Two weeks reviewing Philippians 1,2 before plunging back into Philippians 3. This is week 2. In week 1 we said that if we were to reduce this letter to just one theme, so far that’s been the gospel.
The gospel. The good news of what God has done through Jesus the Christ for the life of the world. We emphasized that the gospel is news about that which has already happened: Christ Jesus died, was raised from the dead, and is sat down as God’s right hand…and all that that that means. There is so much joy wrapped up in that gospel. There are such vast implications in that gospel. Please listen or read the first sermon for some explanation of that.
We said last time, though, that in this warm letter to his friends Paul’s not so much explaining the gospel, he’s expressing how believing the gospel changes people. We listed eight ways that believing the gospel affects you practically. Last time we treated three of those:
Believing the gospel puts new work in front of you.
Believing the gospel involves you in extra suffering.
Believing the gospel expands your horizon.
Let’s keep going. We’re going to treat the next four today. And then next week we’ll let the last one bring us right into chapter three.
Let’s keep listing these ways that believing the gospel affects you practically in the hope that the text of Scripture functions like a mirror: have you heard the gospel? Heard and believed it? And then after you’ve believed are you in the process of understanding how things have changed? And finally, is it changing you?
Believing the gospel sets you into a community. That’s a big assumption of Philippians. Look at how the letter starts: To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons. Paul assumes that this letter will be heard by a community.
And if you wanted to find the central exhortation in the letter, it’s probably 1:27 – you have to listen intently. Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel…
Did you get that? Paul is not speaking to individual Christians as individual Christians, but to the Church as the Church. Telling them how to act in partnership with each other. Our manner of life is worthy of the gospel … or not… in what we do together.
Recently I talked with an old friend who in the past was part of a church we had been part of, but who left that congregation. He told me that every week he and his wife sit in front of the TV and watch Charles Stanley preach – “now we’re not in our PJS and we don’t talk while he’s speaking, just like church.”
NO! That’s not church. Church can’t be reduced to listening to a sermon. Not even to attending an event along with other folks every Sunday. Let’s read that again: Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel…standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. Is a church more like a move theater or more like a football field?
Believing the gospel is largely a good experience. Listen how Paul sets up his instructions: If there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy…. In short, genuine Christians come across a lot of happiness through their lives. Brian and Casey and I were discussing the Scriptures yesterday morning, and Brian said that he would boil down his experience of knowing Christ to one word: comfort.
A couple of weeks ago I read an autobiography about a female Christian philosopher who eventually married another Christian philosopher, a widower. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Anyway, Alice was in her twenties when she first met Dietrich, who was then still married to his first wife. She and others visited Dietrich’s New York apartment to hear him lecture on a certain topic of Christian philosophy. This was her account of meeting him:
The door swung open, and there was Dietrich von Hildebrand who greeted us so warmly that I was overwhelmed by his spontaneous kindness. [I noticed that] he had holes in his shoes, and I could see that he was living in great poverty. I wholeheartedly concur with what Professor Schwarz wrote many years later in a remembrance of his beloved teacher, ‘I had never in my life met someone was so happy. I did not realize it was possible to be so happy.’ But this was not just the happiness of a cheerful soul; it was the joy of a living faith in which he consciously lived from moment to moment.
I’m not saying that Christians are happy or happier than others. I’m saying they have solid reason to be.
Believing the gospel teaches you deep things about how life works. At the start of chapter 2, in outlining how the Philippian Christians were to behave toward one another, Paul sketches an outline of the story of Christ Jesus, the gospel. The gospel, remember, is the account of how God saved the creation through Christ. Paul’s implied point is that within the story of how life was saved is also the instruction for how life should continue. Let me say that again: within the story of how life was saved is also the instruction for how life should continue. Let’s listen:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
So, how does life work? Answer: Look to how life was saved! And how was it saved? Through means of humility. Obedience. Then, following these, God’s promotion!
If that was how the world was saved, then how should life continue? What kind of behavior will lead to favorable outcomes (if not always quick success)?
Humbleness. Obedience.
Let’s spell humbleness out a little: Don’t put yourself first or anywhere close. In fact, be willing to set aside your happiness. Don’t make your status – how people rank you in each moment – the be-all, end-all. Don’t please yourself but look to serve the community. Help them get ahead. Service to others. Service to others. Service to others.
Humbleness.
But here’s an important point: Do this all under the direction of the Word of God. True humbleness and obedience always go together.
That last sentence is very important because we could easily slip into humble poses that don’t serve anyone. Sometimes true humility doesn’t look humble because it’s being obedient.
Just consider Jesus: he humbled himself in obedience. But that humbleness often didn’t look lowly; it often looked like leadership. Jesus was a commanding leader…read the Gospels and you’ll notice that he’s not a fawning, hand-shuffling people pleaser. He’s directing people what to do. He’s saying hard things that people don’t want to hear. He’s leading from the front: Mark 10:32 And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. Why? Because he’s humble – he’s under the direction of his Heavenly Father and He’s serving those around him by…leading.
Let me illustrate closer to home: Little Johnny mouths off to his mom and when dad – who’s scrolling on his iPad– looks up and tells him to knock it off and apologize to his mother, little Johnny rolls his eyes. Hmm. Well, Johnny’s dad doesn’t react vigorously, just shakes his head and goes back to his I-pad. So…Johnny’s dad is humble, right? Not stirring up a ruckus, being nice, keeping everyone happy and happy with him. So… humble, right?
No! At its essence humility doesn’t have a certain look, is not the same thing as being nice or low-key. At its heart humility is submission to God. Specifically, the Word of God.
What is God’s Word? Do not withhold discipline from a child/ if you strike him with a rod he will not die./ If you strike him with a rod you will save his soul from Sheol (Proverbs 23: 13, 14). If Johnny’s dad is going to practice humility, if he’s going to submit to the Word of God, if he’s going to serve Johnny… in the wake of Johnny’s disrespect to his mom and rolling his eyes at his dad humble service might very well require him to put down the iPad and retrieve what the old-timers used to nickname “the board of education” to be applied to “the seat of correction.”
Whacking the rear end of a disobedient boy – humble? Sure doesn’t look humble! But it very well could be humble!
And it’s on the path to promotion, particularly Johnny’s promotion from Sheol!
Back to the overall point: Humility and obedience – a willingness to give up being one of the cool kids, to set aside one’s own convenience and druthers and personality in order to serve others –lies at the heart of life everlasting. To Christ’s obedient humility that led to His death, God responded by raising Him up from death and then up up up over every power in heaven and earth and under the earth. Humble obedience all the way to the point of death… then promotion. This is the two step into life. This will always be the way forward.
Believing the gospel gives you a new set of heroes. That’s another thread throughout Philippians – in this letter Paul puts forward not just concepts to guide their life but also spotlights certain persons to learn from, to follow. Have this mindset, which was also in Christ Jesus – we just read that. I hope to send Timothy to you…I have no one like him (2: 19). I’m sending Timothy…but hey, let’s talk about that guy. Think about what kind of guy he is. Think about what’s special about him. Everyone else is looking out for number 1, but…see…Timothy’s not like that. Look how the gospel has changed him at his heart.
And again: I have thought it necessary to send Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier…receive him in the Lord and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me (2: 25, 29). Once again, Paul is lingering over Epaphroditus, thereby compelling the church to linger over him, to perceive all that he is, what he’s done.
I don’t want you to miss these people. Study them! You can learn something from these characters.
To His Church God gives not just preaching and teaching, but also examples. Examples of people who have taken Christ and servanthood and selflessness seriously. Examples of people who are taking partnering in the Gospel seriously.
Now, what should we do with this? One easy application is a repeat: don’t just read your Bible privately at home or listen to YouTube sermons: Get among the people of God and get to know them well enough so that you can spot those who are uniquely conveying the importance and power of the gospel. (And that won’t necessarily be the pastor: I wish it weren’t the case but in every church I’ve served I’ve known laymen who the gospel had sunk in deeper than in me.)
One way today that we could lose sight of some good examples is that we could lose track of them. What I mean is we could stop caring about the history of the church and no longer read biographies of outstanding Christians – Christians who have worked especially hard in proclaiming the gospel and Christians who have been utterly changed for good by the gospel. We can’t afford to lose sight of these great examples for us!
The gospel is the most important story in the world. Part of how that message gets into us is our observing how it got into other people.
- Unbroken
- Surprised by Joy
- Through Gates of Splendor
- For the Glory
- Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret
- From Golden Shore
- Bonhoeffer
- Evidence Not Seen
- Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus
- The Autobiography of George Mueller
Are gospel people among your heroes? Let me name names. John Lahoud. Andy Broadworth. James Landry. Mark Minnick. Wade Allen. Tim Peters. Sinclair Ferguson. Eric Liddell. Christopher Ash. Brett Felter. Steven Schoeffler. C.S. Lewis. Ivor Davidson. Paul House. Ron Kunselman. Steve Johnson.
If I’d thought longer the list would’ve been longer. None of these men (and I’ve just listed men here…there’re plenty of women I could have mentioned too!) are perfect. (I’d guess that all are quite imperfect!). I’m not close with all of them. Some I’ve met only through books.
These men I’ve encountered are marked by three things:
- They’ve received the gospel into their hearts. Not the gospel adjacent to the gospel. Not the almost gospel. Not the cool expression of the gospel. But the details of the gospel as spelled out in nouns and verbs in holy Scripture. I said “details” and that’s important. They’re all – in their owy ways – close listeners. Not all of them can articulate clearly what they’ve grasped but… they’ve grasped.
- They’ve surrendered to the gospel, and so the gospel has affected them in one of two ways. (Or both.) 1) The gospel has especially changed them – gentled them, extended their patience, “warmed” them, erased silliness.
Or 2) the effect of the gospel on some of these men is that the greatness of the mission of spreading the gospel has seized hold of them.
In either case, they’ve been humbled…and the gospel has taken deep root. They’ve surrendered.
- They are not chiefly political operators. Meaning, in their reception and service it didn’t occur to them to wonder if the gospel they were believing was popular. They’re not distressed about any of the unpopular features of the gospel, its primitiveness or uncouthness. In this way they are simple men.
Over many years these men have haunted my thoughts. Their examples continually minister to me, and through me, to my family and church. Without speaking to them they’ve held me accountable, reproved me. I can’t explain them. I don’t know where it all comes from: their focus, their endurance, their honesty, their simplicity, their acceptance of servanthood. I’ll keep tracking them until I find out their secret sauce! And so God intended for all His Church.
I have homework for you this week: Sit down with a pad of paper and pen and write down the names of people who are gospel examples for you. Think: why did you choose them? What do they have in common?
AMEN
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