Praying for the Church

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0:00So it's good to be with you guys and it's a privilege for me and I always enjoy worshiping with just different churches in our presbytery to see where different people are and just so you know this it's also part of what's called our church planting group for lack of a better name in our presbytery so this is something we've been praying for as our presbytery for wow Joel how many years now has it been four is that about right so know that we continue to pray for this church and the good work y'all are doing here and we are excited for where you are. So if you'll turn with me this morning we are going to look in the book of Philippians. So the New Testament is also found in your bulletin and we'll be looking at Philippians one through three and just to give you an idea a little bit about what going is going on here The Apostle Paul, who has spent his new life in Christ evangelizing, traveling around different missions, he has been on planted churches, had disciples, and now finds himself in a situation of being in prison, on house arrest for preaching for the gospel.

1:15He survived a shipwreck, he's been in two years in prison in Rome, waiting for his trial. there's other leaders who are christian leaders who speak out against him for a variety of different reasons he's been deserted by a lot of his friends he's facing possible execution for the crimes he has accused of and now he writes to the church of philippi which was the first church he planted in his second missionary journey about 11 years ago and he has a very strong connection with this church as he knew the people he was there he evangelized with them and saw the church grow and so that brings us to paul's letter of where he is this morning um so just a word do we stand for the word of god here all right what we do this morning if y'all stand with me as we read god's word um uh if you're able this is god's word for you and for me this morning philippians 1 3 through 11 i thank my god in all remembrance of you always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now and i am sure of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in the day of Christ Jesus it is right for me to feel this way about you because I hold you in my heart for all for you all are all partakers with me of grace both in my imprisonment and in my defense and confirmation of the gospel for God is my witness how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and

3:06all discernment so that you may approve what is excellent and what is pure and blameless for the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Christ Jesus the glory and praise of God amen you may be seated let's pray as we go to God's word this morning but we do come before you thankful for the words you give us to study to learn to impact on our heart we pray through the spirit that you open our hearts our minds our hearts and our ears this morning to hear your word to know you are our father we are your people and that you would apply it to our lives knowing that you we are secure in christ and that you love us and you want us to grow in jesus name amen so it's interesting as we come to this passage um as we look at paul writes we know paul's in a really actually very hard situation so put yourself in his foot set where he is. You're sitting in prison on house arrest. So, you know, it's not like today where you might have an anklet on so you could track him, but he actually has a guard probably with him. It goes everywhere he goes. No electronic tracking at that point. He's, most of his friends or the people he's working with aren't with him. So, the days of his ministry, quote, glory of some senses or his popularity are now gone. He's being criticized from other people, and he's a period of Waiting for judgment.

4:34Slightly stressful, right? And so you get here, and I don't know about you or me, but if we get here, and if I was in Paul's shoes, and I'm writing to a church where I know I had a partnership and love, probably the first things I would look at, really, is to tell them, man, pray for me. My problems. I'm stressed. I'm depressed. This dude keeps following me around everywhere I go. I can never have any privacy. I'm alone. And yet here we find Paul writing to Philippi with a very different attitude as he writes the church.

5:08And he writes them not of his own concern, but he writes a love and joy and concern for them. Not talking about himself. That's not how he intros the letter at all. And it makes me wonder and think, how does he do that? How does he not fall to the places I know I would go? And Paul is human. Paul is in need of Christ. How does he find the hope and the joy that he talks about? And how does he look to Christ in confidence as he says this prayer for them?

5:38And so this morning, as we look at this passage and the title I gave you, if you want to put that up, you're more than welcome to, other slides. It's praying for the church. And this is Philippians, and there was this quote from Spurgeon that no man can do a truer kindness in this world than to pray for me. And so as we're praying, what I want you to think about is how we can pray, and how do we pray for each other? What does that look like? And we've already done some of that this morning.

6:06But I want to talk about and focus on this idea of prayers from the heart in Christ, prayer with confidence in Christ, and prayer for spiritual growth in Christ. We prayed some this morning for that already. We also prayed for a lot of needs, and none of that is wrong. But as you think about praying for your brothers and sisters, if you look around think about how you might pray for them in this way as Paul was praying for the believers at Philippi what would it look like I know prayer can be challenging at times not going to deny this idea of going to pray for people and how you pray but I want to look at more the heart and the attitude to pray how we come to pray for the people around us but we are called to pray for each other and it's important that you guys are praying for each other and I appreciate Joel told me this week that y'all pray for my ministry, and that's a blessing for me beyond belief.

6:59And I want you to know that God is using this church and this ministry. So just so you know, even as Joel goes, I don't know if you know he goes to the YMCA and does his Bible study, but your reputation is well-received as Arnold is going to go do him in Spanish. And you were the catalyst. They knew you, and so they know Arnold. So praise for that. So let's look at the first verses and this idea of prayers from the heart in Christ. And so if we look at verses 1 through 3, and I'm going to look at 7 and 8, but I'm going to read those again.

7:29It says, I thank my God in all remembrance of you, always in every prayer. He's talking to the believers at Philippi, the church at Philippi, for in every prayer of mine for you, all making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And then if you skip ahead to verse 7, it says, it is right for me to feel that way about you because I hold you in my heart for all partakers with me of grace you are all partakers with me of grace both in my imprisonment and in my defense and my confirmation of the gospel for God is my witness how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ and so if we look at this idea we know Paul has a strong connection with this church and we know he knows the believers that that are there at least some of them he has not seen them in many years but he knows who was the originally part of the group the core group that was there and he remembers and the first thing he says is I thank my God in all remembrance of you I thank my God and so the first thing he says is a heart of thankfulness what does it look like for a church to have a heart of thankfulness for each other I've been in ministry since I was born. And no, I didn't pastor anybody when I was born, but my dad was a pastor. And so I've been around the church for a long time. And the church, and I say the church very broadly, believers in Christ, different denominations, can be very good at the opposite of thankfulness, which is grumbling and complaining. One of the beautiful things about Christ is we're all created in his image and we're

9:14all different. One of the struggles with that reality is we're all created in the image of Christ and we're all different, right? In the same way. You know, it's how do we challenge each other? We have different gifts and talents. We think differently. The experiences we bring into the church are different and our personalities are different. And some people like NFL and nobody cares. Some people don't like anything to do with sports. And how does that all work together? And some people are going to be really good at the Easter egg hunt and some people are to struggle to get one or two and so how do you how do you match that together right um but it's a prayer of thankfulness a thankfulness of to god i thank my god in remembrance of you and so he's taking the attitude of thankfulness as he remembers the people who are there and then he goes on he says in every prayer for you all making my prayer with what kind of attitude with joy a prayer of thankfulness and joy and he prayed for them with gladness in his heart and it's interesting as he thinks about this because again he's not focusing on his trials and and thomas dale high school god does this at times for me i don't know if he does it for you but i'll be studying something and then something else god brings into it and just re-emphasizes but if you drive back past thomas dale high school today the west campus it says on the billboard sign that a thankful heart is a happy heart and i read that as i was coming in this morning but here's Paul he's giving thanks to the group of that he's that he knew he helped plant

10:43and he's thanking for them in all his prayers with joy he's not focusing on his own circumstances but he's focusing on them and remembering who they are and how they're glad and so as we think about that just think about this heart prayers for the church in the heart of Christ what does it look for us to be thankful for one another how do we thank God for how as you turn if you look to your left and your right and you can do that if you want to for the people around you how do you thank god for the skills and the talents and the wisdom that they bring and the weaknesses that they have that allow you to see more of christ because if we are doing that that'll help us promote a unity in christ which paul talks about later in this passage but a thankfulness in christ for how he's created each person in this room and we know we all can have the tendency to grumble because it's easy to focus on the things that annoy us and i'm really good at annoyance ask my kids that's my wife um but this heart of the heart of the attitude over here god it's paul's getting at is that he has a heart in christ for them and so he says thankfulness and joy and then he goes on just a little bit farther and he says why he says i have a heart of thankfulness as i pray for you i thank my god and he says i pray with you for all my prayers for joy because why because you of a partnership in the gospel from the first day until now do you think of each other that way that you are the arms and the feet and the hands and a partner in christ and that is the greatest

12:20uniter that's bigger than all our differences and all our ways we're called to serve the thing that we are united in that drives us it should be what's holding us together in the glue and what allows us to forgive each other and walk and allows other people to speak into our life and correct us as we're called to hold each other accountable what allows other people to encourage us when we are weak most by the way most time people love to can most people like to serve many people have a hard time being served but allows people to serve you which allows them to use their gifts that's a partner in the gospel of christ it's a partnership even this morning is you look at this room and what had to happen to set up this worship service. The signs are out front. The tables are set up. The coffee was made. The kids are going on. I don't know how long this team practiced, but they practiced. All that came together so this group of people could worship Christ, the greater commonality. And so there's a partnership between you guys, but it goes a lot deeper than that. These are the people that are called to support each other. You guys are called to support each other, to love each other. You prayed for the needs of someone who has cancer this morning you're praying for the needs of each other as you go up and down in life because life is hard at different times but we're partners in something greater and that greater is Christ and so when Paul is driving at this he has a right to feel this way because he has a partner

13:46with a group of people that have a common goal with him even as he's in prison they're still fighting the same battle that he is which is living for Christ in a world that doesn't believe in him they're living for a greater thing that is so much more wonderful so much more great than the world offers but yet the world rejects i went to a pastor's retreat monday and tuesday this week sorry i lose track of time still was there and one of the we break out one of the we do some different times of worship which was really great but then it's really cool we also break into small groups of five and six and we pray for each other and in my group uh one of the things that was happening was a guy was telling us about their church is getting ready for a 50th year celebration anniversary and one of the things they were going to do at their anniversary 50 years um for you know that they're celebrating is they were going to tell stories about all the different people that have been part of the church and what they brought to the church and the testimonies that god had shown and the goodness of who he is and they were going to celebrate that what a wonderful blessing and the church was going to continue what would even we're near to if you look back we were celebrating year two you can put this into your june celebration but what would even be the celebrations now how do we be thankful and joyful for the people that god has brought to the church that are here now and the talents and gifts that brings the people

15:09that have passed through but maybe moved on to a different place how are we thankful and joyful in this idea in our hearts is that the attitude we have for each other and do we celebrate even now I was talking about now it's like so you list the the women who are going on the women I wrote these down women walking with a purpose and hopefully that purpose part of that purpose besides exercise which is all good for us is that they're pointing each other to Christ and also small groups and guys with hammers man I hope that's a demolition project but I'm not sure because guys with hammers love to destroy stuff but all the bonds that we can be thankful for now and i was reading over the bulletin and the website that um as i worse as i created the sermon and and do you know your mission statement have you read it recently to cultivate a hopeful community shaped by grace and truth to nourish new life in christ that's what this church is about joyfully thankfully creating cultivating a hopeful community that's what paul's talking about that's what's in his heart a hopeful community because they have something in christ shaped by the grace and truth to church cherish that to nourish new life in christ that's what we're about it's a different nation that's why paul can go in his heart it's right for me to feel this way it's right for y'all to be encouraging to each other it's right for y'all to love one another and be thankful and yet we have that tension don't we that when somebody rubs you

16:41the wrong way in the church and the church is good at this i had a friend who who in my church in florida and they were new to the church and about two years in she's serving at the children's welcome station one day and she goes you i'd say hey how you doing she goes i used to love this church until i got to know the people she was kidding but she but no what she's saying is it's when the depths of the relationships grow we get to see a little bit more about all of us right and we will focus on we can be and we have to danger is this to slip into I'm not joyful I'm discontent and I'm grumbling or I'm gossiping and what Paul says is no that's not where it goes and this is true you know you can point to cliques in the youth group you can point to cliques in different parts of the church you can talk about different things but it's how do we have the thankful joyful heart that unites us because we're partners in Christ and that is the greater common goal practically before we go on the next point just there are really good benefits of being thankful did you know thankfulness helps over all your health it brings contentment into your heart it's your thankful versus grumbling it can lift you from depression it strengthens your faith because you will see god at work and you're acknowledging where he is doing good it strengthens the church. If you have a church that's thankful, it strengthens you guys, but it also strengthens your testimony to everybody around you. If somebody walks into this room this morning and all they hear

18:08is, oh, I can't believe so, and so I didn't do this, or did you hear about that person? What's the attitude of the church they're going to see? It produces joy. It replaces grumbling, and it can give us peace. and so as you think this is just the first point of this point but at one of the ways i think we can challenge each other in christ is to acknowledge what christ is doing with a thankful heart and where's my heart with that how do you see the people of this church what is your heart towards each other do you see the gifts the talents the sacrifice the love and where do you have an opportunity to find joy in our hearts as christ has works in each one of you i'll finish on this illustration one of the people i love to thank because the only time they get any attention is if something goes wrong it's those guys so thumbs up to the sound crew because the only time anything that any anybody ever even acknowledges that they're alive if it's if you hear and then everybody goes oh the sound guy okay so just be thankful and look for ways to be thankful to each other and joy because god is doing good things at this church i'm excited because i've seen faces that i've come back to and i told everybody i've talked to i was like i remember your face but i can't remember your name thanks for having the name tag on um but i remember faces and it's encouraging to me to be here to see you guys and you're continuing this church plant is continuing to go and you guys are the life of christ here that brings joy to me and i am thankful

19:43for y'all is what Christ is doing here so that's one is for prayer praying from the heart in Christ secondly praying with confidence in Christ we're going to look at this is kind of center verse of this being and this is where our power comes from and this is where the strength of this passage comes from so knowledge that six verse one six and this is a quotable one and it says this I am sure of this Paul says I am sure of this the first day until now oops sorry go back to yep so I'm sure of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in the day of christ jesus i am sure of this a confidence paul says i am sure of this that he he being christ who began a good work in you will complete it in the day of christ jesus and so as paul's looking back he's writing the philippians right he can look back and he can call some people by name and you can read about them too if you want to go to the book of Acts chapter 16 I'm not going to read them today but I am going to point out just a couple names to you one is Lydia real person right so real thing she was a seller of purple cloth but that was one of the first people who is a conversion story of Paul and you find it in Acts so this is Philippians about but you find it in Acts 16 another one is the Philippian jailer Paul's in prison in Philippi for preaching the gospel they're singing hymns go figure I would not be singing hymns ever if I'm in jail and probably because I would not have that kind of attitude but they're singing hymns and there's an earthquake

21:17the doors fall off of the stings and the jailer says hey I'm going to kill myself because if all the prisoners escape I faith the wrath of the Roman Empire so instead of killing himself Paul calls out and said hey we're still here don't leave don't don't do that don't kill yourself and Paul says and the jailer says how do I believe in how do I have this faith and Paul explains it to him. And he is baptized. Another one was a slave girl who had demons in her that Paul uses through Christ that calls the demons out. And so he knows some of the people that are in the church. And 11 years later, they're still following Christ. There's encouragement. He prays with confidence in Christ because he knows God is at work in them. The ones that he was able through God's grace to share the good news of Jesus Christ with are still in the church and still following him so he sees the power of christ working in them and if we think about it i've talked about this before but if we think about it one of the cool things if you ever get a chance i don't know if y'all do testimonies up front or different ways you share your testimonies in this church but one of the cool things to do is you go around this room everybody who has come to a place where they know jesus christ is lord has a story to tell of jesus and how he's worked in their life and what you're testifying is when god called you to himself he who began a good work in you and but then you can go on right because he's going to be faithful to complete it you're still

22:39here in the faith god is holding you steady god is the greater truth that brings you to where you are whether whatever you work in whether you're not work whether you're a mom whether you're a student it doesn't matter the one who begins the work in you is going to be faithful to complete it and to put a doctrinal name on that just so you can throw it in your cap this is called the doctrine of the perseverance of saints doctrines mean teaching teaching of the perseverance of saints meaning how we are the saints because we have a relationship with jesus christ and we will persevere we will not fall out of his grace and you go how do you know that how do we find that and so this is one of those passages right 1 6 he who began jesus christ who began a good work in you and me who's going to complete it us no he's going to complete it and that's where paul's his confidence turn with me if you have a bible and look up romans 8 i want to give you two other passages that just reinforce this idea and this truth romans 8 starting in verse 38 it says this for i am sure of this neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord so what separates us from the love of God nothing nothing in this world if you have faith in Jesus Christ that he has given you he's going to be faithful to hold on to you he grabs a hold of you in our life and there's times when we're

24:15looking like this and we're flopping all the place because we can't figure out what's going in our life and there's times when we're depressed we have hardship and he doesn't let go he grabs you and he holds you so I don't know what you're facing right now and I don't know what you faced in the past and I don't know what you're facing in the future but what I do know is what Paul knows he prays with confidence because he has one who said I have worked in you and I will work in you and I will be faithful to complete it and so we have a security in Christ this comes from Charles Spurgeon it says where is there an instance of God beginning any work and leaving it incomplete it says show me for once a world abandoned or thrown aside half formed show me a universe cast off from the great potter's wheel with the design of outledge the clay half hardened or the form unshapely from incompleteness doesn't happen not from god god who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it and that's where as we pray we can pray with confidence because god is good and god works for the good of his people and so paul's confidence is not in and of itself and paul's confidence is not in the philippians themselves but paul's confidence is the fact that god began a good work in them and he's continuing to complete it god's confidence for us is we can look around the room and we can find the testimony of each other and say yes i know you were saved from a story grandma praying for you when you were 14 i don't know

25:47what your stories are but i'm sure they're awesome and i've heard lots of them which are very cool i know people have been saved in their hot tubs i know people who have used the tracks from the windshield or in bathrooms and you go why do people put those in here but anyway um i know people have been saved through billy graham crusades but the cool thing is god met you where he wanted to meet you to draw into yourself and if you're here this morning and you don't know that know that there's a god who's seeking you and wants to show you his love and i would be glad to or other people in this room would be glad to talk to you about that and so we're in this process and again I'm going to use some words I said perseverance of the saints but we're in this process where God calls us and we're justified one time we are made right with God that's our salvation but now it says he will complete it in the day of Christ Jesus so we're in this process now of being sanctified and that's where this process grows if you ever look at the math charts and later greater than and less than but we have this picture of I began God began a good work in me and he's showing me as a baby christian a little bit more of my sin we went to a confession of sin this morning and then he's showing how much more he loves me assurance of pardon and then he shows me the greatness of the depth of my sin and then he shows me again how great does the cross get and then he shows me a greatness of the depth of sin and then he continues to show me the greatness

27:05of god and how much he loves me and so again he you began he's praised with confidence because that relationship is based on christ for what he's done and who he is and that's where our confidence can lie. So as you think about this idea, and I didn't count up all the words, I did do a word search, but there's four main words in Hebrew, and I'm not going to read them all to you, that point to God's faithfulness, and they're used hundreds of times throughout the Old Testament.

27:28And there's another word in Greek, used in the New Testament, called pistos, which is used 60 to 70 times, which again talks to God's faithfulness. And so here we have a point and a favor of God showing his faithfulness to us through our salvation and his work in us. And so I encourage you this morning as you pray for each other and pray for this church one is to pray with a heart of joy and thankfulness two is to pray with confidence that god is good and wants what's best for his people which is y'all as you have a relationship with him pray with confidence that god hears you and cares for his people which again is for you pray with confidence that god is faithful and complete what he begins in you and i'll say pray with patience because as he shows you your sin if you're anything like the I show my sin half the time I don't even mean to it just comes out and how so that means how do we deal with each other well we're going to see each other sin right so how are we going to react to that confidently believing in Christ to change people that means we have to have patience long suffering which are attributes of Christ and to pray with them still with thankfulness and joy even when you see others sin and to encourage them as they are in Christ with you but knowing that our confidence lies in Christ and who he is so that's point two and point three it's is this pray from the heart prayers with confidence in Christ but prayers for growth in Christ prayers for growth in Christ when do you pray for that you grow in Christ and it can be dangerous I'm

29:04not going to lie to you it's kind of like saying God show me my sin and then you go wait a minute I didn't really want that I didn't really want you to say my sin but part of the growth process is that he will show us our sin so let's look how Paul prays here as he prays for them to have growth in Christ it says in Philippians verses 9 through 11 he says and it is my prayer so again he goes again and you can find a sort of an expanded version of this if you look at Ephesians 1. I'm not going to read that one today, but Ephesians 1, 15 through 22, as he wrote to the church in Ephesus. So Paul repeats this type of prayer. He says, this is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ Jesus, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, the glory and the praise of God. So let's pick that apart a little bit it says love may abound more and more now we have to be careful with this because our our culture talks a lot about love don't we and we get it wrong a lot in our culture don't we um so there's a lot of love of myself how many likes i can get on whichever form of social media you use how much uh i love myself and my desires are greater than what god ones how much I love out of just feelings even though I don't check my feelings against what God's word is so love is not more love is a lot more than just a feeling so when Paul says this

30:43love may abound more and more what's he talking about and what he's talking about here as we think about this it says that your love may abound more and more and he's talking about that you may understand the love of Jesus Christ for you. As we grow in our understanding of Christ's love more and more for me, remember that picture of sin, how big is the cross? And as we understand how much Christ loves us and what it took, so while we were still dead, it says in Romans, that while we were yet dead, he still saved us. Amen. And so as we understand the greatness of God's Grace, I don't know, you can't tell me the number, but I will email you later how many times you said it last week.

31:28But how many times we understand the grace of God's mercy and grace for us, how much he loves us, the depths as he knows our thoughts and our deeds and our words that don't follow him, yet he still chose to love us as we grow in that knowledge and understanding that he loves us. And he loves us when we don't want to follow him. He loves us when we're sinning and we're struggling, and yet he loves us and he keeps us. And we said we will not fall out of the grace of God.

31:50and we grow and abound in that more and more and it's not just a blind love but it's a love with a purpose and this is where he keeps going he says and in prayer in my prayer it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment so as we're thinking about knowledge and discernment where does that come from what does knowledge and discernment look like that he's talking about here knowledge is that we may know as christ loves us what is the goal and What is the purpose of our new life in Christ that we may live for him?

32:23We may grow in God's love for us. And if you have, did I bring what I did? Take out your bulletin for me, if you will, and we'll turn back to the passage we read this morning. It says, this is from Psalm 1. Blessed in the man who does, who walks not in the counsel of the wicked. Discernment. Yeah, I've got to know who's wicked and who's not wicked. Stands not in the way of sinners. sits not in the seats of scoffers but okay so there's this progression blessed is the man who doesn't do these things but his delight is in the law of the word knowledge knowledge now be careful with that because the american church average attender does not know their bible well i'm sure y'all are way above the average attenders but i'm just telling you we don't know the word of god well we can't tell you can't tell me what the ten commandments are And I'm not judging you, I'm just saying if we want to do what this is calling for and Paul calls us to pray for growth in Christ, we've got to know what we're growing in, right?

33:22My son is an electronic warfare engineer. I don't even know what that means exactly because he can't tell me because it's secret. But there's a knowledge. He had to study for it. You guys, many of you have careers that I can't do. There's a knowledge that you have. And so you did it by studying it and learning and growing in it. And so the purpose is we know the love of Christ that's true, finding his word and we grow in it that we may have knowledge not to do certain things but then it goes on and says but his delight is in the law of the lord and on his law he meditates that means you actually have to look at it or listen to it or watch a youtube video on it but do be careful on which ones we're watching so if you want good references of what to listen to or to watch talk to Joel. He's like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. And so you get this picture of what he's saying is that you grow in the understanding of how much God loves you, how much he has chosen to choose you, how much he forgives you. Your sins of your past and your present and your future are forgiven, and he is committed to grow you in him. And he says, know that my love you should produce knowledge and discernment so you can choose what's right to live for me because that's who you are you are a son or daughter of christ because christ has brought you to him and christ is leading you forward and so then it keeps going it says approve

34:50the things that are excellent the excellent things the things that god wants that should be where our heart is knowing God's desire Psalm 119 not going to read it it's the longest book in the Bible but it's all about knowing God's word and where he calls us to know it and so if you think of your situations this morning relationships you have career decisions how to handle conflicts I don't know loneliness whatever those things are you may have to make knowledge and discernment what you watch when you're in private what you listen to how do you honor god how do you know what god wants you're looking to him in his love letter to you and to me knowledge and then you look to his spirit which he says he gives us in john 16 says when i leave i'm going to give you the holy spirit now the spirit cannot contradict the word of god so i want you to be careful about because there are those who will preach and teach in our days today that say oh well the Holy Spirit gave me this feeling that I should follow such and such but it's contradicting the word of God so they have to line up but know that God gives us tools to lead us and to guide us and to grow into him and so we want to strive to approve the things that are excellent that we may be sincere and without offense sincere is how what's our inward attitude how do we react to people i cannot stand shopping in walmart at certain times of the day if there are too many people in walmart i get annoyed my inward sincereness and i can say things that i shouldn't or i can have a nasty attitude and then it says without offense well

36:42how do i take my inward sincereness and deal with the people around me without offense so know your testimony one is that we also pray for people in here but god wants to change us with how we deal with people in the world too we are the light and the ambassadors set aside for doing the work of him something different so we pray for growth in christ because we need to grow we do i don't know if you're new in your faith or you're not yet the faith or you're 20 years into your faith we need to grow and so how do we grow paul one is we pray for it pray for growth in christ where do i need to grow where does god need to show me my sins and where do i need to see his graciousness and how he calls me to a different life for him that's growth does that mean we're gonna get it right in this world completely no but does that mean that god is faithful to continue to grow us as he holds us yes is he faithful to grow you and me yes and so that's what we pray for you guys called the kids up this morning and i loved it because we learned every at least got an overview of everything the kids were learning if i went to you this morning i said what are you learning could you tell me something you're learning like the kids learned today and that's what it is to where am i growing in my knowledge where am i growing in my discernment where am i growing in the body of christ where am i growing in these prayers um and it says here without it still we may grow in sincereness without offense for we may be pure and blameless for the

38:16day of Christ Jesus so yes we are pure and blameless because Christ covers us with his righteousness but we continue to grow and Paul himself was continuing to grow he said I'm the chief of sinners still and God was growing Paul even in this circumstance where he was in prison Paul's growing being grown here and so that we may be filled with the fruits of righteousness righteousness is a word that can be tricky is not one we necessarily use all the time but it means our relationship is made right with God that's done through what Jesus has done on the cross for us and when we accept him we have a relationship with him that's restored and we have access to God and we are a done or daughter of Christ now the other one is and I don't know if anybody can sing the song and I won't ask you but there's fruits that come with us as we're given a new heart right sometimes you've memorized it sometimes if you if your kids go to the retreats they'll learn it or camp but love is there's fruits of the spirit which come in our righteousness love joy we study those peace long-suffering kindness goodness uh gentleness self-control and i'm not going to sing it for you either although i can but i'm not going to but there's this idea that we we fill with the fruit of the spirit and our righteousness with christ because we've been renewed with him and as we grow closer and closer and understanding our new position that's who we are and we will grow in our depths with him the trees planted beside the water and our fruit will bear fruit i don't know

39:43if you like maymont my youngest daughter eighth grade loves maymont and really for two reasons hampton and aaron hampton and aaron are the bull and the cow and she would spend all day with the cow if she could and she takes you know we spend five bucks to buy all the little pellets and she goes down and she'll pet them. And she loves it. But one of the things we were doing as we went yesterday is we were driving up to Mamar. There was a whole group of people who were out in the center of the road fixing and planting new trees. So there were trees in the center of the islands and they were clearing out all the grass around them and they were putting new dirt and fertilizing and some of them were new and they were tending it and they were growing it. And so as we think about this idea of growth that's what god does in us right he tends to us he grows us he cultivates us he takes out the weeds because he's showing us our sin and he puts fertilizer and he grows us and so there's this growth process that we continue to do that as he shows us the sin he shows us the power of the gospel just as they were doing with the trees and that's what we should pray for pray because as we grow in our knowledge and our discernment we can resist the temptations of this world as we grow as a body of christ others can help us and we can help others as we're one and united in that goal as we grow in the body we understand greater and greater what christ intended for us with a new heart and a new mind and a new vision for who we are to be on this earth

41:16in this church and for this community and so we have a purpose we have a thing if you don't we have a way that god wants us to be and good things he calls us to he who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it he who has called you to a new way of life in ephesians 2 10 it says he has given us good works to do you have purpose to live for him in this group in this church and this community so i put it to you this way as we wrap this up it's praying for the church and to think about this i love it that we're praying for the church but i encourage you to continue to pray for the church this church and the greater church how will we pray where is our heart where's our confidence where do we need to grow and you can look at all those and you go man my heart isn't in the right place or maybe you go wow i i struggle with confidence in christ maybe i have doubts other times where do i need to grow do i only say prayers when i've got airplane moments that are about to crash and so I'm praising something you know praying for God to save me from the catastrophic moment maybe I just struggle to pray for in general but where I can ask you is where do you put your confidence and I want you to remember this as you walk out even as you pray today and as you dwell in this how might I pray that you have a God who will not let you go a Christ who began a good work in you and says I'm going to complete it and I'm going to challenge you and I'm going to want you to grow and so I'm going to continue to touch your heart

42:50and I'm going to continue to show these things to you and I have good things planned for you and that's what Paul's getting at as he encourages the church and he prays for the church and what he sees as best for this church and for our churches as well is how do we pray for him knowing that he is a God who holds us fast and loves us and intercedes for us on our behalf of spirit let's pray god it's challenging i confess prayers can be hard for me at times that i know there are prayer warriors and i'm so thankful for them as i know they have prayed for me throughout the years i can get easily distracted i cannot take time to pray for people i can be quick to grumble i confess that many times i have doubts um father i know that i need to grow and fathers we look at this passage i think that's true for all of us but where we can find hope and grace is in christ all these things are possible and the one who strengthens us the one who encourages us the one who shows us his mercy is not holding account attack every time we got accounting thing where we don't pray so more telling us to lead that i will lead you and i will guide you i will show you you can have confidence because i am good i will show you the heart that i have for you which is a joy and thankfulness that christ has for us as he lavishes goodness over us and i will show you that i will grow you and as we look back over our lives we can see how christ has grown us over and over and over again just as he grows our children father grow us teach us to pray give us hearts of joy that we may abound in your love

44:32that we may have discernment and that we may be united as the body of christ in jesus name Thank you, Father.