The Church of Eleven22 - S01 E10 - Paul’s Quarantine

Episode Date: April 1, 2020

We live in uncertain times. But no matter our circumstances, we can find and share the hope and good news found in Jesus Christ. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. — Philippians 1:21

Hey, church family, it's time for Devo again. If you've got your Bibles, we're going to be in the book of Philippians. It's going to start with chapter one. I'm not sure exactly how far we'll make it, maybe through the whole chapter. And again, this week we've been focused on what do you do when your schedule is totally different, when everything's changed, when you've been, if you've been quarantined or at least instructed to not gather with large gatherings, and again, all throughout the scriptures, there were times where the people of God just couldn't go where they wanted to go and do

what they wanted to do. And in the book of Philippians, Paul is literally chained to a jailer as he writes this. And so he is quarantined for very different reasons than we are, but he is stuck and he can't go see who he wants to see. And so he writes this letter to the Philippians. He says this, Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers or elders and deacons, grace to you and peace from God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says this.

He says, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you, making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you, will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. Church of 1122. Paul loved his brothers and sisters at the church in Philippi, and he longed to see him, and basically he missed him.

And I'm going to be honest. This whole online thing, man. I mean, it's a thing and way to go, being engaged. But some of the pastors and I were just talking the other day, and we just miss you. We really do. Even though we have a really large church and there's no way we can all know each other,

but there is something special about gathering together and seeing each other's face. And it is very, very different to preach to a can. verses to just preach to your family, to your church family. And so anytime I read this about Paul's longing and prayer for the church at Philippi, just know this. In all of my prayers for you, I pray with passion. I pray for you a lot more than you realize.

And just like Paul says, it is right for me to feel this way about you. the Church of 1122, not the branding and not the buildings, but the people, this movement, I love you like crazy. That is not just a saying, and I know that you miss getting together with everybody. So let me encourage you. Paul used modern day technology in the first century. The best thing they had was pen and paper and mail carriers, and so he sent correspondence to his people.

Let me just encourage you. Don't give up meeting together with your. disciple group, get on, figure out, probably Zoom. That's what most of us have been using so that you can see each other's faces so that we can be connected. And Paul essentially is saying, I love you, I love you for who you are, and I love you for your partnership in the gospel. Church of 1122, I love you for your partnership in the gospel.

I appreciate all the encouraging things that you say to me about preaching and leading, and I really do. It's very encouraging, and I appreciate it. Don't stop. But let me say to you, thank you. Thank you for praying for your one more. Thank you for inviting your one more. Thank you for sharing the gospel with your one more.

And thank you for your generosity towards the kingdom so that we can afford the kind of technology it takes for us to stay connected as a church and for us to be able to invest in the kind of technology it takes to send the gospel around the world. And see, we have a great team here at 11th. In fact, I'm sitting with a couple of guys right now, and every single week now, I see them a lot. And they are partners with me in sharing the gospel. Though I'm the one that's talking and being miced and filmed, they're doing all the hard work of capturing and editing and getting this out. And so thank you, thank you, thank you.

Then Paul goes on to say this, for God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ. Now, we don't use that language so much anymore. Like I just saw Pastor Britt, and he just said, hey, man, it's good to see you because all of our interaction mostly has been on Zoom. And so I can't imagine if I went to Britt and said, Brit, man, I just, I yearn for you with all my affection and probably make him feel weird. But it is right for brothers and sisters in Christ to have a special place in our hearts for one another.

and then this is what Paul prays for this church and this is what I pray for our church Paul says and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment

so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. Church of 1122 that is what I pray for you. I pray that you, regardless of who you are if you were a part of this

movement, honestly, regardless of where you are, if you're a part of this movement, that you would discover Jesus. And I don't mean just become a Christian, for sure, I pray for that if you're not one. But I pray that you would discover, you would continuously discover God's plan for your life, God's call in your life, that you would continuously be on this journey of self-discovery of all that God has gifted you with, that you would discover your place in the body, that you would discover what it means to be a steward of time, talent, treasure, and the temple that you have been given. And I pray for you, I pray that you would continuously deepen your relationship with Jesus Christ

and that he would use us, the one another's in the church of 1122, to spur one another on towards godliness for the glory and praise of God. He keeps going. He says, I want you to know, brothers. that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. In other words, Paul is saying, I'm sure some of you are saying, God, have you lost control? How do you let the apostle Paul go to prison?

He's the greatest church planner ever. He's this incredible preacher. Obviously, your anointing is on him. God, how could you let him go to prison? And Paul is saying, I assure you brothers, that what looks like is out of control in this world, God is in control, and he is using it for the advancement of the gospel. church i say this to remind you that this crazy corona days that we live in for sure there's some

scary things and there's some people that are sick and we need to pray for those people and we need to pray for healing without a doubt and we need to pray for a cure and we need to pray for our leaders but god is at work in this for the advancement of his gospel that more people are hearing the gospel right now than they did a few weeks ago because of this environment and god has no problem disrupting our lives for the advancement of his kingdom. He says, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard

and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. In other words, just because Paul could not go where he wanted to go, that the gospel went exactly where it was intended to go. and most of all brothers having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment are much more bold to speak the word without fear that some people watch the way Paul reacted to his circumstances and it gave them great boldness and faith to go out and do what previously they would not do let me just tell you this church there are people watching you your employees your coworkers your family they're watching you and and when you

respond to all of this with confidence in the Lord, not self-confidence, but gospel-centered confidence, then they can be emboldened to walk faithfully in the direction God has called them to. He goes on to say, some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaimed Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my own imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth,

Christ is proclaimed and in that I rejoice. Paul is saying, hey, the advancement of the gospel is too important for me to even question the motives of why people are sharing it. But if people are sharing the gospel, then glory to God. Then he says, yes, and I will rejoice. Did you know that the word rejoice happens over and over and over? or maybe in its concentration more times in the book of Philippians than any other book. And Paul was in prison when he wrote this.

He says, yes, I will rejoice. For I know that through your prayers and the help of the spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance. Church of 1122, as we make decisions here at 1122, the pastors and leaders and elders, we need your prayers. and we pray, we pray that through all of this craziness, that people would be delivered by the gospel of Jesus Christ. He says, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed,

but that with full courage now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. And then a very famous verse, for to me to live as Christ and to die as gay. You see, even with a health scare like we have right now, do you realize that when we see clearly as believers, that this is what gives us hope, that Paul says, though I'm in prison,

though I'm punished, though they're threatening to kill me, if they do kill me, then to die is gain. That it is better for me to leave here and go there. No more sickness, no more pain, no more bondage, but to be to be glorified in the twinkling of eye, to be face to face with Jesus, that is gain. It is better than anything I can hope for. But if I am to stay here, then to live as Christ,

then while I'm here, I'm going to do everything I can to lead as many people to Christ as I can possibly lead. For to me, to live as Christ and to die as gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. yet which shall I choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better,

but to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again. And then he says, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You know what this means? It means if you have been run over by the grace train of the gospel of Jesus Christ, then you should be affected by that. That we are not saved by works. We talk about that all the time. It's not if you do good, then you will be right with God. But if you have been made right with God through the gospel of Jesus Christ, then you and I should walk in a manner worthy of the gospel for the glory of God.

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or am an absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their lives. destruction, but of your salvation and that from God. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in

him, but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now here that I still have. You see, our president has said that we are at war. And it's true. It is an invisible war. And when you hear politicians say that kind of thing, that we have an enemy that we cannot see that it is attacking us and we've got to be on the offensive to every believer, to every Christian, that should sound familiar. I don't think he, I don't think he's talking about what we're

talking about, but it is true. And we live in a broken world. We live in a world right now where sickness is spreading and the finances are going crazy. And what Paul is instructing the church at Philippa, they had a different enemy and he says, when your enemy is coming against you, may you walk in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. May you walk in courage, may you walk in boldness, and people are watching. And based on how you respond to these crazy circumstances, God might use that to draw those people that are watching unto him. And so I'm praying for you, church. I am praying that you would live at peace. I'm praying that you would be at peace. I'm praying that you would exude peace. You see, Christians, believers in Jesus, there should be things like joy and hope

and peace that defined us. So in our time of totally different rhythms, may everything that comes out of us be rooted in Jesus Christ, may the people that are watching us, whether watching us online or watching us on social media, may they see peace in our lives because they see Jesus in our lives. So church, I'm praying for you daily. I hope you will pray for me too.

Let me pray for you now. Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank you, thank you, thank you. For this movement that we call 1122. God, I thank you that there is one name under heaven whereby we must be saved. It's not the name of our church. It's not the name of any of our staff. It's the name of Jesus. And so Jesus, much like Paul, I pray that we would fix our eyes wholly and solely on you.

I pray that regardless of our circumstances, God, that we would be able to rejoice in you. Because joy is found in Jesus. and that we would not seek the temporary happiness of the happenings in our life. And God, I pray for others that are watching us. I pray that we would walk in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we would walk in such a way that people would take their eyes off of us and put them on you. And when they do that, may we be prepared to preach Christ. We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.