Go with me, if you would, back
to Philippians 4. Philippians 4. The Word of God is inspired by
the Holy Spirit of God. God's spirit wrote the entire
word. No prophecy in this scripture
is of any private interpretation. No man influenced one word in
the scripture. God wrote every bit of it. The
men who penned it, their pen was moved by the Holy Spirit
of God. Isn't that what 1 Peter tells
us? Because of what has been written
in here, we know that God's people are called by the Spirit of God. God's people are fed by the Spirit
of God. I was thinking about the calling
of a pastor. The Lord said, feed my sheep. Well, how can I? Only if God
will feed his sheep through the preaching of the Word. They're
fed by the Spirit of God. God's people are instructed by
the Spirit of God. It says they shall all be taught
of God. Every one of them. God's people
are kept by the Spirit of God. Everything that happens in the
path and in the life of a child of God, a person that God chose
to save, everything that happens in that person's life, in his
path, is led by The Spirit of God. It's all of the Spirit of
God. That's just the truth. We're
not going to argue that truth, are we? The steps of a good man
are ordered. Isn't that what the Word says?
Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate. That's what
God has written in His Word. It's just so. That's just so. When we declare God's Word to
His people, we are not giving a sermon. We're not giving a
sermon. We're not showing up to hear
a dissertation of an outline that has been put together based
on correct doctrine that we know. We're not giving a sermon. If God is doing it, if God is
in it, if God wrote it, if God inspired it, if God is calling,
if God is teaching, if God is feeding, if God is leading, if
God's Spirit is doing it, we are delivering a message. Big
difference. Big difference. God speaks to
the heart of His child through the declaration of His Word. We need to hear what He has to
say to us. I need to hear what He has to
say to me. I need to. Now, when God first
confronts a person with the truth, it's a big happening. It's a big happening. When God
first confronts a person with the truth, That person goes through
his entire life hearing and believing and doing what he thinks is written
in God's Word. And then one day God confronts
a sinner with the truth. And when God comes to his child,
he confronts his child with his own truth. And when God comes
to his child, The first thing he says to that person is, I
am. That's the first thing he says. I am. I am the living God. I'm the true and living God.
I am your God. That's the first thing he says.
I am your God. I control you. I made you, I
own you. I hold your life in my hand. That's the first eye-opening
truth. My sinful, wicked life is in
his hand. And he says, fear me. Fear me,
bow down before me because I can do with you whatever I will.
That's the first shocking realization that comes to a person. I can
do with you whatever I will. I'm God, you are the sinner,
and I can do with you whatever I will. The second thing he says
to his child is, this is what I will. I can do with you whatever
I will and this is what I will. I'm going to have mercy on you.
I'm going to have mercy on you. It has pleased me to have mercy
on you. I gave you my son. That's the realization. People
know that Christ died on the cross and have no idea why. No idea what it means. And he
says to his child, I gave my son for you. I gave my son to
redeem you. You've sinned against me. And
I gave my son to pay the price of your sin with his own blood. I did that for you. By Him, you are now adopted into
my family. By the death of Christ, you're
now adopted into my family. Nothing that you did accomplished
this. This is the realization that
comes to a person. Nothing that you did accomplished
this. I'm not coming to you to tell
you what you need to do. And I'm not coming to you to
pat you on the back. I'm coming to declare what actually
happened. And you didn't have any part
in this. So all of your idols, everything that you're worshipping
and holding on to and looking to, it all needs to be torn down.
Everything. You need to see that everything
you're looking to is worthless. Everything in this life, everything
that you've done is worthless. I'm God and Christ has appeased
me. Christ has appeased me. Now,
we've heard that illustration before about Brother Walter Groover. In Mexico, there was a young
boy that heard the truth. He preached the truth to him. That boy believed it, and he
wanted his family to believe it. But his family were all idol
worshippers. His dad especially, they had
10 or 12 idols on a ledge lined up in their house, and they worshipped
these little idols. And he kept telling him, Dad,
these are not gods. These are ceramic. blocks of
wood, whatever they were. These are not gods and his dad
wouldn't hear it. So one day while his dad was
gone, he went and got a hammer and he smashed 11 out of the
12 and laid that hammer in front of the one he didn't smash. And
his dad came home and was furious. He saw it and he looked at that
boy and he was furious. That boy looked at the idol and
said, he did it. And his dad said, boy, you know
good and well he couldn't do that. And he said, dad, that's
what I'm trying to tell you. He is not, these are not living
gods. These are not living gods. When
God comes to a person, He reveals to them that He is not the Lincoln
Memorial made out of concrete in a statue form, a figurehead
of the heavens that we just kind of need to make sure we don't
bump into. I am the living God. I'm the living God. The Old Testament prophets were
commanded to go into the cities and tear down all the idols,
first thing. That's the first thing you do.
Go in and tear down all the idols. The greatest idol that man worships
is his own self. That's the biggest one that he's
enamored with. He gives his all to. He loves. He cherishes. That idol must
be torn down. He must bow to the fact that
Christ accomplished all of salvation without him. Worship Him. Stop worshiping this idol and
worship Him. Once all of the idols of self-worth
and self-works, once they're all torn down, And once that
adopted child ends up with no confidence in the flesh, there's
a period of time where God speaks to the heart of His child, hammering
no confidence in the flesh over and over and over. No confidence
in the flesh, no confidence in the flesh. Once that is established,
the third thing that God says to His child is, here are my
commandments, obey me. because Christ obeyed me, and
that's settled, now I want you to obey me. Now that salvation is established,
now I want you to obey me. Now here is the command to us
through God's Word, and this is the title of the message tonight. He said in Philippians 4 verse
3, Help those women. You see that? Help those women. He gives a
command in each verse for that purpose of helping those women. And what he's dealing with right
here is the issue of believers being at odds with each other.
Now chapter 4 verse 1 says, Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and
longed for, my joy and crown so stand fast in the Lord my
dearly beloved he said I love you I love you that's the first
thing he says I love you my brethren dearly beloved he said on this
earth you are my joy and my crown you're my happiness you're my
my reward for labor." You know, we're all working for something.
And he said, you're my crown. You are my reward for labor.
Hold your place right here and go over a few pages to 1 Thessalonians
chapter 2. First Thessalonians 2 verse 19
says, For what is our hope, or joy,
or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence
of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? He said, this is what
I want, this is all I want. My joy, my crown, my rejoicing,
my hope is to see you in the presence of the Lord when He
comes back. I believe with all my heart I
can say the same thing. I believe with all my heart I
can say the exact same thing. This is what I want. This is
what I want. This is what I beg God for. Want
to see you and and for me to say I want to see you means I
want to be there, too I can't see you if I'm not there. I Want
to see you in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ Counted
as as one of the Chosen souls in him when he comes back When
he comes back Every soul that God gave to him is going to be
standing there in him. And men and women are going to
be in one of two states. When he comes back, they're all
going to find themselves to either be in Christ or out of Christ.
One of the two. And my sincere hope, my beg of
God is to see you in the Lord Jesus Christ when He comes back.
I just want us to be in Him. That's what I want. I want us
to be in Him. Nothing on this earth could bring greater joy
than for us to end up in Christ, to finally be realized physically
in Christ. So back over in Philippians 4,
Verse 1, he said, Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and
longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord. Stand still, grounded and settled,
the scripture says. Just stand still. in Christ. Stand still in faith, looking
to Him, waiting on Him, worshiping Him, obeying Him. Keep all eyes on Him. Let's keep
all eyes on Him. And the reason is because when
we don't, when we don't, all of the joy that he just described
becomes sorrow. It becomes sorrow. Now, if Christ
has truly made us to be his child, if he has truly called us to
be his child, thank God there is nothing we can do to no longer
be his child. There's nothing we can do to
undo the payment Christ made. Nothing we can do. Parents disown
their children sometimes, but that does not make them not their
children. It's impossible. It's absolutely
impossible. Nothing can make my two children,
I have two girls, there's nothing that can make them not my children. Nothing. Now, with that being
said, there are plenty of things they can do to disrupt the joy
of our relationship. Plenty of things they can do.
They can turn the joy of our relationship into sorrow. They
can make their lives absolutely miserable if they want to. Steal
my children that cannot be undone, but miserable. They can change my countenance
toward them. They can change it back. That does not mean they can change
me. That does not mean that I'm changing. I'm the one who set a standard
with them from the beginning. This is what I said. If you obey
me, you'll see my smile. If you disobey me, you'll see
my frown. And because I love you, I'll
chase in you. Now, we've established it so
many times, but it's so vital to understand that the world naturally puts the
cart before the horse. They get the whole thing backwards.
They hear the commands in God's Word and they think, well, I
better do all this stuff so I can be his child. That's not the
way it is. Christ made the payment. Christ settled our debt with
His Father. And because of that in love,
now we're His children and He says obey me. Obey me. There is a living relationship
that takes place with our God in the same way that I have a
living relationship with my kids. God the Father, if He chose us,
If Christ died for us and if His Spirit called us, what that
means is He loves us. He wouldn't have chosen us. He
wouldn't have died for us. He would have never called us
if He didn't love us. If God loves us, He will chasten us. That's what His Word says. Whom
the Lord loves, He chastens. So verse 1 says, Therefore, my
brethren, dearly beloved and longed for my joy and crown so
stand fast in the Lord my dearly beloved stand fast in his commandments
stand fast in his word my dearly beloved verse 2 he said I beseech
you odious and beseech Syntyche that they be of the same mind
in the Lord those were two women who were at odds with each other.
They were quarreling, creating a division in the congregation
there at Philippi. And in writing this letter, the Philippians sent their pastor
to Paul. He was in prison in Rome. And
they told Paul about the affairs of the congregation. And Paul
is writing this letter back to them. And in writing it, he didn't
just say, if there happens to be anyone there who, you know,
is at odds with anybody, he called him out by name. He called him
out by name. He said, I beseech you, Odius,
and I beseech Syntyche, stop fighting. That's what he said,
stop fighting. You're sisters in Christ. You're
bringing reproach on him. You're bringing reproach on his
gospel. You're quenching the spirit.
These things ought not be so. That's what he's telling them.
These things ought not be so. It must stop. If we are children,
and this is kind of how it goes in our house. Stop. Stop. You're my children. So I'm speaking
to you. Only you. It must stop. It must stop. Go with me over
to Matthew 5. This is what our Lord had to
say about the differences between brethren. Matthew 5 verse 23. He said, therefore, if thou bring
thy gift to the altar, And there, as you're standing there at the
altar, if you remember that thy brother hath ought against thee,
leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first
be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Before you beg forgiveness from
me, beg forgiveness from your brother. Reconcile that immediately. Verse 25, he said, Agree with
thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him,
lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and
the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into
prison. And Paul said the same thing
to these two women. Back over in Philippians 4, verse
2, he said, I beseech you Odius and beseech
Syntyche that they be of the same mind in the Lord. Not only is it time to stop fighting,
it's time to become united in the same mind. Absolutely united
in the same mind. The greatest blessing that could
be given by God to a congregation is that he would bring every
soul in that congregation into the same mind, the same heart,
the same image. And that's the mind and the heart
and the image of Christ. Christ. We all are so different. We are. We are. We are so different. We come
from different backgrounds. We've all grown up with a different
way of doing things. And the flesh is different. The flesh is just different. The only thing that the difference
of flesh can bring to a congregation, the only thing it has to offer
is problems and division. That's all it has to offer. I
want things my way, you want things your way. If God, though
in mercy, would give all of us a heart that only wants the way,
if that's what he would do for us, put this one heart in us
that all collectively says, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us,
unto thy name give glory. If he would bring us into that
one mind and that one desire, If he would cut off everything
that divides us, just cut it off, like that illustration of
the hound dog. You know, that guy made those,
he whittled hound dogs, perfect hound dogs, amazing hound dogs,
sat there and whittled and whittled and whittled and somebody asked
him, how do you do that? He said, I get a block of wood
and I cut off everything that doesn't look like a hound dog.
And our goal is to look just like Jesus Christ. That's our
goal. And if he would, in mercy, just
cut off everything that divides us, just conform us to the singular
image of Christ, there would be perfect peace and rest. Perfect peace and rest. That
singular image of Christ, that's our goal. That's our goal. In
glory, everybody is so perfectly united in the image, in the person,
in the heart, in the mind, in the spirit of Christ. Everybody
there, a number no man can number, is so perfectly united, they're
all referred to as one body. One body. He's the head, they're
the body. They're so united, it's just
like saying there's one person in heaven. one person, one body,
one head, one bride, everybody. What's his name? The scripture
says, the Lord our righteousness. What's her name? The scripture
says, the Lord our righteousness. Perfectly conformed to him. She
looks just like him. Very quickly, follow me through
some scriptures here. Let's see how our Lord tells
us this throughout the Word. Go to Romans 12 with me. Romans 12 verse 2 says, and be
not conformed to this world. Be not conformed to the ways
of the world. Everything we see, everything
we hear, be not conformed to it, but be ye transformed by
the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good
and acceptable and perfect will of God. In verse 16 he said,
Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things,
but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own
conceits. He said let's all condescend
to this same mind, his mind. He said he was meek and lowly
in heart. There in Philippians it says,
let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus who
being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with
God. But he made himself of no reputation
and he humbled himself. He took upon him the likeness
of sinful flesh and he died. Therefore God the Father has
highly exalted him. That humble, humble mind. Look
at Romans 15 with me. Verse 5 says, Now the God of
patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward
another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one
mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Have the same mind, have the
same speech. Say the same things. To God be
all the glory. To God be all the glory. One
page over. Go to 1 Corinthians 1. Verse
10 says, Now I beseech you, brethren,
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the
same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that
you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same
judgment." Have the same judgment. Have the same opinion about things.
2 Corinthians 3. Next book over. 2 Corinthians
chapter 3. Verse 18 says, But we all with open face, beholding
as in a glass, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same
image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. We all are starting to see now
through a glass darkly what we're going to be like then. The glass
of this Word, we're starting to get a glimpse of what we're
going to be like then, changed into the same image, that image
of Christ our Savior. Last one, 2 Corinthians 13. 2
Corinthians 13, verse 11 says, Finally, brethren, farewell, Be perfect. That means mature. Be of good comfort. Be of one
mind. Live in peace. And the God of
love and peace shall be with you. And there are so many scriptures
like that that we could read. Go with me back to Philippians
4. Philippians 4 verse 1 says, Therefore,
my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown,
so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. I beseech you,
Odius, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind
in the Lord. And I entreat thee also, true
yoke fellow, help those women which labored with me in the
gospel, with Clement also and with other my fellow laborers
whose names are in the book of life. I started this by saying
I need to hear what God has to say to me through his word. We
all need to hear it, and I believe we all want to hear it. I believe
we want to hear what he has to say to us through his word. The
reason is because the motivation for us wanting to know his will
concerning us is because our names have been written in the
Lamb's Book of Life. If our names are not written
in there, then we better go eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow
we're going to die. But tomorrow we're not going
to die. And the reason is because God the Father took His pen and
dipped it in the blood of Christ His Son and signed our names
in His blood. Our names have been written in
the Lamb's, the Sacrifice's Book of Life. The Payment's Book of
Life. Our adoption papers, that's what
it is. And that's the only hope we have,
is being included in the Lamb's Book of Life. So here's where
Paul leaves us tonight. He says to the brethren who truly
care about the ministry of God's saints, verse 3, I entreat thee
also, true yoke fellow, help those women. Bring them back
together. Bring them back together. We're
going through Galatians on Sunday night and it's saying the exact
same thing. The next place that we will be
in says if a brother departs or if he, I forget how it words
it, but it says restore him. That's what it says. Restore
him. And that's what he's saying here. Bring them back together.
Help them restore their love for each other, their bond in
Christ. Help them to remember that Christ
has covered whatever sin is dividing them. He said, I know they have
a heart for Christ. I know they have a heart for
his gospel. They labored with me in the gospel. They labored
with Clement. They labored with all the other
fellow laborers. So for Christ's sake, that's
always the reason, for Christ's sake, for his blood's sake, for
his book of life's sake, help them to make peace with each
other. And I pray, I truly do pray that
that would be the heart of every believer God calls. I pray that
would be my heart, every heart here. May we desire peace for
the blood of Christ's sake. All right, let's stand together.