Wasted Effort on Bad Eggs - Phil 3:2-11

Call To Worship

Imagine that you are starving and I offer you eggs for breakfast. Sounds good right? Now imagine if there were rotten eggs in the batch. These eggs make you sick. You are now faced with a problem. Either you starve or you get sick.

Let me ask you another question. If you had been eating rotten eggs, would you still want eggs for breakfast? No, of course not! Eating doesn’t help you if it only makes you sick. Then, you’re hungry and sick and worse off than you were before!

If I asked most Christians if they wanted Jesus, they would probably say yes, that’s what they want. Yet some Christians have some rotten eggs of bad religious behaviors that spoil the meal.

We are all starving spiritually for what Jesus provides. Some of us starve because we have not eaten. Some of us starve because we got rotten eggs and decide that eating rotten eggs isn’t worth it.

But there’s a better way. Scripture teaches us how to identify what is good religious activity and what is bad. It tells us how to tell a bad egg from a good egg. In this way, we can eat good food and be healthy, and at the same time, avoid getting sick.

Today, I want to answer a seemingly simple question: Are we eating good eggs? Or to put it another way: Are we taking part in the right kinds of Christian activity?

Your Love Awakens Me by Phil Wickham

CCLI License # 22100415

Prayer of Invitation

God, we need you and your love in our lives...

… Open our eyes to know good activity from bad and to make enough space for you to work.

IJNA

Philippians 3:2–11 ESV

Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Break It Down

Look out for those who give you bad eggs

If you want bad eggs, I am the master of bad eggs

But I found the bad eggs to be worse than worthless!

I now want to fill my basket with good eggs (and so should you!)

Space for faith

Space for power

Space for one another

Space for life

Do you find your own heart sensitive to the Lord’s presence, or are you among those who are “samplers” and “nibblers”? God help you if you are, for the child of the King isn’t a sampler and a nibbler—he’s a sheep who loves his Shepherd, and he stays close to his Shepherd. That’s the only safe place for a sheep—at the Shepherd’s side, because the devil doesn’t fear sheep—he fears the Shepherd. Your spiritual safety and well-being lies in being near to the Shepherd. Stay close to Jesus and all the wolves in the world cannot get a tooth in you.

A. W. Tozer

There is no world in which we fix our salvation or sanctification. By piling on Christian trappings, all we do is burden ourselves and become self-righteous, overloaded, and burdened.

So then, how do we think about pursuing God? What does following God look like? And at least for our small church, what does it look like for us to be successful in following God?

Let me introduce a concept that I’ll likely repeat a lot over the next year:

Living Community Church is successful when busy people make space to thrive.

At it’s root, Paul is telling us that no matter how good your religious activity is, you will not find God that way. Anyone who says otherwise is a “wolf”.

On the other hand, many Christians read this passage and then take a liberal view of the their faith. Well, if all the religious activity is negative, I don’t need to do anything. If all the eggs are bad, I simply won’t eat.

This is not Paul’s point. That way leads to spiritual starvation!

Listen to Paul carefully. He says that he will do whatever he can, “that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

So we are left with a riddle. According to Paul, we must do whatever we can, but it’s not about religious activity. What then is it all about? What things are worth our time and effort?

Here lies our egg illustration. We need to eat, we just have to eat good things, and if we don’t eat, we starve. So choose wisely.

Space for Faith

Our confidence is not in our love for him, which is frail, fickle and faltering, but in his love for us, which is steadfast, faithful and persevering.

John Stott

Biblically speaking, we find that there are certain spaces that are significant:

The Upper Room

The Mountain Where Jesus… Sermon of the Mount, Feeding the 5,000

The Prayer Closet, The spot at the back of the church

The Tabernacle’s Holy Place - The Holy of Holies

What made these spaces useful or noteworthy was not the space itself. It was the presence of God meeting with the people that made these space unique.

In the upper room it was ...

On the mountain it was ...

In the quiet place in your prayer closet, or the back of the church...

In the Tabernacle it was...

God continues to do this today. He is doing that right now, right here.

Finding a space to meet with God, both on your own, and in community, is the best way to spend your time. These gatherings will change your life.

Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.

We fail to make space in two ways, and let these be cautionary tales:

We fail to make the space to meet with God, either alone or with others

We count our lives as more important than time with Jesus

We are so busy that we miss Jesus even as Jesus is present

We come to where Jesus is waiting for us, but we spend time focused on what we care about, instead of what he cares about.

But Martha was distracted with much serving...Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.

The one thing that’s necessary — is space for Faith.

It’s like a building a wall, to create enough separation to meet with God

Space for Power

“that I may know him AND the power of his resurrection”

The power of the resurrection comes from identifying with Christ. This goes beyond making space and gets into your identity. If making space for faith is keeping the world out by building a wall. Making space for power is allowing God in.

meditation/prayer/practice.

We carry the presence of God out

Moses’ shining face carried this down to the people who had sinned against God. The most amazing grace and the greatest sin meeting head to head — And Moses brings God to the people who had gone astray.

Space for One Another

Space for Faith: Coming together to meet with God. By meeting with God, we bump into each other in a healthy way.

This is what happens when you take that shining face and walk forth. It’s when the boundary line of the kingdom is extended.

The Preacher’s Notebook: The Collected Quotes, Illustrations, and Prayers of John Stott We Only Tolerate Discord Temporarily

“As in music, the long suspended discord is tolerable only because we anticipate an eventual resolution.”

SOURCE: J. V. Taylor, CMS Newsletter (September 1968).

If making space is building a wall to keep the world out, then this power is us crossing the wall back into the world to take the Kingdom out.

Space for Life

Closing Application / Vision: (The Vision Frame: The Core Tool for Visionary Church Leaders - Will Mancini)

Marks

We must put away our busyness and make enough space to absorb God’s Spirit and God’s word, so that we might know him and the power of his resurrection --- so that we might thrive even in death.

In two weeks, we celebrate Easter.

Open the Eyes of My Heart by Paul Baloche

CCLI# 22100415

Communion

Nobody by Casting Crowns

CCLI# 22100415

Benediction