The Intentional Life
(Philippians 4:8-9)
1. The two greatest leaders of the Reformation were Luther and Calvin.
2. Luther was a fun loving guy; he loved to dance, sing popular songs, and enjoy fun for the sake of fun. He took a song they sung in the bars, wrote Christians words to it, and called it, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God."
3. Calvin was the opposite. He was inhibited, thought dancing was a sin, and even opposed musical accompaniment, and believed Christians should only sing Psalms.
4. Theologically, I prefer Calvin to Luther; but socially, I’m with Luther. But it wasn’t always that way with me. You see, at one time I was a "party line" conservative evangelical. Although my creed hasn’t change, my view toward life has.
5.About 11 years ago, I embarked on several years of very difficult trials here at the church.
6. During my first major trial, I realized that I needed to have a separate social life, that it was working against me to make the church my whole life. I realized how important my family was, and how I needed to enjoy life more, not just ministry.
7 . It was during this time that I dove into the music I loved: the 20’s/30’s and Jolson. Marylu and I began taking ballroom dance lessons, and we started to get more involved in the community.
8. Then came another trial that was twice as bad as the first; but because I had a life apart from the church, I was able to survive. It took me years to recover, but I did survive and emerged stronger in many ways. I would not have if it were not for several things: the grace of God, the good people of this church, and having a life outside of church.
• the grace of God alone would not have done it
• the good people of God would not have done it
• having a life outside the church would not have done it
• it took all 3 (or we could subcategorize the last 2 as God’s special provision)
9. Over the years, I have met many Christians with a similar story: they can never remain at a church for long; they are always disappointed. One reason for this disappointment is sometimes that they expect too much from a church. They, too, have no lives outside of the church or family duties, and they do not enjoy the blessings of community.
Main Idea: God demands that the Christian live his or her life with intentionality, not by the default setting of obliviousness.
Our text emphasizes two vital areas where we must be intentional
I. CULTURE: We Intentionally Seek the Good (8)
Many Christians are scared of the arts, culture, and society; instead, we should aggressively embrace them with a note of caution
A. The CRITERIA
1. The WHATEVERS
1. true
2. noble
3. right
4. pure
5. lovely
6. admirable
2. The IFS
1. excellent
2. praiseworthy
• A thoughtful blogger writes: "The odd thing about this phenomenon is the fact that Philippians 4:8 is not a prohibition. It tells its audience what should be embraced, not what should be avoided. The words are "whatever is," not "only what is." It does not paint a picture of restraint, but of passion -- the pursuit of everything that is worthwhile."
• Again, we must be careful not to absolutize this; take I Tim. 3—perfection?
• If I am right, than it is God’s will for the Christian to do more than work, raise a family, and be involved in ministry; God also wants us to Live Life to the Fullest Within A Culture
• God has created us so that we are incomplete unless we have Him; most of us feel incomplete unless we are married/family; but all of us are incomplete if we do not participate in the good aspects of culture. As a result, we expect too much from our marriages or churches, when the problem is that we have not developed a social and cultural life!
3. Let me do a double-check; if I am right, I should be able to find this elsewhere:
• In Ecclesiastes, who is working harder? Eccl. 2:24ff
• 24 A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, 25 for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? 26 To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God.
• Ecc. 3:11-12 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God.
• Eccl. 8:15 15 So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun.
I was saved through a fundamental Bible church that taught the party line: life was about evangelism, missions, devotions, and promoting the church. Family was sort of a concession or developing the Lord’s army. You should put all the time you could into spiritual things, and anything that kept you from putting in as much time as you could was a sin, even if good.
When you ate, it was so that you could have strength to serve God. When you treated your wife and kids well, it was so that you could have a good testimony. If you bought a boat or went on a vacation, it was so that you could be refreshed to better serve the Lord.
Everything had to be justified by a spiritual reason, or we would just look the other way and pretend that we could find a reason when we couldn’t.
And then we wonder why no one we know is ever interested in becoming a Christian.
The sad thing is that preachers who preached this often didn’t mean it. They sort of doubled things, believing people would only half obey.
4. We are so appreciative of what we have since we have come to the Lord, and we forget that society has some excellent things to offer us, things that do not significantly encourage our walk with the Lord nor significantly hinder it.
B. The Choice to SET our Minds
Denis Haack, who refers to the world as "Babylon," writes:
The apostle is not giving us a checklist by which to measure our involvement with the non-Christian world. Neither is he giving us a justification for withdrawing from the people and culture of Babylon. He is rather commending—and commanding—the development of a fully Christian mind and heart and imagination. When he tells us to “think about such things,” he is using a word which means to meditate and reflect on, to contemplate, with the result that what is meditated upon becomes so much a part of us that it molds our thinking, our doing, and our feeling. In other words, he is teaching us what is necessary to prepare us to engage the culture and people of Babylon with the gospel, without compromising, and without being seduced by Babylonian ideas and values. (from www.ransomfellowship.org/R_Babylon7.html)
C. What SORTS of things does Paul have in mind?
I think the arts and culture
How that might look today:
1. Some of us need to stay at home more often
2. Others of us need to get out more often!
3. Those who stay home too much usually set their minds on TV/videos
4. Some people are at church every night…no social life [friends]
5. That’s why community events: Kokomo Comm. Concerts/Park Band/Plays/Sports/ 1812/Kokomuh, etc., are good for you…
6. But cut down TV and the movies, please! They are stress you out, they displace so many truly cultural events…
Gene Edward Veith interpreted Philippians 4:8 in a similar fashion when he wrote the article… in his explanation of World’s movie review policy, Veith said:
At the same time, since Scripture enjoins us to think about "whatever" is excellent and of good report (Philippians 4:8), we want to pay attention to quality work, whether it has explicitly Christian themes or not, since all of life, including the aesthetic realm and the so-called "secular" sphere, is God’s dominion. . . . (from an internet blog)
D. Areas for challenge and THOUGHT
1. Am I a multi-dimensional person?
2. Am I afraid of being part of my community? Would I rather cocoon at home than selectively participate in area events?
3. Am I selective?
If the Christian’s balance includes participating in society, the other end of the scale requires development of our Godly Other-worldliness. Otherwise we end up with the epitaph T.S. Eliot described, "Here were a decent godless people: Their only monument the asphalt road. And a thousand lost golf balls."
So we must be intentional in a second vital area.
II. ROLE MODELS: We Selectively Choose Them (9)
Paul already addressed this concept in 3:17; repeast himself here
A. Real people we KNOW
• If you imitate your favorite radio evangelist, you are in trouble: you only see him in one environment.
B. People who KNOW and DO
• Talking the talk, walking the walk
C. Intentionally DOING like them
• Early on the ministry, I needed to learn to be bolder; Albert King
• From another Christian, I learned to "pray on the spot"
• My dad was very impatient; as I kid, I thought, "impatient is masculine; patient is feminine." I have learned patience by imitating masculine me who are patient…
• I have learned how to think reasonably from many people, Christian and non
D. The result: God’s peace and BLESSING
• Notice that this peace does not come Just from Prayer
• "Just you and God" doesn’t cut it…
• It doesn’t just take a village…it takes God, the church, family, AND the village
God demands that the Christian live his or her life with intentionality, not by the default setting of obliviousness.
CONCLUSION
1. Some of us are so proud, that, like the fool in Proverbs, sometimes we are not eager to learn from others.
2. George Barna- "Even though less that 1/5th of the population describe themselves as leaders, few people are willing to follow the vision, the plans, the methods, or the exhortations of leaders on a consistent basis. Americans have not only become a diverse culture but an unruly one, unwilling to follow anyone but themselves. "
3. Do you come to church & get involved to find people to imitate? You should! I can name things I have learned from many people here, and I am richer because of it! Some of you have experienced this.
