Undivided: Preferences

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, good morning, everybody.

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to First Free Church.

[SPEAKER_00]: Great time of worship this morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely love that and hearing all of your voices.

[SPEAKER_00]: Loud and clear, we are in the last week of the undivided series.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I hope it has been a great blessing to you for those of you that have been through it before years ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that you learned some new things.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was all retooled.

[SPEAKER_00]: for this time, and I have learned a lot of new things along the way, and it's been a lot of fun to go through.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've talked about the dogma bucket, the doctrine bucket, the conviction bucket, and today we're going to talk about the preference bucket.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to go back in time with me a couple thousand years ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: Today, you'd have to wear an ankle bracelet, but back then you had to be changed to a Roman guard.

[SPEAKER_00]: They would work in shifts every four hours to swap out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you'd have a chain connected to your wrist and then about a three-foot light chain connected to the guards wrist when you were under what they called custodial libra.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were kind of free, kind of not.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were in custody, but you were also free.

[SPEAKER_00]: Would call it house arrest today.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Paul, as he's in house arrest, has basically had to give up all of his own personal preferences for the most part or at least get consent if he wants to go to the bathroom.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to walk over there and eat something at the table, if you want to sit down at the desk and write something, if you want to go clean something up, if you just want to move around the room, he's chained to this guard.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is not that big of a deal for Paul in a way, because he's not used to be in a diva.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not used to getting his personal preferences all the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, he's used to giving those up for other people.

[SPEAKER_00]: He explained his philosophy in ministry in life in 1 Corinthians 9.

[SPEAKER_00]: When he said, even though I am a free man with no master, I have become a slave to all people to bring many to Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I was with the Jews, I lived like a Jew, to bring the Jews to Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I was with those who followed the Jewish law, I too lived under that law, even though I am not subject to the law.

[SPEAKER_00]: I did this so I could bring to Christ those who are under the law.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I'm with the Gentiles, we do not follow the Jewish law.

[SPEAKER_00]: I too live apart from that law so I can bring them to Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I do not ignore the law of God, I obey the law of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness for I want to bring the weak to Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone doing everything I can to save some.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do everything to spread the good news and share in its blessings.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've unpacked those verses a few times over the last few years.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to do that today.

[SPEAKER_00]: The thing I want you to notice here is that this is a man who is used to giving up.

[SPEAKER_00]: his personal desires and his personal wants and his personal likes and dislikes for the sake of a higher purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: He did not expect to have people catering to him all the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so now here he is sitting in a house arrest, experiencing the lack of all of his likes and dislikes and preferences and desires for the most part, he had some freedoms because of the type of imprisonment that he was in.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he's given away a lot of his ability to choose what he wants to do when he wants to do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's a knock at the door, a visitor has come.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of the believers from Philippi.

[SPEAKER_00]: His name is a Paphroditis.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he brings news of the church in Philippi.

[SPEAKER_00]: A church that Paul absolutely loves, a church that supports him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And a Paphroditis has brought yet another financial gift to support Paul in what he is doing in his ministry and support him while he is under house arrest.

[SPEAKER_00]: The prisoners had to pay for their own lodging if they didn't want to be in the prison cell.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so what this church is doing is providing for Paul to be able to do that to stay in an apartment under Roman guard instead of in a prison cell.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul says that their offering was a sweet, acceptable sacrifice to God and what they gave and provided for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's not all good news.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, there's conflict in the church in Philippi.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's enough conflict that it was important enough to tell Paul about this in Rome.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for him to write back about it to give some words of instruction for the church back in Philippi.

[SPEAKER_00]: So towards the end of his letter back to them in Philippians chapter four, he says this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I appeal to Evodia and Stunti Kay, please because you belong to the Lord, settle your disagreement.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I ask you, my true partner, to help these two women, for they worked hard with me and telling others the good news.

[SPEAKER_00]: They worked along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are written in the book of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Evodia and St. T. K. had some kind of disagreement and the fact that we don't know much about their disagreement actually tells us something about their disagreement.

[SPEAKER_00]: It must not have been very important.

[SPEAKER_00]: It couldn't have been about the gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever Paul encounters a false gospel, he corrects it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it couldn't have been about any kind of doctrine because Paul it takes doctrine very seriously.

[SPEAKER_00]: He tells the churches to correct people who do not teach sound

[SPEAKER_00]: It could have been a conviction, but then when he's dealing with convictions in the church and Rome, or convictions in the church and Corinth, he talks about those convictions and he affirms both sides, here he says nothing that makes us think this is a conviction.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is probably a preference bucket issue.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is probably a difference of opinion about something and there's probably some sort of a fence that has occurred because of that difference of opinion and so now there's this long running dispute that has become so big of a deal that it's affected the whole church and it's worth writing in an epistle that would last 2,000 years plus all the way down to today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe, Suntika said something mean about the kids' curriculum, the Evodia chose for the kids' ministry.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: But there's some kind of dispute.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now they're not getting along with each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: And stop for a minute to think about the irony of this situation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here is Paul under house arrest, where most of his privileges and rights and ability to get whatever he wants, his preferences have been taken away.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can't eat whatever he wants.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can't go wherever he wants.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can't do whatever he wants.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has to get cooperation from his personal guard for that four-hour shift

[SPEAKER_00]: And these two ladies, the fact that they can even fight about something and argue about something, is due to the luxury of the fact that they're not in chains.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so Paul may have been a prisoner of Rome, but they were prisoners of their own opinions.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were prisoners of their own opinions, trapped in this fight that was so big that it reached Paul all that way away in Rome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever known somebody like that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Just consumed by their own opinions, their own preferences that it's all they think about.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's all they talk about.

[SPEAKER_00]: The person who thinks about their own preferences, their own wants, or their own dislikes, so much that they don't give time to more important things in life.

[SPEAKER_00]: They spend so much time talking about what they don't like, or what this person did, or this person said to them, it consumes their thoughts, it consumes their mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a prison that we get into.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know I'm talking about me when I talk about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Am I talking about you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't we all get stuck in these preference prisons?

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we're just all we can think about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can you believe what they said to me?

[SPEAKER_00]: And it just lives large in our head and takes up all this space instead of the more important things we should be thinking about, talking about, doing with our lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: To get free from the preference, prison, and the trap that we get into our own opinions, it's really helpful to think about where it comes from.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thought about this a lot this week and I decided that our preference prisons often come from past patterns.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our preference prisons often come from past patterns.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't you like that?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a pasture trick to just repeat the same letter multiple times.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now you remember it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our preference prisons often come from past patterns.

[SPEAKER_00]: Say it 10 times fast after the service is over.

[SPEAKER_00]: You'll never forget it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's our past patterns that often cause our preference prisons.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I almost got stuck there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Man, that's dangerous.

[SPEAKER_00]: Usually what this looks like is I found something that worked for me and now it's the way I always want it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anybody that way?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I know what I'm ordering at that restaurant because I like the same thing I've had there the last 20 times and I'm going to get it again.

[SPEAKER_00]: We do that with all sorts of things in life.

[SPEAKER_00]: I like it this way because it's the way I've always done it's the way I like it or it's the way I was taught.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is how my old pastor used to do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is how my parents did it.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what I grew up with.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what has brought success for me in the past.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the tradition that I've had for so long and now anything else just feels off.

[SPEAKER_00]: What about this one?

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the way I grew spiritually in my faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it must be the way everyone is supposed to grow spiritually in their faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have read so many spiritual growth and discipleship books.

[SPEAKER_00]: Where within the first two chapters, I realize what has happened is the author has found something that worked great for them as they grew with God, and they just assume that's how everybody grows with God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Completely ignoring the fact that God gives us a diversity of personalities and experiences and gift deans, understanding your spiritual gifts has a difference in how you relate to and grow in God, the person with the gift of mercy grows differently with God than the person, with the gift of teaching, but the person with the gift of teaching writes all the books.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so you may find as you're going through this life that you encounter people who are absolutely sure this is the way to do this thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just a past pattern that, in some case, it has become a preference prison for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here's where this gets really dangerous.

[SPEAKER_00]: With all of our preference prisons, when this preference bumps up against that preference, and we can't agree and we don't get along and we hold on to our preferences really tightly it becomes a preference prison riot.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we have sparks that fly and people that don't get along and it gets bigger and more people find out about it and we start sharing things about that other person, all because of a preference disagreement.

[SPEAKER_00]: That appears to be what happened in Philippi.

[SPEAKER_00]: These two people had some sort of disagreement, almost certainly over some kind of a preference and they could not resolve it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so Paul had to speak into it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And notice when Paul speaks into it,

[SPEAKER_00]: He does not say, I've been made aware, but there are some disagreements in your church, I want to encourage all of you to get along.

[SPEAKER_00]: To say that, he calls them out by name.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you imagine, this is the possible, can you imagine if he were here today?

[SPEAKER_00]: The way these letters worked is a messenger would bring them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that messenger oftentimes would be the one to read the message to the church, or a church leader might.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in this case, it was probably a preferred item.

[SPEAKER_00]: So leader in the church who comes and he reads this message, the church gathers together.

[SPEAKER_00]: Later on, copies would be made that be distributed to all the churches in the region.

[SPEAKER_00]: But for right now, the letter has just shown up in Philippine.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the church is so excited.

[SPEAKER_00]: A preferred item is his back.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's been to Paul.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gave him the gift we sent to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's got this letter from Paul.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go here.

[SPEAKER_00]: They all gather together wherever the church gathers for their meetings.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they're there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Evo Diff is in the back and that corner.

[SPEAKER_00]: and Stunty K's in the back in that corner.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they don't look at each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they still want to hear what Paul has to say.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they make it through most of the letter, and they get all the way to chapter four, and they hear now I appeal to Evoidea and Stunty K. Please, because you belong to the Lord, settle your disagreement.

[SPEAKER_00]: Goap, can you feel a little bit of what they were feeling in that moment?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, earlier in the book, they probably are the letter, as we refer to it as a book, but it's a letter.

[SPEAKER_00]: Earlier in the letter, they probably picked up on some things of like, oh, I wonder if he's talking about us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then they get to this point and he calls him out by name.

[SPEAKER_00]: I never do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I never call anybody out by name.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul did, maybe I should follow his example.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, then he says, and I ask you my true partner to help these two women for they worked hard with me and telling others the good news.

[SPEAKER_00]: They worked along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers whose names are written in the book of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: These two short verses, they pack so much meaning.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't actually want to spend most of our time on these two verses, but I do want to talk about them a little bit, because it's such great stuff here.

[SPEAKER_00]: When Paul says, I appeal to, he's using a word that means I'm begging you, I'm pleading with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like I command you to settle your disc.

[SPEAKER_00]: I appeal to, I urge you, I beg of you to settle your disagreement.

[SPEAKER_00]: When he talks to them about because you belong to the Lord, the actual Greek there says,

[SPEAKER_00]: He's calling them to a higher bucket, the Lord Jesus, who you both gave your life to, who you both trusted for your salvation, who you both serve.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think about that dogma bucket, the thing that makes you a believer when you trust in Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wanna remind you of the Lord because your preference to disagreement is way down here.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you need to be thinking about stuff that's way up here.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't say, I want you to start a green on everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't say, I just want to let you know, everybody is right, since he guys are on, everybody agree with her.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then say that.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't say anything about their disagreement at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: He just hear what you need to agree about.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's just thinking you need to focus on.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to agree in the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then he invites other people to help in this reconciliation process.

[SPEAKER_00]: He talks about my true partner.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I want my true partner to help.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, probably who this is is a path for guidance.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because he's the guy that brought the news to Paul and Rome.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was very helpful to Paul.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul loves this guy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He sends a pamphletist back with this letter.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's probably a pamphletist who reads the letter.

[SPEAKER_00]: And probably the reason I think why Paul mentions this throws this in there is because he doesn't want the church or these two ladies to think that a pamphletist is meddling in their affairs or speaking out of turn.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul wants them to know, I have asked this guy to help you settle this disagreement.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he doesn't share his name, even though he mentions all these other names, probably because it's the guy who delivered the letter.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then Paul says some very nice things about them.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, look, Epidians, in T.K., you worked hard with me in sharing the gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you worked with these other Christian leaders too.

[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, this gives us more confirmation that the issue that they had was not a worthwhile disagreement.

[SPEAKER_00]: because they had the gospel message, and they shared it well, and they worked well with other people, and they were doing good things in the ministry.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are not people who were not already heavily involved in the church and serving and doing different things.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was not a big disagreement that they had, not something worth fighting over, not something dividing over.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so in our terminology, in our language, in our church, we would say they had a bucket prioritization problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had a bucket prioritization problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were taking something that was a preference,

[SPEAKER_00]: or a dogma and saying, you have to agree with me on this issue that's really not that important.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Paul gives him this instruction.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in that shell, he says, listen, you too, who've worked so well with me, cut it out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Get along with each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we might think reading that today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's very helpful, Paul.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for that extremely accurate diagnosis and step by step instruction.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'd have to resolve the disagreements that we have.

[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: He already gave them the blueprint.

[SPEAKER_00]: He actually shared earlier in the letter, written to the entire church, maybe they picked up on the fact that this is a little bit especially for you too.

[SPEAKER_00]: He calls them out by name, but he already shared what they need to know to get over their personal disagreement with each other in their preference prison problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're gonna go there now in Philippians chapter two.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you got your Bibles, go to Philippians chapter two.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're a note-taker, by the way, I'm just going to let you know there are four things that you need to remember from today and write down, four things.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you only get three, you've missed one, you'd come up and see me afterward.

[SPEAKER_00]: You want to have these four things written down, although they're going to be pretty obvious to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: The first one is this, focus on what matters most.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could almost call that a theme for this entire series.

[SPEAKER_00]: Focus on what matters most.

[SPEAKER_00]: Philippians chapter two, verse one, Paul says,

[SPEAKER_00]: Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ?

[SPEAKER_00]: Any comfort from His love, any fellowship together in the Spirit?

[SPEAKER_00]: Are your hearts tender and compassionate?

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, obviously by asking these questions, Paul is setting something up here, but here's what he's doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is drawing their attention to a higher bucket.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's drawing their attention away from all the things that might divide them and they might disagree over and say,

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, the comfort from His love, the encouragement, the fellowship in the spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have tender and compassionate hearts?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because that's what God produces in you, as you grow closer to Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you spend all your time worrying about your personal desires?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you spend your time thinking about what you don't like about this person or that person or this thing that happened or this situation over here?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have tender and compassionate hearts or you grumpy and contentcreas?

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you bitter oftentimes?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you have fellowship with the Spirit, you should be producing the fruit of the Spirit, which is love and joy and peace.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you don't have tender and compassionate hearts, then maybe you're not walking closely and fellowship with the Spirit, but when you have the encouragement of belonging to Christ and you're comforted by His love and you're walking with the Spirit, you're growing in your tenderness, then this is what should happen, verse two.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then make me truly happy.

[SPEAKER_00]: by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another and working together with one mind and purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: Three things in this verse, I'll just put up an list really quick for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: A degree, love, and work together with one mind and purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: A degree with each other, wholeheartedly, love each other and work together with one mind and one purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now,

[SPEAKER_00]: We could walk away from this with a wrong impression.

[SPEAKER_00]: Does Paul expect us to agree on everything?

[SPEAKER_00]: Does Paul expect us to agree on everything?

[SPEAKER_00]: Does Paul expect us to agree on everything?

[SPEAKER_00]: There we go, thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: OK, I actually did want a little bit of interaction there.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know that he doesn't, because as we've seen throughout this series, Paul affirms our different viewpoints, our different perspectives, even our different convictions about what is right, or wrong, first Corinthians talks about this Romans 14 talks about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we know he's not saying we have to agree on everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: What he's talking about is agree on the most important things.

[SPEAKER_00]: All the stuff he just mentioned.

[SPEAKER_00]: The belonging to Christ comforted by His love, the same spirit having a tender heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the more important things.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's drawing their attention to a higher, more important bucket.

[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of the friction that we encounter with other followers of Jesus could probably be resolved and avoided if we just focused on the more important things with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what I mean by that.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we disagree on something, when our preference prison bumps up against somebody else's preference prison, our tendency is to allow that thing to take up so much space in our mind that we are not thinking about how God is actively at work in the heart and life of that other person.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not given any thought at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, a lot of times, when we allow those preference prisons to grow and get bigger and bigger and bigger, we start to think, you know, they may not even be a Christian.

[SPEAKER_00]: because they disagree with me on this thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now there may or may not be validity of that depending on what the situation is, but if it's a preference issue, and that's where we go, well, they may not even be a Christian.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of thinking about the common savior that we serve and that we trust, and we're talking about both people who have trusted and believe in Jesus Christ here, at least that's the profession.

[SPEAKER_00]: but we've allowed a preference to become such a big thing that creates division between us.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we can focus on the higher bucket, the more important things, the dogma of the gospel, the doctrine, the teaching that we agree on, the more important things, than it completely shifts the way we think about that other person.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of, I can't believe they disagree on this, I can't believe they said this, I can't, whatever that is, and said if we could just think about, wow, what is God doing in that person's life right now?

[SPEAKER_00]: What is He gonna teach them through all of this?

[SPEAKER_00]: I've been doing this long enough that I've seen so many conflicts.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're after a few years, you can look at both parties and go, wow, God did an awesome work in both their lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they are different people today than they were five years ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't that true for you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Aren't there things from five years ago that you look at in your past things that you thought were a big deal and now you look back at it and you go, actually that wasn't that big of a deal.

[SPEAKER_00]: And aren't you glad?

[SPEAKER_00]: And some circumstances that you didn't make it a big deal and caused a vision, cause a rift and ruin a relationship over something that today you couldn't look back and say, that was just a preference that I had.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was not worth dividing or causing friction with other people or in my family or in my marriage or in my church.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now we all have plenty of examples of the other way too.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've allowed those things to loom large in our heads.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what if we could actually say,

[SPEAKER_00]: but I believe God's work in their life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe even I can believe that they have sincere motivations for what they're doing, even if I disagree with it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We just have a preference to dispute.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not talking about blowing smoke, I'm not talking about false praise, but where we can actually say, I appreciate what God has done through them to reach other people, to minister, to serve, and whatever it is that they do.

[SPEAKER_00]: and allow those more important things to get some space in our minds and not just the preference that we disagree.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is exactly what Paul did with these two women.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, listen, you both belong to Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: You both worked hard with me and telling others about the gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've also worked together in a team with other people that I will mention by name like Clement and other believers, who are genuine believers.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, remember the things you have in common.

[SPEAKER_00]: and focus on what matters most.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's number one, number two.

[SPEAKER_00]: Replace pride with humility.

[SPEAKER_00]: Easy to say hard to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: Replace pride with humility.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse three says, don't be selfish.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't try to impress others.

[SPEAKER_00]: Be humble.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thinking of others as better than yourselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever the dispute was over in Philippi, it definitely was not very important, but they were treating it very selfishly.

[SPEAKER_00]: because both of them had to have their own way and they would not let go over whatever this dispute, whatever this disagreement was.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was thinking about it this week, one of the hazards of being a pastor in trying to share stories and illustrations is that you gotta be careful where you share them from or who you share them about.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I figured that the safest thing I can do is share an example from another church.

[SPEAKER_00]: So long time ago, in the galaxy far, far away,

[SPEAKER_00]: totally different church where I make that abundantly clear.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there was this group of people that for 15 years had been meeting in a particular classroom at a particular time and then going to the church service.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they loved that classroom.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they loved that time that they had.

[SPEAKER_00]: But at this point, their kids, they had grown up and the teenagers were out of the house now.

[SPEAKER_00]: And part of the reason why they loved that class and that time was because it worked so well for their families.

[SPEAKER_00]: When they had teens, especially their teens, you go to student ministry, and they could go to class, and they were right next to each other, and they could all go to the worship service together, and they just they got so accustomed to this room, and they loved this room because of what a great thing it was for them throughout the past, but now all of their teenagers are raised and gone out of the house.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a new group of young families.

[SPEAKER_00]: They have a bunch of teenagers that are starting to move out of middle school and into high school.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they have the same situation where, oh my goodness, it'd be so great if they could meet at this time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the only room that he big enough for this group.

[SPEAKER_00]: Meet at this time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then they could go to church together and worship together as a family.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it won't work unless they can have this classroom at this time.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just the way it worked out.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the adult ministry's pastor went in and talked with a class that was meeting there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, we'd like to move you guys to the second hour.

[SPEAKER_00]: You might think, well, that's not that big of a request, like it's just a different time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you might be thinking, I get it.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a big deal.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you change my routine on the Lord's Day?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's really my routine?

[SPEAKER_00]: How dare you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully no one is thinking what some of the people in this class were thinking because some of the people in this class said to the adult ministries pastor, if you change the time my class meets, I leave this church.

[SPEAKER_00]: I heard the murmurs, which I appreciate, because that is kind of crazy sounding, but that's where they were at.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had this preference prison that they were locked into, and if I don't have my time and my room that I've been into the last 15 years, even though the reason for it is no longer there, I'm gone, even though I've been at this church for well over a decade.

[SPEAKER_00]: So word got back to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And of course it was shocking to me to hear this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought, wow, to get to that point, the pride that's necessary to get to that point, where I am willing to say, doesn't matter what else is going on, I want my preference met in church.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want my preference met, or I'm out of here, I'm going to be not be a part of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: family of faith anymore.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, please don't hear what I'm not saying.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am not saying that people can't voice preferences.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying people can't have opinions about what happens in the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what was going on here.

[SPEAKER_00]: What was going on here was using their attendance and membership at the church as a bargaining chip to get their way in the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a whole, nobody hears over done that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that's a whole, another level of pride and selfishness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I have learned over the years that when I share a story like that, if I don't share the conclusion, people are coming up to me, and there's a line.

[SPEAKER_00]: Go on, you didn't tell us what happened, but the answer here's what happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: The adult ministry's pastor came into my office and said, you're not gonna believe what they're saying out there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I said, okay, I'll talk to him next week.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I went and I talked with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, look,

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to talk to you about the time change.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to talk to you about room situation.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to talk to you about stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to talk to you about what we as a church want to do to make sure that we are reaching the next generation for Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Making sure that the teenagers in our church here who are, let's just face it, statistically on very shaky ground when it comes to whether or not they're going to stay in the church or not.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's just the way things are at, and our culture and our society.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we have an opportunity to help their families better disciple them and help them grow in their face.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're not asking you to make this time switch just because we think you need to shift.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this will work better logistically or something like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're actually asking you to make a sacrifice for a missional reason.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that these families can better disciple their kids and they can be a part of a student ministry and they can sit and worship together and it's just the only way that it'll work is for this to happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you do this, if you will do this with us, it's not just giving up something to give up something.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a sacrifice to invest in the future of God's kingdom and you're gonna be investing in these families by doing that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And praise God, every single one of them said, okay, we get it now, we're all right with that.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're unanimous, we can move, and nobody left the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was a resolution of everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what happened there?

[SPEAKER_00]: They, all of the sudden,

[SPEAKER_00]: Recognized that they were allowing their preferences to lock them in and overcome a bigger issue, which was dogma, doctrine, discipleship, spiritual growth, how are we helping people to grow as a church?

[SPEAKER_00]: And there are one preference for that time slot, made all the difference in the world and as soon as they could understand that that was not the most important thing, they were willing to give it up.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that leads us to point number three.

[SPEAKER_00]: Care about the preferences of others.

[SPEAKER_00]: care about the preferences or Paul uses the word interest.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what he says in verse four.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others too.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't look out only for your own interest, but take an interest in others too.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's really important to hear.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not saying ignore your interests.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ignore your preferences.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not what he's saying.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's just saying, don't focus only on your own interests.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of us are the type of people that we can become absorbed with our own preferences, our own interests, our own desires, and that's all we think about.

[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, there are some people who go the other way on this, and they're so so giving and so thoughtful that some people get the impression that I just need to be a dormant and let everybody else have their way about everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what Paul's saying here.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't want to miscommunicate that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul is not endorsing the idea that you have to just be quiet about your preferences and not say anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not a he's talking about the people that are so absorbed with their own interest, that they don't even stop to think.

[SPEAKER_00]: What might that person be?

[SPEAKER_00]: What might that person want?

[SPEAKER_00]: Going back to the example of this class.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's a all wonderful people.

[SPEAKER_00]: But just for a couple weeks, they got absorbed with their own interest and own preferences.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't seem like at a single moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why would this be better for them?

[SPEAKER_00]: What?

[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't take an interest in the interest of others.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as soon as they did, as soon as their minds were brought to that, it did not take long.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was less than 30 minutes.

[SPEAKER_00]: For every single one of them to go, oh, okay, I'm on board now.

[SPEAKER_00]: If we will just do that ourselves, if we will just do it, Paul says, and stop as we're starting to get absorbed by on preference prison, and just pause for a minute and go, okay, what might the other person's interest be in this?

[SPEAKER_00]: I disagree with it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like what they're doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have a difference of opinion.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would rather them say this differently, do this differently.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would choose a different color or whatever.

[SPEAKER_00]: But is there a reason for it?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just think about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I don't know what it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I can't figure out what it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I need to ask them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you need to talk and learn more to understand, but just care about the preferences and the interests of others.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't just care about our own interests in our own preferences.

[SPEAKER_00]: care about the preferences of others.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we need to focus on what matters most.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need to replace pride with humility.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need to care about the preferences of others.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, just speaking to the parents here for a minute, parents, we have got to get this right for our kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because when we go out and get in the car and our kids are with us, and it's after church or after a sports game or whatever, and we start gripping about other people or other situations or things that we disagree with, our kids pick it up on this idea that we are absorbed by our own opinions and preferences and everything is negative.

[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe even in our heads, we're thinking to ourselves, well, maybe they have a good reason for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we're taking an interest in others' interests inside, but do our kids hear that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Did they get to hear that lived out, so they understand this is not just all about our preferences, our complaining parents.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've got to lead the way in this.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we focus on what matters most.

[SPEAKER_00]: We replace pride with humility.

[SPEAKER_00]: We care about the preferences of others, and then here's the final thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Follow the example of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul gives us those three things, then he says, look, I know this isn't easy, but this is the model that God gave to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's what Jesus modeled for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what he says, verse five, you must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

[SPEAKER_00]: Though he was God, he did not think of a quality with God as something to cling to.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we cling to our opinions, we cling to our desires, we cling to our preferences.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's Jesus, he gives it up.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, he gave up his divine privileges.

[SPEAKER_00]: He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.

[SPEAKER_00]: When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on a cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name of all other names that if the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue to clear that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, the Father.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is actually an old hymn.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's probably a hymn that the Philippian church was familiar with, that they sung.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think Paul just came up with this on the spot.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think he was alluding to something that they were already familiar with.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's calling their memory to something.

[SPEAKER_00]: They already sing and believe.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he's saying, remember this thing that you sing every week in church?

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember the humility of Jesus of all the people who had the right to demand whatever he wanted, and he gave that up.

[SPEAKER_00]: for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He cared about our interests.

[SPEAKER_00]: We had no right to demand that he come and live among us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We had no right to demand that he come and teach us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We had no right to demand that he died for us on a cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: We had no right to demand that he make a way for us to become part of his family and have our sins forgiven.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of these things were in our best interests.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he took our interests to heart and he cared about them.

[SPEAKER_00]: and he gave up his divine privileges and he humbled himself by coming to this earth because he cared about our interests.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's our model.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Paul's point is if Jesus was willing to do this for you, can you be okay with that person across the aisle that views things a little bit differently than you?

[SPEAKER_00]: If Jesus was willing to come to earth and die for you and sacrifice himself for you a person,

[SPEAKER_00]: By very nature, are you willing to give up your preference and your desire and your likes and dislikes because there's something way more important than that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul is pointing them to a higher bucket.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's bringing it all back to Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: All back to what Jesus did for you on the cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: The focus is on the gospel now.

[SPEAKER_00]: That dogma bucket.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it brings us full circle.

[SPEAKER_00]: Back to point number one, focus on what matters most.

[SPEAKER_00]: It brings our series full circle.

[SPEAKER_00]: The dogma bucket, bringing our focus back to the gospel, the good news about Jesus, the fact that we have new life and Christ in that should matter so much more to us than all of the possible disagreements we could have about the time that our classmates are, or the way the service goes, or the type of music that we experience, or the way we do communion, and that's just the church stuff, all the opinions and preferences that we have in our families and all over the place.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can we allow those to not, not disappear, not ignore them, not be passive about them necessarily.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can still share them, but at least to have the right place.

[SPEAKER_00]: At least to remember, remember what Jesus did.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember the fellowship in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember that you belong to Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember the Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember the encouragement and the comfort and love in the joy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember how your heart to supposed to be grown in tenderness and compassion pauses those of the things you need to focus on.

[SPEAKER_00]: More than the little things that divide you.

[SPEAKER_00]: The arrangement of the buckets of belief is based on quantity.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so the reason why the preference bucket is so large is because we have lots of preferences and lots of possible preferences.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are infinite possibilities for the preferences that we could have.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there are fewer convictions and there are fewer points of doctrine.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are fewer points of dogmen, all of those live within side of the others.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if we were to rearrange the buckets by value, it would look more like this.

[SPEAKER_00]: The dogma bucket is the big one.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this isn't to scale.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, these should really be shrinking even more than that.

[SPEAKER_00]: The dogma bucket's big.

[SPEAKER_00]: The doctrine bucket is big, but not as big.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've talked all about that in this series.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then your conviction bucket is smaller.

[SPEAKER_00]: And your preference bucket should really be, I don't know, a symbol, something really, really small.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the value that we should put on these things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you forget, everything else I have said today, I hope you remember this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Unity is not the absence of different preferences.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the presence of a higher purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have a higher purpose, and it's contained in that dogma bucket.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is contained in that gospel message.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as we've talked about a few weeks ago, that's not just the message you believed when you became a believer.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the thing that needs to have an impact on your life every single day.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when you focus on that bucket, you get a lot more purpose in life.

[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of people who struggle with a lack of purpose, I think do so because they have focused too much on the preference bucket.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I submit to you and challenge you.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you will spend more of your time thinking about and involving the higher buckets in your daily life and in your thought process and the way you make decisions, the way you talk to people, I can pretty much guarantee you that you are going to find a more purpose-filled and satisfying and enjoyable life.

[SPEAKER_00]: The people who it feels like they're floating through life for that purpose, I can almost guarantee you, they're allowing the preference book it to loom large in their life.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what was happened with the two people in Philippine.

[SPEAKER_00]: They made their preferences, their purpose, and Paul called them back to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it happened for a little bit with a group I talked about earlier in the class.

[SPEAKER_00]: They made their preference, their purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as soon as they caught the higher purpose, they said, you know what, my preference can go away.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm actually a little ashamed

[SPEAKER_00]: It's that purpose, the higher purpose of the dogma, the gospel, the teaching that has been passed down to us through the doctrine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul didn't ask people to like all the same things.

[SPEAKER_00]: He asked them to love the same Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you love the same Lord, you can put up with a lot of people who don't like the same things.

[SPEAKER_00]: He challenged them to make salvation and the gospel and their relationship with Christ and with God with the Holy Spirit, more important than whatever thing was dividing them.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to give you an opportunity to make this personal and think about how it applies to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you walked in today, I hope you received a card like this.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you didn't, by the way, you can raise your hand and someone will magically appear and give you one of these cards.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you would like to get a card, you can do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there are pens in front of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were pencils in the back.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody should have one of these.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to give you a chance to process a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think about everything that we've talked about today, and even throughout the series.

[SPEAKER_00]: And write something down on this card.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not to turn, and it's not to give to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is for you to take.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is for you to put somewhere as a reminder to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's an agreement between you and God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Where you put this on your bedside table.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you see it first thing when you wake up in the morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or you put this on your bathroom mirror.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or you put this on your fridge.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or you put this, here's a good one, on your coffee maker.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right as you're getting that cup of coffee, and I also need to remember this, and here's the type of stuff you could put on here.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's some suggestions on the card, but let me give you some questions to ponder.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of the questions would be, have I allowed a preference to get in the way of my purpose?

[SPEAKER_00]: What would it look like?

[SPEAKER_00]: for you to give something about the gospel, the top spot in your mind, as opposed to your likes or dislikes throughout the day, or as your on social media, or as you watch the news, or as you talk with your friends, or as you interact with your family.

[SPEAKER_00]: What would a like for the gospel to have a higher spot there than your personal preferences?

[SPEAKER_00]: If you allowed your preference to get in the way of your purpose, maybe have you placed a belief in the wrong bucket?

[SPEAKER_00]: As we've walked through this series, maybe you've identified something that you were treating like a doctrine and thought everybody needs to agree with me on this, and now you realize actually there's a place for doctrine, but this is a personal conviction I have, and I'm not going to judge other people for not sharing the same conviction.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe there's a specific conflict you can think of.

[SPEAKER_00]: Have I created a conflict by focusing on my preferences or my convictions and not taking an interest in the interests of others and how can I be more humble?

[SPEAKER_00]: Even as I can share my thoughts and share my opinions, but to not be critical in judge or the people, and have I actually created a conflict that I need to go to that person and make things right and reconcile?

[SPEAKER_00]: Have I failed to care about the preferences of others?

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you willing to listen?

[SPEAKER_00]: And doesn't mean you have to agree with them, but take an interest in other people's interests and care about those preferences, even if you disagree with them on something whatever jumps out at you today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever the Holy Spirit is speaking to your heart right now, I encourage you to take a couple of minutes, think about it, pray about it, whether it's a preference issue or a buck up prioritization issue or a conflict issue, whatever it is, and write that down on the card.

[SPEAKER_00]: Put something on that card.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that you can remember it, so that you can make a commitment to God so that you can ask Him for help because He has to change your heart, but you have to be willing, you have to surrender to Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: We will give you a couple of minutes right now as the band just plays softly in the background to think about it, pray about it, write something down and then we get to sing a closing song together and ask God to make this new thing permanent in our lives and help us to grow through it.