We’ve been away from Philippians since November! In these three months we’ve probably lost track of where we are in Paul’s letter to the church in this Roman colony. So we’re going to take a couple of weeks to review what we’ve already read.
What has the letter to the Philippian church been about so far? And if you wanted to reduce what Paul has said to just one theme, it would be the gospel. The gospel.
1:5. 1:7. 1:12. 1:16. 1:27 (2x). 2:22.
These are instances Paul deploys the word “gospel.” But even when he doesn’t use the specific term, he is using synonyms for it, like “word of life” (2:16) and “the faith” (1:25); or he’s referring to the gospel (2:5-11); or he’s referencing the One at the heart of the gospel because he is at the heart of the gospel: Jesus Christ (throughout).
What is the gospel? Good news of what God has done through Jesus the Christ for the life of the world.
Good news – not bad news. Rejoice. Make merry. Clap your hands, O people.
Good news. Not first a technique for living, like putting your alarm clock on the other side of the room.
Not first an ethical code. Here’s how to be good. You’ve tried being strict but now try love.
Someone says, “The gospel is believing that Jesus is Christ…”. NO! NO! The gospel is not us doing anything or supposed to do anything. It’s news of something that has already happened. Is accomplished.
Good news of what God has done. Not that we’ve done. We weren’t even born when God did this. God had been setting this up for thousands of years and in or around 30 AD He did it. Done. Accomplished.
Through Jesus Christ. As almost always, God works through an image bearer to do His work. Here the image bearer is the Man Jesus. Who before He was found in human form was in the form of God (2: 6), obviously God.
Good news of what God has done through Jesus Christ for the life of the world. For Life. The gospel isn’t news of slight improvement: “Strip mall is razed to make way for luxury apartments.” Or news of moral reformation: “God has given you the power to be self-disciplined.” Or about turning over a new leaf. But news of new life. It’s called the word of life.
The gospel: Good news of what God has done through Jesus the Christ for the life of the world.
So, to test that we understand the concept let’s try announcing a gospel. First let’s try announcing the gospel that on September 2, 1945, on the battleship Missouri, Japan surrendered to Douglas Macarthur and the second global conflict of the 20th century is over.
That’s the good news. How would you announce that?
· Good news – let’s learn from WW 2 and not go invading all these countries.
· Good news: the war has helped us remember what’s really important
· Good news: just like we need to forgive people when they sin against us, we need to be open to forgiving groups of people…even nations
· Good news: Winston Churchill won’t ever let us down
· Good news: Now we can start rebuilding cities and lives
None of these are necessarily wrong, but none of these are actually GOSPEL. Because none are reflecting on the news of what has happened. How about what MacArthur said when the surrender was signed: “Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won.”
Now we’re talking!
Now let’s try announcing the big Gospel, the one from Heaven, connected to the work of Jesus Christ. You tell me whether we’re doing this right or wrong:
· Good news: You need to love all people – white and black and every color in-between
· Good news: Read one Bible chapter a day and then have a systematic prayer list
· Good news: Sometimes you just need to slow down and listen to God’s still, small voice
· Good news: It’s all about love
· Good news: You can go to heaven when you die.
Again, none of these are necessarily wrong, but none of them are reflecting on what has happened.
So what’s the gospel that Philippians keeps referring to? That, as He had long predicted, in the first century God served humans by Himself becoming human. Jesus, that God-man, dies via crucifixion. In that violent death our sins were atoned for. Heaven declares that we’ve been freed from our guilt through Jesus’ execution.
God was angry at us, should have been angry as good men are angry at injustice and the arrogant wicked. But in the body of Christ Jesus the judgment for our trespasses is dished out, sin is condemned, justice is served. We are reconciled to God, in theory.
The good news continues. Our sins are atoned for, but at the cost of the life of the Representative Man. Does the story of the world end in a clean death? No! Because God raised Jesus, the Christ, from the dead. And when He raises the Christ, the Representative Man, from the grave, He’s in that move saying an ultimate “Yes” to all of creation and “no” to death.
“Yes” to the oceans. “Yes” to Tuscany. “Yes” to the Saber-toothed Tiger. “Yes” to gravity and space and time. “Yes” to brotherhood. “Yes” to men and women, boys and girls. Yes, I made you and want you. Yes, you belong. Yes, you’re justified, in the right.
Sin doesn’t have the last word. Death is not the final victor. Satan is stripped of the kryptonite that kept mankind weak and in his thrall: the state of guilt and the fear of death. We are returned from a situation of bad blood with God and instead we are given His Spirit. Adopted into His family. In fellowship, in partnership…with God.
When Jesus is raised from the dead, having made purification for sins, “God has gone up with a shout.” (Psalm 47: 5). In this gospel, God doesn’t just save us, God Himself is victorious and enthused…He’s happily invested in, committed to us.
And after being raised from the dead, Jesus the Christ sits down at God’s right hand. Sits down. Ahh. Rest after the hard work is over. But also, the sit-down imagery implies more than rest but also its opposite: sitting down to get to work like sitting down to a desk.
Or a throne. Jesus is raised to rule. He is the King of kings. The Lord of lords. Not Wall Street. Not Google. Not Blackrock. Not our instincts. Not the elite. Not the masses either. Not chance. Not entropy. Not my grasp of reality. Jesus is Lord, having triumphed over the ultimate foe – DEATH.
Jesus the Christ, still acting as Representative, sits down at God’s right hand. Man ruling at God’s side, in God’s behalf. Humanity ruling at God’s side, in God’s behalf…just as God intended at the Creation. Now we’re talking. Good news!
So that’s the gospel that Paul keeps hovering around in Philippians. But in this letter he’s not so-much explaining the gospel, detailing what happened (although there’s a little of that). Rather, in the first couple of chapters of this letter he is expressing how believing the gospel changes people.
Briefly, eight ways that believing the gospel affects you practically:
Believing the gospel puts new work in front of you
Believing the gospel involves you in extra suffering
Believing the gospel expands your horizon
Believing the gospel sets you into a community
Believing the gospel is largely a happy experience
Believing the gospel teaches you the deep things about how the world works
Believing the gospel gives you a new set of heroes
Believing the gospel brings you to Jesus Christ
We’ll get to three today:
Believing the gospel puts new work in front of you. Right out of the gate, in v. 5 Paul refers to the partnership in the gospel. In v. 7 he says that the Philippian church are all partakers with [him] of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. In v. 22 Paul says that if his life is spared that will means fruitful labor for me. We could add on to these references to work – this joint labor in the gospel is a major theme of the whole letter.
In raising up Jesus Christ, God begins a new creation that will eventually renew hills, birds, rivers. We mentioned this above. And people will be part of this new creation, too… but not automatically, not universally… only if we believe the gospel.
By holding out that word of life, God gives sinners a choice in whether they…we… will defiantly remain in a situation of sin and death or receive the redemption into life through Jesus Christ. Interestingly, the first humans were presented with a similar decision: to comply with the word of God – then a command – or die. We too are given the choice whether to believe the word, the gospel news that God has already brought us into life…or die.
So…again it comes down to believing the word of God. But that word about what God has already done, that gospel comes to people through messengers, speakers of the word. And those speakers don’t just appear in people’s consciousness…they physically show up. And they don’t just happen to physically show up, they are sent. And to be sent requires training and material supplies and constant encouragement. And that training requires teachers; and those teachers themselves need to have been sent; and they also require training and material supplies and constant encouragement. And those material supplies require gainful employment and logistics and support and…
Work. When you believe the gospel you grasp that the great humanitarian endeavor today is to get the gospel in front of people – clearly, boldly, patiently addressing questions, defending the gospel against other both attrition and other ultimate words. Yes, the spread of this message is the great saga of this age, and after we believe we enter into this great adventure.
Believing the gospel involves you in extra suffering. 1:29 It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.
The New Testament makes clear that all those who believe the gospel sign up for extra suffering.
Extra? Well, yes – to be human entails suffering. Let’s not crudely suppose that it’s only believers who really suffer.
But those who believe the gospel sign up for extra suffering. And of different types, especially that from facing opposition from people.
Why would people oppose the gospel? Because the gospel carries some offense with it. And some people who hear the message of the gospel will be annoyed and “shoot the messenger.” What’s offensive about the gospel? For one, it presupposes that all have failed at their “one job” of being an image-bearer. People are accountable for their sin, and moderns find that especially maddening. Also, the gospel announces the world’s Lord…and it’s not the guy you’ve been following, not the one that everyone has been following, not the one you picked…and it’s not you. And then, what’s maybe galling, it announces that God has rescued you in grace…you didn’t participate, you didn’t earn, you couldn’t have earned. Also, there is in the gospel this awful binary: you’re either in Adam or in Christ. A child of God or a child of Satan. We always want to carve out that third possibility of just being a good ol’ boy who’s minding his own business.
All of this boils down to trusting God’s word above all other words. And that’s often offensive. So, extra suffering.
Believing the gospel expands your horizon. Look at 1:6 – the day of Christ. Now look at v. 10 – the day of Christ. Look at 2:10,11 – refers to some future point when every knee is bowed before Christ. 2:16 – there’s the day of Christ again.
Just think that over: Paul is writing a letter and in the first half of it four times he refers to this day of Christ. A future day when everybody is acknowledging the gospel, that Christ is Lord over all. God is directing history to this goal: that everything is placed under Christ.
Imagine going to lunch with someone and in the first seven minutes he refers to his retirement four times. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what he’s preoccupied with! But more than that, you understand that thinking about, planning for retirement is already affecting his life now.
Just so, even though the gospel is about events that are all in the past, even that happened long before you were born, believing the gospel has the effect of setting your mind on the ultimate future. Somewhere Martin Luther wrote: There are two days on my calendar: today and That Day.
When you believe the Gospel it’s like blinders come off. In hearing and understanding the gospel, you’ve been ushered into the invisible and majestic realms of God and Christ and angels and the Satan and heaven and hell and demons and the day of judgment.
In this world, apart from the gospel I’m been programmed at my age to think a certain way about stages of life, my offspring, death, grief. But that programming is both short-sighted and heavy on wanting to impress people. Wow, your son is in that college. He has that job. What’s in your bucket list after you retire? Avoid death at all costs because it’s the worst thing, right?
There is so much deceit baked into all this programming, and the deceit isn’t usually intentional but because people are living in a cave and looking at shadows. The gospel breaks us out of the cave and into the Daylight – oh, there’s a risen King of kings – I’m to serve under Him as a servant-apprentice. Oh, a Day of Christ. If my children are millionaires and are admired…but don’t serve Jesus Christ…I’m not happy at all. How will all their success and status measure up on the Day? I’m not going to judge now who is successful and who isn’t – I’ll let the Day declare it.
Frankly I don’t want to retire to play rounds of golf. At the Day I won’t give account for my first 55 or 60 years, but for my life. That retirement concept is artificial, that retirement age is arbitrary. I want to spend the rest of my days serving Jesus Christ with all my energies and only taking breaks to re-gather my strength. My singleness is focus on Christ. My parenting is raising churchmen for Christ. My grand-parenting is to point them to Christ.
Conclusion
The gospel is news of what happened in the past. But when we come to believe the gospel it changes us in the present.
There are two main ways of going wrong concerning the gospel. 1) You know the gospel but it hasn’t changed you. There’s no partnership in the gospel. You’re avoiding the suffering of the gospel…often by not identifying yourself with Christ. Too afraid of what your friends will say about you. Or maybe you’re still thinking small thoughts, selfish thoughts, and haven’t come out into the light of everything coming under King Jesus.
So that’s one way of getting the gospel wrong – it hasn’t practically changed you. Maybe the problem is that you haven’t really believed, you need to return to the gospel again – what are the claims? Are they true? Did Jesus rise from the dead? And then, once these things are established in your mind: God, I believe, help my unbelief.
The other way of getting the gospel wrong is 2) that you’ve rather half-heartedly put on at least some of the practices of those who believe the gospel… but that gospel has never really sunk in as the liberating good news that it is. You’re an unhappy Christian because the good news of what God has done through Jesus the Christ for the life of the world hasn’t really set you free from fear and/or selfish ambition and/or people pleasing. Again, you also need to go back to the gospel. What was accomplished? What is true, even without my believing them? What is God’s disposition toward me? Who is Lord: chance or Jesus Christ? God, I believe, help my unbelief.
Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord [who has been revealed in the Gospel]. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.
Leave a Reply