How to Exhibit Symptoms

Did you know that a tiger can defeat a lion in battle every time the dealer I did not know the reason you think of the lion being the king of the jungle. But if you have five liens they will defeat five tigers in battle every time. Is it what happens and what's what made the difference.

Very simply, this the liens fight together against their enemies.

The Tigers fight separately and that is the blessing of unity and the curse of this unity years ago, the man who discipled me out of your bottom in the last message you want to teach me that lesson and not forsaking the assembling and submitting myself to authority in the church and be in unity with the church and he hand me a stick. He should break it or put it to my knees and it broke and the next thing he hand me 10 sticks wrapped together. He said now break these. I couldn't. The lesson was learned is that what has this got to do with the joy that you have been preaching about a great deal the truth.

He said there can be no joy in any of our lives without unity and this is really the message of Philippians chapter 1 beginning in verse 27 to chapter 2 verse 11. I wanted to turn with me please do your Bibles to that passage. We had begun a series of messages from Paul's letter or epistle to the Philippians known as the epistle of joy and that is why call the series of messages. It is contagious – along because you can pass joy around as much as those people can pass misery around, and the more joy we pass the more we overcome their misery meant what we saw in the very last message how to catch the joy then we saw in the second message how to keep the joy and today what I want to show you is how to exhibit the symptoms of joy in your life. Paul is saying that you cannot manifest joy in your life you cannot exhibit the symptoms of joy in your life without unity in your life and the unity is a word that is all encompassing. There is a unity of the mind where the mind is united and not divided. There is a unity in the home unity in the marriage. There is unity in the church and unity among believer and believing communities and because a person who has a divided mind, he will not she will not experience joy. They cannot exhibit the symptoms of joy and that is why the psalmist could pray crying out to God, saying, Lord, unite my heart, and the fear of you because a divided heart and a divided mind and a conflicted soul is a person who's going into two opposite directions at the same time have you known people have done that. Have you been there. Are you there now some of you will be going through that very moment your mind is scattered all over the place. The wars inside of you fondly of the story of two men who were trying to wedge a refrigerator through the door and they strained and they pushed and they shoved them in their sweat for hours and that fridge would not budge. Finally one of them said to the other.

We will never get that fridge out of the door and the other one was incensed. He said outside I will inside the house you see, there are divided individual lives like that. There's so much war within that they literally going into opposite direction they pulling and they're pushing all of the same time inside of them. There are homes like that where there is homes are divided and in this pushing and shoving. There are churches or the like that.

But the question is what does bring about this lack of unity in one's heart and mind. What does bring that lack of unity in the home. What does bring lack of unity in the community or the church is only one three letter words sin sin that set try all the psychoanalyzing that you want to try. It's fine, but you gonna come back to the bottom line.

It is sin, whether it is in the mind and the one's life when it's in the home of the church, always, always sin. Sin is the one thing that divides him on sin is the one thing that divides the home splinters at all over the place. Sin is the one thing that divides believers from each other and when sin comes into our life and is tolerated in one's life. Unity goes out and where that goes. The joy when pride and selfishness and disobedience to the word of God comes in unity is fractured and joy is eclipsed and that is why the apostle said in verse 27 of Philippians chapter 1 he said whatever happens, conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus. Whether I come and see you or I hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in spirit contending as one man for the faith of the gospel that my beloved friends listen unity of an individual mind or a home or church can be accomplished only when sin is reprinted off unity can be restored and with it joy when sin is confessed, when sin is acknowledged when sin is rejected when sin is scorned when forgiveness is gladly given and received when bitterness in one's life is uprooted permanently out of life when anger is overcome and win the righteousness of Jesus Christ reigns supreme upon the heart and the mind and the will and when that happens in the life of each individual you gonna find that unity will come to the person and also his and her surroundings when repentance takes place in the life of each individual when each person surrender the authority of the Holy Spirit of God and to the word of God.

Unity will reign supreme and only when the flag of unity flies high on the castle of your life.

You gonna discover joy inside the castle of your life. That is how you exhibit the symptoms of joy, but I'm sure so you probably are thinking and saying you know maybe straw-discontentment, and in these things really happen that the dissension will take place when there are big sin sure what we call this the flagrant sins you know I'm talking about the adultery stealing and lying that's half the truth, listen to me carefully, because the truth is bitterness and unforgiveness, anger, distrust, insistence on one's own way and the placing oneself above others, thinking that I am better than others.

All of these can cause strife can cause disharmony just as much as a circle big sins. In fact, without jumping the gun. The real problem gonna see it when we get to chapter 4.

The real problem in the church of Philippi. There were two women there who are duking it out in the church publicly without any regard to the fact that there are about to destroy the church of Jesus Christ of Philippi, and that's what got Paul all concerned about them because there were losing their joy and he was talking the whole time about joy and that how the joy disappeared because of the problem without come to it later on in the series many times in the sports arena, a talented team can lose joy less, a talented team. The reason the less a talented team has learned how to play in unity while the others want to display their individual strength and that is why Paul said striving together as one man was Benjamin Franklin who said that we must all hang together almost assuredly will also hang separately, but there's something else that you must understand this something else that you must understand for all the believers in the Lord Jesus, you got understand this principle here. It's very important.

Paul is talking about unity of the like-minded believers.

Why is that important for you to understand because we live in a time when are so many churches have departed from the truth of the Bible and the truth of the word of God and they trying to tell us that accepting immorality and immoral lifestyle is unity that it is tolerance to do so. That is not the kind of unity screeching here unity. He's talking about here is the unity that comes when you recognize sin, not glamorize it.

It's a unity that will come when you repent of sin not winking at it for security will come from rejecting sin, not loving it.

It's a unity that comes from forsaking sin not accepting it that illustrate this in an old Monastery near Bob in house and in Germany you will find two pairs of deer antlers permanently interlocking together permanently. There were found by the monks in the nearby forest and so they brought the men and place them there in the Monastery as an incredibly important silent message. Obviously, the two were fighting so fiercely and their horns brought into lock together and they became tangled together and they could not disentangle their horns as a result, Bo's dears perished of hunger. What a silent message to individuals to families to homes to churches and yes even to nations or someone might say, do you mean to tell me unity means that I just got a get along, go along to get along. Not at all this and carefully when the truth is sacrificed for the sake of so-called unity. That unity is not unity at all. This pretend and that is why Paul goes on immediately.

In chapter 2, and he says only when Christ is at the center. Will you know what it means to have unity of mind, unity of heart, unity of family unity and marriage unity in the church versus one and to look at them in your Bibles only in obedience and surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ will you find true and genuine encouragement.

Only then will you find true and genuine love.

Only then will you find true and genuine fellowship. Only then will you find true and genuine comfort.

Only then will you find true and genuine mercy and genuine compassion versus one and two.

If you have any encouragement.

It is from being united with Christ, if you have any confidence from his love and fellowship us with his spirit, if any tenderness and compassion. They all come from being united in obedience to Christ and his word and when that happened. You'll find joy unexplainable joy even in the midst of troubling times, joy in the midst of difficult times and when joy flies high. You will not do anything out of selfish ambitions or out of vain conceit, you will think about others before you think of yourself you will take care of others before you take care of yourself and someone here Alaska man.

This is a tall order.

How in the world can anyone do this and expect anybody to be like that, especially in a world that has gone crazy with self-centeredness and selfishness and pride and arrogance. Even those who tried to do some good in the God of the way to help somebody to do something and you asked him why you're doing it they say because it makes me feel good is that self again. Nana only can be done in obedience to the Christ to reign supreme in your life.

So what is the answer.

Listen carefully. I don't have the ends of the answers in order God cites in verses 5 to 11 look at them in the Bible chapter 2 verses 5 to 10 is the answer. Let me give you a Yousif interpretation okay when your attitude is the same as that of Christ Jesus. What attitude is this. He is the one being in his very nature God of very God and yet he did not grab that which is already his namely at quality with God about he met himself to be nothing. He took on the nature of a slave being made in human likeness.

And being found in the appearance to be a man, he humbled himself, and he became obedient unto death, not just any old bath, but the death of the cross, which is the worst death of all, my friend listen to me this is what Christianity is all about those few words is what Christianity is all about.

This is what the Christian faith is all about is Christian faith is not about dogma is not about lists of do's and don'ts is not about rituals is not about buildings. It's about the King of the universe who left the heavenly throne, dressed up as a homeless person to live in a homeless shelter for a time so that he might deliver all the homeless who want to be delivered by him and be taken up with his very throne room.

That's what the Christian faith is all about. That's what Christianity is all about.

And when you have this attitude of Christ Jesus not grabbing on to what is yours and and and I know that people are doing that now because they're fearful about what is coming around the corner. What's the future and grabbing for what is theirs instead of loosely holding at the said God you given you take away. In fact, the book of Haggai says those people who constantly grabbing like this. They are like people with pockets and has holes in it, the more they accumulate the Lord. But follow the attitude of Christ Jesus not grabbing hold of what you got. But let it go and only then will you experience joy unspeakable. When God came from heaven. People expected him to come in power and splendor, but that would have made him unapproachable. They thought that God should come in dazzling light, but that would have blinded them. When people expected God to come from heaven. They thought he will come and be in a high wall castle, but that would have kept them away from him. But the Bible said that the son of God had nowhere to lay his head and he owned nothing, not even the close that he was wearing the creator and the owner of the universe did not even own a dog. He had to borrow one to enter Jerusalem on not because he couldn't but because he wouldn't. He chose to do that so that he could say, to me, come unto me all you who are troubled in heart and mind and soul come unto me all who are weary under heavy burdens coming to me and I am the only one who can give you rest. Only Jesus could make that statement. Let me ask a question if a king chooses to put on an inmate's uniform and go to spend time in the prison with inmate would he cease to be a king. He does not cease to be a king, and Jesus did not cease to be divine when he can drive a lot as I Jesus gave up his divinity. He did not give up his divinity. All he surrendered the splendor and the power and all that would come with his divinity to give that up for a time, in order that he might demonstrate his divine power and it is by his divine power that he overcame nature of the exercises over diseases and sickness. The exercises over Satan exercises divine power over death and by his divine power. He put on a human uniform and became one of us. He never committed a crime he did no wrong. He did not deserve to be there. He was perfect and sinless in every way.

The only one who ever lived a sinless, but he chose to enter into our world and become one of us so that he might deliver all of us who would come to him believing him surrendered to him that he may deliver us and take us out of our prison cells of of sin and guilt and misery and he delivered us into the freedom of his father.

That is Christianity 101, I was reflecting upon this this week is to follow Jesus on the weblog of Don is what I would've done as a father, let's have another plan just for have another plan that would not require me leaving the splendor of heaven for eternity was there in the splendor of heaven.

It's for whom and through whom all the galaxies in the universe was created. I don't want to go all the way down and live with these miserable people coming. Praise God that Jesus did not do that figure is that I don't want to redeem them with the shedding of my blood to satisfy the justice of heaven because the Bible said without shedding of blood there can be no redemption in the book of Deuteronomy and so for nearly 2000 years God's people was sacrificing animal after another and yet the shedding of the blood was not permanently removing sin was not permanently forgiving sin have to come back the next year and do it all over again. But Jesus came and shared his own perfect blog on the cross so that he will ever accept him that blood redeem the blood atonement and the blood will take people to heaven he would not grant for that which is his is with the word literally means grabbing. He was a grandpa is a father go there. I pray pray for their students. He freely came down so that he might lift us up. That is what sets Christianity apart. You see, everybody talks about all religions and same religions have the same value.

No no no no you don't understand Christianity is not the religion religion by definition is man striving to know God, to serve God to please God. There frightened of their gods, but the Bible said that God came down to us and that makes it not the religion. It's a relationship with the only one who paid the price of your rebellion, your rebellion in my rebellion. If you have never comprehended the enormity the enormity of God's sacrifice and the payment of the price of your sin and my sin begin today. Listen, I'm not inviting you to a religion.

I'm not inviting you to a church. I'm not divide your foot to perform some rituals but I'm inviting you to come to the person, the person who is God of very God became man of 30 men, the one whose love has baffled the minds of men and women for nearly 2000 years, so much so that they cannot accept that they feel they have to rejected. It is too good to be true that by faith. Today you can come.

Confess your sins and Jesus can give you eternal life receive that forgiveness here and for eternity. That attitude of Christ Jesus compelled him to give up all that was his. What have you given up for him and that is why the Bible said he was highly exalted by his resurrection, he was exalted by his ascension. He was exalted by his exaltation. He was exalted by his coronation. He was exalted and just because you can see him and you can see that exaltation which is taken place in the heavens right now just because you can see it with your physical eyes doesn't mean is not happening all but listen, here's what he said. He said one day you will and are pray to God that is not too late because it could be too late. If you do not give your life to Jesus Christ or that it could be too late when you don't confess to him your sins today and receive his forgiveness today Jesus because of his obedience to the father. He has been given the highest ranking over all of the created beings. So much so that every created being will bow down to him that created beings in heaven the angels that created being on the earth. Every human being who ever lived on the face of the earth that created being the fallen angels the demon below the earth all about the Jesus and the day of judgment. They can see it now but you will, the believers will gladly and joyfully back to him. But those who have rejected him when mournfully and sorrowfully bow down to him on that last day when Christ splendor is manifested for all to see the believers in Jesus will gladly worship him in our duration, but those who refuse to believe in him.

They will also bow down to him too but then the anguish it's in agony. It's in regret that they have not accepted his gift of salvation when they could, in fact that's what makes hell hell is the living in regret. It's attentive to their force. The finishing never ends. The believers will gladly praise his holy and majestic name and let me tell you something believers if you having hard time praising the name of God you going to have a hard time in heaven. Let me tell you, God does not have a little corner for the frozen chosen for those who have hard time praising him but will be praising him around the throne room of God. While the nonbelievers will be watching in pain and agony and suffering from Hades and nobody saying to themselves.

I wish I had responded to this kind invitation. I wish I have received his gracious forgiveness. I wish I had believed in his name.

I wish I had listen to his voice. I wish I didn't.

Silence. His voice when he spoke to me through friends and from family members and through his word that was spent all of eternity in the torment of regret will be too late.

But the time is now the hours.

Now the moment is now whether to accept his invitation now. Why don't you receive his forgiveness now wanted to respond to his love and mercy.

Now while you can. Why don't you come to him confessing your sins and your inability to save yourself and he promised the moment you do that. He'll forgive you all of your sins, past, present and future.

Don't put it off. You don't know whether you will live another day you don't know you don't know whether you will have another opportunity to believe in him or you might face him as your judge, the time is now the moment is now have this attitude, which was in Christ Jesus. What attitude humility, obedience, surrender, and only then can you experience unity that brings joy to your life to your surroundings in your home and your marriage in your church or wherever you may be, would you do that today. Shall we pray together, a loving father. What a great God, your your patient, your merciful your persevering in your weight and you give us one more opportunity to hear the truth. Father, we are privileged to hear your word again, not from a man man can mess it up but from you word your Bible and father are pray for every individual. Here, those who have doubts.

Those who unsure those who are uncertain. Those who rejecting you without knowledge without even knowing how loving your those who have accused you of all sorts of things. Father I pray for them today that there will come repent of their sin receive you and experience the joy unspeakable father for all the believers who know you. Those who have lost their joy.

Those who've allowed sin to come into the life and in the clips and the joy that comes from a unity of mind and unity of heart and the unity of the home and the church father on Friday that today you will destroy the joy of your salvation. Thanks for listening to this message from Dr. Michael.

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