Transcript
All right, destination. Well, I didn't say it last week, so I'm going to say it this week. Happy October, or as I like to call it, the best weather of the year, right.
Maybe you're like, I don't know, Josh, it's like 80° right now. But it's that time of year where like everything I feel like is so like crispy and nice and like I love the weather outside, but I don't know why it needs to be like ruined by every like scary kind of thing. And I I think the scariest thing is a life without Jesus. But yes, thank you. Okay, I knew I was hoping for one amen on that one.
But I want to tell you and I don't have a habit of really running towards scary things. I'm not that kind of guy. I don't watch horror movies.
Spoiler alert there. But I want to tell you about perhaps the scariest thing that has ever happened in my life. Okay, are you are you ready for this one.
I have been waiting for over a year to tell this story here at Destination Church. So, for many of you who who don't know, as I was going to school, I worked as a overnight hospital security guard. I was a tactical officer and I'd kind of sit and be stationed in the front of the hospital where the emergency room department is.
If you've ever been to the hospital in Wyoming, it it was that one. It's got these big beautiful windows that look out and every night I would get to see the different cars that were driving in or the ambulance. It was like moderately busy on most nights, but there was one night in particular that I look out of these windows and I'm seeing helicopters and they're flying everywhere and there's multiple and they they got their spotlights pointed at the ground and I'm like, "Okay, this is a this like a rural hospital and so like it's not really usually like this. " And usually if there's a helicopter call, we we would get it and we would know that they were coming in. And so this police officer, his name was Scott, comes kind of running in.
And by the way, this is not the norm because Scott would visit almost every night at a. He'd come in, have some coffee with me, we'd talk. But on this particular night, he shoots in at full speed.
He's out of breath. And he says, "Josh, we have a situation. " and he I'll I'll spare you the details, but he ends with basically saying that there is an active shooter who is armed and dangerous in the area. And I'm like, "Okay. " And he's like, he looks at me with all seriousness and says, "I need to be sure that you have the southwest corner of the building secure because that is the direction that he's coming from.
" Now, we run like hourly checks. So I'm like, "Yeah, Scott, we're good. " And he's like, "Would you just go check just to make sure. " So I'm making my way. By the way, for context, I'm in the opposite corner of the hospital, northeast corner.
So I'm going to the southwest corner. So I'm making my way there and there's this long dark corridor hallway that leads to the back main entrance of that wing of the hospital and it is wide open. I am not proud of the way that I ran back to the office after that.
Okay, I I I don't have footage of it. I'm sorry, but it's probably pretty funny. So, I run back to the office. I get in the office.
I'm safe here. And so, I call Scott and I'm like, "Scott, , the door, it was wide open. , and and and according to the records, it's been open for a little while. What do I do.
And he's like, "Josh, you got to hit the red button. " I'm like, "I've never hit the red button before. I like, why am I the one for this job. I am not I'm not the one for this job.
So I hit the red button and it was like an action movie. All of a sudden I hear hospital lockdown. Hospital lockown.
Everything starts locking down. I'm making calls left and right. Meanwhile, a vehicle shows up that I've only seen in movies that says SWAT team SWAT on the side of it.
Big guys with guns, dogs, get out. They get into the hospital lobby. And I'm sitting there and I'm talking to them and we're they're coming up with a plan and they're like, "Okay, so we got three tactical officers up here, bulletproof vests, really big guns. We got two officers back here and a German Shepherd. He was a good boy.
And they're all like laid out like they're ready to go. " And then Scott looks at me and then he goes, "Josh, you're going to be right there in the center. " And I was like, "Hold on, hold on, Scott.
I make $12 an hour. I have no health insurance and all I got is some handcuffs and mace. Like this is not a good plan.
And he's like, Josh, you don't understand. We can get so much more accomplished if we move together. And so if you are in the center of this group, you can tell us if we're walking into a closet, a patient room, or this big conference room.
And so internally crying, I'm going into this like center spot. Okay, luckily I have the dog next to me, so I'm really good. So we're going through and this was fascinating because this was my first experience where you know I I'm saying like door on your right, patient room, and then I'd watch them do like that whole like sweep thing, you know, like you'd see in like a movie. And I was like this is so cool.
Even though I'd rather be watching it from my office. And so we go through for two hours. We had to sweep the entire hospital. It took a really long time. And lo and behold, he is this this active shooter was not in the hospital, but he was hiding underneath a car just like barely a block or two up the road.
And so we were really fortunate in that in that situation that we didn't find anybody inside. But here's the point that I'm trying to make with this story. Whether he was or wasn't there, there is no way that I could have done that on my own, right.
I'm so thankful for law enforcement for being there. But on the flip side, they were thankful to have me and I felt that there was some value even though I just had mace to to be in the center and to be directing everybody to the correct place. And I think that this is how God has designed our lives to be to live in it in such a way where we're not doing things alone, but we're doing things together.
And so today's message is called four ways to do life together. And to kind of dig into this, we're going to be in the book of Philippians in chapter 1. It's on page 101. So pull out your Bibles.
By the way, if you don't have a Bible, this one is for you. You can take that home. It is our gift to you. Please open it up and let the word of God transform you. We look to the word of God for all of the big questions in life.
And we're doing this study through the book of Philippians verse by verse. We're not skipping over anything. We're looking at what God's word says.
And by the way, I wish that I could do some like setup on what Philippians is about like every week, but I don't want to keep you guys here for hours. So, there is a resource page again on our website that kind of lays out everything that I would say weekly on what the book of Philippians is about and how to approach reading it. It's really short. It's about a 15minute read. It's four chapters, but there is so much richness here in Paul writing this letter to a church that he started that he planted in Philippi.
So, today we'll be starting in verse 27. If you follow the numbers down to 27, Paul starts out in this section that he's been in about living together in partnership in the gospel. And he says this, whatever happens, I'm going to stop there. Whatever happens, this is really important.
Whatever happens, whether it be an active shooter in a hospital, a big like worldly things like war, a pandemic, something political, a personal struggle, whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come to see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit. Let me just stop there and I'll finish the rest of that verse in a second.
Okay, I want to stop on this one spirit thing and I want to remind you who Paul is writing to. Okay, Paul is writing to a super diverse group of people. Okay, there's this rich fashion girl named Lydia. There is people that have been radically saved and transformed. But mostly he's talking to his audience that he's writing this letter to is retired Roman soldiers.
So he's using these kind of like soldieresque kind of language. He's saying stand firm and he's saying conduct yourselves. You see what I mean. Like it's it's kind of got that military kind of feel to it.
But I love what he says at the at where I stopped here. He says stand firm in one spirit. And that is the first way that we need to do life together is to be able to stand together. Just like that group moved throughout the hospital, they were standing together and moving together as one.
And Paul urges us that in every situation, if we conduct ourselves in a way that is worthy of the gospel, that matches the gospel of Jesus, we're going to be moving together in that faith, in that spirit together. Let me kind of put it in Roman kind of terms that Paul would be writing to. There was this old Roman war for formation. Hope I don't butcher it.
It's called Tostito. It looks something like this. And the way that it would work is is there a picture up there.
I don't have the picture, do I. Oh, I forgot to add it. That's my bad. But okay, picture it for me. If you are just one lone soldier that's carrying a shield, okay, that that would be just your regular Roman soldier.
But what they would do is they would all come together and they would interlock their shields. And so some would stand in front and the others would have the the shields up on top and they would interlock them so that way they could approach the enemy and distinguish all of the fiery arrows that were being thrown at them so they could get into close quarters with the enemy which by the way I don't have time to do this but there's this whole other letter that Paul writes called Ephesians where he talks about that same kind of language. Okay, but here's the point.
If they were standing separately, they were exposed on all sides. But if they moved in this formation, their chance of victory and success went way up as they stood together. And so what Paul is saying is to stand in together in that same faith that moves towards the goal of Jesus that moves towards this faith that you have in one spirit.
And then he goes on to say staying firm in one spirit striving together as one for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way of those who oppose you. I failed that one, by the way, when I was doing the hospital security gag. But without being frightened in any way of those who oppose you, this will be your sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved and that by God. For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ to not only believe in him, but also to suffer for him since you are going through the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.
So Paul is saying, "Not only do I want you to stand together, but I want you to strive together. Paul is saying, "I not only want you to have this belief and this faith in Jesus, but I also want you in a place where you're willing to suffer for it. " And this word strive that Paul uses is the the definition of that very word is to put serious effort into overcoming some kind of opposition. And so Paul tells the Philippians, I want you to strive together.
I want you to do this thing together in one faith, in one gospel, in one spirit and move towards some of the things that might be a little uncomfortable. And Paul knows all about uncomfortable because they had real opposition. Okay, Paul was getting beaten. He was getting thrown into jail for starting this church.
Okay, and now he's writing this letter as he's in prison. He knows what it li looks like to suffer for the sake of the gospel. Now, for us in 2026, we don't really have that same kind of like physical threat, right.
You know, we would say that there is some issues of safety and physical threats, but for the most part, we aren't trying to protect our homes from from looters or wondering where maybe our next meal is going to come from. And I know that there are people who have to, you know, go through that. But that's not the majority, right.
And so there's not really this physical need to strive. And the less that we need to depend on God, the less that we run to him. So instead of striving, we end up sitting, right.
And we avoid anything that might be slightly uncomfortable. And this is where the message gets difficult. I promise it's going to get better. But this is the tough part that you and I need to be able to strive for ourselves, but also together.
Because I believe that in the American church or in the American society right now, we're living with a sense of spiritual awareness, but we're living in spiritual apathy. Which means we're living in a time where we start to be, you know, somewhat aware that, oh, maybe there is something bigger, maybe there is a higher power. But we live in apathy to really dive forward and to dive into maybe some uncomfortable conversations or to look at the Bible in a way where it's like, man, this is saying something that I don't really want to do or I don't really agree with.
And that's what Paul is talking about. Striving beyond some of the things that are comfortable instead of running to the comfort. And there is great honor in that kind of sacrifice.
And there is great honor in that doing that kind of sacrifice together. Okay, I'm not going to pretend that I can I can speak to this, but let's keep on with this like whole military terminology here. I had a friend who was he was kind of a commanding officer when the 911 response happened. He got sent out or deployed, you know, and he had a sense of all of the soldiers that were supposed to report from the reserves to report for duty. And so, , this guy said to me, he said, "Josh, it was heartbreaking because, , I knew how many letters went out and I knew how many people showed up and I knew how many people that we were missing because they were getting the benefits of being in the armed forces, but they were not ready to take that next step.
" And let me just say that I can't imagine the stress and the like anxiety of getting the letter that's like you're going to be deployed to war. Like I can't imagine that. So I can't even pretend that I understand that.
And can we just I know it's not Veterans Day. That's a November thing. But can we just say thank you to everybody who's served in the armed forces together that have made that step of sacrifice. This is the point that I'm trying to make here though.
The kingdom of God is full of reserves and they get the benefits of God without getting the deployment. And I know that's a really hard pill to swallow here, but when we stand together in one faith and in one spirit, the things that we can do for the kingdom, the things that we no longer need to be frightened of, the things that God is going to use us together to do, he's already given us the victory so we can show up for deployment because we know the victory is already ours. And so we get to we get to strive together, to stand together, but not only that, there's another side to this. There's the tough part, the striving together, but then there's the fun part about doing life together, and it's sharing it together. Paul goes on to kind of start in chapter 2 with a really good picture of what it looks like not only when we're standing and striving together but when we're sharing together.
He says, "Therefore," this is a response to what he had just said in chapter 1. He says, "Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if there's any comfort from his love, if there's any common sharing in the spirit, if there's any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being in one spirit and one mind. " Here's Paul's reminder to his church.
And here's your reminder from your church that you don't have to do life alone. You don't have to live life in isolation and you can share it together and you can share it with things beyond AI. And what Paul says is he breaks down four different things here that happen when we share life together.
Let me just show you them really quick. He says that you will be encouraged from being united, that you will be likeminded. Okay, I call this first one the meto moment.
You ever get into a conversation with somebody and you think that you're the only one that's went through a divorce or struggled with an addiction or you think you're the only one that had a really difficult parenting journey or the only one that's been adopted and then all of a sudden you're sitting across a living room or a table from somebody who has almost the exact same story and you're like, "Oh, you too. You no longer feel alone. That's what Paul is talking about when he's saying encouraged by being united.
Then he says that there's a comfort from love of this same love that you are brought together by. And when you sit in Christian community, specifically Christian community, you are surrounded by other people that value a relationship with Jesus, right. That value the truth of scripture, right.
You're sitting with other people that look at their family differently, that look at parenting their kids differently. And that's a good thing when you can be encouraged by that same value and that same love. The third thing he says is that they're sharing in one spirit, being in one spirit together.
And I liken this to I hear this all the time and I always it always fills my tank as a pastor by the way. , when somebody comes up to me and they say, "Josh, the craziest thing happened this week. I was praying about this or you said this in your message and then all of a sudden, boom, Monday, boom, Tuesday, boom, Thursday, whatever day it was, that very thing just ended up coming up with somebody or something or some way.
It's almost as if I don't know there's like this all cosmic kind of presence that sees all and knows all but you know that's that's neither here or there. So, but that's what Paul is talking about here. And then he goes on to say if there is any tenderheartedness or compassion and this is what you get when you share life together.
When you have people in your life that know the deep stuff, that want to support you and help you grow to the next stage in your life, the ones that bring you meals during those tough weeks. And I know that I talk about this a lot, but Philippians is a book that just lends itself to this theme in the beginning about doing life together. So hear me one more time, destination.
Don't do life alone. Okay, sign up for something. Sign up for a growth group. Okay, I know that there's not a lot of available, but sign up for the weight list so we know that you want to be a part of one or go to men's and women's or even just stay and hang out for a couple extra minutes on a Sunday.
Get to know somebody because there's all these people around you that want to help you grow in your relationship and they want you to speak into their lives to help them grow in their relationship. And I believe just last thing on this point, I believe that the tactic of the enemy is to isolate people. Is to isolate them.
Make them feel alone. Make them feel like they are the only ones that understands or can overcome what it is that they're going through. And let me tell you, it's the difference between walking through a hospital with a SWAT team verse as a security guard. It's the difference between one Roman soldier and a bunch of Roman soldiers moving together.
Okay, you have people around you that don't want you to live in that isolation, but instead to walk towards Jesus. And there's plenty of ways to do this, by the way, because you don't need to just do it in a living room, in a growth group. You can also do it as you serve together. And that is the fourth way to do life together. Listen to what Paul says in verse three.
He says, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather in humility, value others above yourself, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of others. " So Paul is now saying that there is a great encouragement in being together, but there is also a great encouragement in serving together, in humbly serving together. What Paul is saying is you need to serve and you need to serve together.
Now, I want to just can I get Bible nerdy just for a second here. I I got into like a deep study on this one because if you look at verse four, verse four specifically starts out with this phrase, not looking to your own interests. Okay, I want to zoom in on that phrase for a second. This the the original language of Philippians in Greek, this word looking translates to scopedo. Okay, not to be mistaken for speedo.
Okay, scopeedo is what I said. And it is really where we get the word not speedo but scope. Okay, it's like a telescope, a microscope, a scope on the top of a a sniper, right. Like that's that's the kind of visual that I want you to get.
So what Paul is saying here is when he says not looking to the to your own interest but the interest of others what he's really saying is look at where your scope is pointed at. What direction is your scope pointed at. Now here's the cool part. Second thing, man, I've been waiting all week for this.
The word interests in this. Okay, is translated different depending on what Bible translation you're you're kind of reading. And there's a lot of different adjectives for the word interest.
But this is where it gets really cool. The original Greek there actually more so translates to this term the things of. And so it says not only to look out for the things of your own interests. And what scholars have kind of studied and looked at when they look at this Greek phrase that's there is they say it's almost as if Paul is putting a blank check here like a blank space in here. Like he's saying not only to look out for your own fill-in- thelank but for the fillin the blank of others.
So let me just re-ransate verse four for you. It's on the screen behind me. Set your scope not only on yourself but on the fill-in- thelank of others.
That means on the marriage of others, on other people's marriages, on their friendships, on their finances. How can you bless other people. Because that is how you are in turn serving them.
That is in turn how we as Christians serve as Christ served us. And let me tell you there is a such a big distinction between a volunteer and somebody who is serving. I try to get out of the habit as much as possible of saying hey sign up to volunteer. Because it's so much more than volunteering.
The difference in serving and volunteering is volunteering moves a chair. It's an actual action, but serving knows the purpose of that action. And so all of our setup team that moves chairs, it may just look like they volunteered to move chairs, but they know, and I hope they know that they are moving chair.
They're they're moving chairs. But it serves a deeper purpose and that is for somebody to sit in and meet the lifechanging power of Jesus. And so serving takes on a different heart, a different role.
By the way, just quick little announcement here. There's plenty of ways that you can sign up to serve as much or as little as you want. Growth groups are every week, but serving, there's tons of things available from everything on Sunday mornings that we need and everything during the week. We got a prayer team.
Our youth ministry is so close to kicking off, which by the way, if you are a female and you are led to helping some teenage girls, okay, we need some females on our youth ministry team. Finance director, we we're going to start an admin team. And so there's all of these ways that you can do life.
On mission with other people around you. And there's plenty of ways to sign up. You can do it on the app.
You can look at the back table there. Straight back there, there's a bunch of descriptions. But the reason why we do this, the reason why we do this, why we serve in this way is because Christ did it for us. Christ models this kind of service for us on the cross. And so this is what it means to serve, to set our sights, our scopes on others, and to do life together.
Now, listen to this. This is really cool. Look at verse five for a second.
In verse five, Paul says, "In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. " Now, what's really cool about the book of Philippians is we're about to turn this major page, not literally, but figuratively in the letter. Paul is so moved by this partnership in the gospel, this suffering together, this honor that he carries as he carries Christ. He's so moved by it that he moves into a time of worship. This what Paul is saying here is is it's almost like a worshipesque poem that he he breaks into song as he's writing this letter.
And so here's what I want to do. I'm going to bring up the worship team really quick and I want you to just either read this along in your Bibles or you can look on the screen behind me. I'll have it.
And I want to read you verse 6 through 11. And I want you to see here how how Paul is painting this picture of Jesus. How he is so overwhelmed by the goodness of God that he gives us this beautiful, beautiful language for it. Okay, let's read it together. Verse five says, "In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset of Christ Jesus, who being in his very nature, God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.
Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant. Being made in human likeness, and being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, oh man, lock in on this.
Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every other name. That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under earth, and every tongue shall acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. This is such a beautiful, beautiful picture into the gospel.
This is a beautiful picture into how much Jesus loves each and every one of you. That the person who didn't need anybody came to be with everybody, to give his life for everybody. And Jesus set his scope on you.
He walked out of that darkness and he took the cross that you and I deserved. And he rose again and gifted us with this gift of the Holy Spirit and Christian community so that we would never have to walk alone. And so is your life being lived with others, but most importantly is your life being lived with Jesus. My hope and my prayer for you is that you wouldn't do life alone.
That you wouldn't do life without others. But most importantly, that you wouldn't do life without Jesus. And so, if you would just kind of bow your heads and close your eyes just for a second. And I just want to invite you into this time of what is your next decision.
What is the Holy Spirit speaking to you this morning. Maybe for you it's to start this relationship with Jesus for the first time. And if that's you, we want to know about it. We want to pray for you. We want to help you in your first steps.
You're not going to be shamed about anything that you don't know or anything that has happened. Like God knows. And we just want to walk with you in that relationship with Christ.
Maybe for some of you it's a decision to not do life alone anymore, but to do it with Jesus and to do it with others. Whatever it is, I hope that you break into this same kind of gratitude that Paul does when he says that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow under heaven and earth and every tongue shall acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. So, we're going to pray and then that's what we're going to do together.
We're going to worship together as we close our service. Would you pray with me. God, I thank you so much.
That we don't have to do life alone. That you made us to do life together. Not only with each other, but God with you. And so, God, let this week be a week that we go to scripture.
God, let this be week be a week that we go to you in prayer. God be let this be a week that instead of dwelling on all the really hard stuff that keep us up late at night that instead we call that friend or we reach out to somebody and say, "Hey, would you pray with me. Would you pray for me or maybe that we would be those people that bring that encouragement to someone else. " And God, we thank you that you took the spot of a servant and that you came down and became obedient to death. Yes, even death on a cross.
And so we praise you. We worship your holy name. In Jesus name we pray.
