So our scripture today and actually, so I was going to tell you guys this. So you're stuck with me for three out of four Sundays in July. And because of that, you're going to be talking about Philippians. And so I would encourage you to find some way to read through this book, this short short book of the Bible over the next month.
It's four chapters, a chapter a week. I'm pretty sure you can knock it out. All right? And so one of the things we do at Western Foundation all the time, when we do a Bible study, is we do these ESV scripture journals where it's like, scripture on one page blank on the next.
It's the ESV translation, so it's not like super weird or complicated. And these are dirt sheep. You can find them on Amazon. Amazon's this online thing for somebody.
Anyway, yeah. So it's like Walmart online. I guess whatever something like that. But anyway, they have everything.
But they have these. It's really, really cool. It's a good way to collect your thoughts and to also just stay engaged with the scripture. And I think it'd be good for us together this month to read this stuff together and actually dig in, dive into it.
So today we're going to do what we can in Philippians chapter one. And so this section is, so it starts with verse 12. So not starting with verse one, but we'll kind of talk about that here in a second. But we're going to read this and this is kind of the basis to me of what we're going to talk about today.
So this is Paul. We'll talk about him in a minute. But anyway, Philippians 1, 12, through 26, I think. Now I want you to know brothers and sisters that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel.
As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the mower to proclaim the gospel without fear. It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of good will. The latter do so out of love knowing that I'm put here for the defense of the gospel.
The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this, I rejoice.
Yes, and I will continue to rejoice. For I know that through your prayers and God's provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now, as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know. I'm torn between the two.
I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. So that through my being, I think we skipped something, but anyway, it does matter. I will cover it later. So that through my being with you again, your boasting Christ is well bound on account of me.
So what we skipped right there, Paul is saying that it's better, I mean he's fine if he dies for the faith, because he's better because he's with Christ. But he's willing to stay and grind it out with these people because he knows what God can do. And he knows the movement of the kingdom. He knows from his own experience and his own life how that God has used him for good.
And so he knows that God can do the same in others anyway. The word of God for the people of God, right? Thanks for the honor. Alright, so this is Paul and this is about 20 years after the resurrection of Christ.
Like sometimes we don't think about the wind and all of this stuff. It's just the Bible, it's a New Testament, somewhere in there, Jesus, whatever. I mean we don't think about it, right? If we think about it in anyway, we think, well surely it was after Jesus because that's where it is in the Bible.
You know, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, then all of Paul's letters. Well, yeah, it's after. But actually what Paul is writing and when he is writing it, it's after all the events of Jesus' life, it's after the resurrection. But as far as something actually being written down, this is one of the first ones.
It's not the first, but it's one of the early ones. Like this letter came before all four gospels. So think about that just for a minute. The people getting this, it's not like they could refer back to Matthew or they'd been waiting for the next thing to come out, like you're waiting for your next episode of your show to come out or whatever.
This was like new information and they didn't have anything to base it against. And some of these people, a lot of these people hearing this, they weren't Jews anyway. And so they didn't know anything about the Old Testament either. So this letter would be the first written down thing that they had.
So think about how valuable this would have been to them. How big of news this is. You might think about it's a letter, whatever. No big deal.
No, it's a huge deal. Huge deal because Paul had been with the Philippians before. He'd been to Philippi, which is in Northern Greece. This is all like Roman occupied territory.
Paul had been there before. And he talked to them and he started the church. And so now they're getting a letter back from him. I heard somebody joke about that the other day.
It's like this letter. It's this document. It comes in a mailbox. It has a stamp on an envelope.
People don't know what those are anymore, especially if you're going, you have no idea. But anyway, so yeah, so that's how excited they are. And so this letter for Paul, the reason I asked the kids about being thankful is that's how he starts out the letter. He says, I thank my God every time I remember you.
I thank my God. What a way to start anything, right? Think about it like that. If you begin every conversation, every interaction, whether that's with God or the people around you, if you began it with thankfulness, if you begin there, immediately that puts you in a place more closely linked to surrender than to achievement.
I'm thankful for you. Now, now that's a hard thing to do. You're going through the drive through. You're in a hurry.
You're trying to get to work. You're trying to squeeze something in on your lunch break or whatever. It's hard to remember to be thankful for the person on the other side of the microphone, right? Or when you have to deal with someone at work, you know, who just won't listen.
Or maybe there could be someone at home who doesn't listen sometimes. It's hard to begin those things with, I'm thankful. I'm thankful for you. But that's what Paul says.
And the message translation says it this way, which this is kind of exploding, I guess. It says, every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamation of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart.
I'm so pleased that you've continued on in this with us, believing in proclaiming God's message from the day you heard it right up to the present. Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamation to God. I mean, it sounds like a beginning of sort of a cheesy love song or whatever. Cody can come up here and play.
It can be really, really cool. But if you think about it though, I mean, that's what Paul was saying every time. I'm so thankful for you. And it's not just because he likes them.
It's not just because they're really cool people in Philippi. It's not like he's like, oh, yeah, we have some great times, you know, it's not that. He's thankful because they're in it with him. They're in this kingdom pursuit with him.
And he's thankful for them. And so think about those who are those people in your life, right? People who've invested in you and people you invest in and continue to invest in, people that are on the kingdom journey with you. If you don't have a list of those people, maybe you need to sit down and make a list of those people.
Who are those people? Who is pouring you to get you here? And who are you pouring into now? Even if it's frustrating to pour into them?
Are you thankful for them? I'd encourage you to make that list. It matters. Who got you here and who are you pouring into?
And in verse 5 of Philippians, and again, I know we didn't read this part, but Paul talks about them as partners in the gospel. Partners with him in the gospel. It's not like Paul and everybody else. He sees it as a partnership.
They partake in it together. They go at it together. I thank you for your partnership in the gospel. He doesn't see himself as greater.
And you know, like Paul sees it that way because that's kind of how their church started out. If you read and Acts chapter 16, you get the beginnings of the story of the Philippian church. So Paul has this vision. He's supposed to go to Macedonia, which that's the territory that Philippies in.
And so he goes there with this idea that he's going to do something and help and preach. And so they're outside preaching. I can't remember where they are like by some water, I think. And this woman comes up, her name is Lydia.
And I guess there's a lot of other people around him that Paul's sharing the good news across. And she opens her life up to Jesus. She already worshiped God in some capacity, but she never heard any of this before. And it blows her mind.
And so she comes to Jesus and said that moment. And then she's like, yeah, I want my whole household to know this. And so you could assume that she probably was wealthy, had a large household or something like that. And so they go there and her whole household comes to Christ.
And so this is the beginnings of this church. And then as they're going along preaching and doing their thing, Paul is this girl possessed by an evil spirit pops up. And she's like shouting and talking and supposedly her gig is that her power is that she can predict the future. The spirit enables her to do this.
And she's got some people who own her because she's a slave. And they're making money off of this. And so Paul's seeing all this happen while they're going around preaching. And every now and again, she's just standing up, these men worship God.
These men, you know, we'll tell you about these. She's kind of saying some good things, but these guys are profiting officers. And Paul's just finally tired of it. He's tired of all of it.
And he rebukes the evil spirit. She comes out of the girl. And then the guys that own the slave girl are like, hey, what are you doing? And they give Matt a poll.
And so then Paul gets thrown in jail. And this is Paul in Silas and Jail if you remember that story. And they're not in prison very long. And then he gets busted out.
They're singing praises and the changes fall off. And the jailer freaks out. He's going to kill himself. He thinks he's going to get destroyed by all this stuff.
And then his house comes to Christ. That's the start of the church. Some lady named Lydia who was a dealer in purple cloth. I think that's what it said.
I might be confusing my stories. And then a jailer who was about to take his own life because his prisoner is dead. And then a jailer who was dead. And then he was about to take his life because his prisoners all of a sudden were free.
That's the start of the church. This humble beginnings. And Paul allows himself, before he gets put in jail, he allows himself to be beaten. And all these other things happened to him.
And he could have said, you know, hey, I'm a Roman citizen, which he says later, but he could have said it before anything happened to him. But no, he laid himself low. He took on this practice of surrender, like the practice that he learned from Jesus. And they started church like that.
That's their church. Super humble beginnings. And he's like, hey, I'm in jail again. It's kind of like, oh, yeah, it's Paul.
He's in jail. Let's pray for him. Paul, things haven't changed with him. He's in jail again for the faith.
And so let's keep rolling. Let's keep this partnership in the gospel. And they send him money and they take care of him and they do the best they can. But it was all that they were doing it together.
Right? And so this is how we all with Christ. We're co-heirs with him in the kingdom. He wants to do this through us and with us.
It's not just, you know, gods here and we're here and there's nothing in between. He lives in us. He wants to do this with us. We're co-heirs with him.
And this is his prayer for the Philippians. He says that, I pray that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Christ Jesus. Pray that your love may be abound.
That your filled with righteousness. Like love is the key that unlocks the kingdom for people. Like all that, people don't care what you know until they know that you care that whole thing. Like love.
So that you can abound in these other things. And so the kingdom will grow. Because what Paul's trying to say to him, he prays that their love may abound. Now I want you to think about that.
Like what in your life abounds? Like what are you known for? What flows out of your life? My son's home and he was, we were talking about, I don't even know what we're talking about at this point, but we're looking outside and my neighbor was mowing his grass and my neighbor and I, we kind of have this, we share a piece of yard or whatever it's running on the other side of my driveway.
And sometimes that grass gets really, really tall and I'm going over there and mowed it. His motor was broken and stuff like that. But anyway, we were sitting there talking about the grass and my neighbor Reggie was up there mowing it and I was like, oh man, Reggie's cutting it. He's cutting it too low.
He's going to leave clubs and grass in the yard. And he's just like, he's like, I'm a cranky old man or whatever. Is that what I'm known for? Is that what abounds for my life?
Or does love abound in me and then explode out of me? Like think about that for you. Does love abound in your life? And that's not asking, are you a happy person?
Does love abound? Because you know, love, that's always, it's always happened. Sometimes it's hard to love, but love's still a balance from your life. The way of righteousness is not easy, but does it abound from your life?
Are you known for that? What are you known for? Paul prays later that the Philippians would be known for this kind of love, the love of Jesus. That's what he's going for here is he writes them this letter, it's a letter to encourage him.
So Paul prays like that for the Philippians. So I would ask you this, who do you pray for like that? Who do you pray for? Like is it getting mad at somebody, you know, because they don't do this for you or they're not doing this right?
Do you ever pray for them? Not that they get their stuff together, but pray that love would abound. And pray that they would know the love of Jesus. Not so they get their stuff together in your life would be better.
Just so simply they would know you pray like that. Paul prayed like that. This kind of prayer, it changes your relationships at home, at work, at school, and pray like that. Paul, as he writes this letter, he's a prison, we already talked about that.
Five and a half years of prison. Most likely on the back end of a sentence that ended with him being in Rome under house arrest for two years. So he was kind of moved from jail to jail to jail. And his last little stint was in Rome waiting to hear from Caesar.
Which basically if you hear from Caesar, one of two things is probably going to happen, you've all seen Gladiator, right? It's like live or die. So that's what Paul's waiting on. He's waiting to know whether he's going to live or die.
In this situation, he actually lives, not for a whole lot longer, but he does. He gets out this time. But he's in there for five and a half years. And we just read it a minute ago.
It says the whole palace guard knows why I'm here. So he's in prison, but they all know why he's in prison. Because he keeps talking about it. Because love abounds from him.
Because as a prisoner in chains, Paul still lived out the gospel. He's taking this really, really cruddy situation and making the absolute most of it. Now think about that. He's in prison, but he's still preaching.
He's in prison, but he still looks like Jesus. Sounds like Jesus. He is in jail, but people are responding to the person of Christ that is abounding out of it. That's pretty remarkable when you think about it.
It's pretty undeniable that that's God. He continues to preach. And three things are happening. People inside the jail are coming to Jesus.
And then what this is doing for those on the outside of the jail, they're going, hey, he's in jail still doing this. We can do this out here because we're free. It's kind of like when you know the person who goes to Africa on a mission trip or the person who's a full-time missionary in some third world country or whatever, they're doing that there. I should be doing it here.
They're going, Paul is in prison and he's still going. So what about me? The Philippians are going, yeah. We need to keep this thing rolling.
The other people in Rome, the other Christians that aren't in jail, they're keeping it rolling. Because Paul did write a ton of the New Testament, but it's not like he was the only guy talking about it. The preacher stands here and does what I do or whatever. This can't be the only person that talks about it.
Sunday morning, you know, from 1030 to 1040, we sing two songs. That can't be the only time we sing. It's got to get out. It's got to abound.
Or what are we doing? What's the point? Paul is in prison and he has this incredible purpose. It's like a good Shepherd song we sang, right?
Turning my problems to a promised land. I would say that being in prison is kind of a problem. I've never actually been in prison, but I can imagine it's a little bit of a problem. Kind of throws a kink in your life.
All of our problems turn to a promised land. Think about that. Just for a minute. Think about what that's like.
If you remember, because Paul sees purpose in his imprisonment, the story of Joseph in Genesis, where Joseph and the code of many colors, you know, the Technicolor dream code, if you will, whatever, you know, that guy. Turned into a pit. His brothers kind of wanted to kill him. They definitely got rid of him, sold him into slavery.
He's, you know, asking from his family and their land and everything. All this kind of bad stuff happens to him. But then at the very end, he's in a position where he can save his family's life. And his brothers realize, oh my gosh, you're going to kill us because of what we did to you.
And he stands there and says, no. What you intended for harm, God intended for good. That's what Paul was saying right here. They intend to kill me.
They intend to change me, but God's doing something incredible with it. So look at your life, your problems. And think about it that way. From Paul's perspective.
God can do something incredible with it. Think about that just for a minute. I mean, maybe you've experienced this in your life. Maybe Foundry is experiencing this in its life.
God can do something incredible with what we might perceive as a problem or a setback. So how do we live? How do we go forward from here? What do we do about that?
Paul found purposes in his imprisonment. Years ago, Rick Warren and Saddleback Community Church in such and such California, they made themselves famous over the purpose-driven life and the purpose-driven church. I was at Flying Heart two weeks ago and some guy way younger than me came up and said that his church was doing the purpose-driven study. I'm like, holy cow, did I step in the time machine, man?
Is this 1994? It's so weird. But it's a good question though. Like, what's your purpose?
I know people throw that around all the time. You got to have a purpose. You know, get up and go. Football coaches, bosses, dads, whoever.
What's your purpose? We throw that word around a lot. But really, it's a good question. What's your purpose?
This is what Paul says about his. For I know that through your prayers and God's provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but I will have sufficient courage so that now, as is always, Christ will be exalted in my body whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
If I'm to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. What shall I choose? I do not know. I'm torn between the two.
I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far than this jail cell, but it's more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convince with this I know that I will remain and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the thing. I will continue with all Paul sees how his life matters to those around him. He helps them grow and have joy and re-glory to God.
He sees purpose in his life. Often times kids are around us and they're talking about marriage and that conversation comes up a lot as you can imagine working with college kids a lot. I always tell them that I don't know how people stay married without Jesus, I don't know how people do it. I don't know how people get up every day if they don't have some kind of purpose to their life.
You can brush your teeth and take your vitamins and do all that stuff, but if you don't have a larger purpose than just trying to keep breathing, I don't know why you breathe. I'm not saying do something crazy, but I just don't understand. Even as a church. It's just about holding service or whatever we do.
What do we do? What's our purpose? Paul had a purpose for his life. What is our purpose?
Your purpose, my purpose. Are we living into that? Not trying to nitpick every little thing and be paranoid about don't have a purpose or this or this or this or this or this. Seriously, what is your purpose?
What's your mission? What's your big picture? Where are you going? So, something I was going to read here.
This is the very end of the letter for Paul. He says, Let your manor of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. So the weather I come and see you, or I'm absent, basically whether I get out of jail or whether I don't. You know what that means?
Because I'm already a field of Caesar. I'm a here of you that you're standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to be of their destruction, but of your salvation. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for him.
But also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now here that I still have. Basically Paul's like saying, look, you saw me go to jail once? Now I'm in jail again. I'm in chains for the gospel.
I want you to engage in the same conflict with you. He's not saying I want you to end up in jail. He's saying I want you to stay in the fight. Stay engaged in the conflict with me.
You're never out of the fight, right? Never out of the fight. So, the last thing we'll move toward our time of communion. So it's Christmas in July, like the phrase or whatever, you know, if you're a Christmas movie person, George Bailey, it's a wonderful life.
Like his whole deal is that he stays in the fight. Mr. Potter is trying to take everything in town and run the show. George Bailey sometimes be grudgingly, but he stays in the fight.
He keeps going for Bedford Falls, for the building alone, to keep hope alive. Paul is keeping hope alive with these letters. For 2000 years, he has kept hope alive because of these letters. Paul in jail brings us hope today.
If that can happen over a 2000 year span, what could happen if we do it? What could happen if that became our purpose for the people around us? What would happen if we stayed in the fight? And what does that mean for you right now to stay in the fight?
To stay in the fight of your faith? Not just hang on and be present, but to stay engaged. To stay engaged in the battle. To stay in the moment.
What does that mean? What does that mean for this church? If we're really going to do that. What does that mean?
Where do we go? And here's why we don't quit. Here's why we stay engaged. Because that God doesn't quit on us.
Doesn't have quit in him. And he believes that good things can come through us. One of our big time verses passed on to my children. He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.
God finishes what he starts. That's our God. He knew he was going to the cross absolutely for 100% knew it the whole time. There wasn't any doubt.
He wasn't like, well, maybe this thing could go a different way. No, he knew. And when he was in the garden, you know, that guess me that night when they were praying, he went off by himself to pray. And he did say, he said, God, if there's another way, he'll let's choose option B, if there's another way.
But it's not. Let's roll. Let's stay. The Course.
Keep doing what I came here to do. My purpose. Carry it on to completion. A few nights ago, we were at the Thompson's house and Remy was going through these crossword puzzles.
And he hooked me in into the crossword. And I couldn't leave. Like everybody. Jeremy was doing this.
He could barely stay awake. You know, I don't know how you're saying awake with me in the recliner, but he was out. But everybody in the room, I think, was waiting for me and Remy to quit or finish the crossword so they go to sleep. But I couldn't leave.
I was so engaged. I couldn't stop. I was going to carry it on to completion. That is what God does for us.
Think about it. There were moments. And there was a moment in that garden where he was like, man, if there's another way. I knew there was only one way.
All the way down to the last crossword clue for me and for you to be redeemed. Every drop of blood is very last breath. Then and only then did he say that it was finished. His body, his life for ours.
That's what we do with communion. That's what we talk about. We remember, and Jesus said for the disciples to do this, he started the trend. He said, this is my body given for you.
Don't forget it. Don't forget that I finished this work for you so that you can have life. And blood was always this seal of covenant back in the old days. So when he passed the cup around that night at the Last Supper, and said, drink from this, all of you, my blood of the new covenant.
Like, I'm telling you, I'm giving you my life and I'm promising you that it's going to change everything because it's a new covenant, a new promise. You do not have to remain stuck in your old ways in your sin and destruction. Like this is brand new. None of them could still put it together in that moment, what it really, really meant.
But looking back later, we know they realized it because they wrote this stuff down and they said, this is how we remember. That God finishes his work. Everything he began. Go take a beginning back as far as you want to.
God's finishing it. Even now in our lives. This meal is a communion meal that's been performed and partaken of for 2,000 years by the church. It's not something found, drink and vented or first babished it or the Catholics invented.
Nobody. This goes all the way back to that Last Supper. And that invitation is open to every human on the planet which includes everyone in this room. It's a common partake.
And this meal and remember that the cross has made us flawless. The cross has brought us back to God. Our sins are forgiven. Our way is paid.
Our debt is paid. We have hope as the people of God. So when you come and take a piece of bread and dip it in the cup and you can pray here, pray there, pray wherever. But let this be a moment where you are reminded that the God of all creation does not quit on you.
And he doesn't want you to quit on him because he wants to do stuff in us and through us for his kingdom.