Are You Doing Christian Things Without Depending on Christ? | NEXT-GEN FRIDAY

First of all, I'd like to thank the pastoral staff for this opportunity to be up here.

I know it's a privilege, and I do not take it lightly.

Let me get my timer started because I was told I had 15 minutes, and that's it, so...

If you have your Bibles, we're gonna turn to Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 through 13.

Um, I was talking to someone the other day, and we were talking about church and religion, and the topic came up, and we were just having a conversation about what we believed.

And he asked me an interesting question.

This guy asked me an interesting question.

He said, um, "How's the wine at your church?" I know.

I was like, "The wine?" And he was like, "Yeah, the wine.

You know, when you do, like, the bread and the wine at the beginning of service." And I was like, "I think we do grape juice.

Is that correct? Grape juice? Okay, cool." Um, but while we were talking about religion, I went back home, and I thought about the conversation, and I realized that the majority of what we talked about were differences in things that we do and not about God, which made me think about what sets us apart from other denominations and religions.

Um, and I came to the conclusion that what sets us apart is that we believe in relationship with God.

Hey, those are your unlimited amens right there.

Amen.

[laughs] We don't believe in just being a good person.

We don't believe in just living a good life.

We believe that Jesus Christ came to Earth and died, lived a perfect life, died for our sins so that He could be the bridge between a holy God and His fallen creation so that we could have a personal relationship with Him.

And Gordon MacDonald had a similar encounter with a Christian professing man, and he talked about it in his book, Ordering Your Private World.

And he said, and I quote from the, the book, "Think about it.

Here's a professing Christ follower who has done church for years, has gained a Christian reputation for doing Christian things, but has never pondered the possibility that underneath all the actions and well-meaning religious noise, there's gotta be something solid and something dependable." So I wanna preach a sermon that I've entitled Dig Deeper, and I'm gonna preach it out of Philippians 2, verses 12 through 13.

And it says, "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but more so in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to do, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." My first point is going to talk about what we cannot do.

See, we are called to be followers of Christ, but this presents a, but as my daughter Belle says, this creates a huge problem.

And that is that we are born sinners and we live in a fallen and broken world and we need a Savior.

We cannot save ourselves.

Isaiah 64 says, And shall we be saved? For all of us have come, have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags or filthy garments.