An Advancing Gospel Community: Partners Together (Philippians 1:1-11)

[00:00:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the Calvary Monterey Podcast. To learn more about our church, please visit calvary.com. And for additional resources from our lead pastor, Nate Holdridge, please visit nateholdridge.com. Teaching today is our lead pastor, Nate Holdridge.

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Nate Holdridge All right. Good morning, church. Let's take out our Bibles, like Janine said, and turn to the New Testament book of Philippians. You guys know that our tradition here as a church is to take books of the Bible and work through them

[00:00:36] [SPEAKER_01]: verse by verse until we're done over subsequent weeks. And so today we're starting a brand new study through the book of Philippians, short little four chapter epistle from Paul the Apostle. And today we'll be in Philippians chapter one, verse one through 11. And as you guys are turning there, I just want to continue to remind you that the month of October is a month that pastorally we're inviting you into a month of prayer to pray for the future of our church, especially when it comes to the undeveloped land and the unused

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_01]: water credits at our disposal. We're just asking God for wisdom, for faith, for a plan, for his provision, and for permission to do everything that he is going to put into our hearts. But we wanted to invite you into a time of really praying about that. And tonight is going to be really the launch of that for us together as a church.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And then for the rest of the month on Sunday night or Thursday morning, we'll have prayer meetings that you can come to to seek the Lord and just say, yeah, God, we want your direction, your wisdom. We want revival. We believe that a gospel centered Bible loving community is the greatest gift that we can give to the Monterey Peninsula and the Salinas Valley.

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And so would you give us wisdom here in this church about what to do in the years to come. So we're praying for that and want to invite you into that. And what we're going to do tonight is my hope and prayer is to I definitely don't have the plan to share with you guys.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_01]: But what I want to do is try to give you some of the possibilities. It's not like this is the first time pastorally that we've been thinking about this subject. What should we do in the future? There have been some avenues that we have been investigating and pursuing. We've seen the favor of God in some of those avenues, but we just need wisdom about which direction to go.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So tonight what I'm going to do is share with you a little bit of an update and then a bunch of possibilities so that we can have a little bit of track on which our prayers can run this next month.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_01]: We're not starting from scratch here. There's some things we can be praying about and I'd love to explain some of those things to you guys tonight. If you can't make it tonight, no worries. We're going to put it online for you as well.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I realize Sunday night is a time where a lot of you guys are getting ready for the insanity that will be your Monday through Friday, whatever that looks like. And so you can't make it back out. That's okay. We're going to get it up online for you.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_01]: But if you're able to, I'd love to have you out here tonight. And just a reminder, as we're praying together as a church, I asked you last Sunday to consider selective, a selective fast for the month of October.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, basically just choosing something that you're going to abstain from for the month. And so that whenever you have that desire, you will instead pivot towards praying for your church.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And maybe I should have mentioned that it needs to be something that's like semi hard or a sacrifice for you because Pastor Mike told me that he's going to fast from exercise in October.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I think he's already been doing that, to be honest. So no, he was just joking around.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, something like for me, I mentioned to you last week, I'm going to fast from treats.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I got a big time sweet, too. So I'm going to fast from that for the month.

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And then also, I love music quite a bit. So I'm just going to listen to if I listen to music, just worship music this month and just kind of tune out every other form of music that I'm interested in for the month.

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And each time I want to, you know, play some music, I'll just be praying a prayer to God for our church, for our church family and for the future that God has for us.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So just inviting you into that. It's day six of October. So some of you guys are like, oh, man, I totally forgot.

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I left church last week. I forgot to pick something to fast from or you already failed in your fast.

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's okay. Today is a new day, Sunday, first day of the week. We get a fresh start.

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to take communion today so you can have a little forgiveness from the Lord and we can move forward together.

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So get your fast restarted or started today if that describes you.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_01]: All right, let's pray for our time in the book of Philippians.

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Lord, we come to you this morning and we thank you for the totality of your word.

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_01]: It is amazing to me, Lord, what you have done.

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And not only putting this book together, Genesis to Revelation.

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_01]: But in preserving it for us all these years later.

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for however it transpired, you placing upon Paul's heart to put this particular letter together for a particular group of people at a particular moment in time in their church's life.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And we pray, Lord, that you would use it to rally us together as a church today.

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Lord.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Lord, if I could take a moment, I want to pray for the women's conference coming up this weekend.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Lord, for that moment in time to set aside for you and your purposes.

[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And I pray, Lord, that you would do that Holy Spirit work that only you can accomplish this weekend.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's new friendships, a word of wisdom, a word of direction, a word of correction, a word of hope, a word of teaching and instruction, salvation, restoration, Lord, repentance.

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever is needed in the individual hearts of each woman coming this weekend.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_01]: We pray, Lord, that you would do it.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_01]: We ask, God, that you would speak to us this morning again from your holy word.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_01]: We pray these things together.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_01]: In Jesus' name we pray.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Amen.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Amen.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, let's read Philippians chapter 1, verse 1 through 5 together.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to go all the way through verse 11 today.

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_01]: But let's start out reading the first five verses.

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi with the overseers and deacons.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_01]: 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.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_01]: From the first day until now.

[00:07:18] [SPEAKER_01]: What I want to say, thank you so much.

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_01]: What I want to say today to start out our study in Philippians is that, to me, the book of Philippians is the Steve Kerr of the New Testament.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_01]: What do I mean by that?

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Steve Kerr is currently the coach of the Golden State Warriors.

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_01]: But before he was a professional basketball coach, he was a professional basketball player.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And Steve played a great role for some championship teams.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Three championships, I believe, with the Chicago Bulls and three championships with the San Antonio Spurs.

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And he was never a starter.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_01]: He never played the bulk of the game.

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_01]: He played a small amount of minutes.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_01]: But he was such a good shooter that he played a key role in his teams winning their championships.

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So even though he played with the likes of Michael Jordan or Scottie Pippen or David Robinson or Tim Duncan, these are basketball names.

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_01]: You should be impressed by my basketball knowledge.

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_01]: But even though he played with these great stars, these Hall of Fame caliber players, and even though he wasn't one of them,

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_01]: he complemented their work greatly and really helped them win the championship time and time again,

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_01]: hitting some key big shots at specific moments in the course of their championship runs.

[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And to me, that's what the book of Philippians is like.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_01]: It is not the doctrinal star of a book of Romans or the book of Galatians, explaining, extrapolating, digesting the gospel itself.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not like 1 Corinthians where Paul writes to a Corinthian church about ecclesiology

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_01]: and how the Holy Spirit is meant to work in their congregation correcting problems,

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_01]: answering doctrinal theological questions that they were wondering about.

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not a 2 Corinthians where Paul explains his ministry philosophy in life

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_01]: and therefore gives to the church a ministry philosophy for our modern day and age.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not Colossians with its high Christology.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not Ephesians showing us God's plan from the foundation of the world to unite everything to his son

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_01]: through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not those books, but it is a book that is supportive of all of those concepts.

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_01]: What you have here in the book of Philippians is a man, in Paul the Apostle,

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_01]: 10 years or so after the launch of the Philippian church,

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_01]: writing to this church and pleading with them to continue on in the way that they began.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I think in a sense you could say that what Paul is most concerned about in the church in Philippi

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_01]: is that they would drift from their primary mission.

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_01]: That they would drift from their primary mission.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So for our study of the book of Philippians, I've chosen a theme.

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I like to pick a theme each time we open up a book of the Bible

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_01]: because these books have a big mega message.

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think the big message of this book and the theme I've chosen is

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Philippians, an advancing gospel community.

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_01]: An advancing gospel community.

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Now I want to tell you this morning that if you go to Amazon today

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_01]: and you search Philippians Bible study,

[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_01]: you're probably not going to find that as the theme of the studies that come up.

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, probably about half of them are going to have the word joy

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_01]: or the word rejoicing in the title.

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_01]: That's appropriate because this is a book that is teeming with joy.

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Joy from Paul, joy for the gospel, joy in the Philippian church.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It's teeming with joy.

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_01]: It astounds us because Paul wrote it from a prison cell.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So we're amazed by the joy that he had.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_01]: But here's what I want to say this morning.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_01]: It's the book of Philippians is not a treatise on how to find joy.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_01]: The book of Philippians is not a book where Paul is saying,

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_01]: do you know what I really want to talk to you about more than anything?

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to talk to you about how to have deep abiding satisfaction and joy

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_01]: in your daily life and experience.

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_01]: That's not what the book of Philippians is about.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_01]: The book of Philippians is about an apostle writing to a group of Christians

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_01]: and saying, stay on track, preaching the gospel, being about the right things as a church,

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_01]: stay unified in your mission.

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And if you do that, you will be one of the most joyful groups of people on the face of the earth

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_01]: because you will be executing the very mission of God that he deposited into your care.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Listen to some of the things that Paul says throughout this letter.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_01]: In chapter 1, verse 12, which we'll see next week,

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_01]: he'll tell them that his chains really served to advance the gospel.

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_01]: In 116, he'll tell them, I've been put in prison for the defense of the gospel.

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll also see next week that he'll encourage them to live, in verse 25, worthy, or 26,

[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_01]: worthy of the gospel.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_01]: In chapter 2, he'll talk about Timothy, his partner in the gospel.

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_01]: In chapter 3, he'll talk about his defense of the gospel.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_01]: In chapter 4, he'll tell them to be unified together so that they can preach the gospel.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And then he'll close his letter by finally thanking them for the coming of Epaphroditus

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_01]: from their church to visit him while he was in prison, probably there in Rome,

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_01]: and the financial gift that he brought with him to give to Paul

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_01]: because it encouraged Paul to continue on preaching the gospel.

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And at a major highlight in this epistle, all the way back in chapter 2,

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Paul will sing the Christ hymn, which is a song all about the gospel.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_01]: In other words, in Paul's mind, that's what he's thinking.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_01]: He's thinking, I want this group of believers,

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_01]: believers I got no beef with, believers I got no real problem with,

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_01]: believers that don't need any major doctrinal correction or teaching.

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I've done all that with them.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I just need to encourage them to get on the train track of the gospel and move forward as a church.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And in our day and age where we could get distracted with a million things,

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_01]: we got to remember we are meant to be an advancing, moving forward gospel community.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_01]: You know how in modern cars, a lot of times there will be some kind of lane departure warning system.

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, none of my cars have this, and so all my kids have grown up, you know, learning how to drive.

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_01]: They got to do everything manually, you know.

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_01]: They got to actually learn where a blind spot is, you know.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_01]: They can't just hit the blinker and expect something to beep at them.

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_01]: One guy told me this morning that his car, his seat buzzes if he's starting to drift.

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_01]: The seat, like, shocks him a little bit or something, you know.

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_01]: The book of Philippians is a lane departure warning system.

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_01]: It's Paul just looking at this church and saying, there's your mission.

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I want you to move in that mission.

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Do not be congregationally deterred from the mission that I have given to you.

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_01]: In a sense, I feel like Philippians is a very fatherly epistle.

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've told you guys we've got two of our kids off at college now and one getting closer.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And as we are in this stage of life, it's interesting.

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I love being a dad.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I've always loved being a dad.

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_01]: To me, it's one of the highlights of my life.

[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I loved having little kids, you know.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I loved those middle years.

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I even loved the mid, like, teenage years, you know.

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_01]: It was a wild ride, but it was good.

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_01]: But now we're in this season where I'm realizing, like, there's a new part of my dadness that is kicking into gear.

[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's this thing that's like, hey, we've covered these things.

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_01]: You've learned these things.

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Good people have poured these truths into your life and into your heart.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And now adulthood is right there on the horizon.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Listen, you've got to live this out yourself.

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm encouraging you in that direction.

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_01]: To me, that's what Paul is doing in this letter.

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_01]: He's looking at this 10-year-old church.

[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And he's saying, hey, back then when Lydia got saved and then the slave girl got saved and then the jailer got saved.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And you all got started as a church, it was beautiful.

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And I want you to continue on in that same spirit, that same heart.

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't get distracted with empire worship or emperor worship, which is all stuff going on in Philippi at that time.

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_01]: But stay focused on the preaching of the gospel and advancing as a gospel community.

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_01]: All right, so that's really like an overview of where I think Paul is going here in this letter.

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Our pace for our little study through Philippians, we're going to go through this pretty quick.

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Philippians is a tempting book, I'll be honest with you.

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a tempting book to go painfully slow in.

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Because it's just got some amazing verses, amazing passages.

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Like probably a lot of you guys have a life verse or two in the book of Philippians.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just a real gold mine.

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm tempted to basically take from now till next summer going through the book of Philippians.

[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Just sitting at Paul's feet, learning from him in that way.

[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm not going to do that.

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to resist that.

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to call it a temptation because that sounds like there's sin involved or something like that.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to resist that though.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to go more quickly through Philippians.

[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to take, Lord willing, eight weeks to move through these four chapters.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And I've invited two pastors, Pastor Matt and Pastor Jeff, who's in retirement, coming out of retirement for this,

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_01]: to give us two teachings in our time of Philippians that are a little slower.

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_01]: So when we get to chapter 2, verse 12 and 13, about working out our own salvation with fear and trembling,

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I've asked Pastor Matt to give us a message about sanctification.

[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_01]: How does it work?

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_01]: How do we experience real change and transformation in the Christian life?

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_01]: What does the Bible say about that?

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And when we get to chapter 4 and Paul tells us not to be anxious for anything but to cast all of our cares and burdens upon the Lord,

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I've invited Pastor Jeff to share with us more deeply about the life of prayer and what it looks like to cast all our cares upon the Lord.

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_01]: But for my part, even though I'll cover those verses, they're going to be in mid-larger chunks of Scripture where we're moving more quickly.

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_01]: So today we're going to look at Paul's introductory prayer for the church in Philippi.

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think what I want to say here is that this advancing gospel community, what we learn here in these first 11 verses,

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_01]: is that they partner together.

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_01]: They partner together.

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_01]: The first way that they partner together, we actually read it there in the first five verses,

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_01]: they partner together by serving together.

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_01]: The linchpin really, you could say for the whole book of Philippians, is found there in verse five.

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_01]: He says,

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I am joyful every time I pray for you because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

[00:19:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, that word partnership is a word that we actually use a lot in Christianese.

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It's the word koinonia in Greek.

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_01]: It's the word that we often translate fellowship.

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_01]: But Paul, I think, had probably a broader definition of fellowship than a lot of us might bring to the table.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Some of us might describe fellowship like, what's the difference between worship and fellowship?

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, worship is, I come to church on Sunday and Pastor Riley is leading us in music and I'm worshiping.

[00:19:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And then after the service, I go out and I get a donut and I get coffee and I say hello to my friends and we catch up a little bit,

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_01]: shoot the breeze.

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_01]: That's fellowship.

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Paul had a bigger definition of fellowship.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_01]: It's translated here partnership because that word is a word that meant a business partnership.

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like Paul is looking at the Philippian church and he's saying, it's like we're in business together.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you've taken some of your resources.

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I've taken some of my resources.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_01]: We've invested them together.

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_01]: We both have skin in the game and we want to see something come to pass.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_01]: We want to see the gospel spread throughout the world in which we live.

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And we are working together as partners in this gospel mission.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I love that from Paul.

[00:20:30] [SPEAKER_01]: He considered these Philippians partners from the jump in the expansion of the gospel.

[00:20:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, it's clear that Paul loved the Philippian church.

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, notice what he says there.

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, every time I think about you, remember you, every prayer of mine is a joy filled with prayer.

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And I thank God for you every single time I think about you.

[00:20:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, some of you might be tempted to think that this is just like how super spiritual people like apostles talk.

[00:21:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, they have to love everybody because that's Jesus's rules.

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you love God, you love your neighbor, and that's what Paul is doing.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_01]: But if that's the way you're thinking, you need to kind of like read Paul's other epistles.

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Because he had some letters that weren't filled with this kind of flowery speech at the beginning.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_01]: He had letters where it's like, yo, Corinthians, you and I, we got beef together.

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's settle this.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_01]: This is my translation.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_01]: But that's really how those letters begin.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_01]: He's got things to correct.

[00:21:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Here, he doesn't even call himself an apostle.

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_01]: He just says, I'm a servant like you.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, I'm serving along with Timothy, he says.

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Paul and Timothy is the opening line.

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't mean that Timothy wrote the letter.

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_01]: It meant that they knew Timothy.

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_01]: He was there when the church started.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And that Timothy was going to come and visit them.

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So Paul is preparing the ground.

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_01]: But he's reminding them of Timothy, their fellow servant.

[00:21:57] [SPEAKER_01]: He says, you know, us, me, Timothy, we're serving.

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_01]: We're servants.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_01]: We're slaves of Jesus.

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Right along with you, church in Philippi.

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Your overseers, he says.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Those are pastors, elders, bishops.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And your deacons.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_01]: The people serving in the church.

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Overseers or pastors are spiritual people taking care of the spiritual matters of the church.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Deacons are spiritual people, too, taking care of the practical, everyday affairs of the church.

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like Paul is looking out at this church and he's saying, I feel like I am a co-laborer, a partner with all the pastors in the church in Philippi, all the life group leaders in the church in Philippi, all the janitors in the church in Philippi, all the treasurers in the church in Philippi.

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I am partnering together with you and you are partnering together with me.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_01]: This service or serving mentality is of utmost importance in the body of Christ.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Paul looked at these people and he said, thank you.

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for that partnership.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Makes me remember a story back in the book of Exodus where the people of Israel, they came out of the slavery in Egypt and they were out wandering in the wilderness.

[00:23:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Just the early days.

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_01]: They had no real military to speak of, no military power to defend themselves.

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And the Bible says you patch it all together, some Psalms and some of the book of Exodus, you patch it together.

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And what happened was the Amalekite people seeing this wandering group of Israelites decided to attack them by going after the weak and the vulnerable who were at the back of the crowd, the back of the pack.

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And then as they attacked, Moses gave permission to Joshua, who we talked about last Sunday, to go out and defend the people of Israel.

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Moses went up to a mountaintop where he could see the battle ensuing in the valley down below and he began to, it seems, pray.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_01]: We think that because he held the rod of God, the staff of God in his hands high up over his head, sort of symbolic of prayer.

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_01]: God, I'm crying out to you.

[00:24:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm asking you to defend the people down below.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And as long as his hands were held above his head, the rod of God held above his head, the people below were winning in the battle.

[00:24:31] [SPEAKER_01]: But when his hands tired and dropped, they began to lose.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And so Aaron, Moses' brother, and another guy named Hur, they come alongside Moses and they hold up his arms so that he can perpetually keep the rod of God in the air.

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And therefore, they win the victory down below.

[00:24:49] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like Paul is saying to the Philippian church, I'm tired.

[00:24:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm in prison for preaching the gospel.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_01]: This has not always been easy.

[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_01]: There has been pain attached.

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_01]: But I am so thankful for those of you who have held up my arms in the work of the Lord.

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_01]: That partnership in the gospel was beautiful to Paul.

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's beautiful in our day as well.

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Healthy churches, advancing gospel communities know how to serve together.

[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, I think that this message from Paul was very important for the specific church in Philippi for a specific reason.

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll get into this a little bit more next week.

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_01]: But the city of Philippi was a Roman colony.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_01]: You've probably heard that before.

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_01]: What that means is that when you walked into the city of Philippi and stood on Philippian ground, it was as if you were standing on Roman soil.

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_01]: It was called the Italic Rite.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And they would have been very proud as a city for being far away from Rome but being an outpost of Rome, a miniature Rome far away from the mother city.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_01]: But what you might not have heard before, maybe you have, is that the way that they populated this city was by taking lots of Roman officers who had previously served in the Roman military and in their retirement years,

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_01]: gifting them with land rights in that region so that great representation of Rome could live there far from home there in the place of Philippi.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So now, generationally, you've got all these people who are like, yeah, my grandpa was in the Roman military.

[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Or I served in the Roman military.

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_01]: The jailer that Pastor Matt talked about a couple weeks ago in Acts 16 that got saved probably came out of the Roman military.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_01]: These were his retirement years.

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_01]: These were people connected to Rome, proud of Rome, and part of that system.

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's like Paul is saying, hey, I want to let you guys in on something.

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I got a new mission, a new war, a new objective, a new army for you to be part of.

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_01]: The advancing ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So he's thankful to them for their service.

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And a healthy church will be a serving church.

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Paul said it in Romans 12, verse 1.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Holy and pleasing to God.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_01]: This is your true and proper worship.

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_01]: I love that.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Offer your bodies.

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_01]: If it were to say, offer your spirit, we could probably like do something and no change or transformation would happen.

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_01]: But we're like, I have offered my spirit to the Lord.

[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_01]: We could say, I've offered my soul to the Lord.

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm really like feeling like serving.

[00:27:51] [SPEAKER_01]: But here he says, offer your bodies.

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_01]: The body puts you somewhere.

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_01]: It causes heaven to touch earth a little bit because it's tangible.

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_01]: He says, I encourage you to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to the Lord.

[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_01]: This is your true and proper worship.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, but let's keep moving forward and look at verse 6 and 7 of this first chapter where I think we also learned that an advancing gospel community, they partner together by making progress together.

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Look at verse 6.

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_01]: This is a progress verse.

[00:28:27] [SPEAKER_01]: He says, 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.

[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It's right for me to feel this way about you all because I hold you in my heart.

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_01]: For you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Notice how confident Paul was about the future of these Philippians.

[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_01]: He says, I am sure that the one that began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.

[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Bring it to completion in the day of Christ.

[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, it's very possible that when Paul says this, he's alluding to some theological principle whereby the living God, when he grabs a hold of your life, man, what he begins, he will complete.

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_01]: But I think Paul is actually coming at this from a more practical position and less of a theological position at this point.

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_01]: I think what he's doing is he's saying, I'm not worried about you.

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_01]: There are other churches I'm worried about.

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_01]: There are other pockets of Christianity I'm worried about.

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_01]: But when I look at the Philippian church, Paul says, I see the way that you began.

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_01]: It reminds me of the way that I began, Paul would say.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I was on the road to Damascus.

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to persecute the Christian church.

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to throw Christians into prison, even sentence them to death.

[00:30:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I had letters in my hand allowing me to do so.

[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And on my road, traveling to Damascus, a bright light knocked me to the ground.

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I heard the sound of God's voice, Jesus' voice saying, why are you persecuting me?

[00:30:22] [SPEAKER_01]: It's hard for you to kick against the goads.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And I said, who are you, Lord?

[00:30:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And he said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

[00:30:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And in that moment, I knew that as I persecuted Jesus' people, it was as if I was persecuting Jesus himself.

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And I surrendered my life to Christ.

[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_01]: The scales fell from my eyes.

[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And I committed my life to serving hard, following hard after my Lord.

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I think Paul is saying to the Philippian church, I see a glimmer of the same thing in you.

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I see how you began.

[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I see the start that you got.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And I am confident.

[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.

[00:31:08] [SPEAKER_01]: But listen, that progress, that continuing to chip away and be conformed more and more as the years go by into the image of Christ,

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_01]: it is an all-important goal and desire for the gospel-saturated, spirit-filled believer.

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Listen, I want to talk to some of you this morning who are in the season of your life

[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_01]: that is some of the most successful, busy, and frenetic years of your life.

[00:31:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Some of you, you're here today, and you've got more life behind you than ahead of you.

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_01]: You know that if you're just being honest.

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_01]: You're doing the math, and you're like, okay, there's more behind than ahead.

[00:31:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And some of you, Lord willing, if you live an average lifespan and the Lord tarries,

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_01]: you've got way more life ahead of you than behind you.

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_01]: But some of you guys are in the mid-stage of life.

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Perhaps some of you are very successful.

[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_01]: God has blessed you.

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Your career is popping.

[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Your family is doing well.

[00:32:10] [SPEAKER_01]: You can finally get yourself some of those toys you wanted when you were in your 20s or whatever.

[00:32:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And what I want to encourage you in is don't lose track of the goal.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't stop growing.

[00:32:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't stop pursuing Jesus.

[00:32:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Keep on pressing in hard after him.

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_01]: The book of Hebrews says it to us like this.

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_01]: It says we must listen very carefully to the truth we have learned,

[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_01]: or we may drift away from it.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Drift is a real problem.

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_01]: We must do everything in our power to resist its decaying impact.

[00:32:46] [SPEAKER_01]: But Paul goes on to say, look, if we're going to make progress together,

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_01]: there's going to be a little bit of suffering as well.

[00:32:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Notice how he said it there in verse 7.

[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, I hold you in my heart.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_01]: You're partakers of me with God's grace.

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_01]: In my imprisonment and in the defense of the gospel.

[00:33:07] [SPEAKER_01]: In other words, for Paul, it's like he looked at these Philippians and he says,

[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_01]: you're right here with me.

[00:33:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm in prison.

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like you're in prison with me.

[00:33:16] [SPEAKER_01]: We are suffering together for the cause of the gospel.

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And as believers, we need to have a better theology of suffering than the world around us.

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_01]: The world around us is always trying to avoid suffering.

[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_01]: But as a gospel community, we must recognize that in order to do our job,

[00:33:34] [SPEAKER_01]: there will be times that we have to suffer.

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_01]: This last Saturday, let me take a sip of water here.

[00:33:43] [SPEAKER_01]: This last Saturday, I was up in the Bay Area just for the day.

[00:33:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was visiting Christina's oldest brother.

[00:33:52] [SPEAKER_01]: He's got a little boy, little three-year-old guy named Joshua.

[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And he was turning three years old.

[00:33:57] [SPEAKER_01]: It was his birthday party.

[00:33:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And Christina was out of town.

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was the family representative to go and celebrate his birthday.

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And I got up there and I noticed that he was wearing a watch.

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Three-year-olds aren't that great with time.

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like a real trippy concept for them.

[00:34:17] [SPEAKER_01]: But someone apparently had given him a watch.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_01]: It was a Lightning McQueen watch for his birthday.

[00:34:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And he was really stoked about it, you know, just flashing this watch.

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't even a digital watch.

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_01]: It was an analog watch, you know, with hands, you know.

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_01]: So I started this, like, running joke with him throughout the day where I would ask him,

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_01]: like, hey, yo, Joshua, what time is it?

[00:34:40] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and he'd, like, kind of look at his watch.

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And then he just would, like, change the subject, you know,

[00:34:45] [SPEAKER_01]: because he didn't know what to say.

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And so we're, like, doing this.

[00:34:48] [SPEAKER_01]: This becomes a little joke, all of us, saying, Joshua, what time is it?

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and he'd look at his watch and look at Lightning McQueen.

[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, what are these people asking me?

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So finally we get to this point in the party where we've eaten lunch and all of that.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And the whole time we're doing this, there's this big triple-decker thing of cupcakes

[00:35:07] [SPEAKER_01]: sitting over there in the corner.

[00:35:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And so he starts asking his mom.

[00:35:10] [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, Mom, I want a cupcake.

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And she's like, well, that's going to be for after your nap.

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_01]: That's a little bit later after presents.

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And he just, he's super insistent.

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I want a cupcake.

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_01]: She's like, okay, well, if you skip your nap and you have a cupcake,

[00:35:25] [SPEAKER_01]: you're going to have to go to bed early tonight.

[00:35:27] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, he's like, he can't compute.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, I just want a cupcake.

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So he just keeps being on the cupcake thing.

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_01]: We distract him for a while.

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_01]: We're all sitting there.

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And then someone cracks the joke again.

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, Joshua, what time is it?

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And he looks at his watch and no joke.

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_01]: He just looks at it for a long, old time.

[00:35:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And then he looks up at us and he goes, cupcake time.

[00:35:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, no joke.

[00:35:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, this kid's smart.

[00:35:51] [SPEAKER_01]: That's nice.

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Look, funny little story to say this.

[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I think for a lot of believers, we come to scripture.

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_01]: We come to church life.

[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_01]: We come to our walk with God.

[00:36:07] [SPEAKER_01]: We just want it to be cupcake time all the time.

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_01]: But it's not.

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_01]: We live in a hurting world, a broken world.

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_01]: We're not going to be immune from suffering.

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_01]: How could we worship a suffering savior

[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_01]: who came to save a suffering world

[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_01]: and expect not to suffer ourselves?

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_01]: How could we embrace a prosperity gospel and doctrine?

[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_01]: How could we think that our lives will always be peaceful?

[00:36:31] [SPEAKER_01]: How could we think that when we worship who we worship?

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And how could we think that when the one that we worship

[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_01]: tells us to go into all the world and make disciples?

[00:36:39] [SPEAKER_01]: There's like embedded in that commission,

[00:36:40] [SPEAKER_01]: the concept of there will be some pain involved

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_01]: in that process.

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not just going to be trials that come into your life.

[00:36:46] [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be pain that you choose to embrace

[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_01]: in order to be the gospel advancing community

[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_01]: that you're called to be.

[00:36:55] [SPEAKER_01]: All right, so Paul looks at this church and he's like,

[00:36:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I am thankful that we have served together.

[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm thankful that we are advancing together.

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_01]: But let's wrap it up today by thinking of one last little thing

[00:37:06] [SPEAKER_01]: in verse eight through 11.

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a church that grows together.

[00:37:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Look at what he says in verse eight.

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_01]: This is actually Paul's prayer.

[00:37:13] [SPEAKER_01]: He says,

[00:37:15] [SPEAKER_01]: For God is my witness.

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_01]: How I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more

[00:37:27] [SPEAKER_01]: with knowledge and all discernment so that you may approve

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_01]: what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.

[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_01]: This is amazing.

[00:37:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_01]: If someone you love tells you that they're praying for you

[00:37:53] [SPEAKER_01]: and then tells you what they're praying for you about,

[00:37:56] [SPEAKER_01]: you'll probably be listening.

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_01]: But when that someone is someone like Paul the apostle,

[00:38:03] [SPEAKER_01]: someone so close to the heart of God,

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_01]: someone who is so accurately transmitting the heart of God,

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_01]: and he says,

[00:38:13] [SPEAKER_01]: This is how I'm praying for you.

[00:38:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Man, it should really cause you to pay attention.

[00:38:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And Paul says,

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Look, I love you, Philippian church.

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I feel the affection of Jesus toward you.

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_01]: That word affection is a word that literally,

[00:38:30] [SPEAKER_01]: it's like kind of uncomfortable to talk about what it literally means

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_01]: because it means like a stirring of the bowels.

[00:38:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Like in my guts,

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I feel something for you, Philippian church.

[00:38:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm in prison.

[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I am suffering.

[00:38:43] [SPEAKER_01]: But that is not what I want to write to you about.

[00:38:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I love you.

[00:38:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm thinking about you.

[00:38:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And his prayer for them was real simple.

[00:38:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I want you to increase in three ways.

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_01]: He says,

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I want you to increase in love.

[00:38:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Let it abound more and more.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I want your hearts to expand in love,

[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_01]: not just for Jesus,

[00:39:06] [SPEAKER_01]: not just for me, Paul would say,

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_01]: but for the community in which you live,

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_01]: both the church and the world in which that church is embedded.

[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I want you to reciprocate my love for you,

[00:39:19] [SPEAKER_01]: but I want you to extend that love of Christ throughout the world.

[00:39:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, I've said that there weren't problems in the Philippian church,

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_01]: but if there was any problems,

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_01]: it was just the beginnings of disunity.

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_01]: At the end of the letter in chapter four,

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Paul will call out two women by name

[00:39:39] [SPEAKER_01]: who apparently were publicly arguing or fighting together.

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_01]: It was just the beginnings of disunity,

[00:39:46] [SPEAKER_01]: but Paul saw it as deterring them from their mission.

[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So he says,

[00:39:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I want you to increase in love.

[00:39:54] [SPEAKER_01]: As Paul said in Colossians chapter three,

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_01]: verse 12 to 14,

[00:39:58] [SPEAKER_01]: we can put on a lot of things,

[00:40:00] [SPEAKER_01]: tenderhearted mercy and kindness and humility

[00:40:02] [SPEAKER_01]: and gentleness and patience.

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_01]: We can make allowance for others' faults.

[00:40:06] [SPEAKER_01]: We can forgive anyone who offends us.

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_01]: But above all, he said,

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_01]: clothe yourselves with love,

[00:40:14] [SPEAKER_01]: which binds us all together in perfect harmony.

[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, one passage in the Bible

[00:40:20] [SPEAKER_01]: that I think depicts love so beautifully

[00:40:22] [SPEAKER_01]: is the book of Ruth.

[00:40:24] [SPEAKER_01]: You have in Ruth a young woman

[00:40:26] [SPEAKER_01]: who was so loyal to her mother-in-law, Naomi,

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_01]: that she would go wherever Naomi went.

[00:40:35] [SPEAKER_01]: In the Bible, love is often loyalty.

[00:40:40] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just a commitment.

[00:40:41] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I am here for you.

[00:40:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I am down for you.

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I am in support of you.

[00:40:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And Paul is saying,

[00:40:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I want that to increase in that church.

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_01]: But secondly, not only to increase in love,

[00:40:57] [SPEAKER_01]: but he says in verse nine,

[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_01]: in knowledge and discernment.

[00:41:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I want, it's like Paul is saying,

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm praying for you to become more loving.

[00:41:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm also praying for you to become smarter.

[00:41:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm praying for you to become wiser.

[00:41:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm praying for you to become more knowledgeable.

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I want you to grow in your understanding of God's word.

[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I want you to grow in your understanding

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_01]: of what the wise path of life is all about.

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_01]: But not only that,

[00:41:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Paul wanted them to grow in moral excellence.

[00:41:30] [SPEAKER_01]: He says, I want you to grow in love.

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I want you to grow in wisdom and discernment,

[00:41:34] [SPEAKER_01]: but I want you to grow to be able to approve,

[00:41:37] [SPEAKER_01]: he says in verse 10,

[00:41:39] [SPEAKER_01]: what is excellent

[00:41:42] [SPEAKER_01]: because understanding what is of moral goodness

[00:41:45] [SPEAKER_01]: and what isn't helps you live a pure and blameless life,

[00:41:51] [SPEAKER_01]: which brings glory to God when Christ returns,

[00:41:54] [SPEAKER_01]: but also creates higher interest in the gospel today.

[00:42:00] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like Paul understood.

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_01]: If the Philippian church is not morally excellent,

[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_01]: but is morally un-excellent,

[00:42:08] [SPEAKER_01]: the people in Philippi will not be as ready

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_01]: to hear the message that they are proclaiming.

[00:42:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, I'm one of the first people to tell you

[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_01]: that I hate it.

[00:42:21] [SPEAKER_01]: When someone takes the Bible

[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_01]: and turns it into a moral code book,

[00:42:27] [SPEAKER_01]: when someone takes the story of what God is doing

[00:42:30] [SPEAKER_01]: and turns it into, hey, what's the Bible about?

[00:42:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, the Bible is about how to live a good life.

[00:42:37] [SPEAKER_01]: The Bible is about how to obey God.

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_01]: That's not what the Bible is about.

[00:42:42] [SPEAKER_01]: The Bible is about God's mission to save us,

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_01]: but if you got the gospel intact in your heart,

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_01]: you can go to the Bible to find out

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_01]: what is morally good and pure and holy and right and true.

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_01]: You can go to it to find out how should I live my life?

[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_01]: How would my father ask me to live?

[00:43:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And some of you here in this room,

[00:43:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I guarantee you,

[00:43:08] [SPEAKER_01]: you are having a struggle in your everyday,

[00:43:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Monday through Saturday life,

[00:43:14] [SPEAKER_01]: thinking about what would happen to you

[00:43:17] [SPEAKER_01]: if you truly followed Jesus

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_01]: in a particular area of your life.

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_01]: You're thinking about how that moral excellence

[00:43:26] [SPEAKER_01]: would set you apart in some kind of way.

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_01]: You're worried that you would be disadvantaged as a result.

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And for that, I wanna prescribe to you

[00:43:35] [SPEAKER_01]: the story of Daniel and his friends in Daniel chapter one.

[00:43:38] [SPEAKER_01]: They were carted off to a different culture

[00:43:41] [SPEAKER_01]: and climate and spirituality in Babylon.

[00:43:44] [SPEAKER_01]: They were told to eat and drink things

[00:43:46] [SPEAKER_01]: that they should not eat and drink as Jewish believers

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_01]: who were adhering to the Old Testament scriptures.

[00:43:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And so they said,

[00:43:53] [SPEAKER_01]: no, we're not going to partake of those things.

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And they were tested for a period of time.

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And at the end of that period of time,

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_01]: they were found to be both healthier

[00:44:05] [SPEAKER_01]: and wiser than their contemporaries.

[00:44:09] [SPEAKER_01]: In other words, it's like the living God

[00:44:11] [SPEAKER_01]: got behind them in their commitment

[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_01]: to live lives that were holy and set apart for him.

[00:44:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And I believe that God will do the same for you

[00:44:22] [SPEAKER_01]: if you're in a situation

[00:44:24] [SPEAKER_01]: where it will cost you a little bit

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_01]: to live a life of moral goodness and integrity.

[00:44:32] [SPEAKER_01]: But it's easy to see why Paul is praying this way.

[00:44:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Why did Paul want them to be more loving,

[00:44:37] [SPEAKER_01]: more wise,

[00:44:39] [SPEAKER_01]: and to be more morally excellent?

[00:44:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, without love,

[00:44:44] [SPEAKER_01]: why would they preach the gospel

[00:44:46] [SPEAKER_01]: to the community that they lived in?

[00:44:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Without a increase in knowledge,

[00:44:54] [SPEAKER_01]: how would they know how to interact

[00:44:58] [SPEAKER_01]: with the community that they lived in?

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And without moral goodness,

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_01]: why would anyone be interested

[00:45:06] [SPEAKER_01]: in their manner of life?

[00:45:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Not to mention,

[00:45:09] [SPEAKER_01]: the church would just become a hot mess

[00:45:12] [SPEAKER_01]: of infighting and bickering

[00:45:14] [SPEAKER_01]: and sinning against each other.

[00:45:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And the world itself would say,

[00:45:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't really want to be a part of all of that.

[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Now for us,

[00:45:22] [SPEAKER_01]: it's clear why Paul is praying

[00:45:23] [SPEAKER_01]: the way that he does.

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_01]: So in this little opening passage of Philippians,

[00:45:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Paul gives us this vivid picture

[00:45:32] [SPEAKER_01]: of how an advancing gospel community

[00:45:36] [SPEAKER_01]: is quick to partner together.

[00:45:39] [SPEAKER_01]: We serve together,

[00:45:40] [SPEAKER_01]: we advance together,

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_01]: we grow together.

[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And as we do,

[00:45:43] [SPEAKER_01]: great things happen.

[00:45:45] [SPEAKER_01]: We're used mightily by God.

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_01]: All right,

[00:45:49] [SPEAKER_01]: so that's going to be kind of the frame

[00:45:50] [SPEAKER_01]: for our study

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_01]: through the book of Philippians together.

[00:45:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And what I thought we could do now

[00:45:56] [SPEAKER_01]: is take out our communion elements,

[00:45:58] [SPEAKER_01]: the bread and the cup.

[00:46:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot of different ways

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_01]: to take communion

[00:46:04] [SPEAKER_01]: or think about communion,

[00:46:06] [SPEAKER_01]: but one of them is

[00:46:07] [SPEAKER_01]: a moment of consecration.

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Right?

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_01]: God,

[00:46:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm giving myself to you afresh.

[00:46:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think if we're saying

[00:46:16] [SPEAKER_01]: we want to be this gospel advancing community,

[00:46:18] [SPEAKER_01]: we need to each individually say,

[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_01]: God,

[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to be set apart

[00:46:23] [SPEAKER_01]: for that purpose.

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening.

[00:46:29] [SPEAKER_00]: If you would like more teachings

[00:46:30] [SPEAKER_00]: and information about Calvary Monterey,

[00:46:32] [SPEAKER_00]: please visit calvary.com.

[00:46:34] [SPEAKER_00]: You can also find books,

[00:46:36] [SPEAKER_00]: teachings through the Bible,

[00:46:37] [SPEAKER_00]: and articles from our lead pastor

[00:46:40] [SPEAKER_00]: at nateholdridge.com.

[00:46:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks again for tuning in.

[00:46:43] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll see you next week.