From Darkness to Light: A Personal Testimony of Salvation (Ethan Owen)

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,

where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to

this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen

you in the word of God.

Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has

for us here today.

All right, so my life has been convincing me it would be good that

I share a little bit more about myself.

So I decided I would share with you my testimony of how I got

saved.

I actually grew up in a Christian home.

We went to church three times a week, sometimes visitation, sometimes

four.

You know, and I grew up in a home where God was always, the gospel

was always given.

And I can.

Made a profession of faith whenever I was about five years old

and I went down there and made, you know, I was scared to go

to hell.

And that was my main reason.

And that was about the extent of what I knew of salvation.

So fast forward a few more years.

Eight years old again, that fear of hell just was just hanging

over me.

And that's.

I needed some, some something, you know, So I got saved again.

If you can do that, then I lived continually my, my life there

in a Christian home.

But that the, the surface level Christianity was, was what

I had come to find as my salvation.

And that wasn't a real salvation.

I didn't understand the true gospel's true meaning of having a

relationship with Jesus Christ.

And so I spent most of my teenage years drinking, doing drugs,

and trying to figure out how to tell my parents that once I moved

out, I wasn't going to church anymore.

And a lot of bad relationships in my high school years led me down

darker paths and darker and harder drugs.

And I remember having a huge addiction and having to consistently

do drugs on a regular basis in order to keep myself from withdrawals.

And this would continue throughout the night.

I would have.

I would go to sleep, wake up midnight and do drugs, go to sleep,

wake up, three o' clock in the morning, do drugs.

And that was just my cycle.

And I remember About October of 2011, I started getting visions

of hell.

And I thought, that's crazy.

Why am I thinking like that?

I. I've already said that.

I've already done that.

I already have.

I already, I'm already saved.

I don't need to do that.

And continuing on down that path, it came about in December where

I was my same old habit, going outside midnight, two o' clock in

the morning.

And on my return, I remember I went outside and did, of course,

what I was doing and came back inside.

I would sneak through my window and come back out.

This was after high school had graduated.

I'm still in there with my parents.

And I came back in through, and I thought to myself, you know,

I can probably go to sleep and then maybe I'll wake up a little

bit later.

But I think I. I'm fine.

I can go to sleep.

And I remember on my way to my bed, that was where God stopped me.

And I don't know if it was what you call Damascus Road experience,

but it's the closest thing I have to it.

But I just remember God speaking to my heart.

And he said, ethan, you're not going to do this anymore.

And at that, I froze because, number one, I was hearing the voice

of God, and number two, I thought I was dead.

Ethan, you're not going to do this anymore.

Well, I'm clearly about to die.

And I stopped and I thought to myself, you know, why am I doing

this?

Why am I, you know, inside out, upside down?

Why.

Why am I so depressed?

Why am I in this life?

And that was when the Holy Spirit spoke my heart, when I asked

that question, because you don't have a relationship with me.

And as soon as he said that, I knew it.

I knew I needed it.

And I remember I got saved right there at my bed by myself.

I didn't tell anyone else that that happened.

I just started reading my Bible and pastors started to see

differences.

People started to get real confused at some of the things that

I was doing.

And that is the night, September, December 17, 2011, whenever

I accepted Jesus Christ my Savior.

And then, of course, we went.

I went to college the next year after that and met my wife out

there.

And the rest is a little bit of history.

And so now we are serving God as faithful as we can and seeing

him work daily.

Turn your Bibles to Philippians, the book of Philippians,

chapter one.

Philippians, as you know, is a book really of joy, of encouragement.

And one of my.

My big spiritual gifts is exhortation and mercy.

And it just really flows out of the book of Philippians to exhort,

to encourage.

And that's what Paul was doing here to this church at Philippi.

This is a church that he loved.

This was a church that he poured his life into and a church

that poured their lives into him.

They loved Paul.

They loved to minister to him.

And in verse number 27 is where we're going to begin this encouragement.

Paul begins.

He says, only let Your conversation be as it becometh the

Gospel of Christ, that whether I come and see you or else be absent,

I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit,

with one mind, striving together for the fate of the Gospel.

Let's pray again.

Our Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for the grace that you

give us, Lord, the grace that you give us to change us and mold

us into the image of your Son.

And Lord, I pray that we would be able to take from this book that

you have given to us.

And I pray that you'd be able to change our hearts with it, with

your word.

I pray word that you'd help us to understand it.

And Lord, help us to be led in the path that you want us to go in

our Christian walks.

Lord, I pray these things in Jesus name.

Amen.

So Paul, he begins this letter in Philippians, and he starts off

kind of giving that good old Pauline greeting, grace to you.

In this one, Paul and Timotheus trying to give that standard

greeting of him and his, his beloved friend, his beloved son in

the faith.

And in it, he kind of gives them a little bit of a status update.

And of course he's trying to encourage them, but he tells them

of the things that have happened to him.

He tells them, number one, he's praying for them, as he often

does.

He prays for them in a certain way, and he gives them the status

of what has happened.

He doesn't want their heart to be trouble.

He wants their joy to be full.

And he is really trying to encourage them.

From a prison cell, basically, he is in bonds.

He is chained up to a Roman, a Roman guard, possibly at this time,

writing this letter.

And he is encouraging them.

What a testimony to have that kind of attitude when life isn't

going good.

And so he gives them this status update that this has happened

to me.

Yes, the things that are so bad that you are hearing have fallen

out.

They have become something that is good for the gospel of Christ.

All of the palace guard, that is possibly the elite Roman guard

that had such a high superiority.

You think of the places that Paul was getting to.

He was getting to some of the people that were the hardest to get

to.

He was in the palace there in Caesar with the special Roman palace

guard, and he was able to preach the gospel to them.

And he is excited when he's writing this.

You've heard I'm in prison.

It's much better than that.

And he tells them, I am in bonds, able to wax eloquently the

gospel and not only that, there's other good news people, because

I am in bonds and in prison, they are preaching the gospel also.

More, they're waxing boldly.

He says, now some of these people, they're doing it thinking

they're going to add affliction to me just because I'm

here.

We don't really know per se who exactly he's referencing.

Was he referencing Judaizers?

Was he just referencing people that were jealous of Paul because

Paul had a big place and he was kind of important.

And so maybe they thought, oh, you know, Paul's in prison.

Now I get a chance to shine, you know.

And then he said, there's people that are preaching the gospel

in truth.

He said, whatever it is, whether in truth or in some malicious

way, it doesn't really matter because the gospel is being preached

and that is good news.

He said, I want this.

And then he turns his focus to himself of what will happen to himself.

They're going to die.

Is he gonna go on to be with Christ or is he gonna be free and

be able to continue with them?

All of this stuff, who knows?

A bunch of what ifs.

Paul's wish lists are, you know, happening here.

He's thinking.

And then he comes here to verse number 27.

He says, Only let your conversation be as it becomes the

gospel of Christ.

Only that, that word.

Only whatever becomes of me, okay?

Doesn't matter if I'm in prison, if I get out, if I don't

get out and I go on to be with Christ, whatever happens to me, let's

turn my attention to you.

Let's me.

Let me turn my attention to you.

Only whatever becomes of me.

Be sure to mind this.

Let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ.

Now, this, in this word conversation to us means the conversation

maybe that we would have with a friend, the conversation of relatives

as we talk about this or that.

This is a little bit differently in the old King James.

It's conversation mean lifestyle.

How does your conversation like?

What is your lifestyle like?

But this word here, I really love the Greek word that Paul uses.

It's polite to my, which literally means to be a citizen,

to administer civil affairs, manage the state, to avail oneself

of or recognize the laws, to conduct oneself as pledged to some

law of life.

To behave as a citizen, polite.

Who am I?

He says, you are to behave as a citizen as it becomes the gospel

of Christ.

Now, it's very important that you understand how deep this word

and why Paul is actually using it.

The, the.

Whenever we Go and we study the Bible.

The most important thing that we are to do is to interpret scripture

correctly.

Before we can ever apply that scripture, we have to first understand

what it means to the ears.

What did it mean to them?

What were they thinking of when they read this?

What did, what kind of assumptions, presumptions did they

make?

What did it mean to these people?

And this little colony at Philippi was a very interesting place

because it was a Roman colony all by itself, surrounded by the

worth by Greek states.

There was other Greek stakes such as boy, this as the Greek island

city.

There was the Neopolis, a port city.

There was the office the awesome that didn't translate.

Whenever I did Google translate, there was a bunch of Greek

cities around this little state that were not really underneath

Roman law.

And Roman law was a peculiar asset to have.

You were part of the Roman colony, you were part of the Roman

state and that meant something.

You were a Roman citizen.

It was a little bit more closely bond than say the way England

treated some of its colonies.

You weren't some separate entity, you were a Roman citizens.

The colonists, their children were Roman citizens.

Think of it as no different than a military child born on a military

base overseas.

They now have dual citizenship.

But in truth and in full, they are American citizens.

That is a similar connection here.

Their names were enrolled on the list of the Roman tribes.

They were governed not by the provincial authorities, this case

being Greek and other powers, but by their very own magistrates.

And the law which they owed obedience was not that of any locality,

but of Roman law.

Now we read in Acts chapter 16 how Paul used the Roman law to his

Acts 16 · chapter mention

own advantage.

He was beaten, he was taken out and him and Silas were beaten

openly.

And whenever he made mention that he was a Roman citizen, they

quaked with fear.

Why was that?

Because Roman citizens had rights.

Whenever the Jewish mob was to go and take Paul by force, the Roman

guard came and got Paul.

And that is whenever Paul gave that little nudge of please tell

the captain I'm a Roman citizen.

That was a very big deal.

And then you remember what that captain said?

He said by a very great sum I attained this right he paid to be

a Roman citizen.

By a huge loss he gained his citizens citizenship.

And Paul said I was freeborn, I was born into this.

That was worth a lot.

So Roman citizens had rights.

And no doubt the Philippine Christians possessed these privileges.

They knew what it was like to live in a community in which they

were less closely bound to maybe the cities around them, but

rather to the citizens.

That was across the sea.

That is who they belonged to.

They knew that they were members of a mighty country.

They'd never seen the temples nor trod the streets, but they belonged

to them.

Now take this to what it is that Paul says only behave as citizens.

They knew they weren't supposed to behave as Greeks, they

were Romans, they had privilege, they were high.

They were high minded about their status and they knew who they

were.

And he takes that analogy, behave as citizens.

You know what it's like to behave as a Roman citizen among these

other countries.

You are a citizen of Christ.

You are a citizen of the kingdom of God.

Let your citizenship reflect that as becometh the gospel Christ.

That is the very first thing.

It is an earnest plea to act.

That is what Paul is trying to get them to do.

You're a Christian, act like it.

That is an enormous plea that he is saying please, please act like

you belong into the kingdom of God.

And that was what the good news of God manifests in the flesh

and in of our salvation.

Jesus does to the life of a believer.

It is a gospel that is not merely believed, but to be obeyed.

Let me tell you something.

There was a huge difference in the day that I said a prayer to get

my fire insurance from hell.

And the day that I entered into a relationship with Jesus Christ,

real change began to happen.

Things that I didn't desire were now a desire.

I remember back in November, right before I got saved, my mother,

she's trying to encourage me.

You know, she's praying for me.

She gave me a CD of glad hymns, acapella hymns.

I don't know if any of you have ever listened to them.

Acapella hymns.

And you know what I had in the back of my, in back of my truck was

a huge box with very big 12 inch square speakers.

In the box those things were not playing no acapella Christian

music.

I cared nothing for that.

But you know, when I got saved, I started listening to that.

And those big speakers played acapella hymns on that, that radio,

over that radio.

There's a difference.

There was a way that I began to act.

The fruit of the gospel is not something that is a gospel of doctrines

to be investigated, spun into theology, accepted in the understanding.

And that's the end.

That's not Paul's gospel.

That's not God's gospel.

He believed that the gospel which he proclaimed concerning the

revelation of God in Christ his Son would unfold itself into

something more, into a sovereign law life for every true

believer.

A change.

I always tell people if The God of the universe who made everything

comes and lives inside of you.

That's a big deal.

He is literally possessed inside of you, living inside.

There's no change that's going to happen.

No, there is huge change that's going to happen.

And so the gospel changes lives.

And this is what Paul is exhorting us to do, that we would

behave as citizens of the kingdom, that we would behave as

God's children, like the family of God.

That is what Paul is saying.

He says, you know full and well the privileges and the responsibilities

of being a Roman citizen.

You know full and well how even in Philippi, so many miles from

Rome, you must still live and act as a Roman does.

Well, then have that higher call now, have that higher duty than

the countries that live around you.

Whatever you are, you must live as it befits a citizen of the

kingdom of God.

That was the same exact call to us.

No matter what society, what culture, norm, what is normalized

by people who do not have God, we are to live differently.

That different is.

Is simply controlled by the Holy Spirit.

It is how the Holy Spirit leads us to walk differently, talk

differently, and act differently.

And as he goes through this letter of Philippians, he constantly

references this walk, walk as we walk, have our conversation.

In Philippians chapter three, he says, brethren, be followers together

of me, and mark them which walk also as so ye as you have us

for an example.

And that's an interesting claim.

Walk.

You want to know how Christ walks?

You want to know how you're supposed to behave as a Christian?

Just watch me.

What a claim.

Mark them that are in samples to you.

Mark them that walk as Christ walks, and you walk the way that

they walk, and you will be following Christ.

Number two.

He has an earnest expectation for them.

He says, let your conversation be as it becomes the gospel of Christ,

that whether I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear

of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, one mind

striving together for the faith of the Gospel.

It's an earnest expectation.

This is what Paul is praying for.

This is what he begins praying for in.

In the very first few verses there of chapter one.

He is praying that they are growing in their walks with God.

Christianity cannot be a mile wide and an inch thick.

It's got to be deep.

And that's what Paul was longing for in all of his letters

to the churches.

He is longing to impart everything he can so that these people

have such a relationship with Christ that it goes a mile deep.

That's what he is desiring.

You know, he writes this to a church again that he is quite fond

of.

He spends a couple of different visits there at Philippi.

He's invested him.

They send a gift to.

To minister to him when no other church does.

Look there in chapter four.

Flip over there for a second Philippians, chapter four.

Look at the investment that they have in him.

He says there in chapter four, verse 15.

Now, ye, Philippians know also that in the beginning of the Gospel,

when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated

with me as concerning giving and receiving.

But ye only for even in Thessalonica, ye sent once and again

unto my necessity.

Paul thanks them for being the only church that supported him in

a time whenever he needed it.

And he praises them.

He said, I am so thankful.

He said, no, not that I desire that.

You just send me gifts all the time.

You know, I know how to.

To abound in the.

The.

The.

The times whenever God is overflowing, and in times whenever

I lack.

I know how to.

To.

To be a base.

He said, but I desired that in your life fruit would manifest itself,

that you would show forth fruit, that you would have a changed

life that would manifest itself into that real Christianity.

And then that you would have the blessings of that, of being someone

who partook and being able to give for God, because God wants to

use people to give.

And in this case, the Philippians, they got to be a part

of that, and they got the blessing of being able to give.

He wanted them to know, though, that they had someone to

be accountable to.

I don't know if any of you have someone that holds you accountable

in your Christian walk.

It's a very humbling thing and a very good thing for our spiritual

walks because we have a horrible tendency to.

To just coast.

You know, you get a good spiritual victory and you start to

just curse and ride on that.

That's pretty good.

Okay, okay.

Your Christian walk will begin to stagnate.

Have you had someone lately ask you personally what have you

learned in your walk with God?

Have you had someone personally ask you, have you been

able to share the gospel with anyone this week?

Have you been able to fill in the blank that accountability is

what Paul had for them?

He had an earnest expectation, and it was an expectation not born

out of you must work, but it was of excitement.

I can't wait to hear what you guys are doing next.

I've been praying for you.

Tell me a good report.

Tell me my prayers have been answered.

Tell me God has been working in your life.

He Wanted them to know that they had someone to be accounted

to.

But what was on display?

Your affairs, what does that mean?

He prays for some specific things.

There in verse number nine of chapter one, he says this.

I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge

and in all judgment, that you may approve things that are excellent,

that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ

being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus

Christ unto the glory and praise of our God.

So Paul, he prays for them, for abundant love, your love for

others, but yet not blind love, love that's increasing in knowledge.

A love that's not unintelligent, but a love that increases

because of knowledge of God.

Not just mind smarts, but heart smart.

He prayed for that abundant discernment that ye would abound

yet more and more in knowledge and in an all judgment.

He wanted them to love and have a discerning love that would

manifest itself into an abundant holiness.

All of these things are just a growth in the Christian walk, a growth

in their.

Their.

Their theology and their understanding of the doctrine that

God has given in his word.

That they would understand their God more and more.

And that is exactly what we as Christians are supposed to be growing

at.

Where are your affairs like?

Goes back to.

What is our Christian walk like?

What do your affairs look like?

Are you abounding in your walk with God?

Are you abounding in your lifestyle?

Walking as he is in the light, as it says in First John.

In First John, chapter two, he says, he that saith he abideth in

him ought himself also to walk even as he walked.

You know, they were called Christians first at Antioch because

they look a lot like Christ.

That's the.

It was almost a title of making fun of them.

Hey, look at this little Christ.

They didn't realize it would be such an honorary title.

And it truly is.

Is an honorary title to be called after Christ.

And to be called after Christ is.

There's too many people these days called a Christian that are

not a Christian.

That is a title that is reserved for truly following after

Christ.

And that's what Paul wanted to see.

He.

He wanted these people to act like Jesus.

Imagine that.

That's exactly what God calls us to do.

To act like Jesus in all affairs of our life.

That's really hard.

That's really hard.

In fact, it's impossible to do.

And we as Christians, we find ourselves desiring that walk.

And yet sometimes we are locked in that mode of just not being

able to do it.

And the problem is, is that God is not expecting us to just do

our sanctification.

He is not expecting us to just, you know, put in the time,

do a bunch of work and that's what's going to get you closer to

God.

That's not how that works.

There is an effort on our part, but we often think reading

our Bible and praying and going to church and maybe telling

others about Jesus, it's almost as if we believe it's building

merit with God.

You ever build merit with God and then something happens and you're

like, I don't deserve this.

I've been way too good of a Christian to deserve this.

Or it's the opposite of oh no, what have I done?

I'm being punished for it.

You know, we, we will often work on a works based salvation at

times.

And that's not how it's working at all.

There is work to be done, but it doesn't manifest itself in a person

working as hard as they can, trying to get as close as they can,

just so they can have that merit of good Christian title.

It's much more about a relationship with Jesus.

That is what he wanted.

You know, Paul said something to us over in Galatians.

He said, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet

not I, but Christ liveth in me.

And the life which I now live in the flesh.

I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself

for me.

I had a guy that the way he explained this verse is you have

to put some lowercase I's in here and keep some capitalized I's

the lowercase.

Is that very first one I.

That's me.

I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live.

That's God.

That's an uppercase I yet not I.

That's lowercase.

But Christ liveth in me in the life which I now live, lowercase

I live, capital Christ.

I live by the faith of the Son of God who loves me.

It's by faith.

It's not by frustrating of the works.

It's not the frustrating of the grace trying to get more grace.

As if that could ever happen.

God gives you his grace.

Not on anything that we do.

He gives you his grace because he is good.

That is why.

And on the days when he blesses you, you don't deserve it

anymore.

On the days whenever you think that you've done the worst things

in the world.

And this is what Paul is wanting them to grow, he is holding

them accountable an expectation that they would grow

in their love for God in this way.

Not just a knowledge that says, he saved me.

And I'm just trying to get to know this God who is distant from

me, but a personal God.

That is who he is, trying to get them to understand.

And then finally, he gives here an earnest cry for unity, an

earnest plea to act, an earnest expectation and an earnest

cry for unity.

And he exhorts them to unity in two different ways, but for one

purpose, I believe.

And he gives that purpose right here in this verse.

In the next couple verses, he says that ye stand fast in one spirit,

with one mind, striving together for the faith of the Gospel.

Now, this word striving together is what I want to focus

on here.

This phrase, striving together, that literally means to

fight together.

Now, that doesn't mean we're fighting against each other here,

but literally fighting alongside one another.

Perhaps in maybe a war, you know, you're standing side by side

with other soldiers fighting a fight.

But this is.

This is kind of in the terminology of wrestling.

You're fighting with your.

Your friend, your comrade, wrestling in a wrestling match.

It's almost like a melee brawl, okay?

And that is what is being said here.

To wrestle in company with, to fight together.

And the one danger that threatens every single church, every

single Christian who interacts with another Christian, is disunity.

Disunity is what is what Christ prayed for there in the garden.

In John, chapter 17, he said, Now I am no more in the world, but

John 17 · chapter mention

these are in the world.

And I come to the Holy Father.

Keep through thine own name those who thou give me, that they

may be one, as we are one.

Disunity.

I can't tell you how many Christians are.

Dis.

Are in disarray and not in unity.

There are so many different opinions out there that can exist,

so many different things that people can think.

And it is completely different than your brother or sister in Christ

sits right next to you.

And so disunity is a constant battle that Christians are facing.

And the two cries.

There are two different cries here for unity.

Number one is the cry to unite, to fight together against

the enemy.

That's what this is all for.

He says there in verse number 28.

And in nothing.

Terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token

of perdition.

But to you, of salvation, that of God, he says, you have enemies,

we have enemies, and those enemies are the devil, the forces

of darkness, the world who are fighting against us.

And they would love to see nothing More than or nothing less

than for the church to crumble and fall.

And he says here, in no way alarmed by your opponents.

This is literally describing a stampede of elephants.

You're.

You're getting stampeded.

I think everyone's seen the Lion King in poor Simba.

He's up there in that tree.

And that stampede of buffalo, of wilderbeast, they run them over.

That is literally what's being said here.

It's a stampede of animals about to run you over.

That is what the enemy wants to do.

That is what the enemy desires to do.

The Philippian Church was to have boldness in the face of opposition.

Now he's saying all this to have boldness in the face of opposition.

Remember where Paul is at?

He is in jail.

He is probably chained to a Roman guard just waiting for maybe

his next meal.

Or honestly, he's waiting for the Roman guard to do something else

because he's chained to them.

He has to do whatever they want.

He is at the mercy of whatever this soldier wants him to do.

As a church, you must have unity with one another because the

devil wants to disrupt the work of God in any way that he can't.

Why would he want an effective army that is able to arm the battalions,

guard the castle, and make a forward march on his turf whenever

he could, instead have that castle crumble from within is a constant

threat.

If God can.

If the Devil can get Christians to argue with each other

using our own flesh, our own differences, you know, sometimes

the devil doesn't have to do anything.

Our flesh is bad enough as it is.

The lack of transformation that we have experienced in Christ

due to our unwillingness to yield to what God wants in our life

is sometimes some of our worst undoing.

And the devil has to do nothing but just tip the iceberg

for it to turn over.

That is what he is praying for here.

And he goes on there in chapter two, speaking again of unity

and for good reason for this one thing and nothing.

Terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token

of perdition.

He says, whenever you as a Christian go out into the attack,

being attacked, but with great boldness, and you do not allow the

enemy to assail your forces, but rather you are on the offensive

and you are going forward for Christ.

This is the token of perdition.

Destruction.

To them, they see it.

They understand that destruction is coming.

But to you, this is the token of salvation.

This is the work of God in your lives.

This boldness, this.

This desire to go forward and preach the kingdom and preach the

gospel, it's a token of the salvation that God has done in your

life.

The work.

You remember what was said about Peter and John as they stood

before the Pharisees, given an account for their preaching of Christ.

Boldly so they took note that these men had spent time with Jesus.

Being unlearned men, they spent time with Jesus.

You can.

You can go and do all the degrees that you want, but the one

thing that affects you is how much time as you have you spent with

Jesus.

All the learning in the world, all the head knowledge that you could

possibly get, what kind of time have you actually spent with

Jesus?

And so he gives this great cry for unity that they would stand together

against the enemy.

And understanding that all of this is given to us as Christians

in the behalf of Christ.

There in verse number 29, not only to believe on him, but also

to suffer for his sake.

You know, suffering is kind of a taboo principle to us living here

in America.

There is AC in this room.

It feels great.

There was no AC in the restaurant where we tried to go eat

tonight.

That was not great.

We did not eat there.

All right?

That would be suffering.

We weren't about to suffer tonight, okay?

We don't know what it's like to.

We don't want that suffering.

Some of the poorest Americans are some of the richest people if

they were in another country.

We have an excess.

Now, that is not to say that we do not suffer physically from

ailments or sicknesses.

I know what that's like.

That does not mean that we don't suffer the loss of family or

loved ones, but to suffer in our lives, that is not something

that you and I pray for.

I dare say that is a taboo.

And it's interesting.

There is a show that talks.

It's.

It's the Chosen is what it is.

I don't know how many of you have watched the Chosen.

I've watched it a couple of times.

And one of the things that I noticed in there is the statement.

One statement was made that kind of gave me a good illustration

for this.

But people are so against suffering in their own life that

they actively work as hard as they can to not suffer.

You think about some of our prayer requests.

Pray that we.

Every single day, my daughters pray that we'll have a good day.

Oh, that we pray we have a good day.

I asked him the other day, what does that mean?

What do you mean?

Pray for a good day?

What are you praying for?

What's good about that?

You would like to happen to make It a good day.

What makes it a good day?

We pray for that good day.

Pray that God double the work of our hands.

Because no one wants to suffer working and it not working right.

You know the, the worst part?

The, the, the worst part of a 10 minute project is probably three

days into that 10 minute project.

We don't want that.

You want the Lord double the work of my hands?

I don't want to suffer like that.

I don't want to suffer any kind of hunger.

Tell you something, if I eat lunch, what's for supper?

Like, let's get this plan, let's have a roadmap to get to that

point.

We're not suffering at all, okay?

We like to eat.

We don't want to suffer.

We don't want sickness.

We pray for help.

We don't want to go through financial burdens.

We pray that God would meet every single one of our needs.

Oh, the world will supply all of our needs.

We take that out of context.

Even though we're giving nothing to God, we pray God will

meet all of our needs and we'll do that to ourselves.

We will, in so many terms, live a prosperity gospel at a time

where we believe God is just going to meet every single one of

our needs and we're not going to have any suffering or any problems

in life.

And Paul, he says it is given to us not only to believe on him,

but also to suffer for his sake.

The suffering is part of the package.

Suffering is what draws us closer to God.

For if we did not know sorrow, how can we ever know true joy?

If we did not know loss, how could we ever know whenever God meets

our need?

You know, in the past 12 years since becoming a Christian and being

put in place to not necessarily have everything that

I'm needed, I've seen God work in many different ways.

I made mention of this on Sunday.

Every single thing that we got at the beginning of our marriage,

me and my wife, we received at the hands of someone else who gave

it to us.

Us.

And through time and time again, God has met many, many different

needs.

And I like to remember those things.

Not necessarily to ride on the, the, the encode on those spiritual

blessings, if you will, but to remember the, the state that we are

in, the, the humbleness of where we have been, what God has

done, not what we have done.

And I remember talking to someone and speaking about a need

that we were having and it was something that just felt impossible.

And I remember they started talking to me about a situation in

their life that they Saw God work through and this person was

an older person and they.

It was a situation where God just really showed himself and came

through for them.

But it was what they said that startled me and really can made me

think.

They said, I've never seen God do that.

I've never seen God work in such an amazing way.

And I just thought to myself, you're how old?

You're your 50s, 60s?

And you've never seen God work?

How can you, if you have all of your needs, how can you, if you're

not even asking for needs to be met in the first place?

Number one, but going through suffering, lacking that is how we

see God work.

You want to see God change your life, you want to see God come

closer, that you want to get closer to him, that you want to see

God provide in some miraculous way.

You have to go through an impossible situation and suffer first

to see God work in the miraculous way.

If there's no need, there's no miracle, right?

He says, I pray that you would be unified.

Then there in that chapter two, he says, if there be therefore

any consolation in Christ being come through a mercy, if any

fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels of mercies fulfill ye

my joy, that ye be like minded, having the same love, being

of one accord, of one mind, Let nothing be done through strife,

vain glory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better

than themselves.

Look, not every man on his own things, but every man also on the

things of others.

This is what living the Christian life is like.

It is having a life that looks as if you are actually a citizen

of the kingdom of God.

You behave as a child of God.

It's a real gospel change.

It is an expectation, an earnest expectation that we would

be continually growing in that Christian, that we would be continuing

to abound in our love for God, in a knowledge and a discernment

for other people.

That we would, as he says here at the end, be unified for the cause.

That we would strive together, that we would literally fight alongside

one another, fight together, unified in one church, fighting for

the cause and the purpose of the gospel.

That is what God calls us to do.

You are a citizen of heaven.

You are a child of God.

To live like him.

That is what is the call whether anyone is watching or not,

whether you're seen, whether you're unseen, to live worthy of

the gospel.

And Paul would repeat this theme through his letters.

Live worthy of the vocation that you've been called.

Live a life worth reporting.

Live a life worth reporting.

That whenever someone hears about you, you, you can report that

yes, God has been doing this or this with striving together with

others.

And then remember you're not called to live this life in your

own strength, but rather to yield to Christ who is living it

through you.

That is what we are called to do as citizens of heaven.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you so much that we could be adopted into the family

of God, which it feels weird to be able to belong to.

Lord, you and your grace and mercy.

You saved us, called us into your family, Lord, and now you're

changing us into the image of Christ.

Lord, I pray that we would be transformed into your image.

I pray that you would do a wonderful work of sanctification

in our hearts.

Lord, I pray that we would look like Christ and that we would

behave as citizens of the kingdom of God.

I pray this down, Lord, in Jesus name.

Amen.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church

podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

You would like to find out more information about our church

or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org

or or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaro at middletownbaptistchurch.

Com.

If you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and follow

along for future podcast and updates.

Thank you so much.

God bless.

Have a wonderful day.