Now, I know all the churches
were dear to him, but just as we have many people who are dear
to us, but some are more dear than others, this church had
a special place in Paul's heart. It had begun as he preached to a group of women who had met
for prayer. And one of them was named Lydia,
a seller of purple. And she, the Lord opened her
heart to believe the things that Paul had said. And she and her
household believed and were baptized. And on the same visit, after
Paul had been put in jail, there was a rather miraculous deliverance
on the part of God that is miraculous in delivering Paul from jail,
but in the process the jailer was saved and his entire household. Now this book was written to
the church at Philippi because there were some disturbances
going on in the church and that should not surprise us. Churches
are full of people. They're full of imperfect people. Even though they have been saved
by the grace of God and they are spiritually corrected, yet
in our flesh, well, we're the same thing. Same thing we always
were, complete with all the frailties and the foibles, the particular
personalities that are natural to us. All of this plays in.
And these differences among people often cause divisions, cause
trouble within the church because we do things differently. And,
you know, we just have this tendency to think that the way we do things
is the right way or the only right way. Consequently, when
we see others doing things differently, We don't just say, well, they
do that different than I do. We think they're wrong. I've
got to fix that. Or I've got to at least chide
them about that. And this happens in churches,
and especially this happens with regard to pastors, with regard
to those who have been called to shepherd the flock of God.
Now, even though this was written to the church at Philippi, the
church at Philippi probably consisted of many little groups who met
in that area. After all, they couldn't just
jump in their car and go somewhere. Consequently, there would be
little groups meet, you know, whoever was convenient to one
location would meet there. So each one of these little meeting
places, generally speaking, they were in people's houses. Each
one of these little meeting places would have at least one among
them who was considered the pastor. Now we hear of pastors, elders,
and bishops in, if we use the King James Version, pastors,
elders, and bishops within the church, but the fact is those
are just three different descriptions of the same person or the same
people. It's not as though, you know,
you've got bishops are up here and then the pastors are under
them and the elders are under them. No. Elders are pastors,
are bishops, are elders. So, Each church had at least
one of those. Now, everybody gets accustomed
to the way the leadership in their church conducts things,
particularly in things like teaching, how they teach. I mean, all of
God's preachers preach the same thing. That is, they have the
same basic message. But all of God's preachers have
each one his own individual personality, his own style of communicating
truth. And like in a church like ours,
when I am probably the speaker 95% of the time, you get accustomed
to that way. And then, you know, we have a
certain way that we do things in our church. Some of them come
from that we have conviction that that's the way they ought
to be done. Others are just how we do it. But we get accustomed
to these things, and we think that to do them differently would
be to do them wrong. And so you can imagine even in
the Philippian church, maybe one guy was used to meeting with
the group that met in the Northeast. But on one occasion, he found
himself on the day of worship. He was in another part of town.
So he attended wherever they worshipped in that part of town.
And when he got there, the preacher didn't preach the same way. They
didn't do things the same way. I know that here in our church,
we tend to be very simple and very conservative. We don't do much that would be
categorized under contemporary. Now part of that is because,
for instance, in contemporary music, in order to use it in
church, you've got to pay copyright fees and things like that. We
can sing the old hymns for free. But it's not because we have a conviction
that that's the way it ought to be. At least, I don't. There
are a few very good contemporary hymns that I would be glad to
sing. But if someone were to come here, they might think that
we had something against what is called contemporary Christian
music. There are other churches that that's about all they sing. In fact, the singing of contemporary
music becomes the dominant factor in their worship services. I
don't think that the music and hymn singing should ever become
the dominant thing within the worship of God's people. But
it is irrelevant, really, it's irrelevant whether you use an
organ or a keyboard, or if you have what they call those worship
bands now, or an orchestra, a huge pipe, none of that matters to
God. You can be sure of that. We are
free, as the free-born children of God, to worship God in any
way that does not deny the Gospel, which is our message. However, people do have convictions
about that. And if they were to walk, say,
someone of a very conservative bent were to walk into a church,
and here they had a drum set, electric guitars, and all that
kind of stuff that you normally associate with pop music, and
they might be offended by that. Well, this kind of went on among
the Philippians. The different churches within
the city of Philippi did things differently, and that was causing
contention among them. And then there is even contention
among the individual people within any given assembly. Why? Because we're sinful people. That's why. Because we are irritating
and easily irritated. That's why these things come
up among believers. We should not be surprised at it. We should
work to avoid it the best we can, but we should not be surprised
when these things come up. We should not allow the differences,
that is our natural differences, to break fellowship or cause
us no longer to attend worship, to get so mad that we can't worship
with this brother or that sister or whatever. It should never
reach that level. But we need to understand these
things do come up. And then the Philippian church
was suffering from persecution from those outside. What does
Paul say about all these troubles? Basically in this book he is
saying, don't worry about it, don't fret. All these things
that happen are part and parcel of God's way of bringing His
people to Himself. Brother Tim James spoke of these
trials and he said, trials are not things to be fixed. Trials
fix us. Now you think on that a minute. Trials are not things to be fixed.
That's what we look at Things become unpleasant, we want to
jump right in and fix it. And in the years that I spent
trying to fix it, I found most of my fixing made things worse
than they were before I tried to fix it. I'm not saying there's
never a time to step in and deal with feuding people, but most
of the time, The simple, continual preaching of the gospel will
take care of all these disruptions that come up. And we recognize
that even in these disruptions, God is working for the good of
the church. In some senses, sometimes He
purifies it by these things. That is, troubles come up within
the church, And some who didn't belong there, really, end up
leaving. Now, we don't like that. We look
at that and it breaks our heart to think that someone who once
walked with us no longer does walk with us. But that was the
Lord's work. He allowed a fleshly disturbance
to drive away one of the goats that they not become a problem. and then it purifies the church,
and then also these trials remind us of what we are. You know,
when people are first saved by the grace of God, and the newness
of it just fills their mind, and they can't imagine that there'll
ever be a time when they could get upset at one of their brothers
or sisters, that there'd ever be a time that they wouldn't
want eagerly to attend the worship services. They don't think there
could ever be a time when their hearts could grow cold to the
Lord Jesus Christ. They don't think that can happen.
And I understand it. It's like when you first get
married. You think everything's going to be wonderful after that,
and that there's not going to be any trouble in the marriage.
Anybody who's been married for more than a little bit realizes,
despite all that love, there are challenges, there are troubles. And it's the same way with any
kind of group, and it's true of the church as well. And it
teaches us that for all the grace that God has given us, and all
that we have experienced by His grace, we are still the people
that we always were in our natural selves. We tend to be selfish. We see the world through our
own eyes. It's very difficult to be able
to see the world through someone else's eyes and sympathize with
the way they see the world and understand that, well, some of
their actions are because they see the world differently than
I do. But we see the world through
our eyes. We pursue the things we want.
This selfishness, it's natural to us. Judgmentalism is natural
to us. It's very hard not to be judgmental
of others. Now, we have every right according
to what the scriptures say about appropriate conduct, we can say,
that's not the right thing to do. I mean, you know, Paul said,
don't lie to one another. So if somebody's lying, you can
say, you shouldn't do that. You're not supposed to lie. But
that's not judging the person. That's judging actions. To judge the person means to
look at their actions and count them as either worthy or unworthy
of your favor or God's favor. And we have a great tendency
to do that. And when we find ourselves doing
it, we are reminded again just how sinful we are, how dependent
upon the grace, God's grace that we are. Now, I delight in the
fact that for the most part in the years that we have been together,
there have not been many notable conflicts among us, at least
not that I'm aware of. That is, there never was a time
when I thought, oh, the church is just gonna split down the
middle. And I mean, that happens to churches. And so far as the human reason
why that may have happened is that we have devoted ourselves
to the preaching and hearing of Christ. And that so often
pushes away the troublemakers before they get a chance to make
trouble. And it also binds together the people. But we must say this, our relative
peace here is simply the product of the grace of God. And all
he would have to do in order to turn us into one of those
fighting, squabbling churches is just to walk away. Just withdraw
his presence a moment, and we'd return to what we are in ourselves,
and this would not be a fit place to worship God. But he says, don't worry. Don't
worry about those trials. Don't worry about the trials,
the natural trials of life, what you're going to eat, what you're
going to wear. All of this is here in the book of Philippians.
Now, so far as the trouble that arises among believers, he gives
us a general pattern to follow. We find that in chapter 2. He
says in verse 2, Be like-minded, having the same love. This is
in chapter 2, verse 2. Then make my joy complete by
being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit
and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition
or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only
to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Now that's so simple. We might look at that and say,
oh yeah, that's easy. No, it's simple, but it's not
easy. Because once again, that goes against everything that
is natural to us. It goes against the attitudes
that we were born with, and it goes against the attitudes that
the world teaches us, which is simply this, look out for yourself. I'll help others if and when
I have such a super abundance for myself I'll not even notice
if I give some of it away. You know those celebrities that
give what to us is massive amounts of money. Now I'm glad they do
because it has a practical good to it. But they're really not
sacrificing when they do it. They've got so much. I mean,
if you've got, you know, $300 million, giving away $100,000
like you and I, you know, we drop a penny and we don't even
bother to bend over and pick it up. Maybe you do. And maybe out of principle I
would, but really I'm thinking, a penny ain't worth bending over
for. No, we resist that because the
fruit of the Spirit, the first aspect of the fruit of the Spirit
is love, and in love we help one another. But then Paul gives
us an illustration of how we are to relate to one another.
Verse 5 of chapter 2, your attitude should be the same as that of
Christ Jesus. And what follows is one of the
most remarkable Christological statements. Now there's your
nice fancy theological word, Christological. And that just
means concerning Christ. That's how they say it in theological
circles. But it is one of the most impressive,
most densely packed statements about who Christ is and what
he did. And so powerful is this statement
when you come to Philippians 2. People often ignore the first
five verses and just jump down there so they can talk about
Jesus Christ. It's a good thing to talk about
Christ, but we need to remember why Paul put this here. Now,
in the NIV, you can see that they have this set up as though
it's poetry. And so probably this was either
poetry or it was a creedal statement of the early church that the
Philippian church would have been familiar with. But he's
quoting something here. But he goes, he says this about
our Lord. He says that he's equal with
God. In very nature, he's God. And yet he did not consider this
equality of God with God something to cling to instead. He let go
of his rights and privileges of God and made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
So he goes from being in very nature God to having the nature
of a servant and likeness to humanity. But he didn't stop there. Being
found in that condition, he became obedient He humbled himself. Wow. Of all the men who have
ever lived on the world, who is under no obligation to humble
himself, the Lord Jesus, yet he was the most humble man that
ever lived. We who have nothing in which
we can glory, Yet we're very careful of our reputation. We're very careful that people
don't find out the things about us that might cast us in an ill
light. And if somebody makes a false
accusation against us, we really get riled up. We don't humble
ourselves. I find humbling myself something
very difficult to do. But our Lord Jesus, who had every
right to self-glory, humbled himself He became submissive, obedient
to death. Even the death of the cross. Now, you might think that's a
good example of how we should relate to God. And you're right. You would be right in this. This
is a good example of how we should relate to God. Not in any claim
that we're equal, but certainly in that aspect of humility and
submission. But Paul is not giving us this
statement of Christ and what he has done as an illustration
of how we are to submit to the Father. He's given that to us
as an illustration of how we should submit to one another.
He's told them all this about being like-minded and all this,
and then he goes, your attitude should be the same as Christ
Jesus. And what does he say about the attitude of Christ? Well,
being in the very nature of God, Christ was equal with God. We
begin in our relationships with one another as children of God,
as those who are in Christ, we begin with the recognition that
we are equals. Equals in the sight of God. Naturally,
we have nothing. In Christ, we have everything.
One person cannot exalt himself above the other. One cannot say,
I'm more important to God. I'm more important to the church.
I'm a better Christian than this fellow over there. I used to
pray when I was a kid, God, make me a better Christian. Now what
I meant was, make me behave better. But then again, the church I
was being raised in, they would call that being a better Christian.
Well, we certainly should want to behave better than we do,
because we should desire to be perfect, and none of us are there. But when we see one another as
in Christ, we recognize that there is no difference among
us in ourselves. Now, God gives
graces to his people, that is, abilities for them to serve within
the church. And some of those abilities put
some people, such as myself, more in the public eye. What
I do in the church is kind of obvious. Others are serving the
church in ways that no one knows. In fact, they may not even know. But here's the thing, there are
none of us who are dispensable to the church. I mean, we pay a whole lot of
attention to our appearance, especially our face. If there's
anything we can do about it, you know, we try to improve it. But is there any part of your
body you're willing to give up? Is there any part of your body
to say, yeah, I really don't need that? I know they used to
say that about the appendix, but they found out that's got
a use too. Oh, to look upon one another.
and not see someone who irritates us, or someone who doesn't do
things like us, or someone we're envious of. We just see there's
a brother or sister in Christ. One with me in Christ. Highly
esteemed by God. Accepted and approved of by God. And no matter what our supposed
position in the church is, we're equals. I may be what is called
the pastor, but as I've pointed out to others when they talk
about the ministry, the words pastor, elder, and bishop are
not titles, they're job descriptions. And all of them have to do with
taking care of people. Paul says, we are your servants
for Christ's sake. And in fact, he even went so
far as to say, we are yours. And so here I am, and I know
that there's a lot of guys out there in the ministry who like
to be thought of highly, just like those that the Lord said,
they love to be called rabbi in the streets. Well, these folks,
they want to be called reverend. They want to be recognized as
pastors or this or whatever. None of that matters. If I am a help to you, It's only
because it's God working through me to help you. I can't do anything
for you. So why should I boast over anyone
in this congregation? But he goes farther than this.
We recognize we are equals, but what should we do then with one
another? We submit to one another. Christ was equal with God, but
he submitted. He took a lower position. Now,
we have no reason and no justification to take a higher position over
our brothers and sisters, but in humility, we can take a lower
position. It wouldn't be appropriate for
me to say, you're gonna be my servant, but it's entirely appropriate
for me to say, I am your servant. It wouldn't be appropriate for
me to say, you should do this for me. But it is entirely appropriate.
If I say, you know, I should do this for you. We submit to one another. In
those things which are not essential matters of the truth and faithful
worship, we submit to one another. We consider others better, more
worthy than ourselves. And we don't just look about
our interests. Now, you know, the United States,
and I'm glad I'm a citizen here, the United States has done as
good as any country has ever done in setting up a form of
government that balances out the self-interests of everybody
in such a way that we have had for a long time a prosperous
and free society. But that is a matter of competing
interests. The idea being, you know, that
whatever you can get a lot of people behind, then there's likely
some wisdom in it. But that's not the way the church
is. Everyone should be as concerned about what the other people in
church want and as they themselves should want. So he goes on in Philippians
chapter 12, Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed,
not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence,
continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. This
doesn't mean He's not talking about the salvation of our souls,
that's been completed in Christ. Our salvation from troubles.
Our salvation, our deliverance from these things that cause
us to stumble, and these things about us that cause others to
stumble. If the church is to be delivered
from the trials that rise up from within, It'll be by believers taking
the principles of the gospel and applying those principles
to themselves, principles of grace, principles of forgiveness,
principles of forbearance, principles of love, all this, and we apply
it to ourselves and we relate towards one another as equals,
all in submission to one another. And that's the way the church
gets out of trouble and stays out of trouble. Verse 13, for it's God who works
in you to will and to act according to His good purpose. This stuff that we are called
on to do is done only as God works in us to do it. That does
not mean that we're going to say, well, I can't do it unless,
you know, God works in me to do it, so I'm not even going
to try. No, it's exactly the opposite. Paul says, work out
your own salvation. Deal with the problems within
the church. Submit to want to do all this. He said, and do
it with fear and trembling. Because it's God that's working
in you to do that. It's God. This is God's way. This is God's instruction. Dare
we turn away from it? Dare we sit and listen to it
and say, oh, that's awful sweet, and then go on the same way we
were when we came? No, we change our attitude the
best we can. We understand theologically that
no good thing will be accomplished in us or through us, apart from
the grace of God working in us. But because we know that, we
pursue these things and ask God to bless our efforts in these
directions. Now, that's how far we got. So I didn't get into
any new material. Next week, we'll pick up there.