Don’t Whine … Shine! Philippians 2:12-18

What this episode covers

Philippians 2:14-16 Outline with Blanks Completed Outline Scroll to 23:40 for the Sermon Philippians 2:12-18 We’re going to read three verses from Philippians chapter two. These are great instructions, not only for our kids, but for all of us. Do everything without grumbling or arguing, amen, having raised three kids, so that you might become blameless and pure children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life, and then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain. We are continuing our journey in the book of Philippians, one of my favorite books in all the Bible, called the Joy Epistle, because the word joy and rejoicing is found 14 times in the book. And just a little bit of a review. Paul’s in Rome, and he’s on trial, and he’s appealed to Caesar, and so he’s taking him to Rome, and he’s soon going to stand trial. He’s under house arrest. Able to have visitors. He’s sharing the gospel. Some of the Roman guard has come to faith in Christ. He’s also being productive. He writes four letters while he’s in prison there. They’re called the prison epistles. You have them in your Bible. Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. And so, Paul is writing a thank you note, really, to the church at Philippi, who sent a financial gift to him through one of their members by the name of Epaphroditus, and we’ll look at that more in detail next week. But this morning, we want to look at chapter 2. We’re going to look at verses 12 through 18. And this is entitled, Don’t Whine, but Shine for Jesus. So, we’re going to talk about how we can do that this morning. Here’s the main point, and it’s taken right from our text here. God wants our lives to shine like stars in the midst of a dark world. God wants your life, my life, to be different, to shine like a star in the midst of a dark world. Or as the NIV translation says in verse 15, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault. Here’s how Paul describes first century, a warped and crooked generation. Some translations say a perverse generation. And so sometimes we think that, you know, our world has drastically changed and it’s never been this bad. Paul’s describing the world in the first century, and he says it’s warped and perverse. It’s crooked. One of the reasons our world today can be described in those terms is because in our culture today, there’s no, for the most part, belief in absolute truth. We kind of live in a day like is described in the end of the book of Judges, where the last verse in the book of Judges said that every man did that which was right in their own eyes. And so, when you have no absolute standard of truth, then everything becomes relative and you have your truth and I have my truth. And that’s how we get to a warped and crooked generation. Well, Paul writing to the church at Philippi that he was the founding pastor of, he uses this imagery and he says, God wants you to shine like stars in a dark world. Now that’s an imagery that’s all through scripture. Jesus talked about it in Matthew 5:16. Let your light so shine before men that they may see what your good works, your good deeds, and glorify your father in heaven. Now we’re not saved by good works. The Bible’s very clear about that. But Ephesians 2:10, we are saved to do good works. And that’s part of the Christian life. And in Hebrews, it says one of the reasons we’re to come together is to, the King James uses the word provoke one another, but it’s not to get each other mad, it’s to provoke one another. What? To love and good deeds. It’s to encourage our kids on Wednesday night to bring some coins together in a little box. So what? So, we can make a difference all the way across the other side of the world. That’s what God saved us for.

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