So, I wanted to share with you guys that we have a cool graphic for the next Bible study and again as a, before we jump in, jump in, as a quick reminder, please do take a moment to sign up for our next Bible study. It's going to be called Every Blessing in Christ, okay?

Study through Ephesians. Now, this book is ending, the book of Philippians, and it reads, "Now to our God, the Father, be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Greet every saint in Christ Jesus and the brethren who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen." Now, this is the conclusion and some of these statements sound just, I guess, cliché-ish, so to speak, or just kind of standard in terms of its conclusion. But there are pieces or elements of the conclusion that we should observe and I've highlighted them for you here.

That there is this glory forever to the Lord focus. There is also the greeting going back and forth where they should be greeting other saints. First and foremost, more the saints that are with Apostle Paul is greeting them. And then lastly, his desire to bless them with the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So in summary, there is both all these different elements, doxology, a command. There is a relaying or sending of greetings. We send you greetings, right? And then blessings in the grace of Christ. These aren't necessarily things that you have to retain and remember, but it's good to even in the conclusion notice some of these things.

Because some of these things really, you know, Apostle Paul, inspired by the Spirit, is really summarizing certain important things and then he's leaving lasting thoughts before the conclusion of the letter, okay? What I like to do is focus on this, the doxology. When the Scripture says, "Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever.

Amen." Have you guys sometimes read certain things? It just sounds too high churchy, just kind of reminds you of high cathedral stained glass. Almost, you know, you almost kind of picture maybe what mainstream media has depicted as a form of religiosity, what's like, "And to our God forever and ever." And you almost feel a fakeness to it.

Now that's sad. Why? Because those statements that are so, I guess you could say, magnanimous, like so epic, "Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen." I bet actually in those days the Christians saw it as such a huge privilege to be able to say stuff like that, right?

And as a matter of fact, when Apostle Paul is saying that, I'm sure he's filled with this, I guess, fullness of both conviction, emotion, right? To say, "And glory must go to God through all time, forever and ever, in all place." Right? And I would have to say again, maybe we would shy away from saying these epic statements because it sounds too lofty, but as a matter of fact, it causes us to really think and think deeply about the issue.

So I want us to take a moment to think about that, that as we look at the closing, I want us to think about the glory of God. I want us to think about what gives glory to the Lord. I want us to think about how Paul, even through this letter, gives glory to the Lord.

I want us to think about how Paul expects the entire church to give honor and glory to the Lord, right? And then obviously even for us, I want us to think about whether we can say what Apostle Paul is saying with such great conviction, that now and forevermore, God deserves all glory.

Amen. Right? And every time we take moments again to think about this, we have to again just kind of meditate deeply about just even that simple phrase, that we need to glorify God. So what I like to do is walk through, walk through my plan of kind of reviewing.

It was a little tough trying to think about the best way to review such a kind of a deep and such an encouraging book. But what I'm going to do is two punch, okay? First punch is going to be, I'm going to walk through and then highlight for you what I believe is the attitudes that glorify God.

The attitudes that glorify God. I'm going to, bear with me, walk through all four chapters and talk to you about the perspective and attitude that Apostle Paul exhibited that gives glory to God and therefore he's concluding with and now glory needs to go to God forever. And then the second punch is going to be, hold on, I lost my place a little bit.

What is the second punch? Oh, commands. Sorry about that. I asked you the question. The perspectives or the attitudes and the second part is going to be the direct commands that Apostle Paul gives that also gives glory to the Lord. Okay? So let's walk down through this together. I have essentially on your handout the outline of this book twice.

The first time we're going to go through this idea of the attitudes that give glory to the Lord. If you recall, I made much of this concept of the attitude because what we saw in the book of Philippians was Apostle Paul trying to communicate first and foremost his faith.

And as he was doing that, he was challenging the church saying you need to have this same attitude. And in many ways those are kind of synonymous terms because the biblical idea of attitude is a way of thinking that you're exercising your mind, that you are having a clear rationale.

And so whether you want to call it perspective, like how you are seeing the world, how you're seeing and interpreting the scenario, how you're exercising your evaluation of stuff, how you're judging your circumstances, all of that actually is an exercise of faith. All of that is an exercise of faith.

And so what I'd like to highlight again is Apostle Paul inspiring the church in how differently he is seeing and interpreting all of his life scenarios, how he is looking at the spiritual reality and not just his physical reality. So that's what I'm going to highlight as I go through these various chapters.

So in the very first chapter, we have these different elements where Apostle Paul begins with the introduction and then he starts to express his love. Remember how he said, "I feel this way about you. It's only right and I'm so confident that Jesus is going to, he who started a good work is going to complete it." And he expressed his deep love for them.

But one of his goals for this entire book was to explain to them how he sees his current circumstance. You guys already all know the church saw his dire need and wanted to help. The church was worried. I mean, the whole, I guess, Christian community would have been very worried to see this apostle now in prison.

Now, if you recall what Apostle Paul said was, "I want to update you, but I want you to understand that his circumstances actually proved to further the gospel." And so what he says is that Christ is proclaimed through his circumstances. And what I'd like to highlight to you is as he is thinking through that, my circumstances has now produced greater fruit for the gospel.

He explains his perspective and he says, "Whether by life or death, Christ may be exalted." And he says, "Whether by life or death, in my body even now," and he says, "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain." And so on your outline, those are the simple blanks for you guys, right?

Apostle Paul has this mindset, and I'm going to tell you this, in terms of for me, the entire book, the book of Philippians, if there was one section, and there's so many different sections, but one section I had to memorize, I would memorize this section, chapter 1, verses 12 to 26.

Smaller portion of it I want to review with you. He says this, "Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel." Skipping forward to verse 18, he asks, "What then?" Remember he describes that in terms of the progress of the gospel, he describes it as how the praetorian guards, where he's at, there are people who are actually being bold.

If there was a certain place where you'd be super shy that you're a Christian, if there were a certain place where you would be very, very cautious, it would be there, essentially at the capital. And so one of the questions that I asked you was, "Oh, what is this whole idea of the Caesar's household?" I don't think that he actually means Caesar's relative, brother, or something like that.

We're talking about people who are in that realm. For example, if we say, "Oh, somebody in the White House," when we say White House, we're talking about huge numbers of people, swaths of president's cabinet, people who are working. Now all that to say, not only then were there good things happening where people were being bold, where people were being all the more brave about their faith, there were other things happening too.

Paul says, "For sure, there are some who are all messed up." So if you're following along in your Bibles, we're looking at all these various things, but what I want to highlight to you again is Paul's perspective. When he asks us rhetorically, "What then?" He is actually asking us to think along with him in faith.

He is asking us to interpret in a godly fashion. If you see that there are people who are preaching out of false motives, if you see that I'm in prison, if you see all this stuff going on, how are you going to judge this? Are you going to have this kind of very embittered, like, "What in the world are they doing?

How could they do this?" Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know? Or are you going to be looking at the big picture from God's angle? And what does he say? He says, "Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in this, I rejoice.

Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. According to my earnest expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now as always be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death, for to me," and when he says that, again, I'm highlighting for you in blue all the places where he is expressing to us his faith.

When he says, "For me," he's giving us his rationale. How is he thinking? For him, to live is Christ and to die is gain, right? That's what we're talking about. And what's crazy about this is not only is this his expectation, not only is this his reality and hope, check a look at this verse in verse 29 where he says, "For," so he's continuing his rationale, "For to you and to me, it has been granted for Christ's sake not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake." Now, take a moment to meditate on this.

We're talking about attitude, we're talking about change of perspective. He is radically changing what is normal to human interpretation. You take something like getting unjustly jailed, I mean, think about an American citizen who is falsely accused and then thrown into prison. I mean, talk about somebody who would be livid.

Talk about somebody who's going to fight for their rights. Talk about somebody who's going to come out and make sure he gets paid millions because he's been unjustly prisoned, right? He is radically changing our judgment, our interpretation of current realities and taking something that every single person would say, "This is horrible," and he says, "No, this has caused a greater advancement of the gospel.

This is good. I rejoice." Man, I think about that and what a huge eye-opener. What craziness. If any of us was there and you started talking to him, let's say you visited him in jail and you're like, "Oh my gosh," and you went over there crying, you brought to him gifts, you brought to him blankets, and he looked at you and said, "Why are you sad?

I'm happy," right? I think part of us would even think like, "Dude, Paul, I get it. You're holy and stuff, but please don't fake it." I wonder if you actually played that entire scene, if somebody actually thought like that in front of you, you'd almost be like, "Yeah, I get it.

I get it. We all have to try to be happy." I wonder, but I actually know he says he is completely showing us a grand, grand shift, a grand shift in perspective. And I tried to think of a better analogy for this, and honestly speaking, I couldn't. I was thinking about, "Were there moments of hardship and suffering and difficulty and pain and all this kind of stuff," right?

But I couldn't think of a good analogy for this. In a sense, this is where you exercise your faith, and I'm not sure if there's just another good analogy to explain this, but there is something that, as I was trying to think of an analogy, I got really, really convicted, like, "Wow." Even for every single one of us, I believe that our perspective, like our judgment upon our own lives, whether it's good, bad, fitting, pleasing, man, it can be radically, radically challenging.

And so at this moment, I wanna kind of extend this moment for you to reflect on that. If there were moments for you, when you were evaluating, you were kind of summing up your life, and you started having these thoughts of like, "Oh my goodness, my life is horrible.

This is unfair. I deserve better than this." If you had certain moments like that, I mean, be challenged. Be challenged to ask, "How were you deciding that? By what criteria were you deciding that? What was your operating standard by which you made those judgments?" And then all of a sudden, we get really, really convicted, right?

Because especially, especially when we have hardships and suffering, sometimes maybe, maybe, I think we can fall into this kind of perhaps dangerous thinking, where we might ask this question, "Okay, I do believe in Jesus, but in what way is Jesus going to help if I'm suffering?" Let me repeat that, okay?

As I was thinking about this, there was just a moment I was thinking about, or I guess a scenario I was thinking about, where if we have incredible suffering or if we have a very, very hard time that we can't get out of, perhaps we might be tempted to think, in these moments of hardship, in these moments of difficulty, "How is believing in Jesus going to help me?" Okay?

And what's crazy about this is that Apostle Paul completely changes that whole question upside down by giving us this perspective that we see even here. That to us, we've been granted, graced, gifted, for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him. So someone can respond, "Yes, we may ask the question, 'How is Jesus going to help us?

What promises does He have? How are we going to be strengthened?' All those things, yes, are good." But here, there's this entirely different question. And the question absolutely changes our worldview to ask, not, "How is Jesus going to help me?" but, "What good am I? How am I useful to God in this?" Right?

It's not for us to ask, "If and when we ever felt like Jesus Christ was useless, if ever we felt like Jesus Christ was of no avail," the answer to that would be, "Wrong question. To what degree am I useful to God?" That is a radical change, radical change in perspective.

Okay. So I spent a long time on that because you guys recall as we studied through this book, Apostle Paul did this many times. He takes a certain scenario that maybe we would naturally react to, and his perspective, his faith radically changes how we judge everything. So moving forward to chapter 2, there was another attitude that Apostle Paul highlighted, and that was the attitude of unity in spirit, in mind, and love through the humble attitude of Christ.

Okay? The humble attitude of Christ. That was in chapter 2. If you recall, this was the passage. It talked about how Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, right? The context is He was God, but He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant.

And being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

So recall, remember how I began with asking you the question, "What is God glorified by?" It's pretty crazy, right? To think that God is glorified by Jesus laying down His life, by Jesus humbling Himself, right? Now I want you to think about this. Perhaps in this generation, people think what glorifies God is when we excel.

Okay, let me repeat that. I think a lot of people presume that what glorifies God is when I score, when I win, when I succeed, and when I fulfill my great potential. Now could it? Yes. If athletes give thanks to God and give glory to God because God created my body, that gives glory to the Lord.

If you excel in your business and you give glory to God because you know that the business is not yours but His, if you use your mind and you excel in academics, all of that when you give thanks and acknowledge God is glory to God, amen? But is that the only way?

Why is it that some people presume that you have to score in order to give glory to God, but otherwise it doesn't happen? Very contrary to what the Scripture is saying because Scripture, Scripture talks about how self-sacrifice, self-humbling, a willingness to die to self and submitting yourself for the sake of others, for the sake of God, for the sake of His purpose, that that glorifies God.

Because when we lower ourselves, God Himself will raise us up. And it's Him who's going to elevate and therefore it's Him who's going to be glorified. And what's more, the example that Jesus Christ has laid down. And when people acknowledge that, that is going to be to the glory of the Lord.

Okay, so in chapter 3, a connection to that is this. I think when we think about our kind of example that Apostle Paul said, it's Jesus' humility and self-sacrifice, if we're thinking really honestly, we should be all admitting like that is so difficult to do, right? I mean, self-sacrifice, humbling yourself, being willing to submit underneath all the various things that here in the green that Jesus Christ did.

I mean, in all honesty, even when I know I am wrong, I don't know, it's difficult to humble yourself, right? In that scenario then, we should all be able to admit, man, it is very difficult. However, I think in Apostle Paul's perspective, what he reveals to us enables and empowers us to do so, okay?

And that next part is, after in chapter 3, going through various things of warnings, after going through explanation of the people who are putting confidence in their flesh, you guys know that he talks about how all things, he starts to praise stuff. You think these things are valuable? You think holding up your stature is valuable?

You think your accolades are valuable? You think your confidence is valuable? And he tells us, "Whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ." I highlighted for you those words.

I count, I count the view and the counting, right? Because as an admonition and challenge to us right now, I'm going through these chapters talking about perspective, talking about your rationale, talking about our value systems, talking about how you judge and how you see. What is valuable in your eyes?

That is such a huge question, right? What is valuable in your eyes? And Apostle Paul expresses to us that in his view, Christ is the goal. Winning means to have Jesus. Having everything but not having Jesus means utter bankruptcy, that there's no crisis bigger than being far from Christ.

And here, I would like to take a moment, you know I feel like in the last like six months or so because we've walked through Hebrews, a lot of the church has been talking about drifting. People have been very convicted about it. People have been very moved that drifting is dangerous and whatnot, right?

But the fact of the matter is, have we in our own experience, have we experienced drifting but then didn't feel the sense of urgency, right? Didn't feel the sense of like, gasp, I'm far from my Savior. I want to take a moment to think about that because right now, if we're saying that every single thing I have, every single thing that makes me feel like I'm okay, whether it is my job, finances, the people around me, right, that even if I had all those things, I would literally be bankrupt because I have nothing worthy, I have nothing valuable if I don't have Jesus.

And the challenge is for us to actually by faith feel like the greatest disaster I could ever be in is to be far from my Savior, right? That the worst crisis, like oh no moment, shouldn't be when I lose my job. It should be if I realize I'm far from my Savior, that should radically shake me if I'm appropriately seeing Jesus as my treasure like Paul, right?

That to us, being far from my God would be the most depressing. Drifting from my Savior and not being intimate with my Jesus would be the saddest, most despairing moments of my life. Not when I don't have means, not when I don't have freedoms, but when I'm far from the will of my God, right?

And the opposite is the way that Apostle Paul presents it though, that to him, Jesus is of such surpassing value. He will literally suffer all loss because all those things he counts as rubbish. Man. I know, I'll finish soon, okay? But man, just think about the perspective. If we were to grow in any way through the book of Philippians, sometimes it's not practical, like go do this, right?

Sometimes it's not. Sometimes you just deepening that urgency to worry from falling into apathy and not feeling that urgency, that alone to you then is the greatest application. If that you're going to worry about anything, your worries and concerns are based on your Savior, that to you is your application.

And I wanted to make sure that we have that perspective. In chapter four, Apostle Paul goes through many different commands that we're going to go through a little bit later. He urges to stand firm. He urges for unity. He commands to rejoice in the Lord. But the perspective that was so challenging was Apostle Paul's perspective, his faith, his rationale, his thinking, his attitude on how he could be content in the Lord, how he could be giving thanks in every single circumstance.

And so if you recall in chapter four, he says, "Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." What incredible confidence, right? By faith in the Lord, by having that treasure in Jesus, what incredible stability, what a massive amount of strength, right? That even on either sides of the spectrum, you know, either sides of the experience, I know how to be content.

And you could think, you could think about Apostle Paul's experience. Whatever it is to us, the degree by which we have experienced hardship, and some of you here have experienced hardship a lot more than others. That's just the reality. You've just suffered through lots of different things that maybe a lot of people have not.

But you can imagine whatever is our experience to this scale that Apostle Paul has gone through quite a bit, right? His scale is quite large. I mean, he's gone from being like a ruler, a Pharisee of Pharisees, studying under the highest, you know, in terms of his educational accolades, it's incredible, right?

He name drops and it's like, "Whoa," right? On the flip side, he's been on almost this going hungry, working night and day, being ridiculed, being falsely accused, jailed, shipwrecked, beaten, almost dying by being whipped. I mean, talk about the spectrum. And then to have this perspective, but I've learned.

I've learned through all that how to be content. Wow, what a challenging attitude and perspective. So that being just a review, I hope that was encouraging to you that I believe the book of Philippians is so challenging because, yes, there are a lot of direct commands that we're supposed to apply.

But I believe more so the book of Philippians was so beneficial to our faith because it inspires us. It inspires us to see with spiritual eyes. It inspires us to interpret life experiences through spiritual truth. And that's what Apostle Paul was doing. Okay? Now, what Apostle Paul does though is he always goes from here, there's teaching and spiritual truth to therefore it takes this kind of effect in your life.

And this part I'm going to go over very quickly. Okay? For chapter one, these are the commands to more, right? And I just put a blank there because there's a lot in terms of what he says in terms of the more. Okay? So in chapter one, what I saw was Apostle Paul saying, "I pray that your love may abound still more and more." Okay?

So the blanks for you there are more and more. One of the challenging things for us and I really wanted to emphasize, especially to our group, was I honestly believe we have just a great core of Christians who are trying their best to maintain their faith. But dare we ever say that, "Oh, things are pretty good now.

I'm okay." Right? We have to be regularly growing, desiring more and more than we were before. And no matter where we are, we have to have this perspective. There's so much more that we should be doing. Okay? So he says, "I want you to abound more and more even if you're doing well." In chapter, I believe this is chapter still, chapter one.

Oh no, sorry, this is chapter, yeah, this is chapter one. What he says through all that, he says, "Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come to see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel." Okay?

So from there, you have a good summary of the general content of what Apostle Paul is trying to push the church to. Greater perseverance, greater stability, and greater unity in the proclamation of the gospel. That's it. He's got one main focus and there's no crazy like, "Oh," like, you know, nuance and deep mystery to this.

He wants you to persevere, standing together, standing firm in the midst of all the ways of distraction, persecution that's coming, and making sure you're holding true to the faith of the gospel. And so that's why I'm going through this quite quickly. Even chapter two, in the first part of it, when he is giving that admonition for unity, notice how he's essentially saying the same thing.

"Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being in the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves." Right?

So here, he makes this connection that in terms of his joy, what would be so pleasing to him is to see the church doing this, that they're maintaining the same love, united in spirit and intent on one purpose. In chapter two, verse 18, he says this, "You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me." Okay.

What I'm going to say here is this. If you kind of follow along, just kind of walk through the trail of the various commands in the book of Philippians, again, I walked through that pretty quickly. There wasn't a ton of like specific sins he was addressing, whereas maybe some books were.

There weren't tons of specific like issues that arise. And even his combating false teaching or whatever it may be, some of it seemed kind of subtle. Like we could assume, "Oh, these probably were Judaizers. These probably were individuals who put confidence in the flesh." Right now, what he was saying was just this.

You guys saw the perspective of Apostle Paul? You guys saw the hard attitude? You guys saw the mentality? Did you see the intent and purpose of his heart? That he was driven to exalt Christ? He was happy when that happened. And even if in the whole scale of his life experiences, early when I was talking about all the blessings to having plenty, to having little, to nothing, if in all of that, it meant the proclamation of Jesus, he was what?

Happy. The main admonition that Apostle Paul is going to say is, follow my example. Join me. Share this joy with me. If you're looking for joy in other things, I'm not sure how you're going to find it. But there's one thing for sure. There's one thing for sure that can cause to us a sense of, "This is right.

This is good, and I'm doing it." It's glorifying the one who is worthy of glory. It's serving the one who is worthy of all our worship and service. And so I want to conclude with that, that the commands of Apostle Paul in the book of Philippians, though there were many, they had a theme.

It was all related to his one purpose, one single perspective of mind, of exalting Christ in his life. And so, at that final question, when the passage said, "Now to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever, amen," we asked that question, "What gives glory to the Father?" What gives glory to the Father?

So this part, let's take a moment just to think about this a little bit, and this is the challenge to you. One of the thoughts that I had was, "Man, there is this weird balance of the Christian life where on one end, you're supposed to try to do everything you can, give up of your time, your finances, your energy.

You should give yourself to the ministry. You should pour yourself out, and there's all these things you should do." Yes? On the flip side, God doesn't need you. God is absolutely sovereign, and whether you are doing stuff, preaching words, whether you're meeting people, whether you're giving all your money, actually the scripture says you could do all of that.

You could give your whole body to be burned. God doesn't need all that stuff. Do you see the weird paradox there? And you guys, I think, already know where I'm going with this, because we're asking the question, "Then how is God glorified through all this if we're not feeling like a need, if we're not feeling, you know, doing something as a favor for God?" Obviously we're not doing that.

And what he says is, "We're not just simply supposed to be doing this stuff." He says, "The way that you're actually pleasing to God is through faith." And you, whether it be serving, exalting, preaching boldly, giving of yourself and sacrificing, all of that was boiling down to your faith, that you believe all of that was a happy, happy, joyous thing that is right, good, and your love to the Lord, right?

That in your thinking, in your perspective, and in your attitude, there is nothing more that you would be happy to do than to give God everything, and that in doing so to you, that would be life. Through the middle of your life, through the beginning of your life, through the end of your life, all of that would be Christ, amen?