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Information. 2

Chapter 1 - Introduction To Philippians. 3

Chapter 2 - A Pastor's Joy In His People - Part 1. 11

Chapter 3 - A Pastor's Joy In His People - Part 2. 17

Chapter 4 - A Pastor's Joy In His People - Part 3. 22

Chapter 5 - Suffering: The Catalyst Of The Gospel 30

Chapter 6 - The Joy of Suffering Service - Part 1. 38

Chapter 7 - The Joy of Suffering Service - Part 2. 45

Chapter 8 - The Marks Of A Spiritual Church - Part 1. 52

Chapter 9 - The Marks Of A Spiritual Church - Part 2. 59

Chapter 10 - The Marks Of A Spiritual Church - Part 3. 65

Chapter 11 - The Majesty And Humility Of Christ - Part 1. 72

Chapter 12 - The Majesty And Humility Of Christ - Part 2. 78

Chapter 13 - The Christian Life Turned Inside Out 85

Chapter 14 - Silent Lights. 92

Chapter 15 - Paul's Christ-Like Friends. 100

Chapter 16 - Secure Your Joy. 107

Chapter 17 - Big Appetites. 113

Chapter 18 - Progress In Purpose. 119

Chapter 19 - Orientating Our Obedience. 125

Chapter 20 - Happiness Needs Harmony. 132

Chapter 21 - The Path To Peace Of Mind - Part 1. 139

Chapter 22 - The Path To Peace Of Mind - Part 2. 147

Chapter 23 - The Secret Of Contentment 155

Chapter 24 - The Conditions and Confidence of God's Provision For Us. 162

David Legge studied at the Irish Baptist College, Belfast, Northern Ireland. He served as Assistant Pastor at Portadown Baptist Church before receiving a call to the pastorate of the Iron Hall Assembly. He now serves as pastor-teacher of the Iron Hall, and resides in Belfast with his wife Barbara and their daughter Lydia.

The audio for this series is available free of charge either on our website (www.preachtheword.co.uk) or by request from info@preachtheword.co.uk

All material by Pastor Legge is copyrighted.  However, these materials may be freely copied and distributed unaltered for the purpose of study and teaching, so long as they are made available to others free of charge, and the copyright is included. These materials may not, in any manner, be sold or used to solicit "donations" from others, nor may they be included in anything you intend to copyright, sell, or offer for a fee. This copyright is exercised to keep these materials freely available to all.

Philippians: Epistle Of Joy - Chapter 1

"Introduction To Philippians"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

Philippians 1:1-2

Philippians chapter 1 is our text, and I would encourage you please to familiarise yourself with this little book - it's only four chapters long. It would be good if you could read it as much as you possibly can, obviously not neglecting your own devotional reading, but as far as you can to just familiarise yourself with the truths and sentiments that Paul is bringing to the church at Philippi. Also 1 Corinthians as well, and do come along tomorrow evening as we'll be looking at a similar study, as it were, as we look at the introductory words of both of these epistles. Now often it's easy for us to scan over these words and think that they're unimportant and they're just a matter of convention as Paul is writing a letter, but that is wrong because within these words there are the keys to interpreting the whole epistle and indeed the theme of the epistles we have before us.

So let's read verses 1 and 2: "Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ". Now I want to read it for you from another version of the Scriptures which is, I believe, more accurate in these two verses. I want you to listen very, very carefully to the differences, look down at your own version and look at the differences in this version. This is how the Greek really bears out, it may look minute to you, but you'll see in a few moments later how it bears upon the whole meaning of this epistle. "Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Christ Jesus", note the difference in the order - not 'Jesus Christ', but 'Christ Jesus'; and not just 'servants', but 'bondservants'. "To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi", not 'of Philippi', but 'in Philippi', "including the overseers and deacons: grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ".

The letter to the Philippians is, and has been known, as the epistle of joy, or the letter of joy. Twenty centuries ago an itinerant tent maker by the name of Paul was tossed into prison for creating a public disturbance. As he's in prison in the city of Rome he takes it upon himself to use the time well and industriously, and he writes many epistles - several of which we have within the New Testament - to churches around the Mediterranean particularly, and Asia. He sits down and upon probably a dozen pieces of scratchy paper, he writes the letter to the Philippians. Few people would recognise who the Emperor of the day was when Paul was writing these words, it was Nero of course. I don't know whether you know this, but Nero the Great was a great author, a prolific author, but there is nothing whatsoever that remains of anything that Nero wrote. People don't really know anything about him, apart from historians, classicists, who study these things - but if you were to ask even a man in the street who Paul the apostle was, he would know probably all too well at least a few things about him, perhaps even his Damascus Road experience and his wonderful conversion. Indeed, the time has come, as T. R. Glover put it, when people call their dogs 'Nero' and their sons 'Paul'.

One of the important cities in the region which Paul was going to on his first missionary journey was the city of Philippi. We might wonder why Paul in particular went to Philippi, but as we analyse particularly the book of Acts we find out that Paul didn't just choose himself to go to Philippi. In fact, if you look at Acts, particularly chapter 16 and the chapters before it, you will find that Paul's intention was to go to a place called Bithynia. But we read that the Lord didn't want him to go there, in fact we read that the Spirit of Jesus stopped Paul entering Bithynia and led him to go to a place called Troas. When he was in Troas, asleep one night, God the Holy Spirit gave to him a vision. He saw a man standing before him, a Macedonian man, and that man was calling to Saul - Paul - 'Come over and help us, come over and help us'. In obedience that vision Paul and Silas, and Timothy and Luke, set sail to Macedonia, and from Macedonia they travelled into Philippi.

We read in the book of Acts that their stay in Philippi was quite short but it was very eventful. If you're familiar with the book of Acts, and I would encourage you that if you read the book of Acts you can get a lot of the context regarding the epistles of Paul that we have in the New Testament. But you'll be familiar with the fact that often, in his first missionary journeys, Paul always went to the synagogue in the town first. He went to the Jews first, he preached the gospel of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, to the Jews so that they would understand - and that was God's commendation through the great commission. But when they didn't hear him then he went to the Gentiles and preached the Gospel to them, but when he went into the town of Philippi things were a little bit different because there was no synagogue in Philippi, probably because there wasn't enough Jewish men to make or warrant a synagogue. But as Paul travelled outside the city, just outside the city gate, beside a river there was a group of some women, Jewish women some of whom were Gentile proselytes, Gentiles who wanted to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - and there they were at the side of the river, at a place, the Bible says, where prayer was wont to be made.

The reason they were probably outside the city of Philippi was because Jewish-Roman relationships were not very good at that time, and of course we know that they really never were good even between the Jews and the Greeks. The people in Philippi, the Romans and those who came from that particular town itself, just saw Paul the apostle and Christians in general as a sect of the Jews. They hated them just because they seemed to spawn out of Judaism. In Acts chapter 16 verses 22 to 21 we find that Paul cast a fortune-telling demon out of a young slave girl, and because of doing that the owners were so indignant and angry that they brought Paul and Silas before the city magistrates for causing an uproar in the town and for teaching traditions that these Roman people did not understand and were not their customs - but particularly they were levelling against them the accusation that 'these Jews' were stirring up trouble again.

Because of that Paul had to leave the city, and as he left the city he left behind him a diverse group of converts. If you cast your mind back and study particularly Acts 16 you will remember that there was a merchantwoman by the name of Lydia, a seller of purple, whose heart the Lord opened. Indeed we're led to believe that her whole household, whatever that means, were converted also. We know the famous story in Acts chapter 16 of the Philippian jailer, probably a Roman guard, and there he is as the earthquake happens to free Paul and Silas from the jail, he realises that his life is going to be taken from him because he was falling asleep there and these two people - as far as he was concerned - had escaped. He cried out: 'What must I do to be saved?', Paul said: 'Do thyself no harm, for we are all here! Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thine house' - and the jailer and the family were all converted. The slave girl that I've mentioned already, most likely was converted to Christ and added to the church in Philippi, and they probably all met - according to Acts 16 verse 40 - in Lydia's house, because she was a wealthy businesswoman she probably had the biggest house to meet in for the church of Jesus Christ there in Philippi.

So as this motley crew of young converts to Christ, in the city of Philippi, all from varied and different circumstances of life and backgrounds, and they are the first church in the whole of the European continent to come to Christ and be formed as the 'ecclesia', 'called out ones' from different backgrounds and circumstances - but all called together to the name of Christ, by the grace of God, to be a light in this dark place, to be salt in the earth, and to work together in the awful persecution that the church is facing at this time to the glory and name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was the first Church in Europe, people converted from different backgrounds, different traditions, even different cultures. You would imagine that in the midst of persecution from outside there would have also been problems inside, and as Paul was calling for them to all work together for the cause of Christ you can imagine that the task was not easy. In fact, we know from this letter that the task was extremely difficult.

Look at chapter 2 of Philippians for a moment and verse 14, chapter 2 and verse 14, Paul tells them: 'Do all things without murmurings and disputings', without grumblings. Everything that you do, don't complain about it - which insinuates that they were complaining about the work they had to do for the Lord Jesus Christ. They weren't working together well. If you go to chapter 4 and verse 2 we see there another insinuation: 'I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord'. There was contention, there was fighting between individuals, perhaps even factions in this little small church at Philippi. Yet Paul was calling them to come together and to work together for the call of Christ.

Now I want you to see this, for this is extremely important: Paul is in prison in his particular situation, and he is writing out of prison to these Philippians' circumstances of fighting within and tribulation and persecution from without, and he's telling them from his experience to rejoice in the Lord! You've got to feel the import of what that means: a prisoner for Jesus Christ is writing a letter to these people who are wrecked by factions, fightings and persecution from without, and he's telling them: 'Rejoice, again I say rejoice in the Lord'. That is why this epistle is called the epistle or the letter of joy. When I was studying this I thought of Louis Armstrong, you know the black jazz singer, his song that you often hear over the airwaves and on television: 'What a Wonderful World, What a Wonderful World'. But the world in which these Christians lived, and I would vouch to say the world in which you find yourself living, is not a wonderful world. It is a fallen world, we have the Bible to prove that to us, and we know it from our own experience even without the Bible that we live in a fallen world that is acquainted with despair, depression, disappointment, dissatisfaction, and a longing in most people for a general sense of lasting happiness that will not be fleeting, that will not disappear after one night or one day. For many people in this world long years are spent and invested in the pursuit of true meaningful happiness.

You can scan the bookshelves of even Christian bookshops, secular bookshops, and you'll see self-help books. You can go to hotels in our country and in our capital and you can hear motivational speakers about how to be successful in business, how to be successful in life. You can read in periodicals and magazines, in your daily newspaper advice columns that are all purporting to have the key to what true happiness really is. Yet for most people, many people at least, the door of happiness remains shut in their face - it's locked to them, and they still as yet have not found the key to true happiness. Why is that? Well, if you break up the meaning of the word 'happiness' it's 'hap-ness' - happenings, where your circumstances determine how you feel. You see, we cannot determine our circumstances, that is the problem with finding true happiness. We can't control our circumstances, and indeed it would seem it's the reverse: our circumstances often control us, and we feel ourselves cocooned into things that we cannot change - many people in the world call it 'fate'. Kay-sera-sera, whatever will be will be - maybe it's your job, maybe it's a relationship that you're in, maybe it's the house that you live in, maybe it's the church that you worship in - you're seeking for happiness in those things, but you just can't seem to find it. You feel perhaps a bit like Paul, you're imprisoned!

People like this normally move from one gap-filler to the next on the merry-go-round of life. Indulging in all sorts of pleasures, some legitimate and illegitimate, trying to gratify their self and their ego and number one - trying genuinely to feel happy, to feel satisfied, to feel that their life means something, that it fits into the whole circle of the universe in some important significant way. But like Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes, who went after that pursuit of happiness himself, everybody who follows down that yellow brick road finds that it never leads to that place, but rather they declare: 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity' - all!

So how do we find it? Is it there? Can it be found? If it can be found how do we get there? Well the first important elementary thing that we need to do today, before we enter into any of the rest of this epistle, is to show you and get into your mind the fact that there is a difference between happiness and joy. There is a difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is determined by our circumstances, and because it's determined by circumstances it's elusive, it's fleeting. It's like soap in our hands: one minute we think we've got it, and the next, when we go to grasp it, it escapes us, it disappears. Whereas joy, that is written about in this epistle and throughout the word of God, which is opposed to happiness, we find the word 96 times in the New Testament - the Greek word for 'rejoice'. Ninety six times, so that the whole import of Scripture is trying to encourage us and enthuse us to be a rejoicing, joyful people in the sight of God. It is expected of us! The noun 'joy', not the word 'rejoice', but the noun 'joy' is there another 59 times. We are to be a people who are joyous!

The two words, both the verb and the noun are found thirteen times in the epistle to the Philippians, and Paul is saying: 'You people, I'm writing to you from prison, you're imprisoned in your own circumstances: you've got problems in the church, and you've got persecution from outside the church - but I am commanding you on God's behalf to rejoice!'. Now that's hard. The theme of this epistle is, indeed, divine joy, but you're sitting there asking the question: 'How is this possible?'. Stuart Briscoe entitled a series on the book of Philippians: 'Happiness in Life's Happenings' - how can you have true joy in the midst of all circumstances that are going on around you?

Well, this is where we look at verses 1 and 2, because the primary concerns and themes that Paul has in this epistle, and indeed probably every epistle, if you examine these opening two phrases and sentences you will find that they are not meaningless pleasantries. It's not 'Dear John', or 'Yours Sincerely', just the way that people wrote letters in these days. We know from seeing other first century letters that Paul did use the normal convention when he was writing a letter, and that usually was simply writing the name of the writer first of all: 'Paul and Timothy', and after this there's some sort of a prayer or a wish for the person that you're writing to - so you also get the addressee and what you want for the addressee: health, or wealth, or happiness or whatever. As we look down at these first two verses we find that Paul follows that normal convention, but a careful reader and student of the word of God will look and see clearly that he diverges from the convention and he adds a couple of things to the introduction. Now I want you to see this, because this will bear out our whole sermon this morning, and indeed the whole theme and understanding of this book.

He is telling us, even in these first two verses, how you can know true joy from God. There are three important changes that I want you to see in these first two verses. The first is this: Paul doesn't just mention his name and Timothy, but he describes them as bondservants - bondservants. Now you would expect it to begin like this: 'Saint Paul to the Christians at Philippi', but rather we get 'Slave Paul to all the saints in Philippi'. That's the first thing I want you to note. The second thing is this: he doesn't refer merely to believers in Philippi, but he uses these terms specifically: 'All the saints together with the overseers and deacons'. So the letter's not addressed to just one or two individuals, but it's addressed to all the church. Although he recognises the leadership of the church, and he gives them their place, he wants them to know that this is a letter to all these special people who have been set apart by God and for God in the city of Philippi.

Now before we go to the third difference I want you to notice this, how different this is from many of Paul's other epistles - because if you go to the first and second verses of many of them, what he does right away is he lays down his authority. He lays down who he is, the qualifications that he has, 'the apostle Paul, made an apostle not of men but of God'. In some places he even goes into the experience of the Damascus Road where he was made a Christian, and made an apostle, and ordained of Christ to be the apostle to the Gentiles. But he doesn't do it here. He prefers rather to emphasise that he and Timothy are just nothing more than common slaves, bond slaves. Yet he's careful on the other hand not to recognise his own authority, but whose authority is he recognising? He's recognising the authority in the assembly: 'to the overseers and the deacons', so he's putting himself down and he's raising this church and its leadership up. Now why is he doing this? This is the key to joy, it's the key to the epistle of the Philippians, and I want you to get above everything else - you've got to get this today and right throughout the incoming weeks! The key is found in chapter 2 and verse 4: 'Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others'.

Why is this greeting constructed in this way? Because Paul, by example, even in the first couple of these words of the book, is trying to bring to the Philippians' and indeed our hearts by the Holy Spirit the fact that true joy is found when we don't look at ourselves and look to ourselves and find joy in ourselves, but when we show concern for others at the expense of ourselves. Do not merely look out of your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Get this, please get this: do you want to be joyous? Do you want to know the real, true, living supernatural spiritual joy of God deep down and overflowing in your soul? Well, you've got to learn to be humble! Humility is the key to joy.

Paul hopes this will happen, he wants them to stop murmuring and complaining, he wants Euodias and Syntyche to stop fighting. He wants humility between all the saints, he's not taking sides between the elders and between the members, he's not taking sides - maybe Euodias and Syntyche wanted him to take either side of their debate and their argument, but he didn't do it. He came in and he humbled himself, and he came before them and wrote this letter to all of them.

Then the third difference is found in the fact that Paul expands the traditional greetings in verse 2. This was normally given, it's a bit like 'Dear Sir' in our language, 'Hope all is well' or something like that, and in verse 2 he says: 'Grace to you'. Now the Roman and the Greek greeting was normally 'Greetings to you', but he changes it to 'Grace to you, and peace' - that's another change - 'from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ'. He changes 'greetings' to 'grace', he changes a simple sentiment of wanting happiness for the people to peace, which is the outflow of grace. Now why does he do it? Because again in verse 2 he's bringing to us the real theme of his epistle. He said on another occasion to the Corinthians, listen carefully and let it all slant together: 'For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor that we through his poverty might be made rich'. Do you see it? He's teaching them, he's instructing them that they need grace, and only through grace will they have the joy of peace. What is peace only the outcome of reconciliation through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ? Reconciliation between us and God, but also reconciliation between our brothers and sisters in Christ!

Oh, how Paul is teaching them. Someone has said, rightly so, that whatever Paul touches it turns into the Gospel. He touches this normal greeting of the day and it turns into the Gospel. He can't help it, because the Gospel is just welling up in his heart. But do you see how he's teaching them right at the very beginning, in two verses in the introduction of his letter, what the theme of everything is going to be - and we're going to unpack it in the weeks that lie ahead. But I want to unpack a few here that are found even in these two verses in the time that's left to us, and it's five things that I want you to note in these two verses.

The first: 'Paul and Timothy' - Paul and Timothy. Now here's how you'll know true joy, and we're breaking up this word 'humility' in a practical way that Paul is teaching them in these two verses. You will know true joy when you prepare selflessly for the future - get that. You will know true joy when you prepare selflessly for the future. Why did he mention Timothy? I believe one of the reasons why he mentioned Timothy was that he was preparing this church, and indeed other churches, to be under the authority of Timothy when Paul moved on. Timothy's the young man, Paul is the older man - youth and age are being yoked together in the service of God, and again he's showing how there's this unity, how there's this humility. He's not thinking: 'This whipper-snapper down here, I'm not going to mention him in my letter', but he unites together youth and age in the servants of God. As Jowett, the great preacher, said: 'It is the union of springtime and autumn, of enthusiasm and of experience, of impulse and of wisdom, of tender hope and quiet rich assurance'. We as a church, now mark this young people and older people or middle-aged people, or whatever you class yourself as - we will know joy as a church when we selflessly prepare for the future, and when there is selflessness between the young and the old.

Do you know why there are certain problems in some churches in our land today? It's because the young people want to rule the roost, and they want everything their way. That causes a problem because it ostracises older people who have different tastes and different needs and different wants in the congregation. But the converse of that is also another problem, where the young people are ostracised and it is the selfish needs and wants and tastes of older people that are always given the sway. But Paul says that there will be this joyous harmony and peace and unity when both of us, no matter whether we're young or old, sacrifice our own wants in the interest of others. Don't argue with me about it, it's all here in the book!

If you want to know that joy you've got to die to yourself. The first two words he's teaching them! Then look at the next word 'bondservants', this is the second thing, bondservants. This is what I want you to note here: when you give self-denying devotion to your Master, you will know the true joy of God deep down in your heart - when you give self-denying devotion to your Master. 'Bondservants', the Greek word is 'doulos', it's a slave, it's someone who is owned by someone else, who has got no will of their own, who goes and does things and goes places in obedience to their master - their will is not their own. I believe it's an allusion to Exodus 21 where we read there of the servant who's given his emancipation and is allowed to go free, but he loves his master so much that he knows that he's better off with his master. He stays with his master, and his master puts him up against a post and puts an awl through his ear and pierces him, and he becomes a devotee - not of duty, but of love toward his master.

This is what Paul meant when he said in 1 Corinthians 7: 'For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman'. We are free, but we choose to be slaves for the Lord Jesus Christ: 'Likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant'. Praise God, we've been freed from the bondage of our sin, but never forget child of God that we are expected to have devotion, service and bondslave devotion, toward our Lord Jesus Christ - and until you have that selflessly you will not know the joy of God deep down in your heart. Do you see how he's teaching these people? You know, if you're a slave of your master, your master has to worry about your keep, about the roof over your head, the clothes on your back, and the food on your plate. What does he say in this epistle? Philippians chapter 4 verse 19: 'My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus'.

The third thing I want you to notice: 'Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Christ Jesus' - not as the Authorised says, but 'of Christ Jesus'. Now here's the thing I want you to note here: when you follow your Lord's humble example, you will know the joy of God deep down in your heart. Some of you men will already know this, it's elementary, but I want you to bear with me because many of the young people will not know this. There's a reason for this change in order in the name of Christ, Christ Jesus rather than Jesus Christ. 'Christ Jesus', when Christ comes first in the name it's speaking of Him as the Exalted One who emptied Himself. First of all 'Christ', 'Messiah', that's what He was in glory, that came first, the pre-existent One in heaven - but He emptied Himself, and He humbled Himself and came to earth as the Lord Jesus. Do you see it? So Paul, even in this name, is speaking of the condescension of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now whenever we read of Him as Jesus Christ it's talking about how He was despised and rejected of men. First of all, when He came to the earth, that's what happened - but He is Christ afterwards, when He's exalted, He is risen from the dead and He's given a name that is above every name in heaven. Do you see the difference? When it's 'Christ Jesus' it's speaking of how He was in glory, but He condescended and became humbled to the earth; when it speaks of 'Jesus Christ', it speaks of how on the earth He was despised, but one day He became exalted through His resurrection and ascension - and some day every knee will bow, and tongue confess that He is God.

'Christ Jesus' speaks of His grace, coming from heaven to earth. 'Jesus Christ' speaks of His glory, how the One who was despised and trodden of men is now exalted. Now why does Paul choose this order, 'Christ Jesus'? Because he wants these Philippians to follow their Lord's humble example. James, Peter, John and Jude usually mention Him as 'Jesus Christ', because they knew Him on the earth - but remember when Paul first got to know Him? He had been exalted, He was in heaven, and it was the heavenly Christ - that's why we find so many times in his epistles he speaks of 'Christ Jesus'. But what is perhaps the 'magna carta' of this whole epistle, the key to it all and the most beautiful passage in it all? It's chapter 2, let me read you it in this literal translation, listen:

'Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there's any consolation of love, if there's any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in the Spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit; but with humility of mind let each one of you regard one another as more important than himself. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. 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 bondservant', there's the word again, He is the Bondservant of all bondservants that we are to look to and we are to follow.

It's all becoming clear, isn't it? Well, let's move on: 'Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints' - all the saints. Now here's the next thing: when you dwell with brethren in unity you will know the joy of God deep down in your heart. What does the Psalmist say? I love this Psalm: 'How good and how blessed it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It's like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard of Aaron, that went down to the skirts of his garments; as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forever more' - where's the blessing commanded? When God's people lay aside their own selfish rights, and start loving one another! Putting others before yourself.

Do you know what the biggest threat to this little church was? It was disunity. Do you know what the biggest threat to the church of Jesus Christ in Ulster is? It's disunity. It baffles me you know, and I know I have my doctrines, and you have yours, and everybody has theirs - but I go into wee towns, I was even driving through one yesterday, and there must have been half-a-dozen churches! Now I know we have liberty of conscience, but it's getting ridiculous today! You think one thing different than another brother and you go off! Can I just tell you here that the reason why Paul directs everything towards the saints is this: because one mark of holiness, that's what saints mean, not somebody on a stained-glass window, but every child of God is a saint - but it means they're called to live holy lives. One of the greatest marks of living a holy life is unity with your brothers and sisters.

We have spawned a doctrine in this nation and in this land that separation is a mark of holiness - and it is, separation from the world and separation from false doctrine. I'm not talking about the fundamentals of the Gospel here, but what I am talking about is this: one of the greatest marks of holiness is unity with your brethren and sisters in Christ, and we've lost that somewhere. Leslie Flynn wrote a book called 'Great Church Fights' - must have been a long one! He penned this verse:

'Believe as I believe, no more, no less,

That I am right and no-one else, confess.

Feel as I feel, think as I think,

Eat as I eat, and drink as I drink.

Look as I look, do as I do,

Then I'll have fellowship with you'.

'Paul...to all the saints'. Well, finally, 'in Christ Jesus, who are in Philippi' - in Philippi, yet in Christ Jesus. You see the fifth thing that I want you to notice is: when you recognise your heavenly citizenship and your position you will know the joy of God deep down in your heart. Now that's just like a resume of the whole epistle, and it's only in the first two verses - but it really excites me! They're in two places at the one time: they're in Christ Jesus, yet at the same time in Philippi. What he's saying is: 'Christ is your source of life, yet Philippi is your sphere of life'. You're living in one place, but in another sense you're in a heavenly place - and that is how to survive life's circumstances, it's the secret of joy in the Christian life: to be in Christ when in Belfast, when in London, when in Los Angeles, when in Paris, when in Japan, when in the workplace, when in school. Wherever you are the secret of it all, of joy, is being in Christ and bringing Christ into those places, and changing those places through Christ.

You will know the joy of God when you abide in Christ. It's all summed up: joy comes in Christ, through humility, and through unity. That's what this epistle is about, and isn't it interesting that his own joy is unrelated to his circumstances? He's in prison, they're in troubles and persecution, but the contentment and the joy that he knows is the fact that even though he is locked up and they're in problems, he's confident that the grace and Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is advanced. Here's the real crux of the matter of his joy: he doesn't care that even his own inconvenience comes upon him, his own pain, he's beaten, he's downcast, he's put into prison, as long as the Gospel of Jesus Christ goes forward! That's the key to joy, when you see people saved, the church built up, and Christians deepened no matter what it costs for you - that's joy.

As we enter into this epistle, as we finish our sermon this morning, can I quote Alec Mateer and what he says? I want this to be our sentiment: 'Why should the world heed our evangelism if it does not see in the church that Christ has solved the problems of isolation, alienation, division, which curse and blight its own life? This is what the world is waiting for today, as it did in Philippi in Paul's day. It waits for the sight of a people who have solved its problems through the reality of being in Christ, and whose lifestyle sets forth the old God-given morality with fresh loveliness as the holy likeness of Jesus is seen in them'. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

Father, there are those in this building at this moment who are going through very difficult days, those who feel imprisoned by happenings and circumstances. But we pray in the weeks that lie ahead, Father, that we will know the emancipation of the Spirit of God in our hearts as we realise that it is through the cross that we have life. Thank You for our Lord, and for how He humbled Himself. Father, help us to trod the path that He trod, that others may see Him and His humility in us. Help us to stop fighting for our own rights, what we want, but put the interests of others before the interests of ourselves. Help us all to render up our sword, that Thou shalt conqueror be. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - September 2002

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Philippians: Epistle Of Joy - Chapter 2

"A Pastor's Joy In His People - Part 1"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

Philippians 1:3-8

We began our study of the book of Philippians last week, and we spent a little bit of time just looking at verses 1 and 2 of Paul's salutation as he wrote to the church at Philippi. We're going to spend today looking at verses 3 through to 8, which is the part of thankfulness, a sort of prayer in the introduction to this letter. We saw last week that his salutation in verses 1 and 2 really bore out all the themes that you find right throughout the whole of this little book. We'll find today that as we look at verses 3 through to 8, that his prayer of thankfulness for these people also does the same. Just before we even enter into the depths of this book, Paul is wanting to outline very clearly to us what he wants to get across to these Philippian believers.

So let's read these verses together once more, verse 1: "Paul and Timothy, the bondservants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are in Philippi, with the bishops", or overseers, "and deacons: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace. For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ".

The subject and title that I've given to this message today is: 'A Pastor's Joy in His People', a Pastor's joy in his people. Now Paul, in verses 1 and 2, changed the conventional salutation and introduction of a Roman-Greek letter into the gospel. We saw that he had this sort of 'midas gospel' touch, that everything he touched turned into the gospel. Exactly the same happens in verses 3 through to 8, as he comes to his prayer, which was often the conventional form in a letter - first of all they told us, in verse 1, who was writing the letter, who he was writing the letter to, and then there's a salutation in verse 2: 'Grace be unto you, and peace'. Then usually, in any Greco-Roman letter, there is this air of prayerfulness and thankfulness to God or to their gods for the health, and particularly here the salvation, of those who he was writing to.

He does exactly the same in his thankfulness, his prayer of thankfulness, he changes it into the gospel, and he tells them: 'I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, in every prayer of mine', verse 4, 'making requests with joy'. That is the key to this prayer of thankfulness, this is the epistle of joy - we saw that last Lord's day morning, but he's coming to these believers praying and thanking God for them, and he is able to do it with joy. He is showing a Pastor's joy in his people. I've no doubt about the fact that Paul was wanting to communicate to these believers, and affirm to them, the affection and the love and the devotion that he had toward them. But he's also trying to announce to them the themes of why he's writing this letter to them. We've seen already that the main theme of all of these four chapters is that the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ should be joyful.

We spent a bit of time last week analysing what that means, and what it does not mean. The joy of the Bible, the divine joy that God gives to us as a gift, primarily, of the Holy Spirit - we read that in the book of Galatians - is not the result of happenings in our life, it is not the normal happiness that people in the world are seeking after. It does not come through comfortable circumstances, but this joy is something that is deep-rooted in our lives, that is within us when the gospel is making progress, when we see people being saved, when we see the name of Jesus Christ being uplifted - no matter what the circumstances are that we're going through to get to that end, the goal and result of people being converted.

Let me show you why that is in this book. Verse 18 of the first chapter bears that out: 'What then? Notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice'. Now what was happening here was that there were false teachers going about preaching the gospel, a false gospel - but they were preaching Jesus Christ. In fact, I think the reason why they were doing it was: because Paul was in prison they thought that by doing this the Roman government would think that the Christianity was just booming, and Paul would get a hammering in prison because of it. But Paul, because his great goal in life and chief joy is to see the gospel advance, rejoices that the name of Christ is heard and preached at all! Even as he is in bonds in prison, perhaps getting beaten for these people preaching it outside, he is able to rejoice that Christ is preached at all.

In chapter 2 and verse 17 we see the same sentiment: 'Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all'. If I have to die through bringing you the faith, through bringing the gospel to the Gentiles, so be it - I will have no greater joy, because my joy does not come in life's fleeting circumstances, my joy comes in a deep-seated satisfaction of knowing that Christ's name is preached and people are being converted. So you see the difference between joy and happiness as people understand it today. Now from Paul was first visiting Philippi on his missionary journey, until he's actually writing this book that you have in your hand before you, there are ten years that have elapsed. During those ten years, if Paul was suffering when he met these Philippians, he is certainly suffering over these ten years.

If you turn with me for a moment to the book of 2 Corinthians and chapter 11 we read an enumeration of the sufferings of Paul the apostle, specifically in these ten years that have elapsed since he first visited the church at Philippi. Second Corinthians 11 verse 24, he says: 'Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one', most men couldn't survive once going through that. 'Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness'. You could go on and on and on, and there are various other passages within the New Testament that lineate for us the great suffering that the apostle Paul went through. So you don't take it with a pinch of salt when he says that: 'I rejoice through my sufferings'. This is real, and the suffering that the apostle Paul was going through, I would say, make our sufferings - some of them at least - pale into insignificance. Yet we, perhaps, don't experience the extent of the joy that Paul experienced being shed abroad in his heart.

When Paul was in Philippi, of course, the real theme of his message that he was preaching was the message of salvation. We can see through the book of the Acts, when Paul was in Philippi, that there was this joint theme of joy and suffering as he preached the gospel - the two were inextricably linked, they weren't separated. I'll give you one example, Acts 16: where is Paul? He's been beaten, and he's in stocks in the prison with Silas, and they are singing praises unto God at midnight - and what happened? The jailer gets saved, God comes miraculously, brings an earthquake, they're freed, the jailer is about to commit suicide - Paul says: 'Do thyself no harm!'. He says: 'What must I do to be saved?', and he preaches the gospel to him - but what I want you to see is that the gospel was going forward in Philippi with joy, joined to suffering.

That can be reflected in his prayer life, this is a prayer of course - verses 3 to 11, we'll look at the rest of them if we get time next week. It's a prayer, and this joy and suffering is reflected in it. But before we even look at that I want you to see first of all of the phenomenal prayer life of the apostle Paul. Let me ask you the question: if you were doing as many missionary journeys as the apostle, and then you were beaten and you went through all that we read in 2 Corinthians 11, and you're now in prison in Rome again, probably facing death although he didn't, but as far as he was concerned that was probably the end result - would you be rejoicing? Moreover, would you be praying? Yet Paul, in those ten years, with all the great calendar and diary dedications that he had for all the various parts of the Gentile world, he says: 'I'm able to come before God, regularly, and bring your names before God in prayer'. To me that is phenomenal.

Verse 3: 'I thank my God upon every remembrance of you' - every time I remember you I shoot an arrow up to God for you! Verse 4: 'Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy' - this was constant prayer! It was always - that doesn't mean he was walking around all the time praying, I believe he was in the attitude of prayer all the time, as we all should be - but as much as he could, I think the sense is, he brought the specific names of these Philippian believers before God on a continual basis. It wasn't just constant, but it was individual. Verse 4 says: 'for you all'. Now this baffles me: either the apostle Paul had a photographic memory, which he probably did, or he had a massive prayer list - but one way or another he brought every name of these Philippians before God in prayer. He didn't come and say: 'Lord, bless the Philippians. Lord, bless the Ephesians, bless the Colossians, bless the Thessalonians'. He didn't do that, he could have done it, but he took their names and he brought them individually and their specific needs before God. More than praying for them, the amazing thing to me is he could thank God for them - every one of them!

Now here is where I see a pastor's joy in his people: he could thank God for every single member in the church at Philippi. Now many pastors, I reckon, would have difficulty - and I do not speak for myself! - thanking God for everybody in the flock! But what this tells me is that Paul majored, specifically in this epistle, on his personal relationship with the Philippians. People tell us today, and I think they're right, that personal relations is the key to almost everything in the world. You and I both know human nature, that people like to be thought about, don't they? People like to be remembered. They like to be remembered not with complaint, but with compliments, as Paul is doing here in this epistle. We hear a lot today about public relations, and we tend in the church to pooh-pooh it, and I know why we do that - because we're not into advertisement or anything like that, we're meant to be epistles written unto men, we're meant to be the advertisement! But public relations was important to Paul in this Philippian epistle, because the simple secret to any public relations that you look at is to remember the other people rather than yourself. That is the Christian ethic of public relations.

In other words, as we looked in the Sermon on the Mount, if you want people to like you, what do you need to do? Like other people. I hear people in the church say: 'Nobody ever talks to me', and they walk out as soon as the meeting is over and never say 'Boo' to anybody. If you want people to talk to you, talk to people. If you want people to like you, like other people. If you want people to be interested in you, you be interesting to other people, showing your interest in them. Now the more we look down this thanksgiving of Paul, we realise that this is different than any of the other epistles that Paul has ever written. This isn't a historical narrative of what went on in the church, it's not a philosophical treatise or tract, it's not even a doctrinal letter trying to iron out some heresies that were in the church - but more than any of his epistles, this is pastoral. This is a pastor, with the heart of a pastor, coming to his people and wanting to pray for them, thanking God for them and wanting to provide in prayer the great needs that they had as a people - their personal needs.

Now if we don't go any further in today's study, there's one thing that this teaches me and it's that there needs to be personal relationships in the church of Jesus Christ. If we are to minister to one another, if I am to minister to you - and don't forget that you have to minister to me, it's not all one way - there has to be personal relationships. We should build those relationships up, we should cultivate them, we should dig the roots of them deep, we should help them not hinder them. Let's move on because we've a lot to get through, because in verses 3 through to 8 there are five specific elements of Paul's Spirit engendered joy that was related to these believers.

The first is found in verse 3, let's look at it: 'I thank my God upon every remembrance of you'. Now here's the first thing, take it down, and if you don't bring pen and paper to these studies bring them from next week because you need to take these things down. Recollection of blessing brings joy, recollection of blessing brings joy. Now Paul, here again, as he did in verses 1 and 2, he's not thinking about himself, who's he thinking of? These other people, remembering other people rather than remembering his own needs. Now remember where he is, he's awaiting trial in Rome. The likelihood is he's been beaten and he's going to face death. I'm sure that Paul the apostle, more than you or I, had many bad memories that he could have thought up there in that prison in Rome - but he didn't do it. We find that he was illegally arrested, he was beaten, he's placed in the stocks, he's humiliated before the people. We read in 2 Corinthians 11 about everything that he suffered, but through all of this Paul has joy because people are being converted. The jailer is converted, Lydia is converted, the demon possessed girl is converted - and all the recollection of these believers in Philippi, as he remembers them, as he prays for them, and as he thanks God for them, brings him a great source of joy.

That's a basic lesson: recollection can bring joy. We're taught never to rest on our laurels on past blessings, but you know it's a good exercise - especially when you're going through rough times and tough times - to count the blessings of the past. Paul says he gives thanks for them, verse 4: 'Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy', but he's giving thanks in verse 3 'upon every remembrance' of them. The Greek word for 'thanks' is 'eucharisto', it's the word you get 'the eucharist' from that some churches use for the Lord's Supper. All that it simply means in the Greek is 'thanksgiving', and what they're doing is giving thanks for the substitutionary death of Christ. But what Paul is giving thanks for here is for their faith, and for the joy that their faith brings to him.

You see, when you start to realise that the church at Philippi were the only church that supported the apostle Paul when he left Macedonia, you can understand why he had great joy in recollecting their memory. When you read that not only did they give to him in that circumstance, but when he was looking money for the church in Jerusalem they continued contributing generously. Then, as we looked further, we find that in the book of Corinthians it tells us that they were very poor, the Christians in Macedonia and Philippi were poor believers, but it was out of their poverty that they gave liberally, sacrificially. When Paul thinks about these things he begins to thank God for them, and it brings great joy to his heart.

The question I want you to ask yourself for my benefit and for the rest of our benefit is: am I the kind of Christian that brings joy to my pastor when he thinks of me? Are you? What do people think of when they think of you? 'That boy is a gurner, he's a moaner. She's a gripe, look at the face on her'. Is that the way people think of you? My friend, when Paul recollected these believers and prayed for them it brought him great joy. We ought to be trying to be people, not only that pray for others, and find joy in others, that don't look for the bad in others, not ignoring it but overlooking it in love - but we ought to be people who bring joy to others as they remember us!

Well, recollection of blessings brings joy, later on he says: 'I have you in my heart', but he could say here: 'I have you in my mind'. We'll find as we go through the book of Philippians how important the mind is. Although joy comes in the heart it is channelled through the mind, it comes from our attitudes to one another, it comes from our attitudes to work, to money, to possessions, to life in general and specifically to our Lord Jesus Christ. Our attitude affects our life, and joy will never get deep down into our heart unless it comes, first and foremost channelled through our mind.

Let's move on, verse 4: 'Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy'. Recollection of his blessings brought him joy, but intercession for others brings him joy. If you look at chapter 2 verse 4 that we looked at last week: 'Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others'. Another translation says: 'Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others'. Paul showed this in the greatest way that you can as a believer, in prayer! Remember the apostle is in great pain, he's in dire circumstances in prison, yet he still finds the time to praise God and to pray for the saints.

Now the converse of this is seen when people have a lack of joy, a deficit of joy in their life. You can tell right away. The first thing that you see is that they have not positive thoughts about other people but negative thoughts. It generally comes out of their heart through their mouth when they talk about other people, they've a lack of joy. The second evidence of that is a lack of concern for other people's welfare, when they're looking after number one, they're not really concerned about other people. The third thing is a failure - and this is perhaps the greatest sin for the Christian - a failure to intercede for the people on their behalf. Have you a lack of joy in your heart that is manifest through gross selfishness, self-centredness, pride, often vengeance? What happens is that this self-centredness inevitably manifests itself in prayerlessness! Do you know that one of the greatest evidences of pride that you will find in a human being is the fact that they don't feel that they need any prayer? Paul, on many occasions, could come before all sorts of churches and ask them, plead with them: 'Pray for me! I need your prayer!'. Can I say to you today: I need your prayer on a daily basis, I need it! But you need others' prayer too. There is a pride - it comes, obviously, from our fallen nature - where our natural response to problems and circumstances that infiltrate our life is to bear it alone, go it alone. Stiff upper lip, stoicism, bear it like a man. We feel it's a sign of human weakness, maybe even spiritual weakness to share your needs with other people - do you know what Paul is saying here? God has ordained it that we as believers in the body of Christ should be channels of comfort to other believers to help them and to encourage them!

I know that believers generally maybe don't do this, but I also know that believers shut themselves up to the encouragement and the help and the prayer of other believers, and they go on a self-righteous road that says: 'All I need is the Lord'. Well, if all you need is the Lord, the Lord would never have placed you in a body called the church of Jesus Christ. I'm not underestimating the impact of Christ in your life and the fact that Christ is sufficient for every need that you have, but there are times when God has ordained that Christ should minister to your needs through His own body, the church - for we are His arms, we are His legs. At times when you put your arms around someone that is in great need, that hug can as much come from the depths of the bowels and affections of Jesus Christ as if He was standing before you.

He got great joy from recollecting the blessings that they brought him, and the intercession that he made before them. Thirdly verse 5, if you look at it, he thanks God for their fellowship in the Gospel from the first day until now. Now that little word 'fellowship' has been translated in other versions as 'partnership', or 'sharing', and that is true because the broadest sense of this word means that they're working together proclaiming the great name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and people are being converted, and there's no greater joy than joining with other people in trying to bring people to the Lord Jesus Christ. But you know there's a deeper meaning, I believe, in this word. This was a consistent partnership and fellowship that is talked about here. He says: 'from the first day until now'. When we look at chapter 4 and verse 14 for a moment you see here that this gives us an enlightening as to what this fellowship really was: 'Notwithstanding ye have well done, that ye did communicate with my affliction. Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity'.

This fellowship is not just lip-service, this fellowship is not just ticking a particular doctrinal assent on a list of theological truths, this fellowship was not simply an agreement on the level of ideas and it wasn't even an attitude of sharing convictions with other people - but it was manifest in the life of Paul through the Philippians by actions! It was the actions that brought Paul great joy. We've got to get away from Christianity that is purely lip-service. We've got to get away from Christianity that is Sunday-go-to-meeting, suit-and-Bible. We've got to get away from it. We've got to move on to something that is from the heart, something that is rooted and grounded in action, that is a costly expression of our commitment to the Gospel. Paul is asking the question: how do I know, why can I have great joy in these Philippians? How do I know that the Gospel is being furthered from their hand? Simply because they are giving up all that they have for the Gospel! It's costing them, and I know that through the price that they are paying the Gospel is going forward, Jesus Christ is being glorified, and sinners are being converted. Participation in the service of the Gospel brought him great joy.

We saw last week in verses 1 and 2 that unity is the sign of holiness, not divisiveness. We'll see it again tomorrow night, unity is the sign of holiness - and if the church at Corinth, we'll see tomorrow night, could be united and Paul exhorts them to be united, any church can be united. Not only is unity a sign of holiness and sanctity, but the principle of sacrificial giving to the work of God and to the furtherance of the Gospel is a sign of holiness. Now we're getting a checklist here of a holy life, and I'm not sure which of those two I can really tick - already, and we're only in two weeks of this study! Unity and sacrificial giving.

How do we give sacrificially to see that the Gospel is advanced? I'm not talking about giving, I'm talking about giving sacrificially. Let me, as I close, give you one example of it. The book of the Acts chapter 16, turn to it with me, Acts 16. Here we are in Philippi, and Lydia - the Lord has opened her heart and allowed her to receive the Gospel - verse 14: 'And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul'. Now watch the proof of her reception of salvation: 'And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us'. Paul had seen, in Philippi, believers who were willing to open their home to the Gospel, to put food on the table for the Gospel, to put petrol in the car for the Gospel, to put money in the box for the Gospel.

Do you know the greatest judge of how a church is evangelising? Look at the budget: how much do we spend on it? Oh, it brought him joy that they laid their lives down for him and for the furtherance of the Gospel. It brought him joy that he was interceding for them, and it brought him joy that he remembered their goodness toward him. We can have that joy too, next week we'll look at the other verses in this section, how he was brought further joy from these Philippians.

Father, we feel so inadequate when it comes to the aspect of unity and, Lord, the aspect of humility. When we need a centre of reference and a point of gravity, Lord, where else can we look but to the Lord Jesus Christ who, we in later days will have revealed to us in Philippians 2 by Thy Spirit, made Himself of no reputation, but emptied Himself, took upon Him the form of a servant, was found in fashion as a man, and humbled Himself, was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Lord, as we relate to our brothers and sisters in Christ, as we relate to a dying and fallen world around, may this mind be in us that was also in Christ Jesus, in whose precious name we pray. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - September 2002

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Philippians: Epistle Of Joy - Chapter 3

"A Pastor's Joy In His People - Part 2"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

Philippians 1:3-11

Now we're turning in our Bibles to Philippians chapter 1. You'll remember that last Sunday morning we began a study that we thought might take us just through Sunday morning, but it has taken us into the next Sunday morning: 'A Pastor's Joy in His People'. Really the introductory verses of the book of Philippians in chapter 1, where Paul is outlining his prayer and his desire, and specifically his joy in the people of God in the little town of Philippi.

We'll begin reading at verse 1: "Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace. For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels", or the affections, "of Jesus Christ. And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God".

Now we saw both in our studies in Philippians and in the book of 1 Corinthians, how Paul often in his letters changes the conventional address and introduction of Greek and Roman letters into something that preaches and testifies the gospel, and we see that he does that again in the book of Philippians. Not only does he give us the gospel in his introduction, but he gives us a delineation of the themes that he wants to deal with in his book. He does that as he tells these Philippians in verse 4 that he prays for them in all of his prayers with great joy. Right throughout this introduction Paul gives these people an affirmation of the great joy that he has in fellowshipping with these people in Philippi. But he's not only doing that for us, he's outlining for us the great theme of how important it is for every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ to have joy within their lives. He tells us what that joy is and what that joy is not; that that joy is not the passing happiness that the world seeks after and longs for, that comes through circumstances and through 'hapness' that comes into our lives, where our happiness is regulated by our circumstances, by our pleasures, by our feelings and our emotions - but rather divine joy, the happiness and the joy that God talks about, is something that transcends earth's circumstances. It is not the result of being comfortable, but that deep transcendent joy can be known right in the middle of earth's most darkest and difficult scenes.

In fact we know from looking in the background of the church at Philippi that their joy was born in the midst of suffering and sorrow. But in verses 3 through to 8 Paul gives us five specific elements of the Spirit-engendered joy that he knew because of the Philippians, and that they too could know if they focussed their mind on the things that Paul had his focus upon. Three of the things that we looked at last week, why this Pastor had great joy in his people, was first of all in verse 3: 'I thank my God upon every remembrance of you'. He brought joy to his own heart when he recollected the blessings that these believers brought to him. We asked the question of ourselves collectively and individually: when others think of us does it bring them great joy? Am I the kind of Christian that brings joy to my Pastor's mind when he thinks of me? But Paul could say: 'I have you in my mind'.

We spent a little bit of time, we don't want to go into it all today, about how important in the book of Philippians, but indeed in our Christian walk and pilgrimage, our attitude is to the experience of joy that we will know within our heart. The common denominator, the difference if you like, between down-in-the-dump Christians and joyful Christians right in the middle of life's most difficult sorrows is the attitude which we come to life's difficulties with. The second reason why he had great joy was because of the intercession that he had on behalf of others, we find that in verse 4: 'Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request'. They prayed for Paul and Paul prayed for them always, a constant continual intercession. We saw that it wasn't just a general praying: 'Lord, bless the Philippians', but it was specific. He was asking for them by name that God would bless them, he was bringing before God the specific needs that they had.

We took out of that a principle that self-centredness within believers, selfishness that is never ever a sign of joy, for joy is seen in selflessness when we live for other people and when we lay down our lives as intercession for other people - but self-centredness is primarily seen in prayerlessness. If you don't pray for other people it's because you don't care for other people, but Paul prayed for them and it brought him great joy to do that. Last week in verse 5 we read these words, he thanks God also for the joy that he had brought to his heart through the fellowship that he had with these people in the gospel from the first day until now. Participation in the service of the gospel brought Paul great joy. Broadly speaking as he shared the gospel, as he took the gospel to the Macedonian world with the Philippians and by himself in the beginning, bringing even them to Christ, it brought him great joy.

We saw in chapter 4 specifically that this was a joy and a participation in the service of the gospel that was not just through preaching, but it was practical. He was helped by these Philippians believers sacrificially as they gave the few resources financially that they had over to the furtherance of the gospel and to the help of the apostle Paul. We saw Lydia in Acts 16, how she right at the moment of conversion opened up her home in hospitality for the gospel to be preached. We asked the question of ourselves last Sunday: what do we sacrifice? How do we join with Paul in this type of fellowship in the gospel?

I hope we haven't lost all those things, but we want to carry on with two more aspects that brought this Pastor joy in his people. The fourth aspect is found in verse 6: 'Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ'. Anticipation of the believer's perfection brought Paul great joy. Anticipation of their perfection brought him great joy. How encouraging this is for us all when we find ourselves just launched into a very difficult circumstance, even with regard to things that we would have to call sins and iniquities, when life's uncertainties come along, when we find that we're doing well in our Christian life and all of a sudden we trip up and we're defeated, we're downcast, temptation enters into our life, and it seems that it's irresistible and every time it comes to us we fall down before it. Well Paul is coming to these believers who are in persecution, who are facing the temptation of denying Christ Jesus every day of their life, and Paul brings in the great assurance and the joy that can be theirs, that one day in Christ they will be perfect.

You see, salvation is wholly God's work, and we must believe that. Salvation is planned by God, and salvation is executed by God through His Holy Spirit in our lives. Because the Bible teaches that and we believe that, we must also believe that the completion of our salvation is also God's responsibility, and we can be as certain about the completion as we are certain about its inauguration. In fact, Paul is saying here in verse 6 that we can be as certain about the completion of our salvation as if it was already accomplished! Isn't that tremendous? Let me show you the word that Paul uses in this verse where he talks about God having begun a good work, it's also found in only one other place in the New Testament, in Galatians. If you turn to Galatians chapter 3 and verse 3, remember the Galatians were struggling with working for their salvation, even after God had saved them by grace, they were trying to keep their salvation by works. Paul says in verse 3 of chapter 3: 'Are ye so foolish? Having begun', and there is that word, 'having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?'.

The word literally, here and in Philippians, means 'inaugurated', 'to inaugurate'. He says to the Galatians: 'Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit are you now going to be made perfect by the flesh?'. The tense 'to inaugurate', it's employed as a decisive tense, as a deliberate act. In other words, because God at some time in your history has deliberately and completely saved you, do you think that you're going to accomplish it and complete it and perfect it by your own efforts? No! The God who has begun that work, the God who has inaugurated that work, will bring your salvation to completion - and hallelujah, glory to God, one day will present every one of you dirty, filthy, rotten sinners before God perfect!

I hope that thrills your heart - sometimes I wonder! I hope it does! You know, as Paul came before the Philippians his whole message was salvation, wasn't it? We see that specifically as he comes to the Philippian jailer in Acts chapter 16 - that's all he ever preached! We're seeing on Monday nights in 1 Corinthians that even when there was a dispute over baptism he said: 'I didn't come to baptise you, I came to preach the gospel'. What did he say to that Philippians jailer? 'Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt' - finished! - 'be saved'. Now I have no doubt in my mind when Paul came to that riverside to that lady, the seller of purple, Lydia, that he said to her too: 'Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved'. We don't have a record of it, but I'm sure that Lydia had a date and a time for her conversion, and I'm sure that Paul gave her the gospel so that she could respond to it. But I want you to note that in Acts chapter 16 where her testimony is given to us, there's no mention of the gospel that was preached to her, it just tells us that the Lord opened her heart to give heed to what was said by Paul. Oh, of course she heard the gospel, and she had to act in faith in response to the gospel, but it's almost as if Lydia is an illustration to the people in Philippi: 'Look, don't you ever forget that this salvation was never begun by you! It was inaugurated by God, by His Holy Spirit in your heart, when He opened your heart. And if you're sure that God has opened your heart, you can be sure that God will perfect your heart!'.

This Lydia's story is the inner story of every conversion: God opening our heart. But what happens when you go through difficulties, when you go through temptations and trials, you get your focus back on yourself, isn't that right? You start to focus on your problems, on your imperfections, even if you don't see any in yourself - and this is usually why people do look to other people, because they don't see enough in themselves to occupy themselves, so they have to start sorting everybody else out - but they still see problems in other people and imperfections. We get taken up with these things, and what happens to us? We are dragged down, we're discouraged, we become dejected because of the lack of our perfection and progression in the life of faith - but if we could get hold of what Paul wants these believers to get hold of, the anticipation of our perfection in Christ that brings great joy to every believer that focuses upon it, it will send all the doubts to hell! It will foster triumphant joy, certainty, assurance, anticipation of perfection within our hearts!

Now I know there's a lot of you people here today and you need to be set free to rejoice more abundantly in your great salvation - but you've got your focus off your Saviour! You've got your focus off the great salvation that He has begun in your life, and you've got your focus on your own failure, and that's why you've no joy! Isn't it wonderful to know today that what God has begun in your life, unless He's a liar, unless He's a cheat, unless He hasn't the power to do it or His word is worth nothing, He will perfect it? F.B. Meyer said: 'We go into the artist's studio and find there unfinished pictures covering large canvases and suggesting great designs, but they have been left unfinished. Either because the genius was not competent to complete the work or because paralysis laid the hand low in death, but as we go into God's great workshop we find nothing that bears the mark of haste, or insufficiency of power to finish, and we are sure that the work which His grace has begun, the arm of His strength will complete'.

His arm is not short that it cannot save, His hand is not laid low in paralysis of death that He cannot perfect your salvation, and what a wonderful thing it is to know as the children of God today that those of us who are truly born of the Spirit of God from above, they will never be left an unfinished work! He leaves no unfinished symphonies, but the great assurance of the gospel is that what our God starts He finishes! Does that not bring you confidence? The confident assurance not only of God's initiative in our salvation, but if I can call it God's 'finitiative', that He's going to bring it all together - why? Because we look unto Jesus, not unto ourselves, unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross - do you think He would have endured the cross if He thought He couldn't finish the work there and then? Not only did He think He had finished it, He knew He had finished it because He said: 'Finished'.

My time runs out on a regular basis, people will know that, and it's running out again - but it has to run out this morning, because if there's anybody here today: God help you if you're relying on yourself for salvation. God help you if you're relying on a church, or a creed, or your own morality, or your own prayers, or your own understanding of the word of God. And can I say this to you believers: God help you if God has begun a work in you by His Spirit, inaugurated it, but you're trying to carry it on by your own steam! He'll finish the work for you too, but like all the rest of us it will be in grace that He'll do it.

Well, He inaugurated it, this verse says that He undertakes to complete it, to continue it, He will bring it to completion. The verb is in the intensive form, and it means a continuous sense, He's going to keep on doing this, keep on building you up on and on. It literally could be translated: 'He will evermore be putting the finishing touch to it'. Isn't that lovely? I love that children's chorus, I quoted it to somebody this week: 'He's still working on me, to make me what I ought to be' - I love this - 'It took Him just a week to make the moon and the stars, the sun and the earth, and Jupiter and Mars. How loving and patient He must be, for He's still working on me!'.

He inaugurates it, He continues it, and what a blessing today for you child: the outcome is guaranteed - do you know why? Because God's working to a schedule, do you know that? He is working to the day of Christ Jesus, that's not the day when you're up to it, or the day when you get to the standard where He can say that you're perfect, or you've got such a foundation that I can build on your perfection and make you perfect, and finish off the job - no! He has already a day on His calendar marked when He's going to make you perfect! The day of Christ Jesus fixed in the Father's diary, and if I can say it: God is under contract by His own word to finish that work that He has begun in you. Everything and everyone will be ready in time for that day. There'll be no rush, there'll be no last-minute haste, there'll be no botching up of the job at the end, there will be nothing that God will stand back and say: 'Ach, that'll do for now, that'll do in the meantime' - no! Everything, all things in Christ will be perfect!

William Hendrickson put it like this: 'God is not like men, men conduct experiments, but God carries out a plan. God never does anything by halfs'. Child of God going through difficulties and temptations and trials, feeling you're not good enough, weighed down by your own guilt and your own sin, listen to this verse: 'One day we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is', because believers are predestined to become conformed to the image of God's Son - a time of perfection, a time of glorification that is in the diary of God.

Let me finish, my time is gone, but let me finish with this story. An artist on one occasion conceived in his mind a great picture, a great work of art. He mustered up all the artistic ability and gift that he had within him into one full sweep of art, the best and his masterpiece within his life. He was working one day on his great canvas putting in dribs in greys and drabs of other colours to compose the background of that painting, when a friend entered unnoticed to him. The artist worked away with enthusiasm and with zeal, not aware that his friend was looking on. Finally, happening to turn round, he saw him and exclaimed: 'What do you think of this? I intend it to be my greatest work, the greatest work that I have ever done'. His friend burst into a laugh and exclaimed: 'Well, to be frank I don't think much of it. It seems to me only like a big great blob'. 'Ah', replied the artist, 'you cannot see what's going to be there, but I can'.

People may look at you, you may look at yourself, and see a great blob of sinfulness - but God the great sculptor and artist looks down at your piece of granite hardness, and He sees within you a work of art, and His promise is this: one day He will bring it out perfectly. Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Let's bow our heads, maybe you're here today as a child of God and the old accuser has been doing his work, reminding you of sins that you've done in the past, sins that you're still falling into. Well, I don't want to make you comfortable in sin, and that was not Paul's intention - flee from that sin, put it away and repent of it, for that is primary proof that you're a child of God. But if you are truly His, what a joy, what a joy to anticipate: that one day, whether through hell or high water, He will make you perfect and complete in Christ. Will you lay hold upon that? Stop looking to yourself, fix your eyes on Jesus the Author and Finisher of your faith.

Father, we thank Thee for the assurance of salvation in Christ. We thank Thee to know that we are eternally secure, that Christ has said unto us: 'I give unto My sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish'. Father, this is not a cushion for us to relax upon, a bed of ease and sinfulness to backslide in, but it is a pillow to lay our weary sin-sick heads. We sang already this morning: 'I heard the voice of Jesus say, 'Come unto Me and rest'', Father, may weary hearts, backslidden hearts, even unsaved hearts, hear the Lord Jesus say to them today: 'Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest'. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - October 2002

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Philippians: Epistle Of Joy - Chapter 4

"A Pastor's Joy In His People - Part 3"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

Philippians 1:3-11

Now we're turning for our reading to the epistle to the Philippians, Paul's epistle to the Philippians, and chapter 1. Several weeks ago I found myself in the study longer than usual, and that's saying something because I'm in it most of the week, but for some reason I couldn't understand why I wasn't getting through the study - and now I know, because this is still the first sermon on the book of Philippians that we were meant to have three weeks ago! It has been split into three sermons because there's so much in it really, because Paul is giving us, in his introductory verses of this epistle, all of the themes that he wants to bring out of this book to the Philippians. We've been taking our time going over it as an introduction, and our title has been 'A Pastor's Joy in His People', and this is the third part of that.

Let's read the first 11 or so verses, beginning at verse 3: "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace. For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God".

Paul says in verses 3 and 4 that he prays for these Philippians in every prayer of his making mention, specific mention, of each of them and all of their needs, with joy. Of course, we know that this epistle has been entitled by many people as 'The Epistle of Joy' - joy being not the result of certain happenings and circumstances that come into our lives that bring us happiness for a season, but joy which is something that is spiritual, something that is engendered by God's Holy Spirit and transcends even the darkest and most sorrowful circumstances that can enter into all of our lives. It is progress through suffering, not to be translated out of life's difficulties, but to know that as we go through life difficulties there is the personal presence of God Almighty through them in us and with us.

Of course, we've learnt in this introduction that there are five elements of God's Spirit-engendered joy that relates to us, and relates to us as how we relate to other believers. In verse 3 we saw that that joy is brought to us as we recollect the blessings that others bring into our lives. He says: 'I have you in my mind, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. When I even think of you as my friends and my beloved brothers and sisters in Philippi, it brings me great joy to have you in my mind'. Then we look at verse 4, he says that he makes mention of them always in prayer, and we see that his joy comes to him because he has intercession for others. We saw that one mark of self-centredness inevitably manifests itself in prayerlessness - when you only think of yourself you only pray for yourself, and when you only pray for yourself you never think of others or pray for others, but one thing that marked Paul's joy was that he was selfless, especially in his intercession for others, and that brought him great joy to his heart.

In verse 5 we saw that joy was brought to him because of their participation in the service of the gospel with him. They preached this gospel with him, and when he left them they continued to preach the gospel, but we see in chapter 4 in the book of Acts that when he needed physical ministrations to himself - finance, specifically - these Philippians, who were very poor, ministered to Paul out of their poverty. First of all we see in Corinthians that the Macedonians gave themselves unto the Lord, and because they had already given themselves unto the Lord they gave all that they had financially unto the Lord for the furtherance of the gospel - that's why Paul could rejoice that they were fellow labourers with him in the gospel of Christ. We asked ourselves: how do we sacrifice, how do we give for the cause of the gospel?

In verse 6 we then found that his joy was engendered by an anticipation of perfection - what a verse! We spent the whole of that previous Sunday, before Bill Freel came and ministered to us, looking at verse 6: "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ". I know it was a great joy for me to be able to take my eyes off myself for a change and focus my eyes upon Jesus, looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith, the Initiator and 'Finishiator' of everything that we are. He has begun the good work, He will continue the good work, and He will ultimately consummate the good work in the day of Jesus Christ, when He will present us faultless, blameless before the throne of His heavenly Father with great - what? Joy!

I hope that brings you great joy too. It is the joy of the sculptor when he looks at a big slab of rock and stone, and you or I with our eyes can't see any beauty or any artistic talent even that has gone into it, but it is the sculptor's eye that sees what it's going to be, he sees what he wants. That is God's plan with us - people may look at us, you may look at other believers, you may even look into your own heart and think: 'Well, how will I ever be perfect? How will God ever make something of my life? Look at the failure that I have even committed in the week that has gone by!'. But I want you to see not from your perspective or others perspective, but from God's perspective: not what you are, but what one day He is going to make you to be! That changes everything.

One old saint of God put it like this: 'The Lord always looks at His people as they will be when they're done' - the Lord always looks at His people as they will be when they're done! Well, there's enough joy there to keep us going through the whole series, I think you'll agree with me, but we have one more to look at before we launch full-speed into the whole of this little epistle. It is simply this: Paul had great joy in his heart because of his affection for his brothers and sisters in Christ, because of his affection for his brothers and sisters in Christ. Specifically that is found in verses 7 to 11 that we're going to look at today. Look at verse 7: 'Even as it is meet', some translations put it, 'Even as it is right for me to think this of you all'. This was something that is more than appropriateness, something that was Paul's duty morally or spiritually, it's more than just rightness - not something that is expected of the saint of God, but something that was required! 'It is required', Paul is saying, 'that I have an affection toward you' - why? 'Because I have you in my heart'. He says: 'It is right for me to think this of you, it's right for me to have an affection of you, and it's right for me that this affection should begin in my heart'. Isn't that interesting, that he doesn't say that this affection comes from the heart, he says it comes first and foremost from the head? 'It is right for me to think this of you'.

That's very interesting, because through the pop culture in which I know that I have grown up in and many of you young people have grown up in, love is portrayed as a feeling. We have to be very careful that we don't have a feeling-less love as Christians, and there is an emotional element to love and devotion, even towards God, and there is something that must have feeling. We must be careful that as fundamental Christians we do not become feeling-less Christians. But we must also be careful to notice where the feelings ought to come from, and where love ultimately ought to stem from, and what the seed of love must be. It always must generate from the mind. Love starts in the mind. A contemporary Christian artist called Don Francisco has a song, and one of the lines within it says: 'Love is not a feeling, it's an act of your will'. Love is not a feeling, it is an act of your will - and that's true, 'charity' in the Authorised Version that you find in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, that is a good translation. It's sometimes misunderstood today, and that's why we often substitute it with 'love', but 'charity' is a good translation - why? Because charity is the thought of love in action, and that is what love really is - it is an action. But you know that an action is only an execution of a thought.

So you see that there's much more in love than just a feeling, before the feeling comes and act of your will, and before that act of your will comes a thought - and that's why Paul goes to the very source of his love and his affection toward these Philippians, and he says: 'It is right for me to think this of you all'. The mind is so important in the Christian life, and sadly today many Christians are encouraged to set aside the mind. We don't really interpret spirituality as being intellectualism, we don't agree with that, we don't believe it's important for you to have degrees in theology to be spiritual or even to preach the gospel or anything like that - but what we must beware of is an anti-intellectualism that sets aside the mind, and that encourages us not to think at all. Whenever we look at the source of all our love, whether it be our love to God and to Christ, and even our love to other brothers and sisters, it begins in the mind! When we contemplate and meditate upon what God has done for us, and indeed what our other brothers and sisters are toward us in Christ, it makes that affection well up within our hearts - but it starts in our mind.

Well, let's move on because he had great joy in praising God because of this deep affection that began in his mind, that started with an act of his will, but he says this - he said in verse 3: 'I have you in my mind', and now he's saying in verse 7: 'I have you in my heart'. There's two things that I want you to see today from these verses. The first is found in verses 7 and 8, and it is Paul's example to us, Paul's example to us with regards to his affection toward his brothers and sisters in Christ. The second thing is Paul's prayer for us in verses 9, 10 and 11, when he prays for us that we would have certain characteristics, certain attributes, that would help us and enable us to love our brothers and sisters the right way in the Lord Jesus.

So let's look first of all at verses 7 and 8, Paul's example to us. He says: 'I have you in my heart'. So they're in his mind, but they have moved now from his mind into his heart - and I want to ask you this question: you may have your brothers and sisters in Christ all around you in your mind on a regular basis, they may even be in your prayers as you're on your knees before the throne of grace, but what I want to ask you - and I'm asking myself this - are they in your heart? That's a different thing. I think it was the founder of OM, George Verwer, that talked about the 18 inch journey that is such a distance for most Christians to make, and that is the journey from the head to the heart. It's probably the longest journey in the universe, but it's the journey that we as Bible-leaving Christians have to struggle with - not just filling our minds with knowledge, but that knowledge is being almost precipitated and falling as rain and dew into our hearts and making us the type of people and creatures that God wants us to be in the new covenant.

There are many Christians that we may be able to say of: 'I have you on my nerves'! But it's hard to say: 'I have you in my heart'. Let me please make you aware that Paul isn't being pretentious when he's talking like this, this isn't an arm round your brother or sister and saying: 'Oh, I love you', and it's really hot air, there's no depth to it. This is not hypocritical, and what proves that it's not pretentious or hypocritical is the fact that the apostle is bursting with it - he can't hide the love that he has for his brothers and sisters in Christ, and it overflows in the great joy that he has as he prays for them, as he thinks about them, and now as he expresses to them the love that is deep down in his heart.

Now we're very good, as New Testament believers, at listing for everyone on Sunday the evidences of salvation: you've to leave sin, you've to repent of your sin, you've to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and have believed in Him by faith - of course upon the foundation of grace alone. We know all of this, and we're not to add to the Gospel and we're not to take away, and that is what the Gospel is. Then we go on to the proof of salvation: we need to have a love for the Lord and follow Him and obey His commandments - but so much of the time we forget that one of the fundamental evidences of salvation in the life of the human being is love! It is a love that is expressed not just to God, but to our neighbour and to our brothers and sisters in Christ. One of these days, it's in the back of my mind, I hope it's there from God, maybe I'll get round to doing a series, I would love to do a series - and don't one of you do it now that I've told you this! - a series on our neighbour.

Well, 1 John chapter 3, here's a verse we could start on: 'We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren'. We know! When? 'How do I know I'm saved? I mean, I'd be turning up Romans 10:13 'Him that calleth upon the name of the Lord shall be saved'' - what does John say? You know that you're saved - do you love your brother? It's challenging stuff, but really what it's saying is that this love between one another is a spiritual lubrication that keeps the machinery of life within the church running smoothly. Paul expresses it by saying: 'It is meet to think this of you all'. He doesn't separate any particular clique or group that meets for supper on a specific night - it's 'you all'! He loves them all, he doesn't want to leave any of them out, and at least nine times in this epistle he uses this phrase 'you all'. It's an inclusive love, an all-inclusive love.

Now here's the proof of his love, and this is tremendous because it's not just in his head and it's not just in his heart, but it's something that overflows in his actions towards them. You go on and read in verse 7: 'Inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace'. 'Ach Paul, you've told us you're praying for us. Paul, you've told us that you have us in your head, you've even told us that you have us in your heart - but how do we know that you really love us?'. 'I'm in prison for you! That's how you know that I love you! I am the apostle unto the Gentiles in the bonds of Jesus Christ for you all! When I stood up and preached the Gospel and defended it I was stoned, when I stood before the court and defended it I was whipped and beaten and left for dead, on occasions I was so many days and nights in the deep for the Gospel - that's how you know that I love you!'.

Love is not something that is to be talked, but something that is to be practised. How is it to be practised? Well, we've many evidence is in scripture, but what I want you to see specifically today is that this is not something that you walk out of the Iron Hall this morning and say: 'Right, new slate! I'm going to love everybody', and you go out and kiss everybody and hug everybody, and you come back tonight and bring presents back to everybody and wee cards telling them that you love them so much - this is not something that you can work up. We know this because Paul says this, that he has this love in his heart, but he attributes the source of this love as being the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 8: 'For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ'. This isn't something that you can just decide to do, although there has to come a time in response to obedience to God that you decide to do it, but it's something that is supernatural in its origin and in its source. It must come out of a fellowship, a communion, and a joining between you and Jesus Christ - because ultimately it's not your love, it's the very affection of Jesus Christ!

God doesn't do this in us, specifically, Paul is saying that this is something that God does through us. One translation puts it well: 'in the affections, or in the love of Jesus Christ'. It's not the fact the Holy Spirit is getting across that Paul's love was channelled through the name and the person of Christ, but rather Christ's love is being channelled through the personality and the individual of Paul the apostle! Now sometimes in the quaint translation of the Authorised Version there are some statements that are very hard to grapple with, and this is one of them: 'I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ'. You think to yourself sometimes: 'Oh, surely there's a better translation than that?'. Sometimes there may be, sometimes words have changed, and we can change this to 'affection', change it to 'love', but sometimes when we change these words we lose the real impact of what is being said in the ancient world. The reason I say that is because the bowels were seen in the ancient world as not part of our digestive production, but rather not part our eating system, but the seat of the affections, the place where we loved from, the real guts of our personality, our being, where we have our deep emotional reactions - they're supposed to register, according to the ancient mind, down here in the bowels of the human being. It's a kind of centre of our sympathetic nervous system, our physical sensations of shock and nausea and compassion and love come from it - and you can testify to that even yourself, at times when you see an awful scene, or you feel afraid, or you get a great shock, you feel your tummy going - and I can feel it going even this morning, but it's not because of that, it's for other reasons! You can feel that there are affections and movings that come here from down deep in your being, and what Paul is saying is that it's as if that part of Jesus Christ physically was taken and translated into something spiritual and was transplanted into my body, that I am longing and loving after you with His affections!

Well, this is something else. Have you ever experienced that? I can say that I've experienced love, I would hope that I've experienced maybe the love of God through me to another, but I wonder at times have I really experienced the actual love of the Lord Jesus Christ being administered in me, through me, to other people? That I am actually feeling His emotions? We're on holy ground today, and I have to be very careful, but this thought is just coming to me now that in Hebrews it talks of our Lord Jesus as being a Great High Priest who is touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but this really turns that on its head for a moment, doesn't it? We become touched with the feelings of His infirmities, as He looks on human nature and human beings, and even as He looks on other believers in Christ whom we are joined to in His own body, and He loves after them as He has deep affection over them - that we feel it?

Romans chapter 5, I think, really speaks of this when it says: 'God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom He has given us, He has shed His love abroad in our hearts'. Well, that's what Paul says, but have we experienced that? That's Paul's example to us, but I want to take you on further to Paul's prayer for us that we might have this as our experience in our lives. His example is: 'I have you in my heart', but his prayer is: 'I have you in my prayer'. The first thing that he prays for, you'll find, is in verse 9 and that is that the same love: 'that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment'. First and foremost, now note these down - and please, if you're coming to these meetings, bring a pen and a paper with you. I have no fear of being taken for granted, but I'll tell you this: when I labour in the study and before God, I would hate to think that these truths are just going in one ear and out the other, and you're forgetting them all - so bring a pen and a paper and jot this down.

This is what Paul wants you to pray for yourself, so that you can love other believers, and what he was praying for you: one, an abounding love, an abounding love. Mr Ways (sp?) translates it like this, this whole section that we've read, and this is tremendous, listen: 'This is a love that rises higher and higher to its fullest development in recognition of the truth, and in a comprehensive grasp of its application; thus furnishing you with a sure test of what is true excellence, so that you may remain untainted by error, unstumbling amidst obstacles, till the day of Messiah's appearing, bearing the while a full harvest of righteousness attained through Jesus our Messiah and redounding to the praise and glory of God' - now that's tremendous! He prays for a life filled, penetrated, permeated, by such a love that will eventually lead you to be a mature Christian in the way that you will have most sensitive virtues toward other believers, and you will have the highest knowledge of God and men that is possible - and that is only possible, Paul says, if you have love!

You hear the saying: 'Love is blind', and that may be true of an airy fairy, silly affection, but I'll tell you this: this divine love brings not blindness but the highest knowledge of divine truth that is possible. Paul is saying that through this love we enter the most exciting exhilarating experiences of the highest expressions of love that are possible in life! An abounding love...well, how can we tell that we're abounding in love toward other believers? Well, the first thing is that you'll be concerned about them. I haven't time to go into all this, but let me leave you with a verse, 1 John 3:18: 'My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth'. You will be concerned about other people. Another thing: you will be willing to forgive other people - that's a hard one for some people to swallow. First Peter 4:8: 'And above all things have fervent charity' - love - 'among yourselves: for charity shall cover a multitude of sins'.

Paul put it probably the most succinctly in 1 Corinthians 13 verse 5 when he said this, and one translation puts it like this: 'Love keeps no record of wrongs'. Do you keep a record of wrongs of what your brother and sister in Christ has done to you? 'I can never forgive them for that!'. If you can never forgive them for that, you will never love them because of that. An abounding love, we must move on: he prays for a perceptive love. Now this is interesting because love is not all-inclusive of error, it doesn't mean that you just have to love everything whether it's true or false, but it's something that the translation that Mr Way gave that I read out to you, he translates it like this: 'This is a love that remains untainted by error and unstumbling amidst obstacles' - it's a discerning love. I believe what Paul specifically means in this context is that this is a love not only that will enable you to perceive error and truth, but it is a love that will enable you to perceive how best to love other people. A love that will tell you how to best love others!

Paul says: 'I pray that you will increase in knowledge and depth of understanding', that literally could be translated: 'in all judgement, depth of insight, that you'll be able to discern what's best for other people' - to distinguish the things that are really good for a person and the things that really matter from a variety of competing possibilities. It can all be summed up in this question: do you know how to love someone? I mean, if we all went home and made a list out on 'How could I love my brother?' - usually the answers, I would imagine, that would be given by most of us would be: don't be cruel to him, don't say nasty things to him, don't give him angry looks - it's all negative! But it is positives that Paul is talking about: 'Oh that God would give us an abounding love, but oh that God would give us a perceptive love that would see the needs that there are in other people's lives, so that we could love them positively, love them intelligently, and meet the needs that they have'.

We must move on, a sincere love, he says. He says that you will be sincere: '...That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be', verse 10, 'sincere and without offence till the day of Christ'. The English word 'sincere' comes from the Latin which means 'without wax'. Carpenters, not too good carpenters mind you, but in olden days they used to carve things out, and if they made a fault or a flaw they used to conceal it with wax, and when the wax hardened they painted over it and varnished over it. Even a sculptor, when he was sculpting out of the rock, he would fill in the cracks and the faults and his lack of skill with wax - it would be just furnished over - but 'sincere' means 'without wax'! Without faults, without insincerity, to be pure, to be unsullied, it means to be transparent in your love for others, to be known on the outside for what you are on the inside, to be seen through and through - it is the exact antithesis and the opposite of what it is to be a hypocrite!

The word 'hypocrite' comes from the Greek which means to be an actor, and there are people that come in - probably the greatest theatre at times is the church, where people come on the stage with their Bible and with their great suit, and with their great oratory, and their flowery theological language - but the outside is not a reflection of what is on the inside! If there is true love, and if we love in the bowels of Jesus Christ, there will be a love that is transparent. Secondly there will be a love that is truthful, Abraham Lincoln said: 'I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light that I have. I must stand with anybody who stands right, I must stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong'. It must be a transparent love, it must be a truthful love, it must be a real love!

During the war there was a radio play that was conducted by actors, and they were called 'The Free Company', and one of the players was heard to say over the airwaves one day to a companion actor: 'You sound like a preacher, only it sounds real'. You sound like a preacher, only it sounds real! What perception are we giving to the world in our airwaves? What are we communicating to them? What am I communicating through the pulpit? Am I communicating that this is a role; that this is something that I do on a Sunday; that this is something that I just have to get through for half an hour, and you've to get through, and then we all go home and we go through the motions again? Is that what we are? Is it like watching the television? 'That was a good show today', and we'll go home and we'll talk about it? Is it transparent? Is it truthful? And is it real?

If it's sincere it will be without offence, without falseness, it will never make anybody stumble to the day of Jesus Christ until we stand before the judgement seat - and fourthly and finally it's a fruitful love. Verse 11: 'Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God' - a fruitful love! This is a love that will give you a holy character. This is different than the fruits of faith, this is not in relation to our service or our activity for God, but this has got to do with our personality, got to do with our character that is dominated by love - not what we do for God, but who and what we are for Him. Love is the root of all righteousness, righteousness is the fruit and love is the root - the root is idealistic, what we believe; but the fruit is realistic, what people see that we are!

What a love Paul had for these believers. F. B. Meyer said the apostle had got so near the very heart of the Lord that he could hear its throb, he could detect its beat, nay it seemed as though the tender mercies of Jesus to these Philippians were throbbing in his own heart! As if the heart of Christ dwelt in Paul! Because he had the heart of Christ his compassion was transformed in all of his human relationships, and it placed his love from a natural and emotional plain onto a supernatural and divine plain - and it enabled him, like God, to love people who are unlovely, to love the unthankful, to love the indifferent, and compelled him even to pray for those whom he loved.

The three themes that we have looked at in this introduction all tell us how to be joyful Christians, and how to be a joyful church. Now listen carefully as I close here today, because this is important: one, the unity of the church will bring us all joy. Do you see if you're a divisive spirit? Stop it or get out! The unity of the church brings joy, the faithful partnership in the Gospel as we work together brings joy, and the growth of our knowledge one toward another as we try to find out how we can love one another better - all of this will bring great joy as we fellowship with one another! Do you remember what they said about the early Church? It marked them: 'Look how they love one another!', it's almost said sarcastically today: 'Look how they love one another'! Our impact on this generation today, I believe, is dependent on how the church gets on with each other.

Paul said: 'Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mystery, and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing'. You know that I love poetry, and I want to read you a poem as we close, it just epitomises and summarises everything that we've learnt so far, and especially what we have learnt this morning. Listen carefully, it's a prayer, I don't know who the author is:

'There was a time when in my daily prayer

I asked for all the things I deemed most fair,

And necessary to my life -- success,

Riches, of course, and ease, and happiness;

A host of friends, a home without alloy;

A primrose path of luxury and joy,

Social distinction, and enough of fame

To leave behind a well-remembered name.

Ambition ruled my life. I longed to do

Great things, that all my little world might view

And whisper, "Wonderful!"

Ah, patient God,

How blind we are, until Thy shepherd's rod

Of tender chastening gently leads us on

To better things!

Ah, Love divine, how empty was that prayer

Of other days! That which was once so fair --

Those flimsy baubles which the world calls joys

Are nothing to me now but broken toys,

Outlived, outgrown. I thank Thee that I know

Those much-desired dreams of long ago,

Like butterflies, have had their summer's day

Of brief enchantment and have gone. I pray

For better things.

Thou knowest, God above,

My one desire now -- Teach me to love'.

Let's pray, and let's ask ourselves as we bow our heads: do we really know that experience in our hearts of the love of God being shed abroad, poured into our hearts? Do we know what it is to feel with the emotions of Jesus Christ, because we have the thoughts that He thinks through the word of God? Can we pray for that abounding, perceptive, sincere, and fruitful love? And will we go away from this meeting now and pray that we will find ways, ingenious ways, of loving our brethren and sisters?

Father, we thank Thee for the love of Jesus, how deep is the love of Jesus - vast, unmeasured, boundless and free - that four-dimensional love that we cannot measure. Lord we pray that it would be poured into our hearts, that it will overflow not only to Thyself as His great love did when He was on the earth and as it still does in glory, but our Father, that it would overflow to those around us in Christ, in the church, and those around us in this district - that they would see the love of God in us, that they would see our good works and glorify our Father which is in heaven. Oh, breathe on us breath of God, fill us with life anew, that we may love what Thou dost love, and do what Thou wouldst do. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - October 2002

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Philippians: Epistle Of Joy - Chapter 5

"Suffering: The Catalyst Of The Gospel"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

Philippians 1:12-18

Now we're turning to Philippians chapter 1 again, and our subject is 'Suffering: The Catalyst of the Gospel', and we begin our reading at verse 12. Let me say while you're looking that up, I forgot to mention that we will be having our early morning prayer meeting as usual on Wednesday morning at seven o'clock, God willing - so please do join us if you can at that.

Verse 12: "But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places; And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will: The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds: But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel. What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice".

I wonder have you ever said to yourself: 'I'm useless'? 'I'm useless, there are other people that God seems to use for good and for the gospel, but I just feel useless!'. Well, I think Paul could have perhaps had the temptation to say that as he is in prison, the great missionary of the Mediterranean, the apostle to the Gentile world - I'm sure there was a temptation for him to think himself: 'Well, I'm not locked up here under house arrest, and I'm useless for God - what good is a suffering, persecuted evangelist that can't reach the lost, that can't go out as a missionary to reach the world around?'.

Well, we find that in this little epistle his reaction and his attitude to his being in prison was the exact opposite, because he's overflowing with great joy - and we learnt in the weeks that have gone by the reason that he had such great joy in the Lord. But ultimately the one common denominator, and the fundamental reason why Paul rejoiced in such grave and awful suffering, was because he knew that through his suffering the gospel of Jesus Christ was being advanced. Through his imprisonment the gospel was going forth in a way, perhaps, that couldn't have been possible but for the fact that Paul the apostle was imprisoned in Rome.

Now I know through my daily visiting to people in hospital, and in their houses going through problems, I know even looking on the television screen and reading the newspapers, and you don't need to even do those things - just walking through and down life's road you know that there are people, even Christians, who feel imprisoned in their lives. That imprisonment can be caused by many and varied reasons, it could be a feeling, as women, that you're imprisoned within your home and all the chores and domestic responsibilities that you have; both men and women may feel imprisoned in their workplace, they work 9 to 5, or perhaps greater hours than that, and they would like to do something for God, but they find that they just don't have as much time as they would like. Some people are shut in, or maybe lying in bed with an illness or disease, or with paralysis, crippled with some kind of ailment, and they feel useless - they feel that something, whether it is something that is a disease or circumstantial in their life, is hemming them in, restricting them, imprisoning them to what they could do and what they feel they could perhaps be for God if that thing wasn't there.

What accentuates the problem, and rubs salt into the wound, is that we often hear, and it's freely heard now with satellite television, charismatic theology that comes across in so many different and varied ways. Our Bible bookshelves are full of all these paperbacks, we get them over the radio preaching that we shouldn't have suffering in our life - and I even hear it said even in our own prayer meeting, that it's not God's will that people should suffer. My friends, we have to be extremely careful in the things that we listen to, to the teachings that we imbibe, and to even the prayers that we pray - because when you imbibe this type of theology and philosophy that it's never ever God's will that anyone should suffer, you then make the conclusion that you are not living God's best if you are experiencing suffering. Then that precipitates a prayer in your life: 'Lord, if I'm not living Your best, and if I'm suffering, then there's something wrong with my life, and I want You to remove this reason for my suffering because I want to be better for You, and I know that I cannot be better unless I am rid of this imprisonment, whatever it may be'.

Now listen very carefully to me, because I don't want to be misunderstood, because it's very easy when you're preaching on the subject of suffering to be misunderstood. I am not talking about things that we can change in our lives. I'm not talking about sins that we can get rid of, that we must get rid of and the word of God commands us to do so - those sins that so easily beset us. I'm not even talking about doubtful things or legitimate things that can weigh us down that we can change, habits that we can put out, habits that we can bring into our lives to make us more godly, to make us more effective and useful for Christ - that is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about imprisonments and circumstances that are purely providential from the hand of God. They have come into your life and there is nothing, humanly speaking, that you can do about it, but you feel that it restricts your service for God.

Now this problem of suffering, human suffering, is one of the profoundest questions - theological and philosophical - that has ever faced the human mind and intellect. It's so difficult to understand. We meet it when we evangelise with people: 'Why does God, if He is sovereign and He can do anything, why does He allow people to suffer?'. Now, I'm not standing up here today claiming that I have all the answers, I have far from all the answers, I may not even have any answers apart from what I can glean from the word of God - but I want you to remember in all of your analysing personally and of others, what they're going through in their life with regards to suffering, I want you to remember always two fundamental things. The first is this: suffering is the result of the fall of man, suffering does not come from God, suffering comes from sin which has been instigated by original sin in our forefathers in the Garden of Eden, from the fall of man. But the converse of that, and the other side of the coin which you must always remember as a Christian is that although God is not the originator of suffering, God in His providence can work for good in suffering. God can take that same suffering and work out His eternal purposes and plans in it.

That is the marvellous thing that we find in this epistle, that God can bring the best results out of the darkest circumstances. Now let's not make the confusion of what I will be speaking on this morning, what Paul is addressing in this book: we're not talking about suffering that results from sin - you get that in the Bible, there is suffering even in the life of a believer that results from sin, and you can see it in the book of 1 Corinthians, and we'll be dealing with it later on in our Bible Reading. Around the Lord's table there were some of them who were weak and sickly, some of them even dying, Paul said, who were asleep because there was sin in the camp as they were breaking bread - they were getting drunk at the Lord's table, it specifically says they were drinking unworthily, unthoughtfully, without thinking it they were coming and drinking at the Lord's table and eating like some kind of a banquet. Their sin brought judgement upon them, and you can have judgement and suffering in your life because of sin, but that's not what we're talking about today.

In the book of Job we find another reason for suffering, we read that Job didn't sin with his mouth when he was in all the talking with God and going through all of his awful experiences - what I believe the book of Job is teaching us, and the path that Job was being brought along by the Spirit of God, was to reveal to him more about the person of God. Job didn't understand all that he needed about God, so God brought him through this process of suffering to reveal more about Himself to him. We can have suffering in our lives because of sin, but we can also have suffering as a discipline in our lives to be drawn nearer to God and have God revealed to us in a way that could only happen through our suffering.

The third reason is found in the personality of Paul the apostle himself, because God can take up suffering and He can use it in His providential sovereignty as a device to prevent sin in our lives as Christians. Paul's thorn in the flesh, that he incidentally came to God three times and prayed that God would remove, God said He wouldn't remove it, His grace would be sufficient for his need at that particular time - but the reason why He wouldn't remove it was because it was for his good. He'd had so many revelations, he'd been shown so many mysteries about the future and about the church Jesus Christ, that the temptation was very great for him to become proud. So God gave him suffering as a device to prevent sin in his life.

The fourth reason, and I don't say that this list is exhaustive, but the fourth reason is what we're looking at today and it's this: suffering can and often is used to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now if you're sitting in our meeting today and you're suffering, can I tell you - provided you're not suffering from sin, and only you can answer that - you may be suffering to learn more about God, you may be suffering to prevent sin in your life, but even if it's one of those latter three that I've mentioned, it can be included in this advancement of the Gospel. You've got to see in your mind and your heart today that your suffering is not a prison! Your suffering is not a barrier to the Gospel, but primarily it is the greatest catalyst to the Gospel that the New Testament knows!

It, above perhaps anything, evangelistically, can precipitate change in your life and in the lives of those people around you. I want you to see from this passage today how the Gospel was advanced through Paul's suffering. Look first of all, he witnessed to the soldiers - we'll see that later - his suffering witnessed to the soldiers. Then his suffering brought encouragement to the church, they were encouraged to preach the Gospel because he was suffering for the Gospel. Then we find that it even motivated other preachers, some of them were rival preachers, some of them were ambitious and selfish, there were some who were perfectly sincere - but the great joy that was brought to the heart of the apostle was in the fact that no matter what or who was preaching the Gospel, Christ was being preached! No matter how much he suffered, no matter what he went through, even regardless of his own imprisonment in Rome, he had overflowing bubbling joy because Christ was being preached!

Now what I want to communicate to you today from these verses is that you will have real joy in suffering if you realise several things. One: if you realise that the Gospel is advanced through your suffering. Look at verse 12: 'But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel'. We ought never ever to lose sight of the Christian doctrine and philosophy that misfortune can serve a good purpose in the eyes of sovereign God. The key to that statement that misfortune can serve a good purpose is the word 'purpose'. Purpose! We are not a people that talk, or we ought not to talk or live according to chance. We don't talk about coincidence, we don't believe in luck or even fate, but we believe in the principle of divine purpose - that there is a God in heaven who is managing our affairs and our lives, and He has ways and plans for us.

Admittedly God's ways and God's plans at times can feel impossible toward us, we can't understand it, it seems absolutely foolish. It seems foolish to me that Paul, the great apostle, is locked up in prison. He is the greatest evangelising force in the Mediterranean word, yes in the church Jesus Christ of his age, yet God lets him get locked up. Now that doesn't make sense to my human rationale and reasoning, I don't understand it, especially when we think of the church that's pitifully small, and this is a death blow to them that their great apostle is locked up! But that's because we can't see the workings and mechanisms of God. Paul says the opposite to what we would think, verse 12, that through his being locked up in prison the Gospel is being advanced - that's what it literally means, advanced. One paraphrase says: 'Everything that has happened to me has been a great boost in getting out the good news concerning Christ'.

To the Philippians it seems like a disaster. Incidentally, isn't it interesting that it is often those who witness suffering that feel the pain the most? Those who are looking on, they're not going through the suffering but they're going through watching the suffering - and it can seem worse to them, because in our human nature and in the nature of the Philippians who helped Paul on previous occasions, they just want to come to his aid, they want to release him from his prison, they want to help him, they want to minister to him, they want to stop all this stuff that doesn't seem to make sense for the Gospel to go abroad. Yet Paul didn't view it in that way, he says: 'No, but this has served as a divine purpose to give a great boost in getting the good news out!'.

Roy Lauren, the Christian author, said this: 'What seemed to sight to be a retardation, was to faith in fact an acceleration'. What seemed to hinder really served to help, what seemed to prevent in actual fact promoted, and what appeared to be misfortune provided a blessing! It wasn't just because of Paul's commitment to the Gospel, or Paul's commitment to Christ, but because in prison Paul was being an effective channel of the Gospel. Can I just say to you: we all pray for many many things, but we all know full well that we don't always get the answers to our prayers that we're looking for, or even the answer that we expect. It was exactly the same with the great apostle Paul. In Acts chapter 19 he expresses his wish to go to Jerusalem, and then 'After I have been there', he says, 'I must also see Rome'. God later on, in chapter 23 of Acts, says Paul: 'For as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also in Rome'. But He didn't tell him how he was going to bear witness, did He? He didn't tell him he was going to be a prisoner, that he wasn't going to be able to go out in the highways and byways and compel them to come in.

God doesn't always tell us everything when He answers our prayers, and maybe things don't turn out the way that we would like them to turn out, but Paul says in encouragement to us all who experience this perhaps on a weekly basis: when we can't make sense of what God is doing in some of His purposes, when we accept by faith it will bring joy, and it will radically affect other people in the Gospel - the Gospel will advance! You will have real joy in suffering not only if you realise that the Gospel is advanced, but also that your testimony is witnessed. Look at verse 13: 'So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace', or the Praetorium, 'and in all other places'. The Romans even were affected by Paul's great joy in his suffering.

You have to remember that Paul probably was obscure to everybody in the city of Rome, he was an unknown, anonymous - but all of a sudden he gets put in prison and everybody knows his name. He becomes a spectacle. He goes from anonymity to the attention of the palace, or literally the Praetorium Guard, the great barracks where all the Imperial bodyguards met and slept and ate. It goes further, it says 'not only in the palace but in all other places'. It all stemmed from him being put in prison. Now his influence wasn't just confined to the church at Philippi, or even the church at Rome, but his influence was going through the whole of the Imperial guard, going through slaves and courtiers and even the general population of the city of Rome.

Paul was in prison, but don't think that he was in - well, I nearly said a prison like our prisons, but he definitely wasn't in a prison like our prisons - he was under house arrest. He wasn't behind bars or anything like that, he was probably in the grounds of the Praetorium, the grounds of that barracks in a little house. In all likelihood there was chained to his arm a Roman Praetorian guard, a soldier, 24 hours a day chained onto the apostle Paul. He would swap over every six hours and do shifts, like many of you do in your work, but imagine what it would've been like to have been that Praetorian guard shackled to the apostle Paul - it would have been a nightmare, in my opinion at least!

When you think and consider that John Mark and Demas - I imagine, maybe reading in a little bit to the narrative in the New Testament - but I think they found it hard going with Paul. Hard going following that little old man with all his disabilities and ailments, yet ploughing on the Gospel into all of Europe. It was difficult, and they forsook him, they left him - but what would it have been like to have been this soldier who had no interest in the Gospel, no interest in Christ, and every day this man is reading the Scriptures, he's on his knees praying and the soldier has to get down on his knees, and then he's maybe fasting, and then he's over in the corner of the room getting his parchment and getting his quill and starting to write a letter to the Philippians or to the Ephesians or some other church. He's up and down in prayers and fastings often, and telling this person of the great gospel and the great joy that he has!

From each one of those soldiers, I believe, each one of them remember every six hours going back to the barracks and another one coming - Paul couldn't get out to preach the Gospel, what was he doing? He was bringing them to him and preaching the Gospel in the circumstances that he found himself in! What an encouragement that is! Paul had a captive audience 24 hours a day of one chained onto his arm! We believe that many were converted, and we believe that the Gospel went into the population of Rome because of that. Now let me point this out to you in case you miss it, that the result of Paul's predicament was out of all proportion to the disadvantage that he suffered! It was out of all proportion to what you would think would be the outcome of being in prison, you would have thought that this type of a revival would happen by the great man standing on Acropolis and preaching the Gospel to all the philosophers, but no: it came disproportionately from the suffering that he endured.

Bishop T.W. Jury (sp?) said: 'The very chain which Roman discipline riveted on the prisoner's arm secured to his side a hearer who would tell the story of patient suffering for Christ among those who the next day might be in attendance on Nero himself'. That's what we mean when we said last Monday night that the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men. Can I ask you this morning: what are your chains? What is your imprisonment? Is it a bed? Is it a sickness? People listening to me on tape who can't get out to join in fellowship with us - what is it? Is it your home? Ladies, is it your kitchen sink? Men, is it the lack of money - an economic imprisonment, you just can't seem to break out of this debt, or the wages don't seem to go up as much as you would like? And you feel that because of these things your life serves no useful purpose. Would you please remember this: you are being observed by other people!

If you have real joy in your suffering they will see it everyday in the office, in the classroom, at home, every hour. What do they see when they scrutinise you? Some people go into the hospital, maybe for a minor operation, and they don't know why it is - but then they get to speak to someone in the right-hand bed, or in the left-hand bed, or a nurse, or a doctor - and for such a time as this, like Esther, they can often be brought into hospital. I've heard it! Brought into hospital to meet someone who they could meet in no other way, to share the Gospel and that person gets saved! Remember in your suffering, although you may feel imprisoned, although you may feel useless, remember that the Gospel potentially can be advanced through your suffering! Your testimony is being witnessed!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you jump up and down and shout 'Hallelujah' when you go through trial. I'm not saying that you have really feel in your heart and work up some kind of emotion: 'Oh this is God's will and I ought to be happy' - but what I want you to see is that suffering above maybe anything else is God's providential pulpit to preach the Gospel. Life has its prisons as well as its palaces, and the sooner we accept that this is God's way of sharing the Gospel with others, many will see it and fear and will trust in the Lord.

Thirdly you will have real joy in suffering if you realise that the church is encouraged. The church is encouraged, verse 14: 'Many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear'. This attitude of joy was contagious, not only among the Roman soldiers, but among the church in Philippi. Kenneth Wuest translates this verse: 'Fearlessly they were breaking their silence and speaking the word'. They were emboldened to preach the Gospel, they had fearful surroundings but when they saw the example of Paul and what he was going through and the joy that overflowed, well they just went out nevertheless and preached the Gospel - and we read that there were many saved.

Now what am I teaching you? It's this: your testimony is being witnessed, but also in the church of Jesus Christ you can never ever know the extent and the significance of how you suffer for Christ - you'll never know! The influence that you're perhaps having at this very moment on other Christians - never underestimate it - by the way that you suffer, the way that you go through pain. It may be that God has to put these chains on you and put you in this prison to help other people, to encourage other people in the church of Jesus Christ. Mothers, it may be that you feel chained because you have to share the Gospel with other mothers. Businessman, you may feel chained because you have to share it with people that I could never reach. Person who is sick with a debilitating disease, you may be able to share the Gospel with other patients that I will never meet. We all have our little parishes to go to and to share the Gospel.

Think of Susanna Wesley, 19 children day after day - what that must have been like before any mod-cons or disposable nappies - and she ploughed her life of godliness and prayer, and two of her sons, John and Charles, turned Britain upside-down for Jesus Christ and we're still living in the influence of it! Fanny Crosby, blinded from six weeks old as a child, but she was not left in darkness with regard to her influence for Jesus Christ - we're still singing her hymns and it brings great joy to the church of Jesus Christ at large, because she realised that the church is encouraged by the way that we face our suffering.

He'll not like me saying this, but there's a young man in Portadown, and after I preach this sermon he will transcribe every word and he will put it on the internet. He is confined to a wheelchair, he has pain daily, but he's doing something out of his suffering that I could never do - and it is advancing the Gospel! It is a testimony that people are seeing and it is encouraging other people and the church of Jesus Christ at large. We in the West need to realise that the church is not advanced through money or through power, but primarily through the suffering witness of the weak. Ask yourself: where is the church advancing in the world today? Is it in the States? Well, it's big in the States, but I wouldn't say it's advancing. We get all this bombardment of church growth literature from the United States, but we don't need the church growth movement of the US, what we need to get back to is the church growth movement of Ecuador! What's that? It's a man and his wife called Jim and Elisabeth Elliot and their little child Valerie, going to the Auca Indians, and Jim goes off on his own with four other missionaries and tries to contact them, and he is slain as a martyr for Christ - and then his wife Elisabeth takes up the mantle and goes into those people who killed her husband and learns their language, and writes down the word of God and shares the Gospel with them and brings her little child up in the midst of them, and they are saved and preaching the Gospel today! What is that? It is the spirit of the imprisoned Paul. How that rebukes us, but how it encourages us - we don't need new methods today, I think the greatest method that we could have is the suffering servant of Jesus Christ!

Fourthly, you will have real joy in suffering if you realise that the enemy is confounded, the enemy is confounded. If you look at verses 15 to 17 you find that some people were preaching Christ outside of prison for jealousy, some for strife, some out of party spirit, and some even to aggravate Paul's imprisonment - they were wanting Paul to get a hiding, proverbially, in prison because the Gospel was advancing outside. They thought: 'If we preach it, he'll get a beating'. Well, who are they? Well, all the scholars speculate, some say Judaisers, I don't think it is the Judaisers, because in all the things that Paul mentions here he doesn't mention that they're preaching a different message. He mentions that they're preaching Christ.

I think what we have here is people that weren't opposed to Paul's doctrine, but people who are opposed to Paul's personality. They're opposed to him as he is as a person, they're jealous of him, they're jealous of his success, jealous of how he gets on with people, how he is a great missionary, maybe because he is the great apostle. I don't think Paul would have rejoiced if they were preaching a false Gospel, in Galatians he anathematises, he curses people who are preaching a false Gospel. But I think what he is saying here is: 'I know these people are against me, I have a personality clash with them, or they have a personality clash with me, but I don't care because Christ is preached, the message is preached, and that's all that I'm worried about!'.

This is tremendous humility, isn't it? The word literally used here for strife and envy and all this is the word that was later used, came to be used, as canvassing for office. You know the politicians make you sick, you see them kissing the little babies and giving them sweets and all the rest, that type of hypocrisy, pretention - they were going to try and be like Paul, or try and be better than Paul, yet they were preaching the message. And Paul said: 'I don't care what their motive is, as long as Christ is preached'. Well, once they got Paul out of their way they saw their opportunity to further and advance not the Gospel, but their own interest and influence, their self-seeking ambition. I think, if I was Paul, I would have got really upset - but what does he do? He gets real joy - why? Because if you believe in a sovereign, loving God who doesn't just put you through life's prisons for kicks but has a purpose, has a plan and a design, you can also believe in a God who can overrule even false preaching and bring people to Christ through it!

It's wonderful, he didn't care! Not that he didn't care about error, but he didn't care to fight battles for his own name - he knew that the wrath of God would praise him. Well, you think of Joseph, that's who I thought of when I was studying - all that Joseph went through, and at the end of his awful life, we haven't got time to go into it but you know about it, but it was said like a summary and a conclusion: 'But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring to pass as it is this day to save much people alive'. Isn't it wonderful that God can even work through the personality clashes? Look at Paul and Barnabas, He overruled it and brought it round for good!

Whether it's emperors persecuting the early Church in the Acts - what was it doing? In effect it was just driving the Christians all over Europe, and driving the Gospel with them! Whether it's the Puritans, King Charles chases them out of the United Kingdom, out of England, but they landed at Plymouth Rock and they founded the great Christian Commonwealth that used to be the United States of America. God meant it for good! And then in the States they had that Civil War, and out of that awful bloody war Lincoln, the great Christian president, he's able to free all the slaves - and what came out of blood came to victory in Christ. Again the wrath of man is turned out for the furtherance of the Gospel! The poet put it like this:

'Careless seems the great Avenger;

History's pages but record

One death-grapple in the darkness

'Twixt old systems and the Word;

Truth forever on the scaffold,

Wrong forever on the throne;

Yet that scaffold sways the future,

And behind the dim unknown

Standeth God within the shadow

Keeping watch upon His own'.

The enemy is confounded even in our suffering. You will have real joy in your suffering if you realise that the Christ is preached. Listen to what he said, he didn't say 'Because I preach Christ'. He didn't rejoice because he was preaching it, he rejoiced because Christ was preached. In modern jargon could I paraphrase it: he couldn't care less as long as Christ is preached! As long as, as he says in Thessalonians, the Gospel has free course. He's not excusing error, he's not saying that we have to be blinded to error, but he's acknowledging that in spite of a system that's unbiblical God can do something not because of the system but regardless of the system!

There's a man here this morning and he was pointed to Christ by a man who wasn't a believer. How do you work that one out? I've heard of people who have heard a pop song, and it has clicked something in their mind; I've heard of people watching a film, seeing a billboard, and it just engenders something in their heart and in their mind because God is sovereign and He can take anything up - even in the most ungodly religions and systems, you see Martin Luther mounting up those steps on his knees bleeding for penance and God reveals to him: 'The just shall live by faith', not works, faith!

Oh, we rejoice that Christ is preached. Let me say, as we close today, we are epistles written unto men. The only Bible that some people will read is you, and they will read how you suffer. This was the Master's method was it not? The Lord Jesus Christ going through such agony and torment on Calvary, but the purpose of His suffering was God's redemptive work and our salvation! Is a servant above his Master? No, Paul says, 'That I may know Him, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus'.

Billy Strachan, who we know and lovingly remember, wrote a little book on the book of Philippians and he called it this: 'You Can Be Fruitful in Your Isolation'. Did you hear that? God has a plan for you to give you life's greatest joy, even in its greatest darkest hours.

Father, we pray this morning for all those in our gathering who are suffering in one way or another. We pray that You will engender that Spirit-given joy shed abroad in their heart by faith, to realise that in their suffering the Gospel can be advanced, their testimony is witnessed, the church is encouraged, the enemy is confounded, and the Christ is preached. Father, help us to suffer well. None of us wants to suffer, but Lord help us that in it we would be on our Father's love relying, Jesus every need supplying, or in living, or in dying, to know all will be well. So help us to take with us this morning that great promise of Thy word, that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose - for we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus, that Man of Sorrows who suffered that we might know the joy of sins forgiven. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins,  Preach The Word - October 2002

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Philippians: Epistle Of Joy - Chapter 6

"The Joy of Suffering Service - Part 1"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

Philippians 1:18-26

Now we're turning in our Bibles to Philippians chapter 1, Philippians chapter 1 beginning to read at verse 18 where we left off - the last verse we studied last Lord's Day morning. We're beginning at that verse again to get the flow of Paul's thoughts as we leave the passage that we thought about last week that spoke to us of how suffering is the catalyst of the gospel, and how Paul's great joy was in the fact that through his own personal suffering and the sufferings of the Philippians and other believers that the gospel is advanced.

So in verse 18 we begin: "What then? Notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith; That your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again".

Last Lord's Day in verses 12 through to 18 we looked at how the suffering of saints, specifically the suffering of the apostle, affected the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We took time to look at how it affected his witness, even in that prison, to the Praetorian Guard. Men, Roman soldiers, were being converted, and they were going back to their barracks and even to the city of Rome and telling others about the great gospel of Christ. The gospel was spreading in a way that we could not have conceived or even planned it to have spread any other way, but that Paul was locked up in this prison cell. We looked at how this suffering for the Gospel advanced the Gospel in the witness and testimony and encouragement it gave to the church of Jesus Christ. Others, within Philippi specifically, were emboldened to go and share the Gospel because of the courage of Paul in doing so even in his bonds.

We saw that the gospel was advanced through his sufferings because the enemy was confounded, and even those who were preaching Christ in contention, who had a personality clash with Paul and really were preaching the gospel so that Paul could suffer even more in prison, it was confounded in the fact that Paul had a transcendent joy that just was exalted in the fact that Christ was preached, no matter how He was preached or who preached Him. We saw finally and most fundamentally that Paul's great joy in his suffering was because out of all these things Christ, ultimately, was preached - that was his great joy, that the name of Christ was uplifted and souls were being saved because of it.

Well now Paul turns personal, and he begins to talk about how his joy in suffering advances the gospel through the apostle. How it witnesses to his own heart, and how we ought to be joyful in our own personal suffering as servants of Jesus Christ. The title of this morning's message is: 'The Joy of Suffering Service'. He's telling us in these verses that joy in suffering affects all our matters in Christian life, Christian service specifically, and even ought to penetrate and impact upon the fundamental issues of life and death.

Now I hope that you know, if you don't I'm going to tell you anyway, that joy is essential to serving the Lord Jesus Christ. Now when I talk about serving the Lord I'm not talking about what we speak of today as 'full-time service', I'm talking about being saved and having a purpose given to us of God. Whatever we do for Christ, and I do trust today that you are doing something for Christ, and specifically doing something for Christ in the local church - the fact is the majority of you aren't, and that's why we're in so much difficulty to get people to do things in this assembly! But even those who are doing things often get discouraged, downhearted, even depressed, and fall by the wayside because they lose the joy of serving the Lord Jesus. It's so important that you have a joy even that transcends the difficulties of serving the Lord Jesus.

It was in Nehemiah 8 and verse 10 that we read: 'The joy of the Lord is your strength'. It is the same in serving the Lord, as Nehemiah was serving the Lord building the walls of Jerusalem, we as we are serving the Lord building up lively stones and putting them, hopefully, in the church of Jesus Christ, the joy of the Lord is our strength - and if we lose that joy we will lose strength, and we will fall. It's essential for serving the Lord, because the joy that we have in serving Him is based on the truth of what we believe in, and that truth that we put our joy upon gives us a great hope for a future joy that is yet to be that comes out of serving Christ, serving Him faithfully and eventually standing before the Bema, the judgement seat of Christ, and getting the reward for serving Him.

Well, Paul had that joy even in the prison cell, and in verse 19 he testifies of it: 'I know' - I know! It was a certainty to him. Oh, isn't it wonderful to know today that Christianity will triumph! It doesn't matter what the intellectuals and the religionists and the politicians and the kings of this world say, it doesn't matter what the media purports and divulges - an effulgence of filth and dirt into our society that is penetrating, making our society not a moral society, not even an immoral society, but an amoral society - without morals at all! But it doesn't matter, because Paul - even locked in a Roman prison cell - was able to say: 'I know that Christianity will triumph'. That brought the apostle great joy. If you remember last week that in spite of both the weaknesses of the proponents of Christianity, he's locked up in jail - the Philippians were afraid it seems - and in spite of the opposition of its opponents, those preaching Christ in contention, the gospel would triumph! Ultimately it would succeed because we don't keep the church, we don't keep the gospel, it is Christ who builds the church and it is Christ's Spirit that advances the gospel.

Oh, that should put iron into your bones right away. If you look at verse 6 that we spent much time on in chapter 1: 'Being confident', again there's his certainty, 'of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ'. He was confident, and it's wonderful to be confident in the sovereignty of a Holy God who has begun a work in us and will continue it, who has begun a work in embryo in the church of Jesus Christ at Pentecost, and will bring that church to triumph in glory. But we must voice some caution: although we believe in the sovereignty of God we find in verse 19 that there was also a responsibility upon men - and I keep saying this, I quote one of the great Scottish reformers when he said that: 'We do not believe in any form of God's sovereignty that nullifies man's responsibility'. God's sovereignty does not make us all into robots.

We see this in verse 19, because although in verse 6 Paul had said that God had begun a work, He'd instigated it and He would consummate it when he was standing before God in Christ, perfect in the likeness of Christ, although that is so and we can be sure because of God's sovereignty and God's choice in our lives - Paul was thanking these Philippians that his salvation would come through their prayers and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Now that does not mean that we are saved by the prayers of others, far from it - but Paul is saying this: from the moment that God saved him until the moment he stands before God in eternity, he would be, humanly speaking, relying on the prayers of the Philippians believers and also relying on the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ to get him there in the end. Do you see the balance? It is Christ's finished work, it is the work of the Holy Spirit in us that will get us to glory, but don't ever negate the responsibility that is on ourselves, and indeed the responsibility of the church where Christ has placed us, to help us along the way to get there.

Don't dilute the word 'salvation' in this verse 19, because salvation is not just a thing that happens to you on the night that you were converted, it's a past thing, it happened at Calvary. In fact, you can go further before the foundation of the world when the church was chosen in Christ, and then you go to Calvary where we were saved by the blood of Christ and His redemption, and then you move on to your conversion experience - but it's not just past, its present now. We are being saved and sanctified and turned more and more into the image of Jesus, and there is a salvation yet to come - either when we're raptured and go to be with the Lord in the air, or when we die and our body goes to the grave and on the resurrection morn our bodies come out of the grave and spirit and soul are joined, and the redemption, the salvation of the body which is nearer now than when we first believed. Salvation has three aspects: past, present and future, but what Paul speaks of here is the future aspect - his deliverance one day that God would bring him to. But if God was going to bring him to it, along the way He would help him by the prayer of Christians and the power of the Spirit, that is what would sustain him on the way.

How important is the prayer meeting? It could be as important as you being on the way to glory! I hope you're there - it distresses me that there are some here, and I'm looking at your faces, and you are regularly absent from the prayer meeting - God forgive you! Do you realise that the lack of your prayers could be the reason why there are certain folk backslidden? I'm not saying that they aren't responsible, but could your prayers have helped them as it helped Paul while he was in prison to withstand temptation to deny the Lord? He wanted not to be ashamed on that day, and one of the strengthening aspects was the prayers of these believers.

Well, it helped him in his goal, and in verse 20 we read that he had an earnest expectation and a hope that in nothing he would be ashamed '...but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body'. He was absorbed with an earnest expectation, a goal - now that word 'earnest expectation' in the Greek language it's one word but it has three elements, the first element is the word 'away', the second element is the word 'the head', and the third element is the word 'to watch'. Now you put them altogether and this is the idea that it combines: watching something with the head turned away from all other objects - almost to be distracted, but to be distracted in an ordered way. In other words, he was ignoring everything else in life but this one earnest expectation, that he would get to the judgement seat of Christ and not be ashamed.

I feel condemned in my own heart already. Can I ask you this morning, we're not going to rush through this: are you occupied with one thing in life? And is that one thing how you will stand before Christ on the judgement day? It's not, I'll tell you why it's not: because this church would be on fire. To the exclusion of all other things, Hugh mentioned the verse speaking to the children, and he says and reiterates the sentiment in verse 13 of chapter 3: 'Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus'. Expending every effort as he runs and speeds toward the finishing tape, and if Paul needed that focus, do we not need that focus today? Do we not need the prayers of the saints? Do we not need the power of the Spirit? Oh, we're saved, and God who has begun a work in us will accomplish it, praise Him - but we are not exempt from the responsibility along the way!

It rebukes this attitude of those who just sit in the pew and drink up the sermons week after week after week, and never pray, never have a devotional time with the Lord, never have a walk or a witness! Where are you? God help you on that day. You'll be saved, but Paul says in Corinthians that you will be saved though as by fire - in other words, you will get in by the skin of your teeth. Well, through their prayers and through the Spirit's power there are several things that Paul knew that he would have even in prison. The first thing is this: the joy of not being ashamed of denial. He wanted in nothing that he would be ashamed, but with all boldness that he would always, so as now, Christ be magnified in his body. He's talking about the judgement seat, and he doesn't want to be ashamed when he gets there.

You see it preached today at times, you'd think it was some kind of School Prize Giving, where Jesus was going to give you a golden star and give you a pat on the back, and say: 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into the joy prepared by thy Lord'. You look at Revelation chapter 1, and you look at the fiery penetrating x-ray eyes of Jesus Christ the exalted Son of God, and you tell me that it will be a comfortable experience? John talked of it in his first epistle, chapter 2 verse 28: 'Little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming'. Paul was concerned that the believers pray for him, that the Spirit's supply would be given to him, because he didn't want on that day to be ashamed of the way he lived. Will you be ashamed on that day of the way that you've lived?

He didn't want to be ashamed of the way he had died. He wanted to die as a courageous soldier of Jesus Christ, he didn't want to be ashamed of the way he had suffered. What will be Christ's verdict of me? You know, that terrifies me: so much so that on the computer, several years ago I think it was, I got a big piece of white paper and I printed a little word in the middle of it: 'Bema' - and I stuck it on the wall. That's all that matters.

Paul's joy was that he would not be ashamed on that day, but the second thing that is really fundamental to these verses and the crux of them all is the joy of not being afraid of death. The joy of not being afraid of death. Now we heard from our brother Bill Freel not so long ago how important the body is, and everything that he said was absolutely correct. In Romans chapter 12 and verse 1 Paul exhorts us: 'I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your expected worship'. It is expected, it's not a higher Christian life, it is expected of a believer to give the body over to the Saviour, to be a temple of the Holy Spirit - not in the intention to glorify the body, but in the intention that God would be glorified in the body. As one author has said, that the body should become the workshop of the Carpenter of Nazareth.

The body is like an earthly frame for the heavenly picture of the life of Jesus in us. Paul could say in another place that we are vessels of clay, that the priceless jewels and treasures of the life of God should be manifest in us. Paul wanted to magnify Christ in his body, and we are told to magnify Christ in our bodies. You know what a microscope is, you go into a scientific lab and you see this instrument that makes little things big - that's not what Christ is talking about through His Spirit in Paul. He's talking more about a telescope, a microscope makes little things big, but a telescope makes things that are really big loom big to you. Things perhaps that are at a distance, like the sun, the moon, or even a star, and they look like a little speck on the distant frame of the sky, but when you look through the telescope it becomes the likeness of what it really is. The Lord Jesus in His Spirit through Paul is telling us: 'I am distant many people's minds, in their sight they just cannot see Me', but if Christ is magnified in your body One who is bigger than the whole universe will loom the size that He really is - Christ magnified in our bodies.

That's our job. It is the sentiment of many of the Psalms: 'O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together'. Paul is saying: 'Whether in life or whether in death this is my one goal, this is my achievement, to magnify Christ in my body'. He is saying: 'I wish nothing else of myself, nothing'. He's expressing the sentiment of John the Baptist: 'He must increase and I must decrease, I must be eclipsed by God's Sun of Righteousness'. Do you know what happened to Paul's body? Paul's body died to Paul. People talk about the secret of the Christian life - I don't think there's just one secret, there are many secrets and they're all open within the word of God - but one of them is simply this: we have to die to ourselves. Paul's body was not a vehicle for him to live Paul's life through, but he realised that it had become sanctified by the blood of Christ as a vehicle to magnify the life of Christ in his body, whether through life or through death.

That's the reason why he had joy in not fearing death, his body was already dead to Paul! He wasn't trying to hold unto a life, he wasn't watching the life go through his fingers like water or like sand, and trying to grab hold of it again before it all disappeared. His life already was gone, Paul the apostle was dead to Paul, and that is why he could be killed. You know you can't kill a dead man, can you? He's already dead! He doesn't fear death, and you can't talk about a dead man - you can talk about him, but it doesn't affect him because he's dead to the opinions of other people. You can't offend him because he has no self to be offended. As one man said: 'If you've got no pride, it won't be hurt'.

Oh, do you see the secret to Paul not fearing death? It was the fact that he had nothing to lose - in fact, all that he had in death was to gain! 'For me to live is Christ, and I live as Christ as a dead man to Paul, but alive to Christ - and for me to die is gain, because then I will be actually dead and I'll still live on for Christ!'. What did he say in the book of Galatians? 'I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me'. Do you know what Paul was? You mightn't realise this, but he was locked up in prison, he had a Praetorian guard shackled to his arm, and you would look at him and pity him and think: 'I wish that man was free, because the Gospel would just explode in Europe if he was' - but Paul the apostle was the freest man in the world, the freest man in the world! Because he was dead to himself! The poet said:

'I free myself from all belief

That I am bound by pain or grief.

The things that others do and say

Erect no barriers in my way.

All past mistakes I leave behind

New courage, hope, and joy I find

As I begin this day I free myself from lack of fear,

The habits formed in yesteryear,

Old grievances are laid away

And with a hopeful heart I pray,

That in my body soul and mind

A worthy channel God will find

To do His work this day'.

His joy was that he could not be killed because he was already dead! But there are three other aspects to Paul's view of death that I want to share with you just as we close our meeting today. His joy in not being afraid of death is found in verse 20, because Christ is exalted in death as well as in life. The second part: '[so that] Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death'. You know, Paul was exalting Christ in his life - I think you all would agree with me there - but you know, never forget that the words that we read are the words of a Christian martyr.

James the apostle is the only apostle that we read of as a martyr, and how he died as a martyr. We know from tradition, at least we believe from tradition, that all the apostles were martyred. Tradition tells us that James the brother of John was slain by Herod's sword; it tells us that Philip crucified in Hierapolis in Phrygia; James the Lest was clubbed to death in Jerusalem; we read of Andrew that he was crucified at a place called Odessa; we read of Thomas that he was thrust through with a spear in India. Tradition tells us that Simon the Zealot was crucified; Thaddeus was crucified at Odessa again; Bartholomew was beaten and crucified in India; Peter the apostle was crucified in Rome - and tradition tells us that he was crucified, by request, upside-down because he felt that he was unworthy to die in the same way as his Lord. John, exiled to Patmos, from whom we have the book of the Revelation, it's believed that he was horribly martyred by being cast into a pot of boiling oil. Matthew was beheaded in Ethiopia, Paul beheaded in Rome - all of them dying for Christ, why? Because they couldn't be killed, they were dead already!

They were succeeded by a glorious succession of heroes like the Huguenots, the Covenanters, the Reformers - we could go on and on, and people even dying for their faith today as we speak in the church worldwide at large - but they were already martyrs, that's what I want you to see! They were already martyrs! Not that they died outwardly, but they had died inwardly - and when you've died inwardly then it's not a problem to die outwardly! Oh, I love that hymn, and you would know because I never stop getting you to sing it, 722: 'Make me a captive, Lord'. Paul in prison asking:

'Make me a captive, Lord,

Then I shall be free.

Force me to render up my sword,

And I shall conqueror be.

I sink in life's alarms

When by myself I stand,

Imprison me within Thine arms

And strong shall be my hand!'

He had joy in not fearing death because Christ was exalted in his death as well as in his life, but secondly in verse 21: because life means opportunities, but death means gain. Life means opportunities, but death means gain: 'For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain'. If Paul lived he knew that his ministry and his mission would be fruitful, and that fruit would go to his reward in eternity. If he lived on he would use all the opportunities he had, but do you know what I find here, a principle: that life for Paul was labour, and death for Paul was rest. Life was labour, and eternity was rest. Listen now: there was no retirement for Paul the apostle! There was no sitting about waiting for God: to live was to labour. That's why he told the Corinthians: 'Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord; forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord'.

Now in Rome death was the king of terrors, under the Jewish law death was seen as the penalty for transgressing the law, the judgement of God. But as Paul looks at death he doesn't see it as a terror, he doesn't see it as a penalty of the law, but he sees himself not entering into Abraham's bosom like the Old Testament saints, but entering directly into the actual presence of Jesus Christ to be with Christ, his body awaiting resurrection! Is that the way you think of death? Do you think of death as gain? That's what it is, I know it's hard to think of it that way, but Paul says that it's the final consummation of the whole progression of sanctification that was begun in your salvation. In life Paul was totally consecrated to Christ, and in death he expects to totally possess Christ. If I can read a paraphrase of that verse: 'Life means Christ to me, as I more fully know and love and serve Him day by day; death means Christ to me, when I shall finally possess and eternally enjoy Him'.

Death for him was certainty, it wasn't uncertainty. It was a conscious existence, not an unconscious oblivion. It was to be with Christ, not to just be in a grave. It was very much far better, not a dreadful or a tragic thing. It was a part of life, not a conclusion or a finish of life. It was a beginning, not an ending. It was a commencement, not a ceasing - it was life on a grander scale! He could joy not fearing death because Christ is exalted in death as well as in life, because life means opportunities but death is gain - and can I say to you that this gave Paul the apostle a terrible dilemma, a terrible dilemma. Do you know it gives you a terrible dilemma too?

What was his dilemma? His dilemma was this: what will I choose? If life is good because it's Christ, and if death is gain because I'm with Christ, which will I choose? Which would you choose? Paul says: 'I am hard pressed between the two' - would you be hard pressed between the two? I think not! If I was to ask you this morning: which is the selfish answer, to die or to live? Which is the selfish one? You would probably say: 'Well, to live is the selfish one, isn't that right?'. To live and to keep your life, to not go to be with Christ, to not go to your reward - do you know what Paul says? 'No! The selfish one for me is to die. The selfish one is to go to be with Christ, because I'm needed down here, and I know that when I get up there it will be joy, it will be reward, it will be peace in the presence of Christ!'. Can I say that that, if anything, rebukes an attitude that sometimes we have toward the second coming of the Lord Jesus: the endtimes, the Lord's coming soon, all these things are coming on the stage of prophecy, and we sit idle and let people go to hell because Jesus is near! I believe He's near, I believe prophecy, but sometimes the privilege of dabbling in our prophetic crystal ball is taken from us because of the awesome responsibility that there is now! It is more needful that I abide in the flesh!

There is much, Paul says, that needs to be done, and he was willing to forget all his own enjoyment in heaven for what was necessary. But he says, he confesses: 'My real desire is to depart'. 'It's a difficult choice', he's saying, 'I want, really, to depart, but it's more necessary for me to stay'. We in the West still see death as a terror, don't we? Society's highest goal is to prolong life, the postponement of death for as long as is medically and physically possible. We're obsessed with physical life as it is in our bodies, the church is obsessed with the here and now, with materials and with comfort - and our comfort in this life is in life, in living! But Paul's comfort was in dying. Our pain is in death, but Paul's pain was in living.

Almost every principle in these verses, and we haven't finished them and neither are we going to this morning, but almost every one of them challenges the Western perception of the Christian life. People today are becoming more individualistic, Paul was saying here: 'You need to depend upon one another's prayers, and depend upon the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ'. He challenges our complacency because we are saved and we're on our way to glory, eternal security that denies the perseverance that we need, as he will say later, to make our calling and our election sure! It challenges our comfort! He tells us: 'Comfort is never a priority in the Christian pilgrimage!'. He challenges the theme of our prayers, listen to them: 'Lord, heal so-and-so; Lord, dull their pain; Lord, give them money; Lord, give them food'. I don't say that those prayers are wrong, but often they are from selfish motivation because we know that we don't want to feel pain, we know that we don't want to hunger, we don't want to be naked, we don't want to die - but Paul could say: 'It is very much far better'.

We must leave it there, but can I ask you: if God whispered into your ear now, which is it for you? To live, or to die? Which would it be?

Let us pray, you know what perhaps one of the greatest fears that I have is? Not being poor now, not being unknown now, not being a failure now; but being poor, a failure, and unknown at the judgement seat. Oh, I know His grace will cover it all, no doubt about it, but I want to give to Him as much as I can - and now is the time! Friends, some of you haven't got long - I say it lovingly, compassionately from my heart - some of you are wasting away your lives and you couldn't care less! Paul says forget the past, redeem the time, and with what is left press on.

Father, our power is faint and low till we have learned to serve, we want the needed fire to glow, we want the breeze to nerve; it cannot drive the world until itself be driven, its flag can only be unfurled when Thou shalt breathe from heaven. Breathe upon us, Lord, and help us to present our bodies today, our body, soul and spirit to Thee as a sacrifice. Lord, let us be fools for Christ today, that we will not be fools in eternity. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - October 2002

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Philippians: Epistle Of Joy - Chapter 7

"The Joy of Suffering Service - Part 2"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

Philippians 1:18-26

Philippians chapter 1, and if you remember - I'm sure you can't remember - the last time I was here on a Sunday morning, the last time we were ministering on these verses the subject was 'The Joy of Suffering Service', and we didn't have time to finish that study, so we're finishing it off this morning. We'll begin reading at verse 18 right through to verse 26, so it's the second part of 'The Joy of Suffering Service'.

"What then? Notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith; That your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you".

I don't know whether you know the gospel hymn, and many of these new Southern Gospel groups - not so much new, but they're new to us, as we get these Gaither videos and records and CDs and all the rest - one of the songs that they sing that has touched my heart in recent days is:

'The longer I serve Him,

The sweeter He grows.

The more that I love Him,

More love He bestows.

Each day is like heaven,

My heart overflows:

The longer I serve Him,

The sweeter He grows'.

It's beautiful words, and it's set to a beautiful tune, and of course they sing it beautifully - but I wonder is that our experience as we serve the Lord Jesus Christ? As Tozer has said, and I often say it: 'Christians don't tell lies, they just sing them'. Do we sing things that we really don't know as an experience in our lives? Can we say that the longer we serve the Lord Jesus the sweeter He grows? The more we love Him, more love He bestows? Each day in serving Him is like heaven, and our hearts overflow? Can we say that?

The answer that we may give is: 'No, we can't say that', because, as we have served the Lord, difficulties have come along our path - we've been disappointed and dejected, we've been hurt by other Christians, perhaps people that we've been working with. There has been a bitterness that has entered into our service for the Lord, and the joy of the service that we gave to Christ that we once knew has disappeared in the midst of sorrow and trial, heartache, distress, maybe even temptation and falling into sin. Well friends, I want you to see very clearly today that Paul went through more difficulties, more trials and tribulations and testing and temptations, than perhaps any of us or all of us will ever go through - but Paul was able to testify in a most wonderful way that he knew the joy of God deep down in his heart, that is the joy that passeth all understanding, that peace that transcends all the storms and all the difficulties, and it was rooted deep down in his heart as an anchor that even sheltered in the storms.

We know that because he rejoiced in the very fact that through his sufferings the gospel was being advanced, through what he was going through in prison, not only through the encouragement that it was to the church in Philippi - and they were encouraged through Paul's witness to go out and spread the gospel - but those centurions that were coming, those soldiers from the Praetorian guard that were chained to Paul on a daily basis, were hearing the gospel on a one-to-one capacity. They were going back to the camp, to the Praetoria, and they were witnessing to what was going on - and we know that many in the whole city of Rome were converted through this great witness of Paul in the midst of trial and heartache and in his problems.

We found in the last study that we looked at that Paul enters now, in verses 18 to 26, to talk about how his suffering in service has affected him personally, how it has affected his personal salvation, and he actually uses that word in verse 19: 'For I know that this shall turn out to my salvation through your prayer'. Now what does that mean? That Paul didn't know whether he was saved or not, he didn't know whether he was going to heaven, whether he was born again? That's not what it means! Paul was sure, he said in another place: 'I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day'. We have the teaching and the doctrine of eternal security through the apostle Paul more than any other teacher of the Word of God, especially in the great epistle of the Romans. That's not that this means, but when we understand that salvation is a past experience, a present experience, and a future experience - we have been saved, but we are continually being saved on a daily basis as God sanctifies us more and more, and one day we will realise our full salvation when our old bodies will be redeemed, and when body, soul and spirit will be united together again, and we'll be taken up to be with the Lord Jesus Christ in glory - that's what the apostle means when he says that our salvation is nearer today than the hour we first believed.

Well, we saw that what got Paul through all these difficulties was twofold: there was the sovereignty of God, the Spirit, the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ in verse 19; but there was also their prayers, and it's so important that we realise that if we are going to get to glory one day and stand before the Lord Jesus Christ blameless and not be ashamed of what we've done for Christ, one: we must rely on God's power, the power of His Spirit in our life; but also we need the prayers of our brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, because he was filled with the Holy Spirit, and because the church at Philippi and other churches were praying fervently for the apostle Paul, he was given by God - verse 20 - an earnest expectation and hope. He was given a desire, an earnest expectation and hope - and we looked at the Greek word and we found that it's made up of three elements. It's the combined idea, if I can translate it like this: watching for something with the head turned away from other objects. Watching for something, and being only occupied with that thing to the exclusion and the ignorance of anything else. In other words, Paul had a goal, and he would let nothing else in his life detract him or distract him from his one goal.

Now mark: it was given by the Spirit of God, and it was realised by the prayer of God's people. He expresses that goal, doesn't he, in chapter 3 and verse 13: 'Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do' - there it is, to the exclusion of all other things - 'forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press', and the picture is of the neck of a horse racing, stretching over the finishing line for the win, 'I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus'. Now here is a man, and I want you to mark it well because you'll not see too many men and women like this in the day and age we live in, here is a man who is expending all his strengths, all his energies, all the wealth of the riches that God's Holy Spirit has given to him, and all the very prayers of the saints for one goal: that he may be honoured of God on the day when he is resurrected out of the grave, and he stands before Jesus Christ as his Judge.

Paul knew that what would give him joy, more than anything else in his service, was to know that on that day he would not be ashamed - isn't that right? That he would never be ashamed of denying the Lord Jesus, he says it: 'In nothing', verse 20, 'I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death' - that whatever he would suffer in that prison, if he would ever be tortured again, if he would ever be stoned and left for dead, or left shipwrecked, that he would never deny the Lord! No matter what hardships, pains, trials, disappointments and let-downs he would have, that he would never turn his back on the Lord Jesus.

My friend, I know, I know how hard it is to work for the Lord at times. I know how hard it is at times to take from God's people what you have to take, but I hope to God I never deny the Lord and turn my back upon His work. I wonder is there someone here today, and you've been made bitter by something that someone else has done, by a heartache, by a trial - maybe you're accusing God of letting you down, and you've given up so much for Him, and you've tried to do so much, and He's brought an illness or a sickness or some other problem into your life, into your family. I'm asking you today, not in the light of what you're going through today, not in the light of what this other brother or sister has done toward you, but in the light of those eyes that are as blazing fire of the Son of God, that will look into the depths of your being at the judgement seat of Christ and will burn up everything that is not of God and is of the flesh and of self and sin, in the light of that I'm asking you: will you be ashamed on that day? I hope you're not, because you'll wish you could put back time and undo everything that you've done, and you'll wish you had given Him more.

Paul knew also that his joy in service would depend upon not being afraid of death. In life or death he hoped that Christ would be magnified in his body, in other words if he was caused to suffer in life that he would suffer without denying Christ, and if he was caused to die for Christ that he would die with dignity and honour for Christ. He goes on to say this tremendous statement: 'For to me to live is Christ, but to die is gain'. He wanted nothing in life or in death but Christ!

I don't know whether I'm going to get through all this today, because these statements are worth stopping for a moment and pondering. Is all that we want in life or in death Jesus Christ? Is that all that matters to the exclusion of all other things and occupations? It wouldn't be hard to test. I don't believe attendance to meetings is a thermometer of your spirituality, you could be coming to meetings and be as dead as a dodo - but I'll tell you this, if you're not with God's people there's something wrong. If you can miss a Sunday evening or a Sunday morning, and go out for the day for a picnic, or your own recreation, there's something wrong. Is He the pre-eminent One? The Baptist could say: 'He must increase, I must decrease'.

We found out, and this is what I want to bring back to your remembrance, because it outflows in everything else that we're going to have to say today: the reason why Paul was in this state and attitude and disposition, that for him to live and suffer was Christ, and to die was gain, was because Paul was already on the cross! Paul had already been crucified, Paul had already been killed! 'I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; but it is not I that live, but Christ that liveth in me. And the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me'. The reason why Paul could suffer, and that Paul could die, and do it all with joy, was because Paul was already dead.

This is were the rubber hits the road, and if you want any secret to the Christian life this is it: to know that there are two crosses. There is the cross on which the Lord Jesus died, and bore your sin; but the other cross on which you must die. Roy Hession talked about it in his book 'The Calvary Road', some of you have bought it in the Bible Reading not so long ago, I hope you've read it - but he quotes a little verse that I often quote in prayer: 'Lord, bend that stiff-necked I, help me to bow the head and die, beholding Him on Calvary who bowed His head for me'.

I know we've been to Calvary for the cleansing blood, that's not what I'm asking you, I'm asking you: have you been to Calvary and seen your own body on that cross? For until you get to that position, you'll never suffer with joy, and even die with joy as Paul did - for he could say life means Christ to me, and as I more fully know and love and serve Him day by day; death means Christ to me, when I shall finally possess and eternally enjoy Him. It's far better! It's not a tragedy to die for Paul, because he was already dead - and because of that he had a dilemma! 'I'm caught betwixt these two choices, I'm in a strait between two: I have a desire to depart to be with Christ, which is far better, but I know that you need me - what will I do?'. Boys-a-dear, if you asked me that question I know what I'd do - I'd be staying! Wouldn't you?

I asked you, and I'll ask you again for it's important - and don't think that I have no message this morning, and I'm just going over the last one, I want you to remember it! If I was to ask you what is the selfish choice, staying on earth or going to heaven, what would you say? You would say: 'Staying on earth, that's the selfish choice' - that wasn't the selfish choice with Paul, his selfish choice was going to heaven because his treasure, his life was in heaven, because he believed Jesus who said that those who lose their life will find it again! That's why it was selfish for him to go and get his reward, and he chose the unselfish choice which was to stay with the Philippians because it was more needful for them - he was able to forget his own enjoyment. Didn't we see at the very outset of the study of this epistle that this is what this book is all about: setting aside yourself, you, I, me, and mine, me and my four and no more - setting all that aside, humbling yourself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross - isn't that what it is? Let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus - that will bring you joy.

Now, we have to stop and ponder Paul's view of death for a moment, because this is very important. Paul's view of death is essentially the Christian view of death, and this is why he was not afraid of it. Now, you look at these verses, he talked about going to be with Christ in various ways in many of his epistles. One phrase he says: 'To depart and be with Christ is far better', and he uses picture language and illustration, and the first one is this: 'to depart'. The illustration here is threefold - one is of the dissolution of a chemical, that's what this word means in the Greek, to dissolve a chemical. If you go home and you get a headache after listening to me for half an hour this morning, and you get one of those big tablets - incidentally, I was in Scotland not so long ago, and you'll like this one: this lady was at a dinner and she had a real problem with a headache that particular morning, and she hadn't any panadols or paracetamols on her, so she asked for one - and a lady give her one of these big ones. She took a glass of water, and she popped it in her mouth and she swallowed it, and about 10 minutes into the dinner she was foaming at the mouth - and they had her on the floor going to give her CPR and everything, I think they thought she was demon possessed - so don't be doing that. When you drop it into the water, what do you see? You see the tablet beginning to dissolve, and it literally disappears, doesn't it? It disappears, but it's there, the substance is still there but you just can't see it. Paul is saying that that's what death for the Christian is, they disappear, you no longer see their visage that you've known for so long, but they're still there. It's a dissolving, they don't cease to exist.

How many atheists in our day don't believe in the resurrection? I was reading yesterday, and I've forgotten the chemical that it is, but one man on one occasion asked an atheist: 'If I drop this big lump of silver into this chemical would it dissolve? Is that not a seeming impossibility?'. And whatever chemical it was, the silver did dissolve - but he said to the atheist: 'You're not going to tell me that the silver is not there?', and he had to admit: 'You're right, the silver is there'. Apparently when you put salt water into this particular chemical, that which has dissolved comes together again in one big clump of unrecognisable silver, and then the silversmith comes along with his hammer and makes a new creation out of it!

We only have to look to nature, don't we? We see those branches on the trees at this time of year that are almost hollow, when you hit them you can hear that hollow noise off them, they're dead - there's no leaves or buds coming from it, it's all brown and black and dead, but there is a day coming in springtime when it will bud forth new life, and the whole of creation praises God for the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is the Prince of life! Isn't He? Well, this Greek word can be used as well for the lifting of an anchor, to depart - to lift an anchor. In other words, to move from one shore on to another. What happens when you leave the shore? It's what's called an horizon, and it says 'thus far and no further' - and you can't see when that ship goes over the horizon, and goes down the globe, it seems to have disappeared, but you and I both know that it hasn't disappeared. We can't see it, we can't hear it, but we know that the anchor is being set down on another shore.

The third usage of this word 'to depart' and be with Christ is used of the striking of a tent, a journey after sleep. In other words, when you rise and take the tent pegs out, and you pull the tent down and fold it up and put it on your camel, and you go further. Paul talks about this in Corinthians, where he says: 'For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; and for this we groan earnestly, desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven'. Do we groan for that? Do you see how Paul talks about the leaving? The dissolution of a chemical, the lifting of an anchor, the striking of a tent. Guy King said: 'The storm-tossed mariner sailing away in his last ocean voyage, to the haven where he would be; the battle-scarred warrior, marching away off the field of war for his sovereign review', when the Christian dies all the uncertainties of danger and life are ended, and they're left behind - and there is this leaving of this world, but praise God it's not just a leaving, but it's a receiving!

What do I mean? For to depart and be with Christ is far better, very much far better - it is to be with Christ. We're with Him now, aren't we, with His Spirit by fellowship? Day by day we feel His presence, even this morning, but this is more than just a relationship that we have now, but the relationship of further intimacy that is still awaiting us in glory - which is immeasurably far better than down here. There's times when we're in fellowship with the Lord, and we feel we could almost reach out and touch the Lord, we feel we could feel Him - the sense of His presence and His power. But friends, what will it be like when we see Him face-to-face - it is immeasurably far better! It is the best by far, Paul says. If you could see this giant of faith, imagine what he was like in prison: all the church is worried about him and praying for him, and he thinks perhaps he's going to be executed - that was a distinct possibility at the start, although it didn't happen, and then eventually he knew it wouldn't happen, as he says here it was necessary for him to stay, but he didn't know that at the beginning, and they didn't know it. They thought he was going to die, they don't know what tortures he's going through, and perhaps they were sitting in their church, and by the side of their lovely comfortable fire, saying: 'Oh, poor Paul, poor Paul'. My friend, he didn't see himself as poor, he saw himself as immeasurably rich - if he was to suffer for Christ it would be wonderful; and if he was to die, well, then it would be gain.

How do we view death? We live in a society, in this Western materialism in which we live, it stifles this Christian spirit of God's people dying well. We don't have a dilemma before us about whether to go and be with Christ or stay - there's no dilemma at all, we just want to stay for as long as we can! We put as many pills in us - and I have to watch what I say - but we run and do exercises, eat healthy and all the rest, to try and stay on this earth as long as possible...but you know, Paul is urging us to selflessness in our suffering. I'll tell you, we could take a good leaf out of the book of the people across our world who are suffering in the persecuted church, and last Sunday was the international day of prayer for the persecuted church.

I read recently about an Iranian believer who learned Paul's perspective on death and suffering, and what a lesson it provides for us in the West today. His name is Medi Dija, I can hardly pronounce his name, but he was imprisoned by the Iranian government in 1984 on charges of apostasy, simply because he believed in the Lord Jesus and had converted from Islam to Christianity. The penalty for that crime of apostasy, according to Islamic law, was death. This man languished in prison for 10 years before his case came trial, and when it did his written statement of defence was a simple straightforward reaffirmation of his commitment to Jesus Christ. This is the last few lines of his defence, and I want you to hear it and see the similarity with Paul: 'Jesus Christ is our Saviour, and He is the Son of God. To know Him means to know eternal life. I, a useless sinner, have believed in His beloved Person and all His words and miracles recorded in the Gospel, and I have committed my life into His hands. Life for me is an opportunity to serve Him, and death is a better opportunity to be with Him. Therefore I am not only satisfied to be in prison for the honour of His holy name, but I am ready to give my life for the sake of Jesus my Lord'. On December the 12th 1993, the court before whom his defence was made sentenced him to execution, and then under intense pressure from the West including the US State Department, the Iranian government arranged his release in January 1994. Seven months later he was found dead under suspicious circumstances in a Tehran park, the third Christian to be murdered in Iran after his release from prison. Most people believe the government was compliant in his death.

But friends, he got his wish, didn't he? Do we see it like that? John and Betty Stam are martyred by the Communists in China, and before Betty is put to death she's holding that baby in her arms, and she literally watches her own beloved husband beheaded before her eyes. She's asked: 'Are you afraid?'. She says: 'Afraid? Afraid of what? Afraid to do by death what our life couldn't do?'. She stood and was beheaded, and the baby fell into the dust - and the two of them united in eternity. My friend, if you want to never be ashamed at the judgement seat, if you want never to be afraid of death just like Paul, you need to allow the Holy Spirit to put you to death now, be a martyr for Christ now in the spirit, and then you will never be afraid and you will be given the spirit to persevere and not be ashamed. Babcock the poet put it like this:

'Why be afraid of death

As though your life were breath?

Death but anoints your eyes

With clay, oh glad surprise!

Why should you be forlorn?

Death only husks the corn.

Why should you fear to meet

The Thresher of the wheat?

Is sleep a thing to dread?

Yet, sleeping, you are dead

Till you awake and rise

Here, or beyond the skies.

Why should it be a wrench

To leave yon wooden bench?

Why not with happy shout

Run home when school is out?

Dear ones left behind,

Oh foolish one, and blind!

A day and you will meet,

A night and you will greet.

This is the death of death:

To breathe away a breath,

And know the end of strife,

And taste the deathless life,

And joy without a fear,

And smile without a tear,

And work nor care to rest,

And find the last is best!'

Can you give it all over to God? My friend, Paul chose the choice of staying for it was far better for his friends. Now here's the test now, I want you to get this in our closing couple of minutes, here's the test whether your life has been hid with Christ in God and put to death, and you're not living for self any more but you're living for Christ and for His glory, whether He be magnified in your body by life or by death. Here it is: are you convinced of your purpose on earth? It was needful for Paul to stay for these Christians, what is God's chosen work for you now? Have you any reason to stay? I hear people saying to me: 'The Lord hasn't called me yet, so He must have something for me to do' - do you know what I think most of the time? He's still waiting for the thing to be done that He told you to do 30 years ago! Are you doing something for the Lord, that He would have to say: 'I can't take him home now, he's too valuable to me'?

Are you convinced of your purpose on earth? Here's the next question: does your Christianity bring progress to others? 'Having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith' - do you bring joy to other people, or are you a pain in the neck to other people? Third question: do you cause others plenteous joy, joy to abound? When people think of you, when people think of me, does their joy abound for what I do for them in Christ? Can you give it all over to Him today? That's what's needed.

When W.E. Sangster was asked by a mother who was heartbroken on one occasion because her daughter was going to go through an eye operation, and if the operation failed she would be blinded for the rest of her life. The little girl said: 'Oh, I believe that God's going to take my sight away' - and W.E. Sangster, after being asked by her mother to speak to the little girl, said: 'Jessie, I wouldn't let Him do that if I were you'. She looked at him confused, and she said: 'What do you mean? Do what? Take my sight away? Do you think I could stop God taking my sight away?'. He begged her, and he asked her if she thought that in three weeks or a month she could pray a prayer like this: 'Father, if for any reason known to Thee I must lose my sight, I will not let it be taken from me' - but here's the key - 'I will give it to Thee'.

That's when the joy comes into service. She said initially that she couldn't live without her sight, but in three weeks she was able to pray this prayer, and as she gradually lost the glimmer of light in her cortex, she was able to give it all up to God. With that prayer came the peace of God, and the power of God. Is there something you're holding onto? Something you're afraid that God will take away from you? Will you let it go? Then you will know the peace and the power of the joy of serving Him.

Our Father, we thank Thee for the great love of the Lord Jesus and the humility, how He could say: 'I am among you as one that serveth'. How He, as the God of all heaven, put aside self, even though He didn't have self, but He could have grasped at the privileges of His deity - but He did not. He came and became a servant of no reputation. Father, let this mind be in us as we serve Thee, let us put aside our petty differences and proud selfishnesses, and let us serve one another without getting gain, but serve Thee for Thy sake - that on that day we would not be ashamed. Lord, we pray that Thou wilt restore the joy of salvation to those who have lost it, and that You would give us all, in the days that lie ahead, the joy of serving Him. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - December 2002

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Philippians: Epistle Of Joy - Chapter 8

"The Marks Of A Spiritual Church - Part 1"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

Philippians 1:27-30

Now we're turning in our New Testaments to Paul's epistle to the Philippians chapter 1, and our subject title today is: 'The Marks of a Good Church', or if you like 'The Marks of a Spiritual Church', because that's what we mean when we say a good church. We don't mean a big church numerically, we don't even mean a very talented church with regards to the gifts that God has given to us, or perhaps just the natural gifts that we have been given by the natural process of nature, whether it be music or oratory or anything like that - that's not what we're talking about, but we're talking about the marks of a spiritually good church. We find that Paul outlines this for us in these verses that we read today, chapter 1 verses 27 to verse 30.

Now, you remember that Paul has been talking about how he will be victorious in death if he is called to die. Just for your context, maybe this is your first time here, let me just give you a bit of a background: Paul is writing this little letter from a prison, that's very important to know. He's suffering for the Lord Jesus, and he's been describing how he has got great joy in his heart - not the happiness of this world that is rooted and grounded in the foundation of circumstances and things going well for you that makes you happy, but a joy that is rooted and grounded, and even shields from the storms of the difficulties of life, that transcends the problems of life - the Bible calls it a peace that passes all understanding, that even when things are going difficult, even when you're in prison like Paul is here, you're joyous and there is a deep satisfaction and peace in your heart.

So Paul has been talking about if he dies, well, he's happy with that; and if he lives, well, he's happy also with that. We'll read from verse 21 just to get the context for you: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better" - for the Christian to die, to depart and be with Christ, is far better than life down here...'for I am in a strait'...he doesn't know what to choose! Verse 24: "Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith". It's not my time to go yet, I still have a work to do, and my work is for you that your joy might abound. Verse 26: "That your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again". Now here we come to the verses we're looking at today: "Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God. For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake; Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me".

It's not hard to tell from the reading of this portion of Scripture this morning that there is a war on. As far as Paul the apostle is concerned, writing to these Christians in Philippi, he wants them to realise that there is a spiritual war on. Just look at the language from verses 27 to 30, you see he talks about standing fast, striving together, your adversaries or your enemies, and then he talks in verse 30 about the conflict that we're all in. Now, he's not talking about a physical war, and the hymns of Christian battle that we've been singing already today are not talking about the warfare of this world in the flesh. Paul says in another place that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are spiritual - we are in a spiritual war.

Now, as you look to some Christians, and maybe even at some Christian churches, you wouldn't think it to look at them - it seems that Christianity is more like a picnic, an airy-fairy happy fairy tale, pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die, not a battle or a real bloody spiritual battle that is expending all our energies and all our strengths, and that we are even perhaps being pushed to the point of shedding blood for down here on earth! Yet Paul says, and the Word of God categorically right throughout the Scriptures tells us, that the Christian life is not a picnic, it's not a playground, but it is a battleground.

Now we might be pushed to ask the question: 'Well, if it is a battleground, what is at stake in this battle?'. Paul tells us at the end of verse 27: 'We are striving together for the faith of the gospel', that is what we are to fight for as Christians in this world. Our battle is under the banner of the cross of the Lord Jesus, our chief fundamental fight with the world and with the spiritual realm is over the gospel, the truth of God, of how that we are saved from our sins because Jesus Christ is come into the world to be the Saviour of sinners - He has come to seek and to save that which is lost. That is the message that this world hates, that is the message that this world system, the philosophies and ideologies and even the theologies of this world are all opposed to in their antichrist nature, it is the gospel. That is what we are called as the church to defend.

If you turn, you don't have to, to Jude verse 3, you find that Jude says there: 'Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation', the gospel, 'it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints'. He says: 'Christians, you've to fight for the gospel' - not fight with flesh and blood, or fisticuffs or with arms, but there's a spiritual battle that you're in, and this world, false religions and cults and philosophies and the doctrines of demons, are all out to contradict and pull down the message of the gospel. It is your job as the Christian church and as individual Christian soldiers to defend, to contend, and to fight for the gospel.

Let me show you how this is the case, and how Paul outlines to us that we are in this battle. If you turn to the epistle of 1 Timothy, Paul is writing to Timothy, chapter 4 and verse 1. He warns Timothy that there's going to be a day coming when the gospel will be at stake, when this world will get to such an evil extent that it will pull the gospel apart, that it will not even be recognisable in some quarters. For this reason he's to hold it fast, verse 1: 'Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith' - there it is again, the faith once delivered to the saints - 'giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils', the doctrines of demons.

Let's just pause for a minute, because I want us all to understand what we're talking about here: we're talking about churches and organisations that tell us today that as long as you're sincere, and as long as you're seeking after God in some nebulous shape and form, God will have mercy on you, God will forgive you of your sin, and God will take you to heaven one day. We live today in what is called a 'PC' age, and that's not a Personal Computer, but Political Correctness. You're no longer able to talk, as it were, in public about absolutes, that something is absolutely right and something is absolutely wrong, something is black-and-white. We seem to live in this morass of greyness, and we're not allowed to say someone's right or someone's wrong. They're maybe only wrong where we're concerned, but they can't be said to be wrong where they're concerned. There is this relativism, it might be wrong for you, but it might be right for them.

Friends, the gospel does not fit into that environment of political correctness, do you know why? Because the Bible says it is once delivered to the saints, that means the Gospel that the apostles gave to the saints in the beginning is the same gospel today, and it does not change! It cannot change because it was given by God to the apostles, the apostles then gave it to the Christians, and the Christians down all the age of Christian history have been passing it on. Now, here's the danger: that we believe the doctrines of devils that men are teaching today, that there's no difference between Catholicism and biblical Christianity, that there's no difference between the god of Islam and the god of Buddhism, or the god of the Jehovah's Witnesses, or the way of the Mormons - that it's all the same way...it is not the same way! The gospel of the Bible is the gospel that God delivered to the apostles, and that is the gospel that we are to fight for and to contend for and defend today.

Let me show you that that is the pattern that we have in the Word of God, and this is very important. If you turn to 1 Timothy that you're in, chapter 1 and verse 11, Paul tells us how this gospel was delivered unto the apostles: 'According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God', this is from God, it's not out of the mind and imagination of men, 'which was committed to my trust'. If you like, God trusted Paul and gave him the gospel to give it unto other people. Now, here's the pattern, you move on to chapter 6 of Timothy and verse 20, Paul has committed the gospel of God to him, and then in verse 20 he says: 'O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called'. Do you see the pattern now? God gave it to Paul, trusted Paul to give it to others; so Paul gives it to Timothy, and trusts Timothy to give it to others also.

You move on to 2 Timothy chapter 2, we see the pattern again, 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 2: 'And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also'. God gives His gospel through the Lord Jesus Christ, He commits the message of the gospel to the apostles - specifically here Paul - Paul is given the responsibility of committing the gospel to others, so he gives it to Timothy, and he tells Timothy: 'Now, you give that gospel that I've committed to you, into your trust, to faithful men who can also be trusted to give it unto others - not diluting the gospel, not changing the gospel, but giving the gospel in all of its essence and in all of its pureness'.

Now let me just say that this is why teaching in the local church is so important. This is why the teaching in the local church is important: to preserve the gospel of Christ, to preserve the faith that was once delivered unto the saints - and that's why we need as believers on a regular basis to get around the Word of God and to learn what the Word of God says, that's why we have a Bible Reading on a Monday evening. It gives us time, an hour or so, to get around the word of God and to understand the faith that is once delivered to the saints. Now you need to realise that we're in a battle, and that means this: that the enemy of our souls wants to rob us of the faith once delivered to the saints. He wants it to be changed, he wants it to be diluted, he wants to take away from the believer, cripple the believer, defeat the believer by losing the truth. Ultimately what we will lose, if we lose the truth, is the gospel ministry and the impact of the gospel to the world around us.

Now listen: if we want the gospel to have the greatest impact in this district around us, we need to contend for and protect the deposit of the gospel that has been given to us by God. The way we do that is not only preaching the gospel outwardly, but learning the gospel inwardly and studying the word of God together. Someone has rightly said that the church is only one generation off potential extinction. I believe that the Lord Jesus will build His church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, but let me tell you this on a human level: if we are not teaching our young people, if we are not teaching our middle-aged people the gospel, or if they are not learning the gospel because they are absent from the Bible Reading, from Sunday mornings, from Sunday evenings, we will lose, we will lose the deposit of the gospel! Now I'm telling you this! And I'll give you an illustration: there are so-called Evangelical churches around in our land at this present time, and they are so confused about what the gospel is because they have never been taught the gospel for a long time in all of its pureness and simplicity and unadulterated nature, that they are now confusing the gospel of the Bible with the gospel of the Roman Catholic Church! They are having priests in the pulpit committing themselves to the church, Evangelical churches, as brothers and sisters in Christ. Now we love these dear Roman Catholic people, we love people of all religions and all types, but we do not confuse what the gospel is - we can't do that, it's too important! It's been given by God to Paul, and by Paul to Timothy, and by Timothy to faithful men who would preserve the gospel, and it's been given to us - and I'm telling you, young people, if you're not at the Bible Reading you will not learn what the gospel is! There may come a day, like there is in some of the churches in our land, when they are so confused about the gospel that they are believing a false gospel of the devil!

You might think that very harsh, but let me tell you what Paul said: 'If any man come unto you, even an angel come unto you and preach a gospel that is not the gospel of Jesus, they are preaching another Christ that is not the same Christ as the Bible - let him be cursed', Paul says! Is that because Paul is a harsh man? No, it is because of what is at stake - the preciousness of the gospel of God. Well, what is the battleground of this gospel? How are we to fight this enemy? Are we to take this fight to the churches and the theological halls? Are we to write letters in to the Belfast Telegraph, and try to get our faces on the television to defend this gospel? I'm not decrying all those things, and some of those things are necessary and God calls some men to do those things, but I'll tell you what Paul says here. He says that the battleground of this fight for the gospel is our conversation, our conversation.

Look at verse 27: 'Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ'. Now this word 'conversation' in the old English language of the Authorised Version that we're reading from today, it doesn't mean the language that you're speaking, but it means the life that you're living. It's not specifically talking about your talk, but about your walk. It comes from an old word that actually means 'citizenship', so you could translate this: 'Let your citizenship be as it becometh the gospel of Christ'. In other words, your conduct of life, the way that you live your life, the words that you say, the deeds that you do. So the battleground for this gospel is your citizenship as a Christian. Now this word 'citizenship' in the Greek originates from the word that we get 'politics' from, 'politics' or 'police', 'polisiti' (sp?).

What Paul is saying here is this: act in line with your new citizenship of the heavenly kingdom. These people are living in Philippi, but Paul is saying - if you look at chapter 3 and verse 20 - he says: 'Now that you're believers in Christ, your conversation is in heaven, your citizenship is in heaven. So, as you live as a citizen in Philippi, you're to live as you would as a citizen in heaven'. Paul is saying that being a citizen of heaven ought to make you a better citizen of Philippi. Now, where is the battle for the gospel won in this day and age, where the gospel is so confused? I'll tell you where it's won, not just in our characters, but in our conduct. The battle is being fought today more than ever upon the ground of how we as believers live as citizens, how we live as neighbours, parents, children, businessmen, businesswoman, employees, employers, students, tradesmen. The battle is won or lost as to how we live, whether we live as becoming the gospel of Christ, or whether it detracts from the gospel of Christ.

You might have heard the phrase: 'People often wear clothes that are becoming of them', maybe it's a hat or a coat, or a colour that becomes or is worthy of their face - maybe it's not worthy of their form, or presents them not in the best light entirely, it doesn't enhance their appearance. That is exactly what Paul is saying here: the way that we win the battle for the gospel today is if we live lives that enhance the gospel to those around us, and the way that we lose the battle is if we live lives that detract from the gospel and repel other people from the gospel. So the simple question to all of us today is: do you enhance the gospel, or do you detract from the gospel?

I hope you don't mind me saying, but: are you a good dummy for wearing the gospel? Do you set the gospel in a good light? Let me take you to Titus for a moment, and we're spending a bit of time over this because it's so important. Titus chapter 2, Titus 2, Paul again writing to Titus this time, says in verse 9: 'Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters'. Here's the question: as a Christian are you obedient to your boss? I'm not saying you let your boss walk all over you, but are you obedient to your boss as a Christian? Then he goes on: 'Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things' - do you please your boss well in all things? 'Not answering again', do you answer him back cheekily? This is wonderful, isn't it? Verse 10: 'Not purloining', or scheming, 'but showing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things'.

What's that talking about? It's that analogy of clothing, as Paul says: are you wearing a life, if you like, that is becoming of the gospel? He says it here: are you adorning yourself with the doctrine of God in all things? Can people see in everything that you do and say, in your conversation, in your citizenship, that you are a Christian and that you have nothing to be ashamed of? Or do you shame the gospel and repel others from it? Now this analogy goes through Paul's epistles, if you turn to Colossians for a moment, Colossians chapter 3 - now we're getting to see this analogy of Paul, this illustration, he's talking about our Christian lives as like putting on clothes and taking off clothes that we shouldn't be wearing. In verse 8 of chapter 3 he says: 'But now ye also put off all these', put off all these old clothes and throw them into the corner - what are they? 'Anger', do you have a bad temper? You lose your temper in the home with your wife, with your children; you lose your temper in work, maybe you're a boss, maybe you lose temper with your boss. Paul says, and God says through Paul: 'Put it off!'

'Wrath', it's a different type of an anger, perhaps an even more boiling anger, over into uncontrollable anger - is that how you are with other believers who have done you wrong in your life? Paul says, and I want you to listen to this carefully: 'Put it off!'. 'Malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth', the stories that you tell, the double-meanings and the insinuations in your conversation, the newspapers that you read: 'Put it off!'. 'Lie not one to another'...'Oh, I don't tell lies' - well, what is lying only bearing false witness, trying to be something that you're not, trying to wipe people's eyes maybe in your commercial deeds and affairs? Maybe it is even exaggeration, making things greater than they are or lesser than they are? 'Put it off!'. 'Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds', he's assuming that we have already done this, 'put on the new man', here's your new wardrobe of clothes, 'which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him'.

Look down to verse 12, now here's the new clothes that you're to put on: '...as the elect of God, holy and beloved...Put on bowels of mercy', that means don't be hardhearted, don't be bitter, but be compassionate to your other believers around you. 'Kindness', thinking of others before you think of yourself. 'Humbleness', humility of mind, esteeming others greater than yourself. 'Meekness, longsuffering', patience with one another. 'Forbearing one another', putting up with one another, biting your tongue at times, 'and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any' - I want you to hear this very carefully now, listen: if any of you here today have a quarrel against anybody in this building, I would rather you wouldn't come back until you sort it out. Now I mean that: 'Put it off!', once and for all!. Here's the standard, why he can say this: 'even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness'.

Now all you have to do to sum this up is go, you don't have to turn to it if you don't want to, to Romans chapter 13 - and here's what he's talking about in all of it: 'Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof'. What is he talking about? He's talking about living the citizenship like Jesus Christ has lived it! Now that's something else. My question to you is this, you're all looking fine and dandy in your lovely suits and ties and hats and all the rest, but my question to you is this: do you spend as much time putting off and putting on these spiritual clothes as you do with your physical clothes? Do you spend as much money - spend as much money, that's right - on spiritual things as you do you on earthly things? And here's the big question, if we were the blind fellowship here today, and no-one could see your lovely hat or your lovely tie or your lovely coat, would you take as much care about what you were putting on? You wouldn't, because no-one is seeing it. Here's what Paul says, listen to verse 27, he says: 'whether I come and see you, or whether I hear about how you're getting on, let it be that I hear about your affairs, that you're standing fast in one mind and in one spirit, striving together for the faith of the gospel'.

Do we only do things right and say things right when others are looking at us? Do we only come to the Bible Reading or the prayer meeting when the Pastor is in the pulpit? When do we do things right and when do we do things wrong? Do we do it for the right reasons or for the wrong reasons? Do we do it to be seen of men, or do we do it to be seen of God? I'll tell you this: when we do things to be seen of men, do you know what happens? Our affairs go abroad, and the testimony outside is that we're not doing this for Christ, and our citizenship is not for Christ, but it's for ourselves. The ultimate question that Paul is asking here of this church is: what is your testimony to the world outside? If I was walking down the street of Philippi, what would I hear about your little church in Philippi?

I think you would agree with me when I say that there's nothing more damaging to the gospel of Christ than the bad testimony of believing churches - nothing more damaging to Christians and indeed to those who are unsaved. Do you know why? Because it makes the gospel a farce! People look at us and they say, and they rightly say, some of them: 'If that's what a Christian is, I don't want to be a Christian!'. I'll tell you, if that's what a Christian was, I wouldn't be a Christian. They see how we bicker inside the assembly at times, they see how we talk about others, and they rightly say: 'This testifies not to what they're saying, but what they're doing contradicts everything that they're saying'. As someone has said on one occasion: 'I can't hear what you're saying, for seeing what you're doing'.

Be very careful. A member of a church stopped his Pastor at the door one day and he said: 'Pastor, there's a couple living beside us and they believe a false gospel, and we were wondering did you have any literature that we could give to them that would help them'. The Pastor opened his Bible at 2 Corinthians 3 verse 2: 'Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men'. He said: 'Sir, the best literature that you can give your next-door neighbour is your own life. Let them read your own life, let them see Christ in your life, let them see the gospel at work in your life, and that will give you the best opportunity to share Christ with them'. No literature, no book, is a substitute any better than your own life!

What does it say in Acts chapter 4 and verse 13: 'Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus'.

'You are writing a gospel,

A chapter each day,

By the deeds that you do

And the words that you say.

Men read what you write,

Whether faithful or true:

Just what is the gospel

According to you?'

I'm finished my message this morning, but I want us to dwell for two minutes on this, because this is so important for the future of this assembly and for your individual testimony. What is it? The greatest vehicle for the gospel of Jesus Christ in the day and age that we live of false doctrine and false gospel is the vehicle of a godly life and a godly church. When people hear of David Legge, do they hear of a conversation that is worthy of the gospel of Christ? When people hear of the elders of the Iron Hall, do they hear of a way of life and a way of operation that is worthy of the gospel of Christ? When people see the deacons of the Iron Hall working, the members of the Iron Hall represented, the workers of the Iron Hall in the children's meeting and in the Sunday School and in the door-to-door work, in your workplace, on the factory floor - do they see a people that no matter what the cost is, as Paul says...I can almost hear Mrs James saying: 'Even if my husband is beheaded?', - yes! No matter what the cost is for you. Peter's wife saying: 'Even if my husband is crucified upside-down for the cause of Jesus Christ?' - yes! Even if that happens! John's wife: 'Even if my husband is boiled in boiling oil on the Isle of Patmos?' - yes, Mrs John! Even if that happens, that you walk worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Well? Is your life worthy? When people hear your name, what's the first thing that they think of? Is it godliness and holiness of life, or is it bitterness, is it complaining, is it backbiting? Is there any of us here today that need to put off old clothes and put on new ones? For I'll tell you, the greatest weapon to fight for the gospel, and the greatest weapon against the enemy the devil, is the consistency - that's the word! - the consistency of a holy, righteous, godly life, and a holy, righteous, godly church.

We have choices to make in these days: will we make the right ones? Let's bow our heads for a moment, because this is so important, so, so important. What is the prominent feature of your life as a believer? It's not the fruit of the Spirit, is it? It's the fruit of the flesh. Where are you when we study the doctrine that's been delivered to the saints? Why aren't you at the Bible Reading? Why aren't you at the prayer meeting? Why don't you remember the Lord around the Table? This is what discipleship is, and if you're not doing it we can see there's something wrong in your life - but are you able to see it? Are you able to face it? Not what's wrong in somebody else's life, but what's wrong in your life. Will you face it today? I thank God for these people in the Iron Hall, and for the work that they do and the desire that they have to see souls saved, and we are praying, we're having days of prayer, we're bringing the lost under the sound of God's word - but I'll tell you this: you're living in cloud cuckoo land if you think you can sit in this Hall with bitterness in your heart and enjoy the blessing of God. Could it be that you could be the one that is hindering that blessing coming? Only you can answer that, and I implore you and I plead with you to put off these old fleshly clothes that don't belong on you, they're of your old nature, and put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Will you do it now before the Lord, and make the difference and turn around? Will you do it?

Father, we pray that all of us, as Thy people, would allow Thy Holy Spirit to do deep spiritual surgery to us today. Lord, who can say that we have no sin, for if we say that we deceive ourselves and truth is not in us. Lord, there are now at this moment people perhaps applying this word to the person at the end of the pew, to the person at the other side of the church that has offended them, but our Father, we've got to apply it to ourselves. We remember what the Lord Jesus said to His disciples: 'What is that to thee? Follow thou me'. Lord, what a church this would be if every man and woman put off the old clothes of bitterness, strife, compromise, and backsliding and sin; and put on the Lord Jesus Christ - there would be revival. Father, would You touch us; Spirit quicken us; Lord Jesus move us to leave all and put our hand on the plough, follow Thee and never look back. Lord, there are those here today who have looked back since the hour they first believed. Help them to see, our Father, that You take no pleasure in them that draw back. May they get a glimpse of the Lord Jesus, who made Himself of no reputation, who humbled Himself, and may they follow after Him in humility and meekness, and in godly fear. Lord, whatever is in us that would hinder Thy blessing in our lives and in our church, purge it we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - December 2002

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Philippians: Epistle Of Joy - Chapter 9

"The Marks Of A Spiritual Church - Part 2"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

Philippians 1:27-30

Philippians chapter 1 verse 27: "Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God. For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake; Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me".

We've been studying in these last few verses of chapter 1, verse 27 to the end, marks of a good church - or, if you like, better put 'The Marks of a Spiritual Church'. We saw last week that the language that Paul uses tells us that there is a war on, and in this war the matter that is at stake is the very gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. For that reason, he says in verse 27, let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ. The gospel of Christ is what is at stake in our land among the witness of those who believe in the Lord Jesus, the Church of Jesus Christ. We were asking last week how we ought to fight the battle for the gospel, and that is the answer that Paul gives us right away in verse 27: 'Let your conversation', your way of life, or specifically the word generates from the word that is used of citizenship, 'Let your citizenship be that which becometh the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ'.

The gospel is fought, primarily, on the battleground of our livelihood, our citizenship down here on earth, and how we represent the Lord Jesus Christ in the way that we live our lives. We saw last week that there are certain types of clothing that belong to the old nature that we have left behind in our old way of life, and we are to put those clothes off and put on the new clothes that become the gospel of Jesus Christ. In other words, our livelihood, our lives, our conversation, our citizenship ought to enhance the gospel, rather than detract from the gospel.

We saw how important that is, because the testimony of this little church was going abroad, and Paul was saying: 'I want to hear of your affairs, that whether I come to you or just hear about your testimony, that I hear that you're standing fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel'. Whether we like it or not, or whether we want to admit it, or whether we know about it, the testimony of the Iron Hall, the testimony that we hold as believers goes forth and goes abroad, and other believers hear about it. If we were to home in specifically to your individual testimony and personal conversation before the Lord Jesus we could say the same, that your affairs - whether people see it, as Paul wished he could see it, but he was in prison and he couldn't, but even in prison he was hearing about their affairs - how their lives were testifying, or not testifying, to the gospel and to that which becometh the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Really the crux, and the common denominator of our conclusion in the message last week was this: that there is no greater weapon fighting for the gospel, and fighting against the devil and his empire and his forces, than the consistency of a godly life and a godly church. Now we're going to move on today, because Paul says that if we are to be worthy, as a church he's talking to of course, but we can apply it individually to ourselves, that if we are to be worthy of the gospel of Christ we must be three things - or, if you like, we must do three things.

The first thing we find in verse 27 at the end: 'that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind'. So we're going to see today that the first thing Paul says is a mark of a good church, spiritual church, or a church, as he says specifically, that is worthy of the gospel of Christ, is a church that stands fast, a church that stands together in one spirit and in one mind. If we go on we see that he makes it more specific by saying: 'striving together for the faith of the gospel'. So not only are we to stand together, Paul says, but we are to strive together for the gospel of Christ. As we read on in verse 29 we find that he says: 'For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake'. Now he's talking to the church, a body of believers, to stand together, to strive together, and they were called to suffer together for the name of the Lord Jesus.

There we have a threefold mark in Paul's mind of a spiritual church, of a good church, of a church that has a testimony, that is worthy of the gospel and calling of Jesus Christ. So let us look at the first today: to stand together, and he says - look at verse 27: 'stand fast together', or it could be translated 'stand firm together'. This Greek word that Paul uses is used of a soldier who was to defend his position and his post at all costs, and even if he was to come to the point of losing his own life, losing his family of course and the relationship he would have in this live, he was to stand fast at all costs. If it came to the point of giving his life for his cause, he was to do it. Paul is saying to the church: 'You have got to stand fast together for the conviction, the post that God has called you to despite all the opposition that comes your way'.

Now remember the great apostle is in prison as he's writing this, and he himself can say this because he is standing fast. We learnt in recent studies, a couple of weeks back, that Paul's testimony of how he stood fast in prison for the gospel was actually bolstering and encouraging and strengthening the other Philippians to go out and to preach the gospel because they saw in Paul's testimony something great of a man standing firm upon his convictions - and no matter if the whole Roman Empire was against Paul, he was going to stand fast, not be moved! Of course, it's twofold, standing fast - it's standing fast for God, and it's standing fast against the devil. Paul was doing both of these things.

I believe, perhaps, the picture that Paul has - and remember he's seeing soldiers everyday, in fact he can't get away from one because one is chained onto his arm - he's thinking about a military band or battalion, and they're all marching together. Sometimes you see this on our television, or if you've been to Buckingham Palace to the changing of the guard you see this: all of these soldiers, perhaps a hundred of them, stand and march as if they were all one man. They're consistent, they're shoulder to shoulder, there's not a man out of place, not a step out of time - they're all like one soldier. That is exactly what Paul is saying, look at it: 'stand fast, having the one spirit, and having the one mind'.

Now the 'spirit' here's not the Holy Spirit, he's talking about the spirit that you have - and you need to know that you're made up of three pieces, you're a tripartite being. You have a body that we can all see; you have a soul that is like your personality, it is the seat of your intellect, your emotions, and your volition, your will - you decide with your soul, you think with your soul, you feel with your soul. But this is not what Paul is talking about here, he's talking about your spirit: that part of you that is in contact with God, that was deadened before you were saved and now has been quickened, and you're made alive toward God in your spirit. Now he's talking about how we are to have a purpose and an aim in our spirit, and if our spirit is in connection with God our purposes and our aims will be whose? They will be God's.

'Be of one spirit', and that means have the aims and the purposes that God would have for you, be unified as the church of Jesus Christ in your purposes and in your programmes. If we can put it transversely, there are to be no divisions in the church of Jesus Christ. This is the mark, one of the marks, of a good spiritual church - having God's desires as our desires, having God's purposes as our purposes, having God's programme as the programme of the Iron Hall! That's what Paul is talking about here.

Then he goes on and he says: 'and being one in mind'. Standing fast together, one in mind - now the word for 'mind' here is the same word as 'soul', which is the Greek word 'pseukae' (sp?), and they are interchanged at times within the Bible. I've told you that one of the facets of your soul is your mind, your intellect: there are emotions, there is your will, your determination, but there's also your intellect - you think in your soul, and that's why the word 'mind' can be translated in this way. But I believe that Paul specifically here means how you think in your mind, through your soul, with a determination and with a will to accomplish what is in your spirit given by God. OK, you get it like this: you're in contact with God, and God reveals to your spirit what His will is - well, you need to interact your soul and execute the will of your soul with determination to do what God has purposed and planned for you.

I hope we're getting the whole picture here today: a spiritual church is a church that allows God to speak spiritually to our hearts, and to display and disclose, and to diffuse His own will to our hearts. But it doesn't stop there, it's not all about knowing what God's will is, but the mark of a spiritual church will not only be of one spirit but of one mind - the seat of your will - an execution where you do what God has declared to you. Where the 'pseukae', the soul, is active; where you don't just have an aim, but you have aim and action; where you have a purpose. What we need today in our church, and among believers, and for the testimony of the gospel, is people who have a purpose, but act upon that purpose and go for it!

You've heard the old saying that if you aim at nothing you'll hit it - isn't that right? Sometimes, I must admit, it appals me the way we treat the Lord's work. We even make a plan to go out and do the shopping - not that I would know much about that, but I see sometimes a little list being made - and there's even a bit of thought being put into going and buying the groceries. There's thought about washing your car, there's thought about baking and doing the house cleaning and your finances, but at times when it comes to the work of the Lord there is this attitude: 'Ach, that'll do rightly'. My friend, if Paul is true, and we know he's true because he is inspired here by the Spirit of God, we cannot aim at nothing within the work of God. We cannot have no aims and no objectives, and we cannot be satisfied with knowing what we ought to do, but not having the will and the determination, the volition to actually execute - and, whatever it costs, to go for it!

I'll tell you this, in the light of Paul's letter to the Philippians, and in the day in which he is living, and in the day in which we are living - which isn't a million miles away to his own personal civilisation and experience - I believe that the only way that the gospel can succeed today is with a church that will stand fast together in one spirit and in one soul. That's what we need. Turn with me, we're never going to get through this again, we'll probably only get through the first one here, but Acts chapter 4 verse 32. I really feel that the Lord is speaking to us as a church through these verses, and that's why I'm spending a little more time than usual over them. Acts 4 verse 32, and of course you've got the acts of the early church here as well as the apostles, you see how the early church - probably in its most purest form - operated. Verse 32: 'And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul'. You may ask the question: 'Why was the early church so successful in their execution of gospel ministry? Why was it that simple men and unlearned and ignorant men, were able to turn the world upside-down?'. I could point you to their prayer life, I could point you to their holiness, I could point you to how they gave everything that they had and put it altogether and clubbed together for the gospel - but certainly we couldn't ignore this: they believed with one heart and one soul '...neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common'.

They were working together for the cause of God in one spirit and in one mind. Of course in Ephesians 6 and verse 6 we read about the armour of God, that we as individual believers are to put on, and effectually when we all put on the armour of God we become a Christian army that we were singing about at the beginning of our meeting. We all walk together like armour-bearers, shoulder to shoulder, and we move like one whole soldier. Paul says we are to put on that armour and work for God, not with eye-service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the 'pseukae', the heart.

The reason why we have to stand fast together in one spirit and one mind is because we fight an enemy. Of course there is an enemy within in false doctrine and those who come among us unawares, but the primary enemy perhaps that we have is the devil himself. Our job is to fight with the forces of evil, and not be ignorant of that evil. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4 please, Ephesians chapter 4, and we studied these in the Bible Reading a year or so ago. Verse 1, Paul is expressing the same sentiment about standing fast together: 'I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord', writing again from prison, 'beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called', that's the same thing as he said to the Philippians, that your conversation would be that which becometh the gospel of Christ. 'With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep', now that word 'keep' is the word for 'guard', 'at all costs guard' - it's a bit similar to 'stand fast', defending your post and not moving at all costs - keep what? 'Keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace' - why, Paul? Why keep this unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace? Because that is when the testimony of the gospel will be the greatest, and that is when we will do the most damaging work to the enemy, when we are united together in the gospel!

I say it again because I want it to get through, that there is nothing that mars the testimony of the gospel as much as disunity in the church of Jesus Christ. The irony of these verses that we're reading together is that we ourselves, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, could be doing the devil's work in defeating the gospel through disunity in the assembly! Imagine that, for just a moment, those who have been liberated by the grace of God and by the power of the blood of Christ; delivered from the world, the flesh, and the devil by His cross - doing the devil's work! I tell you, if you're involved in this work of disunity and slander and backbiting and scheming and rebellion, you're the best disciple that the devil's got here in the Iron Hall! Do you hear that from the word of God today? If you don't take it from me interpreting the word of God, listen to the Lord Jesus in Matthew 12: 'A house divided against itself will fall' - sure, it's common sense, isn't it? But we as believers don't seem to be able to grasp this, or maybe we just don't want to grasp it! When we are divided, and people see that we are divided, the gospel testimony is done harm and we are not walking worthy of the gospel that we're meant to wear and enhance.

If you turn to John chapter 17 for a moment, and I want to show you very clearly that this is from the word of God. This is called the high priestly prayer, commonly, of the Lord; or could just be called His intercessory prayer. John 17 and verse 21, and here's one of the petitions that the Lord gives - He's been praying already and this is another petition, verse 21: 'That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us', now here's the reason that the Lord Himself gives that they should be one, 'that the world may believe that thou hast sent me'. Now let's go backward: 'Father', He says, 'if the world is going to believe that thou hast sent me, it's going to be necessary that my people are one as we are one'.

This is serious stuff, it's alright for the Pastor the preacher to be up here preaching about these type of things, but when you see the Lord Jesus Christ Himself on His knees before His Father praying that we would be one - does that not make you want to be one? When we realise that His gospel that He bled and died for is at stake, should that not make us want to be one? It was F.A. Noble that said: 'A church in which the sentiment of unity has been displaced by the bitterness of mutual will, might as well go at once into the hands of a receiver. The days of its usefulness and prosperity are at an end'. Do we stand fast together in one mind and in one spirit? I know that some of you can have a wounded spirit; I've no doubt that some of you in the seat of your emotions, the soul, has been hurt by another believer, or perhaps by something that has gone on in this assembly - I just do not know - perhaps in your mind, your intellect, the seat of your intellect in your soul, you have been hurt because you disagree with the odd thing here or there. I don't know what it is, maybe your will is hurt, but you just seem not to have it in you to obey God and to be at the Lord's Table, to be at the prayer meeting, to do what the Lord asks you to do, to do what the assembly expects you to do. Can I tell you: we have, as the Captain of our salvation, as the Commander of the Lord of hosts, the Overcomer and the Conqueror who defeated these things in His own life, and on your behalf has defeated these things - and He says through His Spirit using that same word 'pseukae' in Hebrews 12 and verse 3: 'For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your pseukae, in your mind'.

Now let's get personal this morning: what is it that hinders you standing fast with the rest of the believers in this assembly, with one spirit and one mind? Why is it that there are certain people who are busy bodies and bitter, and won't talk to one another, and backbite? Why is it? It could be that they themselves have endured the contradiction of sinners, but the exhortation today is: don't give back what you get, but rather do not faint or be wearied in your soul, be steadfast, be unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Let me address some folk in this building who have been a long way on the road of faith with the Lord Jesus Christ. I tell you, it's wonderful when we're first saved, isn't it? It's wonderful to be excited with the things of the Lord and to stand fast for the defence of the gospel, but I'll tell you there's something greater than starting well. It's good to begin, but it's better to keep steadily on until the end!

I want to ask you today: where are you on your road of faith? We see the young enthusiastic soldier coming into the thick of the battle in the dawn of the day with his gleaming armour, and the light shining off it dazzling and blinding - what a great sight that is! But do you know what a greater sight is? When all the stench and the smoke of battle is fallen, and as Paul says in Ephesians 6 and verse 13, that 'having put on the armour of God, that we stand, and having done all to stand'. Are you standing today? Come on now, where are you in the work of the gospel? Where are you in the work of the assembly? Are you out of step? Are you not walking shoulder to shoulder? Are you standing at your post that you once stood at, but you've given in being fearful? My friend, this is a battle, and I'll tell you this: if we want to see people converted, if you want to see the glory that is in the gospel of Christ, and if we want to see an assembly and conversation, lives, among our assembly that becometh the gospel of Christ; we've got to stand firm fast together in one spirit and in one mind!

I'm led to believe that in World War II the RAF used to employ psychologists, psychiatrists. And one of the psychologists noticed that whenever the pilots, the Spitfire pilots, were out in the thick of the battle, whenever the bombers were doing their sorties, their nervous system was hyped up to such a peak, such a knife edge, and they were aware of every single thing that was going on around them - they were so conscious, so focused. Then they would come in towards - after surviving that fight, and that battle - they would come in towards the landing ground and the runway, and the psychologists and the psychiatrists noticed that there was an almost irresistible tendency to relax. Do you know when the most accidents happened? When they were coming in for their final landing.

Child, I say in grace to you today, and as I do to my own heart: have you relaxed in this spiritual battle? I address you as a people of God: have we relaxed? Have we relaxed in the work of God? This is a fight, and it's a fight to the death! The great prophet Daniel had many attributes that are worthy of our consideration today, but I'll tell you this, one that is perhaps his greatest that you would very easily scan by with your eye reading the story is in chapter 1 and verse 21, and it says this: 'He continued' - he continued. What the world needs today is not a flashing star or a blazing meteor, what the world needs to see today is churches and people who will stand fast with one spirit and with one soul. My question to you today is: will you be that people?

Let us bow our heads: now friends, I don't know about you, but I know God has been speaking to my heart through these messages - and that's why we're spending time on them. I hope sincerely He's been speaking to you, every one of you. Can you ask yourself the question: do you stand fast with this assembly? Or are there times that the assembly is mentioned on your lips in disdain, in criticism? Do you stand fast with the oversight and the deacons, do you help in the work? Have you a work for Jesus to do, or do you just do nothing? This is serious, this is the fundamental question that will lend to whether this testimony is here in ten years or not, and we need to face up to it now before it's too late. The rallying call of our Commander, Jesus Christ, today is: 'Come together, oh, you can have your differences of opinion, you can have different thoughts and feelings, but come together at least for the sake of My gospel, for the sake of My blood, for the sake of those who are lost, perishing and need to see consistency in the conversation of My people and My temple'. Will you give whatever's hurting you up to God? Will you let it go? Oh, I pray to God you will.

Father, we thank Thee for the two-edged nature of the sword of Thy word. Father, there is none of us here can say that we take it lightly, or that it's a great message to our hearts, because it's not - because we feel condemned, we feel slain of the Lord. We feel compelled to put aside our petty differences, because of what is at stake: the great battle, the battle for the gospel, the battle for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, it was Thine eternal plan and purpose to have a holy and peculiar people, separated unto Thyself, unto the gospel for a testimony to Thy name. That was the prayer of our Lord Jesus, our Father, that they may be one as we are one - God forgive us, forgive us for our divisiveness, forgive us for our slander and our talking about one another in a censorious manner and not in a manner that is seeking after the betterment of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Father, the only One we should be talking to about our brethren is Thyself and is themselves, when we come beside them and ask is it well with them. Father, would you pour in the oil of healing into our hearts, even today would we hear of brethren and sisters going to one another, and putting away their differences as the Lord told us to: if ye have ought against your brother, or if any brother hath ought against you, go to them. Lord, we're in disobedience if we don't, so let us go today - that the blessing of the gospel of Christ should rest upon this testimony, for Jesus' sake we pray. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - December 2002

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Philippians: Epistle Of Joy - Chapter 10

"The Marks Of A Spiritual Church - Part 3"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

Philippians 1:27-30

Now turn with me again to Philippians chapter 1 - I do want, if possible, to finish these verses off today, but we're not going to rush through them because I feel there's so much important truth found in these verses for the local church and for those who would class themselves as members or attenders of any local church, not just this church but any local assembly in the New Testament sense. That's why we've been pondering for a while over these verses, to just decipher and taste the truths that are so important in this day and age, of what it means to have the marks of a spiritual or a good church - that really comes down to the people, because it's the people that make up the church. It's very difficult to read these verses without realising that Paul is inciting the church, if you like, into warfare because there is a war on, and there's something at stake in the war that we are fighting for - and of course we found out in the weeks that have gone by that that fight, that war, is for the faith of the gospel.

Paul has also told us how to fight that great battle of faith, it's to be fought on the battleground of our conversation - in other words, our way of life and our citizenship which is in heaven, but which is meant to be lived out on the earth. So we're meant to live as heavenly citizens, but upon the earth. If there's ever a heaven on earth, it ought to be the church of Jesus Christ in the way that they behave in their citizenship upon the earth - but he specifies that by saying that it is seen primarily in the way that our lives become the gospel of Christ, verse 27: 'Let your conversation', you citizenship, 'be as it becometh the gospel of Christ'. Our lives are to enhance the gospel, rather than detract from the gospel.

Paul knew that this was so important, because he knew that the testimony of the church - and indeed, the testimony of individual believers - was going abroad. For that reason he said: 'I want to hear that your conversation becometh the gospel of Christ: and whether I come and see you, or whether I hear of you, I want to hear this - for this is what is so important. You've got to realise that your testimony is going abroad...that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs'. And here were the three specific marks that we began to look at last Lord's Day and want to conclude, God willing, today - three marks of a spiritual or a good church. One: that ye stand fast in one spirit, and in one mind; here's the second mark: striving together for the faith of the gospel and in nothing terrified by your adversaries. Verse 29: 'For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake'.

Now I've broken them down into three marks of a spiritual church. One: to stand together, stand fast, or stand firm together in one spirit and with one soul - you remember that we defined that last week as one soul, one will, executing God's will that we find within our spirits. This week we're going to look at how the second mark is to strive together, not just to stand fast together as the church, but to strive together. We will see what we ought to strive together for, and then finally his, perhaps in the day and age in which he was living, the most characteristic mark of the church of Jesus Christ - which certainly in the West today is the least characteristic mark of the church, and it's this: to suffer together for the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now we're not going to take time to recap, we don't have time to do that, on what it was to stand together in the gospel - but we just saw that we need to be, as the church of Jesus Christ, of one spirit: and that has to be the deciphering of the spirit and will of God in our spirits as the church, that filters from God's Holy Spirit into the oversight, from the oversight into the deacons, from the deacons into the members, and right down that whole tier of responsibility within the church, so that the will of God is diffused right across the local church of God, and God's will is done in one spirit. Then in one mind, or the word is one soul, and it is that executing seat of the will within our hearts that decides to do what God's will is, to execute God's will - not just to know it, but to do it. We see how important that is, and we were challenging all sorts of saints last Lord's day morning, no matter how long you are the road, to ask: how is it with you in standing firm and standing fast together in one spirit and one mind within the church of Jesus Christ?

Let's look at this second point of a spiritual church: striving together, verse 27 near the end: '...stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; And in nothing terrified by your adversaries'. Now just look down at the word 'strive' for one moment, because of course you know that the original scriptures were not written in English - some people think that God gave the Bible down in the Authorised Version from heaven, that is incorrect, of course it was in the original Greek. As much as we love our Authorised Version, the original Greek is the original scriptures in one sense, and we have to go back to them at times to find the real depth of the meaning to some of these words. When we look at this word 'strive' in the Greek language we find that it's the word 'sunathleo', and it means literally 'to contend', to contend or to fight - now not specifically in the battle sense that we were thinking of last week, when it says 'standing fast together' we thought of a Roman army, as it were, shoulder to shoulder working together as one whole body. As you look at that Roman army it would seem as if they were one person, working together with one spirit and one mind.

But Paul is now using a different illustration, he's going into the world of athletics, and the reason why I know that is that if you break this word down 'sunathleo', you see that the second part of the word 'athleo' is the word that we get athletics from - 'athleo', 'athletics'. The word 'sun' simply means 'with' - so he's saying 'with athletics'. You're to contend together, strive together, if you like, Paul is saying, with the energies as if you're taking part in some kind of athletic race or feat. This is so important, to see the great imagery that Paul is using. Now listen, what he's saying is: 'The marks of a spiritual or good church, they're to be like an army that stand together as one soldier, not many platoons or battalions that are split up with different battles and different inklings of fights, but they're to be like one army united together for the one cause'. Now he's using an illustration from the athletic world, and he's saying we're to be united together - and I think the point that Paul is really getting through with this is not so much the force, as we strive together, but the togetherness of it, that it's to be a striving together as a team, as a team.

Turn with me to chapter 4 of Philippians, because we have a little window on this whole matter in verse 3. Paul says: 'I entreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellowlabourers, whose names are in the book of life'. Be encouraged, ladies, these were women who were labouring with the apostle Paul in the gospel, with Clement also - 'fellowlabourers', he calls them, he doesn't call them 'people who were under me', 'people who did what I said', 'my disciples', but they were fellow workers with the apostle Paul, because ultimately they were fellow labourers with God. But what I want you to see is what made this little church a great church, and what brought the apostle Paul great joy as he was locked up in prison for the gospel, something that marked them was not only that they stood fast together, but they strove together in the work of God.

So if standing fast is like a position, standing and not being moved, striving together is a little different - it's not giving in in any extent, it is moving forward; not just standing in a position, but it's action, it's overt, it's opposition, it's going into the attack - not standing together this time, but attacking together! They had some within the church who did this, and I really believe that the idea here, if we can ponder it for just a moment, is the picture of cooperation. 'Sunathleo', not so much an athletic event where there is a sprinter, or a man with a javelin - and they're all individuals trying to beat other individuals - but the picture that Paul is really trying to paint here is of a team together, like a football team or a rugby team, or some other kind of sporting team that depend upon one another and will never win the battle, or win the game if you like, unless they work together for the one specific goal.

What Paul is talking about is teamwork. Of course, on the greater scale there is Satan's team against God's team if I can use that phraseology - and I don't think it's irreverent because this is what Paul is pointing to. We are not individuals, John Dunn, the great poet, said: 'No man is an island' - and no matter how exclusive and isolated you want to be as a child of God, it is against the plan of God and the will of God, because we are all to be together in this battle, fighting and working together and striving together against the forces of darkness. We are to be pulling together, and the point is that as we pull together, strive together, and work together, we're all doing it - or meant to be doing it - for the one self-same goal. Everyone is looking for the goal.

Now if you go a verse before verse 3 of chapter 4 you will see the exact opposite that also existed within the church at Philippi. He says: 'I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord'. What a picture of a general church this really is, we could pick out any church within our whole land and you would find within it people who work together and strive with one another, and then there are others who strive against one another. You almost would think that we're in two different teams, fighting against one another, trying to win our own little battle against the Lord's people that don't think the same way as we do. Now I'm not saying that we've all to be like robots and have the same opinions, and you would have a hard job having some of the same opinions as me - I'm sure you would agree on that one! But friends, with regards to the gospel, we are meant to strive together - and there are not meant to be any divisions among us. Perhaps one of the greatest indictments that there is against the church of Jesus Christ today is the fact that a football team seems to be able to do this, but the church or Jesus Christ cannot!

No wonder the Lord said that the children of this world, at times, are wiser than the children of light. Let me just run this by you for one moment: just think if this assembly - just taking this assembly for instance, because I don't know any other as well as this one - if just for one month in the year we were to work together, just the level of unity that you find in a football team, that's all. Just the level of unity that you would find, working together and training, in a football team - you might say: 'Oh, you're really demeaning spiritual things today' - but I ask you the question: are we even doing that? If I'm demeaning spiritual things, are we doing this already?

The fact of what Paul is trying to get at is this: you need to start working more like a football team, or some kind of athletic team or organisation, to work together and strive together for the one goal if you're going to win this battle! Sometimes we get so caught up in our pompous piety that is only hypocritical, that we can't see past these things to see that at times the world could organise a teddy bear's picnic better than we can! Now friends, let's really be honest today: is there anything, and we've touched on this because it's very heavy on my heart in these days, is there any thing in our contemporary situation today that is more hindering to the gospel of Christ than division within His church? I don't think there is. I don't have to answer for any other church in this land, but I want to ask people here: do you know where you are? Is your little quarrel more important than the gospel of Jesus Christ? Is it? Because until it is, you've got no right to stand aloof and not strive with us in the gospel. Until it's more important, and means more, could it be that you seem not to be able to subordinate your little inkling problem and gripe and bitterness to the gospel? Well, I want to pronounce to you this morning, upon the word of God, that if that is your mentality and that is your spiritual position of stagnation, no church has any use for you - but worse than that, God has no use for you!

I wouldn't be too worried about churches having use for you, but the biggest thing that ever worries me as a preacher of God's word, and even just as a Christian, is that a day should come when God would not be able to use me. I fear, you know, that that's where some people are. I fear that for some it's not just outright rebellion or stubbornness, or an unwillingness to do things for the Lord, but it's found in this little phrase at the beginning of verse 28: 'In nothing terrified by your adversaries'. There are some people who are terrified of taking this final step of commitment, if you like, and striving together - oh, they'll stand fast for the things that they believe in, they'll fight a battle for principles, but when it comes to really going forward and moving together as a team they are afraid!

That's why Paul is calling for boldness and fearlessness and courage, and I'll tell you Paul was a man who could call for that, wasn't he? He's locked up in prison, shackled to a Roman guard, doesn't know how long he's going to be there - at the beginning he doesn't even know if he's ever going to get out of it. My friend, he had a right to tell people not to be afraid, but John could also say it, 1 John chapter 4 and verse 4 - the reason why we ought not to be afraid as we seek to go forward with the gospel is because He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world! We're not to be afraid of our adversaries in the world, because Christ is in us, the hope of glory.

Now there's a very important little Greek word in verse 28 that I want you to look at: 'in nothing terrified'. That word 'terrified' literally could be translated 'scared', 'in nothing scared'. Now we're back to the battle imagery here, and do you know what the imagery is? It is literally of a horse that is just about to charge into battle, but it shies back with sudden fear - perhaps it's the loud sounds of cannon fire in battle, or gunfire, I don't know what it is, maybe it's the smell of blood or the stench of the smog of the gunpowder or of the dampness of the battlefield - but for some reason that horse is shattered, and shuddering with fear and pain and nervousness, and just steps back from the fight. What a graphic picture! I'm not naive enough, I hope, or green behind the ears to think that everybody who doesn't stand fast with the church in the local assembly, and everybody who doesn't strive together for the gospel within the assembly, is rebellious or terribly sinful. I believe it is disobedience, but I believe at times, at the bottom of at all, there is a hurt, there's a wound, there's a fear. So many people, I know, in this assembly have been hurt from leaving other assemblies and circumstances of those, and I don't need to go into those, neither do I want to know anything about them in one sense - but sometimes that can damage you. It's just like some experiences that you have in your childhood that can damage you for the rest of your days in your life if you don't get them sorted out, well sometimes you can get hurt in an assembly, or in this assembly - and because of that you just close in on yourself, and you say: 'Well, I'm never going to make myself vulnerable again, I'm not going to open myself up and give my life for these people, for them to put the knife and when I open up my heart - never again!'.

Because of that you're like that horse that hears the great shouts and sounds, and scents and smells of battle, and shies away - you're frightened, frightened of commitment, frightened of hurt, frightened of accountability. My friend, I want you to hear very clearly the word of the Lord to you: 'in nothing scared by you adversaries'. It's alright applying these things to personal circumstances within the church, but it's very hard in the day and age in which we live in Northern Ireland to apply them to our own lives, isn't it? Because we don't really have to be scared, in an outside sense, for holding our faith. But I'll tell you, the way things are going in this day and age, things are going to get scary in the workplace, on the street corner, in the shopping centres, in the centre of our own towns when we seek to witness for Christ and preach the gospel - it's going to get more and more difficult in the age of pluralism and polytheism that we live. I'll tell you this: there have been times that I have been preaching on how important is to witness in your workplace, and dear brethren have testified to me that it's now not allowed for you to testify for the Lord in the workplace here in Ulster - that you can get reprimanded for doing it!

These are the days that we are living in, but my friend I feel in the depths of my heart that the call of the apostle Paul to us is: 'Don't be afraid of any of them!'. You say: 'That's alright, it's alright for you, what if you're going to lose your job? What if you're going to get in trouble? What if you're going to get hurt again the way I got hurt in the past in a local assembly or in a church?'. Listen my friend: I think that we are living in a day when it's calling for this kind of persecution and suffering for the Lord Jesus, for us to take it.

Turn with me to the Acts of the Apostles, we must spend time on this, it's so important - we mightn't get through it again today, but chapter 4 and verse 18. Now look what happened to the Apostles, and we can't divorce the Apostles, though how great men they were, from our own conduct in the day and age in which we live - and I'm going to pay a price for this one day from this pulpit, because there's going to be a day when you'll not be able to preach against certain sins. I think there's going to be a day when people in the pew, literally, and you might think I'm ridiculous, they could take a lawsuit on you for telling them that their way is not the way to God! I do believe that that's going to come one day if there is not an awakening of the Lord and His Spirit before it. For you to tell people that they're wrong, that their culture is wrong, their religion is wrong, that it will never get them to heaven but lead them to hell, and Jesus is the only way - I believe you'll get into trouble.

But look what the behaviour of the Apostles was - verse 18. They were told not to preach or teach in the name of the Lord Jesus: 'And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard' - and I think there is the difference! They couldn't but speak, no-one could shut them up! We're shut up very easy today, aren't we? Chapter 5, look at them again, verse 40 - they are told again not to do it, and Gamaliel has given these high priests and religious leaders advice that if this is of God there is nothing they can do about it, and so they agreed to him - verse 40: 'And when they had called the apostles, and beaten them', they've just given them a hiding, for good charity or whatever, 'they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ'.

Now, I don't need to ask you the question: how different is this from the church today? They rejoiced! Do you know why? Because if you look back at Philippians, the verses that we are so ardently studying these Lord's Day mornings, Paul said that this very thing was proof of your salvation - the fact that you were striving for the gospel and willing to suffer for it - and it was also proof of the perdition of your enemies. You see, they had in their minds that there was something at stake as to whether they strove for the gospel or not, and whether they were willing to suffer for the gospel or not, and it was this: they felt it had a reflection on their own salvation! Now I'm not saying that they were trying to prove their salvation and win their salvation and earn their salvation, nothing like that, they were sure they were saved - but they felt that if they were truly saved they would strive for the gospel, and the men who were not saved would oppose the gospel, and their opposition of the gospel was a proof that they weren't saved, and their standing and striving was a proof that they were saved.

Well, if that was the ground and evidence of our condemnation or our acquittal in a court of law today, how many of us would be set free? Oh, my friends, 1 Peter 4 and verse 12, read these words very carefully: 'Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified'.

Do we strive together for the gospel, and does that striving together cause us to suffer together? Listen, the Philippians knew the suffering that Paul the apostle had gone through, you only need to read Acts chapter 16 of when Paul was in Philippi, and when he suffered a riot and a beating because of his preaching, and then he was put into prison - you know the story of the Philippian jailer - well, that was all in Philippi! The suffering that the apostle was going through, and they had witnessed how he stood fast for the gospel, and strove for the gospel, and suffered for the gospel, and that's why he says to them in verse 30: 'Having the same conflict which ye saw in me' - 'This is what I suffered!'.

Do you know what that word in the Greek for 'conflict' is? 'Agon', it's the word that we get our English word 'agony' from. It's a word that can signify an assembly, a theatre if you like, where the Greek Olympic Games were played. Paul is saying: 'You have witnessed, like a theatre, my suffering, my agony, my conflicts, my turmoil'. It's like a contest of athletics between the powers of darkness, it's the sense of the word in 1 Timothy 6, fighting a good fight, running a great race, Hebrews 12. But specifically it speaks of an inward conflict of the soul that often results from an outward conflict of forces, and it implies a contest, this battle, this sport if you like, between our spiritual foes and the forces of God and good. I'll tell you better than that: this word 'agon' is the word that is used in Luke chapter 22 of our Lord Jesus Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, and it says this of Him: 'Being in agony He prayed all the more earnestly: sweating as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground'.

Now listen: none of us can ever enter into the sufferings of Gethsemane, neither can we enter into the expiation of Calvary, but that is not the meaning here. What Paul is saying is that we are called to suffer on the behalf, on the behalf of Christ. Let's ask this question, we've got by whether we're standing together or whether we're striving together, here's the issue now: are we suffering together at the hands of men for the sake of our Lord Jesus? Remember what Paul was told at the very point of his conversion: 'For I will show him how great things he must agon' - suffer - 'for my sake'! What are we suffering for Him? I'll tell you this, this has really taken hold upon my heart because the church today seems to, at times, the opposite - I'm talking about the West now - of everything that we find entailed here in a suffering church. It's not a mark of us, we're comfortable, we're snug and smug in the pew, we're away from the harsh painful realities of the outside sinful world. But Paul says, as a church, and as a Christian, you'll really know how you're serving Christ and what your conversation for Christ is like, by how you're suffering for the Lord! And I tell you, the devil will make you suffer!

I'm not talking about a sore ingrown toenail, or the gastric flu, those aren't for Christ - I'm talking about suffering for righteousness' sake. What did Paul say to Timothy? 'Those, all of them, who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution' - all of them! I love John Wesley, John Wesley used to go on horse back around the little villages not only of England but of Ireland on occasion, and then into the Americas. But on one occasion he was riding along the road and he had been three days riding, and he realised that he also been three days without any persecution whatsoever. He was so horrified at this that he got off his horse, and he stood by the side of his horse and thought: 'What has happened to me? Three days without persecution! Have I backslidden? Have I some secret sin that I'm ignorant of?'. He fell to his knees and said: 'Lord, if there's anything that I've done against You that's the reason for the absence of my persecution, I confess them to you and I pray that You'll bring it back to me again'. There was a rough man at the other side of the hedge, and he'd heard him praying this, and he said: 'I'll fix that Methodist preacher', and he tossed half a brick over the hedge, and it hit John Wesley! He leapt to his feet with joy and he said: 'Thank You Lord, it's alright I still have Thy presence!'.

Three days without suffering for righteousness' sake - how long has it been for us? You know what's amazing about these disciples and early Apostles was: they counted it a privilege! We heard this morning around the Table of the Lord: 'Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ', how do we think of the grace of the Lord? Oh, we think of forgiveness, we think of eternal life, we think of communion with the Lord - do you know that wrapped up within the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is the privilege of suffering for His name?

The church at Smyrna was told by our Lord: 'Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: but be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life'. You may never have shed blood for your faith, but I'll tell you this: if you have never suffered in some way for your faith, in some way, it is a very empty confession. Caesar said: 'We'll root up this Christianity, off with their heads'. Different governors hastened one after the other, running after disciples to bring them to death, but the more they persecuted them the more they multiplied - why? Because they suffered together, they strove together, they stood together. The proconsuls ordered to destroy every single Christian, and the more they hunted them the more Christians there were, until at last - think of this - men actually pressed themselves against the judgement seat and asked permission to die for Christ! They were tormented, and they even invented torments, they dragged saints at the heels of horses, they laid them upon red hot gridirons, they pulled off their skin from their flesh piece by piece, they were sawn asunder, they were wrapped up in skins and dogged with pitch, and set in Nero's gardens at night to burn as torches. They were left to rot in dungeons, they were made a spectacle to all men in the amphitheatres, the bears hugged them to death, the lions tore them to pieces, the wild bulls tossed them upon their horns - and yet Christianity spread, for the weakness of God is mightier than the power of men.

Can I just say to you as I close today, to a church and individual people - now don't miss this, listen carefully: God cannot get depth out of shallow lives. We must stand fast together in one spirit and one mind, striving together for the gospel of Christ, suffering together for doing both of those - and when we do that, we will have the marks of a good church.

Our Father, we think at this moment of those brothers and sisters in Vietnam, Korea, China, India, states in Africa and South America, Eastern Europe - where they are, as we speak and preach, suffering on the behalf of Christ. Lord, give them grace to be happy in it, and help us if the time comes - and Lord, if the time is now, in the sense that if we're not even suffering for Him now, how will we have the strength to do it then, when we may be asked in a day yet to be to lay our life down for the Master? Give us the grace to suffer for righteousness' sake, help us to strive together for the gospel, help us to stand together with one spirit and one mind in the truth. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - December 2002

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Philippians: Epistle Of Joy - Chapter 11

"The Majesty And Humility Of Christ - Part 1"

Copyright 2003

by Pastor David Legge

Philippians 2:1-11

We're turning in our Bibles to Philippians chapter 2, Philippians chapter 2. Of course, we've had a break from our studies in Philippians due to the Christmas and New Year recess, and of course we were taking up subjects and themes that were applicable to that particular time in the year, but we're beginning again our studies this morning in Philippians chapter 2. We'll read the whole chapter, well not the whole chapter, but the whole of this great hymn, as it were, from verses 1 to 8: "If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross".

Let's read on: "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father".

Let me just say at the outset of this message that this passage is holy ground on which we stand, and it is unapproachable in its majesty and the magnitude of the spiritual depths that we have contained within it. There is no rhetoric that any preacher or writer could conjure up that could in any way add or even explain the splendour of the spiritual truths that we have encapsulated within these first 8 verses that we're going to look at this morning, because there is nowhere in the whole of the Scriptures that the extremes of the Saviour's majesty and His humiliation are put together and contrasted and connected in the person of the Lord Jesus and the stoop that He took from heaven to earth. In these 10 or 12 verses or so we have Paul the apostle, inspired by the Holy Spirit, at the one point having the Lord Jesus on the supernal universal throne of deity as God before the worlds began, and yet at the other point we find Him at the point of total and utter humiliation, nailed to Calvary's cross and bearing the sins of the world. Of course these great steps that our Lord Jesus took were steps that approached always nearer and nearer man's sin and man's awful need.

The strange thing, you would perhaps think as we read this passage of Scripture, is that this great truth of the condescension of our Lord Jesus Christ, coming from heaven to earth, is used not just as an outline of some kind of theological truth and dogma, but it is used as an illustration to the church at Philippi of what they should be like in their relationships toward their brethren and sisters in Christ within the church. Of course, you know that as we've been studying this little epistle, that the greatest overarching theme of all is the theme of joy, the joy that ought to be in the believer's life. We find that one of the chief ways that we can have joy as individuals and as an assembly is through the unity and the bond of peace that we have in the fellowship of our Lord Jesus Christ, but primarily in the fellowship of the local church. There's a great joy in loving one another, and being united together with one another, and indeed putting one another before ourselves.

This great truth of the condescension of our Lord is used as an illustration of how we ought to behave towards one another, that's what the first four verses tell us. Look at verse 1: 'If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others'. If we could sum up those first four verses, and indeed the whole passage, it would be summed up in the last word of verse 4: 'others' - others must come before ourselves.

Now, if you know anything about the little town of Philippi, and indeed about the Greek world in which they lived, you will know that the Greeks were a proud people. Indeed, they had every excuse, if you like, to be proud because they excelled every other civilisation in their age. You look at their philosophers: you've got Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. They have the great comedians, the great tragedians, the poets, the sculptors - Greek architecture was second to none. They excelled in science and astronomy, in mathematics, in medicine. Indeed I'm led to believe that Hippocrates is still the man who is thanked and lauded as paving the way to our modern-day medicine that we have with us today. In government, in law they paved the way to what we know today as democratic rule, democracy, the ruling of the people. A great people who had every reason to be proud in themselves.

Of course we have learnt in recent weeks that this great people in Philippi were taken over by the Romans and the Roman Empire, and they became a little Roman colony. As Paul is writing to them they have known approximately 200 years of Roman rule. The Romans were also very proud people, they were not innovators, but one thing the Romans were was imitators. They loved to imitate other great societies, one of which was the Greek society, and they would build great temples like the Greek temples - only they wouldn't build them out of marble, they would build them out of brick and mortar and then they would put a veneer of marble upon them. Not innovators, but imitators - yet they were still a proud people. Even their great emperors, and the Emperor particularly that was ruling over the Greek region at this time in Philippi, took unto themselves the status of divinity. They said and decreed that they were god, and they therefore would be worshipped as god. Because of that many Christians in this age were put to death, for not bowing the knee to Caesar.

Do you see what Paul is saying here? 'Philippian believers, your conduct as Christians is not to be dictated by the spirit of the age, by what you have known in your life or what your civilisation has known in its culture, but your personal conduct' - verses 1 to 4 - 'has to be modelled on the person of Christ'. You would know that every great creation has an archetype and a pattern, it has an original - a prototype if you like, and once you get that prototype, that model, you can make millions and reproduce thousands upon thousands of copies from that one original. It is the first original machine and model that really counts. If you're familiar at all with the whole of Old Testament history, you will know that right up to this point in the New Testament, that for 4000 years God, the God of heaven, has been trying to show to men their utter inadequacy - all humanity, no matter what kind of character they might be - that they are depraved and that they cannot reach God or please God. You have an Adam, and then you have an Abraham, then a Moses, then a David, and even an Elijah - all of them without exception have failed in the eyes of God, and we have the records of their failure within the Scriptures. The Lord was trying to show man that they were failures, but the epitome of this great lesson was: when God in the fullness of time sent forth His Son, born of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law, to show - here is the man that humanity and civilisation has been waiting for! Here is the man who is given by God to be humanity's pattern! The man Christ Jesus, the type of true human character by which all others must and ought to be moulded and fashioned.

We can see this on the banks of the Jordan, when at the baptism of our Lord Jesus the heavens opened and the voice of God is heard to say: 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'. God's eye had scoured the whole of history from creation right to the very end of time, and there wasn't one other, and neither will there be another that He could say that of - 'In whom is all My delight'. Because of that Paul is telling these Philippians that this is the one to whom all the lives and conversations of believers ought to be conformed to. This is the Christian's pattern, this is the divine pattern, for this Christ Jesus is the image of the eternal God. He is the firstborn of all creation, the firstborn of many brethren - if you like, He is the model that we are to model ourselves on, He is the pattern for our lives.

Paul was a good example, many of the apostles were good examples, but all of them were only lights that reflected and received illumination from the Son of God, and shed that light abroad to the benefit of others. Let us never forget that although we esteem an apostle, we only esteem them so far as they follow and exemplify the pattern of Jesus Christ - it is Christ to we follow! We are Christ's ones. Let us not forget that, as we have this great truth of the condescension of our Lord, it is all caught within this exhortation for us to be like Him in His humiliation and His suffering, and as an illustration of what we ought to be in our Christian conduct.

The great Dr. A.B. Simpson gave seven points, there are seven steps here of the condescension of our Lord, but he mirrored those seven steps in the seven points of our humiliation that ought to come from God's divine pattern, and I want to give you those headings today. The first is this: conscious dignity. Second: voluntary surrender. Third: complete surrender. Fourth: surrender of the will. Fifth: His earthly position. Sixth: obedient to death. Seventh: His final sacrifice. Under those headings let us look this morning at the great stoop that our Saviour took. The first thing that we find in verse 5 is this: 'Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God'. While this is a picture of the humiliation of our Lord Jesus, you have to see that it begins at the great height that our Lord Jesus stooped from, the height of His glory, and His splendour, and His majesty. We see from this that He was conscious of His dignity before He took that great stoop.

He was in the form of God, the Authorised Version says, another version says 'in very nature He was God'. The sense of this description is that He gave in eternity past, if I can say that, an outward manifestation of an inner reality of the fact that He was God - but He manifests that in the great glory and majesty, the effulgence of His being. His essential form was never altered, and even when He came in human flesh it was not altered, neither will it ever be altered. He is, was, and ever shall be existent God, pre-existent, present, and ever-existent - God, world without end. That of course agrees with the rest of Scripture, and I hope you concur with that. The Bible testifies that He is the image of the invisible God. Hebrews says that He is the effulgence of God's glory, He is the very image of His substance. John 1 verse 1: 'In the beginning was the Word', Christ, 'the Word was with God, and the Word was God' - and there was not anything made that was made without the Word, for He is God!

But what I want you to see in the light of your pilgrimage down here on earth: it was because of Christ's consciousness of His own dignity that He was enabled to take the stoop that He took. What do I mean? I mean that those of lofty, holy character are able to condescend. While others are filled with a raging passion for their own vainglory in trying to keep and grasp hold of their own dignity, who seek earthly honour, who are always trying to hold on to the little reputation that they have - one of true rank, one who is conscious of dignity is indifferent to outward appearances, because He knew that His dignity could not be questioned. Do you see it? It didn't matter what people thought of Him, it didn't even matter what people saw of Him - there was nothing in Him that we should desire Him - He knew who He was! He knew where He had come from!

What a lesson there is for us in our Christian conduct to realise that before we can imitate God's Son in His humility, we need to realise the high and the holy dignified calling that we have as sons of God, born again unto good works. When we realise who we are in Christ and what we have in Christ, it will not be hard to stoop to even the lowest depths of self-abasement and self-sacrifice. He was conscious of His own dignity.

The second thing is this: it was a voluntary surrender. It says in verse 6, the second half: 'He thought it not robbery to be equal with God'. It could be translated like this: 'He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, or something to be jealously retained'. The word 'grasped' could have two meanings - it either means something that is seized, something that is grabbed hold forcibly upon, even something that is stolen, that can be another meaning; or it could mean a prize or an award that one is striving toward. Something that you're taking or something that you're moving toward. Whatever the meaning is it can be applied to our Lord Jesus, because the remarkable thing about His condescension to earth was that He did not cling on to His rights and to His privileges as God. He didn't hold on to them, He didn't jealously grasp them or retain them. Or the other meaning: He didn't strive toward them as a possession to use, or to be seen to use.

The first reason He didn't do that was because He was sure of it. He didn't need to prove to Himself who He was, He didn't need to prove to others who He was, He knew who He was! His claim to be God, as He did on many occasions, didn't detract from the glory of God, but the main point that Paul is making here is: He did not hold on to His rights and honours, but He willingly, voluntarily, gave them up and yielded them! Her majesty Queen Elizabeth, our Queen, is in the form of a Queen when she is seated on her throne and she is robed in the ermine and the scarlet and the gold, she has her crown on her head and her sceptre in her hand, with her officers and her subjects before her. She is in the form, the manifestation, she is in essence the Queen, but she manifests herself as such in the glory that she effulges. We go to the book of Job and we find that there is God over all the universe, and it says that the sons of God and even the devil come and parade themselves answerable to God, and that is the picture of the majesty and the glory of God - the whole world is answerable to the sovereign God!

He is the Creator, and His creation come and bring obescience to Him. Isaiah 6, he says: 'In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple' - and the seraphim and the cherubim came and worshipped Him. That is the position of the rights of God, the prerogative of God, to be sitting on His throne and to have His creatures not only come before Him answerable, but come before and serve Him and worship Him. Of course you know, I hope, that in John 12 John says that when Isaiah spoke of the one high and lifted up he was speaking of the Lord Jesus in all of His glory, in all of the effulgence of His majesty and greatness, in all of His rights as deity, and His prerogatives as God from all eternity. Of course we know in Revelation 4 and 5 that there's a day coming when all of redeemed humanity will be round His throne again, and they will sing: 'Glory and honour and blessing and power be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb' - who will be on the throne once again for ever, and ever, and ever!

My friend, for a space of 33 years on earth He voluntarily laid aside that glory, that majesty. He didn't lay aside His deity, it could not be laid aside, but He voluntarily laid aside the manifestation of who He was. Our Majesty could step down from that throne and take off her crown, and take off her garments, put down her sceptre, walk out of the palace, go into a workhouse, take upon herself the garb of a servant, do a servant's work - but she still has the rights of her royalty and sovereignty. That was not Christ: He who had the rights voluntarily laid the rights aside. I think that is awesome. What a lesson it is for us, when we see ourselves made in the image of the first Adam; Adam who in the garden aspired to be as God, and fell - yet here we have a picture of one who didn't grasp at His godly rights that were His, and exalted Himself, and exalted and redeemed Adam's fallen race! Isn't that wonderful? He stooped down so low to lift up us sinful humanity.

He was conscious of His dignity, it was a voluntary surrender, it was also a complete surrender - for Christ did not give up something, the Bible says He gave up all. Verse 7: 'But made himself of no reputation', it could be translated 'He emptied Himself'. Theologians call this the 'kenosis' (sp?) theory - in other words, the word 'kenosis' is derived of the Greek word 'to empty' or 'to divest', which is the word here 'made of no reputation'. He emptied Himself, the word is 'emptied'! It does not mean that He emptied Himself of His character or His nature, just like you can't empty yourself of who you are. What it does mean, and I'm going to give you five ways very quickly that He did empty Himself. First, He emptied Himself of the divine glory, it was hidden in Him. Don't say it wasn't there, it was there, but it was hidden in His flesh. He forsook the worship of heaven, He submitted Himself - think of it - the misunderstanding, the denials, the unbelief, the false accusations and every form of persecution by the hands of sinful men - in that sense He emptied Himself.

He emptied Himself of the independent divine authority. In John 10 He said: 'I and the Father are one'. He made no secret about His equality with God as a person in the Godhead, yet equally throughout the whole of the Gospels - Matthew to John, and especially John - He declares His utter and absolute dependence upon God. He voluntarily gave up His independent divine authority, so that He could rely on God by faith. What an emptying! Thirdly, He emptied Himself of the voluntary exercise of some of His divine attributes. He did not cease to be God, He could not cease to be God - don't believe that lie of the devil! He did not stop being omniscient, or omnipresent, or omnipotent, or immutable - but rather, this is the key to it all, He chose not to exercise the full limit of those attributes during His earthly life, He chose not to use them! He hadn't got them taken off Him, but He exercised them selectively and partially - so much so that He could look at Nathaniel and say: 'When you were under the sycamore tree I saw you', but yet in Matthew 24 He can say that no man knows the day or the hour of the second coming of the Lord, not even the Son of Man - now you work that one out! - only for the fact that He withheld the knowledge from Himself.

Oh, He emptied Himself of His eternal riches. You know that verse that we often hear quoted, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9: 'He became poor that we, through His poverty, might be made rich'? That's got nothing to do with the fact that He lived in the wildernesses of Judea, that He had no pillow to put His head on, it is speaking of the magnitude of the riches that He had in heaven, and the fact that He had the adoration of heaven, and He gave all that up - that's what it's speaking about! The great thing that He gave up and the poverty that He came to - why? Because the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.

Also He emptied Himself temporarily of His unique, intimate, face-to-face relationship with the Father. For all eternity they had related to one another in the Godhead, the triune unity, one in substance, three persons, having that perfect love with one other - yet when He came to the earth there was not that face-to-face bond that there always had been in fellowship and communion, He prayed like a man prayed. But all of it is epitomised and climaxed when we get to Calvary, and there He is crying: 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?'. What an emptying! It was that horrible prospect, I believe, that caused Him to sweat great drops of blood in the garden, deeply grieved to the point of death.

Can you see how He voluntarily gave up the manifestation of His glory - just as Moses veiled his face when he came down from the mount, Christ veiled His glory in His flesh! Imagine this: the Word made flesh, dwelt among us. You know the tabernacle, that in the tabernacle was the Ark of God, and upon the Ark of God there was the presence of God resting on the mercy seat, and there was the Shekinah glory in that tent - right in the holiest place of all. Christ had that glory in Him, but He veiled it in human flesh so that when we would see Him there was nothing that we should desire Him - and in fact, I say it very reverently, if He was in this room physically you wouldn't be able to spot Him! Yet it says in heaven there will be no sun there, why? Because the effulgence of the light of His glory is so great that it will be the sun. That is what He laid aside, yet when we go with Peter, James and John to the Mount of Transfiguration, what happened? In the same way that He voluntarily laid aside the manifestation of that glory, He then laid aside that voluntarily laying aside, and allowed the glory to effulge and burst out of His being so that they saw Him in all His glory - and what did God say again? 'This is My beloved Son in whom is all My delight'.

Everything that Jesus did, this is remarkable to me, was not so much done in the forth-putting of His own uncreated, divine power - but He chose rather to be utterly dependent on His Father. If that is not emptying, what is? John says that He did nothing of Himself, but what He saw the Father doing; He spoke no words of His own, but those that He heard the Father speaking; He committed no works of His own, but those which were of the Father who had sent Him. He chose that His human life should be one of faith, and here's the big question: why? Why? For love of you. Does that not astound you? For love of you. He didn't come as a King, in the vestitutes of a King, in the palace of a King - why? Because He wanted to live a truly human life, He wanted to walk our walk, He wanted to weep our tears, He wanted to receive the plenitude of God's power via the vessel of prayer and faith, because He one day would be our Great High Priest and we would have to come to Him in all of our trials, in all of our problems.

As one writer said: 'He forwent the use of His attributes that lay all around Him like tools within the reach of the skilled mechanic'. Don't you think they weren't there, don't you think that He couldn't have used them. He said Himself: 'Thinkest thou not that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels' - but here's the crux of this passage: He didn't ask for them! Not once! Why? So that you could come to Him in your weakness, in humility, and derive strength from one who was tempted in all points like you are, sin apart.

What's the second reason? We haven't got through the seven points, but I'll leave you with this: the second reason is that you should realise that you are a son or daughter of God, and voluntarily and completely you should surrender yourself to the will of God. Next week we will see that the God of heaven became flesh and surrendered Himself to the will of others. Let's read verses 4 and 5 as we close, verse 3: 'Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus' - what an illustration!

Let us all bow our heads. Maybe there is someone here this morning that is not converted, and you have never realised what the Lord Jesus did for you that you might be saved. I pray that the Holy Spirit will open your heart to realise what He gave up, what He came to and put on, that you might be saved. All that is required is that you reach out by faith and accept Him as your Saviour, and accept the gift of forgiveness that He procured at Calvary for you, and go home today knowing Christ as your Saviour. Believers among us: does it not thrill your heart to be reminded what He did for us, but does it not exhort us to behave in this fashion towards our brethren, towards all around us? It will be those who realise their dignity as sons and daughters of God who will be able to make that stoop. I pray to God that we will all have this mind.

Our Father, we are astounded, and no words of man - and we say it reverently - no words of Scripture could ever grasp the magnitude, the spiritual gasp of horror, at the God of heaven stripping Himself of the rights and the manifestations of His glory, and coming to earth in poverty to be the Saviour of humanity. Lord, we thank Thee, and we pray that that mind of humility and of surrender will be found in us as we relate toward our God and one another, for Christ's sake we pray. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - January 2003

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Philippians: Epistle Of Joy - Chapter 12

"The Majesty And Humility Of Christ - Part 2"

Copyright 2003

by Pastor David Legge

Philippians 2:1-11

I want us to turn together in the word of God to Philippians chapter 2 to our scripture reading, Philippians chapter 2, and we begin to read at verse 1. We began, last week, a glimpse at the Christian pattern, looking at the person of our Lord Jesus and specifically the stoop that He took as He left heaven to come down to earth to be our Saviour. We only got a few - the first three - steps looked at last Lord's Day morning, and God willing we want to look at the last four today, and slightly at His exaltation.

But we'll begin reading at verse 1: "If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father". Amen.

We were looking last week, as I said, at the Christian pattern - the stoop that our Lord Jesus took. This is a great portion of scripture, some scholars believe it was an ancient Christian creed, a basis of belief; others believe it was a hymn, a doxology of praise, Christologically speaking - outlining the condescension of our Lord Jesus from heaven to earth. Of course, I don't think there's any other portion of Scripture that can match in majesty and beauty the wonder of what it was for our Lord Jesus to leave heaven and come down to this sinful earth. But you will remember that the most important thing, perhaps, that we noted last week contextually from this passage is that it is found in the context of Paul's exhortation to these Christians in Philippi to behave like this towards one another. That the whole point of this passage, it's not just to give us a Christological doctrine of theology of what it meant for the Lord Jesus to be in the form of God, and step down, and left His glory aside and came into humanity, and humility, and all that the cross meant for Him, and then was subsequently exalted by God because of His stoop - it's more than that. It's giving us an example, and Paul is using this great theological truth to show us that as Christ stooped, so we must stoop - one toward another, of course.

That call is found in the first four verses of our passage, and it is a call to unity. 'If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye my joy' - my joy is when you are humble toward one another, when you're 'likeminded having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind, and letting nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves'. It is a call to unity - now note: it's not a call to uniformity, that we all have to be clones of one another, that we all have to in every single iota believe the same as one another. Of course it's speaking fundamentally of the things that we believe, the faith delivered once to the saints - we've all got to stand one together, with one mind. You remember the previous verses of chapter 1 that told us how we had to stand together firm in the faith, and fight for the faith, and strive together in the faith.

It is to be of one mind, to be in unity, not uniformity, to be in unity. But of course Paul tells us that the way of unity is to have the mind of Christ. Verse 5: 'Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus' - and in verses 5 to 11 that we'll study today, Paul describes how this mind of humility, and esteeming another better than yourself, is found actually expressed in God Himself, and how God Himself in the person of Christ had stooped down in humility toward humanity. In later studies we'll look at verses 12 to 16, but in preface I'll tell you that that simply is another expression of this humility, another expression of the mind of Christ in the assembly at Philippi. In verses 17 to 18 we find the expression of the mind of Christ in humility in the great apostle Paul himself. In verses 19 to 24 we find the mind of Christ expressed in Timothy, Paul's servant. In verses 25 to 30 we will find the mind of Christ expressed in Epaphroditus.

What Paul is saying is this, it's a great epistle of joy as we know, and he's already expressed that the joy of Christ will be experienced in the assembly of God when we love one another, when we have peace with one another, and when we put one another before ourselves, when we in lowliness of mind - which is the mind of Christ - esteem one another better than ourselves; then we will know the joy of Christ in our experience. The tragedy is that the tendency of ourselves, and even the believers in Philippi at this time, is to magnify our differences and minimise our agreements, the things that we have in one mind. This verse 5 could be translated: 'Let the attitude be in you which was also in Christ Jesus'. It seems today, as it was in Paul's day, that we as believers often strike our attitudes on the ground of our disagreements, rather than striking our attitudes on the ground of our agreements. Now I'm talking about fundamental things here, I'm not talking about agreeing with those who deny the fundamentals of the faith. We would have to agree in this room this morning that many of us will disagree on little matters, and it is our prerogative to do that, and we believe in the freedom of conscience. But we must believe, perhaps, 95% of biblical things in one mind and with the one spirit, we must be in agreement at least on 95% of things. But the tendency, and I believe it's the tendency of our old Adamic human nature, is to focus on the disagreements, to strike our attitude to one another on the grounds of the things that we disagree on, and maximise our disagreements until eventually they eclipse what we do agree on, and they become the focus of everything that we are and do.

The fact of the matter is that this was what Paul was speaking against. He says this, and I think you will see that it's very clear right throughout the whole theme of this epistle, that true biblical spirituality that will engender joy in your life is a man and a woman who is able to work with those whom he disagrees with. He's able to esteem another better than himself, and put away a petty difference, and work with that man in the unity of Christ and for the furtherance of the Gospel. The fact of the matter was that this church in Philippi was in Philippi, and there were no motorcars or buses or trains for them to go to another church, when they had a disagreement with one another they had to put up with one another because they lived in Philippi and they had to worship there. But Paul's fear was that because of the strife that potentially was going to erupt from within them, that what happened to the Jews would happen to the Christian church, in that they would be smashed into many fragments, perhaps right across the whole world. He didn't want that to happen - and I wonder today has that fear of Paul been realised in the many denominations and factions and sects that we have in Christendom?

Paul is saying that you've got to put aside these differences - not doctrine now, not teaching and the things that become sound doctrine, but petty personal differences - that is the right thing to do, Paul says. Any of us who have tried to do it will know that the right thing is always the hardest thing. I think that's probably catholic with regards to everything in Scripture, it's universal that the right thing to do is always the hardest thing to do. Have you ever tried to do what's found in verse 3: 'Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves'? Do you always esteem other people better than yourself? That's mighty, isn't it? Do I esteem other preachers better than myself? You might think that's not too hard for me, but perhaps put it on you: something that you think you're good at, do you esteem the other person to be better than you at that particular thing?

Now we have a human nature, and often we say: 'Well, my human nature isn't like that' - but we must remember that God has given us a new nature. I know that it's inevitable that within our human nature this old Adamic sense and temptation and passion will rise up in us to think of ourselves better than another, and to look down our noses at others; but we must remember that God has made us new creatures in Christ Jesus, and all the old has to be passed away and everything become new. Really what Paul is saying is that we are no longer to be selfish. The Christian New Testament believer is no longer to be selfish! So, in verse 1 to 4 he's inspiring us to think of others - the last word of verse 4. He's thinking of our personal conduct, what we learnt last week: that our personal conduct is to be modelled upon the person of Christ and His condescension, He is the Christian pattern in the stoop that He took when He came from heaven to earth.

Now we saw last week, let's quickly recap over it: first of all of He was being found in the form, the nature of God - He had conscious dignity. We found last week that this was speaking to us of the fact that because He was lofty in His character, He was able to condescend. Because He knew who He was, and He knew that no-one could take away from Him what He was in nature, He was not afraid of humbling Himself. One has said: 'Self-assertion is alien and superfluous to a person in himself who has an undisputed right to deity'. He didn't need to self-assert Himself, He didn't need to push Himself forward as if He was God, because He was God and He knew He was God - and the very first stepping-stone to His condescension and humiliation was His own recognition of His dignity as God.

What a lesson we learnt from that, because we realised that we will not be afraid of what other people think of us or say of us if we know who we are and what we really are - if we have a conscious dignity. Of course, all of us are the same in the sense that we are all the sons of God, and we've got all the promises of God. Then the second stoop we saw was voluntary surrender - look at verse 6: 'He thought it not robbery to be equal with God', or as it has been translated: 'He thought it not something to be grasped at'. We saw that that word 'grasped' means something seized or carried off by force, or it can mean a prize or an award. In other words, He didn't need to steal a reputation as God, because He had it - He had the conscious dignity in Himself. But neither did He strive toward it as a prize, because He didn't need to win it as a prize because He was God. But I think in the context of what Paul is saying here, trying to encourage believers to be humble toward one another, the main point that he's making is this: that He willingly yielded up His rights as God in a voluntary surrender - He didn't grasp at what was rightfully His, He didn't strive towards it as a goal, He didn't steal at it, but He gave it up. Just as the first Adam in the garden of Eden aspired to be like God, the Lord Jesus, the last Adam, did not grasp at it. Adam fell, but Christ is exalted - for the pattern of God is that when you abase yourself you will be exalted.

Voluntary surrender...the third thing was complete surrender, we saw that it wasn't just surrendering something, but it was surrendering everything. Verse 7: 'He made himself of no reputation', and we saw that that word literally means 'nothing', or 'emptied Himself'. Now let me say this: the false 'kenosis' (sp?) theory that says that Christ emptied Himself of His deity is a lie! Let me make that clear! The word 'kenosis' is in this passage, but I want you not to misunderstand me: He did not empty Himself of His deity, for if He emptied Himself of His deity, He emptied Himself of the form, His nature. If you empty yourself of your nature you cease to be what you are - just as you, if you emptied yourself of your nature, you would cease to be who you are. It was impossible for Him to do it, nevertheless the word means and insinuates: 'Emptied Himself of all' - a complete emptying.

Now, what was it a complete emptying of? Let me recap with you: His divine glory was hidden in human flesh; He emptied himself of His independent, divine authority to use His attributes without God the Father, He never ever did that; He emptied Himself of the voluntary exercise of some of His divine attributes; He emptied himself of His eternal riches - He was rich, for our sakes became poor - and the poverty was not the poverty of the earth, so much as the poverty of being stripped of the riches of heaven. That's the point! He emptied himself of the unique, intimate, face-to-face relationship with His Father. Temporarily on this earth He was not in the communion that He always knew, but He was separated in a body - and even when it came to Calvary He cried out: 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?'. What humiliation there is there! I think it was C.I. Schofield said: 'He laid aside the outward insignia of the glory of deity'. He didn't lay aside His deity, neither did He lay aside the glory of deity, neither did He lay aside the attributes of deity - but He laid aside the manifestation of them all.

Now let's look at the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh stoops. The fourth is found in verse 7: 'He took upon Himself the form of a servant' - this is the surrender of the will. The surrender of the will: 'the form of a bondservant', it could be translated. Now this does not mean that He put upon Himself the clothes of a servant, nothing like that. The sense is that He became as completely a servant as He was completely God! Do you see that? We would not dispute this morning that He was absolutely, perfectly God; but in the same sense He was absolutely, perfectly and completely a servant. The Greek word is 'doulos', which spoke of a servant who owned nothing, not even the clothes on his back, everything belonged to his master. You don't need to read too far in the Gospels to find out how our Lord owned no land, no house, no gold, no jewels. He had no business, no boat, no horse - and even when it came to His death He rode into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey; and when He was crucified, just before it He went up to the upper room which was borrowed; and after He died He was buried in a borrowed tomb.

But it's more than that: He is our servant - and this is marvellous, because we know from Isaiah 53 that the Lord literally has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him! He is made our servant - He is the servant of Jehovah, but He is actually going through crucifixion serving us! He became the servant of Jehovah to fulfil the will of God toward us. People get confused about the garden of Gethsemane, and let me say that I am very confused about a lot of it. But one thing that has been explained to me in these studies in Philippians 2 about where the Lord Jesus says: 'Not my will, but thine be done', is the confusion of some where they say: 'Well, was the Lord's will against the Father's will, that He had to resign Himself to the Father's will?'. No, it wasn't and it couldn't. It wasn't that the Lord didn't want to go to Calvary that He said: 'Not my will, but thine be done' - that was impossible, for He rebuked the disciples for even the insinuation of holding Him back from Calvary. But the point here is this: that the Lord Jesus had a human will, and even His human will that was not opposed to God still had to be surrendered up to God! Do you get it? He learned obedience by the things He suffered, Hebrews says - it's not that His will opposed in any way God's will, but He had a will to give up to God: 'I must always do those things that please Him'.

Now I think you would agree with me that man, as we know it, would rather be a king in a cottage than a servant in a palace. I want you to see this: Jesus, the great Creator who created all things, who ruled all things, who sustained all things by the word of His power, is now stooping to be a servant in His own world, to be controlled by His Father's will and even the will of others! He even stooped to be in subjection to those around Him: the crowd, the blind man, the deaf, the lame, the dead who needed Him and who wanted His help - it's remarkable! Even the disciples, He subjected Himself as the servant to their whims. When they wanted to lean on His breast by faith, as a child would lean on their mother for comfort and help, He was always there for them! It's amazing that in the end - and you mark this, and this is tremendous - He even submitted Himself to His enemies, and at last allowed them to deprive Him of His liberty and of His life. It's a complete and an utter surrender, He yielded all step-by-step, sacrifice by sacrifice, until at last He was led as a Lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is dumb.

Surrender of the will...then there was His earthly position: 'He was in the form of a servant, and was made' - verse 7, the end - 'in the likeness of men'. This is lower still, each step gets lower. He wasn't just a servant, He was - Paul is saying - the lowest of men, the humblest of the race. He suffered the humiliation of human birth! The God that had designed it went through it! He suffered the humility of the feebleness of infancy, He was a little baby in that manger! He didn't become a man in the sense of a pre-fall Adamic man - and you mark this: some people think that the Lord Jesus walked around as Adam walked around before the fall. It wasn't like that at all, let me tell you. I've even heard it said that the Lord Jesus couldn't suffer pain until that last week of His crucifixion, as if God took some kind of cosmic shield away from Him and allowed Him to suffer and know weakness and pain - that is nonsense! He took upon Himself the lowest position of humanity, apart from sin - yet He took upon Himself the frailties, the limitations, the problems, the sufferings that were the heritage of humanity in the fall although He had no sin of His own.

You can see that in the fact that He was hungry, and those were hunger pangs - pains - in the desert 40 days and 40 nights, and if you'd been hungry that long you would know that. He was thirsty, He suffered pain and He felt sadness at the tomb of Lazarus. Like other men He was tired, He was weak, He needed sleep - and Roman says, and here's the verse if you want it: 'He was made in the likeness of' - not pre-fall flesh, but - 'in the likeness of sinful flesh'. He wasn't made like sinful flesh, He wasn't made sinful flesh, but He was made in the likeness of it. What a position: He could have taken the likeness of an unfallen angel, yet the great Creator became passive. In that little manger His own creatures, fallen and sinful, could lift Him up in their arms and set Him down at their own will! What about that? The Creator at the pleasure of others - not a child of royalty, or wealth, or honour; but born among the poor and lowly, of a maiden whose circumstances even threw upon His birth a shadow of suspicion and dishonour, He was called a bastard, the lowest of the low. He made Himself of no reputation.

Why did He do it? Because He must know what our human experiences are - He must! He needed to be perfectly united with man, just as He was and always had been perfectly united to God, because He had to become our merciful High Priest! He had to make intercession for us, and how could He make intercession for us if He never knew what it was like for us? Praise God, He knows, He knows.

The sixth step was obedience right to death: 'Being found in fashion as a man', verse 8, 'he humbled himself, and became obedient right unto death', would be a better translation, because He wasn't obedient to death, death had no hold on Him, but He humbled Himself to be obedient right unto death, He gave Himself up to death. Now He had been obedient already to the pangs of birth in Mary's womb, He had been obedient to Mary and Joseph as His own parents - the God of heaven obedient to them! He had been obedient to Joseph in the carpenter's workshop, to the sweat of employment, and not once did He save Himself from a human agony by the drawing of His divine power - not once. You even go to Matthew chapter 4, to the temptation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you watch the first and second temptations that came to Him from the devil, and what were they? One: turn these stones to bread; two: cast Yourself off the peak and the angels will give themselves guard over Thee - what where they? They were temptations to get the Christ of God to turn and use His own divine attributes, but He didn't turn to them - why? Because He had to face temptation as a man, not as God! You don't face temptation as God, do you? You face it as a man, and praise God you can be a victor because Christ was the victor before you.

But the final shame, as it were, was He died, He died! He need not have died, because He had no sin, and death is the wages of sin. He said it Himself in John 10:17-18: 'No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again'. In that transfiguration on that Mount of Transfiguration, Christ - you mark this - would have had every right to have turned His back on His disciples, and stepped back into heaven and never saved them at all! But He didn't do it, because He was obedient to death, which was obedient to His Father's will! With calm deliberation and full knowledge of all that awaited Him at Calvary, He bowed His meek head below death's sceptre.

Seventh: His final sacrifice, He was obedient right unto death, even the death of the cross. No illustrious death for the Son of God, no heroic tragedy, but that which was given to the criminal, to the scum of the earth was the death of Jesus the Son of God! They put Him outside the city wall, do you know why? Because a criminal was thought to defile the holy precincts of Jerusalem, and they put Jesus out in case His filth would defile them! What a final sacrifice, between two common thieves as if He Himself was a convict; buried in stranger's grave as if He was worthless. I know and you know that there are thousands of people right across our world this very morning who are willing to sacrifice themselves, blow themselves up, give their whole livelihood for something heroic if it brings them distinction, if they get a halo of heroism and fame around their brow - but there was no fame for Christ!

'Man for man will boldly brave

The terrors of the yawning grave,

And friend for friend, and child for sire,

Undaunted and unmoved expire

For love, or piety, or pride -

But who can die as Jesus died?'

He chose the most degrading, painful form of death - and let me say to you: He could not have gone any lower. Our imaginations could well have put Him in the house of Mary and Martha and Lazarus in Bethany, lying on a bed dying, with Mary wiping His brow, and Martha running in and out and getting His aid, with the window open with the fresh breeze coming from Jerusalem - but that wasn't His death! He chose to be butchered on a cross that He might go as low as He could, that He might bring us as high as He would go! He tasted death for every man so that the great martyrs and reformers, and apostles and disciples of the faith, He could enter into what they went through to be a sympathising Saviour.

Here's the crux of the message: 'Let this mind be in you', that's what Paul said! This consciousness of dignity and voluntary surrender, this complete surrender, this surrender of the will, this lowly earthly position, this obedience right to death, and even the final sacrifice of losing all dignity and having all shame poured upon you. One of the greatest books that have ever been written by a Christian man is that which is called: 'The Imitation of Christ'. My friend, it is a good book and I commend it to you, but let me warn you of this at the end of this study in Philippians 2: that you might as well try and imitate Christ as a canary imitate Pavarotti - it cannot be done. You cannot do it in your own strength, and Christ in this passage is not so much an example, but He is the very power to live this life which is His life. Mark what verse 5 says: 'Let this mind be in you, this mind which was also in Christ Jesus' - His mind, it's His mind! It's not you trying to make your mind like His mind, or your life like His life, but dying to yourself and letting Him live through you.

If there's a truth that needs to be known in Christianity, this is the deepest truth: it is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me. This is the mystery of godliness: Christ in you, the hope of glory. Do you want humility, esteeming others better than yourself? Submit to Christ and let His life live through you! Do you want love? Well, open your heart to a baptism of love from the Son of God - His love. If you want patience it will have to be His patience; courage, His courage; wisdom, His wisdom - whatever it is, it's got to be His! You might think: 'Well, this is very confusing' - well, I'll tell you it's not, because it clears up a lot of problems, you know why? Because it makes things less complicated: all you need is Christ!

Great simplicity, not 101 steps, just one: Christ. It takes all complications out of it, that you're not watching yourself and your steps, but you're keeping your eyes on the Lord Jesus, and you're abiding in the Vine, and you're letting the Vine live through your life because you're dead, and He is life in you! Do you get it? The way to be exalted is what Jesus did: 'Wherefore God hath also highly exalted Him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord'. My friend, if you want to be exalted it must be the way of the cross. This passage is teaching you that the way up is the way down, the way to win is the way to lose, the way to strength is the way of weakness, the way to glory is the way of shame, the way to life is the way of death - and this is God's law of recompense, because nobody ever stooped so low and no-one was ever exalted so high!

The greatest step He took led to the greatest honour that anyone ever had, and I want you to mark - we don't have time to lineate this - but there were seven steps down, and there were also seven steps up. Seven is the number of perfection as you know, and that speaks that perfect humiliation and submission and surrender will lead to perfect exaltation, and He had it! He had it. Brethren and sisters, such a mind must be in us, we must be willing to lay aside our ambition, our own glory and self-seeking, our little thrones of comfort, respect, to serve others in the church and in the lost world. There are plenty of us like the two who would sit at the right hand and the left hand of Christ in the kingdom, but He says if we want that we must drink of His cup, we must be baptised with the baptism that He is baptised with.

Paul could say in his great epistle to the Corinthians: 'I think also that I have the mind of Christ' - do we? I'll leave you with this little piece called 'Others':

'Lord help me live from day to day

In such a self-forgetful way,

That even when I kneel to pray

My prayer shall be for others.

Help me in all the work I do

To ever be sincere and true;

And know that all I do for thee

Must needs be done for others.

Let self be crucified and slain

And buried deep, and all in vain

May efforts be to rise again,

Unless to live for others.

And when my work on earth is done,

And my new work in Heaven's begun,

May I forget the crown I won

While thinking still of others.

Others, Lord, yes others,

Let this my motto be,

Help me to live for others

That I may live like Thee'.

Our Father, we thank Thee for the massive step, the immeasurable, unquantifiable step that Christ took when He left Thy right hand and came and walked among men. Lord, we are only paddling at the water's edge this morning, and we pray that we will be given a deeper appreciation - but, our Father, we have found out that Thy will is that we should have a deeper appreciation, when we ourselves suffer the same humiliation that He suffered. Lord, help us always to be a people that step down, that God may raise us up again. Help us to be a people that love one another, and esteem one another better than ourselves in lowliness of mind. Lord, help us all to realise today that we ought not to go away and try to be imitators of this example, but that we should die, and allow Christ to live in us - mind, body, soul and spirit, that our attitude may be that of Christ Jesus. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - January 2003

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Philippians: Epistle Of Joy - Chapter 13

"The Christian Life Turned Inside Out"

Copyright 2003

by Pastor David Legge

Philippians 2:12-13

I want you to turn with me to Philippians chapter 2, and we have been in this little epistle now for ten weeks or so, on and off, and we've been in chapter 2 for approximately half of that period. We're taking up verses 12 and 13, and I want speak to you this morning on 'The Christian Life Turned Inside Out', the Christian life turned inside out. Remember everything that we've studied and read so far, and then Paul takes up the train of thought: "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and", to work, or, "to do of his good pleasure. Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain".

Mark Twain, that great American author who of course you will know I hope, was not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ said these very true words: 'Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example'. Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. What is the thinking behind Mark Twain's remarks? I think, probably he was saying that the annoyance of a good example is in our inability to achieve the status of that example, to accomplish the standard that that example gives to us. Of course, what greater example could we have than that given in this passage, where the Lord Jesus is spoken of as being in the form of God, yet thought it not something to be grasped to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation and emptied Himself - in many of His capacities in the Godhead, He voluntarily gave up His prerogative and right to use them, He could have used them but He didn't grasp out towards them. He came as a servant, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and was made obedient unto death, right unto death - even the death of the cross. Then there came that wonderful glorious exultation that resulted from the depths that He went down into, where God hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that one day at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.

Now, that portion of Christological theology that is so glorious and majestic in its language is given to us not just for our theological pondering and contemplation. You will remember that it was given to the church at Philippi, first and foremost as an example of the humility that you and I and the Philippians are to have towards one another as Christians, and that's enshrined in the plea that was given in verses 1 to 4: 'Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory', verse 4, 'Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others'. The plea to look for others good before our own. Then the pattern is given in verses 5 through to 11, the Lord Jesus, He is that example.

Now we would be forgiven, perhaps, at the end of all those studies - and seeing what the apostle and the Holy Spirit, by inference, is requiring of us as saints, the type of humility that our Lord Jesus had - to stand back and say: 'Well, this is impossible! How could I possibly do the likes of that? Paul may plea, he may give me the pattern, but what is the process, where is the power to live a life like this?'. Now the process and the power is found, we will see today, in verses 12 and 13. Paul takes it up by saying: 'Wherefore', or 'So then, beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling'. 'So then', because of what you have learnt - he's carrying on from chapter 1 and verse 27, if you look at it for a moment, where he said similar words: 'Let your conversation', or your way of life, 'be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel'.

You've to clothe yourselves in the garments of salvation that become Jesus Christ, that show forth gloriously Jesus Christ in all of His splendour and humility and exaltation, not detract from what the Gospel is meant to speak of. The same thing is really what he's saying as he's finished this great discourse on the humiliation of our Lord in chapter 2: 'So then, because of this, wherefore, even if I'm with you or if I'm not with you, you've got to obey these words that I have spoken'. Now if you look at verse 12 for a moment, in affection he calls them 'beloved' as he often does in his epistles because he's trying, if you like, to cushion with sympathy the exhortation that he's going to give to them. 'Beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only', now let's stop there for a moment, because right away we're seeing that these Philippian believers, when Paul was with them and when he in his apostolic authority gave them an instruction, they obeyed Paul. Of course, the apostles had the prerogative of God to do things like this, but I want you to see that Paul is commending them here that when he was in their midst, and he gave them a command, they obeyed it as from the Lord, without any question whatsoever. Incidentally, in the light of what this passage has already been speaking about, he's saying: 'You mirrored the humility of Christ, because He was obedient, He was the bondslave to the will of His Father, and so as I have come to you and brought you the commands of God, you have obeyed me when I have been present with you'.

So he's telling them, and commending them where commendation is due, that they did this when he was with them. But now he's going a step further, you see it in verse 12: 'But I want you to do this not as in my presence only'. The word for 'presence' is the Greek 'parousia' (sp?) that is often used of the second coming of our Lord Jesus when His presence will be with His people. But the sense is: 'I want you to do this the way you did it when I was with you, when I'm not with you'. The sense of this word 'parousia' is not just 'presence', but 'being influenced by' - or you could translate it 'being helped by'. Let's look at it again, Paul is saying: 'It's commendable that you humbled yourselves to the obedience of my commands which were from the Spirit of God when I was with you, when I was there to influence you, when I was there to help you - but I want you to go on a step further, and now that I'm not there you're to do the same. Now that I'm not there to influence you, now that I'm not there to help you, but now how much more you need to do it in my absence' - aprousia (sp?), 'ap' meaning 'away from' - 'now that I'm away from you, my influence is away from you'.

The problem was that Paul suspected, and I think rightly so, that the Philippians obedience was dependent upon the great apostle's presence, bodily, with them. In one sense it was easy for them to do what Paul said when Paul was there, and when Paul's eyes could see and ears could hear what they were doing and what they were saying. But now Paul is saying: 'You got to be not dependent on me, but realise more your dependence on Christ; because faith is the dependence upon things not seen' - aprousia - 'things that are not present, when you're away from any godly influence whatsoever, when you do the will of God' - and he's going on a step further to encourage them by saying that all is sufficient to do the will of God is the presence of Christ in you.

Of course they were discouraged, as we saw in weeks gone by, that the apostle was in prison. They were liable to be cast down because their leader was gone, and Paul is trying to encourage them: 'No, you're not dependent upon me, you're not just to be obedient when I'm with you, and when my influence and help is given to you, but all the more it's needed now when I'm not there! When the world is looking on and they're looking to see if this is real or it's just enshrined in some kind of hierarchy of apostolic authority, men looking to men!'. You see the Philippians were in danger of becoming what I have called 'proxy Christians'. They tended to lean on Paul too much. They leant on his strength, they were bold in his presence, but now that he's away they're weak, they're fearful in his absence. Really, if we could colloquialise it in our language, we could say Paul was saying: 'Look, you've got to learn now to stand on your own two feet'.

Not that we need to be independent of one another in the body of Christ - we know that that can't be the case - or that we don't need one another...this epistle, if it's saying anything, it's saying the opposite: there needs to be this unity of love and dependence on one another. But what Paul is saying is that the actual intrinsic crux, the centre of the gravity of our faith and how we live in an outward sense to the world around us, has to be dependent alone on Christ - because all around us changes, where He changes not. You see, you can be dependent on your wife's faith, if it's stronger than yours you can be dependent on that. You can be dependent on your husband's leading in the home, and because you know he's a strong Christian you depend on his decisions and his leading rather than ultimately depending on God. Those two things are not wrong in themselves, but it is what they are to the expense of depending upon God chiefly.

You can depend on your church's reputation. We've always believed the truth, and we stand foursquare on the word of God and the gospel of God, and somehow you put your head on that as a pillow of faith and rest - but if I was to ask you what would happen if these four walls, and the people that really are the church of Jesus Christ, were dispersed and gone overnight, and there was no Iron Hall or whatever assembly you belong to, where would your faith be? How would you be identified in the world around you? What would your witness be? People sometimes think, when there's no Pastor, that a work can't go on - I think this is the error that we see right here in the Philippians, that they thought that this one man could do everything. Other churches we see fall around the seams when the great personality that founded them, or that everybody gathered to, dies, passes on - the work depletes and diminishes because they're looking to a man.

Some say that 'The Pastor, the workers, missionaries, let them work out my salvation for me. It's enough that he does the praying, he does the reading of God's word and the witnessing, I'll pay towards his support - but he can be my proxy'. I'm not saying anybody's doing this here, I'm only trying to illustrate to you that this is the danger the Philippians were in danger and peril of falling into, where they were saying: 'Let this man Paul be my security and work out my salvation. When I've a problem I go to Paul, when there's a problem in the church we go to Paul, when we need some guidance we go to Paul'. Some go a step further, and in a more spiritual capacity say: 'Well, I won't look to a man to work out my salvation for me, let God be Christian for me. Let God be Christian for me'. In other words, 'I will do nothing, it's enough for me to be saved, now let God do the rest'. That is equally as bad, and I'll tell you why: because the result of those two attitudes is that neither of those people work at or work out their salvation, because they're relying on props.

I wonder have you any props today, or who's helping you, or who you're relying on, or whose influence really makes you tick and keeps you going - but if that person, or that influence, or that help was no longer there, well, who knows what could really happen? Or perhaps even recently those props, or helps, or influences that you have had have been taken away, and sometimes God does that in order to let us see that we're not to rely on any of these things, even good things! We're to rely wholly and completely on Him.

Now there are two applications that we could give to these two verses this morning. There is a church application, because as a church Paul felt that they were in danger of using him as a prop, so God took their prop away and God put him in prison, God locked him up. We know from chapter 4 and verse 2 that there was potential division within the assembly, and that was an occasion that likely, if Paul was with them, they would have went to Paul right away and Paul would have sorted it all out. He would have worked out their salvation, their deliverance from this problem, and their witness would have been safeguarded in the society, and there wouldn't have been a split in the church, and the Christians wouldn't have been backbiting and fighting and all the rest. But Paul is not with them, and it is God's way, Paul is saying, that assembly problems are dealt with from within. But we know, and we have known through church history, that assemblies tend not to do this, but they run to their leaders and they appeal to their leaders.

Now don't get me wrong, there have to be leaders within the church, and as we've gone through Corinthians we've seen that very clearly: that there ought to be overseers. But we also saw, particularly in that passage to do with discipline, chapter 5 if memory serves me correctly, that there are things that ought not to even be brought to the oversight - because God's way is that those things be dealt with first and foremost between you and your brother who has offended you or you who have offended them. Do you see that? These things ought to be sorted out primarily, and you might say idealistically, from within and between those who are the offended parties.

Now you can see how, I think, in church history, the clergy and laity system evolved - where men felt: 'Well, I can't sort this thing I myself', and they ran to a cleric or to a religious leader, and so esteemed that religious leader that they were exalted over the ordinary people. Men like Diotrephes, who loved to have the pre-eminence; like the cult of the Nicolatians, who esteemed this laity and clergy division between ordinary people and those who are in the pulpit, those who are the ministers. Now this was simply because the early believers found that it was generally easier to appeal to a noted preacher or teacher for help than to cast themselves wholly upon God, and look into the word of God through prayer for a way ahead.

You might think: 'Well, what are you getting at?'. Well, let me personalise it, it applies to the church, but it applies to all of us here today because we can just make ourselves naked before the face of God in His word at this particular moment, when we just ask the question: who do you run to first of all when you need help? Where do you go first? Do you go to your spouse? Your parents? Your best friend? Your solicitor? Your banker? Your Pastor? Or do we go to God? Do we rely on others? It's not that we don't need others. Now some people will argue, and maybe this is what's going over in your head at this moment: 'Well, that's alright, but ordinary people are too ignorant to settle these matters. The ordinary people can't sort these things out, you have to look to other people'. Well I would agree with you that there are certain circumstances, and that's why there have been leaders appointed within the church - but ideally, and let me say that the word of God, although you might think it's idealistic, it was given to men and women who are equally as fallible and sinful as you and me, and they were expected to obey it! They, in Philippi, have the word of God and have the Spirit of God, and we have the word of God and we have Spirit of God, and can I ask you: what more do leaders have than the word of God and the Spirit of God? They don't have any more! I grant you, God gifts them in peculiar ways at times - you might say very peculiar! - but nevertheless God has given us all the word of God and the Spirit of God to be led in these particular differences and issues that may arise. But what is usually lacking is the necessary humility, and here's Paul's point, to wait on God - and if necessary, God's leading doesn't go my way, to humble myself before God and to take it! I think that's where the loophole comes, and we all fall foul.

It's not that we ignore other's advice and judgement, but what Paul is saying is that we're not to be reliant on that, we're to be relying on God. When we're reliant on God, verse 14, we'll do all things without murmurings and disputings, we'll be blameless and harmless as sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom ye shine as lights in the world. We will be seen to be something different: 'Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain'. Paul is speaking personally now, he's saying: 'If you do this, I'll not regret all the effort I put into you at the judgement seat of Christ, because I'll get a greater reward!'.

Now I want to spend the remaining moments that we have on the personal application of these two verses. It's twofold, verse 12: the Christian's workout; and verse 13: the Lord's work-in. The Christian's workout, let's look at that first of all. 'Work out your own salvation', now people say: 'Well, here it is, proof that salvation is by works. You can preach all you like about grace and faith and so on, and doing nothing to be saved, but here it is in black-and-white: work out your salvation'. Now is this text talking about the saving of your soul from eternal damnation? It's clearly not, because if you look at it, it says: 'work out your own salvation with fear and trembling', it doesn't say: 'work for your salvation with fear and trembling', but 'work it out'. Work it out!

There was little girl once listening to a preacher who was preaching on this text, and saying it's not by grace, it's not by faith - you need grace and you need faith to help you along the way, but you've got to meet God half-way. He was really saying that it's not by grace alone that we are saved - and the little girl tugged the arm of her mother, and said: 'Mother, how can you work it out if it hasn't got in?'. How can you work it out if you haven't got it in? Do you see the difference here? It has to be in before you can work it out. This is the primary difference between Christianity, Bible believing Christianity, and the religions of this world - because religion is an attempt to work in, rather than let God work something in, you're trying to work the thing in.

It's the difference of trying to affect a change inside you, rather than allowing God to be the cause of the change from without into you. It's the difference between effort rather than grace. What Paul is really saying is that this salvation has been given to you as a gift, it is the divine life that is in you, Christ's very spirit has been implanted in your spirit. He said on another occasion: 'For me to live is Christ, my life is the life of Christ resurrected!'. Now he's exhorting these Christians: work out that salvation, work out that life day by day.

Of course 'salvation' has many meanings, and I think it could almost be understood in this verse as meaning your progressive sanctification, as you strive toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus - ultimately your reward in heaven. Not salvation, but your reward that you will get at the judgement seat of Christ. This can't be speaking about salvation, because it's not talking to individuals in the first place, it's talking to the assembly, it's talking about how they are seen outwardly - really that's what 'salvation' means in its literal sense, that when you move from Egypt into Canaan, people see that you've moved from the slave market of sin into the land of promise of God. They can see the difference! You're saved in their eyes because they see it! That's what he's talking about.

Well, how is your workout going, Christian? How are you working out what God has implanted in you? Let me tell you a very interesting story: one of the most remarkable characters in the United States history was a man called George Washington Carver. He was born a slave, and on one occasion he was traded as a little boy for a horse. Let me read an account: 'Years ago before the slaves were free, a little six month-old negro boy was stolen with other slaves from his owner. Moses Carver, who lived near Diamond Grave, Missouri, became a professor eventually in Tuskagee University. He held degrees of Bachelor and Master of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce of Great Britain. He was also a musician, he once toured the mid-West US as a concert pianist. He was a painter, he had exhibited at the world's greatest fairs - but the most surprising thing about him was his ability to make things out of nothing'. Wait until you hear this! 'He was able to paint out of clay, he could make marble out of wood shavings, starch, paste, vinegar, ink, shoe blackening; caramels out of sweet potatoes' - could you do this? 'He made butter, oil, cheese, dye, face powder, breakfast food, printers ink, pickles, instant coffee, axle grease, and 276 other things out of peanuts'. In spite of his background Professor Carver said, listen to this: 'When you do common things in an incommon way, you will command the attention of the world'.

That's what Paul is saying, when your life has changed so that you work out your salvation in such a way that the world stands back and sees you doing everyday, mundane, ordinary things, but with the glory and humility of Christ, they will take note. Professor Carver was recognised and registered as a genius, a real genius, but he didn't profess to be a genius. In fact he attributed all his success to God, this is what he said: 'Whatever I did I was doing it because God had already placed the possibility of it in my nature. I'm only doing what God told me to do'. He's doing, literally, in the physical realm what Paul is exhorting these Christians in Philippi to do in the spiritual realm - to dig deep, and to dig out what God has put in there! To work it out, and you know that right across this world there are vast resources of natural wealth and minerals that lie within the earth, and they are being taken out day by day, and at a rate of billions of pounds and dollars per year - but there's no miner can work under the earth for gold or diamonds or copper, which has not already been put down under there by the Creator of the universe! He can only work out what God has put in!

The ancient scholar Strabo, who lived in 64-62BC, was a Roman who wrote in the Greek language. In one of his accounts of the famous silver mine in Spain he refers to this phrase 'working out', and he uses identically the same phrase as Paul uses. What Strabo was describing where the Romans who operated an exploiting system and got, if you like, raped and exhausted totally the utmost value of those mines of everything that was in them. Now they owned them all, but they still exhausted everything they could out of them! That's the sense of this word. I tell you believer: God has put within your spirit a power that is greater than all the hydrogen bombs that this world could ever imagine. Paul's question is: are you working it out? The Greek word that he uses is 'categoismai' (sp?) - it's a working with diligent labour, the sense is 'fully developed maturity'. It's saying don't stop half-way, don't be content with partial salvation, follow your salvation to its ultimate conclusion. It's the working out of a maths student with a formula until he gets the conclusion arithmetically - he gets the answer, and he stays at it until he gets it!

In verse 13 the word he uses for 'work' is a different word: 'God worketh in you'. The work that God does in us is a word that we get our word in English 'energy' from. It's talking about the power that was put in you when you were first regenerated and saved. God has put this supernatural power in you, but you're to get that power within you and you're to work at it and work on it and work it out! Do you see the difference? Maybe it's confusing you. Well, let me illustrate it like this: a beautiful sun in the sky on this February Lord's Day morning, and as it comes down you maybe have even noticed that the little spring flowers are even now starting to sprout. That is a source outside of the flower, it's an 'energae' (sp?), if you like, an energy like the word in verse 13 that God works in us, what He's put in us. It's coming down from the sun, and that little flower imbibes it, but that little flower starts to work with what God has given it. It works out petals and pollen, and perfume and fruit, and all sorts of beautiful colours, because it takes what God has given it and it works it out.

That's what Paul is saying: to work out with God has worked in, with conscious effort. Not to 'let go and let God', as we often hear, but to take hold of God by His grace and to work out what He has worked in with fear and trembling, realising the potential that we have to sin and to fall into sin, realising the necessity that we have of God and His grace and His power - but in that trembling obedience, and that phrase 'in fear and trembling' is always used in the New Testament of obedience, yet we obey God and go forward to maturity! Not to a partial salvation, but to enter into the fullness of everything that God has already worked in us.

Can I ask you: how are you working out as a Christian? Well, verse 13, let me encourage you as we close, talks about the Lord working in: 'For it is God which worketh in you'. The emphasis in the Greek language is especially on the word 'God'. 'It is God which worketh in you', it's not just your own doing. You don't have to rely on your own strength - thank God for that, for I have very little strength, and the Lord has reminded me in the week that has gone by: 'If thou fail in the day of adversity, thy strength indeed is small', and it is. But isn't it wonderful to know that God has worked into us an 'energo', an energy, where He's not only our holy companion but He is in us, the Lord of the galaxies, the King of the constellations, the One who has created the continents, who carved out the seabeds and filled them with the rains, the God of the centuries and the ages is at work in us!

What pattern is He working to? Oh, my friends, it's the pattern that He gave us in this very chapter: 'For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren'. I wonder do people look at you and say: 'God is at work in that man or woman'. I'm led to believe that in the area of Pasadena, California, Albert Einstein years ago moved out his residence there. He lived in a modest and unpretentious home. Immediately he moved out that house became the object of great interest, and people drove past it in their cars, and they walked by it on foot, and they stood outside it - why? Why all the interest? Because Albert Einstein was at work in that house! What attention should we give to the fact that God is at work in us, both to will and to work for His good pleasure, carrying out His eternal will?

I'm almost finished. Just listen to me for a moment, because I'm conscious that there could be people here struggling with sin and temptation. Trying to be humble, trying to do what is written down in this passage that the Lord has given us as an example. Well, you have to die, and allow, in obedience, Christ to live out that life in you - but it's not without your cooperation. Let me illustrate it this way: in the city of New York, when they were building one of their east river bridges, during the construction the engineers were sinking the deep cassions - which, if you don't know, is a watertight chamber in which underwater construction can be done in a dry space - trying to put this down under the water level, and they encountered a sunken hulk, and old barge that just wouldn't budge no matter what they did, it had become so securely embedded in the river that the engine's cables were all powerless to remove it. At that point of defeat in the operation, when they thought there's no power that can move this, there was a young man who was fresh from technical engineering school, and he said: 'Well, can I have permission to look at this case?'. After studying the problem he asked for permission to try his plan. When he was given a permission he got an even bigger barge, and he put it on the water surface right at the spot that the barge under the water was buried. He took chains and fastened these huge chains under the water to the sunken hulk of the barge beneath the ground. Then they all watched in astonishment, because as the tide began to rise in the river there came this irresistible energy and power as the surface barge rose with the swelling tide, and lifted the submerged wreck - why? Because the young engineer made use of the limitless natural power of the ocean tides.

Paul says: 'Child of God, work out your salvation and make use of the power that God has put in you, and is working in you, to fulfil His will according to His good pleasure'. I'll tell you, if you have a God-linked life, that doesn't mean you meet God half-way and He'll meet you halfway, it means this: you give all and God will give all - His power will be demonstrated to the world all around that He is working in you, for we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. That word 'workmanship' means 'poem', we get 'poem' from it in our English language - and think of it: God is transposing a poem through your life, my life, combining them altogether. One day He will combine every child of God together in glory in a great symphonic poem of praise to the glory of the divine Creator who is worthy, and He's worthy of it now as He will be worthy of it then.

How are you working out your salvation? Maybe it hasn't happened too much yet, but can I encourage you to know what God has worked into you, and that you'll go away today and begin to work it out.

Our Father, we thank Thee for putting such a dynamic power deep within our hearts that is the very resurrection power that raised our Lord Jesus from the dead. But Lord, I must confess, and I don't believe that I'm alone, that I have not worked that power out to the best of my ability, but Lord, oh one day what that will be when that power will be transfigured in all of its ability. Oh Lord, when this corruption shall give up into incorruption, and we will shine for the glory of Christ for all eternity. Lord, help us as we see that day approaching, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and that in us You will do Your work according to Your good pleasure. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - February 2003

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Philippians: Epistle Of Joy - Chapter 14

"Silent Lights"

Copyright 2003

by Pastor David Legge

Philippians 2:14-16

Now we're turning to Philippians chapter 2 again. Of course last week we were looking at the Christian life inside out, and we looked at what it is to work out our salvation, as verse 12 tells us, the Christian workout - and the fact that we work out our salvation because God is the one who worketh in you both to will and to do according to His good pleasure. There was the Christian's workout and God's work-in. The portion that we're looking at this morning, verses 14 to 16, speaks of silent lights, silent lights.

Verse 14: "Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain".

I think all of you will know that lights, generally, don't make any noise, but lights burn. They don't make a noise, but they send forth an effulgence. You heard our brother George Bates recently telling the story of a friend of his who was asked to go and mend a doorbell for an 84 year-old woman. Of course, you men know what it's like when you're asked to do something, and you put it on the back burner for a little while - then it becomes a long while, and eventually the wife nagged, and nagged, and nagged at him, and he decided: 'I better go round and fix this lady's bell'. When he got round to the woman's house, of course he knocked at the door, and when she came to the door she said: 'My bell's broke, it's totally broke, I need a new bell. You can try and fix it, but as far as I'm concerned I need a new bell'. Lo and behold, he tried to ring it and it wasn't working. So he got a screwdriver out and started to take it apart, and he found that all that was wrong with the bell was a flat battery. So he got the little woman in her living room and said: 'No, it's alright, it is working'. She says: 'No, I'm sorry, but it's not working!'. She said: 'I've tried to ring it, other people tried to ring it, it's not working'. He said: 'You don't understand me, it is working, but you've a flat battery. All you need to do is go down to the local corner shop, and with a few pounds buy a new battery, and I'll fit the new battery and everything will be alright again - your bell will ring once more'. As soon as he said that, she said to him: 'Well, could you get me one for that light on the ceiling there, because that burns every hour of every day and it's costing me a fortune?'. The man says: 'No, dear, I can't get you a battery for that light because it takes more power to shine a light than to ring a bell'. It takes more power to shine a light than to ring a bell.

Now don't misunderstand what I'm saying to you today, it's good to be vocal in our Christian lives and we're exhorted to. In recent portions of this book we've been told how Paul was encouraging these Philippian believers, from prison, to go out and not be fearful, but to tell people of the love of Jesus no matter what the consequences of suffering might be for them. But what Paul is coming to now here in these verses is that shining a light is more superior than making a noise. It is right to make a noise, it's right to be vocal, but we ought not to do that at the exception of letting the light of the Gospel and the life of Christ shine from ours.

It's important to be vocal in our Christian faith, but what Paul is now touching in these verses that we're looking at today is that often Christians are vocal, but what vibrates from the Christians mouth and lips is not the voice of praise, not the voice of proclamation and the preaching of the Gospel, but the voice of complaint - the voice of grumblings and murmurings as he puts it in verse 14. When there should be emanating from the life of the child of God to this dark world the light of the Gospel, the light of a holy life and the hope that they have through Christ, what comes forth is a barrage of moaning, groaning, grumbling, complaining, fault-finding and censoriousness.

Having thought about this in the week that has gone by, I have a theory that those who make the most noise complaining are doing it in some strange way to compensate for the lack of light in their life. There's no real fire in their bosom, the life of God isn't emanating from their lives in such a way that people can stop and say: 'There is a man that shows the life of Christ'. So they have to complain about other people in order for others to take note of them. They're vocal in their complaining because, maybe consciously or subconsciously, they're trying to distract from others seeing that they aren't shining. I don't know whether you accept that: that instead of shining they are shouting, and hope that people won't be able to tell the difference. Maybe they're not just trying to convince other people, it could be that they're trying to convince themselves that complaining compensates for a lack of real fire and light.

I happen to believe that it is those with no real vital relationship with Christ - I'm not saying they're not saved, but they're not walking day by day in communion and dependence upon Christ - there's this void in their life, there's this emptiness that can only be filled with fellowship and communion with Christ, but they try to fill it with some kind of little crusade or gripe. This thing takes the place of Christ in their life, and they begin to convince themselves: 'This thing makes me spiritual!'. It may be that that thing of itself is spiritual, but these type of people believe that this will substitute the light of God in your heart and shining out to the world around you, and it does not! In fact, I believe as we go deeper and analyse the motivations behind believers who complain, who groan, who moan, who murmur and grumble, we find that Paul is really saying - now remember the context of the rest of what we've studied in this passage, the wondrous condescension of the Lord Jesus as He came from heaven to earth, as He stooped, thought it not something to be grasped at to be seen as God and to behave as God, but made Himself of no reputation, humbled Himself - you know all the rest, we've looked into it in great depth. But what Paul is really saying here is that those who grumble and complain are trying to pull others down, that they might exalt themselves. Do you see it?

They're not humbling themselves, they're not doing what he instructed in verse 3, look at it: 'Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others'. Rather than build others up, and lift and exalt others, they're pulling them down so that they by default might be exalted. I hope you can see the connection - and what doesn't help this in the life of Christians is the fact that we are programmed in our society today to be discontent. The media and advertising encourages us to be discontent with the way things are, to want something more, to want something else. It seems, as you study society and civilisation, that the more affluent a society gets the more discontent it gets. The more it has, the more it wants. We're bombarded with this fantasy world through the television, the movies, and advertising - the media continually assaults our senses with these alluring images, and often unrealistic pictures of what we can be if we had their product!

This type of plastic perfection that they purport to us to be the norm, it tells us - and there can be times that we let it in - 'This is what you should be, this is what you should have', and we make the false assumption and formula and equation that: 'If I had that', or, 'If I looked like that', or, 'If I'd be like that, I will be happy'. When we get those things, or perhaps don't get those things, we don't become happy, we become discontent. Discontent then breeds impatience, and you would know that impatience is a defining characteristic of our day. If someone pulls in front of you on the motorway, or at the traffic lights, you no longer beep the horn and maybe find people doing rude signs to you, now you go into your boot and lift a baseball bat and break their legs! Road rage! Because people, more and more, are getting impatient because their discontent has made them such. You don't need to go to those who commit road rage to see it, you can see it even in the church of Jesus Christ where this consumer culture has become more common. That's why, today more than ever, there are more churches splitting in our land than we have ever known - believers fighting and bickering with one another, and usually it's coming from the seed of complaining and malcontents in the assembly which is more and more common today.

People leave the church because the music's not fancy enough, or their children prefer a more modern church where their friends go to. Maybe it's a minor disagreement with the policy in the church, or the leadership in the church - but what we are finding today is a consumer ideal in the church of Jesus Christ: 'If I don't like something, well I'll leave it and I'll go to something I like better if it doesn't give me the buzz, if it makes me discontent'. But we find that most of these Christians that operate in this way are always discontent, and are always moving around churches because they never find that happiness. I say to us as a church today, if we promote an entertainment atmosphere - as many churches are today - we will be continually trying to meet the felt needs, the whims of those people who thrive on that and who find their contentment in it.

You see, there's a great danger here, because if we cater to felt needs and whims we operate on a superficial level, and we supply the demand of those people who are yearning in expectations for the things which, I would say, are purely sensual. Let me give you an illustration: I like music. I mightn't like the type of music that you like, and you mightn't like the music that I like, but I like music and I've got quite a few compact discs. What would happen to me is, when somebody gives me a new compact disc - and I was saying this to somebody this week who give me two - I will listen to that. I'll listen to it over and over again and again, if I like it of course, over and over again and again and again and again until I'm absolutely sick of it! Then I'll throw it in the corner, and maybe a year from now or six months from now, I'll look down all the CDs that I haven't listened to in a while, and then I'll put it on - and then I'll do the same again. I'll listen and listen and listen and listen again, and it's a purely sensual thing - there's nothing wrong with it, but all that it is is: I continually need this satisfaction, and I get this satisfaction until I become discontent, and when I become discontent I need something new! If I operate in the spiritual realm in this kind of sensual capacity, felt needs, the whims, the expectations on a superficial level, I will be continually trying to meet that need. As a church, if we do that, we will be continually changing and never be able to satisfy people!

You see, the church isn't meant to operate on a superficial level, it's meant to operate on a spiritual level - because to do anything else actually leads to discontent, complaining, and eventually to impatience. That's why the biblical command is so clear: do not complain! Don't complain! Now, if you are familiar with the Old Testament, you will know that the people of God have been shamefully known for this sin. Perhaps they have been known for it more than the world, and it could be the case today that this is the sin that we could level at number one - public enemy number one - in the church: to complain. Adam complained against God before Satan - you remember then, God said: 'Adam, where are you?', and Adam said: 'Well, it's not my fault, it's the woman that You gave me'. Then the woman complained that Adam encouraged her, and also the serpent beguiled her. There is this culture of blame right from the very beginning of time. Then Cain is punished for slaying his brother Abel, and he complains that this punishment is too great: 'I cannot bear it!'. He complains against God's judgement upon him. You find that the nation of Israel, when they're delivered from Egypt, we see them praising God and singing Psalms unto God, but what we often forget is that three days later they are complaining about the waters of Marah being too bitter to drink. So God brings them to a place called Elam, which is an oasis of rest, of sustenance, of quenching of their thirst - and they complain in Elam that God hasn't provided any food for them!

When faithless spies come back from the promised land to give their report that was dire and dismal and depressing, they complained again: 'Are you going to bring us into this place to be killed?'. When God gave them bread from heaven, the food of the angels, they complained that they were getting sick of it, and they were harping back to the garlic and the onions and the leeks of Egypt. Let me show you an illustration of this to show you that this isn't a new phenomenon. Numbers 14, Numbers 14, and you can see the pattern of complaining here, but what I want you to see is that their complaining became contagious, it spread. Verse 2: 'And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness! And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt'. Verse 10: 'But all the congregation bade stone them with stones', that's Moses and Aaron, 'And the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel'.

One Israelite started complaining, and then he complained to another, and the other agreed with him. Then they began complaining to everyone around them, and before we know it they're actually lifting up stones to stone the leaders that God had put over them - because their complaining had led them to be discontent, and then they found themselves impatient and they took the thing into their own hands. Paul, when he refers to that particular incident in 1 Corinthians 10, if you look at it, verses 9 and 10, says these words: 'Neither let us test Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer'.

When we go into the book of Jude we find there also that the mark of the apostate in verse 16 of Jude is: 'These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage'. Now why am I bringing all these references to your attention? It's simply to show you that to complain against the Lord, or to complain against the Lord's people is a very serious matter! It has dogged the people of God from the very beginning of time, and it's still with the people of God today - we could turn to James 5, 1 Peter 4, and the apostles there again are telling us: 'Do not complain, it is a grievous sin against God'.

So we have the command in our verse: 'Do all things without murmurings or disputings' - stop complaining. Let's break this up for a moment: 'Do all things'. That's remarkable, because there are sometimes that we feel that we've got grounds, and we're warranted, we're legitimate in our moaning and our complaining - but Paul is saying you shouldn't complain. As you work out your salvation, of course, as you're moving toward heaven, the only noise that you should be making is praise to God! Not complaining! Chapter 4 and verse 4 that we'll look at later, it bears it out, Paul says: 'Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice'. This is a man who is locked in prison, and he's saying: 'There's no warrant or justification at all for the child of God to be a moan!'.

All things should be done without murmuring, without disputing. Now let's look at these two words. The first word 'murmuring' could be translated 'grumbling'. It's from a Greek word, now listen to it carefully, 'gongusmosai' (sp?), which is an onomatopoeic word - that simply means a word that sounds like what it's describing. You've heard of a 'gong', haven't you? A gong, a big clang - and you have this word 'gongusmosai', and Paul is using a word that really describes in its sound the guttural muttering sounds that people make when they're complaining. I don't know whether you've ever seen the cartoon 'Dastardly and Muttley', but the wee dog when he gets into bother and doesn't like what's going on, he makes that noise - you've heard him. It's that sort of expression that comes deep down from in your being, that you grumble, you murmur, you complain. This word is used in John 7 of those who murmured and plotted against the Lord Jesus Christ. It's used in Acts chapter 6 of Christians who were complaining that as the alms were being distributed among the saints, that there was some kind of racism that the Jews were getting more than the Gentiles - and from that there had to be appointed deacons. It's this grumbling that is not immune from the people of God, and it's the same word that was used in 1 Corinthians 10:10 that we looked at, of the Old Testament saints murmuring against Moses. Their murmuring led to discontent, their discontent led to impatience that made then bend down, lift a rock, ready to kill Moses and Aaron.

The next word 'disputing' is from a Greek word 'dialogismos' (sp?), and this is a little bit different because it's inner reasoning. It's complaining in your mind and in your heart - you see the likeness 'dialogue', it's like talking with yourself. If grumbling is an emotional thing, where these deep guttural sounds of moaning and murmuring come, this is an intellectual moaning. It's like an arguing, maybe with yourself: 'I don't deserve that, I'm going to get my own back', or maybe even an arguing with God: 'Lord, this isn't right! Why is this happening to me? This isn't fair!'. But what Paul is really trying to get at is that both of these things, the emotional grumbling and the intellectual disputing and debating with yourself and God, all flow from pride.

You have to remember that Paul was talking into a society where among the philosophers, particularly those who followed Aristotle, they were filled with such a pride and a debating spirit, they would sit in the marketplaces and debate this that and the other thing - worthless nonsense. But they took pride in their ability to dispute, to complain, to murmur, and this thing was an epidemic in the city of Philippi where Paul is writing to.

I wonder do we ever complain against God? God asks us, perhaps, to do something; or maybe one of God's servants asks us to do something; and that thing costs us, and we begin to feel the price of what we're doing: do we grumble, and do we say in our minds: 'Well, why should I? It's not fair!'. The import of what Paul is saying here is: 'I'm in prison, folks, I'm suffering for Christ'. In chapter 4 verse 11, and we'll get to it at later stage, he says this: 'Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need'.

Now I'm not saying that Paul didn't ask in his heart at times: 'Why?'. I'm not saying he wasn't confused, but what Paul is saying is: 'I never complained verbally or intellectually in such a way that the world around saw me as a grumbler and a complainer!'. That's what he's getting at. Now, what are the reasons why Paul tells them not to murmur or complain? They're threefold, I want you to get this because it is so important for our assembly and for our individual lives, and for our evangelistic witness. The first reason is for our church. We ought not to grumble and complain for the sake of our church, verse 15: 'That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke'. Paul says you shouldn't murmur or complain in order that you become the children of God as He wants you to be, the type of child that He wants you to be. He uses this 'blameless and harmless', or 'harmless' could be translated 'innocent'.

The tragedy is that we are children at times, but in the wrong sense, in the way that we bicker over nonsense. We pout our mouths and we sulk over, at times, imaginary slights and hurts from our brethren and sisters in Christ. Paul says an essential part of this, to be a child of God, to be a member of the church of Jesus Christ, is to quit complaining, to be blameless. That simply means, the root meaning, 'without defect or blemish' - a moral and a spiritual purity, that no-one can point the finger at you and say: 'I know what he did, I saw him doing this that or the other thing'. You're not to blame others like that, but equally they're not to find any fault in you in order to blame you and in order to incite a complaining and a murmuring spirit. The word 'innocent' means 'blameless' as I said, or 'unmixed', or 'unadulterated'. It's actually used of unalloyed metal, metals that aren't mixed; it's used of wine that isn't mixed with water. What Paul is saying here is: 'You're not to be mixed with the world, the sentiments of the world, the philosophies and attitudes of the world. You're to be different, and you're to be seen to be different for the sake of the witness of the gospel of Christ'.

The Lord uses this term 'blameless and harmless' when He said: 'You're to be as wise as serpents, and as harmless as doves'. People aren't meant to be able to point the finger at you with regards to business or how you're a neighbour, or your attitudes, or your speech, or even how you complain about other Christians - it should not be so. Paul says you should be children of God without rebuke, without reproach. That word is closely related to 'blameless', but it's used over an over again in the Greek translation of the Old Testament of the lamb that is without blemish and without spot. You're to be seen and witnessed by the world around as being pure, untouched, uncontaminated of any blame or guilt. That's something else, isn't it?

You might be sitting here like I was studying this, and thinking: 'Well, how is this possible?'. Well, it's not possible on our own - it is possible to work out our salvation like this for the sake of the assembly, but we can't do it alone. We must be working out what God has put in us by the Holy Spirit. We must realise that it is in total and absolute dependence upon His power, His enablement and His grace, that we can do these things. As Jude said: 'He alone is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless', blameless is the word, 'before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy'. You will have noted in these past weeks that one of the chief joys that the apostle found in Philippi would be their unity in Christ, their putting one another before each other, their bending over backwards to serve one another. Paul says you can't do that and complain and grumble within the church.

It goes on further, because Paul says: 'The reason why I have commanded this of you is also for your world, the world in which you live...that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world'. You see there is a tremendous negative impact upon the unsaved, those without Christ in the world around us, when we bicker and fight and grumble among ourselves. I hope commonsense would tell you that, but Paul is proving it by saying that you live in a crooked world, the word is 'bent, curved, twisted', the Greek is 'scolios' which is the word we get the medical term 'scoliosis' which involves a curvature of the spine, misalignment of the back. Paul is saying: 'You're living in this bent, warped, twisted world, and therefore in that world you've got to be seen to be straight'. 'Crooked and perverse', it's a similar word but it's more active, it's dynamic, it means that they try to do all around us in this world in a crooked, diluted and sinful, iniquitous way - but you're to be different in your dealings, and especially in your verbal conversation, your light is to be without murmuring and disputing.

Living pure, united, peaceful lives, Paul says, is a pre-requisite for taking the gospel to such a crooked and perverse world. We are to be in the midst of them, let's not miss that point, we are to be in the middle of the world, geographically, but spiritually we ought to be utterly and totally separate from them! Now the big question here is: are we silent lights to the world around us? Or does the way we behave, how perhaps we shelter ourselves and segregate ourselves from the world, and try to get as far away from them as possible; or the fact that they witness us bickering and fighting and complaining over nonsense, does that affect our witness? Paul says we are to preach 'holding forth the word of life', but what he's saying is that the backdrop of 'holding forth the word of life' is to be the shining blinding light of the lives that we live!

'Among whom', he says, look at, 'ye shine as lights'. It's reminiscent of what we learnt in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:14 and 16, where we've to live as the light of the world, as a light set on a high hill, as salt in the earth, that men may see our good works - not our murmuring and our grumbling and our complaining - and when they see our light, glorify our Father which is in heaven as we reflect the light of the world around us. The picture that Paul has here is a dark, black backdrop of space, and the stars shining forth. It is the lighthouse directing the storm tossed mariner into the safe harbour. In fact, the Greek word is 'as luminaries', the insinuation is that he's talking about the sun and the moon, the greatest lights of all! We're to be like that! That guide the whole world, the weather, the seas, and the sailors! As the world receives light from the sun and from the moon, so we are to hold the word of life forth, and the life is to be almost coming through us to that word and into their hearts - we're to be silent but effective in it!

The whole point is: our lives are to be the platform for the gospel, because the way that God has worked right throughout all of time is: 'The Word becomes flesh and dwells among men'. The word is to become flesh in our lives, we're to be like live wires literally, that when they come into contact with dead ones, by the process of induction we transfer the very power of our lives. It's like telegraph messages that we are to communicate by this divine power the light that shines out of our lives that we are Christ's, and it's meant to ignite and affect other people!

The question we need to ask ourselves is: what do we communicate? We can influence others by currents of good or currents of bad, but what do other people get when they rub up and down against us? Do they get complaints, moanings and grumblings? What they need to get is the light of the gospel, not just verbally - they hear you say: 'You know you need to be saved', and then in the next breath you're writing off some other believer - do you think they're stupid? I was talking with someone this week about how it's not enough to give out a tract, it's not enough to preach the gospel from the pulpit, we must be among the lost for a long enough time that we start to affect them by our light and to give them a chance to let our light shine upon them, if we have any light at all!

It is the word of life, the gospel, that brings life - don't misunderstand me. It is the power in the gospel, but what Paul is saying is: your lives are to be an illustration of that gospel to show that it works. Your life ought to lay weight to the words of the gospel. The unbeliever is an unlit lamp! Now I believe that perhaps the allusion that Paul is giving here is to the Philippian jailor, from Philippi of course, in Acts 16. You remember what happened when the earthquake came to free Paul and Silas, he was plunged into darkness, and he asked for a light - and Paul and Silas were his lights! They where his lights! Why? Because that man that heard them singing and praying and giving praise unto God in the prison cell, and it wasn't just when he said 'What must I do to be saved?' - Acts 16:31 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ' - that did the trick, but this man knew that the lips that were speaking the word of God were in front of a life that showed the power of God and the light of the Gospel!

We are to be both communicators and illuminators, we are to be both voices and lights, we are to speak but we're also to shine, we're to be heard but we're also to be felt! Silent lights for our church, for our world, and finally for our leaders. Paul says: 'That I may rejoice', verse 16, 'in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain'. Wuest translates it like this: 'That I have not run my race for a phantom prize, nor toiled for an elusive way'. Now don't think that Paul was going back on what he said in 1 Corinthians 15:58, that: no labour for the Lord is in vain - that was a different sense, I believe, than what Paul is saying here. He's insinuating that there is a sense in which it is possible to labour on God's children in vain with regards to the judgement seat. It's like competing for a prize that doesn't exist, running a marathon and finding that you were running for nothing; like working for wages that are never paid, there's nothing at the end of your day's work. Paul is saying: 'I want you people, my people, to be a source of joy to me at the judgement seat, that when I stand before God I will rejoice when He brings your name up'.

Isn't that what he said of the Thessalonians in chapter 2 and verse 19? 'For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory and joy'. He wanted to be able to joy in the Philippian believers! You know the best thing a believer can do for their leaders and overseers in Christ, apart from praying for them, is to stop moaning, stop complaining, and be united so that we can say on that day: 'I did not run in vain, or toil in vain'. In other words, to be able to see that the work we're putting into the children of God, that it's profitable.

Now don't misunderstand me, but let's be honest: there are times when you're in the Lord's work and you feel that you're wasting your time. That might be wrong, but that's the facts! Sometimes the Lord's servants feel like that, and Paul didn't want to feel like that now or at the judgement seat! That he had poured all his efforts from prison into the Philippian Christians, and they were wasted for all they did was moan and complain. On the ceiling of the great state hall in Versailles there's a painting of Hercules in mythological surroundings, and it says that the artist took two and half years to complete the magnificent work. When he got to the end of it he was given no pay, and he was so utterly devastated that he committed suicide in that very room beneath that great painting, because he felt that life seemed without purpose to him if there was an absence of commensurate reward for the work that has been done - pointless!

Now there is a sense in which God's work is God's wages, but there is another sense that in the light of the fact that God has promised reward, who wants to be wasting their time? I don't! Sometimes leaders hear the attitude: 'It's none of your business, you mind your own business what I do with regards to the nights I'm not at the meetings, why I'm not at the Lord's Table'. Can I say to you: it is my business! It will be my business at the judgement seat, and I don't want to have wasted my time on any of you! The greatest joy a leader can have is what John said in 3 John 4: 'I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth'. God save us from living small inconsequential lives, for He would have us shine - and if He would have us shine, we must burn, and no lamp ever burns and gives light without burning up and consuming oil. There's no candle gives light without melting wax, and John the Baptist was described as a burning and a shining light - he shone and he lost his head for it! It cost him to burn!

Will we stop murmuring and complaining? Will we start shining and burning for God? For then our church will be blessed, the world will be blessed, and your leaders will be blessed when they stand at the judgement seat of Christ.

Our Father, help us to see them waiting, looking at us, silently watching all that we do. Oh Father, love is what Jesus came to unfold, and we pray that that condescending humility and love of Christ may shine forth in our lives as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, as You work in us - that this world that is crooked and perverse around us may see the light of the Gospel in our lives, and may be drawn to that light in salvation. Lord, help us in this assembly to be those who are marked by the fact that we love one another, that what this world will hear from us is not a mixed message of complaining and preaching of the Gospel, but Lord that they will see the love that we have for each other and for them and the message of love, and that they will come to Christ through the word of life. In His name we pray. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - February 2003

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Philippians: Epistle Of Joy - Chapter 15

"Paul's Christ-Like Friends"

Copyright 2003

by Pastor David Legge

Philippians 2:17-30

Now do turn with me to Philippians chapter 2, and let me say that it would be great if some of you took notes these Lord's Day mornings - now I know it's not possible for everybody to do that, I know it's hard to take your eyes off me at times! But it would be great, because I know that I can't contain everything that I tell you, and I've been studying it all week, and I don't expect you to be able to contain it either. It would be good for you to take certain things down, and maybe go home and meditate upon them, or even get the tape to borrow afterwards and look over these messages again, because there is so much important truth that we can very easily miss.

What I want to bring to you this morning is 'Paul's Christ-like Friends'. This chapter is tremendous to us, because at times we really get taken away by the condescension of our Lord, and the great Christological aspect of how the Lord Jesus came from heaven and left His glory aside, and came to this earth in the form of a servant, and took upon Himself the likeness of sinful flesh. But we often miss how Paul applied this great truth, and he's done it so far for us and he's doing it again by giving us two examples of two of his friends who he considers as Christ-like. I want you to just look at verses 18 and 19: "For the same cause also do ye joy, and rejoice with me. But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort, when I know your state". Then verse 25: "Yet I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labour, and fellowsoldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants".

It was John Dunne (sp?), the poet, that said: 'No m