Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, December 19, 2024. Philippians 1 and our faith!
Good Morning, Good Morning my brothers and my sisters – We are back and we are on fire!
Today we open the scriptures and read through Philippians chapter 1. Paul went through a lot, in fact, he is writing from prison.
What can we learn from his trials? What can we as modern Christians take away form his words to Philippi.
Well, there is only one way to find out! Let’s Go!
Merry Christmas to all and we hope to see you in church Sunday and next Tuesday!
Keep Looking Up!
This is a video recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, December 19, 2024. Watch here via the YouTube link!
This is an audio recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, December 19, 2024. Listen here or through your favorite podcast app!
This is a transcript from the audio of this episode of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, December 19, 2024
It says something went wrong, but now it says that it is live. I don’t know. I’m going to wait. I’ll say good morning. Good morning. My brothers and my sisters. We shall see if anybody appears on here today because the message I received was that we are sorry something went wrong with your broadcast. Broadcast failed and then it came on like this. So I am just ad-libbing and seeing if anybody can pop on. If you are watching and you don’t see any of your comments appear or your name or something, then send me a messenger message or something like that. I don’t know what’s going on. I did a little research and it looks like Facebook is being Facebook all over the place. And they’re experiencing difficulties with this that and the other thing. You know how when updates happen and changes happen simply for the sake of updating and changing. Nothing’s wrong. But the people need jobs. How I got it. I got a Kim White. Hi Kim. Like I said, I have no idea. Okay, I guess we are broadcasting. It said that it had failed, but then it came on like normal. So I am a little confused. It has your name there, but it also has nobody is watching. So I don’t know what’s going on. But much like with Windows, if you have Windows computers or what have you, the updates and changes simply for the sake of updating and changing because people have these jobs and that’s what they do. And sometimes I guess they are not cognizant of some effects that will happen down the line. And whatever has happened to Facebook has affected live streaming. And so here we are. So we’re waiting for those fixes to be changed. We had it a few weeks ago that it was a problem and then everything was OK for a few weeks. And now it’s a problem again around Christmas time. Coincidence, probably. I don’t know. But good morning, good morning, everybody. We will go ahead and broadcast this and treat it as though it is live. I know Kim is with us and we shall see if other people are with us with the very least. We can put it up on YouTube and other people can see it then if it is broadcasting. But I’m going to go ahead and do it because it’s Thursday morning. Father God, thank you so much. We pray that this broadcast is going out. And it finds exactly the people that you intended to find. All the believers and nonbelievers alike who need to hear this word or you want to hear this word, Lord. Now, live later on the podcast, YouTube, whatever the case may be, your word will always go out and your word will never fail in its intended purpose, because it is the divinely inspired and fallible word of God, the living word. And we praise you, Jesus. Amen. So here we are. Like I said, it shows Kim is watching, but nobody has a zero up there. If you are watching and it’s working and you’re like, wait, I’m watching, then go ahead and send me like a messenger message. It’ll pop up on my screen. I’ll say, OK, we’re doing this, but let’s go ahead and do this because I fully intend to do this. Next week, probably not. Maybe Thursday again. Christmas Eve is Tuesday. That’s going to be quite busy between family and preparation for the Tuesday night Christmas Eve service. If you. Good morning, Mary. OK, there we go. Good morning, Mama D. OK, maybe we are getting out there today. Appreciate that. But if you are a church tonian or anywhere in the area, I personally really love our Christmas Eve service. It is what we say about us traditional, but not old fashioned. We’re going to have choirs and special music. We’re going to have all kinds of word. We’re going to have a meditation on the word. And then we do a very traditional, beautiful candlelight service in which we darken the sanctuary and light it with the light of our candles. That is a reflection of the light of Christ. It is really wonderful. And I enjoy it very much. And I have always said this and I said this all throughout the Christmas season. These services are not easy to put together. There’s so many people that are investing in so many moving parts and we are not a corporate structure. Like we’re not getting together Tuesday night and Thursday night to practice and to plan. Most of it is done by email and text message on your regular services. That is when the new song singers aren’t meeting on that week. So. It always is better when the new song singers meet because I get people up here. Last week I said, if you would like to come and help me lead these songs, that would be wonderful because I don’t like just I actually am self-conscious up there just by myself singing the hymns. But nobody came up. So they just were very much more comfortable in the pews last week. And that’s OK. That’s OK. I’m a big boy. I can do it. Excuse me. Good morning, Rosie. I wanted to get into this Philippians because I just got stuck on it this week. Now I’ve been reading through Philippians and then first Timothy and now first Peter and Titus. And so we’re getting in through the epistles here as we near the end of the year. And we it’s always weird at the end of the year you hit Revelation and you know, revelations is like, OK, is that everything you want to hear at the end of the year? But. Yes. You know, ultimately, revelations shows us the ending. Which is a new beginning, which is our hope and our faith. Rosie asked a good question about faith. When I commented about not needing faith anymore. In the new age. But because we will be living with the living God in bodily form, we will be with him as it was in the Garden of Eden. I don’t need to have faith. I mean, I guess if you’re some weird philosopher and reality doesn’t exist, maybe you think you do. But I don’t need that faith that this tripod is right here. Here it is. You’re bouncing around. And that would what if that’s what it will be like when we are walking with the Lord. Of course, Rosie. Always. Always. That’s what we do. So thank you very much. So anyway, I wanted to get because the first when you read oftentimes the first chapter of especially the shorter letters. They are just they just blow you away. Right. You Romans is going to go on a complete exposition of scripture. Romans is going to be fit with theology and who God is and who we are reflected. And all of the letters really are, of course. But when you get into some of the shorter letters, the first chapter, what we call Chapter. Or sometimes you say the first movement of the letter really is intended to smack the church in the face. For lack of a better way of saying it. These letters oftentimes were circular, meaning they’re meant for the churches in a certain area. And they will be circulated. Throughout the churches and read in congregation. And that is what you know, that is why the author who ultimately is divinely inspired just grabs the people right in the first movement of the letters. So now you’re paying attention. Now, any good writer will do that. A good movie will do that. Even if the middle of the movie stinks, if the beginning and the end of a movie, you have to admit this. If the beginning and the end of a movie are good, you’re going to remember it and you’re going to forgive the middle part. That’s not that great. Not not not. I’m not saying that about the epistles. I’m just talking about the technique. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus. So we know who is here and writing to all God’s holy people in Christ. Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons. Now, that is very interesting. We’ve talked about this before. The language of Scripture. And I would love for you to check out the video on First Timothy. All right. Dr. Mackey does a really, really good job of expositing the language in First Timothy to let us know that it is not as cut and dried as many people would like us to believe. When we talk about qualifications for elders, deacons, men, women, those sorts of things. He brings out the language and indicates that there are certain words, especially in First Timothy, that are used nowhere else in Scripture. And what are what is the author trying to get at? And one of the words elder slash overseer. Slash pastor is a word that encompasses that positional leadership. And when you combine that with the fact that there simply are not many female references, if you remember this, it wasn’t even when I was younger, the default pronoun, if you didn’t know if it was male or female was male. So you would always refer to his, him, etc. If you’re referring to a person in general that you don’t know or know about. Same was true. So anyway, that term overseer is a term that I prefer to use when it comes to positional leadership. I understand the qualifications when you break it down. Eldership, deaconship, etc. And those are biblical offices, but the it is more nuanced than many people would like you to believe. And I do believe the positional leadership of overseer is male and female. Does that always mean pastor? No. Does it have to mean that? No, that’s a spiritual gifting. But does it exclude a particular sex? I know it doesn’t. So when we look at those giftings, those are the things that we’re looking at. And if you go to the New Living Translation, I opened up with the new international version because of that, if you go to the New Living Translation, it uses the word elder with an asterisk. And then down below, it talks about how the word is translated and very difficult to translate. OK. Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy. For you have been my partners in spreading the good news about Christ from the time you first heard it until now. And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. We love that passage. We love that part about the God who has begun to work in you will complete it. Right. He’s speaking to the church. He’s speaking to a Bible believing faith in Christ based church. But you can take that scripture as well because that church, that congregation is made up of individuals. And we are all working out our salvation with fear and trembling and all of the Lord and what he does and what he is doing in his Holy Spirit within us that makes us alive. So there’s no I don’t know. Sometimes you’ll get strict interpretational lists. And I don’t think that you can actually have a strict interpretational list in English because English is a very difficult language to translate into. But you say, nope, you cannot apply that is not applicable to the individual. Well, what is the congregation made up of individuals? And if the regeneration process and the and the sanctification process is not happening within the individuals of that congregation, then that congregation is not growing. Right. That congregation is not regenerated. That congregation is not on a sanctification process. That congregation is not seeking to know the Lord better if the individuals aren’t. So I don’t go down that road. I say, scripture never fails in its intended purpose. And as you as an individual read that and go, I take encouragement from that. Good. I’m glad. I believe that is part of its intended purpose. Right. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. We all know that one. Right. And it is so more often than not taken out of context. Paul is talking about life. He’s talking about having a lot of having a little. He’s talking about being healthy, being sick. He’s talking about the big ebb and flow of life. And he says, I can do this until the day the Lord takes me away because I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. But I unless it’s really egregious. Right. Like some dude doing a bench press. I can do all things through Christ. And that’s cringy. But if you receive that personally and you’re looking at your life and you’re looking at the ebb and the flow of your life individually, or you’re looking at a particular challenge in your life, that’s part of the ebb and flow of your life. I don’t poopoo people who say I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me when they’ve got this big challenge in front of them. This big life challenge. So, again, based on the hermeneutic that it is divinely inspired, infallible word of God, it never fails in its intended purpose because it is divinely inspired. Good morning, Dan. Good morning, Emma. There’s not much difference there. People would say it’s just a matter of what denomination and or you’re a part of. Minister, pastor, preacher. There are no there are only biblical qualifications for these. So any one of you, whether you went to a seminary or were part of a denomination or not, could set up shopping. Create a church and call yourself pastor. That gets a little loosey goosey, obviously, when we get into independent churches and that sort family run family owned churches are always kind of a red flag. Like this is the church my grandfather started it in my father and now me. That sort of thing. Sometimes in the independent corporate churches, you get some very cringy stuff. You know, I was interviewing as part of my master’s thesis. I was interviewing all kinds of different pastors for churches. And I was in a giant church in Ohio, like five thousand five hundred people throughout the services. None of the individuals who did any of the teaching or preaching went to any seminary. And I said to them, how do you keep yourself accountable? Like how what is your theological rudder? Well, we keep each other accountable. Well, if you’re all wrong, that doesn’t help much, does it? If you’re like, I think that’s a good idea. What are you basing that comment on? So the short answer is, Rosie, it’s just a matter of name. I’ve been called all of that. Good. Right. Minister. Pastor, preacher. Some people sometimes you’ll hear, of course, in the Catholic Church, it’s priest and also some Anglican denominations and things of that nature. Priest, even in the Protestant denomination, priest. Some people will go as far as saying Apostle Brian or Bishop Brian. Bishop, I can kind of live with. Apostle or prophet. I don’t go there at all. An apostle was an individual who saw and learned under Jesus Christ himself. Now, can I have a gift of apostleship? Meaning that, for example, my uncle has been an itinerant preacher for 50 years, going all over the place. More than that, creating churches, restoring churches, doing all of those things. Do you think he has the gift of apostleship? Yes. And when when scripture says that we give these things, apostles and and and. Etc, etc. You can help me out with the offices of the church. Those are the gifts that are given. Apostles and prophets, etc. You have the gift of prophecy. I’ve been accused of my preaching being very prophetic in nature. Is that a gift that I have? I do believe that the world, the Lord works through me in that way. So there’s the longer version. The shorter answer is there is no difference. You know, good morning, good morning, good morning. So we do that. And we talk about that, like I said. In the context of congregation and individuals alike. So it is right that I should feel as I do about all of you, for you have a special place in my heart. You share with me the special favor of God, both in my imprisonment and in defending and confirming the truth of the good news. God knows how much I love you and long for you with the tender compassion of Christ Jesus. And we see again, mostly Paul has time to write letters. Why? Because he’s in prison. He slows down. He has no choice but to slow down. He has time on his hands. He’s not outside making a living as a tent maker or preaching or teaching or moving or whatever. He’s in prison and the good Lord placed him in prison and he gets to write these letters. And that’s exactly the way Paul views it is a wonderful thing. I mean, when you look at Paul and everything that he endured, he’s like, when I’m in prison, all it is is a chance for me to share the gospel with the guards. When I am before a government council, it is just a chance for me to share the gospel with that secular government council. When I’m on trial for something, when I whatever circumstance I am in, it is an opportunity for me to be an example of Christ and share the gospel. Oh, if all Christians had that. Spiritual courage. And I think we all do to us, maybe not all, but we do to a certain extent. But not unless we’re put to the test like Paul was, I think, would we ever really know if we do like if I’m in prison? Here I am. Will I be an example of Christ in prison if I am in prison for my faith? You would assume that if I’m in prison for some sort of heinous crime, but kind of takes away from my Christian witness, you know, I’m saying. But Paul was oftentimes on trial for what he was preaching and teaching while he was all the time on trial for what he was preaching and teaching and several times thrown in prison. I pray that you will your love will overflow more and more and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation, the fruit of your salvation. We talked about the hope of your salvation on the first week of Advent, the fruit of your salvation. What does it look like in real life? If you’re in a room of nonbelievers, would you anybody guess that you are a believer? It’s a good question to ask and so and I guess it would depend on the circumstances even in that small setting that you would be reflective of the love and the life and the light of Christ. But it’s a neat question to ask yourself if I’m out and about today Christmas shopping. Would anybody, you know, given my circumstances interactions with people and cashiers and parking and all everything. Would anybody, would anybody ever think that I’m a Christian? Would anybody ever go? Oh, okay. That individual is different. Why didn’t you get angry? Why aren’t you frustrated? Why didn’t you write? I took the last cart from you and you’re like, God bless you. I’ll wait for another one. Well, that’s not the reaction I was expecting was ready to fight. I hope that you have an incredible day shopping. Whatever would people know it’s probably a rhetorical question that we know the answer to already in our heads. That’s the definition of a rhetorical question, but it’s a good question to ask. It’s a good question. Ask yourself in the mirror. Did anybody know that I’m Christian? Like I walk around like this motorcycles and, you know, I’m just Brian Warner. I like what I like and I live how I live. Do I live according to the word? If anybody saw me, I’m not wearing a collar or a robe or a shawl. Would they ever guess that I’m a minister of the gospel, a minister of reconciliation? I hope so, because I would very openly try to live that and share that whenever, with whomever. And I want you to know, my dear brothers and sisters, that everything that has happened to me here has helped me to spread the good news. This is what we just talked about for everyone here, including the whole palace guard, knows that I am in chains because of Christ. And because of my imprisonment, most of the believers here have gained confidence and boldly speak God’s message without fear. And that. Oh, to be that example in prison. And they’re like this dude, what is up with him? And now that emboldens those who believe and is converting those who don’t believe. It’s a powerful thing. It’s a powerful testimony. We had powerful testimony. We had a woman here and would be very honest, and she was dying of cancer and she would come in almost weekly and she would have her treatments and she would testify weekly as to the people that she spoke to while she was sitting in that chair receiving her chemo. And it was just people in circumstance of difficulty, oppression, challenge. Listen. Because people in those circumstances want hope. And they see an individual who is like that, who has hope to be here now is to be with the Lord. And that is powerful. And so we listened to her testimony every week. And I believe. Dozens of people came to know Christ through her in her time of trial. It’s just amazing. And if they didn’t come to acknowledge a saving grace, she was probably the only Bible they’ll ever read. And she was a good one. Right. She was a good translation. Good morning, Catherine. It’s true that some are preaching out of jealousy and rivalry, but others preach about Christ with pure motives. They preach because they love me for they know I have been appointed to defend the good news. Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely intending to make my chains more painful to me. There are those who are speaking against Paul or those who see right experience the power of God’s Holy Spirit, because this is the time of of signs and wonders. And then they wonders and they want that. Just like today, you have a Jesus Christ faith based Bible believing church, or you have an individual who will take scripture out of context, all 100% application to how you can be better. You can earn more. You can write. Is it Christ based or is it you based? More things change the more they stay the same. And these are points of discernment that Christians must have in order to know what’s coming out of the pulpit. I expect I expect that if I’m preaching something other and Paul teaches this all the time, Peter teaches this, if I’m preaching something other than what I learned as the good news that I would be called out because of the biblical literacy. That is a part of our congregational experience. They would go home. What are you saying after all these years, Brian? I would expect that. And that’s the way it should be. Right. We by the spirit of God, by the spirit of knowledge, by his spirit of wisdom, we can hold each other accountable. Not just not like I said about that mega church where there’s no training, no teaching, no understanding, but there is training, there is teaching, there is understanding in this. That’s why if you attend church town, you’re not going to get three points in a prayer. You’re not going to get a verse here and there. We go in every week. We dive in every week. Right. We we learn. I hopefully we learn and we grow and we become. We don’t want to. We gather in order to share the gospel with one another in order to open the word of God and explore and learn and grow. So it’s not it’s not a formula here. The music is not music where we turn the lights down and have we sing to the Lord. It was so much fun last week because we had the brass here. Not only did we have the brass here, we had extra members for the brass. It was loud. And we had to sing in the first song a little bit unfamiliar and I couldn’t hear anybody singing. But the next two very familiar and you could hear the voices of the people over top of the brass. Woo. I mean, it was inspiring. And you can I just had this vision. I had a vision while we were doing that. Not like a vision of the Lord, but I had this vision of the roof of the church being gone and everything just flowing straight up like the sound. It was amazing. I get fired up. Whether their motives are false or genuine. The message about Christ is being preached either way. So I rejoice and I will continue to rejoice for I know that as you pray for me and the spirit of Jesus Christ helps me, this will lead to my deliverance. So he’s glad the name of Jesus is being preached. He talks about in other letters, you are believing something that isn’t true. You’re not believing in a resurrection. These people came in and taught you that you’re there is no resurrection, no bodily resurrection. These people came in and taught you that you have to follow the law first. And even be circumcised before you can become a Christian. These people came in and taught you that Jesus Christ was a divinely inspired man, not God. Right. So elsewhere he’s addressing these heresies. John addresses them. Peter addresses them. Right about different teachings. So we know that it’s just not willy nilly the name of Jesus. He’s glad the name of Jesus is getting out there and he is utter faith that God’s Holy Spirit will direct that in the heart of the person who hears it. And he’s going to be is on mission and staying on mission and we should all be on mission to share the true gospel message that good news that Christ Emmanuel God with us lived ministered died for willingly died for our sin and was bodily resurrected and ascended to the right hand of the father. That’s the truth. 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. And when I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ. So I really don’t know which is better. I’m torn between two desires. I long to go to be with Christ, which would be far better for me. But for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live. Knowing this, I am convinced that I will remain alive so that I can continue to help all of you grow and experience the joy of your faith. And when I come to you again, you will have even more reason to take pride in Christ Jesus because of what he is doing through me. That’s honesty. It is Paul in his older age after being shipwrecked and poisoned and beaten several times and imprisoned several times and on this massive journey with Christ persecuted for being a believer in the word. He is saying if you know my time is up, Lord. I’m good with that. But if my time isn’t up, Lord, I’m going to press on. I’m going to press on to my last breath. And I’m good with that. Right? Again, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. This is my life. And if you would lead me, Lord, to do, I will do. I will do it if I’m doing it in prison, if I’m doing it in chains, if I’m doing it on the road in the temples, if there are new house churches or even characters, as the Germans say, churches, your buildings that follow Jesus, wherever it may be, however it may be. I will pour my life out as a drink offering. So when you slow down and you say, okay, Paul, you do read some of these vulnerable moments. I’m tired. I get it. I’m tired. But the good Lord has purpose for me. Purpose for me. Right? My family, my church, my job, my friends. Right? Life is for the living and being a Christian means that you live and live it to the full. Wherever you are sent, wherever you are, whether you’re in that chair getting chemotherapy or whether you are Billy Graham in front of 150,000 people at a time. It’s inspiring. And that’s why Paul, if you say, well, he’s pretty arrogant. You know, I want you to follow me and be like me. He earned it. And when he says it, he’s not saying like me. He’s saying like me because I follow Christ. He always adds that in their final paragraph. Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven. Now, heaven is always misinterpreted in English. And that’s why we have a notion of heaven that we do like clouds and wings and halos and harps and cherubs and things of that nature. And when we say we die, we go to heaven. Heaven is such a difficult word to translate is when God created the heavens and the earth. He created the spiritual and what we might call the spiritual realm and the physical. Right. So when we talk about the heaven heaven or the heavens in scripture, we’re talking about the spiritual realm. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord spiritually. We are spiritually with the Lord until that such a time that we are resurrected in our glorified bodies. Above all, you must live as citizens of the spiritual realm because you are indwelled by God’s Holy Spirit. You’re a spiritual being. You’re not a cow or a pig or a horse. You are special creation, a spiritual being in the physical body like Christ. Right now we are a reflection of what is possible. We are living our best way we can now as we are indwelled by his Holy Spirit and the day will come. When all is reconciled back unto him, including our spirits made pure and our bodies made perfect. It’s glorious. It is the hope of salvation. It is the fruit of salvation. It is the joy of the Lord in his resurrection power. So let’s finish this. Oh, 901. I’m going to be late. Above all, you must live as citizens of the spiritual realm, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the good news about Christ. Then whether I come to see you again or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together with one spirit, one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the gospel. 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. Whoo! That’s Paul’s life. We are in this struggle together. You’ve seen my struggle in the past and you know that I am still in the midst of it. Fight on, good Christian soldier. When you are adopted into the family of God, you are first an enemy of God. You are adopted as a son or daughter of God. When you are an enemy of God, you are a friend of this world, a friend of Satan. When you become a son or daughter of the most high God, you are no longer an enemy of God. You are an enemy of Satan. You can’t escape it either way because you are a spiritual being in this physical body. And your soul will be claimed. What do you believe? I hope that you all have incredible weekends. I hope that you all have a church that you are going to on Sunday. I hope that you all find a church for Christmas Eve. Doors are always open here at Church Town, quite literally. What you see is what you get. Now I might wear a suit Christmas Eve. I might wear a shirt and a tie. Good morning, Brit. But such is the thing. Oh, I can talk about the paraments. That just has to do, very quickly, it just has to do with what they call the church calendar. And different times of the year are represented by different colors. So this is purple until Christmas Eve and then it goes white. Most of the year when it’s just a regular calendar, it’s green. So it’s something that’s made up by the church. I don’t pay much attention to it. Usually I actually get busted by another pastor who will look behind me and say, “You know, you got to change the paraments.” I have a paper over there, but I’m not really heavily into made up stuff in the church. Can I say that? But I’m not. I’m not into man-made stuff in the church. The colors are nice and we try to keep up with them. That’s really, they’re meaningless. God bless you. May God bless you and keep you. May he make his face shine upon you. And whether, and I hope it’s both, Sunday and Tuesday night, we will see you in church. Cool?
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