The Right Path.

Steve Gentry

[0:00] Go ahead and have a seat. [0:01] Welcome to Village Church. [0:02] If this is your first time here, my name is Steve. [0:04] I’m one of the pastors here at Village Church and I’m always glad to see you. [0:08] Open your Bibles to Philippians chapter 1. [0:11] We’re going to be back in there as we are going through the book of Philippians together

[0:16] as a church. [0:17] We’re going to be starting in verse 8 this morning, but last week we really got into [0:22] the first chapter of the book and we really delved into the relationship between the apostle [0:29] Paul and this church. [0:31] And the way that we looked at it was through the lens of how the relationships in our [0:36] lives affect us, how they can actually tell us a lot about ourselves, but even more than

[0:42] that, that these relationships can tell us where we are headed in the future. [0:48] Because it is your relationships that will determine a great deal about you, as that [0:54] God has what influences you to be and become who you are and who you’re becoming. [1:01] What sin has fractured, God deems to bring back together. [1:07] God would have us to live out the potential that we can recover in who Jesus is. [1:13] You know God has designed us to be in healthy relationships.

[1:18] When you look at the relationships that are in your life, when you look at the relationships [1:21] that define your life, sometimes that can be hard to believe. [1:25] Sometimes when we look at the messes that we’ve made in our lives, when we look at the [1:29] baggage that has been brought into our lives through the relationships that we have formed, [1:33] not just the ones we’ve formed, but the ones we’re forming right now. [1:36] We may believe that we are sentenced to live in less than relationships or maybe even sentenced

[1:42] to live in unhealthy relationships, but that is not the path that God has determined for [1:48] you to be on. [1:49] You see, through the cross of Jesus, He restores what sin has made us lose. [1:56] And in that, God desires to redeem you from your sin, but also to restore to you the [2:02] potential to actually have healthy relationships in your life. [2:08] Faith recovers the potential that has been lost in sin.

[2:12] And in verses 3 through 7, we saw how we can recover what we’ve lost. [2:18] We can build relationships on things that matter. [2:21] We can build them on the potential that God has wired into us and has restored to us and [2:26] seeks to continue to restore to us through us following Jesus. [2:30] But make no mistake, you have to initiate that. [2:34] It’s not just going to happen.

[2:36] Much of the problem with the way you’ve been living is you’ve just been letting things [2:41] happen and then blaming someone else. [2:44] You have to initiate health in your life. [2:46] You have to initiate. [2:48] You have to seek the healthy relationships that God determines for you to have. [2:54] And you have to seek to restore health to the relationships that you currently have.

[3:00] And so the question that we have to deal with is how can we foster that type of growth? [3:05] And that’s where Paul takes the letter, starting in verse 8 and going through to verse 11, [3:09] as he continues and then ends the introduction to the letter. [3:13] That’s as far as we’ve made it so far, is just the introduction. [3:17] What Paul unpacks here is the trajectory that your life can have when you follow Jesus. [3:24] Understand, you will surround yourself with the right influence if you are following

[3:28] Jesus in your relationships. [3:31] And you do need the right people. [3:33] But it’s not just the right people. [3:35] You need to ensure that you’re on the right path. [3:38] And it is Jesus that gives us that path to grow towards the potential that God wants [3:44] for us.

[3:45] So note the way Paul takes the letter in verse 8. [3:49] He says, for God is my witness. [3:50] Now this is a phrase that oftentimes when we’re reading the scriptures we will overlook [3:55] some phrases, but I don’t want you to do that in this moment. [3:58] Understand that these simple short phrases are the way that he qualifies the statements [4:05] about what should be true of us and the direction that we should go in our lives.

[4:09] So he’s rooting what he’s going to say in the fact that it is God who is the source [4:16] of everything that’s coming from this. [4:18] He says, for God is my witness how I yearn for you with all the affection of Christ Jesus. [4:25] And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment [4:31] so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of [4:37] Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Christ Jesus to the glory

[4:42] and praise of God. [4:45] Jump in and write into it. [4:47] Number one, love is not a feeling. [4:49] Love is not a feeling. [4:52] You may have been told for most of your life and if you follow the cultural whim then you [4:57] actually believe that love is a feeling that you have.

[5:01] Love is something that you fall into and out of like a banana peel was under you. [5:06] You have no control over it. [5:08] It’s just this feeling that comes over you. [5:10] And much of the problem with the relationships in your life and why marriage in our culture [5:15] is something that you can just enter into and out of without really a second thought [5:19] is because we seek in our lives to recover the feeling that we think we’ve lost.

[5:26] Because we believe that if you lose that initial feeling then the love is gone baby. [5:33] And so we need to understand that love is not a feeling. [5:38] Love is a choice that you are called by God to make. [5:42] Love is something that needs to be rooted in something that has sustenance, that has [5:50] or you will be condemned to just live a life based on that which comes natural in how [5:58] you feel.

[5:59] You know if you’ve been married for six months it feels different than it did on your wedding [6:05] day because you couldn’t hide the flaws anymore. [6:09] You’re stuck in the same house now, in the same apartment or in the same tiny house. [6:14] I don’t know. [6:15] I couldn’t do that.

[6:19] Wow.

[6:21] But after six months the feeling’s different. [6:23] After a year the feeling’s different. [6:26] Five years even more different. [6:28] Ten years totally different. [6:29] Twenty years, thirty years, forty years. [6:31] However long the marriage has lasted, however long that relationship has been poured into

[6:37] you’ve revealed more of who you are. [6:40] It’s different because you’re seeking to recover when you get dissatisfied in that moment. [6:46] When you say, oh but I want it to feel. [6:49] You think the lie that you believe is I’ve got to return again to the moment where it [6:54] felt this specific way. [6:56] And that is stupid.

[6:59] That’s dumb. [7:01] Because here’s the key. [7:02] If you’ve been married for five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, if you’ve been with that person [7:08] you have matured hopefully. [7:11] And if you’re saying, I want to recover that feeling that I had when I was twenty. [7:18] What you’re saying is, I want to be an idiot again.

[7:23] Sorry if you’re twenty.

[7:26] But let’s be honest. [7:28] You should hope when you’re forty and fifty you’ve learned a few things, right? [7:33] And so when you’re trying to recover something that was there back then, you are seeking [7:39] something that you shouldn’t seek. [7:43] You can’t go back then. [7:45] Life has happened.

[7:48] Experience has happened. [7:49] The memories have happened. [7:51] The fights have happened. [7:53] The conflicts have happened. [7:55] And hopefully your love has deepened over time rather than stayed in a shallow state. [8:02] And the lie that you will tell yourself that is the worst of all, that you need to leave

[8:06] to recover with someone else. [8:10] Because here’s what you’ve got to understand. [8:13] If you’re still trying to recover that feeling, understand that feeling will weaken with [8:18] that new person. [8:20] You’re going to repeat that same pattern over and over and over until you find the rootedness [8:28] that can age your love in growing over time where you understand that this feeling needs

[8:35] to emerge out of something deeper. [8:38] And I think what the apostle Paul is telling us in this text is how we can deepen that [8:43] to understand that we are not sentenced to live by the whims of our feelings and emotions, [8:49] but rather we can be rooted in real love. [8:52] Because note, he does talk about a feeling. [8:56] He says, God is my witness.

[8:57] This is emerging from God. [8:59] He says, how I yearn for you. [9:02] That term in the original language for yearn. [9:04] He’s talking about a gut feeling. [9:08] He’s saying, in my innards, I yearn for you. [9:13] I have a longing for you.

[9:15] I have a love for you. [9:18] But he doesn’t say, and that’s all that there is. [9:21] It terminates on itself. [9:22] No, he goes further. [9:23] He says, with the affection of Christ Jesus. [9:26] He’s saying that feeling is emerging out of something that is deeper than just my natural

[9:34] emotion, than just my natural feelings of the day. [9:38] My yearning for you is emerging out of a love that is defined by Jesus Christ. [9:44] He says, the affection of Christ Jesus. [9:47] He’s saying I’m rooted in who Jesus is. [9:50] I’m turned towards Jesus. [9:52] I am loving Jesus.

[9:54] And because of my relationship with Jesus Christ, it is creating in me a love, a yearning, [10:03] a desire, a passion for who you are in Jesus Christ. [10:09] For your love to become what God has designed it to be, to recover the potential that God [10:16] has put in all of us for love. [10:19] We have to have our love rooted in who Jesus is and not just in what we want. [10:26] Because Christian love is different than anything else.

[10:30] Christian love is what love is meant to be. [10:34] See, you can control your feelings. [10:36] Did you know that? [10:38] You are not a slave to emotion. [10:42] See, some of us, when we talk about love, when we talk about the feeling that we want, [10:45] when we talk about the romantic notions that we want, we’re defining it basically the

[10:49] way 13-year-olds define it. [10:52] And so some of you are overgrown middle schoolers where love is concerned. [10:56] Because you haven’t learned anything. [10:57] You don’t know any better. [10:59] So if you’re 50 years old, let’s just use that as a baseline, and you’re defining love [11:05] like an eighth grader at the dance, that doesn’t say good things about you.

[11:11] That doesn’t say good things about your maturity. [11:14] That doesn’t say good things about who you are growing to become. [11:18] What it actually says is that you are at a very elementary level of life when you are [11:25] defining love the same way someone that is an adolescent would define it as. [11:30] You as you grow are meant by God to grow into a greater understanding of what love is. [11:38] When you come to faith in Jesus Christ, you find that Jesus wants to change my emotions.

[11:44] Jesus wants to turn my emotions in a direction that I might not naturally be able to turn [11:50] my emotions towards. [11:53] See, it was Paul’s faith in the gospel and the love that he had for Jesus that turned [11:58] his feelings in the appropriate direction. [12:01] The affection for them emerged out of his faith in Jesus because they had a shared [12:07] desire to follow Jesus together.

[12:11] That is why he looks to them in verse 9 and states that he wants them to grow in love. [12:17] Did you know that your love can grow? [12:19] Did you know that as you grow in this life, your love does need to evolve to a different [12:23] level than it probably is right now? [12:26] He tells us in verse 9, he says, it’s my prayer. [12:29] And when the apostle Paul says that, he means it.

[12:33] He says, it is my prayer that your love would abound more and more. [12:39] And when he says abound, he’s saying I want it to grow. [12:43] I want it to develop. [12:45] I want it to evolve to a greater level than it’s currently at. [12:50] And so how are you going to do that? [12:54] He throws two things in there that we would never equate with love.

[12:58] Knowledge and discernment. [13:01] See, but that’s not naturally what we do with love. [13:05] See, what we normally do with love is we say, well, knowledge isn’t love. [13:10] Love isn’t about facts. [13:12] Love is about the way you feel. [13:15] It’s organic.

[13:17] You can’t define it. [13:19] You just have to go with it as if you’re not even in the driver’s seat of your emotions. [13:24] You’re in the driver’s seat. [13:25] Trust me, when you’re not in the driver’s seat, you’re not going to go where you want [13:29] to go. [13:29] You’re certainly not going to go where you should go.

[13:32] But the apostle Paul is saying, if you want your love to develop into what God has designed [13:37] for it to develop, you have to grow in knowledge. [13:39] Knowledge of what? [13:41] God. [13:42] And yes, that does involve facts. [13:45] It involves first understanding God.

[13:50] Who is he? [13:51] Does he have an identity? [13:54] Most of us didn’t get married the first day we met our spouse. [13:58] If you did, that’s fascinating. [14:00] I’d love to talk to you. [14:02] That must have been a weird first year marriage.

[14:06] But you got to know them, didn’t you? [14:09] There were some facts along the way. [14:12] There were some truths that you had to learn. [14:14] There were some preferences that you had to adjust to. [14:18] You got to know that person. [14:20] We have to get to know God, to know what type of love God wants in your life.

[14:25] And he says, take it further. [14:27] It’s not just facts. [14:29] It’s not just the back of the baseball card. [14:31] It’s not just the statistics. [14:33] He says that knowledge needs to become discernment. [14:36] Do you know what discernment is?

[14:37] Discernment is wisdom. [14:38] Discernment is common sense. [14:40] Discernment is understanding what you do with knowledge. [14:45] Discernment is the stove is hot. [14:48] I have knowledge of it. [14:50] But discernment turns that knowledge into I’m not going to put my hand on it.

[14:54] That’s where common sense comes into play. [14:57] That’s where wisdom comes into play. [14:58] And the apostle Paul says if you want your love to grow to what it needs to be, you have [15:03] and you have to apply what you know about God to your life. [15:09] And that’s why the Lord gave us the scriptures. [15:12] Exodus chapter 34 has a fascinating story to me.

[15:16] Because the prophet Moses had come down from the mountain when he had received the Ten [15:22] Commandments. [15:23] Maybe you’ve seen Charlton Heston do this. [15:25] But there was actually a man named Moses that did this. [15:27] The Lord had given him, he had written on tablets of stone these Ten Commandments that [15:33] we find in the book of Exodus.

[15:35] And so Moses comes down and he discovers that Israel had done what Israel tended to do. [15:40] They’d been stupid and they had built a golden calf and they were worshipping that golden [15:46] calf. [15:47] And so Moses got pretty hot. [15:49] I mean he got mad and he destroyed the Ten Commandments. [15:52] He threw them on the ground and they were dashed to pieces through his temper tantrum.

[16:00] And so at that point Moses is like, ooh, he’s looking for the receipt saying I need to [16:06] return these. [16:07] And then he goes back, asks the Lord if there’s a warranty for the Ten Commandments because [16:11] he needs some new Ten Commandments. [16:13] So when he’s standing before God in this moment, the Lord says you’re going to have to write [16:17] them.

[16:18] But then Moses has a fascinating experience with God where God actually comes to Moses. [16:23] Moses wants to see his glory. [16:24] God says you can’t do that but I’ll see the backside of my glory. [16:26] And then the Lord in verse 6 passed before Moses. [16:32] But more than that, he proclaimed something to Moses. [16:37] He said the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding

[16:43] in what? [16:44] Steadfast love and faithfulness. [16:46] And in verse 7, he keeps this steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression [16:53] and sin, but, and that’s where we run into an issue. [16:58] You always run into an issue with but. [17:01] But the issue that he’s saying is this isn’t just a love that forgives and forgets.

[17:07] This isn’t just a love that forgives and sweeps it under the rug to bring out later. [17:12] This isn’t just a love that says sin is inconsequential. [17:17] This isn’t the unconditional love that the culture claims that all of us have to have. [17:21] He goes further and he says, but who will by no means clear the guilty? [17:28] Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children to the [17:33] third and fourth generation.

[17:34] And that kind of blows your mind because you learn two things that almost seem to contradict [17:39] but they fit very well together. [17:41] He says, I will forgive sin. [17:44] I will forgive the iniquity of thousands. [17:48] And so what is sin? [17:49] It’s guilt.

[17:52] He’s saying I’m going to forgive the guilty. [17:55] But then he goes further and he says, but I will by no means clear the guilty. [18:02] He’s saying I’m going to deal with sin. [18:05] That’s what he means there. [18:07] He’s saying this isn’t a cheap forgiveness. [18:09] This is a costly forgiveness that God is both loving and God is just.

[18:16] And so he says this is a steadfast love. [18:19] Steadfast love demands justice because steadfast love is an enduring love. [18:23] That’s what that term means. [18:25] This is a race. [18:27] God is saying my love is running at the same speed on mile one as it is on mile 26. [18:34] It’s not a fading love.

[18:36] It’s not a faltering love. [18:37] It’s not a whimsical love. [18:40] It is a steadfast love that goes. [18:44] And he says because of my steadfast love, I have to do the loving thing and I have [18:50] to deal with the guilty. [18:53] I have to deal with their guilt.

[18:56] And how does he do that? [18:58] See because of God’s love being true, it can’t just accept anything that happens. [19:06] And that’s what we have in Jesus Christ. [19:09] You see, Jesus reveals to us what God means when he says I will deal with the guilty. [19:16] See, my guilt isn’t just thrown out. [19:19] My guilt is actually put on Jesus as he suffered and died to pay the penalty for my sin.

[19:26] And so when Paul is writing in the New Testament that you need to root your love in affection [19:32] for Christ Jesus, it is because you know what you deserve because the steadfast love of [19:38] God can’t just accept anything coming into it and calling any definition love, but instead [19:44] it demands that the definition meet the standard of God where the guilt that would deny and [19:50] defy that love needs to be dealt with. [19:54] Jesus put himself in the place of the guilty to deal with that sin.

[20:00] And he endured it so that he could give us the love that God would mean us to have. [20:05] And that is why Paul looked in 1 Thessalonians 3 and wrote to a different church. [20:12] He says, may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all [20:18] as we do for you. [20:19] Why? [20:20] So that God may establish your hearts blameless, without guilt, in holiness before our God

[20:28] and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all the saints. [20:34] But then one chapter later, he goes further. [20:38] He says, now concerning love, brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you. [20:44] Why not? [20:46] For you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. [20:51] This is what’s fascinating about the way the scripture unpacks for us love.

[20:55] See, in our default mode, we wanted to find love for ourselves. [20:59] And in Exodus, God becomes before Moses and he says, you can’t do that. [21:04] I am steadfast love is what the Lord says. [21:07] He says, you can’t define it. [21:08] You have to deal with my definition of love. [21:10] I will deal with sin.

[21:12] That is why the notion that God has unconditional love is ridiculous. [21:19] He doesn’t have unconditional love. [21:20] He has a love with conditions. [21:22] And the condition is you have to follow his path. [21:26] And his path leads to Christ dealing with sin for real. [21:30] If love was unconditional, that would be a different type of love that isn’t love at all.

[21:34] It’s actually hate because it doesn’t deal with anything. [21:37] Justice is never meted out. [21:39] Sin and evil and suffering and all of the consequences that come with them would reign supreme [21:44] because it will be every man for himself because no one could have a definition on love. [21:49] But God loves us too much to allow that to happen. [21:54] And so he says, look to me as the definition of love.

[21:57] So when Paul is talking about love, he looks to them because we are so tempted to say, [22:03] you know, I’ve really blown it in the love department. [22:06] I must need to learn something new.

[22:09] I must need the newest book on love. [22:13] I must need the newest notion, the newest philosophy, [22:17] the newest understanding of how to actually love and be loved. [22:21] And the apostle Paul responds and he says, you don’t need to be taught about love. [22:27] And initially you think what a ridiculous thing to say to an unloving culture. [22:32] No, but then he points it in the right direction.

[22:33] He says, you have been taught. [22:36] God’s been teaching it since the book of Genesis. [22:39] He has revealed to us what love is. [22:42] But sometimes we just look to God and say, but I don’t like it. [22:47] And God said that changes nothing. [22:49] Because he’s revealed to us all things that are love.

[22:54] And he says, grow in who God is and you will grow in what love is. [23:01] You see, friends, the normal path of the Christian should be one of becoming more [23:05] loving as you get older. [23:07] But sometimes the opposite is true. [23:08] Have you ever known that? [23:10] You ever met some elderly people and you’re like, you must have lived a very hard life.

[23:15] Because they’re calloused, because they’re hard. [23:19] Because they’re angry all the time. [23:22] See, that shouldn’t be the normal Christian life. [23:24] The opposite should be true of Christians because we have a way to deal with our pain. [23:29] We have an ethic to deal with that which we experience that’s unloving. [23:34] And our ethic is always Jesus.

[23:36] The normal Christian life should be one of becoming softer where love is concerned. [23:40] Where becoming more gracious is what the life should be like. [23:43] One in which we can recover what sin has lost. [23:46] One that seeks the best for everyone and protects people from sinful paths while [23:52] offering forgiveness when it is sought.

[23:56] Make no mistake, love can be about feelings. [24:00] But the only healthy ones are those that are rooted in the knowledge of God. [24:04] Everything else deceives. [24:06] Everything else. [24:07] So what do you do? [24:09] How can you grow?

[24:10] Paul lays the path out. [24:11] Pretty simple, though. [24:13] Become more Christian. [24:15] Become more Christian. [24:16] That’s a strange notion because some of us are avoiding that very thing. [24:20] I mean, we want to be Christians, but we don’t want to be too Christian.

[24:26] It’s kind of like looking at God and thinking, he says, [24:28] I have some love for you, but I don’t have too much love for you. [24:33] I mean, there’s a lot of people, a lot of it needs to go around, [24:36] so don’t try to be too much like Jesus. [24:39] No, that’s not the path of Scripture at all. [24:42] See, what Paul says in verse 10 is so helpful here.

[24:45] He says in verse 9, he says, you’ve got to grow in knowledge. [24:47] You’ve got to grow in discernment. [24:49] Why? [24:50] So that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless in the day of Christ. [24:55] You know what it means to approve what is excellent?

[24:59] It means don’t make dumb decisions.

[25:03] That’s what it means. [25:04] I mean, so that you will know what to do, so that you will know how to act. [25:11] See, some of you, you aren’t seeking excellence in your life, [25:15] and that’s why you’ve got such a mediocre life. [25:19] Some of you have given up on having what God has designed for you to have, [25:24] so you’ve accepted on what you can get for yourself.

[25:28] See, God has a life for you where you not only get to know him, [25:33] you not only get to know about him, but you get to know what he would do. [25:38] You get to know what he has done. [25:40] You get to know how he feels. [25:43] You get to know how you should feel through how he feels. [25:46] And then he says, when you grow in this discernment, in this decision-making wisdom,

[25:52] you learn how to approve of what is excellent. [25:55] You get to learn the difference between truth and error. [25:59] You get to learn the difference between what is smart and what is stupid. [26:03] You get to learn the difference between what is love [26:05] and what is just a stupid feeling that you get after eating nachos. [26:09] You get to learn the difference of what you should do and what you shouldn’t do.

[26:14] But some of us are so convinced of our own intelligence that we cannot imagine what it [26:23] would be like to make decisions differently based on what God has decided. [26:27] Much less imagine that his way would lead to an excellent life, [26:32] where my way is guaranteed to lead to a mediocre or less than life. [26:39] And you are addicted to doing things the same way that you’ve been doing them for so many years. [26:45] And you will never have the life that God has for you.

[26:52] God doesn’t want you to settle for mediocrity. [26:54] He wants you to experience excellence. [26:58] I love the way Paul says it there. [27:01] And so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. [27:07] There’s a tension there.

[27:10] Because when you understand what it means to come in faith in Jesus Christ, [27:14] you may look at that and say, but I am pure and blameless in Christ. [27:19] And I would say you’re right. [27:21] But Paul’s not talking about that. [27:23] See, being pure in Christ is understanding that when he died on the cross, [27:27] he did so to forgive you of your sins.

[27:30] But there’s more to it than that. [27:32] Jesus didn’t just transport to earth, die on the cross, and that’s it. [27:36] Jesus lived on this earth. [27:39] And so not only did he die as a substitute for you, he lived as a substitute for you. [27:45] And every moment of obedience in Jesus’s life is given to you as if you did it [27:52] when you come to faith in Jesus.

[27:54] And so that’s what the great exchange is. [27:56] He takes your sin and gives you his righteousness. [28:01] And so that’s when you say, as you should, thanks be to God. [28:04] When he looks at me, he doesn’t see my sin. [28:06] He sees me as pure and blameless in Christ. [28:09] But what he’s talking about here is not the same thing.

[28:13] What he’s talking about here is you actually becoming what God says you are.

[28:22] Walking pure and blameless is different than knowing pure and blameless. [28:28] The apostle Paul is saying, live as God says you are. [28:32] Be and become who you are.

[28:37] See, he’s saying for the day of Christ. [28:39] See, when he says for the day of Christ, he’s talking about the future. [28:43] He’s not talking about today. [28:44] He’s not talking about yesterday. [28:46] He’s talking about where you’re going with your life. [28:49] And so he’s saying that God doesn’t take you as you are and leave you that way.

[28:57] He’s God. [28:58] He loves you so much. [28:59] I mean, this is the wonderful thing about the gospel of Jesus Christ. [29:02] He loves you to the extent that while you were in your sin, [29:05] he found you just where you are, just as you are and saved you in that moment.

[29:12] But he loves you too much to leave you that way.

[29:16] See, Christianity is not a path of, my goodness, I’ve got so much grace [29:20] so I can get away with anything. [29:23] God will just forgive me. [29:25] See, that’s not faith at all. [29:28] That’s not becoming who you are. [29:30] See, if you’re actually a follower of Jesus Christ, you’ll follow.

[29:35] If you’re actually a follower of Jesus Christ, you will actually walk in the path [29:39] that Jesus is walking on. [29:41] You have to learn the way of Christ. [29:44] See, he loves you so much that he will take you exactly where you are. [29:49] I mean, in the grime, in the dirt, in the mud, in the self-destructive lifestyle patterns. [29:56] But he loves you way too much to leave you that way.

[29:59] He loves you to the extent where he wants to redeem you out of that [30:03] and restore to you God’s vision, his original design for your life. [30:09] And he’s saying those who really have faith in Jesus Christ, [30:14] they will live out what God has made true about them. [30:19] They will become more and more pure and blameless as they grow older. [30:25] Did you know that just like you learn bad habits, you have to learn good habits?

[30:31] You see, Paul wants them to abound. [30:33] He wants them to grow. [30:34] He wants them to become. [30:36] But some of you are unwilling to unlearn the bad habits of life that you have learned [30:42] because you can’t imagine growing into new habits. [30:46] You can’t imagine having a new lifestyle.

[30:49] Some of you cannot imagine being different than you are right now. [30:55] You think that you are sentenced to continue down the same patterns that you’ve always [30:59] continued down, even if they are obviously unhealthy patterns. [31:03] You can’t imagine a lifestyle in which you love differently than you love right now. [31:09] You can’t imagine a lifestyle in which you think differently than you think right now. [31:16] You can’t imagine a lifestyle in which you act differently than you act right now.

[31:25] And if you cannot get yourself out of that pattern, you will not abound in love more [31:35] and more. [31:35] You will not grow into the person that God wants you to be. [31:41] See, Paul wrote something very similar to the Colossian church. [31:45] In Colossians chapter 1, the apostle writes, he says, [31:48] So from the day we heard, and here it is again, we have not ceased to pray for you.

[31:54] Why? [31:55] He says, I’m doing this because I’m asking that you be filled with what? [31:59] The knowledge of his will and all what? [32:02] Spiritual wisdom and understanding. [32:05] Why would I need that? [32:07] So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, bearing fruit in every

[32:14] good work, and then again, increasing in the knowledge of God. [32:18] He’s saying, when God finds you, he brings you in and you learn what love is directly [32:25] from him. [32:26] You see what he has done for you. [32:28] You see how he has sacrificed for you. [32:30] And you are captivated by who God is.

[32:34] You love God. [32:36] And because you love God, you want to grow in knowing God. [32:40] And when you grow in knowing God, it affects the way that you act.

[32:46] Because you act as someone who is in love with someone. [32:52] But in this case, you’re in love with God. [32:55] And so your life becomes about God. [32:58] Your growth becomes about God. [32:59] And you understand more and more as you walk what it means to live out that love. [33:05] And so he says, you will grow to walk in a manner that he calls worthy of the Lord,

[33:13] pleasing to the Lord. [33:14] And he says, when you do that, you’ll bear fruit of that. [33:17] You’ll grow in that. [33:19] And then he says, then the outcome is that you want to know God more and more. [33:23] And so you never stop learning. [33:27] You never stop growing.

[33:29] You grow, you live, you grow more. [33:33] That is the pattern of what the Christian life is about. [33:37] But all of it will require you to change.

[33:43] If you can’t imagine changing in the way that you love, you either think way too much of yourself, [33:51] or you think way too little of what God can do for you.

[33:56] If you can’t imagine thinking differently, you think way too much or you don’t think [34:01] enough about God. [34:03] If you can’t imagine acting differently, you think way too much of yourself. [34:07] Or you think way too little about what God can do in you. [34:12] You see, this growth pattern is where the Father would have all of our lives end up. [34:19] And the truth is that some of you are so afraid of becoming too Christian.

[34:25] But everything that we learn about the early church and everything that we learn about [34:28] the discipleship that Scripture points us to shows us that they lived out an emphasis [34:34] on becoming as Christian as they could possibly become in this life. [34:39] There was no too Christian. [34:41] There was only burning passion to give as much as they could to becoming more Christian [34:46] in every moment.

[34:47] To live a godly love is to become more like Jesus, to show those around you what the [34:54] true knowledge of God is all about. [34:57] It is about becoming who God wants you to be.

[35:03] And as you get older, this becomes more and more important with every single step. [35:11] See, because some of you, the reason that you can’t imagine growing in this is because [35:15] you think you’re fully grown. [35:18] Now, here’s the way that it works out. [35:19] It’s more difficult as you get older. [35:21] I mean, let’s be honest.

[35:22] When I was 14, I could make a lot of really big mistakes and everyone would forget about [35:28] them in a few years. [35:30] I mean, it was pretty easy to recover even from the dumbest of possible decisions that [35:34] you could ever possibly make. [35:36] They were all redeemable. [35:37] I mean, the courts seal the records even.

[35:40] I mean, it’s a wonderful thing. [35:41] You guys have no idea what I’ve done. [35:43] Just kidding. [35:44] The cops are like, oh, we’ll be looking it up. [35:47] There’s nothing. [35:48] It’s very simple, speeding tickets.

[35:51] I’ll admit it. [35:54] But you see, as you get older, you have to understand that your knowledge, your discernment, [36:00] your love, your actions, there’s more responsibility because there is more what the military calls [36:06] blowback in the things that you do. [36:09] I mean, I’ll be 38 years old really soon and I’ve got a mortgage. [36:14] I’ve got children.

[36:16] I’ve got a wife. [36:18] I pastor a church. [36:20] I want to plant other churches. [36:23] I help organizations plant churches. [36:25] And so as I get older, the way that God works out love in my life, there’s more and more [36:32] responsibility to it.

[36:33] There are more and more people affected by it. [36:37] And so there’s more and more things that happen. [36:39] But that should be the normal pattern because I should be smarter today than I was when [36:46] I was a teenager. [36:49] And so I should be able to be trusted with decisions. [36:52] I should be able to be trusted to raise children.

[36:56] If I’ve been a Christian for X amount of years, I should be able to be trusted to make disciples. [37:01] But understand the reason that I have to continue to grow and change the way that I love, change [37:07] the way that I think, change the way that I act, is because the repercussions of my [37:13] mistakes aren’t as simple to recover from as they used to be because more people are [37:20] affected by them. [37:23] But the way of God is not to avoid such responsibility.

[37:29] The way of God is to look at the responsibility that Jesus shouldered and say, because of [37:36] rootedness in him, he can carry me through every single moment. [37:43] Some of you are afraid of being too Christian because you are afraid of the responsibility [37:48] that it will place on you. [37:51] But I will look at you and I will say the hope of the world demands that you shoulder [37:56] that responsibility because understand it’s not yours alone.

[38:00] You’ve got a great Savior who will help you through every moment of it. [38:06] Because the world needs you to be more Christian, never less. [38:11] Look at verse 11. [38:13] I love where he takes the finale of his introduction. [38:17] And he says, he wants you to be pure and blameless for the day of Christ and when you get there, [38:21] you will be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory

[38:27] and praise of God. [38:31] He finishes with a stanza when he talks about the glory and praise of God. [38:35] That is a worshipful stanza. [38:38] But he begins with talking about the fruit that is going to be the outcome of your love [38:43] abounding more and more through knowledge and discernment as you learn what is excellent, [38:48] as you walk pure and blameless towards the day of Christ, you will produce this fruit

[38:54] of righteousness so that you can live a life of worship. [38:57] So understand number three, very simple, fruit is worship. [39:00] Fruit is worship. [39:03] You need to begin to redefine what you think a worshiper is. [39:08] See, so often we equate worship with music and worship music rather can help us engage [39:16] the feeling of affection towards God, but it is not the primary force behind it.

[39:21] When it is, you will do what Erwin McManus calls treating Jesus like he’s a jacuzzi. [39:27] You need to get into worship as if you are stepping out of a regular world into Jesus. [39:36] And you will say, oh, I love being in Jesus. [39:40] And then at the end you just kind of get up, towel off, and enter into the rest of your [39:43] life as if worship is disconnected from the rest of your life. [39:48] And that’s also why you struggle sometimes on Sunday mornings to feel worship because

[39:53] you live six days a week for yourself. [39:57] You live six days a week just doing whatever comes natural, following whatever whims seem [40:03] to build up the life that you want to build. [40:06] And then you’ll get into it in a Sunday morning worship service and you’ll treat it like this, [40:10] worship, engage.

[40:16] Engage. [40:17] Why is nothing happening? [40:18] See, because you’re living a disconnected life by misdefining worship as if it is an [40:26] atmosphere that you enter out of your life rather than an atmosphere that is created [40:31] in all of your life. [40:33] See, when he’s doing this worship stanza here, he’s explaining to us that the fruit of righteousness

[40:39] is a lifestyle of worship, that worship isn’t about primarily seeking a feeling, it is about [40:46] living a life. [40:48] What we do serves as a reflection of what we believe about God. [40:55] Now, it doesn’t mean that feelings are unimportant. [40:58] Feelings feed into a lifestyle of worship, but as I said, they aren’t the primary force. [41:03] The fruit of righteousness is the primary force.

[41:06] You see, the Apostle Paul is pointing the church to the lifestyle of worship that brings [41:10] about those feelings that you long for. [41:13] But you must commit to the entire lifestyle to truly engage how that should feel in our [41:19] lives. [41:19] Don’t start with the feelings. [41:22] Hope to end up there eventually.

[41:25] Some of us treat worship so silly that if something is wrong with us physically, we’re [41:32] like, oh, I can’t worship today. [41:35] I mean, have you ever tried to sing with a sinus infection? [41:38] It’s totally unenjoyable. [41:40] And if you have kind of lowered the bar and truncated worship to that, then if you are [41:47] physically ill, it’s going to be impossible for you to worship.

[41:51] But thanks be to God, He hasn’t defined it based on how I feel. [41:55] I have worshiped grumpy.

[41:59] Some of you, you need to experience that. [42:02] It’ll be one of the most liberating things in your life. [42:04] You feel like everything’s going wrong in the world, but you are seeing and you are [42:09] entering in, you are sacrificing, even though you’re just not feeling it, you say, I’m [42:14] entering in anyway.

[42:17] And those will be some of the most powerful moments of your life because that’s repentance. [42:22] That’s saying, I will not let how I feel determine what I believe about God. [42:28] See, because worship is a lifestyle and you are called by God to add all of this up saying [42:34] that love bears the fruit of righteousness. [42:37] What is that going to look like?

[42:41] Galatians chapter five is probably the most popular text that says what fruit in the [42:49] life of Christ is, they’re called the fruits of the Spirit. [42:52] Notice what the apostle Paul writes to the church at Galatia. [42:55] He says, the fruit of the Spirit, know where he starts, is love. [43:00] That’s where it starts because that’s where God starts with us. [43:04] He loves us.

[43:05] He wants to save us. [43:07] He wants to redeem us. [43:09] He wants to experience the love that he has through the gospel of Jesus Christ. [43:15] But he said it goes past that, into us, and it creates these other wonderful fruits. [43:21] He says, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, because [43:29] against such things, there is no law.

[43:32] These are wonderful fruits of the Spirit that seem so unnatural in so many moments [43:37] of our lives. [43:38] But you notice one commonality is that these fruits of the Spirit, where God says he wants [43:43] to change us, where God says he wants to develop the most in us, these are not activities that [43:48] I can just go do.

[43:51] These are things that he says need to be developed in me. [43:55] These are things that I need to become. [43:56] These are things that God wants to do inside of me. [44:02] These are viewpoints. [44:04] These are motivations. [44:07] These are attitudes.

[44:10] Why? [44:12] Because Jesus changes the inner man. [44:16] Because that is what righteousness is all about.

[44:20] Jesus finds us as we are, and he loves us anyway. [44:25] Jesus saves us out of where we are, and he wants to change who we are. [44:33] He wants me to become a different person than I would be without him. [44:37] Because I can’t produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [44:44] gentleness, self-control. [44:45] I can’t produce them.

[44:48] But I know that those are things that are always true of God. [44:52] And so I go to him. [44:55] I live for him. [44:57] And he builds these up. [44:59] We love God, and because of that, we can grow in learning what it is to love like God. [45:07] We can learn what it is to have the joy of God.

[45:11] We can learn what it is to have every single one of these through our knowledge of God, [45:17] through our discernment from God, through our proving what is excellent, through our [45:21] following the path of what it is to be pure and blameless. [45:23] And he changes who we are on the inside. [45:27] And then that emerges to the outside.

[45:32] And so I ask you the important question, where are you on this?

[45:38] Over the past few years, I’ve pastored Village Church long enough to understand, [45:42] look out in this crowd, and I know that some of you believe that you are sentenced to a life [45:50] hopeless of real change.

[45:53] You believe that the path you’re on is the path that you are on, and there is no hope to get off of it. [46:00] For in the Gospel of Jesus Christ is bigger than that.

[46:05] You can change. [46:08] You may think that your path is just the path that you were stuck on, but Jesus came to show that you can grow. [46:15] Just because you don’t see any growth and you don’t have any hope for growth, [46:20] I tell you, you need to believe the Word of God. [46:24] Follow Jesus and it will happen. [46:28] You will change.

[46:31] Hope in Christ.

[46:34] But for some of you, you are on this path. [46:38] You’re growing, you’re abounding, you’re changing in ways that you never thought was possible. [46:43] And what you need this morning is something different. [46:45] You need encouragement. [46:47] You need to be encouraged to stay on that path. [46:50] You need to be encouraged to keep going.

[46:53] You need to be encouraged to understand that what God is doing inside of you, it will bear fruit of righteousness. [47:01] Keep going. [47:03] Don’t stop. [47:05] Follow Jesus. [47:07] Live the fruit of righteousness, and you are worshiping Jesus. [47:11] You are bringing him glory.

[47:16] Keep growing. [47:19] As the band comes up, I love the introduction to the book of Philippians [47:24] because the apostle Paul lays out an ethic for what life is meant to be lived for. [47:31] He really does lay out a life worth living. [47:36] You need the right people. [47:38] You need the right path.

[47:40] But the hope is that you can have those things as you follow Jesus Christ. [47:48] And for some of you, you’re in here and you’re thinking, I don’t know that love enough. [47:52] I don’t have that love. [47:53] I’ve not trusted in that love. [47:55] I want you to understand that today you need to put your faith in Jesus Christ. [48:00] If you don’t have him, you can have him.

[48:05] You may be thinking, but my life’s been so filled with pain. [48:08] I’ve got so much baggage. [48:10] It’s been so difficult. [48:11] Understand that Jesus died to take all of those things. [48:14] He died to forgive you of your sins. [48:18] And in this moment, if you will turn from your sin, because anything done apart from Jesus is sin.

[48:23] If you will turn from your sin and you will trust in Jesus, he will save you. [48:27] He will never leave you. [48:29] He will never forsake you. [48:30] And there is coming a day where he will deliver his kingdom, and you will be with him forever in pure joy. [48:38] You can have Jesus. [48:41] For some of you, you know Jesus and you simply need to be encouraged to keep following him.

[48:49] And to that I say, keep growing. [48:52] Because there is coming a day where the fruit of righteousness in your life will lead you pure and blameless to the day of the Lord. [48:59] Every week we respond by eating the bread that represents the broken body of Christ, drinking the cup that represents his shed blood. [49:07] And when we eat and drink, what we are proclaiming to everyone around us is, I have the life of Christ. [49:12] I’ve trusted in him. [49:14] I have his love.

[49:16] And then we walk out those doors and we seek to grow more and more. [49:22] And so follower of Christ, when you are ready, come eat and drink. [49:28] Amen.