Shine Bright Like A Diamond

And it's your holy majestic name we pray. Amen, You may be seated. You know I, I've been like I guess just humbled over the past couple of weeks. Just, it's really easy to think about how much work it takes to put this stuff on- and you know I got a high capacity, I don't get tired too easily or anything like that- but this, this thought, has been like creeping into my brain. Like you, it's too much, or there, there's too much to do week in, week out.

It shouldn't be this complex, shouldn't be complicated. It should be simple and easy. But what the Lord's been teaching me is that a life that follows him is not, it's not supposed to be easy. Yes, there are simplicities to it, Yet we're seeking to understand the infinitely complex being that we call God. I mean if, if we thought that this was going to be, like the, the most simple thing ever, like I, I don't know, That's that's kind of lame.

Yes, approaching God is simple. Yes, salvation, the way that God designed it, is simple. Yes, you can access God simply by the power of God, as he showed us through his son Jesus, and the fact that many of us, we have the spirit of God within us that intercedes on our behalf. Yes, we can apprehend the nature of Jesus in a simple fashion by simply bowing down in prayer. You don't have to move into a physical posture of prayer to access your creator.

At the same time, the very God that is simple to access is infinitely complex, And so I've been trying to make everything simple, But I'm just realizing that the Lord wants me to spend my entire life exploring the depth of Christ Jesus, the power of the Holy Spirit, what it really looks like to live a resurrection life. And so when I looked at this from a different posture is even last night, to be honest with you, I was like every everything that's worth, anything has its own little complexities. You want to know your spouse- complexity. You want to know your kids- complexities. You want to know how to put something together from IKEA- complexities.

Everything worth, anything has its complexities. God is kind enough to us to make our approach to him simple. At the same time, he wants us to discover the depths of Jesus Christ, And so I guess the word I want to give you before I even dive into this message, which is actually very topical, to this message- I felt it from the Lord, Didn't know it was connected to the message, but it's actually the entirety of this message. If you can be okay with a little complexity, then you're on the pathway to a vibrant connection. Amen with God.

. Any of you know that it took a little bit of delving into the depths and complexity to get where you are. In your relationship with God Just say, "Yeah, man, It takes a second, but it's worth it. It's worth it". God, I thank you that you have made access to you easy.

But, God, I pray that you would give us the desire, the joy, the ability to delve into some of the complexities of your character, of who you are, of your infinite nature. I just want to discover it And I pray we would all have that desire to discover more and more about you. It not only makes for a better marriage, a better parenthood, a better IKEA piece of furniture, but ultimately a better connection with you. So, God, as we work to work out our salvation, as we dive further and further into our- and I'll teach you this word later- sanctification, I pray that when Satan comes to attack us with feelings of this is too hard, that you would give us a stillness of your voice that says: "But it's worth it". Amen, .

So God be with us right now as we delve into the depths. It is in Jesus's holy and precious name that we pray, And all God's people said, "Amen". Thank you for playing behind me. I didn't know it was going to be spiritual, but music always makes it such, Don't you think? No, Y'all with me this morning.

Amen, . I'm just making sure when I say something that I thought was funny and I get one small giggle from someone who likes me already, it's like: hold on, Let me make sure we're good today, All righty, We're going to be in Philippians, finishing out chapter 2 today. This is, I think, the fifth part of our nineweek series through Philippians. We're zooming through it. We could have taken 10 to 15, 30.

We could have taken 30 weeks, Nicole, in Philippians, but I'm trying to speed it up for you guys so that we can dive into a new series soon. I, I, I try to. I try to walk through the Scriptures at the same time. I know that new people are coming in every week and I, I want to figure out how to rightly teach the people who are here every week, yet at the same time, meet you who are here for the first time, wherever you are. So just know that that's our posture.

We want to make things accessible. Jesus did it. He robed himself in flesh so that he could connect at a deeper level with those who are already hostile to him. And if he's willing to do that, I'm willing to clothe myself in. Anyway, Some of y'all are making fun of me for the way I clothe myself today.

I don't know- Maybe there's somebody else who wears polos decided they wanted to show up today. Maybe that's why the Lord empowered me to dress. This is my power outfit. I got the loafers. I got the black pants from- I don't care, I don't know where they're from- And then I got this shirt.

It's the cheap one I got from Burlington Coat Factory. It's no longer Burlington Coat Factory. Y'all know that. Y'all remember Burlington Coat Factory.

They just called Burlington now. They did a rebrand, almost like Cracker Bar. I'm just kidding, That was a joke. Y'all did not like that thing. The First Watch- people were like, "Okay, but I'm still going to First Watch".

Cracker Barrel figured that one out. If you go to Cracker Barrel, you want to remember what it was like to be in a place where you never, ever lived back in the 1800s. I grew up in Arkansas. I know what it's like out in the Ozarks. Y'all don't know what it's like.

Last week, we talked about, humility, And when I say humility, I'm not talking about not looking at yourself in the mirror at the gym. If you're swole, look at yourself. God made you, Let's go. Okay, enjoy it. Humility is actually the process that God puts us in order to get us to the place where we're reliant on him and not ourselves, where we're thinking about him and others first rather than ourselves- And it was a big topic for us last week, because we really do default to thinking about ourselves.

I think part of that comes from this sin nature that we all hold because of what Adam and Eve did in the garden of Eden. We all have this sin nature that makes us inherently prideful, Thinking about ourselves before we think about the things that are really important, like God and his glory. Another reason we have this posture is because our environment has enabled it. We are so consumptionoriented that we focus on ourselves before we focus on somebody else. Even in church it's become a problem.

Call it a pride problem or a humility problem Either way. It's a problem that keeps us from connecting with God and connecting with one another. In fact, the reason churches divide- and you've you've seen churches split, haven't you? And if you haven't seen churches split, I want you to know that the number of churches in our country down the street from one another is a result of, in a lot of ways, division. Now, we started the church not because of division, but because God called us to start a new autonomous church in an area where there were a few churches, but in comparison to the overall population, there aren't enough churches to reach the amount of people who are unchurched out here in Phoenix.

So that's why we started a church. But a lot of churches start because they're frustrated. And what Paul's trying to communicate to the Philippian church, who's doing a pretty decent job in comparison to the Galatians, possibly even the Ephesians, definitely the Corinthians, the, the Philippians are doing a good job. But he says: "Hey, you got to watch out for those who might divide what God put together". And so he recites this Christ hymn, HY, MN.

This song- I don't know if they put this to music, but they would recite it regularly- that you need to have the mind of Christ, who thought it not robbery to be considered equal with God, but humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. And in his humility, God raised him up to the highest place. The name above all names, that every knee, every tongue shall bow and confess that Jesus is Lord. This is what we talked about last week: that the way that we're supposed to live ought to mimic the thought process and posture of our savior Jesus who, though he had all power and authority, as God did, he put it to the side so that he could love us. So we, in the way that we operate, we take all of our authority, all of our capacity, all of our skills and giftings, and, though we utilize them when God calls us to, we set them aside in order to take it down a notch and get on the level of our spouse, of our kids, of the people down the row or down the road from us.

This is the posture that God wants us to have, And Paul continues this conversation, And that's why I gave you such a-, I think, stout introduction to it. He continues this in verse 12. And we're going to be mostly in verses 12-- 16 today, So I'm going to go ahead and start reading If you have your Bibles. Philippians, chapter 2, beginning, verse 12. I have the New International Version.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

It will likely be on the screen behind, Yep. Yep, It'll be on the screen behind me. And since it's short, I'm going to ask you to do it again. Can you guys stand for the reading of God's word? Isn't his word good?

It's better than Satan's word. It's better than your mama's word, Better than your daddy's word. We're not a bunch of Bobby Bouchet Christians. We're people who cling to every word of God. It's not what mama said.

So for those of you who didn't get it, I know my boy, Chad, got it, if he's in here right now- Amen, . Verse 12. And if I ask you to say something with me, I hope it's on the screen behind me, but if you have your Bibles, that makes it easier for you to do it. I just want you to participate. So y'all say this first word with me.

Therefore, remember when, therefore, is in Scripture. It's therefore a reason. He's built this case about who Christ is, And now he's telling us how to pragmatically live our lives. He says: "Christ did this. Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my h.

Absence. Continue to say it with me: work out your salvation with fear and trembling For it's who". For it's God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Do you say this with me: Everything, without grumbling or arguing: Come on somebody So that you may become blameless and pure children of God, without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life and that I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.

But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and I rejoice with all of you. So too, you should be glad and rejoice with me. Before I have you se sit, I'm going to tell you to give your neighbor my sermon title, And I had a couple options. I was thinking about humility and the song get low came into my mind. But when I did- that was last week- I missed my opportunity And I was thinking about how my kids are watching the High School Musical.

High School Musical is like a millennial thing, but my kids are watching it, cuz millennials make their kids watch millennial things, So that the High School Musical 2 has this song. You know what it's called. Got to work, work this out, No See, but I didn't like that. That was just the first part. I got something bigger to do.

So then Rihanna came into my mind at the second half of the Scripture. So turn to your neighbor and tell them my sermon title: You got to shine bright like a diamond. Hey, you can have a seat. Hey, tell your neighbor: "Hey, what's up? Glad you're here on your way to your seat.

Let's celebrate God's word". Ah, shine bright like a diamond. It says. Is. I think she has a lyric about Molly and something else, But that's not why we're shining bright.

We're shining bright because of the, the way that God has gifted us with his salvation. I, I was thinking about it. I was thinking about diamonds before the song came to my mind. I was thinking about how a diamond is formed. I don't think about that too often, but, I remember.

When I don't think about diamonds very often because because of this story I'm about to tell you. I remember, I was one year out of college. Now my wife is two years younger than me. We didn't start dating until she was a sophomore, right, Was it right? Sophomore, You weren't a freshman.

I didn't rob the cradle, Nothing weird like that. Okay, cool, So I start. I waited intentionally start dating her until she was a sophomore. Actually, there's a way longer story to that that makes me look really bad, but I'm not going to tell you that today. So we started dating and we knew that when I graduated, I was going to have two years outside of school while she would still be finishing out school, And we just made this decision that we didn't want to get married before she had finished school.

And so we were about one year removed from it, And I was spending all my time in public accounting, And I was making decent money in public accounting, while she was about an hour away from me in college. And there was this one time where I was thinking, man, I'm going to have to pop the question at some point. So I need, in order to pop the question, what do you have to buy before you pop the question?. You got to buy a ring, And you know I'm not super, super superficial, only kind of superficial, like Adam and Eve level superficial.

And so we were on this trip with a lot of her friends to a place called Hot Springs. If you ever been to Hot Springs, Hot Springs is a town that was about 30 minutes away from our college-, that is really popular. It's actually a national park because there's a hot spring. Literally, that's all they got. It's just a little piece of water that's warm and you just stand there, you look at it and then it's a national park for some reason.

So we went there to visit with a bunch of her friends and we were passing by this store and it was a diamond store like a ring store. And so we walk in and I had had this picture of the type of diamond that I wanted my wife to have And it was a round cut diamond. How many you round cut people in the room?. Exactly, princess cut.

. Any cut. Someone's just like in here, Some of these single people like I just need something in order to move forward in my life. I don't care if it's a string wrapped around my finger, like the summer I turned pretty crap Like I don't even care. I just need someone to pop the question.

Even if they're like average, I'll settle a little bit. No, we got a series called Don't Settle coming up. We're going to talk about it down the road. But anyways, we walk into this store and I had in my mind what I was going to purchase, cuz I just pictured this round cut diamond, because I'm like super like. Everything I want to do is like neutral, sleek or sterile, whichever, however you bring it, you know.

So I walk in and I start: "Hey, what do you like, sweetie" And she's like: "I like that one". It was like a princess cut. Here's the problem. I'd already bought the thing And so we had this huge argument. It's like: "You don't like the round cut, You don't like the, You don't like the round cut, babe.

And she didn't care. That's why, Mary, she didn't care about any of the stuff. That's one of the reasons, Many reasons, You love Jesus first, Like, you're the diamond, not the, not the thing you put on your finger. It was just this. It was this big argument And, I, every time I think about diamonds.

That's what I think about. But the Lord was kind of developing in me something important to understand this week that there is a process whereby, in his humiliation of me- and I know you guys don't like the term humiliation- Humiliation is like the feeling you get when you did something embarrassing when you were a kid and everybody laughed at you, or that dream that you had, that for some reason. We all have kind of this dream where you're like exposed in front of a group of people at a pep rally at your school. You know, I think we all got that when we saw Bring It On when we were a kid, That's what it was, And, and so I'd have that dream, And so that's the way I think about humiliation. But humiliation is actually a beautiful process whereby God takes you from your own mindset that lifts yourself up to here, to actually recognizing who you really are in the grand scheme of the cosmos.

But then when you're down here, you look up to him and recognize how big of a deal he is, And now you get to live your life looking up to God, allowing him to work in you, to develop you and to put you into the places that he can put you in that you would have never gotten to on your own. That's the humiliation process. God's humiliation process doesn't end in embarrassment. It ends in elevation, where he lifts you up. And so I didn't think about diamonds for a long time.

But what God was teaching me this week is that our development process is a lot like the development of a diamond. And if you don't know the development process for a diamond, you're in good company, because I didn't either, until I started thinking about it. I don't know which came first, the song title or the or the metaphor, but they both work. And the way a diamond develops is it's, and I'm. I'm not going to give you the scientific explanation.

Can I give you the Matt Rose Buckeye explanation of how diamond works? There's stuff way down deep, about 80 to 100 miles beneath where you're standing right now, or sitting right now, in the mantle. You know what the mantle is. There's the crust and then the mantle. So there's stuff, it's a bunch of carbon down about 80 m to 100 miles deep in the mantle And this carbon comes together- Again, non-scientific, And under tons of heat and pressure.

That carbon compacts and forms a, a dirty. A dirty like full of impurities, diamond. And if there's something that I've learned, even by looking at this text, is that when I trust in Jesus. There is a process whereby God is trying to form me into his miracle, his workmanship. The Greek word that you'll see in Ephesians is pouyama: his, his good work, his masterpiece, his miracle.

But if God's going to form me into what he wants me to be, it's going to take a process of forming, just like a diamond I. If you want the thing that you put on your finger or the thing that you put on your wife's finger, If you want to shine like stars in the universe, if you want to be the exact replica of what God wants you to be, if you want to reflect the light that comes from the sun, if you want to walk around with this fragrant aroma of Christ Jesus, such that when people see you, they see that God did something in you, If you want to be where God wants you to be, it takes this formation process. And what did I tell you about the formation process for a diamond? It is full of heat and pressure And it doesn't happen on the surface-, That's right.

It happens way, way down deep. And many of us we think that when we hear about Jesus and trust in him, that we're the finished product And while your salvation may be secure when you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. Again, simple. This is where the pro process called sanctification starts. And you got to go deep.

Look at your neighbor and tell them: Look, look at them. I don't see anyone's heads moving. I can't force you to do it, but I'm going, you know. I say: lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. I'm trying to help you.

I'm trying to help you. Look at them, Tell them: , don't be shallow, Don't be shallow. Look at your other neighbor, Tell them one more. You can guess: Go deep, . Isn't that the problem with the Christianity that we've seen in the United States for the majority of our lives?

It's all right, Say, say, this stage is the surface, That's where it stays. That's the most frustrating thing ever. Now I'm I'm going to be honest with you. I struggle with this too, cuz it's hard to go deep. Remember what I said when I came up here and I thought the Lord was talking to me, and so I told you guys something about the contrast between-, simplicity and complexity.

Right, See, because it is simple. Salvation is simple. What did I say? Confess and believe that Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead. You will be saved.

That's simple, So simple that anyone could do it. All you have to do in this room. If you have never looked to your savior, lifted your eyes to the hills. He's sitting on the hills. He's standing on the hills, He's seated at the right hand of the father.

If you look to Jesus, the author and perfector of your faith, he will save you by confession and by belief. It's by your faith that you're accredited righteousness. That is oh so simple, beautifully simple, that any of you in this room who have not trusted in Jesus can trust in Jesus and start this process. But once this process starts, there's still a lot of simplicity to it. But the fun part is the complexity.

It's fun. It's so fun. You ever, You ever figure something out that somebody else couldn't figure out before, and then you're like, looking at it, you're like "Yo, I figured it out". That's me every time I finish a piece of IKEA furniture. I, I don't speak Swed, Swedish, Swiss, No, Swedish, I don't speak Swedish.

I, I can see pictures, but I don't read pictures very well either. I've learned I. I struggle And then when I figure I finish it, I'm like I know they did their best to make it simple, but it wasn't And it's done and I figured it out. Like that's the feeling that I get every time I discover something new about my creator and his character. It's not that I'm prideful about what I've discovered.

It's that I look at something that God has revealed to me and I'm like "Oh, my gosh, I didn't know that before, and now I do". It's like every time he develops me, every time he forms me, every time he shapes me, the new thing that I discover enables me to reflect who he is better. Amen, . It's like that diamond that's initially covered up but slowly, over time, it forms into what it really is supposed to be. And many of us, we start like carbon, and God puts us into the sanctification process that includes intense heat and intense pressure, And in order to even get there, we have to go deep.

So here's your choice, And this is a choice: You can choose to walk out every Sunday and hope that it gave you something to glean from, But you could also come in every week and then, when you leave, use that as a launch pad for a deeper level of understanding, Not not the beall endall. I need you to know. What I deliver to you guys on a Sunday is me hopefully communicating that which God gave me in my own personal deep time with him. But I want a church that learns the process whereby God develops each of us, Not where you're hanging on every word that I give you, Because if you're hanging on every word that I give you, you're in trouble. You're in trouble cuz then you're going to see me on the street one day and I'm going to, like, have bad social awareness, forget that you were at our church and then, all of a sudden, because of my words, you got there.

Because of my words, you left. That's a really bad place to be, But you can go. You can go deeper. You can go deeper than relying on your Tik Tok preacher to tell you what they think. You can go deeper than relying on somebody else to tell you what's in the Scriptures.

You can go deeper than, simply like believing my proposition that if you come here you can develop deeper friendships. You can actually dive in and go deep. But when you go deep, I want you to know that there is pressure and heat, Pressure and heat. The more you know about what this word says, the more pressure and the more heat. Check out what Paul says right here.

He says: "Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed". This is Paul saying: "You've been obeying, you've been doing the thing, and you've done it not only in my presence. You're even doing better in my absence". And what Paul's doing is he is calling them deeper. With his next statement, he says: "Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

You don't form your own diamond. He does through intense heat and pressure. James tells us very eloquently, I believe, in the first chapter of his letter. He says: "Consider it joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for it's the testing of your faith that produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result: that you may be complete, lacking in nothing". The Old Testament gives us another illustration of grading and heeding.

He says: we are refined by what Fire, That in order to, in order to be formed and shaped into the person God called us to be, we have to go deep. And when we go deep. We have to be okay with the pressure. Many people we struggle with the pressure and the heat Because when we trust in Jesus now, we start listening to what he says over what other people said, And when we listen to what he says over what other people said, some of those other people are still in our lives. And when we start listening to what he said over what those people who were still in our lives said, sometimes they get offended.

Or let's give them a really good posture. Sometimes you're scared that they will get offended And so you equivocate or hesitate in the moment where you need to listen to the word of God. That's heat, That's pressure, That's this moment where God wants you to listen to his voice, And now you have an opportunity to listen to his voice over and above somebody else's voice. And so what you have to do is you have to go deep into your connection with God, Say: "Did you really say that, God? Because what this person said sounded really good for the first several years of my life And what you're saying seems radically different, And if I go this direction, it not only will potentially offend this person, but it could push them further out of my life".

That is pressure, . That is stressful. I'm talking to a teenager, or a kid, who may be sitting in this room right now and you have a connection with Jesus. It's hard for you to explain, but even at a young age, God is moving in you. Yet your parents have lived their lives a certain way and you're scared to death about what's going to happen.

When you tell them about the faith that you have, You're like they're going to make fun of me. I'll never forget when God did something in me. The first bit of pressure I had was when I went home and I told my family, which was my dad and my stepmom, and we're sitting across the table. He's on the head of the table and for some reason, I'm on the other head of the table- Maybe that's the foot or the butt of the table, whatever it is- And I'm sitting there and he's looking at me and I say: "Hey, I just trusted in Jesus". He said: "Did you, though, man".

That was pressure, And that pressure kept me out for two more years until it clicked again. Pressure is recognizing that God is now most important, not your career, not your family. They are important, Don't hear me the wrong way. Super important My family, I, I would- in order to love on them. I'm not even going to tell you what I'd be willing to say up here or do up here-, that would impact you negatively- in order to protect my family.

I'm. I'm telling you that I love my family. But God's more important than my family. He's more important than my career. He's more important than my hobbies.

He's more important than all of these. And if I want the formation process to ensue, I've got to go deep in my connection with God, deep enough that I trust him to put the pressure on me. And when he puts the pressure and the heat on me, sometimes my employer's got to say: "Hey, I don't care about the thing that's within you that you say is faith oriented or rooted in Christ Jesus. I don't care about that". And now you're put under pressure Again.

There's this pressure for each of us to be able to stand in front of other people and explain the thing that is housed within each of us, Like: how do you discuss this intangible thing that the Holy Spirit? I'm going to say it like someone else. The Holy Spirit is within me and it convicts me of my sin and helps me do what God wants me to do what we are. We are called by God to be able to explain outwardly the thing that he's doing within us. So what does Paul say?

He knows there's going to be pressure, And so he says: "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, because it's God who's working in you and on you to will and act according to his good purposes". So when we're put under pressure, you don't have to create all the good things in your life. God is in the process of creating, He's in the process of forming you. But what we do have to do is look at it, identify it, work it out. I struggle with this text because, like what does it even mean to work out your salvation with fear and trembling?

And the first image that came to my mind was like a coffee mug full of coffee. Anyone done that before? If you don't drink coffee, you don't get it. If you do Starbucks only, you don't get it. But if you've ever grabbed that coffee mug in your break room and you're walking with the mug and you're trying to get to your seat and it's and you're just scared right Like that was the first image that came to my mind- I, I'm trying to drink my coffee and it takes fear and trembling.

I'm scared, I'm going to, I'm just trembling here. And that was the first image that came to my mind, But I don't think that's the best image. Because, just like with coffee, in order to get to your desk properly, you got to walk in confidence. I'm in the show like I'm- I'm not walking off the stage, That's why I'm standing weird, looking weird.

This looks like Whose line is it? Anyways, I feel like that dude, you know. But I'm, I'm walking confidently, not not fearfully, but reverently, because I know what I carry, I know what I hold And I know I know what happens if I spill out the wrong way. And so I'm working out my salvation with fear and trembling. And the only way to work it out is when you're deep, When he's putting pressure on you.

And as he continues to put pressure on you, he is building- I'll just say it the way they tell us church planners: thick skin - The ability to withstand more and more pressure. These trials and tribulations are not meant to derail you. They're meant to improve your capacity to be faithful, They're meant to strengthen you. So later, Paul says: I can. That's why, earlier in the passage, I can do all things through Christ.

Who gives me strength. Is it later in the passage? Later, I think it's verse chapter 4. Yeah, that's what it is. Okay.

He says I can do all things through Christ. Who gives me strength? It's this. It's this formation process. So, just like a diamond, God is so gracious to form us, But we don't see the pressure, the intensity and the heat as grace.

Most of the time We see it as problematic And Satan jumps into our brain and he's like: "Hey, hey, this shouldn't be happening if you trusted in Jesus". You know, the one thing that I tell every single person who gets baptized- if I have the ability to talk to them- is that this is you coming out into the world as a Christian. And when you come out into the world as a Christian, God loves it. People will benefit from it, but the enemy hates it. And what the enemy will do is he will throw things into your life.

He will allow things to happen in your life. God will allow these trials to occur in your life And Satan's trying to derail you, But what God's trying to do is improve your capacity for faithfulness. And so, right after half of you get baptized. I can promise you this. I promise there will be something that Satan wants you to see as problematic, But that very thing that you see as problematic could be the very thing that God is using to produce something in you, .

So just let it happen and allow it to strengthen you. This is the deep place, This is the dark place, This is the hot place. This is the place filled with pressure. But pressure creates diamonds, doesn't it?

Pressure creates diamonds, But that's not the end of the process, Because what happens with a diamond is at some point unbeknownst to the diamond, which is, by the way, an inanimate object. I don't know about gym gym worshippers out here, but diamond is an inanimate object. It's formed deep in the earth and at some point, through some sort of volcanic eruption or something else that happens under the ground that a geologist could tell you about- I'm a theologianish, not a geologian, You know what I'm saying. So I can't tell you what what happens. But at some point it shoots out and through mining and through finding it in rivers and through all that weird stuff that they did in Arkansas, Murphy'sboro, which is technically a diamond- mine, I've been to that diamond m.

You just start digging to your heart's content and eventually you find a diamond. Now, does that diamond look the way it should when you find it in the dirt? Yes or no? No, it doesn't. So the process of formation is the first portion, part A, if you will.

But part B is the process whereby, the grand jeweler, if you will, shapes you through external circumstances. What he's doing in you is helping you work out your salvation, with fear and trembling, through the external pressures, but as, as you continue to form into what God's called you to do, he wants to shape you too. He wants to cut you in such a way that you reflect the light of the savior, And that's that's a process. And what what the text says here is? It says this in verse 14: says "Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure children of God without fault, in a warped and crooked generation".

Isn't that interesting. Paul lists two things: grumbling and arguing. He could have listed all the things right. Wouldn't you think that if we were just talking about the process of internal sanctification, whereby God takes me from point A to point B in my faith and helps me be more and more confident and assured of what he has done in me, that he would say all of that stuff. But no, he speaks of two external factors and our inter and our response to those factors.

And he says that it's those things. He says: do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure. And I don't even know how to fully articulate that to you all. I just know that Paul's utilizing it under the guise of the Holy Spirit And we need to receive that today, that there's something about our grumbling and our arguing, our divisiveness and our complaining, that prevents us from being and appearing pure in the eyes of the current generation. Haven't you heard that said about the church?

Man, I don't like the church. They're always arguing, They're so divisive, It's full of hypocrites who say one thing and do another. And I think God wants to shape us as a church, as a people. I think all of us who have trusted in Jesus and are working out our salvation with fear and trembling, you're formed. But now God wants to do some cutting in order to shape each of us.

And just listening to Paul, it's with grumbling and complaining. Now there are some things happening specifically in the church at Philippi that Paul is likely addressing You. We will see this at the beginning of chapter 4, that there's some specific items, but I believe Paul's intentionally writing not just for this, the specific church, but to all of us, anyone who would read- that there's something about complaining and arguing that shifts our posture and our perspective so much that we're incapable of looking like the diamonds that God has made us into. We look, we look. We look dirty and full of impurities.

I won't say it like that. You look dirty, It sounds. Sounds really hick when I say dirty, It's just the irr. I'm trying to figure this stuff out. God's still forming me into the masterpiece And one of those things will probably be removing my Arkansas accent, or it's going to be incorporated, Just depends on what you like.

I'm trying to figure out how to be more of a positive person, someone who sees the perspective God has over every situation, before I delve down into arguing and complaining. Now the result, or sorry, the solution to this, Paul's already told us. He told us in Philippians earlier, chapter 2, he says this. He says: have the same mind as Christ. So grumbling and complaining, grumbling and arguing to Paul, in this passage at least, seems to be, at least in some part, the epitome of a selfish lifestyle versus a selfless, lif lifestyle, And, let me say it to you, spiritually, a unsanctified lifestyle versus a sanctified lifestyle.

Let let me tell you as clearly as I can: The more we argue with one another and the more we complain about this process whereby God forms us into the diamond that he's making us into, and the process whereby God continues to shape us through every circumstance, complaining and grumbling hinders that process And- and I'm talking to people in this room who, most of us, when we woke up this morning, we had at least one complaint. I'm trying to reverse complaints by thinking on good things. Now we're not in chapter four yet, so I can't get there yet. I can't talk about, think on the things that are true, right, honorable, pure, lovely and of good repute. I can't get there yet.

I'll get there in a couple of weeks and it's going to be really good to talk about it, But I'm going to tell you this: grumbling and arguing is something that hinders, what God is trying to do in you and through you. Not only does it hinder your witness or your testimony in front of other people, but it actually hinders this process. You look less like your creator when you're complaining and arguing And your solution is to go back again to Christ, to go deep again into your relationship with God, Because the deeper you go, the more you realize the pressures and the heat are from God. And when you see that pressure and heat comes from God, you can look at it with fondness rather than fear or frustration.

See, because when I know it comes from God, I look at this thing that really terribly happened to me. I look at the fact that somebody or somebody's left the church. I look at the fact, that, things are more difficult than I anticipated they would be in my parenting. I look at the fact that something at work went ary and I thought it went well, but now it's going terribly and my boss is like on me about something. I look at all of that stuff and I think it's from the Lord.

Why God? What are you trying to do through this? Shape me, mold me, form me?. Now, this does not solve every problem immediately.

It shifts your perspective. So when we operate, then we go out with that perspective And when we think about complaining, we're going to say: you know what? God's got a purpose through me: to help other people come to the saving knowledge of Jesus, So I'm not going to complain. In fact, God's doing something good through this, So I'm not going to complain, I'm not going to argue about it.

I'm going to receive this as chastening or shaping, or shaping from the Lord And I'm going to move forward with a really positive attitude. And then, as I move forward with this positive attitude, guess what? It's strange. Now there's a whole like mentality or theology out there that called manifesting. That, I believe, is totally wrong And I think the way it's been warped in order to say that you can manifest something into existence by simply believing it enough, I think that comes straight from the pits of hell in a lot of ways.

At the same time, there is a truth to the reality that when you think on the right things as opposed to the wrong things, there are a lot of self-fulfilling prophecies. And rather than living in the self-fulfilling prophecy that things are going to go ary, we live in the self-fulfilling prophecy that I'm going to see a victory in this situation. I'm going to see the positive in this situation. I'm going to see Jesus in every scenario And when I look at Jesus, I'm going to have the same mind as Jesus. So I'm going to go deep, I'm going to be confident in the fact that I am saved and sealed for eternity, And then I'm going to walk out into the world with confidence, with the swagger of the Holy Spirit, with this viewpoint that says I'm good.

So guess what I can? I can, I can interact more effectively. I, I can change things up. So diamonds are formed deep, deep, deep. So you got to have a depth to your faith.

That is okay. With complexities, Diamonds are shaped through like external circumstances, You interacting with one another. I learned this about diamonds: that they can only be cut by you know what it is Other diamonds, And so God's going to use the people around you in order to help shape you And, rather than looking at them as someone who wants to do wrong by you, look at them as someone who God has placed there intentionally to shape you. Yes, you got to be wise and you got to look at the different people and you got to understand whether they're coming from the Lord or they have their own selfish, manipulative thought process. Yes, you've got to identify these things At the same time.

Could it be that the person sitting around you who's trying to help you is God's version of trying to shape you? And when you continue to get shaped and it's cut, it's cut A diamond. The Old Testament tells us not using diamonds, because they didn't use diamonds for anything back in the bronze and iron age or the second Iron Age. So what they used is iron, And it says iron sharpens iron. God wants to use the people in this room to also shape you And he says that the result of being formed in the depths and being shaped in the shallows will enable you to shine as stars in the universe.

And I don't know about you, but I'm not trying to be a dim light in all this stuff, And I want that sound cocky. That sound cocky. I hope it doesn't sound I. I want to be someone that enabled God to do what only he can do in me, So that at some point, unbeknownst to me, I'm going to look like something that shines in the midst of darkness. And at some point I would love Orbit Church to look like a group of people who came together, allowed the forming, allowed the shaping, and became a group of people that shined in the midst of the darkness.

And the shine doesn't come from our own internal capacity. It comes as we reflect the light of Christ Jesus. And there's some people in this room. You're struggling because you don't have the light of Christ Jesus within you. So I want to give you the opportunity at this point.

Anyone who has already trusted in Jesus, you can exit the room, and we're going to do a few baptisms in a moment. So if that's you and you're ready to get baptized, make your faith public. Head out of here. I'll meet you out there in a second, We'll pray for you and we're going to come up here and we're going to do some baptisms. I'm really excited about it.

I think we had 19 already signed up today, But if you didn't sign up- I mean both services- if, if you hadn't signed up, but you're ready to make your faith public, I'm down. This is an opportunity for you to begin the process of shaping and forming. God's going to do something in you, And so I'd encourage you to do that. But for the rest of you, you may not be ready to make your faith public, to shaping, because there's been no forming happening, And maybe right now you feel the spirit of God trying to like hit at your hard heart, starting this process whereby you can be shaped, where you can be changed, And you have a choice. This choice is to accept the, the moving of God on your soul right now, by confessing with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

Or you can remain with your hard heart and say "Nah, I'm good on my own". But I'm believing there are people in this room right now who are ready for the formation process. So if everybody would bow their heads and close their eyes, we're going to pray this prayer right now, together, out loud, for the benefit of those who are praying it for the first time and receiving their savior. Repeat after me: Say: "God, I believe God, I believe that Jesus is your son. Jesus is your son.

I believe he died on the cross and rose from the grave. God, forgive me of my sin, Help me, walk with you, Mold me, shape me, shape me, and I will follow you for the rest of my life. We pray these things in Jesus's name. Every head bowed, every eye closed. I'm just believing that someone opened up their heart to Jesus today.

So if that was you on the count of three. I want you to shoot up your hand and we're going to celebrate your decision to follow Jesus. 1, 2, 3. Come on, If that was you just celebrate, Lift up that hand, Let's celebrate.