Book of Genesis to take a look at Paul's epistle to the Philippians. I tell you what, in my seminary classes this term, I am elbows deep in the Old Testament, and I absolutely love it. Tracing the history of redemption through the Old Testament, seeing the gospel in seed form through the patriarchs of Christ, Abraham, as we have heard the last couple of weeks from Pastor Allen and the godly line through Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David and on down. And so, well, I'm sure you have fallen in love with the Old Testament as we've been going through Genesis. It's nice every once in a while to pick the fruit, so to speak, of the fully bloomed tree of the New Testament. So if you have your Bibles, please turn with me to Philippians chapter one, verses 27 through 30. Let us hear together the word of the Lord. Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you, that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had, and now hear that I still have. Eight years ago, our country was embroiled in an absolute mess of an election season. We had two factions, red versus blue. Now, we obviously have that every election, but 2016 was most certainly the year of the tribes. Now, I've only been voting since 2008, so I haven't been around that long, but to my recollection, that particular election was the first time in my lifetime that where the simple gesture of throwing your support to one candidate or the other would get you approval and a high five or visceral disgust, depending on who you talked to. And so it definitely began to change how people interacted with one another. And then fast forward another four years and we were at it again, only that time we had the added bonus of the world being shut down. And then the tribalism hit the accelerator as battle lines began to be drawn over things like mask or no mask, shot or no shot. And that powder keg was made worse by hopelessness, anxiety, depression, and fear. And now four years later, it seems like now the cycle is repeating itself. Especially now since yesterday, an assassination attempt was made on a political candidate. And interestingly enough, I wrote this sermon weeks ago. But now we are seeing the fruit of what happens when people align themselves and unite themselves around something that is inside the creation and not their creator. And that's the point. The last eight years have been a case study in what happens when people are unified around things like a political party or a particular race or class. And that is to say, uniting around that leads to an absolute mess. And so I'm going to go ahead and give you my point of application right here at the start. Unity with other believers in Christ is a bond unbreakable and unshakable by whatever the world throws at it. And not only that, but that unity transcends political party. It transcends skin color, male, female, rich, and poor. Now, I know that I've kind of just given the big crescendo of my sermon right at the start, and we haven't even gotten to our text, but please keep that focus of the unshakable unity in the back of your mind as we walk through the text. So, at the outset, I've got three questions to ponder as kind of the frame of the sermon. First, are you living a life worthy of the gospel? Are you standing in unity with other believers? And finally, are you prepared to suffer together with one another in Christ? So now let's look together at God's word. To give a bit of context, the city of Philippi was a Roman province. So Paul being a citizen of Rome himself is writing to other citizens. And so this meant that certain people had certain rights and privileges not afforded to others. Philippians is also one of Paul's present epistles. Now I'm not going to go in depth about all of Paul's troubles for the sake of time, but I would encourage you to take a look at the latter half of the book of Acts. And Paul even gives a list of his plight in 2 Corinthians 11. But early on in our chapter, Paul rejoices in verses 12 and 13 that his imprisonment is going relatively well, all things considered. Even though he's in prison, the gospel is still advancing. As a matter of fact, the gospel had begun to spread to the whole of the imperial guard. which is a theme we'll examine here later. But in this section before our passage, Paul is contemplating the idea of him dying while in prison, which as we know from history, he does. But what we can see is that Paul clearly is okay with it because in the rather famous verse 21, he says, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. In other words, Paul views his situation as a win-win. If he lives, he gets to continue joyfully in the gospel work with the Philippians. If he dies, he gets to see Jesus face to face. That's a wonderful position to be in. But Paul is expectant that he will see the Philippians again. So finally, in getting to our passage, Paul opens with an imperative, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. Now, to note, the ESV has a footnote that states that the verb in Greek carries with it a certain meaning. And the verb here is the word from which we get the English word politics. Now, I know that word for a lot of people, especially within the last eight years can conjure some negative thoughts. But aside from that, who is it that engages in the political process? We, who were born in this country, are considered United States what? Citizens. And if you look at the footnote in many of your Bibles, you will see that a possible translation for this is only behave as what? Citizens. In using this verb instead of others, Paul is reminding the Philippians that while they are citizens of Rome with an emperor that they at one point were made to swear allegiance to as Lord, they are now citizens of a heavenly kingdom and their Lord is Jesus. While there was certainly considerable pride and status that came with being a Roman citizen, it pales in comparison. to being under the banner of the Lord Jesus. This could certainly be written to us in our modern context. How much do we have pride in being American? As a matter of fact, for a number of years, Kind of America's song had the words, I'm proud to be an American. How much do we flaunt our status as American citizens, enjoying the freedoms and privileges that we have? Now, what I'm not saying is that status, freedoms, and privileges that we enjoy are inherently bad. But this ought to put into our focus the truth that we are, in fact, dual citizens, as it were. But it's a great reminder for us that we serve a Lord who left a tomb empty, who defeated death, a miracle which no earthly king or president could ever do. And this leads to the second part of the imperative. We are to behave as citizens worthy of the gospel of Christ. So what is the gospel? I contemplated doing this because you kind of assume when you have people in church that they know what the gospel is. And a lot of times we use gospel as an adjective, gospel class, gospel centered. But whether you have been in church for five minutes or 50 years, it can be good to be reminded of the glory of the gospel. So allow me to take a moment to preach to you and to share the gospel. Long ago in the beginning, God created the world and he created it good. And he created our first parents, Adam and Eve, and put them in the garden to work and to keep it with the command to be fruitful and multiply and to subdue the earth. But with one negative command, Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And so Satan, in the form of a serpent, slithered into the garden and said, did God really say? And through his deception, Adam and Eve fell into sin. So from the very beginning, there is a war between good and evil, light and darkness in this life. But God did not leave Adam and Eve where they were, but promised a Redeemer. It says in Genesis 3.15, I will put enmity between you, the serpent, and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head. You will bruise his heel. And so all of history, as we have seen in the book of Genesis, has been this dichotomy, this fight between good and evil, the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. So all of history points forward to the fullness of time when God comes down in the flesh as Jesus Christ to live a perfect life. that Adam could not, and to die a horrible death executed on a Roman cross. And so on that cross, not only was Jesus, but my sin and your sin, it was nailed to the cross. And Jesus died and he was put in a tomb, a stone was rolled in front of it and the seal of Caesar was placed on the stone and the imperial guard was placed there to guard it. Now, interestingly enough, kind of as a side note, we have in Philippians the word that the gospel is going out through the imperial guard. So I would submit that there might have been people who were guarding Jesus' tomb for the three days between his death and resurrection. that are now hearing and responding to the gospel of the guy that they were guarding. But he didn't stay dead. As I've said, he rose from the dead. The Holy Spirit quickened him and he walked out of the tomb, leaving sin and death in the tomb. And so my sin and your sin not only was nailed to the cross with Jesus, but it was left in the tomb when Jesus walked out. So therefore, by faith, we are justified in Christ. We are no longer held responsible for our sins. We are beloved children. We have been adopted by faith in Christ. And the amazing part is we have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside us, God in us, who is telling us when we are sinning. And so even though we aren't held guilty for our sin, we have not only a helper, but an advocate with the Father, because Jesus is ruling and reigning. And because Jesus resurrected, we have a glorious hope of a resurrection, that this life is not all that we have to look forward to. But like I said earlier, it's just the beginning. So in many sermons, the gospel part is usually towards the end. So not only are you getting the point of application at the beginning, you're getting the gospel as well. but our text demands it. So this brings me to my first question. Are you living a life worthy of the gospel? If today this is your first time hearing the gospel, today is the day of salvation. I pray that you'd put your trust in Christ as Lord and become a citizen of heaven. But if you presently trust in Jesus, then take this as an opportunity to evaluate yourself. To rephrase the question, does your life reflect the fact that sin no longer has a hold on you? Are you walking in joy knowing that no human institution can ever separate you from Jesus? Is your sin repulsive to you because you see it in the light of the glory of Christ? Jesus gives us some amazing illustrations of this in Matthew 13, 44 through 46. He says, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who on finding the one pearl of great value sells all he had and bought it. It's like I've seen these videos where a little boy or girl is born deaf. And through the modern medical marvels, They go and they get a cochlear implant. And they place it on the child's ear. And as soon as the technician turns that on, their eyes light up. And they hear for the first time the symphony of sound and the sweet sound of their mommy's voice. And they hear for the very first time. I know that's how the gospel came to me. So I urge you to examine yourself. Are you waking up every morning glad with joy, remembering that time when God quickened your heart and you understood the gospel for the very first time? Saw the amazing truth? I pray that if any of this causes a catch in your throat, that you run immediately to the feet of Jesus. I know much time has been spent on this point, but living a life worthy of the gospel is foundational to the rest of our passage. In the rest of verse 27, we read, so that whether I come and see you or I'm absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. And so here, Paul gives three marks of unity. First, he says, stand firm. Next, he says, with one spirit and one mind. And last, striving side by side in faith. And I will deal with these in turn. We stand firm because the hope that we have is in a resurrected Lord and not a dead one. A Lord who is ruling and reigning now and who through the Holy Spirit is present with us. We can stand together on a firm foundation, right? It's like a tree in a storm. A storm can hit and it can bend a tree almost in half, but because of the root system that it has, it stands firm. Branches might be broken off. The tree might be damaged, but it's not destroyed. Anyone who has dealt with other humans knows that we fail a lot. In fact, it's difficult to trust anything humans say. And if our foundation was merely the words of a human, we would fail as well. Every attempt throughout history that humans have made to fill the earth with their own glory has ended in utter ruin. As a matter of fact, it's the idea that John Lennon sang about, no hell below us, above us, only sky, that I would submit has led to unspeakable amounts of evil. And so our faith, which again is not in man, but in God, puts us firmly on solid ground. And so with one spirit and one mind, we have a unifying principle in our shared faith. In Christ, we are not a scattered mass of individuals. We certainly have experiences as individuals, but our shared faith allows us to share with one another in that faith. We don't worship many gods. We worship one God. So we have already shared in one spirit and one mind today. We have listened together to the word of God. We have sung together as one voice, songs of praise. We have confessed corporately as one body, our individual and corporate sins. And every other week we partake together the blood and body of our King, Jesus at the Lord's table. Again, we have this shared experience. When we consider the things of God, when we read our Bibles, we are ordering our minds and our lives around God's truth. But this is not just a Sunday morning thing. We don't have unity here and then go outside of these doors and live in disunity. and isolation from other believers. Why? Because the last point of unity demands that we strive side by side for the faith of the gospel. We have not been called out of the darkness of sin in order to keep the good news that first grabbed a hold of our hearts hidden from the rest of the world. In fact, Jesus commands us in Matthew 28, 19 to disciple the nations, baptizing them and teaching them Christ's commands. Again, this world is in a state of decay, especially since 2020. There is so much disillusionment and hopelessness in our world and distrust in human institutions that the world is yearning desperately for purpose. and meaning. So I've said along with Jesus in John 4 many times, the fields are white for the harvest. As a matter of fact, a number of years ago when Colin and I were first doing the church, we would go out periodically and open air evangelize to people. And I remember distinctly one lady who I'd seen walking through Buchanan a number of times. And she was sitting on a bench by herself, and we walked up to her, and we shared the gospel with her. And I remember she was looking down, and then she looked up at Colin and said, you really believe this? We said, yes. Don't know what happened to her, but it drives home the point, I think, that there are people who are looking, that even something that would bring them hope is crazy to think about. As a matter of fact, nowadays we live in a time where people have made a god out of the universe. They're so looking for meaning and purpose and value that they're willing to speak things out, to manifest things out to the universe, and the universe, because of whatever, has to return it back to you. Sounds a lot like prayer, just with different steps. And I've seen hopelessness. I don't encourage you to do this, but every once in a while, I will listen to the popular music of the day. And recently, I got through a few songs and I was tired of the hopelessness and the apathy that this life is rough. There's no real purpose to it. We're just trying to make it. Again, the fields are white for the harvest. People are looking for hope. in the gospel, this is our task. So this brings me to my second question. Are you standing in unity with other believers? Are you encouraging one another with the gospel? Are you exhorting one another to fight your sin and rest in Christ's work? Are your conversations filled with awe at the truth of God? Are you working together to share the mission of Christ? We were not created to stand in isolation with one another. We are relational beings created by a relational God. It is sin that separates. Have you ever thought about that? Sin causing separation? I know I have in my own life. If I am caught in some kind of sin, if I've been angry one too many times, what it begins to do is it begins to make me want to isolate myself from other believers and even people in my family. In our flesh, the last thing we want to do is be around other Christians. because they're a reminder that we're sinning. Years ago, I was involved in a rather infamous church now, and toward the end, when I first got there, it was very outward focused. Did a lot of mission work with the city I was in. But toward the end, because unfortunately, there had developed a cult of personality around one man, all of the conversations began to go from outward to inward. We once talked about the wonderful works of God and Christ, and then our conversations became peppered with, how are you doing? But what that meant was not how you're doing in general, no, how are you doing in light of the fact that our church is seemingly crumbling? And this is certainly something that we can experience in our small congregation. You say hi to somebody and they kind of give you a look and you're like, I wonder if they're mad at me. And so the next time you see them, you go, I don't know about that. Or maybe, maybe if there's a particular ministry that you're involved in, that you've devoted a lot of time and effort to. And people don't devote as much time and effort and enthusiasm to that ministry as you do. And so because you've made that ministry a part of your identity, a lack of enthusiasm to that particular ministry is a lack of enthusiasm for you. Family, it was sin that pitted Adam and Eve, who once exhibited this unity against one another. As a matter of fact, I can say with confidence that if a church is wracked by sin, there will be rampant bitterness and unforgiveness and jealousy and pride. No unity, a bunch of individuals there to accomplish their own purposes. So let me state again that this unity that Paul is commending the Philippians for is one that is permeated by the hope of the gospel, by the hope that it brings. It is in this light that we can collectively share in the truth to fight against sin, to fight against bitterness, to fight against pride and share with one another in the gospel. This next verse in our passage provides somewhat of a practical example of Paul's marks of unity in verse 29. It says, do not be not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation and that from God. What Paul is saying here is that in light of the unity The standing firm of one spirit and one mind striving together for the gospel will lead to a fearlessness in the face of opposition. Now let me state right here that these people are not your opposition. These people are not your opponents. Your brothers and sisters in Christ are not what Paul is talking about here. But this raises a question, who are the opponents? Paul does not give us an answer in the text, but it would seem that he is referring to the pagan Romans of Philippi that opposed him in Acts 16. To give a quick recap, Paul goes to Philippi and a slave girl who had a demon and was fortune telling was following Paul and his companions saying, these people have the word of God. These people have the spirit of God. And Paul, in his frustration, turns and rebukes the spirit, and that spirit leaves. And the source of income for the slave girl's master dries up. And so they throw Paul and his companions in prison. And so this is further strengthened by Paul's mention of his conflict, again, in verse 30 of our chapter. So what does this mean for us? We are finding ourselves in an increasingly post-God society. Atheism, or at the very least, pagan spiritualism, whose God is the universe, is quickly gaining momentum. And as such, we are seeing the fruit of a people who have abandoned God. They love evil and hate good. Many folks, especially in the academic world, vehemently assert that to be a Christian is to be an oppressor. And if you're an oppressor, violence against you is okay. This is a college town, and I know that school's out, but Buchanan, as a town, is not immune to the kind of oppressor-oppressed ideology that is so prevalent, especially on college campuses. And so again, since the rising belief is Christian equals oppressor attacks, even physical attacks against Christians will be seen as virtuous and celebrated. It's scary to think about. Christians, especially young Christians, being attacked. But what Paul is telling us is that our unity in Christ allows us to face that opposition with heads held high. And the wonderful part is that the striving together for the faith that we have talked about includes preaching the gospel to those who hate us. Paul also states here that our unity is a sign of their destruction. What does that mean? Let's think about it. The goal of our opponents is disunity, disconnectedness, for us to doubt the Gospel, to fear standing up to evil. And so what happens if we fearlessly stand united in the Gospel? Our opponents lose all their power. If they cannot break us up, they have nothing to stand on because they don't have another play. They can't kill God. They already tried. And he was risen from the dead. So to summarize, if our lives are marked by unity in the gospel, we can stare down any opposition to the church and its mission, because our unity, as Paul states, is a clear sign of our salvation, and that salvation is from God. The last two verses of our passage further explain what we have seen, that there is a two-fold aspect of the Christian life in verses 29 and 30. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake. Engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had, and now I hear that I still have. Believing in Christ and suffering. On its face, this sounds bleak. Who really wants to suffer? But in fact, this is the outworking of Paul's argument we have seen today. We are preaching to a world that hates us because it hated Jesus. It hated Paul. That's why he was imprisoned. Living our lives worthy of the gospel is an affront to the ways of this world. And as the culture becomes increasingly hostile to Christianity and the gospel, do not be afraid if you will eventually be forced to make the choice to deny Christ or to never see your family again. The word for suffer here is used elsewhere to describe the suffering of Christ. So it's all on the table. But the good news is Paul has prepared us for this suffering. He has told us that unity in the gospel allows us to look death in the face. It gives us hope because we know that death, again, is not the end. So it is in this unity and in this hope we can suffer well, not moping around, crying and complaining, but with heads held high, arm in arm. with our brothers and sisters in Christ. And with this, I ask my final question. Are you prepared to suffer together with one another in Christ? Are you prepared to stand against the attacks of the enemy? Are you prepared to lose your livelihood, your house, your money, even your life? The road to glory is lined with crosses. It is the cross that we bear in waking up every morning, dying to ourselves, putting ourselves up on the cross, sacrificing ourself for the sake of the gospel, killing our sin, putting our sin on the cross. Before we get to glory, we have to die. not only physically, but to our sin and our flesh. And so again, with unity that we possess, we can have unwavering confidence in what we believe and unwavering confidence in each other as we go into battle. So finally, are you living a life worthy of the gospel? Has the gospel pricked your heart so much that it colors every single conversation that you have? Are you standing in unity with other believers? Are you sharing with one another in the hope of the gospel? Are you putting your pride to death And are you prepared to suffer together with one another in Christ? Are you prepared to go to the death for the sake of Jesus? Are you prepared to lose everything? I'm a firm believer that the gospel is going to go to the ends of the earth in this world. But that doesn't mean that along the way that we are going to suffer, but we can do so with joy in Christ. And with that, let us pray.