Thank you, that was tremendous. Good morning. It is so good to be with you, both you who are here and you who are online, and I want to invite you now to turn with me in your Bible to Philippians chapter 2, as we continue our study of this incredible little letter from the Apostle Paul to one of his favorite congregations, and one that he absolutely loved, as we'll see in the first verse of our passage, which is chapter 2 verse 12 through 18. So go ahead and turn there, Philippians chapter 2 12 through 18. Here now God's holy, true, and life-giving word. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God, without blemish, in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise, you also should be glad and rejoice with me. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Father, we do thank you. We praise you that you have revealed yourself to us in and through your word, and most of all in the person and work of your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who humbled himself, even to the point of death, even death on a cross, for us, and whom you have highly exalted. As we continue, Lord, studying this letter, would you be at work in us, opening our eyes to other aspects of your glory and your goodness and your plan for the world, help us to trust you more, love you more, as you've given us forgiveness in Christ, now give us healing, make us new, make us like the one who came to get us, the one we will spend eternity with, we have faith right now. So be with us, Lord, and use this time to grow us, and both equip us, and excite us, to continue our mission to make disciples. We pray in Jesus' name. If you study Greek mythology, eventually you come across a character named Cadmus, who slays a dragon, and then he takes the teeth of the slain dragon, and he throws them in a field, and he goes away, and when he comes back, much to his surprise, those teeth have turned into seeds that have sprouted giants. And so now there's these giants, and Cadmus is afraid that these giants are going to turn on him, and they're going to kill him. So what he does is he takes a stone, and he throws a stone at one of the giant's heads, and it bounces off one of the giant's head, he turns and thinks it was one of the other giants, so they start fighting, and basically all the giants are fighting and they end up killing each other, and Cadmus then is there laughing because he was able to destroy his enemies by getting them to destroy themselves. Well played, Cadmus. And when Paul wrote this letter to the Philippians, he knew that they were experiencing pressure from the culture around them, to align with the culture, to abandon what it looks like to be a Christian, and to align with what it looks like to be a Roman. And he knew that it was causing some disunity among them, so one of the things he did is he called them to humility, which we talked about last week. But he also, as we'll see in this passage, he wants to call them, and God wants to call us away from some of the things that cause us to start fighting each other, instead of loving and caring for one another and keeping our eyes on the ball, keeping our eyes on the mission, to no Christ and to make him known, and he's addressing something here that is natural to all of us because of our fallen nature. He is addressing this tendency we have to start grumbling or complaining and disputing or questioning each other, others, the church, and Paul knows that that's a deadly disease when the people of God are grumbling and questioning everything. And so he addresses this here because he loves them. And so we're going to deal with that this morning. There's bad news by nature. We are grumblers, we are disputers. And the thing that we'll see, if a church is grumbling and disputing among themselves, it really damages their witness and it steals their joy. And so Paul wants to help the Philippians avoid that, and God wants you and I to avoid that as well. So the bad news is we have a tendency to do something that really will tear us apart, grumbling and disputing about things. But the good news is Christ delivers us from the grumbling and disputing that is natural to us. He can do it. Christ will deliver us from the grumbling and disputing that would damage our witness and steal our joy. And so to unpack this this morning, I'm going to do three things in order for us to see how Christ delivers us from that grumbling and disputing that will tear us apart. We're going to talk about remembering something. We need to remember something. Number two, we need to refrain from something. And number three, we need to rejoice in something. So three things. We'll talk about remembering, refraining, and rejoicing. All right, let's do that. Look at verses 12 and 13. And first, what Paul is going to do here is he's going to remind them. He wants them to remember what's happening. And what I would submit to you is he wants them to remember that the same God who has saved them from the penalty of their sin in Christ is also sanctifying them, even now as they read the letter in the beginning. And that's the same for you and I. The same God who has saved us from the penalty of our sin. Right now, he is sanctifying us. He's at work among us. And this is huge for us to remember. Take a look. There's 12 and 13. He says, therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Now, a couple things that we understand what Paul is saying here. Number one, he's speaking to the congregation. It's because Americans are so individualistic. We tend to individualize some of the things that actually are said to a group, all the use and yours in this are plural in the Greek. So Paul is talking to the congregation. And notice what he says. A lot of people get nervous about this verse because they think he's saying, work for your salvation. And that bothers us because we know that we're saved by grace through faith. That should bother us because we are saved by grace through faith alone, not by anything we do. But Paul doesn't say, work for your salvation. Look again. He says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Work it out. In other words, work out together what it looks like to be a community of saved people, people who have been rescued from the penalty of their sin by Christ. People who are being worked on and in by God. He's saying, work it out, not work for it. And that's huge because it helps us realize that we can rejoice that God has saved us. He's not telling us to work for it. He's saying, work it out. What does that look like? And it's hard work. That's what he says with fear and trembling. It's hard to work out what it should look like for us to be a community of saved people. But he says, work it out, not work for it. Think about it like this. Let's say that I got up here one Sunday and said, good news. Somebody has given a billion dollars to our church. Now, if you're just waking up, I'm not saying that. I'm saying, if I said that. If I said, somebody gave a billion dollars to our church. It's in the bank account. Then I might follow that with, so let's work out how we're going to spend it. Let's work it out what it looks like to be a church that has a billion dollars. I wouldn't say, let's work for it. Because you say, well, we don't have to work for it. It's in the bank. And I would say, you're right, so we don't have to work for it. Let's work it out. That's what Paul, by the way, does anybody have a billion dollars that can give to our church? Never heard to ask. You see the difference? Paul is saying, work it out, friends, work it out. Work out your own salvation. Work out what it looks like to be a saved group of people, to be a community of people who have been saved by Christ. And why? Why should we work that out? Well, because God is at work in us. Look at what he says there in the rest in verse 13. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Or really, you should read that. It is God who works in you both to will and to work because it pleases him to do that. He's not working in us so that he will be pleased with us. It pleases him to work in us. What does he mean to work to will and to work? It means that God is at work in us. He's affecting our very wills as God works in us as a community of saved people. It impacts our will so that we actually want to do the things that will glorify God and be a blessing to those around us and to our community. He affects our will and he empowers us to work. He empowers us to actually do the things. Not just to want to do what glorifies God and what blesses others, but then to actually do it. So Paul says, work out what it looks like to be a community of saved people. Because God is at work in you. He's doing something in you through his word and spirit. He's transforming who you are as individuals and as a church. He's saved you and now he's sanctifying you. He's changing who you are. And the thing is, Paul knows that they're feeling this pressure from the culture around them and he wants them to realize that even that is part of God's plan for them. He's using these difficult situations and the scariness of a culture that's increasingly against them for their transformation. That's how he's working in them. He hasn't abandoned them. That's how he's actually working in them to transform who they are as individuals, as families, as a church. He saved them and now he's sanctifying them. He's transforming who they are. He's making them more like Christ, liberating them more and more and more from the power of sin. When things get tough, we tend to want to question God. What's this all about? If you were laying on a table, if you were strapped to a table, if you were immobile because you were strapped to a table. And so people came in with knives and said, we're going to cut you open now. You probably want to know what, why? So it's normal to kind of wonder what's going on. Now, if they say, well, we're doctors and we're going to cut out a cancer in you that's killing you. Well, then instead of questioning and fighting you, you say, okay, do what you got to do. Paul knows that they are, the Philippians were seeing this pressure from the culture and they're wondering, what is happening? What is going on? He wants them to know, this is God at work in you. He's working in you. He's transforming who you are. So the question we have to ask then is, can we apply that in our lives? Can we believe that whatever's going on in our culture around us, this stuff that God has abandoned us is that he's at work in us. He has saved us. And now he wants to sanctify us and he's using these situations that make us go, what are you doing, God? He's actually using those very situations to make us more free from the power of sin and hit us even more in the direction of more joy. Can you and I choose to believe that? Paul wants the Philippians to believe that. God wants you and I to believe that this morning. And if we do believe that, then what happens next is we don't end up doing what Paul says not to do. So we have to start with that foundation of remembering we have been saved. If our faith is in Christ, if your faith is in Christ, you have been saved. Jesus died for your sins, your sins are paid for. He's given you his righteousness. He's promised you eternal life. That's done. Now he's at work in you. Even through these hard circumstances that make us tend to grumble and dispute. So we talked about remembering something. Let's talk about refraining from something. Look at 14 through 16. And here's where Paul is going to tell them to refrain from doing something that will mess with their unity, damage their witness, and steal their joy. And remember, he loves them. Look back at verse 12. Therefore, my beloved, this comes from the love of Paul to the Philippians and the love of God to you. 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 among whom you shine as lights in the world. Holding fast to the word of life so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Do nothing with or do all things without grumbling or disputing. So see, when we find ourselves grumbling and disputing amongst one another, we have to understand that the real cause of that is this is pride. And this sickness we have, which we could call our constant belief that we know what's right and what should really be happening and everyone else must be wrong. I have a bad case of that. And so what Paul is doing here is he's still pulling from his discussion of the humility of Christ. And, you know, the passage that we read the morning starts with the word therefor. And anytime you see the word therefor, you got to check out and see what it's therefor. Okay, so he's still pulling from the humility of Christ. And now he's saying, do all things without grumbling or disputing. What is grumbling? Grumbling? In the Greek it's a word that means the expression of a secret, solid, discontent. Grumbling is what's when what's really in there starts coming out. I don't know why this is happening this way. I don't know why this person did. I don't know why God is allowing this pain in my life. What is it? It's already in there. Grumbling is when it comes out. Disputing. Some translations say questioning. That is a word that just means delivering or doubting, particularly in terms of what should be done. You can imagine a church beginning to feel more pressure from the culture. And it'd be very easy for them to start grumbling about why is God allowing this to happen? Why is God doing this? Why is things getting so heated here? Why is the culture getting so hostile? Then they can start disputing. Well, I think we should do this or I think we should do that. No, we should do it this way. No, we should do it that way. And what Paul is doing here is very interesting. He's showing you that if we let ourselves get into that trap, we start grumbling and disputing. It's going to damage our witness, it's going to steal our joy. And he does that largely by jumping back into the Old Testament, which is interesting because he's talking to mostly Gentiles here. So he wants them to understand that their spiritual lineage is the Old Testament nation of Israel. So there's continuity. But notice, in verse 15, Paul is actually lifting words right out of Deuteronomy chapter 32. And he's pointing to this generation of Israelites whom God set free from slavery in Egypt. He set them free from slavery in Egypt and brought them out into the wilderness where they were led by Moses on route to the promised land. And he's talking about that first generation who came out and that first generation after they were set free from slavery, they put the pro and professional grumbling. They just grumbled all the time. They had just been set free from being slaves and they're grumbling. Here's a couple examples. Exodus 17, verse 3, but the people thirsted there for water and the people grumbled against Moses and said, why did you bring us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? I mean, they have been delivered from slavery and because they're teensy bit thirsty. They're like, did you, God, Moses, you bring us out here to kill us with thirst? Is that what's going on here? Don't get judgey. You would have said the same thing if you were there. Because it's in us. It's in us. Number is 14. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, would that we had died in the land of Egypt or would that we had died in this wilderness? They're legitimately because they're hungry and they don't understand what all the wilderness is all about and they're not comfortable. They're saying, man, it probably would be better if we just died or if we just die right now. Grumbling, that's disputing. Paul is saying that was just a major issue in that first generation. All they did was grumble and so they were this crooked and twisted generation, which is where Paul gets those words. Moses will eventually in Deuteronomy say that they were a crooked and twisted generation. They just couldn't get into their heads that the wilderness was not supposed to be terrific. It was supposed to be transformational. It was supposed to be where they learned to trust their God. It was supposed to be where they learned to no longer put themselves first to count others as more significant than themselves. That's what the wilderness was supposed to be for them and that's the wilderness is supposed to be for us. God doesn't take us from slavery in Egypt immediately to the promised land. There's the wilderness. We're in the wilderness. We're awaiting the promised land when the king returns. And as much as your heart wants it to be terrific now, it's supposed to be transformational. And Paul wants them to avoid that grumbling, avoid that because, one, it's actually pretty scary. He says if they get into that, then he would be afraid that all his work with them was in vain and that they actually never believed. So it's a big deal. And he calls them. God is calling us through this text to turn away from that grumbling spirit, that discontent that's already there that starts getting expressed when we are grumbling to each other or about each other and disputing. Rather, he wants us to be light in the world and he's drawing from Daniel, which Stephen read earlier and he's drawing from Isaiah. There's a number of places where we're told that what was intended for that first generation, just like what's intended for all of God's people is that we are a light in the world that as people see us, they see our God and they see that there's hope, which is why God calls us to trust him and grow more like him. He wants us to put him on display in this world. That's always been the plan that's still the plan today. But see you and I, we just want things to be easy and it's hard for us to realize that a lot of times he actually uses the hard stuff in our lives and in our culture to make us shine more. We struggle because nothing is ever enough for us and that's going to be that way until we get to the New Heavens and New Earth. Only God is enough for us, but there's this woman and she was walking through the woods with her son and a tornado came out of nowhere and she grabs onto a tree limb and she grabs onto her son and they're blown in the wind and she loses her son's hand. This is not a real story. It's okay, he makes it. So she loses her son's hand and he gets whipped up into the tornado and so the mother starts crying out to God, God, please give me my son back, God, please, he's all I have, God, if you give me my son back, I'll serve you forever, God, please give me my son, that's all I ask. The tornado spits the boy out. He lands right at her feet. Hair's a little must up, but he's okay. The woman looks up and says, Lord, he had a hat and nothing is nothing is enough, right? That's, that's me. That's me. Lord, there was a hat. That's you. Unless we learn to struggle in the wilderness and believe that God is leading us. He's taking us. He's moving us through. And we're being called to be different. We're being called a shine instead of grumble and dispute. Frank Theillman says, Paul hopes that unlike their spiritual ancestors, they will prove not to be a crooked, depraved and blemished generation but a beacon of light for truth, for the truth of the gospel amid a faithless world. And so here's a wonderful moment. And by the way, you know, he does use some language there. He talks about unblemished and pure or innocent. And those are words that can be a little scary. Remember, we know that we're always going to be imperfect in this life. He's not saying that you must be perfect or we have, we can be even perfect, but it's, we're always called to more. We're called to more because it's part of how God keeps pulling us in that direction. So we experience more transformation and therefore more joy in our relationship with him. But here's a great juncture at which we can ask ourselves, you know, one of the things I'm grumbling about, you know, am I grumbling about what's happening at work and I'm just always frustrated with why God is letting things happen the way they are. Here's a great moment for repentance. I'm going to trust you God. I'm not going to grumble. I'm not going to dispute about what should be happening. I'm going to trust that you're using this for your glory and for my good. Maybe it's at home. Maybe you're grumbling often about what's going on in your home. And here's an opportunity. Good news. You can repent. Good news. I can repent. Maybe it's in the church. Maybe you grumble all the time about our church and what we're doing and how we should be doing everything better. You're looking at one of the biggest grumblers in the church, by the way. So if anybody needs to repent, the most is probably me, but we can do it together because we have a king who forgives grumblers like me, grumblers like you. That's why Paul has, remember, he's based this whole conversation on the fact that they already are. They are saved community. Work out what you've already received, your salvation. And the more that we believe that, the more that we believe that Jesus came and died for us to forgive us of our sins. Even the sins of our constant grumbling and disputing that our slate has been clean, but not just wipe clean, but filled with the righteousness of Christ. When we believe that, when we believe the good news of the gospel now, not only have we, have this great relief that we're forgiven, but then there's also this desire. I want to be healed, right? He's forgiven me of my grumbling. Now I want to be healed of it. Don't leave me this way, Jesus. He doesn't want to. And so he calls us to rejoice. Look at verses 17 and 18. And here's where we see that the antidote to grumbling when things get tough and when the culture is putting pressure on us, the antidote is actually to rejoice. We want to rejoice because of all the opportunities that we have to shine the light of the gospel into a dark world. Notice here, look at what he says verse 17. Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you. Likewise, you also should be glad and rejoice with me. Now, don't you think rejoicing is always in response to something? Yeah, I thought that too. No, this is actually an imperative. This is a command. He's saying rejoice. Choose to rejoice. Choose to rejoice in who God is and what he's done for us in Christ and what he's doing in us right now. And a big part of that is looking at what we're going through and he's suffering or pressure or loss that we're experiencing. Looking at that as something that we can actually rejoice in, let me unpack a little bit of what Paul is saying here. One thing we have to see is that rejoicing is something we choose to do. It's not just a response when things go well. We're supposed to choose to rejoice. This is not the last time he will command us and instruct us to rejoice. But let's understand what Paul's saying here. You got to think about a little bit about the Old Testament sacrificial system. In the Old Testament, God instructed his people to offer animal sacrifices and those animal sacrifices were symbolic of the death that they deserve to experience because of their sin. Not graciously accepted the death of the animals instead of the death of his people. Now all of those animals were not really the source of forgiveness or right standing with God. They were actually symbolic of the ultimate sacrifice and that would be Jesus. That would be the one who came and humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. But in the sacrificial system, this is very interesting. There were certain sacrifices where they would sacrifice an animal then they would also do what's called a drink offering. And Paul is saying something about their suffering with the Philippians are experiencing because of the culture and his. He's saying that it's like what they're going through, their struggles, it's like it's like they're offering to God. And what he's going through, he's like the drink offering that's added to it. And he's showing us that every time we suffer or give something up or make sacrifices in order to continue obeying Christ holding fast to the word of life, every time we do that, God uses that to spread the gospel. And what happens is the things we give up now, the sacrifices we make now, actually are a big part of how we shine the light of the gospel. We show that we will give up anything and everything for this truth. That turns the light up, that shows the world how true what we believe is. And so we shouldn't be afraid of suffering, we should actually be willing to embrace it when it comes. We should not be afraid of pressure from the culture, we should actually say well this will be our opportunity to make an offering, this will be our opportunity to shine, this will be our opportunity to hold on to the faith and whatever happens we stand there shining bright. And the darkness tries to overcome it but it can't, can it? We have a missionary in our church who served overseas for a number of years and at one point after going through a tremendous amount of suffering was talking to a person from that country who had become a Christian who was somewhat of a movement leader there. And this man explained to her how much suffering he had experienced and how much fruitfulness they had had in ministry and as he kind of detailed the suffering that he had experienced her response was what an honor, what an honor to have suffered so that the truth of the gospel can shine brighter and brighter and brighter. Let me tell you something, whatever happens in our culture one, we're not being persecuted, not here. Things are still tremendously easy for us and we need to keep things in perspective. Now I know that some are afraid that there may be pressure or maybe even persecution someday, we shouldn't assume that there won't be, you know what, this world is messed up. But right now we're not really feeling persecution, we're feeling pressure. But we need to ask ourselves as we see pressure mounting and we fear that maybe persecution will come, are we readying ourselves to fight for our rights or are we readying ourselves to lay our lives down even to suffer for the truth of the gospel? Because I'll tell you something, there's an idea that we should get ready to fight for our rights but the problem is we follow a king who came and laid his down and he won. And if you want to follow the winning king in the battle, you don't do it by trying to triumph now, you do it by humbling yourself, you do it by suffering, willingness to suffer. Are we getting our kids ready for that? Is the next generation know that children, because the gospel is true and because we're not going to let go of it, you might actually suffer, but do it. It's your offering to the one who's rescued you and who's rescuing all who put their faith in him. Get ready for it. God will be with you. God will use it in your life and to advance the gospel. Are we getting our kids ready for that? You know, every time we suffer for the sake of the gospel, every time we give something up, we're pointing to the one who gave up everything so that we could have everything. That's what's so amazing here Paul, talking about these sacrifices, they were symbolic, well our sacrifices are symbolic too, the things we give up, the things we suffer, our crosses and our losses as the Puritans would say, they actually point to the one who gave everything up. So it's part of how we shine the light of the gospel and I'll tell you what, we should not be afraid of pressure or persecution to come, we shouldn't be afraid of that. Because the world cannot do anything even remotely close to the kind of suffering and loss that we actually deserve because of our sin. They can't even come close. If we were to really understand what Jesus took upon himself, the way he experienced the wrath of God for us, if we were to understand that amount of suffering that we deserve and then see the amount of suffering we could possibly endure in this life, we see that even the Christians who suffer the most in this world, it's still a minuscule compared to the suffering that we deserve. And even better God uses it to advance the gospel. God never waste a millisecond of the suffering of his people, what an honor. So don't be afraid, do not be afraid, do not be afraid, the real suffering that we should fear has been taken away, everything else in one sense is just noise. There was a man who was driving on the street with his son, all of a sudden there was a bubble bee flying around in the car and the sun starts screaming. Dad, dad, dad, a bee, the dad reaches out and grabs it and then he opens his hand and it flies off again. And so the sun starts screaming again. Dad, dad, dad, the bee, the bee, the bee. And the father looks at his son, apparently they pulled over at this point and he says, look at my hand and the boy looks in the hand and there's the stinger. And he says, you don't need to be afraid of that bee, you can't do much to you now because I've taken the big pain that could administer. Christian, don't be afraid to suffer. Your God says, look at my son, the world can't do much to you now. Look at my son, I've taken the big pain, I've taken the real suffering. And now yours is part of how you shine the light but how you show the world. What an honor. Father, would you ready us as a congregation? Would you ready your church in America and around the world for whatever is to come, whether it's hard times or easier times? Would you help us to believe that it's not easy to work out the fact that we're a community of saved people but we can bank on the fact that you're at work in us. And even through the hard things that we don't understand why you would let these things happen, you're at work, you're the great physician, you have forgiven us now you're healing us. Oh Lord, help us repent of grumbling and disputing and to put it to death and instead to see every opportunity to suffer or sacrifice or lose for the sake of the gospel as an honor and then let us shine. Let us shine in Jesus name.