Easter in Real Life | Philippians 2:14-18

Easter Sunday  |  Philippians 2:14-18  |  Cody Hale

Transcript

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If you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn with me to Philippians chapter 2. We are gonna have this morning about the most most least expected and orthodox Easter text that you can imagine. And by the way, if if there are some folks that might still be looking for seats, there are a few here up front. We would be joyfully to allow you to come and do that. But it's about the most the least orthodox text that you could imagine on Easter morning, but I think it's incredibly relevant for us. Philippians chapter 2, beginning in verse 14, God's word says this. It says, Do all things without grumbling or disputing. Told you. Not what you'd expect. That you may be blameless and innocent. Children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain, even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise, you also should be glad and rejoice with me. We pray the Lord together. Heavenly Father, this morning we come and we bow ourselves beneath a resurrected and risen King. Knowing that, Lord, because he really was raised, that we really do have hope, that we really do have purpose, and that that purpose can be fully realized in him. God, I pray for every single person here this morning that your gospel would find them where they are, that you would lift up the downtrodden, that you would inflame the backslidden, that you would you would fan the joy of those who are already abiding closely with you. Lord, let us leave today, not just having enjoyed a holiday, but having encountered the risen Christ through the Spirit of God and the Word of God. We ask these things now in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. At our last house, my wife Megan and I, we had in our front yard just these beautiful, mature, large dogwood trees. And so I always got excited every spring that came around because when those dogwoods were in bloom, it was just so stunningly beautiful. And so about the time the weather starts warming up a little bit, every day I would go out and I would watch as the leaves came in, and I would watch as the buds were formed, and I would watch as the buds would begin to open. And then inevitably, just as about, just when they're about to go into full bloom, spring break would come, we would go on vacation, come home, and they would already be fading. And I think for a lot of us, this is how Easter feels. That Easter is in the spring this flash of beauty, but then it's just gone. The stresses of life return and the rigors of life return. And man, as much as we enjoyed celebrating the reality of the resurrection, if we're honest, if we were just injected with truth serum, we would all acknowledge that we're not so sure that our life was actually impacted in any kind of significant way. But that Easter was never just meant to be a once-a-year celebration. It's meant to be for us a new reality. That Easter isn't a holiday that Christians celebrate once a year. Easter actually forms the context of everyday life. That the resurrection doesn't just what change the way that you view your death and think about your death. It changes the way that you relate to everything and everyone in your life. That the resurrection changes the way that you raise your kids, the way that you talk to your wife, the way that you view your church, that it sets the tone for how you're going to live and engage in your ordinary life. This is exactly what I think Paul is getting at here in Philippians chapter 2. He's explaining to them how the right understanding of Christ's finished work on their behalf has ramifications for their ordinary life together. And so I felt like this is the perfect opportunity for us this morning to talk about three impacts that Easter has in real life. What we'll see is that it calls you to be yourself, it enables you to become yourself so that ultimately you can enjoy yourself. So first, it calls you to be yourself. You know, being yourself is really the mantra of our culture, isn't it? Everywhere you hear someone say, just be true to who you are, just be yourself. But like what does that even mean? What does that even mean? I think typically we mean at least three things when we say be yourself. We we mean look inside yourself, we mean trust yourself, we mean don't ever change yourself. But that's not Paul's point here, and that's not the point that I'm making. Honestly, that version of be yourself, it really isn't even good news. It's a burden to us. Because you see, all of us were made in the image of God, but because of sin, the image of God in us has been distorted and disordered. And the result is that now you are incapable on your own of being the you that God intended for you to be. That you are incapable of discovering your truest self in Christ. So the gospel doesn't just give us a new identity in Christ, it restores to us the true identity that God intended for us from the beginning. So the call of the Christian life is not to invent a new self or to create a better version of ourselves. The call of the Christian life is to live out the new nature that we have been given in Christ to become most fully and truly who we are because we are actually in him. And this is why Paul says, do all things without grumbling. Do all things without grumbling. I mean, that that's about as ordinary a problem as Paul could possibly address, isn't it? It's to be irritated, it's to be to be grouchy, it's to be a little hangry and to need a Snickers, right? It's to grumble and to murmur and to complain. Now, why does Paul talk about such an ordinary issue when he's talking to the church? Why does he concern himself with something that might seem insignificant to us? Well, I think it's because our unbelief most clearly manifests itself in the ordinary experiences of life. It's when your car doesn't start. It's when you don't get the promotion that you put in for and feel like you deserve. It's when you don't get, when you aren't appreciated at home the way that you believe that you ought to be appreciated. It's when your 12-year-old back talks you like they know everything that's in the world. It's when there's a change that happens in the church that you're not super jacked about. It's in those moments that we're tempted to believe that God in some way has forgotten us or overlooked us. It's in those moments that we're tempted to grumble. That it's in micro moments in our lives where we forget how good God has been to us. And so we whisper unbelief under our breath when we complain. That grumbling is, in its essence, a momentary forgetfulness that the resurrection is true, that God provides to the fullest extent for us, and that his provision has been proven. Isn't that what the resurrection does? And so Paul's point is that this unbelief leads to grumbling. This grumbling leads to disputes. And these disputes, well, they lead to division among God's people. There's a real sense here in which what Paul is doing is he's wanting to make sure that we don't respond to God's love and kindness the way that Israel does. He quotes Moses twice, once from Exodus and once in Deuteronomy. You see, the Exodus is really the resurrection's Old Testament equivalent. It's when God's people, like us in sin, are under the oppression of the evil dictator. And so God is going to deliver them from their slavery, and he does so miraculously. He allows them to pass through the waters of judgment and the Red Sea, and they go to the other side, and then all of the waters of the Red Sea close and envelop their enemy. And do you know what they do as soon as they get to the other side of the Red Sea? They grumble. This is from Exodus. They grumble. But God, the water's not good. But God, what are we gonna eat? That they get to the other side having experienced the miraculous provision of God, and the only thing they can do is focus on what they don't have. And so in Deuteronomy chapter 32, he quote Paul is quoting what Moses writes from the words of God when he says that they are in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation. And here's Paul's point. That's not who they were supposed to be, and that's not who we were supposed to be. They were supposed to enjoy God's deliverance, they were supposed to enjoy God's liberation, but they were too busy noticing all the things that they don't have. Does that sound familiar? Easter presents to us the same question that the Red Sea presented to them. Who will we be? Who will we be? Will we enjoy our freedom and deliverance in Christ, or will we embrace the misery of every imperfect moment and every imperfect circumstance in our life? Because the reality is that complaining and enjoying can't coexist. Complaining about the lack of God's provision can't at the same time exist with enjoying what God has already provided. So Paul is saying, be yourself. Be yourself, live like Christ, saved and liberated people. Lean into the new nature and lean into your new heart and lean into the new mind that you now have in Jesus, not just those same old complaints that you always have. In fact, that's what he means when he says, Don't just grumble, shine. Don't just grumble, shine. When he says there at the end, shine as lights in the world, we should probably understand that Paul is here speaking with the force of an imperative. He's speaking a command, something that ought to be present and realized and applied in the lives of a believer. And in Paul's mind, this is really the opposite of what it means to grumble. He's here again taking us to the Old Testament. He's quoting for us from Daniel chapter 12. He's wanting our minds to be transported there. In Daniel 12, uh, God is forecasting a time in which his people will no longer be in exile as they are in the book of Daniel, but instead, they will fulfill God's mission for them by living out the truth of who they are. They will shine as though they are a light for the nations. And what Paul recognizes is that the transformation promised in Daniel chapter 12 has now been brought about and occurred because of Easter's resurrection. That is, one of the accomplishments of the resurrection in the lives of the believer is that it sets us aglow. When it talks about this idea of shining and lights, it's not talking about light bulbs or lamps or candles. The word light here is used exclusively to suggest a celestial light. It's talking about stars. So we aren't being told to be something that we're not. We're not being told, I know that you're miserable, I know that you're dark, I know that you're unhappy, so somehow, some find some way to put a fake smile on your face and shine. No, we're being told actually to be ourselves. To command a star to shine is to simply command that that star reveal its actual and true nature, to reveal itself. That's us. That's who we are because of Christ. That's what He's accomplished through His resurrection. That Paul was worried that the church was going to get sucked into the current of a crooked and twisted generation. His concern was that they would be tempted to grumble and complain and dispute and divide in the church like they were in the culture that was around them. My goodness, y'all. Is that a word for us? Is that a word for our generation? We live in an age of outrage, don't we? Everybody is enraged all the time about everything. There's cultural outrage and political outrage and religious outrage. There's personal outrage and there's institutional outrage. And then I'm outraged that you're not outraged over what outrages me. In fact, there's an entire industrial complex now that has been arranged around the industry of outrage. It makes people funny, uh famous. It makes people money, it makes them funny too, actually. It gets people elected, it gives people influence. And so there are entire systems in place, implemented through the technologies that we know and the shows that we watch to keep us inflamed and to keep us outraged so that we can continue to contribute to what their influence and their financial situation demands. So it's a crooked and twisted generation. And if we're not careful, y'all, we, even as the people of God, will get swept up in it. But Paul's point is that's not who we are. That's not who we are. We don't need to be a copycat church in an age of outrage. No, we need to shine. We need to shine. John Piper wrote a really helpful essay that helps me kind of process what I think this is meant to look like for the church to shine in an age of outrage. The the title of his essay is Broken Hearted Boldness. Brokenhearted Boldness. So what he would say is for those of us who are in the church who are tempted to get swept up in the cultural melee, the answer is not passivity. We have transcendent truth. We have good news, and the world will not respect, and the world will not revere, and the world will certainly not be helped by a cowardly church unwilling to share it. We have to share the truth boldly and courageously. But as we share the truth boldly and courageously, we do it with a broken-hearted tone. We do it as people of compassion, that the gospel insists that we are not a jaw-clenching, red-faced people. No, Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit. We don't live and talk like we're better than the people in our culture. We recognize that we were people who needed grace first. We recognize that we haven't always been on the inside. We recognize that that we were once too enemies of God, but Christ came and Christ brought us to Him. And so, yeah, we stand on truth, but we stand on truth with humility and compassion. We we speak truth, but we speak it with tears, never with pride. See, here's the key the reason that we don't have to live angry, the reason that we can flourish as people of peace in the midst of an outraged generation is because we're already satisfied, y'all. We're already satisfied. We're not trying to win arguments to feel secure. We are secure because we have Christ. We aren't trying to crush people in our arguments. We already possess the truth. We have Christ. And if you have Christ, you don't have to shout. You can shine. The world shouts, y'all. Christians, we are called to shine. This morning, the resurrection is asking you: will you allow yourself to be swept up in the cultural melee? Or will you be yourself? Will you be the you that Christ has saved and came and redeemed you to be? Well, Paul isn't just calling for you to be yourself. Paul is calling for you to become yourself. To become yourself. You know, you're being discipled every day. And what I mean by that is every day your values and your worldview are being shaped. But it's quite likely that they aren't being shaped by the beliefs that you have, they're being shaped by the content that you consume. Think about how much time we spend on our phones. Did you know that the average American spends 45 hours per week online? 45 hours per week. Y'all, that's a lot of discipleship via algorithm, isn't it? And you know what these algorithms do? They learn you. They learn what you're interested in, they learn what you react to, they learn what you pause over, they learn what kind of videos intrigue you. And then what they do is they begin to tailor all of the feeds in your life to those things that cause you most likely to come back and visit their site again and visit their network again so that you can increase their revenue again. And then over time, they don't just give you the content that you want that draws you in. Eventually, you're gonna go grow bored of the same old opinions, aren't you? No, eventually they begin to shape you, they begin to draw you, they begin to show you videos that are closer to the edges of the ideologies that your presuppositions kind of bend you toward. And so what they do is one incrementally a little bit at a time, like a like a frog being boiled into a kettle, your opinions become stronger and your reactions become sharper, and you become less patient with those with whom you disagree. And so as a result, you live a more polarized life. You live a more anxious life, and you live a more reactive life. I bet that if you compare yourself to where you were five years ago, if you have the kind of 45-hour a week online presence that most of us have, I bet you would say those are adjectives that are likely to describe you. And even if they don't describe you, you would certainly concede that they describe most of the people that we are around. And I think this is why Paul is telling Philip the church at Philippi, hold fast to the word of life. Hold fast to the word of life. Because there's a different kind of formation that you can undergo that actually breathes life into you rather than sucking the life out of you. That there's one that doesn't push you to the extremes of cultural ideologies, but rather draws you deeper and nearer and fuller in Christ. Why does Paul call it specifically a word of life? Well, I think it's because the word tells us that we need resurrection. And the world tells us to expect that we're gonna have resurrection. And then the world confirms for us that Jesus has in fact been resurrected. That it's the word that explains to us how badly we need life, and then where it is that we can go and find life. You know, honestly, you can test this for yourself. If you go this week and you say, look, I'm I'm going, I'm going to for a one-day period, I'm going to put down all things spiritual, and I'm going to go as deep as I can in all of the punditry and all of the Reddit forums and in all of the social media vibes. I'm going to go as deep as I can in all of those things. I guarantee if you test that, here's what you're going to find. You feel less alive, not more. You feel more like death. You feel more anxious, you feel more worried, you feel angrier. But if you test the opposite, you'll find it to be true too. You'll find what Paul says to be sincere. That if you say, okay, for a one-day period, what I'm going to do is I'm going to fast from all online activity. No forums, no, no Fox News, uh, no, no social media comparisons. I'm going to put all of that down. And what I'm going to do is the time that I normally would spend on those things. I'm going to use to pray through the Psalms. I'm going to sit in the wisdom of the Proverbs, and I'm going to meditate on the story of the gospels. You know what I bet you'll find? You already know it intuitively, don't you? Don't you? I don't even have to convince you. You already know this is true. You'll find that you are being brought more, you're going to feel more like yourself. You're going to feel more alive. See, here's the reality. We're all being discipled by whatever it is that we're listening to. The more we're discipled by algorithms and X and Facebook and Reddit, the more we're being discipled into death. The more sucked into the vortex of cultural outrage and social media curation, the more we focus on the anxieties today and the less we focus on the day of Christ. And inevitably, as to get to Paul's point, what we'll find are more fault lines and more disputes with each other, more divisions. Among one another. And so it makes sense that in a culture like that, and in a culture like ours, that Paul would say, No, no, no, don't do that. Hold fast to the word of life. Because when we do, what it does is it draws us back to our grounding center, Christ. And when it draws us back to our grounding center Christ, you know what happens in our relationships with each other? It draws us closer to one another. Christians are gonna disagree on a lot of things. No, that's okay, right? It's okay that we don't see all things through all the same lenses. We're gonna disagree on private school and public school and homeschool. We're gonna disagree on nuanced political policies. We're gonna disagree on tertiary issues like the end times. We're gonna have disagreements on those, and those disagreements matter. Those are conversations that ought to be had. Those are topics that we ought to engage with each other. But do you know where we all agree? We all agree that Christ has come. We agree that he lived, died, and was raised. We agree that we were once enemies of God, but now we're his friends because of Jesus. We agree that we need grace. We agree that our hope is in him. And when we begin to put down all of those tertiary things that we disagree over and hold fast instead to that which we agree, we don't drift apart. We don't drift apart. We don't grumble about one another, we don't dispute with one another, but we come closer to together. And so we have to decide this morning. We have to decide if we're gonna hold fast to how different we are, or if we're gonna hold fast to how a light we are. That's what he's calling us to, and I think that's why he said, not just hold uh uh hold to hold fast to the life, but also at the same time to hold out the light. Holding fast to the word of life, it doesn't just shape the way that you think, it shapes the impact on the people around you. The Lord working through his word and through his spirit to inevitably transform not just the tone of your life, but the tone of your family and the tone of your church and the tone of your community. The idea of holding fast, it can actually be translated as holding, holding. I left out the D there. Can't spell in front of a crowd. Holding out, holding out. So the picture is that we don't just cling to the gospel for ourselves, we hold it out like a torch for one another. That we hold it out so that each of us can see, that we remind one another where life is found, that when we find ourselves or when we find a brother or a sister in Christ, and we can tell they're they're struggling, we can tell that they're drifting, we can tell that life is just pummeling them, that the responsibility that we have is to say, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, remember where your rest is found. Remember that your sins have been forgiven. Remember, remember that your shame has been overcome. Remember that Christ has come for you. Remember that Christ is coming back for you. Remember that you're gonna make it. Remember that you're gonna be okay. Y'all, that's what the church is supposed to be. That's what the church is supposed to look like. That's what the church is supposed to live like, and y'all, that is exactly what Easter is calling us to. This isn't a place where we argue one another into exhaustion. It's a place where we hold out the light to guide one another back to life. So Easter calls us to put down the speculation and put down the conspiracies and to hold out instead what has been confirmed, that God has come as a man and paid for our sins, died in our place and been raised. That it calls us to hold out the light to one another so that now all of us are moving in the same direction, in the direction of Christ. That's Paul's point. That's Paul's point. If the Philippians will just keep holding fast to the word and holding out the light to one another until the day of Christ, Paul says, then it was all worth it. I can die a proud man. I can know that my life wasn't wasted. But if they keep on grumbling and they keep on disputing and they keep on dividing, Paul's saying, you are walking not just in denial of what I have done, you are walking in denial of what Christ has done and who Christ has made you to be. So this Easter, it is right and proper for me to ask you, who are you becoming? Who are you becoming? And who are we helping one another to become? More simply, what is it that's shaping your work, your mind, and filling your words? Is your mind being filled with pundits and podcasts and influencers and monetized outrage? Or are you holding fast to the words of life? Are you passing along outrage and speculation? Are you holding out constant criticism? Or are you holding out the light? Helping people find their way back to life. Well, Paul would have you be yourself because the spirit is enabling you to become yourself so that ultimately you would enjoy yourself. Recently, one of my kids was really going through a difficult time, and you know, they've been through a lot in the last year. They've changed where they live and friends and churches. And so she was going through a hard time, and she was going through a hard time in school, and and you know what I'd say about her is she was really giving it her best effort, and she was doing it with a good, a good attitude. But even though she was doing it with her best effort and doing it with a good attitude, she wasn't getting the outcomes that she desired. And that's tough, isn't it? That's hard. So you know what I told her? I told her, you know, we all want good outcomes. All of us want life to go the way that we desire for it to go. All of us want to feel like the effort that we put in is paying off. But life's just harder than that. And life's just more complex than that, isn't it? Now sometimes you do all the right things, you do all the right things in all the right ways, and you still don't get the outcome that you desire. And so if your desire is to control the outcome, you're gonna drive yourself crazy. We can't control the outcomes. And so all we can really do, all we can really do, is to say, Lord, I'm gonna give this my best effort, and I'm gonna give this my best attitude, and then I'm gonna entrust it to you that you are sovereign and good in whatever outcome comes. That's the key to enjoying life, isn't it? That's the key to enjoying life. Maybe you came here this morning and that's what you need to hear. That's the key to enjoying life. As hard as it is to apply to ourselves, the hope that we have as people of faith is not that we control the outcomes. If we controlled the outcomes, we would mess them all up anyway. The hope that we have as people of faith is that God, whom we know, who has proven himself good, who has proven himself trustworthy, that he controls the outcomes, and that those outcomes will be ultimately for our benefit, even when they don't feel good, even when they aren't what we desire. This is where Paul is landing. He's wanting them to be able to enjoy their lives, and he's wanting them to share this perspective. And so he's saying to Philippi, don't resent your trials. He's sharing with them his perspective, and his perspective really is one of faith. He's like, you know, my blood may be spilled. I may be about to die. I could be, he the language here when he talks about the drink offering at the end of a sacrifice when the animal had been slaughtered and burned, to say that it was complete, they would pour a glass of wine over it. He's like, I may be that, that may be my blood spilled over the sacrifice of Jesus. But I look at you, and I know it was worth it. That he's he's allowing his mind to go back to when he was founding the church at Philippi and he's remembering the great difficulty that it caused and the great hardship that it brought about and the all the pain that he endured. But now he looks and he sees the church at Philippi and they're flourishing and they're thriving and they're living on mission and they're and the Lord is at work in them. And he's like, you know what? If I had to do it all over again, as hard as it was, as hard as this is, as much as I wish I weren't in prison, as badly as I want to avoid the beheading, if I had to do it all over again, because what I have seen in the faithfulness of God, I would do it all again. That what God has brought about in you has made it worth what God has now taken me through. And this, we're supposed to understand, is the opposite of the way that Israel responded when they got to the other side of the Red Sea and they murmured and grumbled. That Paul is determined that he is not gonna be that guy. He is not gonna be the guy that gets to the other side of the Red Sea and says, Oh God, but what am I gonna drink? He isn't going to witness the power of God in the Philippians and then gripe that he doesn't get the honor and privilege of being able to sleep in his own bed. No, he can endure the trials and he can endure the trials with gladness and with rejoicing because his faith is rock solid, not in what he's accomplished, but in what God is bringing about. That he isn't going to resent his trials, he's going instead to wait with anticipation as to see what God will do through them. That his perspective is one of gratitude. I can't believe all that God has done rather than one of grumbling. I can't believe what God hasn't given to me and what God hasn't done for me. It's the antidote of grumbling, isn't it? And that's the shift to joy in the midst of an imperfect life and imperfect circumstances. And this is what he's calling us to when he uses the word likewise. He's like, all right, this is my perspective, this is what I've experienced, and this likewise is what I want in you. He's saying, I don't resent my trials, and so I don't want you to count your losses. He knows they're struggling with his imprisonment. He knows that the Philippians don't want him to die. He knows they're struggling with the circumstances over everything that's going on, and so he's he's sharing his perspective with them so that they can have the same kind of gladness in faith that he has. He's sharing it with them so that they can know that they don't have to dread the future like Israel. They can look forward to the future like Paul. You know, we're all tempted to be accountants of misery, aren't we? We're all tempted to keep detailed notes on every way that we feel like God has disappointed us, on the childhood we believed that we deserved, on the spouse that cheated on us, on the dream that didn't come true, on the pain that's always gnawing in our backs. And it's like we keep the spreadsheet of misery. We've counted all of our losses and we've resented all of our trials, and so we grumble, we complain. Paul is saying instead of us being accountants of misery, we ought to be treasurers of grace. During World War II, Corey Timboom and her family hid Jews from the Nazis because of their Christian convictions. Convictions that ultimately led them to the Revensbruck concentration camp. While they were there, the the living conditions that she and her sister Betsy found themselves in were completely deplorable. The barracks were filthy and they were infested with fleas. And Corey grumbled and complained constantly. But Betsy, her sister, insisted that they give thanks for everything, even the fleas. Corey thought this was ridiculous until several months went by and they'd been having a series of Bible studies in the barracks there with many of those uh women who didn't know the hope that they could have in Jesus and didn't know the good news that he had come for them. And they always were curious how it was that the guards didn't come in and and catch them in the midst of these Bible studies because they really they really weren't very hidden about them until they discovered the reason that the guards had never been willing to go into their barracks was because their barracks were so infested with fleas. What looked like a reason to resent suffering turned out actually to be an unexpected gift of grace. That Corey was ready to count the fleas as losses, but Betsy counted them as grace. Think about that, y'all. Think about how this applies to your life. The thing Corey most wanted to remove was the very thing that God was using in her life. See, Easter isn't just about one day, it's about today, it's about real life. What you make of the resurrection, what you believe about the resurrection will determine how much of life you actually enjoy. Because if the resurrection is true, then God has already proven that He can turn what are apparent losses, even a loss like death on a cross, into ultimate victory. And that is the perspective that he offers to all of us. Can I pray for us?