Perspective: Look through God's Eyes

[0:00] so we have come to the end of our series on philippines the different topics that we've looked at through philippines include looking at our identity in christ looking at our priorities service to those around us to one another to god unity being together doing things together perseverance pressing on towards the prize that god has given us instead of getting bogged down by what's going on around us prayer and petition instead of giving into anxiety turning through prayer and petition to god but all of this or this letter all of this is one letter we've broken up into different sections throughout the week the bible breaks up into different chapters but that's not how paul wrote it he wrote one letter to the philippines and he wrote this letter from the context of being in prison what he thought was the end of his life last week i said if anybody has anything to worry about it's paul he was just waiting for the guards to come and tell him right now's your time yet he still took the time to write this letter he still took the time to bring up each of these things with the philippines and to talk about and we and we think we can see talking about how he finds joy in that situation where he is in another question that i asked last week that i realized after i finished was did i i asked question did jesus worry and i said i'd come back to that and i actually realized after i finished i didn't um but jesus in the garden of gethsemane he said to god god if there is any other way please take this cup away from me is that jesus worrying is that jesus thinking about and focusing on the struggles that he's in maybe i'm sure people would debate that i'm sure people could debate that for years but what we do know is what jesus then said afterwards jesus then said jesus said god if there is any other way take this cup away from me but i know that there isn't so go with me i will go faithfully to what it is you have planned and instead of focusing on the suffering that i'm about to go through i'm going to focus on the plan that you have for me and for everyone around me for the world that was jesus context was the end of his life going to the cross but if we change our perspective jesus could have sat there and decided when he was on his own actually you know what i've got the power to get out of this and then probably to come up with another way maybe so i'm going to do that i don't particularly want to die in this way he could have done that but he changed his perspective instead of focusing on what he was about to go through he focused he looked at things through god's eyes paul when he was in prison when he was waiting for the day that he was about to die he said a line that he wrote a line that probably feels a little bit unusual he said that to live is christ but to die is gain i don't know many people who would say that today who would say that line to die is gain actually if somebody did we'd probably be a bit worried about them but paul said to live is christ if i can if i continue living i will continue living the way that christ did but actually if i die now that's okay because i know where i'm going i know i'm going

[4:04] to be with god i know i'm going to be with it be in heaven i'm going to see things through god's eyes when i was at school when i was a teenager i don't know how many of you know the the left the four letters wwjd some of you so that it was a very popular wristband to have it was five or six different colors wristband i used to wear one at one point until our school told us we weren't allowed to and then i think a lot of us just wore them underneath our jumpers um but it stands for wwjd what would jesus do right back at the beginning of this series simon said that philippines is about giving us an example to live by and that example is jesus so the question what would jesus do not just when we wake up in the morning what would jesus have for breakfast or what would jesus do when somebody cuts us up cuts us off in the road or what would jesus do if he's running late from work or if he knows if he knows he's got a meeting with somebody who is just a little bit too annoying it's not about that that paul is saying paul is saying that so um andrew asked a few weeks ago andrew bartlett i believe um asked a few weeks ago if jesus was living your life today how would he live it so as we put ourselves in as closer position hopefully we won't be in the same position as paul was in where we're sitting in prison waiting to find out if we're going to be executed um but actually when we think about all of the difficult times all of the struggles we're going through if we if we say if jesus was living our life today what would he do as we go through difficult times as we go through struggles whether it is struggles with money or with work or with family or school or whatever it is as we go through struggles we can get bogged down in the stresses in what's going on in all the worries and anxiety about it or we can look at it from a new perspective i said another thing i said last week is i keep it no secret that i struggle occasionally with depression much more seriously with anxiety and i shared a little bit of my story a little bit of my experience with that particularly in the context of talking about worry and it's so easy for me to worry it's so easy for me to get bogged down in that in in everything to worry about because i can worry about everything if i allow myself to one of the important things that we can do looking through the topics we've had unity doing things together simon said right back at the beginning church was never meant to be done alone perseverance pushing through and focusing on the prize at the end service actually putting somebody else ahead of ourselves a little bit priority thinking about what is more important myself and the things that i'm worrying or things that i'm going through or my relationship with god prayer and petition in everything give things to god and the one that we had right back at the beginning identity i chose this song because that's what this talks about actually no matter what we're going through and some of us are going through things that are really hard to deal with some of us are struggling either personally or with somebody in the family with having cancer somebody or some of us are struggling with mental illness whether it's depression anxiety whether it's bipolar or something else some of us are struggling with not knowing if we're going to have enough money to buy food each month some of us are struggling with not knowing if we're still going to have a job in two months time some of us are struggling with not knowing if we're going to get the grades that we need

[8:09] to do the a levels to go to university to get the job that we want to work for it's all sorts of things that we are struggling with but when we do let's change our perspective a little bit see things through see things through god's eyes our series this term or this half term is called unchained joy finding joy in the suffering that's exactly what paul did it's exactly what he talks about he talks about how he finds joy in his situation and i want to go back to right back to last september when we did the series on the fruits of the spirit one of them was talking about joy talking about what is joy how do we have joy when things are so difficult what perspective do we need to get into to have that joy and i think that's what takes us back to the first topic identity understanding who we are not just who we decide to be or who the world says we are we can we can we think about those things it's good to care it's good to think about our things we shouldn't get bogged down in those things thinking about who does god say we are no matter what you are going through god god says that you are my child you are chosen you are not forsaken you are who i say you are so no matter what we're going through hopefully we're not going through anything as quite as bad as paul is but actually in our own situations it does everything can feel up there if you're looking at a if there's a great image that i tried to find but i couldn't unfortunately it's of somebody stood inside a hollow tree trunk looking up at the tree trunk and thinking how do i get out of here i'm so stuck in this this this tree is so huge i can never climb out but then the picture taken from the outside is actually that's the height of the person that's the height of the tree trunk you can get out of there particularly if somebody helps we when you're in the situation things look so much bigger so much worse but if we look at things through god's eyes if we look at the perspective of the innocence of children of children as jesus says through the eyes of each other but through the perspective of god that completely changes what we're going through and that's when we can find joy through all of us struggling and all of us suffering one final point to finish off the series we've sung the song build my life three times throughout this series um mainly because that's because i've been able to be involved in the song choices three times um but actually there's a reason for choosing that song because if we build our life on the fears and anxieties of everything that's going on around us if we build our life on the uncertainty of what's going to happen in the future if we build our life on the isolation of keeping our problems and our weaknesses to ourselves instead of sharing them with other people if we build our life through our own eyes all we're going to do is go further and further and further into that struggle further and further into darkness so instead let's build our life on jesus and let's look at things through god's perspective i'm going to finish with a prayer father god thank you that you care about our lives you care about all of the things that we go through the good the easy the bad the difficult that you care enough not just to sit and to watch us but you care enough to be in that situation with us to carry us through and we pray

[12:13] that as we go away this morning as we reflect on this these last six seven weeks as a whole that we will look at our lives we'll look at we'll look at the world around us we'll look at everything not through our own eyes but through yours amen