Living Hope

Pastor Philip Miller: God is on the inside, dwelling in you by His Holy Spirit, working in you that which is pleasing in His sight. So every desire for humility, every longing for a self-sacrificing life, every moment you want to be more others-focused in your love is a moment from the Spirit of God Himself.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: This is Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I'm Pastor Larry McCarthy. We're so glad you're joining us today. We're in the book of Philippians, and today we're talking about the role of the Holy Spirit in bringing back that miraculous transformation in our lives. Tell us about the Holy Spirit's work here.

Pastor Philip Miller: The Apostle Paul is laying out for us the meaning of true greatness—that greatness is found not when we live for ourselves, but when we live for others. Greatness is found in humility, sacrifice, service, and self-giving love.

The reality is that's not a natural disposition. By nature and in our fleshly bearing in life, we naturally think of ourselves. We're caving inward, self-referential, self-focused, selfish beings.

The beautiful thing is that God has given us His own Holy Spirit to help us walk in humility, service, and love to become more like Christ as we become imitators of God. We can't do this on our own. We need the Holy Spirit to give us the mind of Christ, to give us a love for others, a willingness to serve and sacrifice, and to give ourselves away.

As we follow the Spirit, we're actually becoming more and more like Jesus Himself and becoming more like the people we were always meant to be. This is the key to our transformation as followers of Jesus. We are full of the Holy Spirit, and He is on the job.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Let's go now to the pulpit of the Moody Church, where we'll learn more about how the Holy Spirit empowers us to be more like God. This is part two of the sermon "The Basics of Service." Our text today: Philippians chapter 2, verses 1 through 18.

Pastor Philip Miller: Listen, friends, Jesus did nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit. In humility, He considered us more significant than Himself and He looked to the interests of others. You see this; He gave Himself away for you and me.

Therefore, verse nine: on the basis of this humble service, selfless, radical, self-giving love. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Amen.

And isn't this remarkable? Friends, Jesus gave up His glory. He gave up His name. He gave up His honor. He gave up His rights. He humbled Himself to serve and offer Himself as a sacrifice for us. And the Father gave it all back and then some. He highly exalted Him, bestowed the name above every name, cosmic confession of His lordship resounding to the glory of the Father.

How did Jesus come into all of this glory? How did He do it? Through servant-hearted humility and others-first sacrificial love. Friends, Jesus' path to glory ran through the cross. Paul says, "Look to Jesus. Follow Jesus. Imitate Jesus." It's not just Paul who says this. Jesus calls each of us through the cross to glory.

Remember John chapter 12, verses 24 to 26. Jesus says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life will lose it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me. And where I am, there will my servant also be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him."

You say you want to be honored by my Father? You want to secure your life forever? You want to be truly great in the kingdom of God? Then take up your cross and follow me. Lay your life down and you will find it. Give yourself away and you will find your true self. In humility, become the servant of all and you will be great in the kingdom of heaven.

Die to your selfishness. Die to your pride. Die to your insistence on having your own way. Die to having your own rights upheld. Die to having your preferences met. Friends, there is so much in me that needs to die for the beautiful life of Christ to come to life in me. There's so much that needs to die because I've got a problem. You know what it is?

I'm selfish. I instinctively think of myself first. By default, I look to my own needs. By nature, my focus is on me. And you're thinking, maybe you're sitting here and you're thinking, "Boy, I'm so glad my friend or my spouse is here to hear this message. They really need to hear this." Well, it's you too, you know that, right?

If you don't believe me, I'll prove it to you. Let's say you're in a group photo at work or something like that. They snap the picture and it's a whole bunch of you. The photographer brings the phone over and says, "Hey, check this. Is it a good picture?" Who do you look at first? You look at yourself, don't you?

And what makes it a good picture? If you look good. Was I sucking in? Was I looking all right? Was my chin up? Right? This is what we automatically do. We look to ourselves first. Friends, there is so much that needs to die in us for the life of Christ to be resurrected into our existence.

Jesus calls us to follow Him through the cross to glory, to lay down our lives for others, just as He laid down His life for us. That's where true greatness is born. Now, how do we do that? How can we selfishly oriented beings learn to die to ourselves? If it was easy, we would have already done it.

What's the secret? How do we become people of humility and selfless love like Christ? The secret of true greatness comes next. Look at verse 12. "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure."

There's a paradox here. Do you see it? A tension in these verses. He says first, "You work out your salvation with fear and trembling." In other words, nobody's going to do this for you. You have to take responsibility for the working out of your own salvation with fear and trembling. It's not going to happen by accident. You're not going to wake up some morning and go, "Ha! I'm holy all of a sudden." That's not going to happen. You've got to take some ownership.

But look at the second part: "For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure." The only reason you're able to work out your own salvation is because God is working in you in the first place, you see. Without Him, there's no willing and there's no working. It is God who works in you both to will, desire, resolve, appetite, longing to be better and holy. And it is He who empowers the work of your doing.

You work out your salvation, but He works in you the work you work out. Is this starting to make any sense? This salvation that God has planted in you by grace through faith in Christ is coming alive in you and it will bear fruit through you. He says, "I want you to work it out." You're responsible for bearing the fruit of Christ in your life.

It's going to take work. It's going to take effort and striving. Do it with fear and trembling. Why? Because God is on the inside, dwelling in you by His Holy Spirit, working in you that which is pleasing in His sight. Every desire for humility, every longing for a self-sacrificing life, every moment you want to be more others-focused in your love is a moment from the Spirit of God Himself.

It is coming in you. The desires are being birthed in you and it is His power that is now working through you. In every doing, in every faltering attempt at obedience, it is from Him. We work out what He is working in. Do you see the paradox? The tension? It is both your doing and God's doing at once.

This is why Paul says in Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." You say, wait a minute, Paul, which one is it? "I've been crucified and I no longer live," or "the life I still live"? Which one is it, Paul? Yes. Yes. I have died and yet I live. It is my life and yet it is Christ, you see. He is working in us what we then work out.

Colossians 1:29 again, Paul says, "For this I toil, struggling with all His energy, which He powerfully works within me." For this I toil—that's an effort word, right? Struggling, straining with all His energy. There is output here, Paul says, which He is powerfully working within me. It's His energy. It's His life. It's coursing through me as I yield to Him. Or as Jesus says in John 15, verse 5, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."

So friends, the key to transformation lies in obedient surrender. We obey. That's our part. But not in self-effort. In active dependency and surrender to the Holy Spirit who is working in us and through us. And we surrender, but not passively. We surrender to the leading and desires of the Spirit. We yield to His direction and we put it in gear.

In the words of Galatians 5:25, we keep in step with the Spirit. We don't lag behind, we don't run ahead. Hand in hand, step by step, we move when He moves and not a moment before and not a moment after. We put our feet in front of each other, but the Spirit leads. Keep in step with the Spirit. Slowly but surely, you will walk into the true greatness of the life of Christ Himself, which will become your own.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: This is Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I'm Pastor Larry McCarthy. We're glad you're with us today as we're dealing with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and how the Spirit Himself empowers us for service. I'm sure our listeners want to know—I'm with you, I want to be Spirit-empowered and enabled—but how do I know if I'm following the guidance of the Holy Spirit? That would have to be the question everyone would want to know. I'm trying, but how do I know it's the Spirit's will?

Pastor Philip Miller: When the Scriptures talk about the Holy Spirit, they use words like "walk with the Spirit," "be led by the Spirit," "keep in step with the Spirit." The imagery is almost like me with my kids. It's like we're walking through the park or down the street, and we're hand in hand. My kids are not to run ahead and they're not to lag behind. They're to keep in step and walk right with me in this process.

If they're straining either ahead or behind or off to the side or wanting to go in a different direction, all of that's going to create friction. It's going to be harder than it needs to be. The idea is we're aligned, at pace, moving together. So that's the imagery. The Holy Spirit is the only one who can change us. He's the one who is bringing to life the character of Christ in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Those are the characteristics of Christ. The Holy Spirit is breathing those into life. He's raising them up into newness of life in our lives. Those aren't naturally native to us. They are native to the Spirit but not to us. This is His work. It's His transformation. It's the character of Christ that's being formed in us.

So the question is, are we surrendering to that? Are we yielding to that? Are we submitting, obeying, following, and complying? These are not easy dispositions for us to sustain. We want to be in charge. We want to drive. We want to be doing it. But the work of the Spirit is going to happen as we surrender, yield, listen, and follow.

The Spirit is going to be pushing us toward this character formation, toward Christ. Whenever the Spirit speaks, He's going to sound like Scriptures because the book we have that the Holy Spirit inspired is the Holy Scripture. So we would always expect that when the Spirit speaks, He sounds like Bible verses. So we would always want to see the cohesion there. That's a good test—is what I'm hearing consistent with the word of God, what God's revealed in His written word?

And is it moving me toward the character of Christ? Is it leading me to love God and love others more? Is it forming in me the very mind and heart of Christ? Is it moving me toward service, sacrifice, and self-giving? Those would be the good tests to know if I'm following the Spirit.

An analogy that I like to use is the big air show here in Chicago. They bring in those big planes. One of the planes they bring in is a refueling tanker plane. It lowers this boom and a fighter jet comes in and docks underneath that. All the fuel flows down that boom into the tank of the fighter jet so it can go do the things it needs to do.

I've often thought that's a great analogy for our relationship with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has all the power, all the transforming resources we need. We can't do anything without Him. He's the one who has everything. But our job is to get in position to dock up, open ourselves up, and let His influence, leadership, and power flow into our lives so that we have everything we need. Our job is to get in position and stay in position—to keep in step, to walk along, and to not get out of position and start doing things on our own, but to listen, to yield, and to receive. It's a very proactive call to walk in the Spirit, but it's also dependent because everything we have comes from Him.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: That is really very practical. I like the way you laid that out. The Holy Spirit is the dynamis. It's the power. The Holy Spirit's not going to contradict the word of God. So that would be a good key—if you are in fact in step, and the Holy Spirit is going to speak Scripture. I like your illustration of the kids because every parent can relate to that. You're either pulling them along because they want to linger, or they're pulling ahead: "Come on, you're going too slow. Can't we just hurry and get there?" I think for our listeners, they feel that lack of progress too sometimes when they're looking for the Spirit to move in their lives. Why is it taking so long? Why can't we just get there?

Pastor Philip Miller: Two thoughts here. The Holy Spirit may not be working on the thing you want Him to be working on. He's working on something that is important to God, but maybe less important to you. I think this is very interesting because you can look at your life and you say, "Man, I really want to make progress in Area A." But it may be that the Holy Spirit is working on Area B or C or whatever.

The reality is, if we're going to keep in step with the Spirit, I need to attend to the thing that the Spirit is attentive to right now. It almost doesn't matter what I want to be working on; I need to work with Him in the areas where He's at work. In my own life, I've seen that over and over again. I would love to make progress in certain areas and the Spirit's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but we'll get to that. But over here, right now, we've got to talk about your irritability right now in this scenario." And it's like, "I don't want to talk about that. I'm irritated about that. I want to go over here." And He goes, "No, no, we're going to talk about this."

Pastor Larry McCarthy: You sparked a thought, though. For our athletes that are listening to us, is it appropriate for them to say, "Okay, Lord, we need to win this game. I want to win this game. We want to win big. That's my prayer. Amen"?

Pastor Philip Miller: I mean, you see athletes who are in the big game and they're praying before the game and they're like, "God, I want to win this game." That's the most important thing, right? "God, I want to win this game. I want to get the scholarship, I want the money, the outcomes." And at one level, of course, God cares about the outcome of everything in our lives. There's nothing He doesn't care about.

But it probably is also true that the most important thing right now is not actually whether you win or lose this game. What really matters most to God, what He's most interested in in your life, is the person you're becoming. It's what the Holy Spirit is trying to form in you. So the real prayer is, "Win or lose, Father, would You help me to glorify Your name through this? If I win, help me to win with humility. If I lose, help me to lose with grace. Jesus, would You form Your character in my life? Conform me to Your image. Help me to be more sanctified and holy regardless of the outcomes of this match. Holy Spirit, would You have Your way in me? Lead me, guide me. Help me to play with integrity, to play in a way that would honor You, not just the outcome but the process that I get there."

Because at the end of the day, the most important thing that God is about in our lives is that we would stand before Him in glory, bearing the image of Christ. This is what the Holy Spirit is leading us toward in every moment of every day. It's an opportunity to be with Jesus and to learn from Him how to do life, and the Holy Spirit's on the job. So I think we learn to pray in concert with those intentions and that transformative purpose in our lives. And when we do so, we know we're praying in the will of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what it means when we say, "I'm praying in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." I'm praying this in His authority and under His will. Amen.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: If we're going to thrive in our service to Christ and others, we need access to deep, practical wisdom from God's word. For a limited time only, we're offering "Be Joyful," a study through Philippians by Dr. Warren Wiersbe, for a donation of any amount. Now, to request your copy, simply go to livinghopeoffer.com or call us at 1-800-215-5001. That's livinghopeoffer.com, 1-800-215-5001. Simply ask for the book "Be Joyful." Thanks for joining us for Living Hope, where you'll always find gospel truth for the journey of a lifetime. Living Hope is a production of Moody Church Media and is sponsored by the Moody Church.