Living a Worthy Life
Philippians • Sermon • Submitted
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Tonight we will be finishing Philippians 1 and we were supposed to wrap up this chapter last week but we ran out of time so I gave you all some homework and that was to read Philippians 1:27-30 and think of how you might be able to apply those verses into your lives. Several months ago when we were looking at the Beatitudes, we talked about how we as Christians are other-worldly minded. We are pilgrims on this planet because this planet is not our home or the promised land that we are going to. We are the people of God. We are the people of the Upside-down Kingdom. We are to be a city on a hill and a light to a dark world. When people look at Christians, they should be able to see that there is something different about us. We shouldn’t fit in this world. While we have an earthly home, we are never truly at home. I mentioned last week that we are called to proclaim the Gospel but we are not to change the Gospel to make it more appealing to the world. There is no such thing as a seeker-sensitive church because the Bible is clear that man in their sins will never seek God unless God seeks him first. John MacArthur wrote,
“The message of the church cannot be dictated by the whims and values of the culture. Sinners can’t be coddled into the kingdom. Rebellious unbelief demands confrontation at the point of unbelief.”
What we are going to see tonight is that there are really only two types of people in this world: The People of God and those that aren’t. From there, we will see how we as the People of God are to live with one another and how we are one of the greatest testimonies of the changing power of the Gospel and goodness of Christ to an unbelieving world.
Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.
Our Manner of Life
Our Manner of Life
I want to break these 4 verses into 4 main points: Our manner of life, our unity through Christ, our witness to the world, and our conflict that we find ourselves in. Paul begins verse 27 by calling the Philippians to let their manner of life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ. What does he mean by that? It’s a difficult saying because it is not something that should be easy for us to accomplish. On our own, it is certainly an impossible task. For Paul to say that we are to live our lives worthy of the Gospel of Christ means that all that we are and all that we do and all that we say, every aspect of our lives is to represent the Gospel that we believe in. Our lives are to be defined by our allegiance to the Gospel. Our lives are to be consistent with what Scripture commands us. There is no wiggle room for us. We can’t have one foot in the world and one foot outside the world. We as the followers of Christ are under the obligation to hold fast to every command that is in Scripture that is applicable to the Body of Christ. Steven Lawson said,
“There is no latitude for them [Christians] to live in any other manner. They must conduct themselves in a way that honors the gospel and, thus, live distinctly and differently than the world. They must model the message they have now embraced. They entered the kingdom with the surrender of their lives to Jesus Christ. This is precisely how they must live out the reality of their faith.”
Our faithfulness to Christ is not something that is one and done. Paul is speaking in the present tense so we know that we are to be actively living out the Gospel. While this might sound like an impossible task, and by human standards it is, it is not something that we should begrudgingly go into. Last week we talked about living a life where Christ is the greatest treasure that we have. If you do not value Christ above all else, then Paul’s command will be a tremendous burden to you. However, if Christ is that which you value above all else. If Christ is the treasure that you have found in a field and sold everything to possess, like in Matthew 13:44, then Paul’s call for your life will not be a burden. We know this because Jesus Himself says in Matthew 11:28-30
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
When you love someone, you do not think of loving them as an obligation or something that you have to check off on a to do list. When I was getting ready to get married, I knew that there were some things about myself that I would have to change in order to be a better husband. Today there are things that I know I need to do differently because I want to be a better husband and father. Those things are hard work but I do them. Why? Not because of obligation or unwillingly but because I love my wife and my son and I want to. I need to because my desire is to show my love to them.
When we look at what Paul was talking about in Philippians 1:20-26 and see verses 27-30, we need to ask ourselves if we are willing to live a life that is not only worthy of living for Christ but for dying for Him as well? Throughout history, men and women have boldly stood for the Gospel and have stated that they would do all that they could with the life that they have to live a life that is worthy of the Gospel.
The Unity of the Body of Christ
The Unity of the Body of Christ
With that in mind we see how the Gospel brings us together. We are the blood-bought people of God and with that in mind, we can begin to understand the necessity of us being united together as believers. Paul says at the end of verse 28 that it is his desire to hear that the church is, “standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the Gospel.” Paul uses the image of a body numerous times throughout his letters as he speaks of the church and here in Philippians 1:27 we see the same kind of thing. One spirit and one mind. That is who we as the Church are to be. We are to strive side by side with each other to show our allegiance to the Body of Christ. It pains me to look at the state of the Church because we have not taken this command seriously. There seems to be so little unity within the Body today. Even here at YC, there seems to be so little of this. Everyone has their little friend group that they are a part of and recently it has really hurt my heart. It pains me to look out and see people sitting alone, new people coming and being ignored, friends being treated like enemies, and love being so absent in this group. And it isn’t just here, this problem is everywhere. I get tired of people saying, “I love Christ but I can’t stand the church. I can live the Christian life on my own. I can’t stand other Christians because so many of them are nothing but liars, hypocrits, and phony.” Let me just say this, if that is your thought, if that is how you view brothers and sisters in the faith, then you are doing the work of your father the Devil. Satan is a liar and a slanderer and that is exactly what you are doing as you say that. The Apostle John writes in 1 John 3:14
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.
If we love Christ, we are to love His Church and this means that no matter how messed up other believers may appear, we dive in and help them and love on them because we love Christ first. For some of you, if Heaven is only full of people that you tolerate, it’s going to be a pretty empty place. If you don’t love the people of God, heaven is going to be a pretty miserable place for you. Look around this room and you will see the people that you are most like in this world. You will see a room of imperfect people that are united through one perfect Savior. I will be the first to admit that I have struggled with loving the Church because I have experienced some deep hurt from people that were in the church. I almost left the ministry because of how deeply some Christians have hurt me in the past but every time these thought came into my head or even now pop into my head, I remind myself, “If I love Christ, I will love the Church. Even if they are brusied and muddied with problems, they are no worse than I am and I am no more worthy of the love of Christ than they are.” Is it hard to love the Church sometimes, yes. But how much easier is it to love you and what have you done that is more worthy of being loved than anyone else? If you want to be the people of God, you are going to have to love the People of God.
The Final Apologetic
The Final Apologetic
The way that we conduct ourselves, the way that we live in pursuit of the Gospel and in unity with each other is one of the greatest signs of Gospel power to an unbelieving world. Look again at the middle of Philippians 1:28, “This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God.” The Church is the final apologetic to the lost world. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said,
“This is our unique opportunity at this time. The way to convince the world of the truth of that gospel is to let them see that it makes a difference, that it is a power, that we are not mere theorists and philosophers but that we preach the power of God. And we prove that there is a power in the gospel by showing what we are in work, in business, in profession and in the home. Wherever we are, whatever we are, only let our citizenship be worthy of the gospel of Jeus Christ.”
People should be able to look at us and see that we are different. The way that we love each other, provide for each other, the way that we stand against the tide of worldliness and sin, the way that we fight for those that are powerless, shows the world that we are destined for something different. Our committment to the Gospel shows the certainty of our salvation while also showing the sign of unbelievers destruction. We are the steadfast people of God that are willing to look at persecution and hatred from the world and we are not swayed by those things. You see to the world, we as Christians are an anomaly. The world just cannot wrap its head around us because we are living for another world. Think of how no other religion is so hated as Christianity. Have you ever noticed that? No one today seems to be actively standing against Islam or Buddhism. Why is that? Because those religions are still in touch with much of what society believes and because Christ Himself said that the people of God would be hated because they hated God first. You are meant to be different, you are meant to stand out, Christians should stick out like a sore thumb. To be honest, if you are causing some people to scratch their heads and say, “What’s wrong with them” then you aren’t standing out as you should. People should be able to look at you and say, “They have something I don’t and they have something I want.” We possess things that no one else has. We can look at death and say, “death is gain.” We can go through the furnace of affliction and be persecuted for our beliefs and rejoice because we know where our joy comes from. No other people group in the world can do that! I want to go back to a quote that I shared in our first lesson in Philippians because I think we need to dwell on it for a minute. The epistle to Diognetus describes what Christians were viewed as in the second century and hopefully, we continue to be described like this today:
”They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.”
Do you see how the Church doesn’t make sense to people? Do you see how Christianity is seen as so different in the eyes of an ubelieving world? We stand for Something and Someone that the world does not understand and yet it is this cross-cultural stance that is a sign of our salvation and a sign of their destruction.
Luther’s “here I stand“ moment for the 21st century church.
Conflict and the Cross
Conflict and the Cross
Let’s reread Philippians 1:29-30 and then we will wrap up for tonight:
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.
Here Paul is reiterating the unity that we have in the Body of Christ. Paul says that the Philippians are engaged in the same conflict that Paul has but we know that the Philippians are not imprisoned on behalf of the Gospel. How then are they engaged in the same conflict as Paul? The answer is in 1 Corinthians 12:26. Paul writes,
If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
God has so assembled the Body of Christ that when one member suffers, we are to be so united together that we feel that suffering. I remember several years ago when I was at Liberty going to campus church one night and the speaker was telling this story about how his brother was a Christian that lived in the Middle East and he was arrested, tortured, and eventually killed for his faith in Christ. And I remember that night feeling like I really knew this man. I felt like I had lost a brother as well because I saw the hurt in what he was saying but then at the end of his message, he said to the church, “This man was not my brother by blood but my brother in Christ.” He wasn’t his earthly brother but his brother in Christ. To this day I think about that because that is how I want to love the Church. If one part of the body suffers, we all suffer. If one part is rejoicing, we are to rejoice as well! What we see in these verses is that every believer is called to suffer for Christ. For the believer, there will always be conflict and a cross to carry. How do we know this? Because Paul says that it has been granted to us for the sake of Christ that we should not only believe in HIm but also suffer for His sake. But Paul does not see this suffering as a negative. He says that it is granted to us. He sees two gifts: suffering and salvation. 1 Peter 4:13-14 says,
But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
As we rejoice in sharing the sufferings of Christ, we continue to show the world that we are different. We show where our allegiance lies and where are hope ultimately is. We show them that we are Heaven-minded and not earthly-minded. We show them that the sufferings of this life are not worth comparing to the glory that lies ahead. We show them that suffering and death do not have the final word. To be counted worthy to suffer on behalf of Christ is one of the most honoring things that we can experience on this earth. I cannot think of anything greater than suffering for my King and this has been the same mindset of the Church for the last 2,000 years. I hope that you will be able to say the same thing but the only way that you will be able to say that and believe it is if you value Christ above all else. But remember you never go through these things alone. Look around this room and you will see that there is strength in numbers and that the People of God are united together in a common faith. One mind and one spirit, striving side by side for the faith of the Gospel. Let’s pray.