Bayside Baptist Church

Jason King: In 2021, several news outlets covered this story of a bull elk in Colorado who had some unique circumstances. It was determined that about two years prior, whatever this was had taken place, and trail cam photos had documented the story of this one particular bull elk in the mountains of Colorado who had some unique circumstances. I want you to look at this picture right here and see what happened to him.

The elk has a tire around his neck. You can see that that's a problem. His antlers are too big and it's not going to go off the other way. For at least two years, this bull elk had carried around this tire around its neck until wildlife and fish officials were able to track him down, they were able to sedate him, and ultimately remove the tire from around his neck. Whenever he wanted to hang around his friends, it had been difficult for him to blend in for a long time.

When they removed the tire, it wasn't just the tire. What they found is that it contained an additional 10 pounds worth of debris, just pine straw and other things that he had picked up through the course of each day over the last couple of years from the woods. That was his normal everyday life. Sometimes that's how life can feel for us. An extra weight around your neck that you've just gotten used to carrying. It's just what it is. It's how you were raised. It's how you've experienced it. It's a burden that you've got going on in your life that you're carrying. It's a mistake, maybe a past hurt or regret. Everywhere that you go, that tire filled with debris hangs on your neck.

The reality of it is you need breakthrough. You've tried to change. You've tried to do better, work harder, change on your own, find a different way, talk to somebody about it, get the tire off your neck, but it's still there. If that's you today, I'm glad that you're here. Whatever your burden is, whatever it is that you're carrying today, whatever it is that's on your mind and your heart, I'm glad that you're here. I believe that during these 21 days of prayer, God wants to help pull that tire off your neck and for you to experience spiritual breakthrough.

That's what 21 days of prayer is all about. That's what 21 days is for us as a faith family, but it's what it is for you as an individual today. We believe God answers prayer. God invites us to pray, to seek Him, not just to talk but to listen, to bring your needs to Him, to pour out your burdens, and to listen to what He speaks into your life and mine. Growing in prayer is not about anything other than growing in your faith. It's not about becoming more polished in the words that you say or learning some new lingo or becoming a better prayer or impressing other people. It's about experiencing God's power and presence in a fresh way in your life. It's about breakthrough.

This is how God has designed us to live, not just for a season or a period of time of 21 days or whatever it is, but as a way of life. For the next 21 days, beginning tomorrow morning, what I want to challenge you to do is to take the 21 days of prayer challenge. As you walked in today, hopefully you got a set of prayer cards with a wristband on it. If you didn't, you can get one as you leave. What I want to challenge you to do is to put on your wristband and take the prayer cards. What you'll find is over the next 21 days, there is scripture and a prayer prompt for each day that will lead you to pray toward seeing God breakthrough in your life.

The second thing I would ask you to do is to ask the Lord, even today, what is the one thing that You want me praying for right now? What's the one burden or issue or problem or opportunity or relationship or whatever it is that You want me to pray about? As you ask the Lord that, what I want you to do is to set an alarm on your phone at 1:00 PM each day. When that alarm goes off, I want you to pause and pray for one minute for your one thing. 1:00 PM in the afternoon, one minute for that one thing that God lays on your heart to pray for the next 21 days.

The last thing I would challenge you to do is to pick a day of the week and fast. Choose to abstain from food for that day. It's not a weight loss plan we're talking about. It's an opportunity to lean in and to abstain from food and say, "God, I am forsaking food to seek Your face." If you're physically able, I want to encourage you to do that. That is the 21 days of prayer challenge: to use the prayer cards with your wristband, to set your alarm, and to fast for us to see God breakthrough. I believe if you'll take these steps, if you'll begin to practice these things, you'll see God work in some pretty incredible ways during 21 days of prayer.

Maybe your prayer right now is even, "God, what do You want me to pray for? Where do I need to experience breakthrough? Where am I stuck, or where am I holding back, or where am I struggling, or where am I stumbling, or where am I overwhelmed, or where am I feeling hopeless or apathetic?" Maybe that's what God wants you to pray for over these next 21 days. I want to invite you to open up to Philippians chapter two. In this passage that we're going to look at today, I believe Paul is going to lay out for us what it looks like to begin the process to seeing spiritual breakthrough. It happens as you and I take steps of faith.

You and I need to trust that God can do what He can do, and we need to trust His power and His intentions in our lives. It's evident when we trust Him that we choose to take steps of faith. I want to challenge you to take steps of faith today. What are the specific steps that the Apostle Paul is going to teach us about taking today? The first step of faith that God wants you to take is that you need to say yes to God's word. In Philippians 2:12, Paul says, "Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I'm away, it's even more important."

What's he saying here? Paul is saying that the instructions, the word of God that he had downloaded to them, that he had given to them when he was present with them, he's saying, "I gave you God's word." Remember the Apostle Paul, he would go to different cities and different areas and he would plant or start churches. Then he would spend a period of time, depending on the church, investing in that church, helping them learn how to walk by faith and fully understand the gospel and recognize the opportunity to reach their city and their area. He said, "When I was with you, I was teaching God's word to you. You heard the instructions. I was teaching you what God's word was telling you and helping you understand it and help you know what it said."

He said they responded so positively when he was with them. Now that he's not there with them, Paul had moved on to the next place that the Lord had led him toward, he said, "I need you to step it up even more. I need you to even more than you did when I was there with you, I need you to lean in and take steps of faith." How did it work? Paul taught, and the people did what he said. They followed. He shared God's word, then they said yes to God's word, not because it was his words, but because it was God's words that were being downloaded to them. Do you know what that's called? It's called discipleship.

It's called spiritual growth. You're not here, I'm not up here to give you a sermon to see. I'm not up here to entertain you. I'm not up here because it's what we're supposed to do. I'm up here because I want to take God's word and help explain it to you, not just so you have information. The world is full of information. It's so that you would experience transformation as you do what it says in the book. I'm afraid for many of us, we sometimes can miss the heart of what spiritual growth or even discipleship really is. We attend classes, we read curriculum, we read content, thinking that if we master information or learn more information or take on more difficult information, then we're growing spiritually.

We treat it like college where you've got to knock out some basic classes and then you get to the more advanced stuff and you eventually get your degree. But that's not how spiritual growth works. Spiritual growth doesn't happen in a linear fashion. It's not one step leads to the next step leads to the next step of information. Often we've approached it that way, but that's not really how it happens. There are some basic things that you and I need to understand before you can begin to walk in Christ, before you can begin a journey of faith. You need to understand the gospel. You need to understand that you can trust God's word.

Then you need to begin to learn what it looks like to walk as a Christian. But you're not pursuing a degree in college where once you knock out the basics, you move on to the advanced stuff that helps you graduate. Going deeper is not learning bigger words and reading longer books that have bigger words in them. Going deeper is learning to say yes to God's word even when nobody's looking. To do what God has revealed. To follow through with saying yes to God's word. God's process for discipleship in our lives, it seems somewhat haphazard. It would be awesome as a pastor, just as a person, I would love it if God's process was just you follow this line and you keep knocking the stuff out and you walk this line and you're more and more mature.

That's not how life works. It's more ebb and flow. Your life moves through a season of security and rest where things seem good, and then all of a sudden you hit an obstacle. You hit some road bump or roadblock or speed bump or something's going on in your life, and all of a sudden it seems chaotic and like you've got some disruption, maybe even insecurity. Then things stop, and then you go back at it again. Sometimes it's even several things at once. You face those things, you have to navigate around them and through them, and you face these moments in your life that are "need to know" or "need to grow" moments.

In those moments, you're digging into the scriptures trying to find out, "How do I help my kid? How do I grow in my marriage? How do I live with integrity? How do I follow what the word is teaching in this circumstance at work?" You dig in. Or you need to grow. It's time to leave behind childish things when you get married and now you have another person that they're with you, and you've got to quit acting like a kid and you've got to figure out how to grow in this. You have those moments that come into your lives. But there's a skill that we have to develop to be able to grow as Christians, and it's not just adding another bible study. It's learning to hear God speak and then do what He says even when nobody's looking.

That's the heart of discipleship. It doesn't get any deeper than hearing God speak and responding with action. That's called faith. There is a place for jumping into deeper theological discussions and learning information and developing convictions and understanding as you try to wrestle with questions and concepts that are somewhat unclear in scripture. But please don't mistake that for spiritual growth. Discipleship, spiritual growth is hearing God's word and doing it. It's a lot easier to gather information than it is to accept transformation in your life because that means change. Don't take the easy way out.

To say yes to God's word means that you choose to do what the word says even when it's different than how you were raised, or what's normal, or what feels good to you, or what you want, or even what people in your ear are telling you that you should do. Even if you're the only one of your friends, your teammates, your co-workers, even your family that chooses to say yes to God's word, and even if it costs you, you say yes and you will be on your way to experiencing spiritual breakthrough. The second thing that Paul tells us in this passage is not only do we say yes to God's word, but there's an element of work that's as part of it.

He says you need to work hard to do what you hear in God's word. Look in the second half of verse 12. He says this: "Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear." You start by saying yes, but what your "yes" means is you have maximum effort to do what you hear in God's word. You're not pencil-whipping these parts of your faith. You're not just, "Oh, it doesn't matter, I can do whatever I want to do. It doesn't matter what God's word says about this part of my life. I know my salvation is good." That's what Paul's saying. He's saying, "No, you work hard to obey God, to take the word of God and to let it become a part of your life."

To obey with deep reverence and fear is not like you've just watched a horror movie and you're scared to death of God as you're living out a life of faith. Deep reverence doesn't mean that you're mad at everybody all the time and you just live life as a somber person. What he is saying is that this deep reverence is this profound respect and awe that we have for God because of who He is. Fear is in the same vein. It's the picture from the book of Exodus. Do you remember when Moses encountered God in the burning bush? Moses meets God through this bush that's on fire and it's burning but it's not getting burned up. He recognizes that the place he is, as God speaks to him, is on holy ground. You're face to face with God.

Do you remember what Moses did? He didn't say, "Hey God, I need to ask You, how many angels fit on the head of a pin?" It says that Moses wouldn't even look at God, that he recognized, "I should not be here," kind of like Isaiah in Isaiah 6. Moses wouldn't even turn his face to God, not because he was scared to death, but because he recognized who God is. If you're apart from Christ, if in this moment you've not given your life to Jesus Christ, there is a fear and a fearfulness that you should have because the promise of God's peace and His presence is only for those who are in Christ. If you haven't taken that step, all you've got to do is call on the name of Jesus.

You do have need for fear if you are apart from Christ. Your obedience, this hard work that he's talking about, is because of your reverence and understanding, your fear of the Lord. It's because of who He is and how He loves you, what He's done for you, the way that He has cared for you, the way that He has stood with you through whatever you've walked through. He says, because of all this, "Work hard to do what you hear in God's word. Take your 'yes' and apply diligence and hard work to see it become reality in your life." There are three ways that Paul describes our work in this passage. The first one is obedience. That's just choosing to say yes.

There's also a responsibility. It's the reality that you are responsible for your spiritual growth. It doesn't mean it's all on you and you do it all yourself, but ultimately, you can't take a pass because of your upbringing or because of past hurts or regrets or things that you've done in your past. No matter your story, it's your responsibility to work hard at growing in your faith. Own your role, be diligent. It's also sensitivity. That's what "fear and trembling" speaks of. In other words, are you actually aware? Are you acutely aware of the incredible gift that God has given to you in Christ? Do you see the disconnect between saying that you've received that gift, that you're saved, and then not paying a lick of attention to what God's word says that means for your life?

Sometimes we don't approach our faith with the same diligence that we apply to other things in life. If you're in school, as you study, as you prepare, if you care about good grades and you're working on that, or maybe you play a sport or you play an instrument or you're in some other activity, how hard do you work to excel at those different areas? It takes hard work to succeed. If you're in the marketplace, it requires hard work to advance in your company or with your career or to get your business off the ground. It requires hard work in the gym to achieve your goals. Most of us work hard at our hobbies, don't we? Have you taken any golf lessons, watched any videos about how to catch bigger fish or kill a bigger buck?

We dig in and we want to learn those things when it comes to other areas of our lives. But I want to ask you a question. When it comes to your faith, do you work that hard at growing in your faith? It's easier to let off the gas. It's easier to just think all that stuff gives me an immediate gratification, whereas your journey of faith brings a delayed gratification. You can invest time and energy and effort and hard work for a while and not see the results that you want to see. You often have delayed gratification. You don't see things come to pass quickly. Hard work in so many areas of life, you receive an immediate feedback. You get a promotion, you earn more money, you pass the class.

That's not how faith works. Eugene Peterson said many years ago that the journey of faith is a long obedience in the same direction. Often it's so incremental that as you practice the faith and as you walk out your journey of faith, you don't even notice that you're growing. How do you work hard in this way? I'm not telling you to go be better and try hard. No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is the same intensity and purpose that you give, we give to so many other things, Paul's saying let's work out our salvation in this same way.

It starts with your thoughts. What are you thinking about right now? Some of you guys are thinking about what you're going to eat. But what are you thinking about day in and day out? Is it all about you? All about your stuff? All about what you want? All about finding whatever it is that makes you feel good? The Apostle Paul says it starts with our thoughts. He says this in 2 Corinthians 10:5: "We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God." Paul says this is our work, we're trying to get in the midst of that and to help people change the way that they think because your career, your school, while none of those things are bad things, or even your hobbies, none of that stuff's necessarily bad, but it can become an obstacle with pride that keeps you from knowing God.

You think you know God, you know some stuff about God, but Paul says we're destroying everything that stands in the way that keeps people from knowing God. He says, "We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ." Another translation says, "We take captive every thought to the obedience of Christ." You know how you do that? You fill your mind and your heart with God's word. You fill your mind with those things and think on those things which help you grow in your faith and take captive those thoughts that pull you away. That doesn't mean you don't go to school and try hard or you don't work hard in your career or whatever. It's saying, "What are you thinking on? What is captivating your thoughts?" And if it's not growing your faith, then you need to take captive that thought. It's not intuitive, it's not easy, but it's worth it.

Maybe your thoughts are destructive and negative about yourself. You repeat constantly lies about who you are or how God has created you or how valuable you don't feel like you are. To take this thought captive means you take the truth of the scriptures that say you're fearfully and wonderfully made, or that God has created you in His own image and that He loves you like crazy, and you stand on the truth that God doesn't make mistakes, including you. Or maybe you're tempted to cheat on a test or lie about something at work or to fudge an expense report or take credit for somebody else's work. To take that thought captive means that you read what the scriptures teach and you say yes to do what God's word says. You look at Christ's example of integrity and being truthful.

Maybe you're tempted to go hit that party, just smoke a little bit of weed or just take a few pills. To take that thought captive means that you're reminded the scriptures teach that you're to be filled with the Holy Spirit and nothing else. Or maybe you have a lustful thought and you're tempted to linger there and continue to watch that or to take another look. Or maybe even to cross that line with your date or to flirt with somebody who's not your spouse. To take this thought captive means that you think back to what the scriptures teach, or maybe find the passage where Paul tells Timothy, "Flee youthful lusts. Pursue godliness." Reframe your thoughts with what is pure and lovely and what honors God.

Or maybe you're tempted to think with the whole church thing, "You know what? I can worship wherever I am. I don't have to gather with the church. I'm just going to watch online when I can, or I'm just going to sit in the deer stand and worship because deer season's coming." To take that thought captive is to be reminded what the scriptures teach, that God instructs us to not give up meeting together, as is the habit of some people, but instead, when we gather together, to remember that is a source of encouragement and we need one another. You need to be with other people.

That's what he's talking about. You work hard. Don't just pencil-whip your faith. Don't just think that because you prayed a prayer at some point or you felt a certain thing at some point. He said, "Work hard to show the results of what God has done in your life." You have a responsibility in your spiritual growth. That's why Paul says to Timothy, in 2 Timothy 1, "This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift that God gave you when I laid my hands on you." He was encouraging Timothy as a young leader, "You've got to constantly be stirring up the faith and stirring up your heart." He says, "Look, God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, of power, of love, and self-discipline."

He says work hard in your faith. You're not just called to take early steps of faith and then check out with obedience for the rest of your life. The way of life for all who are in Christ is to work hard at your faith, to figure it out day by day what it looks like to look more like Jesus. That's the "fear and trembling." Take it seriously. Work hard at choosing to do what you've learned. I also want to remind you it's also not all on you. We're to work hard, say yes to what God reveals in His word, but here's the last thing that Paul tells us today: You need to trust what God is doing.

Look in verse 13 and see where this comes from. Paul says this: "For God is working in you, giving the desire and the power to do what pleases Him." God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power. Most of the time, we really aren't sure what God is doing, especially in one of those moments where we're toting a tire around our neck, where it feels like a burden is following us everywhere or some problem that we can't get off our back and we just don't know if we can trust that God can or will breakthrough in that moment. You've been carrying that tire for a long time. You've been praying and asking for a long time, and yet God hasn't answered in that way.

God wants you to know that He's at work. He wants you to have confidence about His intentions for your life. You need to know what He's up to, what His purposes are, what He has the power to do. All of this work that Paul is talking about here arises inside of you and me once you come to faith in Christ. It's by the power of the Holy Spirit. Here's what He's doing. He's active. That means He's never going to let you go. He's not going to quit on you. He's pursuing you. He's helping you. Always at work. He never sleeps. He never forgets. He never backslides or changes, and His work can't be stopped.

His work is effective. It achieves the purpose for which He's intended. God can't be deflected from His purpose, nor can He fail to accomplish what He's spoken, no matter how bad you fail or I fail, no matter how far we drift. God's purposes and His ability to bring it to pass do not fail. And His work is complete. He's saying He's working to create both the "want-to" and the power to do what He's asking you to do in your life. He's given you the capacity for spiritual effectiveness to make you and me more like Jesus each day. Why does He do all this? "This is what pleases Him."

Why? Because He loves you. He created you. He sent His Son Jesus to die on a cross and be raised from the dead so that you could know life. It brings Him great joy for you to take steps of faith, to apply your hard work with His power in the Holy Spirit living in you, and to see you experience breakthrough. This is what you need to know: God is on your side. You may just need to write that down. God is on your side in Jesus Christ. He empowers not only the "want-to," but He'll make it happen in your life. God is showing us today, Paul is teaching the Philippian church, and He's teaching you and me today, that God does His work in your life and mine from the inside out. He will change your life by changing your desires.

If you're stuck today and you're thinking, "What in the heck is going on in my life? What is going on spiritually? Why am I toting around this tire?" don't just pray, "God, help me to do this, help me not to do this, help me to be nicer when I pull out in traffic, help me to come to church more, help me to pray this." God, would You just change my desires? Would You change what I want? I believe if you'll do that, Lord, Your word says right here that You'll create both the "want-to," and then the action will follow. Don't just try harder. Ask God to change your wants, and He'll do it. Doing comes from willing. That's life change. That's breakthrough. That's an inside-out faith.

That's the power of the Holy Spirit at work in you and in me. He says God's working in you as you work hard applying the results of your faith. There's a clear calling for you and me to work hard, say yes to the word, but there's a clear promise as well: that God gives you and me whatever it is that we need to live this life of faith. He offers you breakthrough when you trust Him. I brought a glove. It's a nice new work glove. This thing's made of leather. It's got a little thicker palm right there so you can do a little work with it. This glove right here, it's a well-made glove. It's made to work. It's made to lift. It's made to carry things. This glove ought to be able to do some work.

Follow me. I'm going to tell this glove to do some things. Glove, pick up that Bible. Do something. Move the cards around. Organize the stuff up here just a little bit. It's kind of silly, but why is the glove not able to do that? Maybe because that glove is like you and me sometimes. Glove, get that tire from around my neck. Breakthrough that addiction. Overcome that habit or that hang-up that I'm carrying around. Breakthrough the ho-hum nature of what my faith has become and bring something new. Maybe this glove needs some inspiration and encouragement to be able to do what it needs to do.

"You are the best-looking glove I've seen today. I bet there is some real potential in you. I think you're a great glove. You look very high quality." Maybe the glove needs some training. Maybe I need to spend some one-on-one time with the glove and just show the glove what it is that I need it to do. "All you need to do is just grab with right this and pick up and then you could organize." That didn't really work. I know what it is. I need another environment for this glove. I need to go put it somewhere else and put it in a different space, and maybe that would help it.

Or maybe this glove needs some fellowship. Different gloves from different walks of life and some fellowship is what this glove needs. Maybe this glove needs more discipleship. I need to explain more fully what it is that a glove is supposed to do. If the glove will hear that, the glove will do what I need it to do because it'll understand why. Or maybe it just needs to make a commitment. "Would you just get in a small group, get baptized, go to Welcome Breakfast? Would you serve on a team and do something?"

Doesn't exactly work, does it? A silly illustration to say a reality of how some of us are approaching the spiritual life right now. What's this glove made to do? This glove's made to do work, but this glove ain't going to do nothing without a hand inside it to do the work. This is what it's like for you and me to try to approach the Christian life, your spiritual life, in your own strength and your own power, trying to do it your way, trying to make it happen, be a better person, come to church as much as you can. We're missing the very power to see all these things that God wants to do become reality in your life. It's the power of God at work in you.

Just like this glove is worthless without a hand in it, you and I oftentimes miss the breakthrough that God offers because we're trying to do it all ourselves. What God wants to invite you into today is to experience His supernatural power. He promises to give you exactly what you need to be able to say yes to His word, to be able to work hard in your faith, and to see His power and presence become a reality in you for you to experience spiritual breakthrough. You can access this, you can receive this by faith.