SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, hey, you're all awake.
SPEAKER_01: God bless ya.
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's good to be here.
SPEAKER_01: Congratulations, you all survived the polar vortex.
SPEAKER_01: And so um I'm looking for the t-shirt, the I survived the polar vortex.
SPEAKER_01: If you if you find it, please let me know.
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to get a copy of it.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Jeremy.
SPEAKER_01: I'm one of the pastors.
SPEAKER_01: I'm fairly new, so uh bear with me, have some grace with me.
SPEAKER_01: Um if you have any complaints, you can send them to Pastor Jason.
SPEAKER_01: He'd be happy to field those for you.
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm the pastor of Student and Family Ministries.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for being such a welcoming, loving church to both I and my family.
SPEAKER_01: We have been uh overwhelmed with the welcome that we've received here.
SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much for being gracious and loving to us.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to be in Philippians chapter 1, verses 27 through 30.
SPEAKER_01: Um, if you don't have a Bible, there should be a black hardback Bible in the seat in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: You can grab that.
SPEAKER_01: It's on page 980.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a Bible, we would love for you to have a copy of God's word.
SPEAKER_01: So feel free to grab that and take that home with you.
SPEAKER_01: That would uh just be a joy knowing that you take that and have a copy of God's word on your own.
SPEAKER_01: And as you're turning there, um our game plan this morning is we're going to read it, we're going to pray it, and then unpack it, and hopefully as we leave here, we'll go out and apply it and live it.
SPEAKER_01: So, starting in twenty verse twenty-seven again, it's Philippians chapter one, Paul the Apostle writes to the Philippian church, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you, that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents.
SPEAKER_01: This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation and that from God.
SPEAKER_01: For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had, and now hear that I have I still have.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: God in heaven, it is it is my desire, and I pray it's our collective desire here this morning that you would teach us, that you would open up our minds, that we would understand what it means to uh let uh a manner of life be worthy of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Teach us, Lord, what it means that to be loud in our witness and teach us what it means to stand firm in one spirit with one mind, to strive side by side for the faith.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, teach us how not to be frightened, or rather challenge us to stand up in boldness when opposition comes our way.
SPEAKER_01: Help us to cherish this, Lord, and what your word says.
SPEAKER_01: Don't just grant us the means of understanding, Lord, but grant us the open heart to receive it in such a way that we would be convicted to go and live it out in our own lives.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Well, once upon a time, every good sermon starts out that way, right?
SPEAKER_01: Once upon a time?
SPEAKER_01: All right, well, once upon a time, there was a frog who lived in the north and wanted to go south for the winter, as the swans did.
SPEAKER_01: Being a recent transplant to North Dakota, I sympathize.
SPEAKER_01: I understand.
SPEAKER_01: Each year that frog watched the f the swans fly south while he shivered in the snow and cold.
SPEAKER_01: Then he got an idea.
SPEAKER_01: He went to the swans and asked to go with them.
SPEAKER_01: You can't fly, the swans replied.
SPEAKER_01: Swans being very observant.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I know, the frog said, but I have a wonderful idea.
SPEAKER_01: Let me get a stick, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna have two of you hold this stick in your beaks, one on each side, and I'm gonna be in the middle holding on, and you're gonna fly me down south with you.
SPEAKER_01: I can hang on into the middle of the stick, and I'll get out of this miserable cold.
SPEAKER_01: And so two of his swan buddies agreed to help, and it worked beautifully for many miles.
SPEAKER_01: However, as they were flying low over the farmlands of North Carolina, a farmer looked up and saw the frog holding on to the stick.
SPEAKER_01: He looked over to his buddy and said, Look at that! Oh, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_01: I wonder whose idea that was.
SPEAKER_01: And the frog, quite proud of his incredible idea, opened his mouth to tell them whose idea this was.
SPEAKER_01: And that's when he fell to his death.
SPEAKER_01: Um, wow, the first service got that punchline a little bit better than you guys did.
SPEAKER_01: I just boom, ended like that.
SPEAKER_01: He went to go tell them whose idea it was, and it led to his demise.
SPEAKER_01: The frog, determining his life in the temporary winter cold, was definitively unsatisfied and decided to direct his time, energy, and efforts towards an ideal that ended up not being worth the price.
SPEAKER_01: The winter that the frog lived in was not permanent.
SPEAKER_01: It obviously had not been a matter of survival.
SPEAKER_01: He had been surviving many winters up till this point, so it wasn't that he wasn't able to live through them.
SPEAKER_01: The situation was not a matter of that, but it was a matter of chasing after what was perceived to be a better life out there.
SPEAKER_01: An idea in his mind that directed his time, energy, and efforts.
SPEAKER_01: And that brings me to the question as we get started here this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Are you seeking a life that is worth your time, energy, and efforts, or are you chasing after an ideal that's ultimately not worth the price?
SPEAKER_01: Are you living a life, as the text is going to ask the question, are you living a life that is worth living?
SPEAKER_01: And for clarification, I'm not referring to the inherent value that every single life has.
SPEAKER_01: We as Christians would affirm that every life matters.
SPEAKER_01: Every life has inherent value and worth.
SPEAKER_01: From the womb all the way to the tomb, every single life at every single stage of development has intrinsic worth.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what I'm referring to.
SPEAKER_01: However, we would also affirm that not every pursuit in life is of equal value.
SPEAKER_01: And for example, if I were to tell you that my life as a father was characterized by me sitting on my butt, watching TV, watching ESPN all day and eating tacos, uh, you would say that it's not worth it.
SPEAKER_01: That rather I should be getting up off my butt, turning off the TV, uh, put the tacos away, and engage with my children.
SPEAKER_01: That's a far more worthy pursuit than my own selfish desires and needs, right?
SPEAKER_01: You try you see what I'm saying here?
SPEAKER_01: So there are things in life worth pursuing and things in life that aren't.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I would say is where we're going to make that distinction.
SPEAKER_01: And just as the frog pursued a life that was mere fantasy and yet not worth his life, there are many fantasies in life that we can pursue, but none of them are worth it.
SPEAKER_01: I want us to examine this morning a life that is worth living.
SPEAKER_01: I want us to look at what that kind of life looks like from the words of the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_01: And very simply, I want to summarize the life worth living is not any type of ritual or spiritual exercise.
SPEAKER_01: The life worth living is a life given to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That's the summation of what we're going to unpack here this morning is a life given over to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're new here or if you're not a Christian and you're kind of checking this whole Christianity thing out, I'd encourage you to uh to think on these things as we unpack them what we believe is worth living.
SPEAKER_01: I can tell you both from the testimony of Scripture and just from my short time uh here on earth that there are many things demanding our time, energy, and attention.
SPEAKER_01: Many things.
SPEAKER_01: You got family, you got work, you got finances, you have an infinite amount of things asking for your attention.
SPEAKER_01: And there are many things that we are tempted to give our time, energy, and efforts towards.
SPEAKER_01: But in the end, they're all temporal.
SPEAKER_01: They're all temporal.
SPEAKER_01: So are those things worth living life for?
SPEAKER_01: I would say not, which is why I'd encourage you to think on these things, if that's where you're at.
SPEAKER_01: Before we take off in verse 27, I want to set up the context for where we're going to be anchoring down in the text.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, Philippians is a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the church in the Roman colony of Philippi.
SPEAKER_01: Unlike many other wholesale letters to churches, there was no um large scandals uh happening at this church.
SPEAKER_01: There weren't threats of false teaching uh sinking into this church.
SPEAKER_01: Uh there were, however, very real pressures that the Philippian Christians were experiencing, um, and those came from societal and governmental persecution.
SPEAKER_01: They were experiencing those kinds of pressures.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul himself is writing this letter from a Roman jail.
SPEAKER_01: He's writing this letter from jail because he just wouldn't shut up about who Jesus was.
SPEAKER_01: In light of the struggles that the apostle and the Philippians were experiencing, Paul writes this letter to encourage and embolden the Christians living there.
SPEAKER_01: In verses 1 through 11, Paul greets the Philippians and expresses his love and affection for them as partners in the gospel together.
SPEAKER_01: It was not just me and them, it was us working together for the gospel of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: In verses 12 through 18, he reassures the Philippians that what has happened to him, again, he is writing this letter from prison, okay?
SPEAKER_01: He's living his best life now, okay?
SPEAKER_01: From prison, writing this letter.
SPEAKER_01: Um he writes that he what has happened to him has served to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And not only is Paul in prison, but there are other preachers out there coming along and tainting Paul's name, trying to drag him through the mud, ruin his reputation, and Paul shrugs it off saying, You know what, I don't care what their intentions are towards me, as long as they're preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And then in verses 19 through where we're going to be this morning in verses 27 through 30, he gives the Philippian church his perspective on suffering.
SPEAKER_01: Paul gives an emphatic summary statement on his attitude towards suffering in verse 21, in which he says, For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
SPEAKER_01: While he is here on earth, he is going to be Christ's ambassador to the world.
SPEAKER_01: And if he experiences any type of opposition that claims his life, it doesn't matter because he gets to gain eternal glory with God in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine having that kind of perspective.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine trying to oppose a person with that kind of mentality and attitude on life?
SPEAKER_01: You know what?
SPEAKER_01: While I'm here, I'm just going to talk about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And if you kill me, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to go to heaven and I'm going to be with God for forever.
SPEAKER_01: You couldn't touch the Apostle Paul, and that's why he made such a noise in his day.
SPEAKER_01: He went through shipwrecks, he was stoned, he was beaten, he was jailed.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing you can do could slow this guy down because to him, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
SPEAKER_01: And in light of that attitude, Paul makes a bold charge in verse 27.
SPEAKER_01: So join me in the text.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 27.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And we need to stop there and unpack what that's saying there because there are tremendous implications for everything else we're going to look at here this morning.
SPEAKER_01: That phrase, let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, if you look at the original languages that the Bible was written in, accurately reads, live as citizens of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Live as citizens of the kingdom of the gospel of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Behave as citizens of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the life I want to argue is the life worth living.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel of Jesus Christ is the means by which the kingdom of God is manifested, and it is an eternal message for an eternal reality that cannot disappear or be taken away.
SPEAKER_01: A life lived for this message and for this reality is a life that will make an everlasting difference.
SPEAKER_01: If you're here this morning and you are a Christian, I would argue that your primary allegiance is not to the good old US of A.
SPEAKER_01: It's not to a political party or any human cause.
SPEAKER_01: It's not even primarily to your family.
SPEAKER_01: Your allegiance is to the rule and reign of King Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Because King Jesus and his kingdom can never disappear or go away.
SPEAKER_01: The Babylonian Empire, it changed over time and it disappeared.
SPEAKER_01: It died.
SPEAKER_01: The Greek Empire, everything Alexander the Great conquered and accomplished, changed over time and the Greek Empire died.
SPEAKER_01: The Roman Empire, one of the greatest empires the world has ever known, changed over time and it died.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm willing to bet that the good old US of A has changed over time and will eventually pass away.
SPEAKER_01: The US of A is not going to last here long.
SPEAKER_01: Neither is any other temporal reality that we live in.
SPEAKER_01: Which is why our life given to the eternal reality of King Jesus and his reign and rule in our life is the one thing worth living for.
SPEAKER_01: And I hope I'm communicating that to you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: The beauty and significance of the life worth living is that devoted as a citizen of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: So the question we naturally stumble upon is what does it mean to behave as a citizen of God's kingdom?
SPEAKER_01: If that's what the text is saying, a life worthy is behaving as a citizen of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to behave as a citizen in God's kingdom?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm glad you're asking that question because I have a nice neat outline for you.
SPEAKER_01: Type A personalities, okay, who like to take notes.
SPEAKER_01: First point here this morning: a life worth living is loud.
SPEAKER_01: A life worth living is loud.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 27 says, Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving side by side for faith in the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: I want us to back up and say, see that Paul is saying that I want you to live as citizens of the kingdom so that whether I'm there or whether I'm absent, I may hear of you.
SPEAKER_01: Paul has a certainty here that he is going to hear of the Philippians and their conduct and how they're living life, if they're living as citizens of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: Their witness is going to be loud.
SPEAKER_01: He has so much confidence here.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't even know if someone's going to come and visit him in jail and give them a progress report on the Philippians.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't know if he's going to be able to come and visit them in person.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't know if he's going to be able to catch it word of mouth through the rumor mill.
SPEAKER_01: He knows for one thing that if the Philippians are living as citizens of the kingdom of God, it's going to make some noise, and he is for sure going to hear of it.
SPEAKER_01: The way they live echoes through their communities, their families, their workplaces.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a quiet endeavor, it's one that eventually is going to draw the attention of a watching world.
SPEAKER_01: If you read the book of Acts, that's exactly what happens.
SPEAKER_01: All the Christians we're doing in the book of Acts, we're telling other people about Jesus and loving people.
SPEAKER_01: Like, that's not loud and obnoxious, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I know loud and obnoxious.
SPEAKER_01: I've worked with teenagers for 10 years, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Lovingly telling people about Jesus and meeting the needs of people around you out of that love is not loud and obnoxious, and yet they drew the attention of the people around them.
SPEAKER_01: That's the story of the book of Acts, is the gospel spreading through the noise the church made.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to ask here this morning, in light of that, how loud is your faith?
SPEAKER_01: What kind of noise does your faith make in your life?
SPEAKER_01: Do your kids hear your faith?
SPEAKER_01: Do your neighbors hear your faith?
SPEAKER_01: Do your coworkers, professors, supervisors, your commanding officers or your subordinates, do they hear your faith in your life?
SPEAKER_01: How loud is our witness as a church?
SPEAKER_01: What is the noise that faith e-free makes here in this community?
SPEAKER_01: You and I carry with us the greatest message the world has ever known: reconciliation to God and forgiveness of our sins by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus paid for your sins in full when he died on the cross, absorbing all the amount of hell you deserve for every amount of sin in your life, both past, present, and future.
SPEAKER_01: There's no prayer to pray, there's no penance to be made, there's no religious right to accomplish.
SPEAKER_01: That's the message of Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a religion of do your best, try your hardest, and maybe.
SPEAKER_01: It's a religion of done.
SPEAKER_01: It's a faith of done.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Jesus Christ said on the cross when he paid it in full.
SPEAKER_01: It is finished.
SPEAKER_01: There is nothing left for you or I to do.
SPEAKER_01: That is the greatest message in all the world because every other religion invented by man is a religion of do.
SPEAKER_01: Try your hardest.
SPEAKER_01: Try and get there, try and meet the standard.
SPEAKER_01: Not Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the message that you and I carry.
SPEAKER_01: We carry with us the greatest message.
SPEAKER_01: And not only that, we demonstrate the power of God when that faith is lived out in our actions.
SPEAKER_01: The combination of the message of God's grace and the mercy combined with our practice of that message makes us inherently loud to the world.
SPEAKER_01: Just personally, as a parent, one of the most powerful messages I've ever communicated to my children was the message that dad is a horrible, wretched sinner in need of God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: Dad doesn't have everything figured out.
SPEAKER_01: Dad gets mad sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: Dad makes mistakes, but dad is in desperate need of God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: Dad is pursuing obedience towards Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And when I fail, I am seeking forgiveness and reconciliation and repentance.
SPEAKER_01: That's the message of the gospel lived out.
SPEAKER_01: And it makes noise.
SPEAKER_01: It makes noise.
SPEAKER_01: In an audio series titled Absolute Truth in Relative Terms, Christian apologist Rabbi Zacharias briefly tells a story of famed scientist Blaise Pascal, his conversion to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Blaise Pascal is considered one of history's greatest scientists, but Pascal's conversion was not through his scientific queries.
SPEAKER_01: When his carriage was once suspended on a bridge hanging between life and death, the only thing Pascal could think of was the Christian witness of his sister and the witness of Christ she had in his life.
SPEAKER_01: He was the inventor of the barometer.
SPEAKER_01: He was tremendously brilliant as a philosophical science scientist.
SPEAKER_01: But the one thing that kept piercing his heart at that moment when his life was on the line was not all the scientific laws and study.
SPEAKER_01: It was the witness of his sister.
SPEAKER_01: It was the noise that her faith had made in his life.
SPEAKER_01: What kind of noise might we make as we leave this building here on Sunday?
SPEAKER_01: What kind of noise might we make together as a church?
SPEAKER_01: The life worth living is loud in its witness because it makes a difference in eternity for others.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is so certain that if they're behaving as citizens of the kingdom, if they're living that life that is worthy of the gospel, uh Paul writing this to the Philippians 2,000 years ago was certain that he would hear of the noise that their witness was making, no matter what.
SPEAKER_01: What kind of noise might we make as we pursue the life worth living as citizens of the kingdom?
SPEAKER_01: And not only is the life worth living loud, it's also unified.
SPEAKER_01: That's point number two.
SPEAKER_01: A life worth living is unified, and I'll explain what that means.
SPEAKER_01: In Philippians chapter 1 27, it says So that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving side by side.
SPEAKER_01: For the faith of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: There's a word here that is used twice to help describe the nature in which Paul desires the Philippian church to carry out their Christian witness, and that word is one.
SPEAKER_01: Not many, not two, not five, it's one.
SPEAKER_01: One spirit, one mind.
SPEAKER_01: He desires to hear of the Philippians standing firm and striving for the faith of the gospel, but not merely as individual units.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's vision here is not for Lone Ranger Christianity, it's for the church to come together as one functional entity.
SPEAKER_01: And as a side note, it's texts like these that deepen my conviction that you cannot carry out the fulfillment of the Christian life out on your own, completely disconnected from the local church.
SPEAKER_01: You can't seek to try and apply a text like this in any meaningful way while disconnecting yourself from the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's desire here is not for them to go and live out Christian faith on their own, however you interpret it.
SPEAKER_01: It was to come together and do Christian life together.
SPEAKER_01: To further the point, look at what Paul says here.
SPEAKER_01: Standing firm in one spirit, standing firm, digging in your heels.
SPEAKER_01: Parents, you know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01: You take your kids unthinkingly, unwittingly, down the toy aisle, like just past it.
SPEAKER_01: You're not even going to the toys, but you're at Target.
SPEAKER_01: You need to go to the bed section in the back, but you take the route and they see the toys and mommy, I need this, right?
SPEAKER_01: And you say, no, little Johnny, we we need to go get pillows or whatever, bedding.
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm I want this.
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, little Johnny, come on.
SPEAKER_01: And so they start to dig in their heels, and the only way for them to move to where you're going is to pick them up, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because they are so entrenched in their thinking and ideology that they're not budging at all, right?
SPEAKER_01: All the parents said, Amen, okay, maybe maybe that's not you, but they're standing firm in one spirit.
SPEAKER_01: They're digging in their heels, not as defiant toddlers, but as the church united, not buckling under pressure.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the means by which the Philippians are to stand firm in one spirit, is what Paul says.
SPEAKER_01: One spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And what that's communicating there is to have the same desires, affections, and disposition as one another.
SPEAKER_01: It's togetherness.
SPEAKER_01: It's having the same goal.
SPEAKER_01: It's being united in what we all want and desire and caring for Christ and the things Christ cares about.
SPEAKER_01: Bringing it back around to the issue of church membership, I can't tell you how many times I've felt like buckling to the demands of the culture and the pressures in my life.
SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you how many times I've desired to satisfy the desires of my flesh.
SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to give up, even in ministry.
SPEAKER_01: And if not for brothers and sisters who rallied around me to push me up and help me stand firm, I would have.
SPEAKER_01: That's the benefit of having the church around you, not so that we can come together and check off attendance, but so that we can unite together and stand firm with one another.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you realize this, but you have an untapped resource to your right and to your left.
SPEAKER_01: And the amount of people who are willing to come stand beside you in the pressures of life and in the hardships of life.
SPEAKER_01: There are people here willing to walk with you, to help you stand firm in your faith, who have the same desire and affection as you do to honor Christ and to live for Him.
SPEAKER_01: Question is, will you let them come alongside you?
SPEAKER_01: Will you let them help you stand firm?
SPEAKER_01: This is me.
SPEAKER_01: The church ought to be the safest place for you to not be okay, for you to bring in your problems, your hardships, your struggles and difficulties.
SPEAKER_01: This ought to be the place where other brothers and sisters in Christ will rally around you with the same desires and affections for Jesus and help you stand firm in that faith.
SPEAKER_01: The life worth living is unified so that we can stand firm and strive together, work together for the faith of the gospel in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's worth living because it's unified and committed to the people of God and it frees us from the trap of loneliness and isolation and trying to muster up our own efforts to persevere.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it means to stand firm and strive together.
SPEAKER_01: It's coming alongside one another and standing with one another in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The life worth living is loud, it's unified to the church, but it's also bold.
SPEAKER_01: You know what I love about second service is by the time I got to this point in the first service, my time was almost up, but I know nothing's planned afterwards, so I'm gonna keep trucking along.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
SPEAKER_01: Life worth living is bold.
SPEAKER_01: It's loud, it's unified to the church, and it's bold.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 28 with me.
SPEAKER_01: Paul desires to hear of them living that life worthy of the gospel, behaving as citizens so that they can be together, but then look at verse 28.
SPEAKER_01: Not frightened in anything by your opponents.
SPEAKER_01: This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation and that from God.
SPEAKER_01: Not frightened by their opponents.
SPEAKER_01: Again, the Philippians and Paul have been experiencing external pressures from both society, culture, and from the government.
SPEAKER_01: They've been persecuted.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know this, but much of the church, for its early life, for the first three to four hundred years of Christianity, persecution was a common place for Christians.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, right now, as I speak, a majority of Christians around the world, a majority of Christians around the world experience persecution at this moment.
SPEAKER_01: When they gather together, it's in danger.
SPEAKER_01: When you and I gather together, we have no fear of someone barging in, telling us not to preach this message, telling us we can't gather here, or where's your license to meet, or simply burning our church to the ground.
SPEAKER_01: But I can assure you that you and I both face opposition in some way or another.
SPEAKER_01: If you're loud in your witness, it's going to happen eventually.
SPEAKER_01: When I worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs, um I remember coming in as a new guy and uh as as government workers typically, well, sometimes do, um, we uh we found ourselves having some free time and decided to solve all the world's problems at that point.
SPEAKER_01: No offense to government workers.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I was one of you, all right?
SPEAKER_01: But uh it was a slow day, it was at a call center, we didn't have much work at that point, so we all gathered together in a circle.
SPEAKER_01: I got drawn in to just kind of hear what they were talking about, and they were talking about all the hot button cultural issues, right?
SPEAKER_01: Talking about LGBTQ, uh women in the military, abortion.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure what a bunch of old veterans doing circling up talking about those issues.
SPEAKER_01: Like usually it's like old war stories, but at that point it was solving all the world's issues.
SPEAKER_01: And I I got pulled in just to kind of sit in here, but then there came a point in that conversation where they turned to me and said, What do you think, Jeremy?
SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
SPEAKER_01: What do you think about these issues?
SPEAKER_01: What do you think about this issue?
SPEAKER_01: And I had a a very dis uh um I had a choice at that moment.
SPEAKER_01: I could go with the flow, I could dismiss it and say, uh, you know, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Or I could tell them what I did know as a Christian, the testimony of Scripture and what Scripture says on such issues.
SPEAKER_01: And at that moment, I said, What the heck?
SPEAKER_01: I'm the new guy, and I really don't care if people don't like me, so I'm gonna just do it.
SPEAKER_01: And I began to share with them my convictions as a Christian and what I believe Scripture says on those issues.
SPEAKER_01: And and some of them, it was very well received.
SPEAKER_01: It was, it was, you know, wow, okay, well, I disagree with you, but hey, that's cool if that's what you believe, not a problem.
SPEAKER_01: And and those were the people I was able to have continued conversations with, and that was great.
SPEAKER_01: But then there were some people that, for whatever reason, I wasn't trying to jam my faith down their throat.
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't being obnoxious, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I didn't stand at their desk with the anti-abortion sign, I wasn't picketing their position at all.
SPEAKER_01: I just simply shared with as much grace as God gave me at that moment what I believed as a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: And what it did for some people at that moment is it flipped a switch.
SPEAKER_01: This guy's a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: He hates people, he discriminates.
SPEAKER_01: And at that moment, I began to realize that there is very real pressure by simply sharing your faith, even in an American workplace.
SPEAKER_01: It happens.
SPEAKER_01: It's going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, if the world hates you, no, it hated me first.
SPEAKER_01: It came after Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: A master is not greater than his servant.
SPEAKER_01: If they persecuted Christ, they're going to come after his followers.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the disciples scattered when they came for him.
SPEAKER_01: But the reason we ought to have boldness is not because we have some sort of uh intestinal fortitude that we can muster through somehow, is because the one thing that matters in life cannot be taken away from you.
SPEAKER_01: It can't be taken away from you.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter if they come for your life, it doesn't matter if they come for your job, they cannot take away what you have in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: They can't.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 118, verse 6 says, The Lord is on my side, I will not fear.
SPEAKER_01: What can man do to me?
SPEAKER_01: If God is in my corner, come at me, because you can't do anything to touch me unless he gives you permission.
SPEAKER_01: And again, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
SPEAKER_01: Romans chapter 8, verse 35, Paul speaking again to the church in Rome, writes this passage, and this is one of my favorite verses in all the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 35, he says, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: A hypothetical question.
SPEAKER_01: Fill in the blank if you'd like.
SPEAKER_01: He gives us a few options here.
SPEAKER_01: Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
SPEAKER_01: Wow, Paul, that's a lot of options.
SPEAKER_01: Shall any of these things remove you from the love of God that you have in Christ?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, Paul.
SPEAKER_01: You want to answer?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 37.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: In all these things, in all the hardships you might experience in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
SPEAKER_01: For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing, nothing can come against you.
SPEAKER_01: And that is why Paul says, to live a life worth living, to behave as a citizen of the kingdom of God, we ought to be bold.
SPEAKER_01: Bold in our witness, bold in our faith.
SPEAKER_01: Not afraid of anything that might come our way.
SPEAKER_01: Because the one thing that matters that matters in life cannot be taken away from you.
SPEAKER_01: Open Doors Ministry is an international ministry that uh ministers to the needs of the persecuted church worldwide.
SPEAKER_01: And they uh they shared the following true story about a Muslim convert to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: There's a gentleman named Bagas, and that was not his real name.
SPEAKER_01: It was an alias uh for the sake of the interview they were conducting.
SPEAKER_01: He came to know Jesus in 2014 and was baptized the following year.
SPEAKER_01: And looking at the external circumstances of his life, it would be easy to conclude that since following Jesus, his life had not since improved.
SPEAKER_01: Before he came to Jesus, he was a trash picker.
SPEAKER_01: After following Jesus, he was still a trash picker.
SPEAKER_01: Like things did not get infinitely better for him.
SPEAKER_01: He kind of remained in the same uh position as he was.
SPEAKER_01: But something changed in Baggis.
SPEAKER_01: They asked him, How did you feel after following Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, very different.
SPEAKER_01: I felt happy and restful.
SPEAKER_01: And that kind of seems like just like a really petty answer, but but look at this.
SPEAKER_01: Baggis then began quietly mentioning that he was a house church leader of 15 former Muslims in his village.
SPEAKER_01: The journalist also discovered that Baggis' life was far from untroubled as a follower of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: A villager had seen Baggus sharing his story of Jesus with a neighbor and reported him to the village authorities.
SPEAKER_01: The authorities dragged him and 15 others to the paddy field and threatened to kill them unless they canted their faith and returned to Islam.
SPEAKER_01: And in light of that pressure, that that instant, imminent moment of persecution, Baggis refused and remained firm in his new faith.
SPEAKER_01: And while his life was spared, he is now forced to live apart from his wife and children, spending his days on the street, and now he can only see them periodically.
SPEAKER_01: If you ask Baggis, is it worth it?
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: I never regretted my decision to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He said without a hint of doubt, I'm following him wholeheartedly.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a man who lives a life in a country where Christianity is essentially outlawed.
SPEAKER_01: You and I live in a country where we get to celebrate our faith, we get to live out our faith, we get to proclaim our faith.
SPEAKER_01: My question to you is, what's the worst that could happen?
SPEAKER_01: A life worth living is not a life lived in fear that people will find out you follow Jesus, that people will find out that you love them, you care about their eternal salvation.
SPEAKER_01: A life worth living is not coward in the corner, it is living boldly for the sake of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: My prayer here this morning is that we would also see as we close that this life is worth it.
SPEAKER_01: This life is worth it.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verses 29 through 30 as we close.
SPEAKER_01: For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake.
SPEAKER_01: The opposition and persecution and anything that comes as living as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven is something given to us by the grace of God.
SPEAKER_01: God's very complex.
SPEAKER_01: We're scratching the surface of what we know about him, but I do know one thing: God is good.
SPEAKER_01: And everything he gives to you and I is good.
SPEAKER_01: And if scripture tells us it's been granted, it's been given to you and I to suffer that persecution, that pressure for the sake of Christ, not just believing in him, but suffering for him sake.
SPEAKER_01: I know that everything that God is telling me means it's worth it.
SPEAKER_01: It's worth it.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just us enduring this, it's Christians throughout history.
SPEAKER_01: It's the testimony of Christianity throughout the world.
SPEAKER_01: Christians who are behaving as citizens of the kingdom, who are being loud in their witness, who come together as a unified church and are bold no matter what the cost.
SPEAKER_01: I pray this morning, as that sinks in, we would go out and live lives worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the word of command and disciple believers into mature development from the words of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting website at Faith Free Dominican.