The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 3: To Live is Christ

Episode Date: February 19, 2023

In our third week of our series through the book of Philippians, Pastor Joby Martin teaches through Philippians 1:12-20 and asks us the question, "Is your life characterized by faith, freedom and gospel focus that transcends your circumstances? Or do you feel like a victim of your circumstances?" — The Church of Eleven22™ is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. Eleven22 is led by Pastor Joby Martin and based in Jacksonville, Florida, with multiple campuses throughout Jacksonville and the surrounding areas. To support The Church of Eleven22 and help us continue to reach people around the world, visit https://www.coe22.com/donate — STAY CONNECTED Eleven22 Website: https://coe22.com Eleven22 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChurchOfElev... Eleven22 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coe22/ Eleven22 Online: https://coe22.com/online #TheChurchOfEleven22 #Eleven22 #JobyMartin

Amen and amen. How we do, church? Doing good? You look good. If you got your Bibles, and I hope you do, we're going to be in Philippians, Philipians, for a bunch more weeks. We're in Philippians chapter one. I would encourage you to turn there, and as you are turning there, I want you to play a little imaginary game with you. I want you just think in your mind.

What would your best life look like? I mean, what would that look like? When I ask that, what would your best life look like? If you just dreamed a little bit, what comes to your mind? I mean, is it money? Is it houses? Is it trips? Is it for some of you, if you think, oh, man, my best life would be if every day I could just sit by the beach and have a little umbrella drink, that would be my best life.

For some of you, it's not the beach. It's like a mountain cabin. And every single day you could wake up and hike the hills and hunt or whatever you want to do there. That might be your best life. For some of you, it would be to play golf every single day. of your life. Some of you're living your best life because it's all you ever do. But what would be your best life? Or maybe it's not like tied down to one place. Maybe you're not a beach person or a mountain person. You're an everywhere person. And your best life would be like every

few weeks you would hop on a plane and go see all the places all over the world. What would your best life look like? Like if I gave you a fill in the blank test and you were just thinking about the greatest thing you could think of and I said, all right, to fill in a in the blank, to live is, and you fill in the blank. Now, whatever you put in that blank is your functional savior. Whatever you put in that blank is your highest aim and your highest goal. And what we're going to see here in our text is that the Apostle Paul, who writes the book of Philippians to the church in Philippi, from a jail cell, he writes this word.

He says, to live is Christ. and what's crazy about this is even though he's chained to a Roman soldier in a jail cell, when he writes these words to live his Christ and to die his gang, the Apostle Paul is the most free man who has ever lived. And when I say free, I don't know what pops up into your head. Oftentimes when we hear the word freedom as good old Americans, we think free to do whatever I want to do. That's not the kind of freedom I'm talking about.

I'm talking about an eternal freedom that this man was the most free man who ever lived. Like he was free from worry and free from sorrow and free from anxiety and free from pressure and free from pretending. He had the kind of freedom where he's going to say in a few chapters, which will be about six weeks for us,

that he had learned the secret of being content in every situation. Imagine that kind of freedom. Imagine no matter what happened at work, no matter what happened at home, no matter what happened in the government, no matter what happened in any area of your life that you get all angsty and worked up about, that no matter what, you could breathe in and breathe out and be perfectly content in any and every situation. Because your highest aim was Christ. He is going to say to live is Christ.

Now here's the thing about this message. This message is going to be the most counterintuitive thing you've ever heard, particularly in our culture. Because this world sells us a bill of goods, man, and spends billions of dollars a day to bait you down a road and you know what that road goes. And listen, for many of you, that's what you're going to continue to choose. Because wide is the path to destruction and narrow is the way to the kind of fringe. them that Paul lived in. You see, but we've learned over and over and over that the only thing the enemy has for us,

the only thing he wants to do is kill and steal and destroy. But Jesus says, the good shepherd says, but I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly. And if you live like everybody else lives, then guess what? You're going to get what everybody else has got. It's just true. And all this world has to.

offer. All this world has to offer. Like, you want to be normal in this world? Guess what normal is in this world? Normal is broke and lonely and depressed. You can have normal. But if you want different, if you want freedom, if you want gospel focus, if you want faith, then we've got to do life differently and we're going to figure out how to do it in this passage. Philippians chapter 1 beginning in verse 12, the apostle Paul from prison says this, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. And you know what has happened to him? What had happened was he has been arrested, he's been beaten, he's been shipwrecked, he got

snake bitten, he's been beaten with rods, beaten with rocks, almost dead, probably dead one time came back. I mean, the things that happened to him are not the kind of things that you think he would classify as abundant life. And currently, he is locked up in a Roman prison. and the reason that he's locked up in a Roman prison is not because he disobeyed God, but because he obeyed God.

And he's locked up. If you were locked up, what would you be saying? I know what you'd be saying. You'd be writing your lawyer. You'd be sending them prayer requests for us. He, this is crazy, man. Can you imagine living with this amount of freedom that no matter the circumstances,

his circumstances do not define his attitude and lifestyle, but what's on the inside of him defines who he is, not the things on the outside of him. Can you imagine that kind of freedom? And can you imagine this kind of focus? I mean, he's in jail, and he goes, you know what? As I evaluate the situation, brothers and sisters in Philippa,

what has happened to me is actually serve to advance the gospel. And since I don't live my life for me, but I live my life for the advancement of the gospel. If this is what it takes, then I'll take it. That's a different kind of gospel focus, is it not? And can you imagine this kind of faith? I mean, this kind of faith. And the opposite of faith, I've told you a million times,

the opposite of faith is not doubt. It's not. If you have doubts, if you've got unanswered questions, if you can't figure out, there's stuff in the Bible that doesn't make sense to you. I got real good news. You can make a great disciple. You know why I say this?

Because I don't know if you've ever read the four Gospels. Those jokers were clueless. And Jesus picked them, anointed them, appointed them, called them apostles, and said, go tell the world, okay? So if you ain't got it all figured out and you have some doubts that creep up, praise God, man, here's what you do with your doubts. You just pick them up and by faith you follow after Jesus. You do that long enough one day, all your doubts go away. Now, not by elder-led prayer next week, no. but when you get to heaven, you will have no doubts.

You're not going to have doubts in heaven because your faith becomes sight. Nobody's going to come to you in heaven and be like, do you really believe in Jesus? You'd be like, I don't know asking you. Sitting right there is the shiny one on the throne, okay? Why? Because your faith becomes sight. But the opposite of faith, and now, the opposite of faith is fear. Because faith always produces action.

Faith has the evidence of things unseen. And fear always paralyzes. And Paul is the kind of brother that by the work of the Spirit of God in him, he is ruled by freedom and gospel focus and faith. Can you imagine? Can you imagine if you could see all of your life as a means to the end, and that end is the glory of God in the advancement of his kingdom? That no matter what happened to you, your immediate question was not why me, but your immediate question was, God, how are you going to use this? There's a freedom there, man.

Maybe this is why we'll find out next week that Paul is going to write these words, and I do apologize. I memorized most of Philippians in the New International Version in 1984. Many of you weren't even born yet. We had Bibles back then too, okay? And Paul says this in Philippians chapter 2.

With this being the root, he's going to say this, do everything without complaining or arguing. You see, because when you complain and argue, what you're doing is you're defending yourself. You say, hey, hey, I got a problem here, and the focus is on you. If you're focused on the glory of God,

what is there to complain about? But when you're focused on your own comfort, the list is long. And so you go to Paul, and you go, Paul, I have some issues. Now, we don't complain as Christians, we vent or share prayer requests. All right?

Just need to share something heavy on my heart. Okay, well, here's what you do. If it falls under the everything category, Paul says, don't complain or argue. No, no, no, but you don't understand. Well, here's the thing, man. What begins to happen when you complain or argue that you stand as your own defendant?

And God says he will defend you, so if you take his place, then you can't count on him to defend you. But when you know that God is your defense, then you don't have to defend yourself. You don't have to fight for your rights. Why? Because you were crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

And crucified people don't have rights anymore. Paul says, do everything without complaining or arguing. And then the promise, there's a promise attached to this thing. He says, you'll become blameless children of God. Check this out. Who shine like stars in a crooked and depraved generation. You want to reach your office for Jesus? According to the Apostle Paul,

one of the things that you could do to be different in your office is not necessarily like your Jesus t-shirt or whatever. Here's what Paul would have you understand. The next time anybody and everybody in your office is griping about all the things, man, can you believe that, want me to come in on a Saturday,

and I can't believe, and they used to have in medical, whatever, you know? And the Bible says, one of the most evangelistic things you could do is shut your mouth. And if you just didn't complain or argue, and again, I'm not saying there's not things to complain and argue about. There's plenty. The list is long.

Turn on the news. Every subject. You could complain and argue about all the subjects. And the Bible would say that if you just didn't do that one thing, you would stick out in this depraved culture to the point where it would be like bringing the son to Jacksonville and it would blind the eyes of everybody here because you would shine like a star in a crooked and depraved generation. Can you imagine what the people in prison with Paul think about prison?

And the reason that you do this is because when you complain and you argue, you are the point. And when you don't, when you trust God to defend you, then you know that your life has lived to the end of the glory of God. You see, when you don't complain and argue, you realize I don't have to defend myself because I believe that God's going to fight my battles. And when you do this, you could change the world.

The world. So Paul says, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. Can you look over your shoulder and see some things in your life that you may would not have signed up for

but as you look at some suffering, some pain, some things that you've been through that we're not your idea necessarily, and you can see Romans 828 at work that God is at work in all things for the good of those that love him and are called according to his purpose. Yeah, he doesn't have to get out of jail before he realizes it. He has the gift of seeing it while he's still in it. Verse 13, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest

that my imprisonment is for Christ. What does this mean? Paul is sharing the gospel with the people that put him in prison. Paul is sharing the gospel with the jailers that are holding him. And it's the imperial guard. This is like the elite of the guard. These are the ones that the Caesar has hands selected and trained up in a special regiment, and they were like the best of the best of the best.

And here's what's crazy, man. If you go back to like Romans chapter one, which was in Paul's second missionary journey, you know what one of Paul's greatest desires was? it was to go to Rome. He says, I yearn to see you. I long to be with you, and I have a message and a gift that I want to share with you. And the Apostle Paul thought he was going to go to Rome as a preacher, and God sent him to

Rome as a prisoner. But yet his mission did not change. And in fact, now Paul is evaluating the situation, and he's basically, maybe he's thinking, you know what, if I would have had this my way, there's no way I would have had an audience with the emperor and the imperial guard, I'd have been meeting these little house churches around town. And now I get to share the gospel with the most influential people in Rome.

There's a direct correlation between Paul planting the seeds of the gospel in the Caesar's house here and then 300 years later, Rome declaring Christ as Lord. You see, Paul had a plan, and God had a greater plan. And the craziest thing about it, man, is that the apostle Paul says, it don't matter.

All I do, I live for the glory of God, period, in God. Now listen, Jesus said that we are to love our enemies. These men that he is leading to Christ are the same men that would have locked him up, that would have locked him in the stocks, that would have beat him. They would have, humanly speaking, been the ones, that would have taken away his freedom,

and what does he do in response to that? He shares the good news of the gospel with these folks. Let me ask you this. What do you do for your enemies? Do you pray for them? And you're like, oh, I pray for them. Dear God, get them. No, no, no.

That's pray about them. Do you know the difference between pray about and pray for? Look, I'll give you a little life hack as a disciple. If there's somebody at work and you just can't stand them, I know that you're not supposed, I know you love everybody, but you just don't like them at all. You know what them people? Right. Start praying for them.

Not pray about them. When you pray about somebody, you're actually praying for you. Dear God, change Susie to make her more likable for me, amen. That's what you pray. You're really exalting you. But what if you actually prayed God's blessing upon her? God's blessing upon him. And then watch what happens.

There's no way that you can harbor resentment and bitterness in your heart towards somebody and simultaneously lift that person up to Christ. What will begin to happen is when God blesses that person, something will ignite in your heart and you will realize I was a co-laborer with Christ in this thing in their life. Paul loves his enemies to that extent. The people that did him wrong, that treated him unfairly, He calls them brothers.

And he begins to see how God is at work in this life, that what the enemy intended for evil, that God intended for good. Verse 14, and most of the brothers, I love this, not all of them, but most of them, but most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.

In other words, there's some other brothers, there's some other Christians, some people in the church, and they know Paul's story, and because of Paul's example, it has emboldened them to be more explicit in sharing the gospel. Listen, sometimes, sometimes God's just looking for somebody to go first, somebody to open their mouth, somebody to take a stand. I hear these stories all the time. I mean, I work at church, so I don't know what your life is like. But I've heard, I can't tell you the number of times I've heard where somebody does a thing.

thing at work, host a Bible study, host a prayer, does a thing where you just explicitly out yourself and be like, I'm a Jesus follower and share some things. And then the moment somebody goes first, then all the little secret Christians that you work with are like, me too, like little roaches coming out at night. Okay? And it's crazy. Even if you get in trouble for it, it emboldens some other Christians. And even if you don't, you don't, see what you do as immediately successful, you have no idea the ripple effect that you may have through your place of influence. And so he's saying, some people have seen me locked up and it has emboldened them to preach the gospel. Verse 15. This is like, however, 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. Verse 17, the former proclaimed Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. Now don't keep reading. How would you respond to that? If you knew that there were people preaching and they had wrong motives, and not only were their motives wrong about Christ,

but their motives were to try to get you in more trouble. He says, what then? Now, if he asked me, if I didn't know the Bible, what then? I'd be like, oh, here's what we need to do, Paul. We need to start an Instagram account so that we can point out who's with us and who's against us, right? Isn't that what we need to do? I mean, we need to make it clear for everyone who the former and who the latter are,

who are the people with the right intentions are and the wrong intentions. Let's call them out by name. Let's do that. Is that what we're just to do? What then? And here's his response. only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

Can you imagine that kind of freedom? Can you imagine this kind of freedom? Now, here's the thing. So he doesn't start this campaign to point out all the people that are preaching with bad motives. He just rejoices in the fact that they're preaching Christ. He doesn't get focused on where they, differ, he just gets focused on Christ. And what Paul's saying is, whether you for me or against

me, I don't really care. I know I'm for him. I do not live for the applause of man, but only for the applause of God. And so if God wants to use them, then God bless them. You know where he learned this? He learned this all the way back in Acts 5. We covered in week one. So I know this is review because you remember everything I say. But if you'll remember the Apostle Paul studied up under Gamaliel. And when the Sanhedron, the ruling council, had Peter and John and some of the disciples on trial because they healed a man in the name of Jesus

and they were trying to get them to quit using the name of Jesus and they said, hey, listen, man, you do whatever you need to do but we can't stop speaking about what we have seen and heard and there is one name under heaven where probably must be saved. And they say that this ruling council goes, what should we do with these men? And Gamaliel steps in and gives what we call Gamaliel's advice. He says, do nothing with these men.

Why? Because if they've just like drummed this up in and of themselves, if the Lord isn't in it, it's going to fizzle out anyway. But if this is of God, you're not going to be able to stop it and do you want to be fighting against God. And now years later, Paul hears about these ministries. And the point of the ministry is to put Paul in pain. And he goes, hey, man, don't worry about them.

Don't worry about them. And ultimately, I think the sentiment behind it is the same thing as what Gamaliel said. Listen, if what they are doing is in vain and it's man-made, listen, it will take care of itself. But if they are of God, you can't stop it. And how many of you know that God has been using imperfect people for a long time to point people to the perfect Savior? Amen? He's been using crooked sticks to draw straight lines for centuries. Now, the Bible does call us to be on guard and watch out for heresies in the church, in the church.

But it does not call us to go on a hunting expedition to go find out what every other ministry is doing and try to take them out. You see, listen, man, we do have an enemy, and it is not another ministry of church. At the church of 1122, we gladly partner with every and any Bible Bible. believing, gospel preaching, Jesus loving ministry and church, period, amen. And if you want to complain about the last place you were at, you're in the wrong place. So just don't, just pray about it. Because remember they do everything without complaining or arguing, your last church is in the everything category.

Because we're not here to snipe other people. We are here to join with all Bible believing, gospel loving, Jesus loving ministries to advance the gospel. again, we have an enemy, and other churches are not it. This is why we plant, when we plant churches, you know, we've planted over 500 churches. We've planted, oh, we're non-denominational, which is great. We're nothing, all right, we're like a mutt. We plant all kinds of churches.

We planted Presbyterian churches. Isn't that crazy? Don't tell the presbyes. We do. We planted Methodist churches and Baptist churches and Pentecostal churches and all kind of different churches. I knew the Pentecostals was like, glory, all right, yeah. Do you know, when I said the presbyes, they just, you know, when I said the presbyes, they just took a note, they were like, oh, you did, okay, let me just, right. Yeah, man. And even in this,

what Paul does is Paul rejoices, man, do you rejoice when God is usually other people? Listen, I've been getting a lot of emails about what's going on at Asbury right now, this revival that's going on at Asbury. And everybody's like, what do you think? Listen, man, we, now the Bible says test the spirits, absolutely. But man, I'd rather be. be gullible than cynical. I'd rather just trust that God is in charge and believe the best and pray like crazy for a move of the spirit, then walk around trying to always point out everything. Because here's the thing, man, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And if all you're ever trying to do is find something wrong, you're going to be the most

miserable wrong-finding human being on the planet. I've told you this before. You know how many sharks' teeth I've found in my life? Zero. I've never found one shark's tooth. I've lived here since 2003. And you know why? I ain't wasting my time looking for no shark's teeth. So you typically don't find what you're looking for. And if that's all you ever do, if you spend your life on the beach,

you're just doing this the whole time, then you find all kind of stuff because you're looking for it, all right? Man, what if we dedicated ourselves to look for a move of God and pray for a move of God and look for the hand of God and look for the fruit of God? Instead, I always trying to figure out every little thing that somebody else is doing that isn't the way I would do it. And then he says this, just in case you missed it. He goes, in that, I rejoice.

Then he just repeats himself, yes, and I will rejoice. Joy is a choice. If you are going to declare that you're going to do a thing, then it is a decision of the will that you're going to do that thing. That joy is a choice. Here's the thing, man, joy is a noun, and rejoice is the verb. And they have the same root word. Joy is the noun. So here's what this means, okay?

That joy is found in Jesus. So if you are in Jesus and Jesus is in you, then joy is in you. Some of you should tell your face, you got joy in there. And when you rejoice, then you are putting action to the noun that is in you. and what you've got to do, man, is you've got to willfully decide to stir that thing up in you so it will come out of you. That's what rejoicing is. Like Paul is going to tell Timothy, he's going to say, for this reason I remind you, Timothy, to fan the flame of the gift that is in you. So if the gift is in you, but you don't fan the flame of it, it's not going to ignite and come out of you.

I was sitting by a campfire as I was writing this at the retreat center. And the fire has died down. The flame is this big, but the coals are burning hot. Then all you got to do is take the poker thing and stick it in there one time and just do it a little bit. And it goes, and the fire goes again. Man, if you ain't feeling the joy right now, then here's what you do. Rejoice. It is in there.

Now, this is more than happy. I'm not saying that in every circumstance you've got to act like everything's okay when it ain't okay because the fake you is doing just fine. You ain't got to fake it. But if you were in Christ, there is plenty that we can rejoice about. We rejoice in the Lord. We rejoice always. Again, I'll say it.

Rejoice. Even in his suffering, he goes, all right, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to stir up that joy in me. There's plenty I could complain about. I could complain about the prison. I could complain about the legal system. I could complain about my surroundings. Instead of getting focused on what's going wrong, I'm going to stay highly focused on how God is in control of all circumstances.

And all of this has actually worked out for the advancement of the gospel. Joy is a lifestyle. It's not just a feeling. The joy is rooted in Jesus, not our circumstances. Joy is found when you begin to understand that what you were a part of is so much bigger than the part that you get to play. Joy is found when you celebrate God not just your circumstances. circumstances, do you see the freedom that the Apostle Paul has? Now, again, not this Western individualistic idea that I am free to do whatever I want to do. No, no, no, no. He is going to say,

I am a bond servant to righteousness, but where he finds his freedom is in being obedient to Christ and living his life for the glory of God. He says, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance, 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. Here's what he says. I know I'm going to be delivered. I might be delivered in this life, or I might be delivered in my death, but I am confident that I will be delivered. That's what he says, man.

He is not living for the temporary. And notice here, here's what I love about Paul. Paul is so honest. I mean, again, I've just said, Paul is like the most free human who has ever lived. And yet, Paul, even here, has to speak life into Paul. Paul is saying,

it is my earnest hope and desire that through the gospel of Jesus, and y'all can pray for me about this, that I would continue to speak the gospel with boldness. I hope this is encouraging to you. Because sometimes when we look at the life of the Apostle Paul, we think he's like not human. We think he just stands up there like a superhero,

you know, with like his outfit on, with his underwear on the outside, and a big cape just with a big F on his chest for faith, and he's just standing there in the wind, like, I fear no thing, you know? But every single one of us get to this place where we feel like we're in prison, feel like we're in the pit, we feel like everything's caving in on us.

And sometimes you've got to speak life to yourself. It's very important. Your self-speak is very, very important according to the scriptures. Because you can kill your own hopes and dreams with your own words. Pay attention, man. Pay attention to the words that come out of your mouth because your ears will hear them and your brain will believe it and your heart will start to feel it. Don't speak lies and doubt and deception to yourself.

Speak truth. And so he's speaking to him. here. It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that will, with full courage now, as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. And then here is our memory verse. For me to live as Christ, to die as gain. Do an honest evaluation of your life. For you, what is life? Now, I know you're going to say Christ, because you're in church, and it's our memory verse, about the four. the fourth time we talked about it.

But if you were outside of church and I were to ask you the question, what is life for you? Pay attention to what you put in that blank. He says, for me to live is Christ and to die is gained. Can you imagine that kind of freedom? Can you imagine?

We've talked about this a million times how frustrating the Apostle Paul would be to the Roman army. The Romans are locking him up. we'll be like, we're going to kill you. Cool. What? Yeah, man, to die is gain. Whatsoever do you mean? I don't know if you notice, but I was created by the one true God. He breathed the ruach of life into me when Adam opened his eyes. He was face to face with his heavenly father. Sin has separated us from that relationship. God sent his very own son, Jesus Christ, on a rescue mission for anybody

who would believe. And I believed. I put my faith in him. He adopted me into his family. He wrapped his robe of righteousness around me. He calls me a son, and to be absent from the body is to be present with him. And the day I breathe my last, whether you choke me out or cut my head off or whatever you do to me, the moment I'm done here, I am face-to-face with my Heavenly Father, and that is what I was created for, to die as gain. And then, they go, well, we ain't going to do that. What are you going to do? We're going to let you live. Praise God, man, to live as Christ. What? I got a lot of work to do. Can I share. with you the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That's it. We'll just keep rolling here. Is that an amber alert? I want you to think about this. We have a system in our culture right now. And when somebody is lost, every single one of us get this alert, and we all look at it. And we just see it. We're like, okay, right?

Because the person that's lost, we don't know. them. We don't know them. But somebody, right now, somebody, when they get in an Amber Alert, they are on the edge of their seat. They are praying. They are praying like this. Dear God, please help. And there is a system by which our culture has put together where that announcement goes out so that people go looking. Do you realize every time you hear an Amber Alert, no matter where you are, I need you to think, for God, so love the world. He had a son, he had a daughter, He had a child that was lost. And so he didn't just have to announce that can somebody find him.

He sends his only begotten son to go on a rescue mission. And Jesus, God the son, looks at God the Father and says, I've got this. And he comes, and he seeks and saves the one that is lost. He comes running after us. This is the thing that drives the Apostle Paul. When he says to live is Christ, that's what he's talking about. When he says to live is Christ, he's saying there's an eternal amber alert, and there's a whole bunch of lost people out there,

and I got a lot of work to do to go and find those that are lost, and so as long as you're going to leave me here, all I'm going to do is work on behalf of Christ to go seek and save those that are lost. He says, for me, to live as Christ and to die is gay. Can you imagine that kind of freedom, man? It's like there's nothing this world has that can grab onto him. This illustration doesn't make any sense to me,

but I'm preaching, so this is the way I think about it. I feel like we were all born with like these handles on us. You can't see them, but it's like we've got these handles on us, right? And everybody has their own different handles that represent different struggles. Ego and insecurity and pride of life and lust of the flesh and lust of the eyes, the applause of man, whatever it is, right? Some of us are like stuff, some of us like status, whatever it is. The Apostle Paul gets to this place where he says to live as Christ, to die as gain.

and it's almost like all the handles on him have fallen off. And the world, I just imagine the world, like the walking dead, just like coming up to him, you know, and they're trying to grab him and drag him away from the abundant lives that Christ has for him. But they've got nothing to grab onto because of his faith in Jesus and because of his faithful, his gospel focus, and because of the freedom that he has in Christ, they just can't grab onto him, and so he can look at this world and say, do whatever you think you need to do to me, but to live as Christ to die, is gay. That is what it means to have the abundant life.

And then he explains what he means. He says, if I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Underline those words. Yet which I shall 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. Again, face to face with your creator. But to remain in the flesh,

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 calls to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again. Paul sees his life and his options as the ultimate win-win. Leave me here. I work for you on behalf of your glory. me home, I see you face to face, and bask in your glory.

My life is a blank check, God. You spend it however you want. But he says this. He says, if you leave me here, there is fruitful labor Christ has for me. Church, let me ask you this. What is the fruitful labor that Christ has for you? I'm telling you, man, too many of you have been living for yourself, and all of your labor has been for you, and eventually it will run out and wear out and just leave you tired and

bored. What is the fruitful labor Christ has for you? I'm super proud of you, man. We've been doing interest nights for our abundant life section of the 1010 life initiative that we've been in, and hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of you have been showing up saying, I'll take a step of obedience. I'll fight for the life of the unborn. I'll come alongside young moms, I'll step into foster care. A bunch of you have stepped up and said, I'll be a lay chaplain for our first responders. A bunch of you are saying, you know what?

I'm like a junior varsity senior citizen, and I don't want to spend my life looking for seashells. Ain't worth finding anywhere. If you're into seashells, no problem. You understand what I'm saying? But my question would be, what about you? Have you figured out what your fruitful labor for Christ is? Because he has it for you.

I would highly encourage you to just go to our website, in COE22.com. There's a big button there, about 10-10 life. Click on that thing. And maybe the fruitful labor he has for you is to go on a mission trip for the very first time. And if you've heard the rumors that I say you've got three years to go on a mission trip

or get out, they're true. Now, because of COVID, I will give you a pass. Now you have three years and three months to go on a mission trip. And here's why. Who made that up? That's not the Bible. You go to heaven.

Jesus' disciple the disciples for three years. And it's to go. Take the gospel to the ends of the earth. So I need you to go. And you don't have to go every three years, but at least one time. You got to go. You got to go see God's work around the world

so that you can get a taste for what the fruitful labor Christ has for you. And the biggest thing that changes when people go on a mission trips isn't what happens on the mission trip. It's what happens in the missionary when you get home and you begin to realize that God has fruitful labor for you.

right here. If you don't know what that is, you are not living the abundant life Christ has for you. Then verse 27, he says this, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. Some trans, like the words literally say, only behave as citizens worthy of the gospel of Christ. You remember at the very beginning, he said, to the saints at Philippi in Christ Jesus, that if you're a believer, you have an in and an at, that we're supposed to be in Christ, in the kingdom of God, serving the king and at Jacksonville or Jessup or Columbia or wherever you live, that your primary identity is not on this planet,

that this is temporary and that we live for a greater king and he has a different set of rules. Now we honor those in power over us and this, we just don't bow to them. That we serve the king. This whole phrase only let your manner of life. be worthy of the gospel of Christ, this is talking about sanctification. In other words, if you've put your faith in Jesus Christ and your manner of living doesn't

look anything like Jesus, I got terrible news for you. You didn't surrender your life to the Lordship of Jesus. If you're still living, however you want to live, then by definition, he's not your Lord. The phrase I like to use around here is, if you've been run over, by the grace train of the gospel of Jesus, it changes everything. Here's what I'm talking about. Imagine you were late to church. I know nobody was late. Everybody was here for the first song. God bless all of you. It still confuses me when people are here late at 1122. It's called 1122. Whoever. Okay. So if you showed up and I was like, you're late. How could you be late? This is a

gathering of the saints. The most important thing you do all week. I can't imagine you be late. You must have an incredible excuse. Why are you late? And you be like, oh, pastor, I would, was run over by a train. I am so sorry to hear that. But you looked exactly like you look right now. I would be like, I think you're a liar. Because I think there would be some evidence of the impact of the locomotive on your face, or your clothes, or your legs, or something. I don't think you can be run over by a train and just hop up and look the same. I think we're going to be run over. I think we're we would agree. And if you've been run over by the grace train of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is infinitely more powerful than all the trains we can't keep it on the tracks right now.

And that's what he's saying here. Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That Jesus gave his life for you and he is your Lord. Therefore your whole life should be given and living for him. Now this doesn't mean that we're perfect. It's called progressive sanctification. That means we're not there yet. We have not arrived. We've got a long way to go. but we ain't where we used to be. Because he changes it's little by little. Not perfect, but gospel focused and faithful and free. Let me ask you, is that you?

Is that you? Then he turns the corner and he says, so that whether I come and see you or am 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 destruction, but of your salvation and that from God. Imagine getting a letter from a guy from prison saying, don't be frightened. You see, again, the reason I think he says that we would not be frightened, he doesn't say we don't have opponents,

we do have opponents. He's just saying you don't have to fear them because when you put your faith in the one true God, he will fight your battles and you don't have to fear man. Let me ask you, is fear holding you back? It's fear holding you back from taking that step of obedience into that whatever gospel fruit and gospel work he has for you. And then here's how he closes.

And if the Apostle Paul would have asked me how he should close chapter 2, I would have suggested he didn't put these words in here. Because they're not very motivating. Listen to what he says. He just says, all right, now don't be frightened. And what do you think he's going to say? say, and the reason you don't have to be frightened is because this, you got nothing to worry about. You got nothing to worry about.

The reason you don't have to be frightened is because, you know what, you're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone of people like you. The reason you don't have to be frightened, that would be motivating. But right on the heels of don't be frightened, he says this, 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. To which you go, wait, what?

I mean, I was all ready to buy in, but you're saying, what do you mean? I'm signing up for suffering? Yeah, the call to follow Jesus is the call to suffer. The call, when Jesus says, you want to follow me? Take up your cross and follow me?

That does not mean you run by the jewelry store and get a cross. It's not what it means. It means that you die to yourself. We sang it earlier, I am crucified with Christ. That was not just like a, that wasn't just some sort of euphemism back in the day. Like the apostle Peter dies on a cross upside down because he claimed Jesus Christ is his Lord and Savior.

He says, you want to follow me? Then you are following. By definition, that means you take the steps that your Savior takes and the steps that he took, took him up to Galgotha. Calvary where he died on a cross. The call to be a Christian is the call to suffer. And the crazy thing is that the suffering that comes to the Christian is not a sign of God's neglect, but rather it is proof that grace is at work in your life. Man, it's hard to be a Christian in America. Me and Pastor Britt and Pastor Adam were leading a pastor's conference in Uganda,

I think, East Africa. A couple hundred pastors. On the last night, somebody from the hotel where we had the conference going came to make an announcement, and the announcement was, can you guys please keep it down because we have other guests here

and they're trying to sleep and you're keeping them up through the night. And you know what was causing all the noise? These pastors from all over Uganda were getting together and having prayer sessions where they were crying out to God and wailing out to God, and it was their prayers at night that kept the other guest up.

I've spoken at 100 American conferences, and we have also been asked to keep it down, but it wasn't our prayer. In one of those conversations we had with one of the pastors from Uganda, he looked at us and he says, I feel sorry for y'all in America. What? We feel sorry for you here.

And he goes, no, no, no. It must be impossible. to be a Christian in America. I go, what are you talking about? We have thousands of them at our church. And he goes, yeah, but it costs you virtually nothing to follow Christ in America. And the call to follow Christ is that you would sacrifice

everything for him to be your Lord. This is what Paul is saying. Can you imagine that kind of freedom? Now again, it is the most counterintuitive message in the whole world, man. You want to find freedom? Become a servant of Christ. You want to find joy,

then lay your whole life down and say, you are my Lord and you are my Savior, and whatever you tell me to do, I'll do, and wherever you tell me to go, I'll go, and whatever it costs, I'll pay. So my question to you is this. Is your life characterized by faith and freedom

and gospel focus that transcends your circumstances or do you constantly feel like a victim of your circumstances? You see, when eternity is your aim, the temporary will lose its influence over you. There's a lady in recent church history that I think exemplifies what it means to live this kind of free life as much as anybody I've ever heard of in my entire life.

Her name is Elizabeth Elliott. She was married to a man named Jim Elliott. They were missionaries in the jungles of Ecuador. Jim Elliott is famous for, saying something to the effect of, he is no fool that gives up what he cannot keep to attain what cannot be taken from him. On January 8, 1956, Jim Elliott and four other missionaries were killed by a group of waroni warriors, the very people that they were ministering to and trying to reach with the gospel

in the jungles near Ecuador. They were killed by these men. They made headline news in America. He was survived by his wife, Elizabeth, and their ten months. old daughter, Valerie. That was January the 8th, 1956. Two years later in 1958, in October, Elizabeth Elliott went to live with the very people with her three-year-old daughter, Valerie, that killed her husband and four of their friends. And people thought she was crazy. You know why? Because she's crazy. She's playing by a different set of rules.

She's not playing by the rules that we grow up with. The number one rule we have is this, be safe. Be careful. Whatever you do, don't be uncomfortable. It's the air we breathe. And it's the air we breathe, not out there in that crooked pagan world, it's the air we breathe in the evangelical church in America. Be safe, be comfortable.

Make sure you keep it all together. and she's packing up to take her three-year-old daughter back to the shores of the place where her husband was run through with a spear. She writes this letter. I am writing this, hoping that by the time you receive it, we shall be living with the very people who were responsible for killing my husband. And Rachel's brother and three other men. One of the tribeswomen say that six of the seven men who did the killing are there waiting for us.

perhaps some of you will pray for them. All of the evidence points to a successful entrance for us. And even if we are received and our entrance is successful in the physical sense, what of their reception of Christ? I am much helped by the thought of the verse from Matthew 1040, whoso receiveth you, receiveeth me. May it be so with the aicus. That's the name of the people.

group. I ask you to pray for them, for us as we go, that the name of the Lord may be exalted. I would like to repeat what I have said to several when they knew of my intention to enter the tribe. I would never go because I thought it would be safe or for any other reasons such as to carry on my husband's work or whatever. There is one reason alone. I believe it is simply the next step. It is the thing required at the moment. You read that again. I believe it is simply the next step. It is the thing required at the moment. For the Lord God will help me. Therefore shall I not be confounded. Therefore have I set my face like a flint and I know that I shall not be ashamed. In that confidence, Elizabeth Elliott. By 1960, most of the trial,

had come to Christ. A few years later, a young, a boy 10 years old, kid named Steve Sank comes down. His father was murdered by that tribe. One of the men that murdered his dad became a Christian. Not only did he become a Christian, he goes on to become a pastor and becomes the pastor of the church at that people group and baptized the son of the missionary that he murdered. later Steve St. moved his entire family down to the jungles of Ecuador to serve this people and that man that

became the pastor adopted his family as his tribal son. And the reason that she did it is because she was playing by a different set of rules, man. Elizabeth Elliott lived the kind of life that said, for me to live is Christ. To die is gay.

The call to follow Jesus is the call to come and die, to die to die to yourself. It's the call to take up your cross and follow after him because you think he's worth it, not because he's going to make your life better, because he is better than life. And so I'm going to do an invitation for you to be a follower of Jesus. And I don't think anybody's going to respond.

Normally what we do is I beg you to say yes to Jesus. The only reason you would respond today, is because God's saving you in this moment right now. There would be no logical reason for you to do what I'm about to ask you to do. At all of our campuses, I'm going to ask our campus pastors to come forward. Here at St. Pablo, we're going to have one at the front of each of each of. And normally what we do at this point is I ask everybody about our head and close your eyes. And that's what we're going to continue to do that in the weeks to come.

It's just not the call of Philippians chapter 1. And so if you've never put your faith in Jesus, I'm going to ask you to do the craziest thing, man, with every eye open and everybody looking around, and I fully expect for zero people to do this because of the comfortable world that we live in. If you've never put your faith in Jesus, then as we close out our service, I'm going to ask you to just walk down here and either come see either one of our pastors down front or if you're at one of our campuses, the campus pastor is going to be right there. And in front of everybody, it will be your first step of suffering and sacrifice to in front of everybody.

admit, I ain't got this, I need a Savior. And so I'm going to invite you to come. You can start now, you can come during the singing, you can come until we go home. At any point, they will be right here. So if that's you, and again, I have zero expectation. But if God is saving you in this moment, if Jesus is calling you in this moment,

and you'll stand up and you'll begin to walk, and you'll walk straight down. Come on. Now, praise God. All right, sit down. Don't stand up here. I know he deserves a standing up. Praise God.

Chris is going to lead him to Jesus right now. All right. So listen, now, to the people that would say, you know what, I'm a Jesus follower, if you would say, for me to live as Christ and to die his gain, for me, I am willing to do whatever it costs, I am willing to suffer whatever that may be, I am willing to go or I am willing to be radically generous

to send the missionaries, I'm willing to take a step out of what is comfortable to me into a significant point of service so that all image barriers in this world can live out the abundant life that Christ has for them. If you are willing to do whatever your king tells you to do, then I'm going to invite you to stand up right where you are and say, hey man, I'm all in. Stand up right where you are. Praise God. And if you're not willing, don't stand up, okay? Everybody doesn't have to stand up. I'm being serious here. If you hadn't put your faith in Jesus, man, then you come on. You talk to one of these pastors to the very

end of the service. Let me pray for us. Our good and grace is Heavenly Father God, we love you more than anything. God, may it be said of us, may we be able to say, with all integrity and character, for me to live as Christ and to die as gay. God, may we be so eternally focused that the temporary things of this world just can't grab on to us anymore. And God, may we know that we know that we know that every step of obedience toward the direction that the good shepherd calls us is a step towards life and it's a step towards life abundantly. God, we pray against the temporary things of this world and how they catch our attention so easily and how so distracted we get. God, would you give us the kind of focus where we don't complain and we don't argue, but we would shine

like stars in a crooked and a depraved generation? God, here we are. Would you just send us? us. We'll go wherever you say go. We'll do whatever you say do. We'll pay whatever price you call us to pay. All for the glory of the one name under heaven whereby we must be saved. Amen. So church, we're going to respond. Again, we've got pastors down here. So won't you come, man? If you need to put your faith in Jesus Christ, come down here and talk to one of these two pastors. And for the rest of us, we're going to sing. We're going to rejoice. This is why we sing. One of the reasons that you sing is to rejoice. Even if you don't feel like it, you've got to stir it up

because the joy of Jesus is in you. It's a big part of what worship is. We're going to rejoice together. And we're going to bring our ties and our offerings. Part of the suffering that God is calling many of us too is to live lives of radical generosity for the sake of the gospel. And we're going to pray.

Because there's no way we can do this without the power of God in us. So let's sing, let's bring, let's pray. Let's respond.