PRIDE AND PERMISSIVENESS

[1][2]WELCOME: Good morning everybody. It’s so good to be back with you today. I’m grateful for a chance to be able to go and enjoy some rest, some time with my family, and some time eating gulf shrimp. I’m also grateful to be able to be with you all. I love you guys and I missed seeing you. If you’re new with us this morning or just now joining us online, my name is Nic Cook and I’m one of the pastors here at Cornerstone. I want to say thank you to Rob for doing such a great job preaching last week, to our elders for leading well, to the Joe for keeping things running and being a great partner in ministry. I also want to thank the people that make our services possible each week who serve in the band, the tech ministry, and keep our facility clean. We’re continuing our teaching…

SERIES: called Choose Joy that is based on a letter in our bibles called Philippians. It was written to a group of Christians in the city of Philippi. A man named Paul who was one of the early churches main leaders is writing to them to help them live lives full of joy regardless of how hard things might be. He’s also helping them deal with some things that are going on in their church. They were experiencing pressure from the culture around them to compromise their beliefs and they were dealing with some internal fighting that was causing some division. It also seems like there is starting to be some difficulties where people are being taught some dangerous things that contradicted the good news that Jesus saves. They were being taught you had to be a good Jew first and then Jesus could save you. You’re only saved if you do enough good things for Jesus. A couple of weeks we talked about how what Jesus did on the cross to save us was enough. We don’t have to do anything else to be saved. That is not just good news, it’s great news. However, one of the things we as human beings struggle with is misunderstanding how to apply the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus to our lives without…

·  GOING TO EXTREMES: We have a tendency to take things and either abuse them or avoid them. Let me give you an example from my vacation this past week. As I mentioned before, I absolutely love gulf shrimp. There’s nothing fresher. It was swimming in the ocean the day before, and then a day later it’s swimming in boiling oil, then it’s on my plate. I don’t really eat shrimp any other time than when we’re down on the gulf because it simply doesn’t taste the same. Here’s my problem. There have been years when I ate nothing but fried shrimp, shrimp scampi, boiled shrimp for days straight. Then I act surprised when my body literally makes me pay for it. My stomach cramps up and I spend hours in the restroom. I have abused God’s good gift of shrimp. Then on the other hand, some people would say, then you should probably just avoid shrimp. They can say that because they personally don’t like shrimp. They’re prideful and can’t imagine someone being so gluttonous in that way. They want me to neglect the good gift that God has given us. Additionally, shrimp may not be their indulgence, it may be something else. So, what do we do? Avoid Shrimp, or Abuse Shrimp? Now before we get too far with this analogy and get confused, let’s…

o REPLACE SHRIMP WITH : When we start figuring out how to live in response to the good news that Jesus saves, we have a tendency to go to extremes. Either we avoid holiness, or we abuse holiness. I’ll explain that a little more, but before I do, let’s open God’s word together to [Phil. 3:17-21] I’m going to pray for the Spirit to help bring understanding and obedience and then we’ll dig in. Let’s pray!

(TEACH/APP) POINT 1 (God)

BACKGROUND: Last week Rob taught us that growing as a Christian means growing in maturity. It means accepting that Jesus is the son of God who came and lived a perfect life, died on the cross as a substitute for us who have lived sinful lives, rose again, and calls us all to run to him for forgiveness and accept him as King of our lives. However, that is the first step, it’s the starting point. There is a process of growing up and becoming like Jesus. Learning to live like Jesus and starting to look like Jesus. They needed to grow up, and become mature. The reason Paul told the Christians in Philippi that they need to “press on” was because he knew the dangers of how people respond to the good news that they don’t have to do anything to be saved. He had seen it in other Christians in the city of Corinth and in Rome. In verses [3:12-16] he’s saying there are people going to the extreme of…

·  AVOIDING THE CALL TO BE HOLY PEOPLE: Before I go much further, I need to explain what “holy” means. When we look at how that word is used in the bible it can have 2 meanings. It means to be PURE. One example of this idea of being pure would be in [1 Peter 1:13-16]. Think about it this way, we have been doing everything we can during this pandemic to be purify things that are sick and contagious. We’re trying to get rid of what causes sickness and death. That’s a process of purification. Peter says you used to be evil, but God calls you Holy, He says your pure, and good, now live like it. Because of the blood of Jesus, we used to be unclean, contaminated with sin that was gross, and disgusting and evil, that lead to sickness and death. But we have been washed and made clean.  Holiness also means to be SET APART and dedicated to God. We can hear this meaning of holiness when we look at [1 Pet. 2:9-10] We’re told that God chose us, set us apart for his work and his purposes. Our job is to represent him and bring others to experience what we have. When we give our lives to Jesus, we are both made pure and set apart for the work of Jesus. The problem is that there is a danger of people who give their lives to Jesus to avoid their calling to be holy. They’re saying, Hey, If I don’t have to actually do anything to be saved other than accept Jesus, then once I do that, I get to be counted as righteous. And that’s true. It’s exactly what Paul said in [3:9]. “I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ.” However, Paul goes on to say, don’t stop there. Press on! Run the Race. Strive to finish well! Keep pursuing the life that Jesus has called you to live as Holy People who are pure and set apart! Yes, God looks at you and sees you as righteous, now go on and begin to live as if that’s true. Learn to live righteously. The problem is that there is a…

o SPIRITUAL LAZINESS that can set in. If God looks at me as perfect, then why should I keep trying? It’s really hard to live the way that God wants me to. Unfortunately, this happens a lot. Someone thinks because they said a prayer at church when they were 8 or went to a camp or conference and got baptized that they’ve got their ticket to heaven. Mission accomplished. All I have to do is wait until I die, or until Jesus comes back. I’ve got eternal fire insurance. They don’t really abuse their salvation, but they’re not growing either. They’re simply adding it to their lives. They’re not really getting worse, but they’re not really getting better either. Their lives look a lot like they did before they gave their life to Jesus, just with less guilt and shame because they know they’re forgiven. Additionally, there is another danger that Paul is warning us about. He says there are people who are…

·  ABUSING THEIR TITLE OF HOLY PEOPLE: They think, alright, my sins are forgiven. God has made me righteous and calls me holy. That means I can live however I want and not worry about the consequences. Paul had dealt with this attitude before when he said [Rom. 6:1] Some people when they find out that God forgives all our sins, past, present, and future, take this and run with it the other extreme. Instead of trying not to sin more than they did before, and be spiritually lazy, they take it as permission to continue sinning more and more and still expect forgiveness without consequences. If God loves to show grace, then I’ll give him more and more chances to show grace by sinning more and more. It’s like the kid who has just had a bath and is nice and clean running out, looking at their parent, and purposefully jumping back into the mud. The scariest part of this is that they claim to be followers of God, but…

o THEY ARE RULED BY THEIR APPETITES, PROUD OF THEIR SIN, & OBSESSED WITH THIS WORLD: What does it mean for someone’s belly to be their god? It means they are driven by desire to fulfill their appetites no matter the cost. Paul had to confront the Christians in the city of Corinth about their out-of-control appetites. He talked about their sexual appetites, he talked about how they had a problem with getting drunk. We live in a world that says, do what feels right, stay true to yourself. Don’t be ashamed of your sin, be proud, celebrate your appetites, wear it like a badge. Paul is saying, if you do, then Jesus is not really your God. Paul warned the Christians in Rome [Rm 16:17-18] There’s going to be people who use the bible to normalize things that are not holy, that don’t honor Jesus. They claim Jesus is Lord, but their driven by their appetites. Paul says he’s literally crying, I’ve watched people say they love Jesus but their lives prove otherwise. He is trying to show us the…

He’s trying to tell us that…

(JC) SAVED PEOPLE DESIRE TO BE HOLY PEOPLE (JC)

Paul says that the life of a follower of Jesus is like a race, we need to focus straight ahead and run and not fall into the ditches of avoiding holiness or abusing the grace and forgiveness of Jesus. We are to do our part in becoming Holy people. I came across this quote from John Wesley a few weeks ago. He says “by salvation I mean not barely according to the vulgar notion deliverance from hell or going to heaven, but a present deliverance from sin a restoration of the soul to its primitive (aka. original) health and original purity the renewal of our souls after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness in justice mercy and truth.” He’s saying the same thing Paul did. God doesn’t want to just save us from hell. He doesn’t just want us to wait to start really living till we get to heaven. He wants to restore us to the way we were intended to be before sin entered this world. He wants to reshape us into who he knew we could be. He wants to restore us and help us live full, abundant, joyful, lives right here and right now in this world. He wants to help us begin to love supernaturally when it’s easier to hate. He wants to help us live lives free of bitterness and unforgiveness. He wants to help us become people who respond with gentleness and kindness instead of snapping at biting each other’s heads off. He wants to help us bring healing to a hurting world by serving those in need. He wants to help us begin to experience in this world more and more of what the next world will be like. He wants us to begin to live and look like Jesus. Paul is saying, someone who has really glimpsed the love of God in Jesus will want that kind of life. They won’t be satisfied with lazy spirituality or abusing grace. So how do Saved people become Holy People? Paul gives us an answer earlier in [2:12-13] He says…

·  WORK HARD WITH THE STRENGTH GOD GIVES YOU: Don’t get confused. Do I work hard to become the kind of person that God wants me to become, or does God make into that kind of person? The answer is yes! It’s not an either or. We are to do our part. We spend time meditating on scripture, we spend time serving, we spend time, praying. But we also are somehow given the strength to do what God wants us to do if we are willing. He helps us to understand and apply scripture and be obedient to it. He helps us as we’re serving. He gives us the desire to pray as we pray. We don’t do these things so that we can be saved. That’s already been accomplished. We do these things because we’re saved, and we want to partner with God in making us who he knows we can become. We work hard with the strength God gives us. What exactly do we do? In [Gal. 6:7-8] we’re told that…

o We Sow, God Grows. Our spiritual transformation into Holy people is described in terms of farming. If you plant pumpkin seeds, you should get pumpkins, not potatoes. The same thing applies to our lives. If we want to see the fruit of the Spirit in our lives like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, in our lives, we need to sow certain things into our lives. We can’t make it grow, but we can plant the right things in our hearts and take comfort knowing that God promises to do his part. As we head towards Easter, we’re in a season that is typically called Lent. It’s a time when Christians of many traditions choose to temporarily give up something to create space that will allow them to sow to the Holy Spirit. The term for this is

§ fasting. We cease doing something so that we can spend more time doing something else. Some people fast from food. Others, like myself choose to fast from social media. I don’t know about you, but I find that when I spend time on social media, I find myself getting angry or envious. Those emotions are usually a sign that I’ve got some issues that God needs to help me grow in holiness. So, you might choose to fast from social media until Easter. Then the next time you reach for your phone instead of opening Instagram or Tik Tok you open your bible app and spend some time reading God’s word. Fast from one thing so you can feast on the word. This is one of the ways that we deal with our out-of-control appetites. Maybe if you struggle with the way you talk, maybe you take a day and decide to practice silence. If you struggle with busyness, maybe you practice sabbath and take a day to do nothing but enjoy God and engage in active restful recreation. We cannot change ourselves, but we can engage in things that allow Jesus to change us. I think many of us have a deep desire to grow in holiness. One of the great frustrations is that I think…

(NXT/INSP) I SHOULD BE FARTHER ALONG BY NOW

Anybody else with me on that one? I get frustrated because even though I have been following Jesus from 32 years, I figured I’d look a lot more like Jesus by now. I wonder, how long is it going to take me to be less anxious, or why do I still have such a hard time not saying stupid things that hurt people? The truth is, if I think about who I was 20 years ago and who I am now, I can see just how much the Holy Spirit has done. Growing in Holiness is slow work. It’s almost unnoticeable at first. But moment by moment, year after year, the Holy Spirit will change us if we are willing to be obedient to Jesus. We don’t do it to earn salvation, we do it because we’re already saved. And one day, I love that Paul gives us the promise that when Jesus returns he will…

·  MAKE US COMPLETELY HOLY: [Phil 3:21] One day we will no longer struggle with sin because Jesus will wipe away sin from the earth and he will give us new bodies that no longer desire sinful things. We will no longer struggle with our out of control appetites because we’ll have new bodies that only hunger for good and beautiful things and never tend towards abuse. But until that day comes, we pray, Holy Spirit, breath of the living God, recreate me in the image of Jesus each moment and each day. Amen!