Welcome to another message from the book of Philippians We're on the first chapter verse number 29 right now The last message that we had Paul told us that was a reason for living His reason for living was to build up the churches that he had helped build And that's what we Because I think about in the world today that we are not here for our own sake, but we are here for God's sake, that if he gives us 70 or 80 years or whatever it is, 90 years, that we're, it's not our time, it's his time. Our time is not our time, it's his time. 129, Hoti, Hemen, Echariste, To, Heper, Christo, uc, or u, mono, to, es, auton, pisuen, ola, kai, to, heper, auto, posken. That little conjunction there in casual particle, hoti, is how it begins. Because, because to you all, That is deity plural, second person pronoun there, to you all. It is freely given. It freely calls to be given. The, on behalf of you, Christ. That word there, third person singular, first person, indicative, passive voice from carisomai. That means grace. That grace was freely given to you on behalf of Christ, heper, a little preposition, 414. Christo Christo there comes from hamashia or mashia which meeting Messiah anointed one Not only uke or ooh there a shortened form of it page 294 Get the right pin this next time Not only and there here we have a little adverb in identifying number not only the ace out tone in reference to him or in him to believe or because of him to believe that ace there could be translated because page 119 to believe and that's present infinity back to you from pistual to believe but strong adversity of conjunctive particle page 8 or conjunction page 8 at 15 Also again here now. We have a cumulative particle. It's a conjunction sometimes Chi conjunction also because of but here it's also page 208 the on behalf of him to suffer on behalf of him to suffer a Pedder page 414 on the behalf of in this in this instead of him That's a beautiful word right there beautiful verse Let's read that in the Amplified Bible. Number 29. Find it over here. For you have been granted the privilege, for Christ's sake, because of Him, not only to believe and confidently trust in Him, but also to suffer for Him to suffer for him. Because Christians, in many ways, do suffer, don't we? People look down upon you. In the last several years, especially in America, Christianity was looked down upon, made fun of. We really had a hard time in the political world, basically. Everything that we believe in, everything that the people voted for, the administration is the one against. Verse number 30 now. Tone, outone, agona, econtes, heon, edete, in, emoi, cai, nin, acuete, in, emoi. The Philippians saw Peter, or Paul, suffer. The sum, the struggle. That word agone there. We get a word agony right out of that word. the struggler Agni having, nomine plural masculine, present participle active, which ye saw in me, and are also now ye hear in me the same struggle. Now this word, agono, that's an athletic term. An athletic term. It talks about the... You have to go back to the time back there. The gladiators and the victims in the great Colosseum there in Rome. They went out there and they struggled to stay alive. They struggled to fight and defeat their opponents because their life depended on it. And that's the word struggle right there. That means to fight in agony for life. And some, the struggle in agony, having, this novelty, plural masculine, present, past, active, that word having there, that comes from echo, to have, which now, a little relative pronoun, ye saw and ye discerned second person plural, second heiress, indicative act. Second heiress means it's past tense, but there was a durative time there. You saw this struggle in me, and now ye hear in me also. The Philippians saw Paul struggle and suffer, and possibly here in Rome in his imprisonment, Paul talks about being thrown into the Colosseum with a wild beast. But he was thrown in there, and he struggled with them in there, because here they are. They don't feed them, and they turn them loose, and they'll cut them. They'll beat them where blood is dripping out of them, so they'll go and kill these Christians. Well, Paul was in there I don't know how many times, but they didn't kill him. But Paul talks about it. And there he may be also referring to it. Now we're in chapter 2 and verse 1. Humility is something that is a good trait. We should be humble in many ways, but don't let the world run over you, because the world will run over you. But we should be humble in many ways, because we're all sinners, aren't we? We are all sinners. Every one of us are sinners. Aetis un paraclesis. in Christo et parametheon agapes etes splagna cae ociter moi. Starts off with a first-class conditional particle right there, a. And how we know about that is the verbs and everything that describes it are in the indicative mode. Sense, therefore, any comfort. Paraclesis. We get the word paraclete from that, the paraclete. Any comfort. That means to call alongside and to walk hand in hand in Christ. And then we have another word, first class conditional particle, sense, their consolation, incentive of love, parametheon. It's an objective genitive here, that word is. If there's any incentive of love, that word parametheon. Love genitive singular feminine there agapes and the word agapes there it Is sacrificial love if there's any sacrificial love Children of God sometimes die for themselves if you go out in combat in war people when you're under a very stressful situation it draws people closer together done it and When somebody is coming after you, you draw closer together. And that's what it's talking about. It is a love that is magnified. If you're a soldier out there in the field, whether you're in Vietnam, World War II, World War I, or whatever, I remember Maryland's had an uncle. And they had a neighbor across the street to them in Los Angeles where they lived. And they played together, these kids did. And Marilyn's father went in World War I. His brother went in World War I. And they went into Europe and then France and all over over there. The one uncle, Felix, wasn't it? Marilyn, Felix. He was over there in the battlefield. And they were fighting Germans. And he had to go out there and he went out in this battlefield and this German called his name. And he looked at him, and he went over there, and here his neighbor, his neighbor went to Germany to visit, and they put him in the German army. They wouldn't let him go home, back to California. And he was dying. He was dying. And he went there, and here, two people on opposing sides. This man had to fight. I'll tell you a little bit about Bob Savarini. that passed away. He was saved right here in this little church room. Been a Catholic all his life. He told me, he said, I don't know how in the world I lived all these years. He was in his 90s. 89, I think, at that time. And he said, I lived all these years. And I said, well, the Lord wanted you saved. That's why you weren't saved until this day. But he was over there in the country that he came in. He fought the Germans. And then the Germans captured his country and put him in the German army. I think he was in Czechoslovakia or someplace over there. And they fought him. And then he had to join the German army. He was fighting the German army. And here he was 12, 13 years old. He was shot at, barely escaped death many, many times. And then finally, Then Russia took over, one conquering people after another, and every one of them conscripted into the war. We're in one. We have one master, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are in his army all the time. And as you see, people there in our world that go through life, and life sometimes is not fair at all, is it? Life isn't fair. We don't choose our parents, and sometimes our parents use us. Sometimes they don't want us. Sometimes they love us. But a lot of times, little children in the neighborhood get together, and they love one another. You grow up loving one another. I remember the first time I went to school, I was almost seven years old. I'd already learned how to read and write from my grandmother, and she only went to school one year, and I was third grade. She didn't know how to print. She wrote. She taught me how to write and cursive. And I went to school, and I had to go backwards. But the first day I went to school, I had a brand new pair of pants, a brand new shirt on, brand new shoes, and a little bicycle to ride. I looked like a rich kid, I guess, except I never had his shoes before. I never had new clothes or anything like that at all. And I had been sent to school. My grandmother was proud to send me to school. I went out to Fairfax School. It was a long ways, about probably eight miles or something that I had to go to school. Well, when I got to school, these neighbor kids, they were named Saldana, and I didn't know them yet. I had never met them at all until I went to school. And five of those boys jumped on me to beat me up the first day in school. I was crying all the time, and I whipped all five of them. I was scared to death. I was the Indian. And you know, they put our family in Indian schools back there, and you were tortured in those Indian schools. You were beat. And my grandmother would tell me, go there and be a real good boy. Don't tell them you're Indian or anything like that. Well, these boys were Mexicans, and I was Indian. I didn't speak Spanish. I was dark as they are, dark as eyes, dark as hair and everything as they did, but they didn't know what I was. Neither did any of the white kids either. I was an outcast. But these boys tried to beat me up. Then they followed me home, threatened to kill me. And they followed me to my house where I lived. I lived in a shack without even a door on it. It had a tarp there just to cover up the hole in the wall. And they came there. They said, we thought you were rich kid. Rich kid. Rich kid. That's what they said. Rich kid. You're poor. Are you hungry? And they took me home, and they taught me how to make tortillas. And I was so happy. Their aunt showed me how to make tortillas. And we had flour, and we had lard and stuff. So I went home, and I made some, too, for my grandmother and my grandpa. They were my friend, life friends. They were wanting to kill me. They followed me home, saw how poor I was. And then they wanted to feed me. I was a skinny little thing, but I tough as a grizzly bear. I'd worked, I grew up, I learned how to walk in the cotton field picking cotton. I crawled and picked cotton. I worked hard all my life, so I was strong. Anyway, they took me under their wing. They had compassion on me. When you go out there in the world, you see Christians struggling along at times, And, you know, you have Salvation Army, you have all kinds of stuff out there trying to help people, trying to help one another. In churches, helping people get on their feet. That's what it's talking about here, Christian humility. What we have, God let us have. I thank God from my house over my head that I don't have to walk through a flap door, a tarp flap door every time. I worked hard on my life. Have I worked hard in the last 30 years, Marilyn, we've been married? Yeah. Work hard every day. That's all I know. Don't know anything better. In Christ, if any, or since there is consolation, that's parametheon, incentive of love. And then the word love there, love you, give your life for. And then word sense there again, first class. It's if in English, but it isn't if. It's sense. Any. Tender mercies. Look at that word splognia. That word splognia comes right out of the word guts. Guts. Gut feelings. Gut feelings. I remember one time, have you ever had a, you see one of your family get hurt or die in your presence? It just tears your guts out. That's what it does if your gut's this twist up. Well, I saw people dead in my life. I knew of my family. A lot of them were killed. They were Indians. They were killed. My great-grandfather was killed in 1905 for trespassing on his own land in Oklahoma. Didn't have any rights. They killed him for trespassing on his own land. Raffled it off to a white man. They came out to California to get away from that. So they could own land. The first thing my grandmother and grandfather, they bought an acre of ground. That's the first thing they did. They wanted dirt that they owned. And they did. Tender mercies. Out there down the street from where I lived there near Bakersfield, California. It was a dirt road we lived on. And my son asked me one time, my oldest boy, he said, can I go down and visit friends? And his friends were the friends that I had with Saldanas. That moved from my generation to their generation. They're still friends with him today. Anyway, I said, yeah, be careful. Be real careful. I was going to go out on a school bus visitation with a church where I was pastoring. And I looked down there and there was a boy laying underneath the car with a bicycle all mangled. Somebody had run over a kid on a bicycle. And I just knew it was my son. I ran as hard as I could run. It was a quarter of a mile almost. I got down there and it was not him. But my guts were tied up all the time I got there. But then it was one of those boys, one of their children that I grew up with. And he was dead. They killed him. Some drunk man ran over him. Sblogne, tender mercies. And oik termoi. This oik termoi, that means pities, compassion. And we have the word and there, but it can mean even or yes, even. Since there is consolation, since there is love, and since there is tender mercies, there also is pities. There's pities as if it's your own family. We are one family, the family of God. The family of God. Let's go back and read this in Amplified Bible now. Verse number 30 and verse number 1. Now, chapters in the Bible are really not there. This actually is one continuous letter. When you write a letter to somebody, you don't say chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, do you? You don't do that. You just write a letter. And that's what Paul did here. But we have it broke down in chapters and verses. But actually, it is one continuous letter. And so you are experiencing the same kind of conflict which you saw me endure, which you hear from me now. Remember. He possibly had been thrown into the Colosseum with lions and wild beasts. He says that in places. Verse number one, therefore, if there is any encouragement. Now, since we know that that word is not, if, is not there. Therefore, since there is encouragement, and since there is comfort in Christ, and since there is certainly, in abundance, there is consolation and love, there is any fellowship that we share in the Spirit, and there is any great depth of affection and compassion. Yes, all of those things are true in the Christian walk, in Christian life, and in your friendship. 2 and 2 now, 2 and verse 2, Pleirosate mutane caron, hina to alto fronete tain, altain, agapain, econtes, sin, secoi, tol, en, ten, that's like en, the preposition, but it's not a preposition here, it's one, a numeral. En, phronontes. Ye fulfilled, ye fill up, second person, first heirs, impurity, baptism, play, rot, woe. He filled up me, that's genitive, singular, first person pronoun. He filled up me the joy, tein karan, the joy. In order that, the same, ye may think, ye may reason, that word pronate. Ye may think, ye may reason, second person plural, present, subjunctive, active. You may thank the same love. That word fronete, second person plural, present, subjunctive, active, from froneo. Now we're going to go on to five words from mine here pretty soon, but just remember this one here. May thank the same love, agape, sacrificial love, And there are words for love in the New Testament also. This word here is a sacrificial love, that you will love someone and give their life for them, and it's a spiritual love. And then philo, there's a word philo for love there also, and that means a deep friendship. Then the word eros, that means an erotic friendship or erotic love. And then we have the word storge, that means like one of your family love. Then you have the word pornero, which is a twisted love. OK, love, it's the highest love, having one soul. By the way, this word, sema sekoi, it's only used one time in the New Testament. This is the only time it's used. Souls that beat together. Souls that have thoughts together. Souls that have loyalty together. We are having of one soul, like soul, the one thinking. Pronountes. We have the word pronay up there and we have the word pronayo here. And this is nomine plural masculine present participle active. We're thinking alike. Because we are one soul with one another, we think alike. Christians should think alike. They should think alike. We have the same God. We serve in the same church. We should be doctrinally sound together. These are the things that make us one, one soul. Now, a man and a woman that have been married many years, they know what they're going to say to each other before they say it. Isn't that right, Marilyn? You know what I want, what I'm going to say before I say it sometimes. And I know what you want. And sometimes I'll do that. And I'll say, I'll know what you want, and I'll go do it. You never say a word, huh? No. I just go do it. One soul, one mind, we do that. Christians, as Paul was saying here, we are like-souled, like-minded. We think alike. We have the same ambitions we should have. In humility, we serve the Lord because none of us are more than the other. If you want to be greatest among you, let him be your servant. Isn't that right? You want to be great, then you become the servant. You want to be a master, then you become the servant. If you want to be great in the kingdom of God, become a servant in the kingdom of God. These are all the things we must do. Our Father, we thank you for your message today, your messages so far. I thank you for your word. I thank you for your love. And I thank you for my Savior that saved my soul. And I thank you, Father, for your conviction of your spirit and all the things you guide us in. Please do it every day. Father, please watch over these words as they go out throughout the world, that they might glorify you wherever they go. You might touch your people's hearts in love. Please forgive me where I fail you. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.