As you know, we are continuing today in our ongoing study of Philippians.  I have titled my message today, “The unity of the church.” 

I want to show today what the Bible says about the kind of unity that marks a church that is committed to the gospel of  salvation.  As I’ve said before recently, the gospel of salvation is a two part message.  Unfortunately, a lot of us want to stop at the first half.  The first half is the grace of God that leads to salvation, and then the second part is the response of the believer in sanctification.  The first half is learning that Christ became our sacrifice, and the second part is learning that our bodies are to become a living sacrifice to God. 

So chapter 2 starts off with this word therefore, which should always prompt the question, what is it there for? Well, “therefore” references something and builds upon something that was said earlier.  So to answer that question we just need to look back at vs. 27 of the preceding chapter which says: “Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; in no way alarmed by your opponents—which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too, from God. For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me.” 

Now, I read you the whole preceding paragraph so that you could pick up on the word imagery that Paul is using.  His theme is unity, but with a particular emphasis.  The emphasis can be related for instance to an army on the field of battle.  He uses words like striving, and conflict, opponents, destruction to metaphorically give us a picture of a battle.  He’s talking about a unity that comes from a group of soldiers as they form a unit, bonded against their common enemy, and unified in their purpose.  He says, “Be of one mind.”  You’re in a conflict. Fight together in one spirit, one mind.

Therefore, starting in chapter 2, (and we should remember that chapter designations are not in the original manuscripts, so there is not necessarily any break in this message, but rather a continuation) we have this exhortation in vs. 1-4 that not only in the battle, but also in the camp, or fortress, in the church, we are to have this unity among ourselves as well.  

What Paul is talking about is not outward unity, but inward unity in the church. There is a desire today for ecumenicalism at all costs.  But Paul never teaches that.  He said clearly in 2 Cor. 6:14 “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.  “Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE,” says the Lord. “AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you.  And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” Says the Lord Almighty.” 

God never tells us to abandon doctrinal purity for the sake of ecumenical unity.  In 1Tim.  4:1 Paul said that “the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron.”  He is talking about false doctrine in the church.  They have strayed from the faith, they have strayed from the truth of God’s word, and they are adhering to doctrines that are spawned by demons, not by God, meant to deceive and destroy the church from within.  

Jesus said I’m sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, and told us to be wise as serpents, yet as harmless as doves.   So we need to beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing, we don’t want to have unity with false doctrine, we want to separate from people or churches or teachers that are adhering to false doctrine.

So if ecumenical unity is not what Paul is talking about, then what is he talking about?  Well, as I said earlier, he is talking about unity with one another in a local fellowship.  We strive together with the same purpose on the battlefield, and in the home camp, so to speak, or the church, we also need to be unified.  Now what does that mean?

He’s not talking about people that are externally connected by denominational membership, but internally connected.  If you put a bunch of marbles in the same bag, then you may have a certain unity.  But that which binds them together is the container.  It’s something external that holds them.   If the bag is torn open, the marbles are scattered because there is nothing intrinsic to hold them together. 

But if you take a bunch of steel nails and put them in a bag, and you also put in a large magnet, if the bag is torn all the nails stay together.  Because they have an inward pull towards the magnet that is stronger than the forces of gravity.

 And that’s how the church is to be, it is not a collection of marbles in the same bag, it is people who are drawn together because they’re all magnetized by the same force, which is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. That’s the internal unity of the church. We are pulled to each other because we are drawn to each other by the power within us, which is Christ. That’s what Jesus meant when He said, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth.”

In 1 Corinthians 12 the church is illustrated as a human body.  And it says there are different parts to the body, each of them having different purposes.  But all the parts are under the control of the head, which is Christ.  In fact, they have no purpose, no life at all, without being attached to the rest of the body.  A hand cannot live by itself and it has no purpose or function by itself. It depends upon the rest of the body for life and for control and for purpose. 

So individually as members of a local body, the church, a fellowship of believers, we are to function in conjunction with the rest of the body under the headship, the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  This is why we were made a new creation.  This is the purpose of the church.  This is the sanctification part, the second part of our salvation.  And Paul is saying that this unity is essential for our well being, for our survival, and for our effectiveness as a body of believers in the ministry of the gospel. The church has to have this unity to be effective for Christ. 

Now the opposite of unity would be everyone going their own way.  Everyone doing their own thing.  Disunity is marked by a selfish pursuit of self gratification.  An army is routed when one soldier says, “I’ve had enough of this, I’m going to save myself,” and deserts his post, and runs away from his duty.  He may be afraid of the sacrifice that he is called upon to make, and he says, “Forget this, I’m going to take care of myself.  I’m going to look after my own interests.”  And that attitude can and does become contagious.  When you see people on one side and then the other abandoning their post, abandoning their commitments, then you’re more inclined to throw in the towel as well.  And before you know it, the whole group, the whole church is in a rout.  Soon everyone is off doing their own thing. 

Folks, we weren’t saved for that.  We weren’t saved to be given a get out of Hell card and then we can go do our own thing whenever we want, or whenever the conflict starts to be a drain on us, or whenever we feel like we aren’t getting everything out of life that we think we deserve or need.  We are called to participate in the conflict. 1Cor. 6:19 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”

 And then Paul follows the word “therefore” with a series of phrases starting with the word “if”.  Most good commentators and Greek scholars agree that the word “if” would be better interpreted as since or because.  The word was correctly interpreted “if”, but the way it was used in the original Greek did not imply some sort of ambivalence, but rather a certainty that something was so.  And in our English language, we unfortunately only have one way of presenting “if”, and that is to present a questionable alternative.  That is not what Paul means here.  What he is saying is “since” or “because”. 

So it’s as if Paul presents a four point summary of our position in vs. 1 and then in vs. 2, he presents the conclusion to each point.  Therefore since there is any encouragement in Christ, since there is any consolation of love, since there is any fellowship of the Spirit, since any affection and compassion… And then in verse 2 the response, point by point, “make my joy complete”, and here are the responses, “by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.” 

Now here is what Paul is saying in these two verses.  He is saying that in order for us to have unity with each other, we first of all have to have unity with Jesus Christ.  A good example of unity is a godly marriage. The verse I quoted while ago in 2 Cor. 6:14 about being bound together with unbelievers can also be a good verse for people who are contemplating marriage.  And the Bible tells us there and other places  that we should not be bound with an unbeliever in marriage.  The reason is, is that for a believer, the Lord of all their actions, the controlling guide of their lives, is in the headship of Jesus Christ.  And you can’t be joined to two heads.  When you are married you become one flesh.  

When I counsel people about marriage, I always say that your loyalty and allegiance has to be first and foremost to God.  And if each person in the relationship is living for God first, then the relationship between each other will be in agreement.  But if one person is living for themselves, and the other is trying to live for God, then there won’t be unity, there will be disharmony. And in the church, if we are right with God first and foremost, then our gratitude for what He has done for us should result in an attitude of love for one another, resulting in a sincere desire to serve one another in humility as unto the Lord.

And that is what Paul is saying here.  As individual members of the body of Christ, we must all first of all be in conformity to Christ.  We must have the right relationship with Christ.  Look at Vs. 1. You’re a believer?  Then since you  have encouragement in Christ.  Encouragement by the way is from the Greek word “paraklēsis.”  It means to come alongside of someone to help them.  Jesus Christ has come alongside us to help us.  Before Christ we were helpless in our sinful state, with no way to reach God or appease Him.  So Christ became our Paraklete.  Our helper.  To make it possible by His substitutionary death to be reconciled to God.

And notice what Paul says our response is to be to that encouragement in verse 2.  We are to be of the same mind with one another in the church as Christ is to us.  What this means is best understood in reference to Christ being our encouragement.  Christ has become out helper, coming alongside us, so much so that He has planted His Spirit in us, to be our Helper. John 16:7 “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.” John 14:26 “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”  So where is the Helper working? In our heart and mind, teaching us, encouraging us, strengthening us.  And Paul says in vs. 2 that in the church, we are to be of the same mind, to come alongside others in the church, being their paraklete, their helper, strengthening them, encouraging them, teaching them. 

Secondly, since you are a believer, then you will have vs. 1, the “consolation of love.”  We know the height, the depth, the extent of God’s love to us that never fails, is always faithful.  So then our response to that love is in verse 2; in the church our response is maintaining the same love.  The same love that Christ had for us, the love that brought us to Christ, that love we can depend on no matter what the circumstances or how far we fell  or how bad we stumble, we are to maintain that same love for each other in the church.  As Christ loved the church so much that He laid down His life for her, then so should we respond in gratitude by laying down our lives for the church.  No one is going to ask you to commit hari kari on the altar.  But Romans 12: 1 does say that we are to become living sacrifices, offering to God lives that are holy and acceptable, which is our reasonable service.  

We should be thinking of others more highly than we think of ourselves.  You may be free to go here or there or go on vacation or go fishing or go surfing or whatever, but you ought to be thinking first of your brothers and sisters who are in the trenches and your love for them should cause you to override your selfish considerations, for the sake of putting others first.  (Illustration of Uriah, one of David’s mighty 30)

Third, since you’re a believer, you experience the fellowship of the Spirit.  Vs. 1 Fellowship is  translated from the Greek word “koininea”.  It can also mean communion.  It means sharing.  The Holy Spirit, the Bible says communes with us, praying for us to the Father with groanings too deep for words.   That isn’t talking about speaking in tongues ladies and gentlemen.  That is a reference to groaning with us, weeping with us, suffering with us when words can’t describe what we’re feeling – the Holy Spirit feels and shares in our emotions with us.   And in verse 2, we see our response of gratitude, to respond to the church body by being united in spirit. 

Now this phrase “united in spirit”  is made up of two words syn (together with) and psychos (soul, self, inner life, or the seat of the feelings, desires, affections). So the word refers to being ‘united in spirit’ or harmonious.  And a good illustration of that is that the church is  like members of a symphony orchestra.  We all play different instruments, but we are all tuned to the same key.  We all are following the same conductor.  We’re all playing from the same sheet of music:  the Word of God.  We are following the commands of the Maestro, our conductor Jesus Christ .

Fourthly, since you’re a believer, you know the compassion of Christ, the affections of Christ.  If you have a KJV Bible, you probably read it as “bowels and mercies”.  And if there was ever a good example of an old English rendering needing to be updated, this would be a good one.  I shudder to think what some people have done with that verse.  But bowels is the original meaning of the word.  In that day, the bowels, or the intestines and organs, were considered the seat or the origins of the emotions.  Today we might say, I love you with all my heart, and everyone knows that we’re not talking about our actual heart muscle, but our emotions, and will, and motives.  Back in Paul’s day, a young man might tell a young lady that he loved her with all of his bowel’s.  It meant the same thing as heart then, but unfortunately it doesn’t translate well in our culture.  Today if you said that your girlfriend would probably ask you if you needed a tissue. 

So it means, compassion, affection.  But I think it goes even deeper than that, to our motives, our purposes.  We love them with a true love.  Sometimes we say,  we love with every fiber of our being.  Maybe that’s it.  We’re not holding anything back.  We’re not being coy, or being facetious.  It’s a genuine, non-hypocritical love.  And that is what Paul says in verse 2 that our response should be as well. 

Look at the last phrase of vs. 2, the church’s unity should be “intent on one purpose.”  Intent on one purpose.  And what is that purpose?  Vs. 3; Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”  This is genuine agape love.  This is the mark of a true Christian, a true follower of Christ.  Not just saying I love Jesus, but living out the love of Jesus to the church, to the other members of the local body of Christ.   

This is the second greatest commandment.  The first is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind.  The second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.  Love your fellow church member the way you used to selfishly love yourself.  Let me tell you something folks, love, real agape love, real marriage love, real love for your children,  real love requires sacrifice.  It requires putting others ahead of yourself.  Putting others needs ahead of your own needs.  Love requires sacrifice.  But if you really love that person, you don’t mind that sacrifice so much do you?  You joyfully sacrifice for your kids because you love them.  A young man joyfully sacrifices and saves for his fiancé because he loves her.  A wife joyfully sacrifices and takes care of her husband or family because she loves them.  And in the church, we joyfully sacrifice for the needs of others because we love Christ.  And when we act out our love for Christ , then we find that we are acting in love for the church.

I believe Paul is saying here that an attitude of gratitude regarding our salvation should produce a love for the church.  And that gratitude results in a desire to be obedient to the One who sacrificed everything for us, that we might become the sons and daughters of God.  Our attitude should be like that of Christ Jesus, vs. 5, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, being made in the likeness of men.” 

Jesus is our example.  He is our pattern.  And Jesus says to us, if any man wishes to follow Me, let him take up his cross.  The Christian life is not about self fulfillment or self gratification.  The Christian life is about self sacrifice.  But Paul says there is true joy in living a life of sacrifice.  Joy isn’t found in our circumstances, but in the inner peace and joy that God gives to those that love Him and are willing to give themselves up for Him. Phil. 2:17 “But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.”

Jesus said in Mat 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.”  The church is supposed to be the salt, the preservative, against the corruption that is in the world.  But instead, the modern church has become so much like the culture, we have accepted so much of the world’s corruption into the church, that we are no longer salty.  We are just part of the corruption.  It has infiltrated the church. 

And I believe that’s because the modern church, for the most part, have stopped calling sin, sin. They have stopped preaching repentance from sin.  Their love has grown cold.  They have lost their saltiness.  They are no longer the light to a dark world.  The light has gone out in the church in America. There is no more a distinction between how the world lives and how Christians live. 

Jesus warned the seven churches in Revelation that if they did not repent and do the works that they did at first, He would remove their lampstand out of their place.  One of those churches was the church at Ephesus.  The very church Timothy was the pastor of.  And sure enough, a few years later Timothy was martyred, and within another century the church at Ephesus was history.

I believe the church in America has lost it’s saltiness.  And it is about ready to be thrown out and trampled under foot.  If something doesn’t change, God is going to remove our lampstand.  We didn’t exist 300 years ago, and we won’t be here much longer if we continue down this path.  We have lost our way, we have strayed from the truth.  We have replaced the absolute authority of God’s word and sound doctrine with a watered down secular relativism that has damned the church and robbed our country of it’s moral compass.

The Old Testament counterpart to the church is the nation of Israel.  There are many parallels between Old Testament Israel and the church.  They were the nation of God, we are the kingdom of God.  They were God’s chosen people, we are chosen to become sons and daughters of God.  In the OT temple, the Spirit of God dwelled in the Holy of Holies.  In the NT Temple, the Spirit of Christ dwells in us, that we might be holy.  In the OT, the priests offered gifts and sacrifices in the temple, in the NT we are priests, our bodies the temple of God, offering ourselves as living sacrifices to God.

But when the nation of Israel turned back to pagan gods and pagan practices, God sent prophet after prophet to warn them to turn back to God.  Instead, they hardened their hearts. God called them a stiff necked people and warned them that if they did not repent that he would send a nation to war against them and take away their lands, slaughter their armies, and take them into captivity.  Eventually that happened.  And though the judgment of God seems severe, God said it was actually for their salvation, that a remnant might be saved.  That they might turn back to the worship of the one true God and keep his commandments. By the time Christ appeared on the scene, there were only two tribes, Benjamin and Judah, left out of the original 12.  And even then most of them rejected their Messiah and so the gospel was given to the Gentiles.

Now 2000 years later I believe that today the church is in a similar place as the nation of Israel was in the days of the minor prophets.  The false prophets are going around proclaiming peace and safety and prosperity for the children of God.  That nothing bad is going to happen, that God doesn’t really care about sin and God has nothing but blessings in store for us.  And the few prophets that are warning of God’s impending judgment, are ridiculed and scorned, and our message is rejected.  People don’t want to hear the truth, and they certainly don’t want to repent from all the lusts of the flesh that they enjoy in the world.  But I believe the church today is living in the last days, and like Lot living in the midst of Sodom and Gomorra God’s judgment is imminent.  And the Bible teaches that judgment will begin with the house of God.

Now as Paul writes to the church in Philippi it is important to understand the similarities between the Roman Empire of Paul’s day and our present day.  Philippi was a Roman colony in Northern Greece.  It operated as a microcosm of Roman culture and society.  They worshipped many gods.  They were immoral.  They had every immoral sin in practice that we have today.  The citizens had come to depend upon the bread and circuses that were used by the emperors to curry favor from the masses. As citizens of Rome they prided themselves on belonging to the most powerful, influential empire in the world.  The Roman Empire was very comparable to America today in many ways.

But Paul’s message to the church at Philippi is a reminder that they are not to live according to the standard of citizens of Rome, but as citizens of heaven.  And Paul’s message to us today is to remind us that our hope is in heaven and not in the kingdoms of this world. The word Paul uses in verse 27 is interpreted conduct in the NASB, or conversation in the KJV.  But it has as it’s root in the Greek the word polis, from which we get the word political, a city state, a free state.  You might recognize it in the word metropolis.  And he is using this word to say that they are to conduct themselves in a manner that would be proper behavior for a citizen. But he’s not talking about a citizen of earth, he’s talking about a citizen of heaven, a citizen of the Kingdom of God, which constitutes the church of Jesus Christ. 

Phil. 3:20 says, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”  A good example of that kind of citizen is Abraham. Hebrews 11:9 tells us that Abraham “By faith lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” 

The author of Hebrews continues a few verses later saying that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. They desired a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

Paul says I want your conduct, I want your behavior as a church, as a Christian community in a pagan culture, to be worthy of the gospel that you believe and the gospel that you proclaim. In Phil. 2:15 he says,  “so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain.” You are to conduct yourselves in a worthy way.

Now how does a citizen of heaven conduct himself? Follow verse 27, “In a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.”  In other words, consistent with what we know, consistent with what we teach, consistent with what we preach, consistent with what we believe. That is the integrity of the church.  We have to practice what we preach, and what we preach is the transforming power of the gospel of salvation.  That is the issue in the church today. The church is impotent to have any affect on society, because the church has lost it’s integrity.

When he mentions the gospel of Christ here, what he refers to is the good news of salvation, the good news of eternal life which God has sent into the world, that men can be saved from sin unto righteousness. And the church has to live that out, our lives evidence that we have been delivered from darkness to light, from death to life, from sin to righteousness. 

Unfortunately, in a lot of churches today, only half of the gospel is being taught at best.  IF they even tell you about salvation in most churches they leave out the second half of salvation.   And the second half is vital. For instance, if you look at the book of Romans, you learn in the first half of Christ’s sacrifice for us.  But in the second half you will see that we are to become a living sacrifice for Christ.  But most of the church today stops at the first half.  We are more than happy to accept God’s gift of our justification, but unwilling to respond by our sanctification.  We have the mentality that we can come to Christ just as we are and stay just as we are.  We don’t have to sacrifice anything for Christ.  But that’s not the truth of the gospel is that salvation and sanctification are inseparable in real Christianity.

Paul said in Romans 12: 1,   “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Salvation results in a transformation.  And that transformation produces what we call sanctification.  That is when we allow the Holy Spirit to live through us as Christ would live, becoming a light to a dark world.  But our self centeredness is keeping us from the life of sanctification that God requires. Hebrews 12:14  talks about “the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.”  We are to be transformed and become sanctified.  We no longer live according to the lusts of the flesh, but we walk by the Spirit. That is the full gospel of Jesus Christ.

And then Paul adds, “So that whether I come to see you or remain absent, I may hear about you.”  This reminds me of  a definition of character that I heard once.  It said character is defined by what you do when no one is looking.  Not whether you can get away with it or not, whether or not you think anyone cares, but doing right, doing it as unto the Lord, regardless.  Because whether you realize it or not, someone is always looking.  For one, God is watching.  Proverbs 15:3 says “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good”.  And Hebrews 4:13 says “And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account”.

So then what are the characteristics of a church that is acting worthy of the gospel? How am I understand it? Paul gives us four characteristics of a church that is conducting itself worthy of the gospel:  they are standing, sharing, striving and suffering.

First of all, a church that is behaving itself is standing, verse 27, “I want to hear of you that you are standing firm.” The Greek word is used to refer to a soldier who will not budge from his post, that you will be at your post and not move…no compromise with error, no compromise with sin, an unyielding testimony for the Word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Stand firm, don’t move doctrinally, don’t move in terms of conduct from where you are to stand. 

 Don’t abandon your post in defense of the gospel.  Don’t stray from the truth of the word.  Don’t move to the left or right in response to the culture in regards to doctrine.  And stand firm in your personal life, your life of holiness, set apart for a sacrificial life to God.  Satan will try to ruin you doctrinally, he will try to ruin you financially, try to ruin you in terms of sexual purity, in terms of sobriety, whatever way he can undermine or destroy your life and testimony.  Stand firm.  Having done everything, stand firm.

A second word that Paul brings up is implied in the next section, that’s the word sharing. In our standing firm there must be a sharing.  So he says, “I want to hear that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind.”  God calls individuals to salvation, but he wants to bind individuals together into a unit called the church.  A single soldier can be overrun at his post, but a battalion of soldiers can hold the fort. And the church is the weapon that He has formed that will prevail over Satan.  Christ said to Peter, “Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”   God wants us to work together in this battle. 

 You might think you can worship God sitting on your surfboard, or sitting on your fishing boat, or laying out on the beach and you don’t need anyone else.  But God defines worship as service.  And our service is done together through fellowship and serving one another as unto the Lord.  Eccl. 4:12 says, “And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.”  We need each other, and God needs us to work with each other to be effective.

But the only way to unity in fellowship is through purity of doctrine.  That’s why Paul’s order here is so important.  You never sacrifice doctrinal purity for the sake of unity.  God devised the body of Christ to have many parts, and many functions. But for the body of Christ to function properly, they all have to be under the headship of Jesus Christ.  An example is an orchestra.  The only way to have unity in an orchestra is if everyone is tuned to the same key and playing from the same sheet of music. And the key to unity in the church is being conformed to Jesus Christ and His gospel.  I cannot have unity with those that do not hold to the truth of the gospel of salvation just for the purpose of getting along.

Thirdly, Paul says, the purpose of this unity is not just to get along but to “strive together for the faith of the gospel.” The term he uses here is synathleō. We get the word “athletics” from it. It means to struggle along with someone. It’s talking about team sports. To struggle along with someone as a team of athletes battling against the opposition to win the victory.  Or as we talked about last week the metaphor of a soldier who is part of a battalion.

So the church is to operate in community to defend the gospel.  To contend for the faith. Jude1:3 “Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.  For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” We need each other to fight the battle.  We need to strive together for the faith of the gospel. 

And in vs 28 he says “in no way alarmed by your opponents—which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too, from God.” If the church is contending, if it’s striving for the gospel, then there will be an opposing team who will fight against you.  But God will deliver you, and will overcome the opposition.  Don’t fear them, and don’t retreat from the truth. Stand firm and let God fight for us. And I believe that most of the time He defeats His enemies through the truth of God’s word. 

And the last word, suffering. What does he say about suffering? He says to expect it. If a church is striving for the faith, contending for the faith of the gospel,  it won’t be easy. It will result in suffering. Vs. 29, “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.  Suffering is a gift of grace. He uses the word granted here related to the Greek word charis, which means grace.  God has chosen you not only for salvation, He’s chosen you for suffering and He’s chosen you to experience, Paul says, the very same conflict which you saw in me. You saw it when I was at Philippi, Acts 16, and you now hear about it in me here in Rome. It goes with the territory…suffering. 

But unfortunately suffering is a foreign concept to evangelical thinking today.  Rather than prophesying suffering, these modern false prophets are prophesying prosperity and blessing. Jeremiah 14:14  “Then the Lord said to me, “The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility and the deception of their own minds.”  Why do they preach this message?  Because it is what people want to hear.  It may be the popular message and it may be what builds congregations, but it’s not from God.

No, Paul says in Phil. 3:10 that  when we are tuned to Jesus Christ, then it is going to mean that we are going to participate in “the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” 

Listen, the only way that the church is going to be really relevant as salt and light in this culture, is when we can say with Paul in Gal.  2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”  That means we are willing to give up our lives for Christ, even as He gave Himself up for us.  And when our families see us living like that, as men and women who don’t just claim to be followers of Christ but actually do follow the example of Christ, when our neighbors and coworkers see us living like that, then the world will be drawn to our testimony rather than repelled by it.  When our walk matches our talk. 

If we live like that, we can expect some suffering to go along with it.  It happened to Paul, it happened to Christ, and we should expect it to happen to us.  But if it results in the furtherance of the gospel, if it results in the furtherance of the kingdom, if it results in the furtherance of Christ’s church, then we should say with Paul, bring it on!   For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.  Everything I once counted as gain in this world, I now count as loss for the sake of knowing Jesus Christ.  More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” 

This is the triumph of the church.  This is the victory of the church.  Not just to see a conservative politicians elected for a few more years, though that might be nice.  Not to see some laws overturned in this country, though that might be nice.  But to see men and women’s lives changed by the power of the gospel.  To see men and women transformed from citizens of the kingdom of darkness into citizens of the kingdom of heaven.  That is the purpose of this church that Christ has built upon the rock of the gospel, and this church the gates of hell will not overpower.

I spoke to the men at breakfast yesterday about the disciples on the night Jesus was arrested. And though they all had professed to follow Jesus to the death, if necessary, though they all professed to believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, though they had all witnessed Jesus raise people from the dead, by the end of that night, when Jesus was arrested, they all fell away. Mark tells us that they all fled into the darkness.  Turns out they were afraid of death after all. But it would seem that after the resurrection, after they had seen the risen Christ, they had no fear of death anymore.

 In today’s passage, Paul is addressing his commitment to the ministry of the gospel.  We started looking at this last week.  In that message, I said that I think that verse 21 was actually Paul’s life motto.  In fact, to some degree or another, I’m sure that it was the motto of every Apostle or prophet, or even any contemporary man or woman of God that has been used in a mighty way to present the gospel to the world, whether or not he may have claimed this particular verse.  But as I said last week, Paul’s statement, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” should be the motto of every committed Christian everywhere in every age. 

Basically it means that whether we live or die in the flesh is of little concern to us.  What should be of utmost importance is that we have put Christ first in our lives and to live for Him is our greatest goal.  Nothing else in life comes first but Christ.  He takes preeminence in everything we do.  Christ should take preeminence over your social schedule, over your friends, over your family, over your career, over your business, over your free time, over your “me” time.  Christ should have the preeminence always.  And when you have that kind of sold out attitude, then you, like Paul will be able to say, whether I live or die is of no consequence to me.  I want to live for the Lord and I want my life to count for the Lord and nothing else is more important to me than that. 

I know it is a difficult thing to say.  And I know it is an even more difficult thing to live like that. The magnetism of this world will constantly be pulling on you to draw you away from your commitment.  But what we should constantly be doing is encouraging one another to persevere in this commitment to Christ.  That is one reason why we need to be in church whenever we can.  Because the the lusts of the flesh is like gravity working against us 24/7.  And we need to be encouraged and strengthened to stay the course.  To persevere in the faith and the ministry of the gospel.

So, as we looked at last week, we first of all have to come to the point where we are willing, if necessary, to physically lay down our life for Christ. But before you can come to that point, you first must lay down your life by laying down your goals, laying down your agenda, laying down your  aspirations, laying down your ambitions at the foot of the cross.  That’s what Rom. 12: 1 means when it says we are to present our bodies to Christ as a living sacrifice.  This is what it’s talking about in Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives through me.”  See, I’m not living according to my agenda anymore, but I now live according to Christ’s agenda.  He has saved me, He has changed me, and He lives in me, and I now live the life that He wants to live through me.  I am merely a clay vessel that the Spirit of Christ occupies and works through.  And if you have that mentality, or should I say spirituality, where the desires of the flesh no longer take precedence, and you are walking in the spirit, then, and only then will you really be in a position to say, “for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” 

I think the best illustration of this is a soldier.  A  good soldier must come to the place where he is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.  He must be willing to lay down his life in service for his country.  But in order to get him to that point, his superiors will first of all strip him of everything that he once held dear, and remake him into a new man.  They will take him away from his family, take away his freedoms, take away his pride, and they do all that to conform him to the image of the soldier that they know is necessary if he is to be able to risk his life to serve his country. 

Paul uses that same metaphor in talking about our Christian life.  Listen to 2 Tim. 2:3, Paul says, “Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.  No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.” Hebrews 12:1 talks about the same commitment from the viewpoint of an athlete.  “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” 

I think it was last Friday that I saw a large group of people walking down the street and carrying a large wooden cross in downtown Millsboro.  I suppose they were acting out Christ’s walk to Calvary where He would be crucified. Perhaps they thought they were fulfilling the command to take up their cross and follow Christ. But I don’t think that is how we fulfill that command. I believe it’s a daily, laying down of our life in service to Him. We present our body as a living sacrifice which is our spiritual service of worship.

Now when we understand that level of commitment, when we come to the place where we are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, when we are truly followers of Christ, willing to lay down what we think is important in our lives, willing to take up our cross and follow him, then we find ourselves in agreement with what Paul said in Phil. 3:10 “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”  It’s a 100% commitment.  Notice there are two resurrections mentioned in that verse.  Christ’s resurrection, and the resurrection of the dead.

Our commitment unto death spoken of in that verse reveals the significance of Christ’s resurrection.  It is not enough to rehearse the historical events of the physical death, burial and resurrection of Christ.  That is all most churches seem to want to focus on today.  But it is another thing to know the spiritual significance of the resurrection.  That is what Paul speaks of as the power of His resurrection.  Knowing Jesus means knowing this power, the new life that is imparted to us now, not just when we die.

Charles Spurgeon said of the power of His resurrection, “I do not think, however, that Paul is here thinking so much of the power displayed in the resurrection, as of the power which comes out of it, which may most properly be called, ‘the power of his resurrection.’ This the apostle desired to apprehend and to know.” 

The power of His resurrection is an evidential power. It is the evidence and guarantee that everything Jesus did and said was true. It was evidence that He was the Son of God.  The power of His resurrection is a justifying power. It is the receipt and proof that the sacrifice of the cross was accepted by God the Father as payment in full for the forgiveness of our sins, that we might be justified with God. The power of His resurrection is a life-giving power. It means that those who are connected with Jesus Christ receive new life, we are born again to new life.  When I baptize someone I usually say “Buried with Him in the likeness of His death, and raised with Him in the likeness of HIs resurrection to walk in newness of life.”  And the power of His resurrection is a consoling and comforting power. It promises that those who are dead in Christ are alive with Him in spirit even though their body may in the grave, and that at the second coming they will be raised incorruptible with a glorified body, even as Christ.  

When we come to know the power of His resurrection we find that we have victory over death. Then we can say with Hosea, “O death where is your sting?  O grave, where is your victory?” Death no longer has dominion over us.  It no longer has the power to make us afraid. As Hebrews 2:14 says, “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”

Now this is the hope of the Christian.  The penalty of death is what we were saved from.  We are set free from judgment and damnation; eternal death.  We are set free from the curse of sin and death that came upon all  mankind back in the Garden of Eden.  We who have accepted the atonement of Jesus Christ have been set free from death, and have been given eternal life. This is our hope.  This is the future glory of the Christian. This is what the hope of Christianity is all about.  It’s not just about having a better life here and now.  It’s not about having a deity at our beck and call to order around and deliver us from every sort of discomfort here on earth.  No, our hope is in heaven.  Our hope is eternal life.  Our hope is life beyond the curse of death that every man, woman and child on earth is under.

This is what Paul is saying in verse 20; “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.”  Whether he lived or died, Paul knew that Christ would be exalted.  Did you know Christ is exalted in the death of a Christian?  Because the testimony of our faith even in death brings glory to Christ.  Our confidence in the resurrection, even as Christ was resurrected exalts the name of Jesus.

Then having established this fact, Paul continues in Phil. 1:22  “But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.”  Paul says, if God chooses to let me live, then that simply gives me more opportunity in the flesh to produce fruit through my labors.  And Paul knows that is a good thing.  Because one day, folks, Rom 14:12 says that  “each one of us will give an account of himself to God.”  And God is going to reward our work that we have done in the flesh and Paul planned on doing more work if he stayed. 

1Cor. 3:13 says that at the day of judgment, “each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”  Listen, there is nothing on this earth that cannot be destroyed by fire.  Everything you worked for in this life will be destroyed by fire. Your bank account will be burned up. Your beautiful home will be burned up. Your possessions will be burned up.  So where is your reward?  The only things that will not be destroyed are things which are spiritual.  Only spiritual things cannot be destroyed by fire, and they are the works which will bring a reward in heaven.

But the question arises then, when Paul says in verse 23, that his desire was to “depart and be with Christ,” what exactly is he talking about?  Or maybe the better question is where is he talking about?  Because obviously, Paul’s confidence is that when he dies, he fully expects to be with Christ.  In fact, in another passage 2 Cor. 5:8, Paul says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.  But where is that exactly? 

For me, the answer to this question came about the hard way.  Two weeks before I got married, my dad died.  And though he had been in poor health for a number of years, it still rocked me to the core like nothing else on earth.  And when I came to the point where I was able to start thinking logically,  the first thing I wanted to know was exactly where my dad was right then.  Growing up in the church I had always heard about heaven.  I believed in heaven.  And yet my understanding of heaven was like a lot of other Christians.  It was a doctrine made up of a lot of disjointed references in scripture, which when I really started examining them I found they were sometimes talking about different things.  I discovered that most of what passes for the Christian view of heaven really is something that is found in Revelation and Isaiah, both of which refer to a new heaven and a new earth that is yet to be created.  They speak of a place and a time that will be ushered in at the end of the ages, after the second coming when Christ shall rule over all the earth, and Satan and his angels will forever be taken out, after this present earth shall be destroyed by fire, when God will make all things new. Then said Peter, comes the new heavens and new earth, which is described by John in Revelation but which has been misinterpreted to be speaking of “Heaven” as it is right now.

And so I sat about the quest of finding out what the Bible really said about heaven.  I wanted to know where my dad was right now.  And I think it is important for all of us to know.  If you don’t know where you’re going when you die, then how can you have the joy and confidence that Paul had when he faced death?  And furthermore, where was Christ when He died? Was His body and Spirit comatose in the grave for three days? Where did Christ go when He died?

Now there are a lot of different opinions and views about heaven that have been propagated in the church, and a lot of it is purely speculative.  So we want to avoid being dogmatic about things that scripture does not speak clearly about.  But what we can absolutely know for sure, just from the first two verses that I just referenced, that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.  Both Phil. 1:23  and 2 Cor. 5:8 confirm that.

Furthermore, Jesus Himself said to the thief on the cross in Luke 23:43  “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”  When was that? “Today.” That day they would both be in Paradise.  Now where is Paradise?  We know that Jesus’ body was in the grave for three days.  But the scriptures teach that Jesus’ spirit wasn’t in the grave.  Jesus said He would be with him that day in Paradise.  Yet when Christ rose from the dead, He said to Mary Magdalene, in John 20:17,  “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father;'”  So according to Jesus own words, He had been somewhere other than in heaven with God the Father.

I believe that the Bible makes it clear that Jesus went to Hades. 1Peter 3:18  “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison,  who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.”  Now I don’t have time to explain all of that verse here today, but note that it says Jesus was dead in the flesh, but alive in the spirit, and in the spirit He preached to disobedient spirits in prison.

Jesus Himself gives us more insight into that place in Luke chapter 16 starting in verse 19. I don’t have time to read it for you this morning, but I trust that you will read it later if it’s not already familiar scripture for you.  But there are a couple of things I want you to see in this passage.  One is that I don’t believe it is a parable.  Jesus taught many things using parables.  But often he introduced parables as parables.  Jesus doesn’t do that here.  Secondly, never in any parable does Jesus name the characters.  But here Jesus names Abraham and the poor man as Lazarus.  So I don’t believe it is a parable, but an actual story of real people.  However, even if it were a parable, Jesus would not  make up some fairy tale place just to make a point.  Furthermore, this teaching is completely in harmony with the Jewish rabbinical teaching about Sheol, which is mentioned frequently in the Old Testament as the abode of the dead.  The Old Testament doesn’t really talk about heaven.  But it does talk about Sheol, which was the abode of the dead awaiting judgment. 

Now notice that in this story Jesus describes two distinct places in one location.  One is a place of torment where the rich man was.  That is called Hades in many parts of the Bible.  It is a different place from Hell or the Lake of Fire that is described in Revelation 20:11.  Many theologians believe that Hades occupies the lower regions or the bowels of the earth.  The Bible talks about Jesus descending into Hades. Eph 4:9 “(Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth?”

It is my belief that Jesus is describing the resting place of the dead. This is why Jesus referred to death for the believer as being asleep.  The body is dead, but the spirit is alive. In the case of those that rejected Christ, then theirs is a place of torment.  In the case of the redeemed, theirs is a place of comfort, which Jesus referred to as Paradise to the thief on the cross.  And I believe the Bible teaches that as Christians in death we will know the presence of Christ.  Jesus said, “today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Jesus is God, and one of God’s greatest characteristics is that He is omnipresent.  He is able to be everywhere at once.  And He promises to be there with us. 

But God doesn’t leave us there. Jesus was the first fruits of the resurrection, and we too will be resurrected even as He was.  Jesus promised to come again to claim His church.  Listen to 1Thess. 4:13  “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

Paul knew the comfort of hope in heaven.  He had seen things while caught up to what is called the third heaven that he was not allowed to speak of.  Things that were impossible to describe.  Things that were beyond our comprehension.  Maybe we aren’t told everything about that place  because  we can’t comprehend it. The Apostle John speaks of the new heavens and new earth as the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven.  Describing it would be like trying to describe a sunset to someone who had been blind from birth. As 1Cor. 2:9 says, “ just as it is written, “THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.”

Paul said in our text in Philippians that to depart and be with the Lord would be so much better than living here on earth.  And yet he knows that if he is allowed to live here, it’s going to result in fruitful labor.  His labor was for the church.  God had chosen him to be a useful vessel in establishing the church and he knew that God wasn’t through with him yet.  He was looking forward to glory.  He was looking forward to being free from this body of death, and yet he was more than willing to live his life in service for the kingdom of heaven here on earth, the church, the body of Christ.  Paul was looking to the future reward.

I hope that you will come to the same level of commitment and maturity as Paul.  You have been chosen to be priests and kings in the Kingdom of Heaven.  And one day, whether we are alive in the flesh or if the flesh is dead and we are alive in the spirit, Christ is coming back to judge the living and the dead.  It’s my hope, and I trust your hope, that we will not be ashamed on that day, but we will hear Christ say, ‘’Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’’