to live is Christ, to die is gain

Phil. 1:19-21

I’m sure by now you all are aware of the details of the attack on the US Consulate in Bengazi that began to make the news last week.  I was very dismayed, as I’m sure you were, over reports that our people there were left on their own after repeated calls for help.  Two of the men who died in the attack were former Navy Seals who were providing security for our forces there; Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.  Woods actually disobeyed orders and went to try to assist those under fire at the Consulate, and they were later killed by a mortar attack that it would seem that our government had every opportunity to take out beforehand and yet for some unknown reason, did not and left these men and the Ambassador to the terrorists.

I try not to be political in my messages.  But my excuse today is that this is not political, this was criminal.  Those responsible for allowing this tragedy to happen and then lie about it to try to cover it up should be held accountable.  It was a tragedy.  I am especially upset over the fact that these exceptional men who had sworn allegiance to defend our country, to lay down their lives for our country if necessary, such men were considered disposable.

I gave a message last winter in which I used Navy Seals and their training as an allegory for our spiritual walk, and during that time I did quite a bit of research about this special brand of soldier.  And I gained a tremendous amount of respect for their commitment and dedication.  You have to be the best of the best in practically every respect to be a part of that organization.  So to see their lives and that kind of commitment thrown away and dragged through the street is an outrage.

But there is another type of soldier that I would like to talk about today.  One that is just as committed, just as dedicated, and just as willing to sacrifice their lives in service if necessary as those SEALS were.  They operate in a different kind of battlefield arena perhaps, but their sacrifices are just as real and the commitment, if anything, is even more exemplary.

Paul talked about this battleground in Eph 6:10 which says, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.  Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.”

Today I’m talking about the elite forces in this spiritual battleground, whose  fortress stands in the battlements of heaven, and the men and women who occupy this fortress have consecrated their lives in service to the King.  They have sacrificed much and are willing to even lay down their lives, if necessary.  And across the archway of this fortress reads their motto, “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

This statement was coined by the Apostle Paul around 55AD.  We find it here in Philippians 1: 21.  I believe this was Paul’s motto.  It was the reason that he was so fearless in all the trials and dangers and hardships that he encountered. Paul wrote in 2 Cor. 11:23 that he had been in “far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death.  Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes.  Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren;  I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.”

The Navy SEALS motto was “The only easy day was yesterday.”  And I’m sure that any modern day Christian that followed Paul around for a day or two would find that he endured every bit as much hardship as the typical SEAL did.  In fact, at the time he wrote Philippians, he was chained to a Roman guard 24 hours a day.  He was awaiting trial to see Nero, one of the most feared emperors of the Roman Empire.

Let’s pick it up starting in verse 19; “for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,
according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.  For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

Paul isn’t cowering in some prison, scared to death of meeting the notorious Nero, but he says it’s his “earnest expectation and hope” that he will not be put to shame, but with all boldness, with all confidence, he is looking forward to this encounter.  Philips translates this phrase “earnest expectation and hope” as standing on his tiptoes in anticipation.  He is ready to go.   He is rising up on his tiptoes ready to charge into the fray to defend the gospel.  How can Paul have such confidence?  How can he be so sure of himself?

First of all, because Paul has confidence in the prayers of the saints.  Note verse 19; he knows his deliverance will come because of the prayers of the saints.  Notice, Paul isn’t praying to some dead saints, he is saying to this church in Philippi that he knows they will be praying for him.  They are participating in Paul’s ministry through prayer.  James says, the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much.  We don’t know how it works, but we know the prayers of the righteous God uses to accomplish His will.  He uses our prayers.

Some of your Bibles may substitute the word salvation there instead of deliverance.  Paul isn’t talking about his own spiritual salvation in the sense of being born again.  But he is talking about deliverance, salvation from his circumstances.  Some think that this means Paul was expecting to get out of prison.  But I don’t think that the context of these verses allows that interpretation.  Look at verse 20, whether by life or by death, he says, Christ will be exalted.  Either way, Paul says, I’m not going to be ashamed.  I’m going to be delivered either way, either by life or by death, and my goal is going to be accomplished, Christ is going to be exalted.  And Paul knew that the prayers of the church at Philippi were helping him in this situation.  He had more confidence because of their prayers for him.

Secondly, Paul is confident because verse 19 says of the provision of the Spirit.  In other words, Paul is confident because he is sure the full resources of the Holy Spirit  will be brought to bear upon this situation.  Unfortunately, the full resources of the United States government were held back during the Bengazi attack.  We had lasers, missiles, jets, helicopters and all kinds of resources we could have brought to bear in those many hours that those men were in battle.  And yet the US Government did not deploy those resources.

Thank God, as soldier of the heavenly kingdom we don’t have to worry about the availability of God’s resources.  They are always there ready at our disposal. Eph 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,”   Everything we need is available to us through the Holy Spirit to do the will of God.

Romans 8:26 tells us “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;  and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.  And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”  That is our confidence, ladies and gentlemen.  God will provide all your needs according to His riches in glory so that you have every resource available to do His will.

See, that is the mistake of many in modern Christianity today.  They don’t understand the purpose of the gifts and power of God.  Spiritual gifts are not given to us as a toy box, but a tool box.  And God will supply us the power to do what he wants us to do.  He will not send us on a mission without giving us the means to do the mission.  If he calls you to witness, he will give you the power and the words to witness.  Just be obedient.  If he calls you to give, he will give you the power and the gifts to be able to give, just be obedient.  Whatever he calls you to do, be obedient and God will supply your needs.  But they aren’t toys.   They are tools.  My dad was a drill sergeant in the Army and he taught me as a kid never to point my gun at a person unless I was going to shoot them.  It wasn’t to be used for fireworks.  It was a weapon.  And our gifts of the Spirit are to be used as weapons in this warfare we are in.  This idea of using spiritual gifts like a bunch of drunken cowboys riding into town and hooping and hollering and shooting up the place is not Biblical.  Gifts are the provision of the Holy Spirit to equip us to do the will of God.

And thirdly, the confidence that Paul had was because of the promises of God.  Listen, your faith must be founded in the promises of God if it is to be unwavering faith, certain conviction.  Faith that will stand in the fire.  Faith that will stand through the trials of life.  That’s why we unapologetically preach the word of God here at the Beach Fellowship.  Because we need to be rooted and grounded in the promises of God,  the sound doctrine found in God’s word.

Paul was probably quoting directly from scripture when he spoke of this deliverance.  Job 13:16 says, "This also will be my salvation, For a godless man may not come before His presence.”  Paul’s statement is basically a direct quotation from Job 13.  And to put that in even more context, just one verse prior to that in 13:15, Job says, “though He slays me, yet will I hope in Him.”  That’s the confidence that Paul is expressing here, whether I live or die, doesn’t matter.  One way or another God will deliver me.  To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

Or maybe Paul was thinking of Deut. 31:6 "Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you."  Paul had confidence in the promises of God.  Because nothing can separate us from the love of God. Rom 8:38“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,  nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Fourthly, Paul had confidence in the plan of God.  What is the plan of God for our lives?  Many modern Christians today think that the plan of God is just to make our lives better.  To make us healthy, wealthy and wise.  But in the light of this passage that sounds pretty superficial, doesn’t it?  No, the plan of God is that we live lives that exalt God.  God made man to bring glory and honor to Christ.  Nothing short of that will do.  That is why man spends his whole life trying to bring honor and glory for himself and ends us empty and unfulfilled.

The Westminster Catechism says that “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”  Augustine lived a wild life of pleasure which produced only misery until one day his soul searching led him to the Bible.  He then confessed, “O God, thou has made us for thyself and our souls are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”

Paul knows that God’s plan will not be thwarted.  Vs. 20; “Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.”  Paul wasn’t afraid of dying.  You know, I went through about 3 and a half years of being so afraid.  I joke that I discovered panic attacks about 18 years ago before they became popular.  And God used this terrible time in my life to break me and then remake me.  So I give thanks to God for that.  But still, it was very painful.  I lost my career, my home and my money and cars, pretty much everything, due to a debilitating time of panic attacks.  And one of the verses that was most helpful in getting me through those times is found right here in Philippians chapter 4 verse 6.  “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication let your requests be made known before God, and the peace of God will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

But while that was helpful, I didn’t really realize that verse was inescapably tied to chapter 1: 20 and 21.  Until I had really committed my life unto Christ to the point of death, that I would never really be able to live without fear.  It’s still a struggle for me in my flesh.  I don’t have a death wish.  But I have learned that the key is what Paul is saying here in verse 21, and I aspire to commit my life the way he committed his.  That I too might say with all confidence, “for me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

I used to be very successful.  I used to make a fair amount of money.  But you can’t put those words in that sentence and have it make any sense.  “For me to live is success, and to die is….it must be loss.”  If living is success, then dying is loss, it can’t be gain.   How about this one.  For me to live is money, and to die is….loss.  I can’t take it with me.  How about love?  For me to live is love and to die is…loss.  For me to live is prestige or fame, then to die is loss.  How about power?  For me to live is power, then to die is loss.  There is only one right answer to that statement.  For me to live is Christ, then to die is gain.  He is the only thing worth living for that results in a gain when I die. My death will only result in further exaltation of Jesus Christ.  I will be changed from corruption to incorruption.  I will be like Him for I will see Him face to face.

In closing, let me break this sentence down to six words that I think encapsulate what it means to be a Christian and live the Christian life.  I don’t know where you are spiritually today.  But if you don’t know Christ personally as your Savior, then I want you to listen to these words.

The first two; “To me”;  It means it’s personal.  My salvation must be personal. It can’t be inherited, it’s not captured by association, by joining a church.  But I must accept him as my substitute for my sins, my Savior and as my Lord.  “To me” means a personal commitment with Christ.  In exchange for my forgiveness I give Him my life.

The second is “To live”: means it’s practical.  You aren’t really alive until the Holy Spirit gives you spiritual life.  The Bible actually refers to your sinful condition as being dead in your sins.  To be made alive in Christ  provides satisfaction, it provides hope, it provides security, it provides comfort, it provides help.  It provides a continuity of life that stretches into eternity, never ending, never stopping.  Life without Christ is impractical.  It is fruitless.   Life with Christ is infinitely practical.  We are made alive in Christ.

The third, “Is Christ”: means it is possible.  With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.  God makes it possible for us to live our life through Him, by His power.  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  Christ provides freedom from sin.  Freedom from the consequences, and freedom from it’s enslavement.  So now by faith in Christ I have been given the gift of righteousness.  And being made holy and righteous, God is able to give me the Holy Spirit to live in me, that I might do the righteousness that God wants me to do.

Jesus said, “What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”  Christ is the only real gain.  I gain everything that matters.  And so I am willing to lay down my life in exchange for that gain.  I pray that whether you are a Christian who has never really come to a full commitment to Christ, or you are an unbeliever, who has never given your heart to Christ, wherever you are this morning, I pray you lay down your life in service to God.  I pray you can say, starting today, by God’s help, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”  I’m going to live my life for Christ.  That Christ may live in you and through you.   Let’s pray.

Progress of the gospel

Philippians 1:12

The title of my message today is the greater progress of the gospel. We started off in Philippians looking at our partnership in the gospel, then the next week it was our participation in the gospel, and now today we’re looking at the progress of the gospel.  Some people have said that joy is the theme of Philippians.  But I would suggest that the gospel is the theme of the book.  In fact, the theme of every book in the Bible is the gospel.

So before we go too far into this passage, let’s define the word gospel.  It’s a very important word that encompasses so much and yet is understood so little. A good definition is found in Romans 1:16 which says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.”  So the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel is the doctrine of salvation, presented in every book of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.  And doctrine simply means the truths that the gospel is built upon.  The irrefutable promises, principles and laws of God.

 Our message then comes from the first verse of our text, verse 12, in which Paul says that his circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel.  Now on the surface this would seem to be an incongruous statement.  After all, Paul was in prison.  He spent two years incarcerated in his own private, rented quarters in Rome but he was in prison nonetheless.  He was chained to a Roman guard 24 hours a day.  The guards worked 6 hour shifts and someone was constantly chained to him.  He could receive visitors, but he was unable to come and go himself.

And I suppose that Paul had this certain luxury of his own quarters because he had not been convicted of a crime yet, in fact, he really had not even been charged with a crime.  He had merely been charged as having caused a disturbance among the Jews.  It seems everywhere he went, the Jews began a riot on his account.  And so they locked him up for his own protection at first, and then one thing led to another and he stayed locked up until he appealed to Caesar. Paul had a very valuable citizenship as a natural born Roman citizen.   So he had a certain privileges because of that, yet he was held waiting for trial.  He was awaiting trial by Caesar, who happened to be the infamous Nero, who had Christians tarred and placed on poles around his garden terrace and set on fire to light up his dinner parties.  And this was the circumstances that Paul found himself in, and was actually giving thanks for.

Now Paul had intended to come to Rome for years, but I’m sure he would have never thought that the way God would accomplish that would be in prison, yet he says that imprisonment had turned out for the progress of the gospel.  He says in verse 13, “so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else,  and that most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear.”  And the first thing we can notice here is that God used difficult circumstances to further the progress of the gospel.  Yet how often do we allow difficult circumstances to hinder us in the furtherance of the gospel.  Our difficulties at work, or our difficulties due to some unforeseen circumstance ends up hindering our purpose of fulfilling our ministry to participate in the gospel, rather than furthering it.  And I’m afraid that it may be because it was never our priority to begin with.  The ministry of the gospel is far too often at the bottom of our priority list.  Yet for Paul, his purpose was never shaken.  His mission was the furthering of the gospel no matter what the circumstances.  There was no higher priority.

And notice a couple of things Paul said happened as a result of that commitment to not let his circumstances deter his mission.  One, the whole praetorian guard had come to know about Paul and the gospel of Christ.  Paul is sitting there in this house day after day, for two years, chained to a different guard every 6 hours.  But rather than Paul thinking of himself as a captive of unfortunate circumstances, he sees the guards as a captive audience and the result is in 2 years many of them had become saved, to the point that the gospel was known throughout the praetorian guard and throughout Caesar’s house.  What an amazing thing.

It would help you perhaps to know that the Praetorian guard were the elite, “Navy  Seals” of the Roman army. The Praetorian Guard, or the palace guard of Rome had been originally instituted by Caesar Augustus. You may remember, he was Caesar at the time of the birth of Christ. They were a body of about 16 thousand hand-picked troops. They were the elite soldiers in the Roman army. Augustus had kept them stationed throughout the city of Rome because they were the force of his presence there, responsible for keeping the peace and for putting down any opposition. They had a specially built and fortified camp so they had high profile presence in Rome. They were a threat to any insurrection, any rebellion. By the end of their enlistment which ran up to 16 years, they were granted all the highest privileges of citizenship and also a large sum of money. They eventually became so powerful that they ultimately became the bodyguard of the emperor himself and after that, they became so influential that they literally became the king makers of Rome and every emperor was the choice of the Praetorian Guard.  They could impose their will by force on the population or on the leadership. And so they chose all the emperors...they were extemely powerful men.

And in the providence of God Paul is being guarded by these men, and they are being saved, to the point that Christ is becoming well known throughout even the palace.  And such a testimony provokes the question:  what or who are you chained to?  Are you chained to a desk all day?  Are you chained to an assembly line?  Are you chained to an office?  For Paul, there was no where to hide from his testimony.  These men saw him at all hours of the day, every day of the week.  And yet his testimony was consistent with his message. These elite soldiers would lay down their life for the Emperor, and yet I think that Paul’s dedication to Christ in spite of his circumstances was the impetus for their salvation.  I hope and pray that your testimony is consistent with the gospel.  The greatest criticism we Christians face is that we are hypocrites.  This doesn’t come from within the church, but from without.  The world sees a discrepancy between our walk and our talk.  But it wasn’t that way with Paul, and as a result the gospel progressed, it went forward in spite of his circumstances.

Now another thing that happened for the progress of the gospel is that the brethren, those that were saved in the church of Rome, were witnesses to the providence of God in Paul’s imprisonment, and it emboldened them in their witness.  Have you considered how your testimony impacts other Christian’s walk? One of the greatest shortfalls of most Christian testimonies is that they fail to show by example a courageous, committed, sacrificial walk. And I think it’s because we have this mentality that our Christian walk is just between us and God and it doesn’t have to cost us anything.  But folks, people are watching your walk.  They notice when you are at church and when you are not.  They notice how seriously you take your commitment to the gospel.   And I would ask you, does your perseverance give encouragement to other believers or does your testimony cause them to be less committed?  Are you telling others by your mouth that Christ is everything, but telling them by your walk that you really don’t have to take it so seriously?  Sometimes I think some people would better serve the church if they didn’t tell anyone that they were a Christian.  But Paul’s testimony gave them more courage to speak the word of God without fear.  His testimony encouraged them to greater sacrifice.

(14-16)Now a lot of people go off the track on this next verse which builds on verse 14.  They want to point out that verse 15 says that some are preaching Christ “out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment.”  And then they point to verse 16 and say, “Aha!  See there!  We shouldn’t speak ill of any preachers or churches or even false religions, because Paul says we should just be happy that Jesus is being preached.”  And so they want to stifle any criticism of any false teachers or cold dead, apostate churches.  “Let’s try to find the good in every thing.  Let’s just all get along.  That’s what Paul would want.”

But folks, read the text.  First of all, Paul says in vs. 14 that they were preaching the word of God.  In other words, they were teaching the gospel.  Paul isn’t condoning false teaching here.  He is not saying here that we should show some sort of leniency towards those that are teaching a false doctrine of works, or of some other way to become acceptable to God.  Far from it.  To believe that would make a liar out of every other book that Paul wrote.  Consider Galatians Gal. 1:6 where  Paul writes, “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; (in other words, there isn’t but one true gospel) only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.  But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!”

Does that sound like inclusiveness to you?  Does that sound like we all just need to get along?   Does that sound like we’re all going in the same direction here?  Not hardly. There are a lot of so called churches out there claiming to preach Jesus Christ, but if they don’t preach salvation, then they aren’t preaching the gospel.  Paul never intends a permissive sort of easy believe-ism, or some sort of watered down gospel that says that if you just name Jesus you’re good to go.  The gospel of Jesus Christ as far as Paul was concerned was nothing less than the message that Jesus came to save lost sinners, and only by faith in His atonement on the cross, God reckons righteousness to our account, so that being made holy, we might receive a new life by the Spirit, so that being filled with the presence of Christ we might live the life of service to God that He requires, but we were unable to do in the flesh.  That is the gospel in a nutshell.  Nothing short of that is the gospel.  And anyone that doesn’t preach that gospel Paul said is to be accursed, shunned, rejected and called out from.

So what is Paul really saying here?  Well, what he is saying is though the gospel is being preached by some even with impure motives, really to try to cause Paul distress in prison, yet Paul is rejoicing because his goal is being reached.  His goal was to proclaim the gospel to Rome and that was being done.  In other words, there were some brethren who for whatever reason were jealous of Paul, and yet they were genuine believers, and they began to preach out of that wrong motivation, yet even though they thought they were causing Paul distress, he was celebrating because his goal of the progress of the gospel was still being accomplished.

The point of distinction here is not false doctrine but impure motives.  What they were preaching was the truth, was in alignment with what Paul was teaching, otherwise Paul would have called them out as false teachers.  In 1 Timothy, for example, Paul says he is delivering over to Satan Hymeneaus and Alexander so that they would learn not to blaspheme.  They were teachers in the church at Ephesus who had twisted the truth and were teaching a blasphemous doctrine.  In another place Paul says of false teachers who were teaching that you had to be circumcised to be accepted with God, he said he wished those guys would mutilate themselves rather than continue to preach false doctrine.  Paul was never for unity at the cost of doctrinal purity.  But that’s not the case here, Paul is not focusing on false doctrine, but impure motives.  There are lots of people working today in the church out of impure motives, but God can still use that as He sees fit for the further progress of the gospel.  For instance, an evangelist might be motivated by pride, to be recognized, yet God can still use his message if it’s the truth of the gospel, or a pastor might be motivated to build a huge church, but still preaching the truth.

Phil. 1:18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.  For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Paul rejoiced that his difficult circumstances turned out for the  progress of the gospel.  His life’s goal was for the progress of the gospel.  He was willing for his life to be poured out for the church.  And that prompts the question for us; what is your greatest passion? Is it the gospel? It was for Paul. It was of little consequence to him what happened to his own body, what happened to his career, what happened to his own circumstances. The only thing that really mattered to him was the progress of the gospel. Back in the twentieth chapter of Acts  Paul says, "I don't consider my life of any value." I could care less about my life and my possessions, my clothes, my recognition, reputation, prestige, whatever it is, I just want to finish the course and the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus "To testify of the gospel," that's all I want to do. In Romans 1 he says, "I am ready to preach the gospel." In 1 Corinthians 9 he says, "Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel." Paul was driven to the progress of the gospel.  I ask you today, is the progress of the gospel your greatest concern?  Have you put it above every other thing in your life?  Are you willing like Paul to consecrate your life to the service of the gospel?

Unfortunately, our response to that question more often than not is limited to going to church on a somewhat regular basis.  We’ll make sure we check in at a church for an hour or so every week or two somewhere and that covers our consecration to the gospel.  But that answer reveals a gross misunderstanding of the word church and of our mandate to carry the gospel to the world.  Church isn’t a building, and it’s not attending a service.  It’s not even  hearing a message.  If it was, then why not just all of us  stay home and download something on the internet and we can watch it at our convenience?  No, that’s not church according to the Biblical definition. The Bible defines church as the body of Christ.  Now what does that mean? It means that  the church is a body of living organisms, each filled with the spiritual presence of Christ, each connected to one another in a local body, a living community, each dependent upon the rest of the parts of the body for their well being, and the body as a whole dependent upon the healthiness of the individual parts.  And that body that we are all to be a part of, it’s purpose is to reach the world with the gospel of salvation and to be effective, God needs all of the parts to participate in the work.

Eph. 4: 15 says, “we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”  Note it says grow up.  As Christians there is a time and a place for infancy and for being fed and nurtured and a newness in life.  But we are called to grow up, start eating the meat of the word, that’s doctrine, and start becoming teachers and leaders.  Serving the church in agape love, sacrificial love for the body the way Christ served the church.

So by that definition then, church is not merely  checking in somewhere to watch a religious service.  But rather, church is reporting for duty, becoming a servant to the local body God has placed you in.  And if you aren’t fulfilling your responsibility to the local church you’re not fulfilling your responsibility to serve God.

We need to understand the equivalency of the words gospel, church and ministry.  They are all connected.  They are all interdependent.  God never intended for a separation between the clergy and the laity.  God never designed the church to be operated by a few professionals, and populated by a congregation of spectators.  God’s design for the church is presented in 1Peter 2:5 which says “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

Christ changed Simon’s name to Peter, which meant rock or stone, and Jesus said upon this rock I will build my church.  And from that statement evolved a twisted doctrine has resulted in the false notion  that only priests or ministers are the appointed professionals that God uses in the church.  But look at what Peter, the original stone, had to say.  You also, are living stones, you’re a holy priesthood, and you are designed to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God.  

I would ask you today, how is your priesthood going?  Have you consecrated your life, have you consecrated your body, have you consecrated your resources, have you committed every aspect of your life to be a living sacrifice in service to God?   Are you offering up spiritual sacrifices to God?  What sacrifices are you making for the sake of the gospel?  Are you serving the church even as Christ served the church and gave His life up for her? Who is on the throne of your life?  Is  Christ there or are you still in control and serving your  passions and your desires and your goals?

Or can you say with Paul, “I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.  For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”  Whatever I counted as gain in my life before, I now count as loss for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I pray that your circumstances have brought about progress for the gospel.  That you will not let circumstances keep you from service, but you would see difficulties as opportunities for service.  I pray that those things that you are chained to are being impacted for the gospel and that your testimony is matching your claim to Christianity.  I pray that your enthusiasm and commitment for the progress of the gospel is resulting in an encouragement to other Christians to step up in their commitment to the gospel as they see the sacrifices you have made.

I pray that at the day of Christ’s appearing, you will be able to say with Paul that you are not ashamed, but Christ was exalted in your body, both in life and in death.  I pray that we might live according to the motto of Paul, the most elite warrior for Christ in the kingdom, “for me to live is Christ, but to die is gain.”

growing in participation

Phil. 1: 3-11

As we continue in our study of Philippians, you may remember that last week we looked at the first 6 verses of chapter one and the subject of our message was partnership in ministry.  And this subject of partnership was presented in verse 3, which says, “in view of your participation in the gospel.”  Today we are going to build on that idea as we look at growing in participation.  Participation in ministry is the means of growth, it’s the means to our maturity in Christ, to becoming all that God intends us to become in Christ. 

In fact, in verse 6 Paul says that God’s plan is to complete in us that work that God began through the gospel.   God will  bring us to maturity through our  participation in the gospel.  In other words, as we are participating in the work of the gospel, God will work in us to complete us, to mature us, until the day that Christ returns for His church, His bride. 

And in verse 7 Paul says it is only natural for me to feel confident and joyful about you because of your participation in the gospel.  Because, He says, you are all partakers of this grace with me.  Whether Paul was imprisoned, or defending the gospel, or in his corroboration/ confirmation of the gospel, his proving the gospel, whatever he was doing, the church at Philippi was partaking in that as well through their participation.

Paul commends the church at Philippi because they are exemplary in their commitment to the furtherance of the gospel.  And so there should be this understanding on our part as we apply this passage to our lives, that this passage is based on the presupposition that the  church is participating in the gospel.  Participation in the gospel is a prerequisite for Christian blessing.   And it was happening in Philippi. 

However, I don’t think that today in the church we are seeing participation in the gospel to the degree that it was then.  Today I feel that many modern churches are so far removed from the truth of the gospel that people in them can hardly even come to an understanding and acceptance of simple salvation.  And even when they do come to salvation, then that’s as far as most church goers seem to want to go.

But Christianity doesn’t stop with being forgiven, it doesn’t stop with receiving salvation.  Rather, salvation is merely the beginning of our Christianity.  That’s why it’s called the new birth.  We are given birth at salvation but that is merely the beginning.  But a lot of Christians want to stop right at forgiven, stop right at grace.  They want to stay in the breast feeding, new birth stage for the rest of their life. It’s nice and warm there, it’s comfortable there, and everything is supplied for you.  But God doesn’t want you to stay spiritually infantile, living in a world of self fulfillment and self gratification.   God wants us to grow in maturity.  And that happens when we  start living a life of agape love towards others.  Participating in His work in the kingdom.  You’ve been given new birth?  Great!  Wonderful!  Now let’s start growing in maturity.  You’ve been saved?  Wonderful!  Now let’s get to work for the kingdom.  Once we are saved, God gives  us a job, a stewardship, and responsibilities and He expects us to fulfill them.  And He has given us the Holy Spirit to live in us, to strengthen us and guide us and equip us in that work He has given us to do.

Paul says I am only right in feeling this way about you, feeling confident about you,  because you are partakers of grace with me.  The church of Philippi’s deeds showed their commitment to the gospel.  They weren’t just giving lip service to God, but they were putting action to their faith.  And Paul is saying your participation in this grace is evidence that God is working in you.

Paul says these Philippians have given him great joy because of their participation in the gospel.  Paul planted this church, and nothing gives a pastor more joy than to see his work, that is the people in the church, walking in the truth. The apostle John said something similar in 3 John 1:3            “For I was very glad when brethren came and testified to your truth, that is, how you are walking in truth. I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.”  Notice, not just knowing the truth, but walking in the truth.  Not just lip service, but showing by their deeds.

See, love is not just a one way street.  It’s not just God loving us, but us loving God by loving those that He loves.  John tells us in 2 John that if we say we love God then we should love one another.  2John 1:6  You say you love God?  “This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it.”  And the commandment was to love one another as you love yourself.  That’s a lot by the way.

Many people find great solace in thinking that God loves us.  And there should indeed be great solace in  the fact of God’s love towards us.  But many times I think we secretly imagine that God loves us because we are in fact so loveable.  And God loving us merely confirms to us that we are actually pretty lovable people after all.  But actually, the Bible tells us that  God loved us even though we are vile, wretched, unloving, selfish, prideful, hateful people who are actually unlovable.  Have you ever taken a real inventory of your sins?  If we honestly saw ourselves  the way a holy, righteous God saw us, then maybe we would have a more realistic idea of how onerous in God’s eyes we really are. God knows everything I have done, and everything I have even thought of.  Things I try to forget.  I know that no one could really love me if they really knew me the way God knows me.  It takes a supernatural kind of love to overcome my sin, and yet still love me.

I know I probably seem like the most unromantic person in the world to some of you.  I sometimes tend to be  critical of emotional things and focus on the harder, more practical aspects of our relationship to God.  And I admit maybe I’m not as romantic as I should be.  But perhaps my excuse is that in so many cases I think man’s concept of modern love does such a disservice to God’s concept  of agape love. 

Paul says in verse 8 that he longs for the church with the affection of Christ Jesus.  We should all be familiar by now with Christ’s love for us;  He loved us so much that He gave up His throne in heaven, gave up all His glory, to suffer shame and reproach and even a horrific death on the cross so that we might be saved.   We should all be familiar with that love by now, though we should never take it for granted.  And Paul says he has that kind of love for the church, the kind of love that Christ had, whereby Eph. 5:25 says “He gave himself up for the church.”  That’s Christ’s concept of love.

But then Paul gives us the other side of love, our side, what our love for Christ should look like.  It’s not enough that Christ loves us, but in a relationship love is reciprocal.  Look at what our love is supposed to look like.  Vs. 9: “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ;  having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

One of the most beautiful love stories in the Bible illustrates our kind of love I think very well.  It is set in the time of Abraham and his son Isaac.  And when Abraham became old, he took aside his servant and told him to go to the land of Haran where Abraham was from and find a wife for his son.  And Abraham gave him strict orders.  And so the servant traveled many days to Abraham’s homeland and prayed that God would reveal the woman that would become Isaac’s wife.  And according to the prayer of the servant, when he arrived a beautiful young woman named Rebekah came out to draw water. The servant asked her for a drink, and in answer to his prayer the woman gave him a drink and then offered to water his camels as well. 

So the servant knew that this woman was the one that God had appointed for Isaac.  So he went through the customs of meeting the girl’s relatives, and then he stated his business.  He had come on behalf of Abraham to seek a wife for his son Isaac, and according to his prayer, Rebekah had been shown to be the chosen one of the Lord.  And so once he had explained how Abraham had sent him and who Isaac was and so forth they asked Rebekah if she would be willing to go with him to become the wife of Isaac. Gen 24:58  “Then they called Rebekah and said to her, "Will you go with this man?" And she said, "I will go." The next day, the young woman packs up her things, leaves all that she knows,  her home and her family, and goes with the servant to the land of Abraham to become the wife of Isaac. 

And in the evening, Isaac goes into the fields to meditate and he sees the camel caravan coming. Gen 24:64            Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she dismounted from the camel.  She said to the servant, "Who is that man walking in the field to meet us?" And the servant said, "He is my master." Then she took her veil and covered herself.  The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done.

Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and he took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her; thus Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.”  What we find so amazing about this story is that Rebekah’s love for Isaac wasn’t based on a feeling.  It wasn’t even based on romance.  It was based on a commitment.  And faith in a promise.  Faith in really God’s promise to Abraham.

It’s a beautiful love story, but there is more to it than just a love story.  Abraham is a picture of God the Father, and He was seeking a bride for His Son.  And so God sent his servants into the world to find the future bride of Christ.  And by the foreknowledge of the Father, a bride is found in accordance to His will.   And the servant, the prophets, the Apostles, the preachers of the Father’s word, present the gospel to this bride and ask, “Will you come to Christ?  Will you forsake the world, all that you hold dear and come to Christ to live with Him and serve Him for the rest of your days?”  And the church, the bride of Christ’s answer was “Yes, I will go.”  I’ll give up everything for the sake of Christ.  I Peter 1:8 says, “and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.”

I hope you are a participant in that love story.  I hope that the truth of the gospel has grabbed hold of your heart, and in faith you have given your life to live for Christ. I hope you have forsaken the world and the things of this world for faith in another world promised by God for those that love Him.  And though you have never seen Him, you love Him.  And though you do not see Him now, yet you believe in Him, obtaining as the outcome of your faith your salvation of your soul.  And I hope because you love Him, you love what He loves and you keep His commandments. 

 Over the years that I have been in ministry, I’ve  seen a lot of people come in and out of the church.  Perhaps they reach the point where life has left them cold.  They are in some crisis, or they are lonely, or they realize that there has to be something more and are seeking the truth.  And so they come to church like a person coming up to a campfire.  It looks warm and inviting, and they are cold and in need of comfort.  And so this person stands there next to the fire for a while, and they can feel the heat.  They like the way it looks, perhaps.  They are attracted for a while.  But after a time, they are warm and the crisis passes, and they don’t feel quite so lonely now, and so they begin to move away.  Once in awhile they feel a need to come back over to the fire and warm up again.  And that seems to be the pattern for their lives.  They come and go.  They sidle up to the fire from time to time and get a little of the glow, get a little of the warmth.  But they fail to recognize that true Christianity, mature Christianity, is not just warming up next to the fire once in a while, but jumping into the fire.  Becoming part of that fire that serves as a light in the darkness, that offers comfort to the hurting, and hope to the lost.  We are called to lay down our lives in service for the brethren.  Even as Christ gave his life for the church, so should we. 

Vs. 9 again,  “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ;  having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”  Note that true love for God results in growing in knowledge and discernment.  It comes from subjecting yourself to the teaching of the truth of God’s word.  It doesn’t result in a superficial, skin deep, goose pimpled spirituality, but as we apply ourselves to the discipline of the gospel, in obedience to the gospel, then God gives us more and more knowledge and the scripture gives us discernment in knowing truth from error.  We preach a gospel here not based on what you feel is right, or what I feel is right, or what our culture feels is right, or what society tells us is right.  But we preach the full gospel, which is able to give you discernment.

As we are obedient, we gain discernment.   Folks, if there is one big, glaring deficiency in the church today it is discernment.  We accept everything today.  We hold no fundamental beliefs anymore.  Like Eph. 4 says, we’re tossed here and there by every wind of doctrine.  And the enemy knows we have no firm foundation and that we are ripe for the plucking.   Hebrews 5: 12  “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.  For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.  But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”   Notice a couple of important things about this verse.  They are not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.  Isn’t that the case today in the church? People don’t know what the word says.  They just arbitrarily decide what’s appropriate or righteous based on what seems right to them, or what they may have seen on TV or a movie or read in a book.  But most can’t tell you what the scripture says.

And note another point.  Because of practice they have their senses trained to discern good and evil.  What does that mean?  It means that the mature are obedient to the things that God clearly shows in his word.  They practice what they preach.  To go back to what John said they walk according to His commandments.  They just don’t give lip service, they don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk.

V. 10, “so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ;  having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

You know what blameless means there in this scripture?  It comes from the Greek word “a pos kee poss”.  And what it means is not causing others to stumble.  Not putting a stumbling block in front of others.  Not leading or causing others to sin.  We need to be practicing discernment so that we don’t cause another person to stumble.  Jesus said, there would be stumbling blocks in this world, but woe to that person whom through stumbling blocks should come.  It would be better for that person to be tied with a millstone around their neck and thrown in the middle of the ocean. 

And I’m afraid I’ve witnessed a lot of stumbling blocks in the church.  Some of them are going to come, maybe they can’t even be helped.  But some of them come from men and women that should know better by now.  They should have been elders or deacons or teachers or preachers by now, but they are so self centered, so self focused, that they throw stumbling blocks here and there without any concern for how many people are falling because of their testimony.  But God will hold us accountable for being a stumbling block.

In closing, Paul says we are to be blameless, practicing what we preach, producing the fruit of righteousness through Jesus Christ which results in bringing glory to God.    See, when we put on Jesus Christ, when we are not only clothed in His righteousness, but we are also practicing His commandments, when we are walking according to the Spirit of righteousness, when we are serving the body of Christ in agape love, then that kind of life brings glory to God.  We’re not to be about trying to bring glory to ourselves. But as John the Baptist said, He must increase, and I must decrease.  And as we learn to live as Christ lived, and love what Christ loved, to participate in His gospel and His church, then one day when we are ushered into His glory as the bride of Christ, we will share in His glory.  May you be found blameless until He comes. Let’s pray.

partnership in ministry

Philippians 1:1-6

Well, today is an exciting day.  We are beginning  new books in both our Sunday morning and Wednesday evening services.  Last time I tried something different and studied Romans on Sundays as well as Wednesdays.  But after some deliberation I have decided to study this small book of Philippians on Sunday morning and I anticipate completing this book around Christmas time.  And then we might begin the book of Luke, which begins with the Christmas story.  And in our Wednesday evening Bible study I plan on beginning the book of 1Timothy starting this coming Wednesday.  I have chosen that book because in it Paul presents the Biblical standards for church organization.  And as we go forward, I think it’s important to understand  God’s design for the church and how He wants it to operate.  So I’m excited about these new directions in our studies and I hope you are too, and hope you will make sure you don’t miss any of these essential teachings.

One interesting thing about the book of Philippians is that it was most likely written when Paul was in prison in Rome.  When we finished up Romans, if you remember, Paul was telling the Christians there that he was looking forward to coming to see them.  And yet I doubt that he had anticipated that God would bring him to Rome in chains.  Yet while he was in prison there, it’s believed that he wrote 4 of his epistles; Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians and Philemon.

Yet if you look at most of the commentaries on Philippians you will notice that almost all of them say that the overriding theme of this book is joy.  And that is almost ironic, isn’t it?  That Paul is bound in chains by Rome, more than likely actually chained to a Roman guard, and yet he writes a book the theme of which is joy.  And quite simply, the reason that Paul is able to write a book about joy, is because true joy is not connected to circumstances.

That’s not necessarily true about happiness, by the way.  Happiness is related to happenstance; something happens whereby you become happy.  Then that circumstance passes and the happiness fades.   That’s one of the unfortunate phrases I think in the Declaration of Independence; “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  The pursuit of happiness can easily become an excuse for hedonism.  And I think that hedonism is the hallmark of American society today.  Yet I doubt that was the idea intended by the founding fathers.

Switchfoot has a song in which they say that happy is a yuppie word.  And I guess what they were trying to say was happiness is about self gratification.  Self serving.  And I suppose yuppies are essentially trying to find happiness in self gratifying materialism, the same way that hippies were trying to find happiness by rebellion against commercialism.  Some of you may have seen a movie a few years ago with Will Smith called The Pursuit of Happiness, a true story about a man who lived on the street in order to become a stockbroker at a prestigious firm so that he could make a lot of money.  And eventually through great sacrifice he did became a stockbroker and he made a lot of money.  But what was never really made clear through the movie was whether or not he ever really became happy.  He sacrificed everything for money, but I’m doubtful that it ever brought anything other than momentary happiness at best.

Joy, however, does not produce hedonism, and it is not necessarily tied to circumstances.  Joy is a state of being that Paul shows is tied to hope in Christ, in spite of adverse circumstances.  Even though he was in prison, Paul had joy in knowing that Jesus was using him for the furtherance of the kingdom of heaven.  He had the attitude that first and foremost, whatever circumstances he found himself in, God was in control and God would use it for good to them that love God and keep his commandments.  Romans 8:28  Joy comes from knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.  Joy is believing that there is a future and a hope laid up for you that will endure forever.  Joy is knowing that Christ is in you, He has saved you, and nothing on earth can separate us from God’s love.

Now if you aren’t familiar with the history of Philippi, then I suggest you do some reading on your own starting in Acts chapter 16.  Philippi was a Roman colony in Macedonia.  You probably remember the story of Paul and Silas on their missionary journey there and how they were looking for any God fearing people and they found a small group of Jewish women praying on the Sabbath day by the river.  And the church was really started there when Paul converted these women and baptized them and Paul stayed in the home of Lydia.  And then Acts tells us how Paul and Silas were followed around by a demon possessed girl and she constantly was crying out “These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation." And she annoyed Paul and when he finally had enough he commanded the demons to come out of this girl.  Certain men of the town had been making money off of this girl’s fortune telling, and so they weren’t happy about that and they had Paul and Silas arrested, beaten and thrown in jail.  And you will remember that in the middle of the night, Paul and Silas are chained in stocks, bleeding and beat up and they start singing hymns, and God sends an earthquake and the jail is shaken and the chains fall off and the doors opened.  And the jailor comes and sees this and thinks that the prisoners have certainly escaped and takes his sword to commit suicide, rather than face execution by the authorities.  And Paul cries out, “don’t do any harm to yourself, for we are all here.” Long story short, this jailor and his whole family becomes saved, baptized and are joined to this new church there in Philippi.  That was the dramatic beginning of this ministry and you can read more about it starting in Acts 16.

So now 20 years later, Paul is writing to the church at Philippi from yet another prison, this time in Rome.  And if we learn nothing else here this morning, it’s that God’s ways are not our ways.  God can even use something like prison to bring about His purposes.  Some of Paul’s greatest achievements for the kingdom of heaven came through incarceration.  So when you are facing whatever difficult circumstances that you may encounter, perhaps debilitating, maybe limiting your freedom, maybe painful, maybe causing you to be separated from what you might want to do, in whatever adverse circumstances you may find yourself, if you belong to Christ, then God can use you there in ways that you could never imagine, if you will only trust Him.  And you can have joy in knowing that God sees, and God knows, that nothing can separate you from the love of God, and God will reward your faithfulness.

My message today is found in these first six verses, and I have titled it “Partnership in Ministry.” Ministry is the calling of everyone here that has been saved.  It is what we were saved for;  to serve as Christ’s ambassadors or ministers to the world.  To serve the kingdom of heaven.  Ministry is not supposed to be just the profession of a select few, but it’s supposed to be the occupation of every believer.  And as we look at this passage, I want to invite you to partner in ministry, by showing you the Privilege of ministry, the Participation in ministry, and the Plan of ministry.

Now it was typical in letter writing of that day to start off a letter with your name rather than the way we do it today, signing off at the end.  And so Paul opens this letter with a greeting in verse 1, “Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons.”  And I think it’s noteworthy that Paul includes Timothy in this greeting.  Timothy is Paul’s understudy.  He says in chapter 2 that he hopes to send Timothy to them soon, and that no one else shares his concern for them like Timothy.  He said everyone else is seeking after their own interests, and not those of Christ.   So Paul selected Timothy because he had the right perspective; he was concerned about Christ’s interests not his own.  Contrast that with chapter 3:18.

Phl. 3:18 “For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.”  To set your mind on earthly things is to be in opposition to the gospel of Christ.  Timothy was working for the gospel.  He was more concerned about Godly things than earthly things.  He knew his citizenship was in heaven. 3:20

Timothy understood the privilege of ministry.  He wasn’t grudgingly being obedient to God’s mandate to go out into all the world and preach the gospel and make disciples, but he was willingly, even eagerly fulfilling his mission.  And Paul gives us some more insight into that motivation for the both of them.  He describes them as bond servants of Jesus Christ.  And a bond servant captures the idea of willing service.  Not obligatory, not under compulsion.  But willing service.

The concept of a bond slave comes from the OT passage in Exodus  21:5, where a slave was to be released after seven years of service.  And yet there was this provision in the law for that slave who did not wish to go free, but wanted to stay and serve his master because he loved him.  And for that slave, the master was to take an awl and punch his earlobe and place a ring signifying that he was a bond slave, and would now serve him forever.

So what that means is, Paul and Timothy considered it a privilege to serve Christ in ministry.  They had been given their freedom in Christ, but their response was to renounce man’s interests in favor of something far greater, something far more desirable, and that was the privilege of serving Christ.  There is no greater honor, no greater calling, nothing else that will bring joy like serving Christ.

God has called you to be His ambassadors.  Imagine getting a call from the President of the United States, and he asks you to consider becoming an ambassador to a foreign country.  Regardless of our present political situation, what a privilege to be considered worthy of representing the United States government to a foreign power. Though we may live in France or some other country, yet we are citizens of the USA.  We represent our nation.  That’s why in Romans 12 we were urged to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is our reasonable service of worship.  Considering all that Christ has done for us, we should be eager to serve Him as His ministers of the Kingdom of Heaven.

And then secondly, Paul addresses his letter to the saints and overseers and deacons of Philippi.  In 1 Timothy we’re going to be looking at the offices of overseers and deacons.  But what we should understand for now is that Paul puts the saints, that is the born again, saved members of the church at Philippi in the same category as the overseers and deacons.  An overseer can just be interpreted pastor, or pastors.  Paul is not making a distinction here between the clergy or the layman.  They are all involved in this ministry.  Everyone is to be included in the participation of this ministry.  There are no spectators in the ministry of the gospel.  We all have a part to play.

Then he says starting in vs. 2, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now.”  And I would like to make mention of a couple of side notes here.  He says grace and peace, and the order there is significant.  This familiar blessing he bestows on them always follows this order;  first grace, then peace.  Without the grace of God, there can be no peace with God.  And another note, this is a very typical Jewish blessing that was used in greetings.  But Paul inserts the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in there on the same level as God.  For a Jew, this would have been shocking.  Paul was stating the divinity of Jesus Christ by making Him on par with God.  John 1 says the Word became flesh.  God dwelt among us as one of us.  When the jailor asked “What must I do to be saved?” Paul answered, “believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.”  To believe God became flesh and died to take away our sins.  That’s what it means to be saved.  To know that God became flesh to take our place in death on the cross, that we might have life everlasting in Him.

So Paul is commending these Philippians for their participation in the gospel.  He’s saying I thank God for you, praying with joy for you all for your participation in the gospel.  You know, one of the mysteries of the gospel is that God wants us to participate with Him.  God could do it all by Himself.  But He has chosen us to participate with Him in presenting the gospel of the kingdom and making Him known to the world.  It’s a privilege to participate with God.

And what does it mean to participate?  How do we do this?  Well, first of all, the example of Paul is that prayer is participation in ministry.  Praying for one another is commanded throughout the NT.  It is essential for the ministry.  It is essential for the other parts of the body. 1Ti 2:1 “First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Pray for one another and for the ministry.  This is another mystery.  We don’t know how it works or why it works, but we know God works through prayer.  So we participate through prayer.

And then another way we participate according to the example of the saints in Philippi is through provision.  Particularly, Paul is speaking of the many gifts that they had sent to him for the furthering of the gospel. Look at chapter 4:15 “You yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving but you alone; for even in Thessalonica you sent a gift more than once for my needs. Not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek for the profit which increases to your account. But I have received everything in full and have an abundance; I am amply supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God.”

Their participation that filled Paul with joy was their giving and sharing financially, their provision for the furtherance of the gospel.  Listen to what Paul has to say about these Philippians over in 2Cr 8:1 “Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints.”

I want you to notice a couple of things about this giving and sharing.  First of all, it wasn’t because the Philippians had a bunch of extra cash laying around and wanted to get rid of some.  Rather Paul says it was out of the deepest poverty that they gave.  It reminds me of the widow Jesus spoke of in Luke 21:2 “And He saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. And He said, "Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them;  for they all out of their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on."  God doesn’t need millionaires to participate in ministry. God uses everyday, ordinary, obedient people who will give even in their poverty, trusting in God to provide even beyond their physical ability.

These Philippians, Paul said, looked at participation through giving as a privilege.  They eagerly participated.  The Bible says that God loves a cheerful giver.  You know, we deliberately don’t talk much about money here because we want to avoid looking like that is all we care about.  Far too many churches make too big a deal out of giving.  We’re not going to pass an offering plate in front of your nose and watch  you to see what you do. We don’t want to lay a guilt trip on you. We would rather suffer than to make you feel like you’re obligated to give.  But let me tell you something;  it should be an honor to give.  The Bible says it is better to give than to receive. You should be looking for ways to participate.  And to the degree that you do, it is an indication of your spiritual worship.  Look at what Paul said in chapter 4, their gift was an acceptable sacrifice.  Yeah, it cost them something.  But God was pleased.  It’s the same language Paul uses in Romans 12; present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable act of worship.  Same idea.  Giving is a form of participation in the gospel.

And then finally, consider God’s plan for your partnership in ministry.  Vs. 6; “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”  Many of you may consider Jeremiah 29:11 your favorite verse.  It says, 'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”

God has a plan for your partnership with Him.  And He plans to bring it to completion.  That is what perfect means in vs. 6.  Not that we are going to be walking around as perfect Christians here on earth.  But that we are going to be completed according to the plan of God.  That as we are obedient to the call of God on our lives, as we are obedient to this ministry that He has chosen us for, He will conform us to His image.  As it says in Jude 1:24 “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.”

That’s when our joy will be full.  When we stand before God and Jesus says, “I paid for this one Father with my blood.  He has been a faithful and true servant.  Welcome to the joy of your Master.  Enter into all that the Father has prepared for those that love Him.”  That’s going to be joy that will never fade away.  It will be worth it all, all life’s trials and disappointments.  All the sacrifices of the world’s kingdom  will be forgotten when we see the rewards in the kingdom of heaven.

This promise gives us joy right now as we labor for the Lord in His kingdom.  We participate in ministry as partners with Christ.  What a privilege!  What an honor!  God will use my obedience and my service to Him to complete me, to sanctify me.  To mold me into the image of Jesus Christ.  And so I should eagerly seek participation in this ministry of the gospel.  The zeal for God’s house should consume me.  All that I counted as significant in my life here on earth, Paul said, I now count it as loss, count it but rubbish, that I might gain Christ.

Yes, happiness may be a yuppie word.  But joy is a godly word.  And there is no greater joy than serving Jesus.  I urge you to follow the example of Paul and Timothy and serve the Lord as a bond slave for the rest of your days here on earth, praying for the ministry, concerned for the saints,  joyful in the privilege of serving the Lord.  And I urge you to follow the example of the Philippians, as they begged for an opportunity to participate with the furtherance of the gospel, giving out of even extreme poverty and difficulties.  I urge you to yield yourself to the plan of God, fully and completely giving yourself as a living sacrifice in partnership with God’s ministry, knowing that God will complete you, perfect you, and establish you in His kingdom and in the day of Jesus Christ, present you faultless with great joy before God.  Amen.