THIS CAN'T BE MY LIFE (Philippians 1:27-30)

Your glory far exceeds all human thought

So with each breath, I'll bless you, oh, I'll bless you, oh,

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I'll bless you, oh, I'll bless you, oh,

I'll bless you, oh, I'll bless you, oh, I'll bless you, oh, I'll bless you, oh, I'll bless you, oh, I'll bless you, oh, I'll oh, I'll bless you, oh, I'll bless you, oh, I'll bless you, oh, I'll bless you, oh, I'll we want to say a special thank you to any of our guests that are here this morning, if you are a first time guest, we do have a connection card back in the back, if you have a prayer request there's a section on the back, there's a little next steps if you want to ask questions about the faith, if you want to ask questions about the church but also everybody needs prayer right?

I need prayer. All of us need prayer. So there's a section you can write down what does that prayer need and I can promise you we gather there's a group of us that gather every

Tuesday morning and pray and we will certainly pray for that prayer request so please fill one of those out and and we'd love to get to know you but the purpose of gathering for the

Saints and encouraging one another all the more until we say that the day of Christ drawing near is so that we may grow in the knowledge and love of the triune

God. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. You hear a lot about that around here don't you?

You go to church sometimes you hear a lot about Jesus or you'll hear a lot about the Holy Spirit but here we worship a triune

God. Three in one. We worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We want all three persons of the one

Godhead to be honored in our worship don't we? We have a special time this morning one of the one of the ordinances of the church that that we get to participate in so I'm gonna ask

Pastor Jeremiah to come on up here and and lead us in this before we prepare to go to a call to worship.

All right today is such an exciting day because it's Baptism Sunday and Joe if you would please come up here.

So I just want to yeah give it up give it up Joe this is exciting time. So I just want to talk a little bit about what baptism is.

Baptism is a wonderful gift it's a ceremony to the church body that is a picture of the work of God that's already begun in someone's heart and in their life and so this is something where an individual gets to proclaim their faith to the church and to the watching world it's their faith going public.

Now we understand baptism does not wash away sins it doesn't cause us to be born again.

Scripture is so clear that we are saved by grace through faith and it's not our ourselves right it's a gift of God it's not of works because then we could boast about the things that we've accomplished and the things that we've done but this is a beautiful picture of the gospel.

So Joe would you like to share a few words? It's funny that you had mentioned going public because that was gonna be my first joke so guys from the 90s audio adrenaline fans

I'm going public. Okay so I've been baptized before grew up in Church of Christ environment so before I went into the military

I was baptized but just in case because it was Gulf War time and it's kind of a like so I believe in God just like all

Southerners do you know and so I was a Christian but my life didn't show it and my wife and I we've been married 31 years and I have put her through the ringer because I've been in the church for a long time and I thought about Danny and Ryan I could go hang out in their shop and I can make noises like a lawnmower and people might even think

I'm a lawnmower but I'm not a lawnmower and that's kind of how it was

I could regurgitate it I could play the part you know and tried and tried and tried and tried to get my behavior had lots of unrepentant anxiety and anger and things towards family and about eight years ago after putting my family through all kinds of stuff just angry good guy church funny gregarious engaging you think that man he's man he's awesome but I was a monster and so this it's not about changing behavior it's what

I really tried to do just change my behavior and be good enough and do the

Christian thing and eight years ago we were separated you know my wife kind of had enough she had left many times before run to escape and to seek safety because I was you know verbally and emotionally very abusive to my children and praise

God that my son his wife my daughter her husband and family are here and I know they've seen a difference not that it's all about change behavior but eight years ago something happened

I had an encounter with the risen Lord where I had been baptized unto

Jesus as my Savior and I believe I had faith almost like I had faith in faith I love the gathering

I love the family I love just being with the church and being a Christian because it was what kept me from being in the world but when we were separated

I made a decision that I am going to seek him so I spent four or five months just by myself in the word with other guys

I had called in guys for accountability and seeking him and when

I when it really took I don't know a light came on something just hit where he he revealed to me or showed me just that he had made me pure because I've been trying to be pure and he had made me pure and that he loved me and accepted me and from that moment

I was no longer at war with everybody my whole life

I spent at war with my family with my kids trying to make things the way

I wanted them to be so I surrendered and so today I wanted

I want to be baptized unto that faith and to because I need accountability guys so and later we're gonna be joining the church spoiler alert but but part of what that means to me is that I am declaring to you that I give you permission to speak into my life because we're here to seek him and righteousness and holiness and I want us to grow in faith in him so so I need you

I love you guys and I'm committing my life and our family to this body and whatever gifts that he would use or whatever however that is what it you know

I don't know but here am I send me so that's but I love him and I'm doing my best to serve him with all my heart praise

God praise God we the pastor

Jeremiah just a couple of weeks ago preached and he made a statement said baptism is not the gospel but oh man is it a beautiful picture of the gospel isn't it amen well let's stand let's start our service off together officially with a call to worship we usually do a read in response today we're gonna read a passage and I want us to read this together from 1st

Peter chapter 2 verse 9 says we are a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation a people for his own possession that we may proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light amen called us out of darkness into his marvelous light brought us into union with the triune

God don't lose sight of that saint don't let that become something that that you're numb to and you just think well this is just the norm of life

I'm just a Christian and that's the way it is and this is my faith and I go to church if you're numb to that this morning

I ask that you go to the Lord in prayer as we pray here in a moment and ask him to to soften your heart towards this because if you have been brought into the marvelous light if you've been taken from darkness and you've been made a chosen race a royal priesthood we've been made a holy nation the church we are a holy nation we are a people to God here on earth and all

God's people said amen let's let's pray a prayer of adoration this morning dear

Heavenly Father Oh God we come to you now and we acknowledge who you are a triune

God a father that has set his love and affection upon his children before he'd even created this earth a son that stepped down setting aside his prerogatives of condescending and being like man so that he may be a representative for the creature that he himself created to die a death that we deserved and he is only able to do so because he lived a life that we couldn't live a perfection fulfilling

God's law to the T and then dying as a representative for us children that God the

Father has loved from eternity past and that son declaring no death has no death has no claim on me death had a claim on Adam and all of his posterity all of us standing here but old death didn't have a claim on Christ and he rose again declaring victory over what

Adam had broken becoming the true and better Adam as our representative oh and then the person of the

Holy Spirit then and dwells each one of us as a guarantee is a down payment of our inheritance that will one day come so father son

Holy Spirit we honor you this morning we thank you for all that you have done God you are sovereign in your hand is over all things you are altogether separate from us we are but creatures and you are the creator you are the

Potter and we are the clay and you do with the clay as you as you see fit and as you desire and all that you do is good so I pray that we would worship you as such this we would honor you with our singing that we would honor you with our prayers that we would honor you with our preaching that you we would honor you with our reading

Oh Father Oh Son Holy Spirit be honored that this would be a sweet smelling aroma that comes up before you and worship mold us as your people in Christ's name

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh crazy we thank you for that grace on top of grace we thank you for your

Providence God that every drop of rain that we've had Oh Oh Oh and if you not love me first I would refuse you as I read my little words indifferent to the thoughts

You looked upon my helpless state

And led me to the lost place

You suffered in my place

You hold the wrath reserved for me

Now all I know is

Hallelujah is

Christ Hallelujah Jesus is my

God Hallelujah All I have is

Christ Hallelujah Jesus is my life

Now would I be yours alone

In this all I see

The strength to follow your commands

Could never come to me

Oh I would use in any way

Be my only hope All I have here

Jesus is my life

Hallelujah All I have is

Christ Hallelujah Jesus is my life

Jesus is my joy

My righteousness and freedom My steadfast love

My team and boundless peace To this

I hold My hope is only Jesus For my life is wholly bound to you

Oh how strange and divine I can see

All is mine Yet not I But the rest

Of you It is not

But I am not forsaken For by my side

The Savior he will stay I labor on In weakness and rejoicing

For in my need His power is the strength

To my shepherd will defend me

Through the deepest valley deep Yet through the night

I shall overcome Yet not I But through Christ The end

Of deed

I tread I know I am forgiven The future assured

The price it has been laid For Jesus bled

And suffered for my fault And he was raised

To overcome To this

I hold My sin has been defeated Jesus now

Endeavors my faith Though the chains are released

I can sing I am free Yet not I But through Christ The end

Of regret

I long to follow Jesus For he has said

That he will bring me home And day by day

I know he will rebuke me Until I stand

With joy for the Lord To this

I hold My hope is only Jesus All the glory evermore to him

When the races compete Still my limbs

Shall we be Yet not I But through Christ When the races compete

Still my limbs Shall we be Yet not

I But through Christ To equip the saints for the work of ministry

For building up the body of Christ Until we all attain to the unity of the faith

And of the knowledge of the Son of God To mature manhood To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ So that we may no longer be children

Tossed to and fro by the waves And carried about by every wind of doctrine By human cunning, by craftiness, and deceitful schemes

Rather, speaking the truth in love We are to grow up in every way

And to him who is the head And to Christ From whom the whole body joined and held together

By every joint with which it is equipped When each part is working properly

Makes the body grow so that it builds itself up And all

God's people said Amen Sing this with me

We won't fear the battle We won't fear the battle We won't fear the night

We will walk the valley With you by our side You will go before us

You will lead the way We have found a refuge Only you can save Sing with joy now

Our God is for us The Father's love Is a strong and mighty fortress

Raise your voice now No love is greater You can stand against us

If our God is for us So even when

I suffer Even when I stumble Even when

I fall Even when I turn back For your love is sure

You will not abandon You will not forsake You will cheer me on You're a never ending grace

Sing with joy now Our God is for us

The Father's love Is a strong and mighty fortress Raise your voice now

No love is greater You can stand against us If our God is for us

Neither hide nor death Can separate us

Hell and death Will not defeat us He who gave

His Son to free us Holds me in His love

Neither hide nor death Can separate us

Hell and death Will not defeat us He who gave

His Son to free us Holds me in His love

Sing with joy now Our God is for us

The Father's love Is a strong and mighty fortress Raise your voice now

No love is greater You can stand against us If our God is for us

Sing with joy now Our God is for us The Father's love

Is a strong and mighty fortress Raise your voice now

No love is greater You can stand against us If our God is for us

I pray that you would bless this offering. We love you.

Thank you for loving us. In Jesus' name. Amen. by the

Apostle Paul himself because last week we finished up our our seven -part sermon entitled,

There Is No I In One. I know that seems a little confusing, but where we've seen the

Apostle Paul grounding this unity that he had previously charged us to maintain as Christians, to guard the unity of the

Spirit and the bond of peace and he's grounding this unity in oneness.

The oneness of a triune God as we speak of this morning. One body.

One spirit. One hope. One Lord. One faith.

One baptism. One God and Father of all. Where we've seen this unity is not some individualistic endeavor where all

Christians are united through a common goal. That's not how Paul grounds it.

It's not just a common goal that unites us. We're united. We're united because we are one.

Because God is one and we all of us, if we are in Christ, each one of us individually are united with Him.

Amen. It's a beautiful truth. And Paul is getting ready to in Ephesians expound upon that by switching gears a bit and showing how that unity that he's speaking of is not uniformity.

We'll be talking a little bit more about that over the next few weeks. The fact that we may be united as one because we're united to a triune

God, however, each one looks and functions differently. Just as the triune

God has differing roles and functions in which each person of the

Godhead functions. So before we dive into that over the next few weeks, I'd like for us to take a look at Philippians chapter 1.

Starting in verse 27, a few verses here. If you have been with us since day 1, which there are very, very few of you, you may remember us going through Philippians and I addressed this text, but since there were so few of you, we thought, let's go back to this text because we're going to see very similar language by the

Apostle Paul as he wrote this letter to the saints at Philippi, to what we've been studying in Ephesians.

So open your copy of God's word, if you haven't already, to Philippians chapter 1. Starting in verse 27 where the

Apostle Paul says only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ 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.

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 hear that I still have. These are the words of the

Apostle Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit and given to us, the saints, for life and godliness.

So let's stop for a moment as we always do and ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate these truths to our hearts and minds.

Bow with me please. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you and we ask that you would work it in our hearts and in our lives.

We ask Holy Spirit that you would illuminate these truths. These glorious truths from your word to our minds.

But don't let us just be doers or hearers of the word and not doers only as James says. Let us be a people that you permeate our minds with this truth that we'd see it clearly, that we would understand it clearly and it would percolate into our hearts.

As it sets in our hearts and changes us from the inside, that it would just come out from us.

Lord, give us wisdom today. In Christ's name. Amen. The title of today's sermon is

This Can't Be My Life. This Can't Be My Life. It's a bit of a play on words

I know as to the way we have a propensity to think and the way we should be thinking.

There's two different ways we can see this. Either say it out of discontentment because we're living our lives for ourselves.

We're not designed to do that but we often do don't we? We live our lives for something other than what we were created for and we're living our lives for something else and when life doesn't live up to our expectations, what do we say?

This can't be my life. This can't be my life. Why is my life going like this?

Why did this go wrong? Why is this not going the way I want? After all, I'm lord of my life.

Why can't it just go the way I want it? Or we can see it as a declaration.

We can see it as a declaration that our lives don't belong to us. Oh this can't be my life.

This can't be my life. Leading up to verse 27 of what we just read,

Paul has made this famous declaration most of you are very familiar with it where he says, oh for me to live oh that's for Christ.

But for me to die? Oh that's gain. For me to live is my life is for Christ.

For me to die I win. It's over. The struggle is over. I no longer have to deal with all of this.

I go into glory is essentially what he's declaring. We see this example of Paul that he knows that this can't be his life.

His life belongs to Christ. He has been purchased. He has been bought. He is a servant.

He is a slave to Christ and Christ alone and his life does not belong to him in any fashion in any way and he lives as such.

And if you and I are brought into one body that we've been talking about for weeks in Ephesians if we've been brought into his body with Christ as the head, we too belong to him.

We are just like the apostle Paul. We belong to Christ. So today

I want us to see this principle worked out in a very practical way within this body. Specifically within true community.

What God has called us to as a representative of his body on earth. Because if we want to be content and let's face it all of us want to be content, don't we?

Who in here is okay with not being content? None of us, right? We long to be content.

It's in our hearts. We desire it. We were created as worshipers and we long to be content.

We have to be able to declare this isn't my life. This can't be mine. And when we can truly make that declaration we are aligning our lives with the will of God, aren't we?

We're aligning our lives with what he has called us to in his word. And when we align our lives with the will of God we will only then find true contentment and joy.

After all that's what the whole purpose of this letter to the church of Philippi is. It's a letter of joy.

If you've studied this letter you know the funny thing about this letter being written as a letter of joy is the

Apostle Paul's writing it as he's chained to a Roman guard and imprisoned wrongfully. And he's declaring,

I have learned to find contentment in all things because I don't belong to myself. God does with me as he pleases.

This isn't my life. So I want us to see three things in these four verses today. I'm going to give you the three things and they'll be up on the screen here in a moment so don't try and just jot them down.

I just want them in your head. I want us to see finding contentment in selfless unified allegiance.

I want us to see finding contentment in bold fearlessness and finding contentment through voluntary suffering.

Those all sound like really good contentment things, right? They sound like the antithesis of contentment to our minds and our world view.

We can't understand that. But prayerfully we'll see today why this is the only way to contentment.

The only way to joy. This is what we've been called to as a body. So let's look at that first one.

Finding contentment in selfless unified allegiance. Finding contentment in selfless unified allegiance.

Look at verse 27 there in Philippians 1. Paul says, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ.

This is a bit confusing. Only. We tend to read this as kind of a flow of thought.

Maybe Paul's contrasting something that he has previously said. And even though he is continuing a thought that he has previously talked about, this is not the purpose of Paul's phrasing here.

The word only in the Greek is emphatic exclusivity.

Emphatic exclusivity. What do I mean by this? He's saying, what

I'm about to say to you is the only, the exclusive way for a

Christian to live. What I'm getting ready to write here to you is the only option.

That's it. Why would that be necessary? Why would Paul need to give them this emphatic exclusivity of what he's about to say?

I believe it's so that we, the readers, specifically the church at Philippi that he's writing to, they can't say, yeah, well, that's what

Paul's been called to. He's an apostle. Paul's been called to this only way of living.

Whatever he's about to tell us, of course that's for Paul. But that principle maybe just doesn't apply to me as an everyday

Christian. Maybe I'm not called to something that extreme. Paul wants to crush that right from the beginning of what he's saying.

Paul is telling them, if you are not living your life in this way that I'm about to tell you, you are in disobedience to King Jesus.

That hits hard, doesn't it? Especially in light of what we're about to say.

That hits hard because for some of you that have been here for any amount of time, you've seen that we take this whole

Christian thing very seriously around here. It's a bit of an extreme Christianity. In my opinion, it's the only option for Christianity.

We follow King Jesus. If he's king, he's king. So we obey him as such, and that's what

Paul's calling us to here. So what are we exclusively called to?

We'll look at the text again. Only let your manner of life

The main verb here in the Greek is polytomai. It's interesting because we get the word politics from this.

This word essentially kind of rooted in a word that means live according to the law.

It comes from the word in the Greek polis, which simply means city. This word usually referred to the city or government that the citizens gave their primary allegiance.

Paul's using this word very specifically for a reason. You see, in that day, the readers of this letter originally in Philippi being a citizen meant far more than just patriotism.

It's hard for us to get in the context of just how deep what Paul is saying here is.

Remember, this is not an individualistic culture like ours.

Roman society, like Greek society before it was highly community conscious. The individual was subordinate to the state.

We get it the other way around nowadays, don't we? The state is subordinate to the individual.

But this is not the way these readers would have read what Paul is writing here. They couldn't understand a concept like that.

They were subordinate completely to the culture and the state in which they lived.

A person's skills, their talents, their energies, their endeavors were devoted first of all to the interest of the society at large.

Sounds very socialistic, right? But this is how they understood citizenship.

This is how they understood this word polytoami that Paul is using. This is quite different from our culture today, of course.

We live for ourselves. I mean, when you're growing up, what do your parents say to you?

They say, you can be anything you want to be. Whatever makes you happy. That's the only paradigm that we have to work with, isn't it?

That's not the way it was then. The parents basically looked at the children and said, oh, you're going to be this because this is best for the whole of society.

You might hate the rest of your life, but what comes first is the society and the culture.

Everything else falls in comparison. There has nothing to do with any kind of individualistic mindset.

And Paul's using this word specifically. They would have fully understood him saying polytoami because he's using it as a stark contrast to the level of commitment and service being a citizen of a community would have been in that day.

At the beginning of this letter Paul told them that their allegiance is not to Rome.

That's all they've ever known. Their allegiance is not to Rome.

It's not to the city of Philippi. Their allegiance is to Christ.

Their allegiance is to Christ and Christ alone, exclusively. Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ.

Some say, well, that's a bit extreme. Maybe we can understand the word a little bit differently.

The problem is that Paul could have used a different word here that would have given the same idea but not as extreme.

And I think he chose this one on purpose. Because he wants the readers to understand the gravity of what it means to live a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I believe implied in his reasoning for this word is the same idea as when Paul refers to him himself as a slave at the very beginning of the letter, right?

That's what he says right there at verse 1 of chapter 1 in his greeting. He says, Paul and Timothy, the two of us, me,

Paul, and my protege Timothy with me, servants of Christ Jesus. Some of your translations should say slave.

It's translated slave of Christ Jesus. He sets it off right at the beginning. He says,

I don't belong to myself. I am merely a representative of the king. Period.

The people at Philippi were immersed, like I said, in this Roman culture. The Roman culture of that day is far more patriotic than anything we could comprehend.

As a matter of fact, it was so patriotic it came into government worship. They worshipped

Rome. They worshipped its gods. They worshipped its leaders. I mentioned a few weeks ago how

Christians were killed because they wouldn't declare Caesar as lord, as master over all. They worshipped this culture just like the people in Ephesus.

And this world view would have permeated their entire life. These people once lived in this entire mindset before they come to Christ, but yet they're still in the world.

The Christians there at Philippi would have struggled with what I refer to as dual citizenship. They struggled heavily with this.

Yes, they belong to Christ, yet they also see this cultural Roman identity and allegiance.

And they live in light of these two contrasting worlds. It's like riding the fence, right?

I have one foot in the kingdom and one foot in the world. And that's how

I'm living my life. Paul crushes this world view to the weight of the gospel.

There is no such thing as dual citizenship. You are not an

American. You essentially have a visa to be in America. You are a citizen of heaven if you are in Christ.

Period. Exclusively. The only way. The only manner of life.

Obviously he refers to himself as a slave. And in chapter 3 of Philippians, in verse 20, he drives it home and he says, but our citizenship is in heaven.

And from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are sojourners in this land.

We are foreigners in this land. We've been brought into something greater. And I think what

Paul is really trying to get across is the fact that we can't serve two masters. You will either serve this world or you will serve the kingdom of heaven.

You will either serve yourself or you will serve the king. You will either serve an idol or you will serve the one true

God. You cannot serve both. Period. End of story.

Oh, that hits hard, doesn't it? Because so often I worship at the altar of an idol.

So often I leave the kingdom in which I've been called to, in which I've been made a part of, and I sacrifice at the altar of a false

God. Whether it be myself, whether it be my comfort, whether it be something that I love, whether it be my family, whether it be my job, whether it be politics, whatever it may be, so often we fall prey to this, don't we?

That heart, that perpetual idol factory, constantly turning from it. But oh, but no, this is the only way.

This is the only polytulami, the only manner of life worthy of the gospel.

The idea that this is our life is not biblical. He tells the church in Corinth, in 1

Corinthians chapter 6, he says, or do you not know that your body is a temple of the

Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. You don't belong to yourself, for you were bought with a price.

So glorify God in your body. And everything, everything your body does is called to glorify the

Creator. Now we may not live in the exact type of culture that they did, but we do certainly struggle with what

I mentioned a moment ago of dual citizenship, don't we? Being an American and a Christian is sometimes seen as synonymous, specifically in our culture, in the

South, right? And I meet people all the time, and I'm like, do you know Christ?

They're like, hey, I'm a Christian. I'm an American, aren't I? There's this intertwined patriotism and Christianity that is godless, that's interwoven, and it's diluted the gospel to next to nothing and powerless.

It's disgusting is what it is. And it's the exact same thing that I promise you these

Roman citizens that are now brought into the kingdom are struggling with. Because they don't know how to make that distinction.

Our skills, our talents, our energies, our endeavors are to be devoted first of all to the interest of the kingdom alone.

If that ever contradicts your American position, you've got a very serious problem.

I think we have a hard time understanding what Paul is saying here, a manner of life. The church of Philippi would have understood this completely.

Yeah, I rendered a Caesar what is Caesar's, but like we said a moment ago, you are a foreigner here.

Now the question is, what does this have to do with my contentment and joy, pastor? I thought that's what we're talking about here.

Finding contentment and joy, and you just went on a political tirade. What does this have to do with it?

Because, honestly, this sounds like the opposite to me. Sounds like you're adding law to me.

You're adding more things for me to do and to beat myself up for. That's what it sounds like.

That doesn't sound like contentment, does it? The answer that we must answer the question, what is the manner of life worthy of the gospel?

What is this? Why am I bringing this to the table? Why am I bringing this to light? The answer is to obey

God's law. That just hit heavy, didn't it?

Obey God's law. How about I just leave you there? Go do that. You think you'll leave this place today with contentment and joy?

I can't do that. What do you mean obey God's law? That feels like a weight, pastor.

Well, here's the deal. Just like earthly citizens have laws, we are citizens of heaven.

God's kingdom has perfect laws. We're not only to obey them, but we're also to love them.

Sometimes I don't love the law of God. Sometimes I find myself hating the law of God because I feel as though I'm being crushed under the weight of it.

But I'm to love it? I can't even live up to it. How am

I to love it? Turn with me to the Old Testament. Psalm chapter 1.

Psalm chapter 1. We're going to look at the first three verses of David's psalm here.

Psalm chapter 1 in the Old Testament. If you're not familiar with that, sometimes your Bibles will be dead center.

You just kind of open it up and you're really close to psalms right there. The psalmist says,

Blessed. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.

Oh, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. His delight is in the law of the

Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit and its seeds and its leaf does not wither.

In all that he does he prospers. Have you ever read that psalm and went,

I get the psalmist feels that way, but I don't delight in the law of the Lord. Not always.

Now I will say prior to salvation there's no way to delight in the law of the

Lord, is there? The law of God can only condemn you. You're a sinner.

You are dead in your trespasses and sins. The law of God condemns you. It cannot save you.

It can't help you. You can never live up to it. You can't fulfill it. You can't even obey one little speck of it at any moment, for you are a slave to sin.

But because of Christ, and this is why we need Christ, the only one that could bear the weight of the law, mind you, that's why he had to come and be as us and man and bear the weight of the law of God because he fulfilled it.

And because of that if you were in Christ, here's the thing, we're a new creation. Before the law could only condemn.

Now all of a sudden we're a new creation. You now have the ability to do as the psalmist just said, is to delight in the law.

Now we often times still don't do so. But here's the thing, you are no longer under condemnation of the law.

You've been delivered from it. You've been freed to obey God's precepts. You've been given a new nature.

You've been given a new desire. Don't hear me wrong. I'm not talking about perfectionism. I mention that every week.

This is not perfectionism. But just like the psalmist, when we seek to align our life with God's precepts and law, you will be blessed and prosper.

When you are blessed and prosper, you find contentment.

When you delight in the law of the Lord, you meditate on it day and night. When you love the law of God, you obey it.

You prosper. You find the contentment and joy that you were created for.

Now here's the thing. As blessed and prosper, they're kind of the same idea.

They look very differently according to Paul's view of Christianity than our current view.

Because here's what I mean by that. Blessed is the man who, right, delights in the law of God, essentially.

Blessed might mean losing a loved one. Blessed might mean being persecuted.

Blessed might mean suffering. Oh, wait a second,

Pastor. That's not contentment. Wait a second. No, no, no, no. That can't be blessed. Blessed is,

I have a nice fancy house, and everything's comfortable, and my children are all obedient, and my spouse is wonderful, and does anything and everything that I could ask of them, and everything is hunky -dory.

That's blessed. No, no, not according to Scripture. Blessed may mean suffering. Prospering?

Prospering might mean losing your job and being stripped of all your earthly goods. So we have this earthly,

Americanized version of blessed and prospering. And we read it into the psalm. But that's not how

Christianity is portrayed in Scripture. That's not, that is not the beatitudes that Jesus laid out at the beginning of the

Sermon on the Mount, is it? Blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the poor in spirit.

This is completely countercultural. This goes against everything we can imagine. It's a perspective change, one in which

God is sovereign and in control of all circumstances. And I know every Christian says that. We say it all the time.

But do we really mean that there's not a molecule in the universe that moves or does a single thing without His sovereign ordaining purpose?

Even our suffering. Because that's the

God that Scripture defines. And I'm called to live for.

You and I are called to be obedient to. To love Christ with all of our being.

To obey the law of God, to delight in the law of God, to meditate on it day and night.

And we've been given the power to because of the Holy Spirit that dwells in us because we've been brought into union with that perfect triune

God, right? I will be able to find contentment in whatever circumstances

I go through when I'm in the will of God.

Look at the text again. Paul goes on to say, back in Philippians 1, he says, so that whether I come and see you or I'm absent.

I think what Paul's saying is no matter who's around. Paul doesn't know if he's going to be able to come and see them again.

He's previously mentioned that. He desires to come and see them again. He hopes. But he doesn't know if he's going to have his head cut off.

He's in prison. He doesn't know what's going on. He just knows that, hey, I would love to be able to come but he might not be able to.

And he says, I may hear of you that you were standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.

He says, standing firm there. Unmovable. Unwavering. Standing firm in what?

One spirit. Now notice in your Bibles that spirit is not capitalized.

It's commonly capitalized when it's speaking of the Holy Spirit. There's some discussion as to what

Paul is talking about here. Is he speaking about the Holy Spirit or is he speaking about the spirit of unity that he's talking about?

I believe he's speaking of both. Here's why. He's speaking to believers.

What is the spirit of unity? That's what he said in Ephesians, right?

To maintain the unity of the spirit. We have no ability to stand firm apart from Him.

He's the one doing the sanctifying work in us. We call it the perseverance of the saints. I don't even like that term. It's the perseverance of a triune

God is what it is. We're not persevering. He's persevering through and in us. I understand the context in which

Paul is using this phrase. Brings it into question, but as I just said, we have no ability to stand firm apart from Him.

Hence, why would Paul be talking about anything but both the spirit of unity and the

Holy Spirit here? Over in Romans chapter 14, the second part of verse 4, it says, it is before his own master that he stands or falls and he will be upheld for the

Lord is able to make him stand. That's God working in us.

Paul can tell the church at Philippi to stand firm because he knows the one that is able to make them stand.

He knows the one that is working in and through them, right? And it is through the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit and the unity that we share in that. He says,

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.

With one mind. The mind of Christ. What's the mind that he speaks of?

Is it some common goal? We've already talked about that. That's not the unity that we're striving for.

It's Christ as the head of the body. Christ is the mind. It's His will.

It's His purposes. Over in chapter 2 of Philippians, He says, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being full and full of cord and of one mind.

It's the mind of Christ. Look to Christ. This is obviously the one mind that Paul is referring to.

He's telling them to maintain unity with that mind of Christ. Have you ever been in a church where there's disunity?

Backbiting, slander, gossip. Constant disagreements over every minor thing.

It's hard to have contentment and joy in that circumstance, isn't it? It shows that that church is not of one mind.

So how are we to maintain this one spirit and one mind? First of all,

God is the one that maintains it, but He uses means. He uses means.

Look at what He says. Striving. Striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.

This is not an individualistic endeavor. He's not talking to an individual that says, hey you,

Adam, strive. You just strive. You try and walk the

Christian life. Go out there, away from the body, and see how long you delight in the law of the

Lord. It's not going to happen. God uses means.

Not going to happen. You will fail very, very quickly. I have people that tell me they're

Christians all the time, and they very rarely are in church. They're very rarely a part of the gathering.

They're very rarely in discipleship, if at all. They have no idea why they have no power over sin in their life.

They're not striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. You see, this requires selfless unified allegiance, side by side, with one spirit, with one mind.

This is why Paul used that word, polytoami. You don't belong to yourself. This is something far greater than you.

We can only stand firm in one spirit and one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, when our skills, talents, energies, and endeavors are devoted first of all to the interest of the kingdom alone.

We see Paul's singular citizenship and focus. There's no mistaking that Paul's life is about the greater progress of the gospel carried out by the bride of Christ, the body, particularly the local representation, the church.

And our allegiance to the kingdom alone is an allegiance to that bride. If our allegiance is split elsewhere, we are outside of the will of God, and finding true contentment and joy will continue to elude you.

There's imagery all through scripture of the church, the body, the bride, the building.

I love the imagery of the bride with a bridegroom who bathes her in the word, cleanses her, cares for her.

If you say you love me and then immediately turn around and say you hate my bride, guess what?

You hate me. Because we're two people that are one flesh.

You hate my bride, you hate me. And by the way, I have a serious problem with you because you're a psycho if you hate her.

But my point is so often people say, I love Jesus, I just don't love his bride.

I think the church is a bunch of hypocrites. Oh yes, we are, for certain.

Make no mistake about it, we're a bunch of broken people that sin against the bridegroom day in and day out and fail him every turn but that's the beautiful part.

He comes in and he bathes us in the word. Right? That's the church.

So you can't say you love Jesus and not love his bride. We have to have him. We are finding contentment and selfless unified allegiance because we love the bride, because we love

Christ. Alright, I gotta get to the second point. We're gonna move on, guys.

Finding contentment in bold fearlessness. Finding contentment in bold fearlessness. Look at verse 28 there in Ephesians 1.

He says, I'm not frightened in anything by your opponents. Not frightened.

Nothing kills joy like fear, does it? Well, it ties back to this idea of side by side, right?

Striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. An example.

You can't tell it now because of all the donuts I eat, but I was a scrawny kid. Scrawny teenage boy with a big mouth.

And I ran that big mouth. And my body couldn't back up what my mouth said. But I'll say this.

I had an uncle just a little older than me who had the body to back up the big mouth.

And guess what? I felt fearless to run that big mouth.

Because I knew that even though I can't back it up, my uncle can. And he's got my back.

I know this is a stupid analogy, but you get the point, don't you? When we know that our brothers and sisters are with us and walking through this life with us, there is a fearlessness.

There is a boldness that comes with that side by side striving, isn't there? You can't do it alone.

Not to mention even greater than you and me all together having each other's back.

We have a triune God that's for us. And if God is for us, who can be against us, right?

Well, the Christians in this time, they had legitimate reason to fear. We fear not being liked.

That's about the extent of our persecution. Let's be honest. These people, they had real fear.

They were losing their lives, their families, their jobs, their ability to provide in any way.

They had great fear. The object of their joy is not affected by their circumstances.

Because their contentment is contingent on something eternally transcendent.

This is what Paul's calling us to. Why is it important to have this fearlessness?

Look at what he says about it. He says, this is a clear sign to them of their destruction.

Whose destruction? Their opponents. It's a clear sign of them, of their destruction.

I find it interesting that we like to talk about the world, we don't like to talk about the world as our opponents nowadays. We talk about them as our friends.

And of course, we're called to love them, or to treat, not to treat them as enemies, or to not treat anyone as an enemy, or to love our enemies.

But make no mistake, they are not indifferent about you. If you think for a moment that the people in the world that are not in Christ are indifferent about you, you're fooling yourself.

They may put on a show because of the cultural dynamic of our lives today, but they are against you.

They hate you because they hate your Savior. They hate your kingdom. Praise God, we have the power to respond in love, otherwise we'd merely revile back, right?

But Paul tells us this is a clear sign to them of their destruction. What's the clear sign?

Your bold fearlessness. A contentment.

And fearlessness. When the world sees that your joy, that your contentment is not affected by your earthly circumstances, they have no reference point for that.

They only have the here and now. And when the worst thing they can do to us is kill us, literally, think about it, that's the worst thing they can do to us.

And we can say what Paul says, for me to die, that's gain. By the way, yeah, kill me. I'm here to die.

Here I am. You kill me, I win. It's the best you can do. No concept for that.

No understanding of this, but this is a clear sign to them. Don't you think that God used this as conviction on some of those

Roman soldiers guarding Paul? These men are having to be chained to this man who has contentment in his circumstances.

The gospel is being proclaimed boldly through all of that. Because look at what

Paul says. But of your salvation and that from God.

Right? We know them by their fruit. Your bold fearlessness is a fruit. It's a sign of your salvation and the work of God that has rotten your heart.

Alright, let's move on here. Third, finally, finding contentment through voluntary suffering.

Look at verse 29. For it has been granted to you. I love how

Paul says this. For it has been granted to you. You've been gifted with it. Oh, it's a wonderful gift.

Praise the Lord for this. It's been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him.

Oh, that's wonderful. I love it. Believe in him. I've been granted to believe him. You've also to suffer for his sake.

Hold up. This is not contentment, Pastor. This is contentment according to Paul.

You want to be content? Take joy in the fact that you have been chosen to suffer. Paul goes on in verse 30.

Look at it. He says, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.

Remember how I said a moment ago, Paul really wants these readers to understand that they can't go, well, yeah, that's the extreme

Christianity for Paul. He's an apostle, but not for me. No, he's saying, oh, guess what?

All that suffering that I've just undergone, shipwreck, beatings, threat of life, stoned, imprisoned, suffering after suffering after suffering.

Hey, Christian, engage in that same thing. You want to find contentment?

You want to be joyful? You want to follow Christ? Do the same thing.

Engage in the same thing. This is where the voluntary part comes in. Paul is telling them and us to engage in the same thing.

We'd rather avoid that conflict, wouldn't we? Because we want contentment. Now, here's the thing.

Paul's not telling us to go looking for persecution. Don't go pick a gospel fight with your lost neighbor today just so you can be persecuted and say, well,

I'm obeying what Paul said. Paul's not telling us to go looking for it. What he's saying is when you are obedient to what

God has called you to be, persecution will certainly come. And I've often wondered in my own life why

I wasn't suffering persecution. I'm going to be honest with you. I would hear things like this and I'd be like, well,

I'm not really suffering anything. Life's easy for me. And many of those times,

I'll be honest with you, I look back and go, I wasn't delighting in the law of the Lord. I was riding the fence of this world and the kingdom.

I wasn't seeking contentment through voluntary suffering. I wanted to avoid suffering and delighting in the law of the

Lord led me to it. So if you're not suffering, it might be because you're not really living for the kingdom.

Sometimes God gives us these glorious times, mountaintop experiences, right? But we don't suffer and we get to be with Him.

But those are far and few between. I'm sorry, Saint. They just are. God, being gracious, has not only granted us to suffer with Him, but here's things also suffering unity with each other.

We suffer with those that suffer. We mourn with those that mourn. We grieve with those that grieve.

We rejoice with those that rejoice. That's what it means to be a part of a unified body, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.

You can't do it alone. This is important. We've been talking about oneness. We've been talking about unity.

We've been talking about the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. You want to know where that bond of peace is? You want to know what contentment is?

You want to know what joy is? It's not what you think. And it can only be done in community.

I'm sorry. It's as cut and dry as that. You're not going to do it alone.

The church at Philippi has been participating in the suffering of the gospel with Paul. Praise God.

They walk with Him. They send help to Him, knowing that that help may, in return, point the arrows of Rome right at their front door.

They suffer with those that suffer. Now to us.

The American church. The American church has some of the most discouraged, depressed, and discontent people.

Yet we have it easier than any other Christian throughout history. Something to this, isn't there?

I believe the reason for that is that we have Americanized the church. We are individuals who only unify when it benefits us.

This can't be my life. Not only do

I belong to Christ. If I belong to Christ, I belong to His bride. Only then can

I find true joy and contentment by laying down my life for others. We're not citizens of this world.

We're not citizens of America. We're citizens of the kingdom of heaven alone. These are our brothers and sisters.

Live life with and for them. Because this is precisely what our elder brother did for us, isn't it?

Christ did not come and live for himself. What an example.

Christ had the ability to come to earth, to condescend, becoming in the likeness of man, and show up and go, you know what?

You rebellious creatures. I'm going to smite all of you, and I'm going to sit on the throne of David, and I'm going to rule from here with a heavy hand.

He'd have been just in doing so, right? He said, I live for myself. I am here now.

But that's not what he did, is it? And we're called to live like him. We don't show up to church going, Pastor, what you got for me today?

Me. Give me, give me. No, I want to be like my Savior. How do I lay my life down for his people?

Only then will we be aligned in our lives with what God has called us to. And in that, finding true contentment and joy.

It's the antithesis of our earthly thinking. But we must delight in the law of the

Lord, meditate on it day and night. We only do so when looking to Christ, our Savior, that has bought us and brought us into this kingdom.

And we will fail. You will not always delight in the law of the

Lord, and that's when you look back to Christ. And when you see the beauty of what

Christ did, oh, then you love his law. You love his law, and you find joy and contentment.

One of the ways that we get to look to our Savior is weekly we go to the table. We go to the

Lord's supper that he has called us to do every week when we gather. He has called us to this.

As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11, he says, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you that the

Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said,

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

In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. And Paul says, For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the

Lord's death until he comes. We are sojourners in this land waiting for our King to arrive.

And when we gather in our embassy this morning, we can remember that he is going to return.

What he did to purchase us and bring us into citizenship and that is promise of return.

Let's pray that God will be honored in this. Me and Pastor Jeremiah will be down here. If you are in Christ this morning and you are in good standing with an evangelical church, you are welcome to the table.

And if you need prayer, Pastor Jeremiah and myself are here. We are willing to pray with you. If you have questions, we are willing to walk with you through those things.

If you need intercessory prayer, come to us with this. You are not distracting us from the task at hand.

This is part of being in community. Amen? Lord, be honored in our worship through the table.

These elements, the wine and the bread, guard our hearts from idolatry.

And help us to worship you in spirit and truth through this beautiful ordinance that you have prescribed for us.

That you would show yourself uniquely to us, your people as we partake in Christ's name.

Amen. ... ...

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... In me I dread,

I know a future sure, the price it has been paid.

For Jesus bled and suffered for my pardon, and He was raised to overthrow the grave.

To this I hold, my sin has been defeated.

Jesus now and ever is my plea.

For the chains are released, I can sing,

I am free and not arrested in me.

I long to follow Jesus, for He has said that He will bring me home.

And ever until I stand with joy before the throne.

To this I hold, my hope is only Jesus. All that belongs shall remain

Christ in me. To this I hold, my hope is only

Jesus. All that belongs... Nothing that we do represents that truth that yet not

I but Christ in me. Like this ordinance, amen. It's beautiful. Well this morning we've gotten to enjoy the beauty of the ordinance of baptism.

The ordinance of the Lord's Supper. See the word, sing the word, pray the word, preach the word.

All of these things, read the word. But today we also have another special moment where we have some new member recognition.

Amen. Joe kind of spilt the beans earlier a little bit on us early, but that's alright.

But Joe and Angel, why don't you all come up here. Justin, why don't you make your way up here. Maybe we can stand up right up here in front of the...

Don't fall backwards. Joe, you can get baptized again. Y 'all know all three of these here.

Obviously Joe and Angel here. Y 'all felt like part of the family already.

As a matter of fact, I've had numerous people come up to me and say something about y 'all. And when they find out you're not members yet, they're like, oh, wait a second.

I thought they were already members. So that's been wonderful to see God working in your lives.

We'd love to get to know you. We are excited to see how God is going to use your gifts. We obviously see some wonderful gifts in both of you that are beneficial.

Christ is building his church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And so what he's doing is he is growing this particular body, and he's saying, hey, this is the body part that you need right now.

This is the body part that you need right now, and we trust his providence. And so going through the class, having many conversations, y 'all have taken this as seriously as anyone has ever taken it, right?

Y 'all have taken this very seriously, and I'm very, very grateful for that because this is a serious matter.

Y 'all saw the four -week class and all the stuff that we go through and the membership covenants and all of that. We're not joking here.

This isn't play Christianity. And I think that y 'all have done well in being very considerate of that for your own lives.

And so here in a moment, I've got to figure out which Bible is which. Oh, perfect order.

All right, I got it. All right, and then we got Justin here. Justin's been with us for a bit here.

He got baptized, what, maybe five, six weeks ago, somewhere around that point. He came to us.

He said, I've been saved. My faith is in Christ and Christ alone. And we're like, praise

God. What's next? He's like, baptized. So we were able to baptize him, and he then went through the

November class, and you've walked through that whole thing, and you've been on it, man. He'd call or text, and he'd be like, all right,

I'm going to be there. I got this, and praise God, because he, too, has been taking this very, very seriously.

And y 'all know Adam and Tari's son -in -law, right? I'm going to throw you in on that one, okay?

All right, Adam and Tari have been praying for this man for quite some time, haven't you? I know that we've been praying, and God is working in your life.

And now, through the obedience and baptism, the next step, you're like, I've got to be a member of a church.

Praise God, and we're so glad. We're excited to watch how God does work in you, just like with Joe and Angel, and bringing you into this body and using the gifts and being encouraged.

So, members of 12 .5, if you affirm Justin and Joe and Angel as members of this covenant body of believers, please stand in affirmation.

Amen. All right. Praise God. Praise God. We are thrilled to have y 'all as part of this, and like we do every time, sorry, the two of y 'all have to share, so y 'all got to fight over which one.

We have ESV study Bibles that we commission each member with, because this is our source.

We want to know life and godliness. We want to know what God's called the church to. This is it. This is our source, and we want to give you that as we commission you and Justin the same thing.

And we make sure that we got it in here. We got it signed. We got it. Look at there. We got it right, Justin Warren?

All right. We got it. From 12 .5 church on this date, and that way y 'all can look back at this. Hey, buddy.

Come here. We can look back at this and praise God for what he's doing, and I can't wait to see 10, 20 years down the road how

God is working in y 'all's lives and others' lives through the process. So let's pray for them, and we will also pray for our time of fellowship as we continue our worship today.

Lord, thank you for how you are growing the people of this church, how you are bringing saints here.

Lord, we pray that you would bless this body, that it would be honoring to you, that it would obey you as King Jesus.

Lord, I pray for Justin, that you would grow him and mold him, and that he could raise up his family in the fear and knowledge of you, loving you and serving you and serving this body.

Lord, I pray for Joe and Angel as they serve diligently, as they get involved and use their gifts to further kingdom purposes.

Lord, bless that. Lord, help us as a people to bless them. We thank you for all that you have done.

Lord, we thank you for our time of fellowship. Be honored as we worship you through this. In Christ's name, amen.