SPEAKER_01: We're calling it the hope of joy.
SPEAKER_01: Philippians wrote a great letter written from a prison cell by the Apostle Paul, probably in a prison cell in Rome, probably so close to Caesar and the central government of Rome there in the Roman Empire during that time, because remember Paul had appealed to Caesar, so that the folks over the Jewish religious leaders back in Israel couldn't have him, you know, drag him before the local magistrates and have him put to put uh to death.
SPEAKER_01: He appealed to Caesar.
SPEAKER_01: To Caesar, he went.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's there and uh writing from this prison cell, writing to a church he founded in 52 A.D.
SPEAKER_01: roughly.
SPEAKER_01: And it is now 62 A.D., 10-year-old church, uh half the age of our church.
SPEAKER_01: And he's writing to them from his prison cell.
SPEAKER_01: He's writing to them, and he mentions joy like 16 times, or some form of the word joy, rejoice, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01: Fascinating.
SPEAKER_01: He spends zero time complaining about his own predicament, his own circumstances, other than just to inform them of what's going on.
SPEAKER_01: He'll close out this particular chapter with a little bit of a uh summary of what's been going on in the life of Timothy and Epaphroditus, two friends, uh Epaphroditus, who was sent to Paul, to where he is, by, evidently by the Philippian church.
SPEAKER_01: And uh they've had some concern about Epaphroditus, and so Paul is sending Epaphroditus back to them.
SPEAKER_01: They're concerned for his well-being and what has happened to him and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: So this is incredibly personal and pastoral as a letter.
SPEAKER_01: Um it there are other letters where he writes to correct false teaching or to uh uh uh refocus people on uh one particular aspect of proper uh uh uh gospel teaching.
SPEAKER_01: And and he he certainly is reminding them and reassuring them in Philippians.
SPEAKER_01: But there's there's a sense in which you when you read this one, what you don't hear in the correction and all that sort of thing that he has to do in the other cases is you hear a pastor writing to a group of people he really, really loves, really cares about.
SPEAKER_01: Um there's a lot of uh first person uh pronoun, personal pronouns, and and he's I mean he's talking directly to them.
SPEAKER_01: They know him, he knows them, and I love that about this particular chapter.
SPEAKER_01: Last week, when we were together, we ended on um uh a statement which I didn't spend a lot of time on, uh verses nine and through eleven.
SPEAKER_01: I'll put it up on the screen so you don't have to uh turn to it right away, but it says, he's talking about Jesus, and at the very end of what we studied last week, he said, God highly exalted and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee will bow.
SPEAKER_01: That's in all caps because it's a it's lifted out of a passage, I believe, in Deuteronomy, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so it is in the context of that indicative that he now turns with some uh encouragement, instruction, and some imperatives.
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of his uh letters are like that.
SPEAKER_01: You get some indicatives that these things are true.
SPEAKER_01: If you believe these things, then here's how you should respond.
SPEAKER_01: You know, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01: So when he gives his imperatives in those in that context of indicatives and imperatives, it's not the requirement for salvation, it's the result of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, if it looks like something, what does it look like?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it looks like this.
SPEAKER_01: And he's already begun with some of that in chapter two, but let's pick up, look at verse 12 with me.
SPEAKER_01: So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence.
SPEAKER_01: Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
SPEAKER_01: You have probably heard that verse before, and what follows on its heels.
SPEAKER_01: For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: That's a wonderful imperative indicative combination.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: So we work out he works in.
SPEAKER_01: That's very clear.
SPEAKER_01: But then he goes on and it gets real specific here.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 14, do all things without grumbling or complaining.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that wipes out half the room, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's like, how many, any, did anyone here, you know somebody that's a that's a curmudgeon?
SPEAKER_01: You know, you does anybody, don't raise your hand because you might.
SPEAKER_01: Are you sitting next to a curmudgeon?
SPEAKER_01: Are they thinking of you, perhaps?
SPEAKER_01: That might be true.
SPEAKER_01: It's easy.
SPEAKER_01: We get into the spiral, kind of the no-spiral and the curmudgeon spiral a lot, don't we, in life?
SPEAKER_01: I think our culture does all things with grumblings and complainings.
SPEAKER_01: But we're supposed to be different.
SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to be set apart.
SPEAKER_01: That's what holiness means.
SPEAKER_01: It means set apart.
SPEAKER_01: It means different.
SPEAKER_01: We don't look like the context of the world in which we live, the unbelieving world in which we live.
SPEAKER_01: So he says, do all things without grumbling or disputing.
SPEAKER_01: Notice in verse 3, he had said, do nothing from selfishness and empty or empty conceit.
SPEAKER_01: Now he's saying, do all things without grumbling or complaining.
SPEAKER_01: Like a little sign, no whining, you know, no complaining, no grumbling.
SPEAKER_01: Um man, this is so not me.
SPEAKER_01: Um it's just so not you.
SPEAKER_01: And you can probably think of some time, maybe in the last week, even, when you got upset about something.
SPEAKER_01: I did.
SPEAKER_01: I was out in my, I have a, we don't have much of a uh in terms of our yard, we don't have much landmass.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but what little bit we have, I take really good care of.
SPEAKER_01: Kind of enjoy.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody gardening, like gardening, or how about just landscaping and things like that?
SPEAKER_01: See, I kind of putts around the old yard there.
SPEAKER_01: I got my lawnmower, got my got my little weed whacker, and you know, I was out of line for my weed whacker for like a week and a half, and I was going through a real hard time.
SPEAKER_01: So I went and bought three rolls of that, reels of that, and I put that back in and got out there and did my thing.
SPEAKER_01: And then I'm out there and I'm you know looking at the little plants and things like that, and I walk around, and doggone, right behind, right parallel to our the back of our yard there, and we don't have a fence or anything, but but there's an alleyway, and there's a car sitting with two wheels on my grass.
SPEAKER_01: So Pastor Jim went over and gave that person a piece of his mind.
SPEAKER_01: And I gotta tell you, I'm not, I'm not, I'm laughing about it, but I'm not really proud of it.
SPEAKER_01: I think I could have handled it a little bit better.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, but I but I I I kind of grumbled and confused.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I spent a lot of time working on this grass, you know, trying to keep it.
SPEAKER_00: You got you probably don't know, but you got two wheels right on my grass.
SPEAKER_00: That's not gonna go well, you know, for my grass, and I'm letting you know that, you know.
SPEAKER_01: So she had her headphones on, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01: She didn't say a thing, but she pulled off and kind of gave me a uh, you know, a little negative look, you know, and that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01: But but I thought to myself afterwards, I thought, you know, I could have I could have done that in a nicer way.
SPEAKER_01: And and and the tone that he's looking for here is a tone that's almost foreign to us in this day and time in which we live.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we've said it before around here, man.
SPEAKER_01: Outrage is the kudzu of our culture.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna cover us up and choke us to death.
SPEAKER_01: So are there some things that we should have righteous indignation about?
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
SPEAKER_01: But should we always be in that mode?
SPEAKER_01: Do we get drawn into that mode like addicts to a drug that we are now addicted to because we've been so programmed by it, by voices in our culture that want us to go that way?
SPEAKER_01: It's a good thing to think about.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, do all things without grumbling or disputing.
SPEAKER_01: All things is all things.
SPEAKER_01: Walking around your yard.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Doing your work, whatever your job is.
SPEAKER_01: Um being the spouse you are, or the single person you are, the friend you are, or the neighbor you are being do that without grumbling or complaining.
SPEAKER_01: What if I started what if we, what if if village chapel five services is a thousand or twelve hundred people?
SPEAKER_01: What if a thousand or twelve hundred people in Nashville stopped screaming and yelling and hollering and protesting everything and started, and again, there's there's stuff wrong in the world, I get it, but what if we all started living like Paul is suggesting here, so trusting of Jesus, so trusting of God, that no matter what's going on in the watching world around us, we're so focused on and trusting and secure and resting in his love, my beloved, my brethren.
SPEAKER_01: What if we changed the nature and tone of the way we do life?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 15, that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what it looks like to be blameless and innocent, and to prove it.
SPEAKER_01: That you prove yourself to be blameless and innocent, children of God.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, you bear the family resemblance, above reproach, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that interesting that he thought the first century was a crooked and perverse generation?
SPEAKER_01: Wonder what he would say about our generation.
SPEAKER_01: If that one was a crooked and a perverse one.
SPEAKER_01: And by crooked and perverse, I don't only mean issues that, you know, kind of get the the the top headline in in when we think of those those descriptive terms.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's crooked and perverse that human trafficking is so successful, that pornography is so successful in our world.
SPEAKER_01: That is just wrong.
SPEAKER_01: That there's so much poverty in our world, that is just crooked.
SPEAKER_01: Things are twisted.
SPEAKER_01: Things aren't the way they're supposed to be.
SPEAKER_01: And uh I think that's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to do all things without grumbling or disputing, that we prove ourselves to be blameless in this sense, that we bear the family resemblance above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you appear as lights in the world.
SPEAKER_01: Lights?
SPEAKER_01: Lights, yeah, lights.
SPEAKER_01: What do lights do?
SPEAKER_01: Lights warm, lights uh uh give us the ability to see, so they help us with direction.
SPEAKER_01: Lights give us the ability to see things so that we they help us with correction.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, this is the wrong way.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going the wrong way.
SPEAKER_01: This is netting the wrong result.
SPEAKER_01: I need to be able to see to know that that's the case.
SPEAKER_01: And we're supposed to be scattered like lights across the culture and uh reflecting, not not generating our own light, but reflecting the light of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And because Christ has changed us, we are children of God above reproach.
SPEAKER_01: Is that happening?
SPEAKER_01: Man, I would like I would like that to be said about us.
SPEAKER_01: Um but we're supposed to be shining these lights and we're holding fast, and some of your translations might say holding forth the word of life.
SPEAKER_01: And that Greek word can be translated either way, so it's both.
SPEAKER_01: If you're holding fast, you're also holding forth.
SPEAKER_01: If you're holding forth, you're also holding fast.
SPEAKER_01: And it's meant to be both.
SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to understand it that way.
SPEAKER_01: So that in the day of Christ, Paul says, I may have cause to glory because I did not run in vain, nor toil in vain.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a running and there's a toiling, and he doesn't want either to be in vain.
SPEAKER_01: But even if I'm being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you.
SPEAKER_01: All they used to pour when they when they would sacrifice an animal on the altar, um, the ancient Jewish priests, anyway, would also sometimes pour a drink offering.
SPEAKER_01: You've probably heard that phrase from the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And they would pour that right beside the animal sacrifice as they burned it in the altar.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's right beside them.
SPEAKER_01: They're they're together as an offering, a sacrifice to God and for God's glory.
SPEAKER_01: And he wants, he says, even if my life is being poured out like that, um, I uh I want you to share my joy.
SPEAKER_01: You too, I urge you, rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: There's another occasion of that word.
SPEAKER_01: In the same way to share your, and there it is again, joy with me.
SPEAKER_01: Now he talks about his two friends, Timothy and Epaphrodis.
SPEAKER_01: I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, so that I also may be encouraged when I learn of your condition.
SPEAKER_01: For I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, I really care about you, and I want to send somebody who cares about you.
SPEAKER_01: For they all seek, there's a bunch of folks who seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But you know of his, that's Timothy's proven worth, that he served with me in the furtherance of the gospel like a child serving his father.
SPEAKER_01: He's certainly referencing 52 A.D.
SPEAKER_01: when Timothy was with Paul and Luke and Silas, and they established that church in 52 A.D.
SPEAKER_01: And they visited it twice more on the third missionary trip of the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's certainly referencing back to that time and saying, look how well we all know each other, and I want to send Timothy there because he loves you as well, and you love him and trust him.
SPEAKER_01: And he's been so faithful serving um uh serving uh me, but I but he would be very faithful in serving you as well.
SPEAKER_01: I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare, for they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: But you know of his proven worth.
SPEAKER_01: He served with me in the furtherance of the gospel like a child serving his father.
SPEAKER_01: I hope to send him to you immediately, as soon as I see how things go with me.
SPEAKER_01: Again, he's in prison.
SPEAKER_01: Tomorrow he could be put to death.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't know.
SPEAKER_01: But he goes on, there's a little bit more.
SPEAKER_01: And I trust in the Lord that I myself also shall be coming shortly.
SPEAKER_01: See?
SPEAKER_01: He believed he would be released at some point.
SPEAKER_01: He was hoping that that would happen.
SPEAKER_01: I thought it necessary to send to you Ephroditis, so that's who's gonna carry this letter, is this the implication here.
SPEAKER_01: Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier.
SPEAKER_01: So he's a brother, he's a worker, and he's a fellow soldier.
SPEAKER_01: There's an intimacy of relationship, he's a brother.
SPEAKER_01: There is a partnership, he's a fellow worker.
SPEAKER_01: And they're fighting for the same thing: the furtherance of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And fighting need not mean that the negative aspect of that that might be attached to that in our own day and time.
SPEAKER_01: What it means is there's a spiritual battle going on.
SPEAKER_01: And um, and it's real.
SPEAKER_01: And and uh so Ephroditis is a brother, and he's a co-worker, and he's a fellow soldier in the gospel, and he's also your messenger and minister to my need.
SPEAKER_01: They had sent him to Paul, because he was longing for you all and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick.
SPEAKER_01: Indeed, he was sick to the point of death, Ephroditis.
SPEAKER_01: But God had mercy on him, not on him only, but also on me, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, if he had died, Paul would have been so sad.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, I've sent him all the more eagerly, in order that when you see him again you may rejoice, and I be less concern, and I may be less concerned about you.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, I will know that I've sent a trusted fellow co-laborer in the gospel to be with you.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, receive him in the Lord with all joy.
SPEAKER_01: There it is again, and hold men like him in high regard, because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was deficient in your service to me.
SPEAKER_01: That is, I I'm gonna assume what he is referencing there is that what's deficient is simply that their presence isn't with him.
SPEAKER_01: He's not with them.
SPEAKER_01: He and Epaphroditus came to be with Paul, and he made up the difference by actually being there and being present with them.
SPEAKER_01: So, great passage.
SPEAKER_01: I love uh when we're reading someone else's mail, which is what we've been doing, um, I love the fact that in this mail it's not just that sort of rubber stamp, you know, Merry Christmas 2019.
SPEAKER_01: You know, we we have a family member that sends us a Christmas card every year with just the rubber stamp signature.
SPEAKER_01: There's no, how you doing?
SPEAKER_01: What's going on?
SPEAKER_01: Hey, you guys cool, how's the church?
SPEAKER_01: What's going on?
SPEAKER_01: None of that.
SPEAKER_01: None of the here's my story, and unfold about a 40-page, you know, update on what's going on in their world.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
SPEAKER_01: Just rubber stamp.
SPEAKER_01: Merry Christmas, 2019.
SPEAKER_01: And it looks like a card that was bought like a thousand in a box.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's that kind of card, you know.
SPEAKER_01: But it's interesting.
SPEAKER_01: He's not doing that here.
SPEAKER_01: This is very warm and personal.
SPEAKER_01: He's mentioning real people, Timothy and Epaphroditus.
SPEAKER_01: He's writing to a real city, Philippi, that we actually can know about because we can do some work even outside of our entire, outside of the Bible altogether, we can look at ancient history and see that there was indeed a city called Philippi.
SPEAKER_01: Ten miles inland, north, northern tip of the Aegean Sea, established 356 BC, named after Alexander the Great's dad.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Your Bible said in space-time history, this is real.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't just a warm, fuzzy story that somebody ought to make a movie about and do a big soundtrack with and all kinds of hobbits and things like that.
SPEAKER_01: No, it's not that.
SPEAKER_01: This is real.
SPEAKER_01: And I love hobbits.
SPEAKER_01: Don't hear me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm not down on that stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but this is real.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a real guy named Timothy, a real guy named Paphroditus.
SPEAKER_01: And they all really love the church at Philippa.
SPEAKER_01: So I love that about this particular text.
SPEAKER_01: Madeline Langell quote from up there, if you guys will.
SPEAKER_01: We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.
SPEAKER_01: That from walking on water, she just dismantles me sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: Some of the some of the things I've read by her, she just says things so beautifully and it makes me want to go back and find people that drive on my lawn and apologize to them.
SPEAKER_01: We're not really ever going to convince anyone of the gospel of Christ if all we're doing is screaming, get off my lawn.
SPEAKER_01: Sweetie, what that is an amen cough.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that's what that's what that was, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Um, what does he mean?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've got to deal with a couple things.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, what does he mean?
SPEAKER_01: Work out your own, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it's God who's at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_01: There's three different uh stages, if you will, in the in the Bible's account of salvation, anyway.
SPEAKER_01: Justification, sanctification, glorification.
SPEAKER_01: There are other ification words in theology.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, theologians work really hard at coming up with big words so that we, it's kind of job security for them.
SPEAKER_01: That way we always we always need to employ them to help us understand what in the world are you talking about?
SPEAKER_01: Justification is this immediate uh salvation from the penalty of sin.
SPEAKER_01: You're justified.
SPEAKER_01: And this happens at the point of your conversion, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Sanctification is this progressive salvation that happens, and that that aspect of it that's progressive.
SPEAKER_01: And it's from the power of sin in your life at work in your life and at work in my life.
SPEAKER_01: Um, it is a present and ongoing process.
SPEAKER_01: It's progressive.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you, you know, you can look back over your life and go, I can see where it was progressing that month, but you know, out in my backyard it wasn't progressing so well, you know, or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: Um, glorification.
SPEAKER_01: So there'll be some undulation, I should say, with number two.
SPEAKER_01: Three, glorification, the ultimate salvation from the presence of sin.
SPEAKER_01: And this, of course, is what the Bible points forward to in the return of Christ and as he establishes the new kingdom, the new heavens and the new earth.
SPEAKER_01: The process that we call sanctification involves us working something out, we're told here in Philippians 2, but it's God who's working something in.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the next slide, if you will.
SPEAKER_01: There is a concurrence.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so there is a, we're we're both participating in this, not on equal terms, by any stretch of the imagination.
SPEAKER_01: Please understand this.
SPEAKER_01: God's always the initiator, we're always the responders.
SPEAKER_01: That's a that's the big filter through which I run everything.
SPEAKER_01: He's always the one that started, that that initiated it.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, and and and how do I know that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, because the first verse of the Bible says in the beginning, God.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say in the beginning Jim.
SPEAKER_01: And then God set everything else in motion with a view toward creating uh some some creatures, some part of his creature.
SPEAKER_01: Creation in his image, which is awesome.
SPEAKER_01: And then calling us, even after the fall, calling some of us back to him.
SPEAKER_01: He's looking for a people he can call his own.
SPEAKER_01: And the question is, how do you respond to that?
SPEAKER_01: This is the question we continue to ask ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: And so God works in, and we're to work out, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And that's so there's a concurrence that goes there.
SPEAKER_01: Hilmer Kent Jr.
SPEAKER_01: is a Bible commentator and Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Greek at the Grace Theological Seminary.
SPEAKER_01: He says, working out salvation does not mean working for salvation, but making salvation operational.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we see here.
SPEAKER_01: Justification must be followed by the experiential aspects of sanctification by which the new life of Christ is consciously appropriated and demonstrated.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that great?
SPEAKER_01: So grace, while it is opposed to earning, is not opposed to effort.
SPEAKER_01: I'll say it again.
SPEAKER_01: And this is from Dallas Willard.
SPEAKER_01: Grace is not opposed, or is opposed to earning, but is not opposed to effort.
SPEAKER_01: And that effort is my proper response to God's grace, to God's generous grace.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if I really appreciate what he's done, if he, a holy God, would smile upon a sinner such as myself or such as yourself, the proper response is humility and gratitude, and then responding by living in such a way that would delight our Father who art in heaven, as we delight in him.
SPEAKER_01: And so, as Hendrickson, another New Testament scholar and Bible commentator says, their salvation is a process in which they themselves, far from remaining passive or dormant, take a very active part.
SPEAKER_01: It's a pursuit, a following after, a pressing on, a contest, a fight, a race.
SPEAKER_01: You see how hard the New Testament is working at giving us all these different images so that no matter who you are, no matter which way you're wired and which way you think, whether you're poetic or you're an athlete or whether you're a thinker or whatever you are, there's some metaphor that will speak to you and will communicate to you that you're not to be passive in this whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: You're to be engaged in this whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: And it permeates all of life, every category of life, all the longings of my heart and mind, all the longings of your heart and mind.
SPEAKER_01: It speaks to and heals the brokenness that's in our hearts, in our minds.
SPEAKER_01: It gives us hope for joy, that there might be joy for us.
SPEAKER_01: This guy writing from a prison cell can write about joy.
SPEAKER_01: And notice what he doesn't write about.
SPEAKER_01: This is such a horrible cell, I'm in.
SPEAKER_01: I can't believe food is always late and terrible, mushy.
SPEAKER_01: It's not warm.
SPEAKER_01: The ice in my coke is melted.
SPEAKER_01: I can't even get there's no sippy straws.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's just so many things I complain about that Paul doesn't spend any time on that.
SPEAKER_01: And this is good, some of you are not gonna be happy about this, but the New Testament spends precious little time talking about how I feel.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm speaking this into a culture that is obsessed with the way it feels and how it feels about how it feels, and how it feels about how it feels, and how you ought to feel about how I feel.
SPEAKER_01: And please, you know, understand Paul says very little about how he feels, other than I feel like I really love Christ and want to follow him.
SPEAKER_01: And I I love the thing, the only thing he talks about, the feelings are I long to see you, my beloved Philippians.
SPEAKER_01: He feels that.
SPEAKER_01: But he's not talking about much about his own inconveniences and things that are going wrong, so to speak, in his own life.
SPEAKER_01: If sanctification looks like something, Philippians 2, especially verses 12 to 18, tell us what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01: Resting in being the beloved.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: He says, So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, and he moves right to that, you are beloved, and just as you have always beloved, you've always obeyed, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Not as in my presence only, not just because I'm there, but now much more in my absence, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And again, he's Pastor Paul, Apostle Paul, writing to this church he founded.
SPEAKER_01: He has a proper claim to actually speak that way to them.
SPEAKER_01: Um he goes, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us stopped trembling a long time ago.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us are too sophisticated to tremble, or at least we think we are.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us are too self-sufficient to fear, or at least we think we are.
SPEAKER_01: And I would say in both cases, it's delusion.
SPEAKER_01: I don't agree with Roosevelt.
SPEAKER_00: The only thing to fear is fear itself.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the world I live in.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a lot of stuff out there to fear.
SPEAKER_01: It's a crazy world.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm so glad there's a sovereign God who has numbered the hairs on my head and is so aware of what's going on in my life, knows my deepest longings.
SPEAKER_01: Knows what I need.
SPEAKER_01: And how many of us could raise our hand if we if I asked the question?
SPEAKER_01: How many of you have seen in hindsight so much clearer how God is working in your life than you can see right now, or then you can see forward into the future?
SPEAKER_01: You you in hindsight, you have seen God proving himself faithful over and over again, even when you in the moment may not be able to see such a thing.
SPEAKER_01: So rest in the beloved habitual loving obedience to God and his word.
SPEAKER_01: This is up there.
SPEAKER_01: Um, this is part of the response.
SPEAKER_01: Joyful fear and trembling, freed from grumbling and disputing.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, may that be us.
SPEAKER_01: Freed from grumbling and disputing.
SPEAKER_01: How different we would be.
SPEAKER_01: How how how God's people would stand out, even though there's much that's broken and wrong in this world.
SPEAKER_01: I agree with that.
SPEAKER_01: There are things I would change, there's no question.
SPEAKER_01: But Paul's writing from prison and saying we shouldn't grumble.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's writing from prison saying we shouldn't be afraid of what's going on out there.
SPEAKER_01: We should work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
SPEAKER_01: And we shouldn't be grumbling and complaining.
SPEAKER_01: And this is pretty amazing that he would think that way.
SPEAKER_01: Saved from the sin of acting as a murmurer.
SPEAKER_01: Whoa.
SPEAKER_01: Church people, church people, we need to hear this.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's one thing, you know, murmur is one of those words.
SPEAKER_01: I love the word murmur.
SPEAKER_01: It sounds like what it is.
SPEAKER_01: What's that called?
SPEAKER_01: Onomatopoeia?
SPEAKER_01: Is that is that onomatopoeia?
SPEAKER_01: Let's all do, let's all say murmur about four times together.
SPEAKER_01: Ready?
SPEAKER_01: Murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it sounds like.
SPEAKER_01: It sounds exactly like what it is.
SPEAKER_01: Murr, murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur.
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: Stop it! That's what he says.
SPEAKER_01: And he's saying it to us.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because for the glory of Christ, we need to be, we need to be lights shining in a dark, crooked and perverse world.
SPEAKER_01: And that crooked and perverse world, you know what it's stuck on?
SPEAKER_01: Murmur.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just stuck on drugs, you know, some of the common sins that everybody likes to list.
SPEAKER_01: It's also stuck on murmur.
SPEAKER_01: It's stuck on grumbling and complaining and anger, uncontrollable anger in some cases.
SPEAKER_01: Blameless, innocent, above reproach, shining as lights, holding faster forth the word, rejoicing and sharing in joy.
SPEAKER_01: Where are the folks who not only show up at church, but once they show up, they volunteer.
SPEAKER_01: Not only do they volunteer to do what they like to do, but they volunteer to do whatever needs to be done.
SPEAKER_01: You know, we have a few around here that are like that.
SPEAKER_01: They show up and then they volunteer, and then it doesn't matter where you put me, coach, just put me in.
SPEAKER_01: I want to play.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to just own a jersey.
SPEAKER_01: I actually want to be in.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll give myself away in any way you want me to, you know?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's true with every organization, every volunteer effort that 80% of the work gets done by 20% of the people.
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
SPEAKER_01: Those statistics run true, sadly, in the church, though, as well.
SPEAKER_01: And we need to reverse all of that.
SPEAKER_01: We need to be coming in here thinking like hosts, not guests.
SPEAKER_01: Each and every one of us.
SPEAKER_01: And if all of us did that, then every visitor that comes to Village Chapel would kind of be blown away as they're smothered in the love of God.
SPEAKER_01: Not in the goofy, smothery kind of way that some church people can be.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I am saying that if there were an eagerness on all of our parts to rejoice and share the joy, to hold forth the word of God's life and how that's available to us.
SPEAKER_01: Uh Jay Alec Motyar says, uh, the light of Christian character is an uninterpreted parable.
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
SPEAKER_01: If we do not speak about Christ.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, it's an uninterpreted parable.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody can figure out what it is, the light of Christ, if we don't live it out.
SPEAKER_01: Equally, speaking about Christ is futile if our lives do not back up what we say.
SPEAKER_01: And when we're kids, some of us remember growing up, does our walk match our talk?
SPEAKER_01: That's all?
SPEAKER_01: It's that simple.
SPEAKER_01: Are we living this out?
SPEAKER_01: Is it more than just academic acknowledgement of the existence of God?
SPEAKER_01: Is it more than that?
SPEAKER_01: And is it more than academic assent to the doctrines of grace and the Westminster Confession or the shorter confession?
SPEAKER_01: Is it more than that?
SPEAKER_01: Has it gone from here down to here?
SPEAKER_01: And is it now being lived out in some practical way, like the Philippian Church seems to be doing?
SPEAKER_01: Well, we all know it's not easy.
SPEAKER_01: Uh Brian Hedge is in a book that I love, Watchfulness, and if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.
SPEAKER_01: The Christian life is a journey, a race, and a battle.
SPEAKER_01: It's all three.
SPEAKER_01: Again, these metaphors help us.
SPEAKER_01: Um it's not just sort of a sitting back and you know acknowledging some truths to be true.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta engage, you gotta be involved.
SPEAKER_01: Whether you think like, okay, a journey speaks to you, okay, that's great.
SPEAKER_01: You're you're a journey person.
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about the journey.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you're a race person.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so let's go.
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about running a race.
SPEAKER_01: You need it to be a little more intentional, a little more aggressive, a little more proactive.
SPEAKER_01: All right, let's talk about it as a battle.
SPEAKER_01: He's right, it's all three of those things.
SPEAKER_01: Good news, we're on a different kind of journey.
SPEAKER_01: We're walking a different way because we're following Jesus and walking the way that he walks.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to a different kind of city.
SPEAKER_01: The destination is different.
SPEAKER_01: We're running another kind of race, so we're fighting a different kind of battle.
SPEAKER_01: But we already know the outcome of the battle, and that's the good news.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we'll need to be encouraged along the way, sometimes we'll need to be exhorted along the way.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, you could be sitting here today and need one or the other, or maybe a little bit of both.
SPEAKER_01: Philippians is great because it does both.
SPEAKER_01: Encourage us and exhort us, prod us along, call us to action.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what you need right now, but I hope that our study of Philippians will offer a little bit of both.
SPEAKER_01: Alan Redpath was a well-known British author, evangelist, former pastor of Moody Church up in Chicago as well.
SPEAKER_01: He said, the conversion of a soul is the miracle of a moment, but the manufacture of a saint is the task of a lifetime.
SPEAKER_01: Would you be patient with the church?
SPEAKER_01: Would you be patient with each other?
SPEAKER_01: Would you be patient with your closest friends who are Christians?
SPEAKER_01: Would you be patient with your spouse or your best friends or your roommates or your co-workers that say they're Christians?
SPEAKER_01: It'd be good if we could be patient with each other.
SPEAKER_01: Could we do things without grumbling or complaining?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we could.
SPEAKER_01: I could have done a better job.
SPEAKER_01: And I can do a better job because of the grace of God at work in my life and because of Him helping me to see when I read this book, helping me to see how this exhorts me and encourages me to be more and more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Are you motivated and proactive about your spiritual life?
SPEAKER_01: Do the things that matter spiritually shape and influence your thinking, your relationships, your behavior?
SPEAKER_01: Do the things that matter that come out of this book, do they really shape and influence your life?
SPEAKER_01: How does believing and walking in light of the gospel transform your priorities, your relationships, even your experiences of suffering?
SPEAKER_01: Are you self-aware enough?
SPEAKER_01: This is really a great question that I had to ask myself and wrestle with a little bit, but are we self-aware enough to know when we've slipped into a grumbling, complaining, disputing mode?
SPEAKER_01: A contrarian.
SPEAKER_01: Always got a better way for everyone else to hear how they ought to be doing it.
SPEAKER_01: And since Paul is always pointing out how our lives should be and how the life of Christ was all about the glory of God, how do you feel about the glory of God?
SPEAKER_01: Is that even important to you?
SPEAKER_01: And the next decision you will make, be it a big one or a small one, how does the glory of God fit into your life?
SPEAKER_01: As John Piper has so often said, God is most glorified in us when we are most delighted in him.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ is the hope of our joy.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, thank you for this passage.
SPEAKER_01: Stir us up.
SPEAKER_01: I just watching in what Paul said about Timothy and Paphroditus and how while they aren't the hero of the redemption story Christ is, they seem to be guys that were walking it out a bit with Paul and with the church of Philippi.
SPEAKER_01: So I pray for all of us, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: As we look back through history, we can see some people who have who've uh run the race well.
SPEAKER_01: I I pray that we might be encouraged to do that as well.
SPEAKER_01: And that we would help each other, that we would we would be that kind of fellowship of believers, that kind of local expression of your church that is indeed a city on a hill, a light that can't be hidden.
SPEAKER_01: And we might uh show the watching world what it looks like to really hope in and trust in uh the gospel and the good news of Jesus Christ, salvation in his name as a free gift for us.
SPEAKER_01: May we rest in your love as the beloved, and may we walk in the light of your grace this week in Jesus' name, amen and amen.