Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast. How do we know where to find answers to the toughest
questions in life? While the simplest answer is the Bible, where do we start this search
and how do we discover this truth? Today, in this teaching podcast, John Meador, lead
pastor of Cross City Church, takes a specific text of the Bible and helps us find truth
for the life we're searching for. Please grab hold of your Bibles today in terms of
the book of Philippians. We're in the book of Philippians and have been for a few weeks.
We will be for a season of time until we get through with our book. And today we're going
to talk about the greatest progress in life out of Philippians chapter 1 beginning in
verse 12. The greatest progress of life. Did you know that Christians view progress very
differently from the way the world views progress? When we say we're progressing, we're moving
forward in life, we have a very different definition of what that means. And Paul shows
us what that is in Philippians 1. Let's stand together. I'm going to read some passages
out of Philippians chapter 1 building on what we've said in previous weeks in the book of
Philippians. Remember, Philippians is a letter written by Paul in a Roman prison about joy.
That in itself should get your attention. How does a man in jail write about joy? Well,
he doesn't get that from the normal means that we get joy or happiness. He gets it from
God in a special way. We're going to look at what that says today. Philippians chapter
1, we're going to begin in verse 12. He says, now I want you to know, brethren, that my
circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel. So there's a word
that's going to influence what we say today. Moving forward, advancing, progressing in
the gospel. So that my imprisonment and the cause of Christ has become well known throughout
the whole proetorian guard and to everyone else. And that most of the brethren trusting
in the Lord because of my imprisonment have far more courage to speak the word of God
without fear. Some to be sure are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some
also, from goodwill. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the
defense of the gospel, the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than
from pure motives, thinking to cause me to stress in my imprisonment. So what then? Only
that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in this,
I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice. For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance
through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ according to my
earnest expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with
all boldness Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or
by death. I'm going to read verse 21 as well. For to me to live is Christ and to die is
gain. Father, in Jesus' name I pray that you will speak to us from this text and from the
life of Paul in a relevant way that helps us know what progress really means in our
life. We ask this in Jesus' name. And everybody said amen. Amen. Please be seated. So if I
were honest with you, I would say I'm going to preach two messages today in this one message
times five. That's not unusual for those of you that know me very well. I try to do it
every week, but nonetheless this is literally two messages, one on joy, one on the gospel.
But the reason they must take place in one message is because they are intertwined through
these verses 12 through 20. And in these verses 12 through 20, Paul is demonstrating something
and then he's admonishing them to do something. Now remember the church of Philippi is the
first church in Europe. It was a result of the Macedonian vision where Paul and Silas
and Timothy and Luke were in Troas and were called over by that Macedonian vision. They
all concluded that the Spirit of God was leading them across the sea to this place in Macedonia
called Philippi, the very first church in Europe. And so from there, Philippi had incredible
influence and the gospel moved west and north to Great Britain and across to America. You're
kind of saved today because of the work of the church at Philippi. It moved this way
instead of some other way. God in His sovereignty chose that direction, but it wasn't without
hardship. Paul was in prison as a result of preaching the gospel and now he's riding
to the church at Philippi while he's in this Roman prison. Some say he was under house
arrest. The Praetorian guard is those elite soldiers that guarded those special prisoner.
So he may have been under house arrest, but he's been in enough prisons where he's got
a kind of a prison mentality about him. He knows what it means to go through hardship
in prison and he's writing about the source of joy and the source of progress with the
gospel. Now before I dive into this, let me just say this is very clear as we walk through
the text. Christians don't get their joy the same way the rest of the world gets their
joy. You know that, right? Most of the world gets their joy or their happiness, which is
a much more surface kind of happiness. Joy is much deeper, of course. We've defined that,
but most of the world gets their happiness from a new home, a new job, new relationships,
new friendships, new clothes, new something. Something added to their life to make them
smile. The problem with that is the smile doesn't last very long because the thing is
empty. It doesn't have life in and of itself. So many people look for their happiness in
things. Christians don't look for their joy in things. They look for their joy in a person,
and that's the person of Jesus Christ. We believe joy is God given, and we'll talk
about that in just a few moments. At the same time, the world gets their purpose from doing
something that feels rewarding to them. They're making some kind of progress in life. They're
elevating from one job to another. They're in an influential position somewhere and they
feel like they've found their purpose in life. They're doing what they like to do, but a
Christian doesn't find their purpose in what they like to do, but they find their purpose
in being aligned with the one that gives them joy, who is Jesus Christ. There is a difference.
Because there's an incredible difference, it's a difference of source, and because of that,
we don't get discouraged in our joy, discouraged in our progress the way the world kind of
does because the world has a lot of left turns, left fields, a lot of weird things happen,
a lot of hardships that take place. If you don't have strong joy in Christ, you're going
to always be down because you're going to go up and down with the circumstances.
So Paul makes a statement early on in this passage, this is verse 12, that really kind
of flavors the whole thing. Here's what he says, now I want you to know, brethren, talking
to the church of Philippi, who's worried about him, that my circumstances have turned out
for the greater progress of the gospel. In other words, you're worried about me, but
I'm not worried at all. I'm not concerned at all. It's natural for you to be concerned
about my life and my health, but I'm not concerned at all because the gospel just keeps on advancing
and my joy is not threatened in any way. So we want to dig a little deeper to find out
why is Paul still joyful in jail? Why is it not threatening to him? And why does he feel
out the gospel is progressing even though he's in chains? Okay? Two things I want to
emphasize today. First of all, he says to them, keep progressing in joy. You should
write that down. I am called to move forward in joy. I'm called to advance in joy. One
of the lines that we have here in verse 18, I've just kind of lifted it out of the whole
context and I'll come back in the rest of the context, but it says what he's thinking
at the moment. It says, yes, and I will rejoice for I know this will turn out. Now leave that
open ended because we're going to talk about how it turns out for the progress of the gospel,
but his mindset is this doesn't look good, but it's going to turn out just fine. You
ever been at a place in your life where you had to come to that conclusion, this does
not look good? Yeah. You get more amen saying that than you do anything else, man. This
does not look good, but I know this will turn out. That's the view of a person that believes
in the sovereignty of God. God's on the throne. This doesn't look good, but God's on the throne.
This doesn't look good, but I don't know the whole picture. This doesn't look good, but
God has not spoken yet. That's what Paul's saying. He said, this doesn't look good. I
know that you know that this doesn't look good, but my circumstances have actually turned
out for the greater progress of the gospel. So keep progressing in joy. Don't let what's
happened to me hold you back from rejoicing. Basically, Paul is saying that God given joy
is not threatened by circumstances and that's what he wants them to know as well. The reason
he knows that is because he knows that joy doesn't come from circumstances. Therefore,
it can't be threatened by circumstances. He knows that joy is God given. Christian, do
you know that your joy is God given, that it comes from God himself? Paul is writing
to the Romans and he talks about joy. As he writes to the Philippians, he talks about
what's valuable to him. Paul, if you remember his previous life was one of esteem. He was
a member of the Sanhedrin. He was one of the rulers in the Jewish group, the Jewish class.
You had to be pretty prominent. You had to be a great mind. You had to have a great study
of the Old Testament law. You had to have a little bit of wealth for you to be in that
level of being a member of the Sanhedrin. That's what he was before he met Jesus Christ personally.
In the book of Philippians, he says, you know, all those things I used to count as gain,
I now count as loss. In fact, that's what he said in chapter three, verse seven. Whatever
I counted as gain before, I now count as loss. Everything is lost in view of the surpassing
value of knowing Jesus Christ as Lord. Man, I mean, that's a strong statement there.
He knew a lot. Now to the Romans, he said this. He's defining the relationship he had
with God, the relationship we have with Christ. He says, for the kingdom of God is not eating
and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Look at the words
on that screen. The Bible tells us that we get righteousness, peace and joy from God
himself. It doesn't come from circumstances or performance. It comes from God himself.
The kingdom of God's not eating and drinking. It's not keeping a list of dos and not doing
the list of don'ts. It's not keeping a list of how far we've progressed personally, but
it's righteousness and peace and joy that is given to us by God. What that basically
means is that when you come to faith in Christ, you're given all the righteousness of Jesus
Christ in your life in spite of the fact that you weren't righteous when you came to Christ.
He gave you his righteousness. Not only that, you have peace. You have peace with God and
peace with each other as well in the body of Christ. Then it says you have joy in the
Holy Spirit. Paul's joy, does it come from circumstances? It comes from God. In Galatians
chapter five, verse 22, he begins to name the fruit of the Spirit. You know this passage,
but the fruit of the Spirit, and say it with me, is love, joy, peace, patience. You could
probably go on and on. If you were in Bible drill, you could go all the way through this.
There's joy right there in the middle of it. That comes from the Spirit of God living inside
of our lives. Paul's basically saying you don't get joy from circumstances, so keep
progressing in joy no matter what. It's rightfully yours in Christ. It's a greater sense of joy
than the world can ever give you with possessions or things or possessions or anything else.
Joy is ongoing, but life is hard, and Satan has a way of trying to steal your joy. Paul
is saying to the church at Philippi, I know it looks bad. I know I'm in prison, but let
me just remind you that your joy is not threatened. We'll break it down into three different sub-points.
First of all, circumstances cannot steal your joy. Notice what he says in verse 15. He says,
my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment
for the cause of Christ has become well known. What were his circumstances? His circumstances
were that he was in prison. Being in prison and being filled with joy at the same time
is hard to understand if you think you get your joy from circumstances. I doubt if the
place where he stayed at night was joyful. I doubt if his jail mates were joyful. I doubt
if the meal plan that he was on was joyful. I doubt if the future was joyful, but he was
joyful. Paul's about to die. He's not far from dying here. At any moment, he could be
sentenced to death, but he still has joy. Paul is not a normal person. He's like you
and I are. We're not normal people. We're Christ followers filled with the Holy Spirit
of God inside of us. Because we're a believer in Jesus Christ, he gives us his joy, and
it can't be threatened by circumstances. You say, well, sometimes, Pastor, I don't know
if that's true. When you don't feel that it's true, then what you're doing is you're putting
too much weight in your circumstances and not enough weight in Christ and the joy he
gives you. The second thing is difficult people cannot steal your joy. I preached last week
in a church I'd never been in before. There were probably 1,200 people in the building
when I asked this question. I said, I need to take a survey in here. I was preaching
a message called Difficult People and the Goodness of God. I polled them. I said, how
many people have a difficult person in their life? It was unanimous in the Baptist church.
They all put their hands up. It's hard for us to be on the same page about anything in
the church, right? But we were unanimous there. We have difficult people in our life. Paul
had difficult people in his life. Look at verse 15 and verse 17. He said, some to be
sure are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, thinking to cause me distress and
my imprisonment. In other words, people are stepping up trying to take Paul's place while
he's in prison. And they're hoping to make him mad because if he gets mad and reverts
back to his former way of life, which was a disaster, then they could probably take
his place as a prominent apostle of the day. So they were doing some messed up stuff for
Paul and against Paul. But basically he said, I'm not going to let those people threaten
my life or threaten my joy. By the way, every great leader I know of and all the leaders
in the Bible went through incredibly difficult circumstances with opponents that hated them
and did everything they could to trip them up. Think about Moses, Joseph, think about
David, Solomon, Abigail, Esther. Think about Jesus. Think about Paul. Think about all these
people who had very influential, powerful people poised against them and yet not one
of them lost their joy because of difficult people. Difficult people do not hold weight
against a great God. He can keep giving you joy in the midst of difficult people. And
thirdly, death cannot steal your joy. Did you know that death can't steal your joy?
Here's what he says in verse 20, he says, Christ will even now as always be exalted
in my body, whether by life or by death. In other words, I may live, I may die, but Christ
will be exalted. My joy is not threatened either way because the ultimate joyful moment
of the believer is the moment they die. Did you know that? Now if you haven't experienced
death before, and I'm pretty sure none of you in the room have experienced death yet,
if you haven't experienced it yet, you don't know exactly what that looks like. But I promise
you all those who have have been absent from body, present with Christ at the millisecond
that they die. The moment they close their eyes on this planet, they open them face to
face with Jesus Christ. That's why the Bible says absent from body, present with Christ.
Now I've been with people at their death moment where they were lucid and they were aware
of what was going on in their life and they enter into eternity with a smile on their
face. Trust me, they do. And why were they not? All of heaven has opened up for them
at that moment. And everything they've waited for is now there. And so what Paul's basically
saying is it doesn't matter if I live, it doesn't matter if I die, I'm going to stay
on point here. I'm going to have joy and purpose in my life no matter what. Now next week we'll
look at the argument he makes. He makes this argument, he said, well if I stay for a little
while longer, then I can help you grow. But if I leave if I die, then I'm going to be
with him. So I'm not sure. I'm not sure if I want to stay and help you or if I want to
leave or die and meet him. But whatever it is, whichever one it is, Christ will be exalted
in my life. And I will have his joy and purpose that I've been called to. Difficult people
cannot steal your joy. Death cannot steal your joy. The only thing that can steal your
joy, are you ready for this? The only thing that can steal your joy is sinful directions
in your own life. Where you decide to go your own way and put a barrier between yourself
and the fellowship you have with the Holy Spirit who gives you joy. That's what can
steal your joy. And that's when my joy has been stolen. When I've gone off on my own
way, sin can make you miserable. In fact sin should make you miserable if you're a believer
in Jesus Christ. You grieve the Holy Spirit of God in your life, you're not going to have
joy. And the reason is because we're called to be somebody completely different from everybody
else in the world. We're called to follow Christ in a powerful and unique way. And when
you derail that purpose that God has given you for your life, you're not going to experience
great joy. Here's the good news. You can come back to that joy again. One of the most significant
moments in my young adult life happened when I was about 20 years old and I knew I was
a believer. I knew also I had freedom in Christ, but I was using that freedom to make some
choices that were not in alignment with Christ. Some of us have done that. And I lost my joy.
And finally I got so tired of making those decisions on my own and then ending up going
the wrong direction or clearly disaligning with Christ that I finally surrendered and
said, okay, I'm through with making decisions. I don't know enough about the future or my
life or the people around me to make informed decisions. You're going to make them from
here on out, Lord Jesus. And when that happened, I began to experience real joy in life. So
with you, so with you. Repentance and forgiveness can bring that joy back if you lost it very
quickly. King David learned this. He was a man after God's own heart and yet he sinned
with a bath sheet. And he fell very quickly in so many different ways, but one of those
was joy. How do I know that? Because in his repentant prayer, Psalm 51 says this, restore
to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with the willing spirit. Then I will teach
transgressors your ways and sinners will be converted to you. In other words, restore
my joy, Lord, restore my forgiveness, my relationship with you. You're my sword. Restore all that
to me. And I'm going to tell everybody about where I got my joy from. Which leads us to
Paul's second point. Paul says, not only should you keep progressing in joy, but you must
keep progressing in the gospel. I've told you that the gospel, the word gospel is threaded
all the way through the book of Philippians, but especially in the first chapter, it's
all the way through there. But in chapter four, he's really intently focused on the
gospel people, what we call the tribe, the church of Jesus Christ and what we're supposed
to be doing. So Paul is reminding that church while he's in prison, you need to keep progressing
with the gospel. So I want to answer the question over the next few moments. The text gives
us the answer to how do we keep progressing with the gospel? The gospel got to you, didn't
it? And you've experienced it. How do we keep moving forward in the gospel? So let me give
you the three words that are in the text that Paul was describing for the church at Philippi.
First of all, defend the gospel. Defend the gospel. Paul himself said, I am appointed
for the defense of the gospel. So he's leading the way for the church to also to know how
to defend the gospel. There will always be disagreements and debates about the gospel
as long as you're in a very secular world. And by the way, if you haven't figured it
out, you are in a very secular world today. There is no buckle to the Bible belt. There's
not even a Bible belt anymore. You are in the world, but you have Christ in the world
and you have a Bible in your hands. And it's really important that we learn to defend our
faith. Peter said it like this, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being
ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is
in you yet with gentleness and reverence. Paul himself described himself as a gospel
defender. If you read Acts 22 through 26, you'll see him defending the gospel in event
after event before the Sanhedrin in Acts chapter 22, before Felix in Acts chapter 24, before
Festus in Acts chapter 25, before King Agrippa in Acts chapter 26. And he was always, always
defending the gospel. And so I'm looking at Peter and Paul, and I'm gonna crunch this
down in a very short phrase of sentences that say, here's how you defend the gospel. Are
you ready? Five things. Number one, be respectful with gentleness and reverence. You will never
argue anyone into the kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit draws people into the kingdom
of God. Be respectful. People are gonna believe something absolutely crazy, just like you
did before you came to Christ. Crazy to think that we could earn our way to heaven. Crazy
to think that we could earn the respect of a holy God. We could never do that. But we
thought that until we came to Christ. So be respectful. Secondly, use logic. It seems
unusual that I would say this, but Paul was very logical in his arguments in Acts 22,
24, 25, 26. For example, he said, Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day. Did I
listen to him? Yeah. Wouldn't you too, if someone rose from the dead? Logical. Who's
the last person you talked to who rose from the dead? Nobody. And if someone rose from
the dead, don't you think we ought to hear how they rose from the dead, where they came
from and what they have for us? I mean, Paul basically used that kind of logic with all
those he was interacting with. Thirdly, be transparent. Paul very readily said before
I came to Christ, I was a mess. I was a mess. Basically a religious terrorist is what Paul
was. And he talks about that when he defends the gospel as being transformational for him.
The fourth thing that we saw is he shared his story. He gave his testimony. You know,
you live in a world that, um, that puts more in experience than they do in absolute truth.
That's the world you live in. We believe in absolute truth as believers. We believe the
Bible is absolutely true, but most of the world doesn't believe that. Most of your friends
may not believe that. And so what they believe is that whatever they've experienced, that's
their reality. And what you need to be able to say to them by defending the gospel is
to say, this is what I experienced when I came to faith in Jesus Christ. He met me,
forgave me, and gave me the joy and the eternal life I had. And they can't argue against that
because the basis of their belief is experience. Paul used that same argument back in the
first century. And that's kind of the same kind of century we're in today in terms of
mindsets. Share your story and then invite them to trust Christ. Invite them to believe
for themselves. Paul's methods were very simple, but they were very convicting and we do well
to use them. When you read the story of Acts 26 and King Agrippa, which is the final of
those series I've told you about, Paul told him the story. And then there's this conversation
between Agrippa and Paul, and here's what Paul says. King Agrippa, do you believe in
the prophets? I know you do. And Agrippa replied, in a short time, you're going to persuade
me to become a Christian. In other words, I can't have you in front of me anymore because
I am under conviction. Paul was basically saying to the sitting king there, why don't
you come and believe in Christ with me? Just put your faith in Christ. What an incredibly
bold guy. So you have this way of defending the gospel so bold as to invite the king to
come to Christ. The second thing, the second word we use here that Paul uses is the word
proclaim. If you're going to advance the gospel, you've got to defend it, but secondly, you've
got to proclaim it. The word proclaim is a very simple word. You read it here in verse
18. Well then, he said, only that in every way, whether in pretense or truth, Christ is
proclaimed and in this I rejoice. To proclaim something doesn't just mean to preach it.
You think, okay, that's the preacher's job and he's proclaiming that today. No, proclaim
means to talk about, to make it public, to say something to someone else. It means to
declare openly, to announce aloud, to celebrate it and to share it everywhere. And the disciples
did that so boldly that the cities that they were in were disturbed. These guys are going
everywhere proclaiming, talking about a resurrected man. I love what it says in Acts 4-2. They
were being disturbed. The city was being disturbed because they were teaching the people and
proclaiming. There's that word that in Jesus, the resurrection from the dead takes place.
That put some of them in jail, but many heard and by then there were 5,000 people. These
two testament disciples were filled with joy. They felt the same way that Paul did. Well,
I'm in jail today, but yesterday 5,000 people came to faith. So I'm just going to rejoice
in that. The Gospel keeps progressing and later on Paul summarizes his whole ministry
with the word proclaim. Colossians chapter 1, another prison letter by the way, we proclaim
him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom that we may present every
man complete in Christ. Do you notice the every man phrase there over and over? He says,
I want everybody to know every man, every woman, every child. I want everyone to know
about Christ. I want the Gospel to advance. And the only way to do that is that if we
all as the church of Jesus, just like the church of Philippi written to the elders and
the overseers and the deacons and the saints of God, everybody shares the Gospel. Everybody
shares. I know that's an intimidating thing to do. People ask me, what's the best way
to learn to share the Gospel? And my normal answer is whatever way you will share the
Gospel, as long as it's accurate. But we train people to share the Gospel as well.
And one of the things I say to people, and here you are at church, like the church of
Philippi, and Paul will say, proclaim the Gospel. I want him proclaimed no matter whether
someone has the right motive or not. I just want the Gospel declared. And I'm going to
tell you as a church, the same way that Philippi scattered and shared the Gospel, so do you
need to do that? Someone says, how do you get into the Gospel? Well, I ask simple questions.
Let me ask you a question real quick. How many of you had a conversation this past week
about the weather with somebody? Would you raise your hand? How many of you had a conversation
about some sports event this last week? Would you raise your hand? How many of you had a
conversation about politics this last week? Would you raise your hand? Yeah. How many
of you had a conversation about your favorite food last week? Would you raise your hand?
So we have conversations with people all the time that don't intimidate us, right? You
can talk about almost everything except the Gospel. And the best thing that you can do
when you're talking with someone is to say, can we talk about spiritual things? And if
I say yes, you can say, well, let me tell you what happened to me. That's your experience.
Let me tell you what I found out when I began to seek after Christ. And then you could share
the Gospel with them. By the way, if you can spell the Gospel, the word Gospel, you can
say the Gospel and share the Gospel. Did you know that? You've heard me say this a lot,
right? The way you spell the Gospel is G-O-S-P-E-L. Did I get that right? I got it right. I got
it right. The G stands for God's character. He's a loving, merciful God who doesn't want
to punish us for our sin, but a just judge who by no means let the guilty go unpunished.
That's the G. The O of the Gospel is the offensive sin. Sin offends a holy God and is a barrier
between ourselves and God and has to be dealt with. The S of the Gospel is the sufficiency
of Christ. You can use the word Savior if you want to simplify that. Jesus came, lived
the perfect life, died on the cross for us to pay for our sins, to cross that bridge,
to get us to God. What an act of life. Jesus died on the cross for us and His death was
sufficient. The P of the Gospel is personal response. It simply means that the Gospel
doesn't happen just because you were born into a Christian family or you go to a church.
You have to make a personal decision to accept Christ, to trust Him. That's the P. The E
of the Gospel is eternal urgency, meaning it's life or death and forever and ever and
one day you'll die and you'll stand before God and whatever decision you've made or
not made about Christ is your forever. That's why we're urgent to share it. Then the L
is life transformation. Once you put your faith in Christ, your life can be transformed,
beginning immediately and ultimately completely until Christ comes back. That's what Philippians
1, 6 is all about. I'm confident of this very thing. He that began a good work in you will
also complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. Proclaim the Gospel and then exalt the Gospel.
That's the last thing we read about here. Paul said in verse 20, with all boldness Christ
will even now, as always, be exalted in my body either by life or death. The word exalt
means to elevate Christ. It means to magnify Him by following His character and His ways.
Paul is basically saying, I don't really care whether I live or die, but however long I
have, I want Jesus to be so evident in my life that He has magnified His character,
has demonstrated to people around me so that when I share the hope that's in me, people
will say, now I get why He's so different. It's Jesus. When you love people, do people
think about the love of Jesus and how He loved? When you speak truth, do people think about
the truth of Jesus and how He spoke truth? When you serve, do people think about, are
they reminded of the serving nature of Jesus Christ who came not to be served, but to serve
and give His life at ransom for many? In other words, did you exalt Christ? I have to tell
you, it's not really effective to share the Gospel if your life doesn't look like it's
been impacted by the Gospel, right? But if your life has been impacted by the Gospel,
then you are believable. People want to know, what's the hope in you? Why do you live the
way you live? Why do you have joy when circumstances are awful? Why do you keep talking about this
Jesus in this Gospel? You could say, well, He's transformed my life and I'm part of
the tribe. I'm part of the Church of Jesus Christ and I want you to have that same kind
of joy that I have. Wow. In Acts chapter 19 verse 17, there's one more verse here. The
Gospel became known to all, Jews and Greeks who lived in Ephesus, and fear fell upon them
all and the name of the Lord Jesus, and I love this line, was being magnified. Everybody
was talking about Jesus because of the life of those disciples. Now catch this, don't
miss this. When we make a big deal of Jesus, we cause the tension to be directed to the
Gospel. We give people something to consider that they may not have considered before.
When they watch your life, they should whet their appetite to want to know the one that
influences you. Life is interesting. Sometimes we prefer to spend money on things that will
immediately gratify and later on think, you know, I really need to be letting something
up for my later years. And all the advice, the wisest way to spend your money is set
a little aside every year so that you can invest for your retirement. How many of you
think that's a wise way to do that? How many of you don't even have a savings account?
How many of you? Really slow response there. But isn't that smart advice? Don't spend
all your money on things that gratify you right this minute. Some of that is good. But
what about the long haul? What are you setting aside? What are you investing for the future?
Now clearly this is not a message about giving or money. It's a message about spending your
life and your words, your conversations. Some of us are pursuing life in such a way where
we only do those things that bring immediate gratification. Paul is saying, make sure the
gospel progresses. Yeah, have fun. But make sure you're investing in conversations in
people's lives. Make sure you're sending it ahead so that one day when you stand in heaven
and look around, you'll realize I really did influence some of these people in this big
room called heaven. When I exalted Christ and I proclaimed the gospel or defended the gospel,
I really helped people come to faith when I prayed for them, when I invited them, when
I shared my story, when I explained with logic why they should believe in Christ as well.
Keep moving forward in joy. Keep moving forward in the gospel. It's the best kind of progress
you can make in life. And I urge you to progress that way like Paul does. In just a moment,
I want to invite you to three things. One, to the decision stations because we have people
that would love to talk to you about decisions. Maybe today you need to make a decision to
put your faith and trust in Christ. Maybe you never have. Or maybe you're a believer
and you're not experiencing joy and something has gotten between yourself and him. We would
love to pray with you about that. Stop by the decision station on your way out. We would
love to pray with you, talk with you, answer questions. The second invitation is that I
invite you to go to our guest reception room right outside the center exit door across
the hallway where we'll be there to answer questions about our church, to share a very
brief presentation, to give you just a few gifts, and thank you personally for coming
to our church today. And the third invitation is come back. Come back next week. Invite
someone with you. Pray for people to come back as I build this huge cross on the stage
like the cross that's out in front of our building and we talk about Jesus' death on
the cross and the resurrection on Easter Sunday morning. I invite you to do those three things.
Would you stand with me as we have a closing word of prayer? Father, I'm so thankful today
that we have this opportunity to progress in joy and progress in the gospel. Lord, help
us as a tribe, as a church to be moving and advancing forward. Because God, this is your
agenda for us. This is your calling for us and I pray we'll do it. Lord, today I pray
that we'll make decisions today that allow us to be in alignment with you, full of your
Holy Spirit, following you. Lord, thank you for this church. Thank you for the opportunity
we have in the days ahead. Help us to take advantage of them, I ask in Jesus' name, amen.