Good morning, everyone. It's a privilege and a pleasure to be with you this morning. And our topic, our theme, we'll be dealing with the question, should there be instant replay in Major League Baseball? Yes. No, no, we'll actually, we'll talk about Jesus some here this morning, just a bit. I, Mike Rasmussen, I'm a PCA pastor ordained in the mid-80s, planted two PCA churches, been around the barn. Love to come out and preach. I teach Old Testament, Hebrew and Old Testament, at the seminary formerly known as Westminster's Texas campus. About 12 years ago, Park City's church, as part of the network that this church is a part of, I think, asked Westminster to start teaching courses here. And then a couple years ago, we became an independent institution, Redeemer. Theological Seminary. So greetings from your friendly local PCA-oriented seminary, Redeemer Theological Seminary. When we had to rename it, I had a better name. I thought that we should call it Big Mike's Theological Seminary, because it's got all the bases covered. It's scholarly, humble. I'm obviously at 51% full of baloney. Married to a wonderful godly lady named Renata, who has been renewing my lease for 31 years now, and two adult sons, 26 and 28. And so I'm just very, very happy to be with you this morning. And you can open your Bible. I'm going to be reading my own translation, which brings out a few things. But you can open your Bible to Philippians chapter 1. We're going to look at verses 1 through 11. Have you ever felt like the people around you maybe aren't as supportive as they should be. Have you ever sensed that the folks you associate with maybe haven't got your back as much as you wish they did? In A.D. 429, in Antioch, Syria, a monk by the name of Simeon Stilates climbed atop a stone pillar and remained there for thirty-one years until his death. I wonder why. I mean, why did he do that? Maybe he had just listened to B.B. King's song, Ain't Nobody Loves Me But My Mama, and she may be jiving me. Simeon Stilates had just eaten Chinese food that day, and his fortune cookie read, you appeal to a small select group of confused people. Maybe the local license plate motto in that area of Syria was, you've got a friend in Antioch, and maybe Simeon had just seen a bumper sticker that said, not you. Or maybe, maybe Simeon Stilates had figured out how most people think about other people. And then maybe he decided that the best thing he could do would be to affect his escape from the surface of the earth. Have you ever felt isolated? Like there's too much arguing, too much disagreement, too much disconcertation, if that's a word, and not enough love and support flowing? The main idea this morning is that when it comes to bringing folks together, to repairing breaches, to resolving difficulties, fixing hurts, the one thing that you and I cannot do without on all fronts, business, family, church, etc., is a prior history of affirmation, a prior history of affirming words and thoughts, our own track record of affirming thoughts and words. This is the way God treats us through his Son, Jesus Christ. The Gospel is God's affirming ideas and actions given in advance to folks who don't deserve it. The Bible passage that we're looking at, as I said, is Philippians 1. And I need to give you two pieces of background information before I read this for you. And the first is historical background. Philippians is an often misunderstood little letter of four chapters. A little bit of background from the letter itself and from the travel log of Paul's life that we get in the Book of Acts. Around AD 60, the Apostle Paul was in house arrest, probably in Rome. And a man an envoy from the first Christian church on the European continent, the first Europeans to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in this great city of Philippi. This envoy named Epaphroditus came with a care package for Paul. And while Paul was opening this care package, which contained Snickers bars, Slim Jims, Cheez Whiz. Shall I go on? Actually, it was cash. Always a practical gift fits in small containers. Paul asked Epaphroditus, tell me, how is it going with the Christians in Philippi? Epaphroditus replied, well, in general, fairly well. They're not like the Galatians. who have come within a gnat's eyelash of trading the Christian faith for a brand of first century Israelite nationalism and they're not like the Colossians who are creating an admixture between a simple faith in Jesus and some sort of speculative philosophy and they're not like the Corinthians who just for starters have turned the Lord's Supper into a brewery tour So, in general, things are going fairly well. However, Epaphroditus said, they're not very nice to each other. They take a dim view of circumstances and of one another. They can find the dark cloud in any silver lining. In fact, Epaphroditus said, there are two women in the church whose conflict has become notorious. The feud between these two women, Epaphroditus said, actually characterizes the whole lot of them. So these folks, and frankly Paul, these folks aren't even sure that you like them anymore. Paul said, really? Epaphroditus said, yeah. So based on this feedback from Epaphroditus, the envoy The Apostle Paul penned this letter in which he sets them straight. In this letter, to wrap your brain or bottom line of Philippians, it's important to see that the Greek terms that are used, that Paul uses to set straight the two feuding females, warring women, girls de guerre, the Greek terms that he uses to help them are the same Greek terms with which he addresses the entire congregation in chapter 2. So, many folks who read their Bibles a fair amount, we tend to view Philippians as a treatise on joy, which it is, but it can be better understood as a treatise on removing barriers to joy, or fixing a lack of joy. Okay, linguistic background, and then we will actually read the Bible in this sermon. a very important linguistic background in an often misunderstood letter. Southern English, my dear bride born and raised in Atlanta, Southern English has an advantage over its Western and Northeastern counterparts in that Southern English distinguishes between you singular and y'all. And that's very, very important. When I was about 15, 14, we moved from L.A. to Atlanta, and a young lady named Bobbie Baker took it upon herself to show me around the campus. Well, she was born and raised in this, Mike, here's the library, this is where your locker is, Mike, here's the gymnasium, and so on and so forth. And one time, trying to fit in to my new cultural surroundings, I made a linguistic mistake of talking just to Bobbie and saying, y'all, Which is plural. She said, and she immediately corrected me, she said, no, Mack, y'all is plural. Y'all can only be correctly used with reference to a group. So, Southern English has the advantage of drawing a distinction between you and y'all, as does Greek. And all of the you's in our passage today are y'alls. They are, and I'm not trying to belittle or make fun of the Holy Word of God, which we're here to learn from, but we need to read it as a corporate address rather than as an individual address, so I'm trying to bring that out. So, let me ask you, how would you begin a letter to some people you deeply care about who hold accurate Christian doctrine, they're not running off the ranch, as far as their belief system, but they're behaving like a cross between a pit bull and a Labrador retriever. What do you get when you cross them? I'll let you know. How do you begin? Well, here's where Paul begins, as I read my translation for you, Philippians 1 through 11. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the elders and deacons, grace and peace to you all from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God every time I remember you all. In all my prayers for all of y'all, I always pray, and I'm really not, I like to be funny at other times. I want you to know I'm not trying to be funny, but we read this individualistically and it's a group address. Very important. The only singular pronouns in Philippians are when he's talking to the two women in that section. Those are the only singular pronouns in the whole letter. I thank my God every time I remember you all in my prayers for all of y'all, I always pray with joy because of y'all's partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Being confident of this, that he who began a good work among you all, will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about all of y'all, because I have y'all in my heart. For whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of y'all share in God's grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of y'all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer. that y'all's love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you all may be discriminating with respect to what really matters, and may be sincere and without offense until the day of Christ, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. Now that's eleven yalls and six alls, if yall have been counted. What's the point? Relationships are God's workshop. In the same way that God did some very marvelous work when he declared, let there be light, so God does some very marvelous stuff when he declares, let there be love. To resist love is to resist God. To resist love with respect to kindness in thought, affection, the affection of Christ Jesus for the sinner. A key focus in Philippians chapter 1, chapter 2, to resist these things is to resist God almost as if the light turned around and fought back in Genesis chapter 1. Because relationships are the Lord's workshop. And I don't speak to you as one who has this down like Mr. Perfect. I speak in the church, the inmates are operating the asylum. How do you begin a letter to a group of people who are behaving like a cross between a pit bull and a Labrador retriever? You know what you get when you prostitute? You get a dog that will bite you hard and then run for help, convinced that it's done a good deed. How do you begin? Well, if you're Paul, you begin by supplying the encouragement oxygen in the room. You go first by supplying the encouragement oxygen in the room so the other unsmiling curmudgeons can inhale the encouragement and then begin to bounce back the same to each other. Now, some of y'all who read your Bibles fairly often may be thinking, well, that's fine, Rasmuson, yes, yes, but Paul always starts out that way. Paul always pays compliments to soften up the group before he tells them to straighten up and fly right. And you're right. However, this one here, this introduction is utterly over the top in all of those things. And I invite you to just read the introduction in all of Paul's letters and you will see what I mean. The introduction is more robust in those matters, because of the audience to whom he writes, and the discouraged lack of love and encouragement that is flowing through the place. In fact, in verse 8, the Apostle Paul calls God as witness to the simple fact that he likes them. Now, why? Paul doesn't use those words lightly. I swear that I think positively about you. I call God to the witness stand. If it's not true that I have affection for you, then may there be nothing left but a little grease spot where I used to stand. Why go to that extreme? Well, because when we're in the habit of thinking negatively about our brothers and sisters, as one who has been there and done that, when we're in the habit of doing that, we start to think that they think the same way about us. it's inevitable, and then our speech patterns follow our thoughts, and our actions follow, and the whole thing slides downhill. So the Apostle Paul says, may God Almighty strike me dead as a doornail, if it's not a simple fact that I have affection for you. So here's the bottom line, and we're going to make a few applications, but here is the essence of what's going on in Philippians 1, 1 through 11. To fix a fouled-up friendship, or to found a fresh one on a firm pudding. Find what is fine in the frow or frater. Frame your friend in your mind with what is fine. This is the same thing he gets at in chapter four, whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, same thing. He's rolling out one idea. Friend your friend with what is fine in your mind. Focus. Forgoing what is foul, as we are all filled with faults. Friendly reflection is the foundation for friendship. For friendship to flourish, or to fix a fouled up one. Forthrightly feature a firming phrase affirming phrases on the front end. Very important. Forestalling fault-finding until the future. So important. And it doesn't mean that we don't deal with issues. Forestalling fault-finding until the future, when you can frankly face facts once they have felt your affection. Affirmation forms the foundation for future felicity, which is just a fancy word for happiness. Only fools fancy that they can flip the frame and find fault first. Fools, fomenting further friction and we're almost finished with the alliteration. My wife thinks there's too much. I want people to hear it. This is important. I want people to hear it. Only fools fancy that they can flip the format and find fault first. Such feather-brained fellows will be frustrated by the fury of the offended who are famished for affection, as we all are. Some friends of ours came over for dinner a couple of nights ago, a student, a young student, and they brought their baby. And I was, again, as our children have grown, but I was just impressed anew. utter neediness of an infant. Just the abject helplessness, and the beautiful poetry of the total helplessness, as she goes off and feeds the little rascal, and brings him back, and he's laying, as we watch the rangers lose, he's laying there on her chest, and just the total neediness of human beings, and we're not all that different. We older ones. And we need affection and affirmation more than we're willing to admit. So only fools fancy that they can flip the frame. And many friendships, relationships, ministry teams, churches, businesses, we get it flipped to where we're finding fault first. And friends, if this footwear fits, don't flatter yourself. Fame that you should field test this philosophy. Because this is the way the Gospel works, is it not? This is the way God regards and treats people through his Son, Jesus Christ. My whole, my daily life, as soon as my feet hit the floor in the morning, is, if I'm thinking about it, my whole daily life is Jesus Christ's affection for the undeserving sinner. That's life, whether I'm having a good day or a bad day. I deserve to be sent, the whole idea of the gospel, that there's this huge amount of bad news that's already there, that I and you deserve to be sent away from him forever for our self-centered ways where we've inherited the way of Adam, where the Lord said, don't take that through, and Adam said, I think I'm going to do it my way. And we all have inherited that and done that thousands, thousands, thousands of times, both in omission and commission. And all of the punishment that that deserves, the Lord piled upon the shoulders of His Son. That's the gospel. And then the death sentence that we deserve was poured out on the Son so that we have died in Him, with Him, and we rise with Him physically someday. And last time I checked, that's really some good news. homework assignment that I'm going to assign in about 13 minutes is for you all to imagine yourselves as stationed between two entities, Jesus and then the folks that you're in relationship with. And to see that his affection is given to you, the affection of Christ Jesus, and that we then are called to grow in love to where it's a bit of a conduit kind of a thing going on. Let's apply this very briefly to marriage for just a minute. The slippery slope of George and Martha's negativity with one another actually began quite early in their relationship. George, being very introverted, was utterly terrified of the prospect of standing up in front of a group in the wedding ceremony. He knew he'd make a mistake and he was just quivering like a leaf at the rehearsal dinner And the pastor said, well, what's wrong, son? And George said, I'm afraid I'll mess up. I'm terrified. I got to stand up in front of those people. And the pastor said, why? Just relax, son. All you got to say is, I do. That's it. That's your only responsibility. We'll take care of all the other heavy lifting. That's all? That's it, son. I do. So George said to himself, I can do that. And he went home and he looked in the bathroom mirror and he began to practice. I do. I do. I do. The next day, George was firing on only about six out of eight cylinders because he hadn't slept well. You know, apoplectic, stage fright, pupils dilated, living basically off of a coffee intravenous drip. But he kept saying to himself, I can get through this. I love this woman. I can get through this. I do. It's all I have to say. So then as the ceremony began, when the pastor asked the bride if she would submit to her husband, the bride whispered, do you think I'm crazy? And George thought it was time to deliver his line. He said, I do. And thus began a trend of negative words and thoughts toward one another that has been hard to reverse. And some of us here are in the middle of that kind of a situation. We can cover it, but we're in the middle of that kind of a situation. Husband-wife, parent-to-child, child-to-parent, adult-parent, adult-child, church members, some of us are in the middle of that, and it's a dirty shame. So, a study of newlyweds found I've got the details here, but I'll spare you the details. They found that healthy marriages, they've traced divorce to criticism ratios. And I know that Christian marriages are in covenant, we're in covenant, and that we, if we're married to a husband or wife in Christ, we're in covenant and we'll put up with a lot more, perhaps, than someone who doesn't know Christ and doesn't know the covenant. And I'm very well aware of that. But researchers have also correlated criticism percentages in comments that we make to one another, criticism percentages with the quality of the relationship. And they've concluded that all happily married couples work hard to maintain at least a 5 to 1 ratio of positive events and statements, 5 positive to 1 negative. And they've also concluded that it takes 20 positive statements to erase the negative emotional effect of one criticism. And I don't mean to say that we don't deal with issues or that we sweep things under the rug, but I'm talking about the trend of how we communicate with one another. And the only thing that short circuits this is what we could call covenant-destroying behaviors, which would be things like fits of seething rage, violence, Addiction, things that just slit the throat of the relationship to where things become impossible to grow. But I would venture a guess that most of us are probably not in that ballpark. Rather, it's the day to day. And in the day to day, grind of life, we need to lead with encouragement. That's what Philippians says to us. Christianity is a positive philosophy of life. If you're a Christian, you're following a man who died on a cross in order that God might blot out, overlook, take away, lift off all of your wrongdoing, thought, word, and deed. To justify you, to forgive you. John 3, 17. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world. but to save the world through him. John 12, 47, I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. That's a very positive message. If you're a Christian today, you're following a man who was dead and buried, but he's not dead anymore, and he says that his physical resurrection will obtain yours on the last day. To persist, therefore, And then, even though he looks through every one of us like a little piece of crystal and sees every fault and every unholy thought, even so, if you're trusting in the gospel, he has affection for you, which is just an astounding truth. Therefore, Philippians, in a nutshell, to persist in a negative frame of reference when you claim to be following the Son of God who rose and died, died and rose, and has affection for you, to persist in a negative frame of reference toward others is illogical, unwise, and fundamentally ungodly. If this describes you, you need to change. You need to focus on the good news of how God thinks about you in Christ, and I'll suggest that to a certain extent it describes every last one of us here, except perhaps the two-year-olds who haven't figured it out yet. But we don't want to be someone who is so profoundly impressed with our own excellence that we don't see that the shoe does fit, the footwear does fit. We don't want to be like the little boy who said to his friend, let's go, let's play I'll stand here and throw the darts, and you watch and say, oh, how marvelous." We don't want to be like that. Perhaps the greatest theologian that this continent has ever produced, Jonathan Edwards, in a sermon preached in Northampton, Massachusetts, 1738, he said, Christian love is the opposite of a fault-finding spirit. Or, in other words, It is contrary to a disposition to think or judge uncharitably of others. Some persons, Edward says, some persons are very apt to be positive from the little things they observe in others. Others are forward from just as little things to be positive in condemning others. Some seem very apt to entertain a very low and despicable opinion of others, and so to represent them to their associates and friends. It seems pleasing to them to hear evil of others. Their spirit seems greedy of it, and it is as it were food to the hunger of their depraved hearts, and they feed on it as carrion birds do the worst of flesh. There are the same kinds of corruption in one man's heart as in another's, and if those persons who are most busy in censuring others would but look within and seriously examine their own hearts and lives, they might generally see that the same dispositions and behavior in themselves at one time or another which they see and judge in others." Three concluding thoughts. First one, it's easier to be Christian on the outside than the inside. It's easier to go to church, carry a Bible, not swear in public not commit any felonies and things like that, then it is to be genuinely, consistently kind from the inside out. That is a tall order that can only be obtained by focusing on the affection that Christ has for the likes of me and you. These people had done a good deed. They had sent Paul money, yet they were so lacking in these matters of the heart. Second application, if we want to encourage people to follow Christ, to be in glad submission to Jesus Christ, there is virtually always something to compliment, something positive to say. As long as these covenant destroyers are not just raging in a relationship, there's always something positive to say. Christ-centered compliments. Paul is knocking himself out to take Christ-centered compliments. What if the letter had begun this way? Just what if? Paul and Timothy, so on and so forth. It's disconcerting to me during the rare occasions that I think about you. My prayers for you are motivated by a sense of disappointment and angst, because you're not doing very well, are you? I hear you don't even think I like you. What's up with that? I don't get no respect from you, and honestly, I wonder if your commitment to Jesus Christ will survive until next Tuesday. You guys need to fish, cut bait, or get out of the boat. Love, Paul." You know, this letter didn't just drop from heaven. Paul wrote this, and it was his understanding of the gospel that caused him to begin the way he begins. And Paul goes out of his way to encourage, if we want people to follow Christ, our our unchurched friends who don't know him yet, kids, parents, I mean the whole shoot and match, there's always something positive to say that's honest and that is Christ-centered. And to conclude, I want you to imagine that the sweetest little old lady, Christian little old lady that you've ever met, wouldn't hurt a flea. knows Jesus a hundred times better than you do yet. That she comes up to you and gently takes you by the arm and says, uh, honey, I just want you to know that I'm praying for you that your love would grow. How are you going to react to that? You may not realize it, but that sweet little old lady has got you cornered. As Paul does, he's got his quarry cornered, and he's only in verse 10 and 11 of his letter. Because what are you going to do? You're going to say, how dare you pray that my love would grow? What are you going to do? The jig is up. So I want to focus our attention, as we conclude, just to focus our attention on the fact that the affection of Christ Jesus for the unworthy sinner, the affection of Christ Jesus, verse 8, And then Paul's prayer that their love would grow. That we would give less offense and things like that. A love of good deeds and words to one another. And I want you to see yourself. Here's your homework assignment for the next 24 hours. To try to start new habits and convict us of bad ones. To see yourself, all of us who have placed our faith, who have bowed the knee and are living in glad submission to the Son of God who died and rose for us, to see yourself as the 24-7 recipient of His undeserved affection for the sinner. And then to look at the folks that you're in relation with and to see yourself as one is to reflect or to be a conduit of the same. to the folks around you. So that's your takeaway here, because the affection of Jesus Christ for the unworthy sinner, the forgiven unworthy sinner, that's the gold standard of what we're talking about in Philippians.