Sermon Tone Analysis
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Scripture Introduction:
How are you doing?
When we ask that question I wonder if we really want the answer.
And when we answer that question I wonder if we really care to give an honest answer.
My guess is that this falls into the same category of common lies right in there with, “I’ve read the terms and agreements.”
But what happens when you really do answer that question honestly.
Or you really do care about the answer.
That’s what we have in our text this morning.
The Philippians are concerned with Paul.
He has been put on house arrest, chained to a Roman guard, for preaching the gospel and he is awaiting trial before Caesar.
He doesn’t know what his sentence will be.
He has already answered in part how things are going.
He says that the gospel is advancing through his chains and so because of this he is rejoicing.
This morning we get a second part of that answer.
It’s really Paul thinking out loud.
So, how do you think this is going to turn out Paul? How can we pray for you?
He could have answered something vague.
But he chooses to share his life with them.
He let’s them into his thought process.
This is part of the sharing that he speaks of in 2 Corinthians.
He is inviting the church at Philippi to share in his sufferings.
He is sharing his heart with them.
But he is also teaching them.
So listen up as we get a glimpse here into the mind of the apostle Paul.
READ TEXT
Sermon Introduction:
We know that we have this text because the Holy Spirit wanted to give it to us.
This isn’t just inside the mind of Paul this is God speaking to us through Paul’s thoughts here.
But why?
Why do we get this little glimpse into the apostle’s mind?
I think it can teach us a great deal.
I’ll tell you now what I believe God is doing in this text and then I’ll try to show you why that matters for you.
It’s interesting that Paul says here, “what shall I choose”.
Dude, you’re chained to a Roman guard and at the mercy of Caesar.
You don’t have a lot of choice as to what happens to you.
But what Paul means here is, “I don’t know which thing to desire.
I’m not sure what to pray for—what to long for.”
But keep in mind this isn’t divorced from everything we’ve already seen here in Philippians.
We talked a few weeks ago about choice and how grounded love motivates us to choose what is best.
What is more excellent, Paul is asking.
Is it better for me to depart and be with Christ or to stick around and keep laboring for the Philippians?
If love motivates your elbow
He is modeling for us here.
This is what love does.
This is what it looks like when Christ is truly your treasure.
And his answer might be shocking.
You’d think, wouldn’t you, that if Christ is his greatest treasure and he can depart and be with Christ that this is exactly what he would choose.
But he doesn’t.
He seems to say, “stay for your advancement” is what is more excellent.
Something rather baffling happens when Christ is truly our treasure.
We want to give this treasure away and often at great cost to ourselves.
That’s what is happening in this text.
True treasure doesn’t terminate on itself.
True treasure has an impulse to be shared.
How do you most glorify a candy bar?
What I mean is this..how do you most communicate the value of the thing?
If you say, “Oh man, this thing is so good.
My precious.
Let it never be shared.
I’ll keep it all to myself.”
Then you are saying that you believe it’s only big enough for you.
But what if you take a bite and you say, “Oh man, this thing is too good to be shared alone.
It’s going to cost me a piece but I have got to share this with someone.”
I’m going to argue here this morning that true treasure always has the impulse to be shared.
And so why does that matter to you?
Because it’d be a horrible shame to either give your life to fool’s gold or to walk right past the true treasure.
And we have such a capacity for this.
It goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden when our first parents said, “You know that fruit is more valuable than all the others.
I’m gonna reject all these other treasures and put all my eggs in this basket here—this, “fruit that God said no on” basket.
The other day at the park.
Huddle of teens, every head down.
But they aren’t alone in this.
They’ve learned it from us.
A few years ago…Joshua Bell
Story of Joshua Bell.
A few years ago Washington Post did and experiment.
They had a young man named Joshua Bell dress in a ball cap, t-shirt, and blue jeans and play his violin in a busy area during morning rush hour.
During the time about 1100 people strolled past and very few stopped.
But they didn’t know that this wasn’t just an ordinary street musician.
Three days before Bell had played to a packed out Boston Symphony Hall with $100 a seat.
And he was using a 3.5 million dollar violin.
He played for 45 minutes and only 7 people stopped.
He earned $32 and some change.
$20 of that came from a woman who recognized him and got a great deal on this impromptu concert.
All of these people walked past this beautiful music and never stopped or even acknowledged this guys presence.
One guy was so busy listening to his own IPod that he was 4 feet away from Bell and never new it.
Walking right past beauty—they were caught up in the hustle and bustle of life that they forfeited a chance to be captivated by brilliance and beauty.
A guy by the name of Sir Thomas Smith made a great point in his last words, “It is a matter of lamentation that men know not for what end they were born into the world until they are ready to go out of it.”
That’s another way of saying, “I missed it I’ve wasted my life.”
Another prominent man—a Prince of Wales on his deathbed echoed much the same.
“Tie a rope round my body, pull me out of bed, and lay me in ashes that I may die with repentant prayers to an offended God.
Oh! Tom!
I in vain wish for that time I lost with thee and others in vain recreations”.
We a prone to miss it.
We aren’t very good treasure hunters.
So this matters because I believe God is showing us here what it looks like when Christ really is your treasure.
And that matters because Christ is the greatest treasure.
To miss this is to miss everything.
I don’t want you to live your whole life and miss it.
To give yourselves to lesser treasures.
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