2026 09 27 - But You Ask the Impossible! - Popp

Grace, mercy and peace from our God and Savior. Amen.

Yes, the impossible. As you listen to Violet Read Philippians 2. It was a hard checklist and it's difficult.

It makes us again look at what it was to have Jesus on the earth as a leader versus who we worship, who we follow, what our leaders look like. It's really a great lead in to October, where a lot of times we start talking about reformation. Grace by faith, not by works. In the example Martin Luther gave us, what a leader looks like at a time when the church was using its power to lord over its people.

Somebody who humbled himself and was sent to serve.

Hopefully that will make sense as we deal with this sliding rule between being selfish, being humble. He has risen.

Yes, he has. What do you want from your leaders? What do you want from your Lord? In the second chapter of Paul's letter to the Philippians, he shares Christ's example of humility and what it meant to be a light in the world. That's really where I want to take us today, putting this epistle into perspective.

What do you want from a leader? Right. I put together some leaders in the previous hundred years to the writing of this one. These are obviously Roman leaders. We go Augustus or Julius Caesar, Herod the Great, Augustus Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius Nero.

When you think about this list of leaders, what words come to mind? Power. What tyrants I had? Fear. What else?

Tyranny. Yeah. Certainly we have the one who tried to kill Jesus when he was born. We have certainly the one that put him to the cross. We have a lot of leaders who had a lot of power and might.

They ruled, everybody understood who was in charge and there was fear.

That's what it was like being in the first century Rome. The leaders were the ones had all the power.

How does that work? When Jesus came to lead.

Put that away for a second. I want you to think about in terms of that checklist. Right. But you ask the impossible. The reason I said the ask the impossible is right away in those first four verses, they give us some things that are almost impossible.

I think if there are any encouragement from Christ, well, we see that. Is there any comfort in love? Any participation in the spirit, Any affection and sympathy? That's just the first verse.

We certainly see that from time to time. But is that what our lives look like? And of course, the next verse goes on. Complete my joy by being of the same mind.

How is it we can be of the same mind if it's not the Lord's? Complete my joy by being of not just the same mind, but having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Notice it says that part twice.

Difficult things for us to consider. And really, it starts with the beginning of our lives. We are born selfish and sinful.

We're starting from the lowest point.

How do we move that slider as the Lord has called us to do? Verses 3 and 4. That doesn't make it much better. Do nothing of selfish ambition or conceit. That would be one we should pray for every single morning as we get out of bed.

Right. In humility, count others more significant than yourselves. What if I said count those who don't have a faith, who don't believe Jesus Christ as more significant than yourself.

It's difficult. And yet we all know Jesus comes back. Who's he going to eat with? Not you and I. He's going to go after the lost sheep.

Look not only to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

Selfish, sinful beings of Christ. I feel like it's asking the impossible. It feels like a gauge for how selfish we are or at least how humble we should be. Right? I mentioned Luther at the beginning because one of the things about the Reformation that I think were so important is there were priests using communion to Lord over kings and princes, refusing them the body and blood of our Lord and Savior.

Jesus Christ is a political tool.

He felt God's leaders should be humble and serving, not lording over them. Why would it be any different for God's people? I want to look at this difference between being selfish and humble. I see as the little guy have pushing the slide, right? We're going to try to get rid of our selfish ways.

We're going to try to be more humble for the Lord. The question is, can we push hard enough? Can we get to where we want to be?

We certainly know it's not on our own. This is about our daily focus, our purpose. We're going to talk more about purpose in the fourth Roman numeral, but I want you thinking about what it is you wake and think and do? What has the Lord put on your heart for purpose and putting off the old Adam, the old self. I just got done going through a baptism with the 8th graders and was reminded once again every single day we need to drown the old Adam.

And remember, in our baptism we are clothed with the robe of Christ righteousness, because it's not the way we're going to live. We're sinners. We're born selfish to put off our selfishness. We see signs, we see kids Learning to serve, or we help them grow that servant attitude. But it's certainly not our regular being.

It is not what is in our DNA. We are sinners. We're selfish.

God has to be the one.

Sliding that toward our hearts. If God is not the one taking care of us, if God is not the one helping us get rid of that selfish, sinful nature, each and every day, remembering that baptism, having him help, we're going to fail. I thought a lot about this over the years, doing premarital counseling. How do we help set up two young people who have been pretty selfish up to that point in their life who found that person they care for more than themselves? Let's be honest, parents.

It doesn't come from us. No child all of a sudden says, oh, my gosh, today I care more about my mom and dad than I do myself. Ain't happening. But when they find that person, oh, they want to go where they want to go to eat. They want to watch a movie.

They want to watch. It's almost sickening sometimes when you see those young people, Right.

What do you want to do? I want to do what you want to do. It's the first time we see young people actually care about something other than themselves. It's a great thing. And when they both do that together, now we got a basis to build something.

But how do we keep that going? Those of us who've been married 25, 30 years, 40 years, right. Whoo. We still have our selfish moments, don't we? We could write a book.

The wedding I did last weekend, I shared with the whole people there. I don't think I've ever shared it outside of premarital counseling. But I call it the game.

Can you play the game well in your marriage? The game is real simple. It's called I love you more than you love me. And when I'm trying to prove to my wife, I love you more than you love me, and she turns around, she says, no, I love you more than you love me. And we're both playing that game together, man.

Life is good. Selfishness goes away. We're both happy. Life is good.

And yet, how difficult is it with the person that you have committed to the rest of your life, much less anybody else in the world?

If it's hard to do for the person you made the commitment to life with, how hard is it for the person that walks up to my door wanting something that I don't know?

How hard is it to love the person who they don't even have respect? For themselves. And I'm supposed to.

What does that game look like in our regular life where we learn as God's people to get that slide so God can use us to share with others?

We've got to let God lead. It really comes down to this. It still feels impossible. But I want you to understand these last four verses, they're very difficult. I mean, just starts off, do all things without grumbling and questioning.

Teachers, we have a new verse to start every school day with. Right. Do everything without grumbling or questioning. Okay. Families, we have a new verse to start every day with.

Do everything without grumbling or questioning that you may be blameless and innocent Children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine like Shine his lights in the world it keeps on to say shine like stars. Another verse.

How do we do that? Well, I said earlier, it starts with this purpose. Are you allowing God to use you for his work? Are you busy doing things for your own desire? I say it all the time with the kids, if they figure out what God has blessed them with.

When we figure out what our passions are for, we figure out how God has blessed us and given us gifts. We learn to do that for a living. Life is so much easier, I admit. Most days I love coming to work.

I'm blessed. I have that now. I see those people who dread going to work, and I can't imagine how hard that must be in their daily life. How can we be a joy in the world when we don't even have joy in our occupation and what we do?

Right? We're already working against a powerful force. You need to understand, if you don't already feel that devil giving you those temptations, you guys already overcame one coming on Sunday mornings. I don't know how many times the devil would love to keep us in bed, would love to make it hard on us. I always felt when we were parents of young children, the devil worked through our children on Sunday mornings, getting out of the house.

We're already overcoming that in our daily life. How are we doing that for work? And that's where mission comes in. Do we live differently and do we stand out? I'm not telling you.

You have to be perfect because we know that's impossible. I'm not telling you. You have to do everything right and see everything right. That's not possible. But we can look different by when we see screw up, we admit it and we apologize.

When we struggle, we call it out. When we remind people I'm not asking you to know Jesus because of all the great things I do, because of great things he did, what he continues to do through me, a broken, sinful person. I was once told I should probably stop telling the congregation about all my faults because I look bad.

I just want you to know, please don't ever take anything I say because of the way I do it, because I'm a broken sinner. I want you to do it because of what Jesus did.

I, sinner, saint, broken, am constantly doing the same thing with that slide as you are asking God, please help me become more humble. Please help take away my selfishness.

Do we grumble and argue or do we shine the love of Jesus again? It's that choice each and every day. This idea of does your faith free you from the world. Thought about this again at a funeral recently where people who don't understand who they are, whose they are, where they're going, don't understand the faith that comes in us knowing where we came from and where we're going. What a miserable life that must be.

You would think us having that answer people would desire if they know and if they see why we can handle our fears, why we can handle our doubts. Right?

How can a broken, selfish sinner come across as humble in the world? By reflecting Jesus, by being lights to him. Finally, it's this idea of sacrifice being poured out, a sacrificial offering of faith. How is it that we share our faith through our service?

It it's not always fun to serve. Hopefully you have fun with the people you're doing it with. Hopefully you feel good about serving God, but it's not what it's about. It's about answering the call and doing what he's called us to do. Does our service point others to Jesus?

Can we show who our Savior is through our actions and words? It's one more step that allows us to move toward the humble servant. Does it appear weak to the world? Yes, we talked about that. For the Romes and 1st century, Jesus did not look like a strong leader.

Jesus did not have a bunch of power. Jesus did not instill fear in anybody. Here is Paul making it clear why we worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ because of what he did for us out of his humbleness of dying on the cross for us. We have been called, we have been equipped. We have a Savior who's done the unthinkable.

How many people don't understand that this day as we look at Philippians 2, I hope it makes you reevaluate the way we wake up every morning and drown the old Adam. The way we live with a purpose and and a strength that says, I know who I am and where I'm going and I want you to know my Savior too, because life is so much better.

Yes, we're born selfish and sinful, but imagine God using you to expand his kingdom. This is great commission work in its simplest form, living with purpose, focused on the mission and ministry of Christ, offering yourself as a sacrifice by shining as God's light in the world today. May God help us daily drown the old Adam and put off our selfish ways so we can love others and sow seeds. If you're sitting there and you're like, I don't know how to do this good, allow God to lead you and it'll always go better. To God be the glory.

Amen. With that, let us rise as well.