The Battle of Generosity

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning. Today, we're going to be talking a little bit about generosity. And most often, when we think about generosity, we think about giving out our extra. And when we are in upheaval, generosity typically is our last thought. So whether our upheaval has to do with our finances, our emotions, our relationships, or even spiritual upheaval, we are not, in that moment, looking to give. In fact, we are looking to maintain what we have, not give out of it, not lose it. In some ways, generosity in those moments defies common sense. It defies common sense to give to others when we are lacking ourselves. And yet, yet, this is what the Bible calls gospel living. And when we get a hold of this idea, it makes us generous beyond measure. It makes us generous in a way that confuses others. And this is all part of our series, what we've been talking about. Are we there yet? Confident

generosity on a painful journey and looking at how pain intersects with confidence and generosity. How are we generous in pain and upheaval? And last week we brought up this concept of the clearer picture and I want to bring that up to you right now. That when we're talking about gospel living it lets us see the clearer picture. A lot of times whenever we assess the upheaval in our lives people will tell us to look for the silver lining. Like hey I know you lost your job but at least you have more free time with your family now. You like when God closes the door, He opens a window. And I know this is all well-intentioned, but it really is an exercise in not seeing the whole picture. It obscures the picture. It ignores the bad, and it seeks to make the good better. But what you're actually doing is you're seeing less of reality. You're seeing less of the clearer picture. And in contrast,

Christian confidence embraces the ugly of the upheaval. And this is what Christian confidence sounds like. And we read it last week, Philippians 1, 22-21. Listen to it. It says, it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage, now, as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death, for to me to live as Christ and die as gain. No matter what, no matter what Jesus will see us through, his plan includes both his glory and our good. Even if our worst fears are realized, it pales in comparison to what Jesus has in store for us. This, this is the clearer picture. This is what Philippians 1, 27 calls gospel living. It begins, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, gospel living, living in a manner worthy. And today, Philippians continues this picture of gospel living, and we're gonna be looking at Philippians 1, 27,

all the way through chapter two, verse 11. So Philippians 1, 27 through 2, 11, if you want to mark that right now. We're gonna look at how these verses develop the clearer picture further, how they help us see that we are in a battle. We are in a battle with an invisible enemy. Now, it's a battle that has already been won, and it's a battle that we can win when we are generous, even though at times it's gonna feel like a losing battle because of suffering. What we're gonna do is we're gonna break that clear picture down into three parts as we move through Philippians 1, 27 through to 11. And so the first thing that we're gonna do is we're gonna talk about the fact that we are in a battle with an invisible enemy. And to do that, we're gonna read Philippians 1, 27 through 28. It says, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or in absent,

I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. 28, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation and that from God. So the first thing that we need to see in this clearer picture is that as Christians, we are in a battle. We are in a battle.

And when you look at verse 27, you know, It's all about unity. It's all, yeah, we're standing firm. We're side by side. And then 28. Now we're talking about opponents. Why are we talking about opponents? Who are these opponents? Well, even when you look in 27, the idea that they are striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, this idea of striving, uh, it means that, you know, they're, they're kind of working hard together. There's resistance, right? They're striving against these opponents. The New Testament in Jude 3 it says that we are to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered for the Saints First Timothy 6 12 that we need to fight the good fight of the faith if We are to have the clearer picture if we are going to face The ugliness of our upheaval and see it for what it really is We need to understand that it's all a part of a spiritual battle. There is good and there is evil

There is conflict. There are sides. One side will win. One side will lose. We have opponents. And we see it right there in verse 28. It says that we are not frightened in anything by your opponents. What your opponents are going to do is they're going to use intimidation. Right? The word frightened is akin to the word spooking. It's like spooking horses. So the encouragement here is, look, don't get spooked by your opponents. And the opponents are not hurling bullets or spears. Rather, the opponents are hurling coercion, anxiety, despair, fear, doubt. Right? And the battle that you are facing, the battle that you are facing is not your upheaval. So in other words, I'll use an example. The battle is not that you and your spouse had a huge fight. That's not the battle. The battle is the fear that you will lose them. The battle is the condemnation that you're a moron. The battle is the bitterness that can overwhelm you. That's where the battle is.

Ephesians 6, 12 helps us understand this a little further. It says, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. So when we talk about opponents and fighting and contending for the faith, we need to know who our opponents are, who are the ones that are trying to coerce us, make us doubt, fear, cause us to be anxious or cause us to despair. Well before we talk about who that opponent is, I want to give you two false opponents first and then I want to tell you the real one. The first false opponent is unbelieving culture. Unbelieving culture. Now examples of this abound. A lot of this comes out in political rivalry or social activism or social legislation. Here's the truth. The truth is that scripture does not demonize lost people. It even

says it explicitly in Ephesians 6-12 that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, right? And so what I want you to do is I want you to think of that politician that really makes your blood boil. I want you to think of a group of people that you inherently do not trust. That politician, those people, they are not your enemy. They are not your enemy. They are not your opponent. If you make opponents here, unbelieving culture, then what you will do is you will stereotype people instead of loving them. You will polarize instead of evangelize. You will look for division and not shared interests. You will actually create false opponents, and you will miss the real opponent. That's the first false opponent on believing culture. Second false opponent is your own selfishness, or what the Bible calls the flesh. And this is not to say that the flesh is our friend by any stretch of the imagination.

Rather it's saying that when you focus only on yourself as the enemy, that you kind of come under a delusion that you can fix all of your problems with your own willpower. So for example, if you overeat and you believe the problem is all inside you, then you will work hard at dieting. You're going to count calories. You're going to, you're going to do what you've got to do, But that's the only thing you're going to rely on. And when you lose weight, like if you are victorious in that, then you get all the glory. You're willpower. But if you fail, and let's be fair, on dieting plans, you're going to fail a lot more than you win. Right? I've been there too. But when you fail, you are going to hate yourself. Not just because you failed, but because you can't rely on yourself. And so even if, even if you do lose weight and you glorify yourself in the midst of that,

it's empty. It's empty glorification. And if you fail, you hate yourself, you're still feeling empty. It's a lose-lose. When your opponent is only located on you, when it's yourself, then what your life will consist of is a string of emotional highs and emotional crashes. And before long, you're going to tire of that roller coaster and you're going to likely give up all together. You're going to miss the larger opponent. You're going to miss the one that's actually pulling your strings because the ultimate opponent is the one who is behind it all. The ultimate opponent is the one who's behind it all. I want you to go back to that fight with your spouse that I mentioned, the huge fight with your spouse, or if you're not married, a huge fight with your best friend. And what I said about that was that the battle is not that you had a huge fight and it's not. The battle is in the fear, the condemnation,

and bitterness that attends that fight. And so the real opponent is not the person you're fighting. The real opponent is the one who's injecting that fear, is the one who's injecting that condemnation, that bitterness. The real opponent is the devil himself. 1 Peter 5a says that we have an enemy, the devil, that prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. And so where does that leave us here in Scripture? Because in Scripture it's talking about opponents, plural. Surely they're not talking about the devil. No, there were actual people in the Philippian Church that were causing them trouble, or people just outside the Philippian Church that was causing the Philippian Church trouble. And those people don't just get to throw their hands up and say, well the devil made me do it. Be mad at the devil, but don't be mad at me. In this battle that we are in, the real opponent is weaving his attack into every occasion of opposition.

Every time someone opposes you, the enemy is going to weave his attack in the midst of that. For the Philippian church, the opponents here in verse 28 are real people. They're real people trying to intimidate them, trying to stop the gospel work. Our encouragement here, just like the Philippians, is to ignore the opponent's attacks and see that they are doing the work of the real opponent, the real enemy. And our encouragement is to ignore that and to stand united. And that when we do this, verse 28 says that this is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation and that from God. So far we've seen that we're in a battle with opponents and that it's invisible. And as we skip to Philippians 2 1 through 5, we see that it is a winning battle, a winning battle. Philippians 2 1 through 5, so if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit,

Any affection and sympathy complete mind joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significantly than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interest but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus. So first, just take a second, look at all that we have in Jesus. We have encouragement, we have comfort, we have affection, we have sympathy, and it says that all this is given to you in Jesus by the Spirit because we are in Christ. Because Jesus has set us free, we have all those things. Verse 5 it says, have this mind which is yours in Jesus. You can have all this in mind as a gift from Jesus and he's saying, swim in it, take it, drink deep, let it consume you.

This is for you. We are fighting, not some battle that we're not sure how it's going to end, And we are fighting a battle that Jesus has already won. And Jesus says in John 1633, I have overcome the world. First John 5-4, it says, everyone born from God overcomes the world. And our faith is the victory. First Corinthians 15 says it even more strongly. It says, where is your victory, O death? Where is your sting? We have victory in Christ Jesus. And how did Jesus win this battle? He won it on the cross. Those that are vulnerable with Jesus, those that follow Jesus, we can say together with full assurance that Jesus died our death. We are set free from the power of sin and the sting and the power of death. This is the encouragement it's talking about in 2.1. This is the comfort. This is the love, this is the affection, this is the sympathy. This is how we win this battle.

This is how Jesus has won it for us. So what should we do with all these riches? What should we do with all this victory? What is our encouragement? Our encouragement is to generously give ourselves away. Look at verses 3 and 4. Philippians 2, 3 and 4 says, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count other more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also the interests of others. Listen, every time, every time we count someone as more significant than ourselves, that's a victory parade. We are triumphing over the power of sin and death with generosity of heart, with generosity of time. Every time we include others' interests in our plans, we step over our own upheaval into victory. Every time. And we declare, every time we look to other people's interests, we declare that Jesus has won the battle.

And we win by generously loving others. We take part in Christ's victory on the cross when we lay ourselves down for the benefit of other people. Generously loving other people, like it talks about in 3 and 4. And so in our upheaval, even when it feels like we have nothing left, ask Jesus to help you give yourself away all the more. Now, as we're looking at this, as I'm saying it, you might be thinking, isn't that unhealthy? Shouldn't we wait until we have enough in reserve? Doesn't that kind of make sense? But here's the clearer picture. The clearer picture is that everyone is lacking. There is literally no one with too much hope. There's literally no one with an overabundance of grace. I don't have spare faith sitting aside that I can use for a rainy day. Some may have more money than they can handle, but they don't have more joy than they can handle. There's no extra. Everyone is lacking. The

The clearer picture is that everyone is suffering. Everyone is going through some kind of upheaval all the time. And if you've been listening to the sermon series and you've been thinking, you know, I'm in the midst of a big upheaval, maybe I'm the only one, you're not. And it's not just the pandemic. Without COVID-19, we would all still be in some kind of upheaval. That suffering is really a part of life. This is how Philippians 1, 29 through 30 says it. It says, for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in Him, but also suffer for His sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had, and now hear that I still have. I realize that I just talked about how this is a winning battle, how we can victoriously step over our own upheaval generosity. But in truth, it doesn't always feel like a winning battle. Often it feels like a losing battle because of suffering, because of upheaval. I've

said it a few times and I really want to say it strongly. Your upheaval is not an attack of the enemy. It might feel like it, but the real battle, the real attack, is what happens inside of it. And when we go through an upheaval, our ultimate enemy, our true enemy, tries to convince us that if we were better people that we wouldn't go through suffering. And that, friends, is an absolute lie. And we have Phobians 1, 29 through 30 as proof that that gospel living is receiving the gift of suffering and believing, receiving the gift. When you look at verses 29 through 30, verse 29 it says, it has been granted to you. That is the same wording, the same idea as like a spiritual gift. It's out of grace. It is a grace gift. The grace gift of Jesus to you is believing and your suffering. In other words, it's part of the deal. It's like wounds in a battle. Even when you win the battle, you're still going

to have wounds. You're still going to suffer. And that's why it's included with believing. It's all part of the same process, believing and suffering. There is a great delusion in our day that people can avoid suffering. And really, you see it a lot of places. You see it with health and wealth gospel preachers. And they'll tell you that if you pray this exact prayer, if you buy this handkerchief, if you buy this blessing, then you are going to be living your best life now. You are going to be without problem, not going to suffer. But that's not true. You also see it on the other side of the spectrum with secular humanists who say that all your suffering is kind of in your head. It's just chemicals and emotions. And if you take the right pill, if you do these exercises, if you do this diet, there's gonna be no more suffering. Well look, I understand pills, diets, exercises, they

work, they improve quality of life, but they do not end suffering. Suffering is part and parcel with living. And as believers, it's a gift given to us. The The great delusion is that we can avoid suffering. And it gets passed on as an answer to life. The answer to life is the avoidance of suffering. But friends, the answer to life is not to avoid suffering, but to embrace suffering in Jesus' name and walk in the victory that Jesus has already paid for. The answer to life is to embrace that suffering in Jesus name and to walk in that victory that Jesus has already paid for. So you may have a fight with your spouse, but the victory is in asking forgiveness. The victory is in considering her needs before your own. You may lose your temper with your children, but the victory is in humbly apologizing. The victory is in demonstrating the gospel to your children.

You're not trying to earn favor with them, you're not trying to earn respect for them. But because you have been set free, you can walk in humility. You can consider the lives of other people more significant than your own. Let's end by looking at Jesus. Let's end by looking at how he lived in Philippians 2, 5 through 8. says, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Look, suffering, suffering is what it means to follow Jesus because Jesus also suffered in humility. Jesus also laid down his own rights, took on the form of a servant, and considered our lives better

than his own. We follow, as Christians, we follow a man that sacrificed everything to gain everything on behalf of other people. Jesus put our knees before his needs. Jesus counted us significant. Jesus looked to our interests. So Christian, you and I are in an invisible battle with real opponents. But we have real victory in Jesus. We walk in that victory by giving ourselves away. And this suffering that we are dealing with, this upheaval that we are dealing with, may feel like a losing battle, but Jesus walked the same path and look what happened to him. We're gonna read that in verses 9 through 11. Philippians 2 9 through 11 says, therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord to the glory of God the Father. This, this is how Jesus turns upheaval into good. Just like Jesus' upheaval benefited everyone when he laid his life down, when he gave himself away, when he was generous beyond measure, Christian generosity spits in the face of death. It spits and the threat of pain. Sacrificially loving others, giving ourselves away. This is the death blow to death. This kicks the power of sin in the teeth. Do you want victory in your life? Then give yourself away. Don't give your money away to a health and wealth gospel preacher. Give yourself away to the people that are in your life. Give away in Jesus name. Follow him, be vulnerable with him above all else, and then watch as you're suffering and you're believing, turn into the blessing of many people. Before we pray, I want to encourage you, if there's a decision that you feel like you need to make and you really want to

tell somebody about it, and you know there's a way that you want to, maybe you need help, maybe you need to figure out where that's going to be, there's going to be a link in the comment section to a comment card, okay, a connect card, excuse me, not a comment card, a connect card, just click on that in the comments, fill that out, and I will contact you. I want to help you take that next step. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for today. Thank you for the ways that you reach out to us, the ways that you call on us to be vulnerable with you, to be generous with others. Help us us to confidently move forward as we follow you. Help us to confidently understand what you are calling us to do in the midst of our people to be Christians. And it's in your name that we pray. Amen.