Perspective: Seeing from a Different Perspective

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION: 

Amen. Goodness. I did not know I was going to be “all in my feels” today after worship. Watching Aidan over here, gosh. I’ve known this kid since, well, since he started coming to church here, I guess. He was a little bitty and to see what God is doing in that 17 year old’s life, that was worth getting up and coming to church for today. Wouldn’t you agree? Yeah, I agree.

So, good morning, Eastside. How are y’all? All right, we’re awake, hopefully. Well, we’re currently in week three of a sermon series called:

“Perspective”

And we’re going through the book of Philippians. And if you all missed weeks one and two, I highly encourage you to go back and to listen to those two weeks. And speaking of last week, Gentry, he preached his first Sunday message last week and in the mornings, can we give it up for him?

Yeah, he did a great job, and I’m not sure if you know this or not, but every July, our senior pastor, Virgil Grant takes a sabbatical. And during that time, it allows our young, upcoming next generation of leaders to grow and to develop. And so I’m just thankful that I’m part of a church, that we get to be part of a church who is investing in the leadership of the next generation. So today I want you to open your books to Philippians three, your Bibles of your Bible app, whatever form of it you have. And before we dive in, I just want to take a moment. I just want to pray over the message today that the Lord has for us.

“Father, I just come to you this morning and I pray for the distractions in the room to just subside. I pray, father, that the distractions that we all have at home waiting for us, that they would just leave our minds and that we could be present with you in this moment with you and the message that you have for all of us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Amen. Well, the title of our message today is:

“What You Experience Determines What You See.”

It’s all about perspective. My friends, we all have different perspectives in life based on the different experiences that we have as individuals. And because of that, I see things that you may not see. And the truth is you see things that I won’t see. My mother-in-law, she used to say it like this: “I did what I knew was best, and now I know better so I do better.” And I love that because her point was always that we do what we know based on what we’ve experienced, and it’s our experience that determines our perspective, which in turn determines our path in life. So the Apostle Paul, he’s talking to some people at a church that he dearly loves. It’s actually a church that he started called the Church of Philippi, and he saw things that they didn’t see because of the experiences that he had.

So I want to give you, before we get started, a little bit of a recap into the Apostle Paul’s life. See, there was a time in his life where he was persecuted and he even killed Christians and he knew just how dark the human heart could be. One day, Paul’s walking along and this light, the Bible tells us, blinds him. And it was the very real presence of God. And he actually heard the audible voice of God speaking to him. And in that moment, God called and stirred something inside of Paul’s heart, and it says that he even took him to another spiritual realm that no one else had ever experienced. And after this encounter, God called Paul, Paul was completely sold out to preaching the gospel around the world because of that moment. And because of it, he was beaten over and over and over again.

He was stoned. And I’m not talking recreationally either. He was stoned by men because of his faith. He was whipped, he was imprisoned in Rome, the place that he wanted to go and preach the gospel. He was imprisoned there, not able, what we would think, to preach the gospel. But Paul had experienced the depths and the darknesses that the human heart can actually have. And at the same time, Paul experienced the grace of God in a way that no one else had. And so I want you to hear this part really clearly because Paul is writing this letter, yes, to the book of Philippi, but he’s writing this letter to you and to me. Friends, he’s writing this letter not just to them, he’s writing it to Eastside. And Paul wants to warn us of some things. He wants to give us his perspective. And in Philippians three, one he says this:

“Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters rejoice in the Lord.”

Philippians 3:1

What did he say to do? He said to rejoice in the Lord.

“I never get tired of telling you these things and I do it to safeguard your faith.”

Philippians 3:1

Well, what did Paul mean, that he wanted to safeguard your faith? See, I think that he meant to say, “I want to protect the condition of your heart. And because you don’t know what I know, there’s dangers out there, there’s dangers that I know of that you cannot see.” And Eastside, Paul wants to warn you and me of dangers that we cannot see. And the first danger today, if you’re taking notes, is legalism. Paul says, “I want you to see the danger of legalism.” Now, legalism is a word we throw around a lot in this culture and this environment.

There’s all kinds of definitions. I looked ’em up on Google. And so just to keep it simple, and in our east side language, this is the term, this is the definition we’re going with. “Legalism is substituting rules for relationships.” It’s saying, “I’m going to be made right with God based on what I do and I don’t do based on this set of rules.” And in the second part of verse three, he says In Philippians:

“We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in the human effort, though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could.”

Philippians 3:3b-4

Paul says, “I put no confidence in my own efforts.” Everybody help me out. No confidence in where? My own own efforts. All right, so Paul says: “You can’t be right with God by just checking off boxes.” He says: “We cannot put confidence in our flesh.”

And then in verse four, he says this:

“Though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could.”

Philippians 3:4

In other words, Paul says, “I’ve done it all. I’ve done all the right things, my friends, I’m the man, I’m the ‘O.G.'” If you’re my 13-year-old son, you say: “I’m drippy.” I don’t know what that means these days, but we’ll go with that as our current language. And then he says in verse five, he kind of gives us his religious resume. And this is what he says in verse five. He says:

“I’m a pure blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin. I’m a real Hebrew if there ever was one. I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.”

Philippians 3:5-6

This, my friends, is Paul’s resume in the flesh. If anyone could have embraced legalism, it would have been Paul who could. Paul says: “I’m faultless. I was born into the elite of the elite. I was with the right group of people. And as a Pharisee, I’ve obeyed more rules than any of you could possibly count. I got it all right, but yet Paul rejected the idea of legalism.” Paul is saying to the Church of Philippi, he’s saying to you and me, Eastside:

Watch out for legalism.

See, I believe that some of you, you might be here and you’re trusting in your own set of rules of what you think church should look like or your Christian walk should look like. And in our world, these are the sayings that I hear: “Yeah, my family growing up, we always went to church. We always went to church camp. I attended VBS every single summer. I was dedicated as a baby. And later in life I got baptized as a believer.”

This is my favorite: “I read the Bible from cover to cover every year, and I never miss a day. I serve at church on Sunday morning. I attend life group. I give, I do all the things. I check all the boxes that are needed. I don’t even drink alcohol for communion. It’s only grape juice for me.” And I don’t know if you all do this, but some of you may say: “I only turn on K-love in my car.” Well, I would say to you, I’m sorry because you’re missing out on some really great music out there. So what does legalism do? What is the dangers that legalism can do for us? Well, it does a couple of things.

One: it can lead to false guilt when we do something wrong.

Two: it can lead to false confidence when we do something right.

See, these are two, this is both two sides of the same coin. So let me just give you an example of how I struggle with these two things in my own personal life. I don’t know if you all know this or not, but I’m not perfect. They all say they’re all laughing over here at me. I am not perfect. And that may sound funny to you guys, but that is actually a really hard thing for me to stand in front of people and say, “I’m not perfect.”

See, I get all this negative self-talk in my head. When I fall on my face, I make a mistake. I begin the cycle of negative self- talk. And sometimes I even begin to believe that God can’t use me because of the mistakes that I’ve made. That is the negative self-talk. Anyone else struggle with negative? Yeah, a little bit more hands in the second service. See, when I was a little girl, that’s the kind of church that I went to. I saw this set of rules and as I got older and became a teenager, I didn’t want anything to do with the church because I thought if I had to go by these set of rules, Jesus could never me and he could never ever use me.

On the flip side of that coin is false confidence. “Hey, look at me. I got it all figured out. I go to the right church. We listen to the right kind of worship music. Our preacher preaches from the King James version only.” False confidence, for me, looks like when I begin to allow pride to creep into my heart. It’s when I have maybe a conflict or I’m upset with someone because of a situation, and then I begin to make myself the victim and I begin to berate them and make myself better. It’s when I ask Jesus, I stop asking Jesus to change my heart about that person. That is how I find self-confidence in my own life. Now, for some of us, and I won’t make you raise your hands, but this might be a little bit of a gut punch.

But peace and love, and if you’re new around here and you’ve not heard that, peace and love is when I’m going to say something to you that you may not like. But I do it because just like Paul, I love my church. I care deeply for Eastside. See some of you, you allow legalism as your moral high ground. For some of you, it becomes a spiritual scorecard of which you’re checking off yourself and you’re grading yourself against mom and dad, brothers and sisters, friends and coworkers. It’s substituting rules for relationships. But here at Eastside, what does that look like? Well, here at Eastside, we are committed to being a church that steers clear of legalistic ideas. How do I know this? I have experienced it so many times in my own life. I promise I have made lots of mistakes around here. Virgil can say amen if he wanted.

But early on when I started on staff here, I had so much to learn about being in ministry. I had no clue what I was doing. And I’m a people pleaser. And so I wanted to make sure that I was doing everything right. And I’m pretty sure that I could have burned a hole in the carpet between my office and Pastor Virgil’s and I would go back every time I wanted to get his approval on every little thing I was doing. And we wanted to do this really big children’s Christmas play; and it was going to be the biggest Christmas play that we had ever done, and it was going to require a really elaborate set. And it was going to have to be that way for a while, so I didn’t know if he would go for it.

So I finally drum up the courage. I go back to his office and I know he is like: “Oh my gosh, is this person… is this woman ever going to stop asking me questions?” And he leans back in his chair and I begin to tell him, and he says: “Let me just stop you right there, Carla.” He said: “Let me see if I can make this decision making a little bit easier for you. I have two rules I need you to follow.” And I’m thinking: “Oh, these must be really, really big rules.” And he kicks back in his chair, and if any of you all have ever been in his office, you know what I mean. And he had that little smart-elic grin and he said: “I need you to make sure that there’s never glitter and hay in the worship center.” Glitter and hay? That’s it? That is the rules that I need to abide by being on staff in the church?

And I couldn’t believe it, but it was in that moment that God was showing me that we always elevate relationships over rules. And here at Eastside, we have this culture that we will never elevate rules over relationships. And I can remember shortly after that conversation, we came up with this saying as a staff that was:

“We operate on principles, not rules.”

And some of you are saying: “Well, what does that even look like?” This is what it looks like. When we make a decision as a church, we will always operate on principles, not rules. And here’s the thing. Over the last 15 years that I’ve been on staff, we have had to deal with legalism trying to creep into our culture here. And we have had to figure out ways to stop it before it takes root. And over the last year or so, I myself have had to deal with legalism trying to seep into our culture.

It looks like it happens when Satan starts getting in somebody else’s mind and they start pushing their legalistic agenda into this church. And I promise you my friends, we have taken a stand that we will always operate on principles, and not rules, and we will always elevate relationship over rules. If any of you all haven’t noticed, there’s some sayings around here as you walk through, and I’m going to need your help a little bit here, so you all got to engage with me. So the sayings on the wall look like this: “It’s okay to…” “Everybody’s…” Back there in the risers, it’s up on the wall to your right. Come on, get loud with me. “Nobodies perfect.” That’s right. “Anything is possible” “We are for you.” There we go. That’s right. See, at East side we’ve decided that we’re going to be grace givers.

We are not going to be inventory takers. My friends, we are a church that is made up of imperfect people and the moment that we choose to accept legalism into our church and allow it to take root, is the moment that we start being everything that Paul was warning the church of Philippi about. He experienced things that we have not experienced. And see, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but our staff here is extremely young, and I’m telling you, I love them. They’re like all my little babies and I would do anything to protect them. And when they fall on their face, because we all do and they make mistakes, we don’t take them out and rake them over the coals and beat them up. We love them. We give them grace, we give them compassion because that is exactly what legalism does not do. Paul says: “Watch out, church, watch out for legalism.” The second danger that Paul warns us of is this. It is:

Spiritual complacency

This is how I would define spiritual complacency using Eastside terminology. Spiritual complacency is being stuck on your all in journey. Now, just so you don’t get confused, I’m going to say it another way. You could be living the all in life with Jesus, doing everything that you know need to do and that you think you should do and still be stuck. There are times I still find myself stuck on my all in journey. And Paul’s saying: “Watch out. Don’t become spiritually complacent.” One of the ways that you can become spiritually complacent is if you’re not serving in your local church, if you’re not serving here, wherever you’re going, Paul say: “Don’t become spiritually complacent.” In his cell from prison, as he’s chained up awaiting execution, this is what he says in verse 12.

“I don’t mean to say that I’ve already achieved these things or that I’ve already reached perfection for who Christ Jesus first possessed me. No dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focused on this one thing: Forgetting the past, looking forward to what lies ahead. I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”

Philippians 3:12-14

Paul is saying that his experiences helped him gain perspective and that perspective still allowed him to be serving and doing what God meant for him to do. He says: “I’ve seen the faithfulness in God, friends. When I was beaten, I was left for dead. I’ve seen the goodness in God when he lifted me to a higher spiritual plane.” He says: “I’ve seen the unfaithfulness of men as they turned their backs against me. I had this dream of coming to Rome to preach the gospel, and here I sit in prison. Here’s the deal,” He says, “You can lock me up, but you cannot shut me up. I’m pressing on. I’m continuing. As long as I have a pen in my hand and a paper before me, I will teach the gospel.” He says: “You can lock me up to four prisoner guards a day, and guess what? I’m going to lead them one by one to Christ because when you’ve experienced what I’ve experienced,” he says, “You can’t sit still. You cannot be satisfied.” Paul says, “I push on.”

See, Paul was using all this gifting that God gave him to reach people that no one else was willing to reach. He wouldn’t allow himself to be satisfied for the work that he had done prior to being imprisoned. Look what he says. So this is what I want to say about serving. I want to just take a moment and I want to talk to the current volunteers at Eastside, and then in just a moment I’m going to talk to those of you that are not serving, but for right now, I want to talk to you volunteers at Eastside. I know I’m not objective, but I believe that we have the best volunteers anywhere across the world and any church at Eastside, we have the best. We have almost 600 volunteers that show up and they serve with joy and purpose in their life, and I just want to encourage all of you, keep serving, keep pushing forward. I know sometimes it can become exhausting and you get tired, but look what Paul says in Galatians six, nine and 10. He says:

“Let us not become weary of doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have the opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially those to belong, that belong to the family of believers.”

Galatians 6:9-10

Well, what does this mean for you volunteers at Eastside? Paul says, “Keep going. Don’t get discouraged serving one another for doing good deeds for one another.” He says, “There will be a time that you can reap a harvest. Keep showing up. Keep finding joy and purpose in what you are doing.” Paul is saying, “Don’t give up. Don’t lose perspective.” We cannot possibly reach 10,000 people in central Kentucky if just one of us isn’t contributing. When it gets hard, keep showing up. Keep asking for God to give you perspective. “Spiritual complacency is dangerous,” he says.

Now, for those of you that are not serving, well, what are you waiting for? I mean, come on, get in the game. Just like Aidan said, he said, “I kept coming. I kept showing up. Get in the game.” And some of you may say, “Well, why do I really need to serve inside of the local church anyway?” Well, I’m glad you asked. I don’t think that we can talk about this without talking about the ultimate servant in Jesus himself. He sets the example for us to follow. Right before he went to the cross, right before he was persecuted, he sat down. He washed his disciples feet in an act of love, humility, and kindness and service, and he encourages you and me to do the same. He says, “Serve one another.” Look what he says in John 13:15:

“I’ve given you an example to follow do as I have done to you.”

John 13:15

I mean, that’s pretty simple and straightforward, isn’t it? I don’t think there’s any confusion. He says, “Do what I’ve done for you to others.” He’s pleading, “Jesus, the son of God, the most high King, the Lord of Lords never placed himself in a position above other people.” He led by serving. He loved by serving. He washed feet. He fed thousands. He visited the sick. Jesus led a life of serving, and I hear all kinds of excuses as why people can’t serve. I’ve heard ’em all over the years. Here’s just a few that I generally hear. It’s saying, “You know what? I’ve attended that church for a hundred years. I served. I paid my time. I paid my dues. Let the young people do it.” I hear that. It’s saying, “I just want to come to church on Sundays and be fed.” Okay? It’s saying, I just don’t have time in my life to serve.

You have time for what you make time for. It’s saying, “I just don’t want any of these responsibilities.” Paul says, “Watch out church. Watch out Eastside. Don’t become spiritually complacent.” And some of you may say, “Well, I really don’t like to work with kids much and I can’t sing a lick.” Me either. I promise you, you won’t find me back in E-kids because I might have ’em all marched in line and doing all the thing, and you don’t want me up here on stage singing, but what I will tell you is that we have a place for everyone because we know how important serving is for your heart and your spiritual journey. We have volunteer opportunities that are behind the scenes, for you introverts. We have volunteer opportunities that are also not on Sunday mornings. We have serving opportunities for E-Kids, pre-K, K through third, fourth, and fifth, and E-Buddies.

Friends, fourth and fifth, we pulled them out and gave them their own space because we know how important it is for that age group to be prepped and ready because once they get to middle school, it’s so easy to lose them. E-Buddies, that’s our special needs ministry because we saw that there was an underserved group of people here in our region and our special needs families that were not being met. Student ministry. Pick, middle school through college age. You’ve got life group leaders. We always need life group leaders investing. Then we’ve got guest services, and that’s a whole slew of opportunities for people to serve. We’ve got Worship that has banned and Tech Salvation team, baptism team that you’re going to get to watch what they do. Part of what they do here in just a moment. Backpack program. That’s where we have people come in and they pack backpacks full of food for kids who don’t have food on the weekends.

Then we have Sleep in Heavenly Peace. That is a ministry that we partner with right here where we get to build beds for kids who do not have a bed to sleep in at night. We’ve got our prayer teams. They meet twice a week. Then we’ve got Acrew. They meet all through the week, and what they do is they come in and they clean our facilities. They do repairs on our facilities that are needed. We have something for everyone, friends. So, all the excuses are gone. So this morning, you may be saying, “Well, okay, I get it. I need to serve. How do I do it? How do I sign up? Where’s the website I go to?” Well, we do have an option on our website, but I’m not going to send you there, because we do everything through one-on-one conversations. We do everything through relationships, and if you’re here today and you’re thinking, “Okay, I need to go serve.” Well, there’s a place out here in the atrium called the My People Lounge.

You might’ve seen the balloons as you come in that are up. Some of our staff’s going to be out there, some of our leaders, and we just want to have a conversation with you. We’re talking three to five minutes. We want to help you find the place that God has designed you to serve in the local church. And who knows? If you to do that, you might just have a perspective change and a heart change when you choose to step into serving today. Now, some of you may say, “Well, spiritual complacency, look, can look like this. I come in every Sunday and I see all kinds of people serving. They don’t need me. They’ve got plenty of help.” Well, this is what I say to that. I don’t know if you all know, but we are in the process of building a second campus over on the north end at Exit 95, and we want the DNA of this campus at Lake Reba to replicate the DNA of that campus.

Can you imagine, for just a moment, what it would look like if on the first day that campus opens, that someone pulls up the hill, there’s no parking team, there’s no host to smile and welcome them in. There’s, oh, heaven forbid, no coffee or donuts set out. I mean, just saying anyway. There’s no worship team to lead us in worship. There’s no one to help teach our kids about how much Jesus loves them, and there’s no student ministry friends. I don’t want to think about what that church looks like. We want to replicate that DNA, and in order for us to do that, it takes everyone to be in the game and not on the sidelines. We need each and every one of you.

Let’s continue to press on. Let’s continue to push through. Let’s continue to look for perspective outside of ourselves because the work that we have to do right here in central Kentucky is far too important. Let us pray.

“Father, it’s my prayer that you would help all of us to see some things that we need to be different in our life. Maybe it’s letting go of a human standard that maybe you’re living in false confidence and false guilt, and you just need to step into relationship with Jesus. Maybe you need to step into serving and allow God to change your heart through that. Whatever it is, I pray that God would build a fire inside of you as you leave today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”