HOW TO BE A CHRISTAIN AND STILL ENJOY LIFE
A LIFE ENJOYED IS A LIFE SHARED Pt.5
Sunday March 2, 2008
Scripture Reference: Philippians 1:9-11
Intro.
A. We are continuing on from where we left off last week. Last week if you were here you will remember that we were looking at this prayer that Paul prayed for the Philippian church. In this prayer we saw what Paul seemed to tell us were the essentials for our spiritual growth and maturity. Those things were Abounding Love, which meant agape love or Christ likeness in us and that this love or Christ likeness was to abound or be overflowing from us. The third ingredient Paul gave us was Knowledge; this word literally means the knowledge of God. We cannot expect to become Christ like unless we know what Christ is like and therefore we must grow in our understanding of God. Then lastly we learned that we also need to have insight which means we are to have good judgment. It is true that sometimes we make decisions with our hearts and not our heads. It is clear from the bible’s teaching here that we need to reason from both places if our judgment about things will be right. We will see a little more of this in today’s message. Now I know I will say this several time today but it is vitally important that you connect what Paul said in V.9 with what he says in V.10-11, because what Paul prays for in V.10-11 will never happen unless what he prayed for in V.9 is working in our lives.
B. What I want you to see in V.10-11 are what Paul says will be the results or effect of this spiritual growth and maturity he talked about in V.9. So let’s get started looking at the results of spiritual maturity.
I. THE RESULTS OF SPIRITUAL MATURITY.
I see at least four things that Paul says will result or be produced in our lives as a result of Christ continually being formed in us. Now let me say right now as you may have already noticed if you looked at your sermon outline. We are not going to explore all four of these results today, in fact we will just look at one of them today. There is little doubt in my mind that any of us would not want the results of spiritual maturity that Paul talks about in these verses. We want discernment, we want to be pure and blameless, we want filled with righteousness, we want our lives to glorify God. But what I also think is true is that all too often we want the product without the perspiration; do you know what I mean? We see on TV all the time these get rich quick schemes and as tempting as they may seem they are not real. The only way you can get rich quick is for a rich relative to die and leave you all their money. The only person who gets rich quick is the guy selling you the program to get rich. They are feeding off our lack of judgment. So look with me at what Paul says is the first result of our growth in God’s grace.
A. Discernment.
1. Paul prayed that we would abound in love and knowledge and dept of insight, why? So that we will be able to discern what is best. Now I really want to emphasis the connection between V.9 and 10-11, this is critical. You will NOT be able to discern what is best unless you are growing in your knowledge of God and in your judgment of what God desires from you. This word “discern” that is used here means “to test and approve”. I am reminded here of something we talked about last week and that being that Love is not blind, at least God’s love isn’t blind. If God was indeed blind then those people who say, “A loving God would never send anyone to hell” would be right. His love would be blind to the sin in our lives and he would pretend it didn’t exist and let everyone into heaven. What we do know about God’s love is that He cares too much about the truth to be blind. Martin Lloyd Jones said, “Truth with out love is brutality, but love with out truth is hypocrisy.” Because of this lack of knowledge and depth of insight what we normally see in our world today are one of these two extremes. We see people who proclaim the truth but in doing so they tear people to shreds and then on the other side we see people who are so desperate to not hurt anyone’s feelings that we fail to speak the whole truth. Friends I will tell you straight up that as a pastor this is hard to do. I want to be liked and I sure an not anxious for people to get upset with me and leave the church because of something I preached, but I also know that I am accountable to God for what I say and do not say. I have an obligation to speak the truth and hope that more often than not it will encourage you and give you hope but I also know at times it will slap you in the face and it may be painful. If there is cancer in your body don’t you want the doctor to remove it even though surgery will be painful? That is what sin is, it is a cancer that is eating away at your eternal soul.
2. I am going to take a pretty big risk here but I am going to share with you what I feel is an example of what I am talking about here and this is something that happened here in our faith community. A few weeks ago I happen to be reading the Chino Champion. While reading I came across a photo of a local pastor (not Nazarene) standing with a local Imam which is a Muslim Cleric or you might say a Muslim pastor. He was presenting this pastor with a copy of the Quran in English because this pastor had invited him to speak at his church. At the risk of being called judgmental I am going to say to you that based on my understanding of God’s word a false prophet has no business occupying the pulpit of an evangelical church. Here is what Paul said about this, 2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? Now I know the argument here is “Well how are we going to reach these people if we don’t reach out to them?” My answer is this, “We can easily reach out to “unbelievers” as Paul put it without putting them in our churches and giving them authority to speak from a book that is not the word of God! If we want to take the position that we need to give a forum to those who we know do not believe the Bible then let’s open our doors to Atheists and let them share with us why they think God does not exist.
3. Now how are we going to be good at discerning, how are we going to be sure that we do not go overboard and miss our opportunity to reach the unbeliever while trying to maintain integrity? Well it goes right back to what to what I shared last week. We MUST be students of the word. Friends, this book is our authority, if it isn’t then all we are left with is our opinions and if that is the case who decides what is truth? The answer is NO ONE, because if this is the position we take then everyone has their own little measure of truth and nothing is absolute. This leads to nothing more than moral and ethical chaos. I fear that this is where not only a lot of the world is today but it is also the way an increasing number of the church is today. Why is it that there are a good number of the faith community who seem to feel that abortion is acceptable? What I so often hear is something like this, “Well for me it is wrong but I don’t feel I can impose my position on someone else.” What these words are telling me is that you are unsure of your position because if you believed that something was truly wrong you could not accept someone else doing it because you believe it is wrong. There is one word in that little statement I gave you that is the tell tale sign of why we are accepting of things that are wrong. It is this word “FEEL”. Now here is why this word is such a big deal, go back to what we learned last week. Paul prayed that their love would abound. What was that love, it was Agape love or Christ likeness. It was not Eros which means feeling or emotions. Paul’s prayer for these Philippians and this prayer for us is not for us to overflow with feelings but to overflow in Christ likeness and to have knowledge and good judgment. Let me give you a verse I gave you last week, Luke 6:40 Students are not greater than their teacher. But the student who is fully trained will become like the teacher. So I am left to ask the question, “Who is our teacher?” I can only say based on what I personally witness in my life and in my experiences that this world is the teacher of many. This world of course meaning the philosophies, ideals, values and beliefs that are held by those who are not followers of Christ. Once again I must turn not to my feelings or opinions but the Bible as my sole authority on truth and here is what the bible says, 2 Corinthians 6:17 NLT Therefore, come out from among unbelievers, and separate yourselves from them, says the Lord. Don’t touch their filthy things, and I will welcome you. [] Let me share with you a quote form George Barna who is sort of the George Gallup of the Christian community. He does extensive research into the thoughts and attitudes of today’s church. Here is what George Barna said about where the church is today (read quote). [] I want you to join me in a little illustration. What I want all of you to do is to close your eyes. Now with your eyes still closed I want you to point to the north. Now keep pointing north but open your eyes. It seems that we do not all agree on which way is north do we? How can you know for sure which way is north? You need a compass because without the compass what you are doing is going with what “feels” like the north, but as most of you just learned what feels like north really isn’t. What is the purpose of this little exercise? How can you and I know what God really wants unless we have a compass and what is our compass? It is the living word of God. What does this book say, 2 Timothy 3:16-17 NLT All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.17 God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.
4. Now I know that I am treading on delicate ground where I am right now. I know that what I am talking to you about today is probably making some of you uncomfortable. I can almost hear your thoughts, you are saying things like, “Well pastor shouldn’t we be tolerant, shouldn’t we be understanding of those who have a different view of things?” Let me ask you this, “Where does this reasoning come from?” Why do you feel this need to be tolerant of what you know to be wrong? Why do you feel this need for us to get along with everyone even though we know these things are opposed to the teaching of Christ?” May I offer a few possible answers?
a) Maybe we feel this way because we do not know what the bible teaches. We do not know or we are not sure that these things we are hearing from the world in which we live are contrary to the teaching of the bible. If this is the case then we have to go back to V.9. You will not have this ability to test and approve what is right, what is truth unless you know what the bible says. I will admit that I listen to a fair amount of talk radio when I am out in my car and sometimes I get a kick out of listening to these people who call in. I call what many of them do, “Intellectual Suicide”. They say they have this strong political opinion but when the hosts asks for reasons why they feel as they do it’s like someone severed their brain stem. They have no idea why they believe the way they do except that someone told them to believe this way. Listen to what Paul said about the Berean church that he visited after leaving Philippi that first time Acts 17:11 NLT And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.
b) Another answer as to why we ask these questions I poised a few minutes ago is precisely because of what I also said a moment ago and that is that we are taking our cue from the world around us. We may know what the bible says but are we are allowing what Paul said in Romans 12:2 happen to us that was not supposed to happen and that is that the world is squeezing us into It’s mold? The world around us is telling us to be tolerant and be understanding but where do we find this in the bible?
5. Now how do we strike the so called “balance” if that is in fact what is really needed? Well I know this will sound simplistic but the fact is I have been giving you the answer all last week and in everything I have said today. Remember the old expression, “What would Jesus do?” Well isn’t that exactly what a minute ago in John 6:40 NLT Students are not greater than their teacher. But the student who is fully trained will become like the teacher. If I am in fact immersing myself in the teaching of Christ, if I am studying the bible as I am instructed to do then won’t this scripture be fulfilled and won’t I be doing what Jesus would do in these sticky situations because he is living through me? We will see this a little more next week, but look at the beginning of V.11, filled with the fruit of righteousness.. I will say this again next week, but how many of you have ever been in an apple orchard and heard an apple tree struggling to bear fruit? The fruit comes forth because the tree has submitted itself to the soil and nature and the result of that yieldedness the apple comes forth. It doesn’t struggle to come out it is produced by the forces within. So it is with us if we are fully surrendered to Christ and allowing him to live his life through us.
Trans. Before I close today there is one more aspect of this verse I want to point out to you and then we will finish this up next Sunday. Paul tells us that one result of our spiritual maturity is the ability to discern, let me show you what Paul said we would be able to discern.
5. He said that we would be able to discern what is BEST. Friends I will just tell you right now I believe this is HUGE for today’s church. Once again I will say that if V.9 is not being fulfilled in us neither is V.10. My experience as a pastor has shown me that today’s Christian is all to ready to accept what is OK or what is GOOD or what is ACCEPTABLE over what is BEST. Now I guess this is no way to end a message but I don’t see how I can avoid stepping on a few toes as we make our way out. Here is what I mean by that. We say, don’t we, “What is wrong with playing the lottery? It’s harmless; I only spend a few dollars a week. I just don’t see what the big deal is.” My challenge for you is to take those thoughts those feelings and put them side by side with this scripture. Are you alright with what is OK for you or what is best for you? Here is another one, it seems that today’s Christian has little problem with so called social drinking. After all they drank wine in the bible, Jesus drank wine. Why can’t we have a glass of wine now and then, it’s not like we are getting drunk or any thing.” Once again I challenge you to hold this view up beside this scripture. You may be right, it is not sin to have a drink, but is having a drink really best for you or your witness for Christ? Where is that separation the Bible speaks of? Hey if you can drink and be a Christian then it’s OK for me to drink because the only thing really different about you is that you go to church a few times a month. I just don’t think you have to go to church to be a Christian.” Can you begin to see where our failure to choose what is best can lead?
Trans. Well I will stop here before I get any more people mad at me.
OUR NEXT STEP:
A. I have enclosed in you bulletin a little sheet for you to use this week as an Attitude Check. I want to challenge you to take some time this week in those devotions I have been encouraging you to have to check your attitudes on these and maybe some other subjects you can fill in to see if you are actually discerning what is best for you and your walk with God or if you are accepting what is OK or even what is GOOD. What does the bible say about this subject? That will probably call for some actually bible study. Now let me say this, I am your pastor and since I am asking you to do this I need to make myself available to help you. Now I won’t do all your bible study for you but if you take this challenge and find it difficult to find scriptures that say something about the attitude you want to check you can feel free to call me or e-mail me and I will do my best to help you. I will either find the scripture you need or point you in the right direction so you can find the help you need.
