Philippians 2, Tim Robinson

Church Announcements, Vacation Bible School, and Micah’s Hope in Troubled Times

Good morning everybody. Good morning family. We're just about to start.

Okay. I'll do an interpretive dance up there.

Oh. Happy Independence Week. As I said in the first service that we're very fortunate to have two independents. The first one was in our country. The second one was in the United States. And the third one was in the United States.

And we're going to celebrate it with communion. So, thank you so much for coming to Cornerstone Church. My name is Ivan Salera. I'm one of the elders here. And I'm just going to be doing announcements and then I'll be off the stage there.

If you're not familiar, but there's a church center app that's a lot of the programming that we have here is in there. But the big one that's really standing out for all of us right now is Vacation Bible School, which starts August 5th through the 9th.

The Great Jungle Journey. You can register your child if you plan to do that through the application. There's a big application registration on there. And also tomorrow, well actually tonight they'll have prayer meeting.

And then Tuesday morning they'll have the women's ministry starting at 930. Men's ministry has been on hiatus until September. We're just taking the summer off. On Thursdays they have men's Bible study.

I mean family Bible study here at the church through Drew. And that's going through Acts right now, which is a great, great Bible study by the way. And what else? Am I missing anything else? I don't think so.

Yeah, Marriage Matters. Marriage Matters is if Bill's there or Janice. I don't know, but Marriage Matters is coming out. I believe Janice may be giving out some flyers. And I've done it. It's a lot of fun.

But it's limited to five, five couples, maybe six. But check with Janice and Bill Biddle. It's a great, great ministry. It's a great time for fellowship. And I would recommend that for anybody who really wants to get to know other people within the church and have a new rediscovery in their marriage there.

During this time though, there's a lot of friction and upheaval that's going on, that's happening in the world, especially in our country right now. And a verse came to mind that I wanted to just share with everybody.

It's in Micah 7 .7. And if you know the book of Micah, one of the smaller books, Prophets, was really reaching out to the leadership of the Israelites during that time that were very, very corrupt and leading down their lives down a path of destruction and sin and lawlessness.

And he came with two messages, one of justice and conviction, and the other one was of hope. And in Micah 7 .7, he says, but as far as for me, he goes, I watch and hope for my Lord. I wait for God, my Savior, my God will hear me.

And it's a great encouragement in that verse for just what's going on with us there. As the world seems to be turning upside down, we have a great hope. And we have a sovereign God who knows all things, who does all things, who's over all things.

And his providence we see every single day. So let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this wonderful Sunday, Lord. We thank you, Lord, for the message that Tim's going to be bringing today for Phil, who with the worship team, the wonderful songs that are coming out there.

I thank you, Lord, for this communion that we get to celebrate that, Lord. I praise you be with each one of us. Open our hearts and our minds, Lord, to hear the message, the clear message from Philippians today, Lord.

And I pray that you would just put your hand on us to honor you and everything we do and say in your blessed and holy name. Amen.

Worship, Psalm 106, and the Call to Praise God

Let's all stand. Psalm 1062 says, Who can utter all the mighty deeds of the Lord and who can declare all his praises? Lord, your praises are too numerous, Lord. We're so finite, so small to even comprehend everything that you've done, Lord.

All of your vast greatness, Lord. God, we will give you all the praise and all the glory, Lord, for everything that we know that's been revealed to us. So, Lord God, we just pray that you would come and inhabit our praises this morning, Lord.

Let us sing as one voice before you, Lord, for all the praise and all the glory is yours.

Who tells the psalm to rise over the sky with the shades of his glory? Jesus does. He heals every soul. The psalm heals the spirit who's living in me. You saved me.

Who dies yet shall you be for calling us. So we can stand in your presence around your throne, Lord, because no sin can ever abide in your presence, Lord God. So we thank you and we believe through faith that you've borne upon yourself, Lord God.

We give you all the praise for that, Lord.

The Passover, the Innocent Substitute, and Communion

In 215, Jesus said to them, I have eagerly desired to share this Passover.

With you before I suffer. And that final Passover was eagerly desired and divinely planned from before time began. Every Passover before looked ahead to Christ's death on the cross and every Lord's table since looks back to remember his sacrifice.

So I'd like to share two essential principles of the Passover this morning. But before I do, I need to review the circumstances of the first Passover. So the descendants of Jacob, all of Israel had been in slavery for 400 years in Egypt.

Exodus 2 .23 says their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And when the time God set forth was right, God sent Moses and ten plagues. And the tenth and final plague upon Egypt was the death of every firstborn of both mankind and cattle.

So in this act, God manifest his judgment against the land of Egypt. All of Egypt faced God's judgment, just like each of us, every man and woman today face God's judgment for our sin. So the first principle about the first Passover is this God satisfaction for judgment requires a death.

Ezekiel 18 .20 says the soul that sins shall die. And Romans 6 .23 says the wages of sin is death. But listen to Exodus 12 .30. It says, and there was a great cry in Egypt for there was not a house where someone was not dead.

So God's justice requires death. But that death can be the death of an innocent substitute. So this is the second principle of the Passover. God delivers through the death of an innocent substitute. The death of the Passover lamb in the place of one for whom death was deserved.

This is salvation. Simply being a Hebrew didn't cause the angel of death to pass through, but it was by the death of the lamb and applying the blood to the doorposts. And as the angel of death passed through, he would see the blood and pass by.

The sacrificial animal itself was never satisfactory to God. And following that first Passover, men and women were delivered from God's judgment by faith alone in the death of the innocent substitute.

The same as we are saved today at the final Passover, where Jesus sat with his disciples, God chose his Passover lamb to be that innocent substitute that would once forever and always satisfy God's just requirement.

God is both just and the justifier of the wicked. And in that upper room, the night he was betrayed, Jesus transformed that final Passover into the Lord's table. At the Lord's table, believers share communion and celebrate that innocent substitute that took our place.

We publicly testify of God's saving power through Christ's death and resurrection. In a courtroom, if someone tries to testify about something that they don't have firsthand knowledge, the opposing attorney will object and say the testimony is only hearsay and it's inadmissible in the court.

So in other words, the witness is trying to testify about something that they don't personally have firsthand knowledge, firsthand experience of what they speak about may be true, but they haven't personally experienced it yet.

So they can't be a true witness of that. And just as the Israelites had to apply the blood of the lamb to the door posts to be delivered,.

I,.

We,.

You as individuals must repent, which means turning from your sin and believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ to be a true witness. And even the word repent, I think it's, it's misunderstood today. Repent, we know means to change the mind, but that means very little.

I think to a lot of people today, because we are so easy to change our mind. It's very easy to change your mind, but to the Jew, the mind was not just something that could be changed easily. The mind is the totality of who you are.

It's,.

It's your mind, your will, your emotions, everything that make up. So when this is saying change your mind, it's a complete reversal, a complete change, not something that can be flip-flopped by someone else's opinion.

The last thing I would say is do not deceive yourself that you have communion with Christ. If you're not one in Christ for as often as you eat this bread and drink the.

Cup,.

You proclaim the Lord's death until he comes, whoever therefore eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then.

And so eat of the bread and drink of the cup for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.

But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. Ushers, if you'd come forward.

Lord,.

We pray that you would do your work in hearts during this time as we reflect on your sacrifice.

God,.

I pray for every believer here.

Lord,.

I pray that you would convict of sin, even sin that we might overlook. Lord God, Jesus, just as you told Peter and the disciples, as you will, after you wash their feet, you said, if a man is clean, he need only wash his feet and his would be all clean.

Lord.

So we know that we are purchased by the precious blood of the lamb,.

Lord,.

But reveal to us those things that we need to confess so that we are fully clean before you,.

Lord. And Lord,.

I pray for any unbelievers in this place,.

Lord.

God,.

I pray that you would bring your conviction as they've heard the truth, Lord God, that the truth would set them free.

Lord,.

Your word is truth.

God,.

I pray that you would bring conviction that you would bring a knowledge of sin, a repentance of sin, Lord God, and a knowledge that they need you to be that, that spotless,.

That,.

That innocent substitute, that the only way that they could be forgiven for their sins and stand justified before a holy God, Jesus name.

He broke it and said,.

This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

Amen.

Phil, not bad for your first time.

Prayer After Communion and the Call to Change in Light of Christ

All right,.

Let's, let's pray. Father God, thank you for your blood that you spilled for us. Thank you for your body that was broken for us. Thank you that you sent your son,.

Father,.

To come and live as a human being and not just to be served, but to serve that he left his kingdom on high to become a servant. We thank you for his humble example of how to live the human life. We thank you for your son and what he's done for us, dying on the cross and rising from the dead.

We pray now that we can look at your word and that we would change. If your word is really true, then it should change us. So I pray that you would work in us and send your spirit to fall on us, that we would hear your word and that we would obey and that we would be glad and that we would rejoice in it.

Jesus name.

Amen.

Joy in Philippians and Paul’s Partnership in the Gospel

All right. So today is the day that the Lord has made. So we will rejoice and be glad. I'm going to have to tell you first service was a little better than you guys,.

But,.

But we're happy,.

Right?

We're rejoicing, being glad. And that's what the book of Philippians is about. So if you guys would turn your Bibles to the book of Philippians, the book of Philippians is a book about joy. Sometimes one of the youth or someone want to come up to me and they will ask.

Me,.

Hey,.

Tim, I'm feeling a little down,.

You know,.

I'm down in the dumps. What's a good, what's a good passage of scripture to read? And I say, read the book of Philippians. It's a great book. If you're in a bad mood or a sad mood, I think Philippians will do the trick.

It's all about joy and encouragement and rejoicing. And it's just a happy, warm and fuzzy book. And I love it. So when I'm down in the dumps or I'm not feeling that great, sometimes that happens,.

Right?

Life is hard. Sometimes the book of Philippians does cheer me up. So maybe you guys can read the book of Philippians next time you're down in the dumps or just read it. Even when you're happy,.

It'll,.

It'll keep that happiness. So the theme of Philippians is encouragement and joy. John has been walking us through the book and it's a very Christ centered, gospel focused book. And that's the kind of life that Paul lived.

It was,.

He was Christ centered and gospel focused. That's the kind of life that every believer in Christ ought to be living. So I'm going to go through just a little recap of what John has taught us so far. Just highlighting some verses along the way in chapter one.

He starts his letter out, thanking God in a prayer, thanking God for the Philippians. And he says, every time he thanks God for the Philippians and remembers the Philippians in his prayer, he becomes joyful.

It brings him joy. So when you guys pray, I hope when you're praying for people in this church, it brings you joy. When I pray for Cornerstone Church and I think of people from our church, it brings me joy because it's just, we have this partnership in the gospel.

And that's what the Philippians and Paul had, a partnership in the gospel. And Paul encouraged them with this verse of Philippians 1 .6. 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.

That is such an encouraging verse because that tells me that it's not just up to me. It's up to the Lord because I know that he began a good work in me and I trust him that he will finish it for the day of Jesus Christ.

He will finish that work he started. It's not just up to me to complete it because if it was, I don't have faith in myself. Like I have faith in Jesus Christ. I have faith in him. He started the work and I know he'll finish it and I know he'll do the same for you guys.

So when we give out the graduation cards or I go to a graduation party, I try to write that verse in there for Christians. Philippians 1 .6. I love that verse. And it's because they're partakers of grace.

Everyone who believes in Jesus and is living a gospel centered life, it's because they're partakers of grace and the Philippians were partakers of grace in Paul's imprisonment and in the defense and the confirmation of the gospel.

They had one another's back. And he also prayed. This is a great prayer to pray over people in Philippians 1 .9. His prayer is that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment.

That's something that we all should be praying for each other, that our love would abound more and more. Who wouldn't want that? Love abounding more and more with knowledge and all discernment. And then verse 12.

Oh, by the way, Paul is in prison when he writes this. So Paul is happy and joyful, although the circumstances are not in his favor. He's in Roman prison. It's not a cakewalk. It's very difficult. And yet he's very happy and joyful.

And Paul's mind is so gospel centered that he just wants the gospel to advance. And that's his main focus. His main focus isn't the house that he's living in. He's in prison. His main focus isn't things of the world.

It's about the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he was happy that he'd gotten locked up because he says the gospel is going out even more. He says, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.

That's what Paul wants to have happen. And that's what happened. And for that, he's rejoicing because the whole Imperial Guard and all the rest that are at the imprisonment, they know that the imprisonment is for Christ.

Because Paul was preaching Jesus and Jesus crucified, that's why they locked him up. Some people go to jail because they deserve it. In my opinion, Paul didn't deserve to go to jail. He was suffering for the sake of the name, suffering alongside of Jesus Christ.

And because of that, people who knew Paul and met Paul in prison now became more bold and were proclaiming the gospel boldly. Some did it out of selfish gain, maybe trying to mock Paul or maybe for selfish reasons, and others did it out of love.

But either way, Paul says he rejoices that the gospel is being preached. Sometimes I watch preachers on TV or hear them on the radio, and they're pretty famous. And I might not agree with them theologically, and maybe they're not that great of a church, but when they're preaching the gospel and they do mention that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead and preach a clear gospel, I rejoice in that.

And I pray that some people do get saved because some people do get saved through preachers and it's God that saves and it's his word. So I pray that the word goes out. But when it does go out, no matter who it is, I rejoice that God's word is going out, that the gospel is being preached.

Christ is being proclaimed. And in that, I rejoice. And Paul says that he rejoices because of that. And then one of my other favorite verses is verse 21, Philippians 1, 21. You guys probably know it. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Paul was locked up and he was thinking like, life is kind of hard.

You know,.

If,.

If I die, I'll be with heaven and that's gain. And it's, it's better for me to die and be with Jesus in heaven. But he says,.

Ah,.

For other people's sake, it's probably better that I live. And that would mean fruitful labor for me. And I don't know how he was able to choose it, but he says, I don't know which one he'll choose. And then he eventually says, I'm going to choose the fruitful label labor because it's better for Paul that he dies and is with Christ, but it's better for all that he stays around and preaches the gospel and continues to live a gospel centered, Christ centered life so that he can have fruitful labor.

And Paul let his manner of life be worthy of the gospel. And he encouraged the Philippians to do the same thing. Your manner of life is really not worthy at all. If you're preaching Christ, but you're not living like Christ, nothing's changed.

When we hear the word and we believe the word, everything should change. Your attitude should change. Your behavior should change and everything should change. So he says, not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake.

So.

If you're not doing any suffering at all for Jesus Christ, you can't think of one time someone mocked you for being a Christian or got mad at maybe one of your Facebook posts or got mad at one of your Instagram posts or is annoyed at you being a Christian, then it might be because you're not living it out the way you ought to.

When you're living in a dark world full of worldly, dark people, and you're a light, people are going to notice that light and some people will love it. And some people will hate it. And for Paul, he counted the cost and he lived for Christ and he ended up getting locked up, but he still rejoiced in that because the suffering was for Jesus Christ.

The Humility of Christ in Philippians 2

In chapter two, John preached last week in chapter two,.

And.

It was a beautiful picture of Jesus leaving his kingdom on high and becoming a little newborn, well, I guess you could say pre-born, Jewish baby Jesus left his kingdom. He was always God. Eternity passed and he added humanity to his deity.

He still remained fully God and fully human, as John taught us last week. Now, he could have probably entered the world as a 33-year-old and then died and suffered and paid the penalty. I suppose maybe he could have done that, but he humbly became a baby and grew up among his own people and lived in a household and was an older brother probably to his siblings and lived a whole life worthy of the gospel and obeying God.

He lived an obedient life to the Father and he was humble in the way he did things. He was humble in the way he chose his disciples and who he chose. It was kind of a ragtag bunch. It wasn't the most famous and popular and powerful people in the world.

They were mainly fishermen and average people, some tax collectors, and Jesus changed them and picked them because he was humble and chose humble people out of this world to believe in him. He endured being betrayed by one of them.

He knew the entire time that Judas was going to betray him, yet he treated him with respect just like all the others because when it was time for when they were sitting at the table, Jesus said that one of you is going to betray me and they didn't know it was Judas.

They had no clue. They're like, is it me? Is it me? Is it me? And he revealed it was Judas.

And.

He still treated him kindly and it was very humble. He endured the authorities under authority and even on his trials, Pontius Pilate, he was very humble in the way he spoke or didn't speak. Even the crowds were shouting, crucify him!

Although he did nothing wrong. He even chose a murderer, Barabbas, over him. He was very, very humble in all of that. He endured all the mocking, the crown of thorns, the mocking that he was king of the Jews and yet he was king of the Jews.

They just didn't recognize that his kingdom is not of this world. And he humbly laid down his life. No one took it from Jesus. He laid down his life on his own accord. Humbly laid down his life. And not only did he come and live, he came and died.

And even death on a cross. How humiliating. Think about it. The God of the universe who made the heavens and earth came to his own people, lived a perfect life, lived a good life and they still crucified him.

And even death on a cross. He died and that was the plan. God planned that from the beginning so although the devil and the Jewish authorities and everyone didn't like them, they were working towards the same goal as Jesus.

Jesus wanted to die and they wanted him dead. But he was humbly following the Father's will. And when he died, he rose again giving us all this amazing and great hope of eternal life. And God highly exalted him.

He was humble and then he was exalted. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble and he exalts the humble. And Jesus was the most humble man to ever live. The second was probably Moses. And he gave Jesus the name above all names.

That at his name, every knee every knee will bow to him and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord for the glory of the Father. That will happen. Now some of you do that now and you've made that decision that Jesus is Lord and you bow the knee now and that is a good decision.

And some people, they don't make that decision to bow the knee now, but that's a bad decision and they're gonna have to bow later. So a lot of us will be bowing on that day to Jesus Christ when we meet him and we'll be doing it joyfully because we accepted him as Lord and Savior here on earth.

But there's some people that will be doing it grumbly and resentfully and mad that Jesus Christ is Lord and they will admit that Jesus Christ is Lord when they see him and every knee will do this. So it's better to now put your faith in Christ and bow the knee now before it's too late.

Those of us who've done that look forward to that day. It's our great hope. So we're gonna be in Philippians chapter two. We're gonna continue where John left off. Chapter two, verses 12 and 18 and it starts off, therefore, so therefore in light of what John taught last week, this is who Jesus is.

This is what Jesus done because of all this, because of his humility and his humbleness and his servant heart. Therefore, this is how ought you to live. Now you take the action, you apply it. This is the application to the following verses.

That's why therefore is there. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Do all things without grumbling or disputing that you may be blameless and innocent children of God, blameless children in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world.

Holding fast to the word of life so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain, even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith.

I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise, you also should be glad and rejoice with me. Okay, bringing it back to verse 12. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence.

So the Philippian church had a very good relationship with Paul. They obeyed in the past and Paul is encouraging them to continue in obedience and continue in that partnership. But even when I'm gone, because it's easy when Paul's around, it's probably easy to do work also because Paul's probably doing a lot of the work.

So when they're gone, they need to work even harder to bear some of the workload that Paul was doing, but even more so to continue in their own faith, not just the faith of Paul's, but to continue in obedience, not just when Paul's around, but even in his absence.

They probably were very dependent on Paul, but it was time for them to continue in the faith. And this was Paul's goal. He wanted them to make it blamelessly for the day of Jesus Christ. That was Paul's goal that the gospel would advance, but the gospel would stay and the spirit would come upon people and the spirit would do the work.

Later on in verse 12, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Now, some of you guys might be thinking, okay, how do I work out my own salvation? Now, do we all have a duty to work out our own salvation?

In a way, we all have a duty to figure out who Christ is and follow God and obey by the rules. The problem is we just never will do that without God's help. So this doesn't mean work out your own salvation, do enough good and eventually work, work, work, work, and then you'll make it into heaven and obtain grace, that won't work.

It's like grabbing a baseball and trying to hit the moon, right? If you can do that, you have, let's just say you have eternal life. The problem is no one can do that. Some of us might be able to throw it farther, like Noah Meyer, he might be able to throw it pretty high in the sky, but it's never gonna reach the moon.

So no matter how good you are and how good you do, it's not gonna be good enough. So it's not like you can work towards your salvation. Rather, what this verse means, it means work out your salvation.

The salvation is already in you. God put his spirit in you. Now God wants to work it out of you. Now putting it into practice because when your heart changes, and that means everything will change. Your heart changes for the gospel and then now your life reflects what you believe.

So a lot of the books in the Bible, it talks about believing in Jesus, seeing what Jesus has done and you believe, but then it talks about your behavior and how it should change your behavior. So when we believe in Christ, it's because we were appointed eternal life before the foundations of the world.

God chose us. Not because there was something good about us or we deserved it. He chose us out of grace and out of love for us. And he appointed some of us to believe in the gospel. The gospel being that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead.

Anyone who believes that message will get the spirit and the Holy Spirit is your guarantee to make it into heaven, to have entrance into eternal life. So you should be asking yourself, okay, do I have the Holy Spirit?

But if the spirit of God is inside you, you probably know it. It's the spirit of God. It changes everything you're thinking. Everything that you do is different. Things that you once loved before, now you hate.

Things that you didn't want to do before, now you want to do. It's a pleasure and a joy to obey Jesus Christ. It's a pleasure and a joy to serve Jesus Christ and do good for Jesus Christ. So what that verse means is that it's working out your salvation.

And then it talks about fear and trembling. And you say, well, if you're a Christian and it's working out your salvation, what is there to be afraid of? Christians still fear the Lord. They're not to fear man.

They're not to fear anything else. Do not fear. But Christians should have a healthy fear of God. And throughout the Bible, you'll see, if you read the entire Bible, you'll see stories of men who didn't fear God and it didn't go well with them.

But you'll see some stories of men who did fear the Lord and it went well with them. And God guided them and loved them and blessed them. If you look in Genesis 22, you'll see that Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac on a cross.

And all of that was to see, it was a test to see if Abraham really feared the Lord. Now, Abraham believed in God, but the test was, does he really fear the Lord? In verse 22, 12, it says, the angel of the Lord says to Abraham, right as he was about to kill his son, he said, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him.

For now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And then another guy in Genesis is Joseph. We know that he lived a life fearing God, a God fearing man, sold into slavery by his own brothers and then put in prison, having dreams of God.

And then eventually living in Potiphar's house, he wasn't afraid of Potiphar, but he feared the Lord. That's why he didn't lay down with Potiphar's life. He feared God. He couldn't sin against his God.

It wasn't sinning against Potiphar. It was, I can't do this to my God. He feared the Lord. And then eventually God promoted him to being a powerful man in the land of Egypt. And then there was a famine and then his brothers came to see him.

And because Joseph feared the Lord, he was able to deal kindly with his brothers. In Genesis 42, verse 18, it says, on the third day, Joseph said to them, do this and you will live for I fear God. He's saying, I fear God, but he lived a life that can back up that he really did fear the Lord.

In Exodus, Pharaoh told all the Jewish midwives that were helping the Jewish women give birth to kill all the baby boys. Now, if the Jewish midwives feared Pharaoh, they would do that. They would kill all the baby boys.

But if the Jewish midwives feared God, there's no way that they're gonna kill the baby boys, knowing that God is in control and they're accountable to God and keeping his commandments more than Pharaoh.