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We cover Philippians 2:19-30. We have fun looking at the lives of two other solid Christians who were with Paul in Rome. In fact, it dawned on me that Paul’s comments (and great appreciation) about Timothy were likely written down by Timothy himself! Paul is a genius. And we get into the important question, "What's my calling from God?"
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Philippians 2:12-18 - Salvation by works? And more...
Hey Gang,
We take a look at Paul's letter, covering how we interact with God and with each other during our time here on earth, plus other fascinating topics including the sanctification process, and then a simple, easy command from Paul: Do all things without complaint or argument. Piece of cake right?!
Chapters:
00:00 Pastor Von's impact.
03:51 Von's video.
05:36 Review of previous studies.
09:23 Philippians 2:12-18.
56:10 Closing prayer.
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Dain Spore is Pastor of Kauai Christian Fellowship, Hawaii.
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Hey Gang,
Today as I studied the unique relationship between God the Father and God the Son, with all the mutual glorification going on…I felt a bit overwhelmed. Verses like this one: "Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will glorify the Son in Himself, and will glorify Him at once" almost started to feel like tongue twisters, and my brain was getting foggy trying to sort it all out.
And yet, perhaps in the light of the fact that this past weekend was a very special one to me because of a wedding, it caused me to see all of our relationships with each other in the context of Jesus’ relationship with His father. If we could even come close to their attitude…what a different world we could have! And indeed, this is the point Paul seems to be making.
We try and sort it all out as we examine the epic poem of Phil 2:6-11.
In the meantime, if you want to get your “egghead” on, check out this fascinating scientific defense of the Biblical Judeo/Christianity by the renowned scientist John Lennox at a conference of faith at Oxford. It’s only about 15 minutes, but keep your finger on the pause button because you will have to stop and digest every few minutes: https://youtu.be/VrIvwPConv0
Video Chapters:
00:00 Quick review of Philippians 1 and 2 so far
06:40 Paul's poem in Philippians 2
52:42 Prayer
53:04 Afterthoughts
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Dain Spore is Pastor of Kauai Christian Fellowship, Hawaii.
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When I was just getting my feet wet as a pastor, I had a close mentor in the ministry whom I would meet with regularly. We would drink coffee, and in my pseudo-intellectual caffeinated state, I would love to jump into the deep end of theology and speculate and postulate my way through various “ians” and “isms." I'd ask things like, “What do YOU think about Semi-Pelagian Arminianism soteriology as compared to five-point Calvinism?”
Sometimes after an hour or so of this, my friend would get frustrated with me and say this: “Yeah, that is all well and good but…what does it look like?” In other words, he wasn’t so interested in exploring the cerebral ramifications of an idea, but rather to what effect was all this knowledge. What good were these conversations if they were not transformative. Around this time I came across a quote that I though was so instructive, I printed it out and put it by front door where I would see it every morning when I left for the office. It said “The end of all good theology is love”.
I was thinking of this while studying chapter two of Philippians. Paul encourages us to be humble, compassionate, encouraging members of His Body. But, as my friend would say, “What does it look like?” Paul provides the perfect example of exactly “what it looks like” in an amazing poem that describes the life, death, resurrection and exaltation of our Messiah Savior Jesus Christ.
This time we deconstruct Paul's awesome poem and tease out all the beautiful intricacies of how Christ loves us, and therefore, how we are to love each other!
Pastor Dain
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Hey Gang,
This time cover another well known verse from Philippians. It's 1:21 - "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain." What a concept! It is hard to think of any other religion or philosophy of life where dying is gaining. Another way to think of this verse is, "For the Christian, life is pretty much a win-win!"
During my life as a pastor I have presided over and attended numerous memorial services, funerals, and “celebrations of life." While all of them have their individual nuances, there is one universal trend that I have seen: the more “solid” a believer is as a Christian, the more joyous is the memorial service. In fact, at the high end of the scale of believers, at their memorial service, there is almost a sense of jealousy amongst the “grieving." Like, “They got to go and I’m still stuck here!" For the believer, to die is to really “gain."
We unpack this verse in the context of Paul, chained to a Roman soldier, as he reflects on all he has learned in his life of serving Christ, and what nuggets of wisdom he desired to pass on to us. Great stuff!
Pastor Dain
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Dain Spore is pastor of Kauai Christian Fellowship in Hawaii.
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Can you imagine? I mean really… try to imagine yourself chained to the apostle Paul for four hours. Daily perhaps! You would probably either come to hate him, or get saved and love him!
We are exploring the dungeon of the praetorian guard in Rome 2,000 years ago in order to experience the joy of Paul while he shares the gospel in the most trying of circumstances.
It's Philippians 1:7-18.
Pastor Dain Spore
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Dain is pastor of Kauai Christian Fellowship in Hawaii.
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Hey Gang,
have you ever fallen for the old lie that God wants you to be happy? And that if you’re not happy it is probably somebody else’s fault, especially the fault of God, or at the very least the fault of the Church! This is one of the most pervasive lies that brings about such disillusionment with people in the church.
But the Apostle Paul presents a much appealing call for us to be full of JOY. Real, biblical, joy that does not fade with every disappointment life brings us. And to prove it, he wrote a letter to the church at Philippi about the great joy that he possessed--while writing from a prison cell! Trust me, he knew what he was talking about.
For the next several weeks we look on as Paul explains to us why we possess joy in Christ, and how to let that guide our lives.
One of his greatest letters!
Pastor Dain
Dain Spore is pastor of Kauai Christian Fellowship in Kauai, Hawaii
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Hey Gang,
It's Jonah and the Assrians! Witness one of the best ever calls to salvation….OK, actually that is a bit of a stretch. You could actually argue that it is the WORST call to salvation in history and yet, perhaps the most effective ever! The whole nation of Assyria repents! Crazy? Nope. Just another day in wacky world of the Book of Jonah. There is some great and fascinating things we cover in the third chapter this time.
Dain Spore is Pastor of Kauai Christian Fellowship in Hawaii.
Jonah's prayer from inside a fish! Jonah chapter 2 is Pastor Dain's Bible study topic. From the belly of the fish Jonah prays an amazing poem of praise and repentance. And if we didn't know better, we'd say Dain was there to dig out the facts!
Dain Spore is Pastor of Kauai Christian Fellow, Kauai, Hawaii.
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Hey, Gang!
We deep dive into Jonah chapter 1 - Running from God. I have to admit, this book is WAY more interesting than I ever thought. It kind of proves that only thinking about the book as the story of a guy and a fish does the book a major disservice. Let's get into it!
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Dain Spore is pastor of Kauai Christian Church, Hawaii.