today on grace to you stop complaining this is how you prove yourselves to be blameless innocent children of God above reproach in the midst of the crooked and perverse generation among whom you appear as lights in the world yes be humble yes be holy yes be faithful to testify to the gospel yes be joyful stop complaining what in the world makes us so embarrassed about the gospel for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him [Music] [Music] crucified Philippians chapter 2 verse 5 of Philippians 2 says have

this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus who although he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself taking the form of a slave and being made in the likeness of men being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross for this reason also God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on Earth and

under the Earth and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father so then my beloved just as you have always obeyed not as in my presence only but now much more in my absence work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in you both to Will and to work for his good pleasure do all things without grumbling or disputing so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse

generation among whom you appear as lights in the world holding forth the word of life so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to Glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain but even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith I rejoice and share my joy with you all you too I urge you rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me you will notice in verse 15 that we live in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation that is not only an app description of our time in

history it suits all of history every generation is to some degree or another a manifestation of the crookedness and the perversity of the human heart we are seeing it in our time very boldly what this text says to us is that we have the responsibility in this crooked and perverse generation to act as the children of God and to shine as luminaries or lights in the world that’s why we’re here here God understands that it’s a crooked and perverse generation I want to pose a question that Francis schaer asked long ago when he said how