Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / September 4, 2016 | Route 66 - Philippians

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September 4, 2016 | Route 66 - Philippians · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good job.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: Good response.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: College Avenue is dead.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: Let's hear you.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: So we're in a route, yeah, we're in Route 66.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: We're in a road trip to the Bible, 66 book, 66 weeks, 66 Sundays.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: We're at the number 50 book, number 50 book.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: This is a special book.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: This is Philippians.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: All right.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: This is a great, great, great, great book.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm titling it Band of Brothers.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard that phrase before?
0:28
SPEAKER_00: Obviously stolen from a Shakespeare line.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: It's a Shakespeare phrase from King Henry V.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: And Shakespeare, as he tells the story of King Henry V, he's the one who made famous the Battle of Agincourt France, where the outnumbered English troops were challenged and inspired by Henry V, played by Kenneth Branna even back then, to fight and overcome on St.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: Christmas Day, this famous St.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: Christmas Day speech, in which he came close to the end and said, We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: That phrase, of course, picked up more recently for the TV miniseries.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, have you seen the did you watch the miniseries?
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: Oh, good.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: You guys are not patriotic at all.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: We got far more hands than the other two services.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: How many of you are going to swear that you will watch this?
1:24
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: This wonderful miniseries, Band of Brothers, about this group of guys.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: And Steve Willie told me they still use that title.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: He used it in Vietnam, you know, that he was part of the same 101st Airborne.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: And they were still using that phrase, Band of Brothers.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: And they used as part of the TV miniseries, We Few, We Happy Few, We Band of Brothers, for he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: We have come to that book of the Bible, which more than any other illustrates this phrase, Band of Brothers.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: It is the relational book of the Bible.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: It is the friendship book of the Bible.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: It's only four chapters.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: If any of you have ever thought of memorizing a book of the Bible, if you're over 40, forget about it.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: You won't remember it.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: But you know, if you're under 40, then you still have a few brain cells left.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: You can do it.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: This is the book.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: I promise you.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: I've I memorized a number of books of the Bible.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: This one was the easiest, most refreshing.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: It's terrific.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you just want an easy one, go for 3 John.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: It's like four verses.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, this is really, really great book.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: Now, in my view, I've given each of the chapters titles.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna, I'm gonna just be a little bit of a different message.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: I just want to share with you the three key words of the book.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: But I've got on the back of my study sheet the four uh titles I've given the four chapters, and I'll refer to those.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: I think that the that the first chapter could be entitled, We Are a Happy Band of Brothers.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: We're a happy band of brothers, okay?
3:02
SPEAKER_00: And the first of the three great theme words of this book, and by the way, I'll I'll be happy.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: If you have a pen, if what you write down is you just write down these three key words uh at the top of Philippians.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
3:18
SPEAKER_00: I dare you, I double dog dare you this week to read the book of Philippians, these four chapters, and with three different uh like um colored pens or pencils or highlighters, go through and highlight these three themes that I'm gonna give you in the book of Philippians.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: You will absolutely love it, and you'll go, wow, Jim was actually right.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: You know?
3:41
SPEAKER_00: So the first theme and the main theme of this book, and the only book of the Bible that has this as its main theme idea is partnership.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Partnership.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Say it with me.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: Partnership.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that a great word, partnership, like two partners in a ship?
3:57
SPEAKER_00: Partnership.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: And this is a theme, partnership, fellowship, community, which is all the way through the book.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: And for good reason, by the way.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Philippi was, remember when Paul was over in what we call Turkey today, what was called Asia then, you know, uh over to the right of that red circle on the screen, and he saw this vision, and a man said, Come over to come over here.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: A man from Philippi said, Come over and help us.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: So he, in a second missionary journey, he goes over to Philippi and he's looking for Christians, hardly anybody.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: There's a woman, and her name is Lydia.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: She's a businesswoman, and so she sort of is the foundation of this little church which he starts by the riverside.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, after a couple weeks, he casts a demon out of this, this, this, this demon-possessed little girl, and and so they throw him in jail.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Remember this story in Acts 16?
4:51
SPEAKER_00: Throw him in jail, and he and Silas are, you know, they're in jail, and they get out and so forth.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: But he has this super kinship with the church at Philippi.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: And then when he's going around raising money for the poor people in Jerusalem, this poor church is the one that gave the most, and they gave again and again.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: So he loves this church at Philippi.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: And and by the way, if you go there, you can still see they have great ruins, the Roman ruins of the church or of the town of Philippi.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm going there in two years, Melan and I are taking another group, uh, this time to Greece in two years.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: Come with us, but it's wonderful ruins in Philippi.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: And this this letter is so special that some people call it the God's Gospel Partners Letter, because it's all about partnership.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: In fact, scholars who list the ten kinds of letters in the New Testament time, there are ten kinds of epistles or letters, one of those kinds is called a friendship letter.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: And this is the only book in the Bible, only book in the New Testament that's called a friendship letter.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: And it's all about friendship and partnership.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you, okay?
5:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to take you through some of the verses of the book.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Paul and Timothy verses 1 and 2, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: You say, what does that have to do with partnership?
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, it leaves something out that Paul said is in his other letters.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: He says, Paul and apostle of Jesus Christ.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: You know what you do when you write someone and say, I'm an apostle, and you guys aren't?
6:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, basically he's pointing out that he's their godfather, he's their disciple, he's their mentor.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: And he so it puts them up here and it puts them down here.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: Paul leaves that out.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: He writes them sort of as a fellow, as a friend, as a partner.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: This is a friendship book.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: And so they're just buddies.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: And so his next line is, I thank my God every time I remember you.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: This is a friendship book, this little friendship book.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And then his next words are, in all my prayers for you all.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: I pray with joy because of your what?
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the older translations, some of you have in front of you the word fellowship instead of partnership.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Does anybody know what the Greek word for fellowship is?
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Of course you do.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: Our largest Sunday school class in this church is called the koinonia class.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: It means partnership or participation, communication, communion, fellowship, right?
7:21
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're talking about here.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about a friendship, fellowship book.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: I love how the Living Bible translates verses three, translates verses three, five, and seven of chapter one.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: Every time I think of you, Paul says, I give thanks to God because you've been my partners in spreading the good news about Christ.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: It's right that I should feel as I do for about all of you, because you have a very special place in my heart.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: We've shared together the blessings of God.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that cool?
7:51
SPEAKER_00: How he writes?
7:52
SPEAKER_00: By the way, if you translated more literally from the Greek, it would be, I have you in my heart.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that the coolest statement?
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Use that this week.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Of someone you love.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: Just write that.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: I have you in my heart.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: And in what I think is the theme verse of the book, 127, this partnership theme continues, striving together.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: We're striving together, he says, for the faith of the gospel.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: And chapter two.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: If chapter one is we're a happy band of brothers, I think chapter two is so let's we're in a battle, let's fight together.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: Now that's really now here's where we get into you know the rub for in families, in a workplace, and a church and so forth, we tend sometimes to fight separately or even fight each other.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: And I want to say something.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: If you look at chapter two, you you Paul surfaces the single most important aspect of partnership, and it is humility.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: It is putting others first.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: If you are in a situation of disunity, if you're in a situation of friction, if you participate in a church split in your lives, you know that at the very heart of that was at least one person who did not put others first, who is proud or self-centered.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: If you're a part of a science class small group or home that is a unified partnership, it's because at least one person there has a really strong sense of servanthood and humility.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: So he says in 2.2, be like, fulfill my joy that you be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: Do nothing, the next verse 3, out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: And then he flops into one of the most famous passages in the Bible about Jesus.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: Your attitude, if you want to have a partnership, should be the same as that of Christ.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, who, being in very nature God, didn't consider equality with God something to be grasped onto, held onto, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: That's what it takes.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: It takes humility.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, yet I and then he and then he gives three illustrations.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, Timothy, and Epaphroditus as sort of partnership people who put others first.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: His last example, 225, he mentions Epaphroditus.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: He says, He's my brother, my fellow worker, my fellow soldier, your messenger, and the one who ministered to my need.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: See, he wasn't thinking of himself.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Paul realizes here, doesn't he?
10:43
SPEAKER_00: That I can't do it myself.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: I desperately need other people.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna be uh if we're gonna be a partnership as a church, your class, your small group, your home, he constantly need to be saying, I couldn't do this without you.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: I love the story that comes out of the 1954 World Series, 54 World Series, uh, in which the Giants were playing the Indians, and the Indians, by the way, as I was informed this morning, one had won out of 160 games and won 112 all-time record.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: But they got swept in four games by the Giants.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so that so so the Indians have two guys on base in the World Series.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: And the Giants manager comes out and he grabs a guy from the bullpen named Don uh Little, L-I-D-D-L-E, and he comes in and he brings him in and he says, You've got to get this guy.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: This is the most important guy to get.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: That's all, you know, and then and then maybe we'll substitute for it.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, Little throws a gopher ball across the plate.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: Guy slugs it, it goes out to deepest center field, 460 feet.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Nobody can get to that ball except Superman.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, the Giants had Superman playing for them.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: His name is Willie Mays.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: And Willie Mays made that famous older over-the-shoulder catch.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: Remember seeing that?
11:53
SPEAKER_00: Anybody here?
11:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the guys, few of the guys are nodding, none of the women, but he makes that famous over-the-shoulder catch.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: Right?
12:00
SPEAKER_00: Are you with me on this?
12:01
SPEAKER_00: I realize this is like 150 years ago for some of you.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for waving.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: You're with me.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: I see that the buses will wait, buddy.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: Come on for it.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: So, um, so anyway, it's just fantastic.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: And guess what happened?
12:14
SPEAKER_00: So Don, and he got jerked.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Manager says, You're out of here.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: And so Don Little goes to the dugout, famously puts down his glove, and he announces to everybody, Well, I got my man.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: So there's something about that that I think is funny.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: I realize being a preacher, I'm the only one, but I think that's funny because that just illustrates, you know, this idea that maybe I can do it, but the fact of the matter is, he was very fortunate to have a Willie Mays behind him, wasn't he?
12:45
SPEAKER_00: So uh the the point is here, you need to realize you can't do it alone.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: You need to be humble to put others first if you want partnership.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: And the problem with this church is they had begun to fracture.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: The partnership had gone to fracture.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: There were two women, and Paul had heard about it.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: Their names were Eodia and Syntaiki, or as uh we like to call them odious and soon touchy, because they were fighting, fighting.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: You belong to the Lord because you settle your disagreement.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: And the funny thing was their names mean just the opposite.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: In in Greek, EU means good, and odia, odia uh means smell, like the odor.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: So one of them smelled good, good odor, fragrant, and the other, tachi, very famous, means lucky.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: And so lucky and smelly, you know, just couldn't get along.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, I ask you, my true partner, help these two women.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: So this is this part, all part of this partnership thing.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I'm I'm sorry, now I'm gonna tell a couple church jokes.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Because one of the problems is that churches tend to be competitors as well, don't they?
13:55
SPEAKER_00: Like the the famous three churches at the at the junction of, there were three churches on the three of the four corners of Broadway and Main Street, and they just were competitors.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: And and so the story goes that they they all love singing hymns, and one of them was singing one morning, you know, Will There Be Any Stars, Any Stars in My Crown?
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Those of you who are as old as I remember that song about Will There Be Any Stars in My Crown, same time Church Across the Street was singing, No Not One, No Not One.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: At which point the third church uh blasted out in, oh, that will be glory for me, glory for me, glory for me.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: So there's a kind of a, you didn't like that much.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: That's preaching.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'll tell you a worse one.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: So these two churches decided in a small community they would merge, they get unity, they become partners because they would become small.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: So they merged together just practicing for one Sunday, and they made the mistake of reciting the Lord's Prayer together.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Turns out that one of the churches, the one denomination, they used to forgive us our trespasses.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: And the other one, you know, said forgive us our debts.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: And and they argued, and they just couldn't get together.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: So as the newspaper later put it, one of the churches went back to their trespasses and the other one went back to their debts.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: And that's what happens when you're competitive instead of having a philosophy of unity.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: In the I didn't mention this in the other two services, but you know, during the um Reformation, where you had all of these sort of warring, you know, Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, and they sort of warred against each other, these great founders.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: You had Melanchthon, who was a theologian of Martin Luther, who's wrote that famous line uh in essentials, unity, in non-essentials, liberty, in all things, charity.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: Charity.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: And that's the basis of partnership.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: Paul ends the book by saying, it was so good of you to share, to be partners in my troubles.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: As you know, in the early days when I set out for Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only, you send me aid time and again.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna ask you this question, okay?
16:14
SPEAKER_00: This has been the first key word is partnership.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Here's my question: Are you involved in any kind of a gospel partnership?
16:22
SPEAKER_00: All right, do you have a group around you of true partners, people that you consider, you know, that you could lean on in hard times, that you share good times?
16:34
SPEAKER_00: The reason I ask you this is that we live in the in really strange days.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: I want to share with you two books that illustrate this.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: One book written 15 years ago, 2001, called Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, a bestseller, in which he pointed out that in the previous 15, 16 years, 1985 to 2000, our society had changed into doing things alone.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: And he states all showed all these surveys in here.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Total number of bowlers in America was up 10%, but bowling in leagues was down 40%.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: Club attendance of all kinds had dropped 58%.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Family dinners, people eating dinner as a family had dropped 33%.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: Having friends over to visit your apartment or house had declined 45%.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: Bowling alone.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: And he lamented the fact that the social relationships, the partnerships had been dropping in our society.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's about when everybody started getting cell phones, right?
17:36
SPEAKER_00: And so just a year so go, we have another bestseller written called Alone Together by Sherry Turkle, subtitled Why We Respect, Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: And she makes the argument in that book that I don't know how you can disagree with, that social media, now we're talking about Instagram, we're talking about all of those, the Twitter and uh and Facebook and so forth.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Social media creates an illusion, an illusion of companionship, while leaving us isolated from each other.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: I was reminded of that when a guy in his 20s from our church came out and said, and we're chatting, we're friends, and he said, you know, I don't think I have one real friend.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: I said, Whoa, are you kidding me?
18:19
SPEAKER_00: You post every week on Facebook.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: You got hundreds of friends and so forth.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Yeah, I do, but he says, I'm just throwing out my thoughts there, posting pictures or so forth.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: But I said, there's no relationship there.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: And this is the point that Sherry Turkle makes.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: She says that to have a real friendship, you have to be in the same location, that sending messages out over the internet is not the same thing that an emoticon, an emoticon is not the same thing as a real hug.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: And she's right, isn't she?
18:48
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is that is that we lose the art of conversation and we lose real partnership.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: So my question is how are you skating on relational thin ice these days, or do you have healthy partners?
19:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe you do eat family dinners, but you know what?
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Family dinners today, I mean, it's true, 30, 40 years ago, you you saw families trying to eat dinner with a TV on.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: That was not a good idea.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: But now you see every single person at a family dinner sometimes has got their cell phone on or up an iPad or something.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: I would suggest to you, if this is where you're at right now, that you fast for a month from social media during meal times.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we were far more strict than that in our home, but I mean just try it for one.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: It'll take you a little while to develop family conversation around the table if you're used to the TV or social media being on.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Try it, try it.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: And laugh along with me at the one decent joke I'll have told this morning.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: This is a cartoon.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: Do you mind, girlfriends asks, if I strap your PDA, your cell phone, to my forehead so I can pretend you're looking at me when I talk.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: That is good, isn't it?
20:01
SPEAKER_00: But listen, you and I have seen even recently in the Olympics, the power of partnership, the joy of partnership when people work together and they're in the same, they're localized, in the same locale, and they do something together, and then they hug and they're shh-that's what we want.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: By the way, I and I would throw in an advertisement.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: The word fraternity means a sort of a brotherhood, and in 10 days from now, I'm restarting men's fraternity this fall.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: Guys, girls usually have it together on this.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: We guys oftentimes are the friendless ones.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: Try it.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: Come out in 10 days, 6 a.m.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: in the morning, you know, come out to the College Avenue building, join men's fraternity this fall.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: If you're looking for something like this, we'll try to supply it.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, if you're a person who's not there yet, as far as Jesus Christ and being a Christian and all this, if you're just checking it out, uh let me quote to you from a 1970s army ad that we used to see everywhere.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Join the people who've joined the army.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: One of the great things about Christianity is that when you become a Christian, you join the family of God.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: And you have all of this open, all of these opportunities for partnership with people all over the world who are very different from you, but yet they have become your brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: Join the people who've joined Jesus Christ.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: And my question then to you one more time.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Last time, I'll leave it after this.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: Tell me about your relationships.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a partnership system?
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Do you have sort of a group around you?
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Do you have friends?
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Don't rest until you do.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: Theme number two, joy.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: Theme number no book of the Bible emphasizes the theme of joy like the book of Philippians.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: It's just absolutely, this book is just filled and bubbling over with joy.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: I rejoice.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: I will rejoice.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad and rejoice.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Be glad and rejoice with me.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Rejoice in the Lord.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: I rejoice to the Lord.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: And the amazing thing about this.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: Remember Paul's situation.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: When he was in Philippi.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Remember how he's thrown into jail?
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember what he and Silas were doing at midnight in jail?
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, singing.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: I don't think they were saying, singing, Woe is me.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: I think they were singing, there's joy in serving Jesus, or something like that.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: They were getting, and even now, as Paul writes the book, he's chained to a Roman soldier.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: He's in prison in Rome.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Wow, can you believe this?
22:33
SPEAKER_00: And so the book is just full of all this joy stuff.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: In all my prayers for all of you, he begins the book.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: I always pray with joy.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: 3-1.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Rejoice in the Lord always.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Again, I say it again, rejoice.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: Choose.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you can choose.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, I thank God for certain things every week.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: Even last night, middle of the night, I'm not sleeping well.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: So I'm thanking God for my dad and mom, both of whom passed away in the last five years.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and I was thinking because of the sermon, I was thinking how my mother, no matter if something bad happened, you know, or his argument or one of us got hurt, she'd she'd always say something, made us want to slap her.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: She'd go, good rejoicing practice.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: Good rejoicing practice, because something bad.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Except that we knew she lived it herself.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter what happened.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: She always was bright.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: She always chose joy.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: Another, besides thanking God for him, every week or so, I thank God that when I was in college, sort of accidentally, you know, I did something smarter than I was, and that is that I agreed, because I was desperate for a job, to sell books thousands of miles from home, you know, uh during the summer.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: And and I and I didn't make any money.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: First couple summers I did it, working 80 hours a week going door to door.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: But I was selling Christian books, and I that's that job taught me maybe the greatest daily life lesson that I've ever learned in life.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Certainly the greatest daily, because because the single greatest lesson for daily life you will ever learn.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: You ready for it?
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Here it comes.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Is that you have control over your attitude, is that you can choose whether or not to be happy.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: That life is composed, I don't know, 10, 20 percent of the things that happen to you, and about 89% of how you respond to it.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: It's true, it's really true, and I would find that out even going through the day, even having surprising, shocking, and crazy things happening to me as I was riding a bicycle miles and miles between houses or hitchhiking or whatever.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I got robbed a couple of times, I got beat up, I had a woman pull a shotgun out and stick it in my face at one door, you know, just crazy things, and yet you learn to keep happy and joyful and leaving places and singing, you know, singing songs.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: And so it's a choice, and Paul made that choice repeatedly.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: I rejoice, he says, over your concerns.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: This is how he ends the book.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: Your gifts.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know who these people are, the joy team, but I've seen their, I've seen their billboards and so forth in different places around the country.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: They love to put up billboards and send out postcards that say things like something wonderful is about to happen, or count your blessings.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: But I appreciate it because that's Paul.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: He chose to be up.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: So here's my question for you.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: I ask you a question about partnership.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: Now I ask you a question about joy.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: Would the people who know you say that you're a person who gives and receives joy?
25:40
SPEAKER_00: What a person, what a person would the people who know you best say that you're a person who makes it makes it brighter when you come in the room.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: God forbid you be that kind of a person.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: And we all know a few people like this in our lives who seem determined to be unhappy no matter what happens.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: It always could be better, right?
25:58
SPEAKER_00: It never is as good as it should have been or could have been.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul says in chapter 2, verse 14 of this book.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: Don't be a whiner, don't be a complainer.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: Be positive.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: So that's my second question.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: It's about joy.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: So the first theme is partnership, second theme is joy, third theme, third theme is advance or progress.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Get forward, move on, move forward in life.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: Don't stay in stasis.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: And you find this again, beginning the book.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: He who's begun a good work in you will advance it or complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Three verses later, in one nine, he says, may your love increase and abound.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: He says in 125, I know that I'm gonna remain and I'm gonna continue with you all.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Why?
26:45
SPEAKER_00: For your progress and joy in the faith.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Paul was all about setting goals and moving forward toward them.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: Continue, chapter two, to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: It's God who works in you.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: What?
26:58
SPEAKER_00: To work it out for his good purpose.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: If chapter one is we're a happy band of brothers, and chapter two, so let's fight together.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Chapter three is about advancing, fighting to win.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: And so, chapter three, you have forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: I press on, Paul says, toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that something?
27:28
SPEAKER_00: That's why, you know, he says in chapter four, you know what?
27:31
SPEAKER_00: As you're pressing on, realize you can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: So I got a question for you.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Do you still set goals?
27:44
SPEAKER_00: Or are you content with the status quo, thinking, well, you know, you're fine or nothing will really change?
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Why not give the people who know you best a shock by quietly becoming a better person, you know, this next month or this next year?
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Why not, why not, don't leave here thinking, oh, I'll just stay the same?
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Because if you just stay the same, probably you're slipping backwards.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Why not say, okay, this week I'm gonna have a better prayer life than I had last week?
28:12
SPEAKER_00: Or this week I'm gonna, I'm gonna read Philippians.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: I I didn't I didn't read Ephesians last week.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: Or this week, you know, I'm I'm gonna, even this morning, I'm gonna go walk up to someone that I don't know and say hi and get to know who they and get to know them.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: That way you can take care of the assignment here before you leave for lunch.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Or, or maybe, you know, this week I'm gonna go say something about Jesus Christ to a friend that I've been drinking coffee of.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Why not set a goal and advance, advance, take one step forward.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: We're a happy band of brothers, so let's fight together.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: And let's fight to win.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: And let's be, he concludes, let's be what we really are.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: Let's be a happy band of brothers.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: One of the things I love about the rare times now that I have people stand in for me in the pulpit from outside Topeka, Tim Collins now, but I mean, I have one time a year, maybe, on the average.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: Now it's just once a year.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: It used to be more often when the church is smaller, but I'll just I'll have somebody come in.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: It's two people this last year.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: And here's what happens.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: You need to know this.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: I love to drive up to the airport, pick them up, spend an hour and a half time with them on Saturday, and then you know, drive them back on Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: Nearly every single person that I have brought to this church to preach in the last 10, 20 years will say something like this to me on the on the way back to the airport.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: I'll say, wow, you have a really healthy church.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
29:43
SPEAKER_00: I remember uh uh one of the first times it happened, it's been 15, 17, 18, 19 years ago, it was the uh he ended up being the president of the Evangelical Free Denomination.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: And so he had spoken here, and we hadn't speaked Sunday school in a couple times, and we're driving back, he says, Jim, I gotta tell you, I I speak 40 to 50 different churches every year.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: I can't think of another church that I've been to that is as healthy as your church clearly is.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: What is it?
30:15
SPEAKER_00: What's happening?
30:17
SPEAKER_00: And my answer is always the same.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: My answer has always been the same for the last 25 years, and that is, well, we have a group of people that is positive, they're not negative.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're joyful, in other words.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: They're just and the thing is, even from the smallest groups, like Sunday school classes, small groups, they don't gossip, they don't seem to fight, they're unified, they're partners together.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're they're determined to grow.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: I think that's why our church is as healthy as it is.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: Now, maybe you know that there's you know it's falling apart somewhere, but I'm, you know, and I'm totally ignorant.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, this, it's been a wonderful, it's a wonderful church for me to be a part of and for the other staff.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's because in many ways we are a Philippians church.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: But I would I would ask you those questions.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: I would say, evaluate yourself.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: How's your partnership going?
31:06
SPEAKER_00: What are your relationships like?
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Do you have partnerships?
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, where's your joy quotient?
31:11
SPEAKER_00: What do other people think of you in this area?
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Do you make the room brighter when you walk in?
31:16
SPEAKER_00: And third, how about advancing?
31:18
SPEAKER_00: Are you still setting goals?
31:20
SPEAKER_00: Are you still pressing on toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus?
31:26
SPEAKER_00: Those are great goals, aren't they?
31:28
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful book.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: And then, isn't it great that we get to do communion, which is the same word, you know, koin and eat-type stuff.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: This is the same thing.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna celebrate communion with Jesus Christ, invisibly serving us in just a moment.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, thank you for this book, and thank you again for the reminder that you really do care about relationships, partnerships, and about joy, and about us getting better and better until the day that you return.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that we get to sit around the table now and we get to commune with each other and with your son Jesus Christ, who gave his body and his blood for us.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: Amen.