Philippians 2:12-18 :: Joy in the Joy Giver

The Apologetic Dog

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Turn with me and your copy of God's word to Philippians chapter 2 This morning.

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I want us to be thinking about Two concepts I want to think about what true religion is

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Christianity that preaches the gospel of grace and also wants to be thinking about false religion

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Okay, an all false religion teaches one common thread that they all share share

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And it is that you must buy your own human effort your own human achievement work your way to God And then we see that Christianity Stands alone and teaches that salvation has been accomplished by God It is

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God the Son he has accomplished salvation for us on our behalf He took on flesh and truly dwelt among us and Jesus Christ was sinless

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And he paid the full punishment of sin by dying on the cross and resurrecting the third day

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What we must understand is that true religion is a system of works, but it was accomplished by Jesus Christ and His works alone were righteous because he was sinless

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And so Christianity teaches that we all human beings we do not merit salvation by adding our good works to the already finished work of the

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Savior We obtain salvation by having our sins forgiven by the holy and perfect Just God when we receive forgiveness of sins by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone to the glory of God alone

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Amen And so please turn with me to Philippians chapter 2 as we examine

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Verses 12 through 18 and something that was to also have in mind is that salvation is a process

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Salvation is a process of God working in you In fact the Apostle Paul earlier in the book of Philippians tells us that it is

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God who began a good work in you And he will bring it to completion There is a sense in which our salvation is past tense.

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It is also present tense It is also something yet future the moment when you

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Look to Christ in your heart in repentance and faith All of your sins were put on Calvary and were totally accounted for and forgiven

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This is referred to as our Justification it is as though we have never sinned.

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We are just in God's sight. We are declared righteous Totally innocent no longer under condemnation.

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And so that is past tense for the Christian There's a sense that we are being Sanctified day by day being set apart from the world and being conformed more and more to the image of Christ this is our sanctification and Then we have something yet that we still await is our glorification

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We will be saved and delivered ultimately from this sinful world and our sinful flesh and we await to be with our

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Lord one day for all of glory and Some reason why I want us to keep that in mind is because when we look at our passage this morning

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We see believers are called to work out our salvation. This is referring to the believers sanctification and So we are being set apart as lights in the world that we are called to never

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Complain or to grumble about what God is sovereignly orchestrated for our lives.

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So that being said let's look at our passage The Apostle Paul says therefore my beloved as you have all also

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Always obeyed so now not only in my presence but much more in my absence

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Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling For it is

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God who works in you both who will and to work for his good pleasure Do all things without grumbling or disputing that you may be blameless

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Innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation Among whom you shine as lights in the world holding fast to the

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Word of Life So that in the day of Christ Paul says I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain

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Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith

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I am glad and rejoice with you all Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

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Let's pray We thank you so much for all of you are

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Grace and your mercy honest. We don't deserve it God, I pray that you would bless this time of worship by the preaching of the word

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I pray that by your spirit that you would eliminate parts of mine Parts of minds to give us wisdom to be able to understand your truth.

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We pray all these things in your name Jesus So let's go back to verse 12

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But I want to really zone in on the heart of this verse where Paul is exhorting the believers at Philippi to work out

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Their salvation. So let's look at all of our school Paul says therefore

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My beloved as you've always obeyed so now not only my presence but much more in my absence

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Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling Now in my encounters with other professing

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Christians, especially those that That teach that you do have to work in some way to earn favor with God They will actually go to this verse

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Philippians 2 12 as a proof text to say see your works Do you have to contribute to the already finished work of Christ and I want to simply say no

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That is not at all what the Apostle Paul is saying here. He is not saying to earn your salvation by working it out

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In fact scripture is so clear that we are justified before God to have peace with him by faith

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And upon that basis our sins get put on the Calvary and in exchange we get the perfect righteousness of Christ Paul elsewhere says in Philippians and Ephesians chapter 2 he says for by grace you can save through faith

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This is not your own doing it is the gift of God not a result of works.

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So no man may boast So what is Paul telling the Christians at Philippi here?

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Well, he is referring once again to their sanctification And since he is talking to believers here at Philippi by implication it refers to all believers of all time

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We are to focus all of our efforts to live a life that is holy Fruitful and pleasing to the

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Lord and so here in verse 12 I want to suggest there are five truths that the Apostle Paul really wants us to take away from what he's saying

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Five truths that are important for us to understand how we are to work out our sanctification

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So number one believers are to work out their sanctification by understanding

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Christ's example The verse begins with the word that therefore Paul is building a conclusion based on the previous passage that he was talking about Jesus is our perfect example of humility

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Submission and obedience He is referring that to that God the Son took on flesh as a humble servant and was perfectly obedient To the

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Father's will even to the point of dying on the cross as a perfect sacrifice And so this is the whole essence of the

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Christian life. We are pursuing after Christ's likeness And many of us in this room

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We cherish the five solas of the Protestant Reformation Because they rightly reflect what the scripture teaches things like Solus scriptura we understand that scripture is the sole

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Inalienable rule of faith in our lives, right? We always go to scripture that cannot be broken

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We understand things that is by grace alone that we are ultimately saved not by human effort

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We are saved by sola fide right faith alone in Christ And we do all this to the glory of God solely deal with worry, right?

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we look to Christ in these things, but don't we often want to add a Sola, right?

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Sometimes we like to add solus bootstrapping We like to pull ourselves up by our bootstrap and say

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I can do this I can look to my own strength and my own life and I can figure this out The problem is you're taking your gaze off us and you're looking inward to yourself

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Look to Christ. He will transform you from the inside out And as we do that as we desire pursue

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Christ like humility Then we can begin to count others as more significant than ourselves.

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This is so important to working out our sanctification so number two

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Believers must understand that the driving force in our sanctification is what?

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Paul says therefore my Beloved Why is Paul so concerned with the believers at Philippi because he loves them

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Why should we count others more significant than ourselves? Because we love

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Why should we receive Christ and follow after him? It is because he lovingly laid down his life so that we might believe in him and have everlasting life

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And so we're talking about love and remember earlier. I was saying keep in mind

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We have true religion over here and we have false religion over here Love is another huge distinction between the two right false religion since it is work space

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It is devoid of any type of loving meaningful relationship because they're all focused on self

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But Christianity is grounded in loving the Lord our God with all of our heart with all of our soul with all of who we are

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Right we have that restored relationship with God Almighty being filled up with this love

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We are then able to love others right to love our neighbor as ourself And so there's a vast difference between the gospel of grace the

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God that saved us by his love and his mercy Right and all these false religions that are focused on themselves so number three we must understand the importance of Obedience now this is where some people get it twisted.

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They just all false religions say yes You have to be obedient you have to work really hard to earn your salvation.

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You got to be obedient. No We are obedient because of what Christ has already done on our behalf

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We've already been justified that moment of faith right and so we desire to be obedient in light of what

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God is doing Remember he began that good work in you. He is the one that will bring it to completion

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So Paul says therefore my beloved as you have always obeyed

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I love that because obedience in a single word refers to a Christian's worship

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Right Romans chapter 12 refers to our bodies are to be a living

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Sacrifice to God a sweet -smelling aroma. This is our spiritual worship Think about how the walk of a

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Christian Is we spend time meditating in the word of God who speaks to us

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Clearly through his word his life -giving word and we pray back to him.

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I think when you hold everything down That's how you personally walk with Christ And so as we are meditating on the word and thinking his thoughts after him we desire to be obedient To what he has called us to do so number four

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Believers are to work out their sanctification by understanding their personal responsibilities and resources

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Paul is calling the Philippian believers to work out their own salvation and he says so now not only in my presence

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But much more in my absence think about how tempting it would have been for the

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Philippian believers to Develop a strong dependence on the Apostle Paul from their spiritual happiness their spiritual content

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Think about how tempting it would have been for the Philippian believers to rumble and to complain when

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Paul was away from them locked up in prison And I think we learn a very important truth here that as Christians we have been blessed by God He's used so many means of grace of giving us wonderful pastors books commentaries even times of sweet fellowship like this

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This must never be our primary source of contentment for our spiritual growth as believers

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We have the responsibility to always follow Christ's example And we have the resource of the indwelling

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Holy Spirit, and he has given us his life His life -giving word right he has inspired the word of God These are the resources that we must look to ultimately to be content in all circumstances

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This is our primary dependence And last thing over here number five

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Believers work out their own their salvation because of the consequences of sin

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Paul says work out your own salvation with fear and trembling And we understand that God is a loving

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God. He is merciful He is steadfast in his love, and he is long -suffering in his patience

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But God will hold believers accountable for their disobedience for their sin And so when we look at this word fear for believers

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This is an idea of awe and wonder and reverence for God This will cause us to tremble in our spirit

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We will recognize our own spiritual weakness in light of the holy holy holy

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God And so fear and trembling for the believer will cause us to pray earnestly

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For God's help in avoiding sin And you know what praise God for when he does intervene and discipline us as a loving father because we will sin

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But he doesn't just leave us there. He doesn't think any less of us He loves us so much that he will actually discipline us as his child

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And so our heart desire is to be obedient though We desire holiness to glorify

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God in all that we do So we must understand that there are consequences for sin

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But we pursue down the path of obedience and blessing and we do not necessarily

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Pursue down the path of discipline You may be saying Jeremiah Well, it seems like it's really an impossible task to do all of these

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Large feats to work out our own salvation, right? These five truths and I would say you're right

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It is impossible for us to do these things on our own might to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps

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But that's not the source of our sanctification Verse 13 begins to transition and show us that the source of our sanctification is not in us, but it's in God And so we must understand that God works these things inward and we work these things out

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God works in the faith and we work our faith out Look with me verse 13

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For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure

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So, how are we to live out our sanctification Well, Paul is telling us that is has to be God working in you now

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I think we are introduced to a wonderful mystery here because you may say well I'm not the one making the decisions or is it going to say yes

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It is God working in you and yet at the same time You're the one that has these desires and you're the one making the decision

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What we have to understand is where was the source where was the prompting of those decisions Where was your will ultimately coming from?

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Well, it was God God is the one working out his sovereign plan of redemption and you've experienced his mercy and his grace and so I keep going back to Philippians 1 verse 6 because it's so important to Paul's train of thought for God is the one who began a good work in you and he is the one that will bring it to completion

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So when we're talking about true religion and false religion, even false religion, they refer to God, right?

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So I want you to know that when Paul says for it is God He is talking about something so unique that we can we can we can spot it out, right?

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He is referring to the triune God and this is really key for our Conversation this morning that this triune

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God has personally revealed himself And so this is a major distinction between the truth of Christianity and all false religions because we have a personal loving relationship with God Not only do false religions do they try to earn their salvation by works, but a lot of false religions

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They believe in a deity that is impersonal in no way is able to reveal themselves

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Even though what truth is and I wanted to offer to you one example In Hinduism the

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Hindu scriptures teach that the absolute creator of God is not a person but is an abstract unknowable reality

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They say that this God has no moral attributes is neither holy or unholy loving or unloving fear or unfair

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And what's puzzling to me is how they can know so much about this deity

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That's impersonal that can't possibly reveal to them what they claim to know So Hinduism seems to fall directly on its face to tell us so much truth about an impersonal knowing

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God How do you know these things? This impersonal God hasn't told you anything and you can't even know the distinctions

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So we have something so much greater because the God that Paul is referring to is Yahweh, the

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God that has spoken and revealed himself to all of humanity So verse 13 again

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We read for it is God who is impersonally at work in you both to will and to work for his pleasure and So like I said a second ago

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There is a wonderful mystery that we've been introduced this willing and working here is talking about from our perspective

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But it is God that gives us the will just to do Things that are honoring pleasing to him and yet that is our the believers deepest heart desire

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I love what the Old Testament says in Proverbs 21 But the King's heart is a stream of water in the hand of Yahweh.

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He turns it wherever he wills And so the point that really pressing here is that God is personally working in us to will and to work

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Paul says for his This is ultimately the chief end of man

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That we are to glorify God and to enjoy him forever He is doing all these things to get glory right according to his purpose

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And what is wonderful is that when a believer understands that God is at work in our lives and is orchestrating all things

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That means that our life has a divine purpose God is actively conforming our will and our desires to be more like Christ It brought the sovereign

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God joy who works all things according to the counsel of his will to lavish grace and mercy on us as rebel sinners

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And he not only began this good work at the point of our justification, but he continues

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Presidents presently he continues to convict us of our sin and to move our hearts to long to be with our

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Savior Jesus Christ And so God does all of this according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace

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And I look to the person of the Apostle Paul He was in prison and so these are the things that he constantly looked to he drew from this deep well to gain

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Happiness he looked to the joy giver As Paul was in prison He could count it as joy because God was working in and through his life to advance the gospel in ways that we could have never imagined

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And so I believe that all of us we must do the same thing that the Apostle Paul would do he would renew his mind

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The truth of God that he is sovereignly at work Working out his plan of redemption that will give us strength to be content in all

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Circumstances because everything in our life has divine purpose for our sanctification and for his glory a very familiar verse that I think many of you are familiar with and know and love and cherish in your heart is

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Romans 8 28 But hopefully you will see this in a fuller light with a sovereign

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God that is working at all things However, he wants to We read and we know that God causes all things to work together for good

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To those who love God who are called according to his purpose

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Paul tells us in the very next verse he says that is to be conformed to the image of his son

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That is referring once again to our sanctification And so I know we've covered a lot just in two verses verses 12 and 13

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Paul gives us these deep Theological truths and I believe now as we move to verses 14 through 16

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I believe he's about to paint a vivid picture of an application for us What do we do in light of these deep theological truths?

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Well, it moves us to behave in a particular fashion So look with me in verse 14

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Paul says do all things without grumbling or Disputing that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation

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Among whom you shine as lights in the world holding fast to the word of life

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So look with me back in verse 14 Paul says do all things Now I think this is a direct connection when he is telling the believers at Philippi to work out their salvation

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And so what we're learning is that we are to work out our salvation in all

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Circumstances of our life and then Paul gives a negative command here. He says do all things without grumbling or disputing

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Now these two words are very interesting and that's in my time study I really try to build deeper into the

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Greek language to bring it to life And so I want to look at this word grumbling for a moment because in my study

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I learned that this is an auto -model cave word. It means like how it sounds like so Grumbling in the

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Greek is It's kind of it's kind of raspy. It's kind of like someone says something you don't like So you're kind of muttering under your voice that's what the word grumbling means here it's kind of raspy

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It's grouchy and what I want you to understand is that it's sinful The sin of grumbling is an emotional rejection of God's circumstances that he has chosen for your life

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Grumbling is this attitude of complaining and it's totally focused on yourself

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And then the word disputing is also very interesting It carries the idea of reasoning within yourself saying things like I don't deserve this experience

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I don't deserve this trial that I'm going through in my life Grumbling is essentially emotional and disputing is essentially intellectual

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These are both sins and they are so dangerous together The discontentment having discontentment in your circumstances will lead you to be discontent in God's Provision for your life and as you begin to reason in your mind that you deserve better This will lead you to questioning and disputing against God's sovereign will

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And I think we oftentimes forget who the creator of the universe is

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One of my favorite songs is song 139 the song that tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made in our mother's womb

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But that song also tells us that all of our days have been written and been planned before any one of them came to be everything that happens in our lives

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God has Specifically fashioned and formed for you to experience in his time

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And so what Christians are to take away from this is that we should never

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Experience or do emotional grumbling or intellectual disputing it is always simple for believers to complain

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About anything that the Lord calls us to do or any circumstance in which he sovereignly permits

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It doesn't matter if we're going through a time of great difficulty or it's easy a time of blessing or trial

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Negative attitudes are always forbidden And so the

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Apostle Paul he was in prison at Philippi and you can imagine how easy it would have been for him to express

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Some negativity, right? Yet the Apostle Paul he found joy in the joy of God Later in Philippians, I believe it's 4 verse 4

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Paul says he's exhorting believers to rejoice always in the Lord. I Love that because that means every circumstance in our life

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We should accept it willfully with joy without murmuring without complaining or disappointment because God's like a troll

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This allows us to respond positively in all of our circumstances Paul elsewhere says rejoicing give thanks always and for everything to God the

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Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ And so as we begin to think about what

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Paul's arguing how he's developing it. We should be thinking man. I'm going to Grumble in my spirit.

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I feel as I was preparing this sermon. I typically think that I'm a nice person

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I'm pretty positive, but man do all things without grumbling and complaining. I was really starting to be convicted

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Man, I've been playing so much more than I realize This passion is very convicting to me and we realize that this is such an insurmountable

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Task for us to do on our own Yet we understand that we have been given a new nature.

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We are the children of God This allows us to perceive everything in a brand new light

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Every moment of our lives now has sanctified purpose

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So look back at me in verse 14. Paul says do all things without grumbling Or disputing that you may be blameless

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Innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation

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Among whom you shine as lights in the world holding fast to the word of life

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So that in the day of Christ Paul says I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain

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I believe the key to Paul's exhortation here For us to stop complaining is we should have our minds renewed with our new status before God as his children

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And so when we read children of God I'm reminded of an old cliche saying that I don't know how

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I was crept into the church But I want to think about it. Have you ever heard of people say aren't we just all

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God's children kind of without a distinction or Qualifications as everybody's the children of God And I believe this might be one of the most

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Unlivable teachings that most professing Christians actually believe the New Testament is very clear

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But also who did receive Jesus who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God Think the confusion comes in is because people realize that we are all a part of God's creation

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We are all Made in the image of God, but that does not give us the right to be his children

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In fact, the only way to become a child of God is by faith alone in Jesus Christ If also

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Paul builds so much of his doctrine to show us a biblical Anthropology that we are dead in our sins in our trespasses

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We are actually rebels against God Almighty when we are born into this world Naturally, we are spiritually the children of the devil

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First John chapter 3 tells us about this It is evident who are the children of God who are the children of the devil

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Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God nor is the one who does not love his mother

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So as children of God, we have a new heart. We have new desires to follow the example of our

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Lord And so since we're in a living chapter 2 look up to verse 8 with me for just a moment

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Where it's referring to Jesus Paul says and being found in human form He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on the cross

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Jesus was absolutely submitted to the Father's will and he never grumbled. He never complained about the circumstance

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Yet his heart was set on obedience Righteousness and love

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And so we see that there is no greater love than this that our Savior laid his life down for us

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While we were rebel sinners And as children of God, we possess a new nature that compels us to follow

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Christ's example We walk in the light because he is in the light and we desire to fellowship with other believers

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That's why the Lord's Day is so sweet And we're doing to our hearts because we this is but a foretaste of the glory that awaits us with our

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Savior So we must have the mind of Christ in order to love one another not grumbling or complaining about our circumstances

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But rejoicing in the Lord always Submitting ourselves in all circumstances to the

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Father's sovereign will in our lives And so let's move to verses 15 and 16 where I want to give you three reasons

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I believe the Apostle Paul is giving us of why we should stop complaining and so number one

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Believers should stop complaining for their for their own sakes. Believers should stop complaining for their own well -being

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Listen to how the Apostle Paul says it again do all things without grumbling or disputing that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish

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Every Christian is in the process of becoming more like Christ and that process includes becoming more blameless and innocent

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And in that process we must forsake grumbling and complaining. That's so vital for us becoming more like Christ blameless

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Essentially needs to be without defects and I really think it's pointing at the heart that desires holiness

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The word innocent and its basic meaning needs to be unmixed So a believer is supposed to be pure, unmixed from the evil and sin that permeates our world

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And as children of God we are called to be without blemish And so the word blemish there really carries the idea of being above reproach or faultless

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And we realize that this is impossible once again on our own merit But we look to the unblemished

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Spotless Christ Himself where Jude says is able to keep believers from stumbling to make them stand in the presence of his glory blameless with great joy

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And so since we stand blameless in Christ before the Father being above reproach ought to be the ongoing aim for our lives

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And so that first point once again believers should stop complaining for the sake of their own well -being

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So number two Believers should stop complaining for the sake of the unsaved

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So as children of God Paul says here we dwell in the midst of a crooked and twisted

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Generation among whom you shine as lights in the world holding fast to the word of life

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So I was intrigued with this word crooked here when Paul says crooked and twisted generation the word crooked here in the

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Greek is Scoliosis this is where the word Scoliosis right this medical condition actually finds its origin in this work if you're familiar

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Scoliosis refers to the curvature of the spine. It's misaligned Right so when the apostle

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Paul says this crooked generation He's referring to the gravity of pain how we have fallen away from God's holy and perfect righteous standard

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And so as Christians we are something categorically different than the lost world

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We are shining lights in this dark and devious world That means that our character ought to be like the

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Sun the moon and the stars that light up the dark side And I love what our

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Lord said in the best sermon ever preached on the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said you are the light of the world a city set on a hill cannot be hidden Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket

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But on a stand and it gives light to all who are in the house in the same way let your light

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Shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven

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Right solely Deo Gloria all to the glory of God. That's why we do good works

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That's what we desire to be obedient. We want to give God glory And so we must show the world the life transforming power of the gospel

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Please don't miss this the only way for children of God to be shining lights in this dark world is by holding fast to the word of life

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The word of life. I believe refers to that transforming power of the gospel But I would also say

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I would extend this principle to refer to the entire Bible all of God's Word Jesus said father sanctify that in your truth your word is truth

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Jesus also tells us that the scriptures cannot be broken Right. So the power of God comes from his life -breathing word in John chapter 6

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Jesus said it is the spirit who gives life and the flesh profits nothing the word that I have spoken to you our

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Spirit and life and you're familiar with this passage many of the followers said, you know, we're not gonna follow

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Jesus anymore He's talking about, you know, all the power gives to me will come to me. We just were in it for the miracles, right?

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It's all these people started departing from Jesus and then Jesus turned to the twelve and said do you not want to go away also?

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And Peter responded Lord to whom shall we go you have the words of eternal life

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I love that because as children of God if you have tasted the pure spiritual milk of the word nothing else

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Will do this is how we are fed. We let the word of the word of God shine in our hearts

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So much so that we cannot help but to share it with other people But we're going through times of suffering and hardship.

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Where's there are be turning to? This is living and breathing and powerful than anything else that this world has offered this

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This is how we have sweet relationship with the Lord So as I was comparing

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Translations to this phrase holding fast to the word of life, you know the good old

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King James version It says holding forth the word of life and I like that because the emphasis is not us

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Looking to ourselves and holding fast to it, but it's this idea that we have the word of God in us, right?

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Protecting us from sin. What did the psalmist say? I've hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you

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It is your word that is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path And if we are being filled up with the word

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Then we cannot help but to hold forth that world for that word to the rest of the world

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So I love that idea that Paul's getting at is that yes, we are being filled up with God's truth We share that truth with others

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So number three Believers should stop complaining for the sake of their pastors

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I know this kind of sounds strange at first, but I want you to hear the Apostle Paul's heart here in verse 16

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He says so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain

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I believe you see the heart of the Apostle Paul He's very pastoral and he longs to see the day of Christ when the people of God that's going to trust under his care.

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They reach the pinnacle of their spiritual growth in the day of glory And so you may say what does

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Paul mean when he says running in vain? What is he working so hard at? well, a lot of times people think pastors just work one day a week and Sadly I think a lot of pastors only work one day a week and you can tell but that's not how it should be

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The Apostle Paul labored in these things. In verse 17 he says even if I'm to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith

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I believe that when a man is truly called by God to be an undershepherd, a pastor for the saints

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He pours out his whole life into that service Biblical pastors labor in the study of the

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Word of God So that the preaching will renew the hearts of the Saints and guard them from Satan's lies

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Pastors are called to rightly handle the Word of Truth to equip the Saints to grow in the grace and knowledge of our

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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Pastors also understand the power of prayer and they will devote themselves to praying

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Intentionally and specifically for the flock that's been entrusted to them Pastors will strive to have the mind of Christ and will love the people of God and sacrificially minister to their needs

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And Paul goes on to say he says I'm glad and rejoice with you all

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Paul experienced the wonderful joys of pastoral care After you know, he says all else where it says that I hear all things for the sake of the elect

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He under he understood that being called to be a pastor will experience hardships

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Trials, but it brought him joy to be a part of the Saints lives and to see their spiritual

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And as I was thinking through this point I had Christ's Redeemer in mind and I don't know the details of y 'all situation

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With y 'all's leadership, and I just wanted to remind you and encourage you God has you exactly where he wants you

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So whether you're going through time of trial or blessing I want you to know this be in prayer for God to bring to you

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Men that will have the pastoral heart of the Apostle Paul men that will labor in the words who rightly handle it to declare truth who encourage your hearts and to guard you from the work of the enemy

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Pray that God will bring you pastors that will pour out their lives to minister to the flock

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And I can promise you there will come great joy in them Paul says likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

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I believe Paul Is not only the only one experiencing joy here But as more and more people came to know the

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Lord He rejoiced in their sanctification and they likewise rejoice with him because it's wonderful We get to lock arms in the sacrificial work of the gospel

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Don't we as we tether ourselves to local bodies We get to then pour out our gifts that the

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Spirit has given us to other Believers and we get to live life with one another and so there is so much rejoicing

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And so with that I want to conclude with just these last couple thoughts more as explications

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Let us strive side by side in unity Fixing our gaze upon Jesus Christ who lovingly laid down his life for us

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Let us keep this mindset and in humility count others as more significant than ourselves

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Be steadfast immovable always abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that in the

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Lord your labor is and By God's grace.

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I pray that we would work out our salvation with fear and trembling rejoicing in the

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Lord Always never grumbling or complaining about any circumstances in our lives