9/22/19 Philippians 1:15-30 “What Is Your Focus?”

20 Sep 9/22/19 Philippians 1:15-30 “What Is Your Focus?”

9/22/19    Philippians 1:15-30         “What Is Your Focus?”

In the next few Sundays, we are going to take a look at the book of Philippians.  The author was the apostle Paul who wrote much of the New Testament.  Paul was quite a guy.  He was bold beyond what we generally see today.  He traveled throughout the area between Israel and Rome bringing the story of Jesus Christ to the non-Jewish people.  When he came to a new place he would preach the Good News at the synagogue first.  To put it mildly, he would usually not be invited back.  Then he would go to the gentiles or non-Jewish people and preach to them.  This is how the word got out into the whole area.  This is also how Paul got into so much trouble.  As he is writing to the church in Philippi, he is in a prison in Rome.  Now this isn’t one of the luxury prisons that we have today where you can have 3 square meals a day, TV sets and other things that make some of today’s prisoners nothing more than residents in some fancy hotel.  This was one of the times where he was in serious trouble and he could have been executed the next day.  But still he writes this beautiful letter to the Philippians.  This was a church that had supported him all through his troubles and he is most grateful for this.  Let’s look today at how Paul kept his head up and focused, even though he was in trouble.  And then let’s check our own positions and see where we are focused.

Terry Cavanaugh talks about a movie that was put out a few years back called End of the Spear.  It was about a group of missionaries who went to Ecuador to reach out to the Wadani tribe with the Gospel.  I highly recommend this movie.  Anyway, five men of this group were speared to death by Mincayani and other men from the tribe who thought that all foreigners were cannibals.  After this event, the wives and children of these men who died, moved into the village of the tribe to teach them about God.

This is an amazing story where these five men, even though they died, were the first to cut a path for the Gospel to the Wadani.  And this is exactly what Paul was doing in the area near Greece and Rome.  He was making a path for others to follow in the spread of the church.  If you know the history of Paul, you know that he had been severely beaten, thrown out of towns, ship wrecked and arrested.  He had suffered and suffered greatly for his belief in Jesus Christ.  This is not unlike what our missionaries today go through in some Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist countries.  Being a Christian has even become a bad thing in many parts of this country.

And this kind of treatment wears on even the most faithful.  I’m going to pick this up in verse 21 where Paul says, “to live is Christ and to die is gain.”  Remember that Paul is in prison and the conditions at this time are terrible.  He is debating with himself whether or not to just give up and let the Romans kill him or to fight them.  The debate is fruitless because no matter what he does, he wins.  If he dies he gets to go and be with Jesus right now.  He gets to be in paradise immediately.  On the other hand, if he fights then he gets to live on in Christ spreading the Good News to people he loves.  Even the strongest of the faithful have dilemmas.

I don’t think that there is a person listening today that has the faith of Paul.  Most of us have faith but it is small in comparison.  Our struggles are not with life or death for the most part.  They are much smaller.  We may struggle with sin or not to sin which is in many ways a struggle of eternal life or eternal death.  Or many of us will say that this sin isn’t as bad as that one.  Or we may struggle with whether to come to church or not.  Some people may feel that they don’t get the right things out of this church or that church.  People don’t like it when I say that it doesn’t matter what you get out of a church service.  It is not about you.  It never has been about you and it never will be!  What matters is what you put into the worship.  It matters what you are willing to give to God.

Paul continues on in his argument.  It would be so great just to let go and be with Jesus.  But it is even more necessary that he remain in the body of Christ.  He realizes that his work is not yet done.  It is still important that he work with the Philippians and all the other churches he started.  Paul realizes that it is not over until it is over.  Thank you Yogi Berra!

Our country is on a slippery path.  Far too often we let things go that are good enough.  In other words we do a lot of things in a mediocre way and we get paid for the work.  We have been doing this for a long time.  Well, let me tell you, mediocre is not good enough.  If you are getting paid for a job, then you should be working your very best in doing it.  This has led us not to trust people.  It used to be that we didn’t trust politicians and certain salesmen.  Now we would be hard pressed to name a few occupations where we actually do trust the people.  We have been so busy trying to make a buck at any cost that we now find ourselves in the situation where you don’t and cannot trust anyone.

Brothers and sisters in Christ how many of your neighbors do you trust?  75 years ago we would trust them with our lives.  75 years ago we would trust strangers with our lives.  75 years ago we still had God in our lives and neighborhoods.  All these different groups that advocate taking God out of everything fail to realize that God has to be in everything.  The world cannot function without God.  When the historians look back on our era they may find that our ruination was due to a lack of God.

And also you cannot find yourselves getting tired of doing God’s work.  And when you do, you need to come to Jesus to get back on the right track.  It doesn’t matter if you are nine or ninety; God still has a job for you.  Paul isn’t really vacillating here.  He is just using this wording to show us that your reward in heaven will always be waiting for you.  It’s always there!  Jesus is not going anywhere and He will welcome you when the time comes.  But until then you are to be doing your jobs here.  You should become the distributor of blessings here.  And yes, there will be many hardships, but God is always at your side.

So remember this next time you are asked to do something.  Please don’t quit.  Please don’t stop working for God.  Please help us do all we can in this world before we go to the next.  Paul uses the analogy of the body in 1 Corinthians.  We are all parts of the same body.  Think about this.  What would happen if you were driving down the highway and your eyes decided to quit?  What would happen if you were running a race and your lungs decided to quit?  I would like to say that each and every person here today is very important to our body.  There is no one here who is not important.  Please remember this as you move forward.

All of these things today are things that we know we are to be doing.  Paul is putting it in writing so that we know that it comes from Scripture.  As we move ahead we find Paul now telling us how to live.  He is telling us to live in a way that is worthy of the Gospel.  And it doesn’t matter where you are or who can see you.  You should behave the same whether you are in church, with your friends or all alone.

Here is an area where we all could use a little work.  If you don’t live out your faith, then what good is the faith?  James tells us that faith without works is dead.  Paul is telling us to live our faith.  You are to feed the hungry, care for the poor, and tend to our widows.  Missions are always important.

Instead, where are we?  We are zooming here and running there.  We have to have one child here, one there and a third at another place at the same time.  Satan is very shrewd and sneaky as he goes about the business of making you busy.  One of the things I always hear is, “I just haven’t had time to come to church.”  You really are telling the wrong person when you tell me.  You should be telling God.  Tell God that you don’t have time to worship.  Tell God you are too busy for a little prayer.  Tell God that you have to catch up on your sleep.  I say this not to blame you or point the finger at anyone.  But tell God and God will help you find a way to have more time.  After all God invented time.  God will help you get your priorities in the right place because otherwise you are letting Satan win the battle.  God has won the war but Satan still wins battles.  You have to have your guard from heaven up at all times or complacency sets into your life.

And finally Paul tells us to be brave.  He is really saying that it is natural for us to be brave as long as we are together as a community of believers.  As long as we are together in Christ we can beat back the enemy.  There is no need to be afraid.

When I first started to share my faith with others I was a little hesitant because I didn’t know what to say or how to say it.  But I would open my mouth and somehow God made sure that the right words came out.  Now I just trust that Jesus will be there to help me in any situation that comes up.  I’m pretty sure that anyone who has shared their faith has a similar story.

And I have also noticed that the people who oppose what I say about Jesus will always listen to what I’m saying.  It is through these times of witnessing that people come to realize that they are on the road opposite of heaven.  Hell is very real and it’s far, far worse than we can imagine!  They realize that if I am right, they are in big trouble.  In many cases our stubborn refusal to admit that we are wrong, gets in the way of hearing the truth about one’s eternal destination.  But it is very important to tell the story because they do listen.  They may not act at this time but they listen.  The more we tell the story, the more likely that the person will change their ways at some point.

But the real drama of this book to the Philippians is that Paul is in jail.  He doesn’t know if he is going to be sprung or if he will be dead tomorrow.  But no matter what happens to him, he will not give up Jesus.  He loved Jesus to his death.  I would imagine that he was given opportunity to renounce Jesus during this time.  But he didn’t.  He kept the faith.  He like all but one of the disciples was tortured until death and none of them, none of them gave up their faith in Jesus.  They knew for a fact Jesus was real.  He was as real as this pulpit(music stand).  They knew they weren’t dying for nothing.

Have you ever known someone who is dying or facing death or facing the possibility of death like Paul?  Have you ever noticed how calm they are when they have faith in Jesus?  This is what Paul is talking about in this passage.    This whole passage is nothing but inspiration for all of us.  If you ever notice in his writings, he will always tell the audience what they are doing wrong.  He doesn’t pull any punches and many people don’t care about his style because of this.  To me he sounds a lot like Jesus in his preaching when he would always tell you the truth if you are doing wrong, but he would also extend to you grace.

And this is what Paul is doing here.  He is saying that we have to push on in this world even though we get tired and want to stop.  We are to push ahead in ways that are pleasing to God.  We are to push ahead as one body, which we are in the fellowship of Christ.  We are to push on even though there may be tremendous hardships.  We could even lose our lives.  But Jesus is with you every step of the way.  Even when you think that He isn’t listening to you, He is.  He loves every one of us.  He cares for every one of us.  And He is there for every one of us.  Paul doesn’t want you to forget this as you go through your trials.  I don’t want you to forget it either.  Sometimes you may think I am pointing you out from the others.  You may think I am talking about you.  Let me assure you that I am not.  I only try to relate what the Scripture may be telling and if you feel singled out; then it is Jesus who is talking to you.

I would like to close with a story I may have told before about the founder of Methodism, John Wesley.  He had come to this country as a pastor to bring the Gospel to the Native Americans.  At this point in his life, he didn’t know Jesus or have a personal relationship with Him.  One his return trip after failing as a missionary, his ship ran into quite a storm.

Everyone was scared as it was almost certain that they wouldn’t survive.  Everyone, that is, except a group of Moravian missionaries.  They sang hymns, prayed and were cheerful through the entire ordeal.  As scared as Wesley was, he noted this and later asked them, “Were you not afraid?”

“Afraid?” one of the missionaries said, “Why should I be afraid?  I know Christ!”

This sent Wesley off in search for what they had and what he didn’t have, faith.  It wasn’t long before he too turned his life over to Jesus and John Wesley became one of the most important reformers in the Christian faith.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, do not be afraid.  Jesus wants to bless you with every blessing that there can be.  Jesus wants you to have it all.  All you have to do in return is to obey the teachings of the Bible.  Trust and obey and move forward.  It is not very hard but we allow ourselves to be sidetracked.  This plan isn’t very hard if you just keep your focus on Jesus.  He has helped me and blessed me richly and I pray that He will do the same for you.  Thank you Jesus, for your immense love and patience.  And thank you for first loving us.  Let’s pray.