rooted in this bigger story. And we pick up this week with Philippians 1, 12 through 18. 18 isn't stopping, it's not a real clean stopping point. We'll continue going with 19 and bring in the context from this week as well. But this is as much as we're going to get to today. But if you wish, I'd invite you for the stand to stand for the reading of God's Word. Paul writes to these dear, dear brothers and sisters, a decade after planning this church. He says, Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole Imperial Guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ. Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly. To be sure, some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. These preach out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. The others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, thinking that they will cause me trouble in my imprisonment. What does it matter? Only that in every way, whether it is by false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice. This is the word of the Lord. Maybe seating. His imprisonment there under house arrest in Rome predates his final imprisonment, but he was there for probably about two years. And in that time, he writes the prison epistles, Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, and uh Philemon. And some scholars believe that this Philippians book was maybe towards more the end of his imprisonment there because of some of the information that's given. But at this time in his life, he's just a few years away from being executed. He's gone through so much. He's been beaten down. I love looking at 2 Corinthians and just looking at the emotional terms that Paul uses because he was heavy of heart. He he weeps for the churches, he has the daily stress of caring for them, and then let alone the suffering, the whips on the back, uh, being stoned and left for dead, being struck with poles and shipwrecked and all of these things. His body, if you saw it, would have to be filled with scars and crumpled, and there's so much that he endured. But he did that emotionally as well. He endured so much. So when he's saying these things, he's not saying them frivolously. He's not saying like, yeah, everything's gonna be great. Ginger and I are watching the show, and it's like all these terrible things are happening, happening, and and uh we joke because every response is of every person. It's like, it's gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay. It's like, it's probably not because there's a monster behind that door. It's probably maybe uh. And then last night we were watching, and there was actually a good response. A child asked the mom, are we gonna be okay? And she said, I hope so. I was like, Yeah, that's good. I love the realism. I don't want false light. Yeah, it's gonna be okay. Yeah, it's of course it's gonna be okay in the new heavens and new earth. We do need to think about that. And God will sustain us in this life, but there's some things that just don't seem okay. But Paul roots us in this deeper story, and that's the first point. God's story is bigger than our circumstances. And when he starts off in verse 12, he says, now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, what that has happened to me. And it's interesting because it leads you to the question, well, what has happened to Paul? And the Philippian church is gonna know this, but he's he's been arrested, he's under house arrest. And I think about how that might have distressed them. Because while Paul was doing his missionary journeys, he's going, they're hearing about all these amazing things taking place, and now Paul is stuck in Rome, chained to the Imperial Garden, and he does have in this imprisonment, he has the ability to move around some in the house, and and people come and visit him, and he prays with them, they hear him write letters, and I'm he witnesses to every guard, I'm sure. And I think over two years' time, my calculations were there were probably 3,000 rotations of guards, and some of them may have been repeat, but when he says the whole house, uh the imperial guard has the gospel spoken to them, and the house of Caesar, like it just the message spread in Rome because Paul was there for two years and he was doing Paul. And so they're seeing this though, and there's no more missionary journeys at this moment because he's there, he can't come and visit because he's in in jail. And so, what's going on? What's gonna happen to this precious gospel? And so, Paul uh he's he he goes on and it's it's beautifully, he knows that not all is lost, and actually he goes a step further. He's he says, after what I just read, and I'll read verse 12 again. Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel. So the the logic here would be earthly logic. It's like he's in he's in jail, house arrest, don't know if he's gonna get out, he might even be executed, we don't know. That the gospel's gonna be hindered. And Paul says, I just want y'all to know, bigger story, me being imprisoned has advanced the gospel. And so he's opening them up to a bigger way. And we see that in God's economy, that even prison is the very place where things take place. I thought about Joseph in the Old Testament being sold into slavery by his brothers. And at the end of his life, as he gets older, he his brothers come, and this was to save the whole world from famine. But he says to his brothers, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. And whatever entities were forcing and pressuring, you need to be arresting Paul, get him off the streets, you can't be preaching. What they meant for evil, God uses for good. And so what's actually happening, the advance of the gospel, it says verse 13, it's become known throughout the whole Imperial Guard and to everyone else. Everyone in that area was buzzing about, man, you got to see this guy day after day, week after week, month after month. He's in prayer, he's loving people that come to him, he's writing letters to churches, he's witnessing to everyone in his presence. So the gospel's advancing. And then the other thing that takes place is because of him being rooted in prison and he's seeing the bigger story, it gave confidence to everyone else. Verse 14, most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly. So believers have grown in boldness because of Paul being bold in prison. And this is what we we come back to and we think about personal application because we can't see what's going on, so much of what's going on. We have such a limited view, limited perspective. I don't know why I think about this sometimes, but I look out at my backyard and it's like I have such a limited perspective of even what's happening in my backyard. We have a mole problem, so they're underneath the ground. Those tricky little guys don't want those guys around. But I thought, well, there's probably grubs in our yard doing stuff. I know there's earthworms. I know there's roots in the grass, there's a big tree, there's so much photosynthesis going on everywhere. How when's the last time you thought about photosynthesis? It's like there's so much going on just in my backyard. What's going on in the world? Oh, don't get me started. Because I don't know. I can give you some details. I stay on top of uh some news, but it's like, oh man, the complexities of one human soul, let alone the complexities of the world. And it does take me to Psalm 131. I think that's the Psalm, but it's where David says, uh I'm gonna look it up. I always have a Bible up here, but I'll look it up. If it's not it, I'll I'll I'll ask uh Google to help us out. All right, the mind hasn't gone completely yet. All right, David. David's got a lot going on. We don't know exactly when he writes this psalm, but at whatever point, he's got a lot going on, even if he's a shepherd boy killing lions and bears. Oh my, you know, taking care of sheep, if he's killed Goliath or whatever, or if he's king, whatever. Listen to his words. Lord, my heart is not proud. My eyes are not haughty. I do not get involved with things too great or too wondrous for me. Are there things too great, too wondrous for us to understand and embrace? Absolutely. But what does he do instead? Verse 2 instead, I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother. My soul is like a weaned child. Position right there. Last verse Israel, put your hope in the Lord, both now and forever. And so Paul, he doesn't have to understand the whole story, he doesn't have to know if he's getting out or not. We're gonna see through the book of Philippians to live is Christ, to die is gained. I believe I will be delivered. Like so. Much going on. But he's not worrying himself about the full picture. He's not God. Sometimes what I've been doing recently is I'll take out a sheet of paper that's blank. This is a really written up, this doesn't really hit well. But what I do is I put at the top my role. Because what I find myself doing is I have a tendency to overfunction in life. And then I push and push and push, and then I underfunction because I'm so exhausted from overfunctioning. And I write out my role in a situation that I'm anxious about, and then I just write, this is what I'm called to do: to be present, speak truth, to love, to pray. This is what I can't do. I can't change another person's heart. I cannot be God. I can't be everywhere at all times. I cannot be all-knowing. I cannot be all-powerful, but I can do this. I can't concern myself things, things that are too great for me, but I can step into this with faithfulness. What's my role? It's really been a journey with me preaching, coming back from sabbatical. It's like, man, I had so much pressure on myself preaching my whole life. And it's like, man, I just noticed in my soul, it's like, if if if I didn't feel like people were being attentive, I was just trying to grab people's attention. And uh it's like, well, that's a bad metric because some people concentrate with frowns on their faces. Some people smile when they're mad at you. It's like, oh, that person's so happy with me. It's like, no, they're really ticked. It's like, okay. But it's like, what's the bigger story? What's my role in the bigger story? I dare not let circumstances be the metric by which I judge my story, even though I do sometimes. Let's move to the second point. God's purposes are not limited by human motives. We see in verses 15 through 17, he's talking about this complexity that the gospel's being preached. Some do it out of goodwill, good motives, some are doing it out of bad motives. And his conclusion is kind of interesting because we just went through Galatians. He's busting people's chops left and right when they're like, you've messed up the gospel, you're doing this, you're doing this. So is it because Paul is older and he's seeing more God's sovereignty at work? Maybe. It could be also what some scholars say is that these people aren't changing the gospel, they're just preaching the true gospel with wrong motives. But either way, the pure gospel's going out. But what do you think? Why do you think he addresses that? Because the Philippians are concerned about it. It's like Paul's in prison, he can't, like, what is gonna happen? And then these people are doing all this stuff out of false motives, and what are we gonna do? And he says this. It's all about Christ. In all of this, Christ is proclaimed, and I I think I've had many people over the years come up who are younger preachers, and they say, Chad, I'm really struggling because I can't find the ability to preach with just pure motives. Because when I step on stage, or even when I'm preparing, it's like I want to impress this person or this person. And I want people to think I'm funny and really intelligent, and uh I just I want all these things, and I just can you tell me how to get 100% pure motives so I can just step up there? And I said, Well, there's good news and bad news, buddy. This is I try to do it with some humor so it doesn't feel so hard, but it's like, well, if you want to preach with 100% pure motives, I don't think you'll ever preach again. I don't even think it's possible. In the complexity of who we are, 24 seconds like, I don't know, what would that look like? I think you have a very simplistic view of what 100% motive would be. Like, am I at 99%? I remember uh teaching at, because I've been preaching at Sojourn for 20 years, we'd have seminary professors and guys that I went to school under that were like Greek scholars, and I'd be trying to put a little Greek in my sermon, and I'd be looking at them, I'd be like, I hope I'm doing this right. When we parse this verb, it may mean this. It's like, okay, but what are my motives? Is it like my point is we're complex human beings, and I think this is something I've I've been learning like from uh this time last year, because it's like the bigger story when I stepped away for the summer, I was broken physically. I didn't think I'd return. Uh and so to be a year later, the elders when our last meeting, we were like, what a difference a year makes. Wow, praise be to God. But I think what I thought about myself is that the truest thing about myself is how deeply I felt things, especially pain. And as a lifelong depression, anxiety sufferer, that was the, you know, if you go through childhood trauma, it's like, oh, you got a lot underneath the hood that people don't see. And you can see me being calm and all these things. But the truth is, that is part of me, it's part of my story. And I'm a healing journey. Not all will be healed on this side of the new heavens and new earth. But it's like, oh, that doesn't define me. I know it cognitively, but I'm starting to believe it more holistically. But what about your circumstances? What about what you feel? What about your motives? Can I act in love even when I don't feel like it? Does that disqualify the love? No, you're stepping out in faith. Can I move towards forgiveness even when I want to hit someone? Maybe work through that a little bit before you get in their presence because you want to be a little, maybe the spectrum going down from hitting them to wanting to maybe pinch them or something. But I don't know how articulate all this is. My main point is that we are complicated. I got a bullet point list. Human beings are often complicated. I would say they're always complicated. Churches are complicated, leaders are complicated, our motives are rarely as pure as we imagine. If we put our hope in people being perfect, oh man, don't do that. That never ends well. Paul's hope rests somewhere else. His confidence rests in God's sovereignty. That no matter what's happening, God is going to get the gospel forward. I'm just floored sometimes when I hear people say, if we don't correct this little third-tier niche, the whole Bible's at risk. And it's like, oh man, relax. Relax. The whole Bible's not at risk. And even if the greatest heresy the world's ever seen, I don't know what it would be because heresies just repeat. If it takes off like wildfire, don't follow it. The gospel's still gonna go forward. There are faithful people everywhere. We've got God's word. Spurgeon said, you don't have to defend a lion, you just release it. Here's the lion. Turn to Nehemiah 11. I was trying to see if that was prophetic or not. I'll check later. But God's purposes are not limited by human motives. Let's move on to point three. God's kingdom gives us reason for joy. In verse 18, he says, What does it matter? Only that in every way, whether from false motives or true motives, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice. Yes, I will continue to rejoice. The bigger picture takes the circumstance. Paul, does he want to be imprisoned? I wouldn't think so. Do the Philippians want him in there? No. Bigger picture, though. The gospel is actually advancing, and God has his meaning. So submitting to God's will in the midst of circumstances I don't like, most of life is going to be filled with circumstances that we don't like at times. At least in some areas. But what was his main goal? He said, what does it matter only that Christ is proclaimed? I think it's one of the most remarkable statements in the letter because all of the people trying to cause him trouble, Paul in prison, stuff is not fixed. Christ is being proclaimed, and that's enough. So as you find yourself here today, and what we continue to say with all the study in the Bible that we do, it's like, where are you in the story today? Where can you find yourself? In your heart of hearts. So many of us spend so much enormous time trying to manage our circumstances, trying to control. And it just can crush people around us because it's like I can't have this. My whole life for decades and decades, because of such a tumultuous childhood and uh youth, was trying to keep peace everywhere at every cost. I was just hyper-vigilant, hyper-sensitive to everything, and I'd be okay, and it was it was crazy. It did such wreckage to my body, but I just did it naturally, seeking to control, just to manage my circumstances. When circumstances become difficult, joy doesn't have to disappear. It might run off and hide a little bit, but one of the complexities of the Christian life, and I love this, that our our our gospel holds this intention, is that at the same time sorrow exists, joy can exist. Those two go hand in hand. That's the beautiful truth of the gospel. Our joy is not rooted in control, it's rooted in trust, it's not rooted in favorable circumstances, it's rooted in God's larger story. And so here's your sentence to carry this week. Pretty short. But the story is bigger than the circumstances. The story is bigger than the circumstances. And I mourn with some of you because of the circumstances you're going through right now. Some I know, some I don't. But God sees you, He knows you. And He hasn't He hasn't bailed, He will never leave you or forsake you. But the story is bigger than the circumstances. Don't pretend the circumstances aren't there. Don't put on a happy, fake face and be like, Praise Jesus. My joke is like you get hit by a car and break your leg. You're like, Please Jesus, I broke my leg. It's like, what? That's not cool. That's a deeply theological statement right there. So that's not cool. All right. But it's like, oh, I broke my leg. Let's get you to the hospital. Take care of business as you're laying there. You got your pain meds. Circumstance, Lord, I don't know what you're gonna do in and through this, but help me trust the bigger story. It couldn't, I couldn't help but remember a year ago and looking around this place and what we've seen, but the bigger story is also true about Sojourn North. A year ago, I was gone for three months, didn't know what was going to happen with my life. The church didn't know what was gonna happen, but God sustained us. The elders acted with integrity and moved things forward amazingly at their own personal cost. The church was protected, I began healing, the Lord was faithful. And over the last year, the story continues: He who began a good work in you will continue it. Church has become healthier, elder team has never been stronger, relationships have deepened, ministries flourished, God's continued his work. And my desire this summer is for us to look towards the fall, and we're moving towards more of a simple church structure. Um we've found that trying just to take exactly what the church we came from and do everything at a smaller scale wasn't the wisest thing because it's it was too complicated. But we we want to do, uh I'm gonna try to remember it, and I'll I'll give you an insert one one of these days on it, but simple, sustainable structures that are repeatable and life-giving that foster relationship in gospel community. I'm just gonna keep adding words. I don't remember what the rest of it is, but simple and sustainable structures that are repeatable. And it's like, hey, when we gather and we do big events, we don't want to make it so complicated that we can't hang out with people that come to visit. We don't want to be so stressful for our volunteers that they're like, oh, we gotta, and then you're like, man, I'm glad that's over till next year. What if we came just to hang out and maybe we're the main attraction? Throw up a movie, have a bouncy house, and have some food. Man, and then we talk. People are longing to be able to share their stories. So, firming up a community group structure, got some great community groups, we just need more, so we're gonna do that. Some people volunteered for a committee on that and an events committee, and we're excited. God is leading us on. And as we come to the table this morning, I want us to be reminded again the bigger story, because this was instituted right before what would seem to be the greatest defeat. Because Good Friday came right after this, and their Savior was dead. But they didn't see the bigger picture, they didn't see on Sunday morning that he would rise from the dead, and that this movement of redemption would change all of human history. And so, if you're a Christian here today, if you're visiting with us, what we do is you can come up and grab some juice and some bread and just take it back to your seat and hold it there, because I'll come back up after everyone has received the elements and we'll partake in communion together. But as you come, think about this. Remember the bigger story and that God is at work. Let's pray together. Father, I thank you so much that you've given us these encouragements so that we can be anchored in you. Lord, I thank you for the realness of the scripture, Lord, that this letter and other letters had to be written because people were very anxious and they needed encouragement. And Lord, this is our life experience, and you know it full well. Jesus, you know what the greatest attack of anxiety was ever went in the garden. And your friends fell asleep. But you did stay rooted in this big story, the biggest story of all history. Not my will, but your will be done. And Lord, you have bought for us and purchased it with your blood, with your life, with your sacrifice. Eternity with you. So, Lord, I pray as we partake in communion that, Holy Spirit, you would speak to hearts, that you bring encouragement, where people are striving for control, where they are just crippled by circumstances, that you give them seeds of hope that you are here and you're working. Lord, move in our midst, and we ask this in Christ's name. Amen.