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What do you live for? What drives you? What motivates you to get out of bed in the morning? What really gets you excited, passionate, right? Wow. What is it that's uh what that's pushing you in your daily life? Okay? That's an interesting question to ask, isn't it? To reflect on. I think about that in my own life. Um, you know, I obviously there's a sense of I've got some some unique opportunities as a husband and a dad, and I want to be a good husband and a dad, so I get up in the morning and I think about that. Not every day, but a lot of days I think about I want to be a good husband today, I want to be a good dad today. That drives me. Uh I want to be a good pastor, a good leader in the church. And so I get up in the morning, I'm like, okay, here's what I got to do today to be a good pastor and a good leader. Some of that can drive me. Um honestly, sometimes I get up in the morning uh and sometimes super early in the morning because I want to be in the outdoors. I grew up hunting hunting, fishing. I said it's not hunting, it's hunting, right? If you're really truly an outdoorsman. So I grew up hunting and fishing, and uh, you don't put the G on either one of those. But uh I I I feel like that some mornings I, you know, like I'm driven to get up for that reason, to get in the outdoors. In fact, uh, I don't know why. Maybe this is just, again, revealing of my own heart. Uh I I can get up at like 3 30 in the morning and be happy about it when I'm going hunting. You know, and God says get up at, you know, a little at like 6 30 and spend time with me in the Word, and it's like, uh, really? Like I really need to do that? You know, it's like I can sleep just a little bit longer, right? Uh so that I'm just again being honest, this is where I am as a pastor. Sometimes I fight motivations. Uh, and and so I think that whatever drives us, of course, is an indicator of really where we put our hope, where we put our uh set where we're finding our satisfaction, where we're finding our joy. And I could look at all of your life, and I could look at where you're spending your money and your time, and we could pretty quickly get a uh a list of your priorities, right? A little list of your values. And uh, as I was thinking uh about this series we're gonna start today called Live for More from the book of Philippians, um, I was thinking, God, you know, are Christians simply people who have crossed the line of faith, they've put their trust in Jesus, and now we're just living for the same things that everyone else is living for? Like I'm I'm talking about a personal introspective question I needed to ask myself this week. God, is it just simply that we've come to faith, we've become a Christian, uh, and now we know we're gonna go to heaven when we die, and between now and then, we just simply live for the same things that everybody else in the culture lives for. And if I'm honest, there's days where that's exactly what I do. Like I just simply live for, you know, a comfortable life, experiences, accomplishments, relationships. And all those things aren't bad things in and of themselves. But if you make them ultimate things, if that's what you live for, if that's what you would die for, if that's what you really invest all of your heart and soul into, apart from a transcendent cause, in fact, I would say God, you will find pretty quickly those things will fail you. Those things will leave you empty, they will leave you dry, they will lead you to depression and discouragement, and ultimately can even lead you to destruction in your own life. You see, because we weren't made to live for those things. Those things are shadows of the thing we were really meant to live for. And that's for God who made us, the Creator. And I know that may sound like the churchy answer, like the cliche answer, especially in a church environment like this, but I want you to know God's made you to live for more. And if you're a believer this morning, I would just simply invite you to lean in and say, look, I don't want to just bid my twin time between now and the time Jesus comes back to rescue me. I don't want to just waste time and energy just doing what everybody else does, waiting for Jesus to take me home to be in heaven with them forever. It's gonna be awesome when we get to heaven. It's gonna be a party, it's gonna be a celebration, it's gonna be incredible, right? We're gonna be with Jesus for crying out loud. It's gonna be amazing. But between now and then, we have a lot to do. We have something to live for. And so my hope is that from the book of Philippians, we will be encouraged, stimulated, challenged, pushed to live for more. More than just what we typically would live for in the culture in which we live. So I want you guys to pull out your Bibles if you have those with you. Uh we're gonna have some scriptures on the screen, but I always encourage you when you can get your own copy of the text in front of you. There actually are some Bibles under the chairs. Um they are a little roughed up, but they're they'll work. And uh and you can you can read along with me here. You can read along in front of you. And we're gonna start out in the book of Philippians today, chapter one, verse one, as we are going to work our way over the next 12, 15 weeks or so through the book of Philippians, okay? So we're actually gonna look at all these verses. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I think it'll be encouraging. And just one note on that, um it's significant to study through books of the Bible from time to time. I like doing topical studies. We recently did a series on the seven deadly sins, talked a little bit about how the gospel informs us and helps us have a way out of temptation. And that's really helpful. But sometimes it's also really good for us to go through a book so that you get the essence of what's there. You get the kind of the sights and the sounds and the smells and the culture of what was being uh going on in the life of those who were writing and those who guys guys were also receiving these letters. And so we're gonna work through this uh this letter Philippians. And so let me get started with us this morning. Verse one. Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons. Grace and peace to you from God our Father, the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you, always praying with joy for all of you in my every prayer, because of your partnership and the gospel from the first day until now. I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Last verse. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because I have you in my heart, and you are all partners with me in grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and establishment of the gospel. And we're going to stop there. And next week, Carly's gonna take us to this next section where Paul begins to pray for the people of Philippi. Um, I don't know about you and your background, all of you, I know some of your stories, but for me, I grew up as a church brat. I was drugged to church from the time I was very young, uh, sometimes willingly, sometimes unwillingly. And but I was in church, and so I was exposed to the book of Philippians at a young age. And if you notice anything about Philippians, um when you start to look around, if you're if you are in Christian settings, a lot of verses are quoted from this book. Uh it's got a lot of verses that are cross-stitched and on people's walls. Uh, it's got a lot of verses that are on Christian t-shirts. Uh, you can find verses on uh sports athletes' eye patches, because Philippians 4.13 seems to be one of the most popular sports verses out there, which says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, like score touchdown, you know, any of those kind of things. That's what you can do, right? With Jesus' help. That's what it's supposed to say. No, I'm just kidding. I'm being facetious. We'll get there when we get to chapter 4. But here's the thing sometimes we use these verses uh in context, and sometimes we use them out of context. Uh, but we're gonna work through these verses, and there's a lot of great verses here uh that I think really speak into us life, and again, a challenge to live for more. The first seven verses today are verses that aren't gonna really give us instruction as much as they're gonna describe some things to us. And I think we can still learn from them, but they're gonna give us some descriptions of kind of what was going on when Paul wrote this letter. And in light of that, I want to give you, I'm gonna geek out for a second. Is that okay? Can we geek out? Um, some of you are like, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just gonna give you a little history of Philippians because I think it's important, significant. So maybe you'll find this interesting, or maybe you'll just take a little nap. Okay? So here we go. Uh the apostle Paul is the one who wrote this letter, and it says there in the beginning, of course, Paul and Timothy. So Timothy was alongside of Paul. Timothy was Paul's protege. He was the one that he was discipling and developing and raising up to be a pastor. Uh, he became that pastor at Ephesus, and so we know that Paul was there with Timothy. We noticed that this book was written uh to the people at Philippi. Uh now again, the the city of Philippi, let me just give you a quick rundown of where that was and what that was, what was going on with that. It was in Macedonia. That means nothing to us. Uh, so it was in Asia, right? And we know that when it was there, that uh it was a very important city, a significant city, because it was a Roman city, it was only the only Roman colony in its area, and the Romans ruled at that time. So it was a pretty significant city for its region. Uh it was on the Via Ina Ignatia, which is this road, it was all the commerce was going on, uh, and so it was a wealthy city, had affluence, there were a lot of creatives there. Uh it was it was just a really cool city. Uh we know that it was named after a historical figure. Anybody who know Alexander the Great is? Alexander the Great's dad, Philip, uh, is who the city was named after. I think that's just an interesting note in that sometimes we try to say the Bible really doesn't match up with history, like that when you see places or you see historical figures, they don't really connect with the Bible, it's had its own thing. Actually, no, when you read the Bible, there are places and there are people who connect with the storyline of the text, right? Because it's a real book, it's it's not a fairy tale, it's not some story people made up. It's you know, uh once upon a time, long, long, long time ago, uh, it's actually real historical stories and places and people. And so when we see that, um, Paul is has visited this city in around 50 A.D., and now he's writing it about 10 years later in 60 A.D., and he's writing from a really cool place that all of us would like to write a letter from. He's writing it from a prison cell. Okay? Um and so he's writing this letter to these people at Philippi, and he just shows incredible um affection for them, which we're gonna talk about in a second. Love for them, care for them. Uh, but he is just encouraging them. What's interesting about the book of Philippians is that most of Paul's letters are uh good correctives, like that he's really trying to correct and instruct the people that he's writing to. This one's really more of an affirmation. He doesn't really instruct them a whole lot, he gives them some some warnings, like and some concerns, like you could drift into this, but he's very affirming, very encouraging, very uplifting in this book, okay? And uh if you were saying, like, what is the theme of Philippians, in case that's something you're interested in, I think you'll see this as we go. A lot of people would say that the theme of Philippians is the joy of Christ in the midst of suffering. Uh, which I think you could definitely get since Paul's writing this from a jail cell, right? And he's still showing this great joy. The word joy shows up 16 times in the book. But I think what's interesting to me is I would argue that's not the primary theme of the book. I think the primary theme of the book is is demonstrated in chapter 1, verse 27, where he says, live in uh a worthy uh in a way that is in line with the gospel you've received, in a manner worthy of the gospel you've received. Okay? I think actually that the theme of the book is that there's a partnership in the gospel. Partnership in participating in what the gospel is and living on mission together. So we're gonna talk about some of that today. All right, enough geeking stuff. You guys still with me? Okay, just making sure. So some of you guys are like, oh, that was awesome. Some of you are like, come on, move on. All right. So here we are. With that backdrop in mind, let's transition and look back into the verses that we have read. Those seven verses give us a good overview of what's gonna happen in the rest of the book. They're gonna give us a good outline of the key themes that are gonna come in this book. And in this first section, as I already said, Paul's not really giving instruction as much as he's describing some things and even expressing some emotions and some feelings that he has for these people. I would actually say that what he is describing is a gospel community, a community that's founded on and formed by the gospel. And when I say the gospel, just because I don't want to ever assume that you guys know what that means, it's a word that's a buzzword in the church, it's kind of thrown around. What is the gospel? In essence, really, the the gospel is the message of what Jesus did for us to save us. Okay? We can say this a lot of different ways, but we were sinners, and he came and redeemed and rescued us by his work on the cross. Okay, that's the gospel. And that he he rose again, he didn't stay dead. Uh, you guys who are been here last couple weeks, we've talked about that very thing. So the gospel message is that people can be saved because of the work of Jesus. It's good news. He's won the victory, and he offers that uh victory to us by faith. We can receive forgiveness for our sins, and we can walk in it as a new people, a new creation. So, uh, what are some of the things that really we see flowing out of gospel community, as well as things that maybe are forming and shaping gospel community? Well, the number one thing, the first thing we come to is this idea of an uncommon view of self and others. An uncommon view of self and others. Notice verse one, let me read it to you again. Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and the deacons. Now, again, I want to tell you, we're not gonna be able to unpack everything in these verses. This is why we encourage you to get into a life group. This is why we encourage you to find another community of people that you can get together with. I encourage you, even in your personal study, to read along these verses and think about them. And if you need a couple of tools, we're gonna post some tools for you uh as you're studying the book of Philippians with us on the city, which is our online community for those of you that are new. But notice this he says, Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus. Now, how many of you guys, when you introduce yourself to someone, you say, Hi, my name's Nick, and I'm a slave of God. Like, is that like natural? No, not natural at all, right? Now, again, he's writing to believers and he's giving them instruction in some ways just by acknowledging who he is. But naturally, this is a this is flowing out of Paul's heart. This isn't fake. This isn't him just like putting on uh a front. This is literally who Paul saw himself as. He saw himself as a slave. The word in the Greek, of course, doulos, douloi, is this idea that he is a bond servant. Now, to understand that really quickly, you you just need to think back all the way to the Old Testament, uh, that slavery was a common practice in this culture, and that you could become a slave really three ways. Uh, you could be born into it, you could be bought into it, uh, you could actually sell yourself into it. I mean, those are three primary ways you became a slave. And so you think about the story, if you know the Bible at all, the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. His brothers sold him to these guys in Egypt. They sold him into slavery, and he became a bond servant. And notice what's interesting about that uh is that slavery in that day wasn't always such a bad thing. There were actually benefits to being a slave. If you lived in the house of a wealthy person, there could be some benefits. So this isn't like, you know, the slave trade uh where you know there we would really can can obviously condemn what happened to many people uh historically as they were sold into slavery and they were beaten and they were put into these abusive situations and caused to uh you know you know, basically forced to work, and they weren't taken care of, they weren't cared for, right? We're not up, we're not in agreement with that, and the Bible doesn't agree with that. But we do see that there was bond service, there was this idea that I've been purchased, I now no longer belong to myself, I own to someone else, I belong to someone else, and I'm working for them. And Paul literally says straight up, I am a servant of God. Why would Paul say something that crazy? Why would he start at that place acknowledging that that's where he is? You know why? Because he understood that the work that Jesus had done was to purchase him. That Jesus had bought him with his life. He laid down his life, spilled his blood, suffered, right, on the cross to purchase. And Paul understood that I am now in response to that. I do not belong to myself. This would be consistent with other things Paul's written. I don't belong to myself, I belong to Jesus. And I'm a servant of him and I'm a servant of his people. Man, if anybody could have like said, hey, everybody, I want you to know who I am. I'm the Apostle Paul. I had this personal encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. I've been planting churches, I'm an awesome missionary, I really am really, really, really awesome and smart. I mean, it could have been Paul, but he says, What? Boom. I'm a servant. That's how he introduces himself. But I want you to kind of couple that with the next thing he says. He then says to the Philippi people, he says, not only is he a slave and a servant of God, but he calls them what? Saints. Slaves saints. Interesting. What is Paul trying to say? Would anybody in here consider yourself a saint? Well, you may not consider yourself a saint, but if you're in Jesus Christ, you are a saint. Now, I don't know if you've seen this, but the Pope is actually, I don't know how many of you guys maybe grew up Catholic. I don't intend this to be offensive at all, but I just want you to understand what the Bible teaches versus what the culture says. Uh I just saw that the Pope is actually getting ready to make Mother Teresa a saint. September 4th, they've already set the date. She's going to become a saint. Uh that means in many ways that she'll become deified and that she can be prayed to. Now, I want you to know that that's not what the Bible teaches. We don't pray to people. We pray to Jesus. We pray to God the Father, okay? Uh but that's what's going to happen. They're going to turn her into a saint. Now, she is definitely a saint. I believe she knows Jesus. I believe she's following Jesus. So she's a saint. But so are you. Right? So are you. You may not feel like a saint, you're not be acting like a saint. But according to the scripture, if you're in the blood of Christ, you are righteous, you are holy, you are set apart. That's what the word saint means anyway. It means consecrated, set apart, different. You have a purpose, you have a mission, you have a you have a calling that is different when you become a Christ follower. Are you tracking with me? So you are different. You were set apart. You're a saint. I don't feel like a saint, but because of Jesus Christ, I have been viewed now as somebody who's different. I'm not who I was before I came to Christ. And so we're saints. So Paul says, you guys are saints. He calls himself a slave, he calls them saints. Now I think this is interesting because culturally speaking, we tend to see ourselves as the ones who know everything and are right kind of a saint, and we see everybody else as our servants. Like you're my you're the people who are supposed to do stuff for me. We go to a restaurant, you serve me, right? I know I'm paying you money, but you serve me. You see people in the world, you serve me. You're the servant, I'm a saint. The gospel flips it on its head, it inverts it. It completely inverts it. It says to us, No, we are the servants to all. Because why? You want me to tell you why it inverts it? Because Jesus Christ became the servant so that we could become saints. You see, Jesus, if if anybody had the right to say, I've got authority, I'm I'm the man in charge, I'm something you all should have just worshiped and bowed down to me, it should have been Jesus. But what did he do? He came to seek and to save the lost. We said that last week. He also came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. He came as a servant. He came as a servant. And in his servanthood, he died to make us a saint. So I say that to you this morning because I think what needs to happen in my own heart and in your heart is we need to understand what Christ has done for us in serving us so that we can become saints, so then we could also become serving saints. Because any true understanding of the gospel pushes us to understand our need to serve other people. See, that's the beauty of the gospel. The beauty of the gospel is that we are more loved than we can even begin to imagine. At the same time, we were still more sinful than we can even begin to imagine. Jesus had to die for us for crying out loud because we were so rebellious and so sinful. And at the same time, his dying for us says that he loves us deeply. He cares about us, and that's been declared for all time. So we never have to question his love and his grace and his mercy because the cross screams it to us. Second thing we notice, an unusual diversity. An unusual diversity. Now, this actually isn't in this text, but I want you to understand that there is in Philippi an unusual diversity. I'm going to try to move really quickly through this, but if you turn to Acts 16, you don't need to do that right now. This week I encourage you to read it. We get a chapter in the book of Acts on Paul going to Philippi. And it's a very intriguing story on multiple levels. And let me tell you why. Because not many of the churches that Paul goes to or the cities that he goes to, we do we get an actual story of people who came to faith. But in this story, in Acts chapter 16, we actually get some of that. What we see is that Paul shows up on the scene and he meets this lady down by the river named Lydia. And she is down there at the river having a Bible study with her ladies. Now, we know something about Lydia. She was Asian. We know that she was rich, she was wealthy. We know that she was also a God fearer in a culture that believed there were many gods, and she was actually fearing God, and she was seeking to learn who this God was. So she was a seeker. And here Paul comes up on the scene, he sees her, and he engages her and he shares the gospel with her, the good news about who Christ is. And through that process, guess what? She comes to faith, first convert in Philippi that we have recorded. Paul continues his journey in Philippi, and as he's walking along, this little girl starts yelling at him. That happens to us every day, right? As a dad, that does happen. But anyway, that's a whole other conversation. This girl starts yelling at him. This girl starts saying, You are, you know, these uh apostles, you are these leaders of the you are the you follow the most high God, and basically just annoying them. Literally, it says, you know, he gets so annoyed, he turns around and he says, Uh, spirit come out of her. She's demon-possessed. And the spirit comes out of her. That happens every day too, right? Spirit comes out of this girl, and she's in her right mind. But here's the bad thing. Because of the possession, the spirit that had been in her, she had been able to uh tell the future. That's a whole nother sermon for another day. Uh she had done these different things, and she had owners, so she was a slave of these guys, and they were using her to make money off of her. And all of a sudden the spirit's gone, and she can't do it anymore. So they're pretty ticked. But here's the thing first, you've got Lydia, she comes to faith. Then you've got a slave girl who's demon possessed, she comes to faith. And then you get a third one because what happens is these guys. Guys get ticked and they throw Paul and Silas in jail. And Paul and Silas are in stocks in jail. And what happens there? Well, they do exactly what we would do if we got thrown in jail unjustly. They start singing to God, singing praises to God. Right? Again, you guys hanging with me? I'm being facetious here. Here's the deal: they're there in jail, they're singing praises to God. In the middle of the night, earthquake happens, their shackles all fall off, and they have the ability to leave. Do they leave? You know, I'd have been like, peace out. I'm gone. No, I'm not sticking around here. I'm not gonna let you put me back in those things. Those things are painful. That's not what happens. What happens is Paul and um, Paul and Silas, they they're they're walking, they they see the jailer. The jailer is so distraught that he wants to kill himself, he wants to commit suicide. And so in that moment, Paul says, Hey, we didn't go anywhere, we're right here. And as a result, this guy ends up coming to faith and trust in Christ, puts his trust in Christ. So here's the first three converts of Philippians in Philippi, right? You ready? A wealthy fashionista, an enslaved, demon-possessed girl, and a blue-collar jailer. Why in the world would those three people ever be in the same room together on purpose? Right? This is the kind of church, this is the kind of community that the gospel creates. You see, because no matter who you are, no matter where you've been, no matter what your story is, we all need Jesus. We all need the grace of God. You know, one of the things I love about Point Community Church is when I look across the room, I see diversity. We should see young and old, rich and poor. We should see every race that's in our city. We should see them in this room. Because the gospel is not just for a certain group of people, a certain class of people. It's for not just for a certain group of people that have a certain amount in their bank account. It's for everyone. It's for every tribe, tongue, every nation on this planet. That's the gospel. And so the church ought to reflect that. Many times the church becomes a place where we're segregated. It should be a place where we are unified. It should not be this holy huddle. It should not just be a clique of homogeneous people. The church should be a collection of diverse people, uniquely diverse people who all come together under the person and work of Jesus. Because he's good, he's gracious, and he loves and serves every person. I gotta move. The third thing. We see a deep affection for one another. Gospel community produces a deep affection for one another. Let me read verses three through five. I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you. Notice the uh absolutes he keeps using in this section. It's funny. Uh Paul's very expressive. I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you, always praying for you with joy for all of you in my every prayer, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Paul is so thankful for these people, and you're gonna continue to see that as we go through this book. You're gonna continue to see his gratitude for the Philippian people. He loves them, he is affectionate towards them. And I think that the gospel produces that because when you really get a taste of the fact that what we sang about earlier, what Alex talked about, that we are loved by God, we can't help but love other people. You wanna know why I struggle to love other people? It's because I'm not convinced that God loves me. But when I recognize that God loves me, I can love other people. In fact, I have an affection for them. That may sound weird, that may sound like, what do you mean affection for people? You know? I'm not talking about, you know, just this awkward, unnatural affection. I'm talking about something that says, I care deeply for you. I'm concerned for you. I like you. I want to help you, I want to serve you, I want to participate in this mission with you. All those things, there's affection that's there. That's going to come out in this text. In fact, even in verse 7, he says, I should feel this way about you because of all that you've done in serving me in the gospel. So there's a deep affection that comes. You know, listen, just a side note to that, we shouldn't have to say to the, and I'm talking specifically about people who call Point Community Church your home. We shouldn't have to say, hey, listen, point community church people, when people from the outside come here, be kind to them. Be nice to them, please. We shouldn't have to say that, right? That should be a byproduct of the fact we know we are loved, we are accepted, and we then love others. The reason, again, that we can struggle is because we're insecure, we're not confident that God loves us, and so then we don't love others. We're not kind to others, we're only thinking about ourselves. But in a gospel community, there's incredible affection that is displayed for one another, care and concern for one another, if that helps you. All right? Fourthly, an awareness of God's sovereignty. An awareness of God's sovereignty. Paul has no doubt when he says, I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete that work. Now, how many of you guys have memorized that verse before? Anybody? Okay? No? Okay. All right. I'm alone on that one. Um, this one was in our bathroom. I'm not exactly what that meant. He started it, he finished it. But anyway, um, that was the that when I was growing up, I memorized that one there. Okay? So here's the thing. Philippians 1, 6 is a great, great verse because it reminds us of God's sovereignty. Right? God starts it, he finishes, starts what? He starts our salvation, he initiates with us, he pursues us, he loves us, he engages us. God is the one who saves people, not us. Religion doesn't save people. In fact, I would say religion actually kills people in many ways, it crushes people. Jesus saves people, he rescues people, he redeems people, he is the savior. And I would say to us this morning that because he has saved us, he will not abandon us in the process. He started it, he will finish it. You know why Paul could say that? Think about Paul's own journey. Paul was completely going the opposite direction from God, and God, the story, met him on the road, called him by name, and said, Paul, quit persecuting me, calls him out, gives him a new calling, a new mission to go and to share the gospel, to share the good news about Jesus. Paul does that, and Paul is then sustained from that point forward as he watches God work in his own life. Paul was speaking from an experience of saying, God called me. I didn't, I was, I was trying to be his enemy of Jesus. And yet God still worked in spite of me. Listen, this doesn't mean that you and I don't have a responsibility. That we we can say, well, God started it, God's gonna complete it, so I don't have to obey him. I just kind of let life happen to me. Right? Silly talk. That's not what it's saying. It's saying that as we respond, as we see God working around us, he will give us the power to obey him. He will give us the capacity and the ability to actually do what he's asking us to do. And so there's an awareness of God's sovereignty. His sovereignty, this is what I love about this verse, is that it builds in it builds confidence in us that God is faithful and he's good. At the same time, it crushes our pride. Because it says you can't do it without him. He has to complete it, he has to do it in us, he has to work through us if it's gonna actually happen. So here's what I know to be true. If you're a Christ follower, he didn't save you to just drop you off and say, see ya. You see, sometimes we think about salvation, we think it's like, okay, Jesus saved me, now it's my time, my job to finish the work. Now I gotta finish saving myself by good works. That's not the gospel, by the way. That's called a false gospel. Jesus saved me, now I gotta go work and follow Jesus, and then if I do that, then he'll really accept me. No, he accepts you because of his work. That's the gospel. That's the good news this morning. Finally, we see in this text a partnership in the gospel. Look at verse 7 with me. Verse 7 says this it is right for me to think this way about all of you, because I have you in my heart, and you are all partners with me in grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and establishment of the gospel. Now, um, I'm guessing that most of you in this room have been on a team before. And you maybe you've been on a you've worked with a group to do something difficult. Now, that can do two things. That can either drive people apart or it can drive you together. You know what I'm talking about? You get with a group of people and you're given a task. Uh, I know sometimes that actually drives people apart because they're like, you guys all annoy me. I'm gonna go do my own thing, right? Or it can drive you together because you realize we're not gonna accomplish this unless we all work together. And and there's a there's a community that comes in that, there's a camaraderie. Anyone who's ever been in the military, you know, if you've got a mission together, it draws you together. You've got to work together, you've got to invest in one another, you've got to help each other. If you've ever been on a sports team, I love playing sports. One of the things I enjoyed growing up is all the different sports uh that I got to participate in. And those teams, there was a camaraderie, there was a cool relationship that I got to have with the guys that I played with. You sacrificed, you sweated together, you did these things together. Listen, I think that one of the deepest communities that could possibly be formed on the planet is when we are in the mission of the gospel together. I believe that. In fact, I believe that your marriage, listen, if you are married in this room, or if you're getting ready to get married, the greatest connectivity that you can experience in relationship is when you as a couple decide we're gonna be on mission together for the sake of the gospel. I guarantee it that there will be a there will be a depth of intimacy that comes because you're not just pursuing out each other from a place of romance, place of physical attraction. You're pursuing each other to help serve one another, accomplish God's purpose for each other's lives. That's a completely radical different view of marriage. But that's what God wants for you guys. Did you know that? He doesn't want you just to survive marriage, he doesn't want you to just be roommates until you die. He wants you to actually some of you are like, yeah. Did you hear that? I saw some elbows flying. He wants you to be on mission together. There's a partnership. Paul has a partnership with these people in Philippi. For him, it looked like they were supporting him in prayer. They're praying for him while he's in prison. They're also praying that he would continue to be bold in sharing the gospel. They're also giving, they're supporting him financially. They've been, uh this book, and in fact, a section of this book would be considered one of the better parts of the New Testament to explain what it looks like to actually be involved with our resources in the mission. Probably 2 to 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. But this is a great section that reminds us that there is a natural byproduct of working together for the mission, and that's a community. To say it differently, if you try to get community, without mission, you'll never have real community. But when you get on mission together, you will have community at a depth that you cannot even begin to understand until you actually are in the trenches. Are you hearing that? So I say this because this is a perfect uh, I guess, setup even for tonight. One of the reasons why we do membership at Point Community Church, one of the reasons why we do life groups, one of the reasons why we have ministry teams, is not just so that we can pull off a Sunday gathering and say, hey, you got a spot. Let's plug you in. Not just so we can say, hey, we've got more members, so we can like broadcast that out. Hey, look how many members we've got. It's because we want to invite you to participate in the mission with us that starts here in Austin and goes all around the world. We want to invite you into this awesome, incredible opportunity to actually see people's lives go from death to life, from darkness to light. We want to see that happen and you get to participate with us in that process financially, in your time and your talents, and your treasures. Use those three T alliterated words, which I love, right? But here's the thing a lot of times people get sold, the idea that church is all about just coming to a Sunday morning gathering. And if that's where you are right now, that's okay. That's the step in the right direction. But I want you to know that church is intended to be a group, a community of people on mission together. And it requires more than just surface level conversation. It requires more than sitting in a room and listening to someone talk at me. It requires me to say, I'll step up and I'll go. I'll involve myself. And maybe that's scary for some of you. Maybe that's like really hard to overcome. Take whatever the next step is. For some of you, the next step is simply, hey, I'll get into a life group or I'll just go talk to someone. I'll invite somebody else here that I see to coffee and get to know their story. I don't know what it is, but if you don't have a life group, if you don't have, which life groups are just our smaller groups of people that meet during the week to talk about what we've learned on Sunday, but also to live on mission together, to care for one another. If you don't have that, come find me after the service. You see, as we begin this series in Philippians, I'm asking God to help me and you live for more. And one way that we can do this is by reflecting on the way that Jesus lived for more. To make it possible for us to live for more. What do I mean by that? You see, Jesus, when he was here on the earth, he didn't just live a life of comfort, just doing his thing. He was on a mission. And his mission, of course, we know, was to die for us. He lived for the greater reward, and we are his reward. And he's now offering for us the opportunity to live for the greater reward. Men, to live for more than just your work, to live for more than just your hobbies. Women to live for more than just simply social activity, whatever it might be in your world, for your work, for your children. God wants to redeem all those things and say there's a bigger purpose, there's a bigger point, there's a better community that we can have when we live on mission together. Would you guys join us in that? Would you consider that? Would you consider taking the next step? Would you consider even tonight coming to our membership lab? And not that that means you're going to become a member here, but you just listen in and say, here's what Point Community Church is doing on mission. How can I be a part of that? How can I participate in that? If you're not a believer, the invitation is not start doing stuff for God. It's not. If you're not a believer, if you've never put your trust in Christ, you've never received the gift of salvation, your invitation is simply this Jesus Christ died for your sin. He loves you. Jesus Christ wants you to be with him forever. Receive by faith. Turn away from trying to save yourself through good works or if they're just ignoring him. Turn away, turn to him and receive the gift of salvation because he wants you to have that. Let me pray.