The Bible at the Beach. Today we'll be in Philippians chapter 1 verses 1 through 11.
Let's get right into it. Every time I come to the Bible I always say, now Lord give me the eyes to
see what you need me to see today. Give me the ears to hear what you'd like me to hear and give
me the heart and the courage to change and be fluid in my life and my thinking so that I can line
up to what you're you're saying to me so I can make those adjustments in my life today.
In that spirit let's get into this very exciting new book of the Bible. Paul starts out he says
from Paul and Timothy both of us servants of Jesus the anointed one. So Paul's writing this
letter from prison. He's this might represent what was one of his low points of ministry
being incarcerated and yet it's one of his most profoundly joyful letters
that he has penned. So we see the dynamic between circumstances and joy and they almost have zero
correlation in life. You can see people that have everything and aren't joyful and you can see people
that have nothing i.e. being incarcerated being in prison yet they're totally joyful. You see it's an
inside job. Joy, gratefulness, thankfulness, your attitude in life. It's an inside job. There's
nothing to do with your circumstances, your surroundings, what you have, what you don't have.
I get up every day. I have a thing in my notes, my journal called life's scoreboard and gratitude
and every day I say Lord thank you that I ended up with a beautiful wife and family.
All of our kids know God. God thank you. Lord thank you that I ended up in my favorite town
owning a home, getting to surf my favorite waves. God thank you. God thank you that I ended up with
the most loyal friends in life. I'm loyal to them and they're loyal to me. God thank you. God thank
you that you helped me take my education to completion. I have a doctor, I have a platform
to teach. God thank you and God thank you that I get to pastor people. I get to preach and teach
your word. I get to plant churches and I get to provide water for people. God thank you. Every day
I start out with that gratitude and that thankfulness before I really leave my room,
leave my home or or get along with my day and it changes everything. It changes everything
and so you see that your attitude and your gratefulness is what determines your joy,
not your circumstances and not your surroundings. I'm here in the hills directly behind where I live
here in San Clemente. It is such a beautiful place to live but I know this area well enough to know
after living here for seven years with my family that the outside settings don't match the inside
settings. There's a lot of people live here are any happier than anyone you'd find in the most
destitute part of the world because again happiness, joy and peace is an inside job. As the Bible talks
about, Jesus says there's going to be a gift of living water that can bubble up inside of your
soul. It changes how you think, changes your perspective, changes your paradigm, changes how
you relate to the world, builds your gratitude, builds your gratefulness, builds your thanksgiving
and that changes everything. It's Jesus, it's the living water. That's what Paul had. He also was
developing a younger leader. All wise leaders always develop younger leaders every single time.
So what Paul's trying to teach us in both how he strategically did mission, how he strategically
raised other people up. So Paul is including Timothy in this writing and he says to all the
devoted followers in Philippi, including your pastors and all the servant leaders of the church.
So Paul makes it really clear what his audience is. He says may the blessings of divine grace and
supernatural peace that flow from God our wonderful father and messiah the Lord Jesus be upon your
lives. So again we see Paul in his circumstances incarceration and prison talking about a peace,
a supernatural peace. You see a lot of times people pray for their circumstances to change.
Rarely do you think people pray for their perspective to change. You know you really
start getting mature in your life and your relationship with God when you quit asking for
your circumstances to change and you start praying for your perspective to change. That
is what a mature follower of Jesus does. They say Lord give me your eyes. The way God sees things
is so much different from the way that we see it. He sees the entirety of your life from the beginning
to the end because he has the benefit of being outside of time and space and he could see all
the little pivot points of our life and he just sees things differently. So we always want to say
God help me to see life and seasons and chapters with your view not with my view. I have a finite
limited scope. God has an eternal scope we should try to align with. He says in verse three and four
my prayers for you are full of praise to God. I give him thanks for you with great joy. I'm so
grateful for our union and the enduring partnership that began the first time I presented to you the
gospel. I pray with great faith for you because I'm fully convinced that the one who began his
gracious work in you will faithfully continue the process of maturing you until the unveiling of our
Lord Jesus. You know God has a totally different plan for our life than out than we do. We gravitate
towards comfort and accomplishments. God often doesn't care about our comfort and our accomplishments.
He has a totally different perspective. He is rejoicing every time we make a decision to be a
little bit more like Jesus. That's when God says there's my kid making godly choices
leaning into godly wisdom going after godly action. And so that's what it means to be mature
to the unveiling of Jesus Christ aligning with his view for us. He says it's no wonder
I pray in verse seven with such confidence since you have a permanent place in my heart
you've remained partners with me in the wonderful grace of God even though I'm here in chains
for standing up to the truth of the gospel. Now you'll find your commitment to Jesus lands you
in different spaces and places. Paul took the mountaintops with the prison basement in same
viewpoint. Life's full of mountain tops and peaks. It's also full of valleys and difficulties.
And it's interesting that Paul would write my favorite book Philippians in the New Testament
from the hardest of circumstances. He's trying to communicate something here
and it has nothing to do with that. Again it's an inside job. God give me peace,
give me love, give me life that flows in me and through me and out of me. Then verse 9 he says I
continue to pray for your love to grow and increase beyond measure bringing you to the rich revelation
of spiritual insight in all things. Spiritual insight in all things yeah. Yeah you can learn to
see life through a spiritual lens where all of life becomes spiritual. When you start out baby
Christian you think your spiritual life is like these little few activities that you do. No no no
all of life is spiritual. Everything's interconnected and the more we grow with Jesus
the more we learn to trust when God's speaking to us through scripture, through wisdom, through
circumstance, through prayer, through the energy that you interact with with other people all the
time. You really learn how to do amazing things as you trust God more. And then in verse 10 this will
enable you to choose the most excellent way of all becoming pure and without offense until the
unveiling of Christ and you will be filled completely with the fruits of righteousness that
are found in Jesus the anointed one bringing great praise and glory to God. Following Jesus is
excellent, becoming pure is excellent, living without offense is excellent and you will be
filled completely with the fruit of righteousness that are found in Jesus. All the best fruit in our
life flows out of a sincere devotion to the person and teachings of Jesus Christ. Man thank you so
much for tuning in Bible on the Beach today. We've for those of you follow for the beginning man
we've done the book of Matthew, we've done the book of Acts, we've done a bunch of Genesis,
almost all of Genesis, we've done Ephesians, now we're doing Philippians, we've done 175 episodes
now. I'm so thankful for those of you who are joining us in this daily dose of encouragement
called Bible at the Beach. Until next time I hope you have a beautiful day stay strong in Jesus name.