Who's Driving? | Ryan Kramer

and also all the guys from Liberty Correctional. Give it up for them today. Love you guys. I want to start today by kind of bringing you into a heated debate, something that is kind of a divisive topic and it's something that I've been having a conversation about recently and I want to get your take on it and so the debate is around this controversial idea of jam or jelly. Where's the jam people? How many is jam as your jam, right? A couple of you. How many is the jelly? Jelly's it. Yep. Yep. I'm a jelly guy. If you don't know the difference, right? Jam is the one that's got the crushed fruit in it and jelly is the one that's kind of smooth with no fruit in it and that can be somewhat of a divisive topic but I think for most of us, we can agree to disagree between jam and jelly but I think where it really gets dirty is in the flavors. Where's the great people? The great people out there. Any any strawberry people out there? Like I'm a strawberry. Yeah. What about raspberry? Any raspberries? Yeah. You guys are special. That's the that's like the fancy one with the seeds. Like you guys are probably the ones that drink sparkling water or club soda restaurants, right? Well, it turns out somebody actually studied this. Years ago, there was some researchers that did a jam tasting table in a grocery store and here's what they did. One day they would set up a table with 24 different jams and then the next day they would set up a table of six and they would rotate those days over a period of time and what they what they discovered in doing that was that the table that had the 26 jams actually had the most interest. Like it attracted the most people up to the table but it was the table with the six different flavors that sold the most. They actually sold 10 times more than the table with the 26 and what researchers discovered is what they they later coined the phrase paradox of choice and what that means is is they discovered that having a lot of options doesn't necessarily equal happiness that in many cases more options means less happiness. You see our culture tries to convince us of the opposite doesn't it? Like more is always better but what psychologists have proven is otherwise and and here's why this matters for all of us is that we live in a world that's drowning with options, right? We're drowning with options like every decision, every purchase that we go to make, every scroll. Have you ever tried to find a new show on Netflix and spent 20 minutes searching and then you're just like I'm just going to go watch something else, right? Like like we live in this world that's drowning in options. It's like it's just another jam tasting table full of all of these choices and yet for many of us joy still feels more elusive than it ever has our life and that's why we are starting this new series that we've entitled

Joyride and we're going to we're going to go verse by verse through the letter of Philippians and what's fascinating about this letter from the Apostle Paul is you would think if you're talking about joy that life must be going pretty well but for him it was quite the opposite. Here's a guy who was writing this letter from a prison cell. He had no options, no control over his life. He had no idea if he was going to live or die and yet this is the most joy-filled letter that he writes in the New Testament. See Paul discovered something that I think That as Christ followers, the road of life isn't meant to lead us to a happier life. The road of life is meant to lead us to Jesus. And so today, if you're kind of walking into this place and we're beginning to transition into these holiday seasons, maybe for you, your circumstances are less than ideal. Maybe for you today, it's a marriage that's struggling. Maybe for you, it's a recent diagnosis or maybe for you, it's your finances. Or maybe for some of you, it's an empty chair at the table this year. There is joy available to you in the midst of what you're walking through. And the Apostle Paul is going to help us discover how to experience it. If you got your Bibles with you today, turn with me to Philippians chapter one. And if you are taking notes, I've entitled today's message, who's driving? Who is driving? Father, we thank you for your presence in this place today. And Lord, we just invite you into this moment. Lord, we wanna hear from you.

Lord, we want to experience all that you have for us. And so, Father, I just pray God that all the distractions, the busyness of life, the decisions that need to be made today or this week, Lord, I pray that you would help us to be able to push those off to the side for just a moment and to open our hearts, Lord, that we might be receivers of all that you have for us today. In Jesus' name, amen. So before we read this letter of Philippians, I think it's important for us to know how we got here. And I'm gonna spend a few minutes on this, on the front end today and I'm not gonna do this every week, but I think it's important because the church in Philippi has one of the wildest beginnings in the Bible. So 10 years prior to this letter being written by Paul, Paul is on his second missionary journey and he's got his buddy Silas with him, he's got his protege Timothy that he is raising up in the faith and so they are looking to preach the gospel to go reach people for Jesus and so they're thinking, hey, we're gonna go to this region over here and the Bible says that the Holy Spirit stopped them, prevented them from being able to go. Then they decided, well, we'll go over to this region and again, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit prevented them from going there and then Paul ends up having a dream, a vision and it's this man in Macedonia, he doesn't know who it is, but in this dream, this man says come and help us and I can't help

but to think about this and we all know who Paul is, wrote half of the New Testament and yet he felt like he was pursuing and going after God in a certain direction and yet the Holy Spirit stopped him from going there, prohibited it. I think what we discover in this is that sometimes God puts roadblocks in our path, not to hurt us and definitely not to discourage us, but to steer us. To get us going in the direction in which he wants us to go and so what Paul and Silas and Timothy experience is that steering from the Lord and so they ultimately end up in this place, the city, Roman city called Philippi. So they get there and I would just assume that maybe they're getting there and they're thinking, hey, where is this guy in the dream, right? We got to find this guy in the dream and ultimately they're there for a few days and up comes the Sabbath and so they walk down by the river bank because there's a prayer meeting that's happening down there and they meet this business and the Bible says that the Lord opens her heart and she receives the gospel and she's saved. But she's not just saved, like all of a sudden her whole household becomes saved and baptized, and she invites them into her house, and it's their and Lydia's house that the church of Philippi gets its start. While they're there, there's this slave girl that is demon possessed. And the team's like walking around

and they're trying to spread the gospel in a very Roman area. And this demon possessed girl is walking around and just publicly mocking them everywhere that they go. Like yelling out and just mocking them and have you ever had a situation that you just get so frustrated that you snap? And I'm not talking about snapping your fingers. I'm talking about internally like you just lose it. And Paul has one of those moments. Like he gets so annoyed by this slave girl that he turns around and he casts the demon out of her. Now you think, hey, great, God's move and just burnt the church. Now we got this girl that has been demon possessed that Paul has delivered. You would think everything's great, but it's not so great because the slave girl's owners get mad because she makes money for them by fortune telling. And now she's not doing that. She's not making that money anymore. And they get mad. And so they bring charges up against them. And as they bring charges up against them, Paul and Silas are then taken and all of their clothes are torn off and they take these rods and they beat 'em to near death and they throw 'em in prison. And then that story that if you grew up in Sunday school, you may remember at midnight.

At midnight, Paul and Silas are in the prison, right? They're bloody, they're bruised, they're chained up and what do they do? They're not complaining, they're worshiping. They're praying and they're singing worship songs and all the prisoners are listening in and then all of a sudden this earthquake happens and the doors fly open and all of the chains start falling off. And at this time, the jailer wakes up and is freaked out because he thinks that everybody has fled and escaped. And so he's about to commit suicide because in Roman law, the fact that they had escaped would have cost him his life anyway. And right as he's about to commit suicide, Paul shouts out, stop, we're all still here. And the jailer gets just overwhelmed in this moment and he falls down trembling and he asks Paul and Silas, what must I do to be saved? That night, the jailer washes their wounds and accepts Jesus and is baptized and his whole family is converted and baptized. And then the next morning, the city leaders, right? They find out that Paul's a Roman citizen, that he's not a Jew. And so they start panicking because beating a citizen of Rome without a trial was illegal. So they start apologizing and they tell Paul to get out of their city. Friend that and what happens then is then 10 years later

after all of that, Paul is in prison again. He's in prison in Rome and he's waiting to find out whether he's going to live or die. And this church from Philippi that started in this woman Lydia's house sends a messenger with a care gift. And ultimately what happens is Paul then writes, Back to this church in Philippi, from the prison that he is in and wrong. This letter is not a sermon that Paul is preaching. It's a thank you letter from a pastor to his church, thanking them for the way in which they have been living their faith out and the support that they have had for Paul through the last 10 years and encouraging them to keep living a life that's modeled after Jesus. And friend, that's the letter that we're reading today. And so in Philippians chapter one, says this letter is from Paul in Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus. This is an interesting word that Paul uses here to describe himself and Timothy. I mean, think about it, we live in a day and age that's all about platforms and followers and brands and blue check marks on our social media. But here you have Paul who's an apostle. He's a church planner. He's the author of about half of the New Testament. He's the founder of this very church and he describes himself as a slave. This word slave in the Greek is do-loss.

And in those days, slaves were not known by what they do. They were known by whose they were. Who they belong to. And Paul is telling this church, despite all of his accolades and all of his titles, he's taking the lowest of possible positions and he's saying, listen, it's not about what I've done and what God has done through me that I don't belong to myself, I belong to him. And he says, I'm writing to all of God's holy people. And Philippi, who belong to Christ Jesus, including the church leaders and the deacons. This phrase, holy people, when we read something like that, we can look at that and kind of disqualify ourselves. Some translations use the word saints there. But it's not talking about stained glass windows and it's not talking about perfect life. This word in the Greek means set apart. It means that we were purchased with the price that Jesus paid on the cross. Not that we are perfect in what we do or that we never sinned, but we are holy people because we have surrendered our life to Jesus. So as Christ followers, it's not about perfection, it's about acknowledging that we have been set apart and Paul says here in this text, he's like, listen, may God, our Father and Lord Jesus Christ, may he give you grace and peace. And every time that I think of you, I give thanks to my God.

I love that to you, but that's a strange thing to say from a prison, remembering a place where he was beaten, where all of his clothes were torn off, he was thrown into prison and then kicked out of a city. He had plenty of reasons to be negative in this letter, but yet he chose to be positive. He says, whenever I pray, I make my request for all of you with joy and then notice this. For you have been my partners in spreading the good news about Christ from the time that you first heard it until now. I don't know about you, but when I was reading this this week, that word partners really jumped out at me. And that word in the original language in the Greek is Koine Nia. And if you've been around church a little bit, you're probably familiar with that word and it means fellowship. It's translated as fellowship. But I think that in the English language, we've really watered down the significance of what that word means. to coffee and donuts in the fellowship hall. And that's not what it meant in these days. And these days, Coinania was a business word. And it described partners who put up their own money and shared the risk and carried the load together and ultimately would split whatever profits came out of it. Paul is describing this Philippian church as a church that has lived that out.

This is a church that has opened up their homes to other believers. This is a church who has sent money to Paul to be able to advance the kingdom work. They even sent one of their messengers to go to Paul in that Roman prison who almost lost his life. He got so sick and roamed that he almost died. And yet he was the one that carried the letter of Philippi back to the church. You know, I just wanna suggest to you today that the church isn't a restaurant where we come and we get served and then we leave a review. It's not a restaurant where we come, we get served and we leave a review. What Paul's saying here is the church is really more like a family business. And every family business has two kinds of family members. One kind of family member is the ones that sit back and they just kind of wait to inherit whatever the business produces and then the other kind of family member is the ones that roll up their sleeves because they wanna be a part of helping shape what that business ultimately becomes. Both of these types of people are family but only one of them is a partner. And that's what Paul is thanking them for. He says, I am certain that God who began the good work within you will continue his work

until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. I wanna point out here just real quick where Paul's confidence is coming from. Notice it's not coming from their ability to be able to live out the faith and to be who God has called them to be. His confidence comes in the one who started it all. He's saying, listen, God is at work in your life. And there are seasons in your life that it doesn't seem like he's anywhere around and seasons where we feel like we're more of a failure than a winner and what Paul is trying to help them see is that God who began a work in you, he is faithful to continue that work until it's finished. He says, so it is right that I should feel as I do about all of you, for you have a special place in my heart that you share with me the special favor of God both in my imprisonment and in defending and confirming the truth of the good news. So as God knows, how much I love you and long for you with tender compassion of Christ Jesus. And then Paul tells them what he's been praying for. And I want you to notice in this next verse that he's not praying that their life would be easier. He's praying for something different, looking verse nine. And he says, I pray that your love will overflow. That your love will overflow more and more and that it will keep growing in knowledge,

say knowledge in understanding and say understanding. Knowledge in understanding. I want to use this analogy to help us understand what Paul's trying to communicate here. I want you to think of love as a river. A river with no embankments on the left and the right And that water goes wherever it wants to go, that water shallow, it has no real clear direction. Like it spreads anywhere and it ruins just about everything that it touches. But then the rivers that have embankments, those embankments aren't there to confine the river, it's there to create depth and direction. And I don't know if you've noticed this in our culture, but our culture talks about love all the time. But I want to suggest to you that the love that culture talks about all the time is a love without embankments. You see what Paul is trying to communicate here is that knowledge is one embankment of the river of love and understanding is the other. You see without those two embankments in our life, then we look at love and love becomes, you know, in our culture like gender, becoming an option, right? We can pick whatever gender that we want to be. That is love without embankments, right? Truth has become hate speech. Feelings have now become our compass. Our feelings are what determine wherever we go in life, right and wrong has been replaced with our truth. And this whole idea of all roads ultimately lead to heaven. Friend, that is a culture talking about love, but it's love without embankments. You see, Paul is saying that Godly love in our life, that it has two embankments. It's got one that's knowledge. It's got knowledge that's knowing what is true about God. That's knowledge.

And then you've got understanding, which is knowing how to apply that truth. And friend, we have to have both of those embankments in our life for our love to be able to overflow more and more. And then Paul shows us what the benefits of those two embankments in our life are. He says, "For I want you to understand, notice us what really matters, so that you may live a pure and blameless life until the day of Christ returned." And then here's the beautiful part that when we figure out what really matters, right, when we focus on a life of focusing on the things that really matter, it allows us to be able to cut some things out of our life, and what God does in that void, the absence of the things in our life that don't really matter, is he fills it. And verse 11, he says, "May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation, the righteous character that's produced in your life by Jesus Christ. For this will bring much glory and praise to God." So what do we do with this? Such a powerful passage. There's a whole lot of meat in here that I hope you'll lean into this week and study a little bit. But I want to point out five things really quick, five things really quick. And here's what I want to challenge you on, is I want to challenge you to ask the Holy Spirit to convict you on maybe one or two that might be in your life, that might be somewhat out of alignment with God's will for your life. Don't try to accomplish all of them, just say God like pinpoint, pinpoint one or two of these that you would like me to dig into a little bit more. The first one is this, is we got to root our identity in Jesus. Paul referred to himself as a slave of Christ Jesus. You see when our identity is rooted in what we do, we're only as good as our last performance. And some of us have been letting our roles. or however many followers that we have on social media to tell us who we are. And I just, I wanna challenge you this week.

If you feel like that, that is you. I want you to pay attention to two things this week. I want you to pay attention to what makes you defensive or what makes you depressed. Because whatever those two things are, there's a good chance that that's where you are finding your identity. And so this week as that goes off, as you get defensive over something or you get depressed about something, a situation, a circumstance, I wanna encourage you to go to the Lord in prayer and to ask God to help you root yourself, not in whatever that thing is, but in him. So we've gotta root ourself, our identity, and Jesus, the second one is this. Focus on people's impact, not their imperfections. Impact, not imperfections. Paul said that when I think of you, I give thanks to God. I mean, he's talking about this church in Philippi, right? Where Paul was beaten, he's jailed, he's run out of town. He could have remembered the bruises, but instead he chose to remember the people. Friend, if you're expecting people in your life to be perfect before you're grateful for them, you're never gonna be grateful for anybody. And so this week, what I want you to do, if this is the one that kind of hits the heart, the hardest is I want you to think

about somebody in your life that's had a huge impact. Even right now, like think of somebody in your life that has had a huge impact. And my guess is that person's fingerprints are all over your life. But here's the thing, if you look close enough, I bet they left some smudges too. Friend, don't let the smudges make you miss the finger marks. Don't let the few times of their imperfections and how it may have rubbed you the wrong way cause you to not be grateful and thankful for the impact that they have ultimately made in your life. And so this week, if that's you, like think of that person that's had a positive impact that has probably rubbed you wrong from time to time. And I wanna challenge you to do something. I wanna challenge you to send them a text this week. And I want you to think of a specific thing that they did that impacted your life and just be thankful for it and encourage them, look past the smudges and be thankful for the fingerprints. The third one, find your place in the family business. In the family business. Paul thanked them for their partnership in spreading the gospel. Brendan St. Corinthians chapter five, Paul uses this language to the church in Corinth about being ambassadors of Christ. He talks about how God has given us, how it says in the scripture,

this task of reconciling people to himself. Like you and I have a job. We have a part in the family business. And my question to you today is which family member are you? Are you the one that's sitting back waiting for the inheritance? Are you the one that's rolling up your sleeves, helping shape what it becomes? Friend, the joy of the Lord is found in the work, not the waiting. It's found as you lean in to God's purpose for your life. And so maybe for you this week, if that's the one that's like hitting you, hey, I'm gonna be a part of a dream team. I'm gonna start serving at TC or I'm gonna start serving in my community that is part of an organization, not just good works, but part of an organization that is leading people towards Christ. And one of the ways that you can do that, like you could tap the dot on the seat back, you go by the connect center on your way out, like we're here to help you find the right fit for you. But my challenge to you is don't be the one that just sits back waiting on the inheritance. Be the one that rolls up their sleeves and helps shape what God is doing in this church and in this community. The fourth one is give your love some embankments. You see embankments is how knowledge and understanding are built in our life.

There was a study that was done in the early 2000s and geologists studied this Rocky River in Taiwan and what they discovered ultimately challenged what many scientists believed shaped the earth's surface. They discovered that the day-to-day flow of water accounted for more wear to rocks than an occasional catastrophic flood. And I think that applies to our spiritual life too. Like it's great to have huge moments and powerful services and all of that kind of stuff. I'm a huge fan for that. Like I love it when God does something like momentarily and deep and powerful that's in my life. But that's not how embankments are created. Understanding and knowledge is not created through these powerful moments. They're created in the day-to-day routines of getting into his word, of making church a priority. Like friend, listen, if you're coming to church once a month, like you can't build embankments that way. Like you're talking about 12 hours a year, you're gonna spend more time at stoplights in a year than that. Like we don't build embankments by never opening our Bible until life goes south on us and then we do. It's the daily routines in our life that help us to gain more knowledge about who God is and more understanding about how we live that out in our life. And so if that's you, if that's one that's like hitting close to you today,

I would challenge you with this because being around Jesus isn't the same as being changed by Jesus. Like those are two different things and I would challenge you with this to commit to this series. Like commit to be here every week. Like most of our life, if you think about it, most of our life, we are saying a no to church so that we can say yes to something else. And my challenge to you if this hits home for you is that between now and the end of the year, say no to some of the other stuff so that you can say yes to church. And watch what God begins to do in your life. And then the fifth one is this, choose best, not just good. Choose best, not just good. Remember that jam table, right? Full of all of these choices but the choices left people stuck to the point that they ended up walking away from the table with nothing. And our lives are a lot like that. Full of good options, right? Good things that are filling our calendar, good things that are on our social media feeds, good things that are in our hearts that there's no room for what's best. Paul's prayer is that you and I would know

what really matters in life. Because when you know what really matters, you can say no to good things and say yes for the best things. For as we head into this holiday season, I want you to know this that everything is going to be competing for your time and attention. So before you say yes to good, I want to challenge you to ask God in those moments when it comes to schedules and calendars and routines as God is this your best. God, I know this is good, but is this your best. I want to take a moment and I want to remind you of something. Paul had godly plans. He had good intentions, but God still shut the doors and steered him to Philippi where he would ultimately be beaten and chained and he still found joy. And how did he find joy? He was able to find joy because he knew that he wasn't the one that was driving God was. So let me ask you this morning. Where have you been grabbing the wheel in life? What are some of the situations and the things that you've been navigating that? If you really took an honest look that you've been white knuckling it, trying to figure it out, trying to steer the car in the direction. Or maybe for some of you, like what?

Maybe it's a closed door. It's a closed door and you're still angry with God because it didn't work out. Maybe for some you've been letting things in your life, accomplishments and successes or failures, social media or status. Been allowing those things to tell you who you are. Maybe for you God wants to remind you today that your identity is not found in those things, that is found in him. Or who in your life? Who in your life has had a massive impact for the good in your life, but you've written them off because of a few smudges. (gentle music) Friend, every one of us in this room showed up with keys. And these keys often represent our plans and where we want to go, they can represent our heart, what we're trying to control, or future. And Jesus isn't coming and asking to ride along with us in life, he's coming and he's asking for the keys to our life. And maybe that's the question for you today. It's who's holding the keys. For in the road of life, you're gonna be frustrated, you're an entire spiritual journey if you don't get this. The road to life isn't meant to make your life happier. Happy Earth! And so if we keep chasing happiness, then life just goes up and down and up and down

because that's not what really matters. What really matters, Paul is saying, is that we become more like Jesus. And I don't know about you, but I know in my life because I'm pretty hard-headed and stubborn that I become more like Jesus, not through the winds and the successes and the good days. I become more like Jesus when he realizes that I'm trying to do a good thing, but Ryan, I'm going to steer you in this other direction. And you're going to experience some heartache, some disappointment. Some people are going to let you down. You're going to let some people down. But I'm going to bring you in that direction because, Ryan, you've learned better through the hard times than the good. And, friend, Paul is saying when you understand that, it changes everything in life because no matter what the circumstance is, you can find joy because your joy isn't anchored in the circumstance. It's anchored in him. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, make sure you subscribe. Also, if something spoke to you in a special way, share it with a friend because you never know how it could transform someone's life. If you're interested in checking out our service times, make sure you go to our website at transform tlh.com. And we hope to see you at TC on a Sunday. Thanks so much and have a great day.