Robert J. Morgan's Blog, page 12

Whatever Happens, Turn Your Balance Sheet Upside Down

Philippians 3.7-11

Introduction

Some time ago a woman named Elizabeth Gibson was walking along New York City’s Upper West Side when she saw a pile of trash. The garbage truck was headed that way. Among the debris was a piece of painted canvas. She took it home and tried to figure it out. Where did it come from? Why did it so attract her? She began to investigate, and finally with the help of The Antiques Roadshow, she discovered it was a rare painting by a famous Mexican artist worth over one million dollars. And yet someone had thrown it out with the trash.

It’s amazing how many people do not know the difference between trash and treasure. The apostle Paul did, and he explains it all to us in the passage we’re coming to in Philippians 3, beginning with verse 7:

Scripture: 

7  But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  8  What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ  9  and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.  10  I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,  11  and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

1. I Want to Know Christ (verses 7-9)

My mother taught my bookkeeping class in high school. She taught us about balance sheets, which have liabilities and assets. In this passage, the apostle Paul took his personal balance sheet and turned it upside down. He said, “The things I thought were assets I now consider to be liabilities, and the things I thought were liabilities, I now consider assets.”

He said quite plainly: Everything in this world is garbage compared to the surpassing worth—the treasure—of personally knowing Christ.

I remember the first time I heard Graham Kindrick’s wonderful song, “Knowing You, Jesus,” which is largely based on this passage:

All I once held dear, built my life upon

All this world reveres and wars to own

All I once thought gain I have counted loss

Spent and worthless now, compared to this:

Knowing You, Jesus, knowing You,

There is no greater thing.

Here in Philippians 3, Paul is continuing his line of thought about the nature of knowing Christ. Some people in his day had been preaching something very wrong—that we could work our way into God’s presence by pursuing a life full of religious forms and good deeds and godly virtues. Paul answered, in effect, “If anyone could do that, I would have done it.” Then he goes on to say:

7  But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  8  What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ  9  and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.

That last sentence—verse 9—is the entire book of Romans summarized in one verse. Dr. Gordon Fee calls it “a little meteorite from[the book of] Romans.”

We meet Christ, not based on our personal virtues, but based on His righteousness, which is imputed to us by grace through faith.

I recently interviewed Sam Rohrer, President of American Pastors Network. Sam served almost two decades as a State Representative in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He told me that the Pennsylvania capitol building is filled with Scripture references, which are engraved on the walls. There are Bible verses in the Governor’s reception room, the House chamber, and the Senate chamber. In fact, there are 59 verses etched onto the walls of that beautiful building. The Gospel is so clear in these engravings that Sam told me he used to take people on biblical tours of the statehouse. “Let me take you on a trip through the capitol building,” he said. “I can lead you to Heaven through the Senate chamber.” 

I love that phrase. Sam was referring to the power of the Gospel, which was engraved on the walls of the Senate. The only way to get to Heaven is through our faith in the power of the Gospel, which represents the death and resurrection of a sinless Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We hear the message of Jesus, realize that’s what we need more than anything else in this world, confess our sins, place ourselves in His hands, and welcome Him into our lives as Savior and Lord. If you have never done that, now’s the time!

Finding Him is the most important thing in the world. Paul refers to the surpassing worth of knowing Him. Compared to that, everything else in life is garbage.

2. I Want to Know Christ Better and Better (verses 10-11)

But now, Paul goes a step further and talks about the lifelong process of getting to know Christ better. 

He said, 

10  I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,  11  and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.  

And let’s go on because the next verses indicate the progressive nature of this relationship.

12  Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  13  Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,  14  I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

The other day I made a visit in Atlanta to the man who had introduced me to my wife, Katrina. His name is Frank Fry, and about a half-century earlier he had been on the staff at Columbia International University in charge of the traveling ministry teams, including mine. When I returned from summer break at the beginning of my senior year, he said, “I want to introduce you to my new secretary.” I followed him down the hall and he entered an office and said, “Robert, this is Miss Polvinen.” Katrina looked up and smiled, and I remember that moment clearly in my mind. I don’t fully know why. Over the last half-century I’ve met thousands of people I can’t remember, but I do clearly remember meeting her. Yet I truly had no idea I was meeting my future wife. 

The next day, if someone had asked me if I knew Katrina, I would have said, “Yes, I met her yesterday.” But did I really know her yet? Our momentary meeting was only the beginning of the process of getting to know her better and better, which involved working together on the team’s itinerary for that year, building a friendship, falling in love, getting married, and building a home together.

It’s that way with Jesus Christ. There hopefully comes a day when we meet Him, when we receive Him as our Savior and know Him as our Lord. But for the rest of our lives and for all eternity we’ll be getting to know Him better and better.

So that brings me to my question. How do we grow in our relationship with Christ? How do we get to know Him better and better? 

A. Through Fellowship with Him

First, it’s very much like getting to know another person better and better. It happens through conversation and constant fellowship with Him. When I was a young man, we didn’t have all the Bible translations we have now. I grew up on the old King James Version. But in 1965, an edition came out called the Amplified Bible, and somehow I got a copy. This version of the Bible took the 1901 American Standard Version, brings in the Hebrew and Greek, and amplifies the meaning of the words with synonyms suggested from the original.

This is how it amplifies Philippians 3:10. It’s shaped the way I understand the concept of knowing God. It says:

 [For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly]….

The translators took that one word—know—and used 27 words to define it. What does it mean to really know Christ? It means to progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him.

I was taught that the primary way of doing that is through daily conversation with Him in daily Bible study and prayer. Those simple concepts have shaped my ministry, and I’ve done everything in my power to help people meet Christ at the cross and then meet with Him each day for prayer and Bible study—that I may progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and understanding the wonders of His person more strongly and more clearly.

Many years ago, I prepared a sermon called “The Cross and the Closet.” In the old versions of the Bible, Jesus said in Matthew 6:6 that we should go into our closet and pray to our Heavenly Father. In those days, most houses were small, and they were filled with children and often animals. But there was always a small room for supplies—a pantry. Jesus said, “Find that private place where you can be alone with God.”

We meet Christ originally at the cross, and we call that conversion. But then we meet with Him daily in the closet, and we call that conversation. At the cross, we come to know Him. And in the closet, we come to know Him better and better.

When discipling others, I often take a napkin and draw a cross and the door to a closet and explain this to new believers, even as I’m seeking to do now to you. We come to know Christ better through our daily fellowship with Him, especially in times of prayer and Bible study.

B. Through the Power of His Resurrection

But the apostle Paul doesn’t finish his thought with that. He went on to say: I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection.

I believe the Holy Spirit had something to do with the ordering and the arrangement of the books of the Bible. Philippians follows Ephesians, and it seems to me Paul is referring to what he wrote just a few pages earlier in Ephesians 1. Notice the parallel thoughts as we read Ephesians 1, starting with verse 17.

17  I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 

You see, there you have it. The Ephesians knew Christ. They had met Him at the moment of salvation, but Paul longed for them to go deeper into their relationship with Him and to know Him better. 

Our greatest obligation and our greatest opportunity in life is to get to know our Lord Jesus Christ better and better. 

Paul went on to say in verse 18:

18  I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,  19  and his incomparably great power for us who believe. 

Now, notice how he describes that power:

That power is the same as the mighty strength  20  he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,  21  far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

We come to know Christ better as we live in His resurrection power. The same power that fueled the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is available to fuel our daily living. We’re to live in resurrection power.

Recently, I was in Jerusalem and I spoke to a group at the site of the Garden Tomb. After everyone left, my grandson, Elijah, and I were alone in the garden area. It was dark, but path lights led to the tomb, which was dimly lit. We walked in, and standing there in the dim light of an empty ancient sepulcher this thought came to me: The only way to live in fullness is to live in emptiness. 

Where do we get fullness of joy? Fullness of courage? Fullness of the Spirit? It’s from the emptiness of the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth, a tomb that was occupied by a shroud-enfolded corpse for only a moment in time before being vacated once and for good, now and forever. And the same power that God exerted when He raised Jesus Christ from the dead is what provides the energy for our abundant and eternal life. As we experience more and more of that, we come to know Him better and better, once and for good, now and forever.

It’s in the emptiness of that tomb that we have the energy to live with fullness of joy and strength and enthusiasm.

C. Through The Fellowship with His Suffering

But the apostle Paul isn’t finished. We come to know Christ more deeply, not only through fellowship with Him and fellowship with His resurrection, but with fellowship with His suffering and death. 

This is really very simple. As we faithfully serve Him, we may encounter opposition, hostility, and persecution. That enables us to experience a bit of what Christ experienced and it causes us to trust Him more than ever.

It’s strange how the world hates the message and the adherents of Christianity. I just listened to a fascinating interview that Shane Morris conducted with Christian thinker and writer Frederica Mathewes-Green. She shared her fascinating testimony. As a child, Frederica remembers her mother being an atheist and her father a nominal Catholic. As a young adult, Frederica became part of the counterculture, a feminist hippie, but something deeply bothered her. She realized while she was in college that she had contempt for Christians. But she did not have contempt for the adherents of other religions. She admired Hinduism. She admired aspects of all the other religions. But she realized that she hated Christians, to the point of wanting to damage them. She wanted to embarrass or humiliate Christians. She began to wonder, “Where is this coming from?”

That nagging question began to convict her and over time led her to investigate Christianity and to become a deeply devoted follower of Christ.

Jesus said that the world would hate His followers. He said, “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you” (John 15:19). 

That’s a remarkable statement. We are in our very essence a different group of people than everyone else on earth. We are citizens of another kingdom, and we serve a different King—and the world instinctively has contempt for us. As we realize that and even as we experience it, we are becoming more like Christ, we are sharing in the contempt He faced, and we are growing closer to Him.

While writing this message, the monthly Voice of the Martyrs magazine came. It tells stories of the persecuted church. There was an article about a group of pastors who met in Mozambique. Their area had been infiltrated by Muslim extremists, and as the pastors sat around the table they told stories, one story after another, of the suffering they had witnessed. One pastor told of Christians being decapitated. Another told of Christians being burned alive in their cars. Another told of his church building being destroyed. Finally the pastors bowed their heads and began to pray, then they began to sing, and their time of shared sorrow was turned into a time of worship, reflecting the pastors’ hope in Christ. They all agreed that through this suffering the church would grow.

Most of us can’t begin to comprehend what’s happening to our Christian brothers and sisters in the persecuted church. But these faithful men and women are coming to know Christ better than most of us because they are sharing in the fellowship of His suffering.

And yet, in other sense, we all encounter suffering in life. I’ve been stunned recently by some of the hardships that have happened around me. What do these things do? They drive us closer to Christ. I love the song that says:

I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord;

No tender voice like Thine can peace afford.

I need Thee, O, I need Thee,

Every hour I need Thee,

O bless me now, my Savior, I come to Thee.

D. Throughout Eternity

Finally, we come to know Christ better, not only through fellowship with Him, and through the fellowship of His resurrection and through the fellowship of His suffering, but through fellowship with Him forever.

10  I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,  11  and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

This word “somehow” seems out of place, but it doesn’t imply doubt, but wonder. Paul is not saying, “Somehow I hope I will be resurrected.” He is saying, “I am amazed by the thought that almighty God in His triumphant power will somehow bring all the molecules of my decayed body together at His return and I will be resurrected!”

That’s when we will continue getting to know Christ. 

In His great and final prayer in John 17, Jesus prayed: Father, I want those you have given Me to be with Me where I am, and to see My glory…” (verse 24). In other words, the Lord Jesus wants us to be with Him forever, beholding Him with growing awe and wonder.

Revelation 22:4 says we will see His face.

Jesus is both God and Man, and He is infinite in all aspects of His personality, so we can never get to the bottom of His wonder and majesty and love and power. But we will have a literal infinity of time to walk with Him, to talk with Him, to be with Him, to fellowship with Him. There will be billions of people in Heaven, but because of the nature of everlasting life, we will have endless opportunities to spend time there with Jesus. And we will spend eternity getting to know Him better and better and better.

And so that’s how we progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Christ:

We come to know Him by grace alone through faithWe come to know Him better through fellowship with Him, by living in the power of His resurrection, by sharing in His sufferings, and by our anticipation of knowing Him forever and ever.

Conclusion:

In 2016, a family in the South was sifting through their great-grandparents’ belongings and came across a paper bag that was filled with trash and headed for the dump, or so they thought. Looking inside, they found a treasure trove of old baseball cards, including seven original Ty Cobb cards, which said: “Ty Cobb, King of the Smoking Tobacco World.” The cards were worth more than a million dollars.

What the world holds in contempt, we hold in rapturous contemplation, for those who follow Christ know what’s really valuable in life, and it goes back 2000 years.

There amid the smoldering ruins of a gloomy day of anguish near the trash heaps of Jerusalem was an old rugged cross—and we’ll cherish that old rugged cross till our trophies we lay down. We will cling to that old rugged cross, and exchange it someday for a crown.

The post Whatever Happens, Turn Your Balance Sheet Upside Down appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Whatever Happens, Value Christ Over Commas

Philippians 3:3-7

Introduction

Abigail Disney is the granddaughter of Roy Disney, who was Walt Disney’s brother. She was raised amid the wealth and fame of her family in North Hollywood. Now she has some very controversial things to say about rich people. Speaking recently at an event hosted by millionaires, she said that one of the hallmark characteristics of billionaires is seeing whose plane is biggest. She was pretty cynical and said that money does odd things to people.

She said the more money her parents got, the more they were afraid of interacting with others who weren’t like them. They had more to lose. They didn’t know who they could trust. People wanted them for their fame and fortune, not for their friendship. They had to have special entrances and exits everywhere, a private plane, a private bar. 

And then she said that at a certain point for rich people, life becomes all about commas.

The world is waiting to see who the first trillionaire will be. He or she will have four commas. 

For some people, life is simply an accumulation of commas, which could all be erased at any moment.

Our message today is very simple—Christ is better than all the commas in the world! It’s not the comma, but Christ, that makes for a fulfilling life. With that, let’s resume our study of Philippians by going to Philippians 2:2-7:

Scripture

2  Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh.  3  For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—  4  though I myself have reasons for such confidence.

Now, notice all these commas: 

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:  5  circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee;  6  as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

7  But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.

Background

We’ve come to the section in the letter to the Philippians in which Paul warns his readers against the Judiazers. Who were these people? These people simply bedeviled the apostle Paul, and he spent a great deal of his ministry attacking them. From his first epistle, which I believe was Galatians, to one of his last, the book of Titus, Paul battled these people, whom he called the “circumcision group.” We call them the Judiazers.

The Lexham Bible Dictionary says: 

The English word ‘Judiazer’ connotes the practice of imposing Jewish religious and social customs on others.

The narrative of Acts suggests that church elders in Jerusalem did not begin to understand that God’s plan was transcending the Jew/Gentile divide until after Peter witnessed the Holy Spirit’s work in Cornelius’ home. The Jerusalem Council met around ad 49 to discuss whether Gentile believers must follow Jewish religious customs (Acts 15:1–29). Even after the council determined that Gentile Christians need not practice the Mosaic law, elitist Judaizers apparently continued to require law-observance for all Christians, whether Jew or Gentile. Paul charges that such a view distorts the gospel (Gal 1:6–7).

Some Christian Judaizers (e.g., many of Paul’s opponents; the Jewish teachers of Acts 15:1) imposed the requirements of the Mosaic Law—primarily but not exclusively circumcision, Sabbath-keeping, and dietary laws—on Gentile Christians, insisting that salvation, or being a member of the people of God, rested on obedience to the Mosaic law.

In other words, the dispensation of the Lord’s plan of redemption was now entering a new phase. Now Jesus was creating His church, and it transcended Judaism. That was hard for some of the Jewish believers in the first century to realize. It took time even for the apostles to understand what God was doing. God had created a church, and the membership requirement was simply repentance and faith—not Jewish ritual. Some of the Jewish people who were drawn to Christ couldn’t understand how Gentiles could bypass Jewish ritual and enter directly into the Kingdom. So they were preaching that in order to follow Christ, one had to also embrace Jewish practices.

Not so, said Paul! In several of his letters, his strongest language addressed this.

1. What Paul Said

Here in Philippians, Paul says, “If anyone on this earth could have been saved by keeping the external demands of the Jewish system and the Mosaic Law, it is me.” Look at verse 3 and following:

3  For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—  4  though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:

And he lists seven elements of his Jewish resume, separated by commas:

Circumcised on the eighth day [of my life, as prescribed by the Law for male Jewish babies]Of the people of IsraelOf the tribe of Benjamin, which was the beloved tribe and the tribe of origin for Israel’s first king, for whom Paul was named as Saul of TarsusA Hebrew of Hebrews. In other words, Paul said, I am of pure Jewish stock. My parents were fully Jewish with no other blood mingled in their lineage.In regard to the law, a Pharisee, which was a strict denomination among the Jews, one known for its conservative approach to the Old Testament. As for zeal, persecuting the church. In other words, if you Judiazers want to twist the church around, I have even better credentials. I was determined to destroy it altogether. As for righteousness based on the law, faultless. This doesn’t mean Paul thought that he was sinless, but that he scrupulously kept the rules about Sabbath observance, dietary laws, and ritual cleanliness.

Paul said, “If anyone would have been able to obtain salvation through Judaism, it was me.” 

It reminds me very much of Martin Luther, who as a young man entered a monastery and tried his very best to be so perfect as a monk that he could be saved by his good works. He said, “I was a good monk, and I kept the rules of my order so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got to heaven by his monkery it was I. All my brothers at the monastery who knew me would bear me out. If I had kept on any longer, I should have killed myself with vigils, prayers, reading, and other work.”

His life was saved when he realized we are saved by grace through faith.

Both Paul and Luther lived centuries ago. You may ask what any of that has to do with life today, and I would say a great deal. There are many churches, denominations, branches, and varieties of Christianity in which people believe they can be right with God and have eternal life by keeping various rituals or living an outwardly good life.

The America Worldview Inventory 2020 Survey conducted by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University studied people who identified themselves as Christian. The researchers asked people what religion they held, and if the person said, “I’m a Christian,” then they were asked on what basis they expected to go to Heaven.

52% of U.S. self-identified Christians expect to experience salvation on the basis of good works.48% believe they experience salvation on the basis of their confession of sin and faith in Christ.

The president of Arizona Christian University, Len Munsil, said that the “lack of understanding of basic Christian theology is stunning…. It’s a wake-up call for the church.”

This was essentially what Paul was fighting. 

But now, let’s go on to verse 7:  But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.

Before Paul met Christ, these were the things he was proudest off. His self-regard and self-confidence were based on all these assets and accomplishments. He was proud of his Jewish pedigree, and his strict lifestyle, and his zealous work ethic, and his outward success. But somehow the moment he met Jesus Christ on the Damascus Road, those things seemed like rubbish, like loss, compared to what he had just discovered.

Notice the word whatever. That includes the seven virtues Paul has just listed along with what? Along with everything else in all of life.

The word gains is the same word Paul used in Philippians 1:21, when he said, if you’ll remember: To live is Christos (Christ). To die is kerdos (gain). It was a financial term having to do with profit. We all like profit. If you get an unexpected bonus at work, or you have a healthy gain on an investment, or you get a huge raise, or you inherit a sum of money, you’re excited about that. It is gain, profit.

But Paul had changed the way he thought. He said, “I now consider….” The word consider indicates mental processing, logical thinking. 

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.

His point is this—all there is in the world is worthless compared to knowing Christ. We cannot find a life worth living through commas. We cannot accumulate enough good works or rituals or wealth or fame to have a fulfilling life. We cannot acquire enough merit points, bank accounts, personal jets, or media appearances to really satisfy us.

Whatever gains to us are loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus as our Lord.

2. What Spurgeon Said

I wish I could say things as Charles Spurgeon did. God gave him an imagination and a vocabulary that never stopped. Here is what he wrote about this in his autobiography:

My Christ is more precious to me than anything my fellow-creatures have. I see some who live in palaces, sit on thrones, wear crowns, and feast on dainties. I have heard of Alexanders, Napoleons, and Caesars; but I envy them not, for Christ is more precious to me than all earthly dominion. 

I see others with great riches. They are afraid of losing what they have, yet they are groaning after more. They have many cares through their wealth, and they must leave it all one day; but Christ is better than all earthly riches. Shall I give up Christ for gold? No, for Christ is more precious to me than wealth could ever be.

Some men have noble minds; they long for knowledge, they toil that they may measure the earth, survey the heavens, read the lore of the ancients, dissolve minerals, but Christ is better to me than learning.

Others pant for fame. I shall be forgotten, save by the few whose steps I have guided in the path to Heaven; but I weep not at that, for Christ is more precious to me than fame.

He is more precious than anything I myself have.

If I have a home and fireside and feel a comfort in them, yet, if called to suffer banishment, I have a better home. If I have relatives, mother and father and faithful friends; these I value and rightly too. ‘Tis a bitter pang to lose them. But Christ is better than relatives or friends. He is my Husband, my Brother, the One who loves me.

I have health, and that is a precious jewel. Take it away and pleasures lose their gloss, but my Jesus is mine still, and He is better than health, yes, better than life itself.  

When I consider the glory of His nature, the excellence of His character, the greatness of His offices, the richness of His gifts, surely He is indeed precious…. To know that Christ is precious, to feel it in truth, is everything.

3. What Jesus Said

What the apostle Paul and Charles Spurgeon are saying here was taught by Jesus Himself in embryonic form in His parables of the kingdom. He devoted two very brief parables to this.

In Matthew 13:44, He said, “The kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought the field.”

This very thing has happened many times with the discovery of gold or precious minerals or diamonds beneath the earth. Some years ago in Zambia, a prospector was out hunting. He shot an antelope and as he investigated the fallen animal he saw some classic signs of copper ore in the rock next to the animal. He kept the discovery to himself, but began a frantic effort to acquire the land, and it later became one of the largest copper mines in Africa. 

Jesus was saying in Matthew 13, I am the only true and lasting treasure you will ever find or ever need, and it’s worth everything else to follow Me.

In the next verse, He said, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:45).

Conclusion

One of the richest men in the world is Philip Ng of Singapore, who is a billionaire. He recently spoke to Fox News, and this is what he said, “I was always in search for a better life, a better purpose, a better me, a better everything. I was just looking at all the wrong things, but when I realized then is no better me or better things without Jesus.  Then it all snapped into place…. I treasure my (faith in Christ) more than anything, so I just wish for everyone to have that peace and joy. It sure beats a lot of money and material things you may have.”

There’s an old song that says,

I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold;
I’d rather be His than have riches untold;
I’d rather have Jesus than houses or land;
I’d rather be led by His nail-pierced hand

Than to be the king of a vast domain
And be held in sin’s dread sway.
I’d rather have Jesus than anything
This world affords today.
Don’t worry about how many commas you accumulate in life. It’s not commas that take us to heaven, but the explanation point of Jesus Christ. As the apostle Paul put it: But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.

The post Whatever Happens, Value Christ Over Commas appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Whatever Happens, Safeguard Your Soul

A Study of Philippians 3:1-3

Everyone is trying to figure out why our nation is becoming so violent. It’s the mass shootings that grab the headlines, but just try to find out how many people are murdered every day in America, and I don’t think you’ll be able to find that statistic. I’ve looked for it, but the FBI admits their data is very incomplete because many local law enforcement agencies don’t fill out all the reports. In addition to murders, there is theft, assault, and all the rest of it. 

Why? There may be legislative reasons and laws that need to be changed, but at the heart of it is one simple thing—when a society turns away from the truth of Scripture, it begins to disintegrate.

The book of Genesis says that in the days before the flood, the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and full of violence (Genesis 6:11). And Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:37).

Jesus said that the last days would be characterized by “the increase of wickedness” (Matthew 24:12).

The Bible says, “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves… boastful, proud, abusive… without love…without self-control, brutal…” (2 Timothy 3:1-3).

How then do we stay safe in a world like this?

Well, I cannot guarantee that we will never experience threats, dangers, acts of violence, thefts, or any of the rest of it. All over the world, violence is being directed against the people of God. We’re living in a dangerous world, and that’s all there is to it.

But we can live in such a way that Satan will never be able to truly hurt us in any ultimate way. And that’s the subject we’re coming to in Philippians 3, and in this passage the apostle Paul gives us five critical safeguards that we have to keep in place. Let’s read Philippians 3:1-3.

Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. 2 Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—

Chapter 3 begins with the word “further,” and some translations say, “finally,” as though Paul was getting ready to conclude his letter. But the Greek word loipos has a range of meanings, and in this case Paul saying, “Now there are some other things I want to bring up.”

Many commentators see this as a very abrupt change in the letter, but I don’t think it is. Paul’s great purpose is for them to stand firm in one Spirit, and he illustrated how Jesus had done that, how Timothy had done that, how Epaphroditus had done that; and now he’s going to show us how he is doing that, recommending at the end of the passage that they follow his example. In fact, as we’ll see in an upcoming study, he tells them three times to follow his example.

But there is a new element introduced here—that of having needed safeguards set into place in the church and in our lives. 

1. Rejoice in the Lord

First, he told them to rejoice in the Lord. Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.

Apparently Paul had told them this or written it to them in a prior letter, but he is repeating it. There’s something very important here. Notice exactly what Paul is saying. He is giving them a commandment to rejoice in the Lord, and it says that this attitude, this activity, this habit is a safeguard to them.

The Greek word safeguard (asphales – pronounced: os-fa-lace’) meant to be secure, rendered safe. In other words, we rejoice in the Lord because that attitude is like a protective shield around us.  

I have never thought of joy like this before. I’ve studied this subject in the Bible for years. I’ve written about it, preached about it, and learned something about the power of a joyful life.

I’ve known and memorized many verses about joy:

I recall the first time I really got hold of Nehemiah 8:10: The joy of the Lord is your strength. I visualized joy as an energy factory inside of me, generating enthusiasm and strength for living.I recall finding Psalm 100 on an occasion when I was serving the Lord out of a sense of duty and drudgery. It says, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness.” That really changed the way I went into every day’s duties.I recall learning about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace….” I realized that I could not, within my own natural self, produce the joy of the Lord. I had to be yielded and open to the Spirit and let Him produce it for me and in me and through me.I also learned the importance of joy in leadership during a very difficult time in my pastoral career when everything went wrong at the same time and in very serious ways. I was overwhelmed with it and on the verge of faltering under it all. But the Lord gave me fifteen Bible verses about joy and told me to go onto the platform and smile and teach the Bible with joy. And something about that reassured the people, steadied the church, and got us to a better place.

So I have thought of joy as an electrical generator, as the necessary ingredient for Christian service, as a result of the Holy Spirit’s working in my life, and as a powerful mechanism for leadership.

But I had never before thought of joy as a safeguard, as a shield, as a weapon, an invincible cloak around us, or as a guardian who served as a security officer. 

Paul was drawing from the book of Psalms here, which tells us over and over to rejoice in the Lord. I have a whole list of references, but I don’t think it’s necessary to give them. Paul was using the language of David. What does it mean to rejoice in the Lord?

It means that you have developed the habit of elevating your innermost spirit by learning to recall over and over and over all the truth you know about the Lord and His grace toward you.

There is a God and He made youHe knows your nameHe knows your failures but loves youHe knows your weakness but helps youHe knows your problems but guides you through themJesus came and died for youHe rose againHe ascended to heavenHe reigns in authorityHis is coming in gloryHe has given us the Bible with all we need to know within its coversHe wants to use us and has a plan for our livesThe troubles of this world are passing awayThe day of His return is drawing nearWe are heirs of God and co-heirs with ChristWe have Heaven ahead of usAnd we are persuaded that neither life nor death, nor angels nor demons, nor the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You cannot bring those things to mind again and again without your heart and spirit being elevated. There is joy in the Lord! And there is joy in all there is about the Lord.

The joy of the Lord is a safeguard. It protects you against…

Fear and paranoiaDejection and despondencyWeariness and worryTemptation and sinEven against pain and sorrow’

It protects us against the devil and his demonic forces.

Satan doesn’t know what to do with a joyful Christian. He can do a lot with believers who have lost their joy, but you might as well try to hold an inflated soccer ball underwater as try to submerge a joy-inflated Christian.

Joy is an attitude, an activity, and a piece of armor. It is a safeguard for the soul.

2. Watch Out for Error

The second way to safeguard ourselves is by watching out for errors and adhering to the truth of Scripture.

Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.  2  Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh.  3  For it is we who are the circumcision….

He referred to false teachers here as dogs. Now, most of us love dogs. According to Dr. Gordon Fee in his commentary of his passage, though, it wasn’t that way in biblical times. Dogs were scavengers, running wild; and the Jews considered them unclean. Paul used that word to characterize the false teachers who were dogging him everywhere.

Who were they? They were Judaizers, teachers who believed you have to convert to Judaism or at least adopt Jewish practices if you want to become a Christian. They said, “You have to receive Christ as Savior—plus be circumcised, plus keep the Jewish calendar, plus keep the Jewish diet if you want to be saved. Jesus was a Jew, and Christianity is the evolution of Judaism, so you have to adopt Judaism if you want to embrace Christianity.

The whole subject of circumcision is a strange topic for the pulpit. But the writers of the Bible had no qualm about talking about it, so let me try to delicately explain what Paul is talking about.

When God called Abraham and chose that man to become the first Jewish man on earth and to produce a family that would become the nation that would produce the Messiah, He (God) ordained this ritual or practice of male circumcision. It was certainly a hygienic practice in biblical times, but it represented something more. 

When a Jewish man and woman came together in Old Testament days, they were potentially creating the lineage that would lead to the Messiah. God told Abraham, “In your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). 

What is seed? It is seminal fluid produced by the male reproductive tract that contains sperm cells capable of connecting with corresponding cells produced in a woman’s body so as to bring about conception. That’s the most delicate way I know it.

This seed was passed down from generation to generation, and so the great symbol of the covenant was circumcision, which represented the transmission of the seed of the Messiah.

But after the Messiah was born, He established the church; and the church was made up of both Jews and Gentiles. To some of the Jewish believers, the ritual of circumcision was so important they thought a Gentile man could not be saved without undergoing this medical procedure. They would say to a man—Good, you want to become a Christian. Let’s go see a surgeon….”

As you can imagine, that was a significant barrier to church growth. Plus it was totally untrue.

Paul spent vast portions of his entire ministry fighting this heresy. Just read Galatians 5! His message was that we are saved by grace through faith alone. We do not have to come to Christ through Judaism. We come to Him just as we are, by faith alone. It’s not faith plus ritual, or faith plus circumcision, or faith plus baptism, or faith plus anything.

To keep yourself safe, Paul told the Philippians, you need to guard your theology and keep your beliefs anchored to the Scripture.

I do not personally know of anyone preaching the exact same Judaizing message that Paul confronted, but the danger of false teachers is greater now than ever. If you are thinking of joining a church, you have to know what they teach and believe.

When I was a pastor we articulated our beliefs in our church material and on our website. We talked about the Bible, the person of God, the person of Christ, the nature of salvation, the Holy Spirit, the Second Coming.

But let me read you the statement of faith I found on another website. I’ll not identify the church, but you can find something like this on many church websites. I picked this church at random, went to their beliefs, and this is what it said:

We are a Progressive, Reconciling church defined by these principles:

We accept and celebrate human diversity – being radically inclusive in welcoming people of every color, nationality, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, physical and cognitive ability, and economic status.

We believe in social justice and support advocacy with persons experiencing poverty and oppression. We maintain a deep belief in the instruction to “love one another” – made clear in the teachings of Jesus Christ.

We live out these beliefs with spiritual vitality while believing that our church flourishes with many points of view, opportunities for creative expression, and participatory worship services. We are open-minded, but we also strive to be open-hearted and a true haven of acceptance for those who find their way through our open doors.

We are followers and Disciples of Jesus Christ who calls us into ministry with the marginalized.

Some of that sounds pretty good; but some of it is code language for beliefs that are distinctly unbiblical. And notice what is missing. There is nothing about God, nothing about the Bible, nothing about sin and justification and redemption, nothing about eternal life and death, nothing about Heaven or Hell. And Jesus is only referenced as a teacher who taught us to love others and minister to the marginalized. Well, He did do that, but there’s much more about Him, isn’t there?

This is why I am almost beside myself over pulpits that don’t teach the Word of God in a consistent and sound way.

Recently I articulated my views on this for a post on social media that I want to share with you: 

From the beginning of my ministry, I’ve believed that there cannot be biblical conduct without biblical content. Trendy sermons and motivational talks don’t build a church or those who attend it. The pulpit is not a practice field but a battlefield, and our weapons are not sticky points but Bible verses, well exegeted in their context. My greatest joy as a pastor was teaching and preaching “to further the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness” (Titus 1:1). Other goals are laudatory, but this is mandatory. The pulpit is the foundation of a healthy church; the Word of God is the foundation of the pulpit; and Christ is the cornerstone! 

We cannot be safe if we don’t rejoice in the Lord and maintain our biblical theology, doctrine, worldview, and lifestyle.

I believe we can glean all of that out of Philippians 3:1 and 2: Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. Watch out for those dogs, those mutilators of the flesh.

3  For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—

Whatever happens, safeguard yourself with the joy of the Lord and the true doctrines of Scripture.

The post Whatever Happens, Safeguard Your Soul appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Another Year of Praise

Happy New Year Everyone! Welcome to another year of praise.

As we begin a New Year, I want to pause in our series of studies through Philippians to share with you a single verse that will encourage us as we turn the page of the calendar. It is a verse that is translated in different ways in different versions of the Bible. Instead of trying to decide which of the translations is the best one, I want to embrace all of them and give you three great reasons to praise the Lord in the New Year.

Psalm 68 is a sweeping chapter with all kinds of implications for what Dr. Michael Heiser calls the unseen realm and the divine counsel. There’s a lot going on this Psalm. But for the sake of simplicity, I want to focus on verse 19.

The verse is Psalm 68:19 and it begins the same basic way in most translations:

Praise be to the Lord

Or Blessed be the Lord

The first word is “Praise.” We start the year off right when we celebrate Him. Rejoice in Him. Sing to Him. Pray to Him. Thank Him. Think about Him. Exalt Him. Let this New Year be one of praise, first to last, January 1 to December 31. Praise Him in January, February, March, and April. Praise Him through the Spring, Summer, and Fall. Praise Him through the passing days and encircling months.

Another year is dawning, dear Father, let it be
In working or in waiting, another year with Thee.
Another year of progress, another year of praise,
Another year of proving Thy presence all the days.

Frances ridley Havergal

And why do we praise Him? One of the reasons is that He does things for us on a daily basis. We have a daily God, and every day the Savior works on our behalf. Psalm 23 says that goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives, which means every day this year.

Psalm 68:19 says: Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily…

So the question is: What is He going to do for us every day this year? Well, I have an unusual outline today. In all my ministry, I don’t think that I’ve ever done exactly what I’m doing here. I’m going to expound on this verse from three different English Bible translations, and these three translations will constitute the three points of today’s message.

1. Praise God Who Daily Bears our Burdens

First, in the New International Version the verse reads like this: Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.

He is our burden-bearer. Have you ever thought of God as daily bearing your burdens? That’s something He wants to do every day. He not only carries our burdens; He daily carries our burdens. When you wake up in the morning, He is already bearing your burdens.

Let’s think of this in traveling terms. Some years ago, I hard time deciding whether to take a backpack or a roller board when I travel. I love having a backpack because it keeps my hands free. I never have to check my luggage, and things are accessible to me all along the way. But sometimes I use a roller board or a small rolling suitcase because a backpack gets heavy. 

My son-in-law and I took a trip a few years ago and I took a backpack. We actually said we were backpacking. That didn’t mean we were camping out or sleeping under the stars. It just meant that for ten days we lived out of our backpacks. I liked doing that, but a backpack gets heavy along the way. But when I got on a train or a bus or a taxi, I slid the burden off my back and let the vehicle carry it. It was such a relief. It was so wonderful to feel that strain and weight slide off my shoulders. I still had my backpack, of course. I kept it within sight. I didn’t lose my burden. It was still there beside me or at my feet. But I was no longer bearing the weight of it.

That’s the kind of feeling we have when we finally learn to entrust our problems to the Lord. The Bible says: Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Psalm 55:22 says, “Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never suffer the righteous to be moved.”

You and I may have burdens heavier than we can bear. Our shoulders hurt. We’re stooped over. We’re weighed down. But there is liberating relief to slipping that burden off our shoulders and entrusting it to God. We have still have it. It’s not like the burden immediately disappears. But the weight of it is being borne by another.

Two of our great hymns articulate this theme. One says:

What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry,
Everything to God in prayer.

joseph scriven

Another says:

I must tell Jesus all of my trials,
I cannot bear these burdens alone;
In my distress He kindly will help me,
He ever loves and cares for His own.

e.a. hoffman

Every one of us is starting this New Year with certain burdens. I’m not suggesting we forget about them or pretend they’re not there. But I would encourage you to slip them off your shoulders and let the Lord carry them. Let Him bear the weight of that burden. Trust Him with it. Claim this verse for the New Year: Praise be to God our Savior who daily bears our burdens. That’s the way it’s put in the New International Version.

2. Praise God Who Daily Bears Us Up

But now I want to switch translations. The English Standard Version puts it a little differently. It says: Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation.

It’s one thing if someone bears my burden, but it’s another if he bears me up. The Lord does both. Even after He bears our burdens, we can falter under the stresses and strains of life. We need Him to bear us up.

There’s an amazing story that comes from the National World War II Museum. A nineteen-year-old sailor, Signalman 3rd class Elgin Staples from Akron, Ohio, was serving aboard the cruiser USS Astoria in support of the landings at Guadalcanal. Their ship was hit by enemy fire, and Staples was thrown overboard. He was dazed in the water and wounded by shrapnel, but he was kept afloat due to an inflatable rubber lifebelt he was wearing. He was rescued, treated, and sent back to the Astoria. But the Astoria had been damaged so bad, she sank, putting the sailor back into the water. Again, he was saved by his inflatable rubber lifebelt, and rescued a second time by the USS President Jackson, a transport ship. 

Safely aboard the President Jackson, Staples took off the lifebelt that had twice saved him, and he examined it carefully. There was a tag that indicated it had been made in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, by the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. Stamped onto the belt were an unusual set of numbers.

When he finally arrived back home, he pulled out his lifebelt and showed it to his family, telling them it had twice saved his life. He described being thrown off one ship by the explosion and jumping off it later as it sunk.

“Take a look at that, Mom,” he said. She looked it and told him that while he had been gone, she had gotten a job at the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, and her job had been inspecting lifebelts. The strange numbers stamped onto the best were her inspector number.

Signalman Staples had been lifted up and saved by the belt his own mother had inspected. 

We all find ourselves in troubled waters from time to time, but we are borne up, lifted up, by the One who guarantees our safety and has given us a lifebuoy of Scripture.

The words of Scripture are like flotation devices. They are like buoys. And we find that the eternal God is our refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms. As we enter this New Year, there will be days when we not only need the Lord to bear our burdens; we need Him to bear us up ourselves. For the children of God, there is always the buoyance of the presence and the promises of God our Savior. He bears our burdens and He bears us up. That’s the way it’s put in the English Standard Version.

3. Praise God Who Daily Loads Us with Benefits

But it doesn’t stop there. Let’s open one last translation, the New King James Version, and read this verse from its pages. The verse in the NKJV says: Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation!

Not only does the Lord bear our burdens and bear us up; He daily loads us with benefits. He opens the windows of heaven and bestows blessings innumerable.

Years ago there was a Christian man named Robert C. Chapman. Born in Denmark, he moved to England and became an attorney. After his conversion to Christ, he entered fulltime Christian work and became a pastor. Charles Spurgeon called him “the saintliest man I ever knew.” Well, one morning someone ran into him on the street and said, “How are you.” Chapman said, “I’m burdened this morning.” His smile and countenance seemed to contradict his words, and the other person looked at him quizzically. Chapman went on to say, “Yes, but it’s a wonderful burden—it’s the overabundance of blessings for which I cannot find enough time or words to express my gratitude.”

“I am referring,” he said, “to Psalm 68:19.”

Well, speaking of Spurgeon, in preparation for this message I read Charles Spurgeon’s sermon on this text and he had a very good observation. Spurgeon said that when you combine verse 19 with verse 20, you have the totality of mercy. Still reading from the New King James Version, let’s look at both verses:

Blessed be the Lord who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation! Our God is the God of salvation; and to God the Lord belong escapes from death.

That last phrase would imply the resurrection, eternal life, the victory of the empty tomb. So verse 19 talks about the mercy we have in life, and verse 20 talks about the mercy we have in death. In both life and death we are blessed with an overabundance of mercy from the God who is our salvation. He daily loads us with benefits.

This is consistent Bible teaching.

The apostle Paul said: His grace is sufficient.The apostle John said: From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another.The book of Ephesians says that He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

Every day this year He will daily load us with benefits, and that should bring joy to our hearts.

Conclusion

Now you know that I am an advocate of Scripture memory. We should always be working on memorizing a verse of Scripture. But here’s a verse we should memorize three times. Let’s experience Psalm 68:19 on three levels: Praise be to the Lord who daily bears our burdens, who daily bears us up, who daily loads us with benefits. 

But don’t forget that word “Savior.” Praise be to the Lord our Savior who daily does all these things for us. These blessings are found only in Jesus Christ, and only because of what He did on Calvary’s cross by the offering of His body and in the shedding of His blood. Today as we observe the Lord’s Supper, we’re going to put these three verses on the screen.

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation.Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation!

The post Another Year of Praise appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Whatever Happens, Soldier On

Philippians 2:25-30

Introduction: Chris Edmonds pastors at Piney Grove Baptist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. He became curious to know more about his father’s military service during World War II, because, like many veterans, the elder Edmonds had disclosed little of his time in combat. After extensive research, Pastor Edmonds finally got the story of his father’s heroism.

Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, from Knoxville, had fought in the Battle of the Bulge and had been captured and sent to a POW camp. He was the highest-ranking GI at the camp and was in charge of all the POWS. There were over a thousand American soldiers there, and some were Jewish. One day the Nazi commandant of the camp demanded at gunpoint that Sergeant Edmonds identify the American Jews. Sergeant Edmonds had all 1,292 soldiers step forward. When the German officer saw the group he became angry and turned to Edmonds and said he only wanted the Jews. Edmonds said, “We are all Jews here.” 

In anger, the commandant threatened to shoot the sergeant, but Edmonds told him he would have to kill all the men because they all knew who he was and would report him for war crimes after the Allies won.

Sergeant Edmonds risked his life on other occasions too. After the war, he returned home, told nobody about what had happened, and made his living as a salesman and sang in many churches as a musician. When his story came out, he was recognized in a special ceremony at the Israeli Embassy in Washington with the President of the United States attending and speaking. By risking his life, Sergeant Edmonds, who was only 24 years old, saved some 200 Jewish soldiers.

Later Edmonds realized that some of the POWs were on the verge of giving up. Edmonds divided the soldiers into two groups, those who were up and those who were down, as he put it. He assigned one “up” man to one “down” man, and this way kept the soldiers alive.

I would like to think I’d be willing to risk my life like that—and I’m sure you would too. And by the grace of God, I think most of us who know Jesus are willing to both live and die for Him. But it helps us to have models like Sergeant Roddie Edmonds. A few “up” people do an awfully lot to help us “down” people.

Well, we have heroes like that in the Bible too, and some of them are minor characters like the one we’ll talk about today—Epaphroditus—whom Paul referred to in military terms as a soldier.

Scripture:

25  But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs.  26  For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill.  27  Indeed he was ill, and almost died. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow.  28  Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have less anxiety.  29  So then, welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him,  30  because he almost died for the work of Christ. He risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me.

Background: The backstory is very important, and we’ve touched on it before. But let me give it again in summary. Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke showed up in the vast Roman city of Philippi and planted a church. In the process, Paul and Silas were arrested and flogged. In some respects, the church was born from their shed blood. And the Philippian church felt very close to Paul and collected their gifts and send him financial aid wherever he was. When they heard he was under house arrest in Rome, they took up another offering.

In those days, prisoners received very little if any food and provisions from the prison. It had to be provided by family and friends. One of the members of the church in Philippi, this man Epaphroditus, said, “I can detangle my affairs here and travel to Rome and stay with Paul as long as needed. I’ll take our financial offering to him, and I’ll stay on as his helper, doing whatever I can to help him.” So the church commissioned him and he traveled the 800-plus miles over land and sea, and he found Paul in his rented house. 

It must have been a joyful reunion, and Epaphroditus told Paul all the news from Philippi. I wish I could have been in that little rented room eavesdropping on the conversation. And Epaphroditus went to work, washing Paul’s clothes, tending to his wounds, shopping for his food and preparing his meals. But in the course of it all, Epaphroditus became deathly sick. He was stretched out in a bed of that rented house, and Paul tried every way possible to save his life. Paul became the caregiver.

When Epaphroditus recovered, Paul decided it was best to send him home and to send this letter to the Philippians with him. And so, his strength recovered, Epaphroditus left Rome for Philippi with this precious little scroll tucked away in his scant baggage.

The apostle Paul certainly didn’t want the Philippians to think Epaphroditus had failed in his mission, and so he added this paragraph to the letter and he described his friend using five different terms.

1. Brother

First, he called Epaphroditus his brother: 25 But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother….

Have you ever noticed how God designed His church to be a gigantic family—the largest family on earth. We’re not just an organization or an enterprise or a mission or a business. Take Coca-Cola, for example. They have their product in every nation of the world. Technically there are two nations that don’t allow Coca-Cola—North Korea and Cuba. But even there, you can find a Coke if you have to. And the same secret formula is used. And yet those 700,000 employees around the world are not brothers and sisters.

When we come to Jesus Christ, we’re born into His Kingdom and adopted into His family. We call God our Father. It’s not like a family. It is a family. Some time ago, I was in Myanmar and I met Christians from all over the Asia/Pacific realm. The moment I met them I loved them and felt a kinship with them I can’t explain. 

I recall hearing a story years ago—I can’t remember the source—about an American Army officer on an island in the South Pacific. Every Sunday he left the military base to attend a local church in the nearby village. Someone asked him why he did it. He said, “Well, on the base they call me Lieutenant. On the island they call me GI Joe. But in the church, they call me brother.

When you know Christ as your Savior, you’re part of a 2000-year-old global family.

2. Co-worker

Second, Paul calls him his co-worker: But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker…. 

We almost never see the apostle Paul working alone. He was left alone in Athens, and that didn’t go so well and by the time he got to Corinth he was in bad shape. But the Lord sent a Christian couple, Aquila and Priscilla, to take him in (Acts 17-18). From the very beginning when he set off with Barnabas, he always recruited co-workers. In his writings, Paul used the word “fellow worker” or “coworker” to describe 15 different people or groups:

TimothyApollosSilasThe entire Corinthian churchTitusPriscillaAquilaUrbanPhilemonMarkAristarchusDemasLukeJustusEpaphroditus

In a similar way, when Jesus sent out His disciples, he sent them out two by two.

The prophet Elijah tried to work alone, but he broke down under the strain and God gave him Elisha. 

Even Adam, the perfect man in Eden, couldn’t live in solitude. He needed what the old translations called a “help meet”—some to help him to meet the challenges. And even Jesus Christ, the Son of Man and Son of God, wanted His disciples near Him and needed their fellowship.

One drop of water is a beautiful thing—it’s shape and clarity. But I never put just one drop of water on a potted plant. I have a potted Japanese maple on my patio, and I may pour a gallon of water into its soil. There are 90,921 drops of water in a gallon.  It takes all of us working together to keep this world alive and hydrated with the waters of the Holy Spirit.

3. Fellow Soldier

Paul also called Epaphroditus his fellow soldier. Remember, Paul was writing this while under Roman imprisonment. He may have still been under house arrest, but in those days they didn’t have ankle monitors. They had soldiers, and Paul was chained to one all the time. He drew a lot of inspiration from that. In Ephesians, he described the soldiers’ armor and suggested each piece as symbolic for the armor of the believer.

He wrote to Timothy, telling him to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 2:3). 

I’ve heard some people criticize hymns and sermons for being too militaristic. When I was growing up, we sang hymns like “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “Am I a Soldier of the Cross?” The Christian life was considered a battle. Is that still true? Well, I’ve noticed some of our favorite contemporary songs talk about the battle belonging to the Lord and other such phrases. This is an enduring theme.

Paul told Timothy to “fight the battle well” (1 Timothy 1:18). He told him to fight the good fight of faith.

Jesus said we are like kings going out to war who ought to consider the cost and make sure we can win the battle (Luke 14:31).

Second Corinthians 10 says: “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. For the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (verses 3-5). 

Ephesians 6 says: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 

I’ve never been in the military, and I’ve always felt conflicted about that. The stories about the men and women in our armed forces fascinate me. Right now, I’m reading a book called Ship of Miracles. In 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, and American forces were sent to repel the attack. When China entered the war, everything changed. United Nations, South Korean, and American forces had to retreat. 

Bill Gilbert in his account of the Korean War, said: “Our troops were making their way along a winding, mountainous route toward Hungnan, the political, commercial, and educational center of the province. They carried what supplies and equipment they could, plus their weapons, in temperatures that plunged to forty degrees below zero at night in the mountains, in snow drifts sometimes ten feet deep, with howling winds blasting them in the face over twelve tortuous days—all the while under enemy fire.”

Being a soldier is not for the faint of heart. I was reading about the Marines in the Korean War on day when I was low in spirits and feeling sorry for myself. My transition from the church I loved had been distressing and hurtful, and I told someone at the grocery store I felt like a man without a country. I was brooding over that when I came back home and resumed my story of the Korean War—and I felt ashamed.

In his hymn, “Am I a Soldier of the Cross,” Isaac Watts said:

Must I be carried to the skies

On flowery beds of ease,

While others fought to win the prize,

And sailed through bloody seas?

The Bible says, “Endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”

In his book, Ship of Miracles, Bert Gilbert quoted an Army report about the American troops in Korea:

They were only a few weeks away from the scenes of home, but it seemed like a thousand years. Then most of them had been recruits. Now they were veterans. They had fought their fight and knew they would fight again; but it wouldn’t be something strange and unknown next time. Now, there were heroes among them and others who no longer answered roll call…” 

It would be good for us to more frequently think of ourselves as soldiers in the army of the Lord!

4. Messenger

There’s a fourth word used to describe Epaphroditus—He was a messenger.

25  But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger , whom you sent to take care of my needs.

The word “messenger” here is the Greek word “apostolos,” from which we get apostle—one who is sent. Epaphroditus volunteered to be sent for what today we might call a short-term mission trip. The church sent him to care for Paul’s needs. The entire congregation could not go. Perhaps they wanted to. Perhaps all 300 or 3000 of the Christians in Philippi—we don’t know the size of the church by this time—had wanted to go. But most of them had families and jobs or physical or financial limitations. But one man was able to go. He volunteered, and he was sent as apostle for the rest. 

The NIV translates this word as “Messager.” 

If so, what was his message? It must have been one of encouragement! He was an apostle of encouragement. The Philippians said, “Now when you get to Rome and track down Paul, you encourage him. Let him know we love him and we are praying for him and we are going to continue sending him money for his needs.  And give him some Scripture!”

We need to be apostles of encouragement! 

Remember what I said earlier about Sergeant Roddie Edmonds? Edmonds realized that some of the POWs were on the verge of giving up. Edmonds divided the soldiers into two groups, those who were up and those who were down, as he put it. He assigned one “up” man to one “down” man, and this way kept the soldiers alive. Let’s be up people, apostles of encouragement.

5. Minister

Finally, Paul referred to Epaphroditus as a minister. We have to look at this a bit closer. 

25  But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs.

The phrase “care,” as in to take care, is a noun in the Greek and it really means caregiver. I’m not a good enough scholar to figure out why the NIV converts this to a prepositional phrase.

The much more literal New American Standard Version puts the verse in a way that helps us clearly see the five roles Paul reference (bullet-pointing mine):

But I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my…

BrotherFellow workerFellow solderYour MessengerMinister to my need.

Epaphroditus was to be Paul’s caregiver, but in a twist of events Paul became his caregiver.

25  But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs.  26  For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill.  27  Indeed he was ill, and almost died. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow.  28  Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have less anxiety.

My wife, Katrina, had Multiple Sclerosis for 25 years before she passed away, but very often when someone referred to me as her caregiver, I’d correct them. I’d tell them we were each other’s caregivers. I did some things for her, but she was the strength and stability of my life. We never know when one of us will become sick, or even be imprisoned for the Gospel. But our calling is to be one another’s caregivers.

Conclusion: 

Now let’s conclude with verses 29 – 30:

29  So then, welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him,  30  because he almost died for the work of Christ. He risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me.

The name of this man was Epaphroditus. Do you know what that means? His name literally meant “Honored by Aphrodite.” [afro-dye-tee]. She was the Greek goddess of love and sex. Assuming that his parents named him, they were pagans who apparently worshiped the god of love and sex, and his life was devoted to the honor of Aphrodite. Often this name indicated being handsome or charming, being blessed and honored by Aphrodite with good looks. 

But somewhere, somehow, he had come to faith in Jesus Christ and now he was a brother, a fellow worker, a soldier of the cross, an ambassador of encouragement, and a caregiver. Instead of being honored by Aphrodite, now he was to be honored by the Philippians. 

The Bible says to give honor to whom honor is due. When you find someone who is a living demonstration of the kind of life Paul described in Philippians 2—someone who is Christlike and Timothy-like and Epaphroditus-like, who is a brother, a fellow worker, a soldier of the cross, an ambassador of encouragement, and a caregiver for others—honor such a person. For their lives are valuable, and they are not afraid to risk them for the cause of Christ.

The post Whatever Happens, Soldier On appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Whatever Happens, Stay as Cheerful as Possible

Philippians 2:19-24

Introduction: How many steps are there to a happy life? There must be eight, because that’s the magic number in all kinds of book titles.Here are some books I saw on this topic: The New Eight Steps to Happiness; Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness; Beatitudes: Eight Steps to Happiness; Eight Steps to Happiness. One writer tried something different: Eight Laws of Happiness. Another book is Eight Steps to More Happiness. Here’s another: The Busy Woman’s Guide to Happiness. Want one more? Eight to Great: How To Take Charge of Your Life and Make Positive Changes Using an 8-Step Breakthrough Process… for Fans of the Happiness Project. 

There’s more, but it’s getting redundant! 

Well, let me give you one more: Eight Steps to Happiness: The Science of Getting Happy and How It Can Work for You. This particular book is by Dr. Anthony Grant and Alison Leigh. I don’t think they have all the answers we’d like, but they certainly open the book by summing up the problem:

It’s hard to be really happy. To stay happy. People let you down. The fates are unkind. Life conspires against you. The world grows cold and vicious. Life becomes bleak and gray.

Just when you think you’ve got it all worked out and it all seems in balance…the feeling slips away. Optimism and contentment dissipate. Anxiety returns. We get downhearted. We give up.

It’s easier to go shopping. It’s easier to find ways to make ourselves feel good by buying something new, going to the movies, eating nice food, drinking, getting on the internet… other distractions. It feels good. But the hedonic treadmill—the vicious cycle of searching for material things to make us happy and ease our disquiet—is just that, a treadmill.

We can all identify with that! I don’t know of anything we struggle with more than psychological well being. How do we maintain our psychological well being? Why is that so hard? 

There’s a paragraph in the Bible I want us to analyze along those lines. It seems like a simple everyday paragraph, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. Let’s read Philippians 2:19-24:

Scripture:

19  I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you.  20  I have no one else like him, who will show genuine concern for your welfare.  21  For everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.  22  But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel.  23  I hope, therefore, to send him as soon as I see how things go with me.  24  And I am confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon.

Background: There are two background issues here.

First, what was happening? As we’ve seen, just when the apostle Paul was ready to launch his fourth missionary tour, he was arrested and spent five or so years in imprisonment waiting for his trial before the imperial court. At the time he wrote the letter to the Philippians, he was either still under house arrest in Rome or in some holding cell closer to the imperial courtroom. He knew the case against him was weak and the evidence nonexistent, and he also had a very powerful weapon—his official Roman citizenship. He truly expected to be released, but he wasn’t certain. With Nero in the palace, no one felt very secure. So he told the Philippians he would send Timothy with news as soon as he found out how everything would be resolved and visit them as soon as possible. 

Second, who was Timothy? Timothy was a very young man. Five years or so later, Paul wrote to him and said, “Don’t let anyone look down on your youthfulness” (see 1 Timothy 4:12). It’s possible Timothy had only been a young teenager, perhaps 13 or so, when Paul unofficially adopted him and began taking him with him on his travels. Now he’s perhaps in his twenties. Notice how Paul describes him.

20  I have no one else like him, who will show genuine concern for your welfare.  21  For everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.  22  But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel.

Of course, Paul was using Timothy as an example of what he had been discussing up to this point in his letter. He had told the Philippians to look not to their own interests, but to those of Jesus Christ and to have a genuine concern for others. Now he was showing them a living, breathing, true-life example of that. 

So Paul was essentially saying, “You need to be like Jesus and have the mind of Christ and care more for His interests than your own without complaining, having genuine care for one another. And as soon as I can learn the outcome of my legal problems, I’ll send Timothy with news and then, Lord willing, I’ll come to see you myself. In the meantime, welcome Timothy as someone who epitomizes what I’ve been trying to tell you in this letter. Look at Timothy and you’ll see a Christ-like man, whose example you can follow.”

That’s what this paragraph is all about. In its simplest historical context, Paul was telling the Philippians he would soon send Timothy to see them and he commended Timothy in very tender terms. But there’s something more here. As I’ve read this paragraph over and over, three phrases have stood out to me.

1. Be Concerned But Not Anxious

The first phrase I want you to notice is built around the word “concern.” 

19  I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you.  20  I have no one else like him,  who will show genuine concern for your welfare.  21  For everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

Here’s what’s so interesting. The Greek word for concern is merimnao. That’s the word Paul used. Now turn to chapter 4 and look at verse 6: “Do not be anxious about anything.” The word anxious there is merimnao. In chapter 2, Paul tells us to be concerned, and in chapter 4 he tells us not to be, using the same word.

But of course, even in English the word concern can have a range of meanings, depending on the context. 

She’s going to tell a story concerning her mother.She’s always concerned for the needs of her community.She’s very concerned because her daughter is in danger.

The psychological balance between Philippians 2 and Philippians 4 is a supernatural one. As we go through life, it’s good to be concerned, but it isn’t good to be anxious. Be concerned for others; be anxious for nothing.

In my book, Worry Less, Live More, I wrote:

The zone between concern and worry is a slippery slope. I’ve often wondered how to know, at any given time, if I’m reasonably concerned or unreasonably alarmed. It’s a difficult median, but here’s the key: When our concern is healthy in nature, it doesn’t debilitate us. When it begins to feel debilitating, it has morphed into worry, which becomes a vicious cycle. 

That’s very hard for me, but let’s keep digging into this paragraph because there’s another phrase that brings even more balance—that I may be cheered.

2. Be Cheerful But Not Naïve 

19  I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon,  that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you.  20  I have no one else like him, who will show genuine concern for your welfare. 

“…that I also may be cheered.”

The biblical balance for psychological well-being is to be concerned but not anxious, and cheerful but not naive. This is a very helpful reminder to me because I have always struggled with these things. I think I was born in the negative case. Once when I was in college, I was moping around and depressed and discouraged. Sometimes I had trouble getting out of bed because of despondency. One day my roommate came into the room and said, “Robert, I’ve been studying about the life of the great evangelist Dwight L. Moody, and you remind me of him.”

“How is that?” I said.

“Because you’re moody!”

If you’re moody, I want to encourage you to do what I’ve done. Go through the Bible and find out what it says about the joyful life. According to the word search at Bible Gateway…

The word “joy” occurs 242 times in the New International Version, either in the verses or in the headings.The word “rejoice” occurs 177 times.The word “blessed” occurs 217 times.The word “glad” occurs 108 times.The word “delight” occurs 105 times.The word “comfort” occurs 71 times.The word “celebrate” occurs 68 times.The word “enjoy” occurs 57 times.The word “happy” occurs 20 times.This word “cheer” occurs 13 times.The word “merry” occurs 5 times.And so does the word “overjoyed”—5 times.

That’s 1,088 times! It comes almost exactly to three verses for every day of the year, without repeating any of them! I can tell you from personal experience that nothing compares to searching out these verses and making a personal list of the ones that the Lord especially wants to give you. Write them down. Put them on cards. Memorize them. Internalize them. When you feel anxious, go to your cheerful verses and claim them.

You can do the same with any subject—fear, faith, anger, patience…whatever it is. Select the subject you most need to experience, do a word search in the Scripture, read each verse you find in its context so you’re interpreting the words wisely. And then start compiling your list. This kind of project may take an hour or a week or a month or longer. It doesn’t matter. You are building up an arsenal of Scriptures in your mind.

Find ways of keeping these verses at the forefront of your attention.

Julie Chapman, an elementary school teacher at Chattahoochee Elementary School north of Atlanta, was diagnosed with cancer. She struggled bitterly, but her students and friends sent her messages, often including Bible verses. Julie wrote each of those verses on a sticky note and posted it on the wall. She was literally surrounded with Scripture. It was in an article in her local newspaper. The headline said: “For Julie Chapman, Beating Cancer Came Down to Faith, Family, and Sticky Notes.”

Krystal Whitten is a wife and mother in Tampa who, when she was in high school, loved to write out Bible verses in a creative style with Crayola markers. She posted them on the wall of her bedroom. In college, she studied graphic design. But as an adult and a wife, she got away from the Bible. Her mother was very ill and then passed away, and Krystal went through some dark times. For years, she had no interest in reading the Bible.

But one day a friend invited her to a Bible study that provided free childcare. The study group would read a book of the Bible each week, then gather to discuss it. So Krystal found herself reading the Bible every day and becoming reacquainted with it. It came alive to her, and one day she selected a verse and wrote it out in a creative style using hand lettering. In the process she found she had memorized the verse. She framed it and put it on the wall, and every time she went by it she said it in her mind.

Now her hand-letter Bible verses are displayed and sold in the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., Krystal has a best-selling resource entitled Lettering Prayer Journal.

We need to learn to post Bible verses on the walls of our heart, including verses about joy and cheerfulness. God wants us to be concerned without being anxious and cheerful without being naïve. But beneath it all is one powerful truth—and that’s the third phrase I want to give you.

3. Be In the Lord Jesus

Notice how Paul begins and ends this paragraph with the phrase “in the Lord.”

19  I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you.  20  I have no one else like him, who will show genuine concern for your welfare.  21  For everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.  22  But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel.  23  I hope, therefore, to send him as soon as I see how things go with me.  24  And I am confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon.

That’s not all. Look at:

Philippians 1:14: And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the Gospel without fear.Philippians 2:29: So then, welcome him in the Lord with great joy….Philippians 3:1: Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord !Philippians 4:1: Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown stand firm in the Lord.

This phrase occurs nine times in the book of Philippians, and the related phrase “in Christ” occurs another eight times. This is Paul’s signature phrase, the summary of all thirteen of his letters. “In Christ” or “in the Lord Jesus.” These phrases occur approximately 216 times in his writings.

Scholars have a hard time pinning down all that Paul meant to convey with this phrase.

What does that mean? It means you are no longer outside. You are an insider. You are inside of the love and the redemption of Jesus Christ. You are in union with Him. The Gospel of John talks about abiding in Christ. Your whole life is lived within His grace.

The summer after I graduated from college, I was part of a Gospel team that toured the Northeast. I preached in camps and churches throughout New England. In one camp, my buddy and I served as counselors to a group of Middle School boys, and we thought we’d take them camping one night. After supper, everyone rolled up their sleeping bags and hiked about an hour to camp there. About 2 am, I was jolted awake by water being thrown in my face, which I quickly realized was the rain was coming down in torrents. There was no shelter anywhere. We had to hike an hour in the driving rain, and it was cold and miserable. Imagine how good it felt to get into that dry cabin, into a hot shower, into a warm bed.

Being inside is better than being outside in the rain. But today so many people are standing out in the cold rain, outside of Christ, outside of peace, outside of the eternal life He gives. Jesus said in John 10:8 (NKJV): “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved.”

Conclusion

If anyone is standing in the cold rain, I want to invite you to come through the door and find yourself in Christ. It doesn’t take eight steps—just one.

When you are in the Lord Jesus Christ, He Himself provides the foundation for psychological well-being. He helps you to grow emotionally and spiritually, to become someone who knows how to be concerned without anxiety and how to be cheerful without being naive. 

The Bible says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV). 

The post Whatever Happens, Stay as Cheerful as Possible appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Whatever Happens, Burn Holes in the Darkness

Philippians 2:14-18

Introduction: Heinrich Olbers was a brilliant 19th century German astronomer who posed a simple question of all: Why is the sky dark at night? He made many significant astronomical discoveries, but he is best known for proposing this perplexing question, called Olbers’ Paradox: If the universe is filled with stars, why is the sky dark at night?

Here was Olbers’ reasoning: If the universe is infinitely old and contains an infinite number of stars, then every possible line of sight should end with a star. Imagine being in a forest, seeing a tree everywhere you look. If the universe is filled with stars, then the whole nighttime sky should be filled with light. The nighttime sky, illumined by billions of stars, should be brighter than the daytime sky, which is only illumined by one star—the sun, though the sun is much closer.

Why then is the nighttime sky black? 

Olbers had no answer. It was Olbers’ Paradox!

Even today, the answer is not easy to explain. One reason has to do with the fact that our universe is not infinite as the earlier astronomists believed. It was created in a moment of time in the past, so the light from many of those stars hasn’t yet reached the earth.

But here is another reason that comes from the mind and heart of God. I believe He put the burning stars into a dark sky to teach us something about our own lives and about the mission He has for us. He wants us to burn holes in the darkness. The Lord compares us to stars in the nighttime sky. That brings us to our passage for today—Philippians 2:14-18.

Scripture: 

14  Do everything without grumbling or arguing,  15  so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky  16  as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.  17  But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.  18  So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.

Background: There’s something extraordinary about this passage. Dr. Gordon Fee said, “[This paragraph of Scripture has a] striking feature: the sudden and profuse influx of echoes from the Old Testament, which is quite unlike anything else in the Pauline corpus. So unique is this that one scarcely knows what to make of it.”

Virtually every phrase of this passage comes almost directly from the Old Testament. It traces the story of the Old Testament Israelites. 

I’ll show you how this works out.

1. Do Everything Without Grumbling or Arguing

First, the apostle tells us to do everything without grumbling or complaining. Here Paul is harkening back to the Israelites who came out of Egypt. Their whole attitude was full of grumbling, mummering, arguing, and complaining. 

Exodus 15 records that exuberance that swept over the Israelites after God had delivered them through the Red Sea and destroyed their enemies. They were now fully liberated and free. They sang with great joy and euphoria. But in the very next paragraph, they realized they were now in a desert with no drinkable water. “So the people grumbled against Moses, crying, ‘What are we to drink?’”  

The next chapter begins: The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. 2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death” (Exodus 16:1-3).

There are many other passages like this (Numbers 11:1; Numbers 14:26-27; Psalm 106:24-27). Though God delivered the Israelites from Egypt with mighty plagues and the miracle of the Red Sea; and though He had given them a leader like Moses to guide them; and though He was dwelling among them as a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day; and though He had given them more promises than they could remember—yet they were unhappy, ill-spirited, fearful, and muttering among themselves.

The apostle Paul said: “Do not be like them!”

Orison Swett Marden wrote in one of his books about what he called “the sin of tired nerves.”

He said, “Small [people] who fret and stew and allow themselves to be annoyed and hampered by petty things, show by these earmarks that they are not big enough to command the situation, that they are not able to cope with conditions and preserve harmony. Their irritable ways indicate they are out of harmony with their environment, that they hold the wrong attitudes towards it, and hence they cannot be masters of the situation, but are its victims.”

He wrote, “Everybody we meet is helped or hindered by what we radiate. It makes all the difference in the world whether we go about with a smiling face or wearing a frown. A smile in the heart not only changes the expression but it changes the whole nature which, as we know, takes on the color of our moods.”

Marden said, “No one can really be happy or successful unless he is master of his moods.”

I know this isn’t easy. I’ve been treated badly before and felt a lot of hurt and pain. One day I studied this passage and it spoke to my heart; but then that very night I had a dream where I told someone off who had hurt me. The next morning, I played my favorite hymns playlist. The first song that came up was based on this broader passage in Philippians 2: “May the mind of Christ, my Savior, live in me from day to day; by His power and love controlling all I do and say.”

I said, “Lord, this truth is present in my consciousness but evidently not yet in my subconsciousness.” So I came back to this passage and studied it some more. Here’s what I realized. I cannot grow spiritually without keeping a positive attitude about life. The unfolding logic of this verse tells us this plainly. We cannot grow spiritually unless we keep a biblically positive view of life.

2. That You May Be Blameless and Pure, Children of God without Fault

Look at the passage again: 14 Do everything without grumbling or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure….

Notice the ‘so that.’ 

When we come to Jesus Christ and receive Him as Savior, we are clothed with the blamelessness and purity of Christ in God’s sight, but we still need to grow into our clothing. When I was going into adolescence, I went through a growth spurt. My mother bought clothes for me that were one or two sizes too large. My clothes were all too big; then almost overnight they fit perfectly; then they began getting too tight.

We are clothed with the righteousness of Christ, but we have to grow into it, and our growth is hindered by an unhappy and negative attitude. I’m not just cheerful, pleasant, and positive by nature—just the opposite. I have to let the Holy Spirit cultivate the mind of Christ in me. 

And here, again, we go back to the Israelites. In Deuteronomy 18, Moses told the Israelites to be blameless—and in the very next verse he predicted the coming of a Messiah, who would be a prophet and who would speak to them words that would help them grow and to be distinct from the other nations.

Deuteronomy 18:13-15 says, “You must be blameless before the Lord your God. The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you. You must listen to Him.”

In the early days of photography, a rather sour and unpleasant woman went to have her picture made. The photographer stuck his head out from under the cloth and said, “Brighten up your eyes a little.” She tried, but without much success. 

“Relax and let your face get into a cheerful mood.”

“Look here,” said the woman. “If you think an old woman can brighten up and an old face can soften up, you don’t know anything about living.”

“Oh yes, I do,” said the photographer. “You have to work on it from the inside. It comes from the inside out. Now, try to get into a good mood and be cheerful and smile and let it show on your face.”

Just as she did so, he snapped the picture.

Later when the picture arrived, her friends gathered around and said, “Oh, Catherine, you look so young and cheerful!” 

That evening she looked in the mirror and said, “If I could do that for the photographer,” she said, “I can do it again.” Every morning and every evening, she stood in front of the mirror and reminded herself of what the photographer had said.

In this way, she became a younger, brighter, happier person.

We have a divine photographer who has come out from under the dark shroud of death and with a voice of resurrection power says to us: Rejoice in the Lord… this is the day I have made; rejoice and be glad in it… be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. Do not fear. Be of good cheer. 

We shake off our hurt feelings and our pride and our negativity, and listen to His Word. Our attitude improves—and we grow into the righteousness of Christ.

Now, where does this happen? 

3. In a Warped and Crooked Generation

The passage goes on to say: 14 Do everything without grumbling or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.”

Again, this is a direct quotation from the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 32 says: “They are corrupt and not His children; to their shame they are a warped and crooked generation.”

Jesus used similar words in Matthew 12:39, when He called the people of His day “a wicked and adulterous generation.”

Recently, I read a story in Christianity Today about how Andrew Thorburn, the chief executive of Essendon Football Club in Australia, was pushed out of his job. He was forced to resign because he is a member of a conservative Melbourne church—a church that teaches biblical truth about gender, marriage, and sexuality. The club said his beliefs did not align “with our values as a safe, inclusive, diverse, and welcoming club.” Thorburn said plainly, “My personal Christian faith is not tolerated or permitted in the public square.”

In America, we’ve now sunk to a new low. One commentator with Inside Sources put it this way: “It is unclear why public education has become obsessed with our children’s gender identities, even at obscenely young ages…. What is the end game here?”

They continued: “The obsessive push for gender theory and sexuality is not only limited to children in schools. Rather, sexuality and gender identity advocacy is spreading its tentacles to toddlers watching Disney films. Disney has announced its intention to drop gendered greetings and ‘add queerness’ everywhere possible to its productions.”

I read portions of one elementary textbook on sexuality, and I felt sick to my stomach. All I can say is that if you have children in school, you need to know exactly what is in their textbooks.

We are children of God in a warped and wicked age. But the Lord has us here for a purpose. Let’s continue reading:

4. Among Whom You Shine as Stars in the Sky, Holding Forth the Word of Life

14  Do everything without grumbling or arguing,  15  so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky….

In Deuteronomy 10:22, Moses said, “Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude.” And in Daniel 12, The Lord promised that those who were wise unto eternal life would shine like stars in the universe (Daniel 12:3).

The phrase “holding fast to the Word of life” could just as well be translated “holding forth the Word of life,” which fits the context here.

Recently I attended a banquet with a member of the Gideons International. He lives in California and told me he frequently goes to UCLA/Berkeley to give students Bibles. He literally holds forth the Word of Life. One student recently came up him in a belligerent manner and said, “Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?”

My friend said, “I cannot think of one single thing that would be a better use of my time than giving free copies of the Bible to university students.”

The young man cursed him and walked away. But—there were other students who gladly received the Scripture.

Scott Drew, men’s basketball coach at Baylor, said, “…when I get to those gates [of Heaven], God’s not going to say, ‘What was your record? How many players did you help get in the pros? How many championships did you win?’”

He said that his greater purpose is seeing “players who accept Christ, players who maybe prayed for the first time with the team, players who get baptized, players who come back and get Bible studies and go to church…. Sometimes those victories are not written and talked about in the newspapers or TV, but…those are the ones that truly matter.”

God put the burning stars into a dark sky to teach us something about our own lives and about the mission He has for us.

It’s holding forth the Word of Life.

5. Then I Will Know I Did Not Labor in Vain

The passage ends on a Pauline note. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain. 17 But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. 18 So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.

This portion is also packed with the Old Testament. For example, Isaiah 65:23 promises that we will not labor in vain. And Paul used the same phrase in 1 Corinthians 15:58, one of my favorite Bible promises: Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

We do not realize how God has and is using us, and He will continue to do so. Earlier this year a couple–Jeff and Heather Brigstock–invited me to a book signing at their coffee shop. It’s called South Water Manor in Gallatin, Tennessee, about a half hour from my house. It’s home to several shops, a wonderful restaurant and coffee shop, and an event venue. They told me how impactful my ministry had been to them in this business endeavor.

I had no idea what they meant. But then Jeff reminded me of a time some years before when I had been on a speaking engagement in Ireland. His parents had sat at my table at the banquet and had told me they had a son in Nashville who was very discouraged. He thought God no longer wanted to use him. Apparently I gave the couple my cell phone number, telling them to have their son call me after I returned home.

I forgot all about it, but one day several months later Jeff called me. He was in the throes of discouragement and we met for coffee. 

I have very little recollection of the meeting, but Jeff told me that our conversation that day changed his life, his direction, his perception about himself and ministry, and eventually led to him and Heather opening the South Water Manor in Gallatin, which is a beehive of ministry to that community. 

What encouraged me so much is the thought that over the years the Lord has used me in significant ways that I can’t even remember. The same is true for you if you’re in His will. We’re doing more good than we know, and our labor in the Lord is not in vain.

So this is Paul’s message to the Philippians and the Lord’s message to us. Let’s take it to heart and burn holes in the darkness.

Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold forth word of life, knowing that our work in the Lord is never in vain.

The post Whatever Happens, Burn Holes in the Darkness appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Whatever Happens, Cultivate the Mind of Christ

Philippians 2:5-11

Introduction: Opinions! Everybody has them. We all have a lot of opinions; and we have a lot of opinions about a lot of things. We’re never had more ways of sharing them. This is the age of opinions—eight billion people sharing trillions of opinions in trillions of ways.

Most of them are wrong. Just because someone is sincere, thoughtful, and intelligent—it doesn’t mean their opinion is correct. Only one person thinks correctly about every issue all the time—infallibly, unfailingly.

In Isaiah 55, the Lord God Almighty said:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

The omniscience of God and the truthfulness of God merge together with infinite brilliance. God knows everything, and everything He thinks is true. Every word He speaks is true. There are no mistakes in His thinking and no confusion in His mind. And He has revealed His thoughts to us in this Book.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Only by taking this Book in our hands and studying it and pondering it and meditating on its verses can we begin to see things the way God sees them and understand the world as God does. Only as we understand love and life and relationships as God does can we have love and life and relationships that are healthy and whole. 

Scripture: There is a New Testament phrase for this—the mind of Christ. It’s found in one of the most glorious and critical passages in the writings of the apostle Paul. In the last message we started Philippians 2, which says:

2  Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,  2  then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.  3  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,  4  not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

5  Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus…

The word mind is the Greek word phroneo, and it occurs several times in this letter to the Philippians. For example, in chapter 3, verse 15, Paul said, “All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things.” The phrase “view of things” is the exact same word as “mind” in Philippians 2:5. Wisdom is viewing things from God’s point of view, thinking about things the way Christ does. And that’s true in all our relationships with one another. We should think of one another the way Jesus thinks of us—and what He thinks of us is revealed in the history of His life, in the story of what He has done.

And now, Paul is going to give us four great phases of the life of Jesus Christ to demonstrate how Christ modeled love for us. 

1. Christ’s Preexistence 

  6  who, being in the form of God…

According to this declarative verse, Jesus Christ, the Stranger of Galilee, was, is, and always will be, in His very nature, God. He is God Himself. The word “nature” is the Greek term morphe, from which we get our word morphology, a branch of biology devoted to the essential nature of living beings. 

According to Philippians 2:6, Jesus is, in His very nature, in His essential being, the almighty, eternal God. 

This is why I’m bemused when people say, “The notion of the deity of Christ was invented by the Council of Nicaea in AD 325.” But here in Philippians, 250 years before the Council of Nicaea, Paul described Jesus as being in very nature –morphe – of God. The teaching of the deity of Jesus Christ cascades like a massive system of waterfalls, flooding the Bible. The entire message of the Bible depends on it. 

2. Christ’s Incarnation

…did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,  7  but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.

Here again the word “form” is the Greek word morphe. Jesus didn’t just come in the form of a man. He became a man. He became human. 

Verse 6b: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage. There it is again—the deity of Christ. He possessed equality with God. He was equal with God. In His essence, His nature, His eternal attributes, He was equal with God. But, in His infinite love and humility, He did not take undue advantage of His position. He didn’t want His God-nature to keep Him from doing something redemptive. He didn’t want the glory of His throne to keep Him from the duty of His mission.Verse 7: Rather, He made Himself nothing…. No one fully understands this. The word “nothing” is the Greek word kenosis. This passage is known among Bible scholars as “The Kenosis Passage.” The Bible says He emptied Himself. That is, He stripped off the prerogatives and privileges of His glorious throne. He stepped away from His throne to enter human history. There is no evidence Jesus stopped being God, and, indeed, that would appear a rational impossibility. God cannot stop being God. But He emptied Himself of His privileges and prerogatives, and He stepped down from the eternal throne in heaven to enter human history through the womb of a virgin. He did not empty Himself of His deity, but of His glory.Verse 7: …taking the very nature of a servant. Notice that word again—nature. Morphe. He possesses the nature of God, but He took upon Himself the nature of a servant. He has always possessed His divine nature, but now He has added to it. He has taken on something new. He has also assumed a new nature. According to Philippians 2, Jesus now has two natures. You and I only have one nature. We only have one substance, one essence of who we are. We are humans. We are not humans and insects. We are not humans and angels. But Jesus, in very nature God, also took upon Himself the nature of a servant. The word servant is doulos, which means slave. How?Verse 7: …being made in human likeness. In other words, He became a human being. He did not simply become a God who appeared in a human body. He actually became a human person with a human body. There are two great incompressible mysteries at the heart of Christianity: (1) The Trinity—One God in Three Persons; and (2) The Duality—One Man with Two Natures. We can explain it to a point. But beyond that point, it boggles our minds, as it should. A God small enough to be understood is not big enough to be worshiped. 

He left His Father’s Throne above,

So free, so infinite His grace,

Emptied Himself of all but love,

And died for Adam’s helpless race,

This mercy all—immense and free,

For lo, my God, it found out me.

3. Christ’s Crucifixion

 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 

The cross was the most repulsive form of execution ever invented. From the heavenly throne to the anguishing cross—not one has ever made a journey like that, no one but Jesus. But He did it for you and me! Why? God created us in His image to live with Him forever. Our personal failures separate us from Him. So God Himself, through the Second Person of the Trinity, descended into this world to die for our sins. He offered Himself as a sacrifice to atone for our sins, becoming obedient to death on the cross. 

Back in 2015, there was a politician in Bolivia who wanted to run for the mayor of his town. His name was Edwin Tupa, and he was a former national congressman. Well, there was a law banning national politicians from running in local races, and that frustrated Edwin Tupa so much that he staged a hunger strike. When that didn’t work, he did the most dramatic thing you can imagine. He said he was going to let himself be crucified in front of the Electoral Tribunal Building in La Paz. The news media gathered and so did a large crowd. Tupa stretched himself out on a cross, but the crucifixion didn’t get very far. As soon as one 12-inch nail was hammered through his right hand, he screamed in intense pain and begged his supporters to stop. He passed out, and it took paramedics ten minutes to remove the nail from his hand

4. Christ’s Exaltation 

Verse 9: Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Back in verse 7, Paul referred to Christ as taking on the form of a doulos—a servant. The word “Lord” is the Greek term Kurios. Jesus is both doulos and Kurios. He is our Servant-Savior and our Overcoming Lord.

In Jesus, we see the humblest man who ever lived exalted to the highest place in Heaven and earth. One day every tongue will acknowledge Him—those in Heaven (all the angelic hosts); everyone on earth (all the humans); and those under the earth, which is the cosmic location of all the demonic spirits. Our future exaltation will be in reverse proportion to our current humility.

Many years ago, I was teaching the Bible in a teen camp in New York State. One day I asked the young people to write an answer to this question: “Who is Jesus Christ?” As I read their answers later that day, I was intrigued by their diverse understanding of Christ; but one answer in particular has stayed with me all these years. A teen boy wrote these words: “Who is Jesus Christ? He is the God who made my relationship with my dad peaceful and meaningful.”

That young man knew two things about Christ. First, he knew that Jesus is God. Second, he knew that Jesus has the power to change our lives and our relationships. That young man knew more about Jesus Christ than many of the millions who crowd into church every Sunday. Jesus is God, and He has the power to change our lives and our relationships. 

Conclusion

Dr. Harold J. Sala has been a pioneer in Christian radio, and he has found so many great stories that have been told and retold. On one of his broadcasts, he told about his friend, missionary Doug Nichols, who worked in India. This was difficult work, and illness was never far away. On one occasion, Doug contracted tuberculosis and he was eventually sent to a sanitarium to recuperate. 

Though he was living on a support scale not much higher than the nationals who also were hospitalized in the government sanitarium, people thought that because he was an American he had to be rich. Doug said, “They didn’t know that…I was just as broke as they were!”

While he was hospitalized Doug tried unsuccessfully to reach some of the patients, but his efforts were generally met with rebuff. When he offered tracts or Gospels of John, he was politely refused. It was obvious that the patients wanted nothing to do with him or his God. Discouragement set in and Doug began to wonder why God had allowed him to be there anyway.

Doug would often be awakened in the night by the rasping sound of coughing, both his and others. But then, what would you expect in the TB ward of a sanitarium? Unable to sleep because of his raspy cough, early one morning Doug noticed an old man trying to sit on the edge of the bed, but because of weakness, he would fall back into bed. Exhausted, the old man finally lay still and sobbed. Early the next morning the scene was repeated. Then later in the morning, the stench which began to permeate the ward, certified the obvious: the old man had been unsuccessfully trying to get up and go to a restroom.

Says Doug, “The nurses were extremely agitated and angry because they had to clean up the mess. One of the nurses in her anger even slapped him. The man, terribly embarrassed, just curled up into a ball and wept.”

The next morning–again about 2:00 a.m.–Doug noticed the old man trying unsuccessfully to generate enough strength to get himself out of bed. This time, though, without thinking Doug got out of bed, went over to where the old man was, put one arm under his head and neck, the other under his legs, and gently carried him to the restroom. When he had finished, again Doug carried him back to his bed.

But what then happened is what makes the story. The old man, speaking in a language which Doug didn’t understand, thanked him profusely, and then… and then gently kissed him on the cheek.

The story doesn’t end there either. Eventually Doug drifted off to an uneasy sleep. In the morning he awakened to a steaming cup of tea served to him by another patient who spoke no English. After the patient served the tea, he made motions indicating that he wanted one of the tracts which Doug kept with him.

“Throughout the day,” says Doug, “people came to me, asking for the Gospel booklets. This included the nurses, the hospital interns, the doctors, until everyone in the hospital had a tract, booklet, or Gospel of John. Over the next few days,” he adds, “several indicated they trusted Christ as Savior as a result of reading the Good News!”

The world doesn’t care much about our opinions; they need men and women who have the mind, the heart, the attitude, the humility of Christ. “I simply took an old man to the bathroom,” says Doug, adding, “Anyone could have done that!”

Anyone could, but not everyone does. It takes the mind of the Man of Galilee.

The post Whatever Happens, Cultivate the Mind of Christ appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Whatever Happens, Stay Unified

A Study of Philippians 2:1-5

Introduction: I don’t know if you enjoy autobiographies, but Prince Harry has a blockbuster in the works. He and Meghan Markle have written an account of their lives, including the royal family. After the death of Queen Elizabeth, Harry’s reportedly scrambling to have parts of the book rewritten so he doesn’t seem insensitive. Simultaneously, the Palace is looking into banning some of the contents. 

Problems in the King’s family dominate all forms of the media. 

It’s terrible when the King’s kids can’t get along.

Well, the King of kings has a family on earth too, and He doesn’t want us to be in the tabloids. He wants us to get along, to love each other, and to operate with a sense of unity, humility, and love. That’s a challenge for the King’s family. We all have seen unity and disunity in churches and homes. It’s been a challenge since New Testament days. How do we maintain sweet unity among Christians?

The apostle Paul addresses this throughout the book of Philippians, especially in the second chapter of his letter. Let’s read the first paragraph.

Scripture: Philippians 2:1-4

2  Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,  2  then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.  3  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,  4  not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

1. Trinity

The first word of the chapter, which is therefore, links this paragraph to the one preceding it. In my opinion, the body of Philippians begins at chapter 1, verse 27, after the introduction, when Paul said, Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know you stand firm in one Spirit.

He told them to expect to struggle and suffer in this world, but to stand firm and united. 

Therefore… because of that… for that reason, Paul is saying, draw on your spiritual resources. Since you have the encouragement of Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit—take advantage of them.

Look at verse 1 carefully: Therefore, since—we can translate it that way—since you have:

encouragement from being united with Christcomfort from love [The word “his” is not in the Greek]. The common sharing [koinonia, fellowship] of the Spirit.

Dr. Gordon Fee, in his excellent commentary on Philippians, suggests Paul is using the same Trinitarian formula that He used in 2 Corinthians 13:14: May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

In other words, since you have the grace, the union, the encouragement of Jesus Christ, and since you have the bottomless ocean of God’s love, and since you have the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, then you should know something of tenderness and compassion. These invisible, innermost resources from Heaven ought to energize us.

It wasn’t until the 1930s and 40s that electricity came to parts of rural Tennessee. A Chattanooga newspaper told about one old man who was so excited he scurried from room to room in his house turning the lights on and off. He was crying one minute and laughing the next. He looked at his wife, who was crying, and said, “Ain’t it wonderful!”

Another man was so overwhelmed he went into a trance and his wife used smelling salts to revive him.

One man said he was only five when the workers strung wires to his house. He was out playing with his brother when his mother called for them to hurry and come. He heard shouts, “We got lights! We got lights!” His mom was in the living room beaming with amazement, turning the lights on and off, and they ran to every room in the house turning the lights on and off. He said that moment was locked in his memory. It was as though it happened yesterday.

Their lives were changed.

That’s how it is when we discover the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Suddenly we have light, power, and warmth. We’re connected to the divine transformers of the Trinity—and that makes an irreversible change in our lives. We are electrified by Heaven.

2. Unity

One immediate effect of that is that we see ourselves and others in a new light. Romans 5 says the love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. This passage says we gain tenderness and compassion, and that leads to unity.

2  Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,  2  then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 

Paul uses some synonymous phrases to describe the unity: …like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.

This doesn’t mean we all have the same opinions about everything. It means that since we have the same opinions about the essential things, we can have more patience with what is nonessential. 

The great British pastor and hymnist, John Newton, put it all together like this:

May the grace of Christ our Savior

And the Father’s boundless love

With the Holy Spirit’s favor, 

Rest upon us from above.

Thus may we abide in union

With each other and the Lord;

And possess, in sweet communion,

Joys which earth cannot afford.

It often confuses people when they discover that Christian homes, families, churches, schools, missions agencies and organizations—that all of these are full of people who have trouble getting along with each other.

It’s a problem that goes all the way back to the disciples in the Gospel, and to the argument between Paul and Barnabas in the book of Acts. And I think there are two reasons for it. First, Christians are people who are full of very deep convictions. We are very committed to what we know and believe. And second, we are a diverse group of people. In every church, for example, there will be men and women with different backgrounds, levels of maturity, and opinions. Not everyone in a church is spiritually mature. Some are infants in Christ. Some who think they are mature are truly not.

And that’s why we have to work very hard on being like-minded and of one spirit. I’ll give you an example. I’ve been a member of the same denomination for all seven decades of my life. My grandfather was a preacher in this denomination, and my father was the assistant clerk in our denomination. When I became a pastor and began attending our annual meetings as a delegate, things were very tense. There were a lot of arguments. There were divisive cliques. 

But over the years it seems to be we’ve learned the wear and tear that causes us in our own spirits. Maybe it helped that some people left; but the rest of us—including me—decided that having an encouraging, cooperative spirit was much better than fighting.

The same thing happened once in my own church. We had a terrible argument that lasted nearly a year, and it just about sent me to the grave. Maybe it helped that some people left; but the rest of us—including me—decided that having an encouraging, cooperative spirit was much better than fighting.

3. Humility

But that requires something. It requires all of us to learn to be humbler. Look at the passage again: 

2  Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,  2  then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.  3  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,  4  not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

This is Paul’s version of the Golden Rule of Jesus. Love is being more concerned about someone else’s needs than about your own.

Let me tell you the easiest way to become a humble person. Begin acting like a humble person. I don’t mean to do it artificially. I don’t mean to run yourself down and develop an inferiority complex—that’s not humility. I mean that if someone needs to cut in front of you on the highway to get into your lane, tap your brakes and let him. When someone wants to talk to you, give them your full attention without looking at your phone. When you and your spouse want to go out to eat, let the other person’s wishes prevail. When you enter the restaurant, hold the door and let the other person enter first. Be very pleasant to your server, and leave a generous tip. If you stop at the grocery store on the way home, return the shopping cart to the rack.

I read about one person who happened to see a famous man washing his hands in the public restroom. The observer was amazed that the man took pains to use paper towels to clean up the sink and dry off the counter before he left. 

My favorite quote about humility is this one—and I’ve forgotten the source. I heard it years ago: Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It’s not thinking of yourself at all—and of Jesus more and more.

Let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus—and in the next passage, the apostle Paul is going to write the most exalted thing he ever said about Jesus to show us the most remarkably humble man who ever lived. 

5  Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,  6  who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,  7  but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.  8  And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.  9  Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name,  10  that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth,  11  and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Conclusion: In closing, I want to tell you about a man with whom I don’t always agree. But I appreciate one aspect of his story. His name is Richard Paul Evens, and he’s a New York Times Best-Selling writer. 

Richard and his wife’s marriage had turned angry and sour. Both husband and wife had become argumentative, defensive, and they had stopped communicating except for arguments. They were on the verge of a divorce.

Richard had another terrible argument on the phone and his wife, Keri, hung up on him. He was alone, frustrated, and angry. So he began screaming at God. 

Finally he sat down and started to cry. And through his tears, he said, “If I can’t change her, God, then change me.” He said, “I prayed late into the night. I prayed the next day on the flight home. I prayed as I walked in the door to a cold wife who barely even acknowledged me.”

The next morning Richard rolled over in bed next to Keri and asked, “How can I make your day better?”

“You can’t,” Keri said. “Why are you asking that?”

“Because I mean it. I just want to know how I can make your day better.”

She told him if he wanted to do something to clean up the kitchen. He did. The next morning, he woke up and asked the same question: “What can I do to make your day better?”

Her eyes narrowed, and she said out of spite, “Clean the garage.”

He did. The next morning he woke up and asked the same question: “What can I do to make your day better?” 

“Nothing,” said his wife. “You can’t do anything. Please stop saying that.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” said Richard. “I made a commitment to myself. What can I do to make your day better?”

“Why are you doing this?” Kari asked.

“Because I care about you. And our marriage.”

He kept this up for two weeks, and then a miracle occurred. He asked that question, and Keri’s eyes filled with tears. She broke down crying. “Please stop asking that,” she said through her crying. “You’re not the problem. I am. I’m hard to live with. I don’t know why you stay with me.”

Richard lifted her chin until she was looking in his eyes and he said, “It’s because I love you. Now, what can I do to make your day better?”

“I should be asking you that,” she said.

“You should, but not now. Right now, I need to be the change. You need to know how much you mean to me.”

She put her head against his chest and said, “I’m sorry I’ve been so mean.”

Richard just said, “I love you. Now what can I do to make your day better?”

She said, “Can we maybe just spend some time together?”

And that was the turnaround.

My friends, since we have the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in our lives, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit—since we’ve been electrified and energized—since we’ve gotten light and warmth and power—let’s be tender and compassionate to one another in our marriages, homes, churches, communities. Let’s be like minded and of one heart and spirit. Let’s do nothing through selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in lowliness of mind be more concerned about the other person than about ourselves. Let’s have the mind of Christ.

Because on this hostile earth, the King’s Kids need to stick together.

The post Whatever Happens, Stay Unified appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Whatever Happens, Stand Firm!

Parts 1 and 2

A Study of Philippians 1:27-30

So whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ.

Introduction: What do you do when persecution is so great you can no longer effectively live in your own nation? My book, 100 Bible Verses that Made America, describes a local church in England during the days of King James I. He was an evil man who brought tremendous persecution on the Puritans and Separatists. One small church faced persecution so great that the entire church voted to leave England and immigrate to Holland, where there was more liberty. And later, some of the members went a step further and immigrated to America, seeking religious liberty. We call them the Pilgrims.

On February 1, 2018, Chinese leader Xi Jinping began cracking down on Christians and churches.

The Communist government uses facial recognition cameras and personal cell phone records to monitor every aspect of their lives—where they go, what they say, what they read, who they listen to, and how they teach their children. 

The Voice of the Martyrs ran the story of one church of 70 believers. Pastor Pan Yougguang (pronounced Yon-guan’) was called in for interrogation twice a week. The police showed up to monitor every church service. Fellow pastors in the network of churches were arrested and imprisoned. 

After months of prayer and thought, 60 people relocated to a South Korean island. But none of the members speak the Korean language, forcing them to trade their professional Chinese jobs for backbreaking work. And South Korea has stalled on extending asylum to the believers. These Christians simply do not know what to do. Pastor Yougguang said their situation has been so difficult that if he could do it over, they would have stayed in China.

What do we do in circumstances like this? What would you do? Well, the best advice is in Philippians 1:27-30, which begins the actual body of this letter to the Philippians.

Background: The first 26 verses of Philippians serve as an extended introduction in which Paul greets the Philippians, thanks God for them, prays for them, and tells them about his circumstances and his attitude. Now, there is a major division before verse 27. The backbone of Philippians goes from Philippians 1:27 to Philippians 4:1, with the previous verses preparing us for the core of the book.

Scripture: Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the Gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you.

This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God. For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and not hear that I will have.

1. Our Two Problems

This is not an easy paragraph to dissect. Dr. Gordon Fee said in his commentary on Philippians, “The [whole] paragraph is a single, nearly impossible, sentence in Greek, which probably assumes this form because Paul tries to include all the urgencies of the letter… in this opening word.”

In other words, the entire rest of the book of Philippians unpacks what Paul says in this paragraph. In fact, verse 27 is the key verse to the entire book:

Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the Gospel….

If you read this carefully, you’ll see that the Philippians had two problems; and even after 2000 years, the problems have not disappeared. They are still frustrating us today.

A. We Are Facing Opposition

First, they were facing opposition. Look at the passage again:

Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the Gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed ….

We’re facing opposition in this world by people who will be destroyed in the future. But for the moment, these people are causing tremendous pressure for millions and millions of Christians, just as the Roman rulers did in the days of Paul.

B. We Are Facing Uncertainty

Second, we are facing uncertainty. Look again at verse 27:

Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ.

That phrase, “Whatever happens,” is an admission that we don’t know exactly what is going to happen to us from day to day. The apostle Paul did not know what was going to happen to him or to the Philippians on this earth. His only concern was to live for Christ as long as he lived.

2. Our One Responsibility

And that brings us to our great responsibility and to this phrase: conduct yourselves in a manner….

That is one word in the Greek, and it literally means to live as a citizen. It’s the Greek word from which we get our English words politics and political. It has to do with citizenship. 

The Christian Standard Bible translates this verse like:

As citizens of heaven live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ.

Philippi was a very unusual city in the Roman world. Shortly before the birth of Christ, Julius Caesar was assassinated and the Roman Republic was torn apart by civil war. About 200,000 men gathered just to the west of Philippi, with the final result being full Roman citizenship for the Philippians. Citizenship was very coveted because it came with many benefits. The Philippians were very proud and blessed to be citizens of the Empire.

But for the Christians it was a mixed blessing. The city had a strong obligation to cheer Emperor Nero as Lord at all times. To Christians, only Christ was Kurios—Lord!

But on two occasions in this letter—here and in Philippians 3:20—Paul reminded them their primary citizenship was in Heaven. Our primary citizenship is in Heaven. Whatever citizenship we hold today, it’s not our primary citizenship. I’m not an American citizen on the way to Heaven. We are citizens of Heaven who are traveling through earth and happen to hold an American passport.

In other words, we are expatriates—citizens of one nation living in another which is not our own.

3. Our Three Obligations

As citizens of Heaven living on earth, we have certain obligations that enable us to live lives worthy of the Gospel of Christ. Paul gives us three of them.

A. Stand Firm in One Spirit

First, we’re to stand firm in one Spirit.

I want to tell you about a rose bush I’ve just planted. There was a woman in New Orleans named Peggy Martin who had a beautiful garden full of 450 rose bushes. One of them was an old garden rose that she could not identify. It was a vigorous climbing rose.

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, and Peggy’s beautiful rose garden was covered by twenty feet of contaminated water for two weeks. Only one rose survived. It came back stronger than ever—and the rose experts named it after Peggy Martin. But it’s better known by its nickname—the Katrina rose.

My wife was named Katrina. Well, you can see why I ordered a Katrina rose and have set it out in my garden.

I want to be like that rose. That’s what it means to stand firm. Even if there is an ocean of opposition against us; even if the winds blow and the tides rise; even if the contaminated world opposes us, we want to remain rooted and grounded and resilient. 

That happens by the Holy Spirit who is within us. We’re to stand firm in one Spirit. The secret of the Katrina rose is the vintage sap, the circulating fluid, that gives an almost supernatural vitality to that rose. But it’s nothing compared to the Spirit-filled power of the Spirit-filled follower of Christ.

Stand firm in one Spirit!

B. Strive Together for One Faith

Second, we conduct ourselves as citizens of Heaven when we strive together for one faith.

The phrase striving together comes from the Greek term athlos, from which we get our English word athletics. The apostle Paul often used sports and athletic metaphors. He would talk about running the race or wrestling in prayer.

I’m not overly comfortable with sharing this personal story, but it illustrates the point. A year or so ago, I had a speaking engagement about 7 hours away. I was recovering from Long Covid, especially the fatigue. Saturday morning I was so tired that I thought, “I cannot possibly make this trip. I don’t feel like driving 7 minutes, let alone 7 hours.”

I tried to cancel, but we’d worked hard in advance, and I knew they were counting on me. So I got in my truck, pulled onto the interstate, and drove to the first rest stop I came to. I pulled over and took a nap. Then I drove to the next rest stop and did the same. By stopping and napping at every rest stop, I was able to get to my hotel by the end of the day and to my engagement the next morning.

Later I told David Jeremiah about the experience, and Dr. Jeremiah looked over at his wife, Donna, and said, “Who does something like that?”

Then he answered his own question. He said, “We all do. We all do. That’s called ministry.”

The Christian life takes endurance. We are to strive together for the faith without in any way being intimidated by our opponents. 

I’m terribly worried that many Christians in America are being caught in the triangle of trepidation. We’re reluctant to lovingly admonish a Christian worldview because of three things: 

We’re afraid we’ll come across as a harsh, intolerant fundamentalist.We’re afraid we’ll hurt or offend someone.We’re afraid we’ll be criticized or rejected—hunted out and attacked.

This fear keeps many of us trapped in silence. It’s incredibly difficult to speak about the sanctity of topics such as gender, sexuality, and marriage.

None of us want to be harsh, but our silence isn’t doing the world any good.

The Lord tells us here to always be “striving together as one for the faith of the Gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you.“

C. Suffer for One Cause

Now, that may lead to suffering, but that’s all right. The passage anticipates that. Conducting ourselves as citizens of Heaven while in this hostile environment means standing firm in one spirit; striving together for one faith; and suffering for one cause.

For the Philippians and for Paul, some of that suffering was caused directly by their allegiance to Christ, which brought on persecution. But in addition to all that, there are the inevitable sufferings of life. None of us like that word suffering, and when we see it in the Bible it makes us shrink back a little bit.

But recently I’ve been reading in two Old Testament books—Deuteronomy and Isaiah. And I found the same truth in both books.

Deuteronomy 1:31: There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.Isaiah 46:3 says: Listen to me…you whom I have upheld since your birth and have carried since you were born.

Earlier this week, I had lunch with a couple of friends and I told them how much this verse had been true for me as I looked back over my life. The Lord carried me, especially across the rough spaces.

One of my friends said, “Yes, and when God carries us like a youngster, we have only one obligation.”

“What is it?”

“To hold on!”

I’d never thought of that. God carries us through times of suffering, and we hold on to Him around His neck as it were, by faith.

Only a few days later, I was reminded of this line. It’s Fanny Crosby’s Gospel song, “Praise Him! Praise Him! Jesus our blessed Redeemer.”

Like a shepherd, Jesus will guard His children.

In His arms He carries them all day long.

Conclusion: Recently, I read Andrew Brunson’s account of his 735-day ordeal in Turkish prisons because of his work for Christ. Brunson writes about the fear, psychological torture, gripping anxiety, panic, and how he thought he was losing his mind. He clung to the neck of Jesus, but sometimes he feared the Lord would drop him. At times, Brunson wasn’t sure he would survive or stand as he should for Christ. When his case finally came up for trial, he was terrified. But God gave him grace, and when he rose to speak this is what he said:

Jesus told His disciples to go to all the world and proclaim the Good News of salvation to everyone and make disciples. This is why I came to Turkey—to proclaim this. 

There is only one way to God: Jesus.

There is only one way to have our sins forgiven: Jesus.

There is only one to gain eternal life: Jesus.

There is only one Savior: Jesus.

I want this to echo in all of Turkey.

We live in dangerous days. There is opposition and there is uncertainty. But there is also grace for the moment—grace for the standing, grace for the struggling, and grace for the suffering. We are being carried through it all, and we simply need to hold onto our Savior in faith and confidence.

So whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the Gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you.

The post Whatever Happens, Stand Firm! appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.