Christ, Our All in All

Transcript

Good morning. Happy Mother's Day. Good to see you all. If you have a Bible, you can begin to make your way to the book of Philippians. It's one of Paul's short letters to the church at Philippi in the first century. We started this series last week. We call it Philippians Enjoy Jesus. This is the theme. We picked that on purpose because there are 31 references to Jesus in this small book and 14 references to joy. These are

tied together. That's why on our website you'll see we exist to enjoy Jesus and make disciples. Well, as I was thinking about that this week, I was thinking, well, who are the happiest people on the planet? Who has the greatest joy? And so I did what we all should do. I asked Chachipiti. Chachipiti pointed me to the World Happiness Report that comes out every year.

And it said, well, the people in these countries are the happiest people in the world. And for seven years in a row, Finland has been number one. The next is Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, and Norway. Maybe you're starting to pick up a theme here. These are the Nordic countries. And by the World Happiness Report, they report consistently as the happiest people on the planet. But as I thought about it some more, I thought,

how do you measure that? On what criteria are you determining these people to be more happy than say anyone else in the world? And then you start to learn some more. And so I probed Chapti Pti and I asked, well, what's the criteria? And what emerges is a very modern secularist, secularist, atheistic, even ⁓ materialistic view of what should define our happiness. And so a closer look says these have the

highest GDP, the most government programs, the highest level of personal freedoms, the highest trust in your government. These measurable things are then showing up as these are the happiest people on the planet. But I thought, is that true? Are they really the happiest people on the planet? This seems entirely dependent on circumstances or ⁓ material wealth or life.

Circumstances are they really the happiness and so I probed some more And then there's a different story that starts to emerge from that Finland who's the happiest country in the world also? Ranked second only to the United States in antidepressant use ⁓ Same thing with Sweden these countries often lead that not that you wouldn't take those or or But but it but you would think if you are the happiness you would do that.

a high level leading the world of suicide. There's a loneliness epidemic in these countries. It's a very stoic culture. so as a stoic culture, there is a cultural expectation that you wouldn't say you're unhappy. And so you start to see, wow, maybe they're not quite as happy as the World Happiness Report says. Maybe this is just a modern secularist materialistic view of how we could possibly measure happiness. And so after

Probing these questions and getting articles and reading some more, Chat GPT finally concluded this. Said this, while the top ranked nations in the happiness report enjoy stability, safety, and economic well-being, a deeper narrative emerges when we look at metrics like suicide, divorce, out of wedlock childhood, substance use.

and loneliness. These suggest that happiness defined by material comfort and individual freedom doesn't always equate to lasting contentment. This is happiness based entirely off of circumstances. ⁓ But as we've talked about before, circumstances alone come and go. One of the great frustrations I had even this week is why does my joy seem to rise and fall on my own circumstances or

my perception of my circumstances. And I want a happiness that outlasts that. One of the books that Pastor Rick on his sabbatical said, here's the first book I read. I love the title. It's a book on the book of Ecclesiastes, which deals with this issue. But I love the title of the book. The title of the book is Everything is Never Enough. Everything is never enough. It's not enough for you to be happy. So then I begin to think, what will...

who are the happiest people that I've encountered? Again, it's hard to measure. It's hard to really tell what's going on in people's hearts and lives. But what immediately came to mind was this village of people that I went to visit in the middle of nowhere in Cambodia. There was an exuding joy from these people. There was a smile in our conversation with them. There was just a contentment. This, in spite of the fact...

that they all lived in shanty homes that were probably smaller than your children's bedroom with 10 roofs. ⁓ This whole community had been uprooted in a massive systemic injustice by their government from being a fisherman community for generations, 20 miles inland, no river, no fishing, because they needed to make room for a new mall on the river. And so they were plotted down here, nothing.

And yet they had this exuding joy. They had a happiness that clearly had risen above their circumstances. And I asked the question, well, how do we get that? How do we get that kind of soul satisfaction? And this is the reason we're going through this book. We said last week as we did an overview of the book that the big idea of the book is when we abide in Christ, we will abound in joy.

When we abide in Christ, we will abound in joy. Again, 31 times Christ has mentioned, 14 times joy. But then, as I said last week, someone came up to me after the first service and said, well, what does that look like? What does it mean to abide in Christ? So that's a very good question. And this book serves as kind of a field guide for that. It's easy to say, it's more difficult to do.

But hopefully through our journey through this book, we will learn what it means to, as Paul says, the secret of being content. Because if it was just on our circumstances, 2025 Parker, Colorado, given all those things, GDP and health and wealth and circumstances, you would think Parker would be one of the most explosively joyful places on the planet. And I'm not sure that that's true. In fact, I've been to the self-proclaimed happiest place on Earth.

Disney World. And I've seen full on meltdowns, tears and snot and all of it. And that's just the parents. I've been the parent where I've looked my kid in the face and be like, what is wrong with you? We're in Disney World. Why are you breaking down here? And if you can't be happy in Disney World, then maybe happiness isn't so tied to our circumstances. Well, Philippians wants to give us a

deeper foundation, a stronger foundation for our joy. And it's again, something that I need desperately in my life because I am too much moved up and down by my circumstances. And so my hope for me and for you is that this would take us to deeper waters. I'm to go and read our passage and then pray for us as we dive into this first passage in the book of Philippians. But as I do so, I'd ask you to lift.

Listen carefully, this is God's word.

I thank my God in all my remembrances of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you.

because I hold you in my heart. For you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day.

of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's pray.

Lord, we do come before you now in the name of your son, in the power of your spirit, turning our attention to your word to us. So, Holy Spirit, would you would you show us what what we need both as individuals and as a church to find our joy in Christ today? Form and shape Christ in us as only you can do. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Well, even in this initial

introduction to the church. Paul on one level is writing a thank you letter. A thank you letter for a church that has been with Paul for about 10 years now in support and prayer and encouragement. So he's thanking them but even in his thinking of them he gives us clues to a happiness that transcends our circumstances and that's what I want to look at. He gives us three. In fact he starts off in verse 3 says I thank my God in all my remembrances of

You. Now it's one thing to say I'm thankful for you but to say I'm thankful for God because of you. That there's something bigger going on here. He says, in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy. Why? Because of your partnership in the gospel. We'll come back to that at the end. It's a very important word that partnership word. But he says because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

So Paul is thinking about the Philippian Church and we talked about this last week in Acts chapter 16 you can read about how that church came about and what was clear then as is now in Paul's life is that ⁓ That that the church should rejoice in Christ because Christ was the initiator of their salvation And then this is why we can rejoice as well. We rejoice in Christ because he's the initiator the starter the the founder of our salvation so when

Paul came to Philippi. He's thinking about that day when he came and there weren't there weren't enough men for a synagogue but he went down to the river and he saw Lydia in Acts 16 13 says and the Lord the Lord opened her heart and she received Christ. It was clear to Paul from the very first person that came to know Jesus. Jesus was on the move. Jesus was at work and then it went on and there's the slave girl who was

possessed and she's delivered and she comes to know and be part of this church and then it goes on to the jailer who's as Paul and Silas are in prison and God sends an earthquake and the chains fall off and the jailer falls on his face and he becomes and his whole household becomes followers of Jesus and what Paul is reminding them is what is clear and what you can rejoice in and this is incredibly good news your salvation

entirely of God. Listen, this is good news to us. There is a as many ways as God saved people in Philippi is probably represented in this room. So for some it is through the mind and through the intellect like Lydia. She's thinking about, she's reasoning, but God reaches down and opens her heart and she finally comes to know Jesus. Some it's a demonstration of

Holy Spirit power, a deliverance from a stronghold like the slave girl. Others, it's like the jailer who you just all of a sudden see your need for Christ and you fall down before him and say, what must I do to be saved? And God comes in. This is how God works. This is incredibly good news. This is good news even if you're not a follower of Jesus yet, because if you become a follower, you can know that it wasn't you, but God wooing you.

Drawing you in God doing the work This is good news because you you can know that your salvation is secure because it it wasn't that you you were smart enough It wasn't that you were moral enough. It wasn't that you tried hard enough It wasn't that you prayed the right prayers and and did the right things like whatever it is It wasn't on you. We get to rejoice in Christ because Christ is the initiator of our salvation it's all on him he

did this work. It reminds me of what Paul said to the Ephesian church. In the Ephesian church in chapter two he says, you were dead in your sins and transgressions. You were by nature children of wrath. This is the story of humanity apart from God. They are dead. Dead men don't do anything but be dead. They stood condemned under the righteous holy wrath of God and

And that's where we all were. But but listen to what Paul says in Ephesians 2 4. says, but God, you were dead, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. This is good news. We were dead. Our salvation.

was not on us. didn't make ourselves alive, but God did it. And then he says, I thank God because of your partnership in the gospel. We'll come back to that from the first day until now. He who began a good work in us. This is what he says next. So the first first thing we rejoice in is he's the initiator of our salvation. But in verse six, it says this. And I'm sure of this. He who began a good work in you. So this was God who started this.

in you. That word in is very important. We'll see. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. So we rejoice in Christ that he's the initiator of our salvation, but we also rejoice in Christ and rest in Christ that he is the sustainer of our salvation. This is again incredibly good news. I talk to so many Christians that

understand that they were saved by grace alone in Christ alone and faith alone but then live their lives as if now it's on them to stay straight to really show God that they're serious. We're saved by grace but now I'm gonna sustain myself by my work and my own righteousness? No! That's not good news. The good news is I am sure that that he who began a good work in you

carry it on until completion until the day of Christ. This is good news. This is what the hymn, He Will Hold Me Fast says. Listen to the hymn from 1903. When I fear my faith will fail, Christ will hold me fast. When the tempter would prevail, he will hold me fast. I could never hold, keep my hold through life's fearful path for my love is often cold. He must hold me fast.

He will hold me fast. He will hold me fast for my savior loves me. So he will hold me fast. Those he says are his delight. Christ will hold me fast. Precious in his holy sight, he will hold me fast. He'll not let my soul be lost. His promises shall last bought by him at such a cost. He will hold me fast. This is good news. In verse seven, it says this. It is right for me to feel this way about

you all because I hold you in my heart for you are all partakers with me of grace." That word partakers is actually the same root word of verse five, partners in the gospel. What Paul is saying is he knows that the grace that Paul has received, the grace that Paul knows he still has, he knows is also true of the Philippians. He's seen the evidence and the fruit of it in their lives. So we are

saved by God once and for all. That's called justification. But the Bible also talks about a present tense. We are being saved. We were saved by grace and we are still saved by grace. It's grace and more grace. But in this second kind of ⁓ mention of salvation, it's ongoing, active, and present. So it's less like, or John Piper says, it's less like an inoculation, right? Where you get a shot

You don't think about it and you're good for the rest of your life. So like I prayed a prayer when I was six and I got the inoculation. No, he says it's less like an inoculation and much more like dialysis. The Christian life is much more like dialysis. I am saved by grace, but I keep coming to Christ, the fount of grace, and I keep getting that drip of his grace and power and mercy in my life day after day after day after day.

One of the evidences that God's grace is present in your life is that you want more of God. You want to grow. You desire Him. This is not born of yourself. You don't muster this up in yourself. This is God's grace in you. It's the dialysis. ⁓ Charles Spurgeon told the story that he had an elderly lady come up to him after a sermon one time and she said, Pastor,

I don't know if God loves me. Well, why do you think that? I just don't. I don't know if God loves me. he said, well, what do you love, Jesus? She saw with all my heart. Spurgeon's smile is like, well, you can be assured that if you have any love for Jesus, Jesus put it there first. Therefore, he does love you. This is the evidence. Your desire is an evidence of grace, but it is this constant coming.

to the fount of grace in our salvation. He who began a good work in you, he who started it will sustain it, which brings us to the last point, verse nine. it is my prayer. And here's what Paul is praying for the Philippians. By the way, it's good to tell people you're praying for them. It's better to say, here's what I'm praying for you. I mean, that's that's really encouraging. And you're like, well, I don't even know what I would say.

This is free today. You can literally just memorize these verses or copy and paste them and then actually pray these things. But but there's nothing there's no prayer that you're going to give to anyone that's more encouraging than this. Paul writes it down. This is my prayer for you that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment so that you may approve what is excellent and so be.

and blameless for the day of Christ. Paul prays this that your heart, your affections would grow, that you would love the people on your left and right, the people that God has in your life more this year than you did last year and more next year than this year, that your love would grow. But notice he ties it also to our mind. There's not this disconnect. He says your love for one another, your love for Jesus,

should grow and have this desire in you to know Jesus more. And as you know Jesus more and the gospel more, your love grows. And as that grows, you want to love Jesus more. It's this cycle that overflows toward one another. so the last thing, but he says is that until the be blameless until the day of Christ. This is speaking of the last day. So Christ is the initiator. He's the sustainer, but

Christ is the finisher of our salvation as well. What Christ begins, Christ sustains. What Christ sustains, Christ finishes. This is our hope. This is our confidence. He says this is what will happen when that happens. We will be filled with the fruit of righteousness. Not our own righteousness, the righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. Our lives are headed somewhere.

And it's headed to a destination. We see this at the very end of his prayer to the glory and praise of God. This is the point of life to glorify God and to praise him and enjoy him forever. This is the aim of every Christian and every church. But there is actually more here than just these three things, initiator, sustainer and finisher of our faith for our joy here. Let's go back up to those words that I pointed out before.

says because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now and then in verse seven you are all partakers with me of grace. So the word there and the root word there is coinonia. So if you have Christian subculture you have any background there you're like coinonia I get that that's that's like what my small group was called or that's I think of a potluck dinner you know coinonia we're gonna have

Fellowship that that is a very small part of this word, but it actually totally misses the word see Paul throughout this passage has been saying another word that we don't have in English It's well, I guess if you're from the south you might have it but it's the plural for you So what would it be in the south? Y'all maybe if you're from New Jersey in New York, you have it as well. It's the plural for you. What is it?

Use guys, right? I've yet to see that in a translation. But it's an important thing, especially in our very individualistic culture. Your joy hits a ceiling if you make your life only about yourself. You and Jesus, what you're doing, that's actually a path for kind of a miserable life. Deep down, you were created for something that is...

far greater and bigger than even your own life and even your own contribution. We were made for koinonia. So well, potlucks, fellowship, no, no, Koinonia is this, I'll give you definition. ⁓ koinonia is ⁓ a fellowship of people with a shared purpose, a shared mission, and a shared vision. A shared purpose and a shared mission and a shared vision. So.

This happens in a lot of different ways. Your family hopefully is a koinonia. We have a shared purpose, a shared mission, a shared vision. ⁓ When we think about koinonia in this kind of transcendent, purposeful way, you can start to see, you get to be a part of something that is bigger than yourself and you can see how that makes your joy expound on a multiplication, exponentially. So a good way to think of koinonia or fellowship

is the fellowship of the rings. Here they have a koinonia. They've got men and dwarves and elves and hobbits and they have come together where they shared purpose, mission, mission and vision and every person in that fellowship of the ring had to fulfill their role. So now you start to see, ⁓ this word is actually very important. Paul is thanking the church for their

Partnership their shared vision purpose and mission another coin ania. I thought of this week is a Navy SEALs happy Mother's Day by the way Navy SEALs shared purpose vision mission Everybody train do your part do it well for the sake of your brothers and the mission This is a coin ania now you start to see this is more than a well the potluck that you're ⁓ Every sports team is a coin ania

Every sports team when they gather for training camp that they don't just say hey ⁓ Glad it's another year. Let's let's just go have fun guys Unless maybe you're the Rockies. Maybe that's what they say

They're terrible. But every other team, every other team is like, hey, we'll have some fun, but we're here to win. And if you're good enough, we're here to win the championship. Everybody has to play their part well. Here we have an F1 race team. There's 21 people in this. 21 people, all of them, for the sake of the mission, the shared purpose, vision, and mission, that they've got to do their job to exact.

as fast as possible in perfect concert together to achieve the goal to win the race. 21 of them. You can just start to imagine what each person's job is here. I was told after the second service they don't do they don't even change out the gas anymore. That's too dangerous so they have enough gas for the whole race so they're just changing tires. So they come in they they lift it they put on the tire and they're off. On average an F1 team is just under three seconds.

in the pit. Team Red Bull has the record 1.8 seconds. Shane Zataris on your way. It's a koinonia.

Sometimes koinonia is big, it's national. I think of the 1960s. In 1960s, America was falling behind in the space race with the Soviet Union. And John F. Kennedy thought this was a problem. And so in a very famous speech to Congress on May 25th, 1991, he started to cast a vision for a koinonia, a shared vision, mission and purpose for the nation to come alongside to play your role.

to accomplish the goal. 1961, before Congress, he spoke to him in his thick New England accent and said this, this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before the decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. And I think that's a pretty important part at the end there. I think we can land a man on the moon, but to return them safely, that seems like a

part of the whole thing, right? That's not Elon's thing right now. We're just going to land a man on Mars and he's going to die. That's the plan. But that wasn't JFK's thing. We're going to land a man on the moon and bring him back safely. There's the vision. There's the mission. This has caused the nation to move and everyone play their part. So the following year in 1962, he goes down to Huntsville, Alabama and visits NASA for the first time.

There's a story, we don't know if it's true, it's probably apocryphal, but it does capture this idea of Koinonia. As he's touring the facilities, he comes across a janitor. And he asks that janitor, what do you do? And the janitor replies, Mr. President, I'm helping to put a man on the moon.

If you can understand that, you understand I have a role to play. The goal is far bigger than what I'm doing, far bigger than what I know or can accomplish on my own, but I'm part of something. I'm part of something that is great. I'm helping put a man on the moon. The following year, or actually the next day, Kennedy goes to ⁓ Rice University in Houston and he gives this famous speech there.

I love what he says. says, choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do other things. I love that part. That's like public speaker. I don't know what to say. I'm just going to throw in some filler words. We're to go to the moon and do some other things. What other things? Other things.

It's not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because the goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win. It was a coin in the air. Of JFK would be killed the next year, but before the decade was out as he...

cast that vision, the mission was accomplished. It was costly. Oh man, it cost the nation a lot. It was dangerous. Nine men would give their lives in different accidents in that decade. And the mission was accomplished. July 20th, 1969, NASA's Apollo 11 mission, they accomplished it.

And as amazing as that was and all the energies and engineering and the nation and the funding and all that coming together to accomplish this mission, amazing as that was, Redemption Parker, Jesus has called us to a coin in the air that is far more amazing than that. More costly than that, more dangerous than that, more important than that. It's of eternal importance. And so we don't.

We don't gather as a church just for ourselves.

We don't gather because we like the style and we like this and we're kind of consumers. We gather because we are a koinonia. We have a shared mission, vision and purpose to see Christ glorified, to see God praised in our lives among our neighbors and the nations. This is what God has called us to do. And if we're not doing that, why are we even here?

I say this all the time, if we're not about the mission, why do we gather here? Colorado has much better things to do on Sunday morning than this. But if we are about the mission and we've been invited to the greatest coin coin in Nia, the world has ever seen. Our hope and our confidence is this, that the mission will be accomplished. It will be accomplished. Christ will do it.

So let us rejoice that Christ is the initiator of our salvation. Let us rejoice that Christ is the sustainer of our salvation. Let us rejoice that Christ is the finisher. Let us rejoice that Christ is our all in all. Let us rejoice God is and will be glorified in us and through us among our neighbors and the nations. Amen. Amen. Let me pray for us toward that end.