HOW TO BE A CHRISTIAN AND STILL ENJOY LIFE
HOW TO LIVE CONFIDENTLY IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
Sunday April 6, 2008
Scripture Reference: Philippians 1:18b-20
Intro.
A. I want to speak to you today about something that I think is pretty relevant to the times in which we are living. In my opinion most people feel pretty uncertain about the times in which we live. The day I began to write out this message I read a news report on the web that said consumer confidence had fallen again. People are worried about the rising cost of gasoline and how that affects the cost of every thing else we buy. Home prices have dropped almost 11% over the last twelve months. A good friend of ours and of many some of you in this church, Rachel Unger who has been a tenured teacher in San Diego recently lost her job due to the school budget crisis. To top all this off we have the continued threat of terrorism. All the experts in this field keep telling us that it is not a matter of “if” it is a matter of “when” we will be attacked here in America.
1. How in the world can a person expect to not be filled with anxiety, worry and fear with all these terrible things looming over us like dark storm clouds? I am sure some will feel that Christianity is more of a way to try and escape the problems of this life rather than a way to live joyously through them. Of course I believe the opposite is true. My faith in God does not allow me to escape any of these realities that I just mentioned, but it does allow me to find hope, courage and confidence in the face of all these things. We all know that Jesus didn’t say that if we accepted him as our savior that all these problems would go away. Instead we know that he said we would still have trouble in this world. That was the wonderful promise he made to us in John 16:33.
2. If becoming a Christian were the way to escape all the problems of this life then I must be left to conclude that the Apostle Paul was not a Christian because I see in his life a whole lot of trouble. Look at what he said himself about his life, 2 Corinthians 6:4-5 In everything we do, we show that we are true ministers of God. We patiently endure troubles and hardships and calamities of every kind.5 We have been beaten, been put in prison, faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion, endured sleepless nights, and gone without food.
B. Today as we continue in this study in Philippians I want you to see with me how as we follow this example Paul set that we too can do more than simply survive this life, but enjoy this life even with all of it’s hardships and uncertainties. There are three things I want to show you today. 1. To live confidently we need help. 2. To live confidently we need to be focused. 3. To live confidently we need to be surrendered.
Trans. Let’s look at this first point.
I. TO LIVE CONFIDENTLY WE NEED HELP.
Here I go again sounding like a broken record but I think there are still a lot of us that haven’t got this message. There is no such thing as a Lone Ranger Christian. You were not designed to live this life alone. It is perfectly OK and understandable for the world to sing, “I did it my way” but it is not OK and it is not understandable for the church to sing this. This is NOT OUR SONG people! Our song is as the old hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” says “All one body we”. [] (Might talk to Dave about signing a song here about the body of Christ.) If we are to live confidently in these uncertain times then we need the help of others.
A. We Need The Help Of Others.
1. In V.18 we read that Paul said he is rejoicing even though there are those who are trying to make life miserable for him while he is in prison. Even though people are preaching Christ for the wrong reasons Paul is rejoicing because Christ is being preached and people are being saved. But then in the end of V.18 Paul tells us that he is continuing to rejoice for another reason. He says that he is rejoicing because of the help these Philippian Christians are providing for him. Now how are these Philippians helping him? Well we do know that some practical things were given to Paul. Remember that the Philippians had sent this man Epaphroditus to provide for some of Paul’s needs. What those things were we do not know exactly but according to Paul’s own words in chapter four he was adequately supplied.
2. What I do want you to see that Paul found important enough to mention specifically was that the Philippians were “Praying for him”. Friends I want you to promise me you to never say these words, “Well all I can do is pray.” You have heard me say this many times and I have this on the prayer request page of our web site, “We can do more than pray after we have prayed but we cannot do more than pray until we have prayed.” Yes there are other things we can do aside from prayer but nothing really matters unless prayer has gone before. To much of what the church tries to accomplish today either never gets done or it is not nearly as effective as it could be because prayer was not the foundation of the work or ministry.
3. For almost three years now we have been meeting on Tuesday nights for prayer. Most nights there are no more than three or four of us who are here. Now I am not saying this to make any of you feel guilty, if you feel that way then you need to ask why that is. I am telling to you this to tell you that I have a conviction about prayer. God has radically changed my life on many occasions and I can’t think of one of those times coming as the result of a conference or seminar I attended. The times that God has really gotten hold of me and changed my life have always happened through prayer. So we continue to meet on Tuesday nights believing that God answers prayer.
4. Now Paul tells us something very important here that I have to admit to you in all the years I have read and studied Philippians I never saw before. Read V.19 again (read). Paul said in this verse what I have said for years about prayer. Prayer becomes the conduit through which God works. I firmly believe and it is confirmed in these words that as we pray we provide a channel as it were for the Spirit of God to move. Paul said, “Because of your prayers the Spirit of Jesus Christ helps me...” So you see we need the help of others and we need the help of God.
B. We Need God’s Help.
1. Paul said that because you prayed the Spirit of Jesus has been released to do great things. Paul said that The Spirit of Jesus “helps” him. As is so often the case the English word just does not do justice to the original Greek. What this word originally means is “to abundantly supply”. The word was used for the securing of a choir that would come to a city to put on a concert for some special occasion. The reason this word came to mean “abundantly supply” was because to secure a choir would cost a lot of money. So what Paul is showing us here is that as we pray we open the flood gates of heaven to poured out on those who are in need.
2. I have a whole lot more I want to share in this sermon today but before I leave this point let me say this. I have been a Christian for close to 40 years of my life and in those 40 years I have seen God do some pretty remarkable things. But I have to wonder what could still happen if God’s people really got serious about prayer and made prayer a priority in our lives? I think we would begin to see the fulfillment of what Paul said in Ephesians 3:20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.
Trans. Now the second thing I think we can learn from these words of Paul is that:
II. TO LIVE CONFIDENTLY WE NEED TO BE FOCUSED.
In V.20 Paul tells us that he fully expects and hopes to not be ashamed. What I see in the first part of this verse is that:
A. We Need To Be Focused On The Right Things.
1. The word Paul uses here when he says that he “fully expects” means “to watch something with strained expectation.” What these words are saying to us is that if we are going to live confidently in these uncertain times we are living in we need to live focused lives. [] When I read these words they make me think of good golfers. A group that I am not a part of, by the way. I have played my share of golf over the years but I am not a good golfer and I don’t like to do it often and I think part of the reason is that to be good you really have to focus on that ball and I just can’t seem to keep my focus. When I watch golfers like Tiger Woods I see a man who is watching something with strained expectation. He is completely focused on that ball and as he takes his swing he fully expects the ball to go where he wants. Now when he golfers there are hundreds of people standing near by watching. I can’t concentrate when I am golfing with a foursome, but this guy is focused with hundreds of people around him.
2. We have a lot of stuff on our plates, don’t we? Wouldn’t it be great if the only thing you had to think about each day was getting up and going to work, but that is not often the case? [] In fact the morning I began to write this sermon the night before my daughter and son in law had taken out one of our cars and they locked the keys inside it. Triple “A” had to come out and when they opened the car they had to jump it as well because they said the battery was weak. So when I came into the office that morning it wasn’t just coming to work and working on a sermon I was thinking about. I also had on my mind the fact that I earth had to replace the battery or maybe even the alternator was going bad. When I knelt that morning to pray I had to specifically ask God to help me drop those car concerns from my mind. I know me well enough to know what will happen if I allow myself to dwell on this.
3. Folks I am not trying to suggest to you that we try to live our lives in some sort of protective bubble, but what I am suggesting is that if we really want to live confidently and joyously in this life then we had better focus our attention on what really matters and I hate to tell you but what really matters is not the consumer confidence levels. It is not how far your home price has dropped over the past year. It is not whether or not you get that new job. It is not (this one of for me) whether or not the church averages one hundred people ever Sunday. I suggest to you that what matters are are God’s purposes being lived out in you.
4. Notice that Paul said, “I fully expect that I will not be ashamed.” Usually when we think of being ashamed we are thinking about doing something that was wrong, something that betrayed a trust. [] The governor of New York was ashamed because he betrayed the trust the people had put in him to be a good leader. When Paul said he didn’t want to be ashamed what he was talking about was that he didn’t want to do something that would show he had not kept his focus on what really mattered. He didn’t want to show that his trust was placed some where other than in Christ.
5. I think that what Paul was telling us here is that he did not wish to come to the end of his life with any “If only…” If you think about the context of Paul’s words here it is as if he is saying to us. “I don’t want to get to the end of this life wishing I hadn’t spent so much time worried and anxious about these people who were preaching Christ for selfish reasons.” If we come to the end of this earthly journey saying things like, “I wish I had read my bible more.” “I wish I had prayed more.” “I wish I didn’t spend so much time at work.” All of these things and more that we could add to the list are expressions of a life that was focused not the wrong things. It was Jesus who said, Mark 8:36-37 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? 37 Is anything worth more than your soul?
Trans. Let’s look at this last point about how to live confident lives in uncertain times.
III. TO LIVE CONFIDENTLY WE NEED TO BE TOTALLY SURRENDERED.
I have said this several times during this series but James told us that the double minded man is unstable in all he does. The person who tries to live with one foot in his faith and one foot in the world is a person who is not happy and they are certainly not confident. What I see in the life of the Apostle Paul and what I read from the words of Jesus is that:
A. Our Confidence Come From God’s Total Control Of Us.
1. I have used John 10:10 many, many times. That verse tells us that Jesus came to give us abundant life, but here is the catch if you will. We cannot really live until we really die. I know this sounds the total opposite of what we are trained to believe but that is why the bible calls followers of Christ peculiar people. That is why we stand out as light in the midst of darkness. Here is what Jesus told us, Matthew 16:24-25 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.25 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.
2. Folks Jesus was not calling us here to open the jewelry box and put on a nice pretty necklace. He wasn’t asking you to open your dresser drawer and put ion a t-shirt with a cross on it. He was saying, “If you want to follow me, if you want to live, if you have to die.” Remember what I said at the beginning of this message? Our song is not “I did it my way.” Paul told the Corinthian church 1 Corinthians 6:19b-20 You do not belong to yourself,20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. If you are truly a follower of Jesus Christ then you must understand that this life you are living now is not about YOU! It is not about what you want to buy. It’s not about where you want to work. It is not about how you want to spend your leisure time. Your body, your time, your job, your whatever are God’s now. We take these things we have and offer them to Him as a living sacrifice. Lord what do you want me to do with YOUR body, YOUR time, YOUR money and so on.
Trans. Now let me close by showing you something very powerful that Paul said in the last part of this verse.
B. Let Your Life Magnify Christ.
1. Paul prayed that his life would “honor” Christ. The word “honor” here in the Greek means to magnify. Paul was praying that as he died Christ would be seen. Again that is the total opposite of what the world would say needs to happen but we are not to live our lives by this worlds standards or ideas.
2. Now consider this question with me. How do we magnify Christ in our lives? I will suggest to you that we can do this in two ways.
a) First of all to magnify we need to make something that seems far away appear closer. [] When we look in a telescope at a planet like the moon what we are doing is taking something that is far away and we are bringing it closer and making it easier to see. We are not changing the size of the moon we are just allowing people to see what they could have never seen without the telescope. You and I are doing this same thing if we allow Jesus to be magnified in our lives. I am not shrinking Jesus down to a manageable size I am just trying to bring him closer to people by allowing his life to live through me so people can see what Jesus is like. Certainly people will not be able to see everything Jesus is in me but as I allow God to use me they can see how he can work in their lives as well.
b) The second thing we can do to magnify the Lord is by making him appear bigger. With the telescope we make things that are far away and large come closer so we can seem things we would have not seen otherwise. Now consider the microscope. What does a microscope do? It takes things that are small and makes them bigger. Now here is why this is important for us. For an awful lot of people Jesus is pretty small. Jesus isn’t big enough to help them with their financial crisis. Jesus isn’t big enough to help them with raising rebellious children. Jesus isn’t big enough to help me love difficult people and the list goes on. What we are to do through our lives is to help people see just how big Jesus really is. We need to let them see how Jesus has helped us with some of these issues that we have faced. Now can you see here why it is so important for you and me to totally surrender ourselves to God? If we are not allowing God to work in us because we are trying to handle life our own way, how can we magnify God? How can we help them find a God who seems to distant and unrelated to life if we are not trusting Him with our lives. How can we help them to see that God is big enough to handle whatever life brings to our friends if we do trust Him to handle what is happening in our lives?
YOUR NEXT STEP
A. What is your confidence level like today? How would you rate yourself on a scale of 1-10? Now let me ask this, “Where does your confidence come from?” Are you feeling confident today because your house has only lost 5% of its value and not 11% like others? Is your confidence level in the fact that you have a college degree and so while others are being laid off you think your jobs secure? Are you confident because you attend church regularly or give ten percent of your income as the Bible says? If your confidence is in things like these can I just want you to pay close attention to the rising flood waters? Sand has a tendency to give way pretty easily in troubling times. Our confidence must rest in Christ alone; all other ground is sinking sand.
B. How well are you doing at magnifying Christ in your life? Can you name any one thing you did last week that helped bring Christ closer to someone or help make him bigger for someone? What could you do this week to magnify Christ in your life? Maybe that could question you can discuss to open your small groups this week. I know my guys will (there is your hint men, be prepared).
