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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.
The Bonds of Unity
| Sermon ID | 71424179465667 |
| Duration | 40:11 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Philippians 1:27-30 |
| Language | English |
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