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The Fruitful Labor of the Believer - Philippians 1:22-26 Pastor Lee Hemen March 15, 2009 AM How does a person measure their life? Some do it with the number of years they live, while others do it through the personal achievements they made during their lifetimes. Still others measure their lives through their financial success, the gathering of wealth, or material possessions. Some measure their lives by the family they have. While some of these are quite important, for the Christian there should be a different criteria in how we measure our lives. How do you measure your life? This is a incredibly crucial question for the Christian to consider in contemplating the conclusion and contentment of their continuation! It was for Paul and he mentions this to the Philippians! We find that fruitful labor for Paul was not measured in the number of notches he had on his witnessing belt nor was it found in the final tally of the bodies he registered through the doors of the churches he helped to

Expectations - Philippians 1:18c-21 By Pastor Lee Hemen March 8, 2009 AM Expectations can be far greater in life than what is in reality true. Take circuses for instance. We all expect fun when entering the big top and yet, like the baby on the e-Trade commercials, we did not consider the creep factor of clowns! We’ve experienced this with the recent Presidential elections. Many expected “change,” not realizing that’s all that would be left in their pockets! Just as a nation cannot spend its way into prosperity, neither can people think themselves into the kingdom of heaven. Ignoring a problem or throwing more money at a crisis is not the solution. If it were I could charge my way out of credit card debt and expect my life to get better, but the reality is that it places me more in debt! Disregarding your sin will not get you into heaven either. You can be as nice as possible and you will end up nicely in hell! What you expect in life can be truly disappointing when “the chickens come

Christ Was Preached - Philippians 1:12-18b By Pastor Lee Hemen March 1, 2009 AM What do you do to advance the gospel in the world around you? It seems that every day Paul looked at what he was going to do that day to see how he could do just that. When you read his letters you also get the idea that Paul looked to see how his future plans advanced the gospel as well. And, as we look at Paul's life, as reflected in his letters and the book of Acts, we discover that advancing the gospel for him meant far more than what a lot of comfortable American Christians think it does! There are those who actually believe that just by thinking about Jesus or having a holy thought, that this is advancing the gospel. There are those who allow others to take the risks, while they sit safely at home, and these too think that this is advancing the gospel. We have come to believe that any holy thing we do, whether it is giving a few bucks, a quick prayer, or having happy thoughts about Jesus is advanc