Philippians chapter 2. We'll pick up with the same passage where we were last week, continue on through that. Back in 1891, there was a woman named Molly Kathleen Gortner. She was visiting her son one day, and she was out hiking. And while she was hiking up this mountain, she happened to notice this interesting thing sticking out of the ground. And the more she began to investigate it, she realized it was a vein of gold. And so Molly, That discovery she made would become the Molly Kathleen gold mine in Cripple Creek, Colorado. And it became one of the most famous vertical shaft gold mines out in the region. One of the richest, produced millions of dollars. and it is still producing gold today. You can see one of the old entrances to the mine, and what makes Molly Kathleen kind of unique is the fact that you can go to the mine today and tour it. It is an active gold mine, but during the off-season, they will give tours of the gold mine. Fifteen years ago when we got married, Eric and I, we went on our honeymoon, and then last year our family went again. You can see Mom and Dad, they were very happy-looking miners. Right behind where Mom is standing is an elevator, and this is a vertical shaft gold mine. You get into this elevator, and it drops you 1,000 feet into the ground. And they squeezed, this elevator wasn't much bigger than what this pulpit is, and nine people plus the operator had to cram into that thing. And so mom and dad, Erica, Harrison, myself, a few other guests, and this beast of a guy that was a miner, all squeezed into that. And I mean, it was like, you couldn't move, you couldn't breathe, and you had to take this two and a half minute trip down 1,000 feet. But when you get down there, it's quite a surreal experience. You find yourself 1,000 feet underground. Everybody looked happy when we were standing up, but you can kind of tell, 1,000 feet underground, not everybody looks as excited down there. They're wondering when we get out. It has always been a pretty safe place. tour until three weeks after we were there and the elevator fell and a couple of people ended up dead and there were many that were trapped down there for multiple hours and so the rest of the family said okay we've done the gold mine tour but we don't need to go do the gold mine tour again. You get down there to the bottom And for the tour, they actually do turn some lights on for you, but the tour guides are the actual miners that work in the Molly Kathleen today. And so they're very knowledgeable about the mine, and they show us how the mine works. And when they mine down there, they mine in the dark. There's no lights that are turned on. So all they have is their headlamp, and once they, you know, they give you the experience of what it's like down there, and they shut the lights off, and it's just this cold, damp, dark, silent place, until you begin to realize, they turn the lights back on, you can kind of look at the walls, and they begin to point out, here's a vein of gold, here's some of the places that are being mined in the Mollie Kathleen. What's interesting though, is the gold that's in the Molly Kathleen. It was there all along. The gold didn't show up when the miners did. The gold was already there. It was hidden. It was untouched. It was waiting for somebody to show up and take the gold out of the mine to be used. And so it wasn't valuable until somebody did the hard work of digging it out. Where are we going with this tonight? Well, if you're saved, if you're a believer, if you've trusted Christ as your savior, then God has already placed something that is infinitely more valuable than gold inside of you. He's given you his presence, his power, his purpose, but just like in the Molly Kathleen at that mountain, it's not valuable until you begin to work it out. And salvation, it's not just about where you're going. Salvation is not just about escaping hell. It's not just fire insurance. It's not just the fact that I'm going to heaven. Salvation is also about what God's doing in me, what he's doing in you right now. what he's doing in you right now. He's given you a new life. He's given you a new nature. He's given you a new mind. We talked about that mind last week. He's given you a new desire and he's going to call you and me, all believers. He calls us to live out in practical ways what he's put inside of us. Our job, just like the miners at the Molly Kathleen, we have to draw out what God has put there. That's the Christian life. Spiritual renewal is how we thrive. And so that brings us to our text here in Philippians chapter 2 this evening, verse 12 and verse 13. This is where Paul is calling believers. The saved people there at the church at Philippi. to save people sitting in the Liberty Baptist Church tonight, to live out what God is working in. Spiritual growth, it's not just our effort and it's not just what God does. We talked about this a few weeks ago that there's a partnership that goes on. between us and God. He lets us in on it and we're called to cooperate with what he's doing. I like the quote from Pastor Rod Mattoon. He says, the life of the Christian is not just a series of ups and downs, but ins and outs. God works in us and we work out. what he's done within us. And so we're going to take a deeper look tonight, sort of like we were riding that elevator a thousand feet. How many of you would strap into that elevator and be willing to take it down? We got a few brave people. Everybody else says, no way, no how. Well, it was fun. When you leave the mine, they take you by this big ore cart. And you get to take a chunk of ore out, might have gold in it, might not have gold in it, I don't know. But we have some of it. They say most of it is so microscopic you can't see it. You've got to get it pulverized. So I don't know what kind of value we got out of there, but it was a lot of fun. Let's look at Philippians chapter 2, verse number 12 and verse number 13. Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Let's pray and ask God to bless this time in his word. Lord, we thank you that we have this opportunity together as brothers and sisters in Christ. Lord, thank you for giving us this opportunity where we can open your word freely, where we can learn, we can grow together. We can be an encouragement to one another. Lord, I pray that you would just bless the preaching and teaching of your word tonight. Allow it to illuminate things in our lives that need improved. Lord, help us to leave here with a deeper commitment to live for you than we've had before. In Jesus' name, amen. So working out what God is working in, that's the message tonight. And again, we mentioned this last week that we don't want to be confused about what Paul was saying. He's not saying that we work for our salvation, but because we are saved, it should work its way out. When William Carey, he's been considered the father of modern missions, he was urging fellow Baptists to take the Great Commission seriously. He was in this meeting and standing up and presenting the need for people to take the gospel around the world. And there was an older minister there that said, young man, sit down. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he'll do it without your help or mine. But William Carey, thankfully, he knew better and he didn't sit down. He stayed standing up and he did what God was calling him to do and he went. He went to India and he sparked a movement since he obeyed the Lord. Hundreds and thousands of people following William Carey They caught the same vision to take the gospel message to people all around the world and there have been untold millions that have been saved because one man, William Carey, allowed God to work in his life and then he worked it out and his working out inspired a bunch of other people to go do the same exact thing. The Christian life. It's not about self-help, it's not about trendy ideas, it's not about self-improvement. You may hear a lot of that in modern Christianity, but that's not what the Christian life is about. There's a lot of agnostic thinking and humanistic philosophy that is making its way into Christianity these days. But don't forget this. God is the reason you're here, and it's only him who has the power to make you more like Jesus. That's what our purpose is. That's what your purpose is as a believer, to become more like Jesus, not just to understand yourself better, not to just get in touch with your inner self, but to become more like Jesus. And as you grow in him, The more you mature, the more you see life change take place, you'll see that spiritual renewal. Those are all kind of synonyms for the theological term of sanctification, okay? Becoming more like Jesus. Justification is the process when we get saved. Sanctification is the process after we get saved. It's this lifelong growing experience. And we're all at different stages in our lives and our walks with the Lord in that sanctification process. And the day will finally come when we meet Jesus that that sanctification process will be complete. But until that day, he is actively working in you day in and day out. There was a woman, she once joked, she said, you know, I finally got in touch with my inner self. And she's just as confused as I am. Can you identify with that? I feel like, man, the reality is that simply knowing yourself better. That does not lead to the transformation in our life. That doesn't lead to renewal in our life that God wants. Paul, in Acts 17, verse number 28, he told us, for in him we live and move and have our being. Paul was making it clear in this verse, his entire life, it was centered in Christ. That's a wonderful thing when our life is centered in Christ. And we experience fellowship with God and every aspect of our life will be renewed. Now as we think about what we talked about last week, we looked at verse 5, 6, 7, and 8 here in this chapter. And we talked about how we first have to have the mind of Christ. We haven't had that mindset of humility, obedience, surrender. Those were the three things we talked about. But then moving from just thinking like Christ to now we start to work it out. It comes out in our lives. So that's what we're going to talk about tonight. Renewal. How does it start? Well, it starts with a God-given desire in our lives, a spiritual renewal. It doesn't just happen. OK, becoming more like Jesus doesn't just happen. You get saved. You go to sleep one night and you wake up the next day and it's complete. No, that's not how it works. Because even though we're saved, we still have the flesh that's trying to pull us one direction. while the Spirit wants us to go a different direction. And so, on our own, according to Romans chapter 3, we would never go looking and seeking after God. If it was just up to us, that's not our nature. We wouldn't seek after the things of God. But when God starts stirring our heart, He starts giving us a hunger to know Him more, that's when real change in our lives begin. Someone once said, the greatest evidence for Christianity is not an argument, it's a transformed life. When you look at the Apostle Paul, he reasoned with different people and he debated with different people. But you know the greatest evidence in Paul's life, it wasn't just the arguments that he made for Jesus, it was his transformed life. Look at how Paul was before he got saved, then look at Paul after he got saved. That should be the same thing in our life. There should be an evidence, not just how we debate with people, not just how we can try to argue theological points to someone, but our life should show evidence of transformation. People can debate ideas, but you can't debate a changed life. Dr. Harry Ironside, he was speaking to a crowd one day and there was an agnostic professor named Arthur Lewis. He wrote down on a card and handed it to him while he was speaking and he challenged him to a public debate on agnosticism versus Christianity. Dr. Ironside, he looked at the note and he read it and he stopped in the middle of the speech and he said, you know what, sir, he said, I accept your challenge on one condition. He said, I want you to bring just one man whose life was in the gutter. I want you to bring some man whose life had been destroyed, some life that was ruined, that because of agnosticism and rejection of the Bible, he has now suddenly become a respectable individual. He's a contributing member of society and his life has been turned around. And I want you to bring just one woman whose life was ruined due to impurity in the way that she lived, but because of agnosticism and humanistic thinking, her life has been radically transformed and turned around. If you will bring those two individuals to the debate, I will bring hundreds of men and women that were the same, whose lives have been radically transformed and turned around by the life-changing power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He said nothing to him, turned around and walked out of the auditorium in silence. Why? Because the power of a changed life can't be denied. And that's what Paul... is describing a transformation that starts with God working in you. And we're not talking about just a head knowledge, okay? We can know all the facts, you can know verses, you can know theories, you can know theology, but it's got to move from here into our heart. We've got to let it work from our head into our heart, and then from our heart out. Now where does that desire come from? It's not something that we manufacture on our own. Again, we would never have this desire on our own. It's planted there by God Himself. The first thing that God does in our life is He awakens. There's a hunger that's in us that He wakes it up. He makes it as the first step. It doesn't originate with us. Look back at Philippians 2, verse 13. What does Paul say? He says, for it is God. It's God that works in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Now, if you feel a longing to be closer to God, If you feel a sense of conviction over sin, when something in your life, when you know that you're doing something you shouldn't do, if you sense conviction over sin, if you have a thirst for truth, that's an evidence of God working in your life. That's a good way to know, sometimes people struggle with, am I saved, am I not saved? When you sense conviction over sin, when you have that desire and that hunger to know God more, that's a good indicator that you're one of His children. If you claim to be one of God's and you never sense any conviction over sin, nothing ever bothers you, your life has changed in no way, then you might need to examine whether or not you're really one of His children. But if you have a desire to know God, it's because of His work in you. If you know Christ, then I can promise you, wherever you're at on this growth scale, this sanctification scale of becoming more like Jesus, if you're His child, then I can promise you that somewhere inside of you, God placed a desire to know Him and to be close to Him. Flip over to Romans chapter 7. I want you to look at what Paul said. He recognized this struggle in his own life. Romans chapter 7, and drop down to verse number 18. Paul writes, "'For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not.'" What's Paul saying? Paul's saying here that he has a will, he has a desire to do right, but his flesh We all still have the flesh in our lives. He says, the flesh, I want to do right. I have a desire to know God more. I want to be renewed. I want to be transformed. But the flesh, it keeps me from performing that which is good. Our flesh wants to resist godliness. Your flesh wants to resist godliness. But God, he gives us the will to seek him. What we have to do is respond to His drawing. We have to respond. In Jeremiah chapter 31, the prophet writes this, The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. God is calling to us. He's trying to draw us to Himself. But it's up to us to respond. We have to make the move. We have to do something. So spiritual renewal, this is the work of God from the inside out, from the inside out. And it begins with God, and it continues, and it grows, and it flourishes the more that we yield to Him. the more we have a desire to know Him, the more we want to grow, the more we want to be more like Him. He awakens the hunger, but we have to first choose to be filled. There's an old French proverb that says, a good meal ought to begin with hunger. Have you ever noticed that a meal always tastes best when you're hungry? If you're full, nothing just really seems that appetizing. Have you ever made the mistake of going to the grocery store when you were hungry? That's a bad idea, isn't it, Dave? I mean, you just pile stuff into the cart. It's not a good idea. We do that from time to time. And then you ever go to the grocery store right after you've eaten? Nothing in the grocery store looks any good at all, and sometimes we walk out and we don't put what we need in the grocery cart, because just nothing sounds good. Have any of you as parents, or maybe you remember when you were a kid, did any of you ever say this to a child or have someone say this to you? Don't spoil your dinner with snacks. You wanna eat that cookie or pizza rolls, but mom says, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't spoil your dinner. Uh-oh, we see fingers pointing back there. Why, why do they tell us that? Why they gotta be so mean? Aren't parents mean? They say, we don't want you to fill up on chips and soda. We're about to sit down and have a good meal. But if you get full on junk, you know, if you eat a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos and some Twinkies and drink a couple of Cokes, and then they say, hey, dinner's ready. Anybody feel like sitting down to eat that? No, you have the best meal made, but if you're full on junk, you don't want that. If we're constantly feeding our souls, with junk. If we're eating the junk food of the world, I mean, I don't know what the Twinkies of the world are, you know, entertainment, social media, if you're filling up on the soda and the candy and all that junk from the world, if you get full on the world, Where do you think your spiritual appetite's gonna be? It's gonna be pretty low, isn't it? You don't have a real desire to be, man, going to church, that doesn't sound good. Going to church on Sunday night, absolutely not. You mean you guys have revival sometimes where you go to church three or four or five times in a week? Like, what's wrong with you? People who are full on the world, they don't want that. But if we empty our hearts of fleshly desires, if we empty our heart, if we do one of those cleanse diets, I don't know, anybody ever done one of those where you drink like lemon juice and pepper and all this stuff? It's supposed to be really good and cleanse your body out. I don't want to know what goes through all of that. It sounds terrible, but it's supposed to be good for you, okay? It might do me some good. But when we flush our spiritual system out and get all the junk and the toxins out, we'll start to crave Jesus more deeply. Matthew chapter 5 verse number 6. You know what Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount? He said, Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Jesus said if we really desire to know Him, we'll be filled. He'll give us what we need. A God doesn't create a desire in our life that He can't fill. Somebody once said that God puts a hole in the heart of man that only Jesus can fill. Every single one of us, we have a God-shaped hole in our life, and He's the only thing that can fill it. Nothing else will satisfy it. You can go to the world and you can get all that junk, put it in your life, but you'll be feeling empty. Spiritual renewal. If I could give you one thought from this, it would be that spiritual renewal begins when we recognize our need for God and respond to His drawing in our lives. You know, what might be an interesting thing to do sometime would be to sit down, maybe take a piece of paper, open up your notes app, and just begin to write down the desires that you have in life. And ask yourself if those desires help you to grow closer to the Lord. or if the desires and the wants that you have in life are things that pull you away from God. It's kind of like going through, you know, you get to January, everybody decides to get healthy and you go through the pantry. Erica, she threatened to do this to us. She said, we're going to get rid of all the sugar in the house. It's going. It's like, oh no, we better start cramming this stuff in before she can throw it out. Sometimes we ought to go through our spiritual pantry and see what needs tossed out. Not only Does He create this desire? He awakens this hunger in us? But then He leads us into transformation. He guides us as we yield to Him. Romans 8, verse 14 says, For as many are as led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. A true child of God is going to experience God's leading toward growth and holiness. But just because God tries to lead us doesn't mean we always want to follow. Flip over to Galatians chapter 5. Paul, he talks about this internal battle that's going on. God's trying to lead us. We don't want to follow. What's taking place? Galatians 5 verse number 16. This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these things are contrary one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." Now here we see the new nature of the believer that Paul's talking about. The Holy Spirit, he gives us this desire to know God. He gives us a desire to attend church, to be a witness to a lost friend. The question is, will I follow God or Will I let the flesh control me? And you make that choice every single day in a hundred different ways. And many times you can kind of tell when someone's being led by the spirit, their desires start to change, their wants start to change, their habits start to change, the places that they go start to change, the things that they say start to change, the things that they do with their body start to change. God didn't save us so that we could go back to our old sinful habits. When God saved us, He saved us so that we could follow the Spirit's leading in our lives every day. That's why if you claim to be a Christian but you have no desire for the things of God, we've got to do a spiritual checkup. Why is that taking place? What's going on that's causing you not to have that desire to be with Him? Paul said, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. In John chapter 4, you remember Jesus met the Samaritan woman. She had spent years seeking satisfaction in relationships. She had been with many different men and the man that she was living with wasn't even her husband at the time. Nothing in the world was fulfilling this lady. And then Jesus approaches her and he starts speaking about this water that would fill her empty life forever. In John chapter 4, verse number 14, he told her, he said, you know, you've tried to find satisfaction all these different ways. You've looked everywhere, but there's nothing in life that will satisfy you except for a relationship He said, Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. And that day the Samaritan woman, she placed her faith and her trust in Jesus. And she experienced restoration, and she experienced spiritual renewal, and she went, her life changed. We wanted to sum up what we're talking about when God gives us this desire. We say it this way, God awakens a desire in our lives for spiritual renewal, but the key is we must respond. God leads us towards transformation, but we must follow. A spiritual hunger, that's the key. We got to be hungry for it, but we have to make room for it. Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness. Get all that junk, the world out of your life. When you get the world out, you'll have that spiritual hunger. But that's just the beginning because a true hunger for God, it leads us to actively pursuing Him. This isn't something that just happens passively. It doesn't happen by accident. Nobody has ever just drifted into holiness. You just never drifted into sanctification. This is something that you have to actively pursue. There has to be a desire in your heart, and then you've got to pursue it. A lot of people want change, but a lot of times we don't intentionally go after it. We just hope that it just, you know, happens. Sort of like some of you probably studied for tests, you know. You knew that you had a test coming up, but you never studied for it. You just stuck your book under your pillow and slept and hoped that, you know, the answers got into your head. No, you actually have to pursue it. Psalm 105, the psalmist says, Seek the Lord in His strength, seek His face forevermore. This starts with our walk with God. We've got to chase after Him with all of our heart. In Deuteronomy 4, verse number 29, the Lord promises to reward this. Deuteronomy says, "'If from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him.'" Would you read these next words with me? Ready? "'If thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.'" God promises to reward us if we are actively pursuing. So there's two ways that we have to seek the Lord if we want to experience this transformation, this renewal, if we're going to work out what God's working in. First, we have to seek Him with determination. Again, this doesn't happen by accident. It takes intention, it takes effort, it takes focus. Too many times as Christians, we treat the Christian life like this is more of a playground than it is a battlefield. But the Word of God makes it clear to us that we are in spiritual warfare. There's a battle that's going on. We're soldiers for Jesus Christ. And you can't expect to grow without some discipline or sacrifice. Again, you don't just drift into this. A lot of Christians are just kind of apathetic about seeking the Lord because they're too consumed with other passions and other things, and there's just not time on the schedule for Jesus. There was a woman named Marva Lawson who lived in Harlan County, Kentucky. For months, every single Sunday, she would get dressed. She had a lot of physical disabilities, but she would get dressed, take the time to get in her motorized wheelchair, But she didn't have a vehicle, so she'd go down the ramp of her house, get out on the side of the road, and drive her motorized wheelchair five miles to church every Sunday. Now, that's somebody that's dedicated, isn't it? That's somebody who wants to be close to the Lord. How many of us would be willing to go through it? Rain, cold, heat, snow, didn't matter. They say that Marva was always going to be at church. The news picked this story up back in 2018, and they asked her, you know, why do you make this trip every single week? That's really difficult. And she said, I go to church because I love the Lord. When the church found out that she didn't have a vehicle and couldn't get there, the church got together and went and bought her a used van that she could get her wheelchair into so she could drive to church and not have to take her wheelchair up and down the street to get there. But that's determination. That's pursuit. She was serious about being in a relationship with God. She was serious about her growth. She was serious about the presence of God. That's the kind of heart that God rewards. Do you have a passion to know God? Are you seeking Him? If you were in Marva's spot, would you go to all that trouble to make it to church on Sundays? He requires that we seek God diligently, and when we do, He rewards our seeking. But we have to make the decision, am I going to seek God, am I going to follow God, or am I going to settle for comfort? That's what a lot of Christians want. We'll serve God if it's comfortable, we'll serve God if it's convenient, we'll serve God when it's easy. But Jesus said no man can serve two masters. You've got to choose what you're going to do. You've got to choose who you're going to serve. You can't live with the world and expect to walk with God closely. It just doesn't work that way. One will always push the other out. That's what Paul was talking about in Galatians chapter 5. The nature of the flesh and the nature of the spirit. Whichever one you feed will be the one that wins out in your life. So which one are you feeding? That's why Paul's testimony is so powerful. He wasn't casual about his walk with Christ. He took it seriously. He was consumed with one goal in Philippians. We're here, if you're still there, flip over to chapter 3. Look down to verse number 10. If any of the guys were, I know Miguel, he's not in here at the moment, at the men's conference a couple weeks ago, Bob Hooker, he did a session on prayer, private meditation. And he used this verse, Philippians chapter 3, verse number 10. Paul says that I may know him. and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death." Brother Hooker, he pointed out, he said, you know, in Paul's later years, Paul's request wasn't for power. He said so many times as Christians, as preachers, as teachers, So a lot of times we pray for God's power in our life. We want God's power. But he said, look at what Paul prayed for. He said, Paul prayed not for power, not for crowds, not for success. Paul didn't want just more information. What's the one thing that Paul says he wanted more of? He wanted to know Christ more. He pursued the Lord with a single-minded passion. And when you pursue God that way, that's the kind of pursuit that leads to renewal in our lives, that helps us to work out what God is working in. Nobody shows up at the start line of a marathon never having trained, or if you do, I mean, you've got serious problems, okay? When you show up at a marathon, hopefully you've spent some time training, there's been some discipline, you don't just show up and say, you know, I'm going to try hard. No, you've been preparing for this, you've been working toward this, you've been building endurance, and that's what spiritual pursuit looks like. We're building that discipline into our lives. We're not trying to earn God's love. We're not trying to make him appreciate us more, look at us and think that we're better than we are. No, that's not what we're talking about. But it takes focus and a commitment. If we want to grow, God will love you the same way. But if we want to grow, if we want to know him in a more deep way, if we want to be connected to Christ like Paul was connected to Christ, it's going to require more than just the occasional hello. Let me give you this thought. You'll never experience renewal if you aren't willing to pursue Christ with a focused determination. We have to seek Him with determination, and then we have to seek Him with devotion. Because spiritual pursuit, this isn't about just checking off our spiritual boxes. It's not just about doing our Christian duty. It's not just about reading the Bible because we're supposed to. No, we read the Word of God because we love Him and we want to know Him more. We want to learn more about Him. That's why we read the Bible, not just to check off that box. What were the people of God supposed to teach their children? Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse number 5, And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Sometimes the reason we don't spend time in the Word of God is because we don't have enough love for the God of the Word. The more we love Him, the more we want to read about Him, the more we want to know about Him. We're not just trying to find things, to follow things that we're supposed to do. No, I want to know who God is. I want to know Him, Philippians 3 verse number 10. We live in a busy day, and sometimes God gets kind of crowded out of our schedule because of all the other things that are taking place, but we have to renew our desire to seek God with determination, with devotion. If your heart's kind of cold, we need to ask God to kind of fan that flame again. There was one of the churches there in Revelation, as you read at the beginning of the book, their love for Jesus had grown a little bit cold. They needed the fire flame to flame up again. Many years ago, Hymnist wrote a song we sing sometimes called take time to be holy. This is what the lyrics say. Take time to be holy. The world rushes on. Spend much time in secret with Jesus alone. By looking to Jesus, like him thou shalt be. Thy friends and thy conduct his likeness shall see. You don't hear a lot of people talking about trying to be more holy. That's what God wants. Well, this isn't a spiritual attitude of we're better than somebody else. It's not about being a spiritual Pharisee and looking down on people. That's not what holiness is. Being holy is being more like him, being more like Jesus. And a lot of people, we live in this fast-paced society and think, who has the time for that? Who has time to sit down and read the Word of God? Who has time for prayer? Who has time? But that's the key. We have to slow down and spend time with Jesus. You remember Martha and Mary we talked about a few weeks ago? Martha was busy, she was doing good things even, but she was too busy, she needed to slow down and spend time with Jesus like her sister. Wouldn't it be a good testimony if one of your co-workers, you know, said, you know, there's just something going on in his life, there's something going on in her life that I wish was going on in mine. It'd be good if somebody looked out and saw our life and that we could point others to Jesus. That's one of the things that I've noticed about the life of Joseph that we've pointed out to our teens on Wednesday night, that Joseph's life It pointed other people to God. Potiphar looked at Joseph and said, you know, the Lord is with him. Others looked at Joseph and said, wow, the Lord is with him. Joseph's life pointed other people to Christ. And here in Philippians chapter 2, this isn't really part of the message tonight, but if you look down, look at verse number 15. Paul says, when we do all of these things, he says that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom you shine as lights in the world. You can shine as a light in a crooked culture. In a perverse society, you can shine as a light. You can point other people to Jesus. if you slow down and spend time with Him. You remember those two disciples after the resurrection? They were walking along the road, and boy, they were just down and depressed because Jesus was gone. But everything changed when Jesus showed up and started walking with them. In Luke chapter 24, they said to one another, did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us, by the way, and while He opened to us the Scripture? Isn't that what spending time with Jesus does? Spending time with Jesus, it'll make your heart burn again. You'll want to be with Him more. So desire, that starts the process, seeking, pursuing. is next. But God wants more, as we said, than just a visit. He wants a relationship, a renewal. This isn't just sustained by passion alone. It comes through the word that we've been looking at for multiple weeks here. Abiding. Abiding. We abide in renewal. Once you've tasted the joy of fellowship with Christ, once you realize what it's like to be with Him, the greatest desire of your heart, you know what it's going to be? To stay in that place. That's what revival is. When you find that joy again, you say, you know, I want to stay in this place with Christ. I want to experience this day in and day out. That's what the goal is. If we go back to John chapter 15 where we spent so much of our time over the past several weeks, in verse number four, what does Jesus tell us? Remember, he was talking with his disciples this night. He's about to go to the garden of Gethsemane. He's about to leave, but he tells the disciples, abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. Abide, we've said that this means to remain connected. to live every day in closeness and communion with Christ. How does that happen? Well, first we have to abide in daily fellowship. Abide in daily fellowship. Christians, you know, sometimes we treat our relationship with God like it's a part-time job or something. We spend 10 or 15 minutes with Him one day throughout the week. We show up to church on Sunday morning, we feel like we've done our duty, we've done our obligation, and then we go back to business as usual during the week. That kind of Christian, you know, he tries to get God in some small doses and hope that that'll sustain him throughout the week, but we ought not to compartmentalize our relationship with Christ that day. It ought to affect us not just on Sunday, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, all week long. Being a Christian ought to do something in our lives. God should be at the center of everything that we do in our lives. You see, God doesn't just want weekend visitation rights. You know what God wants? He wants full custody of your life. He wants full custody. He wants to be the center of your thoughts, the center of your decisions, the center of your affection. That's what it means to abide in close fellowship. A married couple, they may abide in the same house together. They may share some common interests and some common goals, but that doesn't mean that they're experiencing oneness and spiritual intimacy. God doesn't want us to just live in proximity to Him. God wants us to be in fellowship with Him. He doesn't want us just to simply agree with the truth of His Word. Yeah, yeah, I believe that. No, He wants our lives to have closeness and transparency and intimacy, and He wants us to walk through life with a clean heart. He wants us to walk through life free from hidden sin. He wants us to walk through life open to His voice, listening to what He says, to follow His leading, to go where He says. You know, who are we kidding? When we try to, when we have bitterness and hurt and anger in our lives, When we try to nurse that, who do we think that we're getting over on? If we're continually thinking impure thoughts. I told the teens Wednesday night, we've moved into the portion of Joseph's life where Mrs. Potiphar began to tempt him. We talked about how the house, it was just her and him in the house. How many times when we're sinning, we look around, we think that we're alone. And we look over here and we look over there, we look all around us. But there's one place that we don't look. You know where we forget to look? We forget to look up. Because God knows everything, God sees everything. We're not hiding anything from Him. We're not fooling Him. So we ought to just acknowledge His presence and walk in open fellowship with Him. Are you walking with God today? Are you just living near Him? God doesn't want you just to live near Him. He wants you to walk with Him day after day. And then we have to abide in sustaining joy. We talked about joy a few weeks ago. That's what God wants in our lives. God wants to be one person with us. You know, when you love someone, your joy is when that person experiences joy. You, as a parent, many times, you love, you get joy from watching your child open up a present. You probably, I know a lot of dads, come Christmas, they get more joy out of watching their family open up presents than anything that they got. Why? Because we're close to them. We love them. We're invested in them. See, there's joy in living for Christ, living to accomplish his purpose in our lives. Now, when someone's living for the world, there's no true joy, just distraction, temporary pleasure, numbness. The man who's living for the devil has no joy. The man who's living for the devil, he has to get the next drink. He's got to get the next fix because that's what he thinks he's finding joy in. But when you're abiding in Christ, you see, joy runs deeper than your emotions. It's the fuel for your soul. And we can walk in joy every day knowing that there's a God who loves us. When you abide in Christ, let me give you a few things that happens when you abide in Christ. When you abide in Christ, you talk to Him throughout the day. He doesn't just hear from you occasionally. When you're abiding in Christ, you talk to Him throughout the day, and you bring Him into your decisions. You want to know, what would Jesus do? That wasn't just a cool bumper sticker in the late 90s and early 2000s, you know, WWJD. When you're abiding in Christ, you want to know, what would Jesus do? What does God want me to do? You remember Jesus, He prayed and He said, I only do the things that glorify my Father. You trust Him with your fears. You lean on His strength instead of your own. You keep your heart clean and open before us. You see, He wants to be with us all day long. He wants to transform us. He wants to renew us. He wants to shape us into the image of His Son, is what Scripture tells us. He wants to make us conformable to His image. And He invites us to walk with Him, but the choice is ours. So here's the question. We all got to answer this. Are you living out what God has put in you? Are you simply going through the motions? Sometimes we can all get to that place in our life where we just kind of check off the box. Sometimes we just feel spiritually stuck. We don't feel like we're gaining any spiritual momentum. We feel like we're just kind of in a holding pattern, like a plane circling round and round. We go through the same routines. But you know, like we said at the beginning, God didn't save you just to give you a destination. Now it's wonderful that we get to go to heaven, but His purpose goes deeper than that in your life. He saved you to transform you. And the amazing part, He's already started the work. One more time, look back at verse number 13 there in Philippians 2. It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. He gives the desire, He gives the power, He gives the ability, but He won't force you to grow. He won't force you to grow. That's why Paul said, work out your salvation. Not to earn it, but to express it, to apply it, to live it. So what does it look like? How does this look in my life? It means that you're chasing God, not comfort. It means that you get serious about things that feed your soul. It means staying close to the source, not just once a week, but every single day. Imagine that you're standing, if you were Molly Kathleen that day, standing on top of the mountain, imagine standing on top of a mountain full of gold, but never picking up the shovel and the ax and digging it out. Just walking away from all of that treasure that was left there. So many times as Christians, that's what we do. We walk away from all the things that God has put in our hearts, that God has put in our life. Don't leave the treasure buried. Don't leave it untouched. Jeremiah 29, verse number 13. And ye shall seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. You can't microwave spiritual growth. You can't hit the Burger King drive-thru and just have it your way. No, you can't fake this. It's gonna take day after day, week after week, month after month of abiding in Christ. And when you're connected to the one who gives us that life, you will start to thrive. Let's bow our heads. As we are just here in the quiet for the next couple of minutes, this is you in God time. You don't have to manufacture renewal. You don't have to work this up. You don't have to gin this up. You just have to respond to the one who's already working in you. You just have to come back to the place of growth. You just have to come back to Jesus. If you will abide, Jesus promises you will thrive. So as the music plays, you can come to the altar and pray, or you can pray in your seats. But if God stirs something in you, if you feel kind of spiritually dry, then come back. Come to the altar, pray in your seat. If you've been distant from God, then He's waiting for you to come. And if you've lost your joy, He's waiting for you to come. And if He's calling you to grow, to seek, to abide, then come. And when you take one step toward Him, He'll meet you there with an open heart, with your spirit humble. I want to pray in your heart tonight. Lord, I don't want just a surface level relationship with you. I don't want a once a week visit. I want you to have full custody of my life. I want to abide in you. I want to be renewed. I want to be transformed. I want to live that thriving life. He promises that when you seek, you'll find.