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Joy As We Grow In Christ - Philippians Series
77 Plays2 years ago
In this Sunday morning message, we dive into the topic of Joy As We Grow In Christ in our Philippians Series. Many people in our world today are focused solely on material gain and the here and now, but as true followers of Jesus, we are called to have a different perspective. We explore the importance of finding mentors and examples who live out Christian values, as they can have a profound impact on our spiritual growth. We also discuss the significance of supporting and encouraging one another in community, especially in times of need. So join me as we reflect on our journey of discipleship and strive for joy in following Christ.
Timestamps:
00:00 Childhood in Columbus, Georgia: playing outside, heroes.
03:06 Finding mentors to disciple us like Jesus.
07:55 Putting others' needs before mine is important.
10:19 Timothy trained to be like his father.
14:03 Constant journey of sanctification, intentional company.
18:18 Knowing Christ surpasses all worldly achievements.
23:14 Christian growth is crucial; don't stagnate.
24:13 Setting an example for believers is crucial.
30:13 Setting an example for others is challenging.
32:33 Submit ourselves to God, seek improvement.
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Transcript
Childhood Memories and Early Influences
00:00:00
Speaker
Growing up in Columbus, Georgia, I was like many kids of that day and age. I spent a lot of time outside, especially during the summers. My clue that it was time to come inside was that the street lights were coming on or that I could hear my dad's booming voice about five miles away going, really, it's time to come home.
00:00:22
Speaker
I did have an Atari that tempted me to stay inside, but I don't know how often you can sit there and watch a ball bounce off of a brick over and over again. And for those of you who are younger than me, you're going, what are you talking about?
00:00:33
Speaker
But that was the option. So we would go out and we would build tree forts and we would play football and baseball and basketball in my neighborhood where a bunch of other kids lived. And one of the things I did, which most kids that age would do, is I found heroes in my life, people that I looked up to that I wanted to be like. Most of you won't recognize any of these names, but Dale Murphy and Bob Horner, who played for the Atlanta Braves,
00:00:58
Speaker
Steve Barkowski who was a quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons and then of course my personal favorite still one of the best college running backs in the history of the game Herschel Walker. Those were the guys that I wanted to be like and so I would stand in the backyard for hours trying to practice my home run swing and to trot around the bases like Bob Horner and which was pretty funny because Bob was a pretty chunky dude and I was a pretty chunky little kid so we kind of looked alike.
Choosing Role Models and Values
00:01:24
Speaker
Here's the reality.
00:01:25
Speaker
No matter where you are in your stage of life or who you are, what you do, we find people to emulate in our lives. People that we look up to because they have certain characteristics that we enjoy or that we respect. Maybe it's the fact that they have a great extroverted personality and they never meet a stranger. So we think, hey, I want to be like that. Or maybe they have a deep, deep prayer life and we say, hey, I want to have that kind of prayer life, that kind of relationship with God.
00:01:53
Speaker
Maybe it's the fact that they have a deep knowledge of God's Word and you think to yourself, okay, I'm going to push myself to be a little bit better. The reason we find these people in our lives is because they make us feel challenged to go a little bit further, a little bit farther, a little bit faster, a little bit smarter, whatever the case may be. Those are the people we look up to. And as we grow older, those role models change. They become different people because our values change or what's important to us change as we mature.
Building a Christ-like Community
00:02:23
Speaker
What we have read to this point in Philippians is Paul's encouragement to the church at Philippi to think about all kinds of things related to joy. And if you were here last week, you remember I talked about that there were basically three stages of joy that he refers to in this book. The first is the past
00:02:41
Speaker
stage of joy, which is justification. That's the moment where you acknowledge Jesus and you enter into a relationship with Him. But I want you to hear me today, that is not the end of the journey. That's just the very beginning. As a church, it's important we understand that when Christ gives us the Great Commission at the end of Matthew 28, He doesn't say, go out and tell the whole world to say the sinner's prayer.
00:03:05
Speaker
That's not what he wants. What he wants is discipling of the heart of every follower. And by discipling, what we're talking about is pushing them to be more and more like the person of Jesus Christ. At the end of the day, that's where we want to take people is on this journey where they wind up at the feet of the father and he looks at them and says, you look just like my son. That's what he desires for you and I.
00:03:28
Speaker
So in that journey, what Paul is encouraging us to do is to think about how we find people within the community of believers that can push us, pull us, encourage us, hold us accountable so that we might have someone in our life that keeps us from doing this journey along because it's hard enough as it is, right?
00:03:49
Speaker
It's hard enough to be a follower of Jesus Christ in this world, especially if we're trying to take it on our own. But by sharing a community with other people, by finding people as role models and mentors in our life that we can look up to, then we have a little bit easier path because we're not in this by ourselves.
Traits of a Christian Mentor
00:04:06
Speaker
In a sense, we become a band of brothers and sisters that are on the same journey together.
00:04:11
Speaker
So what I want to talk to you today about from the middle of chapter two through the end of chapter three is some things that I think that Paul shows us, reveals to us that encourage us a little bit about the kind of people we should be looking for to be mentors in our life. The kind of people we should look up to. Philippians chapter two.
00:04:31
Speaker
We're going to begin reading and it's a long passage today, so we're not going to read it straight through. We're going to kind of bounce to some different passages there. We'll ultimately wind up reading the whole passage, but let's begin today in Philippians 3 17 because this is kind of the whole.
00:04:46
Speaker
the whole core around where this message is going. Philippians 3 17 says, join in imitating me brothers and sisters and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us. Paul is saying to the readers of this letter in Philippi, find people who look like Jesus and follow them. Be encouraged by them, be held accountable by them. Follow in their steps and they lead you closer to Christ Jesus.
00:05:14
Speaker
This is the message that Paul has shared with us. He's saying there's a model out there and I want you to follow it.
Examples of Humility and Selflessness
00:05:22
Speaker
So let me give you some statements, some characteristics of those whom we should model our lives after, the kind of people we should copy. He says, follow those interested in the wellbeing of others. Follow those who are interested in the wellbeing of others. In Philippians 2.19, he writes this, now I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you
00:05:45
Speaker
soon so that I too may be encouraged by news about you. For I have no one else like-minded who will genuinely care about your interest.
00:05:56
Speaker
Paul, if you know anything about his story, has a traveling team that travels with him. There's different guys at different stages, but they are all traveling with him on these missionary journeys to establish churches around the Middle East. There are guys like John Mark, like Luke, Silas, and of course, Timothy. Epaphroditus is another one that we'll be introduced to here in this book. But every single one of those guys were important to him.
00:06:19
Speaker
Timothy, however, is singled out by Paul in this moment as being one who's uniquely different because he cares more about others than he cares about himself. And I would suggest to you that that's one of the characteristics that makes a follower of Christ Jesus stand out more than anything else, especially to a world that doesn't know Jesus.
00:06:40
Speaker
It catches people's attention when they find someone who's more interested in how you are doing and more interested in how your family is, more interested in what your needs are and how you can pray for them when they're talking to you about certain things. They're not so interested in themselves that it's all about them and their emotions and feelings. Here's an example of what I'm talking about. You put five guys in a room together and let them start telling stories. You know what winds up happening? Each guy has a better story than the last, right?
00:07:10
Speaker
You ever seen that? You ever watched that play out? It could be a fishtail. It could be a story about work. It could be a story about a trip they've been on. Oh, you've never been here. Or you should have been there the day that I did this. Or you should have seen the one that got away. That's the mentality we have. Why? Because primarily guys have big egos.
00:07:32
Speaker
I was waiting on a woman, at least one woman to say amen. We have egos and because of that we have to constantly work to keep those egos established. It's like a wall that has chunks taken out of it. We have to constantly work to replace it. So how do we do that? By making sure that we don't appear weak and feeble in the eyes of other guys.
00:07:53
Speaker
Oh, I have my stories, I have my moments, I have those things. Well, Paul suggests that a man of God, a true follower of God, not just men but women as well, are ones who really look out for others. Not that they don't consider their own needs, and not that they take some kind of masochistic approach to life that I'm just going to push everything down that's my concern.
00:08:14
Speaker
But more in the reality that my needs to come after the ones of the people around me. I want to consider them first. I want to be concerned about them first. And so Timothy was a great example of this.
00:08:28
Speaker
Paul had just mentioned in chapter 2 and we read this last week on Read It For You Again what was one of the early hymns he describes the character of Jesus Christ and he tells his readers adopt the same attitude that is of Christ Jesus who existing in the form of God did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited but instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant taking on the likeness of humanity and when he had come as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death
00:08:58
Speaker
even to death on a cross. Be honest with yourself. Many of us are not very interested in humility. That's not something we look up to a whole lot in our character, in our culture. We look for bigger than life personalities. We look for charismatic figures. We look for people who are high energy and very dynamic. But in the reality, the Bible tells us that Jesus would not have drawn much attention to himself had it not been for the fact that he was the Son of God.
00:09:27
Speaker
He was very much an ordinary guy and just an ordinary rabbi from a small town. If you'll remember when he was first calling his disciples that Nathaniel even questioned, can anything good come out of the town of Nazareth? And this is the one who was going to be the savior of the world.
00:09:44
Speaker
That kind of humility Paul invites us to take on for ourselves and to be challenged to that. Most of us, however, are more interested in the image we project to the world around us. We're more worried about how many likes we're going to get on Facebook than we are about whether or not our character stays intact. The second thing that I would suggest to you is that we should follow those who have proven themselves in hardship, not the untested or the self-promoting.
Resilience and True Leadership
00:10:09
Speaker
Follow those who have proven themselves in hardship. You see, back in that day,
00:10:14
Speaker
It was very common. In fact, most boys learned from their dad the trades that they were going to take on. If dad was a carpenter, they learned from dad the skills of being a carpenter. If dad was a fisherman, most likely they would follow him as a fisherman and learn how to do all the things that fishermen needed to do in that day and age. Well, likewise, Paul called Timothy his son in the faith.
00:10:34
Speaker
He was training him and teaching him what he wanted him to become and again the personality traits, the characteristics that he needed to display to the people around him that he would be shepherding and leading as a leader of the church. So in verse 22 of chapter 2, Paul introduces Timothy and he says, but you know his proven character because he has served me in the gospel ministry like a son with a father. Therefore I hope to send him as soon as I see how things go with me.
00:11:04
Speaker
I am confident in the Lord that I myself will also come soon. So he's saying Timothy is a great example of what you're going to get in me. I have invested in him myself. I have trained him myself. He is the kind of man that I would hold up as an example to you.
00:11:20
Speaker
Then he turns his attention to a guy by the name of Epaphroditus, who's also part of this traveling team of leaders. He said, but I considered it necessary to send you Epaphroditus, my brother, coworker, and fellow soldier, as well as your messenger and minister to my need, since he has been longing for all of you and was distressed because you heard that he was sick. Scholars believe that Paul had planned on sending Epaphroditus at an earlier stage, but he came down with some unknown illness which actually threatened his life.
00:11:50
Speaker
But Paul, excuse me, Epaphroditus was not like most of us guys. I don't know that you, I'd rather break a leg than get a cold. Y'all like that? Yeah, I'm that way. I'd get a cold, my wife knows that I'm gonna lay on the couch like a five-year-old in wine for a few days. And that means that she's gonna be waiting on me hand and foot the whole time, you know?
00:12:10
Speaker
But the paphroditis wasn't that way. The paphroditis gets ill and he finds out that the church at Philippi has found out about it and they're concerned about him. He's more concerned about them worrying about him than he is about himself. That kind of selfless desire was very much what Paul was encouraging people to look for in others because it made a difference.
00:12:31
Speaker
There are many kinds of leaders we see in our world, and we recognize people as being leaders for different reasons. Sometimes we define leadership in terms of powerful personalities. Again, somebody who's very charismatic and very outgoing. Sometimes we describe leaders as being someone who has lots of resources or maybe they have lots of wealth that they can bring to bear or deploy in some situation.
00:12:55
Speaker
Some people become leaders just because they worry so much about it. They constantly are working 24 hours a day to build up followers around them. It's a constant concern of theirs. But I want to encourage you here at Growfield Church to think about something differently. How many of you have what you would consider a mentor in your life? I want you to look around. Keep your hands up. You can waggle your hand if you're not sure.
00:13:23
Speaker
If you look around you, there's not very many people that have mentors in their life. And I think this is a lost art in our culture. And not just in the regard of people passing along skills and trades, but just the ability to walk with somebody who has wisdom in life. People who maybe have been a little bit further ahead of you in the journey and maybe have experienced things that you most likely will experience.
00:13:48
Speaker
There are some churches, large churches, I think is a fantastic idea where they pair up couples that have been married 15 and 20 years with newlyweds and say, hey, let's walk the journey together. What an incredible idea. Who wants to start that ministry?
00:14:01
Speaker
Hands went up all over the room. Thank you. But, you know, just this idea that somebody can come along and can kind of keep helping me raise the bar for myself, who won't let me settle for just getting by. Again, I bring you back to this whole journey of salvation. We mentioned that the joy of the past was justification, but what Paul's talking about here in these passages as we read today is the present.
00:14:27
Speaker
stage of joy, which is sanctification. This constant journey of working to let the Spirit of God refine us into the image of Christ Jesus. And it's an ongoing journey, all the time, everywhere we look, everything we go through, every engagement with other people, relationships. And if we're going to be refined by the people who we keep company in with,
00:14:51
Speaker
Wouldn't it be wise to be intentional about being in the company of believers who are going to push us towards Jesus instead of spending more time with people who are going to challenge us and pull us away from Jesus?
Confidence in Christ Over Worldly Gains
00:15:02
Speaker
That's basically what Paul's saying here. He's saying, go find those people, those relationships. Look for people who have proved themselves in hardship and still held on to Jesus. People who've been through grief, who've been through loss, who have faced financial setback or illness. People who have gone through all those tough places and refused to let go of the robe of Jesus. They kept their eyes on him through every situation. Don't look for flashy people. Don't look for manipulative people.
00:15:31
Speaker
Don't look for people who are controlling or sassy or have smart mouths. Don't look for people who have quick comebacks for every challenge that's put in their way. But instead look for those who exemplify Christ-like maturity under stress, who retain their integrity in all situations, who refuse to compromise on their values and still show concern for others around them. Those are the kind of people
00:15:56
Speaker
that Paul felt like would make us bigger, stronger believers. Thirdly, he says, follow those whose confidence is in Christ and no one else. Philippians chapter 3 verse 1, he starts out, he says, in addition, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. To write to you again about this is no trouble for me and it's a safeguard for you. Watch out for the dogs.
00:16:19
Speaker
Watch out for the evil workers. Watch out for those who mutilate the flesh. That's an insult, guys. Really bad insult in that day and age because dogs weren't tamed animals that lived in the house in that day and age. They were literally wild animals that people mostly were scared of in that time. And so to be considered a dog was a really bad thing. Most Jews consider Gentiles to be dogs.
00:16:43
Speaker
So what had happened is in the early church, if you know the history of the church, the history of Christianity, the seedbed of Christianity was the religion of Judaism. So the first Christians, most of them, mostly all of them, were former Jews who had entered into the Christian faith. But what had happened is they had brought with them their Jewish behaviors.
00:17:04
Speaker
And so for many of them, their belief was that when you became a Christian, you had to become a Jew first. You had to accept the Jewish practices. You had to take on the Jewish rituals, primarily the practice of circumcision. These people were referred to as Judaizers. Paul comes along and says, look, if you read the scripture right, what you missed out on is this. Jesus is the ultimate answer. There's no need for any of that other stuff.
00:17:32
Speaker
So when you come back and you keep adding things on to salvation, when you keep adding next steps and new steps to salvation, you're creating a problem that shouldn't ever exist. This is about a relationship with Jesus, about introducing people to the Savior. This should be our only thing. And if you're doing anything else, he said, you are like dirty dogs.
00:17:55
Speaker
In fact, they call themselves the circumcision. He says, no, you're just mutilators of the flesh. All you're doing is causing unnecessary work for things that don't need to be happening.
00:18:06
Speaker
So he goes on to say in verse 3, For we are the circumcision, the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, boast in Christ Jesus, and do not put confidence in the flesh. In other words, we don't put confidence in works. We know, we recognize, that Jesus is the ultimate answer. Skip down to verse 7 and he says this.
00:18:25
Speaker
But everything that was a gain to me I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. More than that I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of Him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung so that I may gain Christ and be found in Him not having a righteousness of my own from the law but one that is through faith in Jesus Christ.
00:18:54
Speaker
Paul literally has just laid out his resume in these previous verses to them and said, hey, look at all the things I've experienced, all the things I have been through, and then put them all in one big lump and just throw them away because they don't matter. All of these advantages that I have, my education, my good deeds, my heritage, they don't matter. All the things that I have done to be a righteous person, the sacrifices I've made, the offerings I have given, the good works I've accomplished,
00:19:20
Speaker
Every bit of them are rubbish compared to knowing Christ Jesus. Paul says, that's all I want to know, that's all I need to know. For many in our day and age, we think that Christianity is a religion of do's and don'ts. That's what we boil it down to. I don't drink and I don't chew and I don't go with girls who do. But at its heart,
00:19:46
Speaker
Christianity is about reconciling people to God first and foremost. It's about putting people back in right relationship with a God who loved them so deeply he pursued them from the ends of the universe and sent his son to pay a price that we could not pay for ourselves. And this was Paul's primary concern in all things. Fourthly, he encourages us to follow those who are continuing to grow spiritually and not those who are stagnating. Look at verse 10.
00:20:16
Speaker
He says, my goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. That word know there is not know like mental knowledge. Paul obviously knew all of this stuff. He's the one that's been traveling and preaching it and teaching it to the new believers.
00:20:32
Speaker
What he's talking about here is knowledge in the sense of intimacy with these things, becoming closer to them, becoming more engaged with them. He's saying, like a man who's very deeply in love with his wife, I want to wake up every single day and experience you in a new, different, deeper way. I don't want my relationship just to rest on something that happened back then. I want it to keep getting deeper and more intimate and more engaged and more involved.
00:21:00
Speaker
It's like the old story of the man who was sitting on the front porch one day and his wife came to him and said, baby, do you love me? And he said, well, yes, honey, I love you. He said, are you sure you love me? He said, yes, baby, I love you. And she said, well, how come you don't ever say it to me? And he said, don't you remember 45 years ago when I married you, I said, I love you. And if anything changed, I'd let you know. Some of us have that approach with our relationship with Christ.
00:21:27
Speaker
We can hang our hat on some decision we prayed 10 years ago. Jesus, I want to follow you. Our camp experience when we were eight years old or maybe as a teenager, we went on some retreat and we accepted Christ. And that's all we have to hang our hat on because we've never moved beyond the initial experience with Jesus Christ. Paul would later tell others, he would say, you know what, you're still drinking the milk of the word. You should have moved on to the meat by now.
00:21:52
Speaker
You're still focused on Jesus loves me, this I know, which is great, which is powerful, but you should know more than that at this point. You should be much deeper in your faith. And the problem for Paul and for many of us is that as we look around us, what we see is people who are pushing forward but looking back.
00:22:11
Speaker
We're looking back, sometimes holding on to things that we should have let go of a long time ago. Sometimes we're looking back and making excuses for why we're not more engaged with Jesus. Sometimes we're looking back because it's more comfortable back there, it's more familiar back there. And if you're going to follow Jesus Christ, He is going to call you in places that are uncomfortable. He's going to call you into places that are different. We talked about this last week. Following Jesus means there's going to be change.
00:22:40
Speaker
And change can be an uncomfortable thing for us, especially those of us who like our tried and true ways. But Paul says, keep pushing forward and follow those who do likewise. Let me tell you something. If you're a leader, if you consider yourself a leader in Christ Jesus as part of this church, people should notice the difference in you from a year ago.
00:23:03
Speaker
They should see that there's something different about you. In fact, I would argue that most every believer should be able to point back and say, this is who I once was, but today I'm something entirely different. Because if you've been a Christian for a year and you haven't changed, there's a question of whether or not you are really a Christian. Because Christianity is about growth.
Spiritual Growth and Leadership
00:23:24
Speaker
It's about a reshaping of your heart and your soul to be like the person of Jesus Christ.
00:23:29
Speaker
And so if you are comfortable with who you were a year ago, five years ago, and you're still in that place, then I would question whether the Holy Spirit is shaping your heart at all. Because if you're in a genuine, alive, and dynamic relationship with Jesus, He is always calling us into deeper places. He's always calling us into greater intimacy.
00:23:50
Speaker
And so every single day in your journey should be about, okay, Jesus, what do you have to do with me today? What do you have to change about me today? How can I be more like Christ than I was yesterday? So I encourage you to keep growing. 1 Timothy 4, verse 12, Paul would encourage Timothy with these words.
00:24:13
Speaker
As soon as I find it, there it is. Don't let anyone despise your youth, but set an example for the believers in speech and conduct and love and faith and in purity. Look at those areas. Ask yourself this question this morning. Am I setting an example for other believers in the way I talk, in the way I act, in the way I love others, in the faith I display, and in the purity of my life? Am I setting that kind of example?
00:24:39
Speaker
We've been talking all morning about finding people in our lives to be our mentors, but is your life an example for others who are following after you? Look how he finishes this. He says, practice these things, be committed to them so that your progress may be what? Evident to all. There should be a difference in who you are. If you look like the world, it may be because you're still part of the world. If the world looks at your life and doesn't notice a difference,
00:25:09
Speaker
that it may be time for some real deep soul searching that says, okay, how am I being shaped into the person of Jesus Christ? Lastly, follow those who eagerly await Jesus's return, not those whose minds are on earthly things. Verse 17.
00:25:28
Speaker
He says, join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us. For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. They are end as destruction, their God is their stomach, their glory is in their shame, and they are focused on earthly things. He's saying the people who follow after the world are just interested in the physical stuff.
00:25:55
Speaker
They're just interested in the material gain. They're interested in that question we talked about last week.
Maintaining a Heavenly Perspective
00:26:01
Speaker
What's in it for me? He says our citizenship is in heaven and we eagerly await for a Savior from there the Lord Jesus Christ. We eagerly await a Savior from there. Ultimately, regardless of their words, these people were focused on the then and there.
00:26:22
Speaker
In our case, it would be those of us who are more worried about the here and now. You see, if you're a true follower of Jesus Christ, you don't fear what's to come. You don't fear what's coming down the pipe. You don't fear what's coming in the future. You don't fear what eternity looks like. And then you can tell the test in my mind that you can tell whether or not you're that person is how hard you fight to hang on to the here and now.
00:26:47
Speaker
How hard do you fight to hang on to things? How hard do you fight to hang on to this moment in life? Because if you really, really follow after Jesus with all your heart and desire Him, you don't worry about what comes next because you trust that it's all in His hand. You trust that it's all under His care. It's all under His sovereignty. For years, for decades, in fact, I have heard people say the phrase, some people are so heavenly minded they're no earthly good. Any of y'all ever heard that?
00:27:17
Speaker
Some people are so heavenly minded there's no earthly good. I don't find that to be the problem. I think the problem is that most Christians are so earthly minded they're neither fit for heaven nor earth. Because it's not until you learn to desire the things of eternity in heaven that you can truly live here on this earth the way Christ commanded us to do. Which is to be in the world but not of it. You're gonna have to live on this earth as long as God gives you life. As long as God gives you days to live out.
00:27:48
Speaker
But there will come a point in time where you will have to acknowledge that you are an alien in this place. An alien, something different from the world around us. You can't pursue what the world pursues and be comfortable with Christ. You can't hang on to the things of the world and hang on to the garment of Christ. You've got to choose to be different. And therein you find the joy that Paul talks about throughout this entire book.
00:28:15
Speaker
because when you become a slave to Christ, you are set free from worldly concerns. So I mentioned all those names at the beginning of the sermon, the Dell Murphy's, the Bob Horner's, those guys. I want to mention some other names to you. Bobby Cox, Charles Thorn, Ronnie McNeese, Jerry Winfield, Ridley Baron Jr.
00:28:42
Speaker
You don't recognize any of those names, probably except for the last one, that one was my dad. But those guys became the true mentors in my life. Because as I became a follower of Christ and began to realize that the things of this world just really don't matter, I found those men to be guys who raised the bar for me. Guys who spoke truth into my life, even if it was hard truth. Guys who challenged me, guys who encouraged me, guys who helped to correct my behavior and helped to give me discipline in my life.
00:29:12
Speaker
Those men changed who I was. They weren't home run hitters. They didn't throw touchdown passes. They weren't very well known. But they changed who I was because of the way they lived their life.
Evaluating Mentorship and Personal Example
00:29:26
Speaker
They lived out exactly what Paul had just talked about. They pressed on towards the high calling of Christ Jesus. And in doing so, they set a path and a journey in which I could follow. So there's two questions I want you to ask yourself today.
00:29:42
Speaker
Number one, who is it, and it may be more than one person, hopefully it is, who is it that I can look up to that could be my mentor? Or my example, somebody that's really gonna challenge me to be a better person, a better follower of Jesus Christ. Who is it that's going to set the bar high and not let me just settle for second best? Who is that person who's going to make me more like Christ because they ask me hard questions and pray for me in long hours?
00:30:13
Speaker
But the second question may be even harder. Am I setting an example that others may follow? Is my life one that others may look to and go, there's a man I want to be like. There's a woman that sets a good example for me.
00:30:32
Speaker
I want my kids to grow up to be like her. I want my son to be somebody like him. I want to be a father like that guy is. Can you honestly say that your life is at a place where you're the man of God that others refer to? Are you the woman of God that others would like to be like? I would submit to you that the challenge for us as believers is that we are supposed to be that for one another in community.
00:30:57
Speaker
This is why this relationship with God is about sharing in community with one another, to urge one another. This is what Hebrews talks about when it says we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, people who are cheering us on in the race that we run. The time to find those people isn't when you're in pain and loss and suffering. It's now. So that when the pain and loss and suffering come, you know who you can lean on. You know who you can trust.
00:31:24
Speaker
You know who are gonna be there to pick you up and to hold your arms up for you when you're weary. We need those people in our lives, Paul encouraged us in that. Search your heart, answer those two questions, see where God has you. Will you pray with me? Father, this morning,
00:31:51
Speaker
The question before us is, who are we, really? Who are we when the world's really not our friend, the world's really not our companion, the world's not really what we want it to be? Who are we when the voice of Jesus is the only voice we need to be listening to? And the world's voices are much louder, much more rowdy.
00:32:22
Speaker
They fight for our attention. Are we somebody that the ones who come behind us can follow, can trust? Are we somebody that the world can lean into and find a good example of Jesus? Do others look at us and say there goes a man or woman of God?
00:32:49
Speaker
The only way to get a good answer to this is just to submit ourselves to you. Even right here in this moment, Father, to lay our heart out before you and say, God, search me and try me and see if there'd be any wicked way about me. Search me and try me and see if there's something that needs to be fixed. Search me and try me and see where I need to grow, where I need to step up my following, to step up my obedience. Father, will you do your work in us like only you can do it?
00:33:18
Speaker
And may we stop our resisting. It's in Jesus name I pray, amen.