%20copy.jpg)
NewCity Orlando Sermons
NewCity Orlando is a gospel-centered church pursuing personal transformation, authentic community and cultural renewal. Our mission is whole-life gospel transformation for the glory of God and the good of our neighbor. Subscribe here to listen to our weekly sermons.
NewCity Orlando Sermons
Philippians 1:3-11 | Fruitfulness Through Emptiness
In this heartfelt sermon from Rev. Ryan Gawrych, the congregation is invited into the deep affection and Christ-centered joy the Apostle Paul expresses for the Philippians. Drawing from Philippians 1:3–11, Rev. Gawrych explores how gospel partnerships create lasting spiritual bonds marked by gratitude, prayer, and mutual encouragement. He emphasizes that Christian fellowship isn’t merely social, but spiritual—rooted in our shared participation in the grace of God.
Rev. Gawrych also unpacks Paul's confident prayer that God will complete the good work He began in His people. Through this lens, listeners are challenged to see themselves and others not as unfinished projects to be judged, but as beloved co-laborers in whom God is faithfully working. The sermon concludes with a call to pray for one another with affection, asking God to grow our love in knowledge and discernment so we may walk in holiness and bear fruit to the glory of Christ.
Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damian. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom. Thanks for listening.
Rev. Dr. Michael Allen:Join me, if you would, in this prayer of elimination. Heavenly Father, we bow in your presence. Let your word be our rule, your spirit, our teacher and your greater glory our supreme concern Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen, please remain standing, if you're able. Our scripture reading this morning comes from Philippians, chapter 1.
Rev. Dr. Michael Allen:I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always, in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel, from the first day until now, and I'm sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It's right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you're all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness how I yearn for you all, with the affection of Christ Jesus, and it's my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what's excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. This is God's word. You may be seated.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:Well, good morning, when we were worshiping, my Apple Watch went off and said your environment is too loud, and so I silenced it, because I like my environment loud, especially in this place. It's so good to see all of you this morning and it's only been three months, but in some ways it feels like three years, and I used to get up here every Sunday. Well, on the Sunday mornings I was up here. I would say welcome to New City. My name's Ryan. I'm one of the pastoral residents here, and now I get to say my name is Ryan. I'm the pastor of discipleship at South Point in South Nashville, and I think you guys should know that that is in large part because of you. I get to say that because of you and it's not lost on our family we have a home where we have a home because of you guys. You guys poured into us for the last three years with such patience and grace and we are eternally grateful for you. So thank you. This iPad was Gray's iPad yesterday, my three-year-old son for 10 hours on the way down, and that means it was 10 hours of Paw Patrol playing on here, and so if the Paw Patrol theme song pops up in the middle of the sermon. I think we should just pause and sing it together and then we'll take back All right.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:Well, a number of years ago, a father was walking through the final stages of raising his two sons, and that final stage for him in that moment was college admissions, walking them through the process of applying to colleges. That is a stressful time. Some of you may have experienced that already, some of you may be moving quickly towards that, but that time is filled with essays and deadlines and interviews and college visits. And while he was walking with them on campus in one of these visits he realized that internally he felt two things. One was deep excitement, deep joy for the next journey his sons were about to go on, but also deep sorrow. And the reason he felt this way was because he realized he had spent the last 18 years pouring his life into people his sons in order that they would learn to live without him. That father's name was Andrew, or is Andrew Ferguson, and he actually wrote a book about this experience, and this book is titled Crazy you. I think it came out like 15 years ago and one of the most profound insights in that book really has nothing to do with college admissions at all.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:In that book, andrew Ferguson says you fulfill yourself by denying yourself, preparing people you can't live without, to live without you. He's talking about what it means to be a parent. That's what good parents do they love their children and they prepare them to live without them. He may not have meant it for this, but that's a great definition of what it means to be a disciple and a follower of Jesus. And it just so happens, as we come to Philippians this morning, we find that that's exactly what Paul has been doing with the Philippians. He's in prison, but the Philippians that was the first church Paul planted. These were the first people that he got to pour his heart and soul into, and so he's writing from prison and he's separated from these people that he loves and at this point he doesn't know if he'll ever see them again. There's a possibility that he might, but there's a good chance he might not. But even though he's separated, paul realizes he's not severed in his relationship with the Philippians.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:What Paul discovers, and what the gospel reveals, is that love rooted in Jesus doesn't actually wither with distance. Somehow it deepens, and I was reflecting on this this past week with Sierra. There's this reality in the Christian life. There's these tensions that we experience, where somehow Jesus is able to hold together two things that we don't think belong together. I preached last week on John 15. It was in our, I guess our words of assurance this morning.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:Verse 10, jesus says the way that we abide in him, he abides in us. The way that we abide in him is by keeping his commands. Somehow Jesus holds love and obedience together. We would normally separate those things. First, thessalonians 4, grief and hope. We grieve as those not without hope. And as we come to Philippians this morning, again, somehow Jesus is holding together, emptying ourselves and growing affection, separation and deep, deep unity. And so here's what we'll see in Philippians this morning there's a kind of fullness that we will only ever experience in this life. By giving ourselves away, you fulfill yourself, by denying yourself, preparing people you can't live without, to live without you. And if we're honest with ourselves I just want to land here for a moment this doesn't come naturally and it probably doesn't even sound that appealing. Come naturally and it probably doesn't even sound that appealing. We tend to believe the opposite, actually, that by holding tightly to the things that we're most afraid to lose, that's how we can preserve our fullness, that's how we can preserve life. But what Paul is telling us this morning is that the greatest joy you'll ever experience in life, the greatest happiness you'll ever have in life, doesn't come from holding tightly and clutching, but by releasing and loving. Not from self-protection or preservation, but self-giving.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:And so we're going to explore this in three parts this morning what Paul does, what Paul knows and what Paul feels. If you want to follow along, you can open your Bibles to Philippians 1, 3 to 11, or on your phones and follow along. So let's begin first with what Paul does. What Paul does is he empties himself of the desire for recognition. Now, some of these points that we're going to walk through here might not be obvious, but I think what we can do is we can look at Paul's words and the way he's speaking to the Philippians, and what I want to do is I want to discern different ways in which Paul is actually emptying himself. And so the first thing we see what Paul does is he empties himself of the desire for recognition.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:Verses three to five Paul says I thank my God and all my remembrance of you always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel. Paul was a big deal. Actually, in Philippians 3, paul will call himself a Hebrew of Hebrews. Paul was a big deal, but it's interesting that he doesn't begin with that. He doesn't begin with his own resume. He actually begins by giving thanks for the Philippians, which is remarkable given that he's in prison. He's not writing to remind them of all that he's done for them. He's not reciting his sacrifices that he's made over the years. He's rejoicing in their partnership and their endurance and the grace that they are now living out in Jesus Christ. And there's a strange beauty here. Paul's joy comes from seeing the gospel take root in someone else's life. The first thing he wants the Philippians to know is that he is so happy that the gospel has taken root in their life.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:It's not look at me, it's thank God for you. And that's not natural for most of us. There's a deep longing in us to be seen, to be praised, to be recognized for all the things that we've done in life. I think it was Tim Keller who said we want someone we think the world of to think the world of us. And the thing is that's not a supernatural desire or, excuse me, that's not an unnatural desire. I actually think it is a very natural desire and God-given desire to be recognized. I think we're actually hardwired for recognition. The benediction that I'll pronounce over all of you at the end of this sermon is an unbreakable promise that God will fix his eyes on you always. He's promising you will be recognized.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:The problem is we tend to look for recognition in all the wrong places, don't we? You can take a child, for example. I have five of them. Praise God and also ouch, they're all six and under. Just recently, can we now say we have five, seven and under? But the soundtrack for a normal day is watch this, look at this. Did you see that? Watch me again and let me tell you I've seen some things. I've seen a lot of things, and when my kids tell me to look at them, I default. Now it's probably not something I want to see.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:Last week, for example, selah I was sitting in our family room, coming around the hallway and I hear Selah from the bedroom. She says Daddy, come, look at this. She's standing on the top of her bunk bed with her hands touching the ceiling, getting ready to jump off. That same day, gray who we started potty training like six months ago. Boys same day, gray who we started potty training like six months ago, boys take a little bit longer. And he said Daddy, come look. I wiped and I turn around the corner and he is bent over in the bathroom. And it wasn't his eyes that I made contact with. I'll just say that the point is.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:The point is the point is we crave recognition. Did I ruin the point with that illustration? Just get that out of your mind for a second. The point is we crave recognition and the reason is we crave recognition. And the reason is because we live by the rule that our children live by, which is if you're not watching, it doesn't count. What matters isn't the act itself. What matters is that it lands on the eyes of someone that we delight in and that we care about, and that doesn't change with age. It actually gets more sophisticated and it actually gets harder to see. You may crave the gaze of your boss or an employer above you who can influence your life's outcome, career-wise. You may look for recognition on your social media platforms, even within the church. We want our good work, our right choices and the sacrifices we make to be noticed.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:But Paul isn't watching for any of that. He's secure and he doesn't need the Philippians' applause. And the reason is because he already has Christ's affection. Already has Christ's affection. And there's a freedom of all of this because Paul is not chasing a recognition that actually frees him up to love the Philippians in ways he couldn't otherwise. And so he begins not with look at me, look where I am, look at all I've done, look at how I'm suffering. He mentions that in roundabout ways. I want to make sure to name that, but it's never to point back to him. So he doesn't begin with look at me. He begins with thank God for you, and I'm always thinking about you. Listen, if I'm not secure in how Jesus sees me, I'll spend the rest of my life trying to get anyone to notice me, and that's a really hard place to live. Jesus wants to free you from that.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:So Paul shows us what gospel-shaped joy looks like. It's not fueled by being recognized, but by others recognizing the goodness of Jesus and rejoicing in that. And so here's the irony. I just want to mention this before we get to point two. The irony is that the more we stop trying to be seen, the more clearly we can see others, and Jesus wants that for us. He wants us to see each other the way he sees us.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:Emptying ourselves of the need for recognition is a critical ingredient in community, in unity. That's what Paul does. He empties himself of the need to be recognized and he rejoices in the growth of others. The question is, how does he do that? How does he stay joyful even when he's far away from the people he loves? Because Paul seems rather calm in these opening verses. He's sitting in prison, totally cut off from any control, and what happens next? But there seems to be a peace about him, and I think it has to do with what Paul knows. And that's our next point.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:Look again at verse 6. And I am sure of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Paul's not wondering if things are going to turn out okay. He's not hoping that things will be all right with him and the Philippians. He's not hedging his bets.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:Paul is absolutely sure that everything's going to be fine, because Paul knows something that we often forget, which is God always finishes what he starts. That's a massive relief if you're anything like me and my guess is you probably are, because, if you're anything like me, some days don't feel like progress. Sometimes, some days feel more like relapse, some days feel like a huge step backwards and some days it's hard to tell if you're making any progress at all in the spiritual life. And, if we're honest with ourselves, the Christian life can often feel strangely underwhelming. But that's exactly where this promise meets us. God doesn't start something in us or with us because he sees something in us or with us because he sees something in us promising that we're likely to finish what he starts, not because he sees how sincere we are. God always moves towards us and starts something in our hearts because he's sincere and because he's faithful. And I also want to say this God will never get tired of working on you, he'll never get bored with you and he's not going to abandon you halfway through. God loves us as we are, but he's not content in leaving us as we are. He's committed, and that's how grace works, and that's why Paul can stay calm Since moving to Nashville.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:As you might imagine, when you buy a new home especially if you're not buying something new, something a bit older there's work to be done, and so we've had a number of projects that we've had our eye on since we got to Nashville, and I don't wait for projects, I do them right away. And it's terrible for our family, causes Sierra a lot of stress, hurting rods, touch-ups, all that. We have a deck in our backyard. That was a big selling point for our house and we thought we had to just replace a board or two and then repaint. We lifted up the boards and it turns out all the joists underneath were completely rotted and so we had to replace every single one of them. A lot of extra money, a lot of extra time. But we always think when it comes to these projects, we'll get to them this weekend, we'll do them this weekend.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:And if you're married with children, don't ever assume you'll ever finish anything with the time that you've allotted to finish it. Well, a few weeks ago I needed to paint the brick behind our house and I thought, no problem, I'm going to keep the kids busy, I'm going to give them some popsicles, I'll sit them on the couch, I'll put a movie on, and that should give me enough time to finish this. I'm not kidding you. Five minutes later, gray is butt naked in our front yard on his little bicycle, running down the street licking his lollipop. Thayla comes around the corner and says Dad, you should come out front. And, needless to say, a lot of projects in our house go unfinished.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:But I wonder, I wonder, how often we imagine that God works that way, like he only has time for us occasionally, like we're too much for him to handle at the moment so he just has to pack it up and call it quits for the day. How often do we assume we've become a side project for Jesus, that he'll get to us when he has time? Paul is telling us something different. You are not Jesus's weekend project, you are his life's purpose. He doesn't clock out, he doesn't take days off, he doesn't get distracted. Jesus always finishes what he starts, and so when the progress you desire to see in your life seems invisible, or the spiritual growth is taking longer and it's much slower than expected, if you belong to Jesus, your unfinishedness if that's a word, unfinishedness is not a threat to him. It's more like a blank canvas to an artist. Jesus likes unfinished people and that should be really freeing for us. We can't stop trying, or we can stop trying to carry the burden of our spiritual lives as if God is just supervising. We're not the project manager, we are the project. And so that's what Paul knows and that's why, even from a prison cell, he has peace, because he knows that Jesus will finish what he started. And I also just want to say this Joy doesn't come I think you and I both know, we all know that joy doesn't come from seeing progress every day.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:We think it does. We think that if we see spiritual progress or whatever progress in whatever area of life we want to see that in, we think if we see more of it we'll be happier. The more progress the better. The further up and to the right, the better. But at the end of the day we'll still want more, we'll never be satisfied. But at the end of the day we'll still want more. We'll never be satisfied.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:Joy comes from knowing that Jesus always has time for you and he always finishes what he starts. So we've seen what Paul does Excuse me. We've seen what Paul does he empties himself of the desire for recognition. We've seen what Paul knows that Jesus always finishes what he starts. And now we turn to what Paul feels. What we find here is, unsurprisingly, paul emptying himself yet again of something else, and that is the desire for self-protection. Let me explain what I mean by that. Excuse me, it's one thing to love people and it's almost entirely another thing to let them see that you love them. It's another thing altogether to let them know it. That's where many of us hesitate. We might serve people, we might pray for others, we might be willing to even suffer for somebody else, but to open our hearts to them is a completely different story. I'm just now thanking my dad. Whenever I say thank you for something, I love you, he says okay, sierra, and I laugh about that you can laugh about that.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:It's not like a pain point for me or anything.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:Look at what Paul says in verse 7 to 8. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for God is my witness how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. There's no mask here. Paul's not writing. He may have met the Philippians as an apostle. He's now writing to them as a friend. There's nothing between him and the Philippians. There's nothing cautious here in Paul's words. There's nothing but vulnerability, gospel vulnerability and if we're honest with ourselves, we are uncomfortable with this kind of talk with one another. We're uncomfortable with these kinds of interactions. Paul's words here, if you read through it on your own, may even feel a bit cringy. Maybe you hear Paul say I yearn for you and part of you thinks Paul turn the dial down just a little bit. It's not that big of a deal, everything's going to be fine. But if you feel that way, if you feel a tension between Paul's words and him saying something like I yearn for you and you feel like that's too much, that's self-protection and self-preservation rising up within you.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:For any number of reasons we've been discipled to believe that strong faith is stoic faith. We could have real suffering in our lives that warrants that. It could just be. We've been culturally discipled to believe that that strong faith is stoic faith, that affection is weakness, that showing your heart means losing your grip. But Paul doesn't believe that, and Paul does not want us to believe that either. In fact, he's doing the exact opposite of what we're tempted to do so often. He's emptying himself of the desire to protect his emotional reputation. He's not worried about sounding too sentimental. He's not worried that he'll think he'll sound needy. None of that is on his mind. He just wants the Philippians to know that he yearns for them, that he loves them, that he misses them. Whatever that looks like, paul's okay with. He's simply showing them what Christ's love looks like when it gets into a person.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:And here's something that we need to wrestle with on this topic. Many of us want to be near Jesus, but still in charge, and that includes being in charge of our image and our reputation and the way that we look. We want to follow Jesus, but we don't want to come off to other people as too much. We want to be the cool Jesus followers, but Jesus doesn't call us first to agree with him. He calls us to follow him to give ourselves away, and that always, that includes every part of us, even our emotional lives, the things we can't see, the things we feel.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:And, strangely, what we find on the other side of that kind of vulnerability isn't humiliation. We find what Paul has found, which is deep, deep, deep joy. It's a promise of vulnerability, and so, as I mentioned in the beginning, we see this paradox that exists here. Somehow Jesus can take two things that we don't think belong together and put them together and make sense of them Emptying, which sometimes looks like separation, and deepening affection and he brings them together and in Christ, in himself, in his death and resurrection, he makes them inseparable. We assume vulnerability weakens love and we assume distance does the same, but in Christ, somehow it deepens. And so maybe the question that we need to ask ourselves this morning isn't just do I love people, but do I let them see it? Because it's possible to hide your heart and still call that humility. Friends you don't want to live there, be vulnerable, trust that Jesus will do something amazing with it. Tim Keller used to say that one of the loneliest places in the world is to be loved and not fully known, and Paul shows us that real humility doesn't hide, it lives out in the open for all to see. We don't have to be ashamed of that. And real discipleship isn't about controlling how much of yourself people get to see. It's about giving people the real you, because Jesus has given you the real him.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:Let's take a step back for a moment. Notice where we've been. Paul shows us. What Paul shows us is that he's preparing a people that he loves, that he can't live without, to live without him. Paul empties himself of the need for recognition, he empties himself of the need for control and he empties himself of the need for self-protection. He risks vulnerability for the sake of love. And all of that flows into what Paul longs for most, which is in the last couple verses here, and we'll conclude here, verses 9 to 11. Paul's emptying of himself in all those ways leads to his desire and what he longs for most, which is that the Philippians wouldn't just survive, but that they would bear fruit.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:Look at verse 9 to 11. I'll read just a portion of it. His greatest concern is that their love would abound more and more, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. With the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. The one thing Paul wants is their fruitfulness. But here's the thing Fruitfulness always comes at a cost.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:John 15. Jesus says that those who abide in him will bear much fruit. That's a promise. Those in Christ. Jesus says that those who abide in him will bear much fruit. That's a promise. Those in Christ will bear much fruit. Jesus calls himself the vine. He calls us the branches. We are attached to him. That is where life is found.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:But not long after Jesus says these words, three chapters after actually he's arrested, one chapter after he's crucified. And so we have to know this if we're going to follow Jesus, we have to know this Our fruitfulness will never cost us more than it cost Jesus. Our fruitfulness will never cost us more than it costs Jesus the fruitful life that he promised, the fruitful life that Paul desires for the Philippians, the fruitful life that Jesus desires for us, will never cost us more than it costs Jesus. Jesus, as the vine was cut off, he was burned so that we could be brought in. He was emptied. Paul will unpack this in Philippians 2. If you have time today, go home and read Philippians 2. Jesus emptied himself so that we might be filled. Now fruitfulness will cost us something Real fruitfulness will ask something of you.
Rev. Ryan Gawrych:Jesus asked a lot of Paul, but he will never ask you to give more than he was willing to give. What he began in you, he will complete, and one day you and I will stand before Jesus together, not unfinished but complete, and not because we held it together, but because Jesus did. Let's pray, father. We thank you for the work that you've began in us, the work that you begin and that you finish. We thank you that our growth, our us, the work that you begin and that you finish. We thank you that our growth, our joy, our fruitfulness, none of it depends on our strength but on your faithfulness. Help us to let go of recognition, of control, self-protection, to trust the one who gave everything for us, jesus. We ask that our love would abound more and more, that we would be ready for the day of Christ, not because we held on tightly, but because you never let go of us, and it's in your name we pray Amen.