Heavenly Passions For Earthly People II, A Passion For His People

Are you there in Philippians 2? I must confess to you. We are going to bounce a bit, so don't be alarmed if you're Feeling a little bit out of kilter with where we're reading But we're going to start in chapter 2 in verse 1 if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ If any comfort from his love if any fellowship with the spirit if any tenderness and compassion Then make my joy complete by being like-minded Having the same love being one in spirit and purpose and do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit But in humility consider others better than yourselves Each of you should look not only to your own interests But also to the interests of others Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus Who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped But made himself nothing Taking the very nature of a servant and being made in human likeness Being found in appearance as a man. He humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and heaven and on earth and under the earth and in every tongue confess That Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father And flip over to chapter 1 in verse 3. I thank my God every time I remember you in all my prayers for all of you I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now Being confident of this that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus It is right for me to feel this way about all of you since I have you in my heart For whether I'm in chains or defending and confirming the gospel all of you share in God's grace with me and God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus one of the great and tragic stories to come out of the Vietnam War Chronicle the death in combat of a young American soldier It seems that the parents were not satisfied with the answer that the defense department gave to them as to how their son was killed As he was simply tagged KIA KIA or killed in action and so the parents began to push the Defense Department and sought for a real answer and after a prolonged and rather difficult time of investigation They found that their son Had died not by an enemy bullet but by misguided American artillery What the government had called friendly fire You can read the whole story in a book by that name friendly fire It's strange is it not that in The United States and around the world in the battle to bring love and light into a dark and dying world many of our best soldiers Go down in friendly fire Oftentimes, it's not the enemy That destroys their heart and their will and their desire to serve but another soldier who extinguishes their light we're going to be looking again this morning at Passion if you weren't able to be with us last week, we began a four-part series on passion And we looked last week at our passion for God and that is still the source of what I'm going to share today That's why we sang joy of my desire. That still is the focal point But God doesn't call us just to live in some mountaintop experience and passionate love with him He calls us to love his people with passion And I want to reaffirm through the course of this message the priorities that will carry our church Not just through the end of 1988 but into 89 and into the next decade and dear ones I want to challenge you if what you hear resonates with what you believe is important as a Christian Then this is a place that you need to be plugged in And this is a place where that passion in you can be stirred and revealed Want you to recall with me the words of Jesus in John 13, and I think it warrants You're just flipping back a few pages turn back to the gospel of John and if you don't have a Bible and I'll encourage you to look on someone's over their shoulder right now. Listen to what Jesus said John 13 In verse 34. He says these words Look at the words with me a new command. I give you love one another As I have loved you, so you must let's say it. So you must love one another All men will know that you're my disciples if you love one another and somehow new ones I Wonder if I can impart to you The power of this setting when Jesus literally knew that he was going to get up from that table walk out and that night be betrayed Standing on the crossroads of his own life Jesus issues a command. It wasn't a command to do more miracles to sing better praise songs it was a command to love one another and I somehow wonder if Jesus would look upon us and Affirm how seriously we have taken this 11th commandment And as I share this message today my heart's desire is not that you would just hear these words because you've all heard them but that somehow the grace of God would penetrate into our hearts and Enable us to do what Jesus said to love one another as he has loved us It's never been easy for the church to fulfill this command Peter cried out as he wrote his epistles at the end of the New Testament. He said Having purified your souls by obedience to the truth For a sincere love for the brothers love one another earnestly from the heart Love one another genuinely he says not just in motion and in word, but genuinely in heart and Then Paul we read here in Philippians as we'll see struggled to get the church to love each other. I Take a little bit of comfort in that. It wasn't just something that developed in the 20th century But all through church history the church has been firing At its own and if we could just somehow allow the grace of God to penetrate The power that would be unleashed as thirteen fourteen hundred people in this church begin to love each other Jesus said the whole world would know They were his disciples And I'm convinced that this city and this Nation is waiting to see if Christians really will love each other or get on TV and talk about each other That's what Jesus wants to know now, what are some of the conflicts that cool the passion of our love Very quickly because I don't want to dwell in the negative I want you to just see if you identify something in you that maybe the Holy Spirit would say son or daughter that's in you Because I want to tell you you'll hear me say it through here The Lord did that to me as I was preparing how many of you when you preach you're the first one that God shoots at okay, I mean his His sword cuts first here if it's gonna matter out there here are the five Spirits that cool your passion five spirits number one. They're in the book of Philippians. I'll move quickly through number one It's put them one at a time. Can we please? Thank you. The first one is the spirit of competition and verses 15 through 17 Paul says in Philippians 1 some are preaching this gospel out of rivalry and jealousy Competition Who has the biggest budget who has the most people coming who does the best job leading home group? Who has the most people buying their tapes? You see in the church Competition creeps in and makes you look at someone and say I could do that better than he can Why is so-and-so getting credit for that? I I can do that Competition makes us look back at a person out there. That's doing their best and says, you know if I did that It'd be a whole lot better In church Sadly, and I have to say this the leadership by and large in the body of Christ is most guilty of this I don't really think it's so much the followership if you will, but the leadership and Television and big events and all this stuff. It breeds competition. I Have to tell you almost every pastor's meeting I go to the first words out of people's mouths is how much and how many? I mean, that's the first thing you hear and that's why many pastors and smaller churches don't go to pastors meetings Even though God may have called them to pastor a smaller group of people Competition cools passion and when it gets in the church It causes us to look askance at people and judge them rather than love them and embrace them I want to ask you a question. When is the last time you were happy that someone else succeeded? Really happy about it. You mean you got a raise? You mean you mean they just made you regional manager Instead of gosh if I had that job I'd be national manager Believe me it's in us So easy when someone else gets blessed for us to rationalize it away Justify it explain it Well, you know I they just happen to be in the right place at the right time and never once think that God wanted to bless The second spirit is the spirit of criticism Paul says in 128 there are people who are opposing you They are opposing you they are criticizing you And what's happening and dear ones nothing can cool passion More than the invisible walls that are built By constant criticism and fault-finding now, I have to say some of us have grown up with it We grew up with parents who were masters at it and so we are inclined that way and it's a gift to be able to see a black dot and a white piece of paper You ever done that show two people a big piece of white eight and a half by eleven white paper and put a dot on it and say what do you see and Some people say I see a black dot and other people will say what see a white piece of paper Well, you know if we begin to major on that if we begin to find fault with everything that comes down the line It won't be long before walls will be built up and we won't be able to transmit the love The care and the concern that's there. I've seen it so many times it cools the passion and creates hostility and and distrust amidst people several years ago when North Way was a younger church a Little prayer group formed and I was told that the purpose of the prayer group was to Pray for the staff and the needs of the church Well, I found out later that really what happened when they got together was they found things about the church They didn't like and they began to pray and pretty soon, you know They couldn't understand why we weren't changing the things they didn't like and that group has since disbanded I have to say sadly that all four of those people Have gone other places and that's what happens you see criticism builds walls and eventually cuts you off Can I ask you today examine your heart make sure that that's not slipped in You know when you sing eight choruses on a Sunday morning, don't remember the one you didn't like When you see one person that just seems to be too demonstrative and I know here we have people today with us visiting that You know, this is really an expressive church and you see one person you think well, that's really a fanatic Give him room Allow room for people the third spirit that will creep in and destroy your passion Is the spirit of control? Paul writes about this and I think it's at 4 2 chapter 4 in verse 2 and he talks about those Who'd slip into the body at Philippi? And he said I plead with you syndicate and Yodia That you would agree with each other and not fight for control. That's what he said Help these women who have contended at my side To make peace you see control dear ones is lust And I just suddenly all the teenagers looked up Okay The spirit of control is the spirit of lust That's what it is lust is anything that you want to possess as your own you want to control it For your benefit. That's what lust is It's not just sexuality and the spirit of control slips into the church and slips into people But can I say this that same control has ruined? countless marriages when one spouse or the other decides they're gonna control the temper and the and the tenor of that marriage and Passion dies in a marriage like that in no time in a church when someone or some group or someone within a small group in A home group whatever when they decide they're gonna control it And they take it out of God's hands. That's the initial death knell Because the spirit of control leads on to the next spirit that we see the spirit of confusion you see control brings anger Listen to me You know, I'm saying is right when you're being controlled you may submit but you don't like it and it creates anger and anger That's not dealt with what happens to it Goes down deeper. What is anger repressed? bitterness and bitterness gets down in there and hate wells up and dear ones if these things aren't dealt with division follows and confusion and the reason why we're so permeated with divorce and separation the reason why the church has so many splits I'm not saying this church I'm saying in general around the nation is because we've allowed these spirits to multiply and to just feed on our weaknesses And our passion has been cooled and it is always easier to run away Than to deal With the real hard issues and at the bottom of all this Paul would say in the book of Philippians is the spirit of pride the spirit of pride has slipped in and has Vainness has gained mastery over the people Very interestingly, it's often the people who do well who fall prey to this spirit in 2nd Chronicles 26 16 Uzziah is spoken of as having had great victories for the Lord. And here's what it says. I'll just read it for you 2nd Chronicles 26 16 and When he was strong he grew proud to his own destruction independence personal judgment quarreling in Order to contend for one's own way. All these are evidences that pride isn't working Wednesday night. I spoke directly out of 1st Corinthians 3 asking That we as a church would face the fact That when those kinds of things exist dear ones, we are not mature it doesn't matter how wonderful the music is or how great the miracles might be or how happy as much as we want those things and I want them as much as you I love that But maturity is when Christians Take a different attitude than they see in the world when they don't let these spirits rule them when they don't fall prey to control and competition and Pride And it's time we take seriously that we have our destiny before us and As adult believers, we maturely look at what God would be saying to us and change If these are the causes if these are the causes of our conflict and what cool our passion? What are we going to do about it? some years ago One of the brothers it's in fact he's sitting right here this morning. I won't mention his name, but Unexpectedly began to have chest pains Went down To be examined doctor said you've got to have bypass surgery and admitted him into the hospital We prayed for him. I remember visiting him down there in the hospital This was several years ago now and after that the doctor said now a few things are gonna have to change You're gonna have to go on a different diet You're gonna have to exercise more regularly your job pressures are gonna have to change or guess what? You won't be here to get your next report Now, how many of you know when the doctor gives you a serious message like that? You tend to just be willing to change some things, you know And I want to say with the same force The doctor has been looking dr. Jesus and he's saying to the church today look at your heart Change some things here Because the course that we could go on Even as Paul would say to the Philippians that course will lead To your own destruction unless you step in and exercise that which the Lord has given to us And I mean that sincerely church you be responsible for your actions and don't worry about the next person And if every one of us did that do you believe God could take care of putting it all together? So what does Paul tell us to do? Well, let's look get very carefully take your text now and look at Philippians 2 and verse 1 because I want to show you Attitudes that stir our passion. How can we get stirred up again? Well, let me say this number one You've got to know where to get the strength to do it because I could walk out there and say and I've you know I've said to my wife lots of times, you know, we got to correct this thing How many husbands have told your wives you're gonna change? And found it Two weeks two months later back to the same one dear ones. We cannot change unless God pours something into us That's just the way we are. We're stuck But by God's grace we can change and here's what I want you to see I want to give you five specific words That describe what God has given to us in order to enable us to love each other the way he would have us The first word is this look at it If you have any encouragement the second any comfort any fellowship Any affection any compassion In Christ now leave those words up. We have them up there. I Want to see for just one moment Look at those words how many of you that are here this morning with us would say I've received encouragement in Christ Put your hand up I've received comfort from the Lord. I've received that fellowship friendship that we sung up. I've received his affection To be the object of God's affection Wow, I've received the compassion of God put your hand up Now the Greek word if how many have if in your Bible there first if okay that word e I F in the Greek can be translated since or if And the context tells us this is a rhetorical question since there is Encouragement comfort fellowship affection and compassion since it's there and you have received it in being united with Christ Since it's there dear ones Paul says make my joy complete Just put the Holy Spirit in there saying make my joy complete Listen, he's saying if you've received this from Christ and all of you just said that you have or most all of you Then make my joy complete You see this is the source of it God doesn't call you to go out and love one another on your own strength But rather by what you've received to pour it out to those around you let it be and this is an interesting word let's look at affection down there number four I Did a word study in each of these words, but I don't have time to give it to you this morning But on that word that is the word Splunk now in the Greek Which means forgive me ladies it means the guts of it all Paul is saying and if you look back in Philippians 180 saying I love you with the affection the guts the bowels of Christ In other words, my love doesn't come because I have to do it. My love comes because down inside. I've got Christ pouring out And there is a big difference How many know that anytime you go to love someone in your own strength, it just kind of shows. Hi, you know It's great to see you today But when God puts the love in your heart It's a whole different thing when it's down in your guts Down in the bowels it's for real And Paul then says if that's in there then translate it out into a different attitude and that's where we have three words I told you you're gonna get a lot of stuff today. All right, I see two pens moving. That's great Three words that this translates into here the attitudes that you're to gain Paul says have this same love Have the same spirit and have the same purpose. Let's look at those three words straight across there number one Have the same love the same agape. Oh who sees that word before you've seen it before I got back the same level And that word really means in your heart of hearts Have the same love and then he says in your souq a in your soul In your will have the same will among yourselves and number three Have the same purpose the word for now really means mind and look at the right-hand column there have the same heart the same will the same mind dear ones when God Enlivens who Christ is in you you can have the same heart the same will and the same mind is every person in the body of Christ That's what he wants. He wants us to have this oneness this attitude of unity together The last thing I want to see happen is for us to walk out here and say well, you know, that's great We ought to try harder to love each other. It won't happen It's got to be a conviction that Jesus has put it in and then we take it and live it out together Jesus said this he said Whoever would be great Among you and this is the really the bottom line of it. I'll make it simple. He said he must be your servant Become a servant. That's what it's about Let's reduce it down to one word be come a servant, you know, there's a difference between serving and being a servant Let's just say that a few of you invite me over to lunch after church, I'm not asking for invitation. In fact, I've got one Over here at the banquet but you decide that I'm going to go to the earners for lunch today and Dave comes out and he starts bringing out the hot dogs and the beans and the jello and then he brings out the roast beef and the potato salad and But all along Dave could be doing that serving me but inside he's probably saying boy I wish he'd go home because I want to watch the football game. I Want to go to bed I'm tired of in church all day You see you can do acts of service, but the Bible is saying here. Look at verse 8 of Philippians 2 Jesus became a servant verse 7 By very nature. He became one And I've asked God to show me have I become a servant in my heart. I have to say to you. I need work I Need work Jesus said the greatest among you will be the servant of all You say well, you know in the marketplace that doesn't work Jay when I go out there if I become a servant to the people In my office, I'm dead. I mean, you know, they're gonna knock me out I just want you to know that a person who sets their heart to serve is gonna have to face fear that God isn't in control and What's going to confront you is fear is God really in control. Can I serve my brothers my sisters the people around me? And what's God do what he said he'd do Or do I have to take control and operate God's way for him? The answer is up to you, but it's a tough one Become a servant Jesus said and the greatest of you will become the servant of all It only happens as you receive Those five qualities and all that Jesus gives to us now if you do that here are the actions that will show forth your passion Let me just conclude with these. These are the actions that will come actions that show forth your passion Well number one we read it over in Philippians 1 Paul said I pray for you always I pray I pray with thanksgiving and with joy You see when you become a servant Prayer Becomes a joy because you are getting in touch with the deepest needs of people Can I tell you when my passion for this church is rekindled the most? When I get up here in the steps of this platform at 6 a.m. And I hear a man say God I've been out of work for seven or eight months now And I don't know why this is happening and I come alongside of him and I agree with him in prayer I want you to know something of love has rekindled in my heart when I hear a woman cry out and say Two of my three kids have rejected God and are out doing their own thing Then I begin to care for real people in their real heart. There's no more intimate act really than praying with somebody It bonds your heart it's a wonderful thing And that's really why husbands and wives we need to pray more together because that love just Begins to be rekindled when you enter in to a prayer partnership together I Know I stand before God. I know you know what I believe When we stand before God, he'll probably let us start by being with the people we prayed with the most There's nothing more selfless than intercession. There's nothing more servant hearted and praying And especially as you pray with others So let's get that down straight and believe God in it number two We partner together You see passion is stirred in people who partner together And Paul talks all through here about partnership in verse 1 verse 4 of chapter 1 He says thanks for your partnership, and I want to talk to you just for a couple minutes about partners in our ministry You know this platform has all kinds of people that come on and we say great It's wonderful to have them sing or to have somebody minister the word or whatever But you know there's people in this church who quietly behind the scenes they're partnering in our ministry There are people who have a gift of listening and helping people. I think of Walton Doris Spiker Just volunteer hours and hours and hours just to listen to people But they're partners in the kingdom. I think of John Kennedy who every week Goes to st. Barnabas and sits and meets with the retarded and the disabled and When he can brings them here to church to worship with us partnering in the gospel Think of Charlotte Rowe who goes down into the prisons and into the nursing homes and wherever people can't get out she goes in And speaks about Jesus and about his love and about his grace And partners in the gospel. I think of all the times when I'd show up here in the building would already have been up and the lights on the heat up and the sound going because Gene rinks partnering in the gospel Little hidden things that no one even thinks to mention little ways in which people demonstrate That they're partners that they're sharing in the ministry that God's called us to have together. I think of Dave and Joyce Erdner and their times Countless hours with young people stuck in a rut in drugs and alcohol when the world would give up on them And say this person just can't be changed Like the other night when Joyce looked right in my eyes in this doorway and said that may be what the state says But I say they can I I believe they can be changed by the grace of God. You see these are partners And it's a strange phenomenon because these people don't have time To shoot friendly fire and kill off fellow soldiers. They're too busy doing the kingdom work And can I say to you sometimes things don't even work out the way you thought they would I'm not standing up here saying It's all gonna be glorious You know I I think about lighthouse last year and I think of all the hours that Certain individuals put into that ministry and just didn't it didn't go where we thought it was gonna go But I'll say this none of those soldiers shot one another and they're back here praying saying okay Lord. Give me my next assignment I'm still part of the army of God. I Still want to go on and do what you have for me to do You see church Passion begins to stir. I mean I have a just a deep love a deep pride In my spirit when I see the church partnering when I'm sitting on a sidewalk with other people Because we believe in something higher than our own well-being I can't tell you if you're not involved in some partnership in the gospel. You're missing one of the great passion builders in the body of Christ finally Paul says You show your passion by partaking of one another's grace Verse 7 of chapter 1. He says share in my grace partake of it This can be so much words, but let me just make one illustration As I look around the church today, you know, it's easy for me to say I need you brother and I need you But how many of you really believe that if you didn't have other Christians that you wouldn't make it? So there's a difference there and no matter how mature You may be you never mature past the place where you don't need somebody else Friday evening The elders who are in town and were available came to our home for a night of elders fellowship With our wives and we hadn't done that for a long time. And I know that I arrived I was let's see That was eight o'clock and I had not stopped from getting up at five in the morning with wedding rehearsal I said walked in there And was hoping that no one came. That's how I felt about it. Okay? Grant Smith followed me in and said something worse than that and you know, he had the crud or something like that Bless his heart. He came anyhow So all the elders arrived full of faith and vitality, you know And I think subliminally asking the question do we really need to do this? Have you ever asked that question? Do we really need to be together? and as we moved into a time and we just opened up and said well, let's that's this share our hearts and we went around and as each man and woman shared their need and their burden I was stirred in the Deepest part that you see I I was able to deposit a little bit of the grace of God in my life into Jean and Arlene and and they into me and and See we began to just to multiply what God had put into us So that as those hours went by instead of being more and more wearied I was more and more encouraged that something was happening inside The reason why we plead with you to get into groups around here isn't so that we can you know Tick off some kind of chart, but so you can partake of the grace that's on one another I need your grace and you need my grace and we need one another's grace Grace is not just some little thing God puts in your life Grace is not just some little thing God puts in your head for you Stop seeing yourself as some kind of a bottle with a cap and see yourself as a channel with a flow That's what you are Let the grace of God flow through you and I promise you today if we'll do that If we'll pray If we'll partner and if we'll partake of grace and we'll let this same mind be in us Which was in Christ Jesus this mind of a servant that the friendly fire will stop And the healing and the love that God wants to pour out in this church is going to be multiplied And the whole world will know that we're his disciples. Can we stand and pray together? Thank you father Morning people of God, let's stand Are you bringing sunshine in with you? We have a great service this morning as we come before the Lord and honor him with our praises Let's begin with a word of prayer and then we'll sing together heavenly father We assemble today in the mighty name of Jesus and we now set apart These next 90 minutes or so to your glory Believing that you have ordained that this assembly Come together to encounter your life to be touched and to be Strengthened and encouraged to go on and live as light shining in a dark world bless us Lord and Now mold us together as we come as your people the people of God.