Brightly Shining Lights

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One of Ka- Satan's greatest lies is to remind us of our failures, and to tell us that our failures should define us.

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"God can't use you."

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That they don't define us.

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It's not only how we need to see ourselves, but how do we see other people?

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What are we speaking to other people?

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Are we, are we affirming them and saying, you know, "Here's a strength," or are we rind- reminding them of their failure?

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"Oh, God can't use you."

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How important are words?

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We're gonna see Paul address that particular issue.

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We're continuing our study of Philippians, and this morning we're looking at the end of Philippians chapter 2, verses 19 through 30.

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And, uh, we're gonna read it in a moment.

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You're gonna see, it's kinda seems like a, a strange, unusual passage, and

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But it, but what I want you to see is that it, it actually speaks incredible truth.

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I mean, it's talking about a couple of individuals, a couple people, but there's something there that it speaks an incredible relevant truth, and to our lives as well.

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And, uh, okay, here w- here we go.

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I think I

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Here it goes.

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It was a little slow on the computer.

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So let me start.

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If you have your Bible's, let me invite you to turn to Philippians 2, and let's start by reading this.

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Uh, I'll start by reading it d- together with you.

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Philippians 2, starting in verse 19.

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"I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon so that I too may be cheered by news of you, for I have no one like him who is genuinely concerned for your welfare, for they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

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But you know Timothy's worth, how as a son with a father, he ha- he served with me in the Gospel.

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I hope therefore to send him to you just as soon as I ca- as, as I see how it will go with me, and I trust in the Lord that I sh- shortly, I myself will come also.

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I've thought it n- necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, and fellow worker, fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, for he has been longing for you and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.

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Indeed, he was ill, near death, but God had mercy on him, and not only on him, but me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.

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I'm all the more eager to send him, therefore, again, th- uh, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious.

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So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me."

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May God bless the reading of His word.

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Well, when, when you look at that, here's what I wanna ask you.

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Again, how important are words?

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What is this teaching us here?

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Um, when you think about it, our culture understands the importance of affirmation and celebration.

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We understand it with our kids.

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If any of you have young kids

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I mean, what happens at the end of the school year?

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We have an awards assign- you know, as- assembly, and all these kids get the awards, and

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Or if you're playing soft- you know, baseball through the summer, what happens at the end of the season?

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We have an awards thing and everybody gets a trophy, everybody

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You know, we have this recognition.

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We celebrate.

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And it's not just with kids.

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In our workplaces, anything from McDonald's, you've got the employee of the month, to a big organization where it's the salesperson of the month.

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We recognize the importance of celebrating accomplishments.

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So let me ask you, what should we therefore do in the church?

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If we understand the importance of this with our kids, in our businesses, what is God calling us to do?

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Who, who should we celebrate, and, and who should do the celebration?

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Is it just us as staff that we do it, or, or should that be something that's true, is true of all of us?

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You know, a few minutes ago we rode these closing, read these closing verses of chapter two, and Paul celebrates Timothy and Epaphroditus.

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Now, to understand what he's saying here, I want you to see that he's not just dropping these in, in a vacuum.

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It's not just saying, "Well, here's a new thought."

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It's actually a continuation of what Paul has been saying.

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We saw last week in verses 14 and 15 that Paul talked about, he says, "Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, amongst who you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life."

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Now, as we look at verse 19 and following, what we're gonna see is that Paul is modeling the attitude that he's talking about here.

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He's showing us what it looks like to shine as lights in the universe.

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Now, you say, "Okay, wait a second.

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We read that passage where we're talking about Timothy and Epaphroditus."

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You say, "What in the world does Paul's words of affirmation about these 2 young men have to do with not grumbling or disputing?"

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Well, well before I go there, let me step back and, and kind of give you an overview of, of what the Bible teaches about Christian ethics, about biblical ethics.

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S- what's the core principle of, of biblical ethics?

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If somebody were to ask you, you know, "What does the Bible teach?"

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Where, where would you go to kind of the foundational principle of what it means to live as a follower of Christ?

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Many of us might go, "Well, the Ten Commandments."

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Well, that's a good start.

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That, that's r- obviously very, very important, but you know, when Jesus was asked, "What do you think, Jesus, is the core commandment, the core principle of biblical ethics?"

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He didn't go to the Ten Commandments.

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He instead said this.

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"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.

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This is the great, the great and first commandment.

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And the second is like it.

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You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

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And then throughout the New Testament, numerous times we have this call not only to love God, but to love our neighbors, to love one another.

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Now here's what I want you to see.

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Here, Jesus is giving us what I'm gonna call a positive command.

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It's a command of positive action, not simply a command to, to avoid sinful action.

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When we think of the Ten Commandments, it's the "thou shall nots."

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Here's the sins to avoid.

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This is, "You shall do this.

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You shall be this."

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And, and what I want you to see is at the core of the New Testament's teaching about morality, God is calling us to a, a morality, to an ethic, that is defined not primarily by the absence of sinful behavior, but instead by the presence of righteous behavior.

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And this is really important, because if we try to make our, our life about avoiding sinThat doesn't actually accomplish righteousness.

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So for example, if we say, "Okay, the Bible says, 'Thou shall not kill,'" that doesn't make me loving.

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There's a lotta people I hate that I don't kill.

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You know?

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So we understand that, right?

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Now, on the other hand, if I really become loving, I'm not gonna struggle with "Thou shall not kill."

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The positive command overwhelms the negative.

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See, the negative commands are focused on our behavior, on what we do or what we shouldn't do.

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The positive commands are focused even more on our character, not just on what we do, on who God is calling us to be.

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And if we embrace the positive, see, the negative isn't an issue any longer.

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It's an idea that's taught throughout the New Testament, but I, I think most clearly explained in Ephesians chapter 4.

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Let me take you there and show you w- what is taught.

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In, in Ephesians 4:22, Paul says, "Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through its deceitful desires."

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And essentially, he's saying, "Take off," you know, uh, "don't do the negative things."

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That's the negative commands that, the sinful things, don't do them.

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That's the Ten Commandments we often think of.

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But then he continues that, "To be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self created after likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness."

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So it's not only that we're to take off the sin, we're now to put on a new self to, to become like God, to be like him in righteousness and holiness.

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And then Paul illustrates this in numerous areas of life.

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So the next verse, 25, "Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another."

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So he's saying, "Okay, take off, don't do the"

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Th- then the negative command is, "Don't lie."

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Now, the thing is, is can you have someone who doesn't lie who is still deceptive?

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Yeah.

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Now, but he says, "Okay, it's not only that you don't lie, but now I want you to do the positive, speak truthfully."

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Because you know what?

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If we speak truthfully, lying is no longer a concern.

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In verse 26, he says, "Be angry and do not sin.

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Don't let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil."

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Okay, the negative is, "Don't use your anger as an excuse for sinful behavior.

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It doesn't justify you doing the wrong thing.

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Take that off.

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Stop doing that."

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But now the positive is, "Forgive.

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Don't let the sun go down on your anger.

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Resolve your anger."

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Because if you resolve it, you're not gonna have a problem with wrong behavior.

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In verse 29, he goes to speech.

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"Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths."

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Okay, stop saying things that tear other people down, that hurt other people, but instead, "Put on the righteousness, but only such as good for building others up as it fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear."

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If we're building others up, the negative speech isn't a problem.

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So here's what I want you to see, that sh- we, we naturally will focus on the don'ts, thou shall not, the negative commandments.

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But every time we see a "thou shalt not," there's always a, in a sense, an opposite, a positive, the thing that God is calling us to do.

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So let's apply it to our speech in the area that's talk- that Paul is talking about here in, in Philippians 2.

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What are, are these biblical ethics applied to our attitude and our speech?

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Now, again, we saw last week, for those who were with us, in verse 14, Paul gives us the negative command, "Do all things without grumbling and complaining."

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Those are the sins to be avoided.

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Now, what is the righteous attitude and action to be pursued?

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Let me ask you this.

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What is the opposite of grumbling and disputing?

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If that's the sin we're to take off and if there's an opposite positive, what is the opposite?

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What is the positive action and attitude God is calling us to?

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Think about that for a minute.

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I'm, I'm gonna come back to that, but let me just get you dwelling on that.

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Now, if you were here last Sunday, again, we saw in verse 14 that, that we're commanded to "do all things without grumbling or disputing."

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And what we saw is that our grumbling and disputing is always rooted in our selfishness.

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Why do I grumble?

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Because I have expectations.

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I have expectations for somebody else upon myself, and because you don't meet my expectations, you don't do what I expect you to do, I become frustrated, I'm discontent, and I grumble against you.

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It's always rooted in my expectations regarding someone else.

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I expect them to serve me, and when they fail, I complain.

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But if I have the attitude of Jesus as described in the beginning of Philippians 2, if I, my attitude is not being served but being a servant, emptying myself, you see, I'm not gonna grumble.

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Why?

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Because there's a need and instead of, "Well, you've let me down," I'm asking, "Okay, how do I serve you?

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How do I meet those needs?"

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And likewise, even arguing is the same thing.

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When you think about grumbling, grumbling is, "You upset me so behind my, your back I'm going to express my discontent and my frustration."

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Arguing is, "Here, I'm gonna tell you straight to your face.

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I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you how I feel about that."

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So again, if that's what grumbling and arguing is, what is the opposite?

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If, if grumbling and disputing is voicing our frustration with how the other person has failed us, then the opposite of that is voicing our praise and affirmation of what they're doing right.

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It's, it's finding an attitude of celebration and praise.

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Now, it's not that we should ignore all the problems or the weaknesses or, you know, no, because we wanna be realistic about other people, but the question is where is our focus?

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Do we focus on what's right or wrong in life?

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Do we focus on what's right or wrong in the other person?

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Are we celebrating the good or are we, in a sense, celebrating the bad through our grumbling and disputing?

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See, when we're focusing on relationships, are we looking at, at, at what the person has done well, at their strengths and how God is growing them?

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Or are we focusing on where they're frustrating us and letting us down?

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And if we're complaining or arguing, it's always because our mind is on the negative, and what God calls us to do is not only turn that off but to say, "No, focus on the positive.

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Celebrate the good."

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It's the idea that Paul talks about later in Philippians.

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"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things."

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See, if we focus our mind on the thi- those things, the true and honorable and just and pure and praiseworthy, we're vocalizing a celebration of what God is doing and praising them for God, for God's strengths for how God is working in their life.

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And so what we're going to see now as we dive into these pass- these verses in, at the end of Philippians 2, is this is what Paul is modeling.

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So he's trying to teach us, this is what it looks like and say

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Okay, he says, "First of all, let me give you the example of, of praise.

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Look at how I praised Timothy."

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Now, even in this, for some of us, we struggle with this.

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If you aren't doing this and you, and you say, "Okay, well, how do I encourage somebody?

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How do I build somebody up?"

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It's hard to do, but here's what you need to realize.

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Here's what I've realized.

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W- I know for a period of time when I became very negative in my marriage, um, and, and it really was, "Okay, I need to be less critical and, and I need to build my wife up."

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It was hard to do, not because she didn't have strengths, but because my mind was so focused on the negative, I didn't have the ability.

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I had to train myself to focus on the positive.

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Or, or when we do it might at first almost be kind of, um, you know, k- kind of the surface stuff.

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And when we decided this was so important we were gonna teach it to our kids, so we would periodically, actually pretty regularly at the dinner table when they were young say, "Okay, hey, we're gonna do, we're gonna do somebody special," is what we called it.

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And so we're gonna say, "Okay, one person at a time.

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Let's, uh, take the oldest, Tiffany.

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Everybody's gonna go around and say that something that's special about Tiffany."

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And you know what happened with our kids, they didn't know how to do that.

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So they would look at it and they would find the most surface thing.

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"I like Tiffany's shirt."

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You know, "I like her hair," or, "I like"

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You know, it would just be empty things because we didn't know how to look more deeply.

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And what I love here is when we look at what Paul says about Timothy, he doesn't look at the surface.

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He doesn't say, "I like Timothy's shirt."

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No.

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No, what he does is, is when we see the example, he praises his character.

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He looks deeply and says, "Okay, this is what's good about the person.

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This is what's unique about the person."

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Look what he says in verses 19 through 22.

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"I hope in the Lord Jesus Christ to send Timothy to you soon so that I too may be cheered by news of you, for I have no one like him who is generally concerned for your welfare.

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They all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

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But you know Timothy's proven worth and how as a son of a father, he has served with me in the Gospel."

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And again, he's not just saying, you know, "I'm thankful for Tiffany and his willingness or, or Timothy and for his willingness," or, but he celebrates his character.

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You know, the, the, I, "There's no one else like him.

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He really lives out the example of, of, of emptying himself like Christ and giving to other people.

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He devotes himself to your need."

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And when I look at that, boy, that's a challenge to me.

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I- I don't know about you.

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Even when we learn to praise people, it's so easy just to focus on the surface and, and what we see here is Paul inviting us to look more deeply.

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You know, husbands, do you praise the character of your wives?

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Do you praise the character of your kids?

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That's what God is calling us to do.

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I, I love the fact that I have the chance to preach on this passage on this Sunday, on the Sunday that we get to ordain Todd.

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Uh, because when I look at this, I can say that with Paul speaking of Timothy, uh, Todd is a man of proven worth, that he is a man of character that I've gotten to know over these last 3 years, that he's generally concerned for your welfare, that, that

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Man, what a privilege to talk about that and say that's true of this young man.

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And, and it's not only true of Todd.

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I can say that also of, of the other pastors that we have a chance to, that I have a chance to serve with here.

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You know, I'm thankful for Don, I'm thankful for Joseph and for Dave and for these men who are meri- men of character, men who h- because of their giftedness, not only their giftedness but their characterIt enables me to, in a sense, to be able to say, "Okay, I can, I can step away for a month and trust that their service at this church will continue, the church will go well even when I'm gone."

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Man, I'm thankful for men like that.

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We are, we are blessed as a church to have the men of character that we have that are serving here.

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And, um, and I, and I hope you realize that.

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Now, part of what we see is you see this praising of the character, but you also see a s- a personal optimism in the, what Timothy, or Paul says about Timothy.

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And you say, "What do you mean by that?"

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Well, well, here's what I mean.

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You know, we talked about optimism, eh, early in this su- study, and we talk about, uh, I, I am by nature an optimist.

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What is an optimist?

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Well, the, the optimist tends to look at the positive.

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They see the positive about the opportunity, uh, but, you know, they don't see the negative.

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Now, what I love about Paul is he was a personal optimist, meaning when he looked at other people, he focused on the positive.

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It's not that there weren't negatives, but he chose to focus on the positive.

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You know, what's interesting is we know from other passages in the Bible about Timothy, Timothy had, Timothy had some weaknesses.

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I mean, it, 01 point we're talked about that he has problems with his stomach, and a lot of people think that he probably dealt with stress issues, and I can relate to that.

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You know, so it's a weakness I can relate to.

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Or, or, or in, in s- 2 Timothy 1, Paul challenges him to overcome a spirit of fear and timidity.

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'Kay, he needed courage, he needed strength.

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And, and he had weaknesses, here you have Paul, it's not that he didn't have weaknesses, but he's saying, "Let me tell you about his strengths.

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Let me focus on the good."

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It's again, it's the idea that he talked about in Philippians 4:8, "The true and the honorable and just and pure and whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable."

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In all of our lives, there are things that aren't those things.

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But you know what God calls us to be people who focus to, on the things where those things are true, they're good.

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Can we do that with each other?

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Can we learn from this example of Paul?

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Well, it's not only that we see Timothy, then we also have this guy, Epaphroditus.

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And some of us might be thinking, "Well, I've heard of Timothy before.

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Who's Epaphroditus?"

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You know, I didn't know how to read that name and, and, uh, well, let's look what it says.

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If you have your Bible's open, look with me starting in verse 25.

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"I have thought it necessary to send you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and missa- uh, minister to my need.

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For he has been longing for all of you and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.

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Indeed, he was ill, near to death, but God had mercy on him, and not only him, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.

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I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again and that I be, may be less anxious.

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So receive him in the Word with all joy, and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in my service to you."

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Now, if you never heard of this guy, here's, let me give you a little introduction on and what we see of him primarily through this letter.

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Okay.

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When the Philippian church had heard about Paul, his imprisonment, kind of his financial need, kind of where he's struggling, they decided, "Okay, how do we serve him?"

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They collected some money.

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They decided to send a gift, a financial gift to him along with a letter kind of telling Paul where they were as a church, and they sent it with this guy, Epaphroditus.

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And, and when you think about now him going from Philippi, which is here in Greece, over to Rome, that doesn't seem like a long way today, but in that day, I mean, it's, uh, yeah, it's a dangerous journey.

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On the sea, it was a difficult, long, dangerous journey.

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So he goes on this, this difficult journey, not only as a messenger, but then he volunteered to stay with Paul in Rome, he's in prison now, he's limited in anything, so he says, "I'm gonna stay there," kind of as a caregiver for Paul to help take care of his practical needs.

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So what do we know, think about Epaphroditus?

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What do we know about him?

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What did, is it that he did?

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What was his ministry that was worth celebrating in this way?

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And, and what I want you to see is it's teaching us about the importance of celebrating seemingly inconspicuous, inconspicuous m- ugh, I can't say that word.

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Um, seemingly unimportant ministry.

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I might, I should have put it that way.

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Um, what is it?

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You, you know, he's, first of all, a messenger boy.

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He'd been given the responsibility to carry the gift from Philippi to Paul, to carry this letter to Paul.

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Uh, now he's bringing the letter back, so he's a messenger boy.

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And, and then second of all, he was kind of a servant.

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Uh, he'd been sent to encourage Paul, and to be there, and to help meet the practical needs they faced.

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It might be transcribing letters, it might be help fixing dinner, or shopping for him, doing whatever.

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But at first glance, when you look at this, everything that he seemed to do didn't seem to be that important.

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It's in c-

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certainly not worth the kind of celebration that Paul is giving here in a, a big chunk of one of the books of the Bible.

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But let me encourage you that I want you to see, we may not see it as important, but Paul saw it as important.

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And in s-

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his celebration, he's teaching us to see it as important.

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It's significant enough that Paul describes him as a fellow worker, a fellow soldier, "Your messenger and minister to my need."

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And my friends, what we need to realize is that he's teaching us, don't overlook the ins- insconsequential actions and deeds, and things that seem to be not that important.

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Don't fall under the trap of thinking that it's the visible person, the guy that's up here preaching, that, that is the most important.

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No, it's oftentimes the least visible that is the most significant.

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And that's true not only them, it's true for us.

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I believe when the records are open that God is gonna give rewards, and it's often the people that, that serve behind the scenes that he will acknowledge, that he will celebrate, and that even are the most important.

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Let me

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Let me give you a different passage to illustrate this point.

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I'm gonna go back to Exodus.

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In Exodus, it's a story about this, th- this battle that was fought with the Israelites.

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Let me go and read the passage, and then I'll explain it.

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"Then Amalekite and came and fought with Israel at, ev- at Rephidim.

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And Moses said to Joshua, 'Choose for us men and go out and fight with Amalek.

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Tomorrow, I'll stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.' And so Joshua did as Moses told him, and he fought with Amalek while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.

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And whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel i- pr- Israel prevailed.

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And whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.

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But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, the other on the other side.

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So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun, and Joshua overla- overwhelmed Amalek with his people and the sword."

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Now, you read this, and it's a weird story.

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You know, God, you know, says, "Okay, you're gonna fight this battle with these people, these pagan people," and, and he says, "Now I'm gonna bless this."

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But, but for somehow, it was communicated, okay, if you hand

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hold up your hand, Moses, and this holding his hand is the symbol of God's, you know, blessing of, of your efforts, God will bless your efforts.

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And as long as he held up his hands, they were winning.

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And when he got tired, he let 'em down, the, the battle turned against them.

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So what happened is they realized he can't do this, so suddenly, these 2 guys, Aaron and Hur, they s-

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come across him, and they say, "Okay, you know, you sit down, and we're gonna hold up your hands."

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Now, what did they do?

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Think about it from a standpoint if you were there.

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All right?

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So imagine that you're one of the Israelite, you know, s-

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uh, warriors.

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And a warrior comes in after the battle.

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You know, his blood's battered, he's torn, and he's tired, he's dirty.

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And he looks at Aaron and Hur and he says, "Oh, so what were you guys doing here?

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I, I

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You guys didn't fight?"

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"Well, we were, uh, we were supporting Moses."

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"Oh, yeah, looks like you had a, a rough battle there, didn't you?

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You're nice and clean and, and, um, you know, I- I knew that

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We saw Moses up there, and he was holding up his hands, but what did you do?"

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"Well, well, we were helping him."

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"But he's the only one that had to hold up his hands, you know?

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Would've really been nice to have you guys in the fight where we could've used you."

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Now, is what they did important?

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Yeah.

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Yeah, because the battle couldn't be won except Moses hold up his hands, and he lacked the strength to do that.

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Without Aaron and Hur, Moses wouldn't have been able to keep his hands up and the battle would've been lost.

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And it's those who seem to do the least important, least glorious task really made the greatest difference.

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And my friends, that's still true of us today, that oftentimes, it's the, the people that do the least glorious, the least noticeable tasks that make the greatest difference.

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I'll give you an example of something that I so appreciate.

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We have people that during the services will go, and they'll go and they'll pray.

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They'll k-

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you know, kind of go out

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Once a month, they'll go out of the service and they're gonna say, "We're just gonna pray during this service."

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And you know what?

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Those are people, those are people that are holding up my hands.

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Those are people that it's not my strength, it's not my ability.

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I don't have what it is.

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It's

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That's where God is blessing them.

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If you're interested in that, you can talk to Bill Buffington, call the church office.

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I'm thankful for the people that do that.

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Or, you might look at it and say, "Well, okay, well, uh, it's Pastor Mike, and he's doing what's important."

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Well, who's more important?

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I've, I've shared this before.

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The, the guy in the nursery, the greeter, or me?

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Well, I wanna tell you, if you have a brand new, new visitor, first-time visitor, and they go into the nursery and they aren't comfortable with their kids being taken care of, and, and nobody greets them, nobody talks to them, I could have a great message, they're probably not gonna hear it.

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They're gonna spend all their time worrying about their child and nursery.

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But meanwhile, if the child gets in there, has a great time, the person is greeted, they're really welcomed, I could, I could just blow it on the message, and they're still gonna probably come back.

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Who's more important?

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You see, it's the person holding up the hands.

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Or I think about even yesterday and w- what a great opportunity in the tailgating, and doors that were opened up with Joseph and

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or no, on Friday, and, and the opportunities that he has with the high school team.

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And boy, and it's wonderful to see, but there were so many people behind the scenes doing the things to make that happen that were holding up his hands so that he was free to do the ministry that he was doing.And that's what Paul was celebrating about Epaphroditus, this guy that seemingly was doing things that didn't seem that important, but yet he said, "No, he's my brother, and my fellow worker, and my fellow soldier."

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In verse 29, he says, "Honor men such as this."

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And we still should be called to honor people in our church in the same way.

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One other thing I want you, show you about his words here.

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H- he also gives us an example of gracious encouragement.

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Again, look at what Paul says about Epaphroditus.

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He's sending him back to Philippi because he got sick, he almost died.

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And so this guy that was supposed to go to Rome to help take care of Paul got so sick that Paul ends up taking care of him, and he's sending him back because he's not physically able to do the task that he was supposed to do.

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In a sense could seem like he failed, and yet Paul, Paul is building him up and, and calling him a hero of the faith.

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And this is something that I think Paul learned, because what you see is early in his ministry, I don't think he would have seen this.

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The best example early in his ministry is in Acts:13, on his first missionary journey, you have Paul and Barnabas, and they take this young guy named John Mark with them and they get there on the second stop, things get a little rough, John Mark runs back home.

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You know, he just kind of wimps out and he just, he goes back.

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He wasn't ready for the opposition and hardships that they faced.

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Now, a couple years later in Acts:15, Barnabas and, and Paul are ready to go on a second missionary journey, and Barnabas says, "I wanna bring young J- Mark with us.

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I think he's learned, I think he's grown."

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And Paul says, "No, I don't

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hey, this isn't and tour.

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He's fainthearted.

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I don't want him."

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And so they disagreed so strongly that they divided.

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Barnabas takes John Mark, Paul, Paul goes with Silas.

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You know, Paul wrote him off because he said, "There's no li- there's no spiritual potential.

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He failed."

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But Paul was wrong, and he learned that he was wrong.

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John Mark, you may not have heard of him.

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We actually have heard of him.

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He's better known as just Mark, the guy who wrote the second gospel, who most people believe is actually Peter's account of Jesus' life.

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So somehow, he figured it out.

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And in later letters, Paul is repeatedly speaking of Mark and him being somebody that's incredibly valuable to him.

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In fact, at the end of his life in second Timothy:4, he says, "Luke alone is with me.

378

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Get Mark and bring him with me or with you, for he is useful to me in ministry."

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And this guy's important, this guy's valuable.

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At first, he says, "He's a washout," you know, you know, but you know what?

381

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God uses people that have failed.

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God uses people that have struggled.

383

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God uses people that, you know, that, that the world will, will write off.

384

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And what we need to do is we need to be a group of people that celebrates.

385

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You see, one of K- Satan's greatest lies is to remind us of our failures, and to tell us that our failures should define us.

386

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"God can't use you."

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That they don't define us.

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It's not only how we need to see ourselves, but how do we see other people?

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What are we speaking to other people?

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Are we, are we affirming them and saying, you know, "Here's a strength," or are we ri- reminding them of their failure?

391

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"Oh, God can't use you."

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You know, when I think, uh, what I'm reminded of in, in Ro- in Revelation, chapter 12, it says that Satan is the accuser of the brothers, meaning Satan's

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One of Satan's roles is that he goes around and he accuses us or reminds us of our failures, and when we speak words of reminding people of their failure, we're actually doing Satan's work in each other's lives.

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Man, I don't wanna do that.

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But what does the Bible say?

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"No, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

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God forgives.

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God is gracious.

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God uses fall- fallen people.

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We need to tell people, "No, I'm sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ," that God is growing us, that God is doing great things.

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Do you believe that?

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Can you speak that to each other?

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Can we encourage each other that way?

404

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Well, let me just close in a couple of challenges.

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You know, last week, we talked about the negative.

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Do everything without grumbling con- complaining, and, and God calls us to shine as lights by doing all things without grumbling and complaining.

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Our world is so negative that we shine.

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We, we, we stand out just by not grumbling and complaining.

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But God not only calls us to take off the negative, to not do the sinful thing, but also do the positive.

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We shine even more brightly when we're known for our praise, and for our celebration, for our encouragement of others, when we draw out the good, and we celebrate the good, and we celebrate the gro- the growth, and man, I wanna shine that way.

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How's God calling you to do that today?

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I hope and pray that in our lives and then in our community of our church, this is what we're known for, and that as a result, we're a place that shines brightly in the midst of a dark, discouraging, negative world.

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Boy, hopefully we can join each other in that path.