Neighborhood Friends Church
Life today can feel more like a series of dead-ends instead of doorways. The Apostle Paul had many days, weeks, and months that looked like dead-ends. Beatings, shipwrecks, sickness, opposition, and multiple imprisonments. All those situations might have looked like dead-ends to us, but Paul encourages us that what looks like a dead-end is an opportunity for real-life living. In week three of our series in Philippians; Contagious Joy, Pastor Donnie speaks on a passage of Scripture that contains an incredible statement of the Apostle Paul. “For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.” Join us for another challenging and encouraging message of hope for a day in which we need it. #contagiousjoyseries
“Doorways and Dead-ends"
Philippians 1:18-26
Donnie Hinshaw
May 24, 2020
Life today can feel more like a series of dead-ends instead of doorways. The Apostle Paul had many days, weeks, and months that looked like dead-ends. Beatings, shipwrecks, sickness, opposition, and multiple imprisonments. All those situations might have looked like dead-ends to us, but Paul encourages us that what looks like a dead-end is an opportunity for real-life living. In week three of our series in Philippians; Contagious Joy, Pastor Donnie speaks on a passage of Scripture that contains an incredible statement of the Apostle Paul. “For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.” Join us for another challenging and encouraging message of hope for a day in which we need it. #contagiousjoyseries
Philippians 1:18-26 NLT
The Question of Quarantine
How can quarantine be our chains for Christ?
13 For everyone here, including the whole palace guard, knows that I am in chains because of Christ.
Philippians 1:13 (NLT)
QUOTE:
“I remember sitting in his backyard in his garden, one day, and he started talking about God. He [Jobs] said, 'Sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I don’t. I think it’s 50/50, maybe. But ever since I’ve had cancer, I’ve been thinking about it more, and I find myself believing a bit more, maybe it’s that I want to believe in an afterlife, that when you die, it doesn’t just all disappear. The wisdom you’ve accumulated, somehow it lives on.'
Then he paused for a second and said, 'Yea, but sometimes, I think it’s justice an On-Off switch. Click. And you’re gone.” And then he paused again and said, “And that’s why I don’t like putting On-Off switches on Apple devices. Joy to the WORLD! There is an after-life!’"
—Steve Jobs; by Walter Isaacson
STEVE JOBS' trial became a DEEPER PUSUIT
of a DOORWAY TO JOY.
BIG IDEA
Trials either become
DOORWAYS or DEAD-ENDS
in our PURSUIT of JOY.
Philippians 1:18-20 NLT
ENCOURAGEMENT
You get to CHOOSE today,
to LIVE and bring HONOR to CHRIST
"Nero’s decision in Paul’s legal case would be announced soon, . . .he did not know whether his “deliverance” would be temporary, enabling a trip back to the Philippians, or eternal, constituting a trip to his true home in heaven."
"God’s (not Caesar’s) decision was to be announced any day"
—Osborne, Grant R. (2017). Philippians: Verse by Verse (p. 44). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
PAUL’S KNOWS THAT
ULTIMATE DELIVERANCE
is NOT PHYSICAL, IT’S ETERNAL.
“Just because I didn’t answer your prayer, your way, doesn’t mean I didn’t answer your prayer any way. Because of the victory I have given you, there is always only 2 answers to your prayers. Either she was going to be healed, or she was going to be healed. Either she was going to live, or she was going to live. Either she was well taken care of, or she was well taken care of.”
—Jonathan Evans
Philippians 1:21-24 NLT
The reason Paul can look at circumstances and sufferings and not be fearful . .
LIFE and DEATH IS ALWAYS A DOORWAY not a DEAD-END
"When driven from the city, I cared nothing for it. But I said to myself, if the empress wishes to banish me, let her banish me—”the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” If she would saw me in sunder, let her saw me in sunder—I have Isaiah for a pattern. If she would plunge me in the sea—I remember Jonah. If she would thrust me into the fiery furnace—I see the three children enduring that. If she would cast me to wild beasts—I call to mind Daniel in the den of lions. If she would stone me, let her stone me—I have before me, Stephen the protomartyr. If she would take my head from me, let her take it—I have John the Baptist. If she would deprive me of my worldly goods, let her do it—naked came I from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. Paul reminds me, that if I still work to please men, I would cease to please the Lord."
—John Crysostom—
James 4:14 NLT
Philippians 1:25 NLT
"If you aren’t subject to the sufferings of this life,
You can’t be a voice of hope to people who are suffering."
"To LIVE is to see others LIVE in Christ."
APPLICATION:
TAKE HOME TRUTH #1
Life is FRUITFUL WORK
Philippians 1:21-23
22 But if I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ. So I really don’t know which is better.
Philippians 1:22 (NLT)
To LIVE IS CHRIST is to live IN THIS TENSION of working for the glory of CHRIST.
“Delight without discipline eventually, innevitably dissipates. It runs out of steam. But when delight and discipline learn to dance, the relationships thrive.”
—Pete Grieg, How To Pray
APPLICATION:
TAKE HOME TRUTH #2
LIFE is best LIVED for the JOY of OTHERS
Philippians 1:24
24 But for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live.
Philippians 1:24 (NLT)
He is NOT DRIVEN BY SELF-PRESERVATION
but by LOVE and the JOY OF OTHERS.
APPLICATION:
TAKE HOME TRUTH #3
LIFE is best LIVED with a MINDSET TO SEE OTHERS GROW IN JOY
Philippians 1:25
25 Knowing this, I am convinced that I will remain alive so I can continue to help all of you grow and experience the joy of your faith.
Philippians 1:25 (NLT)
"Joy isn’t waiting for you.
Joy is working through you.
Joy is not what’s in the next room.
Joy is the door into the next room.
Joy is your strength and path of progress."