Joy in Worthy Living

We uh we start a series a while back called Unbreakable Joy.

We were going through this letter in the New Testament that's known as Philippians.

There was a church in a city called Philippi, started by the Apostle Paul.

And while in prison, later in his life, he's writing to the church in Philippi.

That's why it's called Philippians, and he's he's reconnecting with these really close friends that he has in this city that he spent a lot of time as he began to build a church there.

Now, you would think that because he's in prison, Philippians would be this really somber, really heavy letter, but it's the opposite of that.

In fact, more so than really any other letter that Paul wrote, it is by far the most lighthearted in a sense.

It is filled with expressions of joy and gratitude, and it actually teaches us, it almost gives us a blueprint for how to have a different kind of joy than the joy that the world can offer us.

It's not a circumstantial joy, it's not a joy that you have because everything's going great.

Paul is writing it in prison.

It's a joy that comes from a deeper place.

It's a joy that ultimately comes from the Lord, and we're actually told in Scripture that the joy of the Lord is our strength.

And so we want to learn how to have that kind of unbreakable joy, at least I do.

I want a joy that is not dependent on how things went yesterday.

Because sometimes yesterday didn't go well.

Like sometimes yesterday wasn't your best day.

I would not say that yesterday was my best day, and my oldest would agree with me.

But I'm grateful that I have a God who is better than my yesterday.

And I'm grateful that through Jesus we can have a joy that is not dependent on how life is going for us circumstantially or how we're feeling at the moment.

There's a deeper kind of joy, it's an unbreakable joy, and Paul has it, and we can have it too.

So we've been reading Philippians through that lens, trying to learn how to have that kind of joy in our lives.

And we're going to jump in today.

The topic as we we open up the very end of Philippians chapter 1, and we're also going to get into the beginning of Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 1 · chapter mention Philippians 2 · chapter mention

The topic is it's the joy of worthy living.

The joy of worthy living.

Let me read this to you.

Philippians 1, verses 27 through 30 says, Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the good news about Christ.

Philippians 1:27–30

Then, whether I come and see you again or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the good news.

Don't be intimidated in any way by your enemies.

This will be a sign to them that they are going to be destroyed, but that you're going to be saved even by God Himself.

For you've been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ, but also the privilege of suffering for him.

We are in this struggle together.

And you've seen my struggle in the past, and you know that I am still in the midst of it.

Paul begins this section by urging us, urging all the followers of Jesus, to live as citizens of heaven.

And a little bit of history on this.

We talked about this a few weeks ago, actually, very interesting.

The Roman Empire worked very differently than our culture works now.

In fact, it wasn't until about 200 years after Jesus that Rome made a decree making all free people citizens.

Didn't work like that in Rome.

Being a citizen was a big deal, a much bigger deal than being a citizen of a country today.

For example, at the time of Caesar Augustus, or right around the time of Jesus, there were about 45 million people in the Roman Empire.

And that doesn't sound like a lot when you think about the fact that America's nearing 400 million, but the population of the earth was way less 2,000 years ago than it is today.

45 million people was a number that most people couldn't even comprehend in terms of people.

Only about 4 million of those were citizens.

A little less than 10% of the entire population were citizens.

Being a citizen in Rome gave you special privileges, special rights.

Paul actually was a citizen.

That's why he wasn't executed more quickly.

Paul had the ability as a Roman citizen to keep appealing to his citizenship, and the people in charge had to keep moving him up the ladder to someone who had more authority eventually all the way to Rome itself.

But if Paul hadn't been a Roman citizen, he could have been dispatched much earlier in terms of the people who were trying to persecute the church and stop Paul from spreading the news about Jesus.

Being a citizen was a big deal.

One of the easiest ways to become a citizen was to serve in the military.

If you served in the Roman military, you got to be a citizen after only 25 years of service.

That's all it took.

25 years in the military, and you got to be a citizen.

That was a big deal.

It changed your entire life.

And there were a few places in Rome where the rate of citizenship would have been much higher, where the average person might be a citizen.

In most places, very few were citizens, but in a place like Philippi, Philippi was a Roman colony.

It had been set up officially by Rome and given special status as a colony.

And when soldiers would retire, they'd go to Philippi.

And so Philippi, very different than most places in Rome, was filled with citizens.

It wouldn't have been 10%.

It would have been a much higher number.

And these people had, they had served for 25 years.

They had fought.

They had bled.

They had suffered to become citizens of Rome.

And they were proud of it.

And Paul speaks to these people and he says, Hey, whatever amount of pride you have in being a citizen of Rome, remember that you are citizens of heaven.

You are citizens of a kingdom that is so much greater.

And you know, when Paul wrote that 2,000 years ago, a lot of people probably laughed and said, You think this movement of Jesus is greater than Rome?

Well, it's lasted a lot longer.

I will say that.

Paul ended up being correct.

And he urges us to remember that more than anything, we are citizens, not of our nation, not of our local community.

That's all great.

We can be excited about that, that's fine, but we are ultimately citizens of heaven.

And that should be what gives us our identity.

Then he goes on to say this, and this is sort of the crux of our discussion today.

He says in verse 27, the very end of it, conduct yourselves, since you're a citizen of heaven, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the good news about Christ.

Live a worthy life.

There is joy in worthy living.

Now, that is not a word that we hear that often, worthy.

At least it's not a word that we use very often.

We might use it in church.

Matt just used it when we prayed there at the end.

He said, you know, Lord, you're worthy.

He acknowledged that.

But in our normal everyday vernacular, we don't tend to use the word worthy that often.

We might use, maybe the closest example would be the phrase or the word worthwhile.

Like we have a phrase in English that sometimes you say to someone, hey, I'll make it worth your while.

When we use the word worthwhile, what we're usually talking about is there's something we're thinking about doing, we might do it, but first we have to decide if it's worth it.

Is it worth our time?

Is it worth the drive?

Is it worth the money?

And very often in life we decide, no, that's not worthwhile enough for me to give attention to it.

But Paul's communicating something very different here when he says be worthy.

He's saying essentially, something has already happened that is so amazing, it is so massive, you have to live in response to it.

You have to respond in a way that matters.

Now, nerd out with me for just a second.

The Greek word that Paul uses here for worthy is this word axios.

And it actually has to do with weight.

In fact, I was looking things up online studying for the message today, and there's a brand new weight loss drug hitting the market called axios.

So there you go.

It's uh it's gonna be a big deal.

I don't know.

We'll see.

Axios has to do with weight, and it's the word that gets translated worthy.

It's funny, a lot of words that are big words in scripture actually have to do with weight.

The word glory, for example, glory means God's weight.

Like when God's presence is in a place, you feel it.

It's weighty.

The word talent, Jesus told a parable, and it's the parable of the talents, and there's these servants, they're each given a certain amount of talent.

We hear the word talent and we think God given ability.

That's what a talent is, if someone has talent.

But that meaning comes from how that word has evolved because of what Jesus taught.

The actual word talent in the Roman world was a weight measurement.

It was a certain amount of money weighed out.

If you had a talent of gold, that was like 70-ish pounds of gold.

And so talent actually referred to weight.

And this word worthy, it's the same thing.

It has to do with weight.

And what it actually means specifically is something that is of equal weight or value.

That's axios, that's worthy.

Something of equal weight or value.

And one of the beauties of being able to study words like that and understand it is it helps us have a clear picture of what the gospels are communicating, what the message of Jesus is communicating, what Paul is communicating here when he says, be worthy.

He's saying live in such a way that is of equal weight or value.

Let me give a few examples.

This might help.

Um, occasionally I get asked to do weddings, and I really enjoy doing weddings.

I've done some of yours in the room.

I see some of you guys whose weddings I've done, and hopefully I did a good job.

I have had a few duds for sure.

Definitely.

I uh once called the bride the wrong name in a wedding.

Yeah.

Second worst one I've done.

The worst one was when I just didn't show up.

I just forgot.

That was worse.

To this day, worst day of my life.

Christmas break, like six years ago, I got a phone call.

I was just in my pajamas, and I was like, who's calling me?

I answer, and they're like, Justin, are you here?

I'm who?

What?

Yep.

All right, so let's move on.

Um, I like sharing those stories because maybe it'll make you think twice before you ask me to do your wedding.

Right?

Count the cost.

No, his hands is it's kind of we're kind of a funny church in ways because we are, we're like either the biggest small church or the smallest big church that exists.

And here's what I mean by that.

I always joke with friends.

We're big enough that everyone expects everything we do to be awesome.

We're small enough that everyone expects me to do their daughter's wedding.

So it gets a little, it gets a little tough sometimes.

But I love doing weddings.

Like all jokes aside, I love doing weddings.

And I do as many as I can, and if you ask me, the answer will probably be yes, unless I have something else, probably another wedding or something planned.

When people ask me to do weddings, they'll very often say, Hey, you're funny.

Like, they think I'm funny.

I try to be funny, sometimes I'm funny.

And I've always been a class clown.

I like being funny, and they'll say, make it funny.

And I always go, I'll kind of.

I I'll I'll make people smile, or at least do my best.

But what I always tell people when they ask me to be funny at a wedding is, and I actually use this phrase, a wedding is a weighty thing.

Like it's a huge thing.

You're committing the rest of your life to someone, you are making a covenant with someone.

You're saying that the only thing that I'm gonna allow to separate us is death, and sometimes other things happen, but that's the commitment that you make.

That's that is weighty, and that is not when you want some guy just like hamming it up.

So I always tell people, I'll be lighthearted, I'll find moments for some levity, but your wedding is a weighty thing, and I want to treat it in that manner.

So just it's not gonna be a bunch of jokes.

And that's kind of what we're talking about here: this idea that there's something that's such a big deal that it requires a weighty response.

I'll give you one more example.

This is cool because it's a story that I actually shared last week, but I get to share you the other part.

Um, last Sunday I showed this picture, a really cool picture.

This was posted by the Atlanta Hawks, um, and this is an amazing moment.

We went to a Hawks game.

Shout out to my friend Chris and his son Amos, who's my nine-year-old Judah's like one of his best friends, and we went with them, and my older son Liam came along.

We got to the game early.

We wanted to get Trey Young, who's the star player in Atlanta, we wanted to get his autograph on some some basketball cards.

My boys brought their Trey Young rookie cards.

And so that is a picture that the Hawks actually took, and that exact moment is Trey Young signing my oldest son Liam's rookie card that he had with him.

And the Hawks capture that.

It was really cool.

I shared last week that there was another boy with us, Amos, my son's friend.

He didn't get his card signed.

And so as soon as that happened, Liam took that very card that was in his hands, he turned to Amos and said, Hey, it's yours.

It was awesome.

Really proud of Liam.

But but there's another side to that because Judah, right before this picture was taken, my nine-year-old, he did get his card signed.

And seconds after this moment, I got this picture of Judah.

Uh, and that is Judah holding up his Trey Young card.

And guys, for a nine-year-old boy to have a Trey Young rookie card, he loves basketball, and and he he got it signed in person, like he was standing there.

He reached down, Trey grabbed it, looked him in the eye, signed it, handed it back to him.

Judah, this is a treasure to him.

Like this thing is an absolute treasure.

Now, fortunately, he just had a birthday.

And shout out to my parents in Missouri, they send him some money.

And our kids are at this age where you can get them something, they think it's great, but money, they're like, let's go.

You know, and as a parent, you have a bit of a challenge.

When one of the when the grandparents send enough money to buy something substantial, your challenge as a parent is not to let them waste it, right?

Because they immediately want to spend it on a bunch of junk, and you're like, no, no, and then they get mad at you, like, you're not letting me buy the thing.

And it's like, I just don't want you to miss this opportunity because I'm not gonna give you that much money.

You gotta wait a year for that.

You know what I'm saying?

So let's make the most of this.

So Judah had this idea though.

He said, Dad, I just got this money from from my grandparents.

I want to spend it on this specific thing.

And what he wanted to buy was this really cool way to display his Trey Young rookie card in his room.

And I was like, Yeah, that's a good idea.

I like this because it's not a digital thing.

I just I don't want to spend money on clothes for your avatar or for your game.

Like, not that.

So, this is good.

This is a real thing, okay?

You can resell it later.

Let's go.

Um, so this is what he bought.

This is so cool.

This is what he bought.

I got a video of it last night.

He bought, isn't that cool?

That's so cool.

Yeah, it's it uses like magnets and it floats.

You can put your hand under it and it just spins nonstop.

And that is sitting in his bedroom next to his bed.

Any friend that comes over, it's like, what's that?

Oh, let me tell you.

And he gets to show people this card and then tell the story.

I was there, I handed it to him, boom.

Okay?

That is worthy.

Okay, that is what we're talking about.

That is my son saying, I have something so special to me that I want to do something with it that is worthy.

I want to display it in a way that lets everybody know that this thing matters.

It's a great example of what we're talking about.

Here, you guys can take that down.

Thank you.

It's very important we don't get this flipped.

In religion, we are often taught, and by religion I don't mean deep reverence for God, I mean the man-made stuff, striving, working really hard in the hopes that God will accept you.

Most religions in the world, and very often even our own faith, gets boiled down into a version of that.

That's not what Jesus is about.

Don't flip it, because usually in religion, you have to prove that you're worthwhile.

You do all the right things, you avoid the sin, you pray enough times, you do the stuff, you follow the rules.

If you do it right, you show God that, hey, I think I might be worthwhile, and God might say, okay, I'll deem you worthy.

And that's not what we're talking about.

That's not how Jesus operates.

Jesus has already decided that you are worthwhile.

Because he came to this earth, he lived a very difficult life, and he died a brutal death.

Because he decided that each of you, that all of us, are worthy of his love, we're worthy of forgiveness, we're worthy of mercy and grace.

Mercy means you don't get what you deserve, grace means you get what you don't deserve.

We're worth he decided we're worth it.

We are all worthwhile.

And because he decided that we're worthwhile, he did something incredible, he did something amazing, he gave his life for us, and because he's done that, if we put our faith in him, we now have a relationship with God, a restored relationship with God.

We are family, we are brothers and sisters, and God is our father.

It's not just a religion where there's a God up there on the mountain.

No, no, we are we are brought in.

Scripture actually says that we are made co-heirs with Jesus.

And that's that is a weighty thing.

That's an incredible thing.

And and what we're urged to do by Paul here is to respond, to live in a manner worthy of that.

And it's kind of a connection to Judas' thing.

Jesus actually wants to display our lives.

He said in Matthew chapter 5 that you're the light of the world, like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket.

Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house.

In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly father.

He says, Live worthy.

I want to display you, I want to show you off.

I want your life to be something that people look at and go, Why do you have that joy?

Why do you have that perspective?

Why aren't you freaking out?

Why aren't you overwhelmed?

Why haven't you lost it?

I was at our Wednesday night men's Bible study, and a gentleman at the table said something.

We're all we're we we always start by kind of going over our highs and lows.

What was the high point of your week?

What's the low point of your week?

And and he said, I haven't had a low point in years.

I belong to Jesus.

And I was kind of mad because I just shared my low point.

So I was like, Well, okay.

No, you know, Mark, you're great.

But no, it was it was it was like, it was a good perspective.

He's like, listen, I belong to Jesus, I don't really have low points.

I'm not gonna sweat the small stuff.

Sometimes I spend way too much time sweating the small stuff, but his perspective, I was grateful for that.

I love to learn from people because the truth is, if we really do believe deep down inside that that we have a relationship with the God who created us and that Jesus won for us a restored relationship, that we have mercy and grace where all our junk has been forgiven.

I need to have a really bad day to offset that.

Really should be impossible to offset that.

But what I definitely want to do is I want to live in response to that.

I want to live in a way that matches the weight of that to the best of my ability.

And that's what Paul is asking us to do.

He's saying, hey, there is joy in a worthy life.

There is joy in living in response to Jesus.

Saying, hey, Lord, I don't get it.

You want to display me?

You want to show me off?

Okay.

Then I want to live in a way that matches that.

That's what worthy means.

And we're called to live worthy lives.

Now, what does that actually look like?

How do we actually do that?

Thankfully, Paul gives us some ideas here.

And we could honestly spend a year talking about what it means to live a worthy life.

It's difficult in many ways.

1 Peter chapter 1, verse 16 reminds us that the scriptures say, he's referencing the Old Testament here, you must be holy because I am holy.

1 Peter 1:16

So we are all called to live holy lives.

What does that mean?

Well, ultimately it means that you live a life that's different, that's set apart.

That word holy means a lot of different things, but ultimately it means set apart, set apart for an elevated purpose.

Like if you're like me and you have multiple children at home, you might have dishes in your house that are special.

And the only thing that makes them special is that they can be broken.

They are made of a material that breaks.

So you don't use those dishes like ever.

You go and you buy plastic dishes, dishes that are indestructible, dishes that will be here 5,000 years from now.

Right?

That's what you use, but on special occasions, when there's family, when it's a holiday, you might bust out the breakable dishes.

They're set apart for a different purpose, a higher purpose.

We're called to be holy.

We're called to live lives that are set apart.

We're not supposed to be perfect.

We are, well, we are.

Hold on, I just stumbled over that.

Um, because anytime I say something that contradicts scripture, I should stop and pause.

We're actually called in scripture to be perfect as God is perfect, but that word perfect doesn't mean for us, flawless, it means complete.

Essentially, we're supposed to let God complete what he starts in us.

When you give your life to Jesus, you begin a journey.

The Holy Spirit becomes part of your life.

And I wish it was that, man, snap of the fingers, everything changes, everything's different.

Sometimes it can feel like that.

Sometimes people have experiences where it's like, I'm telling you, I'm not the same as I was yesterday, and that is awesome, but very often it is a slow thing to be made holy.

It's a it's a thing that God is doing within us.

So, first and foremost, I want us to understand this is not a burden.

When I'm calling you today, because God is calling us today to live a holy life, to live a worthy life, this is not a burden lifted or a burden placed on you.

I hope it's a burden lifted.

If anything, it's not a burden placed.

My meaning is that I don't want you to walk out of here being like, who came to church and now I gotta go live worthy.

Okay?

How does that start?

Number one, don't be a jerk to the waiter at the restaurant today.

Start there, right?

Start small.

There we go.

We'll move on.

But living worthy ultimately means being holy.

And being holy means being perfected by God bit by bit.

So let God do his work.

Trust him.

It's not all on you.

You don't have to strive, but what you do need to do is partner with God, is work with him.

Because it's easy to push back.

But we start by having an openness to God where we say, God, my life is yours, and when I mess up, and man, do I mess up often.

But when I mess up, can I stop?

Can I recognize that I've messed up?

Can I say, there's work to be done.

I am not perfected yet.

Keep working on me.

You apologize to who you need to apologize to, and you move on.

That's a big part of it.

But going a little deeper, Paul does give us a few specific things.

I want to hit these really fast.

Paul gives us a few specific things that right after he says to live worthy, he tells us to focus on.

I want to go back and read Philippians 1 27 through 30 one more time.

He says, Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the good news about Christ.

And then, whether I come and see you again or only hear about you, I'll know that you're standing together.

Standing together.

I want you to put a pin in that.

With one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the good news.

Don't be intimidated in any way by your enemies.

This will be a sign to them that they're going to be destroyed, but that you're going to be saved, even by God Himself.

For you've been given not only the privilege of trusting Christ, but also the privilege of suffering for him.

We are in this struggle together.

You've seen my struggle in the past, and you know that I'm still in the midst of it.

So there's a few things he talks about, and I want us to see that he focuses first on our life together.

Now, obviously, it's important how we live as individuals.

You want to have integrity.

When no one's watching, what kind of life do you live?

It's important to think about that and wrestle with that.

But that's a topic for another day because Paul's mind does not go to what we're all doing on our own.

He immediately, after he says, live a life worthy of the good news, he immediately thinks about how we interact together, how we live together.

It's amazing how much of the New Testament is talking not to us as individuals, but to us as the church.

In fact, if you read the New Testament, you come across the word you.

Most of the time, that is a plural you.

We have that in Georgia, y'all.

There's a lot of y'alls in the Bible, okay?

But we tend to read it individually.

So the New Testament will be saying, hey, you, when you do this and when you do that, and we think personally, and yes, but that's not where the mind of the author is.

They're thinking about corporate, they're thinking about together.

So Paul says, hey, live a manner worthy.

Number one, be together.

And he specifically says, stand together.

That's kind of his first point.

Stand together.

You want to live a worthy life?

Stand together with your fellow brothers and sisters.

And later he says, fight together.

And these go together.

Stand together, fight together.

It's the same language.

In fact, Paul uses language very similar in Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

He says, a final word, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

Put on all of God's armor so that you'll be able to stand firm against all the strategies of the devil.

We're not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

Now, if you're new to church, you're like, whoa, that was weird.

Are you saying you believe that there's like an evil, invisible, malevolent presence that's after us?

Yep.

Definitely.

Bingo.

And actually, I think most of us believe that too.

Even if we haven't been raised in church.

If you really think about it, I think all of us have the ability to say, man, sometimes it just feels like the things that are coming against me are too well-timed.

Like it's too perfect.

You know, like those days where the thing that it's not just the thing that happens, it's like when it happens and how it happens.

And it's almost like there's an intelligence behind it.

Like we've all experienced that.

Or maybe on a broad level, you see evil in the world and it's just beyond the kind of normal evil that all of us do because we just feel like it.

It's a kind of evil that you're like, how do people even imagine doing something like that?

You recognize that there's a there's a higher evil.

And scripture teaches us that, yeah, that's that's true, that there's an enemy.

There is a spiritual enemy that we have.

That enemy is Satan, that enemy is the devil.

And Paul says resist.

Fight.

That we all have to stand against that enemy, and we have to help each other with that.

It's not something you want to do one-on-one.

I mean, if you want to lose, by all means, fight Satan one-on-one.

Stand alone and see how that goes.

One of Satan's primary roles when it comes to us is to be our accuser.

He's actually called the accuser of the brethren.

We tend to think about Satan as a tempter, and he does tempt, but actually a lot of temptation just comes from within us.

Like it's just it's us doing what we thought to do.

But Satan's our accuser.

That means when you have those thoughts, you're a Jesus follower, you have those thoughts after you mess up or you struggle or you just don't live up to your own expectations or God's expectations or what, and you start hearing those voices that are like, you're a failure.

How do you know you're even a Christian?

You're worthless, you're whatever.

That that is accusation, that is discouragement.

And the way that we combat that, individually, it's we have to stand on the word of God and know what God says about us.

But truth be told, we need each other.

That's why in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, Paul says, encourage each other and build each other up just as you're already doing.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

Encourage each other.

When you live life connected to other believers, and you stand together, you get to speak truth into their lives.

I have a young man that I'm very close with.

He's not as young as he used to be, but neither am I.

So I say young man, he might be offended at that.

He's not that young, but I'm older now too.

And a few years ago, we were meeting having lunch, and he was just telling me that he was really struggling with his confidence and where he stood with God.

And he started listing out all the ways that he falls short.

And it was just like accusation after accusation, things that Satan had definitely just been, I mean, throwing at him, like darts.

And I just stopped and I said, Hey man, do you love Jesus?

And he answered without hesitation, absolutely.

I said, Do you believe Jesus loves you?

And he said, Yes.

And I was like, all right, let's set all the rest to the side and let's start there.

You are loved by him, you love him, and he knows that.

And we began to talk through some other things, but we had to start with just encouragement.

We've got to live together and stand together and build each other up because we live in a world that discourages us all the time.

And we have an enemy who's that's his thing.

That's what he does, that's his primary function.

We have to encourage each other.

But we can't do that if we're not connected.

We have to stand together, we have to fight together.

Now, for Paul and the people he's writing to, the enemies they had were flesh and blood many times.

There were actual people coming against them.

And when that's the case, we stand together, we encourage each other, we help each other respond effectively in that.

We also have to stand against temptation.

I mentioned that a second ago.

A lot of temptation isn't from the devil.

You might blame the devil, and the devil might be like, dude, that was you.

Uh I didn't have to do anything.

Because we're people, we have we have desires that don't line up with what God calls us to do.

We're actually born with what scripture describes as a sin nature.

Which means naturally we do the wrong thing.

That's why you don't have to teach your kids how to lie.

They figure that out on their own.

We have a sin nature.

And left to our own, we're we're kind of slaves to that.

That's kind of an offensive thing for many people to hear.

You're saying apart from Jesus, people are slaves to their sin nature?

Yeah.

And our culture agrees with that because how often do we hear phrases like, I can't change the way I feel?

I can't help who I'm attracted to.

I can't deny these feelings.

Those are just ways of saying I'm a slave to my desires.

I can't help it.

But we're told in Romans chapter 8, therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you, plural, have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

It doesn't go away, it still urges you to do things, but you're not obligated to it.

Jesus has freed you from that.

And when we live together, when we're connected to each other, we can have accountability with close friends that are also following Jesus.

We can say, hey, I'm struggling here, I'm tempted in this way, I'm falling short in this way, and we can look at each other and say, you can do this.

You don't have to, you don't have to do what those desires are urging you to do.

You don't have to follow through on that.

Jesus has freed you from that, and I'm gonna pray for you.

I'm gonna help you with this.

We've got to we've got to stand together if we want to live a worthy life.

We cannot do this alone.

That's where he starts.

Stand together, fight together.

And then he says, next, struggle together.

Struggle together.

I love this.

Because the truth is, as we stand and as we fight, we will fail.

Has anyone failed this week in any capacity?

Wow.

Okay.

I mean, I would have raised both hands myself.

No, I I get it.

We've all failed.

We all fall short.

There's a struggle.

It's not easy, but we're actually called to struggle together.

Not alone.

When you struggle alone, you just feel the worst.

You feel miserable, you feel like a failure, you hide.

Like you hide it all.

But if you can live connected to other people, you struggle together.

I've got a group of guys that I meet with, uh, we've been meeting every week for about six months, maybe a little longer, and you know, sometimes we have conflicts, and one of us can't be there, or I can't be there, or whatever, but we just we get together and we are living life together.

We're we're getting to know each other, we're holding each other accountable in ways, we're encouraging each other, but we are struggling together too, and we share in those struggles.

Two of the guys in my group in the last year have had a wife diagnosed with cancer, but they're in that together, and they're struggling with each other, and they're sharing this together, and it's awesome because when we struggle together, it reminds us, it keeps us sober-minded.

It reminds us that you know what?

We all struggle, we all fail.

We don't take ourselves too seriously, we cut each other slack.

It's one of the hardest things to do in life is cut people slack, but it's so important.

And if you live life alone, you tend to minimize your own struggles and maximize the struggles of others, and you get really judgmental.

But when you live connected with people, you're like, man, we are all having a hard time.

I experience this a lot in my home.

Worship team, you guys can make your way out, we'll wrap up.

I experienced this a lot in my home because I have um I have three boys, and they just the the cleaning the room thing, it's gonna happen.

It's gonna happen one day.

Um at this point, I'm just like, maybe it won't happen.

I don't know.

But I have this weird, I have this weird thought the other day.

I walked into one of my kids' rooms, and I won't say which one it was.

I walked in and I was so mad.

And then I was like, hurt?

You ever have that as a parent?

Or you're angry, but then you're hurt because you're like, how many times?

How many times have I asked you, how many times have I cleaned this room and organized everything?

And all I've asked is keep it like this.

How many times?

And I started to like boil, you know, as a parent, you're like, I'm gonna lose.

We're gonna, we're about my kid and I are about to struggle together.

That's what's about to happen, okay?

You're having that moment?

And then it just hit me.

And I'm not gonna say this was God, because I think it just came from within me, but it was important.

It was like, how many times could God look at my life and think the same thing?

Like, Justin?

How many times?

How many times have I put it on your heart to grow in this area?

How many times have I reminded you, asked you, challenged you, inspired you to get with it?

And still, we're still we're still dealing with this.

And so in that moment, instead of yelling at my child, I just walked out of the room.

Because there's something about living together, struggling together.

It keeps you humble.

It reminds you that you fail, that person fails.

We should be, we should deal with those things seriously.

We we want to live good lives.

But living worthy doesn't mean you don't make mistakes.

It definitely doesn't mean you hide your mistakes.

It means that you own them.

You struggle.

We all struggle.

Let's struggle together.

If we live connected to each other, we we learn from each other, we struggle together.

It helps, it just helps.

Oh, I got one more thing and we'll we'll finish.

We're gonna take Lord's Supper here in just a second.

So, by the way, if you're new, we always end by taking Lord's Supper.

It's this little meal, some people call it communion.

Um, we have tables at the back and bread and juice.

I keep one in my back pocket.

And so we're gonna do that in just a second.

One more, one more together.

This is really quick.

I'm gonna move into Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

And Paul writes, Is there any encouragement and belonging from belonging to Christ?

Any comfort from his love?

Any fellowship together in the Spirit?

And this is assuming the answer is like, yes, of course.

Of course there's comfort, of course there's there's fellowship.

Are your hearts tender and compassionate?

And if that's the case, he says, then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another and working together with one mind and one purpose.

Working together.

We are called in order to live worthy lives, to live lives that are of that are a response that is weighty, a weighty, appropriate response to what God has done for us.

We are called to stand together and fight together.

We are called to struggle together, to cut each other slack, give each other grace, but also get in the weeds with each other and help when we can.

And we're called to work together.

We're called to serve together, and I'm just gonna say this, maybe this is selfish, but that's one of the reasons I love church.

Like I love the church.

Because this provides a place to do just that, like this provides a place to work together.

I get to see on a regular basis what it's like for hundreds and thousands of people to come together and bring all their unique gifts and abilities and say, hey, I'm gonna use this not for my own gain, but to serve other people.

We're gonna work together, and it's beautiful, it's awesome.

And almost every Sunday we have around 500 children here.

Like right now, there's kids everywhere in this building, and they're being loved and served and taught and supervised and all the things that kids need.

And that's because there's there's people doing that.

And I just want I don't say this enough.

If you're someone who serves here in any capacity, thank you.

Thank you.

Whether you make coffee, you open doors, you help with chairs, you help with kids, just thank you so much.

Like, yeah, we'll clap for those people.

Yes, there you go.

Because this place, it gives us a place to work together.

And and listen, it's funny, all of our teams are doing good, they're great.

If you're like man, I have gifts and abilities and I want to use those, I want to be useful, I want to work together for a common purpose.

You can do that anywhere, by the way.

You don't have to do it here, but this just there's something about church, it provides an amazing place where it's like, hey, can I be of service?

Yes.

Let's find where you fit and let's work together to help people know Jesus.

And the result is really beautiful.

Like this Sunday, we don't have someone getting baptized, which is really rare for us.

So something really bad must have happened last week.

Guess the message wasn't good.

I don't know.

No, I'm teasing.

No, it's fine.

But last year we crossed the line where we've had over 2,100 people baptized since we started as a church.

How cool is that?

Isn't that awesome?

And that, you know what?

And that is the result of thousands of people working together.

Thousands of people coming together to make this place what it is.

And so I just share that.

Again, I said it's kind of selfish because obviously I work here, so it feels self-serving, but again, our teams are good.

I say that, like the kids' teams are like, we're not.

Um, no, but no, they're we're fine.

But if you do have a desire to say, I'm ready to work, I'm ready to like do something to be part of this, we're gonna have, in fact, next week after the service, we're gonna have a little gathering for anyone who's ready to jump in.

And I just encourage you to stick around for that if you want to next week.

But no matter what, find a place to bring your gifts to the table.

Because to live a worthy life, to respond to Jesus in a way that is weighty and appropriate, it means you you've got to live connected to other believers and you stand with them and you fight with them and you struggle with them and you work with them for one purpose, which is that Jesus is known.

And his love and his truth is known by the world around you.

And when you do that, that is worthy living.

And it just brings a deeper joy than almost anything on this in this world can bring.

There's nothing like it.

But that said, we're gonna take Lord's Supper and wrap up.

Alright.

I usually forget these, and sometimes I've had moments of panic.

Now I've sort of put them in my back pocket, but then for whatever reason, I'm afraid I'm gonna forget it and then sit down on it, and it's gonna be terrible.

But I remembered it, we're good.

Here we go.

Um, every Sunday we take this little meal together.

And if you're new to church, this is something Jesus' followers have done for thousands of years.

In fact, we do this in response to what Jesus modeled for us.

Right before he went to the cross, he had a meal with his followers, his friends.

He broke bread, and he said the bread was his body.

It was about to be given as a sacrifice, and he took wine, we used juice, and he said, This wine is my blood.

And so here we are, and we end every service by doing this, by remembering what Jesus has done.

And it's amazing to me how often this fits perfectly with what we're talking about.

Because even though this is tiny, right?

This tiny little piece of bread, a thimble's worth of juice, it doesn't weigh very much physically, but this is really waiting.

Like this moment, this is waiting.

This is this is part of us realizing that Jesus declared us worthwhile, and because of that, we want to live worthy.

We get to take this meal together, remembering what he did, and this should inspire us to be grateful to the Lord for his love and his mercy, but it should also inspire us to live a life whose response carries the appropriate weight.

Because in light of what Jesus has done, how could we not?

So, with that said, let's take this uh piece of bread and let's pray.

Father, we thank you for this bread.

This is your body, it was broken for us on the cross.

You didn't have to do that.

You weren't overpowered, you were not defeated.

This was your choice.

You walked into this.

You said, This is what you needed to do.

In fact, in the book of Ephesians, we're even told that this is what you wanted to do, that it brought you joy to give yourself as a sacrifice for us.

As we take this bread, Lord, we recognize the weightiness of this.

We recognize how powerful and important this is.

We love you.

Inspire us, Lord, to live in response in a worthwhile manner, in a worthy manner.

Let's take the bread.

Now, the juice, Lord, we thank you for this juice.

This is your blood poured out as an offering.

It washes away our sin, cleanses us, makes us holy.

Help us, Lord, to live out of that.

Help us to live holy lives set apart, living together, connected together, in response to you.

Because you did this for us, for all of us, for each of us.

We're grateful, Lord, fills us with a deep joy and wonder.

Give us the strength to live in response, to live worthy.

We pray this in your name, Jesus.

Let's take the juice.