Philippians 4:8–9Scripture
Everybody turn your Bibles to Philippians. This is the last week I'm taking a break from Romans to really just kind of hit on a few subjects that I think are pertinent for us. But mind you, the things we're talking about today and then last week, really we are going to begin to see, even as we branch out to different subjects and we talk about different things, we're going to begin to see some of the principles we have been learning in Romans, they, if you will, have become the foundation by which we view all things. So rather than Christmas being about what's coming to you, we then, because we have been so rooted in foundational doctrine in Romans, we realize that really the promise comes through you, so less about what comes to you and it's more about what comes through you. That is a principle that has shaped our view of Christmas, I really believe, as we've traveled through Romans. Another thing that I think that has been shaping for us as we've read through Romans is how we enter into a new year. Now this is the season, Romans, or Philippians 4:8–9 in case you were wondering, this is the season where many people begin to make New Year's resolutions. I am not, you know, against New Year's resolutions per se, from my prayer you can evidently deduce, however, that I do think that in many ways it has become a problematic way to enter our new year, and in some ways it is a backhand to God that we just worshiped, because now we have diverted the worship from Christ, the child coming into the world, to now us and who we will become by the end of our next year. We set many of our New Year's resolutions, and oftentimes they are based on things like, such as, I want to lose weight. Nothing wrong with that, it's good to be healthy, the Bible says that your body is a temple and you should take care of it, that's good. The problem is that whether you think little of yourself or whether you think much of yourself, you think about yourself, and
The goal of the gospel is to not think so much of you, it's to not dwell so much on you, but rather that our gaze would be fixed on
Pastor Shawn Gray · 2:37
Point 1Fix your gaze on Christ, not yourself
Christ, that we would glorify him above all things. How many of you know that you cannot fix your gaze on two things at the same time? You cannot, and
The direction of your gaze really does affect the direction of your life.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 3:04
So I will say that if your gaze is inward, the nature of your life will implode in upon itself. This is maybe a psychological way to go about life, to find a better version of you. Maybe you've been advised to improve those things, but the book of Romans speaks against you striving to be better. It also says that for those who are saved, he has prepared in advance works for you to do, good works, so there is this counterintuitive argumentation that seems to happen in Romans where you're not supposed to strive for salvation, grace gets you there, God gets you there, the Holy Spirit changes your life, but we come out of Romans and we come out of the gospel, we come, and I believe that New Year's resolutions move you away from grace. I believe that it is you trying to improve you, but the way the Bible says that we improve is by fixing our gaze on him, and the Holy Spirit improves us. Remember, it is the fruits of the Spirit that form you and shape you and sanctify you, it is not your human effort that does it. Are you with me today? So as we tick into the new year, let's not take everything we've learned in Romans, throw it in the trash can, and then try to be like the Jews and go back to striving again. Some of you were here going, well, Shawn, so you don't want any people to try, you don't want anybody to try to be better, you just want everybody to continue to be sinners? Paul says absolutely not. Should we sin that grace should abound more? Absolutely not. But if you think that striving is going to get you there, you're wrong. How many of you have ever completed a New Year's resolution, ever? You did it all year long? One person out of all of you, that's the percentage of striving. Are you with me?
Because at the end of the day, striving doesn't save.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 5:31
So why are we then ticking into the new year and beginning the new year by striving?
If you're going to strive to see him more, strive to know him more, strive to get to know the Word more.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 5:43
You're going to strive, seek him. Philippians, I love this verse, Philippians 4. My mom had it plastered on everything in our house, from the TV to the devices to our Atari. We didn't have little phones, we didn't have the internet, we were basically, we might as well have been in a horse and buggy, for some of you young people it was archaic. The video games we played were little white balls floating in the air that you shot multiple times until they dissipated, it's called Asteroids, or in case you're really old school, how many young people actually know what Pong is? That was my game, I spent hours playing, that was it, that's my life, that was my life. Pong and Asteroids and horse and buggies, that was it. No internet, if you wanted to learn something you had to spend $1,000 on an encyclopedia, Britannica, your parents had to make payments for months on end because they bought it from some traveling salesman that went door to door, and they had the whole encyclopedia set, for the crazy people that actually bought it, my mom in the back of the trunk of their car, and if you wanted to learn something you had to look it up there. You did not have knowledge at your fingertips, but she had this thing, this even in that day when we're not inundated by so much technology, she had this posted on things that might lure us away from things that are honorable and true and just. Philippians 4:8–9 says this: "Finally, brothers, whatever is true," now I want you to think about this less in terms of stuff that's true, and in the season where we've just come out of thinking about a lot of stuff, playing with a lot of stuff and
Point 2Whatever is true points to God, not you
Opening a lot of stuff, our mind might go to applying these characteristics or attributes to stuff, but it's talking about a person, and that person is not you. It's not your mama or your daddy or your aunt or your grandparents, it's not that person at church that you admire. This is talking about God. "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just," who is the only just judge? Who's the only honorable person we know? In Romans it says there is no one worthy of honor, it says in Romans there is no one that is good, it said there is in Romans there is no one who is not a liar, and then it goes on, "whatever is pure," it says in Romans there is no one that is pure, "whatever is lovely," there is no one that is lovely, "whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things." Where do we learn these things from? The Word, of course. "And the God of peace will be with you."
Some of you don't have peace because you're focusing on the wrong things.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 9:46
We would classify a lot of things in our life to be honorable, to be good, to be Christian, but many things that we call good, Jesus, when they called Jesus good, he said there is no one good but God. So
You don't get to classify what's good and honorable and just and pure. You don't get to classify it. God is that,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 10:13
and everything that comes from God is that. With that, let me just hit pause for a moment and I want to talk to you about a couple of books, all right, that have really shaped our culture, particularly feeding into this idea of New Year's resolutions. There are two books, I actually would encourage you to read them, not necessarily for edification but for education, to educate yourself on the shaping forces or ideologies happening in America. These two books have been some of the greatest shaping tools, shaping actually some ideologies in the church that are anti-biblical. I've actually had people come to me and talk to me specifically how greatly their life was changed, Christians, mind you, people who have been in the church for 40 years, reading the book The secret. How many of you are familiar with The Secret? You've heard of it, you've heard rumblings of it, that kind of thing, you may have seen it in bookstores, even Christian bookstores, in the airport. These books tend to find their way to the airport because people are looking for something to read, and The secret, not only was there but still is to this day. There was a period several years ago where a lot of movie stars began to push The Secret, get really get behind it, talked about much of their success was based on many of these principles, that the way they have achieved success in their life is by the principles spoken about in The Secret. The Secret is a book based on, and this is really important, you need to learn this word
Point 3The Secret and The Shack teach pagan ideas
Today, Eastern pantheism. Let's just take pantheism though, all right, because it is discernment in the church today is paramount. It's very important that you understand what is false teaching and what is biblical teaching. Pantheism, here's the definition by Webster says this: pantheism is a doctrine which identifies God with the universe or regards the universe as a manifestation of God, of which you're connected and one with. In other words, you're God, the universe is God, we're God, we're one with God, and because we're all one with the universe, we can control the universe by the way we speak, by the way we believe, by the way we think. Are you with me? Birthed out of this book, The Secret, and particularly pantheism, which the book was based on, is this idea of the law of attraction, that if you think it enough and you speak it enough and you make enough vision boards and you speak those vision boards over your life enough, you will be able to attract to you what your heart desires. How many of you are familiar with this idea? This then is a pagan ideology that has no place in the church but has so affected the view of the church that now whenever we read the Bible, we read it through the lens of pantheism, and we use Scripture to quote over our life to draw something to us.
Our heart desires it then becomes the lens. Let me peel, the secret is that you have in you the force, this is a quote, energy and the power to create whatever kind of life your heart desires. You can actually find this book in most Christian bookstores, and if they don't have it they would be happy to order it for you. They would certainly have another book that many of you have read and endorsed and maybe loved, and I'm not trying to be trigger-inducing here on this wonderful New Year's, and New Year's Eve, and start your New Year's off wrong, but the book that is as pantheistic a position as The Secret is The shack. This book was written by William Young and has sold millions upon millions of books and is still selling millions of books and has had a very shaping influence in the way we read the Bible. The message of both of these books is this, that you have so much power in you that you can create reality by speaking it. You have this internal creative power residing in you that can create new realities by the words you speak. These words you speak create for you the world as you wish it would be. Let's just bounce back to vision boards for a moment. This is actually a technique talked about in the book The Secret. The entire premise of The Shack, if we jump to The Shack, is based on the law of attraction, which is a pantheistic, pagan idea, and it's the same premise as The secret, just dressed more Christian. And if you don't have the resources and tools to know what is pagan and what is godly, you run the risk of falling prey to things you think are positive but actually are to your detriment, like New Year's resolutions. Are you with me? So then faith in both of these books, faith is the real power, faith in yourself, faith in believing that you can create your own reality, like New Year's resolutions, like the law of attraction, like speaking over yourself, like pantheism, like paganism, in other words,
Ultimately it is not God who's in charge of providence but it is you that is in charge of your providence.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 17:32
You know what I think is interesting about what doesn't show up in most people's vision boards? Humility, patience, kindness, longsuffering,
Persecution, pain, none of that shows up on people's vision boards.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 18:10
You know what does show up? That I'll become rich, that I'll become famous, that I'll get a job with a bigger paycheck, that I'll be more sexy after a year of working out, that I'll become more muscular, that actually I will become as muscular as somebody who takes steroids but never have to take steroids, that was actually on someone's vision board. I know that I'll become a millionaire, that i'll become a movie star, that I'll become, here's one by a pastor friend that I know who had a vision board: that my church will grow to over 10,000 people. Pastor, a friend, a pantheist, a pagan pastor called himself a Christian. Are you with me today? It's a problem. It's a problem, and the idea is not a problem, we are the problem. Romans 3:10 says this, "None is righteous, no, not one." 2 Corinthians 3:5 says, "Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God," and from God alone.
There is no New Year's resolution
Pastor Shawn Gray · 19:38
Point 4God prepared your good works beforehand
That will make you gooder, because you're not good, only God is good. Ephesians 2:10 says, "For we are his workmanship," no, it doesn't say "for we work a lot and then we become his workmanship," we are his workmanship. So who is it that's making us better? It's him, for all he has elected and predestined and chosen and created as vessels of mercy, not vessels of wrath, as it says in Romans. "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works."
Only when, Ephesians 2:10, only when you do the right New Year's resolution can God make you his workmanship? Does it say that? It says, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand," not which you decided to do in 2024, but God prepared beforehand, before the foundations of the earth, before he created earth, when God and the Holy Spirit and Jesus were floating in the abyss, are you with me? He created the works that would be done in you, through you, and for you, and to the world around you, before the earth was created, "that we should walk in them." I thought we were going to walk in our new Year's resolution. No, as believers, those who are slaves to Christ, he has already decided which you're going to walk in 2024. He's already elected you, chosen you to be, and created you as a vessel of mercy.
He's decided what works you would do in 2024 that are good works, and he will empower you to do those good works regardless of whatever you put in your journal, because he's God, not you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 21:30
This is important, don't forget. Listen, let us not forget everything we've learned in Romans up to this point just because we get to New Year's Eve and we're so accustomed to habitually participating in pagan ideologies of the world. Let us not then turn back to those things like a dog returns to his vomit. Are you with me? Just because you habitually do that doesn't mean you should still do that. The goal of learning foundational theological principles in Romans is that we then might apply them in our world today. What good is it to learn all of these things about God, about us, if we never apply what we learn right when we click over into a new year? All right, I'm trying to help us understand the dangers of a me-centric ideology, and specifically the dangers of a Word of faith ideology that has infiltrated much of America, in every denomination, from every background, from every heritage and tradition, into our moment today, which is really the same pagan ideology of pantheism found in The Secret and The shack. It's a problem. It's a problem. I'm going to name for you five really quick things and we're done, because really the goal here this morning is to help you think about your new year differently and to understand that we are responsible to evaluate whether what we're doing is actually biblical and Christian or whether it's pagan. But let me just go ahead and show you five problems with New Year's resolutions, New Year's resolutions that, quite honestly, I think are based more on pantheism and the law of attraction and this idea of speaking things into reality than it is about pursuing him. Here's some things we've learned from previous New Year's resolutions. First one being this: we're unable to change ourselves. How many of you know that we see the evidence of that in Romans 1 through 3, that we are depraved, that we are on a downward spiral, and the only way, and just moving more and more into darkness and more into depravity and more into sin? Now we're not only sinning, we're aware we're sinning, we're aware what God wants and we continue to do it. Not only do we continue to do it, well, we encourage other people to do it with us. That's our reality, and unless God moves and saves, we will continue to go down this rabbit hole of sin and depravity, but God saves. And I think that, quite honestly, New Year's resolution really does reveal our inability to change ourselves, because many of us do not fulfill our commitment for the resolution after day two, some of you don't even make it past day one. How many of you start a Bible reading plan and you have to keep starting it over and over because you never can get past day one? You know why you hear so many chuckles and no one raising their hand?
Because that's you. I'm gonna read every day this year, I'm gonna read the whole Bible, but I have to read every day to read the whole Bible, because it's broken up, and if I read every day I'll read the whole Bible by the end of the year. You get to day three, you're like, shoot. And then I had this friend who was like, it's okay, I'm still going to power through, but I got to go back and read, and he got to the third week and still had not read the Bible in his Bible app that was doing the process, and he went back to try to catch up and then he just quit because it's like, it's too much, and if I can't do it all the way then I won't finish it, so I just won't do it at all, so I'll wait till next year to read the Bible. How many of you, come on, that's funny, that's really funny, but it's true. Sad, but it's true. You know what, because we're incapable of being committed without the Holy Spirit, that's what it teaches us, that we're incapable of change on our own strength. So if you're going to learn anything from past resolutions, learn that our wills are not strong enough. We can read all about self-help books, we want, but growth in character and holiness, growing in character and in holiness, we learn in the Bible are not DIY projects. In fact, self-help can be detrimental if you aren't careful.
Growth in character and holiness are not DIY projects. Life change comes from a heart change, and heart change comes only from God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:03
Another thing we learned from New Year's resolutions is this: we don't even know what we want. How many remember in Romans it's talking about we don't even know what to pray? We don't even know what we want, we just throw down some resolution because we think it's what we need and what we want, we definitely don't know what we need. If you don't know how to pray, maybe you should, maybe you should spend less time, you don't even know how to pray and ask for what you want, if you don't even know how to pray and ask right, what are you doing making a New Year's resolution?
If your resolution is going to be, I'm going to, I just need to be in the Word and I need to pursue God and I want to seek his face, well, I mean that's the best thing you could ever do, but if you're his, you'll do it without making a resolution, because he's changed your heart and your desires have become his desires. Do you see what I'm saying?
If you have to create a resolution to love God, you may not love God,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 28:20
and instead of pretending like a spade isn't a spade, let's just pretend like a spade is a spade, or let's just call a spade a spade. So often in my past, resolutions I'd want something that became worthless to me only months later. Our interest changed, and as we grow in wisdom and desire, elevate and mature, even with wisdom we still see dimly, and if our goals alone charted the course of our lives, we'd end up lost. We need the Lord to guide our lives and desires, not ourselves. Another thing, number three: we have an unhealthy and unrealistic interest in our earthly future, not our heavenly one. New Year's resolutions provide for us an unhealthy and unrealistic, and develop in us an unhealthy and unrealistic interest in our earthly future, not our heavenly one. In C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, the senior demon Screwtape tells Wormwood, his understudy, the following: "We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the present." Here's what Lewis is driving at: we are obsessed with the future and we're unsatisfied with the present. Really we're obsessed with our earthly future, but our earthly future is merely an idea, the past is past, and while we should plan for our future on earth, it's not guaranteed. Far better to seek contentment in the present and hope in our eternal future. This is what the Bible speaks of, these are guaranteed. Your eternal future is where your hope should rest, because it's a promise, it's a guarantee.
Your earthly future is not promised, your tomorrow is not promised.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 30:56
Are you with me today? So what we find then when we do New Year's resolutions is that we put emphasis on our earthly future, which can never be promised, and it then causes us to forsake our heavenly hope, which is always promised. It's a problem. That's what The Secret does, it puts your hope in the wrong place.
That's what The Shack calls you to do, is to try to draw to you today what is only offered in eternity. Number four, the reality is we're not content in every circumstance. Our failed resolutions teach us that we're not happy with how God cares for us. I want God and everything God offers, plus I want this list of ten things in 2024. Are you with me? Contentment is made evident by our behaviors, and our behaviors reveal whether we're content in Christ or not. Shawn, this is just too heavy, why can't you just be a joyful, happy person and not be so heady and ruin everything for everybody?
I didn't, the Bible did. The Bible did, I'm just preaching what the Bible says. Sorry to be a downer in this culture, but you do know that if you're his, you're an alien in this culture, correct? And what most people adopt in this culture we reject, because we haven't been adopted by the culture, we've been adopted by God. That's good stuff, that's okay. We fail to comprehend our fortune
Point 5Failed resolutions show we need Jesus
Because of what Jesus has accomplished for us, and we fail to appreciate the outrageous grace of merely being alive. And the next thing is that I believe that New Year's resolutions teach us is that we need Jesus. Our resolutions are often shallow, but even the deep ones, and our failure to keep them, show a dire need for a heart change. We're not what we should be and we want to be different. The transformation we seek is valid, but the means by which we seek it are insufficient. We need Jesus to transform us into his likeness, quite specifically through Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, to do so, and resolve alone does not accomplish this. I, one such person, and you won't find much about this from this angle necessarily online. Many pastors have written sermons encouraging people to create New Year's resolutions. I don't understand that. One such pastor said, "New Year's resolutions aren't bad, they're just ineffective." Why are we so scared to call bad? If it's ineffective, it ain't good. So the title of the sermon was "New Year's Resolutions Aren't Bad, They're Just Ineffective," and then went down telling you how to do the New year's resolution right. I thought they were ineffective, what in the world? So you spend 45 minutes of your church life and your sheep to tell them how to apply an ineffective thing, that's really bad, that you don't want to say it's bad, and because it's ineffective, and you were teaching them how to be ineffective with their life by using this tool, that's insane. You know why we do that? Because it's just negative to say things are bad.
God doesn't have any problem calling what's bad. That's what makes him good.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 35:09
That's why only he is good, because in our culture no one wants to say anything's bad. That's why we're bad and only he's good. Are you with me? And what makes him good is that other stuff is bad, because how can you have good if you don't have bad? Well, we just shouldn't call anything bad because we're bad. Oopsy daisy, you called yourself bad.
Are you with me? I read this, I thought this was cool: "My kid once made a treasure map of our backyard. They drew crossed dotted lines and an X marking where the treasure was and marked the spot of the reward. It was cute, but the map in essence was useless. There was no treasure to be found, simply a map was drawn of where the treasure should be. Too often this is us. We tend to chart a childish course every new year for our lives, pursuing treasures that do not exist below the surface." Don't let that be your 2024.
59:50
47:38
1:07:10
59:54
43:23
58:38
1:01:23
1:01:52
55:00
59:37
1:06:11
56:45
48:39
1:05:37
53:34
53:13
46:18
46:48
51:37
46:49
46:49
52:24
38:25
49:40
46:46
56:32
49:07
52:26
57:06
53:13
53:25
43:54
53:31
55:11
1:05:02
52:46
56:50
49:24
1:00:47
57:40
1:00:38
1:05:48
1:01:52
58:42
49:08
55:21
1:07:01
43:50
1:00:48
25:19
1:01:55
52:24
50:27
53:32
46:08
44:21
53:02
57:17
1:05:02
57:58
46:28
49:35
1:11:12
1:01:36
55:05
51:04
43:28
44:26
43:23
36:54Now playing
55:05
53:46
47:21
41:54
51:17
45:40
42:25
46:27