Good morning. A reading today comes from Philippians, chapter 2, verses 1 through 11, imitating Christ's humility. Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in Spirit and of one mind, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility, value others above yourself, not looking to your own interest, but each of you to the interests of others. In your relationships with one another have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage, rather He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, being found in appearance as a man.
He humbled Himself, became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that is the name of Jesus. At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father, the Word of God, for the people of God.
This weekend, I know what you guys did, but I spent Saturday, Friday night in Saturday in Shreveport with our daughter, Sean and I were both there. And a few months ago, our daughter bought a house, and so when we go to Shreveport, it's not, hey, we're gonna go hang out and have fun, it's, hey, we're coming to work. And so she has her projects and Sean and her, they're like extreme home makeover, you know, I just show up, and I like to mow the grass and do those kinds of things, and then they tell me to do other things, and I do other things. And it's kind of coming together, we flip a lot of it, and it looks a lot better, so, but I always try to find an excuse too, to go to Home Depot or something, you know, because I feel like that gets me a little bit away.
And so we woke up Saturday, we went running, and then we came back and I started mowing the grass, which that's the other thing that's always funny is, the yard is never cut when I get there, even though Emory has full access to the mower, it's never cut. But when I get there, we cut it. And so I was mowing the grass, got all that stuff done, and then Sean and Emory were inside, and they were getting busy doing stuff. And so I was like, hey, I gotta go to Home Depot, I was gonna buy Emory a weed eater, with hopes that maybe she'll actually use that too.
So anyway, so I'm going to Home Depot, and where Emory lives, if you leave her street and you turn right, and just you can even see it when you turn right, there's a really good bakery down there, and there's this place called Docs Sandwich Shop, it's really good, and so it was 11 or so, and I knew we had just eaten late, they'd actually walked to the bakery and already gotten something, so I wasn't gonna go get myself lunch, but I thought man, Docs has really good lemonade. You know, as I was driving down the road, I'm thinking I'm gonna turn right, I'm just gonna go to Docs. And by the time I got the intersection, I was like, no, no, no, go to Home Depot, get the weed eater, get back, we got stuff to do. And so I made the wise decision and I went left.
And as soon as I turn left, I'm looking down to the next place I gotta turn, and on the corner, out of just nowhere comes this lawn mower, like zero turn, you know thing, and it's in a yard, and I see it like do a wheelie, like up like that. And at first I think, was that lawn mower, is that some kid on a four-wheeler goofing off, you know, I mean I'm still kind of far away, and then the lawn mower goes back down, and then it jumps the curb, and it throws the rider off. And if you have a zero turn that you've purchased recently, you know what happens to that instance, the mower shuts off. Well this one did not shut off, and so I'm watching it, and it spins, and it starts to go over her leg.
And so I'm driving, and I just, I throw the truck in the park and hit the hazard button, and I'm just sprinting down the road, and as fast as I can go to get there to this lady, I mean I'd pay attention to anything else, I kind of look to see before I got out of the truck, I get there, and she's screaming, and the mower, it looks like it was gonna go away from her, but then it swung back around, and so it's, her leg is under the mower, and it's still doing this, and so I get on there, and I turn it off as quick as I can, and then get her pulled out, you know. And I'm not gonna tell you what her leg looked like, but let me just tell you, you don't wanna know. And so I pull her out, she's going nuts, and then no one else is there, except this kid who was running along the sidewalk, and she saw it all happen too, and then somebody else that was driving, I think they stopped, people started to gather. And you know, long story short, you know, that some other guys came around the corner, and the lady couldn't speak English, and then the other guy that she was working with came, and he could speak English, because they were just Spanish, Spanish, Spanish, and I'm sitting there going, what are we gonna do?
Do they want me to call 911, I don't even know, so I finally get the whole other guy's like, hey, English, and he's like, yes, yes, and I said, you want me to call, he was like, 911, you know. And so we do that, and they get there, and she gets on the ambulance and all that good stuff. But I tell you that story, because in that moment, there was a sense of urgency, like something's gotta be done. Like at that moment, it, you know, I definitely wasn't thinking about eliminating more, I'd forgotten about Home Depot, I mean, and as I was driving later in the day, I was trying to get back all the details, and I couldn't even, things were popping in my head that I'd forgotten or whatever, everything happened so fast in that moment.
But it was just, there was a sense of urgency. And everybody would agree in moments of panic, in moments of gosh, this has gotta be done, you know, we have a sense of urgency. But in other times, you know, we'd like to remember the commandment, you know, rest, you know, God, God, you know, created the world six days, but there's the rest, you know, and we gotta take care of ourselves and all these kinds of things. But then all of a sudden, we can get urgent when we're kind of in a panic and things are thrown in a crazy spot.
So the passage that we read this morning, Paul is pleading with these people in Philippi, the church that's there, the group that he's spoken to, and he's saying, if you believe any of this stuff, I want you to have a sense of urgency. If you get anything from this Jesus talk, then jump in and let's move together as the church. If any of this excites you, if you understand any of this at all, and odds are the group that he was talking to might not have been much bigger than this when he left Philippi, could have been smaller. And he wrote this letter back to them while he's in jail.
And he says, if you believe any of this, then go all in, let's move forward, because we've got work to do the kingdom is coming. I mean, Paul was convinced that Jesus was gonna return in ushering in his kingdom and his lifetime, all the early disciples were. And not only that, they were so convinced of it that they would endure persecution. Paul's in jail, many people were killed, they were tortured because they had a sense of urgency.
They were all in in that moment, nothing else mattered. We gotta go, if you believe any of it, if you believe any of it. But you know, we're 2000 years later, we're kind of like, yeah, it sounds good. And we come to church and we do our thing, and we've got lost the sense of urgency.
But I can tell you the lawnmower is still coming for people. All right? Chaos is out there, and we have to do something. As the church, we have to act.
We have to really be the church. It's incredible what he writes to them. I mean, he does, I mean, obviously, he's Paul, he does a good job writing the Bible, right? You know, we don't need to meet him, pump him up.
But it's pretty powerful for all the things that he says, if you have any comfort from Christ's love, any common sharing in the spirit, any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love being one in spirit and of one mind. And listen to this stuff. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interest, but each of you to the interest of others. And your relationships with one another have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.
Just put that above your mirror in the morning, and your relationships with one another have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. Paul didn't say, hey, you know, go to church, you know, if it's two Sundays, try to get like, you know, 75% of them, you know, make sure you're there Christmas and Easter, you know, do that kind of stuff, sing the songs. So he didn't say any of that. He said, in the way you treat one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.
And we know the mindset that Jesus has, the mindset that took him there. And your Bible might say attitude, it might say in your behavior or whatever, be like Jesus, but that's what we're talking about. And then Paul goes on in a little bit, and he talks about this nature of a servant, and this old poem, but before we get there, you gotta think about this one thing. He's urgently pleading with the Philippians.
And what he's saying is, is that look to the cross, look to Jesus the Messiah, the one we're just saying about Lord of all, look to him for how you're gonna go next. And all of your dealings look to him in everything. And he says, well, he says later, not in Philippians, but he talks about the cross, it's either the power of God or it's foolishness. And if you think about that, that is the basic thing.
Either that is completely stupid, or it's the power of God. It's not a decoration, it's not a nice charm for your necklace or your bracelet. I love talking to baseball players because you know, 50% of them all wear across their neck and they don't think about it, most of them. It's not jewelry, it's one of two things.
It's foolishness because they kill people on it, and your Messiah was killed on it, or it's the power of God, because it opens the door to us seeing God for who he really is, and us experiencing the redemption that he offers. It's one of two things, and Paul's urging them to see it that way, that it is the power of God. And you might read in those first few verses, because it talks about being one, and coming together, and your Bible might say something about being united in Christ, and having unity, but understand this though, he's not just calling them to be one. He's not just saying let's have unity, because lots of people are unified.
Even thieves, there's unity among thieves. The Nazis were unified in their approach. They knew what they were doing. They had it down to a science of how they would kill people.
He's not just talking about unity, he's talking about unity in the spirit of Jesus, and having that same mindset. I was reading some stuff about this, and this is kind of what I got from it, says he wants them to think together, but it must be in line with the gospel. Not mere tradition or political correctness, or that's what other churches do, or that's how I grew up in church, or that's how I like church to be. No, he says they are to perform the extraordinary feat of looking at one another with the assumption that everybody else and their needs are more important than they themselves are.
He wants them to fix their eyes on the facts that Jesus is Messiah, Lord of all. So if he's Messiah, if this is really the power of God, then this means something in my life as I go about day to day. This puts me in a different perspective. I think about things differently, family, work, my money, my time, church, think about it differently.
It's not just an hour on Sundays, right? It can't be. That's definitely not what Paul was hoping that the church would become. And it's funny, right now at Foundry, I feel like there's an opportunity to actually be the church instead of just going to church, right?
But it won't come easy, and it won't even happen actually, unless we have the mindset of Christ. And that's the mindset of Christ. Looking to the needs of others, and not thinking about just what I want, just how I think it should be. But what is the church?
Foundry has the opportunity to be the church and not just be a place where people go to church. And you've got to understand that. That has to happen. So then we get into this poem.
So verses six through 11, if you're looking at it in your Bible, if you all ordered those little journals off Amazon, you can write out beside it in there, that this is an ancient Christian poem. It might have even been a hymn. They might have sung it. This is older than the creeds.
Like that creed we read was like from the 300s. This is like from Peter and then we're still walking around the time, all right? This is really old. And so I don't know how it would be sung.
Obviously it wasn't written, it wasn't sung in English. But this is just this whole big picture of who Jesus is. I'm going to read it again. Who being in very nature God, he did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, or something to be grasped.
That may be what it says in your translation. But rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearances a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. So God dies, pretty crazy. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee she bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
One of the things that people have talked about about this statement for a long, long time is that at some point, everybody has to accept that fact. If what we're saying is true, then every human being on the planet ever has to accept this fact. The sooner you accept it, it doesn't mean the sooner you get out of the fear of hell, what it means is, the sooner you accept it and it becomes your reality, then the sooner the kingdom of God starts popping up all over the place because we are living like that. The sooner we accept this, the better, not just for our souls, not just so we don't burn.
No, the sooner we accept this, the sooner the world can see who Jesus is because they're gonna see him in us. So the sooner we accept this, the sooner the kingdom does come. That prayer we pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That happens because people believe this.
They don't just say it, they don't just think it, they live it and that's what he's urging the Philippians to do. Believe this, receive this, take it in and become like him in all things. Don't hold anything back. So if I say Alexander the Great, you know who that is, big, great guy, conquered a lot of the world, did some really cool stuff.
He died at 33, interestingly enough, so did Jesus. Alexander the Great, that's titled after his name. Everyone in history books acknowledges that Alexander was great. When you open up your history books, you don't know what he says about Jesus.
And I talk about him being the Jewish Messiah, I talk about him being a great moral teacher, whatever. No one says Jesus the Great. That's not written out there. The emperor at the time of Paul was Augustus, Roman emperor.
So Alexander the Great, now Rome is the power, and at the time of this writing, it was Augustus. The people that were contemporaries of them viewed them basically as gods because they had power and they brought peace and stability to the world. Now it's interestingly enough, you know, how they brought peace and stability to the world, they was mostly through the sword, which is not exactly the way of Jesus. But people looked at them as if they were great.
Like that's what leadership looks like. I don't know if the show is going to be any good, but there's a thing out there on YouTube right now called the Promised Land series. It's about the Israelites. It's after they leave Egypt, and it's kind of like the office or Parks and Rec.
It's like supposed to be funny. And so Moses is, it's like showing Moses as the leader of the people, and they do all those camera outtakes where they show a scene and they'll put the camera on somebody and they'll kind of talk out of context for just a minute, not out of character, but you know what I'm saying, like the office or whatever if you've seen that. So at the end of the first episode, Moses has this really funny thing that he says, he's like, he's talking about having to get the people work together, which is a pretty monumental task. Remember, they're in the wilderness for 40 years.
There's like 40,000 of them, and Moses is in charge. And it's not like they have some real efficient system of getting things done, so they have to work through all that stuff. But Moses goes, he says, you know, two hands can make a tent, but many hands can build a pyramid. And he goes, not really the best leadership example, because it's like, that's a direct quote from Pharaoh, just who they just came from, right?
But there he goes, but you have to admit, he did get things done, you know, sorry. So like there's greatness in the way of the world. You can get things done with the sword. You can get things done with gold.
But God didn't do either of those. He got things done in a completely different way. And one of the things that they teach in seminary is that Christ is counter-cultural, Christ against culture. Like he goes against the way of the world.
And so Paul is really trying to zero in on that right here. He's like, when they say at the name of Jesus, every knee she'll bow, he's quoting some Old Testament stuff about God talking about himself or whatever. But he's also using a phrase that kind of like, and you can probably remember this like in your stories in the book of Daniel, I was like, hey, when the trumpets blow, you got to bow down before Nebuchadnezzar, you got to praise him or whatever. You got to worship a statue of gold is God.
And really at the name of Caesar, you know, you had to stop, you had to bow, you had to step out of the way, you had to throw flowers down, you had to prostrate yourself, Caesar was it. And so when Paul writes at the name of Jesus, oh wait a second, he's comparing him to Caesar. And the world would say, well, what has Jesus done? He died.
Look at what Caesar's done. But that's because the world is short-sighted. And sometimes we are short-sighted, because we think about how to get things done quickly. And we might not think about the way that God wants to do them.
Paul writes that Jesus poured himself out on the cross, that he emptied himself, emptied himself. Like Jesus flips the culture, right? He's counter-culture, like I said. So in the Gospel of Luke 22, 26, he says that he's talking to his disciples, he says, but among you it will be different.
The greatest among you must become a servant. The greatest among you will take on the nature of a servant. But among you it will be different. It's a flip.
You empty yourself in the kingdom of God. And we do that because that's what Jesus did. He emptied himself. And the thing that I read about emptiness like that for Jesus, emptied being emptied is not a decision for Jesus to stop being divine.
It was a decision about what it really means to actually be divine. Like it's the right way to be great. You empty yourself. The world stacks it up differently.
But for Jesus, emptying himself. You know, with great leaders of the world, typically they rise on power and they accolades and all these things. Jesus did the opposite. He poured himself out.
And Paul began to live that way. He poured himself out. And maybe you can think of it like this. Like, have you ever experienced a time where you really poured yourself out?
Like you've actually really served. You've given everything. And where no one is gonna write a story about it. No one posted it, nothing.
You've poured yourself out. And then as you sit back at the end of the day, you go, wow, that was actually good. Like I see the good. They come from that.
It comes from that. I'm not gonna get any recognition for it. I'm definitely not gonna get a bonus. But I understand a little bit more about what it is like to live in the footsteps of Jesus.
Because I've poured myself out. Sometimes when people go on mission trips, they have that kind of experience. When you pour yourself out, you see God more clearly. Lots of times our lives were all muddled and stuff.
And we have all these agendas and schedules and things we're trying to get done. When you empty yourself. When you really empty the tank. You have a different sensation.
Like if you go for a long, long run, when you get done, people talk about the runner's high. You know, how's just this feeling of, I just gave my all. When you give your all to Christ, you see Him more clearly. And giving your all to Christ means giving your all to those around you.
And that's what the early church did. That's how they survived. That's also how they grew. They didn't have a fancy building.
No one walked in the door and went straight to the coffee pot. They didn't have donuts. They didn't have a family life center. They didn't have any of that stuff.
They had each other. And they had the Word of God. They had the testimony of the eyewitnesses and they launched forward with the Holy Spirit. And that was it.
That was all it took to shape the world. And sometimes we get confused about what we need just to be the church here in our world today. Jesus emptied Himself and then God exalted Him. Think about that just for a minute.
Jesus goes to the cross and then God exalts Him. People still talk about it all these years later. Something to it I think. So Paul finishes up and he says, There for my dear friends, as you've always obeyed, not only my presence, but now much more my absence.
This is after the part we read earlier. Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose. Do everything without grumbling or arguing.
Do everything without grumbling or arguing. So that you may become blameless and pure. Children of God without fault in a warft and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the Word of life.
Work out your own salvation. That doesn't mean that I do stuff so I can get saved. That means God has saved you. God has redeemed you.
Now what are you going to do about it? What does salvation mean? Yes, it means I'm saved for my sins. What does it mean for your life?
What do you do from this point forward? Work it out. And he says in fear and trembling, realizing what you've been given, the opportunity that you have. Work out your own salvation.
You know, we often, it's what comes after like, since I've been redeemed, okay, then what happens? Because of the cross, okay, what happens in my life. I once was lost. Now I'm found, we love seeing that, but then what happens?
You don't just move into the found circle. And sit around with all the other found people and go, yay, we found it. That's not what it's about. And you go out and you find the lost.
I used to joke about our name, Foundry. And I know what it means. You know, it's from this old thing with John Wesley and where he started this building. You know, one of the first buildings they used, it was an old Foundry and all this like Foundry, we make bricks and we make big stuff.
You know, we're gonna build them up up up up up up up. I always used to joke about how I once was lost, but now I'm Foundry. You know, too. I thought that was kind of a funny little thing.
Nobody liked it, they never caught on. You know, I've never seen a lot of stickers about that one. But I think it's good, you know, because what does it mean? You go from here to here.
What does it mean? What does it mean that we are Foundry? We're not a football team, we're not we are Marshall. What does it mean?
If that's what we are. You're sitting here today. What does that even mean? Sarah, Wallace, you're not here, you know?
All right, so I'll pick on you, right? If you're watching or whatever, what does it mean? That I'm up here doing this. What does it mean?
If we're Foundry, what does it mean? What does it mean? Johnny Cash in the Walk the Line movie, he's singing the song for the Recording Studio God. It's like an old gospel thing.
He's like, that's what Jesus saved me. Saved my soul from the moment in the recording. He's like, stop, stop, stop, stop. He's like, sing something that matters.
Convince me that it means something to you. Don't just sing it. Don't just tell me where you go to church. Be the church.
So Paul says, hold out the word of life. And your translation will say it differently. Some will say hold on to the word of life. Some say hold on or hold out the word of life.
But all of them say shine like stars in the universe. That's pretty big. Shine like stars in the universe. In a warped and crooked generation.
So it's not too hard to figure out what he's talking about there. It's not just sending out the bat signal and hoping something happens. Like we ourselves are to shine so other people see us. Shine like stars in the universe as you hold on to the word of life or even as you hold out the word of life for other people to see.
As you live this life that matters that means something, then people will see you shining and they will be drawn to you. And ultimately drawn to Christ. So I don't know if you're keeping up with this stuff, but. So Bishop Martin, anybody want to talk about?
Possum trot, Texas. Anybody want to talk about? No. OK.
Well, you need to get on the internet and do something useful and say whatever else you've been doing. And you need to look that up. There's this guy in this 700 people town in East Texas. His name is William Martin.
He's Bishop Martin. He's a pastor of his church. And back in the late 90s, early 2000s, they got into adopting kids out of the foster system. 22 families from their church in the town of 700 adopted 77 kids.
Not foster them, but adopted them. Brought them into their family. And you can look this guy up. And he's his country preacher as they come.
Let me tell you what he says it like it is. All right. And since that time they've done this thing, it's called the Church to Child Movement. At the theaters right now, you can go watch a movie called The Sound of Hope, the story of Possum Trot.
So you can pay your $10 or whatever it is. I know a portion of that money's going to go back to them. And you can watch their story. I haven't gone to the movies yet, but I listened to this podcast with this guy on it and got the whole story.
It's incredible what they did. This is his quote, though. I'm still one of his quotes. Sorry.
I'm still in the process of teaching, training, and showing and demonstrating the power of God in the life of people. The Bible teaches us how to do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens me. Yes, we can do it. There are hundreds of thousands of churches.
I believe that if the Church, universal, would have focused on two or three children, they would knock the system out just like that. I hope and pray for God to move the heart of people and the heart of churches and let them know that this is what the Church should have been doing all the time. 22 families adopted 77 kids. And if you listen to all the stuff he says about, where his heart is in that, you'll be convinced that this dude is totally following God.
And he will say, like, we took the ones that nobody wanted. We said, give them to us. It's all because his wife and her sister started this thing and then it snowballed. Her sister was the first person to adopt a child and it went from one to 77.
And they made the commitment. They took the classes. They did all the things they had to do. And these people aren't rich, as you can imagine, living in possum trot, town of 700.
But that's what they did because they believed this. And they thought about emptying themselves and what emptying themselves does. Because they followed the model of their Savior. That's not the only thing that God wants us to do.
But you can't argue that that's a pretty good one. So this is one author's viewpoint on it, not on that, but on our role as a church. Now he says, the church is the people of the new Exodus, out of sin and on the way home to the real Promised Land. Now think about that song, that Good Shepherd song, turning my problems into a Promised Land.
Whatever our problems are right now, clearly God can flip them. I mean, he flipped the world with that. And then this possum trot story, a lot of problems, a lot of kids with incredibly rough stories. They got turned into a Promised Land.
I promise you, if you had every 77 of those kids up here and they told the story of their life, there wouldn't be enough Kleenex in Foundry, right, for starters. But also, you would not be able to deny the power of God and what God wants to do through his people. So lastly, if you finish chapter two, Paul talks about this guy at Pafforditis. I'm not gonna go into this whole story, but he was a dude that was working with the Philippian church and with Paul and he got really sick.
He just gave himself, he emptied himself out. And this is what Paul says about him. So welcome him and the Lord with great joy and honor people like him because he almost died for the work of Christ. He risked his life.
So I don't know what that means exactly for each one of us today, but I know it means a something a little deeper than where we are right now. I'm not saying we all have to be Epafforditis, but maybe I think we all have to risk something. That's the pattern, empty ourselves before Christ. So as we've seen this last song, there's this idea of forever.
We're a part of forever right now. So let this be a time of response. What does this mean for you right now? That we're linked to this forever kingdom, this forever Messiah who has forever changed the world.
And what would it mean for you to empty yourself and to step fully into the life, into the kingdom that Christ has called you to? Amen.