Serving Selflessly
Lessons from King Jehoiakim, Jeremiah & Baruch - 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Jeremiah & Baruch.
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good morning calimera welcome if you're new here among us my name is gene and you can just call me gene but i serve here as your lead pastor and i heard a story about a curmudgeon you know what that is it's a grumpy person and they're usually old well he went to a church much like ours where for the most part people were getting it they were listening to the pastors teaching they're trying to live it out during the week but this guy not so much he heard the messages about serving with joy but just wasn't getting it he'd come in every sunday just complaining about everything from the coffee to the worship whatever there was to complain about one sunday in particular it was the bathroom went into the bathroom and noticed it's a little dirty didn't look like it had been cleaned it wasn't the other people because he was the first one there he noticed that the soap dispensers were half empty this type of perspective not enough paper towels so it was his job or so he self-appointed himself to check all the bathroom stalls where he noticed that some of the toilet paper was running out he thought we pay a janitor good money to do this so i'm going to get on the pastor he needs to do his job and get on this guy well it's sunday morning and the pastor is doing what he probably should be doing he's reviewing his message and praying and just in his office this guy knows this so of course knocks on his door the pastor says yes come in and here's like the famous thing right i know you're busy but and then everything you wanted to say after that so the pastor just doesn't say anything at all he goes you know pastor you really got to do your job no you got to get on that janitor he's not doing his job bathroom's dirty and so good pastor goes hmm exactly that waits for long enough for it to be awkward so the guy goes away that's all you got to do it's hard to do right but there's a lot of people can't stand the silence and so you take advantage of that if you're a good pastor right uncomfortable so he makes him uncomfortable guy goes away next sunday guy shows up bee lines it for the bathroom it's clean wow sparkly clean soap dispensers full all the paper towels to the brim toilet paper rolls not only are they full three extra on the toilet tank plus they got the hotel fold over the top and so this answers the age-old question does the toilet paper go this way or that way clearly that way so you can get the hotel a little foldy thing right so it's all done like that he is happy for once so he's washing his hand another church member comes over and washing a hand see how clean the bathrooms are he says to the other guy the other guy he's like i guess so he's like you know how that happened and the guy says you cleaned it no we pay a janitor good money for that i got on the pastor i said pastor you do your job and you know what he did because he went and he got the janitor to clean the bathroom i worked in management so the other guy says look i believe that you worked in management but what i can't believe is that the janitor cleaned the bathroom the guy says why well the janitor died three weeks ago couldn't have been him i was a little embarrassed at this point so he's just quiet he's got to know about the bathroom next week he wakes up an hour early he gets to church an hour early he bee lines it for the bathroom swings open the door and sure enough there's someone cleaning the bathroom the pastor and no that didn't happen i'm not talking about any of you and i'm not talking about myself it just goes with the application today which is basically it's not about you or me we're going to talk about serving selflessly we are in the rest of the story we looked at king josiah and we saw that he didn't finish strong no matter what way you look at it and we had some people sympathizing with jobs i get it i get it but no matter what way you looked at it he dies well we all die but he dies unnecessarily farron eagle kills him right so he's not checking with the lord like he should be he dies this gives an opening for pharaoh nico to come in and take his son jehoiah has away so it causes problems for everybody but you were doing so well was the theme something we really don't want to hear so now here's what happens we're going to jump right in 2nd kings 23 34. pharaoh nico then installed eliakim another of josiah's sons to reign in place of his father and he changed eliakim's name to jehoiakim jehoiahs was taken to egypt as a prisoner where he died i already told you that in order to get the silver and gold demanded as tribute by pharaoh nico jehoiakim collected attacks from the people of judah requiring them to pay in proportion to their wealth jehoiakim was 25 years old when he became king and he reigned in jerusalem 11 years his mother was abadiah the daughter of pedia from rama he did what was evil in the lord's sight just as his ancestors had done we've seen that the prophets weave their way through these accounts of the king second king second chronicles they run parallel-ish and it's super confusing so and by your request you said it's helpful i made you guys a chart all right so again i'm just going to address the elephant so the cartoon me not drawn by me someone did that for me i didn't do it if i did it bigger biceps okay so let's move on so second king second chronicles are running in parallel ish but then we have the prophets kind of go right in there and it's confusing right because if you're reading your bible jeremiah is all the way over there king said wrong so it's really confusing and when you get to jeremiah it gets worse because jeremiah jumps around a lot it's not in chronological order so it gets super duper confusing so i took the time to show you where it goes where it is in chronological ish order and you don't always know because sometimes it doesn't tell you we'll see ah the fourth year of jehoiah comes right there we know but sometimes it just says nothing early in his reign so you just got to kind of put it somewhere so i'm doing my best for you guys on this and we're kind of making it go chronological and i disclaimer it with ish chronological ish that's the chart it's in the app correct i think so anyway you can check it out on your own screenshot it if you want jeremiah 22 13 and the lord says what sorrow awaits jehoiakim who builds his palace with forced labor he builds injustice into its walls for he makes his neighbors work for nothing he does not pay them for their labor and so this kind of rebuke continues to verse 33 or 23 of that chapter the point jehoiakim is selfish so he's a selfish self-centered type of king so we've seen this good king bad game good king bad king so now we're going to hop around a little bit and what i'm going to do is i'm going to summarize it for you i actually intended to kind of go through it a little more in depth and i realized something that not only do they give the names of these people that are interacting they give like their father's names and their grandfather's names and then you're like who are we talking about again so i'm going to try to not do that and unconfuse you if that's entirely possible so jeremiah 25 we have the 70 years of captivity predicted so what's going to happen is there's gonna be like three rounds where now nebuchadnezzar after nico he's gonna be taking the kings away she's gonna invade take a king away invade take away he's gonna install other kings last one zedekiah matanaya we'll get to that later and then it's gonna fall after jerusalem falls 70 years in exile and so that's what's being predicted here but the pattern of the prophets goes something like this you're bad and really bad now if you're new and you're new to this whole thing don't think mean angry god no they're killing their own children they deserve it right it's justified so you're bad israel but you're like children to me so i'm gonna restore you and i'm gonna punish the people that went too far in punishing you so he uses like nebuchadnezzar these people to punish them and so there's restoration at the end so that's what you're seeing here there's always a pattern of this and the prophets don't use that as an excuse not to read it go read it for yourself then you see the lord's cup of anger and this is kind of a theme all throughout the prophets and all the way from jeremiah to jesus right garden of gethsemane take this cup from me but your will be done father not mine right so it's the cup of god's wrath and so this is a theme so jeremiah is symbolically going to take this to all the nations on behalf of the lord and pour out the wrath on everyone of god so 26 you can turn the page lonnie jeremiah speaks fact checkers sounds like something else when i said it fast last time so i make sure i enunciate there so then jeremiah what's going to happen here he speaks at at the temple and he's warning them again this is going to be german if you turn from your ways it might be good but you know you're not so he's going to destroy the temple you're going to be an object of cursing so he's prophesying all these bad things against the people they don't like it so they seize him they kind of put him on like a little quick trial type of thing and the wise people there are like no micah of morishev prophesied the same type of thing during hezekiah's time and we didn't kill him they want to kill him so he gets away but there's another prophet uriah not so lucky he tries to escape to egypt but they bring him back and they kill him that is the summary of chapter 26 chapter 35 is super interesting it's the recobytes and you might might remember this when we looked at jehu jay who's the guy who's driving like a madman so basically he's from naples no so jehu jehu if you remember he killed all the worshipers of baal right so he tricks them he's like come on you can see the way i worship bill and he gathers them all in one place and has them slaughtered identifying them by wearing special robes but through that process he gets this guy johanna dab son of recap the wreckabytes and basically what he's doing is he's like look at how how awesome i am you know like you think you worship the lord watch this zeal because they're known as people who follow the rules right that their ancestor recap gave them the thing here is simply put we don't know too much about them except that and this but they're not supposed to settle down that's the point so don't plant vineyards don't live in houses live in tents don't drink alcohol back up don't have houses live in tents specifically for these people why well what do the israelites do well they intermarry which they shouldn't have done because their wives are worshipping other gods they remember other people that is so they don't want to be susceptible to kind of like settling down somewhere and then adopting that culture's customs which would then include the worship of false gods we don't want to do that that's the whole point for this thing so what happens if you want to make wine you got to plant a vineyard and you got to stay around for a while and so that's the point so some people have proof texted this and said ah this means you shouldn't drink alcohol wrong this is not what this is about it's just about not adhering to the cultures it immediately moves on like be like the recobytes but then it says don't worship false gods it doesn't say don't drink wine because we see even jesus does so clearly that can't be a sin first miracle water into wine we looked at timothy last week right drink wine from now and not just water why it has alcohol in it kills the bacteria so for merriment and medicine wine's okay what's the problem when you drink too much if you can't handle it don't be a drunkard that is the point here so here's the thing the lord kind of gives like a little test here as an illustration check these people out the reco bites they're faithful jeremiah bring him into the temple and give him some wine like offer them wine he does they say no because that's wrong our ancestor told us not to do that that is chapter 35 summarize now chapter 36 starting at verse 1. during the fourth year that jehoiakim we talked about son of josiah was king in judah the lord gave this message to jeremiah i'm going to scroll and write down all my messages against israel judah and the other nations begin with the first message back in the days of josiah and write down every message right up to the present time perhaps the people of judah will repent when they hear again all the terrible things i have planned for them then i will be able to forgive their sins and wrongdoings so jeremiah sent for baruch son of neriah and as jeremiah dictated all the prophecies that the lord had given him baruch wrote them on a scroll then jeremiah said to baruch i am a prisoner here and unable to go to the temple so you go to the temple on the next day of fasting and read the messages from the lord that i've had you right on this scroll read them so the people who are there from all over judah will hear them so just a couple of things about this text i use an nlt because everybody kind of understands it that's it so my point here is not to show off it is to get you to know this stuff i am a teacher and if i'm doing what i'm supposed to be doing you leave understanding this a little better and so when we read from really complicated versions nobody leaves understanding it if we're being really honest very few people understand the bible that they're holding in their hands so i keep a simple version and when it kind of detours a little bit i put the brackets in and fix it with the greek so i got my greek teacher here today and i text her a lot all right so i can read greek pretty well according to her i cannot speak at all i have an accent i'm really really bad but i can read the biblical greek okay getting better a couple problems with this just if you're thinking logically so remember something where did jeremiah offer the wine to the record bites the temple so why can't he go to the temple now no so he's restrained from going to the temple better better translation he's not in prison yet that happens during zedekiah's reign and he goes in like a house arrest let's just say the secretary i think jonathan's house and then he gets put in a cistern not yet that's not happening yet so again it jumps all over the place it gets confusing he's restrained from going to the temple i think that's a better translation so to summarize this is a very confusing chapter because here the names the grandson of this the grand it's crazy i'll make it simple and just give you the point so baruch some people say barrick you can say it any way you want because i don't speak hebrew and no matter how i say it it's probably wrong just like the greek so say it however you memorize it some people say barrick baruch i listen to like a jewish rabbi saying it it sounds like baruch to me could be wrong let's move on the point of the story so he's taking these messages he does what jeremiah tells him to do he takes the messages and he's reading them in like the courtyard of the temple and so there's these rooms and someone michael aya hears it and i won't do too many names for you hears him saying it and he goes down and he tells like the officials well this is what's being said go get baruch have him read it to us he reads it to the officials all right so they get the word and they're kind of a little shocked they're like uh oh this is bad tell them a couple things you and jeremiah go hide and you're going to need to hide this is a bad message right so kill the messenger don't kill the messenger so then they send someone let the king know the king ends up hearing the messages he's in a winterized part of the palace it says so he's sitting by a fire that's significant because when he hears the message he cuts the scroll and throws each piece like every few lines into the fire he burns it on repentantly that's the summary there and it's going to bring us to our application so jeremiah 36 23 each time jihudi finished reading three or four columns the king took a knife cut off that section of the scroll then he threw it into the fire section by section until the whole scroll was burned up neither the king or his attendants showed any signs of fear repentance at what they heard even when el nathan de lai and gamora begged the king not to burn the scroll he wouldn't listen so what he does is he commands his sons to arrest jeremiah but they remain hidden him in baruch and then after the king burned the scroll god gives jeremiah another message essentially to wrap it up write it down again do it again but this time add more and so he's going to say no no no you can't stop the word of god from happening so what we're going to do now on that chart we don't want to try it up but we're going to jump now from 36 to 45. it's all happening in the same time frame kind of why it's difficult right nine chapter jump jeremiah 45 1 the prophet jeremiah gave this message to baruch on a variety in the fourth year so see it's similar there fourth year of the reign of jehoiakim son of josiah after baruch had written down everything jeremiah had dictated to him he said this is what the god of israel says to you baruch you've said i'm overwhelmed with trouble haven't i had enough pain already and now the lord has added more i am worn out from sighing and i can find no rest baruch this is what the lord says i will destroy this nation that i built i will uproot what i planted are you seeking great things for yourself don't do it i will bring great disaster upon all these people but i will give you your life as a reward wherever you go i the lord have spoken again big jump which makes it confusing so this is happening around the same time as chapter 36 clearly we see here that baruch complains in his service to the lord so i just want to do a quick thing here in case there's new people and you can go back to this series at the beginning of the series if you want to learn more about this if it interests you if it doesn't just stop listening to me for the next two minutes and 30 seconds so anyway if we get that picture up we talked about something in protestantism we are a non-denominational church right so we're not denominational in protestantism they call these apocryphal books and they're kind of got like a bad reputation so i just want to give you a very very brief history lesson so baruch is a book it's called apocryphal by protestants by catholics deutero canonical and i think by orthodox they don't even designate it they just put it in right there after jeremiah with a couple other things like the epistle from jeremiah in there so it's just mixed in the text and so i wanted to show you this again that is a 1611 king james bible i'm showing off some of my bible collection that's not even all of them but anyway it's right there in there 1611 and it was in all english bibles until the mid-1800s so about the first 1800 years of christianity christians were reading from them there's an orthodox bible behind it it's in there and the 1560 geneva bible yes there are other english translations before the mighty king james bible we can get into why they were taken out later it's not for theological reasons if you go to the oldest christian bibles that we have all the way back to about 350 a.d all in greek complete copies all in greek even the old testament because greek is the lengua franca the apostles are writing that right the people writing the new testaments or writing in greek they're quoting the greek the new testament that was funny the new testament books they're quoting the greek version so the oldest copies we have all greek and baruch's in there so those apocryphal books are all in there with no delineation whether they're apocryphal or not food for thought so we're going to take a quick peek at this book and i'm not saying necessarily that it's scripture i'm not taking any stance on one side or the other it's just that even as martin luther said they're good to read they were in his german translation interesting so baruch when we look at it the name baruch means blessed that means blessed probably not written by him probably written a little bit later pseudopographical pseudo-graphical it's called hard word to say but think about song of songs or is it song of solomon because that's probably also in the same category and so even for the protestants listening some of your books we don't know who wrote them like hebrews why because the holy spirit wrote it that's why it's not really important so baruch summary real quick first two chapters they're kind of like a petition and confession about what's going on here about what these israelites are doing so petition confession he continues it's really interesting chapter three if you take the time to read it wisdom woman the wisdom woman personified like the proverbs that was a mouthful like the proverbs we see that in the proverbs wisdom is personified as a woman she's doing that he's doing the same thing here it's a woman chapter four like a mother speaking to her children it kind of ties very nicely in there to israel and then five the pattern of the prophets again promised restoration but something interesting chapter 4 26 they're described as pampered children pampered children i can take questions later if that's a hand going up that's awesome though actually you know what did someone raise their head i'll take the question go ahead what's your question oh all right well you should ask me a question like a really hard one like what's your name that's all you're good you're totally good pampered ones i hope you're not a member you're okay pampered ones that's how they're described let's go back to jeremiah 45 too and you can stretch a few you know what we should have like a stretch break because i go long sometimes right so like after about like what are we at 20 minutes 30 minutes every other 20 or 30 minutes you'd be like everybody get up just stretch out a little a little bit you might have just started a new thing don't raise your hand over there i'm not going to take any more questions but so if you haven't been to bible study it's really funny i make everyone raise their hands it's like a contest they raise their hands and so what happens is the ladies are always playing with their hair and it looks like a hand to me because like i need to wear my glasses and i don't wear them because glare that's why i can't see so lester are two evils and so the women are doing this and i call on people and they're like what was the question again let's go back to jeremiah in 45 too and again yes it's really easy to get me to go on like a tangent the staff does it all the time this is what the lord the god of israel says to baruch you have said i'm overwhelmed with trouble haven't i had enough pain already and now the lord's added more i'm worn out from sighing and can find no rest baruch this is what the lord says i will destroy this nation that i built i will uproot what i planted are you seeking great things for yourself don't do it that'll bring great disaster upon all these people but i will give you your life as a reward wherever you go i the lord has spoken so we see again baruch has a moment of selfishness because he's greatly inconvenienced right these people are getting chased around everywhere lives threatened in service of the lord get it but check this out for perspective the life i give you is enough i don't see a great your life is enough that's it so god's perspective here calm down now we see that jeremiah he lives a life of inconvenience it's going to get worse we're going to see that so we see a theme here contrasted by jehoiah kim's unwillingness to be inconvenienced by the very word of the lord think about that when we look at our service to the lord both inside and outside the church do we see it as an inconvenience is that the way we're looking at it do we not want to be inconvenienced by the word of the lord you see the bible commands us to do some pretty inconvenient things if we're being honest but throughout the full counsel of god's word throughout the entire bible we see that we are supposed to be serving selflessly selflessly so as you serve god beware of focusing on what you're giving up as opposed to who you should be serving and certainly don't see great things for yourself so what does serving selflessly look like well jesus pretty redundant we can put it up on the screen thank you and thank you he did well with that so here's the point and jesus is kind of redundant here there's a prerequisite to following him to being baptized and a lot of people miss it so you see these like happy happy baptism type of party things right sometimes they do it at a water park right and it's just like they don't explain anything it's true and they don't explain this really is they don't explain and you've got a beach here why would you anyway so another stop another tangent good stay on target if you know what movie that's from i love you so so baptism jesus gives the prerequisites and so what happens is you get everyone emotionally stirred up and that's what we don't do here right so get the worship team going get everybody all riled up and let's go you wanna be baptized going to the water and that's it but you don't understand you don't know what you're getting into what what did it say in second timothy all who want to live a godly life right in christ jesus will suffer a persecution we talked about varying degrees of persecution it could be at the workplace verbal whatever it's a warning right but not if you want to call yourself a christian you'll suffer nope if you want to live a godly life this means jesus warned us right like i've come to bring a sword not to fight but i'm going to divide families i'm going to divide friendships this is going to be rough really hard but here's the hardest part this is what he says and i just put him all on there redundant he's saying it a lot the prerequisites deny yourself you have to deny yourself total self-denial and in different forms whoever doesn't get rid of their self deny yourself cannot follow me that's it can't then pick up your cross there's that persecution it might not be a literal cross but you're going to suffer for me why well the bible says some very inconvenient things and if you begin doing those things you're going to suffer well you might suffer loss of family members friends others because they don't like what you're talking about because the word sounds nothing like the world nothing as you start talking like that you're crazy you start living like that you're crazy you're different deny yourself gonna suffer then you can follow me and i put it up there a lot of times so that you can see i'm not lying or making this up look it up for yourself jesus says this is not going to be convenient it's not promised in there anywhere you have to take scripture out of context which is a very popular thing to do unfortunately we'll look at that a little bit later following jesus begins with self-denial and and you're like you're going to make this worse pastor yeah because jesus did so matthew 6 1. watch out don't do your good deeds publicly to be admired by others four you will lose the reward from your father in heaven when you give to someone in need don't do as the hypocrites do blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity i tell you the truth they have received all the reward they will ever get but when you give to someone in need don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing give your gifts in private and your father who sees everything will reward you so here's the thing you got to read larger passage i give the analogy i've given it a thousand times so i'll keep it short like people read the bible like watching like five seconds of move of a movie a day or a week right you know and then like they don't even how can you remember in two or three years what the movie was about but then they'll take that quote totally out of context and use it and you're like huh if you read the bible that doesn't go there so what you should do is not read matthew 5 and stop because you're interrupting jesus you have to read matthew 5 6 and 7. all one no stopping he's just it's his sermon so it's like walking out of jesus sermon it's kind of rude right so so don't do that but think about it right like if you listen to the first couple minutes you'll be like this dude just talked about bathrooms and toilet paper rolls that's all i got out of the message right it's going somewhere well jesus is like kind of a whole lot better than me so it's going somewhere so people do this they read matthew five right so that we're going to read like four verses in matthew five or i'm gonna read four verses and then we're going to preach on that all day right so here's what you get you're like salt you're you're you're a light on a hill who who puts a lamp under a basket your city on a hill right it has to be seen let's preach on that and so that means you got to go out there and make sure you take selfies of yourself and put it all over the internet patronizing homeless people that's duh yeah you've seen that done former mega church pastor knows all about it because they stopped there they didn't keep reading crosstalks out in your bible there's no six it's just jesus talking because then he clarifies watch out though watch out don't don't do that stuff don't take the selfies that's no good you'll lose your reward if you do that because why it's about you anytime so here's like the litmus test you can apply this it's a simple version anytime a preacher makes this about you it's wrong this is not about you it's about the lord god almighty and worshiping him i'm not going to get into the greek because we did that at bible study but look it's like the greek it's like a dog licking a master when he comes home that's what the word worship means but you have people out there i'm going to get my worship on i won't do that again but anyway terrible song hate it we're never going to sing that here because it's ridiculous get your worship on worship is like we don't read revelation the lord god shows up everybody's deaf you know and we're just like ah that's worship that's worship this is the word of god it's about jesus everything points to jesus that's it not you we're mere servants saved by his grace and mercy that's it not about you if it does not point to jesus and jesus alone it's false that's it that's what this book is about jesus and we are to worship him no reward it's almost like when we serve our master we should serve in a way in which we know he's always watching that's what i'm serving and that's what the bible says when you serve another person you're serving the lord that's worship be a living sacrifice romans 12 be a living sacrifice that's worship that's worship serve the lord by serving others jesus is going to see it you don't need the self and he's the only one that matters anyway i don't care paul says that galatians right like i've lost my interest in the world and the world's lost its interest in me done i don't care what you all think right i'm preaching to him i hope i'm getting this right that's it all right i cannot care i just want to love you and so we can get to jesus that's it why are you serving me like that beca ah jesus and that's it the holy spirit he'll just do the rest i don't have to do anything else you see here's the thing our fruit will be an evident product of our works it'll be evident we don't have to like shine an extra light on it it's just going to be evident we're doing the right thing people are going to notice now we see we're going to jump ahead a little bit we're going to go to philippians today we see how yes kafka did i say that right oh i got a word right so you can say you were right we worked we worked we worked on this but i got two thumbs up so we see that paul does boast in a good way we looked at this pride never a good thing if it's no no no no not a good thing but this coffima is a good thing when it's done towards someone else without any other ulterior motives that's good that's good boasting bad boasting and paul says i'm going to boast and this is not good or you're boasting first corinthians 5 that's bad boasting so it can be good or bad depending on where it's directed and how it's being said but here's the thing proverbs 27 2 let someone else praise you not your own mouth a stranger not your own lips we must serve with humility knowing that the lord will reward us what can be better than the crown of righteousness that he is going to give us that then we'll lay back at his feet think about the attitude important and here's the other thing i see people do this i've seen pastors do this god knows your heart you got to be careful there's a couple of pastors doing this nonsense and it was so obvious right so it's one of those like okay i'm not going to take the selfies i know that's wrong but here's the thing bro take a picture of me doing this right and then you post that about me and i'll post that about you it's called manipulation it makes it worse know the lord only we must serve with humility this produces good fruit when we don't serve with humility it produces bad fruit every single time we'll talk a little bit more about that next week this week i want to set the stage beginning with our attitude attitude so we're going to go to philippians because it talks a lot about attitudes so we did this thing last week if you were here second timothy i overviewed the book for you right so it's good because it gives us the context what's this really about don't just pluck a line out no why is this letter that's what that is being written to timothy right so we looked at that finishing strong right he's trying to get timothy to finish the race strong he thinks he's probably going to die soon that's paul he's in prison he talks a lot about suffering but keep going finish the race strong right citizen of heaven we'll see that in philippians so philippians is like the greatest theological thank you note ever written that's really what it's all about paul is in prison that's the context they send a guy epaphroditus to bring him a gift right help him out in prison and then he sends epaphroditus back with the letter to the philippians and that's what we get here so paul's going to talk about suffering he's going to sank them he's going to use timothy and epaphroditus as examples you know epaphroditus almost died in this service to me he almost died so he's kind of cool look at timothy i have no one else like him he's pretty cool listen to him why because they're being like jesus so that's the good kafima that's the good boasting right so he's doing good boasting like no just keep going i'm in jail it gives us a lot of perspective and no philippians 4 13 i can do all things through christ to give me strength stop it unless you're talking about enduring suffering because the next line is what nobody knows it yet you have done well to share with me in my affliction flipsy is it flipsy like crushing affliction also used for tribulation eclipses yeah tribulation crushing so picture in your mind like this is not going to be a greek thought but like an american thought like the salem witch trials or something you know where they're putting the stones on top of people to crush them that's what he says next i can do all things i can lay under like a ton of rocks because christ gives me the strength to do that that's the proper translation it's not about your new job your football game or a car it's about suffering for jesus so check this out paul here's his attitude so he does the introductions that he does and his greetings and stuff philippians 1 24 i fully expect and hope that i will never be ashamed but that will continue to be bold for christ as i've been in the past and i trust that my life will bring honor to christ whether i live or die for to me living means living for christ and dying is even better dying is gain some translations will say but if i live i can do more fruitful work for christ so i don't really know which is better this is an interesting guy it's called a christian i'm torn between two desires i long to go and be with christ which would be far better for me but for your sakes it's better that i continue to live knowing this i'm convinced that i will remain alive so i continue to help all of you grow and experience the joy of your faith and when i come to see you again you will have even more reason if it says pride cross it out that's kaphema not pride but boast in a good way here in christ jesus because of what he is doing through me above all you must live as citizens of heaven conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel the good news about christ then whether i come and see you again or only hear about you i will know that you are standing together in one spirit and one purpose fighting together for the faith not physically fighting fighting together for the faith enduring on 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 are going to be saved even by god himself for you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in christ but also the privilege of suffering for him we're in this struggle together you have seen my struggle in the past and you know that i'm still in the midst of it wow that doesn't sound like a mega church first that's it nope a lot of christians have never heard that and that's sad because that's paul's attitude and he's telling them you need to have that attitude you're going to suffer with me we're all suffering think about it you know like a pastor saying this like you know guys just this morning a little difficult for me so just pray for me because this message is really difficult because i just want to die and be with the lord really just because i wanna you know but for your sakes i'll try my best to get through the message i really cannot wait to die i can't wait it's the only way you can get the resurrection correct paul is like it would be better for me to die but for you guys i'll stick around here we go you know what ain't right so talk about serving selflessly amazing if we turn the page philippians 2 is there any encouragement from belonging to christ any comfort from his love any fellowship together in the spirit are your hearts tender and compassionate than make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other loving one another and working together with one mind and one purpose don't be selfish don't try to impress others be humble thinking of others is better than yourselves don't look at out only for your own interest but take an interest in others too you must have the same attitude that christ had don't be selfish don't be selfish think of others better than you even if you disagree with him don't argue he'll go on to say do these things without grumbling or complaining says that in other words be like jesus so there a lot of people don't know it some bibles are really good with this they tell you when something's like a saying a poem or a prayer paul will sometimes say this is a trustworthy saying and then he'll give you so you have these little recitals that they do in church kind of like all denominations will do the lord's prayer right most of us have that memorized and so we pray a memorized thing and so they were doing this in the early church too and one of my favorites if you've been around for a while is philippians chapter 2 verses 5 through 11. i don't have a favorite verse of the day but i have favorite like sections of scripture and it's important because it gives us the attitude and the nature of christ who he is and what he did for us and so i do this a lot at bible study like so i could repeat this every church service it's so important it's critical to understand jesus we have to understand him and so these verses help us with that so i often recite them over and over again as i close this morning i kind of want to do it in the form of a prayer and i want you to meditate on these verses i want you to absorb these verses i'm not going to put it on the screen just just just absorb the verses go read them when you write it down philippians 2 5-11 there you go absorb this into your very being this morning i hope it stays with you and you go out and you become vehicles for the gospel because it says make your own attitude that of christ jesus who existing in the form of god did not regard equality with god as something to be taken advantage instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a slave taking on the likeness of man and when he had come as a man in his external form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even to death on a cross for this reason god highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name so that at the name of jesus every knee would bow or bend and every tongue should confess that jesus christ is lord to the glory of god the father all those in heaven and on earth and below the earth to the glory of god the father amen you