Turn to the book of Philippians, and we will get started. I'm
just going to read the first two verses, and then I'm going
to talk for a minute. Paul and Timothy, servants of
Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi,
with the overseers and deacons. Grace to you and peace from God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in verses 3-11, Paul prays for
these people. And we're going to read that
in a little bit. But as we get started, I want you to go ahead
and consider a couple of things. I want you to think for a minute
what it means to spend too much time in a particular letter.
What does it mean? Is there such a way for us to
preach too much out of Philippians to say if it took us 20 sermons
or 30 sermons? Would it wear on us? Are we going
to get to anything else? And then what if it was just
10? What if today I preach from the
first chapter or the first 11 verses and we got the gist of
what was being said and we understood it and we could apply it, but
at the same time we missed a lot? Or even worse, what if we had
only 20 minutes for me to go through and give the main point
of the first 11 verses of this text? 20 minutes. What would
it do for you? What difference would it make?
By way of illustration, I want you to think about what you did
the last time you felt hunger in your stomach. Was it a mealtime? Was it close
to a mealtime? If it's close to a mealtime,
what we usually do is just prepare to go eat, right? We usually
just decide, okay, it's lunchtime, we're going to go and we're going
to find some food. And so that's what we do. If
it's not close to a mealtime, what do we do? We go and we find something to
satisfy ourselves from hunger to carry us through or to carry
us over. Or as some of us say, to tide
us over. Whatever does that mean? I guess we're tied over to lunch.
And the snack is like a rope, keeps us from falling off the
cliff of hunger. I don't know. I haven't really
cared to look. Well, that's what we do. We go
in and we go, okay, I'm going to get a little something to eat. Or if we're
really hungry and we're traveling, we don't have time to stop or
whatever, even if we could eat a piece of peppermint, it takes
the hunger pangs away. But at the end of the day, if
we get a little snack on the way to the meal, is that sufficient
to sustain us? No, because what happens when
you get a little snack? It takes the pain away, but it increases the hunger
in just a few minutes, like 30 to 40 minutes or maybe an hour.
And so we have to snack again. And that's really the way God
designed us to eat. To eat a little bit as we need
it so that our body can have the energy to grow. Well, let
me ask you this. As you eat and as you prepare
to sit at your meal, your purpose is to continue moving forward
so that you can have the energy in your body to sustain yourself
to do that which you have to do in life. And you want to eat
a meal so that you can have sustenance and nutrition and fullness. If we approach the Word of God
in the same way, as we do our food, I would suggest that we
probably don't spend as much time with the Word of God as
we do with our food. I would suggest that we don't
spend as much time thinking about and preparing to take the Word
of God in as we do thinking about and preparing to eat. And so
if you know what Jesus teaches in John chapter 6 when he says,
do not labor for the food that perishes but labor for the bread
that endures to eternal life, who is Jesus. then I would suggest that we
get in our minds that the absolute necessity of exposition is more
than just a commentative outline of the text, but is a specific
spiritual journey in the Bible for the sake of the good of the
body, not just locally but at large, with express outcome and
fruit for the local body. So if we understand that Philippians
was written to the people of Philippi, which was a Roman province,
if we understand that Paul wrote it from imprisonment in house
prison in Rome, some people said he was in Caesarea, but he wasn't
because he was fearful of his death. So we know he was in Rome. And if we know these things are
true, if we understand that Paul is writing to this church from
prison, that there is an encouragement that he's given, if we know these
things, if we're going to see what it is that Paul is wanting
to communicate to them, do we just get it? Do we just get it
when it says, Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ? Yeah,
okay, they worked for Jesus. Or do we need to stop and contemplate
what the Philippians thought when they heard such a word? If you want to grasp the reality
of the Bible for your good and for the praise and the worship
of God and His glorious grace, we have to take time to expose
all that is underlying, not hidden, but underlying. If I say the
word flabbergasted, how many of us know what it means? Really,
by definition. The definition even in itself,
if I gave it to you thinking, Is that really what that means?
But how many of us know in some sense when somebody says I'm
flabbergasted, it's a funny sounding word, but we know by experience
and we also know by just exposure more than the definition of that
word. But does it really even have meaning to us today? Does
it? Not really. I mean, I hear it,
I use it from time to time, but it's almost a joke now. Flabbergast,
it's not necessarily something we'd use. What would we use? We don't say astonished much
anymore. We don't say I'm in awe or I'm
in wonder. What do we say? I don't know. What would you say if you were
taken back? And would the people around you
understand what that meant? What if I told you that I was
scared? Would you grasp the meaning? Am I scared like I hear thunder
and I'm scared that my windows are down on the car? Am I scared
because there might be a spider under the log? Am I scared because
I heard a bump in the night and I'm afraid someone might be burglarizing
my home? Am I scared because I think I'm
dying because the doctor said I have cancer in my body? Am
I scared of an unknown? Am I scared of a shark coming
out of the shower drain and eating me? I've been there. Absurd. So even if I say I'm
scared, there's a level of understanding that comes with the context.
There's a level of understanding when Paul says the things that
he says, even in the greeting of his letter, there's a level
of understanding that the Philippian people grasped. And if they didn't
grasp it, the reading of the letters of the apostles in the
first church, they would take time. What does Paul mean? Why
would Paul call himself a slave? He didn't use the word servant,
by the way. He used the word slave. They're what? Slave. Slave. Slave. Period. Anytime you see the word servant
in the New Testament, automatically, I almost read it that way, but
automatically say slave. It should be translated slave.
Because it had just that connotation. When we hear servant today, we
think differently, don't we? But the occasion for this writing,
as you see, is that he's in prison. And when Paul planted the church
in Philippi, and we heard the account last week, Lydia was
the first convert of the Philippian church. And she was a what? She sold purple goods. That's
all we know about her. And we saw that the outcome of
the planting of the church in Philippi was beatings and prison. That's what happened. And if
you weren't here last week, Brother Jesse did a fine job of looking
at a lot of texts and focusing on the main focus of that text,
which is the sovereignty of God, and salvation, and the planting
of the church, and the preaching of His Word, and the giving of
faith, all sorts of things that Acts 16 teaches us about the
sovereignty of God. Paul planted the church in Philippi
under great duress, under great consequence, under great persecution. It was not an easy thing. And
as he goes into this city and the Lord does some mighty work,
there are more people than Lydia and the church of Philippi. The
guard and the prison and his whole household are part of the
church at Philippi. And so here now Paul is writing
to the church of Philippi because now he's in prison in Rome. And one of the members of the
church of Philippi named Epaphroditus had come down with a deathly
illness. And he had been healed of that
illness and survived that illness barely. And Paul wants the Philippians
to understand that. He also wants them to understand
that though he is suffering as he did in Philippi, he is okay. He wants to encourage them that
what they're doing in the Lord Jesus, they need to maintain
the course. He wants to help them realize
that no matter how bad things are, that they need to maintain
the mindset of Jesus. They need to maintain the attitude
of Jesus, which is theirs. It's not something they have
to obtain, it's something they already have. And so, as we look
at this letter in the next few months, I want you to remember
that. I want you to remember that there is a substantial pulse
to this writing that is important for you. Even though it wasn't
written to you, it is written for you. And what applies in
the principles of Philippians applies in the principles of
Claxton, and Statesboro, and Savannah, and Glenville, and
Reidsville, and Rinkin, and Pooler, and all these other places that
we represent. But I'll tell you now that it's
very difficult sometimes because you see, and if you read any
of the theology blogs, you'll see these things that come to
life all of a sudden where people are saying, well, there's a trend
now to preach longer. And that's what these pastors
are doing. They're just preaching longer and they need to preach
shorter. Well, maybe in the context of
15 minutes less a week would be beneficial for us. But in
the context of actually taking and reducing the exposition of
a particular letter, I think it would be very, very lazy to
do. And when you look and you think,
well, people are trying to be Puritan-esque in their preaching. Friends,
we're talking about 20 weeks versus 300 weeks. So we don't
want to go 300 weeks. We don't want to go 18 years. We don't want to spend that kind
of time in a letter the size of Philippians. And that's where
some of the Puritan preachers would do. They would start the
letter of 1 John and five years later they're still preaching
it. You know? What in the world? That's the exaggerated problem
that you'll start to hear. And when you do hear it, that's
what they're talking about. What is good for the church is we're
not going to get it all, but we're going to get the heart
of it, the meat of it, the focus of it. And what I really believe
is vital for you as we go through this letter is that you keep
record. You take notes. When the Lord
quickens you, you write down. And if it's not here during our
service together, do it at home. Sit down and look at it and contemplate
what difference does this truth make? What difference does this
narrative make? What difference does this little
point in history make for me as God has exposed it to my soul? And at the end of it, how am
I going to apply it and how am I going to worship God through
it? What is going to happen with
this? Well, friends, I'm going to tell you what's going to happen
with our study and our preaching in Philippians. God is going
to encourage you. God is going to lift you. God
is going to equip you. God is going to humble you. It's
often frustrating because sometimes people think that the preacher
is preaching to them, but I'm sharing with you what has already
been preached to me. And the Bible, even in study,
disrupts my life and my house. So I don't want to be alone in
that. Merry Christmas. You see the point? We're all
one body. And if the Bible disrupts the
flock, and when I say disrupts, that's what it does. When we
get over there, when Paul says, do all things without grumbling
and complaining, I just want you all to sit Indian style in
your seats. Because somebody is going to stomp all over your
toes. And you're going to say, I don't like sitting Indian style.
It hurts my hips. Stop complaining. You see the
point? When Paul says that we are to
let our manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
we've got to think about what that looks like and we've got
to look at every aspect. Whether we're grilling on the
patio or shoveling rocks in the driveway or sitting on our butts
asleep, is our manner of life worthy of the gospel? Because
I believe it's either all-encompassing or it doesn't matter. If the
church cannot live to the glory of God in all matters, if there
are things that are not spiritual in nature and have no spiritual
bearing, then this doesn't matter at all. We're not compartmentalized
people. We are a body. So let's look
at this for a minute. Let's look at this text. These
two little verses, and I promise you I'm not going to preach five
sermons out of it. We'll do this today and it'll be done. But
we look at these verses, we see something here. We see Paul and
we see Timothy as the author of this letter. So Paul is writing,
and he writes the entire letter in first person. He never once
again mentions Timothy. He never once again says we or
us. He then says I. It's a very personal
letter, but because of the unity of the church because of Paul's
relationship with Timothy, who he says was like a son to a father. Paul includes Timothy in the
writing of this letter to the church of Philippi. And so Paul,
almost every other place, we've heard him say he was a servant
of the Lord Jesus Christ before, haven't we? But have we ever
seen him not put an apostle? And here now in this text, not
only is he inclusive of Timothy, But he's also saying that he
and Timothy both are slaves, not apostles. He's not saying
they're not apostles. Timothy wasn't an apostle, but
he's not saying he's not an apostle. But what he's doing is he's making
himself equal with Timothy. He's not standing on his apostolic
authority, though it's there. One of my mentors told me a long
time ago, he says, anytime you have to stand in front of your
church and say, I'm the pastor, is the day you stop being the
pastor. You know what the word pastor means? Shepherd. Overseer. Not dictator. And it's one of
those things where if the guy at the house has to say, I'm
the husband, he's not the husband. I'm the leader, he's not the
leader. He's a wuss. A wimp. A sissy man. Who has decided to use his rank
rather than his leadership. And we're all guilty of it. And
us ladies are guilty of it too. But Paul doesn't, he doesn't
press his apostolic role. He presses the idea that he and
Timothy are co-equals. Timothy not even being an apostle,
but a protege of Paul. And then he calls them both slaves. Now think about that for a minute.
Slaves of Jesus Christ. Now, if you understand about
the culture of first century Rome, in Philippi, Roman province,
there were slaves everywhere. Now, a slave is someone who was
owned. They were a piece of property.
They were not human in the context of the social order. They were
not human beings. Just like in America, when African slaves
were captured and brought over here and purchased and sold into
the colonies, and in Europe, they were counted as like a portion
of a person. They were recognized as human
beings, but they weren't full human beings. So in the governmental
documents, they were counted as a portion of a person. Now
think about it for a minute. It's like saying that we who
have multiple children have got to have seven children in order
to have one person. It was like that. And then when
you hit 18 or 19 or whatever, then the government would recognize,
then society would recognize you as a whole person, but then
when you turn, let's just say 80, because you went, yeah, I
couldn't really do a whole lot, they decided to start quartering
you down until you got into your 90s and then you were a tenth
of a person. And so when you voted, you had to have ten people
in their 90s to vote to make one vote. Wouldn't that be demeaning? Slavery is demeaning. The Bible does not condone slavery,
it just talks about its reality. But it's interesting because
nowhere in any culture has slavery been a good thing. Even when
it was necessary in the minds and the eyes of the people who
owned slaves, like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards, George
Whitefield actually petitioned the government. or the governor of Georgia to
allow slavery to remain because he needed slaves for his orphanage.
Well, what a wicked man. Of course he was. He was saved
by grace. An Anglican bishop, no doubt, that comes over here
and preaches a new birth gospel. And so here we've got slave of
Jesus Christ. In this first century Roman city,
we don't want to be a slave. We want to be a slave owner.
We want to be a master. We want to be a leader. We want to be
somebody of esteem. We don't want to be a slave.
A slave is owned and it owns nothing. So what Paul is saying
here to the church of Philippi is that, look, look at me. And
look at Timothy as property. We're servants. We're slaves
of Jesus Christ. So we are going to do all that
our Master tells us. We are subject to the will of
Jesus Christ alone. We are subject to social I don't
know, what do you call it? We're a pariah, if you will. I want you to look at us as though
we're not something, but nothing. You might say, well, why? Where
do you get all that? You know this text. You know the text
here when Paul begins to talk about the mind of Christ. And
he points to Jesus in a way that nowhere else do we see Jesus
pointed to in that way. He points to Jesus as a slave. The King of kings, the Lord of
lords, the God of the universe, the creator of the cosmos, he
calls Jesus a slave. Not just a slave, but a slave
that dies as a criminal. And so now Paul, if you understand,
he's setting this whole letter up. He's setting this whole sermon
up. He's setting this whole city
up. To start looking at yourselves
as slaves of Jesus, and here's the cool thing, it is an honor. I forsake the honor of my apostleship
in your eyes to be known as the slave of Jesus. Not only am I
the slave of Jesus, but I am mentoring other men to teach
other men to be slaves of Jesus. And as a slave of Jesus Christ, we are looking in a position
here to have a misnomer happen in our
minds. Okay, that's right. I'm serving... Be careful, listen. If I'm a slave, you might say,
I'm serving Jesus. How do we serve Jesus? How did
Paul and Timothy, as slaves, serve Jesus Christ, their Master?
By writing letters to His body. Paul, in prison, in need, says
that I'm serving Jesus not by starting a church in the prison,
not by being an evangelist in the prison, not by starting a
ministry to train others to be a slave to Jesus. To be a slave
to Jesus in the mind of Paul was to be a slave to the body
of Jesus. Do you see that? I tell you, I hear it, I know
it, I've thought about it, I've sat down and written about it,
I've prayed about it for years, but it still doesn't grasp us,
does it? We don't have the context in
our culture to understand that. Because everything in our culture
is like, we've got to get rid of slavery. Paul would tell the Corinthians,
that if you do get freed, that's fine, but you get freed from
being a slave to men, and then you become a slave to Christ.
The Scripture tells us that we become, that we're slaves to
the flesh and to death and to sin, and then we become slaves
to righteousness. But as Americans, we have this
ideal that slavery and Jesus don't mix. Now I'm not talking
about human slavery. I'm talking about spiritual slavery.
We are not something vital to be googled at and all over and
just praised because we're some big theological woohoo. It doesn't work that way. Paul
lowered himself as a slave, not even mentioning his apostleship,
to show very clearly to the people of Philippi who knew what slavery
was. There were many slaves there.
And he says it's an honor to be a
slave of Jesus. And I'm going to show you what
a slave does if Jesus is the head, then His body is what I
serve. How do we serve Christ? It's
not even through the writing of our books. Our ministry, if not to the body
of Christ, is no ministry. Hear that, church. Our missions,
if not as a slave to the body of Christ, is no mission. What's the purpose of preaching
if the church doesn't plant? What's the purpose of preaching
if the church doesn't grow where it's planted? What's the purpose
of evangelism if congregations are not going to sprout up? so
that they could be served by the Lord's servants, all each
to one another. That's something else to think
about. As Paul and Timothy would suggest,
they are slaves of Jesus Christ. And if Paul is an apostle and
Timothy his student, is not then the sheep of God's flock also
slaves? Those who are taught by the Word
of God as children of God are slaves to Jesus Christ, and thus
slaves to one another. What do you think Paul means
when he says, or what do you think Scripture means when it
says that a husband and a wife do not own their own bodies, but each belongs to the other? That's what it means. That's
why marriage is such an important institution, because it is a
picture of the eternal church. It is a small, puff, smoke-in-the-breeze
picture of an eternal truth that Christ came to save a people
for Himself. Even in the physical act of intimacy,
submission, headship, Slavery. It was an honor to be a slave. It was an honor to be a slave
with Timothy. The central message of Philippians to the Philippi
people is that we are slaves to Christ and we are slaves to
you, church, And that is an honor. You might think, okay, we get
the point. Well, let me tell you, Paul doesn't
think they get the point with the introduction. And so everything
else he talks about centers on that. I want to encourage you,
church at Philippi, to welcome a man of worthy as a slave to
each other. I want to encourage you, church
at Philippi, to walk in a manner worthy as a slave to Jesus Christ. I want to encourage you to walk
in a manner worthy as a slave, just as the mind of Christ is
yours. Have it. I want you to walk in
a manner worthy, and I want you to understand that there's people
among you, like in chapter 4, who are divisive. I want you
to reconcile with them. Submit to them who are divisive
that they may see the gospel. So that we see now the introduction
or the salutation or the whatever we want to call this thing. And then he writes to. Here's
Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ. We are writing,
slaves of Christ, to you. To whom? Who is it that Paul
is writing to here? He's writing to, look at it,
all the saints. And notice he didn't say, writing
to the First Avenue saints. He didn't say, writing to the
East Side saints, or the West Side saints, or the South Side
saints. He didn't say, writing to the
Grace Truth saints. He said, I'm writing to all the
saints. All the saints. And all the saints,
they have a location, and that location is in Christ Jesus at
Philippi. And there's some things to be
pulled out of that. First, I want you to understand that there's
a significance in the reality of what Paul is saying. All the
saints. Why do you think he uses that?
Writing not just to the saints, but to all the saints. Because
there was a lot of divisiveness going on among the church, just
like there is today. There's not a church on two corners
that doesn't have another church on another corner because they
cannot be together. Why? Because there's something
that divides them. And Paul is writing not even
to the Baptists or to the Methodists or to the Presbyterians. He's
writing to the saints. To all the saints. Any of the
saints. All the saints who are in Christ
Jesus and are at Philippi. I'm writing to you and I want
you to hear the Word of the Lord and I want you to heed the Word
of the Lord and I want you to grow wholly in the Word of the
Lord. What is the idea of a saint anyway?
We hear that. My grandfather, a couple of weeks
ago, actually reiterated that truth for us. We are saints in
Christ Jesus. But you know what? Us of Baptist
and Reformed tradition, we love to wear the badge of honor of
sinner. Have you noticed that? Well, that's a really oxymoronic
thing to say, badge of honor as sinner. But don't we? We like
to walk around and go, I'm just a big sinner. When the Bible
actually teaches us, I was a sinner. Though I still sin, I was a sinner. I'm a saint. Nowhere in the entire
New Testament, I've looked, does Paul or James or Peter or John,
Matthew, Luke, none of them, none of them, none of them ever
say to the sinners in anywhere. And that shows me that the Bible
and the New Testament specifically was never written to lost people.
Every letter of the New Testament, every gospel account, every thing,
every jot and tittle was written to the body of Christ, saints
in the Lord. Those who are holy and beloved, those who are justified,
those who, as Paul is so sure, are already glorified. Those who are saints. Well, what
in the world does that bring to your mind? What does it bring
to your mind to think about being a saint? Well, here's the deal. How did you become a saint? Because
of your own good behavior? Because of your good works? Because
of your coming to God because of your following the rules,
because of your strict repentance on certain issues, your piety,
your reading the Bible, your becoming a preacher, becoming
a teacher, all these things, is that how you become a saint?
Do you work yourself into sainthood as some Roman people would think? And Greek people would think?
No. You cannot. So the idea that
Paul would call them saints already gives glory to whom? Gives glory
to God the Father. Because he says to all the saints
in Christ Jesus, we see that because they're saints, it is
the work of God at hand. That Paul does not even take
credit as a slave for the work of God in Philippi. What did
he do? He got arrested. That's what Paul did. Paul preached,
got locked up. God let him out. Paul preached
some more. Got beat. He'd escape that. He'd get stoned.
He'd escape that. He'd be shipwrecked. He'd escape
that. Time after time after time. The consequences of Paul's work
were always suffering for Paul. Always imprisonment for Paul.
Always pain for Paul. so that there would be no forum,
no conference, no book, no writing, no video series, no podcast about
how to plant a church from Paul. I think there's a lesson in that
for us. We love to take credit for what we've done. Evidence
by the answer to the question is, how did you do what you do? How did you start a church? How did you plant a church? God plants a church. God brings
salvation. God creates His people. God calls
dead, blind, deaf sinners out of darkness into light through
the preacher of the gospel to which no one can take credit
for but God. So we are saints in Christ because
God has worked that out in His wisdom. God has purposed that
in His perfect election. God has purposed that in His
sovereignty. Don't believe me? Folks, if it
cost us a lot to be in fellowship today around this country, it
would be a lot of empty buildings. And when the gospel of Jesus
is preached on the street, you know what's crazy? We can do
political speech, even. We can do humanitarian speech. We can do all sorts of stuff
out in the public eye. But when we begin to proclaim
the unadulterated, unapologetic Word of God, we are hated first
by those who claim to be in God. Who claim to be saints. who when
they hear the words of their own father, they scoff. You ever
wondered about that? And Jesse can attest to this.
Mike can attest to this. Others, Karen, you've done a
lot of outdoor evangelism. You know the ones who always
get in my face? The ones with a Bible in their
hand who say, this isn't what you should be doing. You shouldn't
be... This is really not the picture
of the gospel. This isn't what Jesus would want
you to do. It's Christians. Most of the time, pastors or
deacons from churches. Or concerned parents, like at
the high school. That rocked them. Why would they do that? They
don't want to hear the word of their... who they say is their
father. They hate his word. Wouldn't
you want to hear from your Father? The One who made you, and created
you, and molded you, and mentored you, and grew you, and gave you
all that you had, and took care of you, and taught you all the
ways of wisdom. And He was not with you, and
someone began to share the words of your Father. Wouldn't you
go, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's my dad's. That's my dad's stuff
right there. Tell me more. Let me show you
what else He told us. Oh man, you're my sibling. We've
got the same dad. We've got the same father. It's
strange, isn't it? Saints love the words of their
father who created them holy. Holy, holy, holy. God alone is
holy. His command to His people are
be holy for I am holy. And He makes us holy in Jesus
Christ. That's what it means to be a
saint. We are children adopted. There's so much involved in the
work of God for His people. A costly, harsh work. How does holiness die for wickedness? How does supremacy become subordinate? How does glory become Don't think Jesus was the best
looking guy in the group. It's vital for us to know that
when Paul says to the saints, he's got all that in mind. He's got it in mind that you're
in Christ, you are the body of Christ, and you have victory
over sin. Saint. You have victory over
death. Saint. You are counted in Christ. You are alive. in Christ, saint. You are bound together as one
body in Christ. And you cannot, you cannot, saint,
take yourself out of that. You cannot remove yourself from
the body of Christ. If you can, you were never part
of it. If you cannot forgive, you are
not forgiven. If you cannot serve as a slave
to your enemy, you are not a child of God who served as a slave
for His enemies on the cross. It was a lot wrapped up in the
saint, isn't it? It's all about the gospel of
Jesus Christ who maintains us and perfectly
heals us. and perfectly brings us into
unity in spite of our differences. Separatism is an incredible thing.
It's fresh on my mind because I've read just this week over
3,000 pages on the separatist and fundamentalist movement. It's in there. If you aren't
just like me, the world says I want to find somebody who is. And if you're not exactly like
me, even though you may be ignorant and an infant, I don't want to
be like you, I don't want to be around you. You know how wicked
that is? There's a difference in bold
apostasy and ignorance. And friends, I'm finding more
and more and more and more that many Christians have been saved
by the grace of God and they are suffocated They are suffocated
by worldliness. Perpetrated by their pastors
and their churches. In the name of ministry. In the
name of Christ. And our first thing that we need
to understand is that we should have pity on those saints. And
we should pray for them. We should have patience with
them. Always listening and being ready to give correction with
gentleness and respect. For those of you who have had
children, have you ever had them come down the hall or down the
stairs and they're dressed a little inappropriately with either the
weather or they've got on their best Superman outfit? The muscle
suit, that was something my son used to love to wear when he
was young, this little muscle suit that my grandmother bought
him. And there's times to wear the
muscle suit and there's times not to wear the muscle suit. And
you don't wear the unitard muscle suit when you're going out. But
there are many times he'd want to wear it. I'm colorblind. I don't see certain
shades and hues. I bought me a new suit in high
school one day, and I bought me a suit that was gray. And
I went to school with that gray suit on. It took me about homeroom
five minutes to realize it wasn't gray, it was purple. Something
like a pale blackhead had barned the dinosaur. Didn't know what
to do. Go home. Mom's, how was your
day? I said, well, my day was terrible
because I wore this stupid purple suit and I got picked on. She
goes, I thought you looked nice. What's the point in all that?
My brain scatters sometimes. But the point is sometimes people,
you need to say that doesn't really look appropriate. You ever had to say something
like that? You know, we're going to a funeral, right? That tankini
and the throw and the bedroom shoes, doesn't work. Doesn't
work. Okay? We're going to a funeral,
not a circus. So what's the point of this?
Sometimes we have to say to people gently and kindly, you know what
would really look nice? You should wear that black dress.
You know, that sweater. That would really look nice.
Versus, that's terrible. Go upstairs, dummy. In the same
way, we have to correct each other in the faith. When somebody
starts to just praise, praise, praise all these heretics. And they come in and say, oh,
have you read the book about so-and-so by so-and-so? And we want to
just thump them in the nose. Don't you know He is of the devil? But how do we do it? What's our
goal? To yell fire and hope they don't
get smoke on them as we run away? Or is our goal to make disciples
of these people? You know one of the better things,
and this is just some application, one of the better ways of correction
is to ask questions. Just ask. Ask people. Like when somebody brought me
to my attention, you've got to read the book, The Shack. You've got to read it. Don't
forget where we are now. We're talking about those saints
who are immature and infantile. But they're still the saints.
You've got to read the book. My first question is, why? I
knew all about it because I've never seen God in that light
before. So, what in that book gives you what the Bible can't?
Question number two. Well, this and that and that
and that. What do you think the Bible would
say about that view of God? I don't know. Well, let me show
you what the Bible says about God, and then let's see if this
book, the shack, matches. You just need to read it. get on my bike, drive all the
way to Barnes and Nobles on my bicycle, I buy it and I read
it. Not on the way back, but I read it. I read it in just
about an hour. And I call them back up and I say, here's the
deal. I appreciate you entertaining my mind with this, but it is
extra biblical. It is unholy. And if you'd like
for me to walk... So we have to do it. But why
would I want to separate with this sister just because she's
got heresy on her bookshelf. You want to see heresy? Come
into my study, look to the left, last shelf, bottom three. Heresies. That's my heretic shelf. And when I was in a public office,
when I had a public office where people would come in there often,
I had little black stickers. At first I had little crossbone
stickers on there and that got a little touchy. So I just put
little black stickers on the bind of anything that I would
refer as a reference book that was bad. Like Brian McLaren's
writing, bad. Joel Osteen's writing, bad. Why
are they in your library? Because I want to know what they're
saying. Because they're affecting the body of Christ. When I got
ten people wanting to start a Bible study on live your best life
now, I want to know what's in it so I can say, this is why
we're not doing that. Who are you? I'm just a guy that's
going to stand before God one day and give an account for your
soul. You do what you want to do, but it's against my best
interests. It's against my best advice. And it's against your
best interests. I won't say I told you so, but
I will have to put you in counseling for a couple of weeks when you
get through. In the end, being a saint means
all of these things, and it culminates on this earth this way, with
the Greek word koinonia. Do you know what koinonia is? We translate it as fellowship,
but it's really weak. Koinonia is all things in common. That means everything that I
have is yours. It's not like marriage, you know,
the old little joke. We were getting married and somebody
said, you know what marriage is, right? Everything you have
is hers and everything she has is hers. And I'm like, that's
funny, haha. But it's true. We're one body. The church is
one. So what we have is available
to each other. What we have in our gifts are
for each other, not for us, not for our household, but for our
body. If you're gifted by the Lord,
then you serve in that gift. Koinonia. All things in common,
but it's not just a worldly common. It's not a common culture. Hear
me. It's not an affinity group. And
you don't know this, but I'm stepping on the toes of some
major public leaders in Baptist churches and Baptist denominations.
It is not biblical to build a ministry around an affinity in the world. You hear me? I want to preach
that on the street. It is deplorable and damnable
to do missions in evangelism and build relationships around
people and call it the ministry of the church when we're building
a relationship around a holy Davidson. or a hunting club,
or a sewing class. Is there anything wrong with
any of those? No. Build as many clubs as you want
to build, but don't you dare in any fiber of your soul say
that it's the call of God for evangelism and discipleship.
Don't you dare say that if I do this then I'll reach people that
I wouldn't normally reach. It is wicked beyond the core
of wicked. Because it puts our focus on
being like others in our culture rather than like others in Christ. Having koinonia has everything
to do with having nothing in common but Christ. And then everything
we have is in common. I don't care at all about calculus. I think they should erase it
from the books. Just wipe it off! The world would
be lighter, there'd be less pollution in the air, there'd be all sorts
of cool things that would happen. I think the rainbow would add
twelve colors if we removed calculus from the world. But if you love calculus and
want to share it with me, I love it. And I want to hear what you love,
even though I will never learn it again. We have all things in common
in Christ, not culture, not country. Ethnocentric missions is sinful. I'm going to go to this city
and reach white people. I'm going to go to this city
and reach Hispanic people. I'm going to go to this city
and reach black people, and brown people, and yellow people. I'm
going to reach... Now, don't we have to worry about
the ethnos? Don't we have to be concerned
with... Yes, but listen, you can't grow a sub... A separated
church in a city apart from another church. You may even have to
plant a church that speaks a different language because they don't understand
the language. But if we're separating based
on cultural preferences or ethnicity, how can we dare say that we are
in Christ? How? It doesn't work. If we have all things in common,
if I am in Christ, and my African, and Chinese, and Japanese, and
Hispanic, and Latin American, and Canadian, and European, if
all these brothers and sisters are also in Christ, then we have
all things in common, even if we can't communicate. And it means that we probably
have to get some people that can speak that language to teach
the Scripture. But it doesn't mean we start planting churches
around a subsection of a culture. We don't have everything in common
as a country. God has never ordained America
to be anything but a picture of His law and justice, and a
picture of His judgment. God is not in the business of
saving governments. He saves people. There's no such thing as United
States of America, the saint. There's no such thing as the United States of America,
the body of Christ. The whole idea of the United
States of America's origin is on plurality and freedom of religion
and from religion. We can take it or leave it. And
if we take it, we can take whatever we want. It's the history of
our nation. It's the founding documents of
our country. And there's no king but Christ, and there's no kingdom
but Christ. We're not going to be defined
by our country in koinonia. We have all things in common
in Christ, not in cause. Like I said before the service,
as sometimes we may see other people with a good cause, we
say, oh, we'll go and we'll join that cause. It's okay to join
a cause, but it's not what brings us common. It's not what brings
us fellowship. It's not what brings us koinonia. Oh, there's starving children
over there. Let's join the cause. Church. But when they're fed,
then what? Where's our commonality? And
what if the world comes alongside the church? Are we all in common
with the world? What if the Mormon church comes alongside the church?
Are they in common with us? No! So we don't have all things
together in cause. We can't help who come to the
front line in a time of need or an earthquake or fire or famine
or flood. Whoever, humanity is responsible
for itself. We ought to help each other as
human beings. That's what animals do. But it doesn't make us have all
things in common. We don't have all things in common in anything
but Christ. And the church is all the saints in Christ Jesus
who are at Philippi. So every Christian at the city,
Paul is writing this letter to saying, listen, I'm writing to
you. There's a lot there. How many
copies of this letter had to be made in Philippi so that everybody
could hear it? I imagine a pretty good amount.
They didn't have the luxury of replication like we did. Somebody
had to sit down and write it. Somebody had to get the copies
other places. And friends, I'm going to tell
you that the church is inclusive of all the saints. You know there
are saints right now in their homes who haven't been to church
in a while. Some of you had that experience. You get hurt, life takes over,
and you want to, but you just don't know where. You don't know,
more importantly, as we understand, who. Who will be my family? How will I relate to people in
this way? Who is going to be my church? They're out there. How do we
connect with them? We need to be in the world, but
not of it. We need to be actively, as we
go, making disciples. You never know who God will put
in your path. You never know who you buy something
from this morning, you will disciple next week, who will be in the
church the following week. You never know, and that's the
story of me and Dave Hanson. helping me with a firearm-related
issue to two weeks later have a study, to a year later being
a member and elder in training in the church. Who would have
known? Who would have known? He says that all the saints in
Christ and Philippi with... This is cool. the overseers and
the deacons. I find it interesting that we
use the word deacons. Because the word for deacon is
the same word for servant. Doulos, diakonos, slave. So the overseers of the church
and the slaves of the church. We're slaves to you, church.
So all the church and those who have been appointed as servants
by the church. See Acts chapter 6. We understand
what that looks like. We're appointing you. We have
overseers. We have deacons. And so right
here, just as a little putt into the center, understand that the
church consists of three possible places. You are an overseer in
the church, you are a servant to the church, and you are the church. There's
no more room for other offices. Because when we create other
offices, it's usually in response to what? Other stuff. Here's the pastor of electronic
engineering. Here's the pastor of cosmetics. Here's the pastor of members.
Here's the pastor of women. Here's the pastor of men. Here's
the pastor of five-year-olds. Here's the pastor of teenagers.
Here's the pastor of music. Here's the pastor of... Well,
that's absurd. No, it isn't. Those are titles
we've had in history. Here's the pastor of... Creative arts. Not kidding. Here's the pastor
of choir. Here's the worship pastor. Here's
the music pastor. Well, pastors look too hard.
Minister. How are you ministering to music? How do you minister to groups
of people? You can't minister to groups
of people. You can administer groups of people, but you can't
minister to groups of people. Well, what's this got to do with
anything? I think it's got to do with everything. I think Paul
purposely put overseers and deacons so that we can see that there's
a close-knit community, the two functions of the church, those
who serve through the function that we see in Acts, and those
who serve through the teaching of the Word of God. of which
also serve as a servant. It's not mutually exclusive,
it's both and. It's both and. But the primary
responsibility then of the church is to serve. Now the final question
is, and I know we're out of time, but the final question is then
how? How is all this possible? How is this, what is it that
Paul is going then to build this entire letter on, this idea? How does it take place? There
it is, verse two, grace to you. and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, do I have to revisit grace?
Do you know that when I talked about the saints, I talked about
the grace of God? That is the grace of God, the
unmerited, wise favor of God to call you as saints. And it's only possible and it's
only certain through Jesus Christ who brings you peace with God. God in His mercy gives us peace
through Jesus Christ. Christ gives us peace. God the
Father gives us peace. God the Father gives us mercy.
Christ is the mercy seeked. So as we close today, think about
these things. Think about the excuses that
you personally may have about not engaging in the work
of the ministry. And then think about the belief
system that we may have, I say you, but we may have, that would
limit us in understanding the simplicity of ministry. Most
of us think, well, we've got to get somebody to oversee this.
That's how I was taught. And then develop a core of leaders
who can administrate it, and then we start getting people
into it. If we see a piece of trash on the ground, we just
pick it up. We don't have to amass a 400-man
team with sticks and buckets and trash bags. Well, I see all this trash blowing
down the highway. I better get a ministry started
to clean it up. Just bend over. The same thing is true with our
time of need. The same thing is true with our
ministry needs amongst these saints. We don't have to have
a counseling ministry to counsel people. And a lot of times, I
know in my experience, the counseling ministries that I've overseen
have been a crutch. I've got to get to the council.
I've got to be part of the ministry. And then when I left that particular
congregation, all those in council just fell away. So what was the
glue? The counseling ministry. It was
their affinity. We're messed up and need help,
so we're going to be messed up together and have fun. And as
long as James is there, he'll hold us. He'll keep us straight. He'll get us on the right way.
We as the church have to do that. And you might say, well, I know
that this need has popped into my life. I don't know how to
answer it. Well, then ask somebody else. There's a lot of resources
in this room. A lot of people who can do things
that I can't do. and vice versa. And I'll be straight
with you, church, we are going to have a lot of focus in these
next few weeks on how this teaching of Philippians applies to us
as a people, specifically. Because we're at a precipice.
We're at a precipice of getting functionally apathetic and just
doing church. And I said to someone as they
parted on Tuesday night, I said, you know what I really believe
is more wicked than skipping church? It's playing church. Because when we're here, there's
an expectation that ministry takes place. If we're not here,
nobody expects us to do anything because we're not here, which
is bad. But when we are here and we're
just doing the motions, we're not doing anything anyway. So
the expectation and the product of the fruit of that expectation
is not there. And it's a crazy dichotomy that really frustrates
the body of Christ. So then, well, I've just got
a lot on my plate. I can't really be of service.
Then you're the object of ministry right now. If you're suffering,
if you're broken, if you're hurt, if you're sick, if you need help,
if you can't stop crying, if you are angry, if you hate the
Bible, or you're frustrated with the God that sits behind you,
you show up and the ministry of the church will take care
of you. But we've got it backwards. Because
the country and the culture that we live in has created it to
be backwards. We need to reform our thinking
every day. And not be surprised when we
look at this letter to this church in Philippi that it cuts everything
we think we know about fellowship. Because it's going to. And it's
going to put it at the core of Christ. Christ is the crux and
the core of the entire outcome of the church. And when the church
doesn't function as it should be, it says, she says, Christ
isn't powerful enough. It's the yeah buts of our culture,
isn't it? Well, you know Christ can heal that yeah but. There
is no yeah buts in here. We should sing a worship song.
We should write one. No yeah buts. That'd be talked about. Because the only yes in the Bible
is amen. It is so. Amen. Let's pray. Father, it's good to be challenged. And we thank You that even in
the challenges, Father, You give us peace through Jesus. Father, we pray that as we finalize
this session together that it would be a good foundation of
where You want to take us in the weeks ahead. We have a lot
to think about, a lot to do. Help give us wisdom and peace
in the midst of the circumstances and help us to remember that
frustration is unbelief. Being frazzled and stressed out
about it all is unbelief. Let us just breathe and know
that all that we can do is only done by Your hand. Let us take time out to do that
which is necessary and needed over the urgent sometimes which
is not necessarily that urgent. Father, help us to pause and
pray for each other by name and by circumstance. Lord, help us to have a desire
for Your Word and help us to share it with each other. to
have opportunity for study of Your Word that we might grow
in our understanding of You more and more. Father, I pray that
we could look around this room and see those who are hurting
and run to their need. Those who are hungry and run
to their need. Those who are absent and run
to their need. Follow up. pursue and press in
the reality that we are all things in common in Christ. And Father, I pray that You would
just continue to put lost people in our path. Lord, that You would put Your
people in our path. That the gospel would have fruit
in their lives, that they would come to salvation and grow. And Lord, let us not ever, ever
sit with ingrown eyeballs, content with where we are and what we
are, when there is a world in need of the gospel. As we preach
it to ourselves, as we preach it to each other, let us preach
it to the world. And we praise You for Your grace
in all these things, in Jesus' name, Amen.