HOW TO BE A CHRISTIAN AND STILL ENJOY LIFE
A LIFE ENJOYED IS A LIFE SHARED Pt.6
Sunday March 10, 2008
Scripture Reference: Philippians 1:9-11
Intro.
A. Last week as we continued our look into V.9-11 of chapter one we were talking about the results of this prayer Paul was praying for the Philippians church. He had told them that if they were growing in Christ likeness and in their understanding of God and in their ability to make good judgments then there would be some results, some effects of these things. So last week we looked at the first of these results and that is discernment. As we learned last week that word means the ability to “test and approve”. Once again as I stressed so much last week you really need to understand how necessary it is to connect V.9 with V.10-11. It is our becoming more Christ like that enables us to test and approve and what did Paul say we would test and approve of? He said that we would be able to test and approve what is BEST! As I said last week this is a HUGE point because I fear that far to often we test and approve what is OK or what is All RIGHT or what is we see as not being all that bad or wrong but this is not what Paul said will happen as we grow in knowledge and depth of insight.
1. [] Let’s do something today shall we? Let’s take Jesus out of the Bible and let’s put Jesus smack dab in the middle of Chino California in March 2008. Let’s make Jesus REAL shall we? OK so now we are confronted with those immortal words again, “What would Jesus do?” What would Jesus do living in the situations you and I have to live in today? What would Jesus do if someone said to him,”Hey Jesus let’s stop by the liquor store and get a six pack of Bud and then we will go home and watch the football game.” How would Jesus respond, would he say, “Hey that sounds great, why don’t we get a case and invite a few more friends over”? Would he say, “You vile wicked person! How dare you even suggest such a thing, don’t you realize that real Christians don’t drink. You take one sip of that beer and you will go straight to hell.” Or would he say, “You know I am not sure that drinking beer or any other alcohol like this is the best thing for our witness to others. It’s not that drinking a beer is a sin but it just doesn’t seem to be the best witness. You know we are supposed to be salt and light and my Father said we were to be holy people, people who are set apart from those who do not follow me. I just don’t see this as the best way to show others what it means to live for God.” This really goes back to what I left you with last week in evaluating those attitudes we have towards this subject and others. When we test and approve what is best our standard of measure is the word of God, not Fox News or President Bush or Newsweek magazine.
Trans. Well I will never get through this passage if I don’t move on so let’s look at what I believe are the other three results of our growing in Christ likeness. Paul says that we will be able to discern what is best then he says that we will be pure and blameless. Let’s look at each of these words separately because they each have powerful meaning to our Christian lives. First of all the word pure means that you and I will be the REAL DEAL.
I. THE RESULTS OF SPIRITUAL MATURITY.
A. You Will Be The REAL DEAL.
1. The word “pure” means something that is genuine, something that is not a mixture of a bunch of different ingredients. We all know that there are times when a mixture of things is good. The fact is most of the foods we eat are a mixture of different ingredients. It is the mixture of those ingredients that makes for the special taste of the meal. I enjoy chili but what makes for great chili is the mixture of different ingredients. We also know that what makes for a great church is the mixture of different people. It is all the different gifts, abilities, talents, personalities and experiences that we bring to our church that gives us a unique flavor.
2. In food and in church a mixture of different ingredients is great, but it is not great when it comes to our individual spiritual lives. We talked about this a few weeks ago when we were looking at V.6, when we try to live our lives with one foot in the world and one foot in the faith we are both ineffective and unhappy. I have to once again ask you to make the connection between V.9 and these words. As we grow in our understanding of what God desires of us and then begin to live that way we become the REAL DEAL. Think about the people you admire whether they are Christians or not. My guess is that what you find appealing in many of these people is the fact that they are “pure” or they are the real deal. You may not agree with them but they are not trying to live two different kinds of lives. One of the things that kills our witness is when we try to be like Christ and then try to be like the world around us as well.
3. Another meaning of the word “pure” here is something that “stands the sunlight”. In other words it means something that can withstand scrutiny, it would be like me holding up a $20 to the light to see that it is the REAL DEAL and not counterfeit. What are we like when we leave this building? When our faith is put to the test does it prove itself to be the real thing or does it fall apart? Look at 2:14-16 (read). Talk about standing out in the light, do we shine light stars in the universe?
Trans. Let’s look at another result of our growing maturity in Christ. Paul says that our growing spiritual maturity will result in discernment, purity, and then blamelessness. Here is what this means, to be blameless means:
B. We Will Be A Benefit To Others.
1. Now I know that this word blameless is a little troubling to us because when we hear it seems as though we are being told that we will not have any faults or that we will not make any mistakes in our lives. Well let me set your minds at ease because blameless does not mean that. What it does mean is that we will not be an offense to others or that we will not be someone who causes others to stumble and do things that will hinder their spiritual growth.
2. To help us here I want you to turn in your bibles to 1 Corinthians 10:23-24 (read). You have to love this Paul just told us that we can do whatever we want. Praise God, Hallelujah we can trash all this stuff the pastor has told us and finally do all the things we have wanted to do. Now you can buy all the lottery tickets you want, you can drink as much alcohol as you want. Finally you can golf or fish all you want to on Sundays because going to church is no longer necessary. We don’t even have to worry about tithing anymore because Paul has just told us that if we want to use that money for a new car or new furniture or new cloths, it is ours to do with as we want. You have heard me say on many occasions that if there is biblical evidence to live a certain way then I am with you so isn’t this the evidence we have been seeking? Well let’s see.
a) Paul said I am allowed to do anything, but then he added these pesky words, “But not everything is good for you.” What’s wrong with gambling, after all we just passed these ballot measures to allow the Indian reservations to put in more slot machines so that they can give more money to the state to help us in this budget crisis. So in actuality my gambling is helping the state out of this budget crisis, right? Let’s look back to what we learned last week. As I grow in Christ likeness I am able to discern what is best. Is gambling the best way to eliminate the states budget crisis? Paul’s whole prayer was that we would be able to see with moral clarity and not pragmatic clarity. [] I will tell you unashamedly that I voted NO on all those ballot measures and here is why. We cannot allow the ends to justify the means. If you lived in California when they decided to institute the lottery you will recall that the big pitch was how much this money would help our schools. Some of you sitting here today are public school teachers; you tell me how much the lottery has helped your school. One of the arguments I heard against these gaming measures was that none of the money would go to help our school. Well I thought the lottery had taken care of all that. I will tell you this without apology that gambling is no more a solution to the states budget problems than it is you’re your budget problems. Yet there are still an awful lot of people who say they are Christians and gamble GOD’S money away in hopes of solving their money problems.
b) Now notice also in V.23 that Paul almost says the same thing but with a slight twist. The second time he says that everything is OK but everything is not beneficial. What that word means is that not everything is “constructive”. Here is where we see the importance of discernment. How many times have I heard people say, “Well it is not a sin to ________.” Well you maybe right. I am not sure if I can say in every situation that drinking a beer is a sin or having a cigarette is a sin, or if playing the lottery is a sin. But here is the issue you have to face, God’s word says, “Not everything is constructive to our spiritual life.” If you are once again growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ why are you settling for what is just OK? What is there about these things that is constructive to your spiritual life, your desire to be Christ like? [] Maybe this will help Jim and Mickey Burdett build homes. I know nothing about building a home but I know there are a lot of different materials to choose from when building a home. Some of those materials are not as good a quality as others, but they are cheaper and they will help to increase the bottom line if Jim and Mickey were to use them. But you see I know Jim and Mickey and I know they want to build something that is of high quality. I know this because of their help in building the building down in San Vicente. If you want to construct a solid, quality home then you chose to use the best materials. Folks if you want to build a solid, quality spiritual life then you have to make decisions about what is best and not merely what will get you by.
3. Now there is one other thing Paul says here in 1 Corinthians that I think we need to see. Look at V.24 (read). We will see more of this when we finally get into chapter two but what we can clearly see here is that what you do with your own life is not just your business, not at least if you claim to be a part of the body of Christ. What you do, how you chose to live your life affects every person here. Whether we like it or not this whole congregation will be evaluated on the actions of each person. This doesn’t mean we cannot make any mistakes or that we have to be absolutely perfect in every way, but it means that we will be careful in what we say and do because we know that what we say and do reflects upon everyone here.
a) Now let me just show you as a quick note the end of V.10 (read). What we see once again here is the call to continued growth in grace. We are to be pure and blameless until the day of Christ or as we might say until the second coming or until we die and go to be wit the Lord. We are not called to have special days of growth or to grow every few years. Our spiritual growth should be an on going process until we physically die.
Trans. Now what I want to show you is the fourth and final result Paul say should happen as we are growing in Christ likeness. He said, “filled with the fruit of righteousness.” What this means is that our spiritual growth should be producing godly character.
C. We Should Be Producing Godly Character.
1. I have been amazed at the powerful meaning of the words Paul chose to use in this passage. This word “filled” means “to cram”. Paul is literally praying for us to be crammed full of the righteousness or character of God. Now think about this for a minute, why “crammed full” instead of just “full”? Isn’t being full enough? After all if we get too much of this righteousness in us we stand the risk of becoming fanatical. We sure don’t want to be Jesus freaks do we? I think it was the late A.W. Tozer who said, speaking about today’s Christianity that it is so weak that if it were medicine it wouldn’t help us and if it was poison it wouldn’t hurt us. It sure doesn’t sound like the kind of faith Paul was praying about here.
2. Now Paul prayed that we would be filled with fruit, what kind of fruit was he talking about? Did he mean he wanted us eating a lot of apples of oranges? No he prayed that we would be filled with the fruit of righteousness. Well what is that? Well Paul talked about this fruit in one of his other letter, Galatians 5:22-23a But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,23 gentleness, and self-control. Now let me show you once Again here that the word “fruit” is used in the singular and not the plural. What this means is that these are characteristics that are to be a part of every Christians life. Not that this fruit will be wholly ripe in all of us but nevertheless all these godly characteristics are to be seen in us and show be growing in us and overflowing from us.
3. Now look at what Paul says again in V.11 the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ. Did you see it? Paul said that these godly characteristics are produced by Jesus Christ. [] Imagine if you will that we are sitting in an apple orchard and we are listening. We are listening to hear the apple trees produce apples, what are we hearing? Are we hearing these apple trees grunting and groaning as they try to produce apples? Of course not, the fruit is just coming forth, why? As the apple tree submits itself to the ground to the soil and to the elements of nature, rain and sun it is its yielding to nature that produces the fruit. The same thing is true for us spiritually. We do not produce the fruit of the spirit of godly character by working hard. We yield ourselves to God and His life in us will produce the fruit. The key is surrender. Do you really want to see what Paul is praying about happen in your life? Then you must surrender yourself completely to God. This means you will have to surrender some of those attitudes that say, “Well I don’t see anything wrong with this.” “I don’t think doing this is sinful.” Are you interested in what is best or just how to scrape by? Do you find yourself saying things like, “What is the most that is required of me to life as a Christian” and then find yourself making that the most you do for Christ? This is not the life Paul was praying for, either for these Philippians or for us.
OUR NEXT STEP
A. I said a few weeks ago that the road to spiritual maturity begins today. It begins with this surrender of yourself totally to God. The character of God will not be produced in you simply because you obey the rules. We do not become Christ like because we attend church every week or give out tithe or don’t play the lottery. Our righteousness or godly character is produced by our choosing to live each and every day in obedience to God. While this obedience to Christ will undoubtedly produce some of these things it is not doing these things that produce righteousness or holiness. It is our total surrender to God.
PRAYER
