Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

As a congregation, it has been awesome to rejoice at the new life in our church!

From new members to guests to babies, it’s always a blessing to rejoice at what God has done and what God is doing!

Think for a moment about the thoughts rushing through the mind of a child.

As a child we have our mind set on lots of different things.

We are asked what we want to be whenever we grow up and our minds get awfully creative at the very thought.

From doctors to athletes to astronauts to inventors to stay at home parents to builders, kids want to be lots of different things.

One kid was asked what he wanted to be whenever he grew up and he thought long and hard about the question because it was quite serious… After a few minutes of careful contemplation he answered that one day he wanted to be like his dad.

When asked why the boy replied that his dad was the hardest worker and smartest person that he knew and that if he could just be like his dad that everything would be good.

In our world today kids want to be all sorts of things and they have so many things influencing them both good and bad… But did you know that by and large, whenever children are asked about who their hero is they don’t reply by saying that it’s an athlete or influencer or teacher… They say that their hero is their mom or dad.

As baby humans, we look up to older humans - namely our mom and our dad.

Our moms and dads provide so much for us and for many of us, they are our heroes in some capacity.

As we get older we continue to look up to other people.

Think for a moment about our Christian lives - just as we look up to other humans we’ll naturally look to someone to help us in our spiritual walk.

Who is that person, or who should that person be?

So many people repent of their sins and profess Christ as Lord and Savior and they get to a point in their life where they wonder what’s next… Where do I go from here?

The Christian life doesn’t end whenever we are born again… That’s when our Christian life begins!

As a new Christian, we must look to someone to help us in this new life.

Where should we look?

The Bible is clear that we are to look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith as the preacher of Hebrews states.

In Philippians, Paul has been rejoicing about who Jesus is and how Jesus has provided for Him and for this church.

Last week we studied one of the most intricate passages in the New Testament as we looked at how Jesus, as the eternal Son of God, humbled Himself and came to the earth as the God-man and died on the cross.

We see that Jesus humbled Himself and how we are to adopt that same attitude.

How can we do that?

Where do we turn?

Maybe you’re here and you’re saved and you’re like an 18 year old high school graduate wandering what’s next in life.

After justification comes sanctification.

We are saved to serve and part of serving Jesus includes us listening to and obeying Jesus.

Today Paul will remind his friends about their status and their responsibility to let their light shine.

This is our purpose today too, friends!

To let our light shine and to follow the true hero of history… Jesus Christ!

The Person Who Gives Us Light: God (12-13)

Progressively, people are losing their patience in our world.

Attention spans are getting shorter.

The need for creativity and movement seems to be at an all-time high.

Who here admits to being a little impatient at times?

We’re all guilty from time to time.

There are times where we want to do something immediately and we are forced to wait and it genuinely upsets us.

There are times where even the microwave is too slow for us!

Due to our lack of patience, we often look for shortcuts in life.

Sometimes shortcuts are helpful and positive.

If you have a long drive to make and you’re thinking about going one route only to look on your phone to discover that another route saves you an hour of time you’d probably say that it was a helpful shortcut so that you had more time at your destination.

Some shortcuts are good in life but other times shortcuts create problems.

Think back to your school days whenever the teacher would begin to give your class some instructions on a project or assignment and you initially listen to the instructions but halfway through you tune the teacher out and start working because you think that you know how to do the task at hand.

You start out ahead of schedule because you started before everyone else… But about halfway through the project you reach a question and have no clue what to do!

You think to ask a classmate and they try to explain it to you but it doesn’t quite make sense.

Eventually you have to go to the teacher and ask for clarification and explain that you weren’t paying attention to the instructions.

This shortcut didn’t pay off because you lacked the understanding necessary for the assignment.

We are a society that wants immediate results… But the fact of the matter is that it takes time to bring about change.

It takes time to change the way that we act.

It takes time to change the way that we think.

It takes time to understand a new concept.

It takes time to train for something.

We read in the Bible that our life is like a race… Not a 100m sprint, but a lifelong marathon.

Some of you aren’t thrilled about that, but this is the picture painted by Paul in the New Testament.

A long race takes time to run… You’re not going to be done in 11 seconds, 11 minutes, or even 11 hours.

This will take the rest of your life to run.

There aren’t any shortcuts for us in this lifelong race either.

As a Christian, we are simply called to run after Jesus and follow Him each day of our lives.

In Philippians 2:12 Paul encourages his friends to continue to listen/obey as they have been doing faithfully.

This isn’t about obeying or listening so much to Paul but it’s about listening/obeying Jesus.

In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul puts it like this to the church in Corinthi

Ultimately, our Christian lives are supposed to be about imitating Jesus Christ.

This passage of Scripture is directed toward Christians who have already trusted in Jesus as Lord.

Paul has already reminded them of what Jesus has done in verses 5-11 of chapter 2 and the application found in verse 12 is to simply obey.

To follow after Jesus.

Specifically, to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling.

What are we to make of that verse?

How exactly do we work out our salvation?

Whenever we read something in the Bible, we have to understand its original context.

The context of this letter is to the church in Philippi - to Christians.

Paul is not saying to work FOR your own salvation - that would be a works based salvation that would be due to our goodness.

The Bible tells us that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone.

We don’t work for our salvation - we work it out.

Here’s a way to think of your Christian life: I work out because God works within.

You and I are saved because of God’s grace and work in our lives - we are now responsible to work that out in our daily lives.

We work this out with fear and trembling… This seems kind of odd for some of us because we don’t think of salvation as being something that brings us fear.

Consider who our God is, though.

He isn’t a kitten, He’s a lion.

He loves us, absolutely, but we can’t make God like us and lessen His holiness or make Him more tolerable to our standards… God is completely holy.

In Hebrews 12 we see that we are to worship God with a certain reverence because of who He is

Our God is holy and we are not… He is all powerful.

We have to maintain that truth with the truth that tells us that through Jesus we have access to Him.

We work out our salvation daily with fear and trembling and with the knowledge that Jesus paid our debt.

We’ll get to the working out part in verses 14-18, but first Paul tells us what God does in verse 13.

God is the one who first works in us.

Philippians 1:6 reminds us of this truth

If you’re a Christian, God has saved you and He continues to work in you.

He finishes the work that He starts!

This doesn’t mean that you and I have no responsibilities in our Christian life - we’ll touch on those… But first we have to acknowledge that God is working in us.

God has justified us.

His Spirit begins this work of sanctification.

Sanctification means to grow to be more like Jesus.

This is what God is most interested in for His followers.

God doesn’t save us to stay stagnant.

He saves us to grow to be more like Him.

To reflect His love and truth to those around us! Philippians 1:27 began this idea by instructing Christians to walk worthy of the Gospel - how do we do this?

By reflecting Jesus and imitating Him.

How does God work this process out in our lives?

How do we, as sinners, fulfill God’s purpose?