Last year I was invited by The Hub (www.gotothehub.com) to pick a book of the Bible and teach it via video for small groups. I wrestled quite a bit and landed on the book of Philippians. Here are the 10 reasons I wanted to teach the book of Philippians:

1. How the church began. Acts 16: Lydia is a wealthy Asian (Thyatira); the slave girl is an oppressed Greek, and the jailer was a middle class Roman. All were transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love the diversity of that cast.
2. The book teaches that the gospel advances regardless of circumstance (Phil. 1:12-18). In an age where it is not uncommon to hear that you can put God into your debt by behaving, I thought this was extremely important.
3. Paul’s cry “To live is Christ and die is gain!” How could he not say that! Lydia was wealthy, religious, and empty; the slave girl was bitter, oppressed, and angry; and the Roman jailer was indifferent and cruel. All were lost in their lives. What else would you live for?
4. The book clearly teaches humility in the life of a believer. We can’t hear that topic enough (Philippians 2).
5. Paul ferociously outlines the reasons to pursue Christ (Phil. 3:1-11).
6. Then, he follows it up by teaching how to pursue Christ (Phil. 3:12-21).
7. Chapter 4 talks about what the heart and mind of a man of God look like. This is invaluable information as there seems to be some confusion on this matter.
8. Contentment is a gift more precious than jewels (Phil. 4:10-19).
9. It gave me a chance to remind everyone that Philippians 4:13 isn’t about playing sports, making the team, or being successful in business.
10. Because if I can help us be “the lights of this world holding fast to the word of life” I would humbly and gladly spend my life doing so.

Check out Matt Chandler’s just-released Philippians DVD curriculum here.

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Philippians 1:6: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Hebrews 10:23: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”

I could be wrong about what I’m about to post. I have given it some thought and decided I would write about it despite the fact that I usually do my wrestling internally and with good friends rather than post my young thoughts on the Web. So grace would be appreciated. Before I get started let me give you a little background:

It’s been 16 years since God, in His predestined, powerful plan, allowed my soul to experience “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” He grabbed hold of every part of me and has absolutely ruined me for anything but Him. The process of sanctification has been and still is quite often a very difficult one. No one told me (or maybe they did) that Jesus wanted my heart. I thought there was going to be some behavior modification and some new friends but I didn’t understand how aggressively, ruthlessly and passionately He was going to search and destroy in me anything that wasn’t of Him. Nor did I understand how dark my heart truly was and how out of fear, pride and arrogance I would argue, complain and resist almost every advance of the Holy Spirit to reconcile every part of my being into holiness.

Let me give you some family background. Most of my dad’s life has been difficult. He was abused and neglected, abandoned and ignored by the people who should have loved and seen in him the beauty that’s so easy to see. He raised me the best he could for where he was. He loves me, and I love him. I know this deeply. But what his dad struggled with, he struggled with and although I feel like by God’s grace alone I walk in an unbelievable amount of victory over the things that have destroyed Chandler men for the last 100 years, I do at times feel those things warring in me which brings me to my thought.

Audrey and Reid, my two children, have been such gifts to Lauren and me. That little girl and little boy grabbed a hold of my heart the second they took in the gift of breath. I don’t know where you are in life or if you have children or not but I find the fact that my sin directly effects my children to be mortifying. I ask our great God and King almost nightly that He would protect my children from my sin, that they would never see in me hypocrisy or feel provoked to anger. I ask Him to help me with patience, gentleness and to hide from them my pride and idolatry while giving me the grace to acknowledge often that “God is still working on Daddy.” I want the specific struggles that have haunted my bloodline to go into the ground with me. I want to fight, wail and pray. I want to “hold fast the confession of my hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” I know that Audrey, Reid and the child growing in Lauren’s womb will have their own fights. The world is fallen, depravity is real but these specific struggles…I want, I hope, I pray that I might, like Moses, die on the mountain as they walk into the promise land. I hope this post makes sense.

I spend a good portion of my week in dialogue with pastors. They are from different denominations and tend to be different ages (although most of them are young). The conversations range from theology to philosophy, church growth to how to lead a staff. I enjoy them. I love robust discussion over things that matter. I like it when the unanswerable questions are asked and wrestled over; it somehow feeds my soul. Lately though I have been somewhat disturbed by something I am hearing or maybe sensing in the questions and directions of the conversations in which I find myself.

When I exited itinerant ministry to become a pastor, I left crowds that were in the thousands and finances that more than provided for my family to go to a small (160 people) church that cut my annual salary in half. There wasn’t one person who thought that taking the position at The Village was a “smart” move. In fact, several actually sat me down and told me they thought I was being disobedient and a bad steward of the gifts that God had imparted to me. The truth is I didn’t become the pastor of a church in the suburbs of Dallas because I had a grand vision for growing a dynamic, life-transforming, church-planting, Gospel-preaching, God-centered church. I took the position because after a great deal of conversations, prayers and fasting, my wife and I felt it was the direction God, through the Holy Spirit, was leading us. I came to The Village because I thought that by doing so I would get to see more of Him, experience more of Him, sense more of Him, see more of me die, more of my flesh perish, the old man in me lose more power…He is the great end that I am after. He is why.

In 1 Timothy 4:10 Paul writes “For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.“ I love that verse. We toil, yes. We strive, yes, but where is our hope? What, or rather, who is the goal? I love preaching the Gospel and I love planting churches but I do those things because in them there is this unbearable weight of His presence. This crushing majesty that makes me want to cry, sing and scream all at the same time.

The thing that disturbs me lately is that it seems that the goal is something else all together. The goal is growing our churches to a certain size or our platforms (pulpits, blogs, books) to a certain fame. How hollow is that? And, how dangerous? Just because men love Jesus and follow Him doesn’t mean that they get to grow or reach a certain level of “success” (I use that word loosely).

Here are a few men who loved our great God and King and were obedient beyond the norm:

• Moses spends his whole life with grumbling, whiners and dies without getting to walk into the promise land.
• Samson suicide bombs the Philistines and when the dust settles he is dead and the Philistines still rule over Israel.
• David’s son rapes his sister and leads a rebellion against David, dethroning him for a season.
• Jeremiah ends up in exile with the rest of the country after repeatedly getting beaten for preaching what God commanded him to preach.
• John the Baptist is beheaded by a pervert who gives his head to a 15-year-old stripper.
• Peter is killed, reportedly crucified upside down.
• Paul is killed in Rome but only after he spends his life (with thorn intact) being beaten, rejected, lost at sea, and consistently dealing with people coming in behind him and destroying what he built.

If your hope is set on anything other than Him, how do you survive when it goes bad? How do you remain passionate and vibrant when no one comes or the baptismal waters are still for long stretches? How do you maintain doctrinal integrity or teach hard things if He isn’t the treasure? How do you worship when your wife gets sick or your son goes for a ride in an ambulance? If He is the goal, the treasure, the pursuit, then those things are fuel that presses you into His goodness and grace all that much more. I am not saying they are pleasant or enjoyable but only that if He is your goal you will find your faith sustained.

May God bless you and keep you. May you see that He is the treasure, He is the pursuit, He is the goal…and may you press on toward the goal for the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
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Matt Chandler's posts are re-published with permission from his blog—Dwell Deep.

It has been my experience that inspirations are brief, sporadic and rare. By inspiration I mean those moments where our souls are stimulated to a high level of feeling, thinking and doing. I love those brief, sporadic and rare moments. I am addicted to the vitality I have, the love I feel, and the clarity of thought that occurs when I am inspired. I have tried for years to pay attention to these moments, to dig into them, excavate them, and figure them out.

What is it that inspires me?
Who is it?
What stirs my affection…for my wife?
For my children? For life in general?

This to me is one of the major ideas that demand an answer. To solve this arduous riddle means more energy, richer life, deeper relationships and greater self-awareness.

Several years ago I started applying this line of thought to my relationship with Christ. Instead of asking myself what inspired me to be a good man (what’s that anyway?) I started asking what stirs my affections for Christ. What, when I’m doing it, when I’m around it or dwelling on it creates in me a greater hunger for, passion for and worship of Christ and His mission? The first list was a strange one. It looked something like this:

1. Early mornings and hot coffee
2. The writings of John Owen (at the time it was The Mortification of Sin)
3. Listening to Lauren sing
4. Walks through graveyards (I know this is weird but it reminded me of mortality)
5. The book of Hebrews
6. Robust dialogue on ecclesiology or missiology
7. Sermons by John Piper
8. Angst-filled music

I also wrestled with and paid attention to what robbed me of affection for Christ. What, when I was doing it or spending time around it created in me an unhealthy love for this world? The first list was a strange one because the majority of things that robbed me of zeal for Christ and His mission were morally neutral things. It looked something like this:

1. Watching too much TV and spending too much time online
2. Staying up late for no reason
3. Following sports too closely
4. Being physically lazy
5. Empty conversations (talking for hours about nothing)
6. Idleness

For the last few years I have updated this list often. In fact it has changed quite a bit. I want to pay attention to life. I want to be keyed in to what feeds my zeal for our great God and King and what kills that zeal. My hope is that I could flood my life with Christ-exalting, worship-creating things and avoid anything that would rob me of that.

What inspires you?
Better yet, what stirs your affections for Christ, truth and holiness? If we can fill our lives with the things that stir our affections and avoid and flee those things that rob us of inspiration, we have a better shot at dwelling deeply. What and who inspires you? Stirs you? What presses you into holy places? What robs you of joy and vitality? What robs you of your affection for Christ and holiness?

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Matt Chandler's posts are re-published with permission from his blog—Dwell Deep.