Sermon Central
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Philippians
Contributed by Brad Beaman on Jul 1, 2003 (message contributor)
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1. How To Keep An Eternal Perspective
Contributed on Jul 1, 2003
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to go through life day by day with an eternal perspective? Have you ever known that kind of person? Their car breaks down and somehow the service man comes to know Christ. Why? They live with an eternal perspective.
Read: Philippians 1:18-26 Think of a modern example of a person who keeps an eternal perspective. The person who comes to my mind is Jim Elliott. He was famous for saying, he is no fool to give up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” This flows from the heart of a man who had an ...read more
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2. The Start Of A New Church
Contributed on Jul 4, 2003
Imagine a cold dark prison. You see a prisoner hunched over writing a letter. He is writing a love letter from his prison cell. This love letter is to a church that he loves dearly. You see this man in prison is the Apostle Paul. He is writing this letter
Read: Philippians 1:1-2 Imagine a cold dark prison. You see a prisoner there chained to the guards. This prisoner is unassuming in appearance and for the moment is very quiet. He is hunched over and completely absorbed in a letter he is writing. He is writing a love letter from his prison ...read more
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3. Joyful Love
Contributed on Jul 10, 2003
Paul is in prison and he has this joyful love because he has a confidence in God. He can write in Philippians 1:6, “Be confident of this that He, who began a good work in you will carry it out until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Intro: God’s Faithfulness It wasn’t too long ago I was attending a meeting in Scotland. I was in Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland and I was looking for a place to park. I received advise on how to find a good place to park. My friend told me to drive up to the top of the nearby ...read more
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4. Can Your Difficulties Advance The Gospel?
Contributed on Jul 21, 2003
The question before us is, can your difficulties advance the gospel? They threw the Apostle Paul in prison thinking they could stop the advancement of the gospel. According to Paul this only blazed a trail for the preaching of the Gospel.
Introduction The question before us is, can your difficulties advance the gospel? Can you Imagine if you came to church this morning and rather than being greeted at the door and coming in. Instead, you found the doors of the church were barred shut. You came and found military police outside ...read more
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5. Motives: The Problem In The Church
Contributed on Jul 24, 2003
Many people say the biggest problem we face in the church today is an integrity crisis. It may surprise a lot of us that envy and rivalry and dissentions dates all the way back to the first century church. People preached because they wanted to exalt them
Introduction In the fifteen hundreds there was a protestant reformer in England by the name of Hugh Latimer. He was known as a great preacher of his day and he had many opportunities to preach. One of his opportunities was to preach before the King Henry VIII of England. He thought about his great ...read more
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6. Prescription For Church Unity
Contributed on Jul 29, 2003
It seems like there is a real danger for the church in that, the stronger a they hold to their beliefs, the greater the chance of disunity. There is such need for us, with our great beliefs that we hold dear, to talk about church unity.
Introduction: You may notice that during this time of the year that many of our men around the country are glued to the football games on television. College football is such a great part of American tradition. It all builds up to the bowl games at the end. That is what people are waiting for, ...read more
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7. Humility: The Key To A Like-Minded Church
Contributed on Aug 4, 2003
I know God has great plans and great purpose for this church. It could be threatened by disharmony. From people not being likeminded. We need to pray and use these incentives to claim like-mindedness for the sake and cause of Jesus Christ.
Introduction There was a young man who was a candidate for the ministry. He was about to preach his very first sermon. As he went up to preach he new he was well prepared and he had confidence in his abilities. Before he started to preach the veteran pastor who saw him approach the pulpit with an ...read more
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8. The Example Of Christ
Contributed on Aug 20, 2003
We will look at one of the greatest passages on our Lord Jesus Christ. We will examine the great example of Jesus Christ and what he did to go from the Majesty of God to a criminal’s death on the cross.
Introduction: I recently read a great Book about a man by the name of Marshal Taylor. Marshal Taylor lived in the USA in the late 1800’s and he was born to parents that were slaves. Marshal Taylor experienced freedom and he began to know a taste of freedom that his parents never knew. He had the ...read more
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9. Shine Your Light For Christ
Contributed on Sep 3, 2003
Sometimes we need a lesson in Christian conduct. Paul knows that when he writes the Philippians. He wants to give them guidance in their Christian conduct. That is what Paul does and he tells them about living the Christian life.
There was a family who, as many times happens, had trouble getting along with their neighbors. They argued back and forth and finally one of the neighbors was about to go on vacation. They hoped that this might reduce the tension between the two. After one family left on vacation the one still ...read more
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10. Lessons For Church Family
Contributed on Nov 1, 2003
You may have never heard of Epaphroditus. He is only mentioned here in Philippians chapter 2 and then again briefly in Chapter 4. But Epaphroditus gives us a great example of Christian Commitment.
As we face the coming days we are going to need a new level of Christian commitment. What we find in these verses of scripture is exactly that, an example of Christian commitment. Illustration: Christian commitment You have all heard Hand ell’s Messiah and you love to hear the words to the ...read more
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11. Legalism: Our Great Enemy
Contributed on Dec 22, 2003
Paul has been writing to the Philippian church, warning them about internal controversies that could divide them. Now Paul turns the attention of the church in Philippi away from the internal controversies and tells them to watch out for legalists.
What is your aim as a Christian? The aim of a Christian is to, or should be to, please God. Every Christian should in his heart seek to please God. So as Christians we often as that question. What can we do to please God? One person asked this question to a respected Christian institution. He ...read more
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12. Press On In Christ
Contributed on Jul 14, 2004
Spiritual maturity is a growth process, so we need to be willing to press on. Are you willing to press on? Are you willing to be single minded in becoming like Christ? You must press on in Christ.
Illustration: Christian Pilgrimage One of the greatest Christian classics, maybe the greatest of all is John Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress. It is an allegory written by a Baptist Pastor who wrote while he was imprisoned for his faith. It gives us an analogy of the Christian life. Pilgrims ...read more
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13. Confidence In Christ
Contributed on Aug 6, 2004
The Power of Christ meant for Paul a confidence. For the believer the resurrection is a certain fact. It gives us confidence. This confidence in Christ is for all Christians. Not just a few, but all are meant to have this abundant power.
Just imagine something with me today. Let’s say that a few years ago that you went out and for a nickel a share bought fifty thousand shares of stock in a company that no one really thought would do any good. Some company they called the cellular phone company. And all of a sudden that stock that ...read more
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14. Your Heavenly Citizenship
Contributed on Dec 29, 2004
Did you know that we have a citizenship that is greater than any national citizenship? We need to put our focus on spiritual things. When we have this spiritual focus the world grows dim. Then we are living consistent with our heavenly citizenship.
How much value do you place on your citizenship? We have several here who may be citizens of different countries. We have Canadians here. We have US citizens and Mexican citizens here. You have a citizenship in some nation. How much do you value or think about your citizenship? We rarely think ...read more
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15. Resolving Church Conflict
Contributed on Feb 14, 2006
What does an argument that took place 2000 years ago between two ladies have to do with our church here today? We will find out plenty.
A few years ago I was talking to a minister that told me the story of his church. He said that at one time the place where the church is located was very heavily populated. It went through a period of depopulation. There were two churches in the area but as people left neither church could afford a ...read more
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16. The Prescription For An Anxious Heart.
Contributed on Apr 4, 2006
You see anxiety is like a sickness. It is a spiritual illness that needs a cure. And we have in these verses Philippians 4:4-7 the prescription that God gives for an anxious heart.
Do people really struggle with anxiety? Is that something that is real or are we just talking when we say people in our day have anxious hearts? You have heard of Ann Landers, she got about 10,000 letters a month about people’s problems. She was asked, what is the number one problem that people ...read more
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17. Revival Of The Mind
Contributed on Apr 13, 2006
How the you think is so important. It is important because how you think forms your character. There needs to be a revival of the mind.
You have an amazing machine inside your head we call the brain. You may not have a high IQ, maybe only average or even below average intelligence. But your brain is still something amazing. Did you know that inside the skull of your head is more information stored than in the library of congress ...read more