Well, I bet you have a favorite TV show. The kind of show that regardless of what is happening in life or regardless of how many times you've watched that show, you can go back and you can watch at any time. Maybe there's a favorite episode of that show. Maybe it's not a show, maybe it's a movie. But I bet you have something like that.
That again, no matter what mood you're in or whatever else may be going on, if that comes on, it kind of captures you and you can relax and just rest and watch that show. I've got mine. I've got shows like Scrubs. I love that show. I love the Big Bang Theory.
I think that's hilarious. I love this really weird, obscure TV show called the It Crowd. I could watch episodes of that over and over again. Funny stuff, right? And I bet that you probably have your favorite music.
And so there's an artist or there's a song. Maybe there's a song that means something to you that if you hear it, it kind of causes you to pause or stop or listen or may. Maybe you're in the car and you hear it and you just kind of slow down and it takes you back somewhere else. Maybe when life is hard or even when life is good, do you find yourself kind of going back to that music and listening again? And it resonates something within you.
It's what you go back to. I've got my music, the stuff that I like. I think of bands like Mumford and Sons or Linkin park or this very strange, obscure band called Me without you that no one else in my family likes. But I like them. I bet you probably have a favorite Bible verse.
Maybe not just a verse. Maybe it's a story. Maybe it's a chapter somewhere that just is meaningful to you. And again, it doesn't matter how many times you read it, you keep going back to it and you keep finding something new and valuable from it. Maybe in hard times you find yourself going back there.
Maybe in the dry seasons when you don't really feel God or you're not really connected. It's kind of the place that you go back to and start over again. I've got a spot like that, too. My favorite place in the Bible is Philippians Chapter two. It's my most favorite place.
I think it is one of the most profound and clear chapters in the New Testament. I think that it has this ability to tell the gospel story, the gospel message to all people in a very simple and concise way. And I say all the time. I think that any sermon that's ever preached, any lessons that's ever taught, I think they could all be tied back to Philippians Chapter two. I think it's that foundational, that significant.
And it's just, it's a simple writing from a guy named Paul to a church in a little town. It's called Philippi. And he writes to the Philippian people and he loves the church. He loves the people. He wants to encourage them and spur them on, help recognize a few things.
And so what I want to do this morning is I want to walk through half of Philippians Chapter two. And I think that within it you're going to see that there's a link to forever. In the middle of this little section we're looking at, there's this little phrasing, there's this little moment where there's this vision, this catch of something that is forever. Something that we've been talking about the last few weeks. But it's also going to reveal something that's going to feel fairly heavy because this isn't just ooey gooey.
This isn't like something happy necessarily. Although it is a very happy scene. It also comes with this weight to it that the reality is forever impacts every single part of your life. Forever makes everything in your life way more important than including the people who live around you. It makes them way more important than they would have been otherwise.
And if you're a Jesus follower, if you're someone who's already pledged allegiance to Jesus, you declared that he is your Lord and your Savior, then the weight of this message today is going to reveal that forever says you have a mission field. That's what it's going to look like. Philippians 2, starting in verse 1, says, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in 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 of one mind. Now, Paul starts by laying some qualifiers here. He starts by asking these questions.
Are you encouraged by Jesus? Are you comforted by Jesus? Do you share in the Holy Spirit? Do you receive tenderness and compassion from God? Are these things true of you?
Now, if you're a Jesus follower, the answer to that should be yes. You should be experiencing some blessings of being united with Jesus. If not, then that probably deserves some diagnosis. If you can't say yes to these things, but you think you're a follower of Jesus, then you probably need to Work through why you aren't experiencing those things. But if you are, Paul says that experiencing these blessings of God should turn into being like minded and sharing the same love and being one in spirit and mind with one another.
Paul says that what Jesus is doing in you and what Jesus is doing for you is connected to what Jesus is doing in your spiritual community and what he's doing for your spiritual community. You see, you're not an island. The work that God does in you is bigger than just you. He goes on. He says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.
Rather in humility. Value others above yourselves. Not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. In your relationships with one another have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.
Paul says that the work that Jesus is doing in us has direct application to the relationships that exist around us. What he's doing in you turns into what he's doing in us. And so Jesus work should cause us to elevate one another above ourselves. Jesus work causes us to pursue humility. Jesus work causes us to set aside our own interests and to pursue the needs of those who are around us.
You see, you are not an island. And that the work that Jesus is doing in you is supposed to somehow come up out of you. It's supposed to infiltrate into the lives of the people who live around you. And what Jesus does in us turns into what we do for one another.
And then it's kind of interesting. It's like, I don't know, sometimes I like to read Paul's stuff because it's like he has add and so like he says something, this little simple statement about your relationships with one another. You should have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. And then that causes him to just think of something else and he breaks out. Like in this poem, song.
It's kind of strange, it's a little bit different. If you can see it in your Bibles, it'll be easier to see than on the screen where I just have it in paragraph form. But if you look at it, you can see that it's, it's set up like it's written like lyrics to something. It's some sort of song. He just, he thinks of this moment, this power of Jesus breaks out into song.
And it looks like this. He starts talking about this mindset of Jesus, he says, who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own Advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant. Being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
And what he says in this little song that he just breaks out in, what he says is that Jesus is the one guy who has the right to claim God, that he is God. Which means he has the right to claim all the benefits that God would have. That if there was ever a man who deserved the blessings and the honor and the glory, it was Jesus. He was the guy who could have laid claim to any of those things, and yet he did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. That's a wild statement.
It's crazy. It's so counter to anything that we would ever do.
New Testament says that Jesus didn't have a home.
The one who created all things lived without a house. Strange.
He went around and he healed people and he fed people. And it seems like he kind of lived on what he needed to just barely get by. Strange. Strange. He faced temptation, he faced opposition, he faced ridicule, and he even accepted death.
Now that part isn't surprising. If you accept life, then you accept death. That piece kind of makes sense. But he didn't just choose any death. He accepted a shameful death.
He accepted an embarrassing death, a painful death.
And don't forget, before Paul goes off in his little ADD moment here, don't forget what he was trying to say, that all of this is somehow connected to the relationships that you have with other people. Paul says this is the mindset that shapes how we treat people. He's not done with this song. He keeps going. He says, therefore God exalted him speaking to Jesus to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
And every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. It's interesting verses breaks down to this little poem, this little song. And it's interesting because within all of this, the one word he uses that kind of stands out is that word should. Because this is kind of like a present tense text that there's this incredible God who's done this incredible stuff. And the appropriate response for anyone should be to bow their knee.
It should be for them to submit to Jesus. It should be that everyone would proclaim his authority and his glory, his greatness. Means that you should respond now. But this is also a picture of something that's going to happen one day. In fact, the language is very similar to something that happens in Revelation 5, where there's this picture of what's going to happen when everything kind of comes to an end, when life is over and as forever is being ushered in, there's going to be this moment where we're all going to proclaim these truths.
You see, we've been talking about forever the last few weeks. And a day is coming when everyone will proclaim the truths. When forever gets ushered in. Everyone, Every single person you've ever met, everyone that you've ever loved, everyone that you've ever struggled with patience for. Every single one of them will have mouths that proclaim these truths that there is a God and that he has exalted Jesus to the highest place.
And one day everyone's lips will confess it, and then forever will begin.
But don't forget the section that Paul was talking about. This isn't a celebration of Jesus. I mean, it is a celebration of Jesus, but it's a call that our mindsets would match his mindset. In your relationships with one another have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. Remember, this poem is all about this incredible forever.
It's beyond this incredible forever that awaits us. It's about the way that forever shapes the way we treat people. Forever says everyone will have to deal with how they have responded to God. And forever says that there's some sort of an implication on you and how other people are prepared to see God. How you treat people will either help prepare them or will help push them away.
That's the end of Paul's little add moment, his little poem song that he does. But he gets back to his big idea. You go to the very next verse, verse 12. He says, Therefore, my dear friends, as you've always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
Because there is a forever, because Jesus is king and because he will one day be honored as such. Because God is real and because he will win.
Obey what Jesus and the rest of the New Testament teaches us. That's what Paul says. The first appropriate way to respond is that you would obey. And he says that you would continue to let your salvation impact the way that you live. He says, continue to work out your salvation with fear and tremulous that this salvation that you've had that exists with within you would somehow bubble up out of you, that it would have impact on the things around you, that your salvation would work its way to the surface and it would begin impacting the people around you.
And then he says, do everything without grumbling or arguing, which is so strange to me as he's laying this whole big picture out of this work that Jesus is doing in us and how significant it is. He says that you got to start by obeying what Jesus has taught us. You've got to work on your salvation. Let it come up out of you. I feel like there's so many other places he could have gone with his third thing that he calls us to do so many things that he could have said.
And yet Paul swings towards do everything without complaining or arguing. It's a strange statement to me.
Until you get to the next part, it creates this question, why? Like, why would that be the thing? Well, here's his answer. So that you may become blameless and pure children of God, without fault and warped and crooked generation, and then you will shine among them like stars in the sky. He gives us two motivations.
The reason you continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, the reason that it comes pouring out of you, the reason that grumbling and complaining and arguing are so significant and we're going to single those out, is because, first of all, we want to look like the children of God. That we want this Holy Spirit to be working in us and shaping us and making us into who he's called us to be. That's significant. But the second reason, the second motivation is for the people around you. The reason these things need to be working in you.
The reason there needs to be obedience and the reason there needs to be this continual work of salvation pouring out of you. And the reason you want to go through life without complaining and arguing is because there's people around you watching.
And when you get this right, you're going to shine like a star. Now, I want you to go back to the beginning of the chapter. It starts with this whole idea of being unified. Now, it's not the kind of unity that can be found anywhere else in the world. It's not some sort of a unity that exists because we all agree on everything or because we have all the same similar personalities or things in common like that.
That's. That's not really unity. That's conformity. No, at the beginning of this, Paul calls us to unity and it suggests that we don't agree on everything and that we don't have everything in common, and yet we choose to commit to one another anyway. Because there is one thing that we agree on.
We believe that Jesus came and existed on this earth, that he was the Son of God and that he died. But when he died, he did not stay dead. And yet he rose to. To new life. And we believe that there's a promise that that same thing is offered to us, that there's a future resurrection that is yet waiting for us.
That's the thing that binds us together. That is the unity that Paul's talking about. Now, I want you to imagine. I want you to imagine a unified people who care more for one another than they do for themselves, putting aside their own interests for one another, like we saw at the beginning of this chapter. And then I want you to imagine a unified, selfless people putting their needs of one another above themselves, who are also living according to what they believe.
They're working out their obedience and they're working out their salvation. And they're doing so without complaining. And they're not arguing with one another about it. And I bet that if you saw a community of people like that, it would stand out like stars, the night sky, don't you think? Wouldn't it be so different that you would sit up and take notice?
We live in a culture right now where it seems like division and anger and arguing, like that's actually the common language and the common tone. Wouldn't you notice a people who weren't living that same way?
And don't you think it would draw you in?
Wouldn't you want to be part of something like that?
There's a guy named Peter who's a follower of Jesus. He wrote something very similar in another letter. First Peter, chapter two. He said, live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits. Visits us.
Because here's the reality. It just says live good lives. I mean, that's one thing. That's what we talk about, like obedience, working out your salvation. That's all like normal kinds of stuff.
But you have to realize you're not doing it in a bubble, that there are people all around you witnessing this salvation that you ascribe to live such good lives. It sounds like shine like stars, doesn't it?
Paul says there's a forever, and in that forever we're going to proclaim Jesus as king, and that that forever impacts us now and how we live. And then that impacts the people around Us. Which means you are the mission.
If you're sitting in here today and you've never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, I want you to know you're the mission. It's all about you. The reason Jesus came into this earth and the reason that God did what he did through Jesus and his death and his resurrection and all that work, it was all about you. It's all for you. You are the mission.
But I'll also tell you this. The second you accept it, the second you choose him as your Lord and Savior, the second you come up out of that baptismal water, it is no longer about you. It changes just in an instant. It's no longer about you when you join the team.
It's no longer about you. It means that you move from the mission to missionary.
You see, Forever says that you have a mission field. The last two weeks we've been talking about the mission field that exists inside your home. We've not used that kind of language, but it's been true. We've talked about the mission field of your spouse, the mission field of your kids. But guys, it's bigger than that.
Forever says that you're a missionary with a mission field and with a message that forever is coming. And you have the opportunity to either push people away from God or you can pull people closer.
See, Forever turns your job into a mission field. I don't know if you've ever thought about it like that. Years ago. I've been in ministry for over 20 years. But there was this little space in time when my family moved back down to West Texas for a couple years.
And I was working for a church part time, but I needed another part time job. And so my mom was managing a urology office for four different doctors and she needed someone to come in and just do like simple file clerk type work. And I needed some money, some work. And so I would go in every morning for a couple hours and work for her. And I can remember the first day where my mom introduces me to the rest of the staff as her preacher's son.
And I don't know if you guys know this, but usually that's off putting to people.
Usually when people find out I'm a minister, they're less interested in talking to me. And I saw that happen within that work environment. There was one particular woman who was a lesbian. She worked in billing and she had assumptions about who I was. She was uneasy around me, uncomfortable.
But over time we became friends. I was able to treat her with kindness like I would anyone Else, I treat her with humor like I would anyone else. I treat her with compassion and kindness. I remember at one point she had some sort of a surgery and was out. And my wife and I took some meals to her and her family.
And I watched how she looked at me change. And over time, we became friends. Like I said, eventually I was the person that she wanted to have spiritual conversations with. And it gave me opportunities to share Jesus with her in a way that she hadn't heard before. And I don't know where she is today.
I don't know what her relationship with God looks like. But I do know this. I know that I didn't have a job. I had a mission field. I had an opportunity to help prepare people for eternity, or I could push them further away from God.
And how hateful would you have to be to not care about people's forever future?
Say, I don't have a job at a mission field. See, forever turns your friend's backyard into a mission field. My wife and I had some friends up in Indiana who were great friends. We spent a lot of time in their backyard, became close with them, became kind of a spiritual resource and help to them. And still very close friends of ours to this day.
What's really interesting to me is the way that they used us in their backyard. They would begin inviting their friends over, and they found it quite fun to introduce us as the minister and his wife. Just to bother their friends and to make them uncomfortable. And that was nice, right? And we could see how they were uneasy with us and how uncomfortable they could be.
But over time, when we treated them with the same kindness we would anyone else, and we treated them with the same humor that we would anyone else. When we treated them with the same compassion that we would anyone else. We eventually became friends. And I and my wife slowly became spiritual resources for some people who were very far from God. We became trusted friends.
And it led to spur of the moment, spur of the moment weddings. It led to people just stopping by the house just to talk, ask for advice, ask for counsel, and so much more. And I could look back and I could tell you that we were just hanging out in my friend's backyard. But I can tell you that I wasn't there. I was on a mission field.
I was in a place where I had an opportunity to help prepare people for eternity or to push them further away from God. And how hateful would you have to be to not care about people's forever future?
Forever turns your neighborhood into a mission field. Forever turns Your ball field into a mission field. Forever turns your school into a mission field. Forever turns your favorite restaurant into a mission field. Forever turns your tailgate into a mission field.
Do you get it? There is no place that you go that is not your mission field. Everywhere you go, in every interaction you have, you are preparing people for eternity. And you can either push them further away from God or you can pull them closer. And how hateful would you have to be to not care about how you treat people and how it could be impacting their forever?
And so forever says that you don't have a whatever it is, fill in the blank. It doesn't really matter. You have a mission field. Forever turns every place you go into mission field. And you may not feel like a missionary.
You may not feel called, you may not feel qualified, you may not feel prepared. I don't care. You're wrong.
You're wrong. If you're a Jesus follower, you are called. John 20, verse 21. Jesus tells his disciples as the Father sent me, so I'm sending you. And then you know what they did.
Those disciples eventually died. But before they died, they said, hey, as Jesus sent me, I'm sending you. And it's just happened generation after generation to this point. If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then you've accepted a calling. You are called.
Whatever places you find yourself are the mission field that you are called to, you are called to pull people closer to God. And if you're a Jesus follower, you're qualified. You are. First Corinthians, chapter one. I love this verse and I couldn't fit it all up here, so just kind of bits and pieces.
But I want you to listen. Starting in verse 26, he says, Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Starting there, remember, because you were called. So remember when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards.
Not many were influential. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world.
And to despise things and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before him. Now if you think that God can't use you, that is evidence to me that you've not been reading your Bible because that's his common practice. God has been using people who are under qualified for a very long time because it turns out when you partner with God, he's got enough qualifications for the both of you.
You're qualified. You're called and you're qualified to pull people close to God. And I'm telling you, you're prepared. If you're Jesus follower, you're prepared. Ephesians 2 says, we are God's handiwork.
We are creating Christ Jesus to do good work, which God prepared in advance for us to do. I want you to know that the people that you've been called to reach are the same people that you are qualified and prepared to reach. We have been created to do the good things that he's called us to. And when God creates you with a purpose, you can bet that you're gonna be prepared. You are prepared to pull people closer to God.
Forever says that you have a mission field.
One last verse. Colossians chapter 4. Paul writes this letter, the Colossian letter, to another church. It's a lot like Philippians. There's a lot of similarities.
He says this towards the end of the book. He says, be wise in the way you act towards outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. It sounds a lot like, do everything without complaining and arguing so that you can shine like stars in my Bible.
Out in the margin, next to these verses, I have three words written down. I don't know when I wrote them. The ink is a bit faded. I don't know who said it. I don't know if it's my idea.
I don't know if I got it from someone else, which is probably much more likely. Don't know if it was in a sermon or wherever else. But out in the margin next to these verses, I wrote out three words. What's your flavor? Are you giving the world around you a different flavor?
Do you stand out like a star on a night sky? Are you offering the world around you anything different?
Are you living in such a way that the people you interact with are getting pulled closer to God, or are you actually pushing them away? This has huge consequences, guys, because there is a forever, which means that there's something on the line. You are a missionary on a mission field. There's something on the line of forever that's on the line. There is a day coming when every single one of us will stand before our maker.
And I hope that you feel really comfortable about that moment. I really do. But I hope you understand that that transfers into the relationships around you, that you're actually helping others become comfortable with that moment, to whatever extent that's possible now. Maybe you are that person in the room who's never accepted Jesus, man. I'd love to give you that opportunity today to begin that relationship with him.
I will be sitting up front. I'd love to have a conversation. We have an elder back in our prayer room who'd love to pray with you and walk through that with you as well, man. It'd be great. It'd be a great day to get right with God.
I want to challenge the rest of you to think seriously about what this means. We've been talking about this all year long. This was our just one thing that we started with at the beginning of the year. This is the In Frankfurt as it is in heaven, this theme just keeps coming up for us over and over again. You have been called into the places you go, your neighborhoods, your workplaces, your friend groups, the places you shop, the places you eat.
It's not random. It's not time just passing. You have a mission field.
I hope you open your eyes to it. Why don't you stand? Let's pray together. God, I thank you so much for how good you are to us and how much you love us.
God, I pray that you would give us a vision for the fields around us. God, help us to see the mission field that you've called us to and help us to be faithful to that calling. Lord, may we honor you in all that we do. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.