Known • Philippians 4:21-23

This morning we're gonna be wrapping up Philippians, and we're got this little salutation that we're going through, right?

It's uh Paul's kind of farewell.

And what really stands out about this is something about the very nature of our identity.

The way that God wired and designed us is to be a known people, right?

That's part of just the very fabric of our being, to be known.

And when we are known, right?

When we have intimate relationships, when we feel like people understand us and that they are walking with us, that we might feel some of the strongest times of our life.

And sometimes when we feel at our weakest, when we feel at our most struggle, is when we feel unknown, isolated.

God has designed us to be known.

And Paul's going to end this letter with a salutation to a known people.

And so I hope this morning we don't just see this as a, hey, y'all see you later.

Catch you on the flippity flop.

I hope we see this as purposeful, God-inspired, Holy Spirit breathe truth for us today as a community of faith, centered and built around the gospel of Jesus.

So as we dive into Paul's final salutation, we look at verse 21 and we see that we are greeted in Christ.

Greeted in Christ.

Paul says in verse 21, he says, Greet every saint in Christ Jesus.

The brothers who are with me greet you.

At the close of this letter to the church in Philippi, uh Paul starts to really help us understand the very personal nature of the letter.

He's not just writing to a group of people that he's never known or met or just kind of this general, broad audience.

He is writing to a people who has been made known by him through his gospel labor, right?

He has worked alongside, strived with to see gospel fruit being produced in the lives of these individuals.

If we go back in our understanding of the planting of the church of Philippi, it was Paul who started the church there with the conversion of Lydia, right?

And then he started preaching the gospel to other people, and they were converted.

And then all of a sudden we see this church blossom.

And Paul even wrote in his own letter here that they were partners with him in the gospel from the very beginning.

That when no other church partnered with Paul, they did.

And so they helped see his gospel ministry be sustained and carried out all through their partnership and relationship that they had with Paul.

And here at the very end of this letter, Paul starts his salutation with a command, an imperative verb.

Greet.

Right?

He's gonna not let us off easy.

He's going to say, here's something that must be done.

Greet every saint in Christ Jesus.

This language for the word greet means hospitable recognition.

Hospitable recognition.

What do we talk about when we talk about hospitable or hospitality?

It's talking about this generous and gracious treatment of guests.

You see, the foundation of hospitality is actually rooted and centric to the gospel.

To make those who are not a part to become a part, that we would make them feel as if they were part of the family of God, because we ourselves were once not a part of the family of God.

We ourselves were sojourners, aliens, foreigners without citizenship.

But what does the gospel do?

It makes us citizens of this trans uh transcendent land, right?

We are citizens of heaven and we now have a place.

And it's because of that we are then called to be hospitable people.

This is all throughout the scriptures, from the Old Testament into the new.

In fact, I would charge that if if your worldview of the foreigner is being shaped more by conservative voice podcasts of men who don't love and serve Jesus, then you probably have an anti-biblical view of the foreigner in the way that we're supposed to treat them as citizens of heaven who have been ransomed by the power of the gospel and been made a people.

God, throughout the whole Bible, he judges nations because they were inhospitable, he destroys nations because they were inhospitable, and he the continual charge of, because I made you a people when you were not a people, you should treat the outsider in the same way.

And so Paul's rooting this whole command to greet those, every saint in Christ Jesus.

It's rooted in the truth of the gospel.

And we see this some in some way in the first time in Leviticus, this gospel-centric reality of hospitality.

In Leviticus chapter 19, verses 33 through 34, we see when a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.

Leviticus 19:33–34

You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you.

Treat the foreigner as if he was part of the family.

And you shall love him as yourself.

Fascinating, right?

What do we distill all the 613 laws of the Old Testament into?

Two, love God, love neighbor.

So it's rooted in that.

Why should we do that?

For you who are strangers in the land of Egypt, I'm the Lord your God.

So this notion of being in a hospitable people, to generously and graciously welcome others, is fundamentally rooted in the gospel and the way that we have been engaged by God Himself.

You see, we try to set this culture of hospitality up at Sacred Mission.

We use this language that us as covenant members of Sacred Mission, we come every Sunday to set the table that we might feast on Christ.

But there's a reality where we're not just setting the placemat for ourselves that we might feast, but we set beside us empty spots so that we might invite others to what?

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Because we want to treat the outsider as if they're part of the family.

We want to give them an opportunity to belly up to the table and feast upon the word of God that they might see and know and believe the beauty and riches of the gospel with us.

That fundamentally takes a culture of hospitality of people who have been completely transformed by the power of the gospel, understanding that once they were not a people, but now they are his possession.

We were once strangers in a foreign land of death, but we have been transferred into the life-giving family of God.

God so graciously welcomes us in and calls us his family, and this is the endeavor of gospel hospitality.

What about recognition?

So greet, hospitable recognition, right?

To make known for the welfare of the individual.

Recognition meaning to make known for the welfare of the individual.

It's not just to say this casual hi, not the little head nod, what's up, type thing.

It's truly to recognize them in their personhood that you might understand their welfare.

Because again, our responsibility is to love our neighbor as ourselves.

How can we truly love them if we don't understand the nature of their welfare?

The inability to go unknown in a community that is prescribed to be for the good of one another.

John 13, 34, Jesus commanded his disciples in this way: a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just as I have loved you.

You also are to love one another.

There is no room with inside the gospel, there's no room with inside a community of faith to remain an unknown person.

But more than that, there's no ability for you to not make others known in your hospitable recognition of the household of God.

Notice the onus is on the one who is to seek out others to make them known.

Greet what's Paul's saying?

You get up and go say hello.

You get up and welcome.

You get up and seek to understand the welfare of your brother.

The responsibility is on you.

We bear within the commands of Scripture the responsibility to pursue one another.

So they might be known and their welfare might be worked toward.

And there's many of us here who are an unknown people, right?

Many people don't know us well.

Uh we don't really work to make known others, right?

And you might say, well, I'm I'm I'm kind of you know socially awkward, or I don't really know what to say to people.

Yeah, we know you're weirdo.

We know you're awkward.

We saw it when you were walking through the front door.

No one expects you to not be awkward.

No one.

So just own it, right?

Just own the reality.

We constantly want to wait for people to come to us, and we might stand there weird, you know.

I used to do that when I was younger, called peacocking.

You ever peacocked?

Men?

No?

That's cool.

I did.

No, what do we what's the what's the nature of it?

You kind of stand there, you got this dope outfit on, you're standing there, you're just standing back, you're waiting for the ladies to come to you.

You're peacocking.

You know what?

Not a lot of ladies came to me.

I don't know why.

I had sweet gear, uh, but not a lot of ladies came to me.

But then the one did, right?

Uh but the onus is not on others to chase you down, to know you.

The responsibility is placed on you to make others known.

And so you seek them out to greet them, to show generous and gracious welcoming of hospitality toward them, and then to understand their welfare.

How are you doing?

What's going on in your life?

Hey, how's this thing coming along that you we talked about last time?

How can I get my hands dirty in helping you?

He says, greet every.

This is the aim and endeavor of the household of God.

To not just be a family in our theological understanding, but to be a family in our righteous application of the text.

There is no true sense of family where individuals go unknown.

He says, greet every saint in Christ Jesus.

To be in Christ has been a central theme throughout the entire letter.

Paul is constantly Christ-centered in his letter, and you'll see that this in Christ is a theme repeated throughout over and over again.

Because it is in Christ that we are brought into the family of God.

We are sinners made saints.

We are orphans made children.

We are condemned, made righteous.

We are unknown, made known.

And it is only in Christ that that reality is able for us to participate in with one another.

He says, Greet every saint in Christ Jesus.

By grace, through faith, being in Christ empowers us to live out the realities of the gospel and all the commands found within it.

Because it is the gospel that fundamentally changes our identity.

Through the gospel, we become.

We become.

He says, the brothers who are with me greet you.

Paul's communicating a family dynamic of brothers in Christ who are eager to let the family of God know of their own welfare.

See, we might have a hard time understanding this or trying to apply this to our own lives.

But in this context that they're living in, an ancient Roman colony, it was dangerous to be a Christian.

People worried about one another's well-being because they were being persecuted and martyred for the sake of the gospel.

And so you here have Paul saying, These brothers who are with me, what do they want you to know?

That we're okay, that our welfare is good, that we're still living, that we're still declaring the truth of the gospel to those around us, that we are doing well.

They didn't want their brothers and sisters in Christ to worry.

We even see this language throughout the letter of the Philippians, that Epaphroditus was very worried and anxious about the way that they were possibly worried about him, because if he had lost his own life for the sake of the gospel.

But a good chunk of this letter was what?

To reassure the hearts of those who would hear that he is doing well.

They desire to be known within the family, to assure others of their good.

And it is the gospel that demands being known and making known.

And a healthy family eagerly seeks to know one another.

A healthy family eagerly seeks to know one another.

I was at a family get-together party this last week, sometime, I can't remember.

And um, I don't know if you're like me, but maybe you come from a broken family.

I come from a broken family.

It's broken into like fifths or something like that.

Um, that's not a real fraction of how my family's broken up, but you get the point.

And uh so we were at this party, and it was noticeably unhealthy.

Because we have this section of the family over here, and they never said hi or really talked about anything with this section of the family over here, and then we had this section of the family over here, and we didn't really talk or try to seek understanding of one another.

And here's the sad part I played into that, and I knew that this woman lost her husband last year, and I know this one's a brand new mom, and I knew this one was going through hard times in life, and I knew that that one over there had things, and you know what I did?

I just stood there and I played into the unhealth.

And I stepped back, and the Lord was showing me, man, this is not what I called the family to be.

And it was my responsibility to take up and go over there and say, hey, being a widow, how has things been going for the last year?

Do you need help?

Do you need someone to come alongside of you?

But I failed to do that.

I fostered an unhealthy family dynamic instead of getting outside of my own comfort and securities and desire for homogeny and going and pursuing another person to understand how is your welfare.

Paul goes on to say in verse 22, all the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household.

So, summary of verse 22, we see the power of gospel family.

The power of gospel family.

Paul goes on to expound upon the family of God and the desire to be known among one another.

He says, All the saints greet you, all of whom the gospel has transferred from the foreigner to the family greet you and desires their welfare to be known among you.

And then we can't pass over this.

He says, especially those of Caesar's household.

Now, it's significant because let's build some historical context into what Paul is referring to here.

Paul wrote this letter to the church at Philippi around 60 to 62 AD.

At that time, there was an emperor in rule named Nero.

He was the emperor of Rome, and Paul was imprisoned because of Nero.

You see, there is this thing in history called the Roman imperial cult.

What they believed is that the emperor was actually divine, that he was a god.

And what does Paul come in town and do?

There's only but one God.

Repent and serve him.

He has accomplished the forgiveness of sins through his death, burial, and resurrection.

You think Nero liked that?

I don't think Nero did.

So he put Paul in prison.

And then what does Paul do?

Paul, because he can't help himself, as he's chained to these guards, these soldiers, he starts preaching the gospel.

And he starts sharing the good news of Jesus because he cannot control his passion and zeal for what Christ has done for him.

Now, this Nero, when we talk about the imperial guard or those who Paul was chained to in his imprisonment, these were members of Caesar's household.

Back in Roman time, a household was not just known through bloodline, a household was known by also those whom the head of the house employed.

And so if you were employed by me or one of my slaves or freedmen, you would also be considered a part of my household.

And so these imperial guards were part of Caesar's household.

And we read in Philippians 1, 12 through 13, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.

So it has become known throughout what?

The whole Imperial Guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.

These were Nero's personal bodyguards, who at times would take service and duty to do kind of prisoner uh keeping.

And so they would be chained literally to Paul's right and sometimes both hands while he was under house arrest that they would pret uh that they would guard him.

But then when they weren't on that duty, they would be serving as Nero's personal bodyguards.

And so Paul's saying this.

He's not saying all of them got saved, but he's saying at least they all know why I'm here.

I'm here to preach the gospel.

I'm in chains for Christ.

But we can imagine now, Paul in his salutation is saying, who greets them?

The saints, especially those in Caesar's household.

So now there's men and women who have been born again because the gospel has been preached.

But why does this speak to the power of gospel family?

We have to understand what these men and women now faced by professing faith in Jesus.

Paul's imprisonment looks like a playground compared to what some of these people had to endure because they submitted their lives to the divine one instead of those who claimed to have divinity among them.

They submitted themselves to Christ as Lord.

There is a famous uh Roman historian.

His name is Publius Cornelius Tacitus.

Thank God we don't do that anymore.

But he was a Roman historian and politician.

And I just want to read an excerpt from one of his books about this specific instance.

So here's what happened, just to kind of paint a scene of what these men and women were facing.

In 64 A.D., so just about two years after it's believed that this letter was written, Nero was in his most scandalous, vicious, and violent period of his rule over Rome.

And he did something one night.

In 64 AD, he started setting these fires all around Rome so that he could continue building this golden palace that he wanted to expand.

And people didn't know that Nero did this.

They started to try to figure out well, who set all these fires?

So what did he do?

He pointed the blame on Christians.

And then he started persecuting Christians so that the attention would be taken off of him and onto someone else.

And here's what Publius writes about this incident.

It says this Nero substituted as culprits and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty a class of men loathed for their vices, whom he the crowd styled Christians.

Vast numbers were convicted, not so much on the account of arson as for hatred of the human race.

And derision accompanied their end.

They were covered with wild beast skins and torn to death by dogs, or they were fastened on crosses, and when daylight failed, were burned to serve as lamps by night.

All those in Caesar's household greet you.

You think these men needed the family of God?

They needed encouragement, fortifying, strengthening, building up, comfort, walking alongside of.

They needed the family of God.

And so even though it might cost them their life, they desired to be known, to make themselves known by God's household.

These born again saints would need the family of God.

They would be in danger of severe persecution for their newfound faith.

The family of God would be the tangible source of comfort and courage so that they might remain steadfast against any persecution that they.

Would face this simple phrase, especially those of Caesar's household, is a testament to the power of gospel family.

And finally, Paul concludes this letter with a simple phrase the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

And so we see in verse 23, grace from Christ.

If in 21 we were greeted in Christ, at 23 we're sent with grace from Christ.

Now we come to the final farewell: the grace.

Grace is primarily known by us as the unmerited favor of God.

And we tend to isolate the sense of grace, the understanding of grace, to the salvation that we experience.

It is by that grace, that unmerited favor of God, that we experience and know the salvation of Christ.

But grace throughout the scriptures is not just seen in that way, it's also seen in the very power that enables us to live transformed lives as we conform to the one who saved us, Christ Jesus our Lord.

And so grace is power, not just pardon.

Grace is power, not just pardon.

And we see an example of this in Paul's writing to the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 15, 10.

He says, But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.

On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Paul's talking about his ability to be conformed to the uh Christ our Lord, of the way that he worked to see the gospel take root in his life and to transform him.

But it wasn't just by his own effort, it was by the grace, the power that enables transformation, that he was able to accomplish it.

There will be much grace needed to live out the call that Paul has made to this family of faith.

The grace to live in fearless unity for the sake of the gospel.

And this grace will fully and surely be supplied by the Lord Jesus in all his riches and glory, because it is his grace after all.

The grace of Jesus.

A grace that is given to us that we would be established in his church, and his grace that empowers us to accomplish all that he has willed for his church to do.

And this guaranteed supply of grace, Paul mentions just a few verses earlier in Philippians 4.19.

He talks, he encourages and strengthens the church at Philippi, and my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus.

To do what God has called us to do, church, we're gonna need empowering grace.

Grace that enables us to accomplish what we have been called to do.

We're gonna need to be confident that that grace is supplied to us in all the riches and glory in Christ Jesus.

Grace abounds.

This need will be met by the grace of Jesus and applied to our spirit.

It is the preeminence of Christ that permeates this letter.

I love the way that Paul talks about Christ in every aspect of what he's writing in this letter.

We see in Christ, of Christ, through Christ, for Christ, is Christ, and now we're sent as sojourners and missionaries in a foreign land with grace from Christ.

If we're gonna work to summarize this letter, I think a summary would be for us to live a life that is worthy of the gospel through fearless unity.

Live a life that is worthy of the gospel through fearless unity.

We see this charge coming from Paul that we should live our lives in a manner worthy of the gospel.

And then as he fleshes that out, well, what does that look like?

We see that it is through fearless unity.

And so if we're going to accomplish what this letter calls us to, if we're gonna be able to uh uh uh obtain all that is set before us, then this is what we have to understand.

Fearless unity is strengthened in being known.

Fearless unity is strengthened in being known.

Let's talk about this aspect of fearless unity.

We live fearless by remaining steadfast in the midst of trials and hardships that we face for the sake of the gospel.

Paul wrote about this in Philippians 1, 28 and 29.

He says this, and not frightened in anything by your opponents, this is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation in that from God.

For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake.

So Paul's talking about being fearless.

And we went back through and we talked about how what we experience as Christians is the double blessing of God.

It has been granted to you to have faith, and it has been granted to you to suffer for that faith.

You want to talk about double portion blessing, double portion anointing?

Here it is.

You get faith and you suffer for it.

Praise be to God.

And what's he saying?

You have to stand fearless amidst those trials.

And then he calls us to unity, not striving for selfish ambition, pulling followers away to yourself, or by self-interest, looking out for your own good first, but through humility, serving one another and seeking their good before your own.

Philippians 1 27b says, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.

Then we also see in Philippians 2, 2 through 4, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Do nothing.

The original language there means nothing.

Keep it at that.

Do nothing.

The 9 a.m., they really liked that one.

You guys didn't.

But that's okay.

From selfish ambition or conceit.

But in humility, count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interests of others.

Paul's calling us to fearless unity, to live a life worthy of the gospel.

And I'm trying to submit to us, church, that that cannot be accomplished if we are not a known people.

To accomplish the call that this letter is making to the church in Philippi, it fundamentally demands that we are known in the context of biblical community.

We cannot live worthy of the gospel through fearless unity as scattered autonomous unknowns.

It is by being known in gospel community that we're able to fulfill the life we're being called to.

But many of us we tend to struggle with being known or making others known.

Some of us we just love our circles, right?

We love our tribes, we love our homogeny, we love being super comfortable and safe around the people that we trust.

And so we fail to make others known.

Or in some contexts, we fail to make ourselves able to be known by the church.

But then others of us, on the other side of that, we're very focused on making ourselves known in very radical and big and boastful ways.

Instead of humbly seeking to know others, we pridefully pursue to be known by others.

And so some of us, we strive to make ourselves known instead of working to make others known.

We strive to make ourselves known instead of working to make others known.

Paul talked about this, and we just read it.

We'll read it again here in just a second.

But Paul said, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit.

What's he talking about there?

He's literally talking about pulling others away to yourself to be made known by others as your first endeavor and prideful pursuit.

But if we're honest with ourselves, isn't that the infrastructure of our society to make yourself known?

That's why social media exists.

If social media has done anything, it has exploited at every turn our desire to make ourselves known.

Our voices heard, our opinions be known, who we are, right?

Have followers, people who like us, subscribe to us, or whatever it is.

In fact, it was just put out through a research study that 25% of Gen Z desires to be a social media influencer when they grow up.

25%.

That's a quarter of Gen Z that just wants to what?

Have people know them.

But Philippians 2.3, Paul says, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves.

But the culture has established this innate desire to be known as our life pursuit.

To be known by others, have followers, have our voices heard.

Culture's most centric value is to be known.

And I looked at this kind of on a big scale.

So I looked at some of the most uh prominent social media platforms.

I said, well, who has the most followers?

And so here we go.

You ready?

Instagram.

There's this dude named Cristiano Ronaldo.

I don't know if you've ever heard of him.

But he has uh, man, the foot of God in some ways.

Um 477 million Instagram followers that he has.

He has the most on the whole platform.

When we looked at YouTube, there's this uh Swedish gamer uh goes by the name PewDiePie or PewDiePie, and um he has 111 million YouTube subscribers.

111 million.

Uh then there's this dude named KB Lame.

He's on TikTok.

He's an African dude who's most famous for simply doing this.

That's what he does, it's all he does.

You've seen him.

He has 149 million TikTok followers.

Kylie Jenner.

May the Lord save her.

Uh may the Lord save all these people.

36 and a half million Snapchat followers.

But here's what was something funny.

Interesting.

As I was able to look at how many people do they follow, I was only able to find two.

Cristiano Ronaldo, 477 million Instagram followers.

Guess how many people he follows?

520.

477 million follow him, 520 he follows.

Uh, and then KB Lame, 149 million TikTok followers.

Guess how many he follows?

79.

There's a badge of honor within our culture where the ratio of people who follow you versus who you follow should be so astronomically disproportionate that that somehow is credited to you as fame.

But what's happening there?

Fundamentally, it's a societal structure built around making yourself known at the expense of other people.

They don't know the people who follow them, they don't work to know the people who follow them in many ways.

And in some ways they can't, right?

477 million people, sweet Aunt Jemima.

I don't want to know that many people.

I can't know that many people.

But what we have to look at is that there's a kingdom principle that would turn that notion on its whole head, that we would actually have more people that we make known and less people following after us.

And see, maybe you don't suffer with 111 million followers on your platform.

Maybe some of you can't get anybody to follow you.

We know who you are.

But within the church culture, this can happen in some other ways too.

And one of the ways that this can happen is the church is one of the easiest ways for you to build your own kingdom.

It's one of the easiest places to have recognition and following and so forth, right?

And it tends to play itself out in only two places, the pulpit and the musicians.

I don't know why.

Maybe it's because we just have those personalities that are able to be out in front, right?

No, you never see a facilities dude trying to call people unto himself.

It just doesn't happen.

I don't know why.

There's some of the greatest people we have in our church.

But there is this culture where we can build churches around single personalities.

And that's a dangerous thing to get into.

At Sacred Mission, we really hope that no matter what happens to me, that this church will not skip a beat in pursuing what God has called it to.

Whether I die tomorrow or whether sin takes me out of being able to fulfill the office of which I'm called, I pray that this church would never be built around me, but that it would be built around the gospel of Jesus as your leaders, your elders strive not to make ourselves known, but to make Christ known among you.

And let me tell you something.

If something happens to your faith in Christianity because I uh uh lost some sense of the responsibility and ownership that I should have if I disqualify myself by sin and somehow your spiritual life just goes haywire, something is fundamentally wrong with your own Christian spirituality.

It should be built on Christ and Christ alone.

And so I hope that we're doing a faithful job to humbly call your attention to the Lord Jesus, who is seated on the throne, that no matter what happens to us, your eyes are so fixed heavenward that it doesn't distract you from what God has called you to.

Because here's the truth I am going to fail you.

If I can give you any guarantee in my ministry, it's that I'm going to fail you.

In some way and somehow.

And I only want two things from you.

Love me well and don't take your eyes off Jesus.

I pray that we're never built around a single person.

I pray that our leaders here never try to call people unto themselves, but they constantly push you toward the cross.

But maybe it's a little bit more subtle than just a big personality up front.

Maybe it's something simple like inviting a leader over to your home for a meal.

But with the fundamental reality that there are people in this church that you would never extend the same hospitality toward.

And the Bible talks about unjust favor.

The Bible talks about when you treat people a certain way that you might get something out of them, that you might be known by them.

You see, it's the exact same thing that the person who wants a hundred million followers has.

They want to be known, and it's in more subtle, silent, behind closed doors ways.

But you want to be known.

Instead of working to humbly make others known.

Because what does the gospel call us to?

What does Jesus Himself call us to?

Or uh James, his brother, what's he say?

If there's someone who is poor that comes in among you, you should give them the best of seat.

Because it's a demonstration of the gospel of which you have been reconciled to God through that he gave you the best of place in him, seated with Christ at his right hand.

And that if we show prominence to those who are wealthy or have power, we are in unjust favor.

We are practicing wickedness.

And so some of us it's more subtle, but it's still out of the same heart motivation.

What do you think the posture of a kingdom citizen ought to be?

To strive to make themselves known or to strive to make others known.

But some of us, we strive to remain unknown.

And we work really hard at this, right?

We just walk around with like grumpy faces so no one talks to us.

We kind of stay hidden.

We might scoot in and then scoot out, right?

Some of you have been here for a long time.

You're still not on a volunteer team.

You're still not in a mission group.

You're still here unknown.

And it's been a minute.

And some of you are even in a mission group.

But here's your conduct within the mission group.

You never open your mouth to contribute to what's being talked about in the scriptures.

You've been asked 74,000 times what you can be prayed for, and you never have anything.

And you've been asked the same amount of times, if not more, would you pray for someone?

And your mouth stays closed.

You work really hard at remaining unknown.

And the funny thing is, you're not just protecting yourself, you're hurting the church.

Because we need one another.

Every member of the body of Christ is absolutely necessary.

And so in the foolishness of our thinking, where we think we're protecting ourselves in those moments, we're actually hindering and harming the health of the church at whole because I need you.

I need you to be healthy in the way that God has called us to be.

We cannot remain unknown.

It's sad that we can be in a church for an extensive amount of time and have very few, if any, real relationships.

Or even have the majority of the church family say, Man, I really don't know them.

We put effort into avoiding real conversations or being vulnerable with others.

Some of us even come late to the gathering and then leave before the benediction is over.

And I get it, I preach long sometimes, you gotta go somewhere, but slow down.

Make someone known.

Seek to understand their welfare.

Chase them down.

If the call of the church at Philippi is to live in a manner worthy of the gospel, and that is seen primarily through fearless unity, then we must fundamentally be a known people.

And that comes first through our responsibility, our biblical responsibility to make others known.

And second through our responsibility to be known ourselves.

Not only do we have to chase down others to make them known, but we have to be willing to be vulnerable and open and to be known.

It's crazy how prideful of a people we are.

Many of us sitting in this room need a lot of help on stuff that you're too prideful to ask anyone help you with.

Some of you dudes got house projects you've redone three different times.

And you can't ask anybody to just come over and help you.

Some of you moms are tired, worn out, fatigued, and you don't pick up the phone just to ask, can you help me?

Some of you men, there's things you've needed to get off your chest for a long time, and it's come out in ways that are violent and aggressive.

It's come out in putting down your uh wife and children.

It's come out in very unhealthy ways, and you need to call someone to get some help.

We've got to be a community of faith where we can be messy, where we cannot have everything put together, where we can be at a place where people are going to love us but push us to the truth of the gospel.

Some of us, we need desperately to put forth effort in making ourselves known.

The beauty of the gospel for us church is that the grace of Jesus is for a known people.

The grace of Jesus is for a known people.

The very power of the gospel is to make a people who were unknown known.

If we look at 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 10, Peter says these words Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.

1 Peter 2:10

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Here's what Peter's saying the gospel makes unknowns intimately and eternally known.

In his humility, Jesus finished work, accomplishes, making us known.

His grace, first and foremost, makes us who were not.

People, a people.

A people of his own possession.

And through the power of the gospel, we become citizens, children, priests, saints, friends, members.

Known.

And because we become known, it is necessary to endeavor to make others known also.

Look at the beauty of what the gospel portrays to us.

Even in this church, this letter to the church of Philippi, Paul says, though he was equal with God, he counted that equality as nothing to be grasped, white-knuckled, held on to.

Instead, what did he do?

He humbled himself and he took on flesh.

He became one of us.

What was Jesus' pursuit?

It was pursuit to make you known.

Imagine what this world would look like.

Imagine what your state would look like if the gospel was actually not a God who abandons his glories in heaven to become one of us, that he might chase us down and make us known, but a God who sat on his throne with his arms crossed and his old frumpy face and he just waited for us to come to him.

You know what you would be?

Lost, condemned, damned, unknown.

God doesn't just wait up there and expect us to come to him.

The whole thrust of the gospel is that he chased you down in utter darkness, shined his light upon you, grasped hold of you with the ransom of his blood, and brought you into being known as one of his children, a family member, a saint, a priest, redeemed, reconciled, eternal life.

That is the power of the gospel.

He chased you down to make you known.

Can we do that for someone else?

Can we do that to this small room of brothers and sisters in Christ?

Can we put on humility and chase down others so that they are known?

As a believer, if we do not strive to make others known in our church family, we're communicating a disbelief in the fundamental root of the gospel.

And unfortunately, we're working to build a frail, disunified church family that will suffer greatly in the face of trials and persecution.

Because it is the gospel that makes us known, and it is a gospel that drives us to know others.

So our hope for us as we close down is that we would be a community of known people.

We would be a community of known people.

We were talking in our staff meeting this last week about the hospitality team.

Who loves our hospitality team?

I think they're awesome.

Yeah.

Our hospitality team rocks.

I mean, it is amazing.

The leadership, the volunteers, it is such a good and healthy team.

But isn't it kind of funny that we need a hospitality team at all?

Right?

The culture of a church is that we are all always scheduled and on the hospitality team.

There's no option to not be.

Right?

You don't get a break from being hospitable this morning, so you just sit there in your chair and not talk to anybody.

Every person in this church is on the hospitality team, and guess what?

You're scheduled every Sunday.

It don't have to be on Planning Center.

This is the culture that we need to foster and create.

That we are people who eagerly seek out to make others known, that we welcome them graciously and generously into this house, that we say, hey, we were expecting you.

We've got a seat for you.

We'd love to have you sit with us and taste and see the goodness of God as we feast upon the truth of His Word.

I'd love to have you be a part of this family.

And so we have to be a people who are constantly aware of the ways that we are demonstrating hospitable recognition to those who are coming into this church.

We are always on the hospitality team because we are always pursuing making others known because God in his grace and mercy, through Christ Jesus, has made us known.

Once we were not a people, now we are.

And that cosmic truth of the gospel should be a tangible and physical reality of the people who walk through these doors.

So if I ever hear of this church being clicky or unfriendly or not welcoming, I don't know what I'll do.

I don't have an answer that would be good or appropriate at this point in time.

But that's just not who we are gonna be, are we?

Why?

Because we understand the gospel and we joyfully respond to what it calls us to.

Let's pray.