Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

ME (orientation) This past summer I started this Traveling Together Series focusing in on Four Principles that help us see who we are in Christ and as a result how to help each other walk with Him.

If I can phrase it differently I would simply say this is a series that shows we need each other and hopefully helps us help each other grow in Christ.

The things we are talking about are not earth shattering but if we choose to follow Christ in these things they will be life changing.

The goal of this series is to helps us see what it takes to do life together well by helping each other know Jesus and share Him with those who do not know Him.

The first principle we covered was the need to be accountable to one another for the purpose of helping each other take steps of faith in our relationships with Christ.

The second was the ambassador principle.

This is the principle that comes out of where Paul states that we are ambassadors for Christ and calls those who have chosen to follow Christ to no longer live for themselves but for Him.

This is essential becuase it is defining.

Paul’s message is that this not an option it is part of who we are by our recreation in Christ.

If I had to do it all over again I would probably reverse the two just to show the need to adopt the ambassador role is part of the believers essential DNA, but the good thing is if you ever go back and listen to them you can listen to them in any order you want.

ME (orientation)

The Ambassador Principle - We are ambassadors of Christ, therefore His priorities are our priorities.

The Accountability Principle - We lovingly act to help each other remove barriers in our relationship with God and others.

We lovingly act to help each other remove barriers in our relationship with God and others.

WE (identification) As we come to our third principle of traveling together I want to emphasis something important.

Like many things in the Christian life these principles are not complicated.

However they take a willingness to engage in Jesus’ mission and to trust Him with the results.

They are born out of the reality that He does nothing by accident and we need to be willing to follow Him in His example.

This brings us to this weeks principle.

WE (identification)

The Intentionality Principle - seeking to follow Christ by ordering our time, resources and attention on our relationship with Him and others.

Being intentional is simply seeking to follow Christ by ordering our time, resources and attention on our relationship with Him and others.

12 Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.

13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it.

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, 14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.

15 Therefore, let all of us who are mature think this way.

And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you.

16 In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained.

That sounds like a lot to me, but if you think about it, this is the call God places on our lives when we decide to follow Him.

In the OT we see verses like where Moses says

God (illumination)

and

and Notice what Jesus says in .

That sounds like a lot to me, but if you think about it, this is the call God places on our lives when we decide to follow Him.

Notice what Jesus says in

Jump to the NT and we see what Jesus says in .

Or what Paul tells Timothy in

Through these four passages along with many others show us the need to walk intentionally with Christ.

To faithfully order our time, energy and resources for His purposes and to travel with those around us to encourage them in their relationship with Christ or share with them if they do not yet have one.

Being intentional is simple.

It is ultimately a choice that we have to make as we walk in the Holy Spirit, but it is not easy.

So how do we do it.

Do we just pull ourselves up by our boot straps and tell Jesus we are going to be faithful?

I think it is a little different.

As I prayed about what passage to speak on for this principle Paul’s words from came to mind.

So lets take a look at that passage.

As you turn there it is important to understand the Philippian church.

The city of Philippi was a retirement town for former Roman soldiers and their families.

They were commited Roman Citizens, which is important for our passage, that was immersed in Emperor worship.

There were temples and alters set up for him.

The city as a whole saw this as their religion so to leave this religion to follow Christ would have been an act of treason in many peoples’ mind.

Knowing what these people were going through as they were rejecting the religions of Rome and their areas helps us see the power of Paul’s call for their lives to forsake not only the patterns of their immediate context but also the patterns of the world and embrace Jesus’ pattern of loving intentionality.

So if you haven’t turn to .

God (illumination)

God (illumination)

This passage gives us insight into Paul’s intentional pursuit of Jesus and in helping the Philippians to do the same thing.

The first things we see is that he doesn't forget that Jesus is still not done working in Him.

Paul probably had one of the most dramatic salvation experiences in all of Christian history.

You can read about it in , but to put it simply the dude was a persecutor.

He sought to end the lives of Jesus followers and to make the lives of those who did not crumble before him awful, but Jesus intervened and showed Paul his sin of rebellion against the God who made him and he repented and recieved Jesus into His life.

Jesus offers this gift to all of us, it is not just for the extremely bad people.

Jesus is clear it is our sin that separates us from God and He came to heal that separation by paying the penalty for our rebellion by accepting the God’s wrath for us by dying on the cross.

But becuase He was sinless He could not stay dead and rose from the grave three days later to offer us this gift of knowing Him.

All this happened for Paul in what we know as , it can happen for you also.

You simply have to admit you have rebelled against God, believe that Jesus is who He said He is and commit your life to Him.

Back to Paul.

His dramatic salvation experience was not the end of his Christian walk but the beginning.

Notice what he says in verse 12.

He doesn't forget that He is not done.

12 Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.

13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it.

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, 14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.

15 Therefore, let all of us who are mature think this way.

And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you.

16 In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained.

17 Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us.

In 3:1 - 11 Paul has just shown how he has the Jewish pedigree, the education and the opportunity that many of the false religious leaders he talks about in this letter strive for, but that he saw all that as stuff as worthless compared to knowing Christ.

His deepest desire was to be known by and to know his King.

That overflowed into his outward ministry.

His phrase here is also an explanation that he is a work in progress.

He understands that while he is still on earth he is going to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior and that ultimately it will only be at the resurrection where he reaches his goal.

This brings us to our first point about being intentional.

Humility is a prerequisite to intentionality.

(Phil 3:12)

We can be intentional and be proud, but godly intentionality where we seek to follow our King requires a clear understanding that we have not arrived.

To live this out we understand that we need a continuing supply of Biblical wisdom, we need others to help us thrive and we need to rest in the fact that Jesus calls the shots for our lives.

By the way that doesn’t mean we do not plan or budget etc.

It simply means we submit everything to Him and in humility follow as He leads.

This is often the hardest thing to do becuase it means we let go of control, and recognize we are really stewards of what God has given us.

So it is at His discretion as to how it is used not ours.

To give you hope though living a life of humility frees us from the junk that often wraps us up in bitterness, rage and frustration.

It is not weakness, but is more like power under control.

Andrew Murray put it this way,

“Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is, from the very nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue of the creature, and the root of every virtue.”

Andrew Murray

If humility is where we start then were do we go next?

Conventional portrayal of a humble life would say we just sit there and take whatever is thrown at us.

However I think God gives us a very different next step.

It is to pursue, the question then is what.