I think it’s important to ask why we go to church, the reason for the church, and whether or not church is essential.  A few years ago, doing the pandemic, it seemed at the time that government had deemed the church was inessential.  But attending church is not an addendum to our faith, it is not entertainment, it is not merely a social gathering.  Church is not a building, or an organization, but a people, called out from the world unto Christ. I don’t think you can actually join a church, like you join a health club, but you must be born again into the true church of Christ.  I believe that scripture teaches that the church is Christ’s body on earth, in other words, the church is the physical manifestation of Christ on earth, and as such the physical assembly of this body is absolutely essential.

Now I don’t want you to just take my word for it.  Ephesians 5:23 says,  “For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself [being] the Savior of the body.”   And then another one, found in this book we are now studying, Col. 1:18 “He (that is Christ) is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.” That shows that the church and the body of Christ are synonymous, and furthermore, it says that Christ will have first place in everything. You might make the correlation then to say that the church, Christ’s body is to be the number one priority in our lives.  I wish I could say was true in our experience.  But I’m afraid that for most 21st century Christians, the church is not their number one priority. However, if you have confessed  that Jesus is Lord  it should mean that He is to have preeminence in all things.

Well, Paul begins this epistle, after a short introduction, with a prayer for the church at Colossians. And by extension, it is a prayer for all churches, and even a prayer for our church. And I suggest to you that his prayer for the church, should become a model for the prayer of the church.  We might better learn to pray by studying Paul’s prayer, so that we might pray more effectively.  Jesus said, “MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER.”

The scriptures make much of prayer.  Jesus made much of prayer. The One who would seem to need to pray the least, prayed the most.  Jesus spent an entire night in prayer on a lonely mountain top many times. His last night before HIs crucifixion He spent praying for the disciples in the Upper Room, and then praying in the Garden of Gethsemane with the disciples before He was arrested.  And you will remember that Jesus implored the disciples to pray with Him, to keep watch for just an hour, and yet they fell asleep.

Isn’t it amazing that Jesus desired His disciples to pray with Him?  At this point they weren’t exactly spiritual giants. And yet Jesus wanted them to pray.  But Jesus wanted them to pray not only for Him, but also for their own sake.  Notice He said to them in Matt. 26:41 “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” I can assure you that a life that is prayerful, is a holy life. A prayerful life is one in which temptation rarely overtakes you.  A prayerful life produces a life that is focused on the Lord.  A prayerful life produces a victorious life.

In scripture we are encouraged to pray for the church, for one another, and for ourselves.  In Ephesians Paul indicates that prayer is an essential weapon of the church. After listing the spiritual armor needed for spiritual warfare, he says in Eph. 6:18-20, “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,  and [pray] on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in [proclaiming] it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”  Prayer is direct communication with God.  And we are to pray at all times, for all the saints, that is those in the church, and for those who minister to us in preaching the word of God.

There are many such encouragements to pray found in scripture, but another one that I want to mention is found in Philippians 4:6 which we looked at a couple of weeks ago:  “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God, And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus..” Over my lifetime I have probably quoted this verse literally thousands of times in prayer to God.  A great strategy of prayer is to speak back the promises of scripture to God.

Philippians 4:6 has a lot of important points that can be made concerning prayer and the peace of God which is given in response to our prayer.   But what I would like to draw your attention to is two components of prayer which are laid out in that verse.  And the two components of prayer Paul gives there are supplication, which also can be translated as petition, and thanksgiving. 

Now I point that out because that is the same method that Paul employs here in his prayer for the church.  He begins his prayer with thanksgiving, praising God for certain things that are true concerning the Colossians.  Then he moves on to petitions on behalf of the Colossian church, and then he sums it all up with another burst of thanksgiving at the end of his prayer.

Notice first of all that Paul mentions that he prays always for the church at Colassae. Vs 3 “We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,”  Perseverance is essential to effective prayer.  In the verse from Ephesians 6 that I read  a moment ago the apostle exhorts us that “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit.”  I think how we pray is secondary to how often we pray.  The frequency of prayer is important.  Persevering in prayer is important.  Staying in an attitude of prayer.  Prayer should be strategic.  Daniel prayed three times a day, everyday.  And look at the life he lived and how God blessed him, even to the point of this political exile being made an advisor to kings. 

Jesus taught a parable in Luke 18:1 which He said was  “to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart.”  In that parable He equated prayer with a woman who came constantly before the king, so that he was afraid that she would wear him out if he did not grant her request. And in 1Thess. 5:17 we are told to “pray without ceasing.” So, it’s important that we pray frequently, always, which Paul says he does for the church.

Secondly, notice that Paul begins with thanksgiving to God for the faith that was found among the Colossian church.  Vs4 “since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints;”  Thanksgiving, as I pointed out earlier, is an important ingredient of our prayers.  Paul told Timothy in 1Tim. 2:1-2 “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.”

But notice Paul gives thanks to God for their faith.  Faith is an individual decision.  But it is also a gift from God.  Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, [it is] the gift of God.”  So we pray that God would grant to a person the gift of faith.  That their eyes might be opened so that they will believe the truth.  I think salvation can be correlated to giving sight to a blind person.  God has to open a person’s heart to believe in order for them to receive Christ by faith.  And so faith is something we can thank God for, in the case of the church, but it’s also something we should ask God for, because the scriptures say that the just shall live by faith. 

Notice also that faith is not simply believing in the existence of God, nor even believing in the existence of Jesus.  But it is faith in the work of Christ.  Paul says he is “praying always for you,

since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints;

because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel.”  Paul says their faith came as the result of hearing the word of truth, the gospel.  

He says in Rom 10:17 “So faith [comes] from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”  The word of Christ is the truth of the gospel.  And the truth of the gospel is that God sent His Son Jesus the Messiah to earth to die for our sins.  Recognizing you are a sinner, that you are in need of a Savior, that you are in need of forgiveness, and repenting of your sin, believing that Jesus died in your place to pay the penalty of your sin, and that He rose from the dead and ascended to His Father in heaven- that is the gospel.  Faith in Christ’s gospel is saving faith. The Bible says that even the devils believe in God, but they are not saved.  Saving faith is believing much more than simply that God exists, but believing what God has said.

So Paul is thankful for the gift of their salvation.  Then Paul adds to that thankfulness for the fruit of the gospel as it is being sown throughout the world.  He says at the end of vs 5, “the gospel which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth.”

Jesus gave a parable about the sower who went out to sow and some seed fell on good ground, some fell on stoney ground, some fell beside the road and so forth. I’m sure you all are familiar with the parable. But the point I want to emphasize is when Jesus explained the parable He made it clear that the seed the sower was spreading was the word of God. And the seed which fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and believes it and who brings forth fruit. 

That’s why Paul continues in his thanksgiving for Epaphras, who had ministered the word to the Colossians and had brought back the good news to Paul of the bearing of fruit that was occurring in the church there. It would seem that Paul had never been to Colossae, but Epaphras was likely the pastor of the church, and his faithfulness to proclaim the word resulted in the fruit that was evident in the lives of the Colossians. We sow the seed which is the word of God, but it is God that gives the increase.

And in vs 8 Paul tells us what  the fruit of the church is,  saying, “and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit.”  In Galatians 5:22 Paul identifies the primary fruit of the Spirit is love. And in 1Cor. 13:13 he says concerning spiritual gifts; “But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” It’s interesting to note that in this prayer, Paul is thankful for their faith, in vs 4, their hope in vs 5, and their love in vs 6.  Love is the fruit of their salvation. Love for God and love for one another. Love is not just some sort of sentimental feeling, but speaking the truth in love.  Love is being concerned about another person’s well being.  And the greatest benefit that anyone could receive is to be saved, to be delivered from darkness and transferred to the church of Christ.  Telling someone that they are a sinner, that there is forgiveness by faith in Christ’s gospel, and telling them the truth even if it might hurt your relationship is really acting in love. Love is not concealing the truth because you’re afraid of offending them.  Love is speaking the truth to a lost and dying world.

So Paul begins his prayer for the Colossians with thanksgiving.  Not simply because it is some formula, a way to somehow butter God up with praise so then you can ask Him for what you really want.  But because thankfulness shapes your perspective.  Thanksgiving for what God has done gives us confidence that God cares, and that God can and will help us, because He has so graciously helped us in the past. Thanksgiving releases an intercession which is formed out of blessing and not out of crisis.  I can promise you that there will be times of crisis in your Christian life, but our prayer life should not be predicated on a response to crisis, but out of a response to blessing.  And when we realize our blessings, we should be inspired to offer up even more prayers and petitions to God from whom all blessings come.

“For this reason” then, Paul says in vs 9, he offers up specific petitions on behalf of the Colossians. Because of his thankfulness for God’s blessings of faith, hope and love in the life of the Colossians, he is spurred to ask God to specifically fill them “with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy.” 

Paul prays specifically, so let’s look specifically at what he is petitioning God for.  First, that God would fill the church with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Spiritual understanding is what is called discernment. I believe discernment is a spiritual gift that is far too often undervalued in the church.  Spiritual discernment is the gift to be able to rightly divide the word of truth, to be able to discern false teaching, and determine false spirits. Lord knows there is a great need for that today.  And in Colossae, they also had a need to discern the false teaching that was gaining a foothold in their church doctrine.  I’m not going to go all into it today, but there was some sort of teaching which promised a deeper level of Christianity, which actually wasn’t the true gospel at all.  Some level of teaching which promised a deeper experience which was not based on sound doctrine.

But Paul knows that true knowledge of the will of God comes from wisdom and the discernment which is given by the Holy Spirit, and that does not lead to some “deeper spiritual experience” that the false teachers were teaching, but it results in something very practical (as he says in vs 10) “in a walk worthy of the Lord, being pleasing to Him, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.”  True knowledge then produces a holy walk.  Christian doctrine is not just head knowledge, but it’s to be applied in day to day life.  It results in a different walk, a different life.

Paul describes this walk as being pleasing to the Lord. If you love the Lord, you will seek to please Him, to serve Him, to be found pleasing to Him. Furthermore, a true walk results in being fruitful in good works.  Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”  Our walk is to do the works of Christ, to love one another, to serve the kingdom of God by sowing the seed of the gospel. 

And finally this walk of faith involves growing in the knowledge of God. How do we do that?  We study His word.  We come to the true knowledge of God through HIs word. That is the only way we can truly know God is through His word.  His word is the only barometer of truth that we have.  Even if you had an experience in which you believed God directly spoke to you, you would still have to judge the truth of it by God’s word. To do anything less is to leave yourself open to being deceived.  

To know Christ is to love Him. We grow in our love for the Lord through reading His word, by meditating on Him. And as we know more of Him, we love Him more, and if we love Him more, we will keep His commandments, ie, do the things that are pleasing to Him.

Paul continues his prayer, petitioning God that specifically they would be “strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience.” Notice Paul prays that they would be strengthened by the power of God in order to be steadfast.  What does steadfast mean?  It means faithful, loyal, without wavering.  It carries the idea of standing fast in the storms and trials of life.  

In Ephesians 4:14-15 Paul speaks of steadfastness, saying, “As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;  but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all [aspects] into Him who is the head, [even] Christ.”  The Colossians were in danger of being tossed about by a new wind of doctrine, and as such were in danger of spiritual shipwreck.  Paul’s prayer was that God would strengthen them so that they would be found to be stedfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. (1 Cor. 15:58)

And that they would be strengthened to attain patience. Patience means endurance, perseverance, longsuffering.  Steadfastness and patience are basically synonyms, but with perhaps a different emphasis.  Patience has more a sense of endurance.  James speaks of trials producing endurance.  James 1:2-4 “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,  knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  And let endurance have [its] perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

It’s interesting that Paul links joy with patience as well here in vs 11.  But also notice that though the idea of trials is indicated in his prayer, Paul doesn’t ask God to take them out of the trial, but to give them endurance and steadfastness as they go through the trial.  Because as James indicates, the trial is God’s means of refining us, of strengthening us, and giving us confidence in God.  So many times our prayers in crisis mode is “Lord deliver me.  Get me out of this!” But Paul prays “Lord, be with them as they go through trials, and give them steadfastness and endurance so that they come out of it perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

Finally, Paul concludes His prayer for the church with a final round of thanksgiving.  Vs 12, “joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.”  I believe that Paul here is giving thanks for the suffering that they were called to endure.  The inheritance that God qualified them to share in is not just the glory of heaven, but the sufferings on earth.  This is the biggest challenge yet to our prayer life.  To joyously give thanks to God for our sufferings. 

But I would remind you of the attitude of Peter and John who when they were arrested and scourged and thrown in prison, went away rejoicing that they had been counted worthy to suffer for the Lord’s sake.  Why would you have that perspective?  

Well, the answer may be found in Romans 8:16-18 “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,  and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with [Him] so that we may also be glorified with [Him.]  For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

We can rejoice because we have been counted worthy to share in the sufferings of Christ. Even our trials can be the source of blessing.  And as Paul makes it clear in Romans, if we suffer with Him here, we shall be glorified with Him there.  And the glory that we shall enjoy there, cannot be compared to the suffering that we share in here.  2 Cor. 4:17-18 says “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,  while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

The key to enduring with patience the trials that are set before us is to pray at all times, pray without ceasing, giving thanks in all things with all prayer and supplication.  Phl 4:6-7  “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Let us pray like our lives depended upon it. For it most certainly does.

Last week I shared with you a message about overcoming anxiety and depression.  And in so doing I also ended up sharing with you some of my personal testimony.  I did so, not to try to elicit some sort of sympathy, but because I felt that having gone through these things, it qualified me to be able to speak to you not just from a theoretical point of view, or even a theological point of view, but from the voice of personal experience.

As it turns out, I guess God wasn’t finished teaching me.  On Monday, following my message on Sunday, I ended up having a heart attack and spent the next couple of days or so in the hospital. But I am happy to say that God did give me a peace that passed all understanding as I went through that ordeal. 

As we discovered last week, the opposite of anxiety and depression is peace.  And in Philippians 4 we find that the God of peace offers us the peace of God, which passes all understanding, to those who have learned to put their trust in God, in spite of whatever circumstances they may find themselves. 

So today is really just a continuation of that message.  But what we are going to look at in more detail  today is how the peace of God is achieved on a practical level.  And Paul tells us here that the peace that God provides is called contentment. 

Now, contentment is almost a foreign idea in American society today.  We are programmed from birth to be anything but content.  In fact, in our culture we tend to look down on people who are content as non achievers, as being practically delinquent.  We are expected to be ambitious, to be climbers, to be striving to get ahead.  That is the American way.

I can remember a couple of job interviews I went to back in my younger days, when I was working in the luxury hotel field.  And during a typical interview with the VP of a hotel chain, invariably they would ask the question;  “Where do you see yourself in the next five years?”  And you were expected to give them some sort of answer that showed that you were ambitious, that you had aspirations of climbing to the top.  I found out the hard way that they used that mentality to offer you a carrot on stick to get you to work 6 days a week, 80 hours a week for terrible pay, in the hope that if you did a good job you would get a promotion and start your climb through the corporate ranks.

But this is the American way.  Being discontent has become a way of life. Our materialistic culture basically is trying to keep us dissatisfied, so they can sell us a new product.  We haven’t managed to even learn how to use our iphones yet and they are already trying to sell you on a better one.  And unfortunately, we buy into it.  We have created an environment in which we live our lives in expectation of a better tomorrow.  We buy and borrow and live today in expectation that we will be able to pay for it tomorrow.  Because we are told we really need it today, and so we borrow to buy it, financing our discontent on the promise of a better tomorrow.  We are bred in discontent, so we scuttle our marriage and leave our wives or our husbands in search of a better mate.  We sacrifice homes and families to fulfill our unfulfilled desires that are set aflame by what Hollywood and crass commercialism tells us is necessary for happiness and fulfillment. 

Our parents somehow made do with a tiny ranch houses with 3 shoebox bedrooms and one bathroom and yet raised four kids.  They got by with just one car and just one job.  Dad worked 5 days a week, Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, and had time on weekends to take us fishing or camping or something.  Mom stayed home and took care of the kids and found time to actually keep her own house and cook 99% of the meals from scratch.  We had one phone that was attached to the wall.  We had one black and white tv with only 3 channels.  And yet in spite of such deprivation, life wasn’t all that bad. 

Today, Dad and Mom both work full time jobs because they are convinced they need two incomes.  So they need to hire a maid to come in and clean the house.  They need child care for the kids and put them in every after school program that they can find because they need to work late.  To compensate for all of them going helter skelter in every direction they need to buy a cell phone for everyone in the family.  They need 3 cars, all of them less than 5 years old.  They need to live in a 4 bedroom, 3 bath house with a two car garage, yet they only have 2 kids.  Family dinner is a thing of the past, now it’s in the fridge or on the stove when you get in. They have four tvs and 100 channels and nothing good is on.  Everyone needs their own computer.  And yet in spite of meeting all these needs, they are still dissatisfied.  The divorce rate is higher than 50%.  Drunkenness and drug addiction among our children is rampant, and as a society we are like a runaway train that is careening off the tracks.

It’s no wonder depression and anxiety are at epidemic proportions.  It’s no wonder that anti depressant anxiety medication is the most commonly prescribed medicine in this country.  It’s no wonder the divorce rate is going through the roof.  And as Christians  we are not immune to this, ladies and gentlemen.  Because we have bought in to the message of the world, which is no less than the message of the devil. Ephesians 2:1 describes this world force that works to bring discontentment.  “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”  

This phrase the “course of the world” that Paul speaks of is the way of the world, being controlled by  thoughts and pursuits designed by the devil to rush men headlong after fleshly gratification which can never satisfy, like a raging river that courses along sweeping everything in it’s path towards destruction.   And as Christians we are not impervious to this current.  It is the nature of this world.  It’s end is destruction, it results in unfullfillment.  There is no real satisfaction that can be found in either our circumstances or in our acquisitions or our indulgences.  It is a rat race, a course designed by the prince of the power of the air, who is Satan, catching us up in a headlong rush to futility and ultimately destruction.

Now that is the course of this world.  It promises happiness but brings distress, dissatisfaction, despair and depression.  But the Bible says the way of godliness brings the peace of God which is contentment. 1Timothy 6:6 says, “But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment.” 

So Paul gives us in this closing passage of this letter the secret to contentment.  Contentment is something that eludes the world because we are told the wrong way to achieve it.  We are told that it is through acquisition of the latest thing, through acquiring something new, to making it to the next rung on the ladder. But Paul tells us the secret to contentment is counterintuitive to human wisdom but is something that is learned from godly wisdom.  Contentment is learned behavior.

Look at verse 11; Paul has just commended the church at Philippi for sending him a gift, probably a monetary gift and he thanks them, but then he adds, “Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.”  Contentment, Paul is saying, can’t be acquired at the mall, it can’t be ordered from Amazon, it can’t be bought. Contentment is learned. 

The course of this world teaches us that contentment is earned by acquiring – through addition.  But godliness teaches us that contentment is learned through subtraction.  Giving rather than getting. Godliness teaches us that it is better to give than to receive.  The world tells us that we somehow have to live life more fully, to go for it all, to grab everything we want.  Godliness tells us that for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Phil 3:8 tells us that godliness considers “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.” 

Learning contentment then requires that I retrain my thinking from conformity with the world view to conforming to godliness.  As it says in Romans 12:2 to be transformed by the renewing of my mind, and when I have retrained my mind according to godliness, and no longer trying to  conform to the standards of this world, then comes about the offering I give to God, the sacrifice of my body to be used for His glory and not mine.  This is a radical, life changing departure from the worldly view of life.  But this is the secret of contentment. 

Unfortunately, some modern day Christians don’t get this.  They want to have their cake and eat it too.  They want the guarantee of heaven, but they also want the pleasures and treasures that this world offers and they want a God that is little more than a genie who is going to help them get all that they wish for.  That isn’t true Christianity. That is little more than idol worship, and you are the idol and God is serving you.  This is the kind of man talked about in 1Tim. 6:5,  “men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.”  In other words, these depraved men who are still looking at their lives from a world’s point of view, who think that godliness is a means of gain.  God is just some genie who guarantees our financial  and material success.  But the next verse says, no, but godliness is of great gain when combined with contentment. “For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.  But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction.”

Listen, sanctification is one of those Bible words that are tossed around in church and nobody seems to know what they mean.  But I’ll tell you simply what sanctification means.  It means growing up, maturing.  Salvation is the new birth.  But once you are born into the family of God, the idea isn’t to stay an infant, but to become sanctified, to grow into maturity.  And sometimes that can be painful.  One thing for sure, is it is a process.  It’s a process of learning.  Learning to trust in God, learning not to trust in your own understanding of how you think things should be, and learning to accept and embrace the way God wants you to be.

Psalm 131:2 illustrates this idea of maturity.  It says, “Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me.” The illustration is that of a child who has matured to the point where he no longer needs milk and is able to rest upon his mother without needing milk anymore.  Now there is nothing sweeter than a baby who suckles his mother’s breast for milk.  But there comes a time when it is time for the baby to grow up and mature, and milk isn’t going to be enough for him anymore.  The baby doesn’t understand this.  He cries and cries and throws a tantrum wanting more milk, and yet the mother knows what is best for him.  If he was able to get what he wanted, his growth would be stunted.  He would never attain the usefulness of an adult.  So his mother weans him off the milk.  It is a painful time for the baby, but it is necessary if he is to grow and mature.  And how necessary is it for us, that when God brings about changes in our lives, many times by taking away something that will keep us from growing and maturing, we cry and cry, thinking we know best.  But God knows best.

I can tell you from my own experience, that my meltdown and descent into depression and anxiety 30 years ago coincided with a process of God taking away things I depended upon.  I don’t know if it always has to be that way, but I’ve found that it often is the way God brings about maturity in a believer.   God takes away  our crutches, things that we lean on, that we have counted on to define ourselves, to measure ourselves by.  God takes them away, one by one, until we learn to lean totally on Jesus Christ. 

Before I went through the meltdown phase of my depression, I was at the top of the antiques profession.  I had a good career, I made a comfortable income, I had built a beautiful house on a large tract of land, and had furnished it with all sorts of nice things, I sent my kids to  private schools, and we drove new cars.  But when my health reached the point where I couldn’t work anymore I began to see my bills snowball.  Debts that I had thought were manageable, I couldn’t handle anymore. So I began to have serious financial problems on top of all my health problems.  And during those years I can assure you that the first 20 times or so I read through most of the Bible, I was looking for promises from God that He was going to restore my fortunes.   Godliness, I believed should have brought about financial gain, not loss.  And I couldn’t understand why God would allow me to lose all that I had worked so hard for.

In my case, it took a few years, but eventually I lost my house, I lost my career.  I had a lot of very specialized knowledge that wasn’t able to do me any good anymore.   Eventually practically all my material possessions were gone.  In a few years I went from an upper middle class income to living below the poverty level. 

But  let me tell you what I gained through that loss.  I gained contentment.  I gained the peace of God that passes all comprehension.  I lost a career but I gained a ministry.  I lost my house but I gained a home in heaven.  I lost my valuable antiques but I gained treasure in heaven.  I learned contentment from what I lost, what I went through, which taught me that I could trust God in all my circumstances.  That when I reached the end of my extremity, God was sufficient for my needs.

Paul said in vs. 11, that I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.  Whatever circumstances I find myself in, God is faithful.  God is my resource.  I have learned I can trust in His providence, and learned not to trust in my resources. 

Listen, I don’t think my situation is all that unique.  One way or another, God’s purpose in saving us all is to conform us to the image of Christ.  And that means that if it pleased God to crush His own Son according to Isaiah 53,  so that He might learn obedience from the things He suffered, as it says in Hebrews 5:8, then because a servant is not greater than his master, according to John 13:16 then He will use the same suffering to conform us to Christ’s image.

Look at Paul’s words in the next verse of our text, Phil. 4:12;  this is the curriculum that we need to learn; “I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.”  Paul can say I know contentment because he had come to know Christ. 

We looked at what Paul had to say about knowing Christ earlier in our study of  Phil. 3:10.  Paul said, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”  Knowing Christ means knowing the power of his resurrection;  knowing that He lives so that we might have life in His name.  But it is predicated on knowing the fellowship of his suffering, being conformed to his death. 

And for Paul, knowing the fellowship of his suffering meant that he learned how to get along with humble means, how to live in poverty, how to be hungry, how to rejoice while suffering need.  We don’t have to learn how to get along in prosperity so much, do we?  We don’t have to learn how to deal with abundance so much do we?  But having had those things, we do have to learn how to deal with not having them.  And I can tell you that it is painful.  We cry why Lord?  Why not?  Why can’t I have this thing?  I liked it so much.  I want it so much.  What’s wrong with it?  And maybe the answer is that there isn’t anything wrong with it. The scripture says all things are possible for me, but not all things are profitable.  Maybe it was good for a while, but now it is time to move on.  To grow.  To mature.  To get on with the business that we have been called by God to do.  And that is where being conformed to his death comes in.  We have to die to our desires, and learn to accept His will for our lives. His plan, his purposes. 

So what’s the secret to contentedness?  It’s found in Phil. 4:13.  But only after we have come to know Phil. 3:10. Because I know Him, I can do all things through Him. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  That is the secret to being hungry, to suffering need, to living in poverty, to being humbled, I can deal with any circumstances I may encounter because I know Him, I have learned to suffer with Him, and I know that when I don’t have any resources I can trust Him to provide for my needs according to his plan for my life. 

And suffering teaches me the difference between my needs and my wants. 1Tim. 6:8 “If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.”  Because Phil. 4:19 promises that “my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”  Therefore, I suffer the loss of all the extra stuff gladly, and consider it but rubbish for the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ. 

In 2Cor. 12:9 Paul said he was given a thorn in the flesh, to keep from exalting himself.  And through the suffering of this thorn in the flesh Paul finds the secret of contentment.  God said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

But I haven’t learned contentment, until I have reached the end of my resources, the end of my strength, and found that his supply is sufficient for all my needs.  That I can do all things, I can endure all things, through Him who strengthens me.  He supplies just what I need when I rest in dependence solely upon Him.  When I learn that I can trust him no matter what the circumstances, then I have contentment.  That’s the secret to contentment.  Knowing that my efficiency is not dependent on my proficiency, but on His sufficiency.

I leave you this morning with the words of Jesus in John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”  But let us compose and quiet our soul, like a weaned child on it’s mother’s breast, knowing that God knows best.

I’ve titled today’s message “overcoming anxiety and depression.”  The Lord gave me the outline for today’s message about 30 years ago, quite some time before I was actually a pastor. During that time, I had a fairly successful antique business.   I thought I was living for the Lord, and I also thought that my job, my family and my finances were indicative of God’s blessings on my life and were the result of the fact that I was a born again Christian who was trying to serve God.  I had begun to get more involved in my church and was teaching Sunday School and participating in various ministries the church was doing. I built a home in Harford County Maryland and loved raising my kids there.

At the peak of my career though I began to have a series of health issues that seemed to be unrelated at first, but over time had a cumulative disastrous affect on my health. The end result was that after several months of being sick and taking one medical test after another, I started experiencing extreme panic attacks.  At that time, panic or anxiety attacks were not very well known. I didn’t know they were anxiety attacks, I just felt like I had some mysterious disease.  If you have never had a panic attack then it is kind of hard to imagine what it was like.  Sometimes it may feel as if you are having a heart attack.  It might be combined with other symptoms like  shortness of breath, difficulty swallowing, feeling dizzy, blacking out,  claustrophobia, headaches, rashes and stiffness in the neck and shoulders.  I had all those symptoms and more and it seemed to get worse day after day.  After several months I became more or less completely traumatized.  I lost a lot of weight.  I developed a severe rash all over my body.  My toenails at one point turned black and fell off.  I reached a point where I couldn’t function, couldn’t work, and could hardly drive a car or fly in an airplane or even be alone.

My primary care physician finally determined that in addition to a string of illnesses I was suffering from a form of depression.  I was surprised to find out that in the medical profession they considered panic attacks a form of depression.  The doctor prescribed an anti-depressant drug that he assured me would help my condition.  Initially, I was very relieved. But when I told my wife about the medicine, she expressed concern about the possible side effects.  She has a sister that had been bipolar for many years, and so she had first hand experience in how certain psychiatric medicines can cause both short term and long term adverse side effects. 

 So after much prayer and deliberation, we decided not to use medicine to deal with my condition but would attempt to deal with it holistically, with a great emphasis on the holy part.  The long and short of it was that over next few years I immersed myself in the Word of God and prayer.  I also began eating better and exercising regularly, but my primary prescription was found in the Word of God.   In particular, this passage that we are looking at today in Philippians was one of the principal scriptures that God most effectively used to get me through that time.  But let me stress that it was a process.  I would have loved to have been instantly healed but it did not happen.  After about 3 years of suffering from  this illness I ended up losing my career, losing my house, my cars, all my antiques. During those years it was all I could do to keep food on the table. And during that time the genuineness of my faith was tested to the very limit.  I didn’t understand why God allowed all that to happen in my life. I thought that God was supposed to bless you if you were a Christian, and I couldn’t reconcile that with what was happening in my life.  And on top of all that,  I seriously began to fear that I was losing my sanity. 

Now I tell you all of this reluctantly, with more than a little embarrassment, in the hope that my story will help you realize that if there was hope for me, then there is hope for you.  You may not be going through anything similar to what I went through.  You may not ever have had a panic attack.  But I will say that it is very likely that at some point in your life you are going to come to the point like the old hymn says, “when all around my soul gives way.”  Things you thought you could count on fell apart.  People you count on fall away.  Stress becomes overwhelming.  Sickness or even death comes knocking on your door in a way that completely tears your world apart.  And when that day comes, then maybe this message will have helped to prepare you. Some of you, however, know exactly what I’m talking about today and have been looking for answers.  And the first place most of us go is to the medical profession looking for help.

Depression and anxiety in America has reached epidemic proportions. According to the CDC 1 in 6 Americans regularly take antidepressant medication.   Another government study revealed that antidepressants have become the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States. They’re prescribed more than drugs to treat high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma, or headaches.  Unfortunately, these drugs don’t cure a person of these disorders, they merely mask the symptoms, and in many cases are putting a band aid on a condition that will continue and in many cases get worse.  Often we try to self medicate ourselves with alcohol or drugs in an attempt to calm our anxieties or make ourselves feel more comfortable or just to be able to go to sleep.  And yet, sooner or later that backfires.  We end up addicted to substances on top of the psychological problems that we have and it just exacerbates the whole problem.

But regardless of what type of fear or stress or anxiety or depression that you may be suffering from,  this message today is for you.  I can tell you with all confidence that these principles in this passage we are looking at today will work because they get at the root of the problem and just don’t treat the symptoms.  They probably won’t produce an instantaneous healing, or an instantaneous correction of all your circumstances, but if you apply these principles in your life, as if your life depends upon them (which they do) then God will not fail to perform according to His promises.  This passage offers us hope for true deliverance.

Now let’s look at the passage.  It says in vs. 6, “Be anxious for nothing.”  That is the principle.  You could even say that is the command.  It is certainly the ideal pattern for the Christian walk, to have no fear, whatever the circumstances may be. The Bible says “do not fear” or some form of that over 500 times.  And Paul speaks from his own lifetime of experience, which by contrast puts my experience to shame.  He suffered so much, from shipwrecks to prisons, to beatings, to even being stoned and left for dead, and in fact he was writing from prison at the time of this letter.  He knew what he was talking about.  And so the principle is overcoming anxiety.  Overcoming fear.  Overcoming depression, stress and a whole host of  related circumstances you may find yourself in. 

But thankfully he doesn’t just leave us with the statement “Don’t be anxious.”  Nothing used to tick me off like someone that would just glibly dismiss my anxieties with the advice “don’t worry, it will all work out.”  But rather, Paul gives us 4 steps to overcoming fear, overcoming anxiety and depression.  And they are found right here in this passage.  Number one, the first step is to pray, in vs. 6.  Number 2, is to ponder, or to contemplate, and that is found in vs. 8.  Number 3, those things you have pondered, Paul says you now need to practice, vs. 9.  And number 4, after you have prayed, pondered and practiced, God promises peace, in vs. 9. 

So let’s look at number one, prayer.  Vs. 6; “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”  The first thing needed is prayer.  From a human standpoint, we don’t understand prayer.  It is one of those mysteries of our faith that requires just that – faith.   Faith in believing that God hears you and that He loves you and wants what is best for you.  Some people want to approach prayer with some sort of formula. If you say it in just the right way, with just the right amount of thanksgiving in it, and by all means be sure to say, “In Jesus name Amen” at the end, and if you muster up all your will power and believe without a doubt that God will do what you want Him to do, then God will give you exactly what you asked for.  They think prayer is a formula by which we tell God what to do and if we do it correctly, God is obligated to do it.  It’s an attempt to manipulate God from a position of control.  But the correct posture of prayer is that of a supplicant, realizing God is sovereign.

This verse shows three ingredients of prayer; supplication, thanksgiving, and requests or petitions.  But Paul isn’t giving us a formula here.  He is merely telling us that in everything we should pray to our Heavenly Father.  We have instant access to the Creator of the Universe.  I’ll tell you the secret to effective prayer.  It’s found in James 5:16 “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.”  The reason your prayer is effective is predicated by the fact that you are made righteous by the shed blood of Christ.  Be sure that there is no sin in your life that is hindering your prayers.  But once you have cleansed  your conscience of unconfessed sin in your life, then it says be fervent about your prayers.  Energeo is the Greek word, and you can hear how that sounds like energize.  Listen, I can tell you how I learned to pray in those days of my meltdown, and I still pray that way a lot of times today.  I go to a place where I can pray aloud, and I get on my knees before the throne of grace and I grab on to the legs of the throne and I begin to call out to God with all my might.  I hold onto that throne and I say like Jacob “Lord, I am not going to let go until you bless me.”  I remind the Lord of all His promises that He has written in His Word, and I recount every aspect of my situation, and I talk to Him like He is literally standing in front of me.  I beseech Him.  I cry out to Him.  And I don’t stop until I can’t pray anymore or until He answers me.  Many, many nights during that time in my life I was up until 3am praying, freaking out, holding onto that throne with all my grip, pleading with God to help me. 

Folks, we need to learn to pray like that.  God isn’t interested in us making speeches. We need to pray like our lives depended upon it.  We need to pray for the salvation of our loved ones like that. We need to pray for revival like that. When I was going through that period in my life I began running.  And most of the time I was running through this long road that goes through a wooded area.  And while I ran I would just pray out loud.  Sometimes I yelled, sometimes I cried out loud to God, sometimes I was angry about something that I didn’t understand and I let God and the squirrels and the deer and everything else that is out there in the woods know about it.  But folks, I believe that is how we should pray.  Fervently.  There isn’t some formula.  Just pray with all your might. 

Jesus gave a parable in Luke 18 about a king and a widow that kept coming to him asking him to help her with her opponent.  And I like what the King said. “Yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.'” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge said; now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?”  Listen, we need to pray until the cows come home.  We don’t pray to an unrighteous judge, we pray to the righteous King Eternal, who also happens to be our heavenly Father. Jesus prayed all night on several occasions. So much more should we. Let’s be fervent about prayer. Praying at all times, night and day, in all situations, consistently praying, constantly praying.

Number 2,  after praying, we need to ponder. Vs. 8 “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.”  These disorders that we are talking about today are all disorders of the mind, aren’t they?  These disorders are the result of wrong thinking.  And so what Paul is saying here is that we need to reprogram our minds with the truth.  When I was suffering from panic attacks, the constant refrain that my mind was stuck on was “what if…what if…”  It was like an old 33 rpm record that had a deep scratch in it.  And once the needle got stuck in that scratch, it would play the same thing over and over and over again. 

There are a lot of things that can contribute to that scratch if you will, in our minds.  This rut of wrong thinking is many times the result of the kind of garbage we are feeding our minds on hour after hour, day after day.  The world is constantly shoving it’s propaganda to us, via our televisions, our computers,  the music on our phones, our car radios.  We are plugged into the polluted message of the world all day long.  Some people even sleep with it on.  And then we wonder why we  are overwhelmed by these negative thoughts.  But folks, the answer is not just a good dose of positive thinking, but proper thinking.  And proper thinking is found in God’s word. 

Paul starts off with we should think about “whatever things are true,”  and he ends up the verse with if there is anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.  Ponder these things.   You know, before I developed this disorder, I went to church twice a week, tithed 10% and I read my Bible every morning before I went to work.  I read at least a chapter every morning.  Man, I thought I was killing the whole Christian thing. But let me tell you something.  After I found myself in the throes of never ending panic attacks, I started to really read the Bible.  I read multiple books of the Bible in a single day.  Sometimes I read most of the New Testament in one day.  Did you know that it only takes about 18 hours to read the NT?  At night when the anxiety attacks got really bad, I would sometimes read the entire book of Psalms out loud, crying and praying each verse out loud to God.  By the way, I believe King David, a great warrior, a man after God’s own heart, who wrote most of the Psalms, I believe that David suffered from depression.  I believe he suffered from anxiety attacks.  And so I would encourage you to read the Psalms.  Read them aloud and deliberately reprogram your mind. 

Listen, you have to start telling yourself the truth. The mind is the battleground between the spirit and the flesh, did you know that?  Man was made at creation in the image of God who was a triune being and so we were made spirit, soul and body.   The spirit of man is the divine spark that God gave us originally that allowed man to have fellowship with God.  It was what made us alive spiritually, able to commune with God.  But the soul is the essence of man, the mind, the will, the seat of the emotions.  And of course, we know what our body is.  Now at the fall, the spirit of man died because of sin.  And our fellowship with God was broken.  We could not know God through our mind (our soul) or through any actions of our body.  So in our fallen state, the order of creation was reversed, and we became governed by the passions of our bodies, which controlled our minds.  We became enslaved to our fleshly passions.  Our spirit was dead.  But salvation  resulted in being born again, reborn, not of the flesh, but of the spirit.  We are made righteous through faith in Christ, and made alive in our spirit by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 

Now though the spirit is born again, we are alive in Christ, yet our minds, our soul, is still in our body.  And our fleshly body is still corrupted.  However, that is why Romans 12 tells us that we are to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds.”  And  the will of God is that we are to present our bodies as a living  sacrifice to  God.  So, in the new order of becoming a Christian, I submit my mind to the Spirit of Christ,  renewing my mind by what the Spirit teaches me through the Word, and I discipline my body, sacrifice the desires of my body, crucify  the passions of my body and make it my slave.  No longer am I to be a slave of my body.  But I am to make my body the slave of my mind, my mind being obedient to the Spirit. 

But the battleground continues to be the mind.  Even once you are a Christian Satan is going to attack you in the flesh, and try to deceive your mind through your flesh once again.  And so our defense is the truth of God’s Word. Eph 6:12 says, “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. Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH.”  The truth is found in God’s Word.  His promises are sure and will not fail.  And you need to deliberately,  constantly be putting God’s word, this truth into your mind.

When I was under attack, I took note cards and wrote down on each card a verse of scripture that was a promise from God to keep me and protect me.  I had about 30 of them wrapped in a rubber band that I carried all the time in my pocket.  I can remember many times while driving having to pull over on the side of the road and read through my cards a few times until I was able to go on.  I remember  after I had become sick that I tried to fly in an airplane.  I was wearing those cards out, I can tell you.  Every phobia I had was in full alert but I fought back with the truth, which is the Word of God. 

The third step is practice.  Vs. 9; “The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things.”  Listen, faith isn’t just Bible knowledge, faith is not positive thinking, it’s obedience to step out and do what is commanded of you to do.  The scripture is not meant to be a bunch of words we say like hocus pocus, and poof, magic happens.  No, the Word of God is instructions.  It tells us how to act, what to say, how to think.  It tells us promises of God that we are to believe in and act upon.  Before your mind is in a rut.  Now we have to reprogram our minds through practice, going over and over again the truths of God.

You know, if you want to get good at playing basketball, you go to the gym and practice.  You work on your foul shot.  You dribble.  But you do all this stuff before the game.  You don’t just show up to the game and expect to play well.  You practice whether you feel like it or not.  You rehearse how you should think.  You act out how you are supposed to act.  In other words, you don’t wait till you feel like it.  You begin with actions, and the feelings will eventually catch up.  You begin to act in faith to what God has promised in His word.  It may be small steps at first.  You might be frightened half out of your mind.  But believing in what God has promised, armed with your verses in your pocket, you begin to step out in faith regardless of how you feel. 

 Let me tell you something.   Feelings lie.  Don’t listen to your feelings.  Listen to the truth of God’s Word and then act in faith as if you felt like it, and soon enough you will find that you will have faith.  I’m not telling you to believe you can jump off a 5 story building or something foolish.  I’m telling you that you have to act on the promises of God that are written in His word.  Don’t act on what some well meaning friend may have counseled you.  Act on what God has promised to you and written down so that you might  know His instructions. And by acting on God’s promises, we cut a new groove in our minds of proper thinking according to what God has said.

Finally, number four, if you pray, ponder and practice then you will know peace.  And listen folks, this isn’t just some peace found in a sleeping pill, or bottle of whiskey, or even the peace that comes through a prescription, this is so much better than that.  This is the peace of God, he says in vs. 7; “which surpasses all comprehension, which will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  I love that verse.  Because what it says is that He will give you a peace that passes understanding.  You can’t understand it, but there is a sense of peace that God gives to those that really put their trust in Him.  You may have to learn to trust in Him.  Learning to trust in Him is a process that sometimes can take a long time.  We learn to trust Him when we pray, we read His Word, we ponder His Word, then we obey His Word,  and we practice His Word, then we get peace because we have proven His Word.  See, it’s one thing to say something is true, and intellectually believe it, but it is another thing to prove something is true.  And in these kinds of distresses, as we go through them we end up proving that God is true, that He can be trusted.  And that equips us for tomorrow.  Because more difficulties are going to come again tomorrow.  Jesus said, everyday has difficulties.  But what you have proven to be true today will make tomorrow’s difficulties easier to go through. 

James 1:2 says  “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,

knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” When you run, you increase your endurance by pushing through the pain, stretching yourself.  And the next day you find you can run further.  One of the reasons that I think we have such an increase in psychological disorders today is because we somehow have been taught to think that life is supposed to be free of trials.  Everything is supposed to be easy, everything is supposed to work out. Especially if you are a Christian. The prosperity gospel is very appealing, and I think many of us subconsciously believe it to be true.  But the truth is, life is difficult. The Christian life is difficult.  We don’t always know why, or the source of our difficulties.  We sometimes don’t even know if God is doing it to us, or if Satan is doing it.  

James 1:13 says “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.”  But it goes on to say we are tempted by our own lust. In other words, it goes back to our fallen nature again, that is pulling at us, tempting us, calling us.  And remember Satan is called the Tempter in scripture, isn’t he?  Satan tempts us, and sometimes he is given liberty to test us.  Job went through a great deal of trials that were brought about through no fault of his own, but through Satan.  However, one thing we can know  is that God promises to use even evil for our good. Rom. 8:28, “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.”  And what is God’s purpose in calling us?  The next verse says He predestined us to become conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. God is using these circumstances to prove you, to mold you into the image of Jesus Christ. 

Listen, I’ll say it again.  Your mind is the battleground between the Spirit and the flesh.  You are going to have to choose who you will listen to. Are you going to submit to the lies of the flesh or the truth of the Spirit? There is an interesting word that is found in vs. 7, in the Greek it’s phroureo, which means kept in a garrison.  God will guard your mind and heart in a fort, a garrison.  Your mind is a fort.  And the Holy Spirit stands watch over it.  But  you have control over the gate.  You can either open it to the Spirit or to the flesh. Every bad thought that comes we are to take  captive to Christ.  Listen to 2 Cor. 10: 3 “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.  We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete.” 

Well, I must close.  There is so much here that I feel that I could go on for another hour.  But I will just close by saying that here in Phil. 4 God confirms to us twice that He is able to give us peace that passes all understanding if we are obedient to the instructions that He provides in His Word. In vs. 7 we see the peace of God, and in vs. 9 we see the God of peace.  It’s like two pieces of bread that make up the sandwich. I don’t want to downplay the seriousness of mental disorders and fears and phobias.  I know the seriousness of them.  But I also know the peace of God that comes from having proven God to be faithful to the promises found in His Word as I walk in obedience to those promises.  One day Jesus is coming back for those that are His, and He is going to wipe away all tears, and dispel forever all fears.  He is going to replace this fallen body with a body that cannot be broken, that is no longer fallen, but remade in His likeness.  That’s the ultimate purpose of God, to make us into His likeness, and restore our fellowship with Him the way it was originally intended in the garden.  Until then, let us pray like our lives depended upon it, and let the Spirit guard the garrison of our hearts and minds, let’s take every thought captive in obedience to what Christ has promised us, and let’s destroy those speculations that undermine our faith.  And the peace of God will encircle the garrison of our minds like a moat surrounds the castle. 

Paul says in verse one that the Philippians were his joy and crown.  And what he is referring to here with word crown is the crown of achievement, or the wreath that was given to the victor in a race.  This sentiment is the true passion of the pastor.  A pastor is crowned by his congregation.  If he is a true shepherd of the flock then their spiritual well being is his joy and crown.  Their spiritual maturity is what he is working for.  To see them mature, to come to completion, as we looked at last week.  To see them still standing firm for the faith some years down the road.

I’ve said before that one of my biggest disappointments and discouragements in the ministry is to see members of the fellowship fall away.  To see them become less than they should be.  To see them fall back into sin, to wander back into the world.  Or to see them opt out of our fellowship for a more socially palatable gospel.  They come so far with you, and then maybe they get their feathers ruffled over something or another, and leave to find another fellowship where they can have their ears tickled.  That is very discouraging for a pastor and it was the great fear of Paul for the church at Philippi as well.

And so Paul is going to finish up this last chapter of his letter to the church at Philippi by encouraging them to stand firm.  He wants nothing more than to hear a report that they are still standing firm in the faith.  That goal may be expressed in many ways, but no matter how you say it, it all comes down to perseverance.  It is a common theme in all Paul’s epistles.  Because Paul realized that just because you became saved does not mean that the enemy gives up on you.  No, if anything, the enemy redoubles his efforts on the person that commits to live for Jesus Christ as Lord.  Satan wants to undermine your faith, ruin your testimony, hinder your witness, deceive you by false doctrine, and ultimately destroy your life.  He may not be able to destroy your spirit anymore, but he can definitely destroy your life, and in the process perhaps do more to hinder the kingdom of heaven through you than he did when you were unsaved.

Paul realizes that is a very real danger for every Christian.  That’s why he started out the epistle in 1:27 urging the church to  “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 chapter 2:16 Paul adds, “hold fast the word of life,” so that he would not have run in vain or toiled in vain in his leadership of them. 

This admonition to hold fast, to stand firm, to persevere is often repeated in all his letters to the churches because it is such an essential concern for all Christians.  To the church in Rome Paul speaks “to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life.” In 1Cor. 15:58 he pleads with the Corinthian church to “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”  And again in 1Cor. 16:13 he warns them to “Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.”  To the church in Galatia Paul commands that  “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” To the church at Ephesus Paul admonishes that they should “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might,” and that they should “put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.”

And I would submit to you here this morning, to this church at Bethany Beach, Paul says to stand firm in the Lord.  Having done everything, to stand firm.  To persevere unto the end.  You’re going to be attacked.  You’re going to be knocked down from time to time.  You’re going to stumble from time to time.  You’re going to be discouraged from time to time.  But, I urge you, persevere.  Stand fast.  Keep on keeping on.  You will get tired following the Lord, but don’t ever quit.  The prize of the upward call of Christ Jesus that we looked at in chapter 3 is coming soon.  It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.

So I urge you, I encourage you to persevere in the faith.  And in today’s text we will look at how Paul encourages us to persevere.  There are going to be attacks by the devil, there are going to be discouragements and distractions that will come.  But persevere.  And there is a secret to perseverance that Paul wants to share, and it’s found in three little words.  Those three words are “in the Lord.”  Verse one, Paul says “stand firm in the Lord.”  In verse 2, Paul says, “live in harmony in the Lord.”  In verse 4, he says, “Rejoice in the Lord.”  And in verse 6, he says “trust in the Lord.”  And if we can learn these principles, then we can learn the secret of perseverance. 

First, let’s consider “stand firm in the Lord.”   There is a little Greek word that is almost overlooked in vs.  1 which is houtō.  It may be interpreted in your Bible as “so”, or “in this way.”  I like “in this way” because I think it is more descriptive.  The NIV renders it “that is how you should stand firm in the Lord.”  And I think that what is being said here is a reference to all that has come before this verse, and all that follows this verse.  This letter to the church at Philippi  containing these admonitions by Paul, these warnings, is instructive about how you are to stand firm in the Lord.  He is referring back to chapter 3, saying that perseverance encompasses forgetting what lies behind, and pressing forward to what lies ahead, being conformed to the image of Christ, being conformed to the sufferings of Christ, being conformed to the death of Christ, all of which is part of truly knowing Christ.  Not just knowing only one narrow element about Christ, but knowing all that Christ was and came to do. 

I think many people fall away from Christ because they refuse to accept all that Christ is.  They may like the “Jesus loves me” part, but they refuse to accept the rest of what it means to know Christ.  That we are to be conformed to His death.  In other words, we die to sin.  We consider ourselves dead to sin.  And to know Christ means we need to be conformed to the power of his resurrection.  That means we need to live a new life in Christ.  Romans 6 says we aren’t to continue in sin so that grace may abound, but we are to live in the power of a new life.  Old things are passed away and all things become new.  So standing firm means standing firm in the knowledge of Christ.

And that brings us to the phrase, in the Lord. Standing firm in the knowledge of the truth about Christ. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except by Me.”  John 14:6.  Standing firm in the Lord is nothing less than standing firm in the truth.  Ephesians 6:13 talks about putting on the armor of God and says, “and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH.”  The truth of God undergirds our faith. It supports our faith.  It is the most essential part of our armor.  If we are to stand firm, then we need to know what the Bible teaches about Christ.

If you were required to give testimony in a court of law and you left out some things, but other things you testified to fully, then that would not be telling the whole truth, would it? In court you swear to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  To leave anything out is false testimony.  Well, the church is tasked with telling the whole truth of Christ. Paul said to the church in Ephesus that “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” In 1 Timothy it says at the end of chapter 3 that the church is to be the pillar and support of the truth. Knowing the truth of Christ gives us the strength to persevere in Christ.

And please understand this; standing firm in the Lord means persevering in obedience to the truth of His Word.  It means deliberately, strategically, systematically putting yourself under the teaching of sound doctrine.  It means studying for yourself to find out what the Bible says concerning our faith.  It means being obedient to what God shows you in the Bible.  And it means being diligent about it.  

You know, you can’t be a good athlete or a good business man, or a good salesperson, or whatever it is that you might aspire to be, you can’t be good at it without applying yourself to it diligently.  What makes you think that you can grow in the Lord and mature in the Lord, to be found faithful in the Lord unless you are also diligent about studying His word?  Far too many Christians come to  faith by taking a little bit of something that they have heard from a radio preacher, and a little of this they saw in a movie, and a little of that they read in a book, and a dash or two of verses taken out of context from the Bible, and throw them all in a blender and that is their faith.  That’s not going to be the kind of faith that will persevere, that will stand firm against the schemes of the devil. The devil loves to come across those sort of blender Christians.  They aren’t committed to anything.  They  go here and there like Paul warned in Ephesians 4, they are tossed here and there by every wind of doctrine, and when the storm hits, they fall apart because their doctrine wasn’t founded upon the truth, but rather upon speculation and ear tickling false doctrine.  So to stand firm in the Lord we need to know the truth about Christ by knowing what the Bible teaches about the gospel of Christ.

Secondly, verse 2 teaches that in order to persevere, we must live in harmony in the Lord.  The word in the Greek for harmony is phroneo;  it means harmonious, of the same mind.  We don’t know who Euodia and Syntyche were.  What we do know is they were two women in the church at Philippi, and the implication is that there was a disagreement between them that had become so well known that it was disrupting the church.  It wasn’t a secret anymore.  In fact, there were probably others that had started to take up sides.  Clement is mentioned, as well as others that had been fellow workers there with Paul.  And it was tearing the church apart.

But rather than speculate about what might have been the problem between these two factions, let’s just focus on the solution to disagreements in the body.  There are going to be disagreements in the body of Christ, did you know that?  We may have been made righteous before God positionally, but practically, we are all still in the flesh.  And if we’re not careful, that old fleshly nature that we were supposed to daily put to death will come back with a vengeance and take us away from unity in the Spirit.  Sometimes the solution is to agree to disagree.  When there are disagreements over peripheral doctrines, or some side issue, or you somehow felt as if someone slighted you, or whatever the problem may have been, you need to submit to one another as unto the Lord and continue to persevere. 

Paul says in 1 Corinthians in regards to people in the church arguing with one another and even taking one another to court, he says, “Why not rather be wronged?”  “Why not rather be defrauded?”  I know that’s not easy – there is no wound that cuts deeper than that of a friend.  But Philippians told us in chapter 3 that we are to be conformed to the sufferings of Jesus, didn’t it?  Was Jesus slandered?  Yes.  Was Jesus insulted?  Yes.  Was Jesus taken for granted?  Yes.  So then, if you have gotten your feathers ruffled, then rather than defend your rights, be conformed to the image of Jesus.  Suffer in silence with Jesus.  Love those who mistreat you.  Forgive those who mistreat you.  Pray for them.   And above all, get the chip off of your shoulder.  Be sure you’re not going around looking for trouble or you will find it. 

At the end of verse three Paul says, “whose names are written in the Book of Life.”  Listen, if your name is written in the Book of Life and my name is written in the Book of Life, if God has accepted us, and put us together in that way, then we need to be more accepting of one another.  None of us are perfect yet.  3:12: “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.”  Christ Jesus laid hold of you to become part of his body, the local fellowship.  None of us are perfect yet.  But let’s press on together recognizing that God has saved each of us.  Perseverance requires getting along and not being distracted by petty grievances.

And then in verse 4 Paul says “Rejoice in the Lord.”  Some have said that rejoice or joy is the theme of this letter because Paul says it over and over again.  But discouragement is the opposite of joy.  Nothing will deter you from persevering like discouragement.  However, the secret to joy, the secret to rejoicing, is not in our circumstances, but our Lord. This is another reason why we need to stay in the Word and in the fellowship of others in the Word.  So we don’t get discouraged in our circumstances, but focus on the greatness of our God.

I think one of the most encouraging stories in the Bible is the story of the prodigal son.  I’m sure you are familiar with it. And as I think of this story, it reminds me of how great is our heavenly Father, how wonderful is our Heavenly Father who pursued us, who never stopped loving us, who in spite of our sinfulness and willfulness continued to work in us until one day the Holy Spirit overwhelmed us in conviction and we responded in faith.  And when we responded in faith, God responded even more. Not only did the Father rejoice that his son had come home, but I believe the prodigal son rejoiced because he knew that his Father loved him and had accepted him and restored him.  How wonderful that God loves us even when we are running away from Him and cursing Him and spurning that love.   And when we really see that then we have joy. When we are down and out, we need to get our eyes off our circumstances and back on the Lord and rejoice in all that He is.  Rejoice that in spite of how fallen we were that we were chosen to be a part of His family.

Vs. 5 says, “Let your forbearing spirit be known to all men.”  That word is epieikēs; and it means forbearing, or gentle or seemly, suitable, or equitable.   I think that is referring to our response when those difficult circumstances come that are going to come upon us all from time to time.  When things don’t seem to go right.  When life doesn’t seem fair.  When it seems we have been slighted or overlooked or taken advantage of.  Instead of being known as the guy that you better not mess with, or the woman that you better not cross, or the person that you better watch out for their temper,  instead you are known for being even tempered, for not letting things upset you, for not flying off the handle.  You have a settled quality about you.  You can rejoice in perseverance because your joy is not in your circumstances but in your Savior.

And the last phrase in vs. 5 is probably my favorite.  “The Lord is near.”  That can  have two meanings and either one of them may be applicable depending on the situation.  One is it’s referring to the day of the Lord being near. 2Pet. 3:10 speaks of the day of the Lord being near, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.” Peter says we are to be living in such a way as those that are looking for that day to come and hastening for that day to come.  And this is in keeping with the context of what Paul is talking about in Philippians at the end of chapter 3.  This is the goal that we are to be pressing of towards; the upward call of Christ Jesus when He will come back to earth for us and judge the earth and it’s works.  We should rejoice in perseverance because the Lord could come back today.  There is nothing necessary to be done before He can come back.  He could come right now, and we should live in expectation of that day. That expectation should cause us to rejoice.

And then the other way of looking at that phrase is “the Lord is at hand”  I remember my own situation when I was in my 20’s and I had left my home and tried to get as far away from the Lord as possible.  I ended up in California and I did the full prodigal son experience and wasted my life in riotous living.   And yet when I came to his senses and called upon the Lord, God was near.  God was right at hand.  God is as close as a prayer, no matter where on earth you might go. Psalm 139:7 “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.”  Your hand will lay hold of me.  That was echoed in  chapter 3 of Philippians verse 12 wasn’t it?  God laid hold of us.  That should make you rejoice.  That no matter where you are, God is near, He’s right at hand.  You can persevere because the Lord is near, the Lord is at hand, ready to help you in time of need.  He’s always with you.  The Lord is as near as a prayer.

And then the last one, and I’ll only just mention it today.  Perseverance is found by trusting in the Lord.  Next Sunday I’m going to preach on verses 6-9 particularly in regards to dealing with anxiety.  Those of you that know my testimony, know that about 30 years ago I started suffering from extreme anxiety attacks which lasted for several years.  It was so bad and lasted so long that I ended up losing my career, my home, my health, my cars and all my possessions.  I almost ended up losing my sanity through it as well.  And through all those years there was one passage of scripture in particular that I held onto, sometimes feeling like I was at the edge of insanity, and it was this passage.  God’s word kept me sane.  So if you know of anyone that is dealing with anxiety, depression, or any other type of psychological disorder that you think might benefit from this message next week, I encourage you to invite them to church. 

But let me tell you the short meaning of these verses here this morning.  Perseverance depends upon you coming to the point of complete trust in the Lord; complete dependence upon Jesus Christ for everything.  When I thought I was losing my mind at one point, when I had reached the end of my rope, I imagined tying an knot to the end of it so to speak.  I had heard someone say that when you reach the end of your rope, just tie a knot and hang on.  And I had been hanging on for about a year or so fighting for my sanity and finally one night I couldn’t hold on anymore, I felt I was losing my grip on reality.  I felt myself letting go and for a few moments before I blacked out I seemed to feel myself flipping over backwards into this bottomless chasm of insanity.  I couldn’t hang on any more.  And yet, when I woke up from that blackness, from that moment of abject terror, I found that Jesus Christ had laid hold of me.  I wasn’t responsible for holding onto Jesus.  Jesus was responsible for holding onto me.  And He would never let me go.

Jesus said in John 10:27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.  I and the Father are one.”

Perseverance requires having that confidence which comes from proving that Jesus is faithful.  No matter what the circumstances.  No matter how much things don’t make sense.  Jesus is mine and I am His.  Knowing what Romans 8:28 really means:  “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 doesn’t mean that God is going to work everything out according to my desires, according to my plans.  What that means is that when my plans become aligned with God’s plans, when my purpose is to glorify Him by my life, then God is going to use everything that happens in my life to work out for the purpose of glorifying God.  This is the perseverance of the saints.  Those that are called according to HIS purpose.  And when you get that perspective right, then God is going to work things out right and I’m going to be all right with it.

Folks, I pray that you will stand fast.  Having done everything to stand firm, persevere.  Don’t be taken in by the deceit of Satan.  Don’t allow yourself to become offended.  Don’t allow petty grievances to grieve the Holy Spirit. But rather rejoice in the Lord.  Trust in the Lord.  Don’t be anxious for anything, and let the peace of God rule your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  And having done all, stand firm in the Lord.

The other day my wife and I got to see our grandchild for a little bit after not having seen him for almost a week. And it was amazing to see how much he seemed to have changed in just a few days time. He’s standing up on his own now, and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until he’s walking.  It’s almost sad to see how quickly he’s growing and maturing. But I know that even though his parents love him as he is now in this infant stage, they are constantly encouraging him to grow, to take the next step, to speak words, and so forth. Because no parent wants their child to stay an infant forever.  Growing up is a normal part of physical, emotional and mental development that we all recognize is desirable for our children.

And just as it is normal to expect physical maturity, so it also should be in our spiritual lives.  God as our heavenly Father wants us to grow in spiritual maturity. And this is what this passage we are looking at today in Philippians is talking about. It’s talking about spiritual maturity.  We are going to see four aspects of maturity:  the goal of maturity, the standard of maturity, the examples of maturity and finally the state of maturity.   

First of all then the goal of maturity. Let’s remind ourselves of the context of this passage, and to do that we need to go back to verses 13 and 14.  Paul is talking about spiritual maturity, spiritual completion, and he says, “one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

In other words, Paul is saying that  we should be reaching forward, pressing on, striving for the goal of spiritual maturity.  Even though we are saved, even though we are practically being sanctified by our obedience to the Holy Spirit working in us, yet our perfection, our completion, our ultimate maturity will come about when we are called up, when this mortal shall put on immortality, and this body will be changed incorruptible. 

So this means that our goal once we are saved is to become mature. 2 Corinthians 3:18 states that this is our goal. “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”  As we look in the mirror of God’s word, we are being transformed into the image of Jesus Christ.  This is the goal of a Christian.  We are born again – we become an infant in this new life- and then we begin the process of spiritual growth, which is called sanctification.  And that simply means we become like Christ. Our lives become a reflection of Jesus Christ, just as our children become a reflection of us as parents, of our values, of their upbringing, even to the point of looking and talking like us. 

Some time ago, I was sitting on a porch and caught a reflection of myself in the window, and I was shocked how much I looked like my mother.  I always thought I looked more like my dad.  But I realized I look like both of them.  I am a reflection of my parents.  And so it is supposed to be in our spiritual life. We should look like our spiritual parents.  This process of growing up, of being obedient to what God teaches me, should result in me looking and acting more and more like Jesus Christ, who is the exact reflection of God.

Rom 8:29 “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”  Becoming conformed to the image of Christ should be the single most important goal of our life.  Nothing else is as important.  God fixing all my stuff is not as important.  God attending to all my needs is not the purpose of my salvation.  God making it possible for me to have what I may think makes for a successful life here and now on this earth is not the purpose that Jesus died on the cross.  But He came so that I might be made righteous, so that fellowship with God was possible for us, and to do that He transfers the righteousness of Jesus to us, and transfers our sins onto the cross, and we become followers of Jesus, and become like Him, remade in His image, as man was originally intended to be at creation.

So first our purpose, our goal, is to be like Christ.  And verse 14 says though we are pressing on toward that goal, it will be completed when Jesus comes back.  Now look at vs. 15 and 16 and let’s see what is  the standard of our maturity. “Let us therefore, as many as are perfect,(there is that word again which means complete, mature)  have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you;  however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.”  The standard then is to continue striving for the perfection that is Christ.  

Now Paul just got finished saying he hasn’t obtained complete maturity yet, but the implication here is that there should be an ongoing process of maturity that happens in the life of a believer.  And what he is saying here is that maturity should be your aspiration, yet at the same time there needs to be a recognition that we all that are saved are a work in progress that will not see final completion until Jesus comes back.  But that should not deter us from pressing on to maturity.  Far from it.  It should motivate us to become mature. That’s why Hebrews 6:1 says, “Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity.” Maturity is synonymous with becoming conformed to the image of Christ.  Jesus Christ is our standard of maturity.  We don’t measure ourselves by ourselves or even by our neighbor, but our standard is Christ.  Being like Him is what we are striving for.

But at the same time, implicit in this standard should also be an understanding that none of us are at the same spiritual level of maturity.  It would be an extremely rare thing if I found any of you exactly the same age and with the same birthday as another person.  And spiritually, the same principle applies.  We all should be pressing on to maturity, we should all be aspiring to spiritual maturity, to be conformed to the image of Christ, but as Paul says, we haven’t all arrived yet, nor are we all at the same level of maturity.  So we need to be understanding of one another, and remain teachable. 

For instance, as we become mature, according to vs. 15, we acknowledge that while we may have grown to a certain understanding of certain doctrines or interpretations, that there are other people who also are saved, who are growing in maturity, that may not have yet come to the same understanding of certain more advanced doctrines.  And so for the sake of unity, for the sake of the fellowship we are to have within the church, we do not break fellowship over  non essential doctrines.  Rather, we make the plain things the main things. 

However, that being said, as a local, independent body of believers, as the local church, and as the pastor of such church, I have to come down on one side or another in terms of church doctrine on many of these issues.  I have to take a position.  I will teach my position as I come upon such issues in scripture.  However, I don’t intend to camp out on them.   I will not make peripheral doctrines the capstone or cornerstone of this ministry, to the extent that if you don’t ascribe exactly to every doctrine in just the same way that I do on every subject you can’t have fellowship with us.  But at the same time, for the sake of unity within the body, we must have an understanding that this church does have a position on those non foundational doctrines and if necessary, we can agree to disagree for the sake of unity and for the sake of the progress of the gospel.  

For instance, take eschatology, which is the study of end time prophecy, there are various views that are held by many people that differ on  whether Christ will return before the tribulation, or sometime in the middle, or at the end.  And there are many well learned commentators that differ in their views.  I have my own opinion as well that I have come to after years of studying.  However, the main issue is that Jesus is coming back for His church and to judge the world.  This is clearly presented in Scripture.  But we shouldn’t let the things that are less clear in regards to eschatology become a point of division in the fellowship.  But when I come to such doctrines in scripture I will teach them, I will point out what I think I have learned in my studies, and I would urge you to be like what Paul said about the Bereans, who eagerly listened to the apostle’s teaching and then searched the scriptures to see if those things were so.  But also to remain teachable, yielding to what the Word says and not holding on to viewpoints just because it is the popular or politically correct view.

So in light of that, in light of the fact that as a pastor I am tasked with rightly dividing the Word, let’s look at the next verse, 17 for the examples of maturity. Paul gives both a positive example and a negative example.  First the positive.  “Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.”  Now this is a heavy responsibility that I think applies to pastors.  It would be much easier if I were to just ascribe this to Paul and not apply it to myself as a pastor of the church.  But I think that Paul is talking about leadership in the church.  I think this is why James tells us that not many of us should become teachers, because we will be judged with a stricter judgment.   And the reason that leadership is so important in the church is that it isn’t just about a hierarchy, it isn’t about an exalted position of authority, it isn’t even just about who is the teacher or preacher, but it is about being an example.  Living  a life that is exemplary before the church. 

Note also that vs. 17 says, “join in following my example”.  The idea expressed here is joining with others in fellowship.  Not out there on your own, following your own reasoning, following your own ideas of what you think Christianity is all about.  But it is important to join in fellowship, following the examples of your leaders. 

But it should go without saying, that in order for you to follow your leaders, your leaders must be followers of Christ.  Paul said in 1Cor. 11:1 “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.”  The great commission is that we are to go into all the world and make disciples.  I’ve said it before, it’s a lot easier to make converts than it is to make disciples or followers.  Making disciples means that someone is going to follow you around.  Many of us might be good at presenting a witness on our good days, on those times when we feel like it, or are prepared for it, but we’re probably not that comfortable with being followed around and having someone watch us, day in and day out.  But you’re either being an example or an excuse to the people watching you.  Either they see Jesus Christ living through you, or they see an excuse why they don’t need to take the claims of Christianity seriously.

What Paul is saying, is that we are to observe those who are supposed to be spiritual  according to the pattern that we see in Paul and the Apostles.  Their lives backed up what they were teaching.  They were the pattern for what a Christian was supposed to look like and act like.  “Join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.”  So Paul and the Apostles were role models for spiritual maturity.  

You know, you can only learn so much through explanation.  There is a certain amount of learning that comes from application.  Take for instance someone training to be a nurse.  They take a lot of courses in a classroom, they memorize a lot of information, but then comes another level of learning which they call practicals.  And that is where they actually begin to do the work, hands on.  They follow other nurses, they work with other nurses in a real hospital situation with actual patients.  And this is the more advanced level of learning, where they follow others and learn from others by doing what they are doing.  Learning by example.  And this is of great importance in the church.

So that’s the positive example, now let’s look at the negative example in vs. 18 and 19: “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.”  Some examples we see in the church are not godly examples, but people who claim Christianity, but live a life that is marked by worldliness.  And these negative examples are a real danger to the young believer especially. 

Sometimes I have spoken in the past of people that have left our fellowship and turned back to the ways of the world.  And though that can be discouraging to me as a pastor, the greater concern is not whatever discouragement it may cause to me, but what damage it causes to the cross of Christ.  I grieve over many of these people that have fallen away.  Some were my close friends.  And like Paul, I have wept over their loss.  Because like Esau they have traded the eternal glory for a pot of stew.  Jesus said in Matt. 6:24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”  Paul here makes a broader application than just wealth.  He calls it their appetites.  And Paul says because of their worldly appetites they have become enemies of the cross of Christ.  Their lives have become stumbling blocks to others.  They have become an excuse to others who were looking to them as an example.

Paul says that their end is destruction.  You know, when the devil tempts you to sin, he doesn’t tempt you by telling you that this sin will lead to destruction, does he?  He says a little pleasure won’t hurt you.  A little taste won’t hurt you.  One glass isn’t such a big deal.  It’s just a little bit, it’s just a little thing.  I know of a guy that was a recovering  addict that was doing really well, he had been sober for a couple of years, was a music leader in his church, and then one day he decided he could have a couple of beers.  And the couple of beers led to a little more, and then a little more, and now he has fallen back into addiction again and eventual destruction.  Our appetites are the path to destruction and the devil knows just how to get us to go right back again and again.

But don’t say “Well, I’m not an addict, so therefore this doesn’t apply to me.” These people that are enemies of Christ are described as people whose God isn’t Christ, but whose god is their appetite.  Their appetite is not for the things of God – for the maturity that comes from being conformed to the image and the death of Christ.  They are not living for God, but for themselves and to fulfill their needs, and to exalt themselves, to satisfy their worldly desires. 

Oh, some of them go to church every Sunday.  They claim to be to be Christians.  And yet their lives don’t bear the fruit of godliness.  Their lives are marked by worldliness.  But grace is not a license to sin.  God didn’t die on the cross so you could have your cake and eat it too.  So you could get a “get out of hell card” and still live it up here on earth.  Christ died so that you might become like Him.  So that you might follow in His footsteps – that you might live righteously, godly, and above reproach.

“Whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame.” These people glory in things that they should be ashamed of.  You know, the culture of this world today is characterized by things that would have been considered shameful to even speak of 50 years ago.  We’re not more enlightened today.  Society is just more depraved.  I can’t even hardly watch primetime television anymore.  I can’t even watch some commercials during football games.  I can’t watch a lot of movies without fast forwarding about half of it. I”m not being a prude, I just can’t put that stuff in my mind and not have it affect me.  Paul says, these so called Christians have their minds, their affections set on earthly things, and those things that they glory in they should be ashamed of.

You know, Peter said in 1 Peter 2:5 that we that are saved are being built up as a spiritual house unto God.   That we are to be holy, offering up acceptable sacrifices as priests to God.  And Paul talks about this house in 1 Cor. 3:10, he says as we are building up this house, we better be careful how we build on it.  For starters, we’re building on the foundation of Jesus Christ who by shedding His blood made it possible for us to have this second life.  Secondly, he says, “Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day of judgment 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, what Paul is saying is that if all you’re building is earthly stuff, it’s going to be burned up when the world is burned up with fire.  Wood, hay and straw is worthless, because it won’t survive.  It’s temporal. 2Pet. 3:10 “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.” 

I would ask you to examine yourselves today.  Where is your treasure?  What type of house are you building unto God?  Are you offering up sacrifices that are acceptable to God? Are you offering up first and foremost your lives as Romans 12:1 says, “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.”

Jesus said in Luke 12:34 “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I hope you are laying up your treasure in heaven.  And that leads us to our last point, the state of our maturity.  Back to our text in Phil. 3:20,21:  “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”

The state of our final maturity, the goal of our salvation, the purpose for which God sent Jesus into the world, is to bring us into that citizenship of heaven.  To capture us out of the kingdom of darkness and transfer us into the kingdom of heaven.  We should be like Abraham in Hebrews 11:9, “By faith he 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.”

Listen folks, if you’re really a citizen of heaven, then you’re going to act like it.  You’re going to be an alien here on earth.  You’re going to march to the beat of a different drum.  You are going to be a peculiar people.  You’re going to talk differently than the world.  You’re going to act differently than the world. Because you have been born into a new life, a new existence, a new kingdom, a new citizenship.  Old things have passed away, and all things have become new.  You’re going to be growing into a reflection of Jesus Christ.

And if that is the state of your existence now, then when Jesus comes He is going to change your physical state into final conformity with his image.  “Who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.” 

1Cor. 15:51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”

Phl 3:20-21  “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;  who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”

How many times in your life have you heard yourself saying something to the effect…”if I could just have one thing in life, I would like….”  Or maybe it might be “if I could just do one thing in life, I would…”  And this morning, I would ask you to finish the sentence in your own mind.  If you were granted just one wish, if you could name just one thing and it would come to pass,  what would it be?

I heard a man say once “Just do one thing right in your life and you’ll be way ahead of most people.”  Having a singular purpose can be a good thing.  My mother used to say I had a one track mind.  The problem was,  it was going in the wrong direction.  But according to the Apostle Paul, there was one thing that he was focused on above all others.  And he tells us this as an example to all those that have been born again, that there is one thing that should be our driving ambition in life.

Last week, we looked at the preceding verses 8-11, and we looked at one thing I know, this week we’re looking at one thing I do.  The one thing I know is the driving impetus for the one thing I do.   And the one thing I know refers to knowing Jesus Christ in an intimate, personal relationship.  Not just knowing the facts about Him, but having received Him as our Savior, we know Him personally, and that knowledge becomes the catalyst for the rest of my life.

One thing I know refers to the surpassing value of that relationship with Christ.  Compared to all that the world has to offer, nothing compares with knowing Jesus Christ as my Savior.  He is the source of real life, He is the light in the darkness, He is the truth and the only way to the Father.  And we can know the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Creator of the universe personally because He knows us.  He knows our names.  He knows our thoughts.  He knows us to the point of numbering the hairs on our head.  And in spite of all our shortcomings, He loves us to the point of dying for us.

Then in verse 9, one thing I know means that I am found in Him as righteous, not by my works, but by the grace of God which was lavished upon me through faith in Christ.  I hope that is clear to each of you folks here today.  No matter what you have done, no matter how far you have fallen, absolute righteousness can be yours simply through faith in what Christ did for us on the cross.  You don’t have to work for it, you don’t have to clean yourself up first.  You simply come in faith to Jesus as your Savior and ask Him for forgiveness, trusting that He is able to provide it, because He paid the penalty for your sins, and as a result of that faith the Bible promises that God will cleanse you of your sins and credit you with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  He transfers your sins to Jesus, and Jesus righteousness to you.  I hope that you all have made that transaction by faith.

Then in verse 10, one thing I know means that once you have made that transaction by faith – the exchange of my sins for His righteousness – then we will know the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings.  That means that I know that once I was blind but now I see.  Once I was dead in my sins and now I am made alive in Christ.  That’s what it means to know the power of the resurrection.  It’s the power of a new life.   The resurrection symbolizes a new life in Christ, and the fellowship of His sufferings symbolizes taking up our cross and following Christ – dying to the flesh even as Christ suffered and died in the flesh for sin.

And then in vs. 11, one thing I know is the promise of the resurrection from the dead.  The real hope of Christianity is not necessarily a better life now.  That may or may not happen as a result of becoming a Christian, but the real hope is the promise of life beyond the grave.  No matter how great of a life you might think you can have in this world, the truth is by the time you get it together, it’s already coming to an end.  Life is short.  But it was never meant to be this way.  Life the way God created it was eternal.  In the beginning there was no death. God created life.  Sin brought forth death. Rom. 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”  But because God never stopped loving us, He came to earth in the form of a man, as Jesus, and died on the cross as our substitute to pay the penalty for our sin, that we that believe in Him would be saved from death unto life. 

But though we have been given life in the spirit,  this outward body of flesh continues to die. But Rom. 8:10 says that “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.”  One day, unless Christ comes back first, they are going to bury this body in the grave.  But I believe that Jesus taught us in the story of Lazarus and the rich man that though our body is in the grave our spirit will be alive and at rest in Paradise awaiting the resurrection. 

 1 Thessalonians gives us the promise of the resurrection of the dead. 1Thess. 4:13 “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep (asleep means those Christians that have died), 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.”

So that’s what Paul is talking about when he says, this one thing I know.  He knows Christ – all that Christ represents,  the promises of righteousness and resurrection that are true because of Christ.  And then Paul says, knowing all this, this one thing I do.  The knowledge of Christ is so critical, so important, so life changing, that I am willing to focus all my energy, all my passion, all my resources on just one thing.  Now what is it that Paul says is the one thing we are to do, now that we know Christ?

Look at vs. 12, “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” 

What are we to do?  What was Paul doing now that He had this saving knowledge of Christ, this intimate personal, relationship with Jesus, the Son of God?  The answer is that he pressed on.  He says “I press on” twice, in verses 12 and 14.  And though he doesn’t use those exact words, he describes the idea a third time in verse 13 by saying he is  “reaching forward”.  It’s the same idea as pressing on.

Paul is using the image here of a runner that is running a race as a metaphor for the Christian life.  One thing I do, he says, is I’m going to press on in this race.  I’m going to focus all my strength and all my energy on this one thing, running this race.  The one thing that I know from the previous verses is that this salvation that I am called to is of a surpassing value.  Nothing else in the world compares to it.  Nothing in this world can compare to the glories that God has prepared for us in the next world. 

Paul had seen such things, by the way.  In 2 Corinthians 12 he talks about being caught up into the third heaven and seeing things he wasn’t allowed to talk about.  But he did say in 1 Corinthians 2:9 that eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and the heart of man cannot even comprehend the things which God has prepared for them that love Him.  And so Paul knows that there is a prize in this race which is greater than anything this world could possibly offer.  It’s worth all of my focus. It’s worth every sacrifice.  And so that one thing I know becomes my impetus, my zeal, my passion for this one thing I do – pressing on in this race I am running.

Now there are certain elements to this pressing on that bear our consideration.  The first one is found in the phrase in vs. 12, “Not that I have already obtained it…”  what is it referring to?  Well, back up a verse.  It’s obviously referring to the resurrection of the dead.  Now that’s such an obvious answer that at first you  might think that it couldn’t be right.  He must be talking about something else, because obviously if he is alive to write this letter he couldn’t be dead enough to be resurrected.  But what he is alluding to here is explained by the rest of the statement, “or have already become perfect.” 

And that word perfect causes a lot of people even more problems.  Because they think of perfection as somehow we are supposed to  become perfect people, without sin, without problems, everything about us is perfect.  But that isn’t the correct understanding of the word.  The word in the Greek is teleioō (te-lā-o’-ō) which means to complete, to accomplish, finish, to bring to an end.  So what we can understand from that then is that Paul is saying there is still an element to his knowing Christ, to his salvation, that is yet to be accomplished, that hasn’t been completed yet.  And that completion will be accomplished at the resurrection.

That completion which comes through the resurrection is talked about in Romans 8:22.  “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.  And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”

Listen folks, I love this life as much as any of you do.  But I also know that the whole creation, this whole world is under the curse of sin.  Death is a part of this world.  We try to hide from it.  We may try to mask it.  We may even try to glamorize it.  But the sad truth is that this world is corrupted.  People get sick and die.  Things break and grow old.  What joy we have is short lived.  By the time we finally acquire enough money and the right toys and enough wisdom to actually really enjoy life the whole ride is over.  And death swallows up all of our accomplishments.

But knowing Christ gives us hope.  We have the promise of eternal life.  We have the promise that one day God will set all things aright.  God will punish evil and reward good.  God will bring about justice.  And God will do away with death forever. 1Cor. 15:26 says  “The last enemy that will be abolished is death.”

Skip down a few verses after that to 1Cor. 15:51 and it says, “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?”   That is the completion, that is the perfection that Paul is talking about, when we receive our glorified body, when our sin nature is taken away, and we become like Jesus, when we see Him face to face, and when we are seated on thrones with Christ.

This is what we were laid hold of for by Christ Jesus in verse 12.  This is why Jesus came to earth, to give us eternal life, that we might have real, abundant life, everlasting life, a life free from sin and the death that comes from sin.  This is why Jesus laid hold of me and I trust He has laid hold of you.  I love that expression, don’t you?  Laid hold of.  It sounds like the kind of  back woods, southern redneck expression I grew up around in NC.  “Be still boy, or I’m a gonna lay hold of you!”  Sounds like something my dad would have said.  But what I really like about it is Paul says in verse 13 that  “I haven’t laid hold of it yet”, but Christ has laid hold of me.  And that is the sum of my assurance of salvation right there. 

It’s like the illustration I’ve used so many times before.  When my children were little I said to them “Hold onto Daddy’s hand when we cross the road.”  And I wanted them to learn to listen to me and obey me and to trust me.  But their assurance of safety wasn’t dependent upon them holding onto my hand.  Their assurance of safety was in the fact that I was holding onto them.  I had them in my hand.  I laid hold of them.  And Christ has laid  hold of me and He isn’t letting me go.  John 10:28 Jesus said, “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.”  I like that.

Now there is another element of the one thing I do.  And Paul says it’s forgetting what lies behind.  And this is so important folks.   Listen, if you have been born again then God has saved you from your past.  God has delivered you from your past.  You need to get over your past and get on with the future. Churches are full of people who are holding all kinds of grudges, bitterness, baggage and junk from the past and they’re paralyzed by it. The recollection of what you were in your former unconverted state shouldn’t paralyze you and it shouldn’t discourage you. Disappointments and temptations of the past must not depress you. If you’ve fallen or stumbled, you need to get up and brush yourself off and get on with the race. Paul says you shouldn’t be looking backward, but looking forward and pressing onward.

Some of us are guilty of looking backwards at the past like Lot’s wife.  She looked back with longing at the exceedingly sinful city of Sodom and Gomorrah.  And God turned her into a pillar of salt.  Some of you are looking backwards like the Israelites looked back at Egypt after God delivered them from slavery.  You may have once been a slave of alcohol, you may once have been a slave of money, you may once have been a slave of sex or any number of other things that you once were enslaved to.  And you have been looking backwards at some of those things and thinking, “You know, I had a lot of fun back then.  I kind of miss some of my old friends.  I miss some of the old ways.”  The Israelites said, “we miss the leeks and garlic and vegetables that we had in Egypt.”  What fools!  They were willing to swap their future and their freedom for a pot of food.

I pray that none of you are so foolish today that you find yourself looking backwards at what you are supposed to be running away from.  We are in a race folks.  We are running for an inestimable prize.  Don’t be distracted by the baubles, by the pretty lights and dazzling colors of the world.  Keep your eyes fixed on the goal.

1Cor 9:24 says “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”

I like that phrase in vs. 13 back in our text again, where Paul says forgetting those things behind, I’m now reaching forward to what lies ahead.  This word for reaching forward is “ep-ek-tā’-no-mī”.  It means to stretch out towards, or to stretch oneself forward.  Have you ever seen that happen in a race?  I did once.  In high school we had this guy on the track team named Dicky.  He was a pretty normal looking kid.  But he was a good athlete.  But the secret to Dicky’s athleticism wasn’t in his strength or his fitness or even his ability, but in his heart.  He had the ability to be able to call upon some inner reserve and do extraordinary things. 

 I remember one time at a track meet and there was this relay race of  four guys where they handed off the baton to the other guy.  And I remember that they put Dicky as the last guy to get the baton. And right from the beginning, our team wasn’t doing all that well.  I think we were in last place as the race got underway.  Finally, they got to the last leg and our guy handed off the baton to Dicky.  And we all started cheering him on from the stands, chanting his name.  And about halfway into that last lap, suddenly something changed in Dicky.  He seemed to stretch out.  His stride lengthened, and his whole body changed as he put everything he had into that last leg.  It was like he shifted into high gear and just moved out.  And one by one he passed up the other competitors and Dicky came first across the finish line.  He was totally spent.  We were going wild in the stands and Dicky could barely stand up. 

Dicky ran with his heart.  He ran beyond his ability by reaching deep down inside himself and finding some sort of reserve.  Listen folks.  If you know the one thing, that is you know Christ Jesus as your personal Savior, then God promises you that He will provide the power within you to do the one thing He requires of us;  to run the race, to press on.  He will give you that inner resource to stretch forward beyond your normal capacity so that you might reach the goal of the upward call of Christ Jesus.  

Listen to   Hebrews 12:1  “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.”

So the one thing I do is to press on to the goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  I’m going to discard every hindrance, every sin, every weight, every distraction of this world and run with patience the race that is set before me. The race by the way is a marathon, not a sprint.  It takes patience, endurance, steadfastness.  Secondly, the race takes a continued focus. There are a lot of people who are like the guy who jumped on his horse and rode off madly in all directions, expending a lot of energy and a lot of fury and a lot of action,  but making no real  progress.  

They are like some people that I have known and still know in ministry that haven’t grown in the Lord hardly at all in the ten years or so I have known them.  They say they know the one thing that I know, but they haven’t done the one thing that we are called to do.  They haven’t pursued the upward call of Christ.  They are way too concerned with the  cheap pleasures and tawdry promises of this world than they are with the surpassing value of the future that God has prepared for those that love Him. 

So I will leave you this morning with a couple of questions.  Have you been laid hold of yet by Christ?  This is first and foremost the most important question of your life.  Do you know Him with a personal, intimate knowledge?  Can you say with Paul, this one thing I know, I know the power of a new life in Christ.   I know that I have a righteousness which comes from God on the basis of what Christ has done for me. 

And secondly,  if you know Him, then what are you doing?  What are you doing with your life?  This one thing I do.  What are you known for doing?  If you were to die today, what would they say at your funeral was the one thing that characterized your life?  What is the one thing that you do above all others?  I pray that the one thing I do is to run the race that is set before me, not looking behind, or being distracted, but stretching forward, reaching out for the prize and that I will be found being faithful when Jesus comes back and the trumpet sounds and calls me home.  And I pray that I may find that you will be running right along side of me.  Racing for the finish line.  To finish well, to finish strong.  This one thing I do.  This one thing we do.  Let’s run this race together, encouraging one another, helping one another, but most of all, fixing our eyes on the prize of the upward call of Christ.  It could be any day now.  I want to be found running with all my might when that day comes.  Let’s pray.

As we look at this passage today, Paul is giving us a picture of his own personal salvation.  We know the story of his conversion as recorded in Acts, being on the road to Damascus and having the light of the glory of the Lord fall upon him and blinding him, and hearing the voice of Jesus call out, “Paul, Paul, why are you persecuting me?”  And Paul answers, “Who are you?”  And the voice responds, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”  And for Paul in that moment, though he is blind, yet spiritually he now sees.  He believes in Jesus Christ as the Messiah, as the Son of God and is converted.  And yet there is not a lot of information as to the details of that conversion.  So here in Philippians Paul is fleshing his conversion out in a way that can be very instructive for us today. 

The passage can be broken down into a kind of profit and loss statement.  If you own a business, you might be inclined to look at your financial results in terms of a profit and loss statement.  Even if you don’t have  a personal business, you may still find yourself evaluating your progress in some way or another.  What did you accomplish this year?  What did you gain? What did you lose?  Where are you now in regards to where you were a year ago? So how much more important is it for us to consider what we have done from an eternal perspective?  What have we done in our lives that will count as far as God is concerned? I hope that as you consider Paul’s profit and loss statement, it will prompt you to consider your own profit or loss in relation to the kingdom of heaven. 

Jesus asked the question in Matt. 16:24, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” My hope is that after we have finished with this message, you will have determined that which is profitable in the eyes of God and that which is worthless.  And that we will order our lives according to what God tells us is profitable.

So first Paul is going to list 7 things that he once thought was profitable, that he once thought made brownie points with God, but now since his conversion he realizes are worthless, compared to the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ.

Number one, starting in verse 5, his circumcision.  He lists this first undoubtedly because this was the big one for the false teachers.  These Jewish teachers were saying that Gentiles needed to become a circumcised in order to be fully accepted by God.  Faith plus circumcision.  And Paul says, I too was circumcised on the eighth day.  This was the standard for male children born to Hebrew parents.  And as I said last week, it became a standard of Jewish nationality.  You were either of the circumcision or you were an uncircumcised dog, which was a slur for a Gentile.  And circumcision had lost all it’s spiritual significance.  It was a fleshly mark by which they determined acceptance into Jewish society, but it had no real spiritual significance.  It was just a religious ritual, done to Jewish boys even before they had a chance to know what was happening to them, and somehow they thought that this would guarantee them a place in the kingdom of heaven. 

The fact is, some churches are still practicing certain rituals today that actually have little value in regards to salvation, but people are trusting in them to add some sort of credibility or acceptance with God.  Baptism is very often in many denominations added to salvation as a requirement for acceptance with God.  In some cases they even practice infant baptism, the same idea that was happening in Paul’s day with infant circumcision.  The baby has no concept of what is being done, and yet they are teaching that baptism of the infant is a means of placing the child within the sphere of blessing of God.  

Circumcision was supposed to be a symbol of a need for an inward cutting away of sinful flesh. But as a symbol it could never save.  Baptism is supposed to be a symbol of an inward change from death to life, and as a symbol it can never save.  The ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, or Communion, is a symbol, a picture of Christ’s atoning sacrifice for our sins, but it is only a symbol in remembrance of what Christ did.  But if you haven’t personally appropriated by faith what Christ did on the cross for yourself, then just participation in a ritual alone can never save you.  Paul counted his circumcision as a loss.

Secondly, Paul says he is “of the nation of Israel.”  The name Israel, you remember, was the name God changed Jacob’s name to.  He became the father of the 12 tribes of Israel, which became a great nation as God had promised to his grandfather Abraham.  They were called the chosen people, God’s chosen people.  And Israelites trusted in their nationality as a means of belonging to the family of God.

There is some similarity in this claim to what we find happening here in America as well in the 21st century.  We somehow believe that as Americans we have managed to secure a larger portion of God’s grace than the rest of the world.  I am afraid that we have a superior view  of our nationality.  We think as Christians we deserve an American version of the blessings of God.  Our idea of what it means to be an American Christian is to enjoy a five bedroom, 3 bath,  house with a huge garage filled with new cars and all the toys and gadgets that prosperity can provide.  Our view of American Christianity is very different than what Christianity looks like in virtually every other country in the world.  But I can assure you that such a view is seriously flawed and not supported anywhere in the Bible.  Being an American does not assure one of profit in the kingdom of God.

Thirdly, Paul says, “of the tribe of Benjamin.”  And this had many implications.  It was a point of pride that he could even prove his lineage.  Not all Jews could trace back their lineage due to the fact that during the exile they had lost records or intermarried.  And so it was  a big deal in Jewish society to be able to say you were of the tribe of Benjamin.  Benjamin, if you remember, was the favorite son of Jacob, and is home to it’s greatest city,  Jerusalem. 

It’s not hard to make a modern day association with this, is it?  How many times today do we hear that someone “comes from a good family?”  That the person is of the right kind of pedigree?  How many of us have determined our religion by what our kind of religion our parents practiced?  We go to certain churches because our parents went to that church, or our grandparents are buried in the grave yard.  Family lineage, Paul says, goes in the loss column.

Fourthly, Paul says he was a “Hebrew of Hebrews”.  And this is taking the previous claim just a little bit further.  It means his parents were Hebrews and raised him to speak Hebrew and observe the Hebrew customs.  They sent him to the best Hebrew schools; he was trained by Gamaliel, one of the most revered teachers of the law. Today, someone might be born of devout Christian parents, gone to private schools, graduated from Ivy League universities with advanced degrees.  But it’s counted as loss.

Fifthly, Paul says, “as to law, a Pharisee.”  This referred to a sect of Jews that adhered to the letter of the law in an ultra strict way.  Jesus said of the Pharisees that they even  tithed of the mint, dill and cumin in their herb garden.  They measured and weighed everything to the nth degree in an effort to keep the letter of the law.  They were the religious leaders of Judaism.

In my own experience of growing up in the church, I knew of people like this.  They took what were already strict standards of dress and decorum and made them even stricter, in an effort to be exceedingly righteous. Perhaps in our culture today, we may know many people who we may describe as good people, they are involved in many worthwhile charities and endeavors.  Sometimes to the point of making Christians embarrassed we don’t do nearly enough.  And yet Paul says this too was merely rubbish.

A man once remarked to R.A. Torrey following a message about the need to be born again, “I know some people who make no pretense of being a Christian but live fine, upright lives, they are kind and generous.  But I also know people who say they are Christians and yet live less exemplary lives.”  And Dr. Torrey replied, “It’s a matter of what state they are in.”  And he drew a square on the dust of the floor and said, “the rectangle represents the state of unregeneracy. Let’s say it’s the state of Colorado.  And one many might live high on the top of a mountain and another might live at sea level, and another man might be working down at the bottom  of a mine.  But all three men are in the state of unregeneracy.   One person might live on the mountains of morality, one might live an ordinary life, and another might live in the pit of debauchery, but all are in an unregenerate state.  We are all born in that state. 

Dr. Torrey traced another rectangle and continued. “This is the state of regeneracy.  The only way out of the state of unregeneracy into the state of regeneracy is by being born again.  In the state of regeneracy one might live on the high mountain of spirituality, another might live a very average Christian life, and another might be backslidden and living a very carnal life.  But all are living in the state of regeneracy.  Outwardly, it may look like the man in the regenerate state but carnal condition might be compared unfavorably with the moral man living on the mountain in the unregenerate state,  but the fact is that one is unregenerate, and one is not.  The man living in the unregenerate state is devoid of spiritual life, no matter how moral he is.  The backslider is living in a state of spiritual life, though for the time being it is not evident. It all depends upon which state you are in.  The only way to pass from one state to another is by the gift of righteousness which comes only through Christ.”

Next, Paul says, “as to zeal, a persecutor of the church.”  Before his conversion, Paul had been locking up and persecuting Christians even unto death.  Now that was zeal.  He took his religion so seriously that he was willing to kill for it.   And the modern equivalent of that is sincerity.  How many times have we heard that you can believe whatever you want as long as you’re sincere, God will honor that.   You can be sincere, but sincerely wrong.  You can be zealous in your religion, but be completely in error.  Your works are not a measure of your salvation.  In fact, I am often surprised to see how zealous those people are who are in a false religion, or a cult. They have a lot of zeal, often much more than we have.  But zeal alone is a loss.

And finally, Paul says, “as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.” Jesus said of the Pharisees that they kept the law to be seen of men.  They wanted to be praised for their works, that was the motivation behind doing them.  And isn’t that the case more often than not in the church today?  It’s like the way I clean house.  I don’t really clean house very often.  My wife works to keep the house clean and the beds made and the dishes washed.  But I have learned that if I am going to bend over and pick something up off the floor, it doesn’t really count unless she sees me do it.  So I make sure that I don’t pick anything up unless she is there to witness it.  Otherwise, it’s as if I didn’t actually do it.  And I’m afraid that we approach our Christianity that way too.  We want to be seen of men. We want to be sure to keep up appearances, and so we structure our lives to be seen by men.  The outside of the cup is shiny, but inwardly it is full of vileness.

So those are the seven things Paul says he once thought had value but now realizes are worthless.  Look at vs. 7  “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  8) 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.”  

This is the answer for the question Jesus asked in Matthew 16:24 we looked at earlier, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”  And the answer Paul is giving us is that he gave everything that he once considered gain, he gave it up as loss for the sake of knowing Christ as His Savior.  The answer to what shall a man give in exchange for his soul – is everything.  Everything.  

Jesus gave a parable which was an illustration of salvation, in which He talked about a man who found a pearl of great price and went and sold everything to buy that pearl.  Jesus told the rich young ruler who had kept the law and thought he had done everything to be accepted into heaven, Jesus told him to go sell everything he had and give it to the poor and come an follow Me.  Giving all you have cannot buy your salvation, only the blood of Jesus can purchase your salvation.  But relinquishing all that you hold onto as a means of salvation is the point of this message.  All the things you think have bought you favor with God are to be considered loss in light of the immeasurable treasure of knowing Christ unto salvation.

Quickly, let’s look at five things that you gain when you come to Christ, when you jettison all the other filthy rags of self righteousness and accept the gift of salvation. You gain these five: knowledge, righteousness, power, fellowship, and glory. Starting in verse 9, “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.”

Number one, salvation begins with the knowledge of Jesus Christ. That’s the first thing he gained, he gained the knowledge of Jesus Christ.  This kind of knowledge is the knowledge gained through intimacy of a relationship. It’s not just knowing the facts about  a person, but knowing that person intimately.  Having a relationship.  To be found in Him and He in Me.  To have the communion of the Holy Spirit living inside me, knowing my thoughts, having his laws written upon my heart.  To know Him is a spiritual new birth whereby God lives in me and gives me spiritual life, opening my heart and eyes that I may know Him.

Number 2, salvation gains the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  “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.”  Romans tells us that Abraham believed God and God counted it to him as righteousness.  Righteousness is not something I do, but something God gives me as a result of my faith in Christ.  2 Cor. 5:21 “God made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

Thirdly, salvation provides the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The power of a new life which triumphs over my dead flesh.  Like Paul on the road to Damascus, once I was blind, but now I see.  The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.  Because Jesus died and rose again, I too live again spiritually.  I was dead in my trespasses and sins.  But by the cross of Christ I have been made alive with Christ.  Though my body is still dead in the flesh, I have been made alive in the spirit and by the Spirit of God in me I am able to live the life that God requires of me.

Fourth, salvation also brought him fellowship with Jesus Christ. Vs. 10 “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”  This fellowship can also be interpreted communion, Christ living in me.  God’s purpose for us is that we might be conformed to the image of Christ. Rom 8:29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. “   And in order for us to really be conformed to the image of Christ, we need to die in our flesh, so that we might live in the Spirit.  We need to suffer the loss of our fleshly desires, passions and will.  To crucify the flesh is what it means to have the fellowship of His sufferings.  Rom 8:17 says, “and if [we are] children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

 And that brings us to the fifth point, if we suffer with Him, we will also be glorified with Him. So  salvation results in our glorification with Christ.  Vs. 11, “in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” 

The Bible speaks of Jesus as the first fruits of the resurrection, taken up into glory.  1Cor. 15:20 “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. 1Cor. 15:23 “But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming, then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power.” 1Cor. 15:41 “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” 1Cor. 15:54 “But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?”

The resurrection of Christ resulted in the glory of Christ. The glory that he had with the Father before the world began.  And we will share in that glory with him in that we are the bride of Christ which he purchased from the fallen world by his own blood.  This is the promise of glory by which all the things of this world that we once considered as profitable, we now count but loss for the sake of knowing Jesus Christ as Lord, for the sake of sharing with Him in all that the Father has planned for those that love Him. 

I trust that you have done a spiritual inventory today.  I hope you have looked carefully at what you are counting on as profit in regards to the kingdom of heaven.  Perhaps you realize that you have been counting on the wrong things.  I pray that you will today count those things as loss for the sake of knowing Christ, and that in knowing Christ and having faith in Him, God credits you with the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that you may attain to the resurrection from the dead into the glory that God has prepared for those that love Him.  It can be yours if you’re willing to give up all that you hold dear, for the sake of knowing Jesus.  Let’s pray.

In the previous chapter, Paul has been talking about the Christian life in terms of service and sacrifice.  And he gave us several examples of how we are to do that, starting with following in the footsteps of Christ, and then following the examples of Paul, Timothy and Epaphroditus. 

But there is an important point in our service and sacrifice that needs to be clarified, and  that is what Paul is emphasizing today.  And the point is that there is a real Christianity which is marked by righteousness accomplished by the Spirit working  through my flesh, and there is a false Christianity which is marked by my attempting to attain righteousness through works of the flesh.  And this is a very important distinction.  Because one is the result of a true salvation based on faith and the other results in a false salvation based on works.

Now this distinction is extremely important.  We need to be discerning in regards to the truth of the gospel and guard against deviations from the truth which can result in the shipwreck of your faith.  It’s important to know sound doctrine, and furthermore to be able to discern between truth and error. 

The proper Christian walk must be guided by what the Word of God actually says, as opposed to a knee jerk reaction that is based on sentimentality or emotion. So Paul is going to balance this out for us as he goes through this text and we are going to look specifically at the first three verses today.  He starts by saying “finally”, which is a preacher term that means getting a second wind.  It doesn’t really have anything to do with the amount of time it will take to finish.  In this case, it means Paul is only half way done.  So finally, in my case, I’m ready to leave my introduction and start the exegesis of the first verse.

Paul says in verse one, “finally then brethren, rejoice in the Lord.”  And by now we should know that rejoice or joy is a key word in this book.  Paul uses it over and over again.  And what it means, by way of a reminder, is that we find our joy in the Lord.  Not in circumstances which may change from day to day.  We don’t find joy in some fleeting happiness due to external situations that we find ourselves in.  But our joy is in the constancy of our relationship with the Lord.  He never changes.  His promises are everlasting.  Our joy is found in the hope of His appearing.

 But I don’t want to just string a lot of platitudes together in a row and hope it sounds spiritual.  I want you to understand the faith that finds joy in the Lord whether in pain or sorrow, sickness or health, fortune or poverty.  That can only be found in keeping your focus on Jesus Christ.  That can only be found when I am surrendered to Him completely.  And that can only be experienced when I have completely given Him my heart to do with what He wills.  When my life is committed to live for Him and for His purposes.  A joy like Paul and Silas had when they were flogged and thrown in prison and they sang hymns all night.  A joy like Peter and the disciples had when they were flogged for preaching about Jesus and they rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer for Him.  That kind of joy.

Paul continues in vs 1;  “To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.”  Paul had either written them before or more than likely, some of his earlier letters to other churches had circulated through the church at Philippi as well.  But the point that Paul is making is that repetition is an aid to learning.  I sometimes am accused of repeating things from week to week.  I suppose that comes with getting old.  But part of that comes from the fact that the same doctrines and principles are repeated over and over again in the Bible.  And so if you’re preaching book by book, you’re going to be repeating some of the same principles in each book.  Paul is alluding to that here. 

 And secondly, repetition is a great aid to learning.  This is how you memorize songs, or verses or your multiplication tables for that matter.  This is one of the benefits of good hymns by the way.  Through repetition you can learn doctrine.  And so repetition is a safeguard for us.  It’s like first responders practicing a rescue maneuver over and over again so that when they are actually in a dangerous situation they know exactly what to do.  So Paul is saying “I don’t mind repeating these things because it will result in your confirmation.”

So much effort is being spent today in churches trying to find some new way of presenting the gospel.  But the true ministry of the gospel is not born out of novelty, but out of repetition.  Newness is something that the Holy Spirit brings to light through passages and pathways worn out with familiarity.   Each time you read some of these well worn passages, God can bring out something new and exciting and revelatory. 

And then starting in Vs. 2 Paul is going to compare and contrast true Christianity with false Christianity.  He says,  “Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision;   3  “for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh…”

First, he describes the character of the false teachers of false Christianity.  He says they are dogs.  Today in our culture, dogs are thought of as slightly superior to people.  We love our dogs.  I’ve even seen a prayer which says, “Lord help me to be the kind of man my dog thinks I am.”  But in Paul’s day, dogs were not viewed with the same kind of sentiment.  Dogs were not pets, they were vicious, unclean, snarling, barking feral animals that roomed the streets in packs.  Interestingly, the Jews of that day called anyone that wasn’t a Jew a dog.  It was a term of disdain, a slur on one’s character.   And this is what Paul is getting to here.  These false teachers were Judaisers.  They were people that were trying to lay Jewish ceremonial laws upon the backs of these people in Philippi, claiming that in order to really be of the real family of God, you must include rituals like circumcision.  And Paul turns the tables on these people who called the uncircumcised Gentiles dogs, and instead he calls them dogs.  He sees their character as unclean, vicious, snarling, barking dogs that bring unnecessary worry and distractions upon the church.

I’ve always had a fear of dogs which I think was brought on by being bitten by a German Shepherd when I was about 3 years old and having to go to the hospital.  But when I was a young boy I had a paper route that seemed to have a vicious dog on every street.  My brother also had a paper route.  But he never seemed to finish his route.  Dad would come looking for him before dark and he would be playing football with some kids and his bike would be laying there with all his papers.  I tried to be conscientious and do my work, and for my labors my dad made me take over my brother’s route as well.  So I had two paper routes.  

Anyhow, these routes were full of dogs that just ran loose back then.  There were some houses that I was scared to death to deliver the paper to.  I would try to creep down the street as quietly as I could until I got a house or two away, then I’d get my paper ready and start peddling as fast as I could and throw the paper.  I didn’t care if it landed in the street, my focus was on getting past that house as quickly as I could.  And sure enough, that dog would hear my bike clanking down the street, baskets shaking and chain rattling and he would come out like a bear after her cubs.  It was a scary thing. I was so afraid of those dogs that I would never collect money from those houses.  I had to deliver the paper cause they would call the office and complain, but every week or so we were supposed to go from house to house and collect 25 cents.  And I wouldn’t go to those houses because their dogs would come out and try to bite me. 

That’s maybe the gist of what these dogs Paul was describing were doing to the church at Philippi.  They had them so worried and confused.  And what Paul was afraid of  was that they would end up depriving the church of the joy and peace that should have been theirs. So dogs describes the character of false teachers that worry and cause the believer undue alarm.

Secondly, Paul describes the conduct of the false teachers.  He calls them evil workers.  The word for evil can also be interpreted as depraved.  It’s referring to the inward motives of these false teachers.  Not only were they men of bad character, but they were men of bad desires that was worked out in their actions.  Their words promised peace but inwardly Jesus said in Matthew 7 they were ravenous wolves.  In  Matthew 23:28 Jesus said to the false teachers “So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

Thirdly Paul describes the claims of the false teachers.  “Beware of the false circumcision.”  And the word used for false circumcision is “karatome”.  It literally means mutilation.  It was used in the OT to describe the prophets of Baal as they whirled and danced and slashed themselves with knives hoping to appease their gods and goad them to action.  So Paul is saying here that these Judaisers, these false teachers who are trying to add that in order to be saved you needed to be circumcised and keep the ceremonial laws of Moses, Paul is calling these guys mutilators. 

See, Jewish people distinguished themselves as a nation by the fact that they were circumcised.  The actually referred to themselves as being “of the circumcision,”  meaning they were Jewish.  They called Gentiles the “Uncircumcised”.  For them, circumcision had lost it’s spiritual significance, and become a cultural, nationalistic significance.  They believed that it was a means of grace.  A means of securing God’s blessing.  And they failed to understand that like all the ceremonial laws, it was merely intended to be symbolic, an outward sign of what had happened inwardly.  So Paul uses a play upon words and calls these false prophets the mutilators rather than the circumcision. 

And this is still going on today in our modern churches. There are rituals and ceremonies that certain false teachers are trying to lay on people by saying that to be full citizens in the kingdom of God, as a condition to full righteousness, then one must  add certain rituals and ceremonies and laws.  And perhaps they don’t call it circumcision, but they may call it baptism, or they say you have to take the sacraments, or you have to keep certain dietary laws, or keep the Sabbath, or keep certain feast days or holy days.  And to the degree that any of those things are a means of obtaining right standing or righteousness before God, they are in fact nothing less than this false circumcision that Paul is talking about here.  They teach a dependence upon a ritual for salvation and consequently Paul says they have fallen from grace. Paul said in Gal 5:4 that if you had circumcision as a requirement for salvation then “You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.”  He says, “Christ is no longer any benefit to you.” 

It’s like the guy trying to swim across the Atlantic.  And a boat comes by and offers him a ride.  Nope, he says, I think I can make it, thank you very much.  He may have all the best intentions in the world.  He may even be a good swimmer.  But there is no way he’s going to swim the Atlantic.  And as the boat, his salvation, sails away, that offer of salvation is no longer any benefit to him.  It’s no benefit to him because he is not in the boat which was his salvation.  He has chosen to try to make it in his own power. So it is with salvation.  It’s either by faith in Jesus Christ by which we receive His righteousness as a gift of God, or it’s by our own efforts at righteousness, by which no one the Bible says will see God. Rom 11:6 “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.”

Now let’s look at what Paul says the true Christian life looks like.  Vs. 3. “for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.”  First of all, we need to know what circumcision is, or what it was supposed to be.  It was an OT law given to Abraham and for his children, which preceded the law given to Moses at Mt. Sinai, and therefore was considered by Jews to be of greater importance than any of the other laws.  At 8 days old, a baby boy was to be circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.  And though it is believed that it has some physical benefits in terms of hygiene, the main purpose that God imposed this ordinance was to be a symbol of salvation.  The act itself had little benefit.  It wasn’t exactly something that could be seen by the average person, so it obviously was not meant to be some outward manifestation of righteousness.  But it was an individual symbol of obedience to God, separation unto God, cleanliness and purity unto God, but most importantly  a reminder that there needed to be a cutting away of the flesh, so that we would be able to produce spiritual fruit for God.  It was a physical reminder that in the flesh, in our own efforts we could not produce true fruit for God.  It was also a reminder that this reproductive member of our bodies would always produce in it’s natural state, another sinful seed, just as from Adam’s seed,  so the sin nature was passed on to every man that has been born.   So circumcision pictured the spiritual cutting away of the flesh, that enables the work of the Spirit.  Circumcision is the symbol of salvation, the cutting away of the flesh, so that we might walk in the Spirit.

So Paul says we, the New Testament believer, primarily Gentiles,  are the true circumcision.  The true Christian is one who has been circumcised in their heart. Col 2:11 says, “ in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;”  Rom 2:29 says,  “But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.”

In the new covenant, the ceremonial laws were set aside. What had been pictured in the ceremonies and rituals of the law had now been replaced with the actual.  Jesus had come in the flesh and fulfilled all the prophetic pictures in the law.  We no longer needed to ascribe to these veiled images that we performed in rituals and ceremonies.  At the cross, the veil of the temple was torn into from top to bottom. 

Hebrews 8 tells us that there were priests in the old covenant  “who offered the gifts according to the Law; who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things,” but “if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.” However,  “THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.” 

So what Paul is saying here is the exact same thing.  The circumcision of the old covenant has been replaced by a circumcision of the heart in the new covenant which marks the true child of God.    So firstly then, a true Christian has been circumcised in their hearts, the cutting away of the sinful flesh by the work of the Holy Spirit, as we yield our hearts by faith to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

And then secondly, notice that the true Christian is marked by true worship. Vs.3 “for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.”  Worship is such a misused, misunderstood term today in the church.  I hear pastors and music leaders refer to “leading worship” as a time of singing songs or listening to the singing of songs.  I can assure you, that is not what worship is talking about. 

Notice that it says, “who worship in the Spirit of God”.  And in some religious circles that gives license to all sorts of crazy, weird stuff that is believed to be of the Spirit simply because it’s crazy and weird.  But 1John 4:1 says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

So first, let’s define our terms.  Here is the Greek concordance definition of worship. 

Worship; latreuō: 1) to serve for hire.  2) to serve, minister to, either to the gods or men and used alike of slaves and freemen.  a) in the NT, to render religious service.

b) to perform sacred services, to offer gifts, to worship God in the observance of the rites instituted for his worship.  c) of priests, to officiate, to discharge the sacred office. 

Obviously, this is a term used to describe the duties of a priest of God.  To minister to God by rendering service.  Now, you could make the point that praising God in song may be a part of that, and I would not argue with that.  However, I would qualify that point with the verse found in Matt. 15:8   ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.  BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.'”

Once again, we see this constant emphasis on the heart, the soul of man, the seat of the mind and emotions which must be changed, circumcised by the Holy Spirit in order to produce fruit for God.  People often wonder what it means to be in the Spirit, or to walk in the Spirit, and the best way I have been able to describe it is that it is the result of crucifying the flesh.  When the flesh is cut off, when the flesh is crucified, when the flesh is put to death every day, then the Spirit can work through my dead flesh to perform services to God.  It doesn’t mean that somehow I don’t struggle against sin.  It doesn’t mean that  a spiritual life does not take any effort or discipline on my part, it doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit is somehow going to overwhelm me and I just need to put it in neutral and let the Holy Spirit move me like I’m some sort of robot or puppet. 

No, it means that when I submitted my life to Christ as Lord, the Holy Spirit changed my desires.  He has written God’s laws upon my heart.  I now want to do the things of God, to be pleasing to God. Ephesians 6 tells us that the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God.  And Hebrews 4:12 says that “the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  So the Spirit, working through the Word of God cuts away the flesh that we might walk in the Spirit.  To walk in the Spirit requires a sacrifice, a crucifixion of my flesh. This is what Romans 12:1 is talking about when it says, “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.” 

See, we’ve been saved to become instruments of God, ministers of God, priests of God, that render true worship to God.  You were bought and paid for, you were ransomed from sin to become priests of the Most High God. Do you not realize that you are a priest of God?  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.”

1Pet 2:5 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.”  What sacrifices is Peter talking about?  What kind of services are we supposed to be rendering to God? 1Pet 2:9  “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

We are to be a light unto the world that is in darkness.  Our behavior is supposed to be exemplary. Remember Phil. 2:15?  We are to “prove ourselves 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.”   We are to let no unwholesome word come out of our mouth.  We are to be witnesses of the gospel of salvation.  We are to be about the ministry of the kingdom of heaven, and not enslaved by the kingdom of this world. We are to pray lifting up unsoiled hands, living holy, exemplary lives in our communities, to our neighbors, to our fellow workers, under the authority of our leaders.  This is our ministry.  That’s  the short list of our priestly service.

Finally, there is that word again finally… finally, vs. 3 sums it up with the two simple phrases which characterize the true Christian  “who… glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.”  A true Christian glories in Christ Jesus not in his flesh.  See the false teachers glory in the flesh.  Their spirituality is nothing but a mask of pride in their flesh.  But the true Christian puts no trust in the flesh.  He sees the flesh for what it is, a sinful heart which needs to be cut away by the power of the Holy Spirit, which results in a transformation of our heart.  The unconverted heart of flesh has desires which are sinful, depraved, debased, lustful, prideful, constantly sinning, and which sooner or later are displayed in the body.  Whereas the transformed heart has desires which have been changed by the Holy Spirit because He has written the laws of God upon their hearts, and they result in works of righteousness, service to God, obedience to God, and true worship of God as priests as they continue to crucify the flesh and live in the Spirit.

Folks, until you have had a circumcision of the heart, you cannot please God.  You cannot serve God.  All your righteousness is nothing but filthy rags.  But the heart that submits fully to God in repentance, God will not turn away.  He will come in, and cleanse our hearts, and change our desires.  I hope that you have had that change.  A circumcision made not with hands.  A work not of the flesh, but of the Spirit.  Let’s pray.

We come upon this passage after being introduced by Paul to the principle in verse 5  that we are to have the same attitude, the same mind as Jesus Christ.  That although Jesus is our sacrifice and our substitute, and only He could atone for the sins of the world, yet at the same time, Christ is also supposed to be our example, our pattern for how we are to live.  As Christ humbled himself to be obedient to the Father’s will – so are we to be obedient to God’s will.  As Christ laid down His life on the cross – so should we crucify the lusts of the flesh.  As Christ served the church – so should we serve the kingdom of God.  If we are to one day be glorified with Christ and reign with Him, then the Word tells us that we must also suffer with Him. Rom 8:17 “and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

But there is a possibility that because Jesus was the Son of God, we might think ourselves excused of really trying too awfully hard to follow Christ’s example.  After all, we might say, “I’m just human.”  Christ was Divine. Since I don’t know what He knew, and I can’t do what He did,  we might feel justified to let Christ do all the sacrificing and serving, and we’ll just settle down comfortably on the couch and let Him do all the work while we watch TV. 

But the Lord wants us to follow Him. He wants us to mature spiritually.  He wants us to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.  So in addition to the example of Christ Paul gives us three earthly examples of humility and servitude and sacrifice.  Examples of men just like us that lived like Jesus lived.  Of men that were purely human.  So number one, Paul gives us himself as an example of sacrifice.  Number two, He gives Timothy as an example of a servant, and number three he gives Epaphroditus as an example of a soldier.  And so we’re going to look briefly at the characteristics of these three men as their lives correspond to the example of Christ.

First of all, Paul presents himself as an example of a sacrifice.  Vs. 17 tells us “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.”  The drink offering that he is speaking of there is the wine that was brought with the burnt sacrifice in the Old Testament.  When they offered a burnt lamb for their sins, there was also the requirement that a certain measure of wine would be added to the sacrifice as well.  It was the crowning finish to their sacrifice.  God spoke of it in Numbers 15 as a sweet smelling aroma.   So Paul sees himself as something added to the main course, which is their sacrifice and service.  He was humble enough to recognize that he wasn’t the main thing, he was merely an instrument in accomplishing the finishing of their sacrifice of faith, being the aroma that is quickly burned up to bring them to perfection.

Paul speaks of this sacrifice in 2Cor. 2:14 “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.  For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing;  to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.” 

So the purpose of Paul’s sacrifice is to enhance and finish the service and sacrifice of the church at Philippi.  And he not only is modeling it, he is calling them to it as well.  He is saying that the sacrifice he is making is his joy, and he is rejoicing in being found worthy to be offered in sacrifice.  He sees this sacrifice as an opportunity to better serve Christ and not a burden, and so he rejoices. Back in chapter 1:29 he spoke of this –  “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.”

We see a similar example of that rejoicing in trials in Peter and the apostles who were flogged and released with orders not to preach Jesus Christ in Act 5:41  “So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name.”

So Paul also tells the Philippians in vs. 18; “You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.”  Paul considered it a joy to be called upon by God to render service as a sacrifice, and he is telling the church at Philippi, that great joy comes through great sacrifice. In fact, the greater the sacrifice, the greater the joy. 

What a contrast to the popular message of the church today.  In modern Christianity there is very little mention of sacrifice.  Instead, the gospel is presented as a means of gain, usually financial gain.  “Come to Jesus and live your best life now.” That’s the popular message today.  And if you preach that message, you can fill a football stadium with people who want to have their ears tickled.  But try preaching Romans 12:1,2, “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service,” and you will empty out the church.  And if any one is left, add the next verse;  “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.”  

Folks, to be a disciple of Christ you are going to have to sacrifice some things, but Paul says thats where you find true joy.  The world tells us that joy is found in obtaining possessions.  Whoever dies with the most toys win.  But simply watch your children or grandchildren just a few hours after opening all their toys on Christmas morning and it doesn’t take much deductive powers to recognize that obtaining things of this world doesn’t bring joy.  Real joy, Paul says, comes from sacrificial living in Christ.

Secondly, starting in vs. 19 Timothy is presented as an example of a servant.  Timothy’s whole life had been spent in service to the gospel.  His mother and grandmother had raised him and taught him the Word of God since he was a small child.  And at some point at a young age, Paul leads him to the Lord, and he begins to follow Paul and serve in ministry with Paul.   Note vs.22  “But you know of his proven worth, that he served with me in the furtherance of the gospel like a child serving his father.”  And I believe the emphasis there is on serving.  Serving Paul.  Serving the churches.  Serving the gospel.  This was a young man whose entire life was dedicated to the service of the gospel.  And notice the word “proven”.  That ties in with the verse I read from Romans 12, “that you may prove what the will of God is.”  Proven means to have gone through testing and come out the other side still believing, still faithful, still standing.  Timothy proved his faith by service to God.

As far as we know, Timothy did not have a wife, did not have children of his own, did not own  a home, did not have a career.  He left his home, his mother and grandmother at an early age and went on the road with Paul, serving Paul, learning from Paul, sharing in almost all of Paul’s trials and tribulations from Athens, to Corinth, to Thessalonica to even Rome.  He had proven himself faithful.

He shared with the Apostle in all of his trials, and all of his triumphs.  Look at vs. 20: “For I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare.”  I remember when my kids were in college, there was a weekend that was designated as parent’s weekend.  And I really felt it was important for us to go see them and support them physically and emotionally.  There is only so much you can do by phone.  I think they were missing home a little by then, school was starting to feel a lot like work, and I felt  it was important for us to reaffirm their commitment by our being there. 

But there were a couple of problems with that.  One, their school was in California, and secondly, there was the matter of my ministry here.  I really haven’t been able to take a Sunday off in 20 years and so I knew that I couldn’t go.  But the next best thing to me going would be if my wife could be there.  And I thought then of this verse in this passage where Paul says, “No one else has a kindred spirit.”  No one else is going to have the same degree of concern for my kids welfare like my wife.  After all, they are her kids too.  And so no one else could possibly feel the same way about my kids and look after my interests than my wife.  I knew she was the next best thing to being there myself.

And perhaps that’s as good an illustration as any of how Paul saw Timothy.  Timothy was as close as a son to him.  And we need to realize that this illustration is an example to us of what Paul is saying should be the attitude of the church.  We should be so unified in our purpose that we have the same love, the same kind of spirit, the same purpose.  We have to lose this type of mentality which sees a separation between clergy and laity.  The Bible doesn’t make that distinction.  There may be different functions, different roles, but there is one body and one purpose.  My hope is that as you spend time in the Word with me, spend time in this church with me, that you will adopt the same love for this church as I have.  And that you will commit yourself fully to serve the church.

Unfortunately though, the modern church has a misconception that the church body exists only to be served by the clergy, instead of being taught that their purpose is also to serve one another as the Bible teaches.  Congregations in many modern churches today are practically anonymous, walking into a darkened auditorium, watching an entertainment driven spectacle on stage, and walking back out again blinking at the sunlight in a confused daze, wondering what it all really has to do with me.

Which leads the average churchgoer to think that Christianity doesn’t really have much application to real life.  It’s presented as some sort of experience where once a week or so you clock in: you go to church, have some sort of emotional driven experience which they call spiritual, and then clock out and go back into the real world.  And that compartmentalizing of what is thought to be spiritual leads to living out our lives in a fleshly, selfish existence. 

I was struck by the phrase, “I have no one of kindred spirit”.  Sometimes it’s easy to get discouraged in ministry when I look around at the lack of commitment, and also at the lack of men and women that are still pressing on for the Lord after being in church for years.  It’s easy to let that get you discouraged.  But in a backhanded kind of way, this statement by Paul is an encouragement to me.  I’m not even 1/10th the man of God that Paul was.  And yet at this time in his life he has very little people around him that are still standing strong.  In 2 Timothy he says, “for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.”  Titus we know was a pastor.  But it seems that Paul is saying here that the lure of this world is so strong, and many people who start out on the journey don’t stay on the path.  They fall away.  And I guess the encouragement for me is that if Paul experienced this, then it should not be thought uncommon if I experience this too.  So instead I thank God for the people that are still standing firm as we continue to preach the Word, in season and out of season, going on our 20th year now.

Far too often the state of the modern church goer  can be summarized in vs. 21: “For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.”  At best, Jesus is some sort of addendum that serves to help us achieve our earthly goals.  But that theology is in direct contradiction to the Biblical view that our earthly goals should be subjected to the service of Christ Jesus.  A servant is concerned first and foremost with his Master’s concerns, rather than his own.

And then the third example Paul presents is that of Epaphroditus as a soldier.  If the examples of Paul and Timothy seem unattainable because we think they are something of giants in the faith, then Paul gives us another example who is simply an average guy in the church. A man virtually unknown in history other than in these few verses.  And because of that he is really our best example.

So Paul describes Epaphroditus as a soldier, but he also calls him a brother, and a fellow worker, and a messenger and a minister.  Additionally, I think you can easily make the case for Epaphroditus also as an example of a servant as was Timothy, and a sacrifice as was Paul.  But I have chosen soldier as the best description of Epaphroditus because I think the position of a soldier encompasses all of these things.

A soldier is commonly referred to as being in the service.  They are someone who has left the comforts of civilian life to live a life dedicated in service to their country. They are trained and conditioned to perform their duty, even to the point of risking their life.  So I feel like a soldier encompasses so many of the characteristics that Paul wants to model for us.

Not a lot is known about Epaphroditus.  He is mentioned again in chapter 4:18 and it is clear from that verse that Epaphroditus was sent by the church at Philippi to minister to Paul by the means of delivering a monetary gift for his support.  But vs. 30 of chapter 2 gives us a little more insight into what this mission cost him.  It says that he risked his life to complete what was lacking in the church’s service to Paul.  What that means is that the gift that had been taken up by the church for Paul for his financial support could not exactly be sent by registered mail, or by Fed X, and so somebody had to be willing to travel from Philippi to Rome to take this money to Paul. By foot, that would have been an 800 mile journey that would have taken two months. That’s just going one way.  To return would take another two months.

So they had chosen this man Epaphroditus as someone who was willing and able to make the sacrifice and undergo the rigors of travel, and willing to leave his home and friends and family for the sake of the gospel.  I think the scripture is telling us that he went on this trip at some great risk to his own life.  Travel in those days wasn’t easy.  It was a long, dangerous trip.  He was carrying a good deal of money, and it would not be inconceivable that there would have been people who were willing to murder him to get their hands on that money.  And so he risked his life, perhaps traveling alone for a great distance, to faithfully bring this money to Paul. 

I think the thing that makes Epaphroditus such a great example for us is his ordinariness.  He wasn’t a pastor.  He wasn’t an apostle.  We never hear of him again.  And yet God used him in a great way and his name is preserved forever in heaven because of his service to Christ, to his apostle and to his church.  So Paul calls him a fellow soldier.  Perhaps he had actually been a soldier.  We don’t know, but we do know that he was something of a risk taker. 

In fact, vs. 30 uses a term for the phrase “risking his life” which was “paraboleuomai”, which during the days after the formation of the early church was the basis for a group who called themselves “The Paraboleuomai” which meant the Gamblers. They took as their hero Epaphroditus who gambled with his life. And it was their aim and their mission to visit the prisoners, to visit the sick, especially those with infectious, dangerous, communicable diseases. It was their mission to unhesitatingly, unflinchingly and boldly proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ in every environment without any hesitation.

Epaphroditus was a name that among Greeks was connected with the goddess Aphrodite,  and they called upon her for luck when playing dice games or gambling games by using the name Epaphrodite.  And so Paul is using a play on words here, saying Epaphroditus gambled his very life in service to Christ.  

Now whether or not Epaphroditus was somehow injured in this journey and his wound became infected and he almost died, or whether or not he put himself at risk in some other way to bring the gospel to people, we don’t know for sure.  But we do know that Paul tells us that he got very sick, unto the point of death.  Vs. 27 tells us that “For indeed he was sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow.” 

And notice, by the way, that there is no mention of Paul healing this soldier of Christ.  By this time, this is nearing the end of the Apostolic period, a time when the Apostles had been given certain miraculous abilities for the confirmation of their gospel. 2Cor. 12:12 tells us that “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.”  They were a miraculous attestation from God that He was speaking His gospel through these specific men.  But now it’s near the end of the Apostolic period and you begin to see these powers begin to wane.  Paul tells Timothy in another passage that he should drink a little wine for medicinal purposes because Timothy had stomach problems.  He didn’t send Timothy a special handkerchief that he had prayed over and told him to put it on his stomach.  Instead, he tells him to drink some medicine.  And in this case of Epaphroditus, we understand that God spared this man and he recovered from his sickness.  Paul seemed to have nothing to do with it.

But the thing we should take away from the illustration of Epaphroditus is this example of a soldier.   A soldier who was willing to give his life in service to his King, for the sake of the Apostle Paul and Timothy, his ministers, and for the sake of his church at Philippi.  Now that he is well, Paul says in vs. 25, I am planning on sending him back to you.  And Paul is obviously sending him back with this very letter, this Epistle to the Philippians.  First, Epaphroditus risked his life bringing this gift to Paul, he is injured and becomes so sick he almost dies, and now he is headed back home again, willing to put his life at risk once more for the sake of bringing the Word of God to his church.  This trip was about 800 miles one way, and would have taken about two months to complete, including travelling part of the way on ship which could only be done in certain weather.  And so it was no easy task, and it was no small sacrifice.

John McArthur said and I quote, “ultimate joy comes from the ultimate offering of one’s life to the will of God.”  God does not always require the ultimate sacrifice of losing your life for the sake of the gospel.  Paul and Timothy would eventually die in service to Christ.  Paul was likely beheaded, and his statement that he was being poured out as a drink offering was probably prophetic in that he was looking at shedding his blood for the cause of Christ.  Timothy would go on to Ephesus to be it’s first pastor, and while speaking out against a lurid worship of the goddess Diana he would be bludgeoned to death.  Epaphroditus we don’t know how he died.  We might assume that he died a normal death in his old age.  But one thing we do know, he was willing to lay down his life in service to the kingdom of Christ.   He risked his life repeatedly. 

We may not be called upon to risk our life, but we are called upon to be willing to lay down our lives as a living sacrifice in service to the cause of Christ.  We are called upon to be a servant to the body of Christ.  And we are called upon to forsake this world and all it’s enticements for the austerity of soldiering in the service of the King.  Paul said in 2Tim. 2:3  “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.”

Paul said to the Philippians concerning Epaphroditus, when he completed this life risking trip to carry the epistle back to the church at Philippi that they should “Receive him then in the Lord with all joy, and hold men like him in high regard.”  And this is the hope and joy set before us as well, when we are willing to live our lives like Paul, like Timothy, like Epaphroditus, Jesus promises us that there will be a day when we will be received at our home in heaven with joy.  When the Master will 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.”

Phil. 2:5   “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, and being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,  so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

In our culture today, we are constantly hearing about some new workout that is being touted as the latest surefire way to get in shape.  There is the Pilates workout, the Zumba workout, the Crossfit workout.  Many years ago I tried to do the Navy Seal workout.  Unfortunately, it didn’t really work out.  Rather than getting stronger I just wore myself out. Nowadays I’ve started doing the YouTube workout. It’s pretty easy.  You just watch other people work out on the videos.  But we are increasingly recognizing as a culture that while we may have been given relatively healthy bodies when we were born, if we want to stay healthy we need to exercise them.  And a similar principle is true in our Christian life as well.  We must be born again into a new life, but God’s intention is for us to grow and mature and become stronger spiritually.  So today we’re going to be looking at what I have titled the Salvation Workout.

In our ongoing study of Philippians we have been looking at this passage which contains one of the premiere portraits of Christ in the Bible.  Last week we looked specifically as Christ as our Sovereign, as the Son of God, as a Servant, and our Savior.  And today I would like to continue that series of illustrations with Christ as our Example.  Christ is presented in vs. 5 as our example for us to pattern our lives after.  Christ is not just our substitute, which indeed He was, but He also is the pattern for us to live our lives even as He lived His. 1Pet. 2:21 confirms this; “For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.”

And the key to how  we  accomplish that is found in vs. 8 in the word obedient.  It says that Christ humbled Himself by becoming obedient even to the point of death.  And though Christ being obedient may sound strange to us, we need to understand that Christ was obedient to the Father for our sake, for the sake of our salvation, and also for our example.  Hebrews 5:8 confirms this point.  “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”

So even though Christ was equal with God, yet while in the flesh He humbled Himself to be obedient to the predetermined will of the Father.  Hebrews 10:7 “THEN I SAID, ‘BEHOLD, I HAVE COME (IN THE SCROLL OF THE BOOK IT IS WRITTEN OF ME) TO DO YOUR WILL, O GOD.'”  Jesus himself said in John 12:49 “For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak.” 

This is how Jesus  could say “I and the Father are One.”  Not only were they equal in position, but they were united in purpose, in word and in deed.  But lest  we think this is just some theological treatise that Paul is propounding here, we need to remember the context of the passage, and realize that Paul is using the example of Jesus’ obedience to the Father as an illustration for how we are supposed to live.  Too often in our selfish, human nature, we are more than content to let Christ be our sacrifice, to let Him be our substitute, to let Him pay the price so we can live our lives any way we want.  But what Paul is really saying here is that even as Christ humbled Himself, so we too are to humble ourselves.  Even as Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice, we too must offer our lives as a sacrifice in service to Christ.  Even as Christ was unified with the Father in purpose, word and deed, so we are to be unified to Christ in purpose, word and deed.  “Have the same attitude, the same understanding, the same mindset as Jesus Christ.”  That is what Paul is saying here. 

Now Paul goes on to show Christ’s reward for this sacrifice, for this humiliation that He suffered.  And again the same principle of Christ as our example applies to us in this passage as well.  As it was for Him, so it will be for His followers. Romans 8:17 tells us that if we are children of God, then we are “heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”  But notice the order.  Sacrifice comes first, then exaltation comes afterward. 

So then in vs. 9, it says, “For this reason…”  For what reason?  The reason is because Christ humbled himself, became a servant, was obedient unto death, for this reason, “God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,  so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” 

Because Christ was obedient even unto death, God raised Him from the dead, He ascended into heaven, and He took His seat at the right hand of the Father above all principalities, above all rule and authority. Eph. 1:20 says God “raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.  And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church,  which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

So God exalted Christ by giving Him it says, a “name that is above every name”.  And what is that name above every name?  It’s not Jesus.  Note it doesn’t say that at the name Jesus. But it says that at the name OF Jesus. And what is the name of Jesus? The name of Jesus is Lord.  In Hebrew, the name of God was written as a tetragrammaton for Yahweh which spelled out L O R D. In the Greek that word Lord is kurios, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess Jesus Christ is Lord.  

This is the confession that every creature in the universe will give one day.  And this is the confession that Romans 10:9 says is necessary for salvation today; “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

Unfortunately, in our society today the word Lord has come to mean just another name for God which has little significance for us.  But when Paul wrote to the Romans, as well as to the Philippians which was also a Roman colony,  that they must confess Jesus as Lord, the full significance of these words meant a lot to those Roman citizens because Caesar had been declared to be god.  And men and women of the Roman Empire were eventually forced to swear an oath of allegiance to Caesar as Lord and Savior of the world.  The early Christians saw this as idolatry and refused to bow the knee to Caesar as Lord and consequently many of them lost their lives.  So when Paul says to the 1st century Gentiles that they must confess Jesus as Lord, they knew that this required absolute surrender and submission to Jesus Christ as Lord and King of all, and they knew that it would cost them everything to make that confession. 

And for the 1st century Jew it had a special significance as well. Because Paul is quoting  these words from Isaiah 45: 23  “I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.”  And for the Jew, they knew from the context of that passage that the One speaking in Isaiah was Yahweh, the most sacred name of God which they refused to even say, so instead it was translated LORD.  So Paul is making a direct quotation here from the OT saying that you must confess Jesus Christ as Yahweh, and every knee will bow to Him.    For the Jew then, to confess Jesus Christ is Lord was to recognize that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, the Son of God in the flesh, the promised King of Kings from the line of David, the One in whom all their blessings resided in, and whom they had crucified. 

This confession that Jesus is Lord Romans 10:9 tells us results in being granted the  righteousness of Christ.  This is the way man becomes saved.  By faith in Christ, that is believing all that He was, all that He came to do, that He was God in the flesh, that He was our substitute, that His atonement on the cross was sufficient for our salvation, but also confessing Jesus as Lord.  Confessing Him as King of our lives, ruler of our lives, and surrendering our will, our purpose and our lives to Him, willing to be changed by Him, and willing to be used by Him.

Not just to say I’m sorry for the mess I’ve made of my life.  I’m sorry that I haven’t been all that I could be.  Or to wish that God would change the circumstances of my life.  Or to wish that God would bless my finances.  Or to say I want to go to heaven when I die, because the alternative sounds a bit dreadful.  None of those things are confessing Jesus as Lord.    But a total capitulation of all that I hold dear, surrendering everything for the sake of knowing Jesus Christ and being found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own, but having His righteousness. Phil. 3:8 Paul said, “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 [all he once counted as gain], 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 confession is more than just a mere acknowledgement that Jesus lived, or even exists, for the devils also believe and tremble. But salvation, righteousness realized, depends upon a broken and contrite heart, that is wholly dependent upon grace, and fully cognizant of my own unworthiness and inability to be righteous.  A willingness to bow my knee before Christ in repentance, a willingness to turn over all of my heart to Him.  To come to the end of yourself and a willingness to become all that God would have me to be, and follow the example of Jesus Christ.

I’m afraid that isn’t the kind of salvation that is being espoused in modern Christianity today.  I’m afraid that there is a desire to be ok with God, but keep the world and all that comes with it as well.  We want to be in the ballpark, but not in the game.  We want to be somehow on the sidelines and let others do the playing and we remain spectators.  But real Christianity isn’t like that.  IF we are willing to suffer with Him, then we get the right to reign with Him. 2Tim. 2:11 “It is a trustworthy statement: For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him; If we endure, we will also reign with Him.  “And the things that you must be willing to suffer is the loss of the priorities of this world and the pleasures and lusts of this world for the sake of following Jesus Christ.  And for those who are willing to suffer the loss of those things which are dear to them here, God promises to exalt those people to rule and reign with Christ in the world to come. 

The problem for most of us  is that this world seems so appealing, so promising, that we have no appetite for heaven.  Heaven is not enough of a motivation for us to sacrifice everything that we see here for a future we can’t see there.  So Paul gives us an allusion to another motivation.  If the positive motivation of heaven is not enough, then perhaps the negative motivation of a judgment to come will help.  He says, “at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” 

Some have wrongfully concluded from this verse that somehow at the end of the ages everyone will have a second chance of being saved, of  confessing Jesus is Lord.  But that would render salvation worthless wouldn’t it?  That would discount the priceless sacrifice of Jesus to the value of a yard sale leftover, the stuff that they leave on the side of the road for free.  No, what it means is that on this side of Christ’s coming again salvation is obtained through faith, faith in what isn’t seen.  But one day, every eye will see Him come again not as a baby in Bethlehem, not as an ordinary looking man, but every eye will see Him coming in the clouds with fire and all His angels with Him, and Matthew 24 tells us then that the whole earth will mourn, because it will be too late for confession resulting in righteousness, it will be a confession that results in condemnation and a sentence of eternal damnation for rejecting the Lord of all creation when He gave His life for our reconciliation. 

Matt. 24:30 says “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory.” But on that day, it will be too late for salvation by faith.  Christ comes on that day not to save, but to judge the world.

Paul says, “those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth.”  Those who are in heaven refers to the angels of heaven, 10,000 times 10,000 times 10000, or untold millions of angels. Revelation 12 refers to angels as stars of heaven, and I think that the number of the angels in heaven may approximate the number of the stars.  The estimated number of the stars is between 10 sextillion and 1 septillion stars. That’s a one with 21 zeros after it.   The stars comprise and are organized into about 80 billion galaxies.  So it’s possible that God created angels of that number as well as they are often referenced in the scripture being as plentiful as the stars.  All this innumerable multitude of heavenly creatures worshipping Christ as Lord.  And one day, the Bible says, those of us who reign with Christ will judge angels. 

And in the earth obviously refers to men and women who are living on the earth at the time of Christ’s second coming.  And under the earth refers to the dead, both those that are dead in Christ and those that are dead in their sins, that exist in the subterranean abode which the Bible calls Hades and Paradise, which Christ referred to in His story of Lazarus and the rich man who both died and the rich man was in torment, while Lazarus was being comforted in Abraham’s bosom.  

So, there is a negative motivation for surrendering to Christ now, and that is that there is coming a day of judgment, a day when Christ will judge the living and the dead, when He will separate the sheep from the goats as spoken of throughout the Bible.

And then finally, Paul gives an exhortation for us to continue in Christ’s example.  Vs. 12  “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;  for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” There is that principle of obedience again, not only for Christ, but for us.

So then, Paul says, since God has shown us the example of Christ that we are to follow, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.  Now, Paul isn’t contradicting all the gospel that he has previously given regarding salvation as a work of faith.   For instance, Paul says in Gal. 2:16  “nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.” 

So if Paul isn’t talking about working for your salvation, then what does he mean?  I think a good illustration of what he is talking about is when David was brought before King Saul because he had volunteered to go out and fight Goliath.  And Saul gave David his own armor to wear.  And David said, “I cannot wear this, because I have not proven it.”  And what he meant by that was he had not proven it in battle.  He had not worn it in battle.  The armor had not been tested in the trials of war.

And this is what Paul is getting at here.  He is saying your salvation which was won for you is not to put on a shelf. It’s not for sitting on the sidelines.  But exercise your faith.  Live out your faith.  Take your Christianity into the field of battle and use it and wear it and prove it to be worthy.  It’s a command to exercise your salvation.  You were saved to live out the righteousness that God granted to us by doing deeds of righteousness within the sphere of the world that we exist in.

So we could say the first aspect of it then is to work out or exercise in daily conduct what God has put in. Walking by faith.  Day-to-day holy living, that’s the idea. I am to be committed to the process of my salvation coming to fruition in the sense that it’s manifest in my conduct, my behavior.  We are to pattern our lives in the same pattern that Jesus laid for us, to be obedient to God’s word, to be a servant to the church, to live like a child of God, to be concerned with the salvation of men and women.  This is working out our salvation.  In Jam 2:22, speaking of Abraham it says, “You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected, completed.

And then vs. 13 gives us the other half of the equation for sanctification: “for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”  Just as Jesus didn’t do anything that wasn’t the Father’s will, didn’t say anything that the Father did not tell Him to say, so it is also to be with us.  Now that we’ve been made righteous by faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit lives within us.  We become temples of God.  And God lives in this temple to do His will, to work for His purposes, His good pleasure, and not to be diverted to do our pleasure.  This is the purpose of God, to sanctify us, to use us to live for Christ, for His glory. 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.”

The purpose of the Holy Spirit is not to give us goose bumps, or to give us some ecstatic experience.  But God in the presence of the Holy Spirit lives in us so that we might live as Christ lived.  Our obedience is evidence that God lives in us, it’s the fruit of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in us so that we might do the works of righteousness, that which God has prepared us for.  So that God might use this once sinful, selfish body for His glory. 

So what is Paul’s message here for us this morning?  One is that salvation and righteousness, in other words acceptance by God, is only possible when we come to a place where we are willing to confess Jesus is Lord.  Jesus as our Savior, our Substitute and our Sovereign.  And God promises to grant us the full measure of Christ’s righteousness to those who have faith in Jesus Christ and confess Him as their Lord.  But then secondly, the next essential part of our salvation is our sanctification, wherein we follow His example and in obedience to His will, follow Christ in humility, in obedience, in servitude and sacrifice and even if necessary suffering for His sake, working out this great salvation that we have received with fear and trembling, full of reverence and awe for the great responsibility and stewardship that God has entrusted us with.   

And finally, the message is that if we suffer with Him, we will also reign with Him.  That as God exalted Jesus Christ and gave Him a name above every name, He has also reserved an inheritance for us, that one day we will be fellow heirs with Christ and sit on thrones with Him in glory and share in all that the Father has planned for those that love Him.