The Right Perspective Part 3

All right, good morning. It's good to see everybody. All right, if you guys will go ahead and stand with us, we'll pray and we'll get started. Father, we thank you for the day. Yeah, we just thank you for who you are, for how much you love us, Lord God, and for what you've done for us. Lord, we just ask your blessing upon this time, Lord, help us to lift a joyful noise

to you and let it be a sweet song in your ear, Lord. We ask your blessing upon this time and on the word as it goes out as well, Lord God. Let your word do its mighty work in our lives. We love you and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Yes, Lord God, I just pray that we would come to the realization this morning, Lord, of how much we truly need you. Amen? You guys can go and have a seat if you like.

Lord God, we just ask your Holy Spirit to come and do mighty work in this place. We invite you. Lord, just help us to still surrender everything to you, Lord God. Lord, send revival this morning, Lord. We just long for a touch from you, Lord. Peace like a river, wash over as I see you. Worship your Holy Spirit like you've done it.

Lord, Holy Spirit, we ask your blessing upon this time, Lord, help us to lift a joyful noise to you. Lord, Holy Spirit, we come to you this morning, Lord, and just invite you just to do your mighty work in our lives. Lord, just help us to bring surrender where there needs to be surrender, Lord. God, whatever it is that's needed in our lives, Holy Spirit, come and bring it about.

Lord, send a move of your Spirit. Kevin, this land, it can doors through generations. The ocean, now to do the same thing for you, Lord. The shepherd in God, the same God.

Lord, just thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you that you are the same, the yesterday, today, and forever, Lord God. Thank you that you are always faithful, even when we're not, Lord. No matter where we're at, no matter what we're doing, Lord God, we can always depend on you.

I just pray that we come to the realization this morning of how much we're doing for you. We truly need you, Lord God. God, we need you every day. And Lord, this morning as Pastor Ryan comes, I pray that your Holy Spirit just overflow. God, give us, give him the words to speak directly to our hearts, Lord God, to receive the word that you have prepared this morning. We praise you.

We thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's have some fellowship.

Good morning. If you could begin the process of locating your seats, grab your bulletin. We'll get ready to go. Some announcements. Welcome to Calvary Chapel. I'm glad that you have joined us this morning. A handful of things to take note of. Over on your left-hand side of the bulletin are the things going on throughout the week. So find a spot to get plugged into. Over in the middle section,

a couple of things to pay attention to. Grief Share is going to be starting up a new session on March the 5th. If you have questions, you can see Holly Gage. Is Holly here right now? I don't see Holly. You can talk to Holly Gage. Also, fellas, there is a men's breakfast coming up this Saturday at 8 o'clock back in the Agape room down at the other end of the hall. Should be a great time together of some food and some fellowship.

And no college group this evening. Go Chiefs. So I wanted to have her put a really big arrowhead right there in the middle, but I thought maybe we should just calm down because I didn't want to create any bad blood. And of course, I might just tell you to shake it off, but then you'd be like, we're never, ever, ever, ever getting back together. And I would say it's because I'm feeling like I'm 22. But quite

frankly, I was born well before 1989. So, all right. Those are the things that are going on. I promise I'm done now. Okay. I think. For our responsive reading this morning, we're going to be in Psalm 11. We'll be looking at the New American Standard for this part, just so we all sound the same. If you need a copy, there's a link in the description. If you need a copy, there's a link in the

description. If you need a copy, there should be one in a row around you. And as you are turning to Psalm 11, if you are able, please stand in the honor of the reading of God's word. I will read the odd verses. If you will follow along with Jared and the even verses, Psalm 11 for the choir director, the Psalm of David. In the Lord, I take refuge. How can you say to my soul, flee as a bird

to your mountain? For behold, the wicked bend the bow. They make ready their arrow upon the mountain. To shoot in the darkness at the upright in heart. If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold, his eyelids test the sons of men. The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked and the one who loves

violence. His soul hates upon the wicked. He will rain snares, fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup and read. Verse seven with me. For the Lord is righteous. He loves righteousness. The upright will behold his face. Father, we come to you now and I praise you for being the righteous God and Lord that by faith you bestow your righteousness upon us. And so, Lord, may we see you more clearly this

morning. Father, I pray that you would pour out your Holy Spirit right now in this place so that we can know you to an even greater degree and understand exactly what it is, not only what you have for us, but how you have for us. And I pray that you would pour out your Holy Spirit right now in our lives every day. In Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. And if you would open up in your

Bibles to the book of Philippians chapter one, Philippians chapter one. As we've looked at Philippians chapter one, we've given a theme to it as we've discussed joy in the book of Philippians in the theme of Philippians chapter one has been the joy comes from having the right perspective. We first of all said, the joy coming comes from having the right perspective on our trials. The trials ultimately do two things for us. They give us an opportunity to preach the gospel, but they also increase our

focus upon Christ. Last week, we covered the second section, which was the right perspective on life and death. We said that our lives were to have an expectation of glorifying Christ, that the purpose of life was Christ himself, that the reality of death is that stepping into the other side of eternity is not the end of life, but the reality of death is that stepping into the end, it is the beginning of our life, truly face to face with God. And not only that, but we are to have a heart to serve others. Well, today, as we come to the third section on the right perspective,

we're going to look at the right perspective on the way that you live the right perspective on the way that you live. And so starting in verse 27 of chapter one, it says this only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the God of God. And so starting in verse 27 of chapter one, the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel in no way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you. And that too from God, for to you, it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but also to believe in him. And so starting in verse 27 of chapter one,

also to suffer for his sake, experiencing the same conflict, which you saw in me and now here to be in me. So as we look at this third portion on the right perspective on the way that we live again, there's going to be three things that he's going to tell us three ways that we are to live our lives. If we are to live with the right perspective, number one, we are to live a life worthy of the gospel. We are to live a life worthy of the gospel.

of the gospel. It starts off by saying, conduct yourselves, verse 27, only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. That word conduct means citizenship. That really is the idea of that word. It's where we get our word politics. It's politics. Oh, if I remember correctly, but it's where we get our word politics. And the idea is citizenship. And the idea is that

we are to live our lives as citizens of heaven. One of the interesting things about being a believer in Jesus Christ is that once you put your faith in Jesus, you became a dual citizen. You are not only a citizen of earth, because this is where you live. You live in the world, but we don't live of the world because we also have a citizenship that is in heaven. Now, the characteristics of our life are to characterize

that of heaven, because that is our true citizenship, which is why we find ourselves saying this place is not really my home because it's not really my citizenship any longer. It's not really where I'm from. Paul will delve deeper into this idea of citizenship in heaven in chapter three, but just know that the idea is that our conduct is to reflect that of being citizens of heaven. And so he says that only let your conduct, your citizenship reflect that of a life that is worthy of the gospel of Christ, a life that is worthy of the gospel of Christ. That word

is to weigh the same or to be of equal weight or to be of equal value. That's the idea behind the word worthy. In other words, when I hold my life up, it balances in the scale next to the gospel of Jesus Christ. So that when I look at my life, it is a reflection of the gospel of Jesus Christ. My life is worthy of the gospel. That is the way we are to live in our manner of life as citizens

of heaven. Well, I had a question. I hope you have the same question. I hope you have the same question. If we are to live our lives worthy of the gospel, what does that look like? What does it mean to live a life that is worthy of the gospel? And so as I was thinking and praying about this, I thought, well, if we're to live our life worthy of the gospel, I suppose we should

really understand the way that the gospel works, what the gospel truly is. And so as I thought about that, I thought, well, there's four things that I think are true about the gospel of Jesus Christ that I think can reflect in the way that we are to live our lives as worthy of the gospel. First of all, the gospel, which is the good news of Jesus Christ. Number one, it confronts sin. The gospel

confronts sin. It's interesting. If we were to go back and look at the book of Romans, Paul segues into the entire book of Romans by saying this, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to those that believe to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Now, after he gives that introductory statement into what he's going to say in the book of Romans, he begins to say, well, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He begins giving them the gospel of Jesus Christ. And do you know what he starts off by telling them? He starts off by telling them about the sin of humanity, that they are suppressing the truth of God in unrighteousness. In other words, each of us knows the truth. Each of us knows what sin looks like, but we suppress it through our actions and it becomes less and less clear to us. And so

we must be confronted with the truth of sin. After all, you can't appreciate the good news until you first have been told, the bad news. Imagine, if you will, that you go today and you get on an airplane and as they're going through all of the things that they have to do, you know, the forward, the back exits, the forward exits, the side exits, and the oxygen mask and all this kind of stuff, they say, and there's also a parachute. And so you're flying through the air and they say, this is your captain speaking. I'm just reminding you that one of the benefits of this airline,

while you're flying through the air at 5,000 feet, is that your seat does come equipped with a parachute. Have a good day. Bye. And he goes away and you're like, that was a random statement for him to make. It doesn't seem like all that good news. You're like, well, you told me that in the beginning, so I don't know why this is really good news for me right now. But if he came

across and said, we're now flying at 5,000 feet and we're descending in an accelerated path. We're actually going to hit the ground in about 15 minutes, but I have good news for you. Each of your seats has been equipped with a parachute. So pretty soon we're going to release the door and you can shoot out the side door with your parachute on and escape to safety. You would go,

hey, now that's good news, right? Because you were first told the bad news. Do you know what the problem that we have in Western culture churches? We don't want to give anybody the bad news. We don't like bad news, do we? Right? I've got good news and I've got bad news. Great. Skip the bad news. Just tell me the good stuff. That's what we want in the church today. We don't want

anybody to tell us the bad news. Well, I'm here to tell you right now, grace isn't amazing until you realize that you're lost in something. You're lost in something. You're lost in something. You're lost in sin. And so if we are to truly understand the gospel, we must start off knowing that the gospel confronts sin. The second thing that the gospel does is that the gospel requires

repentance. The gospel requires repentance. As a matter of fact, it's one of the most necessary things for the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we repent. Do you know how I know how important repentance is? And I've shared this before. I've shared this before. I've shared this before, but I may as well do it again. It's because that's the first word of everybody that

preaches the gospel in scripture. Have you ever noticed that? When John the Baptist showed up on the scene, the first thing that he told everybody was, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. When Jesus showed up on the scene, the first thing he said was, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. When the, when the disciples took up the mantle of Jesus Christ and began

sharing the gospel with the people around them, do you know what they said? Repent and be saved. That was always the first word of the gospel because you cannot put your faith in Jesus Christ if you don't repent from your sin, because those are at two opposite ends of the spectrum. You have to repent from sin in order to come to Jesus. And so the gospel requires repentance.

Number three, the gospel bestows grace and mercy. The gospel bestows grace and mercy. Now, grace and mercy are such beautiful things. They're so beautiful. They're so beautiful. They're so powerful words that oftentimes get confused with each other. The word mercy means not getting what you deserve, not getting what you deserve. What each of us deserves is eternal separation

from God because of our sin, but because of the great love with which he loved us. And because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, he does not give us what we deserve. He withholds wrath because of his mercy that he's able to show us through the cross. Grace, is getting something that you do not deserve. You see, the beautiful thing about the gospel is it's

not just the withholding of God's wrath. It is also the bestowing of God's righteousness, bestowing of all of the blessings that go along with being a child of God. And he gifts those to us through his grace. And so he withholds his wrath, that's mercy. And he blesses us with righteousness and all of the benefits of being a child of God, that's grace. And so as sin is

confronted in our lives and we repent from sin, we're not getting what we deserve. And so we're repenting from sin, grace and mercy are bestowed upon us. And that brings us to the fourth thing that the gospel does. The gospel gives salvation and new life. The gospel gives salvation and brand new life. And those of us that have put our faith in Jesus Christ, we are well aware of the fact

that that is the greatest thing that God has ever done for us. Because we look at our lives and say, I've been made brand new because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel. And so if that's what the gospel is, and he's just told me that as a citizen of heaven, I should live a life worthy of the gospel that weighs as much as the gospel that is of equal weight to the gospel. How do I live my life? Well, I think this is going to take on both a

personal aspect and a public aspect in our lives. For me personally, I must continually confront sin in my life. I must continually allow the word of God and the Holy spirit to confront sin in my life. I can't hide it. I need to lay myself bare before him and say, Lord, show me what sin is. Because just because you're saved doesn't mean you don't still battle with

sin. Just because you're saved doesn't mean that you don't still struggle with areas in your life. And those need to be confronted, not hidden. Number two, I need to live a life of repentance. You repented the day that you came to Jesus Christ. Congratulations. That's the first in every day step that you take in your life. Because every moment of every day is a moment

of repentance for us because of the lives that we live in the flesh. Because the lives we live on this earth, because we have sin that continually needs confronted in our lives. We have sin that continually needs turned from in our lives. And so we are to live a life of repentance. Number three, we are to allow God to bestow grace and mercy on us. What do you mean by that, Ryan? I mean, some of you are holding your sin over yourself so much that you

will not allow God to bestow mercy upon you because God has said, I don't hold it against you. You still do. You need to allow God to bless you with his grace. He wants to bestow on you all the grace and gifting of being a child of God, but sometimes we won't accept it because we don't feel like we're good enough. Well, I have news for you. That's why it's called grace because it's undeserved

favor. And if I live a life worthy of the gospel, then I need to allow God's mercy and God's grace to have its work in my life. And then fourth, I need to live a new life. I need to not live according to the old man and the guilt, and the pleasures of the world. I need to live a brand new life, a brand new life in Christ. That's what living a life worthy of the gospel means for me personally, but there's a public

aspect of it in each one of our lives as well. And I want to tell you what the public aspect is. Number one, we need to confront sin in the world. Ryan, they'll hate me. Probably do it anyway, but we have to pay attention to the way that we confront sin in the world. You see, when we confront sin in the world, we can't confront sin so that we can show everybody,

else that they're wrong. That's not the point. We confront sin in the world because we want other people to be right. I've been taking several different groups of kids through the sermon on the mountain here lately. And I have always found that the very first line of the sermon on the mountain is actually the greatest key to living the Christian life. You know what the first

line of the sermon on the mountain is in the Beatitudes? It says, blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. Poor in spirit. What does that mean? It means destitute of my own righteousness, an accurate estimation of who I am. You see, once I have an accurate estimation of me, once I have a true understanding of who I am, once I am destitute of my own righteousness and have come to Jesus and said, Lord,

I know that I'm a sinner and I know that I need a savior. Now I'm qualified to confront sin in someone else's life. That's what Jesus meant when he said, how can you see a speck in your brother's eye when you have a two by four sticking out of yours? First, take the two by four out of your eye, confront the sin in your own life. And then you are fit to point out the

sin in someone else's. You know why? Because now you come at it humbly. Now you come at it as somebody who says, I don't want to prove you wrong. I just want to see you be right. I just want to see, you know, Jesus and the life that you're, the path that you're going down is leading to destruction. And God has something so much better for you than that. I will promise you

97% of the time when you approach somebody with that kind of a heart, they may not agree with you. They're not going to hate you because they see a heart of love behind it. And so if we live a life worthy of the gospel, number one, we have to confront sin. Number two, we need to require repentance. That's part of living out the gospels, requiring repentance in the lives of others. Again,

this will not always make you a really popular human being. You know who it will actually make you the most unpopular with? Christians. People of the world, they'll get mad at you, but people of the church, they'll really get mad at you because when you point out sin in someone's life, that's a believer in Jesus Christ, you tell them you need to repent of that sin. They come out

swinging. You know why? Because who are you to tell me? I'm a Christian too. Who are you? Do you know the sin in your own life? Absolutely. I do. I'm a failure. I screw up all the time, which is why I know that the best thing that we can do is repent. We have to require repentance of other people because that's the gospel. That brings us to the number three thing that we do. You need to lavish

mercy and grace on people. You know what we're really good at doing in the church? Holding people's sin against them. We're really good at not showing mercy and saying, you know what? You get everything that you deserve. What? That's not the way we're supposed to be. You say, Ryan, I would never do that. Really? You should think about it sometime. Who are you holding sin against? Who are you

unwilling to forgive? Who are you still wishing that God would show what's up? You know what they've done and you're withholding mercy and withholding grace. We do it with some particular communities as the church. We've got to learn to show mercy and grace to people because mercy and grace has been shown to me and mercy and grace has been shown to you. And then number

four, we lead people into new life. You point people to the fact that there's a new life in Christ and that's what he wants them to live. He wants them to live, not according to the old man, but in the newness of life. Brothers and sisters, this should be the way that we live our life. We should live a life that is worthy of the gospel. Number two, he tells us that we are to

work together for the gospel, working together for the gospel. Notice what it says, middle of verse 27. So that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. He says, so that when I come to you, or even if I stay in prison, I will hear this of you. First of

all, that you are standing firm, that you are standing firm. That word stand firm means to stand strong or to stand your ground. Now we have to stand our ground when it comes to the gospel of Jesus Christ. First of all, because our flesh wants to pull us away from the gospel. Our flesh wants to pull us away from the gospel. We want to pull us away from it and say, hey, listen, you're being too narrow-minded. You're

being, you're being way too narrow-minded about the way that you're handling these things. Listen, Jesus was incredibly narrow-minded. He was very loving. He was very gracious. He was very kind, but he was really narrow-minded. You know how I know that? Because he said, I am the way and the truth and the life. He said, no one comes to the father except through me. That's very

narrow-minded. You know who else is narrow-minded? An airline pilot that says there's only one way you're making it. You're making it. You're making it. You're making it. You're making it. You're making it out of this thing alive. Put the parachute on your back and jump out the door. Right? That's a pretty narrow-minded statement. And yet at the same time, it was the only hope

you had. It's amazing how when there's only one way, you can be really narrow-minded. But our flesh wants to push us away from that because, oh, we want to be loving and accepting. And I get that, but we still have to stand strong on the gospel. The world wants to push us away from the gospel because the world wants us to say, why are you being so narrow about this? The world wants

to push us away from the gospel. Our job is to stand firm in the gospel, to stand firm on who I am in Christ and that he is the only way. So first of all, as we work together, we, first of all, stand firm. The second thing he tells us is that we are to be of one mind and of one spirit. I like the way that the Amplified put this when it says together for one purpose. The beautiful thing

about the body of Christ is that we are unified and yet not unified. We are unified and yet not unified. We are not uniform. We can be of one mind and of one spirit. Now, I can guarantee you that there's a handful of questions that I could ask any group of people and I would get at least three or four different responses or 120, however many people are in here this morning, different responses,

right? Because there are very few things in life that we are like-minded about. You know how I know that? I have social media and I read comment sections. I actually kind of enjoy the comment sections. Now, sometimes I have to read the comments. I have to read the comments. I have to turn. I have to just not look at the comment section because I get irritated, but some of them

are great, right? I follow this thing called best Christian memes and every now and then they post this thing that says something along the lines of, what is normal in your church but weird anywhere else? And all the different ideas that people have and I'm like, wow, that really is weird. You want to know my favorite one? One of them said, when our worship leader gets excited,

he does backflips, right? So I screenshotted that and sent it to my mom and I said, get dad warmed up right now, right? I'll be looking for it Sunday, right? That's what I'm looking forward to. But we have all these different ideas and yet the beautiful thing about the body of Christ is even though we're not uniform because there is all kinds of different ideas about

everything out here, we are unified. Because even though we do not think the same about a lot of things, there is one thing that unites all of us and that's the gospel of Jesus Christ. And under that heading, we can all be following one. Purpose. If we're living a life that's worthy of the gospel. He says that you would first of all stand firm in the gospel. Second of all, that you would have one mind and one spirit. And number

three, that you would strive together for the faith of the gospel. Now, I did not plan this. It just worked out this way. But that word striving literally means to work together as an athletic team. I couldn't have planned this better if I tried. Right? Because what's going to happen this evening? I'm going to eat snacks and watch the Super Bowl. Right? And there's going to be two athletic teams. And those two athletic teams are going to compete

against each other. And I have no idea who's going to win the game, but I can promise you this. The team that plays the best together as a team, that's the one that will win the game. I watch a lot of sports, not only on TV, but also in person because my daughter's involved in sports and so I get to watch a lot of high school basketball. And we have life conversations about sports because my philosophy about sports is something

that's really good to keep you in shape and teach you life lessons. If it does anything else, that's gravy, but those are the two main reasons that you compete in sports. And so I have these conversations with my daughter that she usually doesn't like to be involved in because it's mainly me talking. But anyway, I was telling her the other night, did you know it separates great sports teams from good or okay sports team? I says two things. Two things separate them. Number one, the ability to let go of

mistakes. If a team can't let go of their mistakes, they will be defeated by their past. Number two is their ability to play as a family. Because when you see a really good team where they're a well-oiled machine, everybody knows their place. Everybody knows their part. Nobody's jealous of somebody else. Nobody wishes that they were in a different position. Everybody plays their part. Everybody

does their role and they do so graciously. And when one is down, the others come and pick them up. And when, and when one person does great, the entire team celebrates, why? Because it is a team. One of my favorite basketball teams I ever watched was the 2008 Kansas Jayhawks when they won the national championship that year. And I will never forget listening to interviews with Bill Self. And he said, you know what the great thing about

this team is? They don't care who the highest score on a certain day is. They just want to win. That's a family. That's playing as a family. That's playing as a team. And brothers and sisters, we have to realize something as the body of Christ. We need to strive together for the gospel as a team. We need to strive together for the gospel as a team. We need to strive together for the

gospel as a team. That means that we can't be upset that we're not the guy in charge. We can't be upset that I'm not in a different position. We, uh, we take the role that we have and we live it out to our best. When I worked construction, worked for a general contractor, general contractor is just kind of an interesting place to work because you work with lots of different people, lots of

different positions, right? You bring a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds together. My old boss used to actually say, cause my wife taught kindergarten at the time, he said, I think you should run my job sites because if you can run a classroom full of five-year-olds, you can keep subcontractors happy. If you're a subcontractor, I'm sorry. It's just the truth.

So, so he asked us all one time, he said, who's the most important person on a job site? Now I think a little too deeply and I think a little too much. Oftentimes it holds me back. So I'm sitting there thinking everybody else has already got their answers written down. And I'm like, they're like, Ryan, what are you doing? Like, I gotta think about this. I'm like ciphering

finally. I looked up and I said, there is no such thing as a most important job. Now, rarely when I work construction, was I right? Usually it was, that's a dumb idea. Let's not do that. So when the only times my boss looked at me and he goes, you're right because everybody plays their role. And if every doesn't, everybody doesn't play their role. It doesn't matter how good the project

manager is. If he can't get guys to do their job, it doesn't matter if the estimator can get jobs. If we don't have guys to work the job, it doesn't matter how gifted and talented the carpenter, the carpenter is. It doesn't matter how talented the carpenter is. It doesn't matter how talented the carpenter is. If he doesn't have a good laborer with him, everybody plays their part. And when

everybody plays their part, like a family coming together as an athletic team, working together with one purpose, it's amazing how it all comes together. That's our goal at Calvary Chapel. That is the goal here because we are striving together as one team, hopefully for one purpose. And that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. As I thought about this, I thought a little bit about what our kind of like little

vision mission statement is here for Calvary Chapel of Park City. If you don't know it, if you're kind of newer and you don't know what that is, our vision slash mission statement here is Calvary Chapel reaching in and reaching out. We reach in to build each other up. We do that through coming together on Sunday mornings, through small groups, coming on Wednesday nights, through prayer groups, potlucks, baptisms, all those kinds of things. We reach in to build each

other up so that we then, as the body can reach out to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is the goal of what we're supposed to do here. And you know, it's a beautiful thing. This church continues to grow. You know why this church continues to grow? Because you all keep reproducing and not just because you're having babies, because that's happening too. I understand that. But I mean,

you're actually reproducing. You're, you're, you're bringing other people to church. You're going, Hey, you know what? Uh, listen, you should come listen to the bald guy. Cause he just gives straight out of the Bible. You should come here. Uh, what he has to say on a Sunday morning and see if Jesus is there. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't

touch your heart. Right. And then I get up and do the best I can to give what God's word has to say. And then you say, Hey, you should come back and you encourage each other and you're reaching out and the church continues to grow. Why? Because healthy sheep are beginning healthy sheep and you all are reproducing by bringing other people here. That's reaching out. You may not have realized it

when you invited someone to church, but you're actually doing the work of the gospel at that point in time, because we are to work together for the gospel of Christ. So how are we to live our lives? What's the right perspective on the way that we live? Well, number one, we live a life that's worthy of the gospel. Number two, we work together for the gospel. And then number three, we are not afraid of the opponents of the gospel. Notice what it

says in verse 28, in no way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you. And that too, from God for to you, it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake, experiencing the same conflict, which you saw in me. And now here to be in me, he starts off by saying, I don't want you to in any way, be alarmed. That word alarmed can also be translated startled or terrified or intimidated.

Now he tells them, I don't want you to be intimidated by the opponents of the gospel, by those who are opposed. To what the gospel of Jesus Christ has to say to those who don't like our message. I don't want you to be startled or terrified or intimidated by them. And I think he says this for two reasons. Number one, he tells them, I don't want you to be startled because I want you to expect what's

coming. So I'm really good at getting one track minded. And when I get one track minded, I don't focus on anything else in the world. And then I get startled really easily. This happens to me a lot. When I'm running, I put my headphones in and, and I just go run and I'm focused. I'm caught up in my worship songs. I'm praising Jesus, hoping I don't die the whole nine yards. You know, I'm just, I'm just rolling along with life,

trying not to get hit by cars. And, um, and you know who the scariest dogs are when you're out running the little dogs, you know, what the little dogs are so scary when you're out running. Cause you don't see them coming. Right. And so, uh, so there's this one particular spot and I think that they actually watch me come by and then let the dog out when I come by because I'm running along

and, and you don't see it. And all of a sudden, and at your, at your ankles, there's this little, right. Just biting at you. And in this one particular time, I'm running along, I'm in the flow. I'm feeling the groove. I'm like, I believe that we will win. Right. And this dog comes around and I'm like, ah, I start running like that. You know why? Because I was startled. I wasn't expecting there to be a small dog running. And so he says, I don't

want you to be startled because I want you to anticipate the fact that there will be opponents of the gospel. You know what I found that the church is here lately? A little startled, but there's opponents of the gospel. We find ourselves going, ah, do you mean they hate me? Yeah, they do. I'm sorry. Right. You, you have the truth. They don't always like the truth.

They're probably going to hate you. We'll deal with this again a little bit more here in just a moment, but he doesn't want us to be startled. But I think he also is saying, I don't want you to live in fear of opponents. Now I want to remind you of something. Paul knew what it was like to be afraid. Paul knew what it was like to, to have fear and to need to be reminded.

Don't be intimidated by the opponents of the gospel. We went through some of these last week, but let's go through them again. On Paul's second missionary journey, he was in Corinth. And when he was in Corinth, he met an incredible amount of resistance to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And while he was there in Corinth, he clearly was fearful and thinking about leaving because an angel of the Lord showed up to him and said, Paul,

don't be afraid. I have many people here in Corinth. Keep speaking the truth. Well, fast forward to his third missionary journey. And he's coming back to Jerusalem. When he comes back to Jerusalem, he gets arrested for his stance for the gospel. And while he's in prison with a death threat on his life, while he's in prison, they're fearful. Clearly an angel of the

Lord shows up to him in prison and says, Paul, don't be afraid as you've testified of me in Jerusalem. You're also going to testify in Rome. And then when he was on that ship on his way to Rome, he's there on the ship. The ship is in a terrible storm for like 21 days. He's absolutely freaked out. You know how I know? Because he's in a terrible storm for like 21 days. And he's

God stood with him and said, Paul, don't be afraid. You may lose the ship, but all the people are safe because you still have to testify of me in Rome. You see, Paul knew what it was like to deal with all of those things and yet still be encouraged that the faithfulness of God was that God was always with him. And so because of what he had learned, he could tell them, don't be afraid or intimidated. Don't be afraid of those who are the

opponents of the gospel. He goes on to tell them why, why? Well, number one, because it is a sign of destruction for them. It is a sign of destruction for them. If you can't be moved by fear, then the opponents of the gospel can't stop you. If you can't be moved by fear, then the opponents of the gospel cannot stop you. You know, it's the only thing that keeps you

from giving out the gospel of Jesus Christ is it's fear. You're scared that you're not going to have the right thing to say. You're scared that they're not going to listen to you. You're scared that you're going to say something stupid. You're scared that you're going to offend them. It's always fear. Do you know what keeps you from taking steps of faith? Fear, fear in particular

of the unknown. We fear the unknown, forgetting that God is already in the unknown. We fear tomorrow, but if fear, cannot hold you back, then no one can stop you. No one can stop you from doing what God has called for you to do. As a matter of fact, your stance in the face of fear usually inspires others to believe. There's this great story about a group of Christian wrestlers that lived in Russia

during the time of the cold war, when it was really illegal to be a Christian in Russia. And they captured these guys and they took them out to a lake, a frozen lake, and they stripped them down and they made them all stand up. And they took them out to a lake, a frozen lake, and they stripped them down and they made them all stand up. out on the lake until they renounced their Christianity. You know what these guys started

doing? Standing out there naked in the freezing cold on a frozen lake, they started praising God. And as they were praising God, you know what happened? One of the guards, he stripped down too and went out and started singing with them. Because he knew if they can stand like that in the face of the gospel, or in the face of this kind of fear, then I want what they want. I want

what they have. You see, when we can stand, it ultimately, it becomes a sign of destruction for them. But not only does it become a sign of destruction for those who are the opponents of the gospel, but it becomes a place of salvation for you. Because if you can't be moved by fear, then you know that they can't stop you. If you can't be moved by fear, you know that they can't stop you. There's something amazing about

knowing that this place is not our home. It sort of strips a lot of the fear out of it for us. Because we go, so if you take me out of a place that's not my home and I get to go home, then you really can't hurt me at that point in time. That's why Paul had come to the place in his life, like we talked about last week, where he could say, for me to live is Christ, and for me to die is gain. Because he no longer lived in fear and intimidation of those who were

opponents of the gospel. So the first thing that he tells them about this is, I don't want you to be alarmed. Why? Because notice what it says in verse 29, granted for you, or it has been granted to you for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but to suffer for his sake. That word granted means graciously bestowed or freely given. He says, it has been graciously bestowed and freely given to you to do two things. Number one,

to believe in Jesus. And I got to tell you, if you're a believer in here this morning, you can probably relate to this. Did you ever just sit back and think, how on earth did I land on the truth? How did I figure this out? How are there the smartest people in the world, and they can't figure this out, and here I am living the life, right? Living for Jesus because I have understood that he is my savior, and I have new life in him. How did I win the

lottery on this? Because it's been granted to you. Because God graciously gave it to you. God graciously opened. up your eyes to your sin. God graciously opened up your eyes to his truth. God graciously gave you the ability to repent, and God graciously has brought you into his kingdom. It has been granted to you to believe in him. And if you're here this morning, and you're not a believer in Jesus Christ,

you've never put your faith in him. I want you to understand something. God is graciously revealing to you your need for a savior. And the moment that you put your faith in him, you'll go, how did I figure that one out? Because it's just amazing. But not only has he graciously bestowed on us the ability to believe in him, he has graciously bestowed on us the ability to suffer for him.

You'll never find that on a refrigerator magnet, right? They don't make bumper stickers that say, I've been graciously gifted the ability to suffer, right? Those are promises we don't like to claim. Those make the not so popular promises of God. But that's what we've been gifted. That's what we've been given. Now, how did Paul have this heart? I want you to listen to this.

I want you to look at a couple of things. Go with me a couple of different places in scripture. Go over to John chapter 15. John chapter 15. And I want you to look at verses 18 through 20.

John 15 verses 18 through 20. It says this. If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this, the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master.

If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. Why is it that it has been graciously bestowed on us to suffer for Jesus? Because you never look more like Jesus than when you're suffering for your faith. Because if they persecuted him, we can be aware of the fact that they're persecuting us. Isn't that great? It means that when you suffer for your faith, you're never

closer to the heart of Jesus. Because he said, if they did it to me, they'll do it to you. And you look just like me. So you're going to suffer just like me. And it has been graciously gifted to us to be able to do that. Go one more place. Go to your right a few pages over to Acts chapter five. And I want you to look at verse 41. Acts chapter five, verse 41.

Verse 41. The disciples had been preaching the gospel and they were arrested for it. They were brought before the magistrates. They were beaten and they were told never to speak in the name of Jesus again. And verse 41 is the conclusion. It says, so they went on their way from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame

for his name. Now, isn't that great? They went and took Jesus's words really seriously. He said, if they persecute me, they're going to persecute you. And so they get persecuted for their faith. And what do they do? They walk away and go, but it's our right. It's our right to live as Christian. They have no right to do this to us. No, that's not what they said. They said, let's

call a lawyer because we don't have, we have rights. No, they praised God that they were considered worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus. Now I want you to think about something. It wasn't but a few months before this, the Jesus's disciples did not feel this exact same way. You see John chapter 15, Jesus said to his disciples hours before he would be crucified. As far as the disciples were

concerned, they weren't quite ready to do that just yet. As a matter of fact, when they showed up to arrest Jesus, do you remember what happened? All the disciples fled. They all fled. Ultimately, Peter will deny that he even knew who Jesus was three times. So what was the difference between the disciples and the disciples? The disciples who were denying that they knew Jesus and running from him, because even though

he said, you look just like me when you suffer persecution, they weren't ready for it yet. And the disciples of Acts chapter five, who were able to rejoice that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus. Well, I would tell you this two things that happened for them. Number one, they'd seen their risen savior and they knew that he was a risen savior, that he had overcome death and death would not be the thing that would hold them down any longer. Number two,

they were filled with the boldness of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was at work in their lives and he gave them the boldness that they need to do so. Now it's kind of interesting because remember who was traveling. We talked about this a week or two ago, who was traveling with Paul for a lot of the time, maybe even part of the time when he was in prison in Rome, it was Luke. You

know why that's important? Because who wrote the book of Acts? Luke, Luke wrote the book of Acts. I just wonder if maybe Luke was, going over some of the things that he was going to write in the book of Acts. And he said, you know, I remember the story that these guys told me for the story of the disciples. And they said, we'd been beaten. We'd been told not to preach in the name of Jesus anymore. And all we could

think was what a blessing that we have been counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus. And Paul probably went, man, that's what God's doing in my heart right now too. And so he writes to these Philippian people. You can just imagine Epaphroditus as he unrolls this scroll to read it to a group not unlike this right now. And Paul says, I want you to strive together for the

working of the gospel. I don't want you to be alarmed by those who are opponents of the gospel because it's been granted to you by Jesus, not only that you would believe in him, but that you would suffer for his sake. And they're going, we have a long ways to go. And that's okay. It's okay that we have a long ways to go with that. Just keep getting to know your risen savior. Keep allowing the Holy spirit to fill you.

And so back to Acts chapter or back to Philippians chapter one says for you, it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake, experiencing the same conflict, which you saw in me and now here to be in me. Brothers and sisters, if we want to live a life, in the right perspective, number one, you need to live a life that is worthy of the gospel. Number two, we need to work together for the furthering of the gospel. Number three, you need to not live in fear of the opponents of the gospel. Now, as we wrap up chapter one, I want to make one final

point that I kind of send us off with. And that's this, as I was looking back over and kind of reviewing the three studies about having the right perspective, I pulled out a theme, a theme that I didn't intend to come out. But it did because that's what God's word brought out. And the theme is this, the right perspective in the heart of the right perspective always came back to one phrase, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It always came back to that point. It always came back to the, the, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our trials gave us the opportunity to preach the gospel. Our lives were to give glory to God so that the gospel could go out and we live a gospel. Gospel centered life, worthy of the gospel, working together for the gospel, not afraid of the opponents of the gospel. And so I have a question for you. Is your life out of balance

right now? Do you feel like there's a balance that's kind of missing in your life? Maybe things are a little, a little out of whack, a little off kilter. I would tell you that there's probably one reason why, and that's that you need to restore and put the gospel back at the center of everything that you do. That living a life according to the gospel of Jesus Christ needs

to get back to the center. Of everything that you do. And you need to reset your priorities and you need to reset your perspective because living a life of joy means living a life with the right perspective. Amen. Let's all stand. I'm going to tell you this one quick thing while the worship team comes up. I absolutely want the Kansas City Chiefs to win, but I really, really like Brock Purdy. And I

watched an interview with him and the great, he's a, he's a strong believer in Jesus Christ. And the interview asked, the interviewer, was asking him about how he handles wins and losses. And he said, you know, my life is not caught up in whether or not I win a football game. My life is wrapped up in Jesus. If I win, I celebrate. If I lose, I learn from it, but it has no bearing on my life because my life is wrapped

up in Christ. See, that's a young man whose life is centered on the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen. Father, we come to you and I just pray that you would do that work in our hearts as well. Lord, recenter our hearts and our lives on the gospel of Jesus Christ. And may we be the people that you've called for us to be. May we live as you've called for us to live by the power of your Holy

Spirit, knowing that we serve a risen savior. Father, be with us as we go out from here. I pray in Jesus name. Amen. Be blessed.

And Father God, I just pray that as we leave here today, Lord, that your Holy Spirit go with us and just continue to minister to our lives, to our hearts, Lord God. We love you and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen. You guys have a wonderful week. God bless you.