664 Life Worthy of the Gospel Part 1 - Philippians 1:27

What does it mean to live worthy of the gospel? I'm confident I've asked that question before, because that's so key to us here at Follower of One. Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr. founder of Follower of One. Thanks for joining me again today on our podcast. In my quiet time today, I read Philippians 1:27 and today I'd like to read that from the Christian Standard Bible. "Just one thing, as citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then whether I come and see you or am absent, I will hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, in one accord, contending together for the faith of the gospel." Again, that's Philippians 1:27 in the Christian Standard Bible.

This passage says a lot of things, but the key that I want to focus on today is this phrase, "live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ." What does it mean to live life for the, of the gospel? For so many years we've been told, and the message has been that if we believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ, we will be saved. This is in scripture.

This is a key principle of what we teach as followers of Jesus, what the church has taught and everything else. It's very important that we believe in Jesus, but it's also very important how we act. There's no way you can conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel, which is what the New American Standard says, or live a life worthy of the gospel without acting.

We can't simply believe. Our actions are what show other people that we follow. Jesus, our beliefs don't help anyone else see Jesus. Only our actions do. When we live a life worthy of the gospel, we become visible to the world and we come up with five daily activities that we talk about and Follower of One that are designed to help us live that life in our workplace.

If you search the internet today, you'll see that Christians as a group, aren't really all that different from the rest of the world. I think part of this is because of the way Christians are described. Many people speak like they're Christians and act like they're Christians. And maybe even think they're Christians because they believe in Jesus, but they never do anything. They never follow him. Erwin McManus one time said how bad it is that so many of us claim to follow Jesus without ever actually following Jesus.

We want to be people who follow Jesus, and that means that our actions must be different. Those statistics that you'll find on the internet say that at the same rates, as most of the rest of the world, People who claim to be Christians participate in sex outside of marriage, or they take part in other vices that you will see. We lie and cheat and steal and show up late and speed and do a bunch of other things because we can, we know that we're free. I'm guilty of this as well. One of those measures is about using profanity. And as I've told you before, my self-talk is very profane. I don't often speak the words, but I think them, and so what's going on inside my mind needs to be transformed by the gospel.

I want to live my life worthy of the gospel and today, and I think we'll talk about this for another day or two, today I want to challenge us to ask God and get him to show us how a life worthy of the gospel changes our behavior today. What do we do differently today because we decided we want to live a life worthy of the gospel.

I think we'll find the answer to this question when we get it from the holy spirit, it won't look like many of the things that we've traditionally thought. We won't be thinking that we needed to go to church more or tithe more. I believe that God will call us to serve others more. Let's talk about this in the next episode too.

Thank you for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for considering what it means to walk worthy of the gospel. Let's live a life worthy of the gospel of Christ every day. Often that begins by punching in and asking him, okay, Jesus, here I am. What would you have me do today? Ask the holy spirit how you need to change your life today and make some notes and start making some changes.

And we'll talk a little bit more about this passage tomorrow. Thanks very much.