SPEAKER_00: So a couple announced announcements before I start.
SPEAKER_00: Um and this is all on the back of the black chair in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: If you scan that QR code with your camera, but there is the Wednesday Praise and Prayer service on June 17th, that's this Wednesday at 6.
SPEAKER_00: Immediately before that, the hour before that, if you have youth, there is a youth town hall meeting to discuss the youth program in the future.
SPEAKER_00: And there is community under the bridge donation boxes at both exits.
SPEAKER_00: Um if you have any clothes you would like to donate.
SPEAKER_00: Um it's a bit of a tragedy.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be it's tragic for me, it'll be comedic for you.
SPEAKER_00: But um I took an eight-week, all my classes are eight weeks, and it was an eight-week sermon prep class.
SPEAKER_00: And what that means is it's eight weeks, you get one scripture, and you use that scripture the entire eight weeks, and you're building a sermon around this scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And what it was for me, and it's like it's like, you know, and there's not really any wrong answers, you know, inter not interpret, but you know, create some illustrations and whatnot, and so I'm submitting stuff, and it's like you could not be more off, dude.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, so it was a little discouraging, I won't lie.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that was eight weeks, and when I got done with it, I think I got an A in the class, but when I got done with it, um I was like, I don't I don't know what I'm gonna do in the future.
SPEAKER_00: I am never preaching that sermon.
SPEAKER_00: On I mean, that was discouraging and exhausting.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that finished in May.
SPEAKER_00: And then two weeks ago, Michael, Pastor Michael asked me to preach on that sermon.
SPEAKER_00: On the exact sermon that I had just written.
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it was yeah, that's it's it's funny and all.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Um but anyway, I I really I fell back in love with it.
SPEAKER_00: Um I've really always loved this this piece of Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a huge fan of Paul's letters.
SPEAKER_00: Um but so we know Paul is in prison.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Michael thinks he's in Ephesus.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm not gonna disagree with that, but Ephesus, Rome, Caesarea, it could have been any of those really.
SPEAKER_00: Um he's writing a word of encouragement to the church of Philippi.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna look through the first, oh, what is this, the first three verses real quick.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, four verses real quick.
SPEAKER_00: For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.
SPEAKER_00: But if I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ, so I really do not know which is better.
SPEAKER_00: So, and can we go back to the starting slide that just says Philippians?
SPEAKER_00: Because there's something interesting on it.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul's life is either Roman style execution, okay, because he was a citizen of Rome, or released into, I don't know if anybody else has mobs of people throwing rocks at them in their day-to-day life.
SPEAKER_00: But that's Paul's day-to-day life, is scary.
SPEAKER_00: It was scary to evangelize to the early churches.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a smiley face up there.
SPEAKER_00: I thought I was getting set up when we were talking about joy.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Pastor Michael took like the first few verses that Joy's mentioned like five times, and then he gives me the one where people are getting executed, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's like, I don't know how I'm gonna spin this.
SPEAKER_00: But it is.
SPEAKER_00: It is a book, it is a book of joy, and there's joy in these verses.
SPEAKER_00: And the joy comes through perspective, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like Miss Natalie talked about.
SPEAKER_00: And perspective, there's there's an episode of Seinfeld, y'all are probably so sick of hearing about Seinfeld.
SPEAKER_00: Me and Pastor Michael both share an affinity for Seinfeld, but um there's an episode, and in it there's this character, and anytime something annoying or bad happens to him, he's he's he's he talks, he stops and he takes a breath and he says, Serenity now, right?
SPEAKER_00: He says, Serenity now, every time something bad happens.
SPEAKER_00: And by the end, he's like angrily yelling it every time he says it.
SPEAKER_00: And and this other character tells his son, he goes, you know, you should really tell him to stop doing that, because all that is is just bottling everything up and eventually, and and he ends it by saying, Serenity now, insanity later.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not it's not, we're always smiling and laughing and joy, we're not choosing joy.
SPEAKER_00: It's not choosing joy, it's it's not joy now or serenity now, it's God now.
SPEAKER_00: It's where is God in this circumstance of my life?
SPEAKER_00: And where he says this the most is living means living for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And and I like a different version better that says, um, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
SPEAKER_00: Because that makes it a bit more of like an if-then statement.
SPEAKER_00: Um to live is Christ, then death is gain.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say to live is Paul, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because to live is not Paul, because if to live is Paul, then death is no more Paul.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: You can't be held back by the circumstance or the perspective of if my life ends, everything is over, I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: It can't be to live is money, because then death is no money, right?
SPEAKER_00: So that's the perspective.
SPEAKER_00: It is always magnifying Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And all that we do, because if we magnify ourselves, what we're magnifying is sin.
SPEAKER_00: I spent well, I do still do magnify myself.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we all do, because we're sinful.
SPEAKER_00: But this verse changed my life.
SPEAKER_00: It changed how I look at my life because it's not mine, it's living is Christ.
SPEAKER_00: His, you know, everything should go through like rose-colored glass, but it's Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Everything should go through that filter in all that we do.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one goes to the Father except through me.
SPEAKER_00: So if he's the way, the truth, and the life, then we are the people that tell everybody that.
SPEAKER_00: We are his image bearers.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't just tell him by word of mouth, we tell him in everything we do.
SPEAKER_00: Let's keep going.
SPEAKER_00: So 23 and 24, he says, I'm torn between two desires.
SPEAKER_00: I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me.
SPEAKER_00: But for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live.
SPEAKER_00: So again, we're seeing two things here.
SPEAKER_00: We're seeing go and be with Christ, which he says is better for him, because again, he lives a very scary life, or continue to live, which is far better for the church.
SPEAKER_00: Now both will spread the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: An early church evangelist being executed will spread the martyr, you know, that spread the gospel still.
SPEAKER_00: But for your sakes means I'm still needed for you.
SPEAKER_00: The church of Philippi still needed Paul in their life.
SPEAKER_00: They still needed him.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you another thing.
SPEAKER_00: If you look, you know, last week Pastor Michael said he bled into my verses a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like driving a train into his, I'm going all the way to chapter 4 here.
SPEAKER_00: I that's probably really bad, but just a little bit, chapter 4, verse 15 and 16, it says, You yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you alone.
SPEAKER_00: For even in Thessalonica, you send a gift more than once for my needs.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not just the church needing Paul, it's Paul needing the church, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking about that, and I was reminded of a song, Lean on Me by Bill Withers.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm not gonna sing it.
SPEAKER_00: I was working with Lisa last week, um, because I'm I know I'm monotone.
SPEAKER_00: I know that.
SPEAKER_00: I only hear it when I'm talking into something like this.
SPEAKER_00: But I told Lisa, I was like, I'm very monotone, and uh oh there she is.
SPEAKER_00: And when I said that, it was almost like she had been thinking it the whole time, right?
SPEAKER_00: And and was just waiting for me to come up with it on my own.
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, well, come over to the piano, and she starts playing these notes.
SPEAKER_00: It was brutal.
SPEAKER_00: It was so bad.
SPEAKER_00: I was terrible.
SPEAKER_00: I was terrible, guys.
SPEAKER_00: But uh she was nice about it.
SPEAKER_00: But lean on me.
SPEAKER_00: It's this mutual, it's needing and being needed that makes us a church family.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And not and not just here, here especially, but anytime you meet a brother or sister of Christ or not one.
SPEAKER_00: You you are an image bearer.
SPEAKER_00: So the next the the 25 and 26 say, let's see here.
SPEAKER_00: Knowing this, I am convinced that I will remain alive so I can continue to help all of you grow and experience the joy of your faith.
SPEAKER_00: We'll stop there actually for a second.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Knowing this, I am convinced that I'll remain alive.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, this is in the New Testament, so it's all it's all written in um, it's it's Greek.
SPEAKER_00: Um Paul's writing in Greek, and convinced is used multiple times in the New Testament, and it's translated to different words in English, and a few of those words are confident, trusting, and obeying.
SPEAKER_00: So if we read it that way, not only is he saying, I am convinced that I'll remain alive, he's saying, I am confident that I'll remain alive, I am trusting that I'll remain alive, and I am obeying the command to remain alive, because that's what it is.
SPEAKER_00: He is being commanded to remain alive.
SPEAKER_00: And he punches this home by saying, in verse 26, When I come to you again, you will have even more reason to take pride in Jesus Christ because of what he is doing through me.
SPEAKER_00: That's huge.
SPEAKER_00: When I come again, not if I come again, he's still sitting in a prison cell in Rome or Ephesus or Caesarea.
SPEAKER_00: He's still in the same exact situation that he's been in countless times, but he says, No, when I come to you again, because I am coming to you again, because I'm confident of it, I'm convinced of it, I'm trusting in God and I am obeying his command, when I come to you again.
SPEAKER_00: There's a, you know, I don't want to talk about basketball.
SPEAKER_00: But I kind of I have to.
SPEAKER_00: Um Pastor Michael's in New York.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even say that because I didn't want to talk about New York.
SPEAKER_00: Um in 2009, Kobe Bryant and the Lakers were in the NBA finals against the Orlando Magic.
SPEAKER_00: And they had taken a 2-0 lead, much like the New York Knicks took over us.
SPEAKER_00: They took a 2-0 lead, and Kobe Bryant sat down for the presser, like the at the end of the game presser, and this um this reporter asks him, you know, why aren't you smiling?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, what's there to smile about?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, very famous line, he says, the job's not finished.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the job is not finished.
SPEAKER_00: Now, before there was Kobe Bryant on the Lakers, there was Paul of Tarsus saying, from a prison cell, staring Death in the face, the job's not finished.
SPEAKER_00: Kobe Bryant was up 2-0 when he said that.
SPEAKER_00: Paul was down in the count.
SPEAKER_00: He was out.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, the job is not finished.
SPEAKER_00: He was convinced and confident of that, because he still had to magnify Christ more, and he knew that.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm standing before you today, and you're sitting before me today because our job is not finished.
SPEAKER_00: Every time you wake up, your job is not finished.
SPEAKER_00: He is the way, the truth, and the life, and we are his image bearers.
SPEAKER_00: So every day, look for him.
SPEAKER_00: Find him, find where he wants us, and find the Philippian church.
SPEAKER_00: Find who's the Philippian church for you.
SPEAKER_00: Who are you the Paul to?
SPEAKER_00: Who do we need to guide?
SPEAKER_00: Because there is somebody, because your job's not finished.
SPEAKER_00: We're here for a reason.
SPEAKER_00: There's a reason for us to be here.
SPEAKER_00: Find your Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Look around this room.
SPEAKER_00: There's Pauls in this room.
SPEAKER_00: There's Philippian churches in this room.
SPEAKER_00: Lean we need to lean on each other every day in our walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.