What's Goin On?

Okay, I'm going to dive into our text today. We're going to be in Paul's letter to the Philippians. This is This is your a A+ crew over here. Rest you, we've been this is our third week in Philippians and I'm excited about it.

Man, wasn't last week such a a timely text that we got to go through. I was just returning to regularly scheduled programming and the Lord said something that was really specific to what a lot of people in the room were going through. And as I got to Monday and continued to prep my message for this week, it it didn't really get much less chaotic in the news cycles. I don't know if y'all noticed, there's just a lot of stuff going on.

And um as you know, I've been I've been just for funsies like picking song titles uh for sermon titles. And so this week's message title is called What's Going On? How many of y'all know that song? I had I had to help my old people out today.

Hey, who sang that song? Marvin Gay. I could have chose another one, but I chose this one. Anyways, no one gets the joke.

Do you get the joke? The I mean, let's get this sermon going. For those of you who know, if you know, you know. If you don't, you're young probably and would prefer me to pick an Ariana Grande song, which technically I did last week, but y'all didn't know about it.

Anyways, moving forward, we're going to be in Philippians chapter 1. We're going to begin in verse 27. And uh just to catch you up really briefly on the context, Paul is writing himself a little love letter to the Philippian church because the Philippian church has been good to Paul and to the Philippian church. Paul has been good to them.

He's preached the gospel. He's been encouraging to them. Without him, they would have still been attending synagogue or that prayer meeting uh in Philippi. and they wouldn't have gotten what they'd received in Christ Jesus.

And they got that because Paul preached that message. Paul has a distinct connection with the Philippian church. And as he's writing to them, they're concerned. They're stressed out because Paul's in prison.

And you know how it goes in Roman prisons. Not well. And they're assuming probably that Paul is going to lose his life at the end of his prison sentence. And so they write a letter.

They send him an offering through this person, Apapraditis. Apaproditis almost dies in Root. And Paul's encouraging them. He says, 'Hey, Apaproditis is fine and well.

He's with me and he's trying to tell them what has happened to me is not a bad thing. It's actually serving to the advancement of the gospel. And what I hope to communicate to you last week was that what happened to you can serve for the advancement of God's purposes here in the world. But many of us, we stifle the will of God because of our own emotions and frustrations.

I talked about that last week and I want to dive further into that concept today with the topic of what is going on. I think there is a reason that we struggle to assimilate to God's will in our lives. And one of those is just it has to do with how we interact. Look at your neighbor.

Tell them what's going on. I could do this in 10 different ways. Look at your other neighbor. What's going on?

You might have been looking at a person who has yet to sign up to serve and God's calling them to serve and you know it and they know it and you looked at it and said, "What's going on? " You might have looked at somebody who's been posting a little bit too much on Facebook this week in a specific paradigm of the entirety of the United States. And uh whether they're on one side or another, they're saying something without the big view in mind. You looked at them uh you didn't know that they posted, but they knew what they said that they shouldn't have said on that Facebook or Instagram post and you're like, "What's going on?

" And we look at the world, all of us, whether we did something special or not special this week, we look at the world and we're like, what's going on? What is going on? I'm looking in Phoenix. We have a unique distinction this week is the only city to have to deal with a once in a-lifetime type event where hundreds of thousands of people have decided, let me go to this instead of this.

I'm not I'm not judging. We got a lot of people. Here's what I told them. I want you to know I have a good posture toward people who decided to go to the funeral.

I said, "Wear your orbit shirt. " There's going to be a lot of people who are there who don't go to church. The gospel, I believe, based on what I'm seeing, is going to be preached by somebody. I I heard Brandon Lake was there.

I heard Bill Wickham was there. I heard Chris Tomlin was there. But you guys showed up here today. Amen.

Somebody Jesus is there. We know he's here. And so I'm excited about what we can accomplish. But I told I told them, "Wear your shirts.

" And earlier in the week though, I'm just I'm looking someone, if you're here, I love you. You're probably not here. You're probably at that funeral right now because of what you said to me on my way out of Overe. Um I was the egg place.

The the Yeah, the breakfast place. I want y'all to think it's some like overe it's a breakfast place. And and so I'm on my way out and there's a person who's attended a few times. They've sent us some Facebook interactions a few times and they said, "What's going on, pastor?

" I said, "Not much, man. " He said, "You going to that funeral? " I said, "Uh, got church. " He said, "You sent everybody there.

" And I'm like, "What is going on? " And it's stressing me out. And and I think it all is rooted in our posture toward God and toward one another. And let's dive into this text.

He says in verse 27, he said, "Whatever happens," say it out loud. say whatever. Whatever. He didn't say if it's good stuff or bad stuff or neutral stuff or surprising stuff or like normal stuff.

He said whatever happens. Don't matter if you got a good excuse for it. Doesn't matter if you were emotionally impacted and you're struggling to be stable right now. It it doesn't matter whether it shouldn't have happened to you and it should have happened to somebody else.

It doesn't matter whether it should have happened for you or it should have it and shouldn't have happened for somebody else. Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This actually is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved and that by God.

He says, he says, "You not being frightened is a sign to them that they're going to be destroyed and you're not. " It's an interesting phrase. Verse 29, "For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to, y'all say this with me, suffer for him. " I have a lovehate relationship with suffering.

We'll get back to that. Since you are going through the same struggle you saw that I had and now hear that I still have. Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by you yourselves being likeminded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of others. I'll tell you what's going on. what's going on in the world and what's probably happening in a huge bulk of your life at your house, at your workplace, what's going on is whether you're a Christian or not that most of us cater to our own needs, preferences, and desires before we cater to the needs of others. That's that's what's going on.

Like, why why did the people last week leave church? This was crazy to me waking up Monday morning. Why did some people leave the church and say, "If they didn't say this specific thing about Charlie Kirk, you should leave that church. " And yet at another church, another person said, "If they spoke on Charlie Kirk at all, you need to leave that church.

" Why y'all putting your pastors in that position? Goodness gracious, it was stressful. I think I yelled at somebody last week because I was so stressed about walking that fine line saying it. I think the Lord was good.

I think based on a lot of your commentary. Uh it was it was a very productive conversation that we had last week. And so I'm grateful to the Lord for hopefully I don't know maybe you left and I didn't know about it. Maybe some of the people who told me this week they didn't feel called to be a part of our church felt the same way.

I don't know. Um but why would that what's going on is your preferences, your echo chambers, your thought process that you're unwilling to shift in lie of somebody else's thought process. What happened last week was that people were so consumed in their own thoughts that they were unable and or unwilling to consider somebody else's thought process. And what we have to be as a church is better than that.

We have to be a group of people who are willing, God's willing to, in order for somebody else to know Jesus at a deeper level, in order to have a friendship with someone who might be a little bit different than me, who might look, act, or think differently than me, I have to be willing to put my preferences aside and empathize. It's what's going on is your preferences. What's going on is how you were raised and your refusal to think differently now that you've got a fully abstract thought process, a prefrontal cortex, and the ability to reason. If you're or some of you, some of you, if you're under 27, technically you've got an excuse.

But if you're 27, your brain's fully formed, and there's no reason for you to continue to live in an echo chamber, a silo that keeps you from fellowshipping and interacting with the entirety of God's people. What's going on is Paul says it we're fearful and selfish. And so what I want to do is I want to break down a couple things that are going on in this passage. And hopefully I'll give you a few practical items that you can leave with.

Some of it might not feel as practical as you want it to. Hear me correctly. Um it can be practical, but some of it seems like something you've heard before, like the first point I'm about to give you. It's going to sound familiar, but I'm going to ask that you lean in and see what God might teach you that is more nuanced than you've heard before.

So, let me give you my first point. You got to have a gospel first mentality. Like, if what's going on is we're thinking about ourselves first. Paul tells us here in verse 27, he says, "Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the go.

" You got to have a gospel first mentality. Now, this can work in the like in the minutia of your life. A gospel first mentality. Uh you might say it out loud because they say when you say things out loud that you remember it better.

Say gospel first. Gospel first. Now, if you don't know what the gospel is, maybe it's your first time. Maybe you've never been to church before.

Maybe you've never opened your Bible. The gospel comes from the Greek word yuangon, which means good news. The good news, the gospel is that Jesus equal with God did not consider it robbery to be considered equal with God. He humbled himself to the point of death on a cross so that you and I might not be bound by our sin, sent forever into separation from God that we call hell.

No, because of Jesus and his death on the cross and resurrection from the grave, we can have an abundant life. And all we have to do is confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead. The good news is that though we're all screw-ups in our own way, Jesus was perfect and he completed the task set before him by his father. And since he completed it and since he rose from the grave and is seated at the right hand of the father, we're covered in spite of our sin.

Amen. I'm excited about it. We're covered by the blood of Jesus. That's the good news.

That's the gospel. And I got to remember that because the gospel helps me in the way that I perceive God. And the gospel also helps me in the way that I perceive and interact with others. When I recognize that Jesus died for me, I didn't do anything special.

Then when I look at somebody else who's who's being frustrating, it changes my perspective toward them. Right? When I look at someone who doesn't know what they're doing, and then I remember I didn't know what I was doing and that the only reason I'm where I'm at now standing on this stage is because of the goodness of God. When you remember that, it changes the way that you perceive others, even when they're being crazy.

Sometimes as a pastor, I struggle when people get crazy. I get mad when people get crazy. They get they get crazy in front of me and they get crazy on Instagram and social media and Facebook and they get crazy in politics, too. It's like sometimes I look at these politicians that you people voted in.

I voted too, you know, so that we voted in and I'm like, yo, how how'd they get there? Like this is crazy. I guess someone had to get there. They the ones who they're resilient, I guess.

Um and and and I look at all that and I can be judgy, but but I got to have a gospel first mentality. A gospel first mentality says before I make any hard and fast decisions, before I move into an interaction, I'm going to pause. Hey, tell yourself, tell yourself, take a deep breath and pause. And and and you know, I'm not necessarily talking to your interactions with your co-workers.

I'm probably talking to you and your spouse. Gospel first. Gospel first. When they told me to take out the trash for the fifth time in 30 seconds, I listened to him the first time, but I didn't say something.

So, they felt they had to say it four more times. Gospel first. Jesus died for me so I can take out the trash without complaining to my spouse about her complaining to me about taking out the trash. I can do it.

Oh, man. When my kids, they heard me the first time because they said yes, sir. when I told him to stop yelling or running around the house or messing with the dog or let the dog bite them or let the dog jump on the couch and he's going to give me rips in my couch and I told him the first time, but then I see it happening again. What am I going to say?

Gospel first. When my spouse did something I never anticipated that they would do and now I'm sitting here in front of them and I have all the justification in the world to treat them like trash. And you remember gospel first because we treated him with hostility yet he still died for us on the cross. When my wife or my husband or your husband my wife or your husband does something I totally ruined my serious point.

I just wanted y'all to make sure. Just wanted to make sure y'all knew. Goodness gracious. But when you when you have all the justification in the world to treat them horribly according to the world, I got to remember gospel first.

Because even if they knew what they did and that it would hurt me, the reason they did it was because of the stain of sin in all of us that still pervades sometimes. And so when I choose gospel first, I'm saying if I was hostile to him and he died for me, then she can be hostile to me and I'll die to her for her. I'll die to myself for her. And I know it's hard when that person comments on your Facebook post that was just you were just speaking your thoughts.

They didn't have to say what they said. It's easy to just get into an argument because don't you see how I'm right? But regardless of right, regardless of wrong, gospel first. I got I got to have a gospel first mentality with my spouse, with my kids, with my co-workers.

I've got I I've got to have a gospel first mentality. What did Jesus do when they were hitting him with rods, flogging him? Said, "Not a word. " What What did Paul do when they shoved him in prison?

He said, "Whatever happens, I'm going to conduct myself worthy of the gospel that I'm proclaiming. " I mean, don't you understand that when we don't consider conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel, the good news of Jesus that we're proclaiming, the rest of the world looks at us and they think, "What's going on with you guys? " You say, "We got a problem. " I think you got a problem because what you're saying isn't matching how you're acting right now.

There's no reason you should be emotionally engaged at this level when you say that you believe a person died 2,000 years ago, rose from the grave, and you have life abundantly. Why would you be living in such fear, insecurity, and preference if you believe that gospel first? Look at your neighbor again. Tell them you got to put the gospel first.

You got to put the gospel first. Number two, we got to have a one spirit mentality. And you might be thinking, I can have one spirit with the church because we have one gospel. I agree with you.

If you put the gospel first, it's going to enable you to have certain conversations. My wife and I, we have a rule. I don't know why I'm coughing. We have a rule.

Well, we used to have a rule. As we gotten older, we've shifted it. Hannah, wherever you are, we need to go back to this rule, both of us. Um, in our first year of marriage, we were really spiritual, I guess.

And what we would do is when we were arguing, we'd pause and we'd say gospel first, Jesus first, good news first. We would say some variation of that. And what that did was it signified kind of our safe word in an argument. It's like, you got to pause, take a deep breath, think about the gospel.

And when you think about the gospel, it becomes increasingly impossible to be a dummy in that conversation. Does that make sense to you? Some of you, you would save yourself a whole lot of hurt if you would just pause and put the gospel first. And what God wants us to have when we've rooted our lives on the gospel of Jesus is he wants us to have the same spirit.

Now, he's talking in two ways. There's the Holy Spirit, right? The the numa, the Holy Spirit that comes into us who follow Jesus and it convicts us. It compels us toward greater faithfulness.

If we share that same spirit in all of us and we think about the gospel, the spirit enables us to think about the gospel. It convicts us of us and our wrongdoing. And so when we're in conversations, we're able to share in that reality. But it's also talking about just in general.

We need to share in a posture, a mindset, a perspective, a spirit. And it's that spirit that we need to share because when we go out into the world, we don't want to have a conflicted spirit. We don't want to be confusing people that we're trying to connect with. We need to have one spirit.

He says in the second portion of verse one or verse 27 of chapter 1, he says, "Then whether I come to see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, striving together as for the faith of the gospel. " What he's essentially saying is he's assuming a reality, but I'm assuming the opposite of what Paul's assuming. Like, I don't think it's the reality that we as the church stand together firm in one spirit. He believes this about the Philippian church, but I struggle to believe it about our church.

Why? Not because I'm just a negative Nancy. We talked about Debbie Down. I should have done that one last week.

Talk about Debbie Downers and negative Nancy's last week. Don't want to talk. I'm not that. But I just look and I see reality.

in reality is that there's a bunch of people who would prefer to talk mess about right or left than they would stand firm in one spirit under the banner of the gospel of Jesus. You would rather talk mess about the other side. And I get it. There are thought processes that are radically different.

There's sin on another side that frustrates you and you feel like you need to call it out. There is a time and a place to call it out. But if you do it outside of under the banner of Jesus and if you do it with a completely conflicted spirit, you're not going to get the results you're looking for. Paul wants us to strive forward together.

What does that mean? It means we need to find a center. I don't know. I'm talking too quick.

It means we need to find a center. The center is the gospel. So we need to be of one spirit. He says this in chapter 2 verse one.

He says, "Therefore, if you have any encouragement for being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being likeminded, having the same love, being one in spirit and in one mind. " Now, when repetition happens in scripture, it is significant. So, I want to just draw attention to it. In that verse right there, he says, "Being likeminded, same love, one in spirit, and of one mind.

" I learned when I was in I did a whole Philippians class in Greek. And in Greek, the way you would translate is think the same way that they are thinking. Be of the same mind, same spirit. Think this way about yourselves, the same way that Jesus thought about himself.

Think this way about yourselves. be united in one spirit. Paul's trying to communicate with tons of repu rep repetition, not on a text message, not on a computer, not on a typewriter, but on papyrus that took him time to get together, that took him money to afford. He had to have an emanuencis or a deliverer.

And he's going to send Apaproditis back. If he wrote it, he's trying to communicate something. He could have just said, "Think the same way. " But he said, "Be of one spirit.

Be likeminded. Be of one mind. Have the same love. " He's legitimately telling them that in the things that matter, you got to be the same.

Now, what I'm not saying is we need to have a homogeneous group of people in the church who all look the same. In fact, this is the craziness of the gospel is that the gospel says there's ne neither therefore Jew nor Greek. He's saying that he wants a diverse population of people who look, act, and think differently to come under the banner of Jesus, have a gospel first mentality and say when it comes to the things that matter, we're going to agree. But I don't like agreeing with my wife half the time.

Neither do you. Don't laugh at me. You can laugh. It's funny.

Yeah. But you don't either. Like you don't like you don't like agree. Half of us, we can't get our stuff together enough to be emotionally regulated when our kids acting a fool.

And I want to look at you and be like, "It's a kid. I'm sorry. Let me look at me like it's just my kid. Chill out.

" We We've got to get to this place where we can sidestep our emotions a little bit. where we can sidestep our preferences, where we can sidestep our silos and get to the place why get I mean goodness gracious I need to get rid of so much stuff that's a preference so that I can get to the few things that really matter. Some people are like I want to go to this church because of worship. That's not likeminded.

That's a different style. Some people say I like this preaching better than another. And I get it. I'm not telling you you shouldn't choose based on one.

You might have left the church to come here cuz you like our style. I love you. I want you to stay here. But that's not what Paul's saying.

He's not saying go to a place where it's homogeneous enough that you look like the people and now you're comfortable with them because they sing the way that you do, they look the way that you do. They live in similar households and they got similar age kids. That's not what Paul is talking about. And we have chosen our churches based on preferences.

We choose our conversations based on our preferences. is. And what Paul's saying is at the root level, you got to have something that you connect with each other on. And I'm telling you, it might be very little and it's really hard.

I called up a friend this last week and try to get in one spirit. You know, I I called up a friend and he's um he's radically different than me in just about every demographic area and has different views on things, yet he's a pastor. Um and so I called him up. We agree on this, but in my conversation with him, we radically disagree on some of the most fundamental items.

And I I felt this within my like bones when I'm chatting with him. And I'm sure he felt the same way when he was talking to me. Like I felt such a stark disconnect with what this person was saying that something came into my like I I don't want to say spirit because we're we're aligned on the spirit, but it was like he's got to be in like wrong. And you could you could take that deeper because I've heard people who like, yeah, there's no way that person could be a Christian.

And and there may be some people who claim Christ that aren't Christians. There definitely are. Um but I know this person loves Jesus beyond the shadow of a doubt with all of his heart. And I'm thinking it's such a fundamentally different place than he is.

And what do I have to do in that moment? In order to be of one spirit with the person I know shares the Holy Spirit, I I have to say, you know what, maybe there's something that that I'm missing that I have not explored yet. And I can go further into that conversation and explore it with empathy. Or I can say, this doesn't matter enough for me to have this conversation because the spirit of God is in both of us.

And we're called to do something more important than agree politically or to or to agree on some other areas. Like there's some tensions in your in your household that are so difficult to manage that if you're ever going to move forward, you've just got to either fix it or figure out how to make it not important in your relationship. They're just some things. Why?

Because I'm not I'm not called to be the same, but I am called to have the same spirit, the same love, the same mind of Christ. One spirit mentality, I'm willing to sacrifice all my preferences so that I can be connected with my brother in Christ. The next one, you got to have a no fear mentality. I was talking to somebody earlier and like they felt something in their spirit that they needed to do.

And um they was like, "I don't know that I want to do it. " And I'm convinced that a lot of people like you ask them to pray or something like that and they're like, "I can't do it. " And I'm like, "Yeah, you can. Absolutely you can.

" And every time every time I've invited someone to pray and they're scared to do it, then they pray and I'm like, "Yo, this was really good. We're gonna have you pray more often because the other people and No, I'm just kidding. They just kidding. But like like there was fear preventing them from diving in last week.

I was scared to post. I was scared to preach. I was scared to I was scared to talk with my friends. I I was scared to to come up here and in front of you because I didn't know who was going to leave.

If I didn't say like literally the phrase Charlie Kirk uh died defending the gospel. Like if I didn't say that specifically, there were people leaving churches. And if I said his name specifically, there were people leaving churches. I was scared to death.

But the the spirit hasn't the Lord hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. Paul actually says here in verse 28, he says to the Philippian church, I want you to I want you to live without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. And he says, "This is going to be the sign that they're going to be destroyed, but that you will be saved. " And that sounds harsh, doesn't it?

because I don't want to walk around with a big billboard on my forehead that says you're going to be destroyed and I'm going to be saved. I mean, that's what he says here. But what is he saying? He's saying you want to live in such stark contrast to the rest of the world with your confidence in contrast to their fear that when they look at you and they see your confidence, they're going to be like, "What's going on?

I need some of that. " Have you ever looked at people who are so confident in their faith that that you're like, I I need some of whatever they got that that's it's the no fear mentality. And I it's not going to be an immediate shift for you. Um but every step that you take shifts it a little bit.

So me standing up here and not just completely avoiding it, which would have been the easier route, um I addressed it, but tried to address it in a way that empathized with people who didn't connect. Um but also empathize with people who are really going through it. That's hard. Wise as serpents and innocent as doves is what Jesus calls his disciples to.

So I I I had to go in boldly without fear and figure it out. What's a step you could take? Some of y'all next week, you need to sign up to serve in kids. Some of y'all say, "I play an instrument, but I'm scared to step on stage.

" What is your next step? Time to join a group. Maybe some of y'all are scared about what's going to happen when you trust God financially and you've yet to take that first step. But I promise you this, when you start taking that first step, God will reveal himself to you and eventually it's going to be normal for you to look crazy confident to other people.

Like I I just specifically when it comes to giving, like I walk around like so pompously when it comes to giving. Not because I give a lot. Like if you were to put me on a leaderboard, like I don't know where I'd land. I do here, but whatever.

Anyway, if you were to put me on a leaderboard, I would not be a top giver or anything like that. I am simply faithful to God and what he's called me to and what he's given me. I'm just faithful to him, right? And I've gotten to the point where it used to be scary and now I'm in this place where someone's like, "Is that giving thing?

Like, does God really produce? " I'm like, "Hundred% he produces. " I'm so confident in what God will do there that I'm not scared to have some of those conversations with people. And people are like, "Yeah, that's normal for you.

" And I'm like, "It's not it it is now, but it wasn't normal for me. It's years and years and years of continually taking steps and saying, "I feel fear, but I'm not going to be fearful because what God called me to, he's going to see me through. " The next one, there's a sufferer well mentality. Suffer well mentality.

For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him. Since you were now going through the same struggle you saw I had and now here that I still have, you got to suffer well. Whenever you encounter something difficult, there's a flesh response, but then there's a response that's rooted in your understanding of the gospel of Jesus. In fact, it's interesting because I'm not asking for this, but sometimes it's easier to respond in the spirit when he gives me an opportunity to suffer for his name's sake.

Um, I don't want more suffering, but my theology for it recognizes that, um, he gives me an opportunity for endurance. And when I endure and endure and endure, James says that it'll have an effect, um, that I'll be more perfect, more complete, and I'll lack nothing. So suffering well is not caving into the pressure. It's bearing up under the pressure.

Why? Not because you can bear it, but because you know who holds you in the palm of his hand. I can suffer well because God holds me. I can suffer well because I saw what happened with his son.

The last one, you have to have a self second mentality. I I feel like I'm speaking out of both sides of my mouth sometimes to have a a self-sec mentality. Um, like on one side I'll say you got to put your own breathing mask on first otherwise you're not going to be helpful for somebody which has opened up a culture for you know self-help and mental health days and all that other stuff. There's nothing inherently wrong with putting your own breathing mask on.

I think it's a thing that our culture has overcorrected too that it it was really necessary when we started to correct it. At the same time the way God calls us to live is not to consider ourselves more important. Though we may take time to care for ourselves, he tells us to think of our neighbor. He says, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

Rather, in humility, value others above yourself, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of the others. " And it's interesting because we're all hedonists. A hedonist is someone who pursues their own pleasure and happiness. We're all hedenists.

Like even when I trusted in God, I did because I want to get to heaven. Let's go. That's why initially initially it really clicked when I realized what Jesus did for me. And now I I have a gospel first mentality.

But a lot of us step in because it is better for us. Like even the way I'll preach different components is it's better for you if you serve, better for you if you give, better for you if you join a group, better for you if you're in biblical community, better for you if you do what the Bible says. It it is better for you. But what's crazy is as you pursue Jesus, he transforms you from the inside out.

And when Jesus transforms you, he gets you to the place where it becomes natural to think of others before yourself. Why? Because when you pursue God, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. He adds everything that you need.

And when you have all that you need, you got nothing to worry about. And when you have nothing to worry about, you're not constantly being hedonistic because you got all your pleasures at hand. And so then naturally you're able to face the other and consider their needs. And many of us aren't in that place in our walk with God to where we consider others first.

Or some of you you're in this place where you don't have a walk with God, but you do consider others as more important than yourself. And that's a that's a different ballgame to handle. My point is that as we follow Jesus, he helps us understand that we are not the most important thing in all of existence. He is.

And then he says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. " But Jesus through Paul here takes it further. He says, "Love them more. Think of them before you think of yourself.

" And I gave you a couple points. My hope was that it would be pragmatic. Gospel first, one spirit, no fear, suffer well, and have yourself in second place. And I I think you can take those into your week.

But what I want to do now is I I want to encourage anyone in this room who maybe isn't living this way. Maybe hears this message and you're like, "What's the point of the gospel first mentality? What's the point in getting along with everybody else? What's the point in all of this?

" Well, for those of you who are believers, the point is that Christ is proclaimed, not your preferences. For those of you who don't have a relationship with Christ Jesus, I want you to know this that the reason we bind together in unity is rooted in the fact that we believe that Jesus physically came, physically died, and physically rose from the grave. We're crazy. And we believe that.

We believe he's seated at the right hand of the father. That he deposited his holy spirit into us. that his Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and he seals us for this day that we get to walk with God in all of eternity. We believe that a gospel focus is good for our souls and it simply pragmatically tells us to live for other people as well.

We have one spirit because he deposited his spirit. So for those of you in this room who have never trusted in Jesus, I want to give you that opportunity right now. Um, so if everybody would bow their heads, close their eyes. We're going to pray this prayer out loud together for the benefit of those praying it for the first time.

Repeat after me. Say, "God, I believe God, I believe that Jesus is your son. Jesus is your son. I believe he died.

And rose and rose. God, forgive me of my sin. God, forgive me of my s. Make me new.

Make me new. And I will follow you. I will follow you. For the rest of my life.

And let me add that I'll put others first. It's in Jesus name that we pray and God's people said, "Amen. " If that was you, shoot up your hand real quick. We're going to celebrate.

Come on, let's celebrate.