Shine Bright

Philippians 2:12–18 “Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless. But I will rejoice even if I lose my life, pouring it out like a liquid offering to God, just like your faithful service is an offering to God. And I want all of you to share that joy. Yes, you should rejoice, and I will share your joy.”

other translations say therfore, so this is being bult off of what Paul has just said in the verses previous

God is working in you

Philippians 2:12–13 “Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”

kinda like getting a gift you have to build. You have the gift but now you have to work it out to to build it up to the actual thing. or like ebing given a seed, you have a tree but it needs to grow

Saving Grace

Daily Grace

Sanctification and justification, daily grace and saving grace.

like adoption, my sisters were adopted when they were young and now they are working out what it means to be a ford. Like they have my family, there are ways that my family does stuff that is different than other familes.

Shine brightly

Philippians 2:14–16 “Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless.”

Do everything

Not just some, or a little but everything we do should be without grumbling or complaining. we lower ourselves when we do that. Our standard as Christians is much higher than the world. Our standard is Christ. Not each other. So when we compare ourselves to each other it is a bad comparison. We need to compare ourselves to Christ.

1 John 2:6 “Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.”

I know we will never match up, but our goal is to try and thankfully we have a God who forgives.

Hold firm

the imagery here is thinking of stars at night, our world can be so dark that these little pinpricks of light illuminate the world. stars cannot be seen in the day only at night.

stars do not flicker in and out of shining. They are constant.

Navigating through the North star, Polaris could not be possible if did not always shine and if it did not always point north.

we cannot reflect what we are not near

Rejoice!

Philippians 2:17–18 “But I will rejoice even if I lose my life, pouring it out like a liquid offering to God, just like your faithful service is an offering to God. And I want all of you to share that joy. Yes, you should rejoice, and I will share your joy.”

even if

Paul here is saying that even if he will lose his life he will still rejoice. There is no circumstance that Paul will not rejoice in because of the joy of knowing the Lord and helping other believers.

faithful service is an offering to God

When we serve it is not just to the people we are serving but to God and for god. What we do to the least of these we do to jesus.

Matthew 25:34–40 ““Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’ “Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ “And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’”