everybody how's everybody doing this morning how's everybody doing this great they're good thank you y'all awake no not awake well if you're not awake before I start talking like I got no shot at it okay so hopefully where everyone will be awake because we have a very very very important topic that we are talking about these days if you're just tuning in here today for the first time we're in the middle of a series called you are what you eat and we are talking about the most important subject as it relates to feeding our souls and our spirits which is the Word of God the Bible every single person in this room as soon as we finished service here today is the first thing is gonna say is I am hungry I want to eat and everyone all of a sudden the shuffle begins and I was gonna go to coast and who's gonna go to this place we're gonna go Chinese who were gonna go Indian food and all the shuffle begins and that same things gonna happen about four or five laters four or five hours later same shuffle we're gonna dig in the fridge we're gonna eat we're going to eat I'm gonna wake up in the morning what we can eat what we're gonna eat and all to our days of our life we spend so much time and energy focused on what are we gonna eat what are we gonna eat because we want to make sure these bodies are well fed well what about what's inside the body which is our spirit and the fear is when we started this series I said the fear is that if we went inside and we talked to our souls inside our souls would say I am hungry somebody feed me because I'm starving and all we do is we spent all day feeding your flesh and you and I both know you could stand it feed that flesh a little bit less all right and I'm in here and I'm suffering and I'm dying and I'm the one who needs to eat and that's why what we're talking about here is the Word of God the Bible because you are what you eat you eat junk food you eat physical junk food you will be junk and your body will be junk and you will not be surprised if all you do is eat junk food that your body doesn't perform to the level that you want it to perform at if it doesn't have as much energy it doesn't have as long the life or it isn't as healthy you wouldn't be surprised all you do is eat Twinkies all day you wouldn't be shocked if you didn't make it to a hundred years old well spiritually same thing is true some of us were confused and we're down and were discouraged and were despaired we're hopeless and I say look simply at your diet because if your diet is all junk food spiritually then you should not be surprised when the health of your spirit is down the toilet as well and like I said in the very very beginning somebody who is falling apart is usually 9 out of 10 times I don't want to say always but someone who isn't falling apart 9 out of 10 times is someone who is not in their Bible on a regular basis on a consistent basis that's the goal of this series is to understand how the Word of God nourishes our souls and to be practical and discuss how we can find more nourishment in it what we've been doing every week of this series is we've been having a memory verse every week to kind of remind us of the message of every single week y'all remember the memory verses first weeks memory verse here came from Matthew 4:4 let's read it all together says man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God we talked about how the Bible is not ordinary words it's the Word of God and it's the breath of God coming through vocal cords like when my voice is my breath coming through my vocal cords making a sound the Word of God is the breath of God coming through the vocal cords of guys named Matthew Mark Luke or John or Isaiah or Jeremiah it is the breath of God and that's the food by which our souls and our spirits live man should not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds to the mouth of God week two our verse came from John 8:31 32 and it says if you abide in my word you are my disciples indeed and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free John 8:31 32 this second week of the series we talked about the role of the Bible and what the Bible does for us are we talking about three things that the Bible will do the Bible were of place lies with truth the Bible will replace fear with faith the Bible were placed confusion with the next step all right and we talked about these are the three things that we struggle with so much that we have full of lies in our mind is that we are afraid to take steps we lack fear and three we are confused and when we are consistently in the Bible if you abide in my words you're my disciples and then you'll know the truth not just you know the truth but you're in my word and you know the truth we can't separate verse 31 32 and then last week week three our verse came from psalm 119 verse 18 read it with me it says open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your laws psalm 119 18 that's why I love that beautiful song that we just sang together it was a very beautiful song about open my eyes and my heart and this verse that we said we talked about last week who said that God speaks plainly to the one who listens submissively and when we go to the Word of God and we say God open my eyes that opened my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law is that hide-and-seek like God wants to reveal himself through his word more than you want to see him like God wants to show himself more than you want to find him it's not a game of hide-and-seek we talked last week about how our attitude is more important than their technique our attitude that we approach the word with is more important than the technique that we use now this week we're gonna focus on technique and I said that attitude is more important to technique but we still we want to talk about technique and what we want to talk about today is how to study the Bible and how to read the Bible and go in-depth into the Bible maybe you're good at reading the Bible but you read it and you have a good attitude but you're not finding depth in it sometimes people come to me and they'll say like I'll share something from the Bible or I'll give a sermon or I'll say something they say how did you find that in the Bible like how'd you find like I read that passage 100 times how'd you find that and then people always say to me you're really creative and those who know me know am I creative I'm not creative at all you don't need to be so emphatic about it okay I'm not a creative person at all but I'm a person who believes in systems and I don't believe that finding depth from the scripture is about creativity I believe it's about having a good system and I believe in if you don't have a good system then you're up to your own creativity and whatnot but we can develop a system because I believe strongly in systems for everything develop a system that take every time we have the Bible that we put it through a certain process and that process will help us to find depth and the key to that process is one thing more than anything else the key to studying the Bible meditating on the Bible going deeper in the Bible call whatever you want going beyond the surface is learning to ask the right questions the Bible any book that is written is as deep as the one who wrote it a book is as deep as its author the author of the Bible is God who is infinite and therefore the depth contained in the scriptures is infinite as well the Bible is like the ocean can you ever say I got to the bottom of the ocean I got to the deepest part of the ocean what happens is you say look I'm in the deepest part of the ocean you keep going and it goes deeper and you say ok now I'm in the deepest part then you know what if you keep going actually there's deeper and you can never actually say I got to the deepest part because the sands always moving all that kind of stuff there's always deeper and that's the way the Word of God is how come the Bible look if you think about it how come the Bible is the only book in the world any other book in the world you read it once maybe if it was really good you read it twice but I doubt that you're going back over a book that you read in 1996 and you're reading it every single day a little more like imagine you have a newspaper or a magazine and it's so exciting it's so interesting and then I bring you hey look at this newspaper from last year I want to read it again no matter how interesting it was not even last year last week I bring you a newspaper from March 17 2014 no matter how interesting was in the 17th is completely outdated on the 23rd or yeah 23rd it's completely outdated the Bible is the only book that every time you read it like there's a verse in the Bible where Jeremiah says that God is new every morning alright God's mercies are new God's Word is new every morning today we read the story of the Samaritan woman earlier in the church service that's the same story we read last year at the exact same time that's the same story you read the year before at the same time that story we're gonna read action in a few weeks again a story Samaritan woman I primary this story a hundred times but today I'm reading it like is the first time or ever read it Tori the prodigal son story of the five loaves and two fish these stories that we read off in story of Genesis creation every time we read it we find new depth within it because the Bible is infinitely deep because the author of the Bible it's infinitely deep that's why we need to have a good system we need to have a good system to find the depth every time into every time take another step and asking the right questions is the way to do it I'm gonna talk about today all right I'm going to share one method of studying the Bible not the method but a method that I employ okay and kind of shaped it up to kind of make it kind of neat and clean to kind of share and this is the way that I have found that is is effective for me I'm not saying it's the only way there may be other ways but I can only share what I know so i'ma share kind of my system that I use and our memory verse for this week is Colossians 3:16 read it with me please let the word of Christ dwell in you richly Colossians 3:16 the theme or the mind that I the picture I want to draw for you is that we want to now talk about not reading the Bible not reading we want to talk about studying or meditating or going deeper and the picture I'm a draw for you is a difference between chugging a glass of water versus sipping a glass of wine chugging watered versus sipping wine chug chug chug chug chug chug chug versus not even you don't start with C if you start with that right and then you write you I'm not a wine drinker but don't you swish it around and the TV shows you you swish it around right and then you know what I mean stuff like that there's a time for drinking water and there's a time for reading and I'm not negating the important I actually believe very much that you should be at a time where you just read the Bible and you read like for distance but then it needs to be a I'm will you read for debts like we don't want to do just distance or just depth we want to have balanced approach today I'm talking about depth how to take the Word of God and take a shorter passage oops and go deeper within that shorter passage alright and this is the picture like I said of sipping the wine versus chugging the water I'm gonna find we're gonna find a passage in Scripture we're gonna read that passage together it's not a very like dramatic passage it's actually a very seemingly irrelevant passage it doesn't have much depth we're gonna read it together and we're gonna go through the process a system that I would use the goal is to things like we'll get some nice depth from the passage but really the goal greater is the methodology okay so we're gonna do like a case study together of a passage from Philippians chapter 2 we're gonna read it together and we're gonna go through the questions that we're gonna ask together and they fall into three categories as you see in your handout observation interpretation application and with each one of them there's gonna be a question that we're gonna ask and the goal is to figure out how to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly not superficially but richly passage we're gonna read comes from Philippians chapter 2 verse 19 to 30 let me give you a little context before we get into the passage you're gonna find and this passage is a seemingly insignificant part of Scripture there's nothing major that happens in this basically st. Paul is the Epistle to the Philippians so the Philippians means the people who lived in a city called Philippi okay so st. Paul went to Philip eyes like modern-day where Greece's and he went and he started a church in Philippi and he stayed there and he ministered there and he met the people he started the church and then he traveled on to went to other places eventually he found himself in prison in Rome so he's in Italy and the Philip I is in Greece so they're not that far apart but now he's in prison and as he's in prison he's sending a letter back to them okay that's why it's called letter to the Philippians if st. Paul was writing a letter to us it would be a letter to the virginians okay if you're writing a letter to the meril Indians okay whatever it's called all right Philippians just means the people live in the city called Philip I as he's here in prison and he's nearing the end of his life he really wants to go visit them but he knows he's probably seen his last freedom again he's probably gonna end up tying these Philippians loved Paul so much that they collected an offering they collected like a gift that they wanted to send to Paul while he was in prison so they sent this gift to Paul by the hand of a guy named a path for a Dittus say that with me app afroditi s-- app Aphrodite's is from the Church of Philippi and he carries the gift to Paul now Paul is writing a thank-you letter back to the Philippians and just basically saying thank you for loving me and taking care of me and for the gift that you gave me through app Aphrodite's and he says some other things in it which we'll read but that's pretty much the essence of the passage we're gonna read so where's the depth in it we're gonna read the whole thing through then we're gonna go back and put it through the wringer of the process of observation interpretation and then application st. Paul says but I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly that I may also be encouraged when I know your stake for I have no one like-minded who will sincerely care for your state for all seek their own not the things which are Christ Jesus first thing he says is I want to come visit you but I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna make it out of prison and probably gonna die here but I would really love to send Timothy to you because Timothy is as close as you can get to me and he says Timothy he's the best I hope to send him to you as well but you know his proven character that has Assange speaking about Timothy as a son with his father he served with me in the gospel therefore I hope to send him at once as soon as I see how it goes with me but I trust in the Lord that I myself shall also come shortly he's saying that but he knows like he's probably not going to actually make it down here and he gets martyred when he's in prison now he shifts gear now that was all about Timothy now I talked about this app afroditi Scott yet I considered it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother my fellow worker and my fellow soldier but your messenger and the one who ministered to my need since he was bringing since he was longing for you all and was distressed because you heard that he was sick he's saying I'm sending a p-- Aphrodite's back to you and he says he's nice things about him he's my brother my fellow worker but he is your messenger cuz he's one of you and he brought me this nice gift and he was distressed because you heard that he was sick I'll talk about that for indeed he was sick almost unto death but God had mercy on him and not only on him but on me also lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow therefore I sent him the more eagerly that when you see him again you may rejoice and I may be less sorrowful receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness and hold such men and esteem because for the work of Christ he came close to death not regarding his life to supply what was lacking in your service towards me that's it how would most of us read this passage would say ok that's nice Timothy's a good guy Pafford I just don't know how to pronounce his name ok let's get to the miracles let's walk on water five blows two fish blind man let's look into the good stuff this is one of those like we read it ok that's very nice turn the page and if you did that especially as you see I'm gonna speak specifically today to the gentleman in the room if you did that you'd be making a big mistake because there's depth inside this passage and we're gonna see how this passage as we put it through the wringer is speaking to us about what does it mean to be a man of God in the world today and what are the marks what does it take it's applies to women too but specifically to men and in this passage the seemingly trivial insignificant passage we get gold as to what does it mean what is God looking for in us men today but in order to find it we can't chug it you chug it you missed it we need to sip it three questions observation interpretation application the question number one observation this is a simple part this is the easiest part observation you ask one question what does it say what does it say this is simple all you need to do is write down one or two bullet points or three bullet points and just simply what does it say no analysis no meditation no interpretation no study no nothing just very simply what does it say and the reason why that's important because so often we jump to what we think it means not even we jump to what it means we jump to what we think it means we jump to what we heard a sermon about a year ago or we jump to what I want it to mean no no no no no let's take it at face value let's be simple and let's write down simply what does it say I believe very strongly that the difference between chugging and sipping difference between reading and studying is simply a pen and paper I believe very much in writing down even if I used to think to myself like I'm gonna save all these notebooks and all this stuff I end up throwing them away okay but there's value in the process of writing to write down what does it say don't assume you know what it says as you see in your handout I took this passage and I would say really two things that I observed from this passage okay and we'll just go through them real quick first thing that I wrote is Paul and 10 send two men to fill epochal would you all agree with me that's what he said he's talking about a guy in verse 21 named Timothy I trust in Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly and then in verse 25 speaking about app aphrodite's I consider it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus first thing I know I didn't analyze anything as Paul is writing a letter to the Philippians saying I want to send Timothy to you and I want to send a pad for Titus too that's it and the second thing that I took from it is that those two guys there's something special about them I don't really know what yet I'll discover in a little bit but those two guys are somehow role models to be honored and to be followed or imitated and how I got that from verse 20 speaking about Timothy he said I have no one like-minded all right we'll see another translations I have no one like Timothy in a whole wide world and then in verse 29 he speaks about Pafford itis received him therefore and hold such men in his team so I see he's gonna send two people and there's something special about those two people so third bullet that I would write down which I don't have the answer but I'm asking a question is what's special about the - guys like there's got to be something about them that would make them kind of stand out in Paul's writings this way what's special about those guys that's it that's observation was that complicated did you need a dictionary concordance PhD and Greek you need anything Lanie's piece of paper and a pencil and a Bible you read this is third grade okay write down what you observed just write down one or two bullet points but be faithful in the process of writing it down because we want to see what does it say that's what we think it says now we're yet to step two once we do the observation and this is where you gonna spend most of your time is interpretation which is not what did it say but what does it mean now wait a minute hold on are you saying that what it says is not what it means the Bible is like shrieky pulling a fast one it says left but it means right says up but it means down does the Bible say what it means no the Bible means what it means and in such as the Bible every form of communication in the history of all mankind must be interpreted in the context in which it was written for example you can't just take a statement at surface level without understanding what was it meant to say you can't just say what does it read what does it mean for example let's say I send a text message to somebody all right and I you know I say hey stop pulling my leg send her a text message stop pulling my leg all right and then one day when Tom dead okay and Sandra's of a famous person all right and I'll say hey I knew a famous person all right and I knew this famous person and we used to exchange text messages and they'd take our text messages and they'd put them in the Hall of Fame the priest Hall of Fame or whatever hall of fame right and they record these text messages all right which is written in English and then let's say a thousand years from now these text messages are preserved and the priests Hall of Fame wherever that may be in a foreign country in a foreign culture speaks a foreign language that doesn't know anything about the texts of the time and they look at my text message and it says Sandra stop pulling my leg they will think if they don't understand the context what does it say it means that she grabbed my foot and yanking on it and the more I read hey stop pulling my leg saying she was a very violent person she was always yanking people's legs what it says is it always what it means you have to understand that we understand when someone says stop pull my leg they don't mean stop yanking my my foot let me in stop joking with me if you don't understand the context you understand the culture it's written in what it says it's not what it means in Spanish they don't say stop pulling my leg you know they say they stop pulling my hair tomorrow and pelo I remember very few things from Spanish but remember that one right so that expression okay like if we said that one some of us they would say like we're liars because that's not physically possible for some of us like if we wrote down stop pulling my hair they'd say these people are crazy they'd have here okay the point is is what it says and what it means aren't necessarily the same thing and it doesn't make the Bible unreliable or inaccurate like any other thing in the whole wide world we understand there's context involved and the same is true with Scripture that's why one of the things that I like to do and I know some people do not like to do this and if you don't like to that's fine I'm not telling you to do it I'm just telling you what I do and even if you disagree that's fine I disagree with you disagree me that's fine I like to read multiple translations of the Bible now you got to be careful because you there are some translations that are funny okay but there are many translations that are reliable that are good and I believe there's a lot of value from looking at different angles to the same passage and using different words to describe what is trying to be said you know why if you were to get a Bible that is written in Hebrew and Greek the original languages you would find that average like a roughly approximately there are eleven thousand words in Hebrew and Greek in the Bible an average English translation of the Bible has how many words in it meaning how many words are used not tol like words that are in it but saying how many different words are used throughout the scripture like the word thaw is a word univers used a thousand times the word a the word boat the word shoe like whatever Hebrew and Greek eleven thousand words are used English eight thousand that's three thousand words that are missing then I've been kind of combined into other words so we can't say that there's any one version of the Bible that is 100% accurate in English bring me any version in the Bible and I'll find you an inaccuracy in that Bible because that's the way it is but what we can do is when we look at different angles we find them complimentary not contradictory I'll give you an example the word love the word love in English there's one word love and we use that one word I love God I love my wife I love pizza I love sunny days I love God I love my wife I love pizza I love sunny days one word to describe my feeling toward these four different entities clearly my feelings towards God and pizza are not the same towards my wife and sunny days well maybe they're the same because anytime I see my wife it is a sunny day that'll make up for last night hopefully okay clearly the word love has different meanings how I use it towards pizza how you towards my dog how you towards sunny days like it means different things but English is just one word love in Greek there's many words for love one times in the in the Old Testament and one of the Psalms there's a psalm that says in the New King James his love endures forever his love endures forever and another translation it says his mercy endures forever so did that contradict that or did that complete that now I see I understand what kind of love he's talking about talk talking about like a romantic love and Jewish forever he's not talking about like I love pizza like a like a friendship love he's talking about the mercy aspect of love like a father to a son aspect of love that's the aspect of love that endures forever the two didn't contradict the true complete the two completed one another to give me a complete picture of what the scripture is trying to say so now let's go back to our our methodology here we are going to ask for this passage what does it mean and you'll see I'll pull in some different translations here I'll pull in from the NIV a couple times and it'll complete our picture we're gonna see as you see in your handout is that this passage talks about these two guys I'm sending them to you they're very good guys I don't know why and gives us the five gives us five marks I wanna save the five but five characteristics of what does it mean to be a godly man like in God's perspective what does God say it takes to be a man who is honorable in his eyes y'all can help me out I'm gonna bring you the verse y'all gonna help me fill in the blank when start in verse twenty twenty-one he's talking about Timothy right now and he says I have no one else like him who will show genuine concern for your welfare for everyone looks out for their own interests not those of Jesus Christ he says I got no one like this Timothy guy which if you think about it who's writing these words who's st. Paul like st. Paul look other than Christ it's st. Paul like no one walked the earth like Saint Paul and st. Paul said all these disciples that I got man I never seen someone like this guy right here I had no one like this guy these are big words that's why I'm saying is we're not just gonna chug this wait wait wait wait he said I got no one like this guy Noora Noora I need to ask what's this guy like because I want to be someone like this guy where Saint Paul says there's no one like this guy so y'all help me out here give me a characteristic as you see on your handout we're gonna talk about five marks of a godly person a godly man but I get again applies to women to a godly man is what shout out some works based on this passage caring okay selfless I put unselfish which fits exactly what you two said okay the word isn't important the idea is important a godly man is unselfish above all else you want to be a man of God gentlemen forgive me I'll be a little tough on the guys today the problem in the world today is that men are not unselfish that's the problem because page one scripture to page whatever is at the very end the principle is the very same those who are strong take care of the weak those who are strong do not look out for themselves they look out for the weak and the problem in the world today is that we men have given up that duty and now again when I say I'm talking out mankind you're not pointing fingers because I'm there's men in this room or the exact opposite of that but I'm saying as a whole as a society we have ended up using our strength and our power to care for ourselves and to look out for our own interests and to see what pleases us and not like one things I always tell my son Michael okay like whenever I leave and go out of town I'll tell Michael you're the man of the house now I say was it mean to be the man of the house and I always teach him then man the house doesn't do what he wants he takes care of everyone else in house that's why like one of the things that I do I don't do it because I'm a no I'm not saying I do it this way but I'd show me this example I eat anything okay I don't care what I eat so when I find like okay the kids like this food then I don't eat this food but he's like no but you like this food I'm like yeah but a man a dad saves the good food for his kids and a man eats the bad food for himself and a man make sure that everyone else is tucked in and sleeping before the man sleeps but of course doesn't really do that with my mom but he puts it like I won't even know like make sure that everyone's taken care of because that's what a man is a man is unselfish a man looks out not for his own interest but he's caring for the interests of others around him genuine concern for the welfare of others that's not what you see in the world today the world today says however you feel do what you feel you deserve a break you had a hard day at work and you feel like relaxing you deserve to come home and relax doesn't matter what anyone else it's all about you and you know how you can tell this consumeristic mindset that has infiltrated us look at the amount of money that we spend on entertainment there is not a society in the history of mankind that has spent as much money as we spend on entertaining ourselves on pleasing ourselves on making ourselves feel comfortable with movies and TV and music and video games and all these things which is all about me feeling good not about me making others feel good for the ladies in the room I'm sorry to the gentleman what I'm about to do to you for the ladies in the room I found something nice online okay it talked about how to identify a selfish man before it's too late sorry guys I'm giving away our secret okay but I'm happily married and that's it we're stuck so she can't do nothing about it okay but you're single you hate my guts I'm sorry okay but we love our sisters in Christ so we need to make sure that they see this list all right and they know what does it mean to how do you identify a selfish man for it's too late eight characteristics these are not mine something from online I take no credit for it don't no blame for it I'll just read through them quick number one does he talk only about himself number two does he ever open the door for you number three does he ever go out of his way to do something for you when he knows you're busy like he knows you're stayed late at work so he picks up dinner for you or he knows you don't have time to get your dry cleaning so he goes and gets it for you hey ever does something when he knows you're busy does he ever ask for your opinion husbands write this down wives have opinions okay it isn't important that we ask about it every now and then does he ever ask for your opinion or just his opinion and he just assumes that's what he does number five does he pick up his mess or does he expect you or his mother to pick up his mess number six will he ever cancel or adjust his plans if you need him to that's a big number seven is he obsessed with his appearance number eight no interpretation here number eight will he do something that he doesn't like to do just to be with you now for some reason I was kind of expecting all the single guys to write down that list I found all the married women writing down that list I don't know what that says but good luck to you guys moving right along godly man is unselfish second characteristic of a godly man verse 22 y'all are gonna tell me says it's being still about Timothy but you know his proven character that has a son with his father he served with me in the gospel you know his proven character godly man is what shout it out huh proven okay more more descriptive wise okay huh tested okay the word I came up with is dependable okay but dependable you know through testing a godly man is dependable a godly man has proven his word is as good as done a godly man you know when you stand with him you're not guessing guys again forgive me we're wishy-washy some days we're up some days we're down some days were the happiest person to be around and some days we are drama all around we are the word that somebody coined recently okay is a word that I liked you said Wiggly all right we're wiggling guys we become Wiggly as a group where you don't know what you're getting with us and we're Moody and we're grumpy and again sometimes we will lead you to the promised land other times you don't want to come near us man if God is dependable and guys that's what our families and our world needs it guys we're supposed to be the rock and we're supposed to be the ones that when don't like don't know one read more it's what I'm saying when the ladies around us are emotional okay and the ladies around us are up and down with stuff we're supposed to be the rock we're not supposed to be when they're down there we go even further down and we make them to have to be the rock which is not a role that God intended for them to beat that's our job and we have given up that job why cuz we're wishy-washy we're Wiggly and you don't know where you stand with us Timothy was proven Timothy was solid as a rock Timothy was a man watch me this word a man of conviction y'all know what conviction means they say that opinions are something that you argue about convictions or things that you die forward and we are men of opinions we need to be men of conviction and conviction as the saying goes you're not ready to live until you know what you're willing to die for do you know what you're willing to die for it you have conviction or you wigleigh number three again I'm not sure I'm not going in depth I'm just trying to get the methodology but we can learn while we're going through it verse 25 now we're talking about a Pafford itís okay so we shifted gears from Timothy onto a path for Titus is what he says he says I considered it necessary to send to you a path for Titus my brother my fellow worker and fellow soldier brother fellow worker fellow soldier this one's a little bit harder godly man is what based on this this one's a little bit harder you want to guess leader okay on the right track but not necessarily huh who out of here loyal fighter okay I see okay companion is very good I see three relational terms three relationships being described here so what I say as a man of God is cooperative he's a team player he's not a lone ranger he's not an island he knows that he needs others and others need him he knows that he is a brother he's part of a family he knows that he's a fellow worker that were not just a family who sits around but we are working we have a mission together and he knows there's me times or he gonna need to put throw down the gloves he's gonna need a fight he's gonna need to fight to protect his fellow his family those who around him a man of God would never say the following or have this attitude I don't need to go to church I'm fine what I need to go to church how did you join the Life Group I'm fine hurry fellowship I need it I don't need any of that stuff all that wishy-washy kumbaya stuff honey that stuff I'm fine on my own I got it all figured out man of God realizes that he is weak on his own and he needs others and even more so he realized that others need him and then we in the body we complete each other and the man of God knows that if he removes himself from the body of Christ he is weaker and others a weaker everyone isn't a bit worse off position a man of God is somebody who is easy to get along with is a cooperative person is someone that when they join your team you say not you say you men we men men of God we should be people should see us as we are people that work hard but we play hard we are great people to have on the team because we will be unselfish and we will be cooperative and we will be a part of a team not as a lone ranger but we will contribute to that team and whatever way we can all right again I'm going through quickly here go I'm trying don't forget what we're on the step of is not what does it say but what does it mean next okay verse 26 this one's a little bit harder okay actually let me give you a little context in order to understand this the context here remember I said Phillip I churches right here Paul is in prison they love him very very much they're here they hear he's in prison they want to send a gift so they take a collection and they collect a gift now there's a problem who's gonna deliver that gift so they say we need somebody to go to Rome to the prison and deliver this gift pad for Titus says me me me I'll do it a pad for Titus okay going from philip i to rome was a journey of probably several months each weight like it wasn't like today you didn't hop on a plane or train or automobile didn't have any that stuff all right they had to walk maybe if they were rich they maybe had a donkey for some of the way it was a very long journey aphrodite's left his family we know he was a businessman so he left his business as well and he didn't get compensation it's not like there was like you know any money being given to him he left at his own expense and while on the way what we discover is that he got sick that she got very sick and he almost died while he was on the way he gets sick and he discovers when he gets there that the church in philip i discovered that he was sick you understand with me he got sick and he almost died and the church and philip I discovered that he got sick and almost died and that's where we get the context of this verse right here it says since he was longing for you all Pafford itis was longing for you all and he was distressed because you had heard that he was sick this is a powerful verse he understand what it's saying what does it say godly man is what a godly man sensitive is good is considerate but exactly like that sensitive think about what it says here I'm sick and I find out that you found out that I'm sick and I'm worried because you guys are worried that I'm sick look I'm not worried that I'm sick because I got sick and I didn't care that I was sick I kept on journey I didn't turn around I kept on going but the whole time I'm like they're gonna be worried that I'm sick and I don't want so-and-so to be upset and so on cells gonna be sad and this guy's not gonna be able to pray and this girl's gonna be all worried what your sick men when we're sick we don't care about nobody we want the whole world to serve us hand and foot and put our feet up on this and we complain about this in a small corner uh Ramon and we groan and as the end of the world we could think is the end of human time when we get to sniffles apat ffred itis was considering he was worried about somebody else being upset he cared about how other people felt a real man is sensitive and considerate towards the feelings of others and he would never say suck it up stop being a baby let can I go a little rant right now let me go a little rain one of my pet peace well my pet peeves and I just heard this recently out block and I know some people say what I'm about to say and they don't do it and as a malicious way as I'm saying so I'm going to the extreme but either way I don't like this phrase at all I know some people say it in a nice way in a funny way I don't like it at all you ever heard somebody say hey you know what I just call it like I see it I'm honest I'm blunt I have no filter no filter and that's just me that's just who I am that's just me being me we say it in like a bragging way as if we're like something to be proud of I'm something that like we're more honest than anybody else we just call it like we see it there's a word in the English language for people like that it's called rude it's called immature because a mature person knows that there's a time to speak and a time not to speak and a mature person like a child just has no filter a child says what they see what they think without filter without worrying every one of us pants during that time we all been there you're in the grocery store okay and your kid I remember Michaels three years old or four years old and he's like daddy why is that person skinned or I'm like Shh why is that person skin a different color ah but Shh no filtered okay as a child they don't know the difference why is this person skin dark why is is pretty skin like Shh don't say that like filter we don't say those things out loud okay as a child no filter would you say we think what sign for us men to grow up we were just say what we think we say what's right to be said and we care about the feelings of others we're just like no filter and we say whatever we want here's a time and place to speak there's time place not speak that's differ between a grown-up versus a child that's my reign sorry and the reason why I say it the reason why I say it like this is because this is the number one problem in all relationships today especially marriages it's not that people don't care about each other the people are in of each other I love my wife and she loves me but if we're not considerate for each other then all the love in the world and do us any good I love you and as as we're members of a church and we all love each other but if we're not considered of one another who cares how much we love each other we step on each other's foot and say oh sorry I didn't mean it no filter no filtered a godly person is not someone just who speaks whatever is on their mind but someone who thinks and cares how will this be received by the person in front of me I care about the emotions and the feelings of the person in front of me godly man we gone through for God leave me who knows where they are number one godly man is unselfish godly man is dependable godly man is who cooperative very good number for a godly man is considered last one godly man verse 27 and 34 indeed he was sick almost unto death but God had mercy on him not only on him but also on me lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow because for the work of Christ he came close to death not regarding his life to supply what was lacking in your service towards me a godly man is courageous a godly man is courageous I got the last three with CEO K so I tried to make it easy for you okay I couldn't get the first two in cease but a godly man is courageous a godly man says this is my mission oh no but I got sick but I keep on my mission a godly man takes risks but here's the key takes risks for what not courageous for his own benefit not like helm courageous I'm gonna start a business no not courageous like I'm gonna climb a mountain no not courageous like I'm gonna get a motorcycle show how courageous I am no courageous for the benefit of others not for his own benefit courageous for the kingdom I'm sorry for the work of Christ courageous for the kingdom of God and willing to take risks and willing to put his neck out on the line and do what's difficult even when it's hard for the sake of the kingdom of God gentlemen sorry this is the last moment say but I'm last time I'm gonna get us but we got it we got it work on this gentlemen when it comes to our own benefit we're very courageous we're very committed we're very eager to do whatever it takes never talks about the benefit of others sometimes that courage declines it's sunny let's go to church it's rainy all of a sudden the commitment to church life is good okay let's be generous life is get a little bit tight no no keep more for ourselves easy to be courageous with yourself easy when the profit is for you but the true man of God sticks his neck out like what did app Aphrodite's benefit from this trip was his benefit i Here I am right now let's make this let's make us like applicable I say there's a member of our congregation who moved to Toronto and he's sick and we need to take him this like we need to send like a care package to him a care package because the the the the gift from the Philippians Paul wasn't gonna free him from prison you're just gonna make him feel good while he's there it's a care package and I say we need somebody to take a week off of work and a travel up to Toronto and I got no money to be honest like the church we're poor so you got to foot the bill yourself take a train take a bus ticket whatever it is but it's on you take a time off of work figure out who's gonna pick up the kids from school and who can do their homework on Tuesday and figure it out who's a taker everyone would like a pad for Titus then I'll go and I'm sure someone else said no me and he said no me I want you almond goat and they fought force it imma go none of us would do this I'm not trying to say like none of us would do this in a condemning way I'm just trying to show you the mentality of a man of God and I'm not saying that extreme example that I just gave but what I'm saying is if this is this and we're here man we need to start taking steps in this direction and a man of God is courageous for the work of God not for his own benefit only with that said I won't be very clear on this one with all the the lessons that we learned there are exceptions to the rule and I know there are godly men amongst us but I would point you for every one of these I could give you a name and a picture of a person okay that I would admire in this area from amongst us and especially with this courageous one because I know there's many men who amongst us here who I personally admire greatly because I think what y'all do for the work of Christ is much greater than you get credit for and I don't want you to get credit on this earth I want you to get credit up there but I want you all to know that this church wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for the sacrifice financial time energy of many courageous men even just last night I was very touched by a sacrifice that someone who amongst us here a very generous but not even generous as much as the spirit behind it we have great great spirit of men here amongst us today and we look to them as example so I don't want the guys to think I'm just bashing the guys I don't want the ladies just go home and beat the men over a head what I'm talking about yes we can work to improve on some things but there are many things where ladies we need to be very appreciative when the man that's sitting to your right or to your left okay assuming it's your spouse okay okay you need to be very appreciative because there are some very godly men amongst us right here and this church wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them all that section was actually section 2 first extras observation section sect second section was interpretation all right and that was all that section third section is application an application after we asked what does it say what does it mean we asked ourselves what am I going to do about it this you will not spend the most time on but this is by far the most important section because if you do step one in step two without doing step three man you wasted your time in God's time what am I gonna do about it I read all that I learned all those lessons what a godly man is what a godly man is what a godly man is and then I don't just write cute notes in my notebook and say this would be cubes in case they ever have to give a sermon one day a lot Philippians chapter 2 we take it and we do something with it Bible says in James chapter 1 verse 22 be doers of the word not hearers only deceiving yourselves if you think that you are feeding your spirit by reading the Word of God you are joking yourself you were the biggest fool on the planet if you think that you have fed yourself by reading reading reading reading reading and then not doing anything else about it your soul is fed when you act not when you know and I would say after we took this passage right here I would want to write down in my journal one or two most not more than - one - two things that I'm going to do different in my life this isn't easy and sometimes it's hard to find how is my life going to be different but I want to challenge you not to finish your Bible reading your Bible study until you can point to one or two things that is going to be different in your life because of the passage that you just read how do I find that not every passage has like a commandment to obey in fact the passage you read has no commandment to obey there's something nice you see in your handout okay something developed by a guy named Rick Warren is a pastor out in California and he came up with a cute little acronym called space pets all right and space pets is the key that he says - finding application in the Bible and he says every passage of Scripture has one of the following nine things in it and you see it in your hand up okay a sin to confess a promise to claim an attitude to change a command to obey an example to follow a prayer to pray and air to avoid a truth to believe or something to praise God forward so you would go through the passage and you would say does this passage have like a sin to confess like I'm reading this as a man and I read this and I would say the conclusion of this is there a sin that I need to confess because of this what would you say maybe okay maybe I haven't been courageous maybe I haven't been considerate I would say probably yes as I looked at this I can find a sin in my life that I fall short okay how about the next one is their promise to claim was there a promise in this passage no there wasn't but that's okay like we don't need everything and everyone is there a attitude to change definitely okay for sure but even if I'm not doing a sin there's definitely some attitudes that can be changed and so on and so forth okay sometimes they'll be Commandments sometimes they'll be examples sometimes they'll be just something to praise God for or a truth to trust God like every application doesn't need to be the same doesn't need to be I'm gonna go do this but it could be just I will believe this I will trust this like whatever it may be I will pray this bottom line is that's what you need to do at the end of your Bible reading you need to put your pen on that little piece of paper and you need to write down how is my life going to be any different based on this passage you know what they say they say that you only believe the parts of the Bible that you do you only believe the parts of the Bible that you do you wanna know why let's say you get an email today from your boss CEO of your company and he says anybody who shows up late tomorrow will be fired on the spot and anybody who comes in and brings Donuts will receive double their salary how could I tell if you believe it or not if you do it I see you at Dunkin Donuts at six o'clock in the morning I know you believe the emails how can I tell if I believe I believe in the Bible you believe in the Bible put your money where your mouth isn't doing because if you believe in the scripture that I believe in then there'll be a change in your life and let me final thing I'll say on that before I is when it comes to let's say you go through these nine and you see many things that you want to change start with the most important one like you may read this passage and say I need to be more like appreciative of like what my dad did for me and you say I need to be you know more thankful of nature and creation and then another one that says I need to stop being rude to my wife don't take the first two and say okay I'll work on those and leave the last word till later you start with the one that's the most severe don't try to fool yourself and shoot code and say I need to be more appreciative of the creation of God and your cursing your kids and cursing your wife when you go home start with the one that is the most significant in your life last thing I'll say I won't leave y'all with our memory verse eight with me again one last time the verse says let the word of Christ dwell in you richly Colossians 3:16 we are what is word of Christ dwell in you richly poit old you the wine versus the water I'll give you another example I was thinking with this verse is a cup of tea we are a cup of hot water the Bible is a tea bag many of us we read you never have a cup of tea which is just that's a pretty stinky cup of tea I got the bag here and I know how you drink tea how you drink tea what you like do you like - yeah right and then you that some of your really fancy do the fancy spoon like ringing thing right you know to do that thing okay you get it all yeah we're very proud of our tea drinking abilities I we want that bad boy rich we don't want just water with food coloring we want rich cup of tea I'm afraid that many of us our scripture reading we need to go past the superficial we need depth we need depth and we need to read answer some questions read again answer some more questions read again and like we would need to let that teabag yeah alright and then wring it out with the application at the end we need to go beyond the superficial we need to grow deeper in the Word of God yes there's a time and place for reading and getting wider but what I'm talking about specifically today is going deeper in the Word of God you know what happened to a cup of water when you let a teabag dwell in it rich lead it looks different it tastes different smells different anybody goes near that cup of tea says this is not the same cup that I just saw five minutes ago agreed that's what we need for the word of God for us we need the Word of God to change us I think the word of God to give us hope I mean the Word of God to transform and heal our life I didn't gonna happen from two minutes you want the Word of God to transform you you must let the word of Christ dwell in you richly like a tea bag and a beautiful cup of water let's stand up together and say a prayer in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit one God amen Lord once again we thank you for your word and we thank you because your word is infinitely deep and is infinitely rich and I pray Lord that you would allow your word to dwell in us richly that we would find new depth and new meaning every time we open your word that you'll continue to open our eyes to the wonderful things in your law and you would let those things to settle inside us and really transform our lives and make us into new creations but everyone around us would seeing a difference in us pray Lord that you'd never let your word to be just a routine an obligation or thing that we do just to check off on a little box but let it to really change our lives and changes into new people change our marriages into new marriages to change our friendships and to new friendships change us into you your image more and more every single day we ask this in the name of your only begotten Son our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ with the intercessions and the prayers of all your saints hears as we pray thankfully our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us evil 1 through Christ Jesus our Lord banish the kingdom the power and the glory forever amen thank y'all very much have a great week you
Transcription