And if you have a way to get
to the scriptures, and we all probably do because you're
watching this on the internet. And that means
that you can Google in another tab of your browser. You can minimize
this in the YouTube. I don't know about you,
but when I'm on a computer, I'm always, like, fiddling
with and figuring out the screens and the best way to
have the screens and the spaces and getting everything
configured just right. But if you want to
get to where we're going to be in the
scriptures, you can go to Philippians, Chapter
1, Philippians 1 for a message that I'm calling Stir-Crazy. It's probably something
you can relate to, feelings of being stir-crazy. I'm sure there's a lot
of that going around, and that's what we're
going to talk about today. Philippians 1-- Paul,
who knew something about the feeling
of being stir-crazy, of being stuck in
the same situation, of sort of that
mental distress that can come on somebody
who's been confined for a long period of time. Paul is a perfect
person to tell us what to do in the midst
of feeling stir-crazy because he wrote the
passage of scripture that we're going to read
today from a jail cell, from a confined
period of his life where he was literally
in chains as he's going to use that phrase. So as we know, it
is a punishment to put someone into
solitary confinement. It is literally a part
of our penal system to put people into
a situation where they're isolated as punishment. And so to deal with the
feelings of being stir-crazy, of losing your mind a
little bit in confinement, let's listen to what Paul
had to say, Philippians 1. We're going to jump in. Are you with me? What's my title? Yeah, I see that there. Stir-Crazy. We're talking-- there's
some people talking smack in the comments. That's not fair. You've got to be
kind to one another. But Philippians 1-- we
got any deer out here. We've got to keep a
sharp eye on the horizon. That's a tractor. OK, it's not a deer. I just saw something flickering
in my peripheral vision out there, incredible. This is not a movie set. This is just life in
the last best place. This is the Treasure
State, y'all. But we do send our
love to those of you at Fresh Life, Jackson, Salt
Lake City, Portland, Oregon, all these beautiful
parts of the country that we have the great
privilege of living in. And we are glad to share
the beautiful vistas with those of you in different
parts of the country. Philippians 1,
verse 12 through 21 says, "Now I want you
to know brothers--" and he means sisters, too. He's saying that like mankind,
brotherkind, brotherhood, sisterhood-- "that what has happened
to me has really served to advance the Gospel. As a result, it has become clear
throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else
that I'm in chains for Christ. Because of my chains, most
of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to
speak the word of God more courageously
and fearlessly. It is true that some preach
Christ out of envy and rivalry but others out of goodwill. The latter do so in love,
knowing that I am here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ
out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that
they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter?" Come on, someone type in the
chat about what does it matter. "The important thing--
and that is so crucial, all those things
that could be what he's focusing on, fixating on. He instead says,
"What does it matter? The important thing," the
ability to figure that out is the most important
thing in this life, what really matters
and what doesn't. "--is that in every way, whether
from false motives are true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue
to rejoice for I know that through your
prayers and the help given by the spirit of Jesus
Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for
my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that
I will in no way be ashamed but will have sufficient
courage so that now, as always, Christ will be
exalted in my body, whether by life or by death,
for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain." When we think about someone
succumbing to cabin fever or going stir-crazy,
our minds go to those who have been snowed in. Famously, of course, we picture
Jack Nicholson in The Shining. He went there to write. He ended up losing his
mind and freezing to death. We think about Lighthouse,
a more modern example, William Dafoe and Robert
Pattinson losing their minds. Don't see that movie. It'll haunt your dreams forever. We think about situations
where people have just sort of had to hunker in. There was a famous winter that
took place in Montana where I'm preaching this message. It was the winter of '86
and '87 where historically. It snowed every single
day from November till the end of February, and
cows froze to death in place. When spring came, they found
people who had frozen to death and really were turned
into icicles just yards from their front door,
got lost and disoriented in the blizzards and
the drifts and snow. And people who just were shut
in for that period of time, it messed with them
psychologically. And it's been reported
throughout history. This happens to sailors,
this happens to pioneers, this happens to explorers. I came across, in my research,
some various arctic expeditions that have involved situations
where the scientists ended up going bonkers and attacking each
other with hammers, poisoning each other out of some
small slight rivalry, right? He messed with my potato farm. You know, Matt Damon, right,
talking to volleyballs, Wilson, right. A couple of those
examples we're not true. You have to sort
out which is which. And but the poisoning and
attacking with hammers is all true. And one who got so angry
with his colleagues, he tried to burn his research
station to the ground. The feelings of cabin
fever or going stir-crazy have even gone to outer space. As in 1968, during
the Apollo 7 mission which was the first Apollo
mission to be manned, three astronauts ended up in
orbit only discover one of them had brought with him, into
quarantine, a cold that had been lying
dormant in his system and didn't manifest
with symptoms. You're like, Levi, too soon. I know, it's a
different situation. But until they-- imagine
being in outer space and realizing you're with
someone who is a walking germ. And they couldn't
get away from him because they were in
this tiny capsule, barely room to navigate,
barely room to move. They had to for these 11
days living in close quarters with someone. And so, of course, all
three of them ended up sick. And it's not a big deal to have
a cold unless you're in space where fluids don't run. Your nose doesn't run in space. So the only way to deal
with a plugged nose was to try and blow it,
which, of course, put pressure on the eardrums and was a
risk of rupturing eardrums. So they all got very feisty
with each other and snippy. And mission control could tell
that something was going wrong as there was attitude
in every broadcast. And then there was a mutiny
as they were told and dictated to put their helmets
on for re-landing. But they knew they
couldn't blow their noses while their helmets were
on, and so they said no. And so none of these
astronauts ever flew again. And while all the
previous Apollo missions, they had received distinguished
medals for service for their work, these three
men did not receive them until they were dead. Then posthumously, they
gave them the medals. So here's what happens when
cabin fever strikes even in space, it can mess with you. All that to say, if you're
feeling agitated or irritable or if you just kind
of really don't-- your circadian rhythms-- excuse
me-- are being messed with, now, that's not abnormal. Give yourself extra grace. What we're dealing
with in this time, and I think the reason God
had me really focus on this, had us focus together on
this is because it's crazy. And we have to acknowledge
that this is peculiar. We're dealing with what
is a form of punishment, and what has cracked some of
the best minds and brightest thinkers in the
history of the world. But Paul shows us a better way. Paul shows us that
it's not only possible, it's also a better
option to choose joy in the midst of
what you're facing. He wrote these words that we
read in the book of Philippians from a jail cell,
most likely Rome. Some suggested it
could be Ephesus. But what we do know of
for sure is the fact that he was in house arrest. You're like, wait. You said he was in jail. Yeah, he was in jail, but
he was in jail in a home. And Acts 28 tells us that this
confinement for him lasted-- wait for it-- two years. You see, he had
appealed to Caesar after he had been arrested
on trumped up charges and nearly, by the way, beat
to death by a vicious mob. And when he saw that his
trial was going nowhere where he was in Caesarea,
he made the decision as a Roman citizen to have his
case be viewed by the highest court in that day, the supreme
court in the land which would be to have his case
appealed to by Caesar himself. Now, of course,
Caesar was a busy guy, so some random Jew from
Tarsus who was, you know, hated by the Jews
in Israel, this was not at the top
of the to-do list. So he sat waiting, waiting,
waiting for over two years. So just to think about
that for a second, Paul who wrote these
hope filled words that we're going to just
take a little bit of time to really focus in on. And I would encourage
you, in this quarantine, live in the prison epistles-- Galatians, Ephesians,
Philippians, Colossians. These are four books of
the Bible all written by this one man who was
in jail in this time. He also wrote 1 and 2 Timothy
and Titus from death row, so that's a whole
another level of crazy. But this initial time in
prison that he eventually would get out of before
being arrested again and then in that prison,
he would be in a dungeon and then finally be beheaded. If he could live
with such hope, if he could live with
such courage, if he could live with such
kindness in prison, then I think that
God could certainly work some of that in our lives. And so what was it that
caused Paul to be so kind, that cause him to
be so peaceful, that caused him to be
so others-focused even while in a house
arrest situation where there were shifts of
guards coming in and out and he was chained. Literally, he was
in a house and had some autonomy and some
freedom to move about, but there was always
a guard there, always someone who was
there chained to him and keeping an eye on him and
watching over his movements. And the answer to
all three of those is that he had joy,
joy that allowed him to have peace in the
midst of whatever he faced in his life, joy opened up to
him because of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. For a guy who wrote a
letter to people he loved-- and we'll talk about
that in a moment-- the note is not
one of self pity. The note is not
one of woe is me. The note of this
that you can read as you go through Philippians,
as you go through Colossians, as you go through his writings
written from a jail cell, there's no sense of nobody knows
the troubles that I've seen. Pray for me. It's so hard here. I haven't had a pizza in
a month, and I'm in Rome. It's the worst,
#firstworldproblems. Like, there's none of that. There's none of, you know,
I want to be on the beach. I want to be my friends. It's just this is
absolute not there. There's no victim mentality. I mean, it is faith and
not discouragement that flashes forth at every turn. And you and I can have that
same power when we choose joy. And joy is a choice
just like despair is, just like self-pity is, or
feeling sorry for yourself is. In this time of quarantine
and confinement, we must choose joy. And there's not a better
place in the planet to begin-- to continue
the conversation we began last week as we talked
about the responsibility of joy. And that big thought is marking
us as we move into 2020. What is this year
of vision all about? It's us choosing to see that we
always have the choice of joy. Paul uses that
word some 18 times in this tiny little
4-chapter letter. Think about that. 18 times, he uses joy
or rejoice or joyful, and that's incredible. In fact, it's such
a high percentage out of the shortness
of this letter that there's more good news
in this little book than any of all of the rest of the
Apostle Paul's writing. He also uses that exact phrase--
"good news" or the Greek is euangelion. Or you've probably grown up
hearing that as The Gospel. Paul uses that eight times,
which makes this the book dedicated to good news. Why? 'Cause Paul was
focused on the bright side of his situation as bleak as it
was, for sure worse than what we're walking through. And so let's pick apart this
joy, this responsibility that he carried of joy
as we talk about the four ingredients that,
in this passage, made his joy so complete. The first is I see in Paul
an unshakable gratitude, and unshakable gratitude. How do you and
I-- and let's just make this real-- how do
we living in Virginia or living in Massachusetts or
living on Facebook in Colorado, how do we choose
to tap into joy? First of all, we realize
that we have the option of an unshakable gratitude. How do you see this? You actually might say I
didn't see the word thank you mentioned anywhere. Well, that's because
it's everywhere. In fact, the entirety of
the book of Philippians is a thank you note. Why? A little back story. Paul planted the
church in Philippia, in Philippi, Philippia. I almost said Philippia. That's a made-up word. That place is not real. Like, there's no place
called Philippia. Philippi was a city in Europe
where Paul accidentally started a church, meaning he
didn't intend to go there. It wasn't in his to
do-list to go there. He was actually
trying to get to Asia. But nothing was
working out right. And whenever that's
happening, it's always because God is calling
you to go somewhere else. He's got something
better for you. And so in that situation
where he couldn't go to Asia, which is not like
it's a bad desire. It was just not the right
time for him to go to Asia. God wanted him to go
instead to Europe. So God sent him a dream and
through that dream showed him he was meant to go to Europe. And he ended up in Philippi,
a city named after Alexander the Great's father. It was a Roman colony. It was an important city. And there, he met a
woman named Lydia, and he led her to
faith in Christ. And so the church
in Europe was born. And the church that
blossomed quickly, it quickly attracted
antagonism and enemies. And Paul ended up in Philippi. You can read this
in Acts, Chapter 16. He ended up in prison. Even there, as soon as
he started the church, he's in jail. And he chose to respond in
that situation with what? Gratitude. And in prison, and that
unshakable gratitude led to him praising God and thanking God. And him and his friend
Silas were worshipping Jesus at about midnight. And the Bible says their
unshakable gratitude was met by a shaking of the
prison as an earthquake came, and they were miraculously
let out of their bonds. And they chose to not
leave when they could have. And the prison guard was
going to kill himself because if his
prisoners got out, his life was as good as dead. And so he was going
to kill himself. Paul said, no, stop it. We're still here. We didn't leave. And they ended up leading
their jailer who had just been beating them-- their backs
were literally still bloodied because of the beating
they had gotten-- but they ended up leading
him to faith in Christ. He brought them to his house. They led his entire house
hold to faith in Christ. They all ended up
getting baptized. They ended up having
a great party. The jailer has his wife make
some of her famous, you know, marinara and Alfredo,
and, you know, rigatoni, whatever they were eating
in Philippi back then. And it was a Roman colony, and
so I'm using my imagination here that it was pasta. But it's really an
incredible story. Now, let me just sidebar
that for a second. Paul didn't worship God in the
jail cell so he would get out. He wasn't thinking, if I worship
there may be an earthquake. They figured they were
there for the night. Paul got arrested so often it
was very rare that he would get released so miraculously. He was just worshipping God, and
God chose to respond in the way that he did. Paul was probably as surprised
as anybody when it happened. And so he had to
eventually move on. And he got to go back there
later on in his travels and encourage the church and
celebrate what they were doing and give them some guidance. And then he comes to
this time of confinement, and it's about 12 years
later AD 62 or so. And the Philippian church had
just put together an offering and sent it to Paul through
the use of a servant named Epaphroditus. And Epaphroditus had
had risked his life to get this money to Paul,
get this resource to Paul. And Paul mentions
what Epaphroditus did, and Paul mentions
what the Philippian church did through the use of
the word called "Fellowship." Now, you've probably heard
the word fellowship used. Maybe if you have
a church that does, you know, a meet and
greet time, that's fellowship where
you would describe, as many of our Fresh
Life groups are doing, being in a Zoom call each week. That's our fellowship. And what would normally
happen in the church lobbies or atriums, that's
fellowship, which is true. It's not that those
things are not fellowship. But the biblical idea
always has the idea of a partnership in ministry. And there's always the idea
of sponsoring and of sending. It's always the idea of someone
utilizing the resources they've been given to give themselves
over to the gospel going out to more places. So when Paul says, thank
you, Philippian church for your fellowship,
what he was saying is the way that
you've supported me. Because you haven't
been called to go out preaching the gospel in every
single place physically. You're doing your job. Some of you work in this area. Some of you work in that area. Lydia, the first Christian
convert in Europe, was a seamstress. She had a passion for fashion. She loved sewing. During this crisis, she'd have
been making masks like crazy and donating to the hospitals
and first responders and incredible
heart for clothing. It was just an amazing thing. So she was not called to go
to Rome or go to Jerusalem or go to Africa, but
she would make money, and she would with
her fellowship, support Paul as he did that. The Philippian jailer, he
didn't-- there's no record of him leaving the military,
of him leaving his employment as a soldier. He stayed where he was. He was a warden in a
prison working for Caesar, and he was able to be part
of the Fellowship of Paul's ministry. He chipped in to give that
money that Epaphroditus carried to bring to Paul to meet his
needs, which is, by the way, how he was able to
have food to eat. For a prisoner had to basically
somehow come up with the money to feed themself. Caesar wasn't going
to pay for you to eat, and so Paul was
literally living off of the generosity
of the churches that he had started who
cared for and wanted to be a part of the fellowship
of what God was doing. And so they partnered with him. And the entire
book of Philippians is his thank you note. Now, how incredible is it
that the dude is in prison and still cranking out
his correspondence, still cranking out
his thank you notes? And like I said, the entirety
of the tone is all about them. It's about how they're doing. It's about him praying for
them and caring for them and wanting to support them. We see in this, there's
a spirit of gratitude. Now, what's amazing
about this is I told you Paul's life is one
that's supported by joy. But joy is fostered and
fueled by gratitude. In fact, there's a connection. In 1 Thessalonians
5, where Paul says that it's God's will for
us to rejoice always. So it's God's will right
now in this pandemic, in this situation that
you rejoice always. He didn't say rejoice
when things are going well or rejoice when you feel like
you're in control or rejoice when you feel like
the people around you are being kind to you,
he said rejoice always. This is God's will. But in the very next
breath, he tells us how it's possible
to rejoice always. He says, "in everything,
give thanks." Rejoice always, in
everything, give thanks. I know a lot of you
right now watching this like me are dealing with
situations where you're like, man, I don't feel joyful. I don't feel any
joy to the world. There's none of that
right now in what I'm dealing with-- my kids, my
husband, the situation at work, the reality of unemployment,
the uncertainty of the future, all the economy. And I lost my graduation,
and this was stolen from me, and this was taken from me. I was picking up
some takeout food the other day for our
family and the server was-- who's bravely there
in that restaurant, thank you to those of
you who still show up at the restaurants all across
the world who are still doing that-- she said, I was supposed
to be in Mexico right now. Hopefully, I'll get to
it one of these days, and there was a real
trailing off of her voice. I think we all can,
to some degree, think of something that was
cruelly taken from our hands. And maybe it was not a
Mexican beach vacation. Maybe it was someone you love,
maybe to the COVID-19 virus or maybe to something else. But you know the
feeling of joylessness that's come because of something
that was taken from you and snatched from you. In that situation, Paul says
when you don't feel joyful, the key is gratitude. The key is to in everything-- he
doesn't say for everything give thanks-- but in everything. For we deal with things
that are not good, and we're not to
be thankful for. But in those things, we
can choose to be grateful, to show gratitude. And that gratitude will
help us to tap into our joy. Paul, as he gave thanks,
is modeling for us. You go, how, Paul, do you have
a thank you note full of joy? It's because he was writing
a thank you note that he now is walking in joy. So what, perhaps, this
week could go down in your journal
as something to be thankful for in
the midst of this? And we know that
gratitude releases in us the very same chemicals
that come into our bodies when we take anti-depressants. And so to think about
what powerful tools you have at your disposal to walk
in joy by being grateful. The second thing I
see in Paul, here, is I see an
unselfish pragmatism, an unselfish pragmatism. When you're pragmatic, you're
very detached emotionally from how things
are being affected, and you're able to make
decisions based on benefit. Now, stay with me here. If you're like me, and
you're very pragmatic, you are tactical and
always are calculating and at worst, this can
come across as cold. And you're able to
appraise situations based on how they can benefit
you and how you see outcome. And you can end up
being rather merciless. You can end up
being rather savage. When you're not guarded, you
can become calculating when you're just purely pragmatic. And to be able to look
at situations and in just a quick moment,
calculate the best way to get the advantage
out of a situation. But what I see in Paul here
is unselfish pragmatism, which does feel a
bit like an oxymoron. But you'll see it's actually
a truly powerful thing. To be pragmatic about
what he's facing, he's looking at it to see
what is the benefit here? He's calculating,
what is the benefit of me being in this situation? But he's doing so in
a way that has no ego. There's no trace of "I." There's no trace of "me." He, in fact, says,
hey, look, if I'm here, can't do anything about that. And I worshipped, and God
didn't choose to get me out of it, which I know he can. And he did that before. So if God wanted me
out of this prison, he would he would do it. I watched them do it. So nothing's stopping God
from getting me out of it, therefore, he must have a
reason for sending me into it. And see his pragmatic
mind begin to work and go, hey, look, if
you sent me in here, I want to make sure and
accomplish the mission. And so he tells him,
and I love this. This is so powerful. I really hope and pray that
God can get this deep down in our souls. Are you still with me YouTube? You still watching on Facebook? Am I preaching good? Paul says here, I want you
to know, dear brethren, that the things that
have happened to me have actually turned out for
the furtherance of the Gospel. I want you to know as I've
assessed this whole dynamic, I know you're
concerned about me. But don't cry for me, Argentina. All right, you like that? I see things that God's doing. I know you think, oh, no,
the great Apostle Paul, the traveling preacher who
can't travel thus, probably can't preach. I know you think this
has locked up the gospel. But y'all, the word of
God can not be chained. I have had more opportunities
to preach the gospel in here than I could possibly imagine. It was always his
dream to go to Rome. Now, he did not ever see
it happen in this way, but he is in Rome. And guess what? Every six hours, a New Roman
person gets chained to him. I always wanted to preach
the gospel to Romans. Hey, Bill. And how you doing? Aw, man, you know the
things and-- well, let's talk about that. The guy couldn't get it--
talk about a captive audience, right? You're here volitionally. Paul had people he
got to talk to who had no choice as he communicated
God's words to them. And he says it's an
incredible thing. As you read it, he
says, in verse 13, as a result of my being sent
into this prison, that's why he wasn't a victim mentality. He was a victor sent by King
Jesus into this house arrest. You were sent into
this quarantine. You're sent into this pandemic. God has a plan for you in the
midst of what you're facing. He says, as a result of me being
in these chains, which I could go, oh, these terrible chains. Or I go, thank you
Jesus for chains that lock me to
hurting people who need six hours with the Apostle
Paul, who's been with Jesus. He says, as a result
of that, most of them have ended up figuring out
my chains are in Christ, the whole palace guard. And that's a technical
phrase that actually means Praetorian Guard. Which if you see the movie
Gladiator, which you should, 'cause it's the best movie
that's ever made been made. It's a fact. You don't have to agree with me. You could be wrong. Blackhawk Down would be second,
Braveheart probably third, Shawshank Redemption
would be fourth, and Dumb and Dumber
would be fifth. All right, so
rounding out the list, totally redeeming
myself, all right? So here's the beautiful thing. If you saw Gladiator, let me
know in the comments which of those are your favorites. Or if there's another, probably,
don't go down the rabbit trail because then it
would just digress, and no one would listen to
the rest of the message. She's, like, oh my favorite
movie is Dumbo, you know? OK, so but the cartoon
one, not the new one. That one's just creepy. All right, so in Gladiator,
the Praetorian Guards were the ones who were assigned
to take Maximus's life when Commodus. Killed his father. And then Maximus spurned the
idea of serving under Commodus. And so it was
Praetorians who were then assigned to execute him. But that didn't
work so good, 'cause sometimes the frost
makes the blade stick, and Maximus knew that,
but they did not. And so it was-- I'm sorry, I'm getting
very distracted because I love that movie
so-- yeah 300's definitely on that list, too, Kevin GLo. I can't recommend anybody
watch it, but it was great. All right so-- 'cause I
am a Christian, all right? And I have standards
and values and morals. So the Praetorian Guard,
there were 9,000 of them. They were the most elite out of
all the soldiers in the empire. And they were paid double, and
it was a respected position. And Paul's leading them
to Faith in Jesus Christ. I like how the message
translation puts it in verse 20 when he says, "They
didn't shut me up. They gave me a pulpit." Come on, somebody. Paul says they thought they
were going to shut me up when they put me behind bars. Turns out they were
turning on the PA system for my microphone to
preach the gospel to some of the most influential people
in the entirety of the Roman Empire, aka the empire on
planet Earth at the time. And the infectious spread-- I know too soon, I got to stop
it with those kind of words. The spread of the
kind of hope that would end up happening
where someone would get assigned to
Paul's house arrest for just a couple-- they probably had to start, you
know, get someone else in here, right? And then that guy
gets saved, too. And this just so went from
person to person to person that I'm going to just
flash ahead to the end. Chapter 4, verse 22,
when he's signing off and he's about to
pull a Seacrest out, he says all the
Saints greet you, oh, but especially those who
are of Caesar's household. Paul's two-year ministry
stint in the slammer ended up leading
people to Faith who worked in Caesar's household. We don't know what that
means, family members or if it means his
cook and his butler and the person who fed him
grapes when he was laying out by the pool. But we know that people were
coming to Faith in Christ all throughout. Why, why? Paul saw what you need to see,
a sort of unselfish pragmatism. Hey, I'm in this situation,
and I could cry about it, and I could be sad about
it-- and, by the way, there's nothing wrong
with either those things-- but I'm not going to live there. I'm going to eventually
go, OK, how can I actually look at this outside of
myself and say objectively, what is the good in it? What's to be redeemed in it? I'm in chains. Yeah, but there's two
sides to every chain. And I have to look at my
side and go, oh, darn. Or I could look at the other
side of my chain and go, there's someone else on
the other end of this line, and I have a choice. And when Paul realized
that, he realized that we always have a
choice, a choice to rejoice. I could be sad about this,
or I could rejoice in it. And the power of joy--
listen, the power of joy, and I think the reason God's
trying to call his bride back to joy is that what happens
to you no longer has to control you. So there's an invincibility
that flows from joy. When you have joy,
you have strength. And the Bible says the joy of
the Lord becomes your strength. But it wasn't just
being in prison that Paul saw pragmatically
and unselfishly was a good for other people,
it was the results of the revival that was breaking
out as in Rome or in Ephesus, wherever this took place that
people were getting saved. He says it caused other people
to begin to preach the gospel. And we'll talk about
that in a moment. But he says some of them
did so with bad motives. Some of them did so, in
fact, with a wrong heart. Maybe they heard of the
recognition Paul was getting or the renown, and they
kind of wanted that. And so he was hearing word that
some people were badmouthing him and preaching the gospel. Now, they weren't
preaching the gospel wrong, they were just
preaching the gospel with wrong motives, which
would be easy for him then to think,
oh, how dare they. Instead, he goes,
again, remember we're talking about pragmatism. I'm going to look
at it pragmatically. If they're preaching Christ
with that bad hearts, as long as Christ
is getting preached. What a big man he was that
even in that situation, he chose to see the good in it. And I think there's power there. Because we're not going to live
in a world of fault-finding and motive inspecting. Because when you're
difficult to offend, you become easy
for God to bless, and Paul was
difficult to offend. He goes, eh, Jesus
getting preached. What do I care? Difficult to offend,
easy for God to bless, bigness of spirit, walking
on a higher level in joy. Let's in our homes,
let's in our lives, let's in our working
situation where everyone's kind of on
pins and needles, right? Everyone's starting to feel
like, did you give me the cold. Did you-- the Apollo 7 dynamic
of just sort of like wanting to get snippy with each other. Let's just believe that
God has a blessing for us as we choose joy. The third thing I see in
Paul's tone and spirit that tapped into this beauty is there
is an unvarnished confidence-- unvarnished. Write that down--
unvarnished confidence. What do I mean by that? I mean he was confident
as to how this was all going to play out even though
he didn't know the particulars. But it was an
unvarnished confidence, meaning there was
rough edges, and if you rubbed your hand on it the
wrong way, you'd get a splinter. It was not beautiful
and manicured. His confidence
wasn't glossed over. He wasn't putting a nice
face on an ugly thing. And that is so crucial
that you understand that the hope you're meant
to have in this situation isn't meant to be one that's
overly sanitized to where you have a naive or
somewhat unrealistic sort of expectation for
the level of difficulty inherent in the hope that
Jesus gave you to walk in. We talked a few months back. Some of you might
remember if you were with us early on in the year. As we were preaching, we
referenced Admiral James Stockdale from the Vietnam War. He was a prisoner of
war for eight years, and he endured like 20
savage beatings in Vietnam. And he eventually came home and
was decorated and celebrated and rightly so. And this guy was so incredible. He refused to even
be weaponized 'cause they were trying to
use prisoners of war in propaganda videos, recording
them saying, see, you're fine. I'm great. Everything's fine to
show home a rosy view of how things were going. So he would-- this
is incredible-- he would give himself
beatings at times if he was looking too pretty
so that when they tried to film him, it was a more
realistic picture of what was actually being done at
home and just incredible. And he led the men in
the prisoner of war camp and helped them develop systems
of Morse code and communicating with each other creatively
to keep the morale alive. But what he said was
that-- and we referenced this incredibly of that
quarantine that they were dealing with in
the POW camps was that the ones who often
times died the soonest and didn't make it out
of that quarantine, out of that house
arrest were the ones who had sort of this
optimistic, cheerful, we're all going to be OK. We'll be home by
Valentine's Day. We'll be home by Easter. Or no, we're going to be
home by my Mother's Day. And those who tried to rally
each other are going, it's OK. It's going to be over quickly. We're going to be fine. We're going to be good. Which we would think
oh, that's probably good that they had that
sort of like, you know, overly varnished sense
of confidence and optimism. He said those were the ones who
died the soonest, because that marker they had set as we're
going to get out of this soon and easily. Don't worry about it. We're going to let's
just think positive here. When that day would come and
go, they would eventually grow jaded and grow cynical
and eventually despair, and so they were eaten up. The ones who made it
out of the situation alive were the ones who
said it doesn't really matter when we get out of
this, and it doesn't really matter how hard it's going
to be, 'cause it's probably going to be terrible. We are going to
make it out of this, and we will never give up. And those were the ones
who survived and came home. And I shared this quote
during that series Not Quickly Broken where
he said, "You must never confuse faith that you will
prevail in the end, which you can never afford to
lose, with the discipline to confront the most brutal
facts of your current reality, whatever they might be." And I love that tension, which
Jim Collins calls the Stockdale Paradox. And that paradox is that
we're honest and open to give the unvarnished picture
of you know what? This is awful, and this does
suck, whatever we're facing. Be it bereavement or
be it unemployment or being some disease,
you say, this is terrible. And I'm not going to
sugar coat it, not going to try and make you think,
oh, no, it's going to be OK. We're going to be gumdrops and
lollipops in just a few months, that there's a reality to
the situation being bleak. But at the same
time, that there's a grit and an
absolute confidence that we are going to
make it through this. Those who can exhibit
that are the ones who are going to lead us into
the future in the coming days. In fact, as we look
backwards in our country, it was that really
was at the heartbeat of our first president
that we ever had. I was reflecting in my
notes and underlinings that I had done in a
book by David McCullough called 1776 just a while
ago that I would highly recommend you if
you've never read it, if you're looking for some
quarantine reading, 1776, David McCullough. He says this about President
George Washington-- who at that point was the
General in the Revolutionary War-- he said that "Washington was
not a brilliant strategist or a tactician. He was not even really
a gifted orator. He was not an intellectual. But he never forgot what was
at stake, and he never gave up. And his cardinal strength
was seeing things as they were, not as
he wished them to be." Do you hear that? It's a Stockdale Paradox. He wasn't a great speaker
or even that great of a strategist. But he never gave up and he
never pretended things that were terrible weren't. He didn't see things
as he wished they were. He saw them as they were but
still didn't give up, anyway. That is the key to joy, Church. Come on, Fresh Life,
the strength of the Lord that's going to bring us through
this storm and the next one, which may even be worse and
may be more complicated. Jesus said there's
going to be wars, there's going to
be rumors of wars, there's going to
be famines, there's going to be pestilences. So this that we're
dealing with is what Jesus said was going to
be happening on this earth. The Earth is in labor
pains, groaning. There's a brokenness
to this world. Jesus is on the
throne, but he has not tipped over the
subsequent dominoes that will unleash the life that
he came out of the grave with to the rest of this
planet into our bodies because he's seeking to
win the hearts of men and women and boys and
girls until that day. And we can do that. We can click the
Share button right now and be a part of him getting
more hope to more people. He said the gospel will be
preached to the whole world before the end comes. We can be a part
of the fulfillment of those prophecies,
doing something so simple as posting a status
update to our Instagram story. And God can use the
simplest gesture that you use as the five
loaves and two fishes put into his hands to feet the
multitudes in this sick world. We're not victims
in this crisis. We are hospital agents sent
into a sick world on behalf of the great physician Jesus
who came to seek and to save that which is lost. And so we have to
have a confidence. Yes, but one that's unvarnished,
one with the rough edges that says I'm not certain
what's going to go down, but I know this. My King wins in the end. And Paul, Paul has that
all over this passage. Paul says, I don't
even know if I'm going to make it out of here alive. And I don't even know which
I actually want to happen. I love his honesty. We didn't get to read it, but
he goes on later and says, you know, I may die. I may live. And quite frankly, they
both sound great, you know? Because if I live, I'm
going to serve you. And if I die, well, that's
pretty wicked awesome being with Jesus. And Paul, at that point, had
already been to heaven one time, so he knew that was rad. So he didn't spend a
lot of time on that. He just said to be
with Christ would be far better than staying here. But what I want to do,
what I need to do, he says, is stay on this earth. So the sacrifice is
not going to heaven. We think of death as
some horrible thing. To Paul, the sacrifice wouldn't
be going to be with Jesus, the sacrifice would
be staying here. So to some of you
who've ever walked with, you know, maybe it'd be
better if I were dead, or you've had these
thoughts bombard you. Let me just tell you something. The sacrifice is staying. And the living sacrifice
that God's called us to live every
day of is to choose to stay here on this earth. Yeah, it would be
amazing to go to heaven. Let's just go to
heaven tomorrow. No, that's amazing. But we're called to sacrifice. Your body, which was
paid for by Jesus, His blood that dripped down
to the ground, it bought you. So now, you're to live
a living sacrifice. For you to take the easy
way out and go to heaven would be to abandon your post. You're needed here. You're called here. The sacrifice is staying. The joy would be going. So choose to live a life
of a living sacrifice because you are not your own. You were born at a price. And your body and your heart
and your mind and your soul are God's, and he wants
to use you on this planet. So no, it won't be
easy, but you can choose to have an
unvarnished confidence. Now, you might be
thinking, hold on, Levi. What about where
Paul says, I know verse 19 that because
of your prayers, I'm going to get out of here. He says, because you're
praying, and God's going to help me
with his spirit, this will turn out
for my deliverance. Do you think he's saying this is
going to turn out like Acts 16, and I'm going to get out of
the Philippian jail only now, it's going to be the
Ephesian or the Roman jail? No, no. That's not at all
what he's saying. The word deliverance in the
Greek is the word salvation, sotÃria, which is why
theologians describe studying salvation as soteriology. I know I'm losing some of you. Like, whoa, whoa, glazing
over, glazing over. Hold on, hold on. Stay with me. When we talk about
someone getting saved, like if you gave your life. If you're like one of the
hundreds of people who we've seen just last
weekend at Easter make decisions to give their
life to Jesus Christ, that's called salvation. Now, salvation is not full
or final in any one phase. There are, they say,
three phases to salvation. There's salvation in the past. That's justification where
you believe in Jesus, and he justifies
like a judge would. Bang, not guilty. Bang, paid in full. That's what happened because
of Jesus's death on the cross. The moment you trust
in Christ, your past is completely forgiven. But your future has
a salvation to it as well, because when you do
eventually go to be with Jesus, there will be a salvation from
anything that's ever bad again, anything that defiles,
anything that's horrible and hard and wicked. That's still salvation, too. So there are aspects
of your salvation that are not yet a part
of your day-to-day life. You will experience that. There's a middle aspect, too. And the present
form of salvation is where you're saved from the
power of sin day in and day out as you become more
and more like Jesus. So where the past
is justification, the future is
glorification, the present is what the Bible refers
to as sanctification, which is where you're being
more and more refined, purified. You're getting stronger. You're getting
more spiritual abs. You're developing that
spiritual six pack because of all that work you're
doing walking with Jesus. When Paul says I know this will
turn out for my deliverance, he was saying, I
know that this either is going to end up with me being
glorified and going to heaven, or I become more like Jesus. The point is no matter
how this ends, I win. I become more like
Christ in a crisis, or I end up going
to be with him. And so the problem
is what exactly? Unvarnished confidence. The fourth and final
is I see in Paul-- I wish we could take
longer and to talk about how that courage spread
out to the other soldiers, by the way. I wish we could talk about
how even other Christians were emboldened who had been
quiet about their witness. When they saw that Paul
could do it in a jail cell, they started doing it, too. I wish I could tell you that
when you hurt with hope, you can help other
people, because they'll begin to rise up and
take their platforms, take their microphones
because they're watching God work in you. I hope you understand
that it's not just about what you're
called to do, it's about other eyes that
are watching you. As you walk with Jesus,
your little children and your friends and other
people are looking at you. How are they going
to respond to this? What are they doing? And as they watch you
crush it in faith, in joy, it will give
them courage as well. The fourth, 'cause I don't have
time to talk about any of that, is Paul had-- why did
you have joy church? There was an unambiguous
definition of success. This is leadership one on one. Define the when. Define the why. You, in your organization,
whether it's through Zoom calls or through FaceTime,
text, mission statements, published values, are, in
any work of leadership, always trying to
bring it back to why. Why are we doing this? Why do we get into this
in the first place? What is the win here? What is the goal. How am I doing on time here? Oh, we're doing good. Do you have anywhere to go? We're at home. Where do we have to be, right? We always-- I just have to
make sure I don't preach till the next worship experience
'cause the 11 o'clock will be starting just a little
bit, and they gotta get into the waiting room. But are we still good? Are you still tracking with
Me Is everybody still OK? Can you let me know in the
chat that you're still awake. We didn't go back to sleep. You were back to the oven
for a second cinnamon roll. All right, grab
one for me as well because that sounds delicious. An unambiguous
definition of success is where there's a laser-like
focus on why we're here and what we're doing. I was inspired
this week listening to a conversation between
Simon Sinek and Scott Harrison. One is a prolific
author and speaker, and the other leads
Charity: Water, one of our outreach partners. And in the
conversation, Simon told the story I'd never heard before
about former CEO of Nike Phil Knight, who at one point
was giving an address, and he was trying to really
rally back to the "Just Do It," which has to us become, you
know, just like the 23 logo in the Air Jordan,
you know, just an emblem, just something you
see on the wall all the time. But you could tell
in this speech that it was visceral for Phil. It was in his blood. As he said to this crowded
convention center-- use your imagination, he was
in a room with lots of people-- he said everyone stand
up if you like your run. Whole room up stands up. I would've been
seated, by the way. I do not like to run. And he said, OK, how about
if you run every single week, stay standing. Everyone else sit down. Some of the people
sat down at the edge. Like, OK, I ran
one time last year. I didn't realize it was, do I
actually like to run currently. Like, I just like
the idea of running. I like running clothes
and running shoes, right? Athleisure. And as the
illustration continued, he said, OK, how about you
run two to three times a week. Stay standing. Few more people sat down. Now, there's some
hardcore runners, you know, kind of
excited about this. And he says, all right, how
about if you run every day. Well, there's very few now. But he ends with this. How many of you run if it's
raining, run if it's snowing, run off it's freezing, run if
it's-- there's a tornado going by, your running. There's like seven people
in this crowded room. And he says, we at
Nike are the ones standing under the
lamppost cheering you on. That is what Just Do It means. All right, there's
an organization that has a cause and an
unambiguous definition of success. They are there to
champion the diehard so that they can continue to do
what they were born to do. Ah, are you not entertained? OK, we're back to Gladiator. Paul, to me, has that level
of personal brand clarity. How does he have joy? How is he not being shaken by
these difficult situations? Because he says my earnest
expectation, the one thing-- which the Greek, literally,
I can't even describe to you how strong that is. What it means when he says my
earnest expectation is he says, I'm on tiptoes, and
I'm giving myself a kinked neck trying to see
and make sure it happens. I'm focused resolutely on one
thing more than anything else. And he says this, that Christ
would be magnified in my body whether I live or die. I could care less
so long as I do so bringing glory,
honor, fame, and renown to the name of Jesus. Like, they're
worried about Paul. Are you going to get out? What do I care if
I live or die-- is this not incredible-- so
long as I bring glory to Jesus. He sees his personal life and
his body and his resources, everything he has, as a theater. And that resonated to me 'cause
my family's been watching all these productions that have
been released to YouTube-- Joseph and the Amazing
Technicolor Dreamcoat. And last night, we were watching
Phantom of the Opera, Andrew Lloyd Webber, he's releasing
Broadway plays for anybody to watch. And Jen and I were saying,
like, this is actually better than going to the theater. You have better seats. You're not really stuffy. You're not full of, you know,
other people's personal space being violated. And we were watching, you know,
(SINGING) Phantom of the Opera is here inside my mind, right,
and this whole amazing thing. And Clover and Daisy were,
like, eating popcorn, loving it. And we were watching a theater. And to think about Paul
viewing his life as a theater. And the Production is what? Well, it's Jesus
Christ Superstar. Paul's body, he
views as the theater. And all he wants to depict
is that Jesus Christ is the superstar. Whether I live or die,
nothing matters to me more than Jesus Christ
being glorified. And he knew that the thing
that would, more than anything, accomplish that is for
him to live a life of joy. Brand advertisement
on lockdown for him if the castle of his heart,
which had the King in residence there, had joy flying high as
a flag, declaring to the world that someone on death row, that
someone in chains, that someone about to be
decapitated, or someone who was doing really
well still lived a life giving honor to Jesus. He knew the secret, the secret
to being abased or abounding, having money, not having
money, having enough to eat, being hungry,
preaching to thousands, or telling the
gospel to one dude who needs Jesus,
too, in this house, to getting to fly around the
world doing what we're doing, or gonna love your family well. The secret to those
things is this-- Jesus Christ can give me
the power to do all things. So for me, to live is Christ. To die, that's gain. Paul had a very unambiguous
definition of success for his life. And what a tragedy to win
in life at the wrong things, to spend your whole life
climbing the proverbial ladder only to discover at the
end that it was propped up against the wrong wall. There are so many
things in this world that if they are your definition
of success, that right now, you can't control
those, can you? Right now, and, really, in
all of life, we're so fragile, we're so frail, we're
so easily prevented, it just shows you how quickly
everything can change. But this is the beautiful thing. If your number one thing
is Christ and His glory, that can never be taken from
you even if your life is. So what to do when you're
feeling stir-crazy. Stir like crazy. Stir. Hebrews 10:24, "--one another
up to do love and good works." "Stir-- 2 Timothy 16-- up the gift of God which is in
you to the laying on of hands." "Stir-- 2 Peter 3:1-- by way of reminder, your pure
minds because of the scriptures you've heard." "Stir-- Exodus
35:21-- your heart up to be willing with
Spirit to give offerings to the Lord's work," which
we've learned is Fellowship. When you feel like you're
being stirred like crazy, which Paul even had
other people trying to stir him to craziness, it
actually says that in verse 17. They're trying to stir
up trouble for me. Stir your own heart up to do
what God's called you to do. And no matter what
happens, he'll be glorified and you will walk in joy. I want to end this message by
pointing you to a sunrise that could save your life. I was watching an
interview this week. And in the interview,
it was brought up that in the early
1900s, there was someone who, from
New York City, moved to Paris to learn the
art of making statues and to perfect his skill. He cobbled together
the resources possible to get on a
ship over to France. And while he was there, his
name, Augustus Saint-Gaudens. What a beautiful name-- Augustus Saint-Gaudens. He found himself making statues
and working to hone his craft, but he was struggling
with depression and struggling with anxiety and
struggling with a great sense of difficulty. Maybe he was being cloistered
up in this workshop, you know, working on these
statues day in and day out. And one night in despair in the
darkness of the Parisian night, he ended up walking out
in the street and decided, I'm going to kill myself. And he came to this bridge, and
it was dark, and he felt cold, he felt alone. And he walked to the
middle of the bridge. It was a famous bridge called
the Bridge of the Arts. And he stood at the
middle of the bridge-- I'm watching this on YouTube-- and decided, I'm going to throw
myself into these cold waters below where I'll perish. And just as he was about to, he
saw a little flicker of light on the horizon and realized
it was the sunrise. And he stopped what he
was doing and stood there and watched as the sun rose,
filling the city with light The Louvre, which was in the
distance, became illuminated and began to glow. The whole river began to change. And he literally said
these words standing there at the bridge. I don't want to die. I want to live. And he walked away from
that bridge a changed man. The light and the hope
of light, morning, dawn changed his perspective. And I don't know
if you're dealing with dark thoughts like that
or just anxiety or difficulty or a sense of hopelessness. But what I do know is
that in your situation, the sunrise could
change your life. And if you've never made
the decision that Paul made, you can this morning. God is where you are. He's with you. He loves you. He wants to change you. He wants to save you. He wants to bring the sunrise
of life over your life, to bring you hope,
to give you peace so you can live with purpose. Now, I'm praying you
would make that decision, the most important yes
of your whole life. Would you pray with me? Father, I thank you
so much for your word. Thank you for every
single person on Facebook, on church online, on YouTube. I thank you that no one's
here by accident, even those watching this on the podcast
later on Fresh Life TV and they just feel alone. They're starting
to feel stir-crazy. But thank you that you're the
Lord who gives and takes away. And even in the midst of
when you're taking away, you're seeking to
bless us and use us. I thank you that there is
salvation in your name. So I first ask that your
church would respond and continue to walk in joy. Help us to be those
great examples, focus like a laser on
what matters most. And for anybody here
now who doesn't know you who needs that salvation,
I pray that you would help them to see
through your spirit that they can't save themselves. But if they trust in you
that you will save them. So with heads bowed
and eyes closed, as I give this invitation,
if you'd like to be forgiven, like to be made
new on the inside. We talked about what
salvation looks like. Every sin you've ever
committed could be forgiven. Jesus would come to take up
residence inside your heart, and He would open you up to
a life of joy, confidence, no matter how unvarnished
the reality is of what we have to face. With head bowed and
eye closed, if you would like to receive Jesus,
say this prayer with me. Say it out loud. God'll hear you. Mean it in your heart. Jesus, I'm sorry for my sins. I know I've done wrong. I pray you'd forgive me. Come into my heart,
and make me new. I give myself to
you in Jesus' name. Now, still praying and still
in an attitude of devotion, I want to give you
a moment to act on it, because believe there's
power in nailing it down as a symbol. I'm going to ask that in just
a moment when I count to three, you would raise up a hand
right there in your apartment, you're living room,
your kitchen, bedroom. Raise up your hand when I get
to three as a way of saying this is real. This just happened. I'm giving my life to Jesus. 1, 2, 3. Shoot your hands up. Shoot your hands up. God sees you. God sees you, every single one
of you making this decision. This is real. This just happened.
