philippians 2023
season 03, 03.08 | people of peace
Paul closes his letter to the Philippians with a message about peace. Tonight we explore the peace of God and what it might look like to experience its power and protection in our every day life - and how to find contentment in God's presence no matter where life takes us.
season 03, 03.07 | all downhill from here
The best part of a race for many is the finish line. As we approach the last few weeks in our study of Philippians, Paul has this in mind. What is finish-line thinking and how can we use it even though we have a long race still ahead of us in life?
season 03, 03.06 | Tell me what you want, what you really really want
In chapter three, Paul opens up about his own transformation. He inspires us to consider what we believe about our own privileges and achievements ability to win us importance, confidence, and a sense of meaning and purpose. The way of Jesus invites us to see how none of these things we grasp at for status and value and identity can give us what they promise, they can’t deliver the security of knowing we are deeply loved, of knowing God calls us his own.
season 03, 03.05 | becoming what we are
In tonight's passage, Paul draws out the unique tension we live in as people who belong to Jesus. Paul offers us the reassurance of our new identity and simultaneously call us to align our life according to that new reality. Together, we explore Paul's vision for obedience - the ongoing work of reflecting on and responding to and reorienting our life to the ongoing work God is doing us and the way it distinguishes us as people of light shining in a dim world.
season 03, 03.04 | these things take time
As we start chapter 2 of Philippians, Paul continues to urge us towards unity as believers, but he picks up a second avenue: challenging the listener to take on the attitude of Jesus. Chief among the qualities he introduces is a concept foreign to Greeks and despised by Romans: humility. What is true humility and how does it help us practice unity?
season 03, 03.03 | the story of us
We wrap the first chapter of Philippians by taking a look at a metaphor Paul introduces about suffering, as well as his instructions on unity for the church. In a world that tempts us to make things about our needs and about our own hardships and triumphs, what does it look like to live a collective story that is about how good Jesus is instead?
season 03, 03.02 | what are we living for?
Tonight we ask a simple yet difficult question, "What are we living for?" Paul's relentless commitment to Jesus above his comfort, above his own achievements, and even above his own life challenges us to consider what things - good and bad - have eclipsed Jesus in our own life. How we answer this question is the secret to living with kind of persevering joy, confidence, and hope revealed in Paul's letter to the Philippians.
season 03, 03.01 | the start of something new
We begin our study of the book of Philippians with a few important introductions. Tonight we meet the founding members of this first century church in Philippi; a widow, an orphan, and a jailer. We explore what these three unlikely characters reveal about the way God moves and what it means to share life as a community connected by the way of Jesus.