Philippians: The Key to Joy - 5
LISTEN! Twenty policemen were at a training weekend in another city. In the daytime they were being trained in police work. In the evenings they were picking fights with the cowboy bars.
Tension: Obviously this is not conduct that is worthy of a law enforcement officer.
So friends, we want to ask you today to look at Philippians chapter 1. We're going to start at verse 27, please. And just a very few verses to think about what Paul has to say to the Philippians and obviously to us, because the Holy Spirit preserved this book for two millennia so that we would be obedient people and draw closer to Christ based on what was written by Paul from jail.
In Rome about AD 62. Philippians 1:27-30, “Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. So whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear that you are standing firm in one's spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, (28) in no way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too from Go. (29) For to you it has been granted. Listen to this, friends. You've been given a gift for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but also to. Suffer for His sake, (30) experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me and now here to be in me.”
Let me pray for us, please.
Father, please guide us. I pray your Spirit will teach us. We want our hearts open, open on the God word side to think about what you're saying to us, what it means for our own personal lives, what it means for our corporate life. As a body of believers, we're so thankful that you care about us enough to communicate with us and let us honor you by paying. Close attention to what you said to what you said in these few verses today. I pray in Christ's name, Amen.
My best friend in life was for a time a president of a large corporation in Chicago and their company owned a 13 story building in downtown Chicago. And in Chicago there is a regulation that every so many years, I don't know how often it is, you have to replace the mortar in your brick buildings. It's called tuck pointing. There's about three major companies that are allowed to do it.
Not just anybody can. There's three major companies that the Alderman let do it. So their building came due and they hired one of the companies they paid him a great deal of money to replace all the mortar in a 13 story building they got it done they gave the form to the company the company signed off yes we did this they sent the form into the Chicago city government and they got an e-mail back from an Alderman that said if you will give me a set of brand new ping golf clubs of this model with. Golf bag I will sign off that you have confirmed. So they bought him golf clubs.
It's the price of doing business. There's a piece of us that thinks, Are you kidding me? You're an elected official responsible to serve this city. I'm sure that somewhere you have a written code of conduct. And you're pulling this nonsense. I mean, they're so blatant about it, they don't bother to do it on
a phone call. They don't mind putting it in e-mail. This is how it works. And so there's a piece of us that's deeply disappointed when someone in a position who has a code of conduct doesn't live up to it.
Alderman, pastor, police officer, doctor, attorney, mayor, anybody. They've got
a code of conduct, a way they're supposed to be living. And I have seen people in my lifetime who have violated their code of conduct and therefore discouraged a lot of people. And some who have violated their code of conduct and therefore ended up in federal prison. It's either discouraging or tragic when someone doesn't live.
THE FAR BIGGER PROBLEM: Is my own conduct worthy of the Gospel of Christ (v.27)
The command: conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ. (v.27)
● Conduct yourself in a manner: to their code of conduct. Here's the far bigger problem.
● Worthy of the Gospel of Christ
The far bigger problem.
Paul is giving us today, as believers, a code of conduct that is terrifying. It is amazing. It's a code of conduct that any person who is sane ought to be anxious about, Paul says. To us, as believers in Christ, we have a code of conduct that towers above anything an Alderman or a policeman or a doctor or military person ever thought about. It's a code of conduct that involves our conduct and our heart. It involves our words and our motives. It involves our behaviors and our attitudes. When we really think about this code of conduct, it ought to be terrifying.
When I do weddings, I almost always say to the young groom, I say, I
want to read you a verse. That's the most terrifying verse in the Bible for husbands. Ephesians 5:25, “Wives, love your husbands exactly like Jesus Christ. Love the church.”
Paraphrase Dave Gibson. Love Kathy Gibson. With the same kind of compassion, patience, sacrifice, forgiveness, kindness, extra mile service that Jesus showed to me.
That is a terrifyingly high bar. Here's another high bar. I don't want just the husbands in here to be terrified. I want us all to be terrified. Listen to this verse. Not only are husbands expected to do that, but we as believers are, are told this. Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ. Live a lifestyle and habitual way of being. That makes the gospel look good to other people. That makes Jesus look appealing to lost people. Live a kind of a life in which people are saying, I love the music of your life, what are the words?
Live a kind of life that is Well, it's a terrifyingly high bar. Here's the command, verse 27. By the way, there's an outline in your bullet and you're welcome to look at, if you like,
Philippians 1:27
“Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.”
This first phrase, conduct yourself, is a single Greek word and it's the Greek word from which we get our word politics. It's the Greek word that first of all, it's a command. It's not a choice. It's an imperative verb, which is a command.
And we know it's a command because of the way it's spelled.
New Testament Greek words that are commands and with a different ending.
Then regular verbs. This is a command. This is not an option, zero choice here we don't have choice about this the word we get the word politics. But it meant in their time to be a person of a city, to be a citizen, to live as a citizen, to lead one's life in a manner worthy of your city, to conduct oneself as pledge to serve a law or a standard of life. I am a person who is called to live a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.
So Paul was a Roman citizen. The city of Philippi was outside the territory of Rome. It was in captured territory, but it was a Roman colony. So if you lived in Philippi, you were a Roman citizen. Paul was a Roman citizen. They were Roman citizens. They understood very well when Paul used this word. Caesar says, “Live like a great citizen of Rome.” But Paul says, “No, I want you to live a life that's worthy of the gospel.”
2 chapters later, 3:20, “He says our citizenship is in heaven from which we eagerly await for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” The word in verse 27 translated “conduct yourself” is the same word as in chapter 3:20, which is translated as citizenship.
Be a citizen of heaven. And so God is saying to us, yeah, I want you to
be a good citizen of the US, but I want you to be an even better citizen of heaven.
Stop worrying about your rights and start worrying about your responsibilities as a great citizen of the USA and as a great citizen of heaven. We are responsible as citizens of heaven. So friends, I told you that Philippi was a colony of Rome in a non-Roman area.
The United States of America started as a colony of England in a non-English area. Our body of believers is a colony of heaven in a non heaven area.
God is colonizing the world. Through us. I'm not talking about Christian nationalism. Take over all the government offices, you know, mandate and legislate righteousness. To me biblically, that's nonsense. I'm talking about us loving God, loving others, and bringing people to faith so that the citizenship of heaven is expanding a colony on earth. And that's called Paul's command to us
Live in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.
Now in the book of Philippians, he comes back to the gospel habitually. You're tired of me saying it. The good news is, if God wills, I'm just up here for two more months. You're tired of me saying it, but I'm going to say it again.
There's bad news in the Bible. We've sinned against the person of God. Because of that, we're separate from Him. He is astoundingly holy. Being the only way to get back to Him is putting our trust in what Jesus did for us on the cross. That's our only option for forgiveness. Our works are not going to work because without Christ, we are people who are helpless. We are hopeless.
Friends, any person who thinks. All I need is a little leg up and I can please God. Without Christ, I don't need a leg up. I don't need a motivational poster. I don't need a trainer. I don't need people saying you've got to do better, Dave. I'm hopeless. I'm helpless. My flesh is in a serious partnership with the world
system and the devil against the God of the universe.
Biblically speaking, I am dead. Without Christ, I'm not as bad as I could be. I
could be worse, but I'm as bad off as I could be. You can't make it any worse than that, because God is a being of unimaginable holiness. Nobody understands it like we will understand.
He is set apart from everything unholy, everything profane, everything common.
He's completely set apart from all that. Angels fly around him for eternity and sing holy, holy, holy. And it's the right thing to do. If you don't like repetition and worship, you should not go to heaven, friends. I mean, it's going to be a long time and it's the right thing to say because that is his amazing nature. But we are not that. We are sinners. By standing, in other words, we're under the judgment of sin. We are sinners by nature, meaning we have the capacity to sin. And we're sinners by action, meaning we actually do sin. That's strike three.
That's strike 3 without Christ. The best metaphor is to say, like I drown at sea. My body washes around in the ocean for four days. A big storm runs me right up on the sand. I'm laying face down on the sand. I've been dead for four days. I don't need you to come kneel in the sand and shout in my ear. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. It doesn't help me, I'm dead. I'm dead. I have no capacity, I can't do anything.
What God is trying to say to us in the gospel message is I don't need some motivation. I don't need a leg up. I need to be born again. I need to be made new by the person and the power of Jesus Christ. So that's the gospel message
to us. I'm dead in my trespasses and sin. When I trust Christ, I'm forgiven.
And once I do that, then it says I want you to choose a lifestyle standard of living that's worthy of the gospel. We're called to be people of love, continually seeking the best interests of other people, even at personal sacrifice. People of integrity, same person on Friday night as I am on Sunday morning.
People of compassion, caring about those who are struggling. People of truth, saying what's true and keep saying what's true, no matter how much I have been pressured to stop saying what is true. People of grace, we cut people's slack. People of sacrifice. I help people at my own expense. People of joy, a settled inner feeling of happiness based on rescue in Jesus Christ. People want to be around us when they're those kinds of people. And I need to depend on the Spirit and strive to become that kind of a person.
The Purpose of this kind of conduct in our lives.
Why do I do that? Verse 27? The purpose so that there are three purposes, he spells out.
#1 Unified: Number one, so that we'll be standing firm in one faith.
He wants us to be people who are unified, standing firm together. The word
means steadfast, leaning into opposition, holding on in every way, putting our hearts and minds together to be people who say we are here, we believe what we believe. We're holding onto it. It is a battle metaphor. It's like going into war. It's like the band of brothers. This is a fight, a writer named John Wahlberg said. The Christian life is not a playground, it's a battleground.
The Christian Church is not a cruise ship. It's a war, it's a battleship. We're in a fight together. He's saying to us, I want you to stand firm against the attack, against disunity. I want you to be a person who understands we're in this
together
#2Striving: So that we are one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel.
It's playing as a team, everybody doing their part. Some of us give, some of us go, some of us speak, Some of us set up chairs, some of us pray. Some of us teach kids. I mean, it goes on and on. Some of us know how to put a slider on a machine like that. Thank God I don't have to stand in the soundboat. I mean, nobody would be here. You couldn't stand it. We just do what we're good at. We do our own part. It's an athletic metaphor, working as a team. When I was teaching at Alaska Bible College, we were in a tournament with our basketball team, which wasn't a real team. It was a pickup group of 6 ragged people, myself included. We went to a tournament in Toke, Alaska. The team that got first place were the ringers from the Air Force Base. They were all 6’10”. They were going to win. There was nothing to do about that. So we got beat by them and then we're fighting for 3rd place.
Our team of 6 with 1 substitute are playing a team called Fast Eddie's Pizza.
They're from Toke, Alaska. The guy who put the team together was Fast Eddie.
He owned a restaurant in Taupe called Fast Eddie's Pizza. He was easily the
best athlete on that court the entire weekend. He was amazing. High school superstar. Fast Eddie was amazing and before the game we decided we're going to triple team Fast Eddie. Put our three best guys on Fast Eddie. I played a zone at the bottom under the basket and another kid played a zone at the top of the key. SO3 and A11 zone.
And we held Fast Eddie that day to 44 points. Least he scored in the whole tournament. Fast Eddie passed the ball one time to one of his teammates
who got two points. They got 46 points. We got 48 points. Whoo! We beat Fast Eddie?
Because we were a team. This is saying to us, I want you to work together as a team striving for the faith of the gospel. When the Bible says the faith of the faith of the gospel is not talking about my individual trust in Christ or yours. When the New Testament puts the definite article in front of faith, it's talking about the entire body of truth about God and about us and about our relationship with him.
And so Paul is saying to us, here is I want you to strive. To promote and teach the entire body of systematic theology everything that's true about God.
Everything that's true about our relationship with him as a group, we are all striving to promote. What's true about Jesus? And in order to do that, we need unity. And we need fearlessness.
#3 Fearless: So that we are in no way alarmed by our opponents (v 28)
Unity and fearlessness. There's 25 verses in the Bible about unity. Let me read one of them. Ephesians 4:3, “Be diligent to preserve the unity of the Holy Spirit in the bond of peace.” The stunning thing about that statement is it is the Holy Spirit himself who makes unity in our body. It's his masterpiece, it's his baby. He's deeply committed to it. He's very jealous for it.
Friends, if there's a 10 year old boy who builds a tower of wooden blocks in his living room, almost the ceiling, and he calls his parents in and he and his two parents are standing there admiring this tower, and his six year old brother comes in and kicks it down in front of all of them. He better get locked in the bathroom pretty quickly. Because he has just violated his brother's masterpiece. That's the same way the Holy Spirit feels about us destroying the unity that He creates in a body. He's very jealous for it. It's a very big deal
to him. And if I'm destroying the unity of the body? I am destroying the masterpiece of the Holy Spirit of God.
Here are some ways to do it. Demand my own way. Gossip, scream, name call, pull behind the back, behind the scenes nonsense, build alliances in any way, be dishonest, operate in secret, withhold information, threaten to take my football and go home. All of these are tactics that are a direct attack on the unity that the Holy Spirit creates and that He loves.
So we're called to fight for that and we're also called to spread the gospel of Christ. Love God, love others, make disciples, share what's true about Jesus. We are people who are expected to say what's true about Jesus outside these walls and inside these walls?
Friends, there are some very exciting things happening at FCBC related to telling the truth about Jesus to lost people. Let me give you the list of the ones I remembered.
● Stanton Healthcare body, Baby Bottle Drive. That ministry shares Christ with every man and every woman who walks in their door.
● June 1st. You just heard about the women's evangelism training that's happening in just one week.
● VBS June 23 to 27. We're doing it in the evening this year so they could be more of a gospel outreach and less about just our own children. So it's a focused effort to share Christ with children in our neighborhood and in our community.
● Student ministry is going early July for a local outreach with another church.
● July 27th right here on Sunday morning services. We have a speaker named Larry Moyer doing a Sunday morning. Share it. Larry was my teacher in seminary. He's a Wizard of an evangelist and a Wizard of a speaker. He shares the Gospel from the Bible, not from three points in a poem and a puppy dog story from the Bible. He shares it. He's going to train us on how to overcome fear in evangelism. We are planning tentatively. It's not finally approved.
● A wild game feast. In this room, April 24 and 25 of next year, if it works out, if God wills. We're going to invite lost men and women who love hunting and outdoors to come to a wild game feast. We will all make wild game for the evening. We will have, God willing, 300 people in this room on Friday night and 300 in this room on Saturday night, and half of them will not be followers of Jesus.
● We have a man coming in named Larry Moyer who is an avid hunter. He will show hunting stories. He will show pictures of his record moose, record elk, record Caribou, record antelope, record bear, record deer, tell a bunch of hunting stories. We'll give away some free rifles. It will be a major blowout, inviting people in here who don't know Christ. This banquet is running 54% of lost people. It's a trainload of work, but we could have if God wills. 300 people sit in this room over those two nights and hear the gospel, some of them for the very first time. And then the next morning Larry would do an evangelistic message here at the church.
● Student evangelism trip to Ecuador on August 2.
● Trips to Kenya with Expansion International
● Evangelism trip to Island of Old Cars in November.
● Evangelism trip to Ecuador February 26th.
These are some of the things we're doing as we strive together to share the gospel. Other people have to work together.
Thirdly, I lied to verse 28, fearlessness so that you're in no way alarmed by your opponents. This is a word that means. You're not timid about stuff that comes against you. It's a Greek word that is only used one time in the New Testament here, but in classical Greek it meant a horse that shies away from objects it wasn't expecting. And this is saying don't shy away from opposition from attacks you weren't expecting. Stand firm, be right there, don't shy away from any attack, and don't break loose in disarray when the enemy charges in. We need to be people who he is saying are fearless because when we do that, it's a sign to opponents of our salvation. And of their destruction?
If we come under attack and we weather it with absolute grace, they walk away saying I didn't expect that. I didn't see that coming. When people watch
Jesus be crucified.
That's not what they expected. He wasn't screaming, he wasn't railing, he wasn't demanding. He was silent like a sheep before his shearers. He took care of his mom when he's hanging on the cross. He prayed for the people killing him while he's hanging on the cross. He took care of the criminal next to him while he's hanging on the cross. That's not what people expected. And they had to walk away from that, as the Centurion did, and say surely this man was the son of God.
Because of the way he suffered, that's the command that we are given to
be careful about that. It's a sign of our eternal life coming to us. And then he closes verses 29 and 30 by saying the reasons were not to be alarmed by our opponent are two reasons. There's two reasons not to be afraid, not to fear. I apologize for not having anxiety.
The reasons that we are in no way alarmed by our opponents. (v 28)
● First, it has been granted to us, as a gift of faith, in Christ, given the gift of believing in Jesus. verse 29.
Ephesians 2:8 & 9, “For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. Not as a result of works. It's a gift of God, lest any person should boast.” And so we, in the generosity of God, had this gift given. We just stuck out our hands and took it. We didn't pay for it. We didn't deserve it. We couldn't afford it. Just given us a gift. That's the first gift. That's the first reason.
● Second, it has been granted to us, as a gift, for Christ’s sake to suffer for him. (v 29-30)
Here's the second reason. The second gift we're given, that's verses 29 and 30, it's been granted to us as a gift for Christ's sake to suffer for him.
How many see a gift? Suffering is a gift? It is a gift. Paul saw it as a gift to suffer. As I said last week, read 2 Corinthians 11 and see what he went through.
It's stunning. He suffered for Christ's sake. We suffer for Christ's sake. Not that it helps our atonement at all. There's nothing to be made-up. That's all been taken care of. But what it does help is our own personal growth. And what it also helps with is people watching us suffer in ways that honor Christ. We're
not spitting, we're not cussing, we're not screaming, we're not attacking. We are just suffering this pain and we're leveraging the pain. Suffering is not something to be avoided. It is something to be leveraged.
Friends, I've suffered almost nothing for the name of Christ. I mean, I've had some sleepless nights and slept in some airports on mission trips and had some raised eyebrows at front doors. You know, I've never been beaten.
Never been stoned, never been any of these things Paul did. But to whatever degree we do suffer for him, we're having just a huge, huge impact on the people around us. We're living a gospel worthy life. Here's the core idea. The results of a gospel worthy lifestyle are unity and outreach and fearlessness.
We are all collectively together living gospel worthy lifestyles. We are people who have unity, we are people who can do outreach and we are people who are fearless. What a great place to be.
People who are fearless because the way that I live, my lifestyle, that I choose, my habitual way of being. It has a huge impact on you.
And you with me? Our habitual way of being has a huge impact on the people outside these walls. It has a massive impact on our ability to share the gospel.
It has a massive impact on our own fearlessness. We can live in a way that gives each other courage.
I have prayed many, many times, and I probably think about this more than most of you because of my age, but I have prayed many, many times. Dear God, please let me die in a way that gives my children and my grandchildren courage. Let them see that. That was the real deal with that. He wasn't just talking about that on Sunday morning to make a living. He died in a way that I knew he believed it.
At a lifestyle that gave courage to the people around me. Friends, we are so deeply connected to each other. That a worthy lifestyle is done for Christ's sake. It's done for each other's sake. It's done for the sake of the lost and it's done for our own sake. Live a life worthy of the Gospel of Christ.