Good morning church family!

Yesterday, I was with the Ardmore Football Team. I got to watch them scrimmage some. I love watching football of all levels. I’m too out of shape to do all of that anymore, but I enjoy watching others do it.

The thing I noticed yesterday is the same thing any of us can notice about a football team. Ardmore’s offense was most impressive when each player wasn’t doing his own thing, right? They moved the ball most effectively when they were all working in the same direction, with the same purpose and goal. Everybody knew the play. Everyone knew their role. And everyone executed their part to make the play successful. When a football play is run properly, it can look as graceful as ballet! I love it!

Ardmore looked good on many plays yesterday, but they haven’t gotten like that overnight! A group of players don’t just show up, put on pads and start immediately playing as a team! It takes time and intentional effort from the coaches and players to get there.

Coach Wright and his coaching staff have worked hard to bring full unity to the team. Each day, they practice hard, working on fundamentals, running drills, scrimmaging, and a bunch of other stuff, and at the end of practice, coach says the same thing...

BRING IT IN.

This means, stop what you are doing, come in here, take your helmet off, let’s take a knee right here, and let’s talk about where we are now and where we are going.

Greg and I got to be in that talk week before last. Coach brags on things that are working well and points forward to what needs to be worked on further. He speaks the truth even when it hurts, and the guys don’t want to hear it. But he knows it’s important for the future of the unity of the team.

Today, we are starting a new series called BRING IT IN. I am praying that through these four weeks, the same thing that every football coach tries to accomplish for their team is accomplished in us. I pray that we are drawn together through this series and we are reminded that we are in this together and we need each other.

Let me read the passage we will focus on for today and then I will pray and we will come back and study this together.

Philippians 1:20–26 CSB

My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now as always, with all courage, Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Now if I live on in the flesh, this means fruitful work for me; and I don’t know which one I should choose. I am torn between the two. I long to depart and be with Christ—which is far better— but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. Since I am persuaded of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that, because of my coming to you again, your boasting in Christ Jesus may abound.

PRAY

The book of Philippians which I just read from is a letter that Paul the Apostle, missionary, church planter wrote to a real group of people who were trying to follow Jesus together in a city called Philippi. According to the letter itself, he sent it with a Philippian named Epaphroditus who had come from the church to minister to Paul in prison. Yes, Paul is writing this from prison!

Anyway, the way this letter system worked is that Epaphroditus had been with Paul during the whole letter writing process which wasn’t quick! Many scholars believe Paul would have worked and sculpted these letters just right over weeks, with multiple drafts and a secretary to draft the final on expensive papyrus. Epaphroditus would take the letter back to the church and would read it aloud in the presence of everyone, doing his best to convey the passion with which it had been written.

As Epaphroditus is reading this, it is viewed as if Paul himself is speaking to them. They are gathered together and the coach has called them to BRING IT IN, right?

That’s the image of each of Paul’s letters and it’s the image we want for our series too.

What is it that Paul wanted to convey to them in that huddle? What were the things his team needed to know, work on, or keep doing well?

This morning we will see that Paul wanted them to know that

EVERY TEAM HAS A REASON

Paul is showing his readers here that his reason for living is not a selfish reason. If you were to observe the decisions many people make every day, you would find a recurring theme: selfishness. They make decisions based on themselves. This is not how a team functions, and it is certainly not how the church and we as individuals can function! Our purpose must be outside of ourselves...

1. For the glory of Christ

Paul makes it clear in verse 20 who he is living for...

Philippians 1:20 CSB

My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now as always, with all courage, Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by life or by death.

I will not be ashamed and I will live with courage so that whether I live or die, people will remember the name PAUL! Is that what he said? NO!

Paul says that all this eagerness and hope is founded in honoring Christ! Why does Paul want to live his life with unashamed courage? So that Jesus would be exalted!

Think about that for a moment as an individual...

What would your life look like if you lived it all for the glory of Christ? What if the decisions that you made on a regular basis were made with honoring Christ at the center instead of your reputation, your wants, your selfish ambition? What kind of man or woman would you be? What would you be known for? What kind of difference could you make?

Right now, the camera is zoomed in on you… Let it zoom out a little...

What would it look like if everyone who calls East home made this commitment? What would our worship services look like? What would our outreach look like? What would our community say of us? What would we be known for?

Every team has a reason, and our reason must be the glory of Christ!

But there was another level to this with Paul as well. We see that his reason was also...

2. For the good of the Church

Look again at our verses beginning in verse 21...

Philippians 1:21 CSB

For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Paul recognized that his death ushered in for him ultimate pleasure in the presence of his Savior who had saved him! That sounded really good!

Remember the context here. Paul is in prison. He could easily have gotten himself killed if he had wanted to just end it and go be with Jesus. He knew that would be a gain for him! But he doesn’t. WHY!?

Philippians 1:22–26 CSB

Now if I live on in the flesh, this means fruitful work for me; and I don’t know which one I should choose. I am torn between the two. I long to depart and be with Christ—which is far better— but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. Since I am persuaded of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that, because of my coming to you again, your boasting in Christ Jesus may abound.

Paul says, the best route here is my death! That’s my natural choice! However, you guys are still kind of a mess and could use my encouragement and help. You need to be discipled.

Notice this here:

For Paul, true sacrifice wasn’t laying down his life for Jesus. That would be awesome! The real sacrifice would be to stay and continue to minister to boneheaded people like the Philippians! People who can’t seem to stay focused on who God is and follow him passionately.

- For Paul, true sacrifice wasn’t death but life.

Paul lived on for the sake of others, for the good of the church!

Let me ask a similar question from earlier...

What would it look for you to have Lindsay Lane East at the center of every decision in your life? Before you make a decision: how will this affect my commitment to my church? How will this decision impact the fellowship I have with the people there?

If you and I asked these questions… What impact would we make? What would we be known for?

There are too many people who downplay the importance of what we have here! There are people who try to make a biblical argument that you can just be a Christian without being a part of a local church. The truth is, the book of Acts refutes that greatly! House churches were springing all over the known world by the end of the first century. Why did those exist? Because when people experience salvation in Jesus, they should immediately find a group of people in their area to pray, worship, and grow together with.

What we do here is important! And you have an opportunity to take part in it!

We have been working with a skeleton crew of volunteers since coming back in person. It’s been just our leadership: staff, coordinators, and team leaders. So many of you were serving regularly before we had to shut down, but haven’t been able to serve and use your gifts lately. We want to begin to open these positions back up so that we can begin to do this together again! We need one another! We all need this local body to be strong! It will be at its strongest when more and more of us are serving regularly.

If you would like to get plugged into a place of service. You can fill out the connect card you were given on your way in, you can fill it in digitally by texting East Connect to 31996, or you can simply show up on Aug. 19 for our next leadership training event here at East. We start at 6:30 right here in the sanctuary. Hope you can make it!

In the opening part of this section of Philippians 1, Paul is giving his reason to live. He says everything he does is for the GLORY OF CHRIST and the GOOD OF THE CHURCH.

I am asking you to consider these two today as a test for your own reason to live. Are these two things even on your radar when you are making major decisions? If not, what can you do this week to begin to live this way?

For us to be a team that works together, we have to have a common purpose to what we do! For Paul, those reasons were simple. And just as Paul wanted them to rub off on the Philippian church, I want them to rub off on us!

Our reason for everything is the GLORY OF CHRIST and the GOOD OF THE CHURCH!

When you are faced with big decisions in the coming days, consider these things! Will this bring more glory to Christ? Will this serve to better the church?

Today, I pray that God has either encouraged you in the way you are living your life or convicted you. Either way, there is a response to God during this last song.

If these reasons have been front and center in your life, praise God! Be encouraged! But know that this effort is the Spirit of God in you! You need to thank God today for the strength to do what you do! You may want to pray a prayer of thankfulness at the altar or just sing like nobody can hear you but God!

If these reasons have not been in the center of your life or even on your radar, you do need to repent of that, and come back to Christ! These are the reasons we live, move and breathe. Other things will distract us from keeping these things centered, but we must fight! You may want to pray a prayer of repentance for how you have been living your life.

And the first and major way we bring glory to God is by trusting in Him fully and surrendering our lives to him! That’s the way the journey begins! If you have not called out to God to be saved and/or not shared that with your church family through baptism, we want to talk with you about that! You can come forward when we start singing here shortly and talk to me or go talk to one of these counselors. Just tell them or me, I want to be saved. They got you covered!

We have been lining up our first baptisms today during the first service! We are so excited to get to be in the water very soon!

This response time can also be used to sign up to serve, using the connect card, or you can also talk with us about joining the church. We are moving four families through that process currently! Exciting Stuff!

However God lays on your heart to respond, you do it! After I pray we will stand and you can respond.

PRAY