CMLC 2023-10-15 Sermon

Welcome to everybody that's online. Glad you're able to join us.

And for everybody who's here, it's good to be able to have you all here.

And oftentimes, I feel like for myself, you know me, I'm Pastor Jason,

and I've been here for about four years doing discipleship and the like

and doing lead pastor stuff these days.

But there's been a lot of stuff that I've had to do before.

And one of the things that I did was a small person prison keeper.

I mean middle school teacher.

And with it is that as a middle school teacher, I would teach math, science,

all sorts of random stuff.

And one of the things that I always saw was especially when I would teach sixth graders,

is that teaching sixth grade was not just about teaching math.

It was also about dealing with young people that didn't always know how to get along.

Because I remember there were a couple of these students,

the ones that seemed to have the most trouble getting along with everybody else.

And I remember that one of them came up and was just crying and was like,

I got to tell you, this other guy over here, and he was just being mean to me.

And he saw that he was being tattled on, because as we know, according to middle school,

snitches get stitches.

So it just got up there, and he was like, oh, well you didn't know what he did to me beforehand.

And he starts talking about it, and the first guy was like, no, no, no, no, no,

there was a reason I did that.

And they just kept going back and forth, back and forth.

And they knew, see that was my mistake, was I actually asked them what happened,

and you never asked middle schoolers what happened.

Oh my word.

And that's the thing with this, is that at the end of the day though, it's like,

just stop, can you two maybe try to get along right now?

I guess.

Well if he just doesn't, okay, okay.

But could you try?

Yes, I guess.

And the thing with this is that it could stood out to me as realizing that at the end of the day,

I had absolutely no idea who had done what to whom first or where,

but that probably didn't matter anyway.

Now, the reason I say that is because as we look at our first two verses,

see before our New Testament passage, this is how the chapter was really beginning.

Euodia and Sintiqi.

Imagine that you are sitting there with the entire church around you,

and you got a letter from Paul, one of the most well-known of the evangelists, the preachers, the apostles,

and all of a sudden out of nowhere, your name is being spoken in the middle of the entire church,

where Paul is telling you and this other person that you all need to finally get along.

Now, here's the thing about this.

How often does a pastor come up in front of the congregation and start calling you all out by name

and making sure everybody's dirty laundry gets aired out?

Nah, yeah, I don't think a lot of people would be staying too long if that were the case.

See, that's one of the fun parts about this is that at that moment in time, could you imagine

what it is that your argument has become so big

that not only does some guy in prison have to spend his time writing about it,

but now it's going not only in front of your whole church,

but now every church from then on for the next 2,000 years is going to know your name

just because you are having an argument.

With that, what stands out about this is the fact that it stands out.

You see, a pathoditis had come from Philippi and was making sure that he's giving all the news to Paul

and what ends up happening.

Well, you have to talk about Eodia and Sintiqi.

And there's Paul trying to figure out how do I deal with this.

Now, does he take sides?

Does he say, oh, Eodia, you need to stop being mean to Sintiqi?

Or Sintiqi, you got to stop saying bad things about Eodia.

It's like, look, if they want your cookie recipe, just share it, okay?

It's okay.

And her matzabal soup was better than you pretended it was, okay?

No, that's not what the point was.

And he says, can you learn to live in peace?

Just find a way to get over it.

See, that is what ends up leading us into our passage from today.

See, all this stuff about being joyful and considerate and being immersed in the peace of God,

it's not just random ways of trying to finish a letter, okay?

I got nothing else to say.

It was only three chapters.

I probably need a fourth one.

Nobody wants another philemon.

I mean, come on.

Okay, so let me just say, no.

Why was it that dealing with the argument was such a big deal?

Because it was stealing their focus and their joy.

Some years ago, it was like maybe the mid-2000 aughts.

I guess that's what we're calling it.

So sometime, I don't know, 2005, 2007, somewhere in there.

There was a song that was coming out that was pretty popular.

I think it might have been in a Disney movie somewhere along the way.

I'm not sure.

But some of you know that, yes, I have a soft spot for Taylor Swift, yes.

I also have a soft spot for Sarah Bareilles, okay?

I mean, I don't know what it is, but she just sings to me all day long.

I don't care.

I'm putting it down.

It's amazing, okay?

And the thing is, it's like she writes this song, and the whole thing is about making sure

that you have the courage to stand up for who you are and be honest about yourself.

Say what you want to say and let the words fall out.

Honestly, I want to see you be brave.

And it's like, okay, it's a pretty good song.

Well, less than a year later, another song comes out.

And I remember hearing it on the radio.

I'm like, huh, did they change the pitch of Sarah Bareilles' song Brave?

And found out it was a whole other song by Katy Perry called Roar.

The two songs are so similar that you can literally put them on top of each other in YouTube

and you can't tell the difference when you switch from one song to the other.

And the whole content of the song Roar is almost the exact same type of song as Brave.

If anybody wants to pretend that one's not copying the other, I don't know what else to say to you.

The thing is, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen.

And Sarah Bareilles' fans were saying, you've got to go do something.

You can't let them do that to you.

And all that Sarah Bareilles posted about it was, it's all love, guys.

And that was it.

The only thing that she ever said about the whole thing.

And that was the thing that really stood out to me is that if Sarah Bareilles had gone in

and started attacking Katy Perry and focusing on how dare you take my intellectual property rights,

it probably wouldn't have changed anything to do with Katy Perry's song.

But also, all the people who looked to Bareilles for inspiration, for who she is, for her heart, for what matters to her,

what would they be watching from then on?

See, that's the thing is that in the midst of whenever we end up being hurt or harmed,

whenever there are times, whenever things are done to us that we know we don't deserve,

at the same time, what's worse about it is that it ends up distracting us from the things that do matter.

The things that can actually bring us satisfaction and hope and peace and joy.

Whenever it is speaking and it says, you know, whatever things are honorable, commendable, true, right, just,

it's because when we let all these other things pull us away,

it not only betrays what other people see in us, but it hurts us.

See, that's one of the things that we end up seeing is that Paul is over there in prison.

And of all the people who could say, I am such a great guy, I've worked hard, I've been a good person,

I don't deserve what I'm going through, it would be Paul.

Paul would be the guy who could end up having every reason in the world to be upset or hurt or frustrated.

But what does he end up doing?

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

He's not trying to get something from anybody, but he's also not trying to get at anybody.

He's not angry at the guards, he's ministering to them, telling them about Jesus.

We even find out that not all the churches had actually even helped him out.

And he's like, yeah, it would have been nice, but I'm okay.

And that's the piece that we end up seeing here that ends up transforming what we're supposed to see in these struggles.

Switch to the next slide real quick.

See, the thing is that Paul is being sponsored by Philippi.

They knew that he needed things, food, probably money for the fact that people have to be bribed when you're in prison,

apparently back then or probably today.

The thing is that at that point in time, he even just needed people to talk to.

And they sent over a pathroditus who was giving him some sort of interaction with the churches because he can't see anybody.

He can't leave, he can't go anywhere.

You're probably going to start to lose it a little bit if you're by yourself the whole time.

But instead of focusing on, you know, I really would have liked to have had a sandwich.

I would have really liked it if you could have brought me some soup.

You know, I haven't had any good dessert in a while.

Some baklava would have been nice.

You know, I've been sitting here for forever and nobody brought me baklava.

It would have been great.

The thing is, is that instead, I know what it's like to have little and I know what it has to be to have a lot.

But either way, God has still given me everything.

And that's the piece with this, is that it's clear not everyone remembers Paul.

Not everybody is thinking about this guy who's, well, often prisoned.

Well, where's Paul?

Well, he's in prison again.

Oh, well, too bad.

Kind of sad he keeps managing to get himself thrown in there again.

But the people didn't forget him from Philippi.

And that by itself was all that he really needed.

See, a lot of times we can look at what we don't have or what we think we're supposed to have and let that be the thing that steals away all of our joy.

Or even the times whenever we've been hurt and ignored or the times whenever others have let us down.

You know what? It's easy to get caught up in that.

But when we do, we miss out on who's actually been watching us and loving us the whole time.

But more than that, also the one who has given us everything.

But you see, this also goes even beyond the fact that instead of looking toward what we think we could get,

we're focused on what others need is instead, is that it goes even further.

Slide.

Is that as Christians, we need to make sure that we're not so focused on the message that we miss the people.

We oftentimes feel we need to stand for something.

We need to fight for something.

We need to make ourselves heard.

We need to make sure that people get what they have coming to them.

We need to make sure, fill in the blank.

But we get so caught up in what we think we're supposed to stand up for that we miss the people that we're standing up for.

And the reason I say that right now is because you must have had your head under a rock if you have not heard about what's happening with Israel and Palestine.

The thing is, is that at this moment in time, there are people going through much more than any of us have ever seen.

There are people losing their lives and going through worse.

You can look it up online.

I don't want to share all the grizzly details.

The thing is, is that right now there are terrible things that are happening.

And at the same time, there are a lot of people over here that are spending their time.

You know what? That's why that group of people shouldn't exist anymore.

Or, well, you know, they had it coming to them because of this.

Or even more than that, all of this proves that all of our prophecies in the church were correct.

So now, come over to the church so we can stare from a distance and wait for the second coming.

You said, at this moment in time, whatever side of a border you may be on, there are people who are losing their homes, losing their lives, losing everything they've ever known.

And somebody said at one point in time, you know, I sometimes can't tell the difference between someone who is Israeli and someone who is Palestinian.

Yeah, that's kind of the point.

See, there are a lot of people right now that are doing terrible harm to others, and they're going to need to be punished, and they're going to need to be stopped, and all these things are going to happen.

But when everything pauses, there are going to be people of all sorts of backgrounds that are suffering, and all of them need to know, not just Christ in our words, but also in what we do.

That's going to be hard, because it's going to be easy to say, well, that group needs to be taught a lesson, or they should have known better.

But at the end of the day, there are people.

And if we get so caught up in trying to make a point or stand for something that we forget the people who need Christ, then we've missed the point.

So I don't know how all this is going to shake out.

I don't know things in the Middle East right now.

I don't know what's going to be happening right now.

Over here, what I do know is that there are people who are going to need us.

So wherever your heart is right now, let it not be so consumed with whatever people are trying to say back and forth, and whatever bumper stickers people have, or whatever people post on their Facebook.

Let that part go and ask God, how are you going to let me bless all of those people suffering?

Because at the end of the day, that's how we share Christ, by sharing Christ with everyone.

No matter what may have happened before.

Thanks be to God.