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Philippians
“THREE COMMANDS IN CHRIST”
Philippians 4.1-4
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Introduction
Moving into Philippians 4, I want you to
look at the first four vv. where we have
three commands in Christ. Paul has
interspersed through this book warnings
against false teachers, warnings against the
Judaizers whom he calls in the 3rd
ch. “dogs,” “evil workers,”
and mutilators of the Gospel of Grace (v.
2), warnings against those who are
“enemies of the Cross”— sometimes
unbelievers who oppose or distort the
Gospel, sometimes believers who oppose and
distort the Gospel and who are distracted
from the Spiritual Life. From these
warnings he now turns to the Philippians
themselves, and he has a few practical areas
of command.
He say’s, “Therefore, my beloved brethren
whom I long {to see}, my joy and crown, in
this way stand firm in the Lord, my
beloved. I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche
to live in harmony in the Lord. Indeed,
true companion, I ask you also to help these
women who have shared my struggle in {the
cause of} the gospel, together with Clement
also, and the rest of my fellow workers
whose names are in the Book of Life.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will
say, rejoice!,” Philippians 4:1-4. V. 4
is, of course, the basic theme of this
entire epistle— the power of spiritual joy.
This is a joy which flows from
Christ, a joy which is focused on
Christ, and a joy which is built on
the Work of Christ, on what He accomplished
at the Cross. Jesus said to His disciples
in John 15:11, “These things I have
spoken to you so that My joy may be
in you, and your joy may be made
full.”
In the last section of ch. 3, vv. 17-19, we
studied the walk of unbelief. The spiritual
counteraction to that walk of unbelief is
the walk of faith, which is commanded of
every believer whether he realizes it or
not. The walk of faith leads us into
intimate fellowship with the Lord. And
apart from that intimate fellowship it’s
impossible for us to even hope to fulfill
the commands we have in this section. These
are commands which cannot be applied en
masse. They cannot be applied to other
people; they can only be applied to us. You
can apply these to your own personal life
and experience; you cannot apply these to
someone else.
Body
I. The Maturity of
Spiritual Love— v. 1.
A. “Therefore” is a consecutive
particle, used in this case to introduce an
independent clause. It’s a term, much like
the inferential oun, which looks back
on past teaching in order to give us present
direction. V. 1 actually belongs at the end
of ch. 3, and when you read it in light of
that context it suddenly comes to life.
1) “For our citizenship, with all its
status, rights and privileges, is in Heaven,
from which we eagerly wait with tremendous
anticipation for a Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ;
who will transform the body of our humble, sin-prone, deathly state into
conformity with the body of His brilliant
glory, by the power which enables Him to
bring everything under His control and
authority,”
expanded translation of 3:20-21. In view of
the things he’s had to say about focusing on
Christ and having the proper attitude— the
attitude of spiritual maturity which he
mentions in v. 15; the Christian walk which
results from living as a citizen of Heaven;
our awareness of the fact that as Royal
Family members we are Royal Citizens
awaiting the appearance of our omnipotent
Sovereign, vv. 20-21. In light of these
things he say’s, “Therefore, my beloved
brethren whom I long {to see}, …my beloved,”
4:1. This is the second time in the same v.
that Paul uses agapetos, this term of
such Christ-like affection for other members
of the Royal Family. What he’s saying is,
“to those whom I love with the love of
Christ.”
2) Here we have
expressions of Paul’s spiritual maturity.
Keep in mind that the single greatest
evidence of spiritual maturity is not in how
much you know, but in how much you
apply. The application of divine viewpoint,
and that subsequent growth in the grace and
knowledge of God, is going to come forth in
this type of attitude toward other
believers. So, Paul expresses his spiritual
maturity as he demonstrates the love of
Christ for these believers.
3) He say’s that he
has a great desire; this is found in the
phrase those “whom I long to see.”
Here we actually have an adjective, and it
means the Philippians are ‘longed for ones,
greatly desired ones.’ Earlier in 1:8 he
said, “For God is my witness, how I
long for you all with the affection of
Christ Jesus.”
Sometimes as we focus on the importance of
Biblical clarity, the importance of
doctrinal accuracy, we become so focused on
the academic and so focused on the
intellectual that we actually exclude
the idea of any emotional response at all.
That’s an unfortunate thing because until
the Word of God has gripped your emotions
you’re never going to be completely
involved in anything you do. And you’re
never going to possess that ‘spiritual
emotion’— that spiritual motivation— the
Bible calls “zeal”! We’ve talked a lot
about Paul’s zeal for the plan of God for
his life, about Paul’s zeal for the mission
of his ministry. When we lose that zeal
for the Word of God and that zeal for
the will of God, we’ve lost something
precious in our lives.
B. In v. 1 we see the care and devotion of
a shepherd for his sheep, of a father for
his children. Notice his concern for the
spiritual lives of every last one of
the sheep he had brought into the fold of
Christ. Paul, once again, shows what
tremendous love and affection he had for the
Philippian Church. He calls the Philippians
his “joy and” his “crown.”
Right there we can see two things.
1) The blessing of
joy and fellowship in time. 1
Thessalonians 2:17 say’s, “But we,
brethren, having been bereft of you for a
short while— in person, not in spirit— were
all the more eager with great desire to see
your face.” Why? Because there was
genuine spiritual focus in Paul’s life, in
the Thessalonians lives, and in the
Philippians lives. There was an active
participation in the plan and purpose of
God, and a camaraderie which can only come
when people share the same outlook, the same
viewpoint, the same perspective in life.
2) The wealth of
reward in eternity. Paul said this same
thing about the Thessalonian believers. In
1 Thessalonians 2:19-20 Paul asked, “For
who is our hope or joy or crown of
exultation?
Is it not even you, in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming? For
you are our glory and”
our “joy.”
There is a parallel between these two
groups: Philippi and Thessalonica. They
were both small churches, both extremely
poor as far as worldly goods and material
things, and yet they both possessed the key—
a tremendous love for the Word of God and a
tremendous dedication to the Son of God.
It’s interesting because in 2 Corinthians 8
Paul defines the “churches of Macedonia”—
of which these two were part— by three
things: an “abundance of joy,”
overflowing even; a “deep poverty,” a
destitute condition; and in spite of that, a
“wealth of liberality,” a generosity
which is free from pretension. Those things
do not characterize churches where
the love of believers is not on the Living
Word and the written Word! Those are
evidences that they had the hunger and the
desire which is so essential to
sustaining spiritual momentum.
C. Under the ‘Doctrine of Blessing and
Reward’ we studied the crown, or wreath, of
joy. This is the wreath which is given for
faithfulness in witnessing, for faithfulness
in the execution of your ambassadorship.
Understand this principle: Success in
evangelism is based on your willingness to
make Christ the issue. When Paul say’s
that the Philippians are his “joy and
crown” the word he uses there is ste/fanoj
(stephanos). A stephanos is a
wreath, a garland of ivy or oak leaves given
to the victorious athlete in the ancient
games, or to the triumphant warrior in the
defense of his city-state or nation. It all
depended on what games you were competing in
as to what the wreath was actually made of;
sometimes it was made of wild olive
interwoven with parsley and bay leaves.
1) You remember that
the Greek word stephanos represents
phenomenal wealth in eternity. When an
athlete in the ancient games achieved his
victory in a particular event, and brought
the prestige of that victory home to his
city, a multitude of honors awaited him.
E.g.:
a. A special entrance
was cut into the wall of his hometown which
he passed through upon his return. The wall
was then rebuilt and sealed up with an
inscription of his name.
b. He rode in a
victory parade through the streets of the
city in its finest chariot.
c. He received a
lifetime pass to all future games.
d. He was given a
cash award of somewhere between
$10,000-$50,000.
e. An ode was written
to him by a poet in order to commemorate his
feats.
f. A sculptor was
commissioned by the city to erect a statue
of him competing in his event, to capture
his strength and grace in the glory of
youth— a statue which was to be put up in
the public square.
g. His children were
fed and educated at public expense.
h. And, saving the
best for last, he was exempt from all income
taxes for life!
How about that? To win this wreath and all
it represented was the summit, the
pinnacle of the athlete’s ambition.
2) There’s something
else here. The stephanos was the
wreath with which one crowned his guests at
a banquet, at a time of joy and celebration
and rejoicing. There is a beautiful picture
in this passage. Here is the apostle Paul
in a Roman prison, chained hand and foot to
a Praetorian Guard, his mind
and motivation riveted not on the
temporal, not on his own miserable
circumstances, but on the spiritual.
His care and concern is on the life,
spirituality, and service of these young
churches— some of which he himself had
established and some of which he hadn’t.
What he’s saying is that the Philippians are
the crowning achievement of his labor in the
cause of Christ. At the Banquet Table of
the King they will be his festal wreath, the
demonstration of his joy. If there is one
lesson to learn right here I think it’s
this: The greatest joy you and I will have
in eternity is not in the amount of rewards
we’ve amassed; the greatest joy you and I
will have is in those we’ve led to Christ.
That brings us to this principle: The
greatest joy in life is leading another soul
to Jesus Christ! The apostle Paul
looked at these people knowing that
they were going to Heaven because he gave
them the Gospel, knowing that they had
eternal life because he explained to them
the way of faith; and so he say’s to the
Philippians, “You are my joy and you are my
crown.”
D. Paul uses the phrase “in the Lord”
three times in the first four vv. of this ch.
We know that there are no more important
words for the Church Age believer than
“in the Lord,” “in Christ,”
“in Him,” “in the Beloved.”
Because what they signify is our
inseparable union with the King
of Kings! In Romans 8:35 Paul asks, “Who
will separate us from the love of Christ?”
He goes on to mention every possible
situation of pressure and adversity
imaginable. And then in v. 38 he reaches
this conclusion: “For I am convinced that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor
depth, nor any other created thing
will be able to separate us from the love of
God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Not only do these words picture the security
of our salvation, they represent all the
wealth, riches, and resources of God, which
are the birthright of every believer— all
the power and provision made available to
us through Christ! In Ephesians 1:3 Paul
say’s, “Blessed {be} the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us
with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly {places} in Christ.” When Paul
uses this phrase here at the beginning of ch.
4, he’s giving us three significant commands
in Christ.
II. Three Commands in Christ— vv. 1-4.
A. The first is a command to be stable,
to exercise stability in our spiritual
warfare. Paul say’s, “Therefore, my
beloved brethren [my siblings and
children in / Royal Family of God]… stand
firm in the Lord….” I want you to see
this right from the outset. It is only by
our occupation with Jesus Christ that we can
stand firm, it is only by our occupation
with Christ that we can resist the
seductions of temptation and the cowardice
of arrogance. When Paul sets forth the
command to “stand firm,” he uses a
form of histemi, the root of the
Roman soldier’s battle cry— Stete!
Stete is the
aor. imper., the military command Paul uses
in Ephesians 6:14 when he say’s, “Stand
firm therefore….”
1) The word Paul uses
here is the pres. act. imper. of sth/kw (steko)- stand firm; persevere in battle;
keep one’s footing. The act. voice
means that the duty of spiritual stability
is laid squarely on our shoulders. The
pres. imper. is a command to ‘keep on
standing firm, to keep on persevering in
conflict with our enemies.’
Paul uses a qualifying word in this v., the
adverb houtos. Houtos means-
‘in this manner,’ which is close to what we
have in our translation. Houtos
implies two things:
a. That this is
something they had been doing. In
1:27 he commends them for “standing firm
in one spirit, with one mind striving
together for the faith of the gospel;”
and in 2:12 he say’s, “so then, my
beloved, just as you have always obeyed….”
“Always obeyed” means that they were
faithful to follow divine instruction, they
were faithful in their application of the
Word, even when the one by whom it came was
not present.
b. That this is an
evidence of their maturity. Not only was
this something they had been doing, it was
the evidence that they were making further
progress in the plan of God. He mentions
this in 3:15-16. “In this manner stand
firm in the Lord”— what manner?
According to the ‘attitude of perfection,’
the attitude of maturity, and this level of
growth “to which we have attained,”
vv. 15-16. ‘Let us keep on holding
ground in the spiritual realm!’ Why?
Because this is an outward demonstration of
our spiritual growth.
2) Steko is a
word which would’ve been used for a soldier
standing fast in the shock of battle with
the enemy surging down upon him, for a
soldier holding his ground despite the fury
and onslaught of an opponent’s charge. Like
those three hundred valiant Spartan warriors
who squared off against a myriad of
Persians, Medes, Scythians, and others at
the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.
3) As anyone who’s
ever been in a fight will tell you, holding
your ground is impossible if you
panic; therefore, our only safeguard against
temptation and arrogance— which is the root
of all sin— is to reckon, to calculate, to
consider in the face of adversity what is
ours in Christ eternally! That means every
ounce of divine power and provision that
belongs to us. This is going to require
focus, it’s going to require concentration;
it’s going to demand a soul that is
saturated with divine viewpoint. Two quick
principles before we move on.
a The local
church will stand firm only so long as
Christ is the focal point of everything it
does. He must be the Alpha and
Omega of its teaching, its
instruction, its evangelism, its outreach,
every area of service, or else it fails,
plain and simple.
b. The individual
believer will stand fast, holding his ground
against the enemy, only when he is occupied
with Jesus Christ. Occupation with
Christ means a zeal, a fire, a passionate
love affair with the Son of God. And our
passion for the Son of God is evidenced by
our hunger and thirst for the Word of God!
4) I think sometimes we get so caught
up in the academic side of Bible study
that we forget about the practical power
for life of being occupied with Christ.
Now, a few points on ‘Occupation with
the Person of Jesus Christ.’
a. As personal love
for God matures, occupation with Christ
becomes a reality. Hebrews 3:1 urges us, to
“…consider Jesus, the Apostle and High
Priest of our confession.” This is a
very intense word for “consider,”
katanoe/w (katanoeo)- observe and
perceive very carefully.
Katanoeo was used in Greek literature
for the immersion of oneself in a subject,
for a total mental absorption in it, and
thus an entire comprehension of it.
b. Occupation with
Christ is the supreme problem-solving
device. What it solves is the ‘priority
problem’ of the Spiritual Life. It prevents
us from getting distracted by
pseudo-priorities, by inconsequential
details, by things which are not only
distracting but ultimately destructive—
destructive to our progress as Royal Priests
in the plan of God, destructive to our
impact as Royal Ambassadors of Christ, and
destructive to our service as Royal
Ministers of grace. Four principles we need
to get under point number two.
i. Preoccupation
with self results from taking your eyes off
Christ. This is self-
centeredness as opposed to
Christ-centeredness.
ii. Preoccupation
with people comes from getting your eyes on
others. This is usually a consequence
of iconoclastic arrogance, of setting
someone up as your idol and then
worshipping this other person. You better
get it down: Everybody in life will let you
down sooner or later, everyone you know will
disappoint you somewhere along the way,
including, yes, even your pastor.
You might as well be realistic and not
naïve.
iii. Preoccupation
with things results from a false perception
of what is the true source of joy and
happiness in life. We have only one
true source of happiness and of hope— of
confident, absolute assurance— and that’s in
orientation to the will, purpose, and plan
of God for our lives.
iv. You can bank on
this: When believers have false
priorities, they inevitably have preventable
problems. Peter told a group of
believers under intense persecution in Asia
Minor how to solve the ‘priority problem.’
He said, “sanctify Christ as Lord in your
hearts,” 1 Peter 3:15. What that means
is to put Jesus Christ in His rightful
place— first place, the place of
preeminence— in every area of your
life.
c. Occupation with
Christ characterizes the mature believer.
Paul summed up his outlook and perspective
on life when in 1:21 he said, “For to me,
to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
We’ve seen in the past that there are no
‘be’ verbs in the Greek of this v. So, what
it’s really saying is, “to live— Christ,
and to die— gain.” For the apostle Paul
life is Christ, and Christ is
life. Now that is a mature believer.
d. While
characterizing spiritual maturity, it is
impossible to attain maturity unless we are
already occupied with Jesus Christ.
e. Christianity is a
relationship, not a religion. Paul in 2
Timothy 1:12 did not say, “I know what
I have believed,” but “I know whom
I have believed and I am convinced that He
is able to guard what I have entrusted to
Him until that day.” The Spiritual Life
is about the intimacy of
relationship, not the intricacies of
religion.
f. The purpose of
all our study is to move from the
written Word to the Living Word, to seek
from the page the Person of Jesus Christ.
Paul understood this probably as well as
anybody in history, which is why in
Philippians 3:10 he wraps the goal of his
entire life up in five words— “that I may
know Him.” Not about Him, not
the facts and details of this event or that
event, but Him personally and intimately,
which translates into experientially.
That’s why in the rest of v. 10 Paul speaks
of the “power of His resurrection and the
fellowship of His sufferings, being
conformed to His death.”
5) {Cf. Psalm 63.}
The title of this is ‘A Psalm of David, when
he was in the wilderness of Judah.’ The
background of this Psalm deals with the
‘Absalom rebellion,’ when David was forced
to flee, around 974 BC, across the Jordan
and into the dry and dusty wilderness,
leaving behind his home, his kingdom, and
the power and authority of his throne. He
begins with the declaration, “O God, You
are my God; I shall seek You earnestly
[Heb. verb shachar means- ‘look
diligently for something;’ it implies /
inner motivation of a soul occupied with /
Person of Christ]; My soul thirsts
for You, my flesh yearns for You
[word here means- ‘faint with longing’],
in a dry and weary land [an ‘exhausted
desert’] where there is no water
[this is David’s expression of spiritual
hunger and desire, that necessary thirst for
/ knowledge of God which leads to growth and
progress in / plan and power of grace].
Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary, to
see Your power and Your glory.”
In v. 3 you can see David’s thoughts turn to
the overwhelming goodness of God.
“Because Your lovingkindness is better than
life, My lips will praise You [‘lovingkindness’
is from , and chesed is one of
/ Heb. words for grace; underlying
this word are three basic ideas which
constantly interact with one another— {1}
strength, {2} loyalty, and {3} love; in
God’s relationship to us as individual
believers it means- faithfulness,
kindness, grace; all those things
are wrapped up in this one magnificent word].”
David was a man who understood, implicitly,
that ‘there but for the grace of God go I.’
David knew without a shadow of a doubt that
his kingdom, his family, his wealth, his
victories in warfare, and even his own faith
in the Word of God were resources, divine
assets provided by the grace of God. That’s
why in Psalm 13:5-6 he could say with
boldness and assurance, “I have trusted
in Your lovingkindness; My heart shall
rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to
the LORD because He has dealt bountifully
with me;” and in Psalm 21, a song of
thanksgiving from the nation on behalf of
their king, “O LORD, in Your
strength the king will be glad, and in
Your salvation how greatly he will
rejoice! ...For the king trusts in the
LORD, and through the lovingkindness of the
Most High he will not be shaken,’’ vv. 1
and 7.
“So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your
name
[an expression of worship and devotion].
My soul is satisfied as with marrow and
fatness [‘satisfied’ means- ‘be
fulfilled, have one’s desire satiated
completely’],
and [as a
result of this intense spiritual
satisfaction] my mouth offers praises
with joyful lips.” In v. 6 he say’s,
“When I remember You on my bed, I meditate
on You in the night watches [Qal stem of
zakar, translated ‘remember,’
means- call to mind, recall in
the soul; in / Class. Heb. of David’s time
this word was used for / function of /
heart, for thinking about someone, for
meditating on something and paying very
careful attention to it; this is not just a
fleeting thought here and there but it gives
us a picture of David passing through /
night absorbed in reflection on /
faithfulness, / provision, and / protection
of / Lord God of Israel, Jesus Christ],
for You have been my help and in the shadow
of Your wings I sing for joy [I love
this phrase, / ‘shadow of Your wings;’ it’s
an idiom for divine protection; David uses
it in at least four different places in /
Pss.: 17:8; 36:7; 57:1; and here]. My
soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds
me [‘upholds’ means- support,
hold fast, i.e., ‘Your right hand,’
which pictures / strength and power of God,
‘stabilizes me’].” There is a
principle for us here: Despite pressure
and pain, suffering and even scandal, God
will stabilize the believer who keeps his
eyes focused on Christ.
“In vain the surges angry shock,
In vain the drifting sands:
Unharmed upon the Eternal Rock,
The Eternal City stands.”
B. In v. 2 Paul say’s, “I urge Euodia
and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony
in the Lord.” The verb parakale/w (parakaleo),
translated “I urge” here, is a very
strong word in the Greek language. It
means- beg, exhort someone,
implore or entreat this person;
and Paul repeats it for emphasis, to
demonstrate his desire for harmony in the
Body of Christ. Apparently there was a
quarrel or disagreement of some kind.
Remember that the early Church met in homes;
some scholars have suggested that groups of
believers met in each of these ladies’
homes— one Jewish and one Gentile— and that
maybe there was an inordinate competition
between the two. In any case, this is a
personal appeal to each of these women.
1) We have a very interesting construction
in v. 2. Paul uses the pres. act. inf. of
frone/w (phroneo). The infinitive is
normally used to show the purpose or result
of the finite verb, which is how it’s
translated in the NAS: “I implore Euodia and
Syntyche, I entreat them. To what? To live
in harmony.” But what we have here is
called the “imperative infinitive,” a usage
with a very “ancient origin …especially
frequent in Homer.” Dana & Mantey,
Manual Grammar of the Greek NT, p. 216
This is the exact same construction Paul
used in Philippians 3:16 when he said,
“let us keep living by that same {standard}
to which we have attained.” In that
passage he uses to auto stoichein;
here he uses to auto phronein.
a. Phroneo
means- think the same thing, i.e.,
put aside whatever discord and dissension
exists and to be in agreement.
b. The ‘imperfect
inf.’ phronein— in the pres. tense
and act. voice— is Paul’s command to these
Christian women, and to all believers, to
“live in perpetual harmony in the
Lord, to keep on finding that common
ground of agreement in Christ.” How do we
do this? By thinking the same
thing. This goes back to the training
ground of the spiritual life:
study and application of the Word of God,
the preparation and practice
of faith. You can’t take one without the
other; they belong together in the plan of
God.
c. Paul talked about
this earlier in ch. 2. ‘Thinking the same
thing, being of the same mind in the Lord’
means: {1} To see the other person as you
see yourself in the Lord; and {2} to take
that step above and beyond,
and see this other person as more
important than yourself. Listen to the
expanded translation from our study of
Philippians 2:3-4: “Doing nothing under
the compulsion of selfish ambition or empty
pride, but with a humble attitude of soul
each consider the other as your superior.
Do not focus on your own concerns to the
exclusion of a care for the concerns of
other people.” When an attack comes,
there is always a diminishing of the other
person, a cutting down, a marginalizing of
the other party. As long as that is
happening there is no “harmony in the
Lord.”
2) “Euodia” is a fem. name, and it
means- ‘pleasant or prosperous journey.’
There was a tradition among believers in the
early Church of laying aside their
pre-Christian names and taking a new one at
baptism. In that sense, believer’s names
often reveal something about their spiritual
lives or spiritual character. ‘Euodia’ was
a woman who, in her own spiritual
journey, had arrived at a certain
level of growth. There was only one
problem— that problem’s name was ‘Syntyche.’
3) “Syntyche” comes from the verb
suntugchano, meaning- ‘to meet with;’
its cognate noun suntuchia means- an
‘occurrence, a happening, an incident,’ and
by extension ‘good fortune, success.’
“Syntyche” lit. means- ‘with fortune,
with destiny;’ this is someone who obviously
understood her place in the plan of God.
Maybe the effort she’d put forth to open her
heart and her home to the Body of Christ was
a cause of envy for Euodia. I don’t know,
but what I do know is that Paul calls
these women “fellow-laborers” in the
cause of Christ.
One of the things we see not only in the ministry of
Christ but also in the ministry of the
apostle Paul is the prominence of women.
Funny how after nearly two thousand years
things haven’t changed so much after all.
They’re always in a subordinate role, always
in a proper place and perspective, and yet,
some of the greatest believers of the 1st
cent. were women.
a. Starting with Mary, the sister of
Martha and Lazarus. The 11th ch.
of the Gospel of John tells of what great
love and affection our Lord had for this
family. And this lady was in tune
with the divine plan; she had a depth of
understanding about the Mission of the
Messiah that the disciples could only dream
of! Remember that it was she who had
“anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped
His feet with her hair” in John 11:2.
b. In Luke 8 it says, that when Christ
began “going around from one city and
village to another proclaiming and preaching
the Kingdom of God, the twelve were with
Him. And {also} some women who had been
healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary
who was called Magdalene [meaning- ‘of
Magdala;’ Magdala was a very small but very
wealthy city on / western shore of / Sea of
Galilee, infamous for its
prostitution], from whom seven demons had
gone out [according to / early Church,
it was this same Mary— a famous courtesan in
/ ancient world— who, in / home of a
self-righteous Pharisee
{is there any other kind?} had washed Jesus’ feet with
her tears, wiped them with her hair, and
then kissed them over and over as she
anointed them with perfume; / Scriptures
classify her as one who had been ‘devoted
to sin,’ and / fact that her hair was
loose and unbound was / sign of her
particular profession; I suppose / reason
those feet were so precious to her is
because they brought forgiveness from / Son
of God, a forgiveness offered in love—
and before her meeting with / Messiah that
was something unimaginable to her, something
inconceivable; yet it was this precisely,
her faith in / Lord Jesus Christ, which had
saved her and brought her into a
relationship of peace with God {Lk.
7:36-50}; if not for / ‘Christ-encounter,’
she would’ve been buried in history as some
unknown hooker; but somewhere along / way,
at some point in her life, / beauty of grace
had overwhelmed her, / grace of / Lord Jesus
Christ had touched her soul and set her
free, in a way that only grace
can], and Joanna the wife of Chuza,
Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many
others who were contributing to their [
/ disciples] support out of their private
means,” vv. 1-3.
c. Mark 15:40 says that at the
Crucifixion, after every one else had fled,
“there were …{some} women looking on from
a distance, among whom {were} Mary
Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the
Less and Joses, and Salome [ / mother
James and John, two of / three ‘inner
circle’ of disciples];” in v. 41 Mark
say’s, “When He was in Galilee, they used
to follow Him and minister to Him; and
{there were} many other women who
came up with Him to Jerusalem.”
d. In Paul’s ministry to the Roman colony
of Philippi, who was his first convert?
Lydia… and a very faithful one at that.
Luke in Acts 16:13-14 say’s, “on the
Sabbath day we went outside the gate to a
riverside, where we were supposing that
there would be a place of prayer [this
was a Jewish custom in cities where no
synagogue existed, to worship by a body of
water]; and we sat down and began
speaking to the women who had
assembled. A woman named Lydia, from the
city of Thyatira, a seller of purple
fabrics, a worshiper of God [phrase
indicates that, more than likely, she was a
‘proselyte’ to Judaism; Lydia], was
listening [there you see / concentration
of positive volition, / hunger of spiritual
desire]; and the Lord opened her heart
[HS’s magnificent ministry of common
grace] to respond to the things spoken by
Paul.”
4) As he goes along in v. 3 he talks about
these women, and others, who were ‘engaged
in the conflict of Christ.’ He say’s, they
“have shared my struggle in the Gospel;”
the NIV translates this as, “have
contended at my side in the cause of the
Gospel.” This phrase comes from the
same word he used in 1:27, sunathleo-
‘strive or struggle alongside someone.’
Sunathleo was used for a team of
athletes striving together towards the same
goal; it is a metaphor from the ancient
arena. Paul said, “They are my
fellow-warriors on the battlefield of
life.” That’s a pretty high mark for
anybody, man or woman, wouldn’t you
say?
Let me ask you this: In the end, when time has passed
us by and no further opportunity remains,
what will the record of our lives be? That
we ‘strove together as a team for Christ,
that we fought side by side in the cause of
the Gospel,’ or that we fell apart into
warring little factions? It happens all
the time, and in more and more churches than
ever before. This division in the
Philippian Church was a matter of immense
concern to the apostle Paul.
5) The KJ has “Euodias,” which is a
man’s name. One of the early fathers
thought that this was the Philippian jailer
and his wife being spoken of, that they held
a prominent place in the church at Philippi,
had had a bit of a ‘falling out’ and had
taken some other believers with them in this
momentary retreat. But the correct form is
“Euodia,” a woman’s name; and these
two women were at odds with one another.
Here are two believers, sisters in the Royal
Family of God, at variance and in
disagreement with each other. You let two
believers in a local church, especially two
that are heavily involved in service, get at
odds with one another, you let two believers
get ‘out of sorts’ with each other and you
have the makings of a split right
there, a division right down the middle.
What’s the solution? It’s found in our second command
in Christ, which is a command to ‘live
in spiritual harmony.’ How can you
possibly “live in harmony” unless
you have stability? How can we have
spiritual harmony without spiritual
stability? It’s impossible. In this next
part of our study I’m going to use two terms
synonymously— spiritual stability and
personal stability. That’s what stability
“in the Lord” is: personal and
spiritual. Let’s get a few points on
the idea of ‘harmony in the Lord.’
a. Spiritual harmony is a result of
personal stability. Personal
stability leads to group harmony. It
takes individual stability to have
functional harmony within a group; it’s not
something you can impose en masse. A
cohesive harmony among the various members
of a local body can exist only as a result
of their personal stability.
b. Harmony and unity, though often used as
synonyms, are not necessarily the same.
E.g., in an orchestra or symphony you have
many, many instruments. Those instruments
are all playing different parts, different
notes, emitting their own distinct sounds,
and yet with all the variation the final
product is a majestic harmony. Now, can you
imagine the various musicians telling each
other, “I don’t need you. Your instrument,
your style of playing, your skill is
unnecessary. We’d be better off without
you.”? Rather ridiculous, isn’t it?
The instruments and musicians themselves don’t look
the same, don’t sound the same, don’t
produce the same notes. What’s the
application? {Cf. 1 Corinthians 12:12-27}
According to Paul’s description of the Body
of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12 no believer
has a right to tell another member of the
Royal Family that they’re unneeded, they’re
unnecessary, there’s no place for them.
That attitude Paul speaks of in 1
Corinthians 12:21, of “the eye”
saying “to the hand, ‘I have no need of
you;’ or …the head” saying “to the
feet, ‘I have no need of you,’” is the
seedbed of division.
c. Churches, and individuals, often
promote the idea of ‘unity’ when what they
really mean is ‘conformity.’ This is
legalistic conformity to a set of human
viewpoint norms and standards, to rules and
regulations imposed by religious leaders,
religious boards, and religious
organizations, i.e., by man, not by
God! It was not Paul’s desire to establish
an organization, or the mechanics of human
machinery; it was Paul’s desire to lay on
each and every believer the burden and
responsibility of knowing the Lord Jesus
Christ in an intimate way.
It’s an unfortunate thing in the time in which we live
that organizations have been substituted for
the living organism of the Body of Christ.
What we see all around us is organizations
taking the place of the HS, organizations
taking the place of the Word of God,
organizations taking the place of the
leading and guiding of the Spirit of God.
This is one of the problems with
denominations; this, in my professional
opinion, is one of the major problems with
Christian organizations. Believers become
so involved with the organization, with
its aims and its goals and its
methods, that they leave no room for the
latitude and leadership of the Spirit.
Organizations have a tendency of
establishing their goals, setting up the way
they’re going to get there, and then they
just simply start rolling. What happens is
that spirituality falls by the wayside, what
happens— and this is another great danger—
is that people become loyal to
organizations. They become enamored with
it and not with Christ. One of the
things that has been a plague and a curse to
Christianity from the time of Pentecost down
to the present has been the infighting and
backstabbing in the Family of God because of
the loyalty of Christians, not to
Christ, not to the Word of God, but
to organizations. Principle: Devotion to
a denomination, no matter how wonderful or
right you think it is, is not our objective.
d. Harmony is not total conformity, nor
loss of identity or individuality. No one
should ever be forced into a mold in
which they don’t belong. Let me give you a
principle: Conformity makes the
religious soul comfortable. The
religious believer wants everyone to
dress a certain way, to act a
certain way, to utter all the proper pious
phrases in just the right way. You
know what I love more than anything?
Believers who are not afraid to be
themselves; believers who refuse to
‘fit the mold.’ I guarantee you when it
comes to P-Ts, they have no mold for
me …and they never will! Why? Because I’ve
played that ludicrous game; and I recognize
the principle that: Legalistic conformity
is not the same as spirituality, nor does it
lead to spiritual harmony. It is simply
a human attempt to mimic the reality of a
Christ-centered life.
Unity which is based on producing a whole slew of
people cut out of the same mold all walking,
talking, and acting the same is communism,
not Christianity! Harmony is not
conformity, and it is not the loss of
identity or individuality. In fact, the
more mature the members of a congregation,
the more distinctiveness and individuality
exists. And I’ll tell you why. Because
once you get the essentials of life lined up
and you learn what is truly
important, with that comes a magnificent
sense of obligation and freedom.
You’re not afraid to stand on your own,
you’re not afraid to ‘run outside the herd,’
you’re not afraid to be yourself because
maturity has tempered and even eradicated
some of the baser aspects of your old
self. Therefore, you can live without
fear in the realm of faith.
Let me tell you something: God doesn’t want you to be
anybody but who you are.
Faithfulness and consistency, not
‘conformity of personality,’ are the keys!
Whoever came up with the ideas that we had
to wear certain clothes or act certain
ways? “Well, this is the right way.” Being
someone who has spent a considerable amount
of time on the foreign mission field, I can
tell you that depends on where you
are. The norms and standards of culture—
which is really what we’re talking
about here— differ from country to country,
from state to state in the US, from region
to region, sometimes from city to city!
Who’s to say this is right for
everybody?!
Who’s willing to stand in the place of God and make
that judgment? Why don’t you ask Job how
well that works?
Maybe what the Church needs in the 21st
cent. is more spiritual non-conformists—
believers who, while being spiritual, are
not afraid to be themselves. Americans as a
people, and Christians in America, have lost
their sense of individuality. We say,
“Whereas there used to be plenty, there are
no frontiers left.” But there is
one: the frontier of the soul and spirit
which feed on the Word of God— the
possibilities and potential for growth in
that life are unlimited. There is
another: the frontier of foreign
missions. There are “fields, …white unto
harvest” covering this entire globe—
John 4:35-36. What is your personal
involvement, what is my personal
involvement, in harvesting those fields?
e. Unstable believers who cannot
have harmony, instead push for a unity which
is really conformity. What are we saying
here? Unstable people who don’t have the
ability to stand on their own two feet and
who can’t stand anyone rattling their
rusty cage, want everybody to be exactly
alike. Unfortunately, for some reason, an
extraordinary number of them believe they’ve
been ‘called to preach,’ and so they wind up
in pulpits all across this great land of
ours. They can’t stand to have anybody make
them uncomfortable, so they begin to try to
control people by imposing all these
legalistic standards which have nothing
to do with harmony and everything to
do with conformity.
f. Personal stability minimizes friction
and the arrogance that leads to division.
How? By minimizing dependence on other
people. When you are spiritually
autonomous, you don’t have to rely on the
praise and approbation of other believers;
and you don’t have to be bowed to or
scraped before. What happens is that as you
mature you can allow people to differ, and
to be individuals, even if you don’t
like who they are as an individual, and yet
there is no disruption of harmony.
Personal stability does something else: it
minimizes unrealistic expectations.
People who get disillusioned and who turn
their backs on the plan of grace are people
who are spiritually unstable. They have no
foundation of their own, and therefore, they
have to use someone else as a
crutch. Their whole spiritual existence is
leaning on someone else. Instead of
looking to Christ, they’re looking to people
or to things or to a change of some kind in
life. This, of course, is a very dangerous
position. You know what God said to
Jeremiah about this? “Cursed is the man
who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his
strength and whose heart turns away from the
LORD. For he will be like a bush in the
desert and will not see when prosperity
comes, but will live in stony wastes in the
wilderness, a land of salt without
inhabitant,” Jeremiah 17:5-6. You see,
that one thing they desperately seek— that
spiritual stability— will constantly
elude them until they occupy themselves with
Christ and Christ alone.
g. Harmony recognizes individuality
and personal preference, then makes the most
of the strong points of other believers. We
are not the same, so, why should we
have to pretend like we are? We don’t
all like the same things, do we?
So, why should we have to pretend we do?
This is where ‘grace orientation to life’
comes in. An orientation to grace allows me
to be me, and you to be you— in all the
latitude of our own personalities—
and yet, at the same time, both of us to be
spiritual. Did you ever think that maybe
God brings some believers in to the Royal
Family just to shake the religious crowd
up? That He gives them a sort of ‘gift of
adversity,’ if you will? When we can look
at other believers, regardless of the
differences that exist between us, and
recognize that they have something to offer
in the plan of God— a ministry, and a
mission behind that ministry, a
reason why they’re here— that shows
great stability and great maturity.
h. Where spiritual stability exists,
even out of dislike can come harmony.
This is the attitude that says to other
believers, “Hey. You’re part of the
team, you’re part of the plan.” This is the
attitude that every local body ought
to have. Instead of exclusion there
ought to be an attitude of inclusion.
i. There can be no harmony between
believers unless it is “in the Lord.”
Think about all the powerful armies that
have marched in human history. Whatever
your favorite sport happens to be, think
about all the great teams and athletes
you’ve watched in the past. Think about the
incredible achievements of so many great
Americans in so many different areas of
life. What is it that ties all these
things together? Leadership …the leadership
of great men.
An army, a team, a company, a unit will never achieve
greatness without first having great
leaders. Hebrews 12:2 calls Jesus Christ,
“the Author and Perfecter of faith.”
The word “author” means- a leader,
a ruler, an originator; one
who begins something as the first in a
series and thus supplies the driving force
and purpose behind it. It also say’s that
we are to “fix our eyes on” Him, to focus
our undivided attention and concentration on
the One, “who for the joy set before Him
endured the cross, despising the shame, and
has sat down at the right hand of the throne
of God.” Out of this, I have six points
of application.
i. Enormous diversity is often held
together by allegiance to an excellent
leader. Out of the shadows of history come
men like King David, Cyrus of Persia, the
Spartan king Leonidas, Alexander the Great,
Hannibal, Augustus, Napoleon, and on and
on. That loyalty to each other, and toward
the mutual objective, depends
entirely upon their loyalty to him.
ii. Take the leader away and the group
disintegrates into isolated units,
oftentimes at war with one another.
iii. Believers are not commanded to show
loyalty to human organizations but to be
loyal to the Person of Christ. Paul in
Colossians 3:4 speaks of “Christ, who is
our life…;” in vv. 1-3 he said,
“Therefore if you have been raised up
with Christ [‘and you have,
through union with Him at / moment of
salvation’], keep seeking the things
above, where Christ is seated at the
right hand of God. Set your mind on the
things above [this is phroneo-
‘keep thinking, constantly and continually,
about things of eternal value’], not on
the things that are on earth [i.e.,
don’t get bound in / details and
distractions of / CS;
Paul’s saying that we must maintain an eternal
perspective at all times, an eternal
outlook on life, especially when
things are at their worst; pr: To look at
/ ‘big picture,’ to look at
life from / divine viewpoint, is / only way
to survive in / Conflict and
succeed in /Cause.]. For
you have died,” Paul say’s, “and your
life is hidden with Christ in God [that
is a picture of our identification with His
death, burial, resurrection and ascension].”
iv. Misplaced loyalty leads to misplaced
priorities. When your loyalty lies with an
organization, a party or a person, and not
with the Person of Christ, your scale of
‘spiritual values’ is completely out
of kilter. Which, in effect, means no
execution of the will of God. Most of
Christianity either doesn’t comprehend or
just doesn’t care, and therefore,
ignores the fact that our lives must line up
with His will or else they are wasted
in the divine economy. And it’s our
attitude, it’s our thinking, it’s
our action with His will, not the
other way around! {Cf. Habitation of
Dragons, ‘Renewal in the Church, but who
cares enough,’ p. 179}
v. Believers will never have
harmony with one another until they have
intimacy with Christ. As Paul told the
Galatians, “I have been crucified with
Christ; and it is no longer I who
live but Christ lives in me…,”
2:20.
When we come to “know” Christ experientially,
as Paul had in Philippians 3:10-11, we find
that spiritual harmony, even with those in
our assembly who differ from us
tremendously, is really not that difficult
after all. Because, you see, our focus is
not on them, and it’s not selfishly
on us, it’s on the glorification of Christ.
In the end, that’s the only thing that
matters for eternity.
vi. Last, but certainly not least: Our
love for other believers will never be
experiential until our love, our
passion, our devotion to Christ is real. In
Ephesians 3:17-19 Paul’s prayer, not just
for the Ephesians but for all believers, is
that we “…being rooted and grounded
[‘stabilized and secured;’ where?] in
love, may be able to comprehend
with all the saints what is the breadth and
length and height and depth, and to know the
love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,
that” we “may be filled up to all the
fullness of God.”
C. Moving on, who is the “true
companion” in v. 3? “Indeed, true
companion, I ask you also to help
these women.” Why would he make a
request like this? Because Paul realized
that somebody was going to have to act as a
mediator. Two people involved in a serious
dispute rarely solve it themselves. In our
lawsuit-obsessed country, it normally takes
a judge and a jury of their peers to solve
something.
1) The word “help” is the pres.
mid. imp. of sullamba/nw (sullambano),
another plea on behalf of Euodia and
Syntyche. Lambano means- ‘take hold
of;’ sun means- ‘with;’ so lit.-
take hold of together, and then, in the
mid. voice- come to the aid of
someone, help or assist
somebody. To the “true comrade” Paul
said, “I want you to take hold of
this problem, this conflict, this
disagreement, together with these two
women, and let’s find a solution.” That is
precisely what a ‘mediator’ does;
he intercedes, he mediates between two parties in
order to find a solution. Isn’t that what
Christ did for us? Act as a Mediator to
secure the ‘salvation solution.’
2) Suzugos means- ‘yoked together,’
a comrade, a colleague, in the same sense
that the Latin commilito speaks of
fellow-gladiators in the arena. Each
gladiator was his opponent’s suzugos.
3) I believe that the “true comrade”
was Luke. Luke is an interesting character,
a Gentile in what was in the very early
Church a world of Jewish believers. He is
the only Gentile author in the entire NT. A
little background:
a. Luke traveled with Paul all over the
ancient world, and he was always
there for him— steady and faithful— always
alongside the apostle Paul in labors and
hardships. In fact in 2 Timothy 4:11, in
the last letter Paul wrote before his
execution at the hands of the Roman Empire,
he said, “only Luke is with me….”
b. In Acts 16:10 there is a change from
the 3rd p. to the 1st,
from “they” to “we.” This is
where Luke joined up with Paul, at
“Troas,” the site of ancient Troy.
“Concluding that God had called” them
“to preach the gospel” in Europe, where
do they go? “To Philippi, …a leading
city of the district of Macedonia, a {Roman}
colony.” The person of the narrative
changes again in this ch. and when Paul and
Silas depart Philippi for Thessalonica—
16:40-17:1— Luke stays behind. Could be
that Luke was a native of Philippi, but even
more probable is that Paul left him there to
care for this fledgling church. This was,
after all, the first place the Gospel was
ever preached by Paul in Europe.
c. Luke, more than likely, is the
‘renowned brother’ mentioned in 2
Corinthians 8:18. When Paul sent Titus—
another Gentile, who was believed to be
Luke’s brother— to collect the funds for the
Jerusalem Church, he said, “We have sent
along with him the brother whose fame in
{the things of} the Gospel {has spread}
through all the churches.” This
‘famous’ believer, this one “whose fame”
had spread “through all the churches,”
was usually identified in the early Church
with Luke. Even so, even with this
tremendous recognition, he always chose to
stay in the background. In fact, there are
only three times that he is mentioned
by name in the NT.
d. In one of these, Colossians 4:14, Paul
refers to him as “the beloved physician”—
a doctor of the soul. His skills could help
cure the body but it was his message that
healed the soul.
4) Many scholars believe that Luke,
“true companion” that he was, wrote the
Book of Acts as a defense of Paul’s ministry
after his first imprisonment. Because Paul
had come under terrible attack, not from the
CS but from the rank and file of the Royal
Army, some of them his very own disciples.
If you remove 1 Timothy and Titus— both
‘pastoral epistles’ dealing with shepherds
and the care of their flocks— written around
65 AD, these are ‘silent years’ between
Paul’s ‘prison epistles’ in AD 60-61 and his
final imprisonment and martyrdom in late 67
or early 68 AD.
Some believe that these were the greatest years of his
ministry, and that he reached a more vast
area in those few years of silence than in
all the years of his ministry up to that
point.
History records that he reached Spain during this
time, possibly Gaul, and others believe he
went as far as Britain and ministered among
the Celtic tribes. Yet from Paul himself we
have no word during this time,
nothing, at least none that has survived.
I’ll tell you what I think happened: I think
maybe he got tired of defending
himself, defending his ministry,
defending his methods; that maybe he
said, “You know what, it doesn’t matter— all
the slander, all the maligning, all the
jealousy and envy, all this criticism from
other believers. There’s no one left but
Christ, and He’s the only One that counts!
And so I’ll just leave it in His hands, and
allow the Master to use me any way He
will!”
5) What Paul wants his ‘esteemed
colleague’ to do is work “together with
Clement also and the rest of” his
“fellow workers.” I.e., two things are
going to happen here: [1] they’re going to
gather together as a team, as a harmonious
unit, and from the Word deal with the
problem; and [2] he’s going to lead the way
in resolving it. I think there is a
significant point here, and it relates to
the spiritual harmony we studied in this
section: When there was a conflict at
Philippi, a quarrel which— at least for
these two ladies— seemed irresolvable, Paul
mobilized the entire body to resolve it.
That’s not going to be necessary every time
you have a disagreement in a local church,
but it does show that he was not afraid of
utilizing his resources; it shows that Paul
thought no effort too extensive to maintain
the peace and equilibrium of this local
body. Here is the principle which comes out
of this: No one can be at harmony with
God— in fellowship with Christ— and at war
with other believers!
D. In the third command, found in v. 4,
Paul twice challenges the Philippians
to “rejoice in the Lord always; again I
will say, rejoice!” Here he used
chairete, the pres. act. imper. of xai/rw
(chairo)- be filled with joy, rejoice
exceedingly. The 2nd pl.
embraces every member of the Royal Family.
1) The word for
“always” means- ‘at all times,’
and only serves to heighten the sense of the
command. This would be in the pres. act.
imper.: ‘keep on, every moment of your
lives, rejoicing exceedingly, keep on
constantly being filled with joy.’ Why
…because of circumstance? No,
because of who Christ is, and what you have
in Him!
2) Notice out of the
command to “stand firm” in v. 1 comes
the command to “live in harmony;” out
of the command to “live in harmony”
comes the command to “rejoice in the
Lord.” Not just when things are
going your way but “always!” This
means when things are bad, when
things are hopeless, when things are
painful— through the tears, through the
pain, through the suffering— “rejoice in
the Lord always,” and “again I …say,
rejoice!” He emphasizes it twice here
because he wants to express the importance
of joy as a PSD.
In Conclusion
Basically, what we have in these first 4 vv. is a very simple
format of magnificent spirituality in
action!
1. Stability in the Lord, which is a result of
stability in the Word.
2. Harmony with one another. It takes spiritual
stability to have spiritual harmony.
3. Joy and
rejoicing. Maybe you’ve noticed on
occasion but people don’t tend to rejoice—
even though they could— where there
is no harmony. And believers who have no
stability in their lives have no foundation
for joy in their souls!
The amazing thing is that we create
disharmony, and then are unhappy or
disappointed or disillusioned because
disharmony exists, when we’re the only ones
who can solve it. The solution to
disharmony goes back to our stability in
Christ. We have to be willing to plant our
feet on the Rock of the Word and to say, of
ourselves and others, “I am a member of the
Royal Family of God. I have a divine
anointing in the Spirit of God; I have a
spiritual gift given by that same HS and a
mission associated with my ministry.
I am a priest, an ambassador, and a minister
of grace. I am available to be used in the
plan of God, and therefore, I can leave it
all in His hands. It’s not up to me
to fulfill anything in my strength; it’s not
up to me to accomplish anything by my
energy. It’s all Christ, or it’s
nothing at all!”
I want to close with a couple of vv. from
Psalm 119. The writer, a young captive on
the slave-march to Babylon, prays these
words in vv. 116-117. “Sustain me
according to Your Word, that I may live
[this is his prayer for divine strength];
and do not let me be ashamed of my hope
[‘my confidence in / Lord God of Israel and
my assurance in His plan’].
Uphold me that I may be safe [you see
his desire for spiritual stability], that
I may have regard for your statutes
continually [this is / only place where
stability exists, when / Word of God is
being applied constantly and ‘continually’].”
Psalm 119 is written as an acrostic poem,
with each line of each section beginning
with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. These
two vv. come from the Samekh ( )
section. “The samekh pictures a
fulcrum, the prop or support on which a
lever rests. It represents the enabling
power of the Word of God. The Word is the
rock; our faith is the lever. When we rest
our faith on the Word, we have the power to
move any obstacle because God ‘is able to
do far more abundantly beyond all that we
ask or think, according to the power that
works within us,’” Ephesians 3:20.
Cunningham, Psalm 119, The Diary of a
Captive, p. 94
“A BALANCED
SPIRITUALITY”
Philippians
4:4-5
(click here to view in
Word format)
Introduction
When
you look at the course of history since the
Day of Pentecost 30 AD, you see that some of
the greatest blows the enemy has dealt the
Church have come from within— within the
bounds of ‘Christendom {meaning all those—
believers and unbelievers— who name the name
of Christ};’ and even today from within
Christianity itself. When Christianity
becomes slanted and distorted, when
Christians lose their balance and their
sense of priority and perspective, then we
end up with something which is no longer
genuine. The Life in the truest
sense of the term— the joy, the power, the
vitality— has drained out of it. My prayer
is that in this study we will recognize the
qualities that make for a ‘balanced
spirituality,’ and therefore, a balanced
maturity. It is imperative in the time in
which we live when there is so much
imbalance, when there is so much loss of
focus and perspective, when there is so much
preoccupation with the wrong things and
apathy toward the right things, that we as
believers not only have a clear
understanding of what the Word teaches, but
also the ability to apply it in a balanced
manner… that we have this ‘spiritual
equilibrium’ in our lives.
The plan of God
is to stabilize life, and we studied this in
detail. The Word of God gives stability;
the Word of God is the only solid foundation
in this universe! That stability enables us
to move from the Cross to the Crown (
illustrate ): always keeping our eyes
focused on Christ, our mind riveted on
eternity, and always knowing where we’re
going and why we’re here.
We dealt briefly
with v. 4 in our last passage in
Philippians, vv. 1-4, but I want to bring it
into this section as well, because when
taken together with v. 5 of Philippians 4 we
have a concept. It’s one which Paul is
going to carry forward in both principle and
practice down through v. 9— the concept of a
‘balanced spirituality.’ Paul say’s,
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will
say, rejoice! Let your forbearing [or in
some translations, ‘your gentle’] {spirit}
be known to all men. [then he adds, for]
The Lord is near,” Philippians 4:4-5. Let
me read the rest of the section for you as
well, to give you an idea of the full
context. {Read vv. 6-9}
Body
1. Remember from our previous study that
this is a command in v. 4, a command to
“rejoice in the Lord” at all times and in
all things. It is repeated twice to
emphasize the importance of spiritual joy as
a PSD. Paul uses the term “joy” seven
times, and the terms “rejoice” or “rejoiced”
{past tense} nine times in the book of
Philippians. That’s sixteen times in what,
at four chs., is a relatively short letter.
A. “Joy” is
from the noun chara; “rejoice” is from the
verb chairo. Chairo was sometimes used in
the ancient world for the celebration of a
victory on the battlefield. In application
it means- ‘celebrate the victory of grace.’
At the Cross
Jesus Christ won the ultimate victory, the
eternal victory; we call it the ‘Strategic
Victory of the Angelic Conflict.’ He broke
Satan’s back at the Cross, and He broke open
the gates of Satan’s POW camp— the Cosmic
System. If you have believed in Him then
you have relationship with Christ forever,
and if you have relationship with the Son
then you have relationship with the Father.
And in that relationship you have power,
privilege and opportunity greater than
anything you can even imagine.
1) How often do we give thanks for the
Strategic Victory of Jesus Christ? How much
time during the course of a day do we give
to thought and reflection on the victory of
Christ? How many times— while the battle is
raging everywhere around us— in our own
souls, do we stop and take the time to
celebrate the victory of Christ and the
victory of grace? Paul did; and the reason
he could endure, the reason he could press
on and on and on in his own spiritual
advance and in his service for the cause of
Christ, was because he focused, not on
circumstances around him, not on the
pressure and adversity he faced each and
every day, not on the problems themselves,
but on the solution— the Person of Jesus
Christ.
Maybe if we
spent more time getting to know our Lord and
Savior intimately and personally, maybe if
we focused just a little bit of our daily
energy and effort on the celebration of His
Victory and the unavoidable destiny we have
in Him, life might not look so bleak, boring
and hopeless after all. The adventure might
just begin anew with the right spiritual
perspective, with a depth of understanding
and appreciation for grace. Do not ever
allow yourself to forget that as “sons of
God,” as “Abraham’s offspring” and “heirs
according to promise,” we are moving like a
juggernaut towards an inevitable destiny in
Christ. Now, if that’s not cause for
celebration, if that’s not cause for
throwing a victory party in your own soul,
then nothing is!
2) I want to give you a principle here:
There is nothing in life which Christ has
not overcome. Nothing. The basic function
of joy is spoken of in John 16:33 when our
Lord said, “In the world you have
tribulation [you have testing, you have
crisis, you have disaster]; but take
courage, I have overcome the world.” Here’s
the issue: If your focus is in the world,
the best that you can hope and strive and
struggle for is happiness. But happiness,
by nature, is always going to be fleeting;
happiness will always be transient and
temporary. You can mark that down as fact!
But if your focus is “in the Lord”— in His
will and His purpose and His plan— then you
can have joy. Over here what happens to you
is everything; over here what happens to you
is nothing. We all have trials, we all have
tribulation, these things are a part of the
“world;” but Christ has “overcome the
world,” and everything it contains!
B. If there is
one thing we ought to take away from a study
of this book, one lesson that must be
learned for the future, it’s that joy has
nothing to do with material prosperity or
with the outward circumstances of life! It
is an undisputed fact of human existence
that people can live in the ‘lap of luxury’
and be wretchedly miserable, and others can
live in the ‘pit of poverty’ and their lives
overflow with joy. The difference is in the
soul. One man knows because of his faith in
the Word and in the Lord that his life, at
best, is a transient existence, a momentary
blip on the radar screen of history. The
other is pouring everything he has into
temporal existence. One lives and breathes
in the light of eternity; the other is
consumed by the darkness of the Kosmos! You
better hear this next principle, because it
corresponds not only to this generation but
to our country as a whole: The more selfish
and self-centered we are, the more miserable
and unhappy we’re going to be.
One of the
reasons that Christian joy is lacking in
Christian lives is because intimacy with
Christ is lacking in Christian lives. The
secret of spiritual joy is this: that joy
doesn’t depend on things or places or
people, but on the Person of Jesus Christ.
The Christian is “in Christ,” the one
faithful and immutable Rock in a world of
shifting sand— vacillating and unstable;
hence, the importance of a joy that is built
on spiritual stability, on the rock-solid
foundation we have in Christ. Nothing can
ever separate us from His presence,
therefore, nothing can ever take away our
joy. We may choose, through arrogance and
apathy, to forfeit it, but when we stand by
faith on the Word of God nothing and no one
can take it from us!
2. In vv. 4-5
the apostle Paul sets before the Philippians
the two great qualities that make for a
balanced spiritual life.
A. The first is
what we just finished looking at: our joy in
Christ, and in the riches and resources,
eternal and abundant, that we have in Him.
“Rejoice in the Lord always;” and “again I
…say rejoice!” It’s almost as if Paul,
after laying out the command to celebrate
the victory of grace constantly and
continually, sees a picture of what is to
come flash across his mind. He himself is
in a Roman prison with a sentence of death
hanging over his head. The Philippians to
whom he’s writing are out there on the Way
as he speaks, on the Priority Path, and
there are dark days of danger and
persecution ahead.
1) Cf.
Barclay’s introduction to 1 Peter on
persecution in the Roman Empire. {A vast
persecution was about to break out in Rome
and reach Macedonia shortly thereafter.}
2) Consider
this: Paul is chained wrist to wrist with
revolving members of the Praetorian Guard.
He has joy …an unconquerable joy at that;
the soldiers guarding him do not. Remember
that Philippians, as one of the ‘Prison
Epistles,’ was written in 60-61 AD. The
Philippians are going to face tremendous
persecution in the coming decade, and were
already under intense pressure. Paul spoke
of this in 1:29-30 when he said, “to you it
has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only
to believe in Him but also to suffer for His
sake, experiencing the same conflict which
you saw in me, and now hear {is} in me.”
The Philippians had a phenomenal spiritual
joy, however; those with the power to
persecute them did not.
3) So Paul, in
essence, is saying, “After seeing everything
that can possibly happen— all the pain, all
the pressure, all the suffering and
affliction— I still say, adamantly,
rejoice!” Why this command to ‘rejoice
regardless’ {which would not be a bad
translation} and to keep on celebrating the
victory of Christ? Because:
a. Spiritual
joy is independent of circumstance or
surroundings. It is an inner condition of
the soul.
b. Spiritual
joy is independent of all worldly things
because its source is the personal Presence
of Jesus Christ!
B. The second
quality is found in the command to “Let your
forbearing {spirit} be known to all men.”
Here is where we find the other half of a
‘balanced spirituality.’ The word
translated “forbearance,” or “gentleness,”
is epieikes, an adjective used as a
substantive with the def. art.;
epieikes is
synonymous with the noun
e)piei/keia
(epieikeia), and both refer to a certain
graciousness of character, to the exercise
of mercy in dealing with others.
1) Why this
particular word? Because what we’re dealing
with in this section is a concept, and that
concept is one of balance in the spiritual
life. Principle: Balanced spirituality is
the only thing which can lead to a balanced
spiritual life. Therefore, in v. 5 we have
the command which represents this, the
command to “let” our “forbearing spirit be
known.” Now, to us in English that doesn’t
really mean much, that doesn’t really
communicate. That might mean simply ‘being
nice’ to people; it might mean ‘being
patient’ with people; to some it might mean
treating people as frail and fragile
creatures— kind of like an eggshell.
2) You can see
how difficult this word is in the number of
translations that have been given it by
scholars in the past. Wycliffe {who lived
in the 14th cent. and was the
first man to make a complete translation of
the Bible into English} translated it
‘patience;’ Tyndale was another English
reformer, executed for his faith and labor—
he had ‘softness’ {horrible}; the Geneva
Bible has ‘a patient mind;’ the Rheims
Bible, ‘modesty;’ Moffat translated it
‘forbearance;’ Weymouth, ‘the forbearing
spirit.’ What does it really mean, “let
your forbearing {spirit} be known to all
men?” Before I deal with the word I want to
explain the reason for it.
a. The reason
that Paul makes this command is because we
as human beings have such a tendency to
twist and distort things. Most of you know
this from experience— either with people in
the past or in the present, in certain
Christian settings and certain Christian
groups or denominations— that those who are
the supposedly ‘spiritual’ believers are the
most miserable people to be around. And we
all know by now that misery doesn’t love
company, misery demands company!
Throughout
Church history, the people who have assumed
the mantle of righteousness, the people who
have promoted and presented themselves as
being the ‘spiritual elite,’ have been
unbalanced in some way. This ranges from
the weird and the uptight ‘better than
thou,’ to the downright devious and evil.
On the ascetic extreme, you find the
puritanical legalist who condemns almost
everything: if you smile, you’ve been up to
something; if you laugh, then we know you’ve
been bad; if there is a group laughing over
here in a corner of the room, having a good
time and enjoying themselves, then there is
definitely some ‘unrighteous mischief’
afoot.
b. Where do we
get such warped ideas as those which still
affect millions of believers today? Things
like: women can’t wear makeup; women must
wear dresses, they can’t be allowed to wear
pants or jeans; a man must wear a black
suit, or just a suit, or {in the
Philippines} a barong to church; an
evangelist must use half a can of Aqua Net
on his coif before entering the pulpit. You
get the idea. The reason we know that these
things are unabashed legalisms and not
absolute Truth is because these ridiculous
standards change anytime the appropriate
‘authorities’— whoever that happens to be: a
pastor, group leader, the ladies training
union, the convention— decide it’s time for
them to change.
The reason for
all this is because these are people who are
off-balance; these are examples of
‘unbalanced spirituality.’
And it is the
very opposite of what Jesus and the
disciples were like. You don’t see this in
our Lord. In the life of the Lord Jesus
Christ you see a perfect blend that brought
about balanced spirituality. John 1:14
says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us, and we beheld His glory [you know
what ‘glory’ is?; ‘glory’ is a manifestation
of / character and essence of God], glory as
of the only begotten from the Father, full
of grace and truth.”
And so, what
Paul’s striving for in this passage is a
balance to the spiritual life, a believer
neither underwhelmed nor overwhelmed with
anything except the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because He is to be the consuming passion of
our lives, and nothing else can be allowed
to take His place.
3) The phrase
“let …be known” is the aor. imper. of
gi/nwskw (ginosko), and ginosko means- come to know; understand;
or realize something. In the pass. voice it
means- become known.
a. The aor.
imper. is an authoritative command, a
command of military urgency; i.e., “since
it’s obvious this quality is lacking in some
of your lives, do it now.” It has a
solemnity and seriousness about it. “Begin
making it known,” he say’s. “Let it become
known and realized and understood with
everyone.”
The aor. imper.
tells us that Paul saw in the Philippian
Church not only the flaw of division, of
believers choosing sides and looking out for
their own selfish interests, but a lack of
forbearance, a lack of grace and mercy in
dealing with others. Paul saw the peculiar
flaw, as he would in any number of churches
around the world today, of unbalanced
spirituality. He saw the flaw of a
contemptuous attitude toward believers who
look different, or dress different, or don’t
speak like we speak and don’t like what we
like. That brings us to the principle
that: A sanctimonious, self-righteous
attitude is as far from true spirituality
as you can possibly get. Paul knew that;
and so he sets out to deal with it in our
passage. The application would be
especially personal particularly for Euodia
and Syntyche, the quarreling ladies in v. 2.
b. Here the
aor. imper. is found in the pass. voice,
which is why we have the milder translation
of “let be known.” The very nature of
epieikeia precludes a forcefulness in its
exercise, or any desire to garner
approbation and acclaim. Those are contrary
to what it’s all about. This v. is saying,
“Let your forbearance become known to all
men. Let your forbearing spirit be
understood by all; let it be realized in
your relationships with others.” Then we
have our word: epieikeia.
4) The Greeks
had a magnificent way of defining and
describing their important words. The
Greeks themselves looked at this word as
representing- something better than
justice. This particular explanation came
down from Aristotle. To them, epieikeia was
the noble concept that came in when strict
justice, when blind adherence to the
principle of law became unjust. There are
instances and there are circumstances in
life where a perfectly just law, in and of
itself, becomes unjust.
Take e.g., as an
illustration, the national speed limit of 55
on all highways {which thankfully was
repealed in 1995}, a blatant blackmail of
the sovereign states by the federal
government. The states were blackmailed
into this idiotic law with ‘highway funds’
which came from taxes paid by the people of
the states to begin with! …The law said 55
and no more, that’s the speed limit.
Now, let’s say
you have a parent with a snake-bit,
poisoned, or injured child, in a rural area
thirty minutes away from the nearest medical
center. The only problem is that he needs
to be there in twenty minutes or his child
is going to die. So, the father is driving
75, or as fast as safety will permit and
even a little beyond, when suddenly out of
nowhere come the flashing lights of a police
car. The statute says this is the speed
limit, you broke it; and now the policeman
stands there and writes out the ticket while
the child bleeds or the poison circulates.
That’s justice; there are no provisions on
the books for a speed limit which is 55
except under these conditions, 65 except
under these circumstances. Or, knowing what
all the factors are behind the situation—
i.e., not just the what, but the why— he
runs back to his patrol car, throws on the
lights and the siren, and leads this man by
police escort to the nearest hospital. That
is epieikeia.
a. Aristotle
defined it as the quality which corrects the
law when the law, because of its generality,
is in error. Keep in mind that law must
possess a certain generality. The law must
be general enough to cover everybody, else
it becomes unfair and unfit to be called a
law. One famous Greek scholar said that
epieikeia means “retreating from the letter
of right to better preserve the spirit of
right....” He said, it is “the spirit which
rectifies and redresses the injustices of
justice.”
b. A believer
has acquired, through the constant
preparation and practice of faith, the
virtue of epieikeia when in his
grace-orientation in every area of life—
especially in relationship to other
believers— he knows when to apply the spirit
of the law and not the letter of the law,
when to relax the ‘rigidity of justice’ and
introduce the healing power of mercy. This
is something which takes discretion; you
don’t just wake up one day and then suddenly
this is a reality in your spiritual life.
This is one of those virtues of grace which
has to be cultivated over the course of
experience. The only One who can give us
this type of discernment and discretion in
life is the HS. It requires a sensitivity
to the Spirit of God on the part of the
believer to not insist on the letter of the
law in every situation, and yet not fall
prey to lawlessness in the Spiritual Life.
c. This word
“forbearance” then, when properly
understood, means that you look at things in
perspective. And because you look at things
in perspective, you have understanding. You
understand the reasons behind the things you
see. And because of that deeper insight
which goes beyond the surface of the law you
have something else: you have compassion.
And compassion is the practical extension of
mercy.
5) There are
two passages I want us to look at, and they
both teach the same lesson: Hosea 6:6; and
Luke 10:25-37.
a. In Hosea 6
we have a passage which Christ quoted on at
least two separate occasions when dealing
with the Pharisees— Matthew 9:13; 12:7.
Hosea attacked the people of his time, just
as Christ did in his application of this
passage, because they had a Law, and that
Law to them was just a rigid principle to be
obeyed and to be adhered to without even
thinking about its spiritual implications.
There was no life in it; there was no real
spiritual motivation in it; it was just
something that they did.
You know
what it says in Hosea 6:6? “For I delight
in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and
in the knowledge of God rather than
burnt offerings.” “Loyalty,” the Lord said,
is more pleasing to Him than a “sacrifice”
on the altar. That alone shows us something
of the character of God and of His desire
for our lives, but that’s not all. The word
“loyalty” is chesed in the Hebrew; it means-
‘lovingkindness, compassion, grace.’ ta(aD
da’ath, the word translated “knowledge,”
means- discernment, understanding; da’ath is
from the root verb yada- ‘to know,’ and it
speaks of knowledge which is personal and
experiential. So, what does this mean? It
means grace and compassion toward others,
and intimacy with Christ, are greater gifts
than all of the sacrifices and burnt
offerings put together. And this from a
passage written to the northern Kingdom of
Israel, at a time when they as a nation were
under the Mosaic Law as their rule of life!
b. Cf. Luke
10:25— ‘The Merciful Samaritan.’ {Read
passage.} What Jesus is saying, speaking as
God in both places, is that rather than
fulfill every detail connected with the
ritual, I would rather you develop an
attitude of mercy toward other people, of
genuine compassion toward those in need.
c. Let’s
illustrate this. Jesus meets a woman in
Samaria in John 4. {Cf.} V. 4 says, that
“He had to pass through Samaria.” This is
more than just the fact that when traveling
north to Galilee this was the easiest
route. A Jew normally would have nothing
whatsoever to do with a Samaritan, which is
why she’s so surprised in v. 9 that He’s
asked her for a drink. The Lord Jesus
Christ had a divinely determined appointment
with this woman on this day. {Cf. vv.
5-26}
She’s come out
to the well at noon because she was an
outcast, shunned by the so-called
‘respectable’ women in town. And yet, in
this entire region, she was the one most
prepared to meet Jesus Christ; she was the
one most equipped to lead that village to
the promised Messiah. All that the people
of this village saw was that she’d been
married and divorced five times, had given
up on any hope of a satisfying home life,
and was now just living with some guy. It
could’ve been any guy. By the time you
reach this point, they’re all the same. In
these people’s eyes she was worthless,
nothing more than a whore.
I have no doubt
she’d heard all the rumors and the whispers
and the gossip that went on behind closed
doors. Yet Jesus met her right where she
was, knowing everything about her. He knew
that behind the sin was a hurting sinner,
desperately in need. He understood— and
this is where our word comes in— all of the
reasons that brought this woman to where she
was that day. I’m going to give you the
‘amplified’ version of her life.
This is not
original with me; this is something I heard
another pastor use, but it’s always stuck
with me.
i. Here she
is at the age of eight… molested, abused
sexually. The US Dept. of Justice, Bureau
of Statistics states that, “Persons age
12-24” are victims of violent crimes “at
rates higher than individuals of all other
ages.” In addition, “Persons aged 16-19
were raped or sexually assaulted at 35 times
that of persons aged 30-64.” “67% of all
victims of sexual assault {this includes all
forms of abuse, from rape to fondling}
reported to law enforcement agencies”—
‘reported’ being the key word— “were under
the age of 18; 34% of all victims were under
age 12.” Furthermore, “one of every seven
victims of… reported” abuse “were under age
six!”
In compiling
statistics for 1992-93 the Justice Dept.
press release states, “During each year
women were the victims of more than 4.5
million violent crimes, including
approximately 500,000 rapes or other sexual
assaults.” “During 1999, almost 7 in 10
rape or sexual assault victims stated that
the offender was an intimate, relative, a
friend, or an acquaintance.”
ii. Age
eight… molested; age 13… raped. How do I
know this about this woman? I don’t. This
is, like so many other women in history and
around the world today, what her story could
have been.
iii. Age,
let’s say, 16… marriage. Arranged, of
course, by her parents. At 16, she almost
got left behind; the average age for girls
was 14-16, 12 being the earliest, and 18 the
latest. While the Samaritans were not Jews,
they were partially Jewish— viewed as
despicable half-breeds by the Israelites, of
course— and they held to the Mosaic Law,
with their own priests, their own rituals,
their own temple in Mt. Gerizim. Part of
the Mosaic Law stated that if a man married
a woman and found out she wasn’t a virgin,
and the circumstances proved it to be true,
she could be stoned to death— Deuteronomy
22:13-21. Deuteronomy 22:20 says, “But if
this charge is true, that the girl was not
found a virgin, then they shall bring out
the girl …and the men of her city shall
stone her to death because she has committed
an act of folly in Israel by playing the
harlot in her father’s house…,” v 21.
This is marriage
number one, which ends, ultimately, in
divorce. Now, any woman who’s ever been
married under anything even close to the
‘right’ circumstances knows the hopes and
the dreams and the anticipations that you
have. She had those, just like any other
woman would; and she saw every one of them
come crashing down around her. She saw
every one of them destroyed by a husband who
reminded her every day, “Well, I accepted
you, in spite of the fact that you were not
a virgin, in spite of the fact that you were
a disgraceful whore.” Finally, he throws
her out. She is now ‘used goods’ in the
economy of the ancient world.
iv. But a man
comes along {and who knows, maybe he was
wealthy and prosperous} a little more
advanced in age, and so the prospect looks
good. At age 20, let’s say, she has
marriage number two. There’s only one
problem with this guy:
He’s a drunk;
and a mean drunk who takes to beating her
whenever the mood strikes him. She finally,
after taking all she can take, strikes back,
as any normal person would at some point.
So, he writes out her bill of divorce, gets
it notarized by a scribe or whatever, and
she’s out. Back where she started once
again.
v. Along
comes, at age 23, marriage number three. By
now, all of her hopes, all of her dreams,
all her aspirations are pretty tarnished,
tainted indelibly. Once you’ve been around
the block twice and are headed for a third
time, things start to look eerily familiar.
You’re not a novice any more. She’s
becoming much more world-wise, much more
aware, and so she marries. Possibly, at
this point she’s got three little children
trailing along behind her, and it may have
been for nothing more than to feed the
kids. That didn’t work out either, because
this guy can’t stand kids. So, he throws
her out.
vi. At age 25
comes number four. This is nothing more
than a marriage of convenience. Then
somewhere along the line— the idea is that
they’re lasting less time in between each
one; age 26… number five. What kind of
prospects does this woman have by now?
None. What kind of future does she have
ahead of her? Pretty bleak one; a mere
existence, and a shallow one at that. The
last marriage may have been nothing more
than an ‘arrangement’ for some businessman
who was going to be in town for six months
or a year. They get married, at least in
the legal sense— she cooks, she cleans, they
share the occasional marital encounter— and
then at the end of that time the same old
story: divorce.
vii. Even after
this, she still has to eat. Now she’s got
five little kids trailing along behind her.
We don’t know but that maybe they were
stair-steps following along behind her when
she came out to the well. The Bible doesn’t
say. But here she is, age 27, unmarried but
attached.
Here’s the point
I want you to see: If you knew that this
was the case of this woman, how would you
look at her? How would you treat her? Any
different; would it change your perspective
on the situation at all? Some of us may be
so hard and unfeeling in our own souls that
nothing would change our attitude.
Epieikeia looks
at a person’s life and sees not just the
what, it also sees the why. This is the
opposite of those who look only at the
surface without really understanding, and
go, “Well, we think this… We suspect that…
Well, maybe it was, you know… or It
could’ve been….” That’s garbage; and you
know it.
Jesus met this
woman that nobody else in town had any use
for, and He gave her the “living water” of
eternal life. In Revelation 21:6 Christ
said, “I will give to the one who thirsts
from the spring of the water of life without
cost.” God seeks those who seek Him {v.
23}; and this woman had been waiting and
longing and looking for Him her entire
life. Since that day, so many years ago,
when she was a little girl. He looked into
her soul, and He looked into her life, and
He saw beyond the ‘what’ that everybody else
focused on: He saw the ‘why.’ That is
epieikeia.
3. What is so necessary about this
singular virtue? Why are we to fulfill this
principle in v. 5? Why are we to let our
“forbearance,” our mercy, our gracious
attitude be “known to all men”? Because
Paul say’s, “the Lord is near.”
A. The word for
“near” is an adverb referring to something
which is close ‘at hand;’ it speaks of a
time which is imminent and soon to come to
pass. Therefore, what Paul’s going back to
once again is the Rapture, the Resurrection
of the Royal Family. What did he say in
Philippians 3:20? “For our citizenship is
in Heaven, from which we wait with a
deliberate and eager expectation for our
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is
what he’s talking about right here: living
our spiritual lives in the light of
eternity. And the only way this can be
accomplished is when we understand that the
glorious Day of Christ is on its way, when
we understand that the Rapture is right
around the corner, that the King could be
standing at the door this very moment! To
the life of the ‘sold-out’ saint, this gives
a divine momentum; this provides us with a
spiritual perspective and an inner
motivation. We have no idea how much time
we have left, but we know this: it is just
enough to accomplish His plan for our lives…
and not a minute more.
B. “The Lord
is near, the Lord is at hand.” This was the
watchword of the early Church. The Aramaic
form of this phrase is maran atha, meaning-
‘Our Lord comes,’ or, ‘Lord, come!’ Paul
uses it in 1 Corinthians 16:22 where he
say’s, “If anyone does not love the Lord, he
is to be accursed. Maranatha.”
C. The Lord of
Lords, our righteous Judge, is at hand.
When we remember— because of the Doctrine in
our souls— the coming triumph of Christ, we
hold on to hope and we secure our joy. When
we remember that our time on this earth is
but a drop in the ocean of eternity, we
won’t be seeking to impose on others a stern
unfeeling justice that divides, but instead
to respond with a love, a grace, and a
compassion that heals. We will deal with
others in mercy as God has dealt with
us. That’s the difference between a justice
which is human, and an epieikeia which is
divine.
1) James, in speaking to those who had
been persecuted and abused by the wealthy
and the powerful, in 5:8-9 say’s, “be
patient; strengthen your hearts, for
the coming of the Lord is near. Do not
complain, brethren, against one another
[other members of / Royal Family], so that
you yourselves may not be judged; behold,
the Judge is standing right at the door
[what he’s saying is that / Lord Jesus
Christ is about to rectify and redress /
injustices of life].”
2) Paul in Romans 14:10 asks, “But you,
why do you judge your brother? Or you
again, why do you regard your brother with
contempt? For we will all stand
before the Judgment Seat of God.” He’s
talking about CA believers standing before
Christ at the Bema. As a commentary on what
Paul’s saying here in Luke 6 Christ said,
“Do not judge and you will not be judged;
and do not condemn and you will not be
condemned; pardon and you will be pardoned,”
v. 37. In v. 38 he mentions that what you
“give …will be given to you— …pressed down,
shaken together, {and} running over [this is
triple compound discipline]. For by your
standard of measure it will be measured to
you in return.” Now, let me ask you this:
If, like the Pharisees, we treat others with
contempt, if we trust in the god of self for
our righteousness {Lk. 18:9-14}, do we
really want the truly Righteous Judge
standing us against the wall to see how we
measure up against the standard we set for
everybody else?
4. In the final analysis, what is ‘better
than justice’? Epieikeia: not just mercy in
an empathetic sense, but understanding
combined with compassion. The Clintonian
‘compassion’ is just the opposite; Clinton’s
version is to say, “I feel your pain. Now
go, and sin no more,” which we know is
utterly worthless. No help has been
offered, no hand extended, no solution
given. The provision for spiritual problems
is the one and only spiritual solution: the
Word of God. And if spiritual virtues don’t
solve the problem, they will always point to
what does: the principles, promises and
truths of God’s Word.
But rather than
seeking the leadership of the HS for
guidance and direction, rather than looking
to the Word of God as the sole solution to
its problems, what does ‘religion’ do more
often than not? It consults that grand old
animal called ‘tradition.’ Tradition say’s,
“This is the way we’ve always done it;
therefore, this is the way it must be done.
This way is the right way.” Oh yeah …say’s
who? God or man. And if you don’t
like tradition, how about the denomination?
We look to our particular denomination, to
our specific group or our little Christian
clique, for the solution to the situation,
for the answer to the problem. Most of what
is done along these lines right here {when
we’re looking for cosmic solutions to
spiritual problems} has no basis whatsoever
in the Bible. You can’t find it in the
Scripture because it doesn’t exist; and it
doesn’t exist because it doesn’t belong. It
has no place in the plan of God.
I guess the real
question is: When are we going to get back
to spiritual realities? When are we going
to cultivate the virtues of mercy and
compassion? When are we going to strip away
all the arrogance, all the pretense, all the
hypocrisy and play-acting, and show the
world something they don’t possess? {Cf.
Habitation of Dragons, p. 93}
True
spirituality is a charming and delightful
thing. It is Jesus Christ living inside us;
it is the life of Christ manifested through
us by divine power and divine provision.
You see, His attitude is humility; His
attitude is one of service over
selfishness. Matthew 20:28 tells us, that
“the Son of Man did not come to be served
but to serve, and to give His life a ransom
for many.” His character is attractive,
especially to a world that is seething with
anger, violence, bitterness and betrayal.
His courage is inspiring; His compassion,
contagious! Grace is the most beautiful
thing in the universe …when it is received.
And what is given in grace can only be
received in faith; there’s the key.
In Conclusion
Five Points of Application.
1. The spiritual man, Paul’s saying in v.
5, is one who understands that there is
something greater than justice. That
‘something’ is mercy. Take the adulterous
woman in John 8. When this woman,
apparently “caught …in the very act,” was
brought before Him, Jesus could have applied
the ‘letter of the Law’— as the Lord God of
Israel He wrote it, after all— according to
which she should’ve been stoned to death.
But He did something else: He went beyond
justice.
Perfect justice
is the function of divine integrity; and as
far as perfect justice goes, there is not
one of us who deserves anything other than
condemnation. The Lord Jesus Christ went
far beyond mere justice, and not just with
the woman in John 8, not just with the woman
at the well in John 4, but in His sacrifice
on the Cross.
We deserved
judgment, we deserved condemnation from the
justice of God, but Christ stepped in and
took our place. He was judged for us so
that we wouldn’t have to be; He took upon
Himself the imputation of our sins; He
suffered and died so that we might live and
live eternally!… and abundantly.
A. 2
Corinthians 5:21 tells us, that God “made
Him who knew no sin {to be} sin on our
behalf, so that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him.”
B. “For if
while we were enemies,” Paul wrote in
Romans 5:10, “we were reconciled to God
through the death of His Son, much more,
having been reconciled we shall be saved by
His life [in that one v. you have salvation
through His substitutionary death, and
everlasting security through His eternal
life].” V. 18 goes on to say, “through one
transgression [ / sin of Adam] there
resulted condemnation to all men, even so
through one act of righteousness [ / Cross
of Christ] there resulted justification …to
all men.”
C. In Titus 3
Paul said, “when the kindness of God our
Savior and {His} love for mankind appeared
He saved us, not on the basis of
deeds which we have done in righteousness
but according to His mercy [and it was that
mercy which removed / condemnation that
rightfully belonged to us]…,” vv. 4-5. He
adds in v. 7 the other side of mercy, that
we have been “justified by His
grace.”
The mark of
those who are caught in the grip of grace,
who are seized and enraptured by it, those
believers who refuse to alienate themselves
from the grace of God, is that they realize
there is a time to insist on the principle
of justice, and a time to remember that
there is something beyond it.
2. Nothing is
more repulsive to God than a
pseudo-spiritual believer. This is one
who’s talked himself into the ‘Spiritual
Elite:’ into pseudo-maturity and beyond. I
guess pseudo-spirituality eventually leads
to pseudo-maturity and pseudo-invisible
heroship. Pseudo-spirituality is nauseating
to the Father; it’s fake, it’s phony, and
it’s unbalanced.
3. Balanced
spirituality is simply the life of Christ
living in us, and ultimately, living through
us. Remember the balance which Christ had?
We noted it earlier in our study: that
‘perfect poise’ between grace and truth {Jn.
1:14}. You see a consistency in the life of
Jesus Christ; you notice a steadiness, a
constancy in His life in dealing with other
members of the human race. You know what
that is? That is Him letting His
“forbearing spirit be known and understood
by all men.”
4. Mankind
promotes one or the other— grace or Truth—
but only the Spirit of God can balance
both. This is the HS’s responsibility
because he’s the only One who can do this.
Man, during the course of time, has become
quite adept at focusing on Truth and making
an issue out of truth. And that’s the
legalistic mentality which abounds in
Christianity today.
Or, as the
reversionist enslaved to his ‘area of
weakness’ demonstrates by his lifestyle,
there is ample room for the attitude which
say’s, “It’s all grace. We want to be
gracious here. And of course, you know
brother, grace says, ‘Do what you will, and
all shall be forgiven.’” Oh, does it? In
reality, that is the case, but that’s not
what grace says. Grace says you are loved
unconditionally… regardless of who you are,
where you come from, whether you’re a good
child or a bad child, or whether you obey or
disobey.
But that
unconditional love, like all love from a
wise parent, includes discipline and
correction. Grace says that in Christ you
are forgiven, cleansed “by the water” of the
Word, and accepted forever. But even
love, mercy, and grace are not without a
cost; and someone had to pay that price.
His sacrifice, therefore, becomes our
incentive to serve.
Listen to this
section from The Ragamuffin Gospel by
Brennan Manning. I believe it fits our
point here perfectly. “Since the day that
Jesus first appeared on the scene, we have
developed vast theological systems,
organized world-wide churches, filled
libraries with brilliant Christological
scholarship, engaged in earth-shaking
controversies and embarked on crusades,
reforms, and renewals. Yet there are still
precious few of us with sufficient folly to
make the mad exchange of everything for
Christ; only a remnant with the confidence
to risk everything on the Gospel of grace;
only a minority who stagger about with the
delirious joy of the man who found the
buried treasure.”
He writes, “…The
love of Christ is beyond all knowledge,
beyond anything we can intellectualize or
imagine. It is not a mild benevolence, but
a consuming fire. Jesus is so unbearably
forgiving, so infinitely patient and so
unendingly loving that He provides us with
the resources we need to live lives of
gracious response. ‘Glory be to Him whose
power working in us can do infinitely more
than we can ask or imagine.’ (Eph. 3:20)
Does it sound
like an easy religion?
Love has its own
exigencies. It weighs and counts nothing,
but expects everything. Perhaps that
explains our reluctance to risk. We know
only too well that the Gospel of grace is an
irresistible call to love the same way. No
wonder so many of us elect to surrender our
souls to rules rather than to living in
union with Love.” Pp. 203-204, and 212-213
{Italics mine}. Pretty powerful insight.
When we push the extremes of truth without
grace, or grace without truth, we’ve lost
our balance in the Spiritual Life. It’s up
to the HS to provide that balance in those
who are willing to use it for the cause of
Christ.
5. The word
“forbearance”— epieikeia— is a divine
quality that combines understanding with
compassion. And true compassion will
translate into action; even when that action
is a simple prayer on our part. Sometimes
that’s all we have to offer …but never
forget the words of D.L. Moody who said,
“Prayer moves the arm that moves the world.”
“PAUL’S
PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYER AND PEACE”
Philippians
4:6-7
(click here to view in
Word format)
Introduction
To be human is
to be, in a word, vulnerable: vulnerable to
all the unforeseen twists and turns of a
life caught in the Conflict. That in and of
itself is a worrisome and distressing thing
to the soul which has no Doctrine, and
hence, no stability from the Word of God.
But in the early Church of the 1st
cent. to the normal fears and worries of the
human condition was added this anxiety, this
ever-present concern, of being a Christian
awash in a sea of paganism. Which meant—
humanly speaking— taking one’s life in one’s
hands. The ‘hostility of the heathen’ was a
cause of great concern to those who had no
solution. So, the apostle Paul offers one
in Philippians 4.
Paul’s solution
to the emotional sins of fear, of worry and
of anxiety is simple: prayer— [1] empowered
by the Spirit of God; and [2] in conformity
to the will of God. John said in 1 John
5:14, “this is the confidence [‘ / freedom,
/ boldness, / courage’] which we have before
Him [lit.- ‘face to face with Him’], that,
if we ask anything [where?: in prayer]
according to His will, He hears us.”
M.R. Vincent, a famous expositor of the NT,
once said, “Peace is the fruit of
believing prayer.” In this passage Paul
gives us a brief summary, an outline on his
‘philosophy of prayer’ and its relationship
to peace.
Body
1. Paul lays down the principle in v. 6
that as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ
we should “be anxious for nothing.” The
phrase he uses is meden merimnate in the
Greek.
A.
mhde/n
(meden) means- nobody, nothing; lit., not
one single thing.
B. The verb
merimna/w
(merimnao) means- be troubled and distracted
with cares, be unduly concerned about
something. Depending on how much research
you do, you will find some Greek scholars
who believe that merimnao was originally
connected to the verb merizo- ‘draw in
different directions, divide and distract;’
possibly that it is the condensed form of
the phrase merizein ton noun, which means-
‘dividing the mind.’ If that’s the case,
then what merimnao really means is- be of a
divided mind. The reason the mind is
divided is because of the emotional sin of
worry.
1) Have you ever seen a real worrier, I
mean somebody who’s perfected it down to a
fine art, that could think clearly? No; and
you know why? Because the mind is divided,
it’s running in about a thousand different
directions, leaping from one ‘What if’ to
another. And as long as worry dominates the
soul, faith goes out the window. And the
prayer life is void because the power of
prayer has been nullified by emotional sin.
2) I want you to get this principle:
Worry is the inevitable result of human
interference with the divine plan. You see,
God has a plan for our lives;
and He will work
that plan out in His own perfect timing.
But worry and faith, fear and faith, are
incompatible. Since we are commanded not to
fear, not to be anxious, not to worry, and
since God never commands us to do anything
which in His power we cannot do, that tells
us victory over worry is a reality!
C. The
construction here is a pres. imp. of
prohibition, which means Paul is commanding
them to put a stop to something which is
already in progress.
1) It’s found in the 2nd pl.,
which is addressed [1] to all the believers
in the Roman colony of Philippi; and [2] to
every member of the Body of Christ who will
receive this letter in the same way the
Philippians received it, by faith.
2) The act. voice is used, and anytime the
act. voice is used with a pres. imp., it
means that you and I must choose to do what
is commanded. It means that our volition is
immediately involved in carrying out this
command.
3) The Greek form of a pres. imp. together
with a negative is used to forbid the
continuation of an action which is
habitually happening. Like so many
believers today the Philippians were
perpetually worrying, they were in a
constant state of anxiety over the details
and distractions of life in the AC— things
over which they had no control whatsoever,
things over which you and I have no control
either.
4) So, what Paul’s saying to them
essentially is, “Stop worrying!” I like how
the RSV translates this: “have no anxiety
about anything,” i.e., ‘stop being anxious
at all!’ {Cf. Matthew 6:24}
D. I want you
to look at this passage; and I want you to
realize that in the overall context of chs.
5-7 Jesus is speaking to Jews in the Age of
Israel concerning life in the Millennial
Kingdom and the requirements which will
attend it. However, what He’s saying has
tremendous importance by way of secondary
application because it deals with these very
ideas of worry and anxiety and the
inordinate concern for the details of life.
In fact, in v. 25 He uses almost the exact
same phrase as is found in our passage, the
negative me plus the pres. imp. merimnate.
To emphasize the power of faith over
fear, faith over worry, faith
over an anxious attitude, Jesus uses the
verb merimnao six times in nine vv. {Read
and exposit vv. 24-34.}
1) Jewish commentary on v. 26: The rabbis
used to say, “Have you ever seen a beast or
a bird that had a workshop? Yet they are
fed without labor and without anxiety. They
were created for the service of man, and man
was created that he might serve his
Creator. Man also would have been supported
without labor and anxiety had he not
corrupted his ways. Have you ever seen a
lion carrying burdens, a stag gathering
summer fruits, a fox selling merchandise, or
a wolf selling oil, that they might thus
gain their support? And yet they are fed
without care or labor. Arguing therefore
from the less to the greater, if they which
were created that they might serve me, are
nourished without labor and anxiety, how
much more I, who have been created that I
might serve my Maker! What therefore is the
cause of why I should be obliged to labor in
order to get my daily bread? The answer,
sin.”
2) We worry about so many things; we worry
about a whole lot more than what to eat,
what to drink and what to wear, don’t we?
And if we don’t have anything to worry about
we’ll just make something up. We’ll find
something— anything— manufacture it out of
thin air if necessary. Or we’ll bring it
forth from the subconscious dungeon of
imagination! People worry about what kind
of car they drive— is it good enough,
expensive enough; does it look right, will
it impress people? People worry about how
many friends they have, about whether they
appear ‘successful’ in the eyes of others.
One of the main sources of worry and causes
of neuroses in vain and materialistic
America is about what other people think of
us. There are two reasons why you should
never worry over what other people are
thinking about you: [a] it doesn’t matter;
and [b] they’re probably not. Let’s not
flatter ourselves. And to be honest, what
difference does it make? None; not a single
bit.
Let’s put this
in spiritual perspective. When you face the
antagonism, the hostility, the animosity of
those who stand opposed to Jesus Christ and
everything He represents, just remember that
your message is the Gospel of grace; and
grace is the most inclusive message ever
given to mankind! Grace reaches out to
embrace every creed, ever color, every
nation, every tongue, every tribe— no one is
left out. The offer has been extended to
man; the question is: who’s going to
answer?
3) When Paul say’s, “be anxious for
nothing,” that sounds a lot like our Lord in
Matthew 6, doesn’t it? “Do not keep on
worrying about the details of life, the
necessities of life. Your God is in
control! He knows everything you need
to survive; and He has a plan for each one
of you. Therefore, do not worry about
tomorrow, or anything it contains.
Tomorrow— as it unfolds according to His
plan from eternity past— will take care of
itself.”
You better learn
the lesson if you’ve not already:
Preoccupation with the sins of worry,
anxiety, and fear will make you miserable.
You will be agitated, upset, angry and
unstable. You know why so many believers
wear their bitterness and unhappiness like a
crown of thorns for all to see? Because
they’re miserable within. And when the tide
of emotional sins overwhelms you within,
it’s just a matter of time before it begins
to spew forth. Jesus said, “out of the
overflow of the heart the mouth speaks;”
whatever the “treasure” of the heart is,
that’s what comes forth. If divine good is
within, then divine good is what’s seen; and
if evil is within, then evil is what you
see— Matthew 12:34-35. Why do some people
seem to lack mercy and compassion on even
the most basic level? Because they honestly
don’t care about anyone but self!
4) What Paul’s trying to tell us in
Philippians 4 has tremendous relevance to
life in the 21st cent. If we
don’t get things right on the inside—
starting in the human spirit— everything
from there on out will be poisoned. If
we’re off just a fraction in our
understanding of spirituality and the
Spiritual Life, the further we move away
from that point, the more off base and off
balance we’re going to be. {Illustrate:
body, soul, spirit— line of absolute truth
extending down from God / Father to us;
where the slightest deviation from that
ends}
The end result
of chaos and confusion in the inner man will
be chaos and confusion in the outer life.
So, we need to get balance in the inner man,
stability in the inner life first, then we
can move out with real power and
effectiveness in our lives and in our
ministries.
The body of a
believer, according to 1 Corinthians 3:16
and 6:19, is the “temple of the Holy
Spirit.” Just as there are three parts,
three areas as we just saw in our
illustration, so there were three parts to
the Temple and Tabernacle of Israel. This
is why the analogy is so perfect.
{Illustrate} The lesson of vv. 4-5 and vv.
6-7 is that we have to have things lined up
in God’s order here— spirit and soul— first
and foremost.
5) How to solve the ‘anxiety problem,’
that is the question. And every
psychologist and psychiatrist in the world
wishes they knew. Well, you’re about to
find out. It all begins with prayer life,
because our prayer life begins with
priesthood; and our priesthood is about
intimacy, about fellowship, about closeness
with the Person of Jesus Christ.
Once we get
priesthood down, once we master the
discipline of bringing every pressure, every
problem, every fear or worry or cause of
anxiety before the Throne of Grace— and
leaving them there— we have started down a
path that if followed consistently will lead
to peace. When we become preoccupied not
with the “worries of the world,” but with
Christ, with His cause, and with the plan of
God for our lives, we are taking the steps
to insure that the cares of this world will
fade away.
E. Psalm
55:22 says, “Cast your burden upon the LORD
and He will sustain you; He will never allow
the righteous to be shaken.” The verb
|alf$
shalak is a wrestling term that draws the
picture of someone body-slamming his
opponent to the mat. David, as the writer
of this Psalm, is looking at life from the
vantage point of a problem-solving device
that because of an even greater provision of
the Word of God is more powerful today than
it was in the Age of Israel: the Faith-rest
Drill. He’s saying that we are to abandon
into His hands our burdens, our
cares, our worries— those things that weigh
us down mentally and drag us down
spiritually. We are to ‘body-slam’ all
those things on the Person of Jesus Christ
and have nothing more to do with them. Cast
them to oblivion, once and for all. {Cf. 1
Peter 5:7 and let me show you the parallel}
F. Peter gives
us the NT counterpart to Psalm 55:22 in 1
Peter 5:7. He say’s that the key to
‘resting in faith’ and, therefore, to
fulfilling Philippians 4:6 is in “casting
all your anxiety upon Him...”
1) “Anxiety” is merimna in the pl.-
‘fears, worries.’ The word translated
“casting” is from
e)piri/ptw
(epiripto), the Greek equivalent of the
Hebrew shalak. It is a compound of epi-
‘upon;’ and ripto- ‘throw with a sudden
motion, hurl down.’ The Greek preposition
always intensifies the main verb, and thus
it means- throw or cast upon with force.
What this signifies is a definite act of the
will, a choice from our volition, in
committing to God the totality of our
worries, in literally ‘body-slamming’ on Him
any and everything that might cause us
concern. Slight concern, greater concern,
tremendous concern; it makes no difference.
2) Why? “Because,” Peter say’s, “He cares
for you [lit., ‘it is of care, forethought
and interest for Him concerning you;’
that is, your welfare is always His
concern].” Maybe you’ve never thought about
it before, maybe you’ve never even
considered God in this light, but what is
‘the best’— truly and divinely the best for
you— is always on His mind, and
has been from eternity past.
a. How often we forget something as simple
as that. How often it is in all our human
viewpoint and all our self-pity that we
confuse God with those on the temporal plane
who feel nothing but anger and animosity
toward us, and who might wish us nothing
more than a speedy destruction. {abuse
victims, e.g., who imagine in their prayers:
“Dear heavenly version of my earthly
father.”} Our heavenly Father, in contrast,
even in divine discipline has nothing but
our highest and best in mind. He knows that
as long as we follow our own will, as long
as we turn our backs on the plan of Grace in
arrogance and self-absorption, we will be
miserable. And we’ll miss out on the
greatest peace, tranquility and contentment
the family of God will ever have.
b. There is a story from an early Greek
manuscript, where we find a man by the name
of Titedios Amerimnos. The first word—
Titedios— is his proper name; but the second
word is formed from the verb merimnao, plus
the Greek Alpha prefixed to it. The alpha
is a negative and makes the word mean the
exact opposite of its true definition. It
was thought that this man was a pagan Greek
who worried perpetually but who, after
believing in Christ, subsequently stopped
worrying. Therefore, he was called
‘Titedios, the Man Who Never Worries.’ My
question to you is: “Believer, can you
write out your name and then sign it, ‘the
One Who Never Worries’?” And if we can’t,
then we’re living in the house of fear and
not in the ‘home of faith’!
2. Paul begins his ‘philosophy of prayer
and peace’ by stressing the fact that we can
bring absolutely “everything” in life before
the Throne of Grace.
A. Think, e.g.,
of a small child; think of your own
children. They bring nearly everything to
you convinced, at least in their own
minds, that whatever happens to them is not
only of interest but of ‘paramount
importance’— the little triumphs and
sometimes not-so-little disappointments, the
cuts and scrapes and bruises. As a child of
God, in exactly the same way, you have
unlimited access to your heavenly Father.
You have the honor, the privilege and the
right to take anything to Him, knowing—
through faith in His Word— that your life
has meaning and purpose in His sight, that
you’re not just an insect but an individual,
an individual whom He loved enough to die
for, and whom He watches over and protects
each and every moment of each and every
day.
Someone once
said, “There is nothing too great for His
power, and nothing too small for His...
care.” What a magnificent commentary on the
“Father of mercies.” In 2 Corinthians 1:3
Paul calls Him the “God of all comfort,” the
God “who comforts us in …our affliction so
that we will be able to comfort those who
are in any affliction with the consolation
with which we ourselves are consoled by”
Him, v. 4.
B. At the end
of v. 6 Paul say’s, “but.” The Greek word
is alla, the strongest conj. of contrast
possible to illustrate something in the
believer’s life which is totally foreign to
worry. And that is, of course, prayer. “In
contrast to fear, worry and anxiety”— which
are emotional sins, by the way— “in
everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving let your requests be made known
to God [continually ‘known’].”
1) This is another pres. imp., another way
of saying, ‘keep on making known your
requests, keep on revealing the desires of
your soul to God.’
2) The preposition “to” is from
pro/j (pros), which with the acc. sg. of Theos can mean- towards
God, or even, face to face with God.
C. Paul goes
on to list four things, four things which
comprise his basic philosophy, if you will,
of our communication to God the
Father. He uses four different words in
this section to explain what the alternative
to anxiety is.
1) “Prayer.” Proseuche is a word used
only of prayer to God. It comes from a
verb, proseuchomai, which means- ‘approach
face to face.’ By boldly approaching the
Throne of Grace as we are exhorted to do in
Hebrews 4:16 we are admitting that He and He
alone is able to care for our needs and to
provide for us in those times of trial,
trouble and tribulation.
2) “Supplication.” After you have
approached, you make supplication, which
speaks of prayer offered for ourselves: our
needs— mental, physical, spiritual— and our
desires as children of God. The Greek noun
de/hsij
(deesis) is from a root which originally
meant- fall short of, be in need. Deesis is
used for prayer that recognizes great
personal need, and thereby voices itself in
‘asking, entreating, requesting’ for that
which is lacking, whatever it is.
Hebrews 4:16
says, “Therefore let us draw near with
confidence [‘with courage, with boldness’]
to the throne of grace [why?: because our
High Priest has opened for us a ‘new and
living way:’ access to / presence of God
{Heb. 10:19-21}], that we may receive mercy,
and find grace to help in time of need.”
When we kneel before the Throne in
confession, we can seek forgiveness for the
past, whether that past is three minutes
ago, three days ago, three months or thirty
years ago; we can seek the things we need in
the present; and we can pray for strength,
stability, and guidance for the future. We
can bring our past, present and future into
the presence of God.
3) “Requests,” from aitema, I believe, has
a two-fold meaning.
a. The word that’s used here denotes ‘that
which has been asked for;’ it points to the
content of our entreaties and needs. From
the Classical Greek of Homer’s Iliad and
Odyssey down to the historian Herodotus in
the 5th cent. BC, aitema
frequently referred to a petition made to
someone who was superior to the
petitioner himself. In this sense the term
“requests” defines the specifics of our
supplications to the Father.
b. It also means that we can pray
effectively and intelligently for others.
Whether inside the Body of Christ or outside
the Body of Christ the idea being one of
‘intercession’ {the Son, the HS, the
believer}. We can commend to the grace of
God those near and far who are daily in our
hearts and minds, interceding for them
before the Throne of Grace. These are the
specifics other than our own personal
supplications.
4) “Thanksgiving.” Finally, Paul lays
down the principle that: Gratefulness
should be prayer’s constant companion. The
two should always be found together, without
fail. The word translated “thanksgiving” is
eu)xaristi/a
(eucharistia); it means- gratitude, an
attitude of thankfulness.
Eucharistia is a
compound of eu, an adverb meaning- ‘well, or
good;’ and charizomai- ‘give in grace.’
Take away the prefix and suffix and you have
charis, the word for ‘grace.’
a. When— with an attitude of appreciation—
we give thanks, we are acknowledging that
everything we have, everything we are, and
everything we ever will be is courtesy of
the grace of God. Thanksgiving says that
you know grace is a gift that you cannot
earn and do not deserve. It says you
understand that you live, breathe and
operate within the realm of grace only
because God is gracious.
So, the whole
system of prayer in the CA is built
on the principle of grace. The
grace-oriented believer is one who knows
without a shadow of a doubt that his entire
life is suspended between the outpourings of
grace he’s received in the past and the
grace he is presently receiving at the
moment.
b. Keep in mind that the “everything” Paul
mentions is simply the positive of
“nothing.” The “nothing” we saw at the
beginning of this v. says, “Don’t worry.”
The “everything” says, “Give thanks.”
They’re two sides of the same coin. And
therefore, in addressing the spiritual
believer {the one oriented to the grace of
God and “walking by means of the Spirit of
God”} Paul insists we give thanks in
everything: in sorrow and in joy, in
prosperity and adversity, in pain and out,
in turmoil and pressure and in peace and
tranquility… everything. This implies the
presence of two things.
i. Gratitude. The principle which should
always come to mind is: Grace is the
attitude of gratitude. {Cf. ‘The Biggest
Handicap.’} Look at this word ‘gratitude.’
GR-ATITUDE is the GReatest AtTITUDE you can
choose to have!
ii. Submission to the will of God. That
unconditional desire for the will of God
must be present in our lives. It is only
when we are convinced, as Paul said in
Romans 8:28, “that God” is causing “all
things [which means pain, sorrow, suffering
and loss] to work together for” our divine
and ultimate “good” that we can begin to
express to Him the perfect gratitude which
believing prayer demands in the plan of
God.
D. When we come
before the Throne of Grace, there are three
aspects of God’s essence we should always
remember.
1) The
love of God, which desires only what is best
for us.
2) The
omniscience of God, which alone knows what
is best for us.
3) The omnipotence of God, which alone can
bring to pass what is best for us. There
are four things we can learn here about the
power of prayer which utilizes the essence
of God.
a. The believer who prays with complete
trust in the love of God finds security. We
learn how to live in the house of love;
we’re no longer bound by fear, but we begin
to live in the love of Christ. Paul said
that there is absolutely nothing which can
separate us from the love of God— Romans
8:38-39.
b. The believer who prays with complete
trust in the omniscience of God finds
stability. The apostle Paul also said in
Romans 8:29-30 that “whom He foreknew, He
also predestined {to become} conformed to
the image of His Son….” What that v. tells
us is this: the plan of God is moving
towards an ultimate destiny in Christ
…and there is nothing the enemy can do to
stop it. The result, the outworking,
of faith in that principle is stability.
c. The believer who prays with complete
trust in the omnipotence of God finds
strength. Did not Paul say God’s “power is
perfected in weakness?”— 2 Corinthians
12:9. Christ said, “My grace is sufficient
for you [‘My grace is a source of unfailing
strength’], for power [divine ‘power’] is
perfected in weakness.” If that’s so, and
there’s no doubt that it is, then that makes
me the perfect vessel for perfect power!
d. When you put these all together you
find that: The believer who prays with
complete trust in the love, wisdom and power
of God finds peace.
When we find
ourselves tempted to be anxious, to waste
our precious time in the plan of God
worrying, if we will simply come face to
face with God, communicate our needs and
desires, and give Him thanks for the
situation and for the solutions He has
already provided in eternity past, we will
have peace! The ‘path to the peace of God’
is to entrust ourselves and our lives in
every area totally and completely into His
hands.
3. Having done this, what does Paul say
next? “And the peace of God, which
surpasses [huperecho- ‘goes above and
beyond’] all comprehension [NIV has
‘transcends all understanding’], will guard
your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus.” This is the key to our passage. It
tells us exactly what God is going to do for
us as a consequence of our obedience.
A. The word
translated “peace,”
e)irh/nh
(eirene), means- spiritual prosperity;
tranquility of soul; absence of fear, worry
and anxiety. It is an inner condition of
the soul which has nothing whatsoever to do
with the climate of the Cosmic System.
1) According to the world’s standards, the
basic definition of peace is ‘freedom from
warfare,’ but in the spiritual realm peace
is not the absence of conflict, peace is the
result of victory in conflict. Thus,
“peace” in the spiritual sense, the manner
in which Paul uses it right here, does not
mean the absence of turmoil, adversity, or
pressure-filled situations. It means the
calm you have in your soul regardless of the
situation, regardless of the conditions
around you. No matter what storm is raging
outside!
2) This is not just any peace, but the
“peace of God”— or it could be properly
translated as an ablat. of source, “the
peace from God,” that is, which comes from
Him as its Source. Either way, the def.
art. marks this out specifically as the
peace which belongs to Him, the peace which
is eternally His. Let me ask you a
question: How worried do you think God is
right now, at this very moment? Do you
think omnipotent God is sitting in Heaven
wringing His hands over the world’s
situation, or over your situation and my
situation, that He is somehow manically
fretting over what He’s going to do about
your crises and difficulties?
God is never
ruffled, never upset, and never anxious.
The perfect peace of God— which He has
always had, has at this very moment, and
will have forever— reflects divine control
of all circumstances in human history. It
simply mirrors the fact that His perfect
plan is working its way out in His perfect
time.
B. This
“peace” is ‘above and beyond’ all
comprehension; it’s above all human reason
and beyond all human ability to grasp. This
is not a peace which man can produce. So,
when Paul tells us that the “peace of God
...surpasses all comprehension,” what he’s
saying is that with all our human strength
and effort and ability, the skill and
knowledge of our minds— no matter how
immense or how minuscule that may be— can
never produce it. It is God’s
grace-provision for the believer in time,
and therefore, cannot be produced. It can
only be received, and only then by faith.
God alone has it, but in grace He allows us
to share it.
1) Eirene is born of reconciliation—
Romans 5:1— and reconciliation is the
environment for spiritual peace. Thus, what
we see is that peace is the birthright of
every believer. In John 16:33 Jesus said,
“These things I have spoken to you, that in
Me you may have peace [there is / promise of
His peace; He went on to warn us]. In the
world [ / CS, ruled by Satan] you have
tribulation, but take courage; I have
overcome the world [His ‘peace’ is / only
power that can see us through those times of
intense trial and ‘tribulation’].” Your
heart and your mind need protection in the
world in which we live, and that is exactly
what His peace provides— protection for the
soul.
a. “Your hearts” is the acc. pl. of kardia,
which is- ‘the seat of thinking, the right
lobe of the mentality.’
b. Then he adds, “and your minds.” This
is not the normal word for ‘mind’ in the
Greek, which is nous, but one of its cognate
nouns, no/hma
(noema). What the acc. pl. of noema really
means is- your thoughts.
2) Paul is saying, that “the peace of God
will garrison about your soul; it will guard
like a diligent soldier both where you think
and what you think inside the power-sphere
of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
C. So, the
result of prayer, grounded in grace and
offered in faith, is that the peace of God
will stand like a sentinel on guard in our
souls. Paul uses the fut. act. ind. of
froure/w
(phroureo) to show that when the condition
of prayer resting in our faith upon the Word
of God is met, this peace will become a
reality. God’s power will produce God’s
peace!
1) Phroureo is the military word used for
soldiers standing on guard. It refers to
the ‘stationing of a garrison, to the
posting of warriors on watch.’ When the
guard has been mounted, what happens? The
city, the camp, the village is safe.
2) The point is that when the peace of God
becomes the garrison of our souls, we have a
secure place to rest and find refreshment,
even in the heat of battle. The garrison is
a fortified position; your soul is fortified
by the Word of God.
What this means
is that in enemy territory you have a place
you can go where it is possible to find what
the world calls ‘peace of mind.’ Remember
this principle: A ‘peace of mind’ to the
world is the peace of God for the believer.
This is tranquility in the midst of turmoil,
inner calm in the midst of confusion.
As spiritual
warriors fighting in hostile territory we
need a refuge from the turmoil of life. To
wage effective warfare in the spiritual
realm you have to be able to retreat to a
place of tranquility and stability. You’ll
search in vain for a place of peace in the
devil’s world. There is only one place of
peace— that’s in the soul of the one who is
resting on the power of God. This is that
inner spiritual life, where it all begins.
3) Once the inner man becomes tranquil an
amazing thing happens: we can concentrate,
and we can think clearly, after years and
sometimes decades of subjectivity to human
viewpoint, false doctrine, and emotion, to
lies and falsehoods. Consider what can
happen, Paul’s saying, when you get tranquil
in the human spirit and you start developing
the ability to concentrate on where you’re
going in this progression we call the
Christian Life. “The things you have
learned and received and heard and seen in
me,” you can practice, “...and the God of
peace will be with you.”
The “peace of
God” is the result of a prayer life that
embraces our utter and absolute dependency
on God. But laying hold of the “God of
peace” is an expression of intimacy with the
Father which few believers ever experience.
It’s like Jacob who— when clinging with all
his might to the Angel of Jehovah, the Lord
Jesus Christ— said, “I will not let you go
unless you bless me,” Genesis 32:26. He had
seen the face of God and he knew it— v. 30.
He had wrestled with Jeremiah’s “dread
champion,” fought with Job’s “Almighty,” and
after all the struggling and striving and
straining, he had to ‘tap out.’ He had to
give up on human energy and ingenuity in
order to give in to the divine plan and it’s
power.
4. Rev. Ric paraphrase of vv. 6-7: “Stop
worrying, stop being afraid, stop being
anxious about even one single thing; but by
prayer and supplication {that is, for your
own needs, your own lack, your own
weakness}, with gratitude as a constant
companion, let your requests for others as
well continually be made known to God. And
the inner peace and tranquility of God,
which goes above and beyond all human
capability and human comprehension, will
stand guard over what you think and where
you think it in the sphere of Jesus
Christ.” {Cf. ‘Seven Basic Principles of
Fear’— principles on fear from the spiritual
perspective}
In Conclusion
The main
principle of vv. 6-7 is that: A balanced
spiritual life begins in the inner man, it
begins in the human spirit. It’s a matter
of communion with God not conditioned by
circumstances or other people. Some
application from that:
1. It’s impossible to be at peace with
anyone else when you are at war within.
This is the root problem and condition of
those who have suffered abuse in the past,
especially in childhood. Whether the abuse
was mental, emotional, physical or sexual is
irrelevant;
without a doubt,
they all leave their own penetrating scars
and their own brand of confusion. What is
relevant is that there is an ‘inner
turbulence’ that threatens to drown
everything else in life… even when the
surface appears placid and undisturbed.
There is an anger, a rage, and a contempt,
and it all depends on the individual as to
whether or not that’s directed toward self
or toward someone else in their periphery.
2. If— like our Lord before the Cross— you
are “troubled in spirit,” it’s something
that must be resolved or you will
never advance spiritually. You will never
move on in spiritual advance. You can see
the effects of this in society because this
is why people do some of the things they do,
like hate. This is why even Christians get
involved in hate and revenge motivation.
Violence comes from hatred, from anger
undealt with and bitterness unresolved.
Where do these things come from? From
poison in the soul. And because of that
poison in the soul, we tend to look at
others with a jaundiced eye. Psychologists
call that ‘projection,’ the tendency to see
in others what is most despicable in
ourselves.
Your problem,
for the most part believer, isn’t a
circumstance or condition; it isn’t anyone
else and it isn’t anything else. That’s why
Paul say’s, “be anxious about absolutely
nothing.” What if we developed the
discipline of praying before lashing out,
before venting our anger and frustration,
before speaking words that should never be
spoken, think of how silent we’d become.
There’s an old saying that goes: ‘Engage
mind before opening mouth.’ Amen.
In closing, I
want to read something to you from one of my
all-time favorite books. It goes like
this: “Home is that sacred space— external
or internal— where we don’t have to be
afraid; where we are confident of
hospitality and love. In our society we
have many homeless people sleeping not only
on the streets, in shelters or in welfare
hotels, but vagabonds who are in flight, who
never come home to themselves. They seek a
safe place through alcohol or drugs, or
security in success, competence, friends,
pleasure, notoriety, knowledge, or even a
little religion. They have become strangers
to themselves, people who have an address
but are never at home, who never hear the
voice of love or experience the freedom of
God’s children.
To those of us
in flight, who are afraid to turn around
lest we run into ourselves, Jesus say’s,
‘You have a home... I am your home...
claim Me as your home” and “you will find it
to be the intimate place where I have found
My home... it is right where you are, in
your innermost being... your heart.’
...Disgruntled
and disgusted, the Prince of Darkness slinks
up to the chalet of bummed out disciples who
have made their home in Jesus and nails a
legal document to the door:
EVICTION
NOTICE!
You are hereby
banished from the House of Fear forever.
With malice
aforethought, you have
flagrantly
withheld the monthly rent
Of guilt,
anxiety, fear, shame
and
self-condemnation.
You have
adamantly refused to
worry about your
salvation.
Already I
overheard one dismal tenant say,
‘There goes the
neighborhood!’
Your freedom
from fear is not only
dangerous, but
contagious.
Real estate
values have plummeted;
gullible
investors are hard to find.
Why?
Your callous and
carefree rejection of slavery!
A pox on you and
all deluded lovers of liberty!
—The Prince”
Brennan Manning,
The Ragamuffin Gospel, pp. 148-150
The Russians
have a proverb which says, “Those who have
the disease called Jesus will never be
cured.” May the symptoms of that glorious
disease never cease to be evident in our
lives. {Cf. ‘Doctrine of Worry.’}
“SOUND
PREPARATION AND SOUND PRACTICE”
Philippians
4:8-9
(click here to view in
Word format)
Introduction
The Christian
follows a path of spiritual progress leading
from the Cross to the Crown. Somewhere
along the line, as we grow and as we
advance, we’re going to learn the power of
effective prayer. Prayer, unfortunately, is
not only the greatest potential on Earth, it
is the most neglected power on earth. The
apostle Paul wanted these Philippians to
understand the tremendous power that it had,
the awesome power that was available through
‘spiritually energized’ prayer. Therefore,
he set up a contrast which we studied in vv.
6-7, a contrast between “nothing” and
“everything.”
1. “Be anxious
for nothing;” i.e., you have to exclude
anxiety, you have to banish anxiety from the
soul. Anxiety is an expression of the
absence of faith; anxiety is one evidence of
living on a worldly plane, of looking at
things carnally instead of spiritually, from
human viewpoint instead of divine. And so
he say’s, “Stop worrying over even one
single thing.”
So important was
the banishment of worry and anxiety from the
soul that our Lord dealt with this at great
length in Matthew 6 and Luke 12 in His first
recorded message. Six times in a passage
spanning nine vv. our Lord deals with the
problems created in life by anxiety.
2. Again, in
Philippians 4:6 Paul say’s, “Be anxious for
nothing, but in everything through prayer
and supplication with thanksgiving….” I
believe this word is vital to our
understanding and application of this
passage. Because thanksgiving, gratitude—
an attitude of appreciation for everything
Christ is and everything He’s done— is one
of the keys to banishing anxiety. If you
begin to look at the positives of eternity
instead of the negatives of here and now, if
you begin to dwell on what you have instead
of what you don’t, you banish anxiety and
worry and fear over the temporal details and
the cosmic distractions.
Through prayer,
Paul says, we can lay hold of the “peace of
God.” The peace of God is something that
comes from understanding His power and His
plan, from understanding the fact that Jesus
Christ controls history and that nothing
down here on planet Earth escapes His
notice, that nothing happens outside His
permissive will!
There is another
step of advance; and that’s the focus Paul
turns to in vv. 8-9. This advance comes not
through the discipline of faith in believing
the promises, but through the discipline of
faith in applying the doctrines. We start
out in the CWOL by ‘standing on the
promises;’ we learn to claim these by
faith. Then we develop the principles, and
this leads to even greater strength and even
greater stability. Somewhere in this
process, if we press on, we come to the
point where entire doctrines can be applied
in our lives. This is why he records for
them these areas of mental focus and
concentration, areas of spiritual
self-discipline in v. 8.
In 4:8-9 Paul
finishes the immediate context of what we’ve
been studying— beginning in v. 4— and then
lays out his final address to the Philippian
Church.
He say’s,
“Finally [or, as we saw in 3:1, ‘from now
on’], brethren, whatever is true, whatever
is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is
pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of
good repute, if there is any excellence and
if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these
things. The things you have learned and
received and heard and seen in me, practice
these things, and the God of peace will be
with you.”
In theses two
vv. we’re seeing the apostle Paul deal with
this idea of the preparation {which is
spiritual} and the practice {which is
experiential} of faith. The main principle
overriding this entire section is that:
Sound preparation leads to sound practice in
the Christian Life.
Body
1. Paul’s
opening word, “finally,” comes from
to/
loipo/n (to loipon); it means lit.- as for the rest, or, in its
temporal sense- from now on. In every case
where this expression is used in the Greek,
it has the idea of something left over,
something remaining.
The point Paul
makes to begin the closing comments of this
letter, or ‘the beginning of his ending,’ is
that, once again— whether we like it or not—
we’re in a spiritual battle between Satan
and God, a conflict between the forces of
good and the forces of evil; and we will
remain on this battleground until one of two
things happens: either physical death, or
the Rapture and resurrection of the Church.
Mankind faces a choice— in the end, it
always comes down to freewill, doesn’t it?—
between human capability or the Cross of
Christ, between religion or relationship,
between sanctimonious self-righteousness {a
powerful tool of the enemy} or true
spirituality. What this is saying to each
of us is, “for the remainder of your time in
the Angelic Conflict, from now on think on
these things.”
2. “Brethren”
is a term the writers of Scripture used to
reach out to other believers, a verbal
embrace of the Royal Family. It’s a way of
saying to the other members of the Body of
Christ, “This is for the duration; these
truths are for every generation. They will
never fade from view unless we let them.
Therefore, keep them constantly before you
at all times.”
3. The
principle with which Paul begins v. 8 is
extremely important to you and I. It’s what
we might call a ‘law of life.’ It is an
‘example taken from everyday existence,’ a
fact of life, that if you think about
something long enough you’ll come to the
point where you can’t stop thinking about
it. Let me give this to you as a
principle: Dwell on something long enough
and it will dominate you! Our thought
patterns— the most vital aspect of our
spiritual lives, how we think and what we
think— get into a groove, and before you
know it you can’t get them out. Therefore,
it is of the highest priority that the
believer set his soul, his thoughts, on the
“things of the Spirit.”
Paul is going to
give us a list of six things in the
Spiritual Life. There is a sense of
progression here as we move through these.
What we have are principles, statements of
doctrine, together with their application.
One writer calls this a “paragraph on mental
health” (Simcox); I call it a ‘paragraph on
spiritual thought.’ Two of the eight words
used in this section are unique in that
they’re not found anywhere else in the NT.
And one occurs only here in Paul’s writings,
but we’ll get to that later.
A He begins
with truth, which is where everything in the
plan of God begins— with grace and truth—
and that leads us, ultimately, to honor in
the spiritual realm.
The word Paul
uses for “true,”
a)lhqh/j
(alethes), means- belonging to the nature of
reality, i.e., genuine; the word “honorable”
speaks of ‘that which is worthy of
reverence.’ Those things that are “true”—
that speak and deal in truth rather than
lies, in fact rather than fiction— are
always “honorable.” “Whatever” comes from
the source of truth, the inerrant and
infallible Word of God, is honorable;
whatever comes from the Word of God is
‘worthy of reverence,’ the reverence of our
faith in what it teaches.
So we start, as
we should always start in order to have
solid base from which to move out, with what
is a Scriptural, Biblical, and doctrinal
‘orientation to reality.’ Our faith in the
Word enables us to live in the realm of
reality— not fantasy, not deception, not
extenuation or emotion, but reality. {Eng.
word extenuate means- ‘lessen or seem
to lessen the seriousness of an offense by
making excuses.’}
Three Principles on the Believer’s
Orientation to Reality:
1) Truth is
the great stabilizer of life. This is a
principle which should be inherently
understood by the children of God. But
obviously it’s not, or we wouldn’t have the
mass reversionism which exists in this
nation. And those churches where the Word
of God is being taught would be filled to
the last seat every night!
2) When you
live without truth, you live without
stability. The believer without the
stability of absolute truth in his soul is a
child; he’s still a babe and will remain a
babe until he seeks out the Word by faith
and humbles himself before it. He’s the one
as Paul said in Ephesians 4:14, who is
“tossed here and there by waves, and carried
about by every wind of doctrine— by the
trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful
scheming;” but rather than remaining in
spiritual immaturity, he is to “grow up in
all {aspects} into Him who is the Head,
{even} Christ,” v. 15. {Cf. Colossians 2}
Paul in
Colossians 2:6-7 say’s, “Therefore [in light
of his rejoicing over / discipline and
stability of / Colossians’ faith: vv. 1-5]
as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord,
{so} walk in Him [how had they ‘received’
Him?: by faith; how were they to ‘walk in
Him’ day to day and moment to moment?: by
faith], having been firmly rooted [i.e.,
‘thoroughly grounded’ in / Spiritual Life],”
he say’s, “{and now} being built up in Him [epoikodomeo
means- ‘finish a structure under which
the foundation has already been laid;’ /
Colossians were ‘finishing the structure’
which had begun with / foundation of faith
in Christ, and Paul is cheering them on /
entire way; in 1 Corinthians 3:11 Paul
states that ‘no man can lay a foundation
other than …Jesus Christ:’ He is / one and
only foundation for eternal life; if you
don’t build on Him, you don’t build at all!]
and established in your faith [lit.-
‘established in the faith;’ this is pistis
with / def. art., and it means- body of
doctrine to be believed, / teaching over
which faith is exercised], just as you were
instructed [this is where stability comes
from: from teaching and instruction in /
Word of God; then notice what he adds],
overflowing [word that’s used here means-
‘have in abundance, have over and above;’ it
was used of a flower going from a bud into
full bloom] with
[what?]
gratitude.”
Grace is the
attitude of gratitude; and these people were
supremely grateful for the one thing that
had stabilized their lives— the teaching of
the Word.
3) When you
live divorced from truth, you live divorced
from reality. You live in a deceptive
fantasyland of your own confusion and
imagination. There are multitudes of
Christians who because of a lifestyle of
unbelief, because of an ingrained arrogance,
because of scars in the soul and wounds in
the heart {oftentimes inflicted by someone
else}, live and breathe in this ‘state of
unreality.’ And that is a shame and a
tragedy, because when you “know the truth [
/ absolute ‘truth’ of God’s Word &
will for your life], …the truth will set you
free,” Jn. 8:32.
The Cosmic
System is filled with deception and
illusion, with lies and dissimulation,
abounding in that which promises what it
cannot fulfill: peace, security, happiness,
and fulfillment. It is filled with
things that offer what they cannot provide!
The believer has a responsibility to direct
his thoughts, to set his soul as it were, on
what will never let him down and never
desert him, on what will provide exactly
what it promises. He is to set his mind on
the things of eternal value, on the things
which have spiritual significance. Let me
illustrate these for you. This would
include, first and foremost:
1) Eternal
Life. The context of John 5 finds Jesus in
Jerusalem being persecuted by “the Jews”— a
reference to the Jewish leaders— because He
is healing the blind, the lame and the sick
on the Sabbath. In v. 18 John say’s, they
were “seeking… to kill Him, because He not
only was breaking the Sabbath, but …was
calling God His own Father, making Himself
equal with God.” Most of the religions of
the world look to Christ as an example, as a
good man and a prophet— Islam, Hinduism,
Buddhism; all of the Christian cults that
have sprung up in the past twenty centuries
{like Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses}
look to Christ as a good man, a prophet,
even as a god but not as God. My question
to them all is this: Do you believe that a
good man and a prophet, or even a demi-god,
would lie and claim to be God when he
wasn’t? If He’s a liar, then He’s neither a
good man nor a prophet; but if He speaks the
truth, and He truly is co-equal and
co-eternal with the Father, then why don’t
you believe in Him?
Why don’t you
believe v. 24 which says, “Truly, truly
[word amen is used by Christ 25 x’s in /
Gospel of John to introduce divine
revelation; anytime you have a doubling,
especially of a word like this which is used
to draw / listener’s attention, it is
designed for emphasis and intensity—
‘surely, certainly,’ or ‘of an absolute
truth’], I say to you, he who hears My word
and believes Him who sent Me has eternal
life, and does not come into judgment but
has passed out of death into life [‘he has
passed out of spiritual death into spiritual
life’]”?
a. Lest we
stumble over it, let us remember that
salvation is as simple as drinking a handful
of cool, clear water. To the woman at the
well in John 4 Jesus said, “whoever drinks
of the water that I shall give him will
never thirst, but the water that I will give
him will become in him a well… springing up
to eternal life,” v. 14. “If any man is
thirsty,” Jesus said, “let him come to Me
and drink. He who believes in Me, as the
Scripture said, ‘from his innermost being
will flow rivers of living water,’” John
7:37a-38. The idea of ‘living water,’ of
the water of life, is the most ancient
figure of eternal life, of that salvation
which satisfies the thirsty soul. In
Jeremiah 2:13 and 17:13 the Lord calls
Himself the “fountain of living waters.” As
far back as the time of Isaiah, over 700
years before the birth of Christ, in a
beautiful picture of grace he said, “Every
one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you
who have no money come, buy and eat.
Come, buy wine
and milk without money and without
cost,” Isaiah 55:1.
b. The sole
condition of eternal life, and relationship
with God forever, is an act of faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. It’s as simple as
trusting in what He did on the Cross.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes
[in Me] has eternal life,” John 6:47. In
John 11:25-26 Jesus said to Martha, “I am
the Resurrection and the Life. He who
believes in Me will live even if he dies [he
‘will live’ spiritually ‘even if he dies’
physically], and everyone who lives
[physically] and believes in Me will never
die [spiritually; when one dies without
Christ, / condition of spiritual death is
perpetuated into eternity; he is now under /
Judgment of / 2nd Death— an
eternal separation from / Living God].
[after drawing this magnificent contrast,
Jesus makes / issue personal: He asks her]
Do you believe this?”
c. The
Scripture says in Romans 10:17, that “faith
comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word
of Christ.” Faith is first hearing, then
believing what the word of God says. In the
final analysis, it all comes down to the
question Jesus posed to Martha, “Do you
believe this?” The unbeliever’s response to
that solitary question determines his
destiny— either eternal glory in Heaven or
eternal misery in the Lake of Fire.
Legalism in Jesus’ day kept many of those in
His generation from recognizing and
receiving the Son of God; legalism in Paul’s
day tried to take those who had been saved
by grace and bind them to a system of rites
and rituals that passed away with the death
of Christ; and legalism in our day is still
the greatest stumbling block to the
simplicity of the Gospel of Grace for the
unbeliever. Galatians 3:26 tells us without
hesitation, that we are “all sons of God
through faith in Christ Jesus.” Amen!
2) Secondly,
Eternal Righteousness, or what we call,
‘absolute righteousness.’ In Galatians 2:16
the apostle Paul said, “knowing that a man
is not justified by the works of the Law but
through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have
believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be
justified by faith in Christ and not by the
works of the Law. [and then he adds] Since
by the works of the Law no flesh will be
justified.” The word “justified” is from a
legal term used in the courtrooms of ancient
Greece; it means- ‘be acquitted, be
vindicated, be declared legally righteous in
the sight of God.’ This entire undertaking
is a work of grace; therefore, it can be
received in only one way— “through faith in
Christ Jesus.”
a. Cf. Romans
3:21-24 {-30}.
b. Paul in
Romans 4:5 builds on Abraham not just as the
father of the Jewish race, but as a perfect
illustration of the righteousness which
comes through faith. He say’s, “to the one
who does not work [‘who does not labor for
his salvation’], but believes in Him who
justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited
as righteousness [just as it was for Abraham
{vv. 1-3}, just as it was for David a
thousand years later {vv. 6-8}, so it is for
you and I three thousand years beyond that],
just as David also speaks of the blessing on
the man to whom God credits [‘imputes’]
righteousness [His perfect and absolute
‘righteousness;’ notice] apart from works:
‘BLESSED ARE THOSE WHOSE LAWLESS DEEDS HAVE
BEEN FORGIVEN, AND WHOSE SINS HAVE BEEN
COVERED [by / redeeming sacrifice of Jesus
Christ]. ‘BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOSE SIN THE
LORD WILL NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT
[i.e., ‘will not
impute against him;’ and why won’t He?—
because it was paid for by / Son of God],’”
vv. 6-8.
c. Cf. Romans
9:30-33; 10:1-4.
3) Third,
Eternal Security. Cf. Romans 8:35-39— ‘I Am
Convinced!’
4) Fourth, our
Eternal Home in the Heavens. {Cf. John 14}
a. In John 14
Jesus said, “Do not let your heart be
troubled [here we have a pres. pass. imp.
with / neg. me— our Lord’s prohibition
against worry and anxiety- ‘do not keep on
letting your heart be troubled, do not let
your heart be weighed down continually with
anxiety;’ what He’s talking about is / kind
of turbulence and commotion that takes away
our inner calm and makes us restless and
agitated]; believe in God, believe also in
Me [both pres. act. imps. of pisteuo- ‘keep
on believing in God,’ keep trusting in His
power and His provision continually, i.e.,
‘live in the lifestyle of faith;’ and ‘keep
on believing in Me’— remain occupied with Me
even after I’m gone, and watch what happens
to / turmoil of your soul]. In My Father’s
house are many dwelling places; if it were
not so, I would have told you, for I go to
prepare a place for you [our Lord is going
to see it, personally, that / residence we
will inhabit for all eternity is a place of
perfection, a place with our personality,
our style]. If I go and prepare a place for
you, I will [1] come again and [2] receive
you to Myself [two verbs: both 1st
sg., referring to Christ; one is /
futuristic use of / pres. ind., / other is a
fut. ind.; ind. mood is / mood of reality:
it represents / absolute certainty of
/ Rapture; this will take place], that where
I am, {there} you may be also,” vv. 1-3.
b. What will
this ‘dwelling place’ be like? That, I
don’t know; but I can tell you what the
environment of eternity will be like. By
comparing Revelation 7:16-17 with Revelation
21:4, we get a gorgeous description of life
in the presence of Christ, one where
believers “will hunger no longer nor thirst
anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them
nor any heat; for the Lamb …will be their
Shepherd and will guide them to springs of
the water of life. And God will wipe every
tear from their eyes. …And there will no
longer be {any} death; there will no longer
be {any} mourning or crying or pain.” All
those “things” will “have passed away.”
5) Fifth and
final, Eternal Reward for the winner, the
“overcomer” in the spiritual conflict as
John calls him. The Bible mentions at least
four categories of reward.
a. Praise.
Every soldier in the Royal Army— which
means, every believer in the Age of Grace—
will receive at least a commendation of
praise from the Commander-in-Chief. For
some, this will be their one and only
honorable mention. 1 Corinthians 4:5 is an
injunction against believers judging one
another, for the simple fact that unless
someone reveals it, the one thing you cannot
know and discern is motive. Therefore, it
says, “Do not go on passing judgment. But
wait until the Lord comes. …And then each
man’s praise [or reprimand, as / case may
be] will come to him from God.”
b. Crowns {or
more accurately, ‘wreaths,’ fr. stephanos}.
Every reference to crowns in the NT— from
Romans 1 through Revelation 3— is a
reference to someone who has pushed on
beyond adulthood, beyond maturity, into hero
of faith territory, to someone who has lain
down their life as a sacrifice on the altar
of grace {Rom. 12:2}. There are five
wreaths spoken of in the NT Epistles:
i. Wreath of
Righteousness: This is given to those who
live their lives in eager anticipation of
the return of Christ. There is a constant
and joyful expectation that the King is
right around the corner, ready to call His
Body home to be His Bride. This changes our
perspective in life from being one of
distraction by temporal details to being one
of concern with eternal priorities— like
service in the cause of Christ, e.g.! It’s
mentioned by the apostle Paul in 2 Timothy
4:8 where he say’s, “In the future there is
laid up for me the crown of righteousness
which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will
award to me on that day; and not only to me,
but …to all who have loved His appearing.”
ii. Wreath of
Joy: The wreath of joy is awarded for the
fulfillment of our commission as Royal
Ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ— 2
Corinthians 5:18-20. God evaluates your
role in the “ministry of reconciliation” not
by how many people you witness to, but by
your relentless pursuit of faith
in Christ as the only issue, by
your willingness to stand firm on the Gospel
of Grace. There are two passages where this
is spoken of: Philippians 4:1 and 1
Thessalonians 2:19.
iii. Wreath of
Glory {1 Pet. 5:4}: This is for the P-T who
does not waver in his dedication to study
the Word of God, or in his diligence to
teach it. The only way to prepare a flock
of sheep to go out and fight like wolves in
the CS is to equip them {soul and spirit}
with the weapons and resources of the Word.
Nothing else will do the job! All of the
artful arguments and masterful manipulations
that substitute for sound doctrine today,
all of the emotional excess and stroking of
self-esteems will fail in times of trial and
testing. Therefore, the sole responsibility
of the shepherd is to equip the souls
of his sheep.
iv. Wreath of
Life: The wreath of life is ours for
faithfulness in testing. We all fail from
time to time. “To err is human,” and that’s
precisely the problem. We try to meet the
tests of life with human viewpoint, in human
strength and human energy, and we get
slaughtered by the enemy! But the issue is:
What do we do when the test comes back
around? Because it will. You cannot fail
the tests of life and expect to move forward
in spiritual advance. You will meet it
again and again and again, until you pass
it.
Crises and
disasters which come in all kinds, shapes,
sizes and types, require focus and
concentration; they demand the utilization
of divine power and divine provision in
order to execute divine protocol. Just
remember that your faithfulness in turmoil
and tribulation will one day bring the crown
of life. This is sometimes called the
martyr’s crown because of our Lord’s promise
in Revelation 2:10, that if you will “be
faithful until death, …I will give you the
crown of life;” James 1:12 says, “Blessed is
a man who perseveres under trial.
For once
he has been approved, he will receive the
crown of life which {the Lord} has promised
to those who love Him [our love, respect and
occupation with / Person of Christ is /
motivation to ‘persevere’ in life, to not
get discouraged and despondent by / pain and
pressure of testing and affliction].”
v. Wreath of
Incorruptibility: In 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Paul provides a vivid illustration of the
Spiritual Life from the Greek games of the
ancient world. In v. 25 he tells the
Corinthians— as they knew very well from the
Isthmian Games which were held in their
city— that all those who compete exercise
tremendous self-control. We’ve studied the
ten months of training and seclusion in the
gymnasium which took place prior to the
event and all of the specialized rules that
had to be followed so as not to be
disqualified. Paul say’s, “They… {do it} to
receive a perishable wreath, but we an
imperishable.”
The
‘imperishable wreath’ is awarded to those
who exercise self-discipline in the
Spiritual Life. The question for each of us
is: What are we willing, or unwilling, to
subordinate and surrender to the Person of
Jesus Christ? The very first step of
recovery from reversionism in James 4:7 is
‘spiritual submission.’
c. Rank and
Authority. Rank and decoration for valor,
along with the authority to rule, will be
the reward of some in eternity. In
Revelation 2:26 the Risen Christ say’s to
the members of His Body: “He who overcomes
and …who keeps My deeds until the end [of
his life, and of / CA], TO HIM I WILL GIVE
AUTHORITY OVER THE NATIONS.” Those who
persevere in unwavering dedication to the
will of God will reign over a town, a city,
a state, or maybe even a nation in the
Millennium.
Under ‘rank and
authority’ belongs this idea of wealth and
possessions, the bounty of the “good
soldier.” Isaiah 53:12 calls this sharing
in the spoils of victory; Matthew 24:45-47
speaks of it as being put in charge of your
master’s “possessions;” and 2 Peter 1:11
calls it entering the “kingdom of ...Christ”
with abundance.
d. Glory. The
apostle Paul states in Romans 8:17 that the
reason we suffer with Christ— and rejoice in
being counted worthy of it— is “so that we
may… be glorified with Him.” Because we
think for the most part in physical terms
and because we’re limited by things like
space, time, and matter, glory as a form of
eternal reward is a concept almost beyond
our comprehension. Paul commanded Timothy,
“Suffer hardship with {me} as a good soldier
of Christ Jesus,” 2 Timothy 2:3. Why;
because that’s just what Christians do:
suffer for suffering’s sake? No; because
the steadfast and courageous endurance of
that suffering leads to future glorification
in the presence of Jesus Christ.
And that ‘glory’
is to be reflected in your resurrection
body. Daniel 12:3 says, “Those who have
insight will shine brightly like the
brightness of the expanse of heaven, and
those who lead the many to righteousness
like the stars forever and ever.” So,
what’s it going to be: Are you going to be
a speck in the sky of eternity; are you
going to be a flicker in the dark just about
to go out, or a blazing supernova? It’s our
choice.
These are the
basic things— eternal life, righteousness,
security, our heavenly home and eternal
reward— upon which truth, honor and honesty
are built; these are the nuts and bolts of a
solid foundation in the Christian Life. The
Greek word for “honorable” is very difficult
to translate; it was a word used in
reference to the Greek gods and their
temples. When you bring this word into
experience, it describes someone who moves
through life as if anything and everything
were the Temple of God {someone who lives
their life as if anything and everything
were happening in the very presence of God,
as it is}. This word pictures those things,
whatever they happen to be, which have the
‘dignity of deity’ upon them, the very
virtue of Christ Himself shining through
them. Paul say’s, “It’s on those things
which are serious and sober, those things
which are dignified and honorable and have
their rock-solid foundation in the
revelation of the Word, that the spiritual
man will build his life.”
B. From the
“truth” and “honor” of what is eternally
valuable in the sight of God, Paul turns to
what is “right” and “pure.” It’s obvious
that those things which are right in
the Spiritual Life are going to be pure
in the eyes of God. The word “pure” here
means- ‘innocent and blameless.’ Now, it
doesn’t take long to figure out that
spiritually dead man can never fit into the
innocent category, neither can we as
believers call ourselves experientially
blameless in God’s sight. If we could,
there’d be no need for rebound, and 1 John
1:9 would be a meaningless v. But “pure”
also means- ‘not mixed with debasing
elements.’
1) It was our
Lord who said in Mark 7:21, that “from
within, out of the heart of men [where we
think], proceed the evil thoughts.” It is
evil thoughts that lead to “fornications,
thefts, murders, adulteries, …coveting {and}
wickedness, {as well} {as} deceit,
sensuality, envy, slander, pride {and}
foolishness. All these evil things,” Jesus
said, “proceed from within and defile the
man,” vv. 22-23. What’s Christ doing in
that passage? He’s going all the way back
to the source, to man’s thinking, and
showing the relationship between the OSN and
the thought process. This is precisely why
we are commanded in Romans 12:2, to “be
transformed by the renewing of” our minds,
lit., by the renovation of our thoughts, so
that they can be brought in line with the
Word of God.
2) The word
Paul uses for “right” is
di/kaioj (dikaios)- just, virtuous, righteous in the absolute
sense; this is righteousness in perfect
form. The only way that the believer— in
attitude, action, and service to God— can
ever be dikaios, and therefore pure and
blameless, is to do the right thing in the
right way, to operate according to divine
protocol. A ‘right thing done in a right
way is right’ means both the course of
action and the attitude behind it line up
with the Word. What we’re talking about
here is motivation. What you do in
the plan of God is not nearly as important
as why you do it. Remember that man looks
at the outside, God looks at the heart, at
the attitude behind the action.
There’s not a
doubt in my mind that all the arrogant,
self-righteous, holier than thou attitudes
behind our actions, all the struggling and
straining to impress our fellow-slaves, all
the battling and brawling to secure our
standing before God by our own good works,
will be exposed at the Bema Seat for exactly
what they are— worthless and nauseating to
God!
C. Finally, in
the third couplet Paul speaks of “whatever
is lovely,” and “whatever is of good
repute.” “Lovely” more properly means-
‘that which inspires love in others,’
and hence is
pleasing to God, that which is ‘admirable
and gracious.’ Prosphiles is a compound
word, from pros- ‘toward,’ and phileo- ‘love
with rapport, with friendship and
affection.’ “Of good repute” lit. means-
‘well-sounding.’ One commentator translates
it as ‘that which has a good ring.’ It can
even be interpreted as ‘attractive,
appealing.’
I want to ask a
question here: What is it that inspires
love, that has a good enough ring to it to
turn the ear of the listener? What is it in
your life that could be considered
attractive and appealing to someone standing
on the outside— either an ignorant believer
or an unbeliever? Well, Paul tells us in
Colossians 4:2-6. {Cf. Colossians 4}
1) Notice the
first thing he says: “Devote yourselves to
prayer [Pr: It is / discipline of daily
prayer that keeps us fit and ready for
battle.], keeping alert in it with {an
attitude of} thanksgiving [ / one constant
thing you see over and over in / epistles of
Paul is this idea of gratitude as /
essential component of / believer’s prayer
life; it is an honest gratitude and sincere
appreciation for / grace of God; when this
is / attitude of / inner man, people will
see it and recognize it in / outer man!].
Praying at the same time for us as well,
that God will open up to us a door for the
Word [an ‘open door’ means / opportunity to
teach and to proclaim / message of
salvation— 1 Cor. 16:9; 2 Cor. 2:12; for
what purpose should God ‘open / door?’], so
that we may speak forth the mystery of
Christ [that is, / ‘mystery of salvation, as
well as equal privilege and equal
opportunity for both Jew and Gentile in
Christ’— Eph. 3:4 ff.; according to Col.
2:2, Christ is / Mystery of God, ‘in whom
are hidden all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge;’ that statement right
there is Paul’s slap in / face of
Gnosticism, a philosophy that deified
‘knowledge’— esoteric knowledge— above
everything else; / Jews sought ‘wisdom’ as
they understood it from / OT, / Greeks
searched for ‘knowledge,’ Paul said Christ
is / storehouse and fountain of both!], for
which [this mystery doctrine] I have also
been imprisoned— that I may make it clear in
the way I ought to speak [i.e., so that
there is nothing hindering / communication
of / Word; you can see very clearly in this
passage that Paul’s desire was not to
elevate self, or to magnify and glorify his
own ministry, but for an ‘open door’ into /
souls of men for / Word of God and / Gospel
of Grace]. [then he says] Conduct
yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders [sophia
is / keen and critical knowledge gained from
an application of doctrine], making the most
of the opportunity [to evangelize / lost and
disciple / saved; he’s talking about not
letting / time and opportunities slip
through your hands, but ‘redeeming’ each and
every one of them]. Let your speech always
be with grace [there it is: ‘let the words
of grace fall from your lips;’ this, I
believe, is exactly what he’s talking about
in Phil. 4:8], {as though} seasoned with
salt [he’s referring to / ‘salt’ and /
‘wisdom’ of divine viewpoint; salt is a
preservative, and hence in Scripture
represents true doctrine, sound doctrine;
leaven is a permeating agent, and thus
represents false doctrine], so that you will
know [not wondering and worrying but
knowing] how you should respond to each
person,” vv. 2-6. The words that sound well
to the spiritual ear, the words we can
admire, are words of grace.
2) An
illustration of grace: Cf. ‘The Thief.’
3) A few
points on the grace of God.
a. Grace is
the totality of the Spiritual Life.
Everything we have by way of divine power,
resource and provision is ours courtesy of
grace. Everything we know and have applied
from the Word of God was assimilated and
metabolized by grace, after having been
communicated to us by grace!
b. Grace is
synonymous with the Church Age. The CA is
the Age of Grace. In Ephesians 2:6-7 Paul
said, that God has “raised us up with”
Christ, “and seated us with Him in the
heavenly {places} in Christ Jesus [our
unique position in / CA as members of /
Royal Family of God], so that in the ages to
come [all / dispensations following this,
including eternity] He might show the
surpassing riches of His grace in kindness
toward us in Christ Jesus.”
c. The
Scripture says that we are to live our lives
by means of grace. Colossians 2:6 says,
“Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, {so} walk in Him.” It was by
grace and through faith that we
received Christ, and therefore, we are to
live in that same way!
d. Grace is a
treasure and resource to which we have
access through Christ— Romans 5:1-2. Romans
5:2 also tells us that grace is the state
and the condition in which we stand.
e. Grace
stands diametrically opposed to works, which
lack the power to save anyone, no
matter how ascetic. In Romans 11:6 Paul
establishes a precedent for the remnant of
grace, but it is a precedent that stands for
everything God offers or provides in the
Christian Life. He say’s, “But if it is by
grace it is no longer on the basis of works,
otherwise grace is no longer grace.”
f. The
intrusion of human works— any works—
distorts the very concept of grace {Eph.
2:5-9}. If works could save anybody, the
reality of grace would be nullified!
g. Grace
stands in contradiction to the Law. Both
Jew and Gentile are saved by the glorious
grace of God, through no merit of their
own. This is the theme of Peter’s
dissertation before the Jerusalem Church in
Acts 15:7-11.
h. The
Christian is not under the Law, but under
grace— Romans 6:14 ff. The believer is
bound only by the ‘law of love,’ which is a
universal principle that encapsulates the
Spiritual Life under grace. The Mosaic Law
belonged to the nation of Israel under the
dispensation of Israel, and it was never
given by God to any other nation besides
Israel. Furthermore, it has not been
transferred to the Church {which is a
separate and unique entity in the
dispensational plan of God} in any way,
shape or form. And any pastor, any church,
or any organization functioning under the
Mosaic Law as the means of spiritual life
and service is ignorant of the Word, and
have made themselves an enemy of the Cross
of Christ. I’ll give you a principle here:
Ignorance may be bliss, but it is not
victory in the Battle!
If you meet a
soul in need, grace will fill it; if you
come across someone who is hungry and
thirsty for truth and for righteousness, the
words of grace will inspire and attract.
Our speech is a
reflection of us, an outward manifestation
of our inner spiritual condition, and
therefore, it should always be “seasoned”
with the “salt” of “grace.”
4. The apostle
Paul’s focus shifts from “whatsoever” may
have value in the plan of God in the first
part of v. 8, to two 1st class
conditions in the latter part. “If there is
any excellence,” and there most definitely
is in the things he’s just listed for us.
A. The word
a)reth/
(arete) is one of the truly great words to
come down from Classical Greek; it means-
virtue. In ancient Greece it was the
highest possible term for virtue, for
courage, for excellence in any field of
endeavor. Arete is what might be called
‘operative excellence,’ efficiency at its
peak. It was ascribed to the mighty deeds
of the Greek gods. This is the only place
the apostle Paul employs this term.
B. In the
application and outcome of the
six concepts he’s just presented, is the
development of virtue. What’s our
overriding principle for this section?
Sound preparation leads to sound practice in
the Christian Life. When the practice of
our spiritual lives is accurate, because the
preparation that came before it was sound,
you can expect to see virtue being
produced. “And,” he adds, “if” there is
“anything worthy of praise [and there is,
they are all ‘worthy of praise;’ and since
they deserve our attention and commendation,
let us], dwell on” these truths.
5. We saw Paul
deal with the spirit in vv. 6-7 of this
passage; then came the soul in v. 8. That’s
why he moves on to our thinking. He gives
us six things to think about and then say’s,
“dwell on these things,” i.e., “take them
constantly into account and consideration;
be constantly meditating on these things.”
A. We have the
pres. mid. imp. of
logi/zomai
(logizomai), an accounting term. Logizomai
was a very popular term in Greek philosophy
also; it means- count up and weigh in the
mind, deliberate mentally, meditate on
something. The mid. voice— which is
reflexive and has no true English
equivalent— means that it is to our
advantage to do this. What he’s saying is,
‘occupy your mind, engage yourself in
thinking on these things, and the spiritual
benefit and blessing of a solid doctrinal
orientation to reality, a righteous
motivation in life, and a grace orientation
with others, will be yours!’
The Word of God,
divinely inspired by the Spirit of God,
never ceases to come back to the most
important process in the CWOL, the only one
that leads to growth and application,
character and service: clear and lucid
thinking based on the “mind of Christ,” the
thinking of the Son of God.
B. Here’s the
point: As you’re adding up the facts of
life, as you’re contemplating the
circumstances and conditions you have to
face, those problems that are a part of your
existence, don’t leave out of the equation
“these things.” Keep taking these things
into consideration, and in light of
spiritual realities at work in life, you can
lay hold of something much greater. Not the
“peace of God,” which comes as a result of
prayer offered in the absolute trust of one
who is standing on the promises and
developing the principles, but as one who is
moving into the actual living reality of the
doctrines. You take hold of the “God of
peace,” and as it says in v. 9, He “will
be with you.”
1) This is
something we’ve seen over and over and over
again, and that is the development of
intimacy and communion with the Father.
Study, application, growth have to do not
with knowing ‘about’ God, but with coming to
know God on a personal relationship basis.
Paul obviously understood the difference
between knowing about Christ and actually
knowing and loving and desiring Christ
because he began to equate, as he does in
1:21, living and dying. Life was Christ,
and service in His cause; but death was
profit, and joy in His presence.
2) You see,
Paul began to understand a simple little
formula: P + C = R— Potential + Capacity =
Reality. As a believer in the Lord Jesus
Christ and a member of the Royal Family, a
possessor of “all spiritual blessings in
Christ,” you have unlimited potential.
Peter in 2 Peter 1:3 ff. said, that God in
grace has given to us “everything pertaining
to life and godliness,” everything necessary
for abundant life and spirituality, for life
on the highest plane. Are we taking
advantage of those privileges; are we
utilizing those resources? That is the
question.
These are
potentials; how do we turn them into
reality? Well, Peter goes on to mention
seven steps, seven circles of faith for the
believer to keep pursuing. He says, “in
your faith supply moral excellence [there’s
our word, arete], and in {your} moral
excellence, knowledge, and in {your}
knowledge, self-control, and in {your}
self-control, perseverance [that is divine
endurance in / race of life], and in {your}
perseverance, godliness [which, as we’ve
studied, is / function of spirituality
through spiritual power], and in {your}
godliness, brotherly kindness, and in {your}
brotherly kindness, love,” 2 Peter 1:5-7.
As the believer maintains this consistent
momentum, he develops capacity. So, what
this is saying is that capacity comes
through our growth and progress in the
virtues of grace. Once you have the
capacity that God’s designed, you find that
you’ve achieved the reality you were aiming
for. It’s beautiful, isn’t it, a plan like
that?
6. I want you
to notice that Paul outlines in v. 9 five
stages of spiritual growth, really five
steps toward the development of capacity,
and as we just saw, eventually its reality.
He says, “The things you have learned and
received and heard and seen in me, practice
these things, and the God of peace will be
with you.”
A. The first
thing Paul says is, “you learned.”
Everything in the Christian Life begins
with learning. The word here is
manqa/nw
(manthano), meaning- learn through
instruction, learn through observation; it
also means- learn for oneself through
experience rather than instruction. From
manthano we get the term ‘disciple,’
mathetes- ‘one who follows another’s
teaching.’ Keep in mind that the root word
from which these two are taken indicates
‘thought accompanied by action;’ and hence,
it reminds us of the principle that: The
Spiritual Life is more about practical
application than about depth of
understanding. If our Christianity is not
practical and applicable to life in this day
and age, it is worthless!
Their “learning”
represents the teaching and instruction
which Paul had personally handed down to
them. Beginning with the Gospel— Acts 16—
and encompassing every principle of doctrine
which he had taught them during his time in
Philippi.
B. Secondly,
he says, “you received”— from paralambano.
Paralambano means- ‘receive to oneself’ what
has been communicated by another {also,
‘accept what has been established’}.
Arndt & Gingrich
Greek-English Lexicon states that in this
way paralambano can be used of a spiritual
heritage, and that the emphasis lies not so
much on receiving and taking over, as on
agreement and approval. {p. 619} Expanded
translation: “what you received to
yourselves by accepting with approval.”
What kind of approval counts in the plan of
God? Only one kind: the ‘approval of
faith,’ i.e., our acknowledgment of the
veracity and immutability of God— His
absolute truth and unchangeable essence.
Hearing with
faith, that is ‘receiving.’ To hear and do
nothing is to be a “hearer of the Word” only
{Jms. 1:23-25}; to hear and to utilize in
life, to act on, is to be a “doer.” You
know, and you’re the only one who can know,
when you’re receiving the Word as the
instruction of God, or when you’re just
giving it the marginal attention afforded to
something some man stood up and taught you.
Now, a couple points of application.
1) By the time
of Paul’s missionary journey to Philippi—
ca. 50-51 AD— and certainly by the time this
letter was written {60-61 AD}, there was a
fixed body of Doctrine already in
existence. It was not complete by any
means, but there was an established system
of truths which were communicated to the new
churches and the new disciples in order to
plant them on solid ground in the Faith.
2) From these
two words, manthano and paralambano, we
learn that spiritual instruction includes:
a. Handing on
to others that Body of Doctrine which the
entire Church is to believe. Not the Church
as an organization or institution, but the
Church as a living organism, the Body of
Christ. There is such a thing as false
doctrine, and that we are not to take
hold of.
b.
Illuminating that Doctrine by the
interpretation and instruction of the P-T.
We who desire to teach, and with the
communication gift to do so, must know that
body of sound doctrine that leads to
maturity. Once we have apprehended it by
faith and incorporated it into our lives, we
must cycle it through our souls so that we
can teach it in the simplicity and
significance which our own thoughts and
experiences have given to it. This is not
to say that we have somehow enhanced the
absolute truth of the Word, but that our
experience and education personalizes it for
the hearer, amplifies it in the area of
application, so that you can see how it
applies in this certain situation or how it
fits in this specific circumstance. We
teach the Word of God in our own unique
style and sense of expression. That’s the
relationship that a pastor has to his right
flock, and which they have to their right
P-T.
3) This
section actually shows us how to be a “doer
of the Word;” because not only do we study
it in order to learn, and not only do we
receive it by faith, we have to “hear” it as
well.
C. Why does he
mention ‘hearing’ at this point? Well,
“heard” is from
a)ko/uw
(akouo). ‘Hearing’ seems like it ought to
naturally come before ‘learning and
receiving,’ but what akouo means is not just
to hear, but to hear and understand, to hear
and perceive. We could translate it-
comprehend, because what it represents is
‘perception by faith,’ a very vital aspect
of growth and progress in the plan of God.
As a result of
that faith-perception comes comprehension;
and that’s why he uses akouo.
There’s another
thing implied, and that’s the principle of
repetition. You don’t hear a
doctrine, an exposition, a passage of
Scripture, taught once and learn everything
there is to learn from that passage. You
have to hear things more than once; and you
have to utilize reflection and concentration
on what you comprehend.
D. Fourth, he
says, “the things you have …seen in me.”
“Seen” is
oi)da (oida); and oida means- know
with an absolute knowledge, with an absolute
understanding. This is experiential
knowledge. You haven’t just accepted it in
faith; you haven’t just turned it over in
the mind and talked about it, you’ve
experienced it! When oida is used in
reference to man’s ‘knowledge’ of God, it’s
not just talking about God-consciousness or
an awareness of His existence, but an
eternal relationship with Him.
1) So much of
what passes for knowledge, especially among
believers nowadays, is mere academics— the
recitation of Biblical facts and figures—
merely intellectual assent and not practical
experience! We’re going to translate oida,
“experienced.”
2) The
preposition en here means- ‘through me,’ or,
‘by means of me:’ “what you have experienced
by means of me.” They were able to see in
the apostle Paul’s life that what he was
teaching them really worked. On any scale
and any level, in any situation or
circumstance of life, it worked. What he
was proving to them was experiential: that
regardless of the circumstance, regardless
of the situation— in anything and
everything— this really does work in life.
As the time left
in the CA continues to shorten {1 Cor.
7:26}, as the future of our nation, our
culture, our society continues to
degenerate, you must prepare now for what’s
ahead and what’s coming. Paul illustrated
the Doctrine for these believers by his own
life because he was the trailblazer as it
says in v. 12 of ch. 1. God chose to lead
him down a path of suffering and sacrifice
so that the Philippians and countless others
in the 1st cent. could see
exactly what dedication to the cause of
Christ looked like in the face of almost
certain death. You and I need to decide
where we’re going to stand, where our
loyalty lies. These are the ‘days of
decision’ {right here, right now} and the
decisions are not easy, but they have to be
made none-the-less.
E. Finally,
the word pra/ssw (prasso), translated “practice,” means- carry out or
accomplish, practice and perform. We have
two words for practice in the Greek, for
doing and accomplishing something: poieo and
prasso. In Paul’s letters, generally
speaking, poieo refers to action complete in
itself, while prasso denotes action in
habit— habitual practice. The difference
between them is brought out in Romans 1:32;
2:3 and 2:25.
1) The first
four verbs are all 2nd pl., aor.
act. inds. “You all:” meaning every
believer in Philippi is being addressed by
Paul, with none excluded. The ind. mood in
the aor. tense is action in reality at a
point of time in the past. All these things
had been done by the Philippian believers;
all these things up to this point had been a
part of their spiritual existence. Now he
throws in an imper. that demands the focus
and dedication of their entire lives.
2) With this
last verb, Paul moves from the ind. to the
imper., from the aor. to the pres., from a
statement of fact to a lifestyle command in
the act. voice. The act. is intensified by
the fact that the verb prasso speaks of
action which is habitual. In addition to
their having learned, received, comprehended
and experienced, they are to ‘keep on
practicing these things.’ I.e., what it’s
saying is all of the spiritual teaching,
guidance and instruction they’ve been given
by the apostle Paul, they are to live
diligently and daily! And what will
happen? “The God of peace will be with”
them. NIV says it this way: “Whatever you
have learned or received or heard from me,
or seen in me— put it into practice. And
the God of peace will be with you.” The RSV
has: “What you have learned and received and
heard and seen in me, do; and the God of
peace will be with you.”
7. The “God of
Peace”— along with the “God of Hope,” Romans
15:13; the “God who gives perseverance and
encouragement” and “consolation” {Rom. 15:5
cf. w / 2 Cor. 1:3}; the “God of love and
peace,” 2 Corinthians 13:11— is one of
Paul’s many titles for God. “God of Peace”
seems to be his favorite because He uses it
more than any other in Romans 15:33, 16:20;
Philippians 4:9; and 1 Thessalonians 5:23.
In Conclusion
A Few Points of
Summary from v. 9:
1. To “put
into practice,” to “do,” to “apply,” all
refer to continuity and repetition of
action. It’s only at this point that
spirituality finds its balance, and so
begins to reflect maturity. If all you are
is a baby believer, an adolescent believer,
who learns and never applies— or never
applies with consistency— your life will
never see the heights of maturity.
2. {You know
this by now} Spirituality as a condition of
life, is an absolute. You are either
influenced and empowered by the Spirit of
God, and thus operating in divine energy, or
you are influenced by the OSN, and hence
operating in the energy of the flesh.
3. A believer
can be in babyhood, maturity, or anywhere in
between, and be spiritual; spiritual growth,
on the other hand, is relative. And there
are as many steps in the process of
spiritual growth as there are believers out
there to take them.
4. The HS’s
filling ministry, His enabling power, is an
absolute; but God the HS can only utilize
the resources you have in your soul. He can
only operate through what you understand
from the Word of God.
The idea is to
be consistently moving upward and onward
because we’re constantly learning the Word,
constantly applying the Word, and doing
every bit of it by means of the Spirit of
God. Eventually you reach a point of
balance, where grace {which is the
outworking of spiritual power} and Truth
{which is the believer’s spiritual
provision} co-exist in perfect harmony in
the soul.
“Every test we
fail to pass,
Is something
like a looking glass;
Designed to show
us where we are,
And distance
left, how very far.”
“THE MYSTERY
OF SPIRITUAL CONTENTMENT”
Philippians
4:10-13
(click here to view in
Word format)
Introduction
The apostle
Paul, in this next section, moves on from
the process of progress, from the principle
that sound preparation leads to sound
practice in the Christian Life, to what can
be achieved in spiritual power once that
practice is consistent. What can be
achieved is contentment in Christ;
and that ‘spiritual contentment’ leads to a
spiritual invincibility.
Paul begins by
illustrating his own contentment in Christ.
He then takes that concept, that spiritual
reality, and transfers it to the family of
God, shows us the exact steps he took
to get there, and finishes by saying that
spiritual contentment leads to
spiritual invincibility. He says, “But I
rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at
last you have revived your concern for me;
indeed, you were concerned {before} but you
lacked opportunity. Not that I speak from
want, for I have learned to be content in
whatever circumstances I am. I know how to
get along with humble means and I also know
how to live in prosperity; in any and every
circumstance I have learned the secret of
being filled and going hungry, both of
having abundance and suffering need. [then
he closes this section with these
magnificent words of absolute confidence not
in / power of Paul, but in / power of
Christ] I can do all things through Him who
strengthens me.”
Body
1. “Rejoiced,”
as you know from having studied it so many
times in this Epistle, is from chairo, a
word used for the celebration of a
victorious army on the battlefield and amid
the spoils of war. In the manner in which
Paul uses it in the letter to the
Philippians, it means- ‘celebrate the
victory of grace;’ it speaks of an inner joy
in the soul, a spiritual rejoicing in the
life— every day and in every circumstance of
every day— because of the ultimate victory
of Jesus Christ at the Cross, because of the
reality of your security in Him, and because
of the abundance of divine wealth, power and
provision which belongs to you as a child of
God.
A. When Paul
say’s, “I rejoiced in the Lord greatly,” it
reminds us once again that: Spiritual joy
is found only in Christ. It cannot
be found anywhere else, or through anyone
else. He is the source; He is the fountain
from which our joy flows!
1) The word
“greatly” emphasizes the phenomenal
spiritual joy which the apostle Paul
possessed. I rejoiced, where? “In the
Lord.” I rejoiced, how? “Greatly,”
exceedingly. “That now at last you have
revived your concern for me.”
2) The verb
a)naqa/llw
(anathallo) was used of a plant that had
lain dormant and then suddenly began to
flourish again. Ana means- ‘again;’ thallo-
‘blossom;’ therefore we have the ideas of-
shoot up, sprout again, flourish anew.
3) “Concern”
actually means- ‘think’ about someone ‘with
the mind,’ and because you’re thinking about
that person, to seek their interest and
advantage. So, Paul said, “Now at last your
thinking about me, and about my welfare and
well-being, has been caused to flourish and
to blossom once again.” Then he says, “you
had been concerned before, you simply lacked
the opportunity to show it.” It wasn’t a
lack of desire that kept them from giving,
it was a lack of opportunity.
B. The apostle
Paul had a tremendous appreciation for the
graciousness and generosity of the
Philippians, as he demonstrates in several
places in this letter {two of which are in
this ch.: here and in v. 17}. He also
expresses a genuine gratitude for the
spiritual lives and opportunities of these
believers. In v. 17 he say’s, “Not that I
seek the gift itself, but I seek for the
profit which increases to your
account.” Karpos, translated “profit” in
this v., is ‘fruit.’ Our Lord had a lot to
say about ‘bearing fruit.’ He often spoke
of what can be accomplished in the plan of
God by spiritual power, spiritual provision
and spiritual motivation, what can happen
when faith in the Word of God meets the
power of the Spirit of God— Mark 14:20; Luke
8:15; and John 15. {Cf. John 15:1-5}
1) In John 15
Jesus said, “I am the true Vine, and My
Father is the Vinedresser. Every branch in
Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away
[this is divine discipline to / final
degree— / ‘sin leading to death,’ 1 Jn.
5:16]; and every {branch} that bears fruit,
He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit
[He brings / tests of life, / pain, pressure
and suffering that leads to growth, that
causes us to readjust and realign our lives
with spiritual priorities, like / Word of
God and / Son of God]. [to / disciples he
said] You are already clean [spiritually,
that is] because of the Word which I have
spoken to you [remember / foot washing of ch.
13, when / Lord of Glory girded Himself with
a towel like a common slave and washed /
feet of His disciples?; that was a picture
of confession and cleansing; this is /
‘washing of regeneration,’ Titus 3:5, a once
and for all cleansing]. Abide in Me, and I
in you [‘abide’ means- ‘live, dwell, make
your home in;’ it speaks of / intimacy and
communion of fellowship; one is position, /
other is practice; this is where so much
theology gets muddled and mixed up, this is
where so many pastors, churches and
denominations go astray: in not recognizing
/ difference between relationship and
fellowship]. As the branch cannot bear
fruit of itself unless it abides in the
vine, so neither {can} you unless you abide
in Me [I want you to notice that, because
that is / key to this section of Scripture:
you ‘cannot bear fruit... unless you abide
in Me’]. I am the vine [what He’s saying
is, ‘I am the source of strength,
sustenance, and supply; everything flows
through Me to you’], you are the branches;
he who abides in Me and I in him [ / one who
relies and depends on Me for divine
production], he bears much fruit, for apart
from Me you can do nothing,” vv. 1-5.
2) In Romans
7:4, Paul say’s that through faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ we were made “to die to
the Law” and were “joined” to Him “in order
that [here is / purpose of our union with /
King of Kings] we might bear fruit for God.”
3) Paul’s
unceasing prayer for the believers of the
Lycus Valley, especially in Colossae, was
that they would “walk in a manner worthy of
the Lord, to please {Him} in all respects,
bearing fruit in every good work [divine
good in action] and increasing in the
knowledge of God
[‘in the precise
knowledge, in the correct knowledge;’ this
is not intellectual agreement, but faith
perception: epignosis],” Colossians 1:10.
C. The fruit
to which Paul refers in this last half of ch.
4 are the gracious gifts which were sent
from Philippi to supply him and his
ministry, at least twice in Thessalonica {v.
16} and now in Rome. As you can see from
this passage, our giving— like our prayer
life, our study {which is preparation} and
training in the Word {which is practice},
and our worship— is an evidence of our
spiritual condition and our growth in
grace. It is an important part, a vital
part in fact, of our priesthood before God.
The giving of our Christian lives should be
done, and always done, only in grace.
A Few Points on
Giving in the Age of Grace {Summary of the
Doctrine of Giving}:
First and
foremost, keep in mind the maxim that ‘we
are saved by grace, live by grace, and give
by grace’— all of which is brought out in
explicit detail in 2 Corinthians 8-9. There
is more information on giving in 2
Corinthians 8-9 than anywhere else in the
Word of God. All of these principles are
derived from those two chs.
1) Giving is
an act of worship, a remembrance of the
sacrifice of Christ. 2 Corinthians 8:9
says, “For you know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that though He was rich
[‘rich’ as only Deity can be, with / wealth,
/ power, / glory and grandeur of divine
essence at His disposal], yet for your sake
He became poor, so that you through His
poverty might become rich.”
What’s he
talking about when he say’s, “that you
through His poverty might become rich,” that
you through His sacrifice might share in the
wealth of Heaven? The best thing to do is
to look at Paul’s own explanation in
Philippians 2. Remember in v. 6 he said,
“although He existed in the form of God,” He
“did not regard equality with God a thing to
be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the
form of a bond-servant [a slave to / very
creatures He had created] {and} being made
in the likeness of men.” And “being found
in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself
by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross,” vv. 6-8. That is
the phenomenal sacrifice of the Son of God,
and the depth of poverty which He endured to
get there. He gave up everything— the
rights, privileges and prerogatives of
Deity— to become one of us and then die in
our place. There is the picture of our
Lord, stumbling up the hill of Golgotha,
buckling beneath the weight of the suffering
that lies ahead, castigated and cursed by
His very own, lashed, beaten and bloodied so
that we didn’t have to be! In 2 Corinthians
9:15, He is called the “indescribable gift”
of God.
2) Giving is
an attitude of grace: an inner joy and inner
peace, rather than a particular amount.
{Cf. 2 Corinthians 9:7} Paul’s instruction
to the Corinthians in the matter of grace
giving was that, “Each one [hekastos- each
and every one] must {do} just as he has
purposed in his heart [word ‘purposed’
means- choose for oneself, determine,
decide; ‘heart’ is obviously kardia- right
lobe of / mentality, where man does his
thinking, and hence his application of
doctrine], not grudgingly [not reluctantly;
from ek- ‘out of,’ and lupe- ‘pain, sorrow,
grief;’ lit., ‘out of distress of mind’] or
under compulsion [ananke denotes ‘a
necessity imposed by either external
circumstances or internal pressure;’ it
refers to any form of coercion, whether
mental {desire to appease God for personal
sin instead of utilizing 1 Jn. 1:9}
or emotional
{guilt trip that someone has laid on you}];
[then comes / pr.] for God loves a cheerful
giver [i.e., one who gives gladly; a joyous
and gracious giver].”
3) In order to
meet the definition of ‘grace,’ giving must
originate from freedom. What this means is
the exercise of freewill apart from
coercion, emotional manipulation, or
legalistic pressure. Giving is an
expression of our royal priesthood, and
therefore, requires both privacy and
volition. These are essential elements of
freedom.
4) Giving is a
privilege of grace. Paul in 2 Corinthians
8:4 say’s, the Macedonians were “begging
us with much urging for the favor of
participation in the support of the
saints.” That word “favor” is magnificent;
it refers to a privilege extended to the
believer by God’s grace. This is something
that the legalist, because of his
preoccupation with his own
self-righteousness and his own human good,
will never understand.
5) Giving
begins in the soul, the soul saturated with
grace. Why? Because grace is the attitude
of gratitude; and those who have a sincere
appreciation for the “God of all grace” and
everything He provides, have a burning
desire to give freely and generously, to
pour something of themselves back into His
plan.
By utilizing
divine power and divine provision, the
believer executes divine protocol. Thus,
when he gives, divine good is produced. The
actual gift itself is not what is most
important; the condition of the soul is what
counts the most.
6) There are
two motivating factors behind grace giving:
[1] Bible doctrine; and [2] spiritual love—
2 Corinthians 8:7-8. With application of
the Word to life comes spiritual love, which
in turn motivates giving in grace. Here’s
what the relationship between giving and
consistency in the spiritual conflict looks
like:
a. Christian
giving is a result of stability in the
Spiritual Life. So is joy, by the way—
Philippians 4:1-4.
b. Stability
comes through the preparation and practice
of faith. Study the Word and apply the
Word, that is the path to progress. This is
the journey of life, not a one-shot jolt in
a moment of time!
c. Therefore,
giving is a natural extension of our
consistency in the Word of God {both
comprehension and application}. 2
Corinthians 8:8 reveals something else: that
giving is a test of the believer’s love for
Christ. Remember this principle: Law
obligates, but love motivates. The key to
the Macedonians’ giving, from which Paul
draws his illustration for the Corinthians,
was their love for other believers. Another
principle: The act of giving is a
reflection of the spiritual wealth in your
soul.
7) Our giving
depends on our grace orientation. And grace
orientation depends on understanding the
divine viewpoint, on understanding God’s way
of operating and relating that operation to
the Spiritual Life. This means realizing
that: [1] Grace is the policy of God toward
man; [2] that God perpetually gives because
grace characterizes Him;
and [3] since
grace belongs to Him, giving belongs to
Him. Therefore, when you give the ‘grace
way,’ you give in God’s way! You are
demonstrating that you both understand and
appreciate the way He operates. Giving is
not designed to get something from God;
giving is designed to express something you
already have from God— grace. If you have
been ‘graced out,’ believer, if you have
been given grace in abundance, then it makes
sense to give with that ‘attitude of
abundance.’
8) Money given
in the service of Christ must be
administered responsibly— 2 Corinthians
8:19-24. There are no exceptions to this
rule. We who are in positions of authority
must be wise and conscientious in the
administration of what has been given in
grace. Believers are trusting that the seed
they sow will be used by God to further His
plan and glorify Himself; they are also
trusting that those to whom it has been
turned over will do just that! Believers
who are involved in the administration of
money must be well-minded, well-motivated,
and spiritually mature.
9) The
influence and empowerment of the Spirit of
God is required for giving with proper
motivation. Carnality had hindered the
Corinthians from completing their offering
for the believers in Jerusalem. Paul’s
desire in 2 Corinthians 9:3 is that they be
“prepared” spiritually, and finish this
offering, so that his “boasting” about them
might not be in vain. All giving demands
that we be back on the ‘field of fellowship’
with God. Otherwise, true motivation is
impossible.
10) Giving done
in grace is divine good; and divine good is
always motivated by the Word of God and the
will of God. Much of the giving done today
falls under human good, which is motivated
by coercion, emotion, guilt, shame, peer
pressure, or a desire for prestige,
approbation and applause.
11) God in grace
provides everything for giving: both the
attitude and the means. In order to
actually give the believer must be the
recipient of blessing from God, both
spiritual and material. 2 Corinthians 9:6
tells us, that “he who sows sparingly will
also reap sparingly, and he who sows
bountifully will also reap bountifully [‘ /
bounty of divine blessing’].” The believer
who is growing spiritually through his
intake and application of both grace and
truth, will always have the resources with
which to give. It may not be a lot, it may
not be an exorbitant amount, but there will
always be something.
12) God has not
promised us great material blessings or
fabulous wealth. What He supplies is enough
for you and I to fulfill His plan for our
lives and to express our grace orientation
by giving in freedom and generosity. To the
Philippians Paul said, “my God will supply
all your needs according to His riches in
glory in Christ Jesus,” 4:19. {Back to
Phil. 4}
2. V. 11 says,
“For I have learned to be content....” In
this v. Paul uses one of the favorite terms
of the Greco-Roman philosophers. It is a
compound word from autos, meaning- ‘self;’
and arkeo- ‘be sufficient, be satisfied, be
strong enough;’ it has a number of little
nuances along these lines. The adj.
au)ta/rkhj
(autarkes) means- self sufficient, self
supplied; independent of external
circumstances. Autarkeia, this
‘self-sufficiency,’ was the ultimate goal of
the Stoic philosophers.
The Stoics used
the word autarkeia to signify a state of
mind that did not depend on other people and
a state of mind that did not depend on
circumstance. They believed that this was
the highest achievement you could attain in
life: to come to the point where you were
completely unaffected by things around you.
This, in their eyes, was the only way that
you could be truly free and truly
independent.
A. In the
ancient world, you had two basic avenues of
philosophy: the Epicurean and the Stoic.
These were the two major schools of thought.
1) The
Epicurean philosophy was basically ‘live and
let live.’ The Epicureans were the ones who
said, “Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for
tomorrow we die.” Paul quotes them in 1
Corinthians 15:32. Their attitude was: God
gave us these desires and these pleasures.
And we have the means to satisfy them, so,
why not live it up? There is a measure of
truth to that; did not God give us all
things richly to enjoy? Indeed He has; but
the Epicureans took the privileges, rights,
and resources of life, and rejected the
responsibilities. This evil lead to another
evil: {evil in attitude leading to evil in
action} an evil lifestyle. This viewpoint
of licentiousness— the ‘do your own thing,’
gratify yourself at all costs mentality—
leads to a lifestyle of lawlessness. The
Epicureans, then, gloried in
self-gratification.
2) Now, the
Stoics took a different path. They focused
not on self-gratification as the supposed
path to peace, happiness, and contentment,
but on self-denial. Stoicism took the
responsibilities of life, imposed them
rigidly on man, and rejected the God-given
rights and freedoms. The Stoics believed
that through self-denial man could reach the
point of autarkeia— complete
self-sufficiency. By autarkeia the Stoics
meant a state of mind in which man was
completely independent of all people and all
things, a state of complete independence
from the tyranny of circumstances, from the
influence and dominion of what happens
around us in life. They believed that there
were certain steps one could take that would
lead him into self-sufficiency. The Stoic
pursued this goal in three different ways.
When asked how one achieved ‘contentment,’
they set forth three propositions to this
effect.
a. They said
that you must eliminate desire. You
must banish desire. The Stoics believed,
and rightfully so, that happiness and
contentment resided not in possessing more,
but in wanting less. Epicurus the Greek
philosopher was once asked the secret to
happiness; his reply was, “Add not to a
man’s possessions, but take away from his
desires.” Socrates said that the wealthiest
man is “he who is content with least.”
This position,
at least, is based upon a foundation of
truth. Our Lord Himself said in Luke 12:15,
as He prepared to teach the Parable of the
Rich Man, that life does not “consist of…
possessions.” That’s a truth which needs to
be screamed by the Spirit of God into the
souls of believers today! Christ was
teaching His disciples this principle on a
much deeper plane. He was teaching it not
as the banishment of things or of their
proper use in life, but of the greed and
preoccupation with these things. Life is
not about what you have, believer, or what
you own; life is about who you are!
Therefore, we should be on constant guard
against the greed and lust of materialism.
{Cf. Luke 12:16-21} The Stoics believed
that the only way to achieve contentment was
to abolish all desire, to come to the point
where you did not need anyone or anything.
b. They said
that you must eliminate emotion. This was
the second step. Now that you’ve banished
desire, you’ve come to the point where you
don’t want anything, but the possibility
still exists that you might lose something
you already have. So, you must suppress
emotion until you come to the point where
you don’t care what happens to yourself or
anyone else. Modern psychology has a name
for that, it’s called ‘psychotic.’ Reality
would look at that as someone who is
seriously unbalanced in the soul: either
overwhelmingly self-absorbed, which defines
the majority of Gen-Xers and Millenniers, or
aggressively antisocial.
Epictetus was a
Roman slave who lived from 55-135 AD; he was
very famous as a Stoic philosopher in the 1st
and 2nd cents. He devised a plan
to banish emotion from the life. {explain}
The aim of Stoicism was to abolish feeling
and emotion. You say, “Well, that’s not an
entirely bad idea.” No, it’s not. But it
would destroy a part of what makes us
uniquely human, what separates us from the
lower order of creation. You know what
you’ve done here? You’ve come to the point
where you’ve deadened the soul. T.R. Glover
said, “The Stoics made the heart a desert,
and called it peace.”
c. They
believed that these two things, the
elimination of desire and emotion, could be
accomplished by a deliberate act of volition
which saw in every circumstance and
occurrence of life the will of God. It was
a subordination of your will to the will of
God. But not knowing what the will of God
was, it was a step taken in ignorance.
Remember what Paul said about the Jews in
Romans 10:2? “They have a zeal for God, but
not in accordance with knowledge.” Keep in
mind that the Stoic is not making a
distinction between the sovereign will of
God, the permissive will of God, and the
overruling will of God. To them the will of
God was simply the outworking of fate; and
everything was determined by fate long
before you were born. Their principle is
one of fatalism. And fatalism is basically
the belief that absolutely nothing in life
happens which is not the will of God.
However painful, however disastrous, however
horrible, everything has been predestined,
pre-determined and foreordained by the will
of God. The only thing left for man to do
is to ‘live with it.’
When you take
that point of view, not recognizing the
co-existence of the sovereign will of God
and the freewill of man in every situation
of human history, you come to believe that
life is useless, life is futile, and hence,
you must harden yourself into simply
accepting whatever it is that happens.
{example of T.E. Lawrence: ‘Nothing is
written.’} Our decisions do indeed affect
history; we have the God-given ability to
determine the outcome of certain things.
The Stoic would argue and say, “No, that’s
not true. Whatever happens was determined
to happen, and that’s all there is to it.
Therefore, we must subordinate our will to
the winds of fate, and then accept its
outcome.” But Paul says, “We must
subordinate ourselves to the will of God, as
it is revealed to us through the Word of
God, and then execute it with our own
volition.” Therein lies true contentment.
To achieve what
they called ‘contentment,’ an absolute
self-sufficiency, the Stoics abolished all
desire, eliminated all emotion, and took a
fatalistic approach to everything in life.
And in the end, love was separated from
life, and caring was forbidden. That sounds
marvelous, doesn’t it? Let me ask you: Who
wants to run down and join the local
Stoicism Chapter, the latest Stoics-R-Us
support group? Just remember the one thing
you can’t count on from them in time of
crisis, is support!
B. The apostle
Paul, recognizing that there is an element
of truth in both Epicureanism and Stoicism,
said none-the-less, “Because of the extremes
of your positions, the inherent imbalance
between them, you’re both wrong.” Then he
proceeds to tell us why. We can see at once
the difference between Paul and the Stoics.
The Stoic said, “I will learn contentment by
self-discipline and self-denial;” Paul said,
“I learned it by looking at life through the
eyes of Christ, by trusting that through
Christ I can overcome anything.” For the
Stoic contentment was about human
achievement; for Paul contentment was about
divine enablement. The Stoic was
self-sufficient, but Paul was
Christ-sufficient. Where Stoicism failed,
Christianity succeeds. And why? Because
the one who lives and breathes his Savior on
a moment by moment basis can conquer
anything! There is a phenomenal power
unleashed in our lives when we are
single-mindedly focused on the Son of God,
when we are occupied with the Person of
Jesus Christ.
3. Paul tells
the Philippians that he had learned to be
content in any and every situation in which
he found himself; whether prosperous or
adverse it made no difference. Listen to v.
12: “I know how to get along with humble
means, and I also know how to live in
prosperity; in any and every circumstance I
have learned the secret....” That little
word “secret” speaks of personal insight and
privileged information granted to a select
few; mue/w
(mueo) was a technical term used in the
Greek mystery religions. The noun mustes
referred to an initiate, someone to whom the
secrets of the mystery had just been
revealed; the verb mueo means- initiate into
the mysteries.
A. Here mueo is
found in the perf. pass. ind.
1) The
pass. voice means Paul received this
as God lead him down a path of
suffering and sacrifice in his
service to the King.
2) The perf.
tense indicates that he had learned this
secret in the past with the result that it
was now a part of every aspect and
experience of his spiritual life.
3) The ind.
mood being the mood of reality, it shows us
that there is no question as to whether this
was true in Paul’s life. There is not an
ounce of doubt as to whether Paul had put
this lesson into practice.
B. Paul had
learned this lesson, how? Because he’d done
it, he’d experienced it. He hadn’t just
talked about it or bragged about it, he’d
actually put it to the test in his own
life. And guess what he found? It worked;
and in the same way that it worked for him
it will work for you and I, not just once or
twice or every now and then, but every time,
in every situation, in every circumstance of
life! When you hear believers saying,
“Doctrine doesn’t work!,” you had better
recognize the inherent attitude of arrogance
behind that unholy pronouncement. It’s not
that Doctrine doesn’t work, it’s that you
don’t work the Doctrine!
The apostle Paul
learned through rigorous preparation, he
knew how because he lead a spiritual life
that was and is too demanding for most
Christians. It expects nothing, yet demands
everything— body, soul, and spirit— which is
more than they’re willing to give.
They could never
live a life like Paul’s, nor could they walk
a mile in his shoes, because in the
‘arrogance of ignorance’ which prevails
in this generation they would do one of two
things: try to face it in the energy of the
flesh; or turn tail and run. Both of these
options are inefficient, ineffective, and
disastrous to the Spiritual Life.
The situation in
Christianity today is no different than it
was in the 1st cent. Believers
are saying, not so much in word as in deed—
by their lifestyles, their rejection of the
Word, and their disdain for anyone who
teaches it— that, “The Spiritual Life is
just too demanding. It demands too much of
my time; it demands too much faithfulness on
my part; it demands too much honesty about
self; it demands too much orientation to
reality. I prefer my fantasy-land of
unreality and denial.” Essentially, what
they’re saying is that there’s too much
focus on Christ and not enough on self!
How’s that for self-absorption? {Cf. report
on ‘unchurched believers’}
C. But not
Paul; Paul had discovered the mystery “of
being filled and going hungry, both of
having abundance and suffering need.” Note
the extremes here. There are three sets of
contrasts in this v.: poverty vs.
prosperity; hunger vs. fullness; abundance
vs. necessity. And not one of them was able
to derail the progress of the apostle Paul.
Paul was not just a man of vision, he was a
man of action; and progress, ‘divine
momentum,’ was the hallmark of his life.
4. We’re going
to begin Philippians 4:13 with some detailed
exegesis, because this v. is just that
important, this passage of Scripture is
crucial to our understanding of the
Spiritual Life. Paul gives us the secret in
this v., that one key to contentment in the
Christian life. It is to live a life of
faith that claims moment by moment and day
by day like the apostle Paul: “I can do all
things through Him who strengthens
me.” “Him” who? In context, if we go back
to v. 10 we see that it’s “the Lord.” We
know immediately that Jesus Christ is the
Source of divine supply that Paul is
speaking of in this passage.
A. In the
breakdown of this v. from its original
syntax, we start with panta. Panta is the
neut. pl. of the adj.
pa+j
(pas), meaning- any, every, all. Pas
indicates the entire scope of something,
everything that can be considered in a
particular context. According to Arndt &
Gingrich’s Greek-English Lexicon, the pl.
panta means- “all things, everything, in the
absolute sense.” {p. 632} Does this give
you any idea of how phenomenal Paul’s faith
was? Does this communicate to us, in any
way, just how majestic the measure of God’s
might is when we apply this principle in the
power of the Spirit? This v. is the ‘prayer
of Jabez’ for the Church Age believer! You
want a passage that unlocks the power of God
in your life? This is it.
B. The second
word is i)sxu/w (ischuo); ischuo is the verb used for ‘might’ or ‘power’
or ‘force’ which is not hidden but on
display, active and alive, out in the open.
It means- be powerful, have strength to
overcome. This is the omnipotence of God as
demonstrated by incredible accomplishments
in the lives of believers, by extraordinary
deeds of faith, like those mentioned in
Hebrews 11.
The form is 1st
sg., which Paul uses for himself, but which
we can take as our own personal pr. in
application. Ischuo is a pres. act. ind.
We have: the pres. tense, which is constant
and continual action— action in progress;
the act. voice, showing Paul exercising his
volition;
and the ind.
mood as a brilliant statement of reality, of
faith, and of sound doctrine. We might say,
“I am possessing {or, ‘I possess
continually, I possess constantly, I possess
daily’} sufficient strength and overcoming
power!”
C. Next, we
have the preposition
e)/n
(en) plus the masc. instr. sg. of the def.
art., which can be translated either
“through Him,” or “by means of Him.” The
instr. case shows the means by which
something is accomplished, and hence, the
translation “by means of Him.”
D. The verb
e)ndunamo/w
(endunamoo) is found in its participial
form, being in the same case, gender and
number as the article. It is a pres. act.
part., what’s called a ‘causative’ in the
Greek, showing the Lord Jesus Christ not
only as the Source of divine power but as
the One who endues us with His strength, the
One who pours His power into us! What we
lack, He fills; for our weakness, our
frailty, our incapacity and inability, there
is divine strength available. All we have
to do is believe it! This raises two
questions:
1) Do
you believe what Jesus said in John
15:5, that “apart from Me you can do
nothing”? He didn’t say the
small things, or the little things,
or a few things, He said “nothing”—
emphasizing the frailty of human
power when measured against the will
of God, and the total inadequacy of
self-reliance.
2) Do
you believe what the apostle Paul is
telling us right here in this v.?
Here is the positive side of
Christ’s principle in John 15.
Jesus said, “Without my power,
resource and provision, you can do
nothing!;” Paul said, “With it, I
can do anything!”
Dunamis, by the
way, is dynamic spiritual power, explosive
power. We have two fantastic words for
‘power’ in this v.: omnipotence on display
and explosive spiritual power!
5. I want you
to see the progression here, because there
is a process of development in these last
three vv.
A. Paul begins
with the phrase, “I have learned,” because
instruction is the foundation of everything
else in the Christian Life. The kind of
learning he’s talking about here can be done
in only one place— the arena of life.
Manthano, {a word related to the term for a
‘disciple,’ mathetes} in v. 11 means- ‘learn
by use and practice, learn by experience.’
Paul learned from all the various conditions
he found himself in and from all the
circumstances which surrounded him because
he used the Word which he had stored up in
his soul. There is a lesson for us here:
Life is an excellent teacher if we
are perceptive students.
B. We move
from ‘learning’ to ‘knowing,’ which is a
natural progression. Twice in v. 12 he
says, “I know.” Oida
oi)=da,
the term used here, refers to knowledge held
in the present because it was learned in the
past. Oida is the strongest Greek word for
‘knowledge.’ This is beyond gnosis, which
is perception; beyond epignosis, which is
full knowledge, or faith perception. Oida
is experiential knowledge, i.e., you don’t
just know it and you haven’t just believed
it, you have experienced it. You’ve ‘been
there, done that,’ faced the crisis and
applied the doctrine.
How did Paul
know how to be in need and how to have
plenty, “how to get along with humble means
and ...how to live in prosperity.” He knew
because in the midst of trial, temptation,
testing and adversity he had taken the Word
of God out of the storehouse of the soul and
put it into practice. Therefore, “he knew
with a perfect knowledge, an absolute
understanding which comes only from an
application of the Word to the circumstances
of life.” The principle: Flexibility is
developed by having to adjust to changes in
life.
C. Finally, in
v. 13 we come to one of the boldest and most
aggressive statements of doctrine ever made:
lit., “I can do all things— no matter what
that entails or includes— by means of the
One who keeps on infusing His strength into
me, who keeps on pouring His dynamic power
through me!” Get this principle down:
Flexibility produces power. That is true in
golf; it is true in the martial arts; and
it’s true in the Spiritual Life. And if
there’s one thing this passage illustrates,
it’s spiritual flexibility as the outworking
of spiritual contentment. Can you make this
declaration in your own life, believer? Can
you claim this principle by faith for every
problem, for every heartache, for every
crisis, catastrophe, letdown or disaster?
I’m challenging you to make this v. and what
it teaches a part of the discipline of your
daily life, to bring it into experiential
reality in your own life. Not just
tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day,
but every day and in every adverse situation
from here on out— until the Rapture of the
Body!
D. The
progression is this: We learn, which
develops knowledge; and from knowledge comes
ability, the ability to flex. From
flexibility, then, comes power. We need to
get five points on the ‘process of
development.’
1) Spiritual
flexibility begins with personal
contentment— v. 11.
2) Contentment
demands character, and character comes
through trial— Romans 5:3-5. In that
passage Paul said, “we ...exult [‘we glory’]
in our tribulations, knowing that
tribulation brings about perseverance; and
perseverance, proven character; and
proven character, hope; and hope [confident,
absolute assurance in / plan and power of
God] does not disappoint....”
3) From inner
contentment comes adaptability— v. 12.
‘Adaptability’ is defined in Webster’s New
World Dictionary of the American Language as
the ability ‘to adjust oneself to new or
changed circumstances.’ I.e., we’re no
longer intimidated by changes in
circumstance or situation. The issue is no
longer what we have, but who we are. {Cf. 1
Timothy 6:6-11}
Paul begins v. 6
with the principle, that “godliness [there
is a hermeneutical pr. employed by /
Reformers that separated them from /
arrogance of / Catholic Church, / pr. that
Scripture interprets Scripture, i.e., that /
Bible is its own greatest commentary; cf. 1
Tim. 4:7-8 and I’ll show you an example:
Paul said ‘…discipline yourself for the
purpose of godliness {same word- eusebeia;
this is spiritual discipline in / Christian
life}; for bodily discipline {running,
working out, exercising, dieting} is only of
little profit {while they have a definite
benefit, it is strictly temporal}, but
godliness {or more accurately,
‘spirituality’} is profitable for all
things, since it holds promise for the
present life {blessing in time, joy in /
soul, and stability in adversity} and for
the (life) to come { / riches of reward
beyond anything you can imagine in
eternity};’ back to ch. 6 for / pr.—
‘godliness,’
which is / function and outworking of
spirituality] is a means of great
gain [and what’s / condition?] when
accompanied by contentment [there it
is: autarkeia- a soul that is satisfied with
its place in Christ, His cause, and
therefore, in life; we would call this not
self-sufficiency, but Christ-sufficiency].
For we have brought nothing into the world,
so we cannot take anything out of it either
[that’s for certain, my friend; if we
haven’t learned at least that one lesson yet
in human history, then we are / blindest of
/ blind; even / government recognizes this:
by / inheritance tax— which is a tax on /
inevitable, your death— they’re saying, ‘You
can’t take it with you, so you might as well
give it to us!’]. If we have food
[diatrophe means- ‘sustenance,’ a sufficient
supply of nourishment] and covering [this
could be either clothing or a roof over your
head], with these we shall be content [‘with
these we shall be satisfied;’ try teaching
that to your kids after spoiling them rotten
for / first ten yrs. of their lives, after
catering to their every whim and
capitulating to their every desire; try
teaching them this as a parent after you’ve
enslaved yourself to their selfishness].
But those [Paul say’s] who want to get
rich fall into temptation and a snare
and many foolish and harmful desires
which plunge men into ruin and
destruction [he’s talking about / danger
that awaits those who desire wealth at any
cost and by any means]. For the love of
money is a root of all sorts of evil [not
‘money’ or finances or / use of those
things, but / ‘love of money,’ i.e., /
craving for it, / lust for it, / inordinate
ambition for money and what it buys], and
some by longing for it have wandered away
from the Faith [‘from / path of sound
Doctrine and / discipline of application’]
and pierced themselves with many griefs
[Prov. 28:20 says, ‘A faithful man will
abound with blessings, but he who makes
haste to be rich will not go unpunished.’].
But flee from these things you man of God,
and pursue righteousness, godliness
[‘spiritual enablement and empowerment,’
which is how righteousness becomes a reality
in experience], faith, love, perseverance
[which is divine endurance] {and} gentleness
[which is humility, or ‘power under
control’],” vv. 7-11. “Flee” and “pursue”
are both lifestyle commands in the act.
voice. That means that we must keep on
doing this, not just today or tomorrow, but
throughout the entirety of our Christian
lives. We must seek refuge and escape in
the Word from the arrogance of materialism
and money-lust, from a preoccupation with
things as the source of happiness in life,
and we must give ourselves diligently to
spiritual pursuit— a desire, a longing, and
a love for what has lasting impact in the
will of God.
4)
Adaptability produces a tremendous power in
our lives— v. 13. From inner strength comes
outer dynamics; but all of this comes from
the one Priority of life, Jesus Christ.
5) God’s power
and ability are channeled through our
availability.
6. There are
five simple steps in the process of becoming
spiritually flexible. These are levels of
growth, not just phases that you grow out of
one day, because you don’t leave them behind
as you move on, you bring each one with you
into the next.
A. You are,
first of all, available. In Matthew 22:14
Jesus told the Pharisees, “many are called,
but few {are} chosen.” It’s those who make
themselves available in the plan of God who
find true intimacy with the Person of Jesus
Christ.
B. Then
secondly, teachable— willing to be taught—
which requires humility.
C. Third,
adaptable. Sun Tzu was a Chinese warrior
and philosopher who lived about a hundred
years before the birth of Christ.
Commenting on the ‘Art of Strategy’ he
wrote, “Those who are victorious plan
effectively and change decisively. They are
like a great river that maintains its course
but adjusts its flow.… They have form but
are formless. They are skilled in both
planning and adapting and need not fear the
result of a thousand battles; for they win
in advance, defeating those that have
already lost.”
D. Fourth,
stable. This is soundness, solidity,
sturdiness of soul.
E. And fifth,
invincible. This is genuine maturity in
every area of life. The spiritually mature
believer reflects the glory and majesty of
his Hero, the Lord Jesus Christ, by being
firm but fair; wise yet willing… to reach
out, to expand and explore, to new things,
new options, new avenues, especially when
the old ones don’t work {and probably never
did}; unbending in character
but flexible in nature, i.e., he is rigid on
the absolutes, gracious on the
non-essentials.
What does it say
in our passage? “I can do all things [not
some, not a few, but all] through Him who
strengthens me,” through the God who keeps
on infusing His strength, His power, His
ability, into me! Keep in mind the
principle we studied in vv. 8-9: Potential
+ Capacity = Reality: P + C = R.
‘Potential’ exists, in the form of equal
opportunity and equal privilege for every CA
believer, from the moment of salvation;
‘capacity’ is a result of our progress in
the plan of God. When you bring the two
together, you have ‘reality.’
In Conclusion
The thing we
should note is that there is a parallel
between the five OT Hebrew words for ‘faith’
and the five levels of spiritual power.
This is important precisely because Paul
uses the verb forms of both dunamis and
ischus in Philippians 4:13.
1. The
first is
}amf)
aman. Moses uses it in Genesis 15:6 when he
say’s, that Abram “believed in the LORD; and
He [‘ / Lord’] reckoned [credited, imputed]
it to him as righteousness.” Remember that
aman is beginning faith. Each of these
words was designed to draw a mental picture
for the Hebrew people, and aman means- lean
on for support. In the Qal stem it draws a
very beautiful word-picture of a helpless
child being supported by the strong arms of
the parent. This equates to the first level
of power, and the first level of power is
du/namij
(dunamis)- divine enablement. God enables
us. As we learn to lean on Him moment by
moment, day by day, in every situation He
enables us.
2. The
second Hebrew word is
xa+fB
batach, which means- trust, have confidence
in, be bold and secure. The application in
our spiritual lives of 1 Peter 5:7 is the
casting of all our cares upon the Lord, and
that brings us into a new realm of power.
This level of power is
e)nergh/j
(energes)- operative power, functional
spiritual power. Energes shows that you’re
now beginning to function properly in the
spiritual realm. God has enabled you
because you’ve leaned on Him; now you’re
beginning to use that enablement and to
advance in your faith.
So, what comes
next? Well, now we’re going to be tested in
regard to that power.
3. The
third word is
hfsfx
chasah. Chasah draws the picture of a
rabbit fleeing into the cleft of a rock to
escape from the wolf; this is the faith of
refuge. David often spoke of taking
“refuge” in the Lord. We would call this
fuller development of faith, ‘faith-rest.’
The corresponding Greek word for power is
kra/toj
(kratos); and kratos is- ruling power, or
ruling authority. It speaks of having a
firm grasp on the principles, promises and
doctrines of the Word of God. You have such
a firm grasp, such a secure hold on the
principles and promises of the Word of God,
that you’re able to faith-rest and to find
that refuge in times of difficulty and
disaster, in times of pain and adversity.
4. The
fourth word for faith is yachal
laxfy
- trust in extreme pain, trust in
suffering. We find that the further we
advance in the spiritual realm, the more
pain we go through. We discover that what
Solomon said is true, “in much wisdom there
is much grief, and increasing knowledge
{results in} increasing pain,” Ecclesiastes
1:18. Why? Because the more you learn and
grasp by faith, the more you’re accountable
for; and the greater the accountability, the
greater the testing.
Yachal was a
word which originally meant ‘to apply a
field dressing to a wound in battle.’ This
is the type of faith that heals the injuries
that spiritual heroes obtain in their
advance. My question is: How good are you
at being spiritually self-sustaining? How
proficient are you at being able to handle
and heal your own wounds? Are you still
leaning on someone else as your crutch? Are
you still relying on someone else to make
decisions for you in the heat of battle; or
do you simply throw up your hands when life
wounds you and say, “I don’t understand why
this happens?” This is the kind of faith
Job displayed in Job 13:15 when he said,
“Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.”
This, of course,
parallels another Greek word for power,
e)cousi/a
(exousia). Exousia is ‘capability, might;’
it’s the kind of power that a ruler would
exercise, i.e., official power,
authoritative power. This is the power that
has tremendous authority in life. When you
come to the point in your spiritual growth
where you can take the blows that life
throws at you and instead of running to
someone else, instead of leaning on someone
else, instead of becoming a casualty or
retaliating against others with bitterness
and vindictiveness, you simply take the
blow, you handle it, you trust in the Word
through the pain, you have found exousia.
When you can face these things and keep
right on forging a path in your spiritual
advance, you are a believer who is beginning
to display the magnificent authority of the
Word of God!
5.
Finally, we have that greatest of words for
faith,
hfwfq
qavah. This is the word used in Isaiah
40:31 of “those who wait for the LORD.” It
is the strongest of all these five Hebrew
words. Qavah means- wait for in eagerness,
be strong; qavah carries within it the idea
of tremendous endurance.
A. And this
relates to the word
i/sxuj
(ischus), meaning- inherent strength, might
or power. Ischus could be said to be a
‘display of omnipotence.’ What does the
concept of omnipotence mean? It means ‘all
powerful.’ How did the Lord reveal Himself
to Abraham in Genesis 17:1? As “God
Almighty”— El Shadday— the omnipotent God.
Just a few years later God is going to
demand something of Abraham that is utterly
impossible to imagine. God is going to test
Abraham in such a way that only one who
possesses complete trust in the omnipotence
of God could pass,
only one who is
willing to stand back and allow Him to
demonstrate His omnipotence through them.
To Abraham He said, “Take …your son, your
only son whom you love, Isaac, and go to the
land of Moriah, and offer him there as a
burnt offering...,” Genesis 22:2. Abraham
had the faith of a spiritual hero, the faith
of a friend of God.
Ischus, you’ll
remember, is the word Paul used in
Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things,”
anything, everything, “through Him who
strengthens me.” Does that give you any
idea of how far Paul had to come in his own
spiritual growth? Does that explain to you
just a little bit about Paul’s development
in the plan of God?
B. Paul’s life
illustrates another principle: T + F = I.
It’s not only Potential + Capacity =
Reality, but also T + F = I. What is that?
Teachability: if we remain teachable, and
you add to that flexibility you will develop
spiritual invincibility. Teachability +
Flexibility = Invincibility. Paul was
teachable; he said, “I’ve learned.” Paul
was flexible; he said, “I know how. You can
starve me, you can beat me, you can expose
me to the elements, you can harass and
persecute me, you can stone me, you can do
whatever you want, I’m flexible!” Paul
said, “I can adapt, improvise, and
overcome!” This is the kind of man the
apostle Paul was; you couldn’t stop him.
C. I want you
to understand that if we claim a level of
growth, if we say, “I’m at such and such a
level,” God will test us at that level.
Let’s see if we can illustrate this from the
life of Peter.
1) In John
13:8 Peter said to Jesus, “Never shall You
wash my feet!,” to which Jesus replied, “If
I do not wash you, you have no part with Me
[‘no place with Me;’ Jesus is speaking of
fellowship, communion].” Our Lord tested
him to that degree of humility. Peter
failed.
2) Test number
two: Peter claimed to be a man of great
spiritual vigilance. He thought of himself
as the watchdog of everyone else. In
Matthew 26:38 Jesus said to Peter, James and
John, “My soul is deeply grieved to the
point of death; remain here and keep watch
with Me.” What He was saying was, “I’m
under phenomenal spiritual strain, enormous
pressure. I need you to pray for me.”
Before He’d walked ten steps away they were
all fast asleep. V. 40 says, that “He came
to the disciples and found them sleeping,
and said to Peter, ‘So, you could not keep
watch with Me for one hour?’” Peter
flunked!
3) In the area
of courage no one boasted more than Peter.
There are numerous passages here. Mark
14:29-30 cf. w / Mark 14:66-72; what do you
see? Arrogance and failure. Cf. Matthew
26:33-35 w / vv. 69-75; and Luke 22:33-34 w
/ vv. 54-62. You know the story. Jesus
said, “Peter, the rooster will not crow
today until you have denied three times that
you know Me,” Luke 22:34.
Matthew records
in ch. 26 and v. 31 how Jesus told the
entire group, “You will all fall away
because of Me this night, for it is written,
‘I will strike down the Shepherd and the
sheep of the flock shall be scattered.’
...But Peter answered and said to Him,
{‘Even} though all may fall away
because of You, I will never fall away.’
Jesus said to him, ‘Truly I say to you that
this {very} night, before a rooster crows
you will deny Me three times.’ Peter said
to Him, ‘Even if I have to die with You, I
will not deny You...,’” Matthew 26:31-35.
Let me give you
the Rev. Ric modern translation. Jesus
say’s, “Tonight, every one of you will turn
and betray me.” Peter answers, “Lord, I can
see how you’d say that to the rest of them,
gutless cowards that they are; but not me
Lord, I’ll never do it!” Yet he did it to a
worse degree than anyone else. He failed
the test of courage.
4) In the
sphere of love, who boasted to love Christ
more than Peter? No one. So, in John
21:15-19 Jesus put him to the test. This
time he even told him the test ahead of
time. Three times He said, “Peter, do you
love Me?” Three times Peter responded with,
“You know I love You.” Now we know that
Peter was saying, “Lord, I phileo you, I
love you as a friend. Lord, I have great
rapport and compatibility with you, but not
an unconditional and sacrificial love for
you, not agape.” Nevertheless Jesus told
him what the test was. “Peter, since you
say that you love me, from this point
forward til the day you die, tend My lambs,
shepherd My sheep, you care for the flock!
Peter, you follow Me, you remain faithful
even unto death!” That test Peter passed,
and I’ll tell you why. There’s an old
saying, “Good judgment usually comes out of
bad decisions.” In fact, Gen. Omar Bradley
once said, “I learned that good judgment
comes from experience, and that experience
grows out of mistakes.”
A lot of the
tests you pass in life are the ones you’ve
learned how to pass through your failures.
You fall, and you get back up and drive on;
you fall, and you get back up and drive on;
you fall, and you get back up and you drive
on. As long as you’re alive and you haven’t
quit, you’re not a loser yet. There is a
principle here, and that is: You become a
loser the day you quit getting back up.
Peter’s life is a magnificent illustration
of this principle, and ours should be too.
“THE JOY OF
GIVING”
Philippians
4:14-19
(click here to view in
Word format)
Introduction
Paul said
in v. 10, “But I rejoiced in the Lord
greatly, that now at last you have revived
your concern for me
[ /
Philippians’ ‘concern’ was a spiritual
concern for Paul’s welfare and well-being;
they realized that while God could drop
everything Paul needed out of / sky and into
his hands, or send / ravens to feed and
provide for him as He had Elijah, He was
going to use them as channels of grace];
indeed, you were concerned {before}
[this shows
that they had been thinking about Paul for
some time, laboring in prayer over his
ministry, his welfare, and his spiritual
progress], but you lacked opportunity
[it wasn’t
lack of desire that kept them from sending
something before this, it was simply a lack
of ‘opportunity’].”
So God presented the “opportunity”
of grace, and they had filled that need with
His provision of grace.
In 1
Corinthians 12:25-26 the apostle Paul laid
out the spiritual ideal for the function of
the Royal Family: “that there may be
no division in the body, but {that} the
members may have the same care for one
another. And if one member suffers, all the
members suffer with it
[he’s about
to tell them in v. 14, ‘you have done well
to share with me in my affliction’];
if {one} member is honored, all the members
rejoice with it.” Our passage in Philippians 4 is a living illustration of the harmony
pictured in 1 Corinthians 12.
We have a
parenthesis in vv. 11-13, a discourse on
spiritual contentment and how that path will
lead us, ultimately, to spiritual
invincibility. Then, in Philippians 4:14
Paul continues the thought begun in v. 10.
“Nevertheless, you have done well to
share {with me} in my affliction. You
yourselves also know, Philippians, that at
the first preaching of the gospel after I
left Macedonia
[in
Thessalonica and Berea: Acts 17], no
church shared with me in the matter of
giving and receiving but you alone
[this not
only shows / intimacy and closeness of
Paul’s relationship to / Philippian Church,
which was deeper than with any other church
in / 1st cent., but it teaches a
very vital principle about how God meets our
needs in / plan of grace; it also
demonstrates once again that it is a
privilege God extends to us to share, by way
of giving, prayer and efforts of
encouragement, in / service of others];
for even in Thessalonica
[which was
/ very next stop on / missions trail]
you sent {a gift} more than once for my
needs. Not that I seek the gift itself,”
he says, “but I seek for the profit
which increases to your account. But
[should be
translated ‘and;’ and] I have
received everything in full and have an
abundance; I am amply supplied, having
received from Epaphroditus what you have
sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable
sacrifice well-pleasing to God. And my God
will supply all your needs according to His
riches in glory in Christ Jesus,”
vv. 14-19.
This, as we saw
just a moment ago, is a section in vv. 14-19
that deals with meeting the needs of others
in the Body of Christ— a responsibility that
belongs to all of us, whether we take that
responsibility up by prayer or provision.
This passage accomplishes two things
beautifully, and I pray that our study of it
will bring those out: it reflects the glory
of grace; and it teaches the joy of giving.
Body
1. The word
translated “nevertheless” is the Greek adv.
plh/n
(plen), which is normally used at the
beginning of a sentence or clause as a
conjunction. One of the things it does is
break off a discussion in order to emphasize
what is crucial, what is most significant to
the mind of the reader. This is exactly
what Paul does in our passage: he turns to
what is one of the greatest evidences of
growth in grace— the attitude that desires
to give, and give generously, back to the
Source of grace.
In passages like
1 Corinthians 11:11, Ephesians 5:33, and
Philippians 3:16 plen seems to signify-
‘apart from this,’ or, ‘setting this aside’
for the moment. In those passages and ours
you can see the transition to something that
is highly important, a vital point or
principle of doctrine. There is no mistake
in the fact that this section comes right on
the heels of Paul’s magnificent statement in
v. 13. “Nevertheless [or, plen could be
translated here- in any case],” though I
possess a complete sufficiency for every
circumstance of life in Christ, and though I
can conquer and overcome anything this
conflict throws my way through the infusion
of His omnipotence, “you have done well to
share {with me} in my affliction.”
A. Sunkoinoneo
is a word that means- ‘share, partake, join
together with’ someone else; ‘participate
in’ something with that person.
B. “You have
done well.” The adv.
kalw=j
(kalos) represented to the Greeks what was
beautiful, noble, and honorable; ethically,
it speaks of ‘conduct that deserves
esteem.’ This, we might say, was a term of
honor among the warriors, the servers, and
the sacrificers of the early Church.
C.
“Affliction” comes from a word used
metaphorically for pressure and oppression,
the inevitable results of a child of God in
the Devil’s world. It’s a word we studied
in detail under the Doctrine of Stress. The
noun
qli=yij (thlipsis) means everything
from catastrophe, adversity and affliction,
to oppression, tribulation and disaster;’ it
is the suffering brought on by the outward
circumstances of life. This is a word often
used by Paul to describe what it’s like to
be right in the thick of the Battle, right
in the heart of the Conflict.
Ever seen real
adversity, believer? Have you ever felt
affliction and oppression; ever been under
intense pressure that you know is coming
from the enemy because you’re beginning to
gain momentum in your own spiritual
progress? The Philippians had; they had
seen affliction and persecution. And Paul
was essentially saying to this fantastic
spiritual unit, “You have done nobly by
partaking in my affliction; you have behaved
honorably on the Battlefield by
participating alongside me in the sufferings
of Christ.”
1) Remember
how he told them in 1:29, “For to you it has
been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to
believe in Him, but also to suffer
for” Him?
2) When
tribulation came upon the Thessalonians,
Paul not only wrote to them but sent Timothy
to strengthen and encourage them in their
faith. In light of the afflictions they
were under Paul said, “you yourselves know
that we have been destined for this.
For indeed when we were with you, we {kept}
telling you in advance that we were going to
suffer affliction; and so it came to pass,
as you know,” 1 Thessalonians 3:3-4. I.e.,
he said, “You’ve been forewarned.” And so
have we.
3) The writer
of Hebrews in 2:10 says, that it was fitting
for God “in bringing many sons to glory, to
perfect the Author of” our “salvation
through sufferings.”
If suffering is
what it took to bring Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, to the point of fulfillment in God’s
plan for His life, what does that say to you
and I? What will it take to kill the root
of arrogance in our lives, the preeminent
sins of self-centeredness and
self-direction? Pathema is a word used for
the ‘sufferings’ which believers must
undergo for the cause of Christ. If you
want what He has in store for you, this is
what your future looks like. {Cf. ‘Testing
of Spiritual Capacity’}
4) {Cf. 1
Peter 4} In 1 Peter 4:12-13 Peter said,
“Beloved [this, we know, is a term of
affection for other members of / Royal
Family], do not be surprised at the fiery
ordeal among you [ksenizo means- ‘be
surprised and astonished at / strangeness
and novelty of something;’ Peter’s saying,
‘If you’re going to walk the spiritual path,
you better get over that astonishment
fast!;’ ‘fiery ordeal’ is a rather
descriptive phrase for / ‘sufferings’ of
life, isn’t it?; remember / pr.: Heroes of
faith are forged in the fires of
adversity.], which comes upon you for
[what?] your testing [‘testing’ is where we
find proof— proof that our faith in / Word
of God is more real than / trials of
adversity], as though some strange thing
were happening to you [if you run your race
with endurance, I’ll guarantee it won’t be a
‘strange thing’]; but to the degree that you
share the sufferings of Christ, keep on
rejoicing [to ‘rejoice’ in / flames of
suffering is a divine prerogative, i.e.,
apart from Christ and / power of His Spirit,
we don’t have a prayer; it is impossible to
imagine suffering with celebration as an
unbeliever or in carnality], so that [this
tells us why] …at the revelation of His
glory [His appearance at / Rapture] you may
rejoice with exultation.” The last phrase
Peter uses here speaks of a joy that is
intensified beyond our wildest imagination.
This is the ‘joy of salvation’ David speaks
of so often in the Psalms {5:11; 16:11;
20:5-6; 51:12-14}. There’s only one way to
truly experience an everlasting celebration,
and that’s with a redeemed soul and a
resurrection body. The redeemed soul is
already ours; the resurrection body will
be at the Rapture.
2. Paul goes
on in v. 15 to mention, that “You …know,
Philippians, …at the first preaching of the
Gospel after I left Macedonia, no church
shared with me in the matter of giving and
receiving but you alone.” No other church
at that point in time had as direct an
involvement in his ministry as did the
Church at Philippi. This illustrates the
unique relationship he had with this group;
from no other church had he accepted
financial help. This is what irritated the
false teachers in Corinth, because they had
no grounds for a charge of any kind against
him— 2 Corinthians 11:7-13.
A. The phrase
“giving and receiving” shows that the
Philippians were committed to
supporting Paul in his ministry. We know
from vv. 15 and 18 that on at least three
occasions they sent to the apostle Paul
material goods and provisions to sustain him
in his spiritual labors. “Giving and
receiving” was a merchant’s metaphor from
the realm of commerce in the 1st
cent. He continues this figure for the
accumulation of spiritual wealth and eternal
reward in v. 17.
There is a
lesson for us here: If our giving is done
only out of abundance, only out of the
excess, we’re not really giving. If our
giving is done only from what is left over,
we’re missing out on the Christian
connection between spirituality, giving, and
sacrifice. That’s why the story of the
widow’s faith and generosity in Luke 21 is
so profound. {Cf. Luke 21(1-4); context
begins in v. 45 of the previous ch. with the
greed, lust and ambition of the Scribes and
the Pharisees.} The parallel passage, in
case you want to compare the two, is Mark
12:38-44.
In 20:45 Luke
tells us, that while all the people were
listening to Him teach, “He said to the
disciples, ‘Beware of the Scribes [ /
‘scribes’ were professional lawyers, experts
in / Mosaic Law;
‘ / more things
change, / more they stay / same:’ after 2000
yrs. / same profession is still causing more
problems for more people than any other
besides politics; it’s interesting when you
look at / background of our House and
Senate, most of them either have a degree in
law, or have studied law at one time or
another— What a coincidence!], who like to
walk around in long robes [this is / pl. of
stole- ‘royal robes;’ these were / robes
worn by / priests in / OT and by persons of
rank in / New; this is / type of robe /
wealthy would wear on festive occasions, /
same kind of robe / father placed on / back
of / Prodigal as they were preparing to
celebrate his return from / degeneracy and
disgrace of his ‘foreign land’], and love
respectful greetings in the market places
[‘love’ them, they demanded them; in fact,
there is a true story of two Rabbis who
arrived home absolutely astounded because
two different people on / street had greeted
them with, ‘May your peace be great,’ and
forgot to add, ‘My masters’!; / Rabbis of /
ancient world claimed to rank even above
parents in authority; they had an elaborate
set of rules for rank all lined out: In /
college / most learned rabbi took
precedence; at a banquet, it was / oldest—
cf. examples], and chief seats in the
synagogues and places of honor at banquets
[at / front of / synagogues were benches
facing / congregation, and these were
reserved for gov’t officials and persons of
distinction; at a feast or banquet in /
ancient world, your stature was measured by
your proximity to / host, and anyone / host
wanted to honor would be placed at his right
hand, or as close as possible to it; word
that’s used here is protoklisia, it means- /
‘first reclining place, chief seat at a
dinner table’], who devour widows’ houses [a
Rabbi was legally bound to teach for
nothing; {remember that Paul was a
tentmaker} so, a Rabbi was supposed to have
a trade and to support himself by / work of
his hands while his teaching was given
freely; / pr. of grace was in place, but /
practice was not; to get around this Jewish
Rabbis deliberately taught that it was a
great privilege and a great honor to support
a teacher of / Law {e.g.: ‘Whosoever puts
part of his income into the purse of the
wise is counted worthy of a seat in the
heavenly academy;’ and, ‘Whosoever harbors a
disciple of the wise in his house is counted
as if he offered a daily sacrifice. Let
your house be a place of resort to wise
men.’}; consequently, many impressionable
women, especially widows, would house and
feed these men at their own expense, only to
find all their resources eventually wiped
out; / scribes, because of their legal
responsibilities, were hired to make out
wills and draw up contracts for / conveyance
of property; they would often manipulate
these legal transactions so that / entire
proceeds of a particular widow’s estate, or
a majority of it, would go to them], and
[Jesus said] for appearance’s sake offer
long prayers [these aren’t just wordy
prayers filled with excess verbiage for mere
attention’s sake, there is a connection
between Jesus’ statement here and /
devouring of a widow’s estate; you see, /
word translated ‘appearance’— prophasis—
means- ‘a pretense, a show,’ i.e., they put
on a show by their prayers, they offer these
lengthy prayers for / widows in their homes
and they do it in pretension and deception
in order to manipulate these women into
signing over their fortunes to / Temple, of
which / Scribes and Pharisees received a
healthy portion]. These,” the Master said,
“will receive greater condemnation.” In
addition to the sentence of a criminal who
makes no claim to honesty or integrity will
be rightly added the punishment of a
hypocrite!
Moving on to ch.
21 it says, “And [after sitting down
opposite of this area according to Mk.
12:41] He looked up and saw the rich putting
their gifts into the Treasury [this was /
‘treasury’ of / Temple; He had been teaching
in / outer court, / Court of / Gentiles, now
he had passed through / low marble wall
which separated / Gentile from / Jew and was
sitting in / Court of / Women; here there
were thirteen chests known as ‘The Trumpets’
because of their shape, and placed at
intervals around / wall of / inner court;
each of these chests was assigned to an
offering for a different purpose and each
was marked accordingly; / colonnade under
which these chests were placed was called
‘The Treasury’].
And He saw a
poor widow [ptwxo/j
(ptochos) is a term of extreme
‘poverty;’ it means- ‘destitute of wealth,
influence, honor and position;’ she was
at what we might call / ‘bottom rung of
/ social ladder;’ ptochos was a word used in
Jesus’ day for those who had been reduced to
begging on / street; in fact, that was its
original meaning- begging] putting in two
small copper coins [lepta were / smallest
coins available in Palestine at that time;
word lepton means- ‘thin, small, light,’ and
this coin was / thinnest one of all; in /
parallel passage of Mark 12:42, he said
together they were worth ‘a cent,’ but /
word for ‘cent’ refers to a Latin quadrans,
which was worth about half of what a penny
used to be worth; it’s what one would earn
in about ten to fifteen minutes of work; in
fact, it was such an insignificant amount
that / Rabbis prohibited / offering of a
single lepton]. And He said, ‘Truly I say
to you, this poor widow put in more
than all {of them;} for they all out of
their surplus put into the offering, but she
out of her poverty put in all that she had
to live on,” vv. 1-4. She put in everything
she owned at the time: this was the totality
of her life and faith in two little coins.
The widow threw in more than all the rich
people combined in the sense that relative
to their respective means her gift was
without equal. You can’t even compare the
two. There is no way to put a price, to put
a spiritual estimation, on what a gift like
that is worth in the eyes of God, a gift of
unadulterated gratitude. That is grace in
action!
If all we’re
doing is giving back to God what happens to
be left over after we’ve done everything we
wanted do, bought everything we wanted to
buy, and engulfed ourselves in an ocean of
entertainment, we’re not really giving at
all. We’re playing a religious game that
motivationally is just as evil as tithing.
It’s just as evil as if we turned our backs
on grace and went back to the bondage of the
Law. One principle we know that will always
remain is that: A right thing must be done
in a right way to be right in the plan of
God. That means both the course of action
and the attitude behind it must line up with
the Word. It’s the method and the
motivation that must fall in line with
divine viewpoint. Two things determine the
value of our giving:
1) The spirit
in which we give. Only gifts of grace flow
from the outpouring of love. The believer
oriented to grace gives because he can’t
help it; the grace-oriented believer gives
because he is compelled to.
2) The
sacrifice which it involves. The rich
people threw their offerings into the
Trumpets and never even thought twice about
it; but the widow gave with the reckless
generosity of grace. Our giving
demonstrates our love for God when we go
without something we want, something within
our reach, in order to dedicate that gift to
the plan of God. How few believers out
there give like that, with the spontaneous
generosity of grace!
All of which
goes to show that the problem is not how
much we give to the Lord, but how much we
withhold for ourselves. Underneath this is
a spiritual lesson: In the final
analysis what God desires is not what we
have {He is the Source of all of it} but who
we are; He wants us— our faith, our
lives and our love. It would take someone
deaf, dumb and blind to the spiritual—
willfully blind— not to be inspired and even
shamed by the story of this poor widow.
B. In 2
Corinthians 8:1-2 Paul say’s, “Now,
brethren, we {wish to} make known to you the
grace of God which has been given in the
churches of Macedonia [of which Philippi was
/ first], that in a great ordeal of
affliction their abundance of joy and [like
/ ‘widow’ of Mark 12 and Luke 21] their deep
poverty overflowed in the wealth of their
liberality.” These are the three things
that characterized the churches of
Macedonia: an “abundance of joy” in the
midst of “affliction;” a “deep poverty,” an
extremely destitute condition,
in contrast to
the Church at Corinth which was extremely
wealthy; and yet, a “wealth of liberality,”
a generosity free from pretension and
hypocrisy. Those kinds of things do not
characterize churches where the love of
believers is not riveted on the Living Word
and the written Word! Those three things
are evidences that they had the hunger and
desire to sustain their spiritual momentum
even in the face of great adversity.
C. “No other
church shared with me” in the service of
Christ and the progress of the Gospel “but
you alone.” No other church besides
Philippi ‘opened an account’ with the
apostle Paul and his ministry with a view
toward eternity. Let me tell you
something: The effort and energy that you
pour into other people’s ministries will
come back to you like ripples on the surface
of the water in eternity. Philippians 1:12
says, “Now I want you to know, brethren,
that my circumstances have turned out for
the greater progress of the Gospel, so that
my imprisonment in {the cause of} Christ has
become well known throughout the whole
Praetorian Guard and to everyone else, and
that most of the brethren— trusting in the
Lord because of my imprisonment— have far
more courage to speak the Word of God
without fear,” vv. 13-14. Everything God
was accomplishing through the apostle Paul,
every ounce of service and divine good being
produced because of his ministry in this
situation, was related to the Philippians
and their support.
In Philippians
1:3-5 Paul speaks of the joy he has in
remembering them in his prayers, “in view
of” their “participation in the Gospel from
the first day until now.” You can’t imagine
what that will be worth at the Bema Seat.
Because this one church, this one little
group of believers in Macedonia, were
willing to ‘believe the unbelievable’— to
stand by faith alongside the apostle Paul—
they will one day ‘receive the
inconceivable,’ wealth, riches and rewards
beyond anything you or I can even imagine!
3. To clarify
the issue once and for all he say’s, “Not
that I seek the gift itself, but I seek for
the profit which increases to your
account.” Their “account” was being kept by
a flawless mathematician somewhere in the
hierarchy of elect angels— an ‘angelic
accountant,’ if you will— and the Lord of
Lords, the Righteous Judge will haul it out
at the Tribunal of Eternal Reward and
calculate the interest that has accrued
because of that investment of service, of
sacrifice and self-denial, in something of
eternal value accomplished in the cause of
Christ!
A. The word
“profit,” from karpos, means- ‘fruit’… the
‘fruit’ that keeps on increasing in
abundance. {Cf. / two prs. of:
multiplication; and / power of increase.}
Paul had a tremendous appreciation for the
graciousness and generosity of the
Philippians as he demonstrates in several
places in this letter. He also had a
genuine gratitude toward God, the gratitude
of grace orientation, for the spiritual
mindset and motivation of these believers.
B. Our Lord
taught on numerous occasions about
‘fruit-bearing’ in the Kingdom of God. He
spoke of what can be accomplished in the
plan of God by spiritual power, spiritual
provision and spiritual motivation, of what
can happen when faith in the Word of God
meets the power of the Spirit of God— Mark
14:20; Luke 8:15; and John 15. {Cf. John
15:(1-5)}
1) In John 15
Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and My
Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in
Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away
[or ‘lifts up;’ this is divine discipline to
/ final degree: ‘ / sin leading to death,’ 1
Jn. 5:16]; and every {branch} that bears
fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more
fruit [He brings / tests of life, / pain,
pressure and suffering that leads to growth,
that causes us to readjust and realign our
lives with spiritual
priorities, like
/ Word of God and / Son of God]. [to /
disciples he said] You are already clean
because of the Word which I have spoken to
you [this is / ‘washing of regeneration,’
Titus 3:5, a once and for all cleansing].
Abide in Me, and I in you [‘abide’ means-
‘live, dwell, make your home in;’ it speaks
of / intimacy and communion of fellowship;
one is position, / other is practice; this
is where so much theology gets muddled and
mixed up, this is where so many pastors,
churches and denominations go astray: in not
recognizing / difference between
relationship and fellowship]. As the branch
cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides
in the vine, so neither {can} you unless you
abide in Me [I want you to notice that,
because that is / key to this section of
Scripture: you ‘cannot bear fruit... unless
you abide in Me’]. I am the vine [what He’s
saying is, ‘I am the source of strength,
sustenance, and supply; everything flows
through Me to you’], you are the branches;
he who abides in Me and I in him [ / one who
relies and depends on Me for divine
production], he bears much fruit, for apart
from Me you can do nothing,” vv. 1-5.
2) In Romans
7:4 Paul states the purpose of our union
with the King of Kings, “that we might bear
fruit for God.”
3) Paul’s
unceasing prayer for the Colossians was that
they “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord,
to please {Him} in all respects, bearing
fruit in every good work [agathos- ‘divinely
good work’] and increasing in the knowledge
of God,” Colossians 1:10.
C. The ‘fruit’
to which Paul refers in this last half of
ch. 4 are those gracious gifts which were
sent from Philippi to supply him and his
ministry. We know from v. 16 that the
Philippians sent him support at least twice
in Thessalonica, and now again in Rome. As
you can see from this passage, our giving is
an evidence of our spiritual condition and
our spiritual growth. It is an important
part of our priesthood before God, a vital
part in fact. The principle is: The giving
of our Christian lives should be done, and
always done, in grace.
4. Now he
say’s, “and I have received everything in
full [apecho means- ‘have in full,’ and was
used on receipts in / ancient world for
discharging an account] and have an
abundance [really, an ‘overabundance,’ a
measure in excess]; I am amply supplied
[i.e., every need had been met; pleroo means
here- ‘be liberally supplied, filled to
overflowing’], having received from
Epaphroditus what you have sent [second word
for ‘received,’ dechomai, means- ‘take hold
of with the hand, receive to oneself’], a
fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice
well-pleasing to God.”
Paul uses
language here in v. 18 of “a fragrant aroma,
…well-pleasing to God” that goes all the way
back to the sacrifices of the Mosaic Law and
the OT. This was the regular phrase used by
Moses to describe a “sacrifice… acceptable
to God.”
A. Genesis 8:21
says, “The LORD smelled the soothing aroma.
And the LORD said to Himself, ‘I will never
again curse the ground on account of man,
for the intent of man’s heart is evil from
his youth; and I will never again destroy
every living thing as I have done. While
the earth remains, seedtime and harvest,
…cold and heat, …summer and winter, and day
and night shall not cease,” v. 22. Are you
worried about a nuclear war, a global
conflict, the ozone layer or the Rain
Forest? Well, don’t! God says, “This earth
will remain just as it is until I have no
further use for it. The earth will be here
in all its sordid splendor until the time
comes for Me— not you, human race— to
destroy it. I created it, and when the
timing is right I will recreate it!”
B. In
Leviticus 1:9, 11 and 17, you find the
words, “an offering by fire of a soothing
aroma to the Lord.” The picture is of the
smell of the sacrifice being satisfying to
the nostrils of God. The Lord instructed
Moses in Exodus 29:18, to “offer up in smoke
the whole ram on the altar;” He said, “it is
a burnt offering…: it is a soothing aroma,
an offering by fire to the LORD.”
You see,
the Hebrews were very scent-oriented; you
can find this throughout many of the OT
Scriptures. The word “fragrance” is used
eleven times in the OT, nine of those in the
SOS. In 7:8 it speaks of the “fragrance of
your breath” being “like apples.” Since
apples were used in ancient times to freshen
the breath and clean the teeth, what it
means is that the lover being spoken of, the
Shulammite woman, has prepared herself for
her right man. The Hebrew word
xayr
reyach means- a scent, a fragrance, an
aroma. This is the word Solomon used, and
the same word found throughout the first
four books of the OT for the sweet smell of
the sacrifices to God.
Paul’s joy in
this passage arose from what their giving
did for them, not just for him. His
greatest joy above everything else was that
this sacrifice of grace, and the love, the
care and the concern which motivated it were
precious in the sight of God.
5. In v. 19
Paul writes, “And my God will supply all
your needs according to His riches in glory
in Christ Jesus.” This is a divine
guarantee that every need would be met by
the faithfulness of God, that in the
generosity of grace which existed between
Paul and the Philippian Church God would
supply every need they would ever have.
This is above and beyond the basic
necessities of logistical grace. This is
such a tremendous intimacy with the Person
of Jesus Christ, and identification with His
cause, that an abundance of blessing flows
in and through this church and these lives.
The Philippians had been experiencing, and
were about to experience even more, the
‘abundant life’ which Christ promised His
sheep in John 10.
3 Points of
Application from v. 19
A. No gift of
grace ever makes you poorer. In 2
Corinthians 9:8-9 we see the principle, that
“God is able to make all grace abound to
you, so that always having all sufficiency
in everything [‘always,’ that’s all / time;
‘all sufficiency’ is complete provision; and
‘in everything’ means in every circumstance
of life], you may have an abundance for
every good deed [this is divine ‘good’]; as
it is written [Paul even quotes Ps. 112:9 as
an illustration of grace giving], ‘HE
SCATTERED ABROAD [he uses an analogy, and
continues it in vv. 10-11, of a farmer
sowing seed; this is sowing seed for
eternity], HE GAVE TO THE POOR [these are /
recipients of grace giving], HIS
RIGHTEOUSNESS ENDURES FOREVER [‘his +R
endures forever’ indicates divine good
production, a +R deed that God will not
forget!].’”
B. The wealth
of God is available to all who are willing
to use it by faith. Ephesians 1:3 tells us,
that God “has blessed us with every
spiritual blessing in the heavenly {places}
in Christ.” If you are in Christ, then you
have riches and resources of a divine nature
just waiting to be used!
C. The one who
gives in grace also receives in
grace. He becomes the beneficiary of grace
blessings in time. Paul in 2 Corinthians
9:10-11 said, “Now He who supplies seed to
the sower and bread for food will supply and
multiply [key term] your seed for
sowing, and increase the harvest of your
righteousness [ / ‘harvest of your
righteousness,’ in essence, means your
investment in / lives of others]. You will
be enriched in everything for all
liberality….” There are two principles that
come out of this passage:
1) God blesses
and {as we noted} multiplies divine good
production.
2) He
continues to multiply your provision
based on your capacity.
In Conclusion
Before we close
the study of this epistle, let’s look back
over where we came. When Paul wrote this
letter from the confinement of a Roman
prison he had certain objectives in mind.
Philippians is:
1. A letter of
joy and rejoicing. This is the theme upon
which everything else in the Book of
Philippians is built. We have noted
dutifully in past study that the words “joy”
and “rejoice” are found sixteen times in
four chs., the last occurrence coming in the
section we just studied— 4:10.
2. A letter of
gratitude and thanksgiving— 1:3-7; 2:17-18;
4:14-18. Nearly 10 yrs. have passed since
Paul was last in Philippi; it’s now 60-61 AD
and the Philippians have once again met his
needs by sending a gift of grace.
3. It is a
letter of commendation in the spiritual
conflict; a testimony, if you will, to the
character and courage of Epaphroditus—
2:25-30. Remember that Epaphroditus had
been sent to Philippi bearing this letter,
but that was his return trip. He was sent
to Rome originally to minister to the
apostle Paul and to serve on the front lines
in the warfare of Christ. This he did with
flying colors, even to the point of coming
close “to death for the work of Christ;”
“risking his life,” Paul says, “to complete
what was deficient in your service to me.”
In 2:29 he commands them, to “receive him…
in the Lord with all joy, and hold men like
him in high regard.”
4. It is a
letter of encouragement to the Philippian
believers in the trials and testings they
were under— 1:29-30. Here Paul tells them
that it has been granted them “for Christ’s
sake, not only to believe in Him but also to
suffer for” Him, “experiencing the same
conflict” which they saw in the apostle
Paul, and are now hearing to be in him in
Rome.
5. It is an
appeal for spiritual harmony. From that
great appeal comes the phenomenal passage on
the humility of Christ in 2:5-8. The appeal
comes in the first four vv.; the example of
Christ: perfect, undiminished deity becoming
true, sinless humanity, and dying as the
God-man in humility and self-denial on a
cruel Roman cross in vv. 5-8.
At the root of
what seems to be the one and only problem in
this local church were two causes: False
teachers, specifically the Judaizers, who
wanted to impose a system of Jewish legalism
on the children of grace— 3:2-3; and the
quarreling ladies of 4:2, “Euodia” and
“Syntyche.” Paul’s command is that they
find a common ground of agreement in Christ,
that they “live in harmony in the Lord.”
