Therefore: Action, Light, and Rejoicing
First B Jackson
2026-08-09

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

----
Hello. Good morning, everybody. Happy Sunday.

Everybody, y'all can be seated. So good to see all of you here this morning. Man, what a beautiful day, isn't it? The weather is perfect. The sun is shining.

If you've never been here before, welcome. So glad you're here. I got to meet a couple of you that if this is your first time, so welcome. If also as you are seated in your spots, we've got some people in the back that need to find a seat. So if you could scoot in towards the center of the aisle, not not the center of the aisle, towards the center of your section and leave some space on the edges.

That would help that would help out a ton. So thank you for doing that. So our announcements this morning, we've got several of them. First, we've got our first BBQ out on the lawn next weekend. So come with empty bellies and we will fill them.

It's a great time of fellowship. So come and and hang out, do that. Next weekend or the next announcement, sorry kids were distracting me. Tonight, seeking truth in your twenties is going on at the McCooey's house. If you're in your twenties and you wanna come and learn more about who Jesus is or if you've got questions about who Jesus is or if you know someone in their twenties, send them to the McCooey's house.

They would love to host a meal together and foster conversation and have a Bible study. And you don't have to be in your twenties. You can be older or younger. They're welcoming no matter your age. Old Bills and First B, we partner with Old Bills to for our benevolence fund.

If you've never heard of what our office does through the week, one of the things that it does is help people in this community or the people that pass through and have tangible physical needs. And they meet with either Jeff Brown or or Nick Stern or both and talk through those. And the Benevolence Fund is the vehicle that we use to help them, meet them where they're at. And it's really cool. There's tons of stories of people that have been helped physically and spiritually and have come to know the Lord in through benevolence fund.

So, the giving season is August 14 through September 18. What does that mean? It means, if you give to our church, that's awesome. This would be beyond that. So, in that season of time, August 14 to September 18, you can go to our website.

There's a link to give through old bills. There's a math equation. I don't know church. To to We're we are having another one of our discipleship short term mission trip meetings. We've got two short term mission trips in November.

The folks that are going on that trip are coming to these meetings. They're open to all, though. We're going through the book, something needs to change by David Platt. And we have conversation about that. And I think our Costa Rica trip is probably gonna book flights.

I I know I am gonna go ahead and book flights this Sunday. And so if you're wanting to be a part of that, it's we're getting down to the wire. This is probably the last time we're gonna announce to everybody, hey, come on this trip. So if you've been thinking about it, come to me, talk to me. I know there's two people I owe a follow-up to.

So if you're in the room, I haven't forgotten you. I'm gonna follow-up with you. But if you're interested, reach out to me, and we'll get you plugged in. I think that's it. Alright, we'll pray.

Lord, thank you so much for this church. Thank you for this opportunity this morning to worship you and to be together and praise your name. In Jesus name, Amen.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Y'all can do better. Good morning. Good morning. There we go. Y'all were singing awesome.

That was great. My name's Brad. And if you've never been here before, I recognize in a room this size, people are coming from backgrounds, all that sort of thing. So we're gonna enter into a time of giving. And I'm gonna pray for it.

But before we do, I just I wanna make sure that you know that, like, if you're new here, there's no pressure here. This is not just some performative obligation that we do. So I'm gonna I'm gonna pray that God would bless both the gifts and the giver. Lord, we recognize that all things come from you. So as the ushers come forward, as we pass these plates, Lord, would this not just be some empty observance observance that that we we do, do, but would our would our hearts, our very hearts be in these plates, Lord?

You say in your scripture that you love a cheerful giver. Lord, I pray for the giver. I pray for the gift. I pray for those of us that are in leadership in this church, Lord, that we would steward your resources well, that that would be true of each and every individual family here, and that would be true for us as a church. Would you show us what you would have us step into, that we might walk in your will, in your way?

We love you, Lord. Amen.

When we sing this song and as we think about offering, it's important to remember that this isn't just because it's an obligation. Like, we don't just surrender to him just because we have to. It's because of the last song that we sang. It's because he is so so good to us. It's because he went first.

It's because he already gave all for us. And so our only response is to match what he gave, is to lay ourselves down for him just as he laid himself down for us. So we're gonna sing that one more time. It says, let that wash over you. The reason why we surrender all is because he surrendered all for us.

I surrender. Thank you, Jesus. Can we give God some praise in this room? Turn around and shake some hands. Somebody next to you and take a seat.

Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Keep chatting if you want, but I'll try and talk over you. I I do invite you to stand in reverence to the reading of God's perfect word after you after you just sat down. Philippians two verse 12 through 18.

Therefore, my beloved, just as you've always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose. Do everything without grumbling and arguing so that you may be blameless and pure. Children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation.

Among whom you shine like stars in the world. By holding firm to the word of life, then I can boast in the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. But even if I am poured out as a drink offering on the sacrificial service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. In the same way, you should also be glad and rejoice with me. This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated. Let's we'll open up in prayer. Lord, thank you so much for today. Thank you for your word. Thank you for this room to gather in.

This is just full of your people, Lord. All of us are here by no mistake. And and we want to hear what you have to say to us today. In Jesus name. Amen.

Often I on the other side of the hill when I teach a message in Idaho, I record for my dad, And he's here. So I'm a little emotional. So all of you just overwhelm him and greet him today. That would be hilarious. But seriously, I I feel emotion with him being in the room.

So I'm gonna try and not be too distracted by my dad. So alright. With the text, verse 12, and I don't have slides. I think I've moved on. I'm not gonna do slides.

If that's a problem for you guys, let me know. Ray's slides are awesome, and I've been trying to like be like Ray, and I just feel like I have the freedom now to just not. I love Ray, Ray and Van are different. And so if you got a problem with me, let me know, and I'll try to be all things to all people. But the text begins.

So open the word of God, whether electronically or or with a Bible, and and look with me at the first word in our text is therefore. And I I was telling my wife that I was gonna say this, and she was like, everybody already knows that, but what when you see the word therefore, you ask the question, what exactly. You already do know that. So you look back. Right?

And we look back to the hymn of Christ, which we've been talking about the past two weeks. I wasn't here last week, but I know you guys talked about it last week. And we talked about it the week before. And even in Idaho that night, we we preached the hymn of Christ that night also. The hymn of Christ is this beautiful pattern of how Christ lived his life.

Right? Like, he's in the form of God. He is God. Jesus is God. He's always been.

He always will be. He created and he chose to not stay there, but to humble himself and take on the form of a slave from ultimately high to ultimately low. Right? And he he chose to be obedient to the father, to the point of death. Death on a cross.

Right? For us because he loved us so much. And then because of this obedience, because he did this, now he's exalted and given the name that is above every name so that the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is lord. That's it in a nutshell. That's the therefore.

This pattern, the V shape and I was joking with Idaho. This is not you know, this is just how my mind works. If we're trying to follow this V shape, right? But we don't start out up here. We start out down here and he lifts us up.

So for us, it's more of a n shape maybe. But it's a pattern that we we want to be like him in that way. Another thing that just really sticks out about this hymn of Christ is in the middle. He humbled himself. That's different often than us.

Like, the last company I worked with, I came from one general contractor to another. And short after I was there, short period of time, the leadership team was just two people and they asked me to join it. And I'm thinking, okay. Sure. And I get I get in there and over time, the leadership team develops to this this table that is full of people that are way more qualified than me.

And they've been in the industry longer, and I'm looking around the room and I'm humbled by the presence of these people. Right? Like, I know they are like, I'm not just being humble. They are rock stars, and they were being kind, letting me sit at the table. And I'm humbled by it.

Right? All of you have, I'm sure, a situation in your life, whether it's a big thing like that or or small tangible ways where you've been in the presence of someone who maybe is more intellectually gifted than you, and you're humbled by it. Or maybe they're more spiritual. You think they're more spiritual than you or whatever, and you're humbled. Or whatever the or they're stronger.

Right? Like in the gym, you know, dude walks in, you're like, I'm humbled immediately by your presence. Right? And so, but but Jesus is not humbled in that way. And I I'm taking a lot of time to talk through this because it's it's all building.

Right? Like, comes to Earth. Caiaphas didn't humble him. Pilate didn't humble him. Nobody humbled him.

Like, we think about Jesus often and read the story and we're like, oh man, you know, Jesus is kinda soft. But no. Like, he's the from the form of God comes down and he humbled himself and he let them ridicule him and whip him and he didn't say anything. He could've just boom. Made them all die instantly.

Right? But he didn't. He went through that suffering and was obedient to the cross and he's lifted up. So that pattern is important for us today because now, this is like the application section after the hymn of Christ. And there's three main things in the text.

Three little sections. So we wanna be a people who take action. We wanna people who we wanna be a people who take action. There's the first little section has work in there three different times. So we'll dive into that.

Take action. We want to be people who shine brightly. That's right there in the middle. And we want to be people who rejoice. So, those are our our three sections today.

The first one, take action. I'll reread verse twelve and thirteen. Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose.

Just real quick, he's, you know, one, he loves this church, right? Like, we've talked about that before in chapter one. My beloved, you've already been obeying. Like, you've already got this and and now, I'm not here. So, you've gotta keep on going.

That's his charge to them. We when we were overseas, Piper was two, and we had seen this video of this funny thing to do with your kid. And in that how we get great ideas of what to do with our children. And so we sit her down at the table and we put a little thing of ice cream right in front of her, and we're like, hey, Piper, don't eat that. And then we we we had a phone set up in the room and we walk out of the room, And and we wait like two whole minutes, and then we come back in, and I was telling Lauren, I was like, there's no way that that ice cream is still sitting there.

And Lauren was like, I don't know, we might be surprised. Sure enough, it was untouched. She somehow obeyed in our absence. And we looked at the footage, and it's like she's looking at the ice cream, and she's looking at the door, and she's looking at the ice cream. And she looks at the door, and she's like wrestling with this.

Right? Like, I could eat the ice cream, but what if I'm doing that when they come back? You know, and just you can see your thoughts. But somehow, I don't there's no way I would have been able to do that when I was two. Oh, man.

But she did. So Paul's gone. We've gotta obey. Right? Like, that that's the charge for this church.

And then he says something that a lot of us are like, oh, did is that translated right? Like, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling? This is where it's very important to understand in the greater context and what he's actually saying here. He is not saying to earn your salvation. Right?

That is not what he is saying. He is saying to work out your salvation. What does that mean? Right? We've been saved.

We've been justified by the blood of Christ only by faith alone in Christ alone, right? By grace alone, we have been saved, not by works. That's clear all through scripture and it's also clear here too and he's saying to work out from that, we work out. Like, we all love to work out. Right?

We work out our salvation. From our salvation, there's work that comes from that genuine faith. Remember in James chapter two verse 17, faith without works is dead. So the works is an outflow of our faith, of our relationship with Jesus. The spirit of the living God is in us if we believe, right?

And there's work that happens, that we take part in, that he's obviously taking part in, working through us. We were driving down the road the other day, and I hear a voice from the back. Hey, data. How did the moose know where to cross the road? How did they read the sign?

Oh, my mind was blown. I'm like, they the order is important here. Right? Like, first the moose are on this route. Right?

And then smart people are like, hey, we should tell people that this is where this is happening. Right? Like, that order is very important to understand. And it's the same here. This order is important.

The work is coming after our salvation happens. Right? It's not the other way around. Why do we work? Why do we act like Jesus?

Follow the pattern. Why do we pray? Why do we fight sin and study and press on? Because Christ has made us his own. We are not his because we press on.

We press on because we are his. Right? And when we press on, we grow for his glory. And oftentimes, you know, our growth can be stunted when we passively wait for something to happen instead of acting in obedience to what we know we should be doing. Right?

In chapter three of Philippians, Paul addresses the mature believers to have this certain mind, to forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead. To press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God and then he says here in this text, to do this working out with fear and trembling and there's a lot of different times in scripture where we see this fear and trembling and it and it varies a lot and I think here, this is something, this is a work that we can really rejoice in, that he's in us and working in us and it kinda reminds us of the fear and trembling that the the women that came to the tomb, right? And they were scared and they they carried the gospel message of the resurrection with fear. But they weren't, like, downcast and and scared fear. It was like, you wouldn't believe what we just saw.

Like, that kind of fear that that were working out. The the like descriptive words of the Christian life are not a passive chill thing. It's walk, run, race, fight, kill sin, right? Like, love enemies. None of these things are like not working.

Those are all working active and it it's so important. This next part that God is working in us for his good purpose, right? And he equips us. Hebrews 13 talks about that how we are equipped to do this work. Colossians one, Paul is talking about, you know, for this I toil struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

Isn't that neat to think about? We've mentioned this that before. Such a good verse. And and the work, this is encouraging for me especially. The work is not dependent on how strong I am, how strong you are, how smart you are.

In fact, our weakness is great. He's he's made strong in our weakness. It's dependent on us allowing him, giving him space in our life, praying for him to take over, right, and work in us for his good purpose. So that's people of action. We wanna be people of action.

The next thing is to be people who shine brightly. I'll read the next couple verses, few verses. Verse 14, do everything without grumbling and arguing. When we won't skip over that, surely. So that you may be blameless and pure children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation among whom you shine like stars in the world by holding firm to the word of life.

Then, I can boast in the day of Christ that I didn't run or labor for nothing. Man, shine brightly. And what does that look like? Not not grumbling or or bickering and complaining. I bet there's not one person in the room, and that's dangerous.

Right? But that hasn't complained about something this week. It's smoky. I was out up towards Curtis Canyon and looking out over the valley wanting this great view while I'm practicing for this morning, and I can barely see the mountains. And I'm talking about this, and I'm like, I'm not gonna say anything.

It's really pretty at the valley too. And these buttes are awesome to look at. Right? Maybe we should just this is all just so we can appreciate these buttes that are around us. But seriously, that's so hard.

There's there's a beautiful illustration that John Newton came up with you know, a while back. And it's he's talking about the fallacy of complaining. And the analogy is called the broken carriage. Some of you probably heard of this. The story goes, this man has received this huge estate.

This huge inheritance. And it it's like the kind of inherit it would be like, just imagine the best property in Jackson Hole. K? The the biggest, nicest with like not just a big mansion log cabin, but like a shop in another barn and like all the things in manicured gardens and like all that. But not just that because you don't wanna be land rich and or whatever, cash poor.

Right? You don't that would be bad. That'd be burdensome. So you don't he's not just getting that. He's getting like this huge, you know, invested sum that is just gonna make it to where he has nothing to worry about.

Alright? And so he's riding his horse drawn carriage through the mountains, through the valleys to get here, we'll say. John Newton didn't talk about Jackson Hole, but just relating. Alright? So he's on his way here.

It's a long journey. It's a hot day. It's dusty. He's sweating and he's covered in dust, and a mile out he can see the place he's going to, to sign the papers and everything's transferred. And his wagon just breaks in half.

And he like falls off the wagon, and his horse runs off, and he gets up, dust himself off, and he just keeps on walking with a smile. Right? And people are going by, and they're like, hey, you need any help? He's like, no. I'm just I'm good with walking.

And they're like, what? Like, why are you happy? Like, your wagon broke. It's hot. He's like, I've got something to rejoice in, man.

I'm I'm happy. I can't complain. He can't complain. Right? How could he complain about a wagon wheel being broken?

How can we complain? How can we complain about the smoke? Seriously? Like, how can we complain about hot weather? I promise I won't ever say it's hot, at least this year.

Because I'm from Alabama, like, that's where it's hot. It's not hot here, guys. So but how can we complain? It's what perspective do we have on our lives? We have an inheritance far greater than whatever you just imagine this guy has.

It's so much better. This world will never be our home. Right? Like, it's temporary. We can pour concrete and and have big anchor bolts to anchor our big homes too, but it it we can't take it with us.

It's all going to be left behind. There's nothing to complain about. Right? Nothing to complain about. Have that mindset.

Sometimes we choose to go along with the way I've gotta figure out how to get this cord clipped somehow. One day, I'm gonna remember this. We choose to go along with, like, a conversation when it starts to go towards complaining. But what if we saw that as an opportunity to say, hey, man, like, and not being like really weird and sarcastic about it but just naturally point the conversation to what can we rejoice in. How can we humble ourselves in a way like Jesus did and then not complain also.

You know, we can complain about like if we're you know, the whole foot washing ceremony, like, I would probably be like, oh, man. Like, I'm trying not to complain about your hygiene right now. But you know, this text is so applicable for us. We could spend a long time like hashing this out. And there's the guy I have highlighted from back home.

Man, we would row together and it was miserable and he never complained. And I rode in the boat with him three years and complained. And finally it hit me. Like, I'm a complainer, and I'm gonna stop. I'm not gonna be a complainer.

He called me out one day. He wore jorts every day no matter the season. He never completed. Was also in the marine corps, and his mind is like a steel box. Like, it's crazy.

But that kind of person, like, we gravitate towards the complainer, or do we gravitate towards someone who's more positive thinking? And and how are we? There's, you know, this is also impossible to do on our own. So that whole workout your salvation is not just us that's working out. Like, it's Jesus and the spirit that's working in us.

And there's a beautiful picture of this in Zechariah four. Whoo. Man, I'm gonna try and hurry up a little bit. But there's this beautiful vision of in Zechariah four where there's this lampstand and it's burning and it's bright and there's these two olive trees that are the oil is fueling the lampstand. And in the text, when Zechariah is is getting the info on what this means, it's the lamp is being fueled and it's bright and it's the nation of God's covenant people that are gonna shine to the nations and it's it says, it's not by strength or by might but by his spirit that that is shining.

Isn't that beautiful? And that's that's for us. Human weakness is no obstacle for his power that's working in us. In verse 15, he talks about being blameless and pure to shine like stars. Man, shining like stars.

Also, think about this like reflecting like the moon. In the middle of the night, on a full moon, like, you all been outside and seen, like, it's almost daytime. Like, when the moon is positioned in a way where the sun hits it and shines brightly on earth, like, it's reflecting not its own light, but the light from the sun. Like, can we position ourselves and recognize the position that we've all been put in to shine brightly where we are. I was really convicted thinking about this because my work is right here.

And and so my work is it's like this is a bright room. This is a bright flashlight, but it's like barely noticeable. Right? We have to go into the dark places to shine the light. We have to go into those places.

I was a little bit offended by something Lawrence sent me from sin now. Sin now is like a a network that helps people figure out, like, statistics of different areas, especially unreached people groups like, hey, this village right here has no believers, no access to the gospel. There's no church. Someone needs to plant a church there. But I was offended because they they had Jackson Hole.

And like this percentage, like three something percent. And I don't know. I haven't let it dive into the statistic, but I was like, seriously? Like, this church is awesome. And and we're gonna shine brightly in this community, but I haven't been.

I haven't been I've been shining my light on some of you guys, but I haven't been out there. And like, I was meeting with somebody who used to live here last week, and he was talking about this like witchcraft sort of place a block away. And he kept driving by it. And finally, he stopped and went in there and like confronted these people with another brother in Christ. And I'm like, dude, that's it.

That's shining light in the darkness. But we don't wanna be like the, remember the Pharisee that stands up and he's like, praying loudly. Thank you God. I'm not like these people. You know?

Like, that's not shining brightly. Right? That's not the that's not what we wanna do but we wanna be holding grace and truth in these conversations in the in the dark places. Jesus prays for us in John 17. Like, he doesn't pray for us to be taken out of the world.

He doesn't pray for us to sit in our little house and shine a beam out at the wicked and crooked generation and and complain about them. How many of us do that? I can't believe, you know, this is happening over here, but we're not doing anything about it. Right? Jesus prays for us to be in here in the world, not of the world.

Not to take us out but to keep us from evil. That's how he prays for us. And then lastly, on that section of of shining brightly by holding fast to the word of life. And and that again points back to the pattern that Jesus gave us right here. We met last week.

Got a lot of illustrations that are coming but last week in in on Thursday, we have that men's Bible study. It's a lunch but we don't eat. We just eat the word of God. Some people bring their lunch. But Steve Baldock, Steve gave this analogy from when he was working in construction about templates and patterns.

And he was like, it ticks me off so much when some young yahoo takes a pattern and rips it up for, you know, whatever he's working on. Like the pattern think about a staircase. Right? There's a stringer that holds it up. It's a two by 12 at an angle, and it's being cut out for the rise and run of the stairs.

It's very hard. I've never made a stringer that only had one line. It usually has like five, where I'm trying to figure out like exactly how it works. So it's really clear what the pattern is. It's the one with all the scribbles on it.

But once it's made, it's used for all the other stringers in the stair. That pattern, every time is scribed exactly and cut. So every time a stringer, a new stringer is made, that original pattern, exact imprint is made every single time. And this is the word of God is the pattern. Jesus is the pattern, the V shape, the every time we wanna act like Jesus, it's that's the pattern we follow.

Be a proclaimer not a complainer, right? We want to be a proclaimer and shine his light in the darkness and not complain about the darkness. Thirdly, lastly, y'all are so patient. We are a people who rejoice. It's the last two verses but even if I am poured out as a drink offering on the sacrificial service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you in the same way.

You should also be glad and rejoice with me. He knows he's gonna die. He's like, guys, I'm about to be poured out as a drink offering which is like a smaller version of the offering he's describing that they're giving. So, it's both sacrificial service to the king. He's like, I am being poured out probably gonna die but I'm glad.

I'm glad and I rejoice and I want you to be the same. Even if my commitment conflicts with my recreation, I'm glad. Even if it costs more than what I planned on, I'm glad. I'm not complaining. I'm rejoicing.

God's doing the work. Man, this is Jesus. Right? Like, Jesus does more than Paul. Paul pours out his drink offering.

He gives us life. Man, Jesus does what we could never ever do. Right? He poured out his blood on the cross. He did what we could never do and paid the ultimate price by humbling himself and being obedient to the cross.

And gave the ultimate sacrifice, drinking that cup of wrath that we never could. Dying on the cross as full payment of our sins and defeated sin and death by rising from the grave and is now exalted and sits at the right hand of God and he's glad. And we are glad and we rejoice together with him. Invite the band to come back up. Just a quick recap.

How Christ set the example for us. Let's have that mindset and then be people of action who work it out and let him work in and through us. Let us shine brightly going out into the dark world, putting in effort to get out there, and positioning ourselves like the moon to shine in those dark who is the the one one the to use us. He wants to use us to do the work and fulfill his purposes. Lord, thank you so much for these people who can sit for a while while I try and unpack your word, Lord.

You are worth it all. We want to be people of action. We need your light to shine through us in the dark places that we find ourselves in or or drive by that we need to stop in. When we rejoice in the work that you've done for us. We love you so much in Jesus name.

Amen.

Father God, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for your word shared with us. God, may it fill our hearts. And as Van said, that it wouldn't just fill us for this bit.

Receive this benediction from Matthew five. You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand and gives light for all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven.

Go in peace.