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well the study that we have before us today in philippians is one which is really i think a very touching and very joyful epistle it's one which really is amongst the shorter ones of the apostle paul and has really a very important background behind it which guides us into our consideration of this epistle and therefore the background is fairly vital to understand some of the detailed analysis and detailed discussion that the apostle gives us in this particularly short letter

as we read there in chapter 16 in the acts of the apostles it really was an incident involving paul's formation of the philippine philippian ecclesia on his second journey the second journey of course took him over into this region region of europe which really crosses over the pontus area and takes him into the european peninsula in the area of trace and thence up into northern greece which is called macedonia now this is the beginning of the ecclesia in europe and the beginning of that ecclesia comes in at philippines so therefore it's fairly important let's just get some bit of background here as we go through looking at the early movements of the apostle and of the brethren sisters at this time as we can see in the area here on the map [Music]

the apostle paul was basing his work in the area of antioch which we see over there up to the north in palestine in the series of events which took place here we find that the early days gave us the martyrdom of james under hiron the famine in jerusalem from 45 to 46

was rather significant that famine of course brought the apostle paul to consider the needs of the brethren sisters particularly those of poor circumstances in judea then in 47 49 we have paul's first missionary journey which took him off on that area through salamis to perger uh to uh antioch iconium derby lystra and then back again and then on his uh return he went down to the council in jerusalem in 49 a.d which is the content of of acts chapter 15 and then we come to his next journey paul's third journey which was from approximately the years 52 to 56 a.d and where he then takes his venture over into europe on his second which was an enlarged journey and so that's really what we're talking about now following that of course paul goes back we have his third missionary journey 52 56 a.d rather i think we said that that was the early one his second journey was 49-52

the third journey 52-56 because he goes straight away again after his cessation of his second journey and then we have paul and caesarea 56-58

and then paul finally is imprisoned and goes off to rome

by the year 61 a.d so we can see the sequence of events there are happening fairly rapidly within the decade so from 50 to 60 in that period of principally that the works of paul in his second and third journeys uh which eventually take him on his third journey off under rome well let's just recall again the incidents of his second journey

which we see in this map here

here paul had left the area of antioch and of course he had a sharp dispute with barnabas here barnabas wanted to take of course john mark with him paul disagreed with that council owns the failure of john mark during the first journey so barnabas went off to cyprus taking john mark and paul took silas and went off as we see on the map there over from to tarsus to derby lystra iconium and thence over to troas and then he wanted to actually go up north of there

but in fact the the spirit saved him from doing that in that record we read in chapter 16

you'll see here verse seven that after they had come to maisia they are saying to go into bithynia bethinia would have taken them up into the region's north you'll see up into asia but it was not to be that the truth was to go to asia it was to go to europe first and foremost and in fact the truth has never really gone into asia in a big way not like it did into into europe and therefore the teaching of the gospel is yet reserved for an asian exploration another uh crossing of the mountains there which must yet be done in terms of spreading the word of god out to the areas of the asian peninsulas and of course the uh the actual uh nation called uh sino the the sino um scenic nations over there which derived from the name sino these are the ones whose isaiah mentions shall yet come and worship the lord in jerusalem and the seniors will be there and they will be able to worship the lord at that time in the kingdom and it was not to be that they were going to worship the lord now so paul is is stayed from going up into asia and the word of god does not really reach there and has still not reached there in a successful missionary exercise so really that's a piece of history of fairly great importance to us isn't it see the the work of god going on at this time but nevertheless it says that in verse eight uh of chapter 16 that they passing by most mycea came down to troas so now they're right on the coast here and of course now the night vision comes in the there appears to paul in the night a man of macedonia who prays praise him saying come over to macedonia and help us

and after he had seen the vision immediately we endeavor to go into macedonia and then verse 11 says therefore losing from troas we came with a straight course to samuthracia and the next day to neapolis now there you have the incident of his change of direction you'll notice the reason for it is that one was standing there before him saying come over to macedonia and help us

now notice a little bit of detail here which in in reading it gives us a bit of information you'll see in verse 8 it says and they passing by my seer came to try us then we get the vision of this man of macedonia saying come and help us and then immediately it says in verse 10 immediately we endeavor to go into macedonia so you've got to they in verse 8 and we change to a wee in verse 10

obviously the writer of the acts of the apostles being luke joins the company on this occasion for the first time salute now being the writer of this record of the acts of the apostles he quite evidently comes in at this particular crisis when they they went to over to troas and now in the morning there joins them

luke

and maybe luke was the one who was seen in the vision hey paul come over and help us over in in europe come and help us we've learned about this truth down here in jerusalem we've been over there we've heard about this now we're wanting to learn about it and spread the word over here in greece macedonia in the european province so maybe this was the occasion luke was the one seen in the vision and so immediately it says we endeavor to go to macedonia so luke joins the company here and off they go as he says we came to the straight with the straight course to samantha verse 11. so then this little connection shows us that the company has joined paul luke has not been with paul previously luke of course writes the whole record of the life of christ that we know of in the in the gospel records and therefore we see now the the association of luke with the apostle paul as they commence their ministry at this time into europe so as you can see on the map there they went up through uh neapolis there and to apollonia coming down to the area of rather to philippi before they go to amphibolus now this was the area called samathracia originally it was called thrace

and now it's linked with some of the islands as well the island of samos as a province now philippi here which you see on the map right at the top there became a very important roman province philippi was actually named after the father of alexander the greats

who actually took over as a king of macedon went down and the challenge much of the the kingdom of the helenes at this time the hellenic peninsula of the greeks he went down took over in africa took over athens and thence the great empire of philip began to rise and of course alexander the great was his son born to him and the great works of the illustrious warrior alexander are well known to us which set up the glory of the greek empire which of course nebuchadnezzar saw in the dream by night of the uh of that great uh uh leopard the the the power of the leopard coming over and destroying the power of the uh the bear and the power that was seen there with the with the um persian empire so it was now it was greece that was going to rise all this happened of course before in fact alexander died and then as a result of that the empire was broken up into four divisions the romans came out of one of those divisions and so that well-known peace our biblical history and secular history merged together as we see the history of greece and rome now we find the city of philippi named after philip had become a principal province the romans had given the people here rights of citizenship so citizenship was very important here they also had as a as a result of having citizenship they didn't have to pay taxes and they could also own slaves and so this gave them quite a right to be able to exercise a good deal of power in this province of philippi as if they're almost living down here in rome so these were some of the important events which really highlighted the visit of paul over now to the area of thrace now from here of course we know that he goes back into

jerusalem and then he goes on his third journey and then without going into his third journey we now come to look at where he is now in writing this epistle this was his voyage to rome

and you can see here he goes by ship from the area of caesarea where he had in fact uh was confined by felix and sent by festus to rome where he appealed to caesar so he goes up from the area of sidon over to seleucia antioch tarsus around to myra to the town of rhodes or to canada's and then from there they go down now into the area of crete from salami to lacia down to fair havens of course the area where they were shipwrecked and then from there back up from quarter over as you see to the to malta malta was of course where they had that shipwreck there rather and syracuse regium and eventually up to pewter ally through the forum of aps through the three taverns and then cerome so this was an area of the apostles final journey or it was in his great journey over to rome he wanted to go to rome as a free man to preach the truth he didn't go as a free man he went as a man in chains and remember he was the one who went to the jews as he went into rome and said for the hope of israel i am bound with this chain and so he he is there not in his expected free capacity but rather as a slave and as a prisoner and it's from here that he writes his epistle to the philippians so this becomes a rather important point of writing as a prisoner he now writes this particular letter now coming back to acts 16 we just want to highlight for a few moments here the incidents that really gave rise to the formation of the philippian ecclesia you'll recall how he goes firstly up to the riverbanks and there on the sabbath day he talks with the women that came there in verse 14 and here was lydia a seller of purple or the city of thyatira which worship god and so here lydia is converted to the truth and she besought us says luke as writing this record to remain in her house and so the formation of the ecclesia was actually here in the house of lydia now we have the incident in verse 16

uh down to about verse 22 where you get the the possessed damsel with the spirit of divination who was healed by the apostle paul insiders and of course when her masters saw that the hope of their gains were gone they set upon paul and silas drew them to the marketplace and of course raised this uh case against them which resulted in the multitude rising up against them the magistrates rent off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten now these beatens beatings were very very sound

actually many men died under the beatings of the romans

and it says in verse 23 and when they'd laid many stripes upon them they cast them into prison and of course they gave them to the prisoner to the brothers of the jailer who put them into the innermost prison and he made their feet fast in stocks now this is rather dramatic here because you can see an incident where they're placed in a prison put under the personal charge of the jailer put into the inner prison and to the stocks within the prison which means they were chained in stocks legs and hands with their wall with the with the backs against the wall and here they were now in the innermost sanctum of a prison obviously they weren't about to escape

so the jaina was charged with them don't let these men escape so what does he do he does everything possible to secure his own judge and puts them as the innermost prison in stocks there's no way they were going to get out of there and of course the incident was rather interesting from there in the middle of the night

what we find is that paul and silas

praying and singing hymns to god

and notice this and the prisoners heard them

now why does it say that why does it say the prisons heard them obviously paul was here on a preaching effort as he prayed and as he sang his songs the prisoners were getting the benefit of what paul was doing

we don't know how many of those prisoners if if any were actually baptized into the lord jesus christ i would suggest some of them could have been as a result of this proclamation effort in the middle of this prison but also as a result of the jailer who was later converted as we realized so this jada was the one who heard this strange thing going on what was it here were two men

who'd been beaten with their backs red raw they were weeping open wounds of lashes on their backs

their coats were thrown back over their backs of course as they went into this this terrible hole i mean this wasn't the sort of prisons they have today just remember that you know the prisons of today have carpet on the floor they've got videos television sets they've got everything they want you know this is to rehabilitate them these were prisons which were dark holes in the earth they were thrust into prisoners prisons and frequently the keys were thrown away there was no record kept of them and if in fact the magistrate that put them there happened to remember that they were there and happened to show grace upon them then he let them out but otherwise imagine a person without a citizenship without a passport a person unknown a wanderer a traveler nobody would know if he wasted away with the rats in the bottom of the hole

there'd be no record of it

even so here was paul and silas in the innermost section of the prison singing praises to god now just remember this that the apostle himself reminded us that if you are happy with merriment in your heart sing praises unto the lord

sometimes uh when we start off our first hymn of a early morning we don't hear the most joyful notes coming out do we i mean we're sort of stirring we're waking up we're getting the vocal cords going we're striving against you know sort of sort of sleepiness and but yet the example of the apostle is when you are happy sing

now here's paul

with a painful neck his hands and his feet are hurting in the stocks in a cold dark dungeon it's midnight and paul is singing praises to god he's happy

that in itself is a remarkable testimony to staying on course with what it's all about

too often brethren and sisters we become preoccupied with depressing atmospheres or problems surrounding us we become very very drab in our countenance we're sad

and who wants to sing hymns when you're sad and again with the apostle paul why would he be singing him surely he would be sad on such an occasion

but not paul

why then was paul so happy so bright i mean so on course

so resolute in what he was doing

because brethren sisters he could see his lord right before his face

have you thought of the connections here for instance with paul and christ

look at the the parallels here for a start though paul obviously did a work of god

certain at philippi didn't believe but moved against him because of their own vested interests had themselves been threatened wasn't that exactly why christ's enemies moved against him he threatened the vested interests of the scribes the pharisees their position they felt being in in threat they moved against christ they dragged christ before the magistrates of the romans they got christ beaten

with his back red raw

they ensured that his cape was thrown upon him he went off down through his his terrible maze

look also paul's trial was a travesty of justice wasn't it because he was a roman citizen but he didn't let him know at this time he was a roman citizen we'll talk about that in a moment it was a travesty of justice against him they hated paul without a cause just like they hated christ they put a false accusation against him saying he was inciting rebellion against the romans that's exactly what they did to christ exactly what paul suffered and with silas he was taken from prison and judgments just like christ was

and in the moment of the darkness of night we also see that they were also beaten with many stripes

being cast into a prison as good as dead

even as christ was put into the dark tomb at night as good as dead he was dead

and in order to show that paul was as good as dead and sinus he was in the innermost prison in stocks and chains to make sure he stayed there

so obviously his was his typical death a typical present situation and then of course he's in this very deep and dark hole and it is in fact the lord jesus christ who in his moment of of greatest sadness says father forgive them they don't know what they're doing he lifts a moment of of happiness to the point where he can see that there is to be grace shown upon some of those people he is positive and objective on course in his mind exactly as paul and silas were they sang hymns rejoicing about all of this and you know in that on that cross and in that prison area there was

a prisoner there was a man attached to prisons the malefactor as a result of christ being in his own prison and death that malefactor was saved a man that belonged in a prison and here is a result here also of paul's intercession and the work of god's calling this jailer becomes saved a person who is a citizen of a jail though he's in charge of the jail a bit like joseph was when he was down in potiphar's prison there he also was in charge of the jail he was associated with the jail and out of that jail he came forth of course typically into resurrection to take the prime position in egypt similarly here we have a jailer we have paul we have silas all in together in the jail and out of this very depressing situation this typical death comes forth resurrection of course in the case of the lord jesus christ when he died there was a great earthquake and now you notice also an earthquake here is the means of the releasing of paul and silas and so it says verse 26

and suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison was shaken and immediately the doors were opened just like the stone was rolled back and out came the prisoners

and of course this is rather a beautiful type and i think the apostle paul can see it in his mind's eye he can see that he is one like as the pardon me as the disciples were they considered themselves when they started to be persecuted that they were very privileged because they could suffer for the name of christ

that was very objective wasn't it and in the midst of suffering they were considering the value to themselves and the wonderful privilege they had

that they were being linked with the greatest man and the greatest victory that's ever walked this earth jesus christ

so all of these ideas would flood into paul's mind so in the most adverse conditions he is joyfully seeing hymns and spreading the gospel to a captive audience

the prisoners heard it

and here he was using an opportunity to spread the truth

i once remember a brother telling me about his opportunity he was in a dark tunnel traveling on a train the train unfortunately had to stop

uh it sort of had a minor signaling problem and now they lost electricity and he's in this dark tunnel the train is sort of going into this tunnel and would come out about a minute later and here he's got a captive audience ever all the women are screaming so he now uses this opportunity to get up and start to preach security in christ jesus he had a captive audience in darkness for about a minute but anyway he he made the most of it he used his opportunity with his captive audience to do it

and these are opportunities that we can all use on occasions paul used it

let's see at the times when we might be able to spread a little bit of this wonderful testimony of scripture the wonderful news of liberation from being incarcerated in darkness to other people around us making the most of an opportunity always keen to do the work of an evangelist

now that was paul's minds that was silas's mind and that was the situation they were now exploiting so of course they're able to to come out of that prison we know that jaina was ready to thrust himself through with the sword and he is now given the opportunity of life by paul and silas and so paul cries out don't do this don't do yourself any harm the voice cries out and of course this jailer now comes kneeling before paul and he and his household are saved and thus began to swell the ecclesia in philippine apart from lydia the jailer is the next one mentioned here who now becomes a member of the ecclesia

so wasn't this a wonderful opportunity an opportunity to make the most of adverse circumstances and the apostle paul now as we realize in the morning they send forth to him to release him out of the prison

and paul says no he says they've openly beaten us and we are romans we're roman citizens they're not allowed to do that to us and now they want to privately say or get rid of these men out of the prison

paul

now pulls rank

his rank is a roman citizen and he says right let them come and get us out the sergeants therefore came down and besought them look oh please just you know move out of this prison move out of our city um please do this don't arrange us and report us to rome

now why was paul calling rank on his citizenship when really as strangers and pilgrims we don't normally call rank on citizenship do we the rights as a citizen we do not really employ up the front line to say well these are my rights

why is paul demanding his rights well he isn't actually demanding his rights what he's saying is was it lawful for you to beat a roman citizen we didn't know you were roman citizen

well that's fine you can let us go now and i won't report you now

but notice what he was doing

he was making it clear

that implied within the situation he could come back and report them at any time so what would the sergeants do if there was to be any arraigning or any create creating of any suffering for the brethren there if paul was to walk back on the scene of course they would want to do a paul said but paul was rather just leaving it in the air on this occasion calling rank not for his own benefits but so the sergeants would leave alone these other brothers and sisters if they raised similar charges against them so he was using his position to secure the ecclesia not his own position

i think that's very interesting it was an opportunity for the work of the truth to go on without it being suppressed and without the brethren being persecuted by their adversaries of the time so it was for a furtherness of the work of the truth and the occlusion of philippi grew as a result of that now all of that background brethren and sisters is vitally necessary when you come to look at the epistle of paul to the philippians well let's go over there now and see very briefly what he had to say

now

just before doing so just notice very briefly the epistles themselves and how they fall in together in really to a very simple message but an important message here

here you'll see how in paul's epistles the first and greatest of his epistles in terms of the romans where he talks about christ the power of god

corinthians he talks about the wisdom of god first corinthians the second letter he talks to the comforts of god to the galatians he talks about christ the righteousness of god for us

ephesians christ the riches of god for us philippians christ the sufficiency of god for us christ in exaltation christ is all sufficient for what we need we'll see this as we go through the epistle and then the colossians christ the fullness of god thessalonians the first letter christ the promise of god to us in christ's

translation and in in second thessalonians christ the victory of god for us in christ as a compensation and then we have the personal letters of the apostle paul from there to timothy setting forth the charge and the challenge to titus setting forth a word of caution to philemon setting forth the need for consideration for others and then of course we would suggest the letter to the hebrews reveals the need of faith rather than law as the motivation for us

now looking now at the epistle of philippians and seeing this principle theme in this epistle often when you want to go through and look at any uh of the apostles letters or any of the works that we see in this particular epistle it appears very clear

that the apostle paul thank you the apostle paul is now highlighting a particular word or particular theme and if we go through and look at that we can find what that is quite easily now look at the episode of the philippians and we'll see just looking very briefly at the theme of it what he's saying

now

you'll see in verse 4 he commences to look at some of this theme and he says always in every prayer of mine for you all making requests with joy now this is very important as we'll see the reason why they wrote to paul they said they actually sent a message to paul they were very very sorry for paul that he was here in prison that he was here suffering in prison which they had a lot of deprivation and certainly a lot of inconvenience and they'd sent this message via epaphroditus to them and paul's epistle is responding to that message now his his message to them becomes a message of joy out of the midst of the prison now notice the way how this the word the way in which this word joy goes through the epistle so he says making a remembrance to to you with joy now come again down into verse 18 of the chapter

singling out again this theme what then notwithstanding every way whether in pretense or in truth christ is preached i therefore do rejoice is the same word and will rejoice

making it very clear that rejoicing is right in his heart again following it through verse 25

i know and i shall abide in the and continue with you all for your furtherance and for your joy of faith verse 26 that you're rejoicing may be more abundant

right see all the way through it's actually interesting to get a colored pencil and color through these words as you go through and just see how it permeates the epistle it's a very central word again it comes up for us uh in verse two of chapter two fulfill you my joy that ye be like-minded so again joy becomes part of the theme behind his words follow through again this time over in it's still in chapter 2 but look at verse 17

yea and if i be offered upon the sacrifice in other words if i'm going to be an offering on the altar of god's service for your faith i joy and rejoice with you all verse 18 for the same causal so do you joy and rejoice with me there's no doubt that he's got a a very happy note to this epistle and just slipping through now to look at to chapter 4 where he again highlights this theme

verse 1 therefore my brethren dearly beloved and long for my joy and my crown

again verse 4 rejoice in the lord always and again i say

rejoice

and this theme as you can see brethren and sisters is a very very strong one because he wants to tell them we are very very happy that we are here suffering for christ

you know that in itself is quite an enigma to the mind of the flesh

people would not normally think like this i mean put ourselves in that position it requires a monumental strength of spiritual insight to say yes this adverse situation is an occasion to be happy

and often brethren and sisters we see adversity as almost being contrary to the work of the truth whenever we whenever we have to suffer something whenever we have to experience difficulties or the occlusion is under adverse circumstances or our own lives are in turmoil because of problems personal problems family problems

then how do we react to it

the way in which the apostle says to react to it is to rejoice because in the presence of adversity is the demonstration of god's love

and thereby with such love it is a testimony that god loves us that we are suffering for the sake of our lord and that he will redeem us out of these difficulties no worry let our faith trust in him and he will lift us up in the appointed time for no tribulation seems to be joyous for the presence

but afterwards it breeds the peaceable fruits of righteousness

and that's where the joy is

not that we're happy about the suffering but we've got to be happy about the fruits that come out of suffering and here is what what paul was doing in philippi here he was singing praises to god and spreading the word of god and the sufferings of christ to the captive audience in the prison here was paul now in rome a prisoner again in rome in chains for the hope of israel and he rejoiced by the fact that this prison was an opportunity of spreading the word of god to all the prisoners in in in the household of caesar and what a wonderful opportunity this was because the ecclesia in rome grew out of

the ecclesia this ecclesia growing as it did

out of the prison house of caesar

that was very remarkable and because on account of this we can see the background to all that he's writing the philippians has to do with his visit to philippi where their attitude to paul and paul's attitude to them unlike all of the epistles this this gives us a beautiful context for introduction so let's just look briefly now at the purpose for his writing he was now sending epaphroditus back to philippi and he brought it because he brought a generous gift forward to them now you have these in the notes which have been distributed to you on the episode of the philippians just on page three you have the purpose of his writing

and it's always very important to look at the background to things like this so the second reason of his purpose of writing was that he was anxious to set them at ease with respect to their concern for his well-being seeing trial was imminent and he was in bonds they wrote to him and they rather sent this message via epaphroditus to really console paul because he must be so sad and so depressed about this imminent trial coming up and that he was here deprived as a prisoner and they could appreciate his confidence a determination and faith from the words of the epistle he also writes to bring unity in the lord between eurodius and sintiki here two sisters in the ecclesia the only problem he highlights which had a bit of a division there and he draws attention to humility as the antidote to vainglory and division he also writes to warn them of the judaizers now these were those who'd come into the truth but maintained their lives as jewish people in other words they were trying to make law the basis of salvation and not faith and thereby causing political disturbances and and division in the brotherhood

he writes also to set before them his example of faithful striving before the lord that they might be followers of him even as he was of christ and of course these are words we'll pick up in chapter three uh and uh in in the subsequent verses there in in the the sixth point of his reason for writing he writes to inform them of his plans he's sending a paraphrase straight away then he's sending timothy when he knows what his verdict is and then he also hopes himself to come before too long as he stresses to them in chapter 2

and verse 24. so this really gives us the background on this epistle now having taken all of that time of course we now introduce chapter one but this background as you can see permeates and will permeate his epistle going through so in verse one he commences chapter one

paul and timotheus the servant of jesus christ to all the saints in christ jesus which are at philippi and with the bishops and the deacons making the point here that here are the groups of the bishops these are those who who are serving at the table of god and leading the the things of god in the affairs of watching over the ecclesia those who normally in this time had the power of the holy spirit were able to uh to give that power exercise that power for the benefit of the brethren and he says grace be unto you and peace from god our father and from the lord jesus christ wonderful tokens of salutation that paul gives us and when you think about each one of the words in that salutation it really highlights part of the love of god the gift of grace and the wonderful assurance we can have in knowing god is in charge the lord the lord jesus christ is with us and in verse 4 verse 3 he says i thank my god everyone in remembering you and then he says always in every prayer of mine for you all making requests with joy that's a little aside there like that verses is sort of in parenthesis always in every prayer of mine for you all in every prayer i make your the list of the philippian brethren and sisters a very important part of my prayers i rejoice in you all i thank god that you're in the truth and i thank god for the wonderful gift that you sent me and for your well-being your concern for my well-being and your love that has been expressed on this occasion

and then in verse 4 he makes it clear that making requests with joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now this wonderful fellowship which they'd had with paul being confident in this very thing that he which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of jesus christ so the work had commenced in in fact the formation of the philippian ecclesia when paul was there in philippi and now the work would continue on and through all the trials and difficulties they would experience ultimately of course god was guiding them the lord jesus christ was there nurturing them and they were growing stronger all the time and now he says in verse 6 being confident he is confident that god will complete this work right up until the day of jesus christ comes verse 7 even as it is right for me to think of you all because i have you in my heart rather that should be rendered you have me in your heart i think most of the modern translations do that in as much as both in my bonds and in the defense of the confirmation of the gospel you are all partakers of my grace so here he is defending the truth and confirming the gospel here others in the ecclesia of caesar's household are coming into the truth this is a wonderful thing you all can associate with this for god is my record he says how greatly i long after you all in the bowels of jesus christ this wonderful expression paul uses throughout his epistles i long after you all that means his heart is contemplating their presence in the hope of israel all the time he loves them he wants to share time with him and he finds that his bowels are moved

now what that means is

his emotions

his emotions become overcome with his love for them

and this is often expressed i suppose to us who are not generally seen as very emotional people in the western world we often have to look over to the to the middle east to see really emotional people but you know we if we become emotional over somebody we get a wonderful warm feeling inside and you know when the the girl and the boy they they start to to have those little sparkles germinate between them and they start to feel you know in love with each other and you get little butterflies in the tummy you know that's exactly how paul felt all the time about the brethren sisters he got butterflies in the tummy his bowels moved his emotions were stirred

he'd smile he'd cry he'd he'd laugh he'd think about them emotionally

you know that's a very great part of paul because paul was often seen as the intellectual giant of his day and he was

a great intellectual giant

he had to suffer other mortals and suffer fools gladly

and when people would oppose him he wouldn't come out and lacerate them and cutting the pieces with his tongue

he wasn't vindictive he wasn't destructive he wasn't aggressive

he was a person who let his love overflow for situations that he really felt for

so not only paul was an it was not only the intellectual giant of his day

he was really the emotional caring loving person a monumental giant of love

and he showed that to everybody to his brothers and sisters and even on occasions to his enemies

but his bowels were moved for them when he thought about them when you look over the page there in verse 9 he says i pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment or discernments

and that you may approve things that are excellent that you may be sincere and without offence to the until the day of christ being filled with the fruits he says the fruits of righteousness which are by jesus christ under the glory of and the praise of god wonderful words here he's saying that they might have spiritual discernment that they might be sincere and not creating offense and filled with righteousness these are the qualities these are the fruits of the spirit which we try to secure

but i would he says in verse 12

i would break them that you should understand this that the things which have happened under me have fallen out rather under the further into the gospel so that in my bonds my bonds in christ they're manifest in all the palace and in everywhere around me he says

wonderful testimony here you see that written to him saying oh poor paul he's in prison he's facing a terrible trial he's under a lot of emotional stress he's sick he's under difficulties

and they wrote to him saying paul paul

paul is now responding and saying look thank you for your concern but look recognize this

but being here i want you to understand that it's fallen out to the furtherance of the gospel i haven't been locked away and incarcerated in some dark dungeon in stocks he said i'm in caesar's household he was under house arrest there are occasions when he was put in chains but there are other occasions when he was free to wander about the praetorium now this palace here you'll notice the margin says for that caesar's caught and that was where the praetorium guard lived

caesar's courts the praetorium guard and here he is preaching to the soldiers and the prisoners together the praetorium god will seize his personal bodyguard

and of course he's in a under house arrest so there are other prisoners around him too

so here is is paul again in an adverse situation a prisoner in rome in chains some of the times sometimes not but in these these chains he would be preaching the truth to the prisoners and also to the jailers to the guards the praetorium guard and what was happening there was a real ecclesia going here in the household of caesar

what a remarkable testimony because in fact paul was told when the lord called him

he shall bear my name before kings and princes and rulers

and here he is now in the household of the lord of the whole world the emperor of rome

and in this household incidentally it wasn't a terribly wise caesar at this time it was actually nero

who was the one that you know fiddled while rome burns

he was the one who was really called the madman on the throne he wasn't very bright he wasn't very intelligent he didn't have very good reading and he was the one of whom it has said that he actually instigated the fires in rome and played his ukulele up there on the the palace walls while rome burned and then blamed it all on the christians

this was the sort of man to whom paul had to appeal when he appealed to caesar he had to come before caesar's tribunal

he was really a man quite short of all his facilities and he was one that was now in charge of the roman empire but in this particular household now he gives his hands to teaching the work of the truth and what was happening then everywhere around him in the palace that is in in the praetorium guard in caesar's palace and everywhere else in the other places where in fact the work of the praetorium god was going the message of paul the prisoner was going forth in the midst of rome

wonderful preaching opportunity

not the sort of thing we would sort of plan to do like put it on next year's proclamation effort

but this is what came up as god's opportunity for paul to preach to a community that really was going to respond enormously to the truth and often it's this way isn't it if we were to select the people that we believe that are the best candidates for salvation who would they be

we look out and select people that just like us you know mr and mrs average uh they sort of live a nice sort of life they don't have a lot of vices they have opportunities to to talk about real things they live in nice middle class family homes probably you know the basic white uh christian uh protestant backgrounds uh people that we would say are nice people to start with they're personable they don't they don't swear they don't carry on they're not drunks and they're the sort of people we'd select saying they're go and preach the truth to those people you know and yet those are the people that do not respond very well at times

often you find as people in the most diverse circumstances the people who have problems that show they need christ

and therefore we end up with a situation that that's the people who have the greatest need that will probably have the best insights into what christ can do for them mr and mrs average who live in their lovely middle class home and have everything they need why do they need christ

and often that's their attitude they don't need christ

and so it's the people that come from circumstances we might at least think they would

are the people that end up being the vanguards of the truth that's been my experience possibly yours too but here was this little community here in rome beginning a great work and paul highlights all these backgrounds the philippine athleisure it was all necessary in order to prepare for the work in rome a very great work but you see the tragedy was

here was the beginning of the ecclesia in rome a very simple community of mostly prisoners

and that community grew

to become

what is now

the roman church

what an incredible contrast

but yet here was the beginning of the important teaching of the truth in europe and we'll pick it up in our next session

Transcript

in the notes which we've handed out to you all you'll find the structure of the epistle which is a very important uh part of any bible study program it's essential that we really get to know the structure and see the outline of where it's actually going and you'll notice in this particular chart we've put it on the screen there ahead of you as well just so we can see the direction and the development of the the writing that paul gives us and the way in which he develops his theme so that he can give to us a message that's going to stay with us quite easily if we look at the epistle in its structure we'll notice his address is salutations which come up in verses one to two in three to eight we're looking there at the thanksgiving for their fellowship in the expression of his profound love for them which he he demonstrated there for us and then in verses 9 to 11 paul's prayer for their spiritual growth and for their fruitfulness and the truth then he goes the next division in his epistle where he's making clear now this remaining section of chapter one how he's set for the defense of the gospel now this was his whole purpose in going forth to rome was to defend the gospel he wanted to when he appealed to caesar out of caesarea then he was doing so not because he wanted to get himself off scot-free because he could have done that and as the record says and acts had he not appealed to caesar he would have been set free and surely he could see that's what was going to happen he appealed a season because this was an opportunity now of getting an official sanction for him going to rome and answering right at the head of the government of the whole world at that time the the roman uh inhabitable or comedians it's known in the greek the whole world at that time was now about to witness the standard of paul's position of witness for the truth so he was holding up this standard right here in rome and as a result of this of course many of the the things which they thought were adverse had fallen out rather unto as he says the furtherance of the gospel and really this was a point the philippian brethren should have really remembered shouldn't they

they should have remembered

that their own background their own ecclesia of philippi was founded upon the adverse circumstances in the prison in philippi well here was paul now in prison in rome they should have of all people have understood the benefits that can accrue from such a circumstance so here was paul in rome in adversity preaching the truth and of course the truth was becoming known in many different places and now he talks in verses 14 onwards now uh concerning his um his imprisonment and the outcome of the situation which had actually emerged he said many of the brethren and the lord waxing confident by my bonds are much more bold to speak the word without fear so he's making it very clear that in rome they are going out confidently speaking the truth now we must remember that rome was a cosmopolitan religious community and of course unless you were a roman citizen you had no security you could be taken off to any prison anywhere and maybe put amongst the gladiators you you could be made to take your part in the uh in the arenas of rome

uh in which case you might have to fight animals or fight other men for your survival they could be taken off anywhere like that unless you were actually a roman citizen you had no security in rome and of course most of the brethren there would not be roman citizens and they would therefore go forth preaching the truth and they could be set upon by bullies or soldiers or anybody who didn't like the message particularly when they were telling them repent for your sins and be converted in christ a lot of people get very offended when you tell them they're a sinner and likewise at this time the same situation would emerge that there'd be many who wouldn't like the idea of this preaching and that's the reason why in fact throughout the roman world and throughout the world today even there is persecution for those who raise issues such as the truth raises because it's not intended to make people feel better about themselves

i mean the preaching of the gospel is to look ourselves in the mirror and say you are a sinner you are dying what are you going to do about it

and to come and look at the face of jesus christ and to see yes we are in fact wretched men as the apostle paul puts it and we're really in preaching the gospel

asking other people to say a wretched man that i am aren't we really so that's not a very easy thing to tell people true the truth has itself a great intellectual persuasion on a rational facility alone it can win in any arena of philosophy or debate this is very true concerning the truth in its rational department but the bottom line is to say somebody has to say a wretched man that i am

and people don't take

kindly to that kind of message

the flesh must be crushed in order for the spiritual power of the truth to grow and that is really what the challenge of the truth is

so now he talks about the time when there would be conflict in the ecclesia and there was conflict in the smaller collision in rome here you'll see he says in verse 15 but some indeed preach christ out of envy and strife and some also of good will

one preachers christ of contention not sincerely supposing to add affliction to my bonds but the other of love knowing that i'm set for the defense of the gospel so already in rome here is a terrible situation we've got one faction in the ecclesia saying are paul's out to make a name for himself

you know isn't this sad that when brethren may because of particular facilities they have in the in the in the work of the truth they can go for it and for a moment of time they might be in the spotlight or in the limelight of the truth

and others out of envy because they want to be in the limelight of the truth

they raise accusations against such brethren and say look at him he's out there trying to make a name for himself he wants to get all these disciples after him he's trying to take the limelights

and so envy grows amongst others and they end up with petty personal criticisms

of the brethren who may for a period of time be in the limelight

that's a very sad thing it's happened right through the history of the truth it's happened right back into the earliest days of genesis it really was the beginning of the first crime of death

because abel had a greater acceptability before god than what cain did cain became envious of abel and he slew him

hatred malice

unbrotherliness

very sad very sad indeed but that's what happens in the history of the truth paul is now suffering for us but nevertheless he was looking at this division and he said look there's one redeeming thing about this if a person is out there preaching the gospel of the truth to try and out do what i'm doing in the prison

okay let him go after all christ is being preached and i rejoice in that i don't i don't mind how much he opposes me in this but if he's preaching the truth i'll rejoice

what a wonderful attitude paul had

here they were adding affliction already to the bonds of paul

but paul wasn't worried about that

though they had a petty competitiveness against paul

he was rejoicing that they were preaching the truth and that's really one of the highlights of paul's wonderful mind what he goes on to say in verse 18 what then notwithstanding in every way he says whether it's in the pretense or in truth christ is preached if christ is being preached he says i rejoice he says and therein will i rejoice

for i know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayers and the supply of the spirit of jesus christ the outworking of this will always be to salvation no matter how much we are opposed by pettiness and remember this brethren assistance all the way through the truth we find this today it's right through our community as well

you know the the little backbitings that take place the criticisms of brethren the attack upon their personality or the attack upon their morals in some way trying to raise discredit to them

often it might be said well i wouldn't stand on that platform with that brother it makes it sound as if that brother is a terribly immoral person or something

these sort of things happen it's most unfortunate but it goes on all the time

and inevitably brethren in the front line become the the target for criticism

by either

brethren who are competitive against them who are also striving for the limelight or striving to get disciples or followers themselves or else the criticism comes from others in the background who'd like to be in the limelight they haven't got a capacity to do that so they end up ridiculing your brother for some other charge or some other false reason

it's gone on since paul's day just remember that but what our attitude should be

is to try and preach christ with sincerity and truth

and hope that the furtherance of the work will go on notwithstanding the petty oppositions that tend to disrupt the unity of the ecclesia in the face of the witness that we are trying to carry forward to the world as we try to show our lights from a beacon of the ecclesia

paul had the right attitude and if ever we get caught in the crossfire of a collegial circumstances or ever we feel you know where we become the brunt of others criticisms and slander or whatever it might be just remember paul's got the right attitude follow the attitude of paul don't take it personally and always remember that out of whatever happens god is in control and he will ensure that whatever the outcome is it'll be for the furtherance of the work of his community so don't be too depressed by too much opposition get on and do the work be positive

see the outcome of everything we do is for the furtherance of god's glory and that will never fail and the lord will be with us and so he goes on to talk now the rest of this chapter uh as we see in the outline there up on this screen he talks in verses 12 to 18

about of course how god had used him though a prisoner for the progress of the gospel how in verses 19 to 26 though wishing to die at times their need for him confirms his hopes of immediate deliverance and of course in the last few verses we have an exhortation for his steadfastness in adversity and he makes this point in verse 27

he said only let your conversation that means your manner of life be as it becomes the gospel of christ that whether i come and see you or else be absent i may hear of your affairs that you stand fast in one spirit

interesting term this stand fast because it's a military term and it means to stand your ground ready to meet the enemy and of course standing fast in christ is standing here not as a military enemy not clad with the literal armaments of this world but rather clads as the spiritual warrior of ephesians chapter six you know the sword of the spirit the shield of faith helmet of salvation these are the things we need to have to be a spiritual warrior and what that means is that when we never flag our confidence that the work of the truth can go forward progressively in god's blessing never feel depressed never feel threatened never feel as if you are now beaten

every good soldier will stand fast

he'll stand his ground and he will progress the truth on a broad fronts he'll stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving together vigorously cooperating for the faith of the gospel

oh what a message and a challenge this is to the ecclesial world today as it was in paul's day the ecclesia ends up breaking up

because of factional interests

which is very sad and it happens worldwide within various countries you'll notice there can be within central fellowship various groups of brethren who officially are in fellowship

but they won't cooperate together

isn't that sad officially they're in fellowship but they won't cooperate together and but paul says striving together literally vigorously cooperating

and that's not what we do

we become very discontent with the standards or what others are doing

yes they're still in fellowship they still believe the truth but we don't want anything to do with them we don't want to associate with them unless they in some ways contaminate us or threaten us so we feel insecure about their presence so we become segmental in our activities we divide off we won't have anything to do with them and we go into our own little fortresses

and that's very sad

but it happens throughout the world

strive together with one mind and in nothing he says don't be terrified by the adversary that's always the first principle of a warrior do not be terrified by the adversary and certainly david wasn't when he walked out of the plane of ezekiel and challenged goliath he wasn't threatened he wasn't terrified because he said very simply the battle is yahweh's

it's god's battle it's not my battle i'm just a warrior and he is the power and the strength behind my arm i'll go forth to do the work of the truth and it's his battle he is my strength he will give us the victory

and we thank our god through jesus christ our lord that he does give us the victory so don't be terrified of the adversary but he says for unto you is given in the behalf of christ verse 29 not only to believe on him but also to

suffer for his sake

now look the first principle of the truth is this and always remember baptism is important it must be the beginning of a gateway to life in jesus christ but remember this there's only one person who has ever been truly baptized

literally

and that is the thief on the cross

he died

with christ

our baptism a nicer you know convenience baptism into possibly warm water

gives us a token of our symbolical death and suffering with jesus christ we come out of that watery grave

as a token of the resurrection

and yet what that is a symbol of is suffering and dying with christ

and the only person who's done that literally was the thief on the cross

you put yourself in his position

that's what your baptism is that's what our baptism is

a baptism as a token of what we intend to do for the rest of our lives in christ is to suffer with him

oh boy that's a problem isn't it

and where is our suffering with him today

identify the sufferings

can we identify our sufferings

i don't mean the minor inconveniences i mean the sufferings

some brethren conclude why is it that we don't suffer today

you know brethren and sisters we make our own suffering according to our dedication

paul was here he appealed to caesar he made his suffering because he knew what the consequences of that meant

he knew for a start he would be put in a chains

paul the prisoner he'd have a long arduous hard and difficult journey from caesarea to rome he'd go into the queue for months and months into the queue of all those people and prisons that were now under house arrest that appeal to caesar they must have a long prison term before they can appeal to caesar and if the outcome is against them they're executed

he put himself into that position

knowing he was probably about to get off scot-free

and he could have said look i'm getting a bit old

i've got arthritis in my fingers gout on my in my toe i've got a saw back i've after all i've had all these beatings five times i've been flogged by the jews let alone the romans had a very sore back

i'm just going to scale down my preaching efforts look young timothy you go out there and do it timothy i'll scout it i'll sit back and write epistles nice soft chair near a nice warm fire in winter and somebody can look after me

you see that could have been paul's attitude couldn't it

he was threatened enough he'd suffered enough he'd had three difficult journeys in which he'd been stoned to death more than once

he could have sat down and taken it easy in jerusalem said to james and the other apostles there well you you take up the work of the vanguard of the truth brethren i'll sit back into the rear guard and i'll answer the questions i'll be a counselor i'll i'll sit down and write letters i'll do all these things but but i won't go into the terrified ground of the frontier

that wasn't paul's attitude paul created his suffering in christ because he went forward to continue the work as vigorously as he believed his lord was with him to do it and as he had received command and commission and as he believed that he was able to perform that work of god he went into it

he didn't sit down and take it easy

like a lot of us have

we really have we've become a very very soft community the convenience of the times has taken us over

we fit the truth in to our otherwise busy careers our busy life our busily family preoccupations our busy capital acquisition programs

and the truth becomes second fiddle to the primary life of just living and getting on with life in this world

that wasn't paul's attitude he went into a life of deprivation a life of great difficulty a life of striving a life of conflict amongst false brethren being vilified and eventually crucified in his own life because he stood for the truth

and look at us

we have no suffering do we and yet paul says we've been called to believe on him not only believe on him but suffer for his sake

and if we're not suffering

perhaps it's because we've backed off so much in our work of the truth that we're not even exposed to the opportunity of suffering

perhaps we've sat back to take it easy

and of course the soldier can very well ease his exposure to danger by getting out of the battlefields

and we can do the same thing

and i think brethren a lot of us have done the same thing

we've backed right out

of course we won't receive any petty persecution if we don't speak the truth

if we don't take it to the

if we our words we won't receive any persecution will we

we can back off to the point where we can say well i won't preach the truth i'll just be ready to give an answer to every person that asks me about the hope that's in within me and we can quote scripture to defend this rather negative attitude

well that wasn't paul's attitude it wasn't paul's example and it's not paul's words

he goes on in chapter two

if there be therefore any consolation in christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the spirit if any bowels of mercies he appeals to the brethren here and says look fulfill ye my joy brethren and you know what my joy is for you to be like-minded having the same love being of one accord and one spirit and one minds

you know the the biggest concern and care of paul when he writes to the corinthians he gives us that list of all the things he'd been deprived of you know in shipwrecks often in in in difficult circumstances and flagellations in perils of false brethren perils of the highways and all the perils he had he said look the greatest peril i've got the greatest preoccupation i have is the care of all the ecclesiastic they're just not unified

and now he appeals to the philippine brethren sisters who had a division in their midst and had a little fight going on between two sisters and had obviously different flavors of performance in the work of the truth there were divisions yes he rejoiced that they were in the truth

but nevertheless he said look if you really want to

take away my sufferings you've written to me saying look poor paul he's suffering here he's a prisoner in rome he's afflicted he's sick he's cold he's he's not very well looked after his his well-being is suffering now look he says if you think about me give me a note of joy in my hearts take away my afflictions he says

be like-minded

have the mind of

christ get unified together in the work you're doing

say the same things put love in your heart for one another he says and that nothing be done through strife or vain glory but in lowliness he says humbly he says let each person esteem the other person not as a competitor

but better than themselves notice that in verse 3

there let each esteem other better than themselves and really that expression has to do with treating each person with dignity

treating your brother and sister with dignity

seeing them as a dignified person treat them in a dignified manner

often we look at them and we see a competitor

we tend to set ourselves at war with our brethren instead of at war with the flesh and the world around us

the unity of mind escapes us the unity of purpose the love of the truth the mind of christ gets lost in the competition of the collegial life

look not every man on his own things

but every man also on the things of others don't take self-concern of what you're doing what about your consideration for the welfare and the work in the truth that your brethren are doing what about their work their care their program of activities get involved for them and with them

that's a very simple message

but notice how the apostle paul highlights it now as he goes into this study as he does of the like-mindedness with jesus christ so you'll see there our section commences in chapter two with his impassioned call for unity through self-forgetfulness and love on the basis of christ's example look not every man on his own things but look on the things of others

how best to do this than to remind us in verse five about the mind of christ oh this is absolutely beautiful he says let this mind be in you

which was also in christ jesus now it's interesting to see incidentally the single mindedness that he talks about to us comes right through his epistle

we saw it in verse two of chapter two he says be like-minded

but at the end of that verse he says with one mind then he says as we said in verse five let this mind be in you look over the page there in chapter three and he says in verse 15 there looking at the same theme let us therefore as many as be perfect and that word means mature

be thus minded with the same mind look in the end of verse 16

let us mine the same thing the same mind again verse two of chapter four i beseech you odious and zentiki that they be of the same mind in the lord one mind so necessary in the truth

now that's the unity of the mind of christ it's to have the mind of christ in us the same mind that christ had and what does that mean the mind we can talk about a brain we can talk about a thoughts we can talk about a mind

now the mind has to do with the quality

of thinking

the quality of thinking

so we can talk about a person being of the same mind as we are we're referring to the person's thoughts as having the same quality of ours

now if christ has got equality minds

isn't it so brother sisters that that is the mind which has to be in us

all the way through paul's epistles he talks about it think with jesus thoughts and what we do in effect when we come to baptism is we determine war on serpent thinking

the mind of the flesh

which means effectively in a process of time we cut off the literal head

and we put christ's head on there instead

and it changes the management like a shop you know under new management the old management has gone out new management's taken over there's a different sort of service in this household

the new services it's governed by christ's quality of thinking and that quality of thinking changes the behavior of the hands and the fingers and the feet and the toes and the legs and the tongue

changes because it's a different brain a different mind a different quality of thinking

and this is what makes the difference

between people governed by flesh and those governed by the spiritual mind of christ

now that's what he means when he talks here in verse five let the mind of christ be in you now he tells you by christ's example the kind of head

he's got

now christ has different faces

but one head one brain one quality of thinking look at the way he sets it up

verse 6 who being in the form of god thought it not robbery to be equal with god well let's just correct that translation there did not count equality with god a thing to be grasped at

says virtually the opposite of what it is in the king james authorized version who being the form of god did not call rank

he didn't say well i'm god's son so therefore i'm a cut above the rest of you he didn't say i'm god's son i'm in the form of god and therefore i will claim all sorts of privileges for myself

i'll call rank

no he's saying he was in the form of god but he never grasped at the position of god

verse seven he said he made himself of no reputation he emptied himself out so he took upon him the form of a servant and was made in likeness of men and having been found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient under death even the death of the cross

look at this wonderful position

as we said earlier christ has one head but different faces and you know this was what was set up with the caribbean remember the caribbean the tabernacle and the temple of god and will yet be occurring again in ezekiel's temple the caribbean were a picture of one head but four faces the face of the lion the face of the ox the face of the man the face of the eagle and the whole of israel marched under the standards of those four faces they all assembled three tribes behind each standard the lion was the great symbol of the line of the tribe of judah which led three tribes we have the ox under ephraim we have the tribe of reuben was the leader of the standard meaning a man to see a son and we have the tribe of dan which means the judge was the face of the eagle and they were the four signs under which israel marched they were the four faces of the caribbean and they showed four dimensions of the one mind of god manifestation in christ

you see it in the four gospels

jesus christ is shown as the king in matthew

so many more references to christ the king and matthew than any of the other three put together so this matthew shows us the lion aspect of christ he is the king

mark's record shows us christ as the suffering servant

shows us jesus christ serving like the ox was a symbol of the ox the symbol of the servant of man the ox was therefore the symbol of servant he was a servant to god he was the suffering servant

in the case of the record of uh luke it shows us jesus christ as the man

the son of the son of man many occasions luke brings out the humanity of christ where the other records don'ts

brings us out showing us how jesus christ would weep in the garden how he would show his fine thoughts his his needs for god's strength his humanity christ the man that's luke's record emphasizing that points

and then we come finally to john's record and whilst matthew mark and luke are called the synoptics they all show you the aspect of christ in his human form

john's record is different very different and you notice many of the trinitarian takes his references from john because they want to say that jesus christ is god he's not god proper he was the son of god he is god manifestation he's a remarkable manifestation of god and that shows us jesus christ as the face of the eagle the divine spirit from on high and like the eagle being different from the other three animals who all have their abode on the earth that's the lion the ox and the man the eagle dwells in the heavens it's a bird

it's closer to god and of its own energy is the one creature that can fly closer together any other creature upon the face of the earth

the eagle is a symbol of the divine spirit it's also a symbol of divine judgment as the word dan means it comes down swiftly and executes its judgments upon the earth with its talons with its beak

the eagle represents the divine spirits

it represents the son of god

manifested when the word became flesh and dwelt among us there you find the four aspects of christ presented in the four gospel records the four faces of the caravan and look at them here in this chapter

verse 6

who being in the form of gods there's the eagle

he was in the form of gods he never called rank though he never took up the the position of saying i am your judge i am the divine spirit

he was in the form of god as no other human being has ever been

he was the divine spirit john's record shows jesus christ in the form of gods but he made himself of no reputation he took upon him the form of a an ox a servant

he was the servant the suffering servant of isaiah 53.

and it says

at but he was made in the likeness of men he was a man there he is and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient under death there is the man jesus christ the face of the man

what about the other one it says verse nine wherefore god also hath highly exalted him and given him a name above every other name but the name of jesus every knee should bow there is the king there is the liar

so there we see in jesus christ one mind's

brain one central housing management area from which all these manifestations come we find the four faces of the caribbean the lion the ox the eagle and the man

and that one minds

is behind every one of us that one mind is behind us and should be behind us governing our actions controlling our thoughts

deciding our judgments our discernments and executing our love

but you see now

we must be the ones who imbibe the divine spirit of truth

the word must enter our heart the divine spirit must come and dwell in us to govern us to change our patterns of fleshly thinking that the mind of christ as the son of god the eagle can come and dwell in our hearts and start to judge the things of the flesh and execute the judgments upon the actions of human activity which are contrary to the things of god we must be the manifestation of god limited though it is

to continue the work that christ began we are the body of christ on earth today and his mind must govern us from above

but we should also

be not strutting around saying we are christadelphians

we are better than other mere mortals we are more righteous than gentiles out there

that is done by some

that is done by some

our attitude should be the opposites

we should consider ourselves as the servants of almighty gods and humbling ourselves like a servant does humbling ourselves and becoming obedient not only to not only unto death but

paul says but the death of the cross what was he saying

he wasn't emphasizing that it was a much more painful death

as much as he was emphasizing it's a humiliating death

positively humiliating

we are crucified

and christ was crucified naked

naked upon that cross

and the record says that the women though few decent ones there may have been stood up far off

as much as they loved that man they stood up far off

but until even his own mother

was drawn to the foot of the cross

that was a humiliating act

and are we prepared

like christ

to be stripped off

humiliated

to become the point of ridicule of the worlds

for christ's sake

you know we come out go out sometimes and we want to talk about the truth and we want to talk about it and we think oh no i won't do this they'll think i'm strange they'll think i'm just a bible bachelor they'll talk about me behind my back when i go away and they won't like me as much as they like me now

doesn't that restrain us

doesn't it

christ considered himself of no reputation he took upon himself the servant's position and he went out knowing that in the greatest humiliation which they executed upon them and they did it in his crucifixion it didn't worry him

remember it says for the joy that was set before him

he endured the cross

despising

the shame

and the humiliation of it

that's what paul's reminding us about

what is your work in the truth chris adelphians

don't worry about what other people think of you

spread the word of the truth

tell them about it doesn't matter what they say share it with them do the work of an evangelist do the work of a humble servant humble ourselves likewise before men and be found in fashion as a man we are men let us go out and preach it to the point of the ultimate humiliation if they crucified us naked

won't worry about us we won't worry us we will we will not despise the shame

we'll do it for christ's sake and what's more when we're in the midst of that we'll sing hymns as well

because then we've got something to rejoice about

we are worthy

to suffer for christ

brethren and sisters this is almost a foreign language of the ecclesia as we come to the end of the 20th century almost a foreign language

where is our dedication where has it gone

where do we spend our saturdays now

who is our employer which lord do we work for

is it christ

or is it mammon

is it capitalism

is it the value system of this world

what is it that's driving the christadelphian machine today

i think we've got a lot of soul searching to do

i think we should do a lot of personal examination

as to how well we line up with paul

silas

paphroditus timothy

when we stand next to them with the judgment seat

will we really compare with them

will we look like them

will the four faces of the care of them shine through us

you know the ultimate face of the caribbean will only come

when we are king priests upon the face of the earth and that's when we have the face of the lion we don't have that yet it's not our position to bring judgment in the sense of becoming lords yet that with a rod of iron we bring into into commission into servitude the rest of the world that's not our position now

our position is to do the work of the evangelists our position is with the divine spirit of the eagle within our minds converting our thinking to do the work of a servant in the form of a man

that's the great example of paul timothy paraphrases silas the others

so what are we doing now

where do we spend our saturdays

he tells us that god will surely elevate the lord jesus christ and he shall have the name that ev that is above every other name that at the name that jesus has every knee shall bear doubtless that's the name of god it's the name of yahweh jesus christ headed by very the very fact he was called yahushua said it is yah is the savior he bore the name which is above every other name there's no doubt what that name was and what it meant

it meant

god must be manifested in the sons of this earth

that's what the name means he who will be manifested

and if christ had the name of god we also have got the name of god on us too because as james declared god is calling out of the nations of people for his name

and that name there's only one name the name of god this is the name that's above every other name god's name means

you are my children bearing my family name doing my family business upon this earth you represent me

and you've got my name a great responsibility a very great and a solemn responsibility and we've been asked to take it up in taking on christ into our hearts and minds

so when christ rises up and every knee bows and every tongue confesses that jesus christ is lord it is to the glory of god the father and that's what we must do too

wherefore my beloved he says in verse 12

as you have always obeyed not as in my presence only but now much more in my absence work out your salvation with fear and trembling

that's a high order

what does he mean work it out with fear and trembling

should we be petrified to be a christodolphian

fear there means

with a great respect

an ever conscious respect of the presence of god

and trembling has to do with the fact that in this great respect we have for god we recognize that we are accountable

we are accountable accountable to god

he doesn't ignore what we do

we are never outside his presence and his omniscient mind and knowing eyes upon us

we must work

work labor in his vineyard work out

that which comes to salvation

with fear with respect and accountability that's a tall order

and it says don't forget who you are

you've been called to a very high calling

respect it

remember the presence of god

and get on and organize your lives as my servants

that is a great responsibility oh it's got its great benefits and advantages it's great privileges it's glory in the age to come he's got many wonderful positives to it but to be sober for a moment and talk about the responsibility

if we don't honor our responsibilities it's got a negative

and who much is given of him shall much be expected that is our position therefore let us recognize

paul's example a shining example a wonderful hope

a wonderful witness

just how much do we measure up to it well we'll look at it further in our next session

Transcript

this comment about getting people out of fellowship hall sounds like you're all disfellowshipped when you're in here

this is a different sort of fellowship hall right so the apostle paul is reminding us now of the fellowship and the unity of mind that we have to have okay so now he he builds into his picture here notice this down in chapter 2

and in verse 14 he says do all things without murm rings and disputings

boy that's hard isn't it ever been in a collegial meeting to try and get things done without memories and disputings i mean it's it's a great difficulty of human beings it's endemic to human beings that we murmur and dispute about absolutely everything i mean it gets down to the point of you know exactly what color is the wall going to be apricot or beige or you know with a slight form of pink you know we can have a whole business meeting over disputing about the the little details of the cliche life and what's more we might not only dispute about it we might even fall out about us and this kind of problem is just so human

and as we have the difficulties today over mere details and and peripheral things that are of no real consequence to our work it can create a great deal of division and we can be caught in the midst of a division over something quite trump of little consequence but he says do it without memories and disputes verse 15 he says that you may be blameless and harmless or inoffensive that's a pretty important word that

remember christ said be as wise as serpents and harmless

blameless as inoffensive as a dove and if you look at a dove

and the qualities of a dove you've got to hold a dove you can see a dove it's it's harmless it's a symbol the right symbol of peace isn't it it is not an offensive creature

or take the picture of the lamb the lamb is in no wise an offensive creature jesus christ was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world the lamb slaughtered by the ferocious beasts of his own time

and that really is inoffensive and can we imagine ourselves being like that are we like that are we inoffensive or we do we tend to reserve aggression

retaliation

uh explosions of intemperance having a bad temper

very strong in human spirit we can't let the the bone alone we just keep gnawing it ignoring ignoring it these are characteristics which we're advised to limit in our lives as he says blessed are the poor in spirit and that doesn't mean the spiritual mind

we're not blessed if we're poor in the spiritual mind are we it's blessing blessings upon those who are poor in human spirits

guile push push push aggressiveness

those ones who rather see i don't wish to offend others by what i do

that's the attitude he's really highlighting

so that you may be blameless and and inoffensive the sons of god without without rebuke means that you're irreproachable you're not standing there as targets that other people can easily pick on

and then he says in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation and it's more crooked and more perverse today than it was in rome

and we're in the midst of this kind of generation here are christian orpheus are we vulnerable are they really going to pick holes in us because of the way we do things

the thought of sort of things we say are we sitting there so vulnerable they're going to pick on us and they can see what we're like after all we can have two standards we can be a sunday morning crusade and a very different christian offense during the business week

that gets to be known

sometimes embarrassingly so to our community

like at one time i was most embarrassed when with one colleague it came up that we had a a mutual acquaintance in our business and i said oh yes he's a christadelphian and i said he's a christodolphian he said oh one of your better ones

and i didn't know what to say but he said well he wouldn't have considered him to be a very religious man by what he does i mean i made no comment i asked no questions but i must confess i was taken back by the statement

he may have been entirely wrong

hope he was

but then again he could be right

and this damages the reputation of our community

again uh

it was rather difficult because this person had not made it known that he was a christian

evidently he hadn't let that much shine in his job with his business colleagues

he was surprised to learn that he was a christian

i think it's a shame when that happens it certainly does damage to our whole community

anyway paul makes it clear that we live in a wicked and abominable generation

let's not try and fly our worst washing in the face of the world

he goes on to say here look i i love you brethren and i want you to hold fast the things of the word of life that i may rejoice in the day of christ verse 16

that i have not run in vain neither labored in vain

his point being that paul has been put to great personal sacrifice

in order to try and secure the brethren sisters at philippi he was put up great personal sacrifice we saw it there in the prison here he was beaten brutally and then thrust into the innermost prison in a painful situation he went through all of that plus all the other sacrifice he'd given in his letters and his writings and his prayers for the brethren and sisters at philippi he was simply saying now don't let any of this be in vain brethren i have labored for you as my children of the faith never let it be said that you're going to fail in the day of christ

i would just hate to think

that i went through all that for nothing

that my love would be lost in the end and i would lose the precious children that god had blessed me with

so his attitude was loving and caring all the way along he says now in in verse 17 yea and if i be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith i joy and rejoice with all of you now isn't that a testimony of why he was singing in the prison in philippi

he says look if i have to be sacrificed and that that word you'll see pardon me in the margin for offered is poured forth and what that means is to take the blood of the offering and pour it out at the base of the altar while the animal is sacrificed upon the altar

he's referring here to an animal sacrifice under the law of moses

and he say look if i have to be offered myself on the altar like as jesus christ was

there was the flesh on the stake on the sacrifice of god's altar and there was the blood poured out at the altar at the bottom of the altar

symbolized by the law the body totally given up in pouring out its life for god's dedication

paul says if i have to be there

for your sake he said i'll sing songs of joy

i joy and i rejoice with you all for the same cause also you can join and rejoice with me

because if sacrifice has a meaning it's all important

but there's nothing more damaging nothing more vain

than a sacrifice given

where no life is redeemed

it's like coming into the truth

living half a life of dedication

and the rest of the half of life it's given up the flesh takes over the person goes back to the world and forgets about the truth

that's a vain dedication worthless

all that for nothing

and so paul goes on to say looking at his own circumstances now he talks about timotheus verse 19

and says but i trust in the lord jesus to send to matthew shortly unto you that when i may be of good that oh i also may be of good comfort when i know your state so he's going to sin send timothy as soon as he can because he says for i have no man like-minded who will naturally care for your state now this is a very interesting point that he makes here

for i have no man like mine according to my standard he says who will naturally care for your state there's no other brother here who could care for you as good as well as sensitively for your needs as what timothy can he's exactly my like me being there

remember this very close relationship that paul had with timothy a very unique relationship

because timothy was his son in the faith a wonderful wonderful young man he took timothy remember timothy he circumcised

and yet paul was the one who said look circumcision doesn't matter it's nothing whether you're circumcised or not circumcised it's where the christ reigns in your heart that's important and circumcised decision of the hearts what important not not circumcision of the flesh why should timothy be circumcised but he circumcised timothy

because he saw timothy as being his brother a close ally and protege an understudy of his who he could take into the synagogues and reason with the jews sabbath by sabbath by sabbath but he couldn't take timothy in if he wasn't circumcised

so timothy underwent a rather painful operation for a young man

in order that his exposure to the jewish community might not be limited

paul made the request timothy happily acceded and timothy became a man through much suffering and tribulation to be with paul in his work of the truth and a wonderful father-sonship relationship grew up here

timothy became the clone of paul

sensitive very sensitive remember timothy was one to whom paul wrote and said look don't let them upset you don't let them despise your youth take a little wine for your stomach's sake they're upsetting you your tummy's in turmoil you're a very sensitive young man but go on timothy work for the love of the brotherhood timothy was always at his side laboring for the love of the brotherhood he had love pouring out of him

it's a wonderful attribute that timothy copied from paul

a sensitive young man but he took on all the towering fortress of paul's love

and i think that's a very sad thing in our community brethren and sisters that we often have great difficulty in showing that love

remember when paul goes to the ephesian athleisure and he talks them and warns them they're finally on his way back to uh to jerusalem he's on his third journey they fall on his shoulder he weeps on their shoulder they embrace they kiss they cry

that's the love for the brotherhood

that's the bowels of mercy that's the tears of joy

and our culture says we don't touch

we limit touching

our culture says it perhaps we've inherited from the british stiff upper lip or whatever it's come from

we have ceased to be warm and emotional ebullient people

and i think often our love is restrained because we can't show our emotions one to another it's great pity great pity we miss out on one of the warmest joys the apostle ever had

and maybe if we haven't got it now maybe we'll learn it

in the kingdom age if we're acceptable to show that love and that great emotion with one another so often paul talks about my bowels yearned for you all

my emotions reached their peak when i considered you your needs

your sacrifices your faithfulness

he rejoiced

he just rejoiced

when you see it a brother visits another ecclesia and he comes like saying it's terrific to see the way they're holding the faith they're strong and firm and the young people are so dedicated to the proclamation work and the senior brothers and sisters are right up there in the front with them advising and counseling and caring they're a loving athleisure front line of the truth going ahead in a very broad basin they're getting on with it rejoicing rejoicing that another reclusion is strong in the truth

that's the sort of attitude paul had

so often in his writings rejoicing in that very fact

that the brothers and sisters were strong

working together in love and care welfare for one another that's what shines out of this entire epistle that he writes to the philippians oh how was it born born as a result of being in a jail

both in the circumstances of the of the foundation of the philippine ecclesia in the circumstances the letter he writes

it's all coming out of jails

perhaps we should start a new reformation maybe if we came out of jails we might be better off maybe if we saw the other side of things we might have a better contrast maybe if we had more deprivation and suffering to start with we'd appreciate what the truth is when we got it

i think one of the biggest disadvantages of the christadelphian born in the household is exactly that

oh we can't overlook the advantages

a young person brought up from the kindergarten in the christodorf in sunday school gone right through sunday school baptized into the wonder and beauty of the truth of the teenage age and goes into a wonderful marriage with a partner in the truth that is a wonderful legacy we can never deny the wonder of that and the beauty of it

but often because these things happen so nicely

we lose appreciation for what the truth really is we've never seen the stark contrast

between the flesh operating in the world and the spirit of the truth in the household

and therefore a lot of our young people who become the new generation of christodolphians lack dedication lack insight lack a true appreciation of the contrast of flesh and spirit lack a mindedness to understand how those people out there think and how they need us

and i must confess as a fifth generation christadelphian

it's very easy to slip into that area and say yes chris adolphians we're christophe dolphins we've got it all

we just keep within each other nice secure circle confidence anticipation

we can lack the true beauty of a person who's seen the other side of things and often it's those brethren who come into the world from outside those sisters who coming from outside they'll come and say look you just don't appreciate what you've got here

very often that's the case

true it is

and we have to revamp our minds rekindle that fire within us redeem the time create the beauty of the truth from within appreciate it meditate upon it think about how wonderful it is and what god has done for us and how much those people out there need us and i often think brethren and sisters if we thought more about what the needs are out there and the people who need the truth we give more time to it less fighting amongst ourselves over what color the curtains in the hall are going to be and more discussion about how we're going to deal with that city over there and preaching the truth

the old problem is

that when we all have an enemy a common enemy we cohere together don't we oppression from without brings cohesion within the old adage about how to destroy a city just put the vision in and it'll internally destroy itself i think we can very effectively uh degrade the christodolphine community in this age

by creating our own divisions and factions and different ways of doing things and power struggles

it's a great shame it's very human the antidote to it set the common enemy out there it's the flesh it's the world it's the devil we want to go out and we want to beat it we want to challenge it we want to go out as warriors and warfare warfaring for the beauty of the truth going out of spiritual warriors to challenge it as christ did as paul did as the disciples did as timothy did and hence they got suffering didn't they

if we haven't got suffering

let's really take stock to see why we haven't

we don't put ourselves in exposure

for suffering for the things of christ

so paul's example is just wonderful he rejoices with them if they progress in the truth so he's going to send timothy timothy to them timothy understands them he's been well tutored by paul i know he goes on to talk to a little bit more about epaphroditus he says well verse 24

he was hoping that he himself would be able to come shortly he was rather hopeful of a good result to his trial his trial before caesar when he makes his official appeal he believed that he had a good mind on legal affairs remember that he was a very educated man paul was very educated he had good understanding of the greek language the latin language the hebrew language he was able to discourse in many of their own political viewpoints he had a knowledge of literature greek literature roman literature an expert in hebrew literature a very well-educated man he knew of the legal system very well and he knew that he had a good case to make in his appeal to caesar he got free he'd all did all the witness there and he was able to leave behind temporarily a strong roman ecclesia as a result of him being in chains in his appeal to caesar and therefore he could go back to the occlusion world and that was his hope he could do that

and so he says i hope also i trust in the lord that also i shall myself come unto you but in the meantime i'm going to send a paper epaphroditus yet he says verse 25 i suppose it necessary to send you a paraphrase as my brother and he's my companion notice this libra fellow soldier notice all these terms there companion in what tribulation he is my fellow laborer he is a laborer a worker a hard worker he's a fellow soldier he's dressed in the equipment of the spiritual warrior he is having to embattle himself against the difficulties of life but your messenger he says he that ministered to my wants so they sent epaphroditus back to paul

now he says for he longed after you all

he longed after you well verse 26

he was full of heaviness

because you'd heard that he'd been sick

isn't that amazing he was full of heaviness because he had heard that you knew he was sick look at those amazing connections

look at the love

the consideration that's floating between them

love is dominating that scene just dominating epididis was sick

and many sicknesses viruses diseases malaria all kinds of things abounded in that age now he was sick and he longed after you all and he was very sad

when he realized that you were sad because you'd heard that he was sick

isn't it incredible that little piece of information is recorded in the word of god as part of the word of god alongside the great doctrinal foundations of the truth

that have gone out throughout the world for 2 000 years of his scripture it's part of the divinely inspired record part of what god considers you and i need for salvation

and all it's saying is the paphroditus was very sad because when he knew that you were sad about the fact that you knew that he was sick he felt worse

in other words

he was so emotional

over his feelings for them that even when he was sick

he was sad that they were sad

incredible isn't it we read that daily readings goes over like that it's gone

we don't stop and think

about what dear epaphroditus was experiencing look at verse 27 for indeed he was sick he was very sick he was near to death

that's how bad he was

and in that sickness he was still so eaten up inside of his love and care for his brothers and sisters at philippi but god had mercy on him and not on him only but also on me i was sick i had these needs lest i should have sorrow

upon

sorrow

what was he so sorrowful about

because he was in chains

because he was a prisoner because he might have faced the executioner

because he was sick was this what worried was this why he was so sorry

no

not at all

he was happy to do that for christ rejoicing in it singing psalms in it for christ he was happy to suffer there's no sorrow of him in that what was his sorrow his sorrow brother and sisters was

his feelings

for the welfare of his brothers and sisters in rome in philippi and the care of all the ecclesias that was on his shoulders he cared for them he loved them he nurtured them

and when they weren't doing too well either physically or more importantly spiritually

he was so sad

tearing his heart out

is that how we feel about our brothers and sisters

when we hear of a problem in an ecclesia somewhere we hear about spiritual difficulties we hear that a brother or a sister is on a spiritual low they're not coming out to the meetings any longer they're not as regular as they used to be they don't worry about study days or anything like that they're all optional extras so you know we just go to the necessary things and sometimes i start backing off on the necessary meetings such as the memorial meeting of a sunday morning and what do we think about them ah they're weak

we can despise them

we can despise the weakness and say gosh i don't even know where they bother coming to the memorial meeting they're not interested in anything else in the truth no other part of the ecclesia the brother doesn't do anything in the meeting he just comes along and we could feel really quite despicable towards them

rejecting them

saying yes they're just weak they may as well not come why are they here don't bother to come i won't bother talking to them

and that would be the reason that would be the reason why the apostle paul would go into a fit of depression

because he would love them and feel for them and do everything he possibly could to try and rehabilitate them spiritually

you know some of our brethren and sisters because we see them only of a sunday morning

we don't really know them

we really don't know them very well at all

and yet we do nothing about getting to know them

we never visit them we never invite them to our home we never make opportunities for meeting them in another environment somewhere else

we don't bother about them let them go let them drift out let them wander off they're just weak don't love the things of god

that's not paul's attitude

he says don't heap sorrow upon sorrow upon me he says because i love you all so much i just want to hear that you're doing well i'll do whatever i can to help you and i'm going to send to you my personal assistant timothy now paul knew that timothy was his closest aide he desperately needed the company of timothy because paul wasn't able to move around he was a prisoner he was also somewhat older now he didn't have the health he didn't have the strength to do some of the things that young timothy could do he needed timothy as his right-hand right-hand man to extend the work of the truth

but he was now saying i'm going to send you timothy i'm going to send you my right hand man i'll do without him but he can benefit you

it's a big sacrifice on paul's accounts nevertheless he goes and he talks about this matter

he says that when he sends epaphroditus he's sending a paprika before he sends timothy verse 29 receive him therefore in the lord with all gladness and hold such in reputation respect him honor his position

because for the work of christ he was nigh unto death notice that for his work in the truth he was just about dead

not hazarding his life he says to supply your lack of service toward me he really went out to fill up his own life to bring the deficiencies to make up the deficiencies in the ministration designed for me he risked his life in coming to visit me look what he did

we don't know particularly what his sickness was it may well have been that he could have been beaten up being a christian coming to visit paul the christians were now beginning to get a bit of a name in rome because there were sex spoken against everywhere throughout the roman world maybe when he came back to paul he was beaten up on his way to see paul the soldiers ill-treated him or some thugs and local marketeers set upon him as he came over to see paul in the praetorium

whatever it was he was very sick on that accounts maybe he had to go through very difficult circumstances shipwrecks like paul did nearly died in the process maybe caught sickness and disease on the roots

off all night without any sleep traveling in the most unhygienic conditions living in the most high unhygienic quarters he did this for their sake and for paul's sake and paul says look what he went through he was nearly dead for this

just receive him receive him back respect him and love him he's just about dead

for the truth

this was real sacrifice in action what he had done

and that's why brethren and sisters the example of paul and timothy and epaphronitis are so so important for us to meditate on

they're there for a message

the message is for our learning and our edification that we might know how to copy their lives

in the third chapter now paul takes her attention to the next phase which of course in the notes we can see introduces another topic for us in chapter three he says that he is going to press on toward the mark for the prize

so in chapter three he rejoices in god and gives the excitation that you must put no confidence in the flesh at all

he then gives paul seven surpassing fleshly credentials here he now comes to talk about flesh and spirit making it clear that in fact if we're going to follow after christ we have to deny the flesh and he makes this clear in his next section

so looking there at verse 1 he says finally my brethren rejoice in the lord again he puts this word in rejoice rejoice in the lord to write the same things to you to me indeed is not grievous but for you it is safe in other words he's saying here the the impact of the word of life has indeed changed his life and he's writing things which he hopes they will not consider grievous any more than the things they wrote to him but now he gives a warning his warning is concerning the household

and he says beware of dogs beware of dogs

you know the dogs are those really cited in verse 19 of this chapter he talks about this classification or category and says whose end is destruction whose god is their belly whose glory is their shame who mind earthly things they are governed by the carnal mind they're like dogs returning to their vomit

he says beware of dogs beware of evil workers those are the people who will will come into the midst of the ecclesia and work evil feigning themselves to be brethren they are really corrupting and overthrowing the foundations of the ecclesial unity beware of the concision

the concession with the mutilators those associated also with with pagan worship as well as those judaizers that come into the midst and require people to be circumcised as if by the mutilation of the body they're going to make these people righteous

beware of them he says

though i might also have confidence in the flesh she says

confidence in the flesh if any other man thinks that he has where of he might trust in the lord then i can trust in the flesh more than what he can if you get people coming to you saying well i'm really quite a reputable person not like this paul who's a prisoner i've never had any moral question raised against my integrity i have never done anything illegal no fines imposed upon me you know people with that you know spark of absolute omo whiteness that they say i'm absolutely clean

the highest degree of moral integrity or i've got better education than you people have i after all of i'm quite locatious in the greek language i i can speak anything in the latin language i also know the hebrew language extremely well i have great qualifications and of course my knowledge in the law makes me better than you

the law of moses knowledge and judaism

see people were flaunting

their degrees of knowledge and religion to make them better than somebody else

a person could flaunt his credentials in our own brotherhood and say look you know my bible is much better mark than yours therefore i must be a better student than you are so don't question what i'm telling you

or we might say well i know more about this subject i've been to so many bible schools and what you have i'll be much longer in the truth than you are i mean i've got a great pedigree list in the truth also and i can cite this is the reason why i'm a better person than you are and also you should listen to me and i don't have to listen to you

this kind of attitude promotes the caste system in our community the brother who might say oh well i'm a teacher of bible schools i should know what i'm talking about i teach in more bible schools than what he does i should know what i'm talking about this sort of prestigious reputation that we can also fall into a foul position with in our own lives

that we can end up with a caste system of you know the extra cleans and the questionable ones down the other ends

we are all one in christ jesus

there is no one brother better than another in our community what no one sister better than another in the eyes of god he is not a respecter of persons credentials

but god acknowledges the humbleness of the mind into which he can come and dwell the mind of a person who trembles at his word

the heart of a person

who is humbled by the power of the spirit truth this is the sort of person god comes and dwells with not the arrogant the high-minded and the proud notice how paul brings himself into this position says look if they want a glory in the flesh i can glory a lot more than them these are the judaizers who are making the flesh and the credentials of flesh a better degree of righteousness before god he says concerning himself verse five

circumcise the eighth day right i was right on the eighth day there you've got to be circumcised on the eighth day or your circumcision is not as good and if you happen to be circumcised afterwards then it's not as good you're not as righteous he was of the stock of israel so israel was the righteous tribe the the righteous nation on the earth and all the judaizers believed that was so he was of the tribe of benjamin benjamin was an elitist tribe the smallest tribe in israel but an elitist tribe attached to the tribe of judah so he belonged to that he was also an hebrew of hebrews so he had the renown that he was well and truly entrenched in the hebrew generation of people he was absolutely without question a jew of jews

he goes on to say here as touching the law there was no person more righteous than a group of the pharisees so he was a pharisee under the law concerning zeal as a zealot he was one that persecuted the early ecclesia

as touching the righteousness which is of the law what righteousness of the law he says he was blameless by the righteousness of the law

now how could a person be blamed what was he talking about after all paul went about to say that no man could claim righteousness from a law that condemned him for breaking it and he was talking about the law of moses

now what he now talks about is the vain tradition which the elders of israel had in that they recognized that if you were to pinpoint personal failure then everybody was a sinner but in order to get out of that situation and designate themselves as righteous they had another formula for creating it and that formula was that if your good works

exceeded your evil works then you were righteous simple as that get the bean balance simple bean balance good works in this dish bad works in that dish if the good works exceed the bad work so they go down like that they are heavier they are weightier they are more then you are righteous by the law

of course it's got a very subjective approach to it

because who knows

what good works and bad works done

all the bad works are done in a secret corner in the closet away from the main public eye not ready for scrutiny or speculation the righteous works are done when they would walk out put on their fine garments walk up to the temple cast in trinkling money down into a great clang clang clang clangers who went to the treasury and say there you are i'll put in more money than you have they just figure their faces they make it look as if they've been fasting when in fact they've been eating nice roast turkey all week and they go to the temple and say look at me i've been doing more things for god than what you have and then they say i thank you god i'm not like that public and that sinner down there these were righteous people subjectively righteous people and the one great fallacy of this system was that it was not only subjective but it was very human because

they happen to have a rather good memory for the acts of righteousness

an incredibly bad memory for the things they did wrong

and so they only thought about the committed acts of righteousness and not all the sins of omission the things they didn't do that they should have done so a person would make himself righteous by the law simply because he had a better memory for his good works and his bad works and he called himself righteous paul said by the law by that criteria of judgment i was blameless

nobody convicted him of sin he was marching the front line of judaizers persecuting the ecclesia everywhere taking the letters of the high priest advancing judaism and his purity getting rid of these gentiles out of concern with israel and so he went on he was blameless he was a man with enormous jewish religious credentials

but he said all these things

i counted as nothing he says they were not gains to me he said i counted them as loss for christ in verse seven

yea doubtless and i count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of christ jesus my lord for whom i have suffered the loss of all things and i do count them but done that i may win christ

counter them as dung

fit for the dung heap

it was not his academic qualifications his knowledge of of the law of rome his learning of greek literature and letters they were not the things he counted as done he used those efficiently and effectively in his service his knowledge of language speaking in greek and in hebrew to his accusers this was all part of an education outside that of his religious education it was his doctors of divinity his bachelor of divinity that he denied

it was his religious education the fact that he had a degree in divinity a doctor in this area he he was a man established as a great leader and a righteous man in the jewish household benefiting above many of his own equals in the jews religion youngest member of the sanhedrin council they'd probably ever had

he counted all that as done

done that he might win christ

but there were those in the ecclesia who are flaunting their supposed religious credentials why they should be listened to and others should be denied any hearing or consideration of their opinions

to some degree we have these difficulties in our own midst

to some degree a brother with a greater position or rank in our community believes that his opinion therefore ought to be more reputable he takes more of a first class in any dispute over some other lesser brother than him

that kind of attitude does exist

we must resist it brethren and sisters

we must challenge it and we must correct those brethren who have such attitudes else their own salvation is at stake

we don't call rank like that

we must serve each other humbly believing and esteeming each other better than ourselves to be that's what the apostle paul is on about and that's why he reminds us that if he wanted to call rank he's got more rank and privilege than anybody else but he said i treated it as done follow my example and don't divide the ecclesia up over these meaningless matters

but look now paul wants to return again he's always doing this in his epistle to the philippians he wants to return again to consider the reputation of christ's sacrifice

and what that means to our sacrifice with him look at verse 10 this is powerful this is

he says that i may know him christ

and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings

being made conformable unto his death

if by any means

i might advance

unto the resurrection of the dead

and he says and not as though i'd already got it i haven't already caught hold of this great resurrection to glory says it's not mine either we're already perfect i'm not i'm not entirely mature in this matter i haven't reached full age of righteousness but he says i pursue my course

that's what the word follow after means i steadily pursue my course if i may attain catch hold of it catch hold of that for which i'm apprehended in christ jesus brethren i count myself to have caught this yet i haven't got my hands on eternal life but this one thing i do

forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth to those things which are before i press towards the great object of my aim the mark

the prize he says of the high calling of god in christ jesus

what a wonderful picture he draws here

he says look i strive for this

that i might know the power of his resurrection now what's that what's he saying there what he is saying is the resurrection has two powerful influences on a person

remember the first case where the apostle paul writing to the romans says that they that have been raised with christ are those that have died with christ

and he makes it clear in his his exhortation when he goes through to say if you've been buried together with christ in his death you should be raised up with him with likeness he says as also christ was raised from the dead you should walk in newness of life

now that's the first phase of resurrection that's when we come out of the waters of baptism we're in the first stage of resurrection and in fact those who die in christ today and have died many centuries ago will be raised up again to exactly that position we are in now the first phase of resurrection mortality heading for desiring to apprehend immortality

now in this state

pardon me as we go forth toward the prize the power of the resurrection touches us in the first stage of resurrection mortality redeemed from the power of sin and death to walk in newness of life that's where we are

and that is a power that must grasp hold of us

it is christ in us the hope of glory

this is a very very powerful matter and if we apprehend this and what is talking about it saying christ will change your life

and is our life being changed

is it really

is there a vast difference between the pre-baptized croisdolphian and the post-baptized brother and sister in christ is that difference discernible has it been a power in our lives to transform us from fleshly thinking people the spiritual thinking people has the mind of christ taken over from the mind of the flesh

is the new adam now governing where the old animus deads

all of this is whether the power of the resurrection has touched us if it hasn't transformed our life now there is absolutely no way we are going to get into the second stage of the power of the resurrection to transfer our bodies

out of death to life out of weakness to strength out of mortality to immortality that will never happen unless the power of the resurrection changes us now

that i might know him

the power of his resurrection and what do we mean by that what we mean by that is the fellowship of his sufferings

there it is

fellowship of his sufferings being made

conformable to his

putting to death the mind and the works of the flesh

there it is

becoming the body of christ today burying the flesh putting on the spirit cutting off the works of the flesh putting on the life of christ and taking the mind of our lord that governs our actions our behavior our thoughts our performances of love to one another that's the dominant power that's behind the son of god in his new life and the death to the flesh

be made conformable to his death that patent brethren and sisters is what we eat and drink to every sunday morning

the bread put the flesh away the wine put the life of christ on and the balance of that brings us to a true sacrifice with our lord is that what we've got now have we known the power of his resurrection are we grasping at the prize as we run the rise for eternal life is that mark that great lol at the end of the channel is that what we're looking at looking unto jesus the author and finisher of our face faith as we race down that life shedding off every weight that possesses us every sin that so easily besets us shedding off the flesh and it's in its great armor as we run with greater skill and swiftness towards the prize of the mark of the high calling of god in christ

that's a lot of work that is a lot of dedication a lot of insight a lot of love

a lot of caring a lot of teaching a lot of sharing

and all of that brethren sisters is what he means when he says in verse 15 let us therefore as many as be mature

that understand these matters as a spiritual person be thus minded

if anything be otherwise minded god should reveal this nevertheless he says we are aware of two we have already attained let us walk by the same rule we have got this much anyway he says let us have the same mind

be thus minded not divided off not creating difficulties and problems not creating division in our midst not creating competition

and the simulation but rather striving for the unity of the faith in the bonds of peace striving with our minds one to another in which we are able to share the truth as nobly as we've been given us striving for the unity of the household in the bonds of peace wonderful words wonderful words that paul gives to us for like-mindedness

and if we've got that mind of christ it won't be hard to be the suffering servants

suffering with christ now that may we may rejoice in his glory in the day of his visitation

let us therefore remind one another constantly this is paul's speaking

follow his example and then we'll know what the sufferings of christ are and what the unity of the spirit is and what the bonds of love mean when our bowels move for one another in the household

Transcript

i think i'm all wired up can you hear me good

well having enjoyed a nice meal we now turn again to spiritual food and of course if we deny feeding the spiritual man we get the consequences of it don't we we become spiritually anemic or emaciated we lose the opportunities of feeding the inner man and therefore of losing the opportunities of growth spiritual growth and of course it's always been necessary that we feed ourselves in moderation the same as we don't you know gorge ourselves at an occlusional meal and find ourselves having the pleasure of seeing the meal for the second time and gives us an opportunity otherwise sometimes when we try with spiritual indigestion to put too much in we don't get the value out of it do we so we've got to take it in small pieces it always had to be broken up under the law didn't it and each day that lampstand was lit by oil which was crushing the olives by all the the people of israel a little bit put in each day breaking it up making it small making it meaningful and hopefully that's what we achieve in the pattern and methods of our bible study well coming to continue now paul's wonderful letter to the philippian brethren sisters in his fourth chapter he moves now to consider more particularly the direct problems of division in the ecclesia and tries to encourage the ecclesia into the clear keys to solving the problems that they are experiencing now in this fourth chapter looking at our outline again we again put it on the screen if you haven't got the outline in front of you there so in the fourth chapter we rejoice in the lord always the persuasive appeal for reconciliation in the case of two sisters who were named here

he talks here in verses 4 to 7 about the way to peace rejoice and pray for the lord is at hand

in verses eight to nine he gives us the antidote to spiritual december which we'll look at a little more care versus eight to nine

and then verses 10 to 19 we have thanks for the gift as the fruit of their account and not as a provision of his needs as he has learned to do without he doesn't desperately need it but he thanks them for it but it's more important for them to give than for him to receive and then he gives of course his descriptions of praise and salutations at the end of the chapter well looking then at the conclusion of chapter three which we didn't quite to conclude the apostle paul was looking here at the at the time coming when he exhorts himself in his uh his conversation his conduct before god in verse 19 he talks about those who actually were going away from the truth whose end is destruction whose god is their belly whose glory is their shame they mind earthly things but he says for our conversation our commonwealth that's actually what he means there the commonwealth the citizenship that we have is in heaven so our citizenship belongs in heaven so where is our heart where are we being led from if we're being led by the flesh by earthly considerations we simply prove that our citizenship belongs here on earth but if our position of mind is in the heavenlies being born from above seeking the things which are above and not on the earth stirring up our treasures in the heavens with our lord who is at the right hand of the most high where the book of life is and where our citizenship belongs being born from above through that spiritual city jerusalem then it means our whole mind is set up in heaven now that doesn't mean we're elevated from the practicalities of earth it means that we consider ourselves to be led by the mind of god demonstrated in the mind and works of his son and therefore our aspirations are towards heaven and not like animals towards the earth only

hence this aspiration of seeking higher things seeking closer to god like the eagle does as it rises up and sets it at the focus of its eyes upon the sun it looks into the sun and therefore the eagle tends to rise up with the strength of the sun and this is where we have to look to that we are born on the eagles wings of the divine spirit so here he talks about our citizenship our our commonwealth belongs in heaven from where we look for the savior now that is a very different case of animals that live by looking at the earth they're looking for the next bit of food the next bit of prey the next bit of satisfaction the animal can have in our case we look to heaven while we're looking to heaven we want to see jesus christ coming back we want to see him bringing the book of life with him we want to see him bring the spiritual city new jerusalem with him all this has to do with aspiring to heavenly dimensions looking at things that are not earthly sensual fleshly carnal

so in his end here he talks about the fact that if we look to christ looking for the coming of the savior who shall change our vile body perhaps a better description there is the body of our humiliation it really is a humiliating body when you look at it isn't it i mean what really are we but a but a dying mass of meat eventually returning off into dust that's what we are we might look at the young strong man who might glory in the strength of his legs and draw glory in the strength of his body but if we do that eventually we will see the body breaks down it becomes weak it becomes humble and and eventually goes into old decrepit age and then as the wise man says it falls broken into the system well this is what happens to human bodies we're a dying creature and when the apostle paul of course looked upon his own life in his own failures he never had indifference to sin did he he didn't say well never mind i'm just a poor weak human being i'm going to sin god knows i'm going to sin christ doesn't know i'm going to sin so therefore forget about sin that was never paul's attitude he said a wretched man that i am who's going to deliver me from the body of this death

and the body of this death means a rotting corpse literally and that was how many people were condemned by the romans they had a dying a dead body tied to their own live body and they were sent around to eventually let the putrefaction of that dying body corrupt the real body until they both fell into the pit

and that's how paul looked at it and narrow refers to his body again and he says i'm looking forward to the change of this vile body that it may be fashioned like into his glorious body according to the working whereby he's able even to subdue all things unto himself

isn't that a lovely description to subdue all things unto himself he wanted to have his own body in complete command and possession of the mind of the spirit

but he couldn't do it every time he tried to do the right thing he'd be doing the wrong thing and the very things he didn't want to do were the very things he found himself perpetually doing he frustrated himself in righteous anxiety and frustration he says a wretched man that i am he mentions he really mentions

and that's why he refers now to the vile body he cannot achieve what he wants to he's all the time hung up with the weaknesses of this mortal system he would love to get rid of it that's why he says earlier on look i'd love to be rid of this body i'd love to be with the lord not in heaven but when the lord comes of course he wants to be with the lord to get rid of this vile body so now the body can rise up like the eagles and rise up like the the heart and the row and jump upon the mountains for the spiritual work that must be done to get rid of a body of weakness

and all of us brethren and sisters should desire that

in so analyzing and self-examining ourselves we can appreciate just how weak we are how much we fail how much we do not measure up to the standards that christ would have us to measure up to how much we fail ourselves we don't meet our ideals our aspirations our objectives the ideals we want to see that we can achieve we never get them we're all the time stepping back and saying another failed opportunity another failed achievement another failed goal

because our minds have been reborn but our bodies have not

so the weakness is there paul desire to get rid of that weakness get rid of this vile body this body of our humiliation that i can simply have a body that is subject completely to the demands and commands of the divine spirit and in that capacity there will be a body that now rises up to serve yahweh in the glory of all its strength

and i suppose to some degree myself

i tend to feel exactly like paul says but even if i am unacceptable to god in the day of judgment

i must confess my feelings are even if i can't have a body of immortality that i might get rid of this body which has been such a miserable failure for so many years in other words the battle will be over

the struggle itself

is a struggle a fight to contention all our lives isn't it we're struggling striving to bring the body under the control of the spiritual minds

always failing but nevertheless the fight is a good fight a fight of faith and when christ returns i feel just the wonderful relief of saying the battle's over be it won or lost the battle's over and if we have that wonderful body the glorious body of immortality what a wonderful thing it'll be

just imagine 24 hours a day

serving the things that we love successfully

throughout eternity

the mind boggles doesn't it we really can't conceive of that a little bit we can wouldn't it be wonderful to have a week without sleep serving the lord like a perpetual ongoing bible school with paul there and christ here and joseph there and jacob there everybody all there all you know viped up by the wonderful things of the truth sharing the fellowship with jesus christ no weaknesses no occlusal divisions no backbiting it'd be wonderful to have that and it's an aspiration we're going to hold in our spiritual mind's eye

and if we can hold that as a wonderful thing to be gained it'll inspire us for the prize at the end and consider therefore the sufferings of the present are not to be compared with the glories that shall be revealed

all this is very wonderful stuff it shows us that the mind of paul was just so beautiful and paul was the one who could say the followers of me

even as i am of christ jesus and if only we could do that just follow paul's mind but you know i love to read paul's writings because i feel they are so warmly disposed towards me

i feel that he understands weakness

and i feel in his presence that he understands me

of course he doesn't know me yet and i don't know paul yet i mean i love paul i know him through his writings and i'm looking forward to meeting him i really am

but i look forward to his words

hearing what he says listening to every word hanging on every word he says because every word here is the word of god divinely inspired for us we need every word he says and that's where the help and the strength comes from but yet brethren and sisters we can go sometimes a week

without reading this word

and as we find out you know seven days without the word makes one week

and we find that we lose that word we miss out on that word

we lose the strength we suddenly find all these flooded fleshly thoughts take us over because unless the mind is fighting them they'll take us over as sure as anything because that's where we live we're attached to this earth put your mind on things above our commonwealth belongs in heaven put your heart in your mind there and the rest of the body will not be so hard to fight

anyway chapter four he turns our attention now to look at a little problem he says therefore my brethren dearly beloved and longed for my joy and my crown can you imagine walking into the memorial meeting a sunday morning greeting the brother at the door and saying that to him

you'd probably think you'd been out the night before or something

see he meant those words he really meant those words

do we feel those words

if we don't feel them why don't we feel them

perhaps we just don't value our brothers and sisters enough and if that's the case then read read and re-read what paul says about his brothers and sisters my brethren my dearly beloved long for you my joy you're my crowning glory he says stand fast in the lord there it is that military term again send your grounds

fight for the truth be ready to ward off the encroaches of the of the devil and the under the influences of the world in every way to try and break down the catalysis of the word of god working within us so he warns

now he says look brethren i beseech you now sisters eurodius and cintiqi

two sisters in the meeting

that they be of the same mind in the lord

now he actually names them and to do that is very important because he's actually brought out names here which clearly identified two sisters and has identified two sisters through history

by name

now obviously these two sisters had a problem whatever that problem was we're not told but what we do know is that led to division in the meeting

what was wrong

i think reading between the lines here i would suggest that if the brethren had been doing their job in the ecclesia

if there had been sufficient and proper spiritual leadership taking place

then this would not have gone out of hand

and we would not have had a two-sister

brawl going on in the meeting and i'm not suggesting though physically brawling but what we have is an embattled situation that becomes so noteworthy that the apostle paul had to say these two sisters must get together and stop the feuding whatever it is

and this is very sad because the occlusion at philippi was a strong ecclesia but you must also remember too

that this ecclesia was first founded with a sister

it was lydia the first sister maybe this led to a problem here because the second sister was probably the woman who was taken by the spirit of divination

and these two sisters therefore became the beginning of the occlusion philippines to which was then out of the jailer and others maybe some of the prisoners were added in that same day

maybe this little bit of history had created a problem for the philippian ecclesia they thought maybe the sisters should because they were the foundation members of the seclesia they should have a more particular dominant position than otherwise porter told the corinthian brethren and sisters and told timothy in regard to the sisters position in the meeting perhaps they had two dominant roles

maybe again for the same reason the apostle paul said that what the sisters ought not to be in the teaching class of the occlusion and he makes that clear he said why and it doesn't demean women i believe it treats women in a very precious and a particular way he says that the women were more emotionally based in their thinking than men and god made them that way

because that's what the man needs now i'm being general here not specific

the man can be too harsh too cold too rational too scientific about it too practical to the point where human feelings are not respected

and i know a lot of brethren like that and probably you do too

but yet the sister has that great capacity to events from the man his emotional response

can soften a man's temperament bring him back to earth

bringing to consider the warm environment of affection and love and care which often the man on his own forgets about he's too preoccupied with his rational objective to think about the sensitive feelings on route to achieving those objectives

his brother thomas once said that man on his own

is cold

and as frigid as the poles unless his environment is humiliated by the warmth of a woman

i think god intended that and for that reason eve was deceived

adam was not remember that was the very point paul made when he wrote to timothy he said the sister ought not to teach him the occlusion because eve was deceived

adam was being in the transgression he wasn't deceived adam made a clear conscious decision my wife or my god and he chose his wife

he loved her surely he loved her but he put her before god and she took his hearts to herself and an emotional decision he did choose his wife his heart

his flesh

his bones she came out of him

eve however was seduced deceived by the rationalization of of animal thinking that came to her from a snake she was deceived

and because of this difference in capacity by which god made men and women he had declared what his wishes were through his apostle paul and now we go out and find that we've got women priests being ordained all over the place women rabbis and everything coming up because the women's liberation says man and woman are equal in every way and history has never proved that

and even jermaine grier didn't prove that she went back and had a baby and kept things at home

so really the best position to adopt is that of scriptural guidance

and the women here have had a dominant position in the ecclesia

and there was a division in the ecclesia because two women were divided

and the brethren should not have permitted that to happen

if they were doing their job that division would not be there

again we might say bayrack did his job deborah wouldn't have had to go out and leave them either and that's probably true too

and better to have a sister in command of a situation than no one

and if no brethren are going to rise up to do the work of the lord then surely the sister has to do something

and here we can't condemn these sisters

but paul encourages them i beseech you eurodius and syntacy

get your mind together on the truth because you are causing disturbance in the occlusion philippine

and whether this was because there was a matriarchy emerging in the ecclesia much as a result of the foundation members of its meeting of course as we've mentioned or whether it was just at the brethren were were just too

lazy lazy

not considering carefully enough their needs to be up front with the work of the truth not considering their responsibilities that they were given they had lots of love lots of warmth lots of emotion that's very good and very true and very needful

but there was a lack of brotherly direction in this ecclesia that's what does come out

so now he exhorts them i had to treat the also true yoke fellow help those women which labored with me in the gospel

with clement also with others of my fellow laborers whose names are in the book of life he's got no doubt that they're there what is he saying then i entreat the also true yoke fellow help those women which labored with me in the gospel they were not helping them why weren't they helping them the brethren were falling down in their duties

not enough care was being given

therefore the ecclesia was suffering some degree of disunity on this account

but he says rejoice in the lords always and again i say red choice

comes back to his central theme whatever problems are there fix them up

deal with the issue don't let it fester away until it divides the whole ecclesia up and makes wreck of the household of god deal with the problems in the godly way

paul's doing it here by letter these two sisters had to get their mind together on the truth

they had to become true sisters in christ the brethren had to get in there more and manage the situations they should have been doing and not let it get out of control and if they were helping the sisters more perhaps the sisters didn't have to help themselves as much as they were and taking commands

the brethren were not in the front line as they should have been

but now he brings us to a lesson here which is very important in verse five let your moderation your gentleness be known unto all men for the lord is very near

let your gentleness be known

that's not often what we exhort from is it in the platforms of a sunday morning we don't hear a lot of exhortation on being gentle do we gentleness

gentleness here approximates the expression that we have in the hebrew hesed which is the word everywhere translated as loving kindness

not just kindness but loving kindness

and that's a very powerful term because that's the quality of god

loving kindness

it's a wonderful attribute because what it really highlights to us is

that we're not only kind

but it's done with the most careful loving

sympathetic disposition

and in that atmosphere you're able to generate a warmth of love and a wonderful response to the problem you're trying to solve

do it with loving kindness

and let that become really a reputation belonging to the philippian ecclesia let your gentleness be known to all men show it do it repute it

and then

your problems will be much solved

but now he has a very meaningful message when he talks them about anxiety this is a real message for the 20th century the latter half of it which we're in be careful for nothing we've got in the words of our hymn haven't we be careful for nothing the lord is at hand be careful for nothing means have no great anxiety about this matter

really that's the biggest killer today

is anxiety

heaps and heaps of heart attacks anxiety

lots of cancer-related diseases

anxiety

anxiety affects the condition of our lives the conditions of our families the conditions of our minds towards other people anxiety means frustration taking its long-term toll upon a person who can't trust

and as scripture says we must trust

rest

in the lord

and wait patiently for him

if we can't do that we'll probably kill ourselves with anxiety

anxiety has a long-term effect of breaking the body's metabolic system down it destroys the endocrine the hormone systems in the body disrupts all sorts of processes fertilization is disrupted by it a normal pathway of the nervous balance of the body is disrupted by it the whole body works upon the fact that we must have a flow of the right sort of hormones going through the system which feeds the body feeds the system and makes all the organs work properly

and when we feed lots of adrenal cortisols into the body system that's you know coming from the adrenal gland lots of anxiety we upset the balance of the body and it causes diseases in all the essential organs

a lot of cancer is very very critically related to anxiety

in fact some diseases you can almost predict come upon a person within 12

months to 18 months after a particular problem that they feel anxious about and a certain cancer grows

so really it's very true as he says he rest in the lord don't be over anxious over things wasn't it christ who said the same thing all said take no anxious thoughts for tomorrow

sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof

why get all worried and stressed over things which are not in your control anyway leave it in god's hands get on and do what you can believe the lord is behind what you're doing pray for his guidance his care and his direction and go ahead in faith not doubting

but believing he's in control

you know the most wisest of our brethren i think particularly even here that the wiser and older brethren here can tell us a lot about anxiety

i'll probably say yes you'll get all anxious about that problem pray about it and that's all you should do for the present you can't do any more the opportunities of working are not open to you and wait for the lord to cure it and you'll probably find a lot of problems to solve themselves overnight anyway you got all anxious about it you got ready for the next day to face an anxious problem all of a sudden it disappeared through some unknown reason and caused to you

leave it in god's hands that's tough isn't it

if you worry you don't trust

if you trust you don't worry

learning that is a life's experience

but our senior brethren and sisters can tell us a lot about that and encourages a lot in it too

don't be over anxious

simply trust in god and these things will work out for the good look at paul he's in rome he's in prison things are black for the ecclesia of gods the whole front gear assembly for the proclamation of the truth and the frontline work of paul is all snarled down in a roman prison

that's what they thought

that's what they wrote to paul he couldn't go to spain he couldn't go elsewhere he wanted to go to all these other places the proclamation had stopped according to them but not according to god paul had gone into a hole in rome where god had wanted him there and a tremendously active athleisure came out of that

and paul's example was a towering piece of strength that we're still learning from

years and years of accumulated teaching and an exhortation comes out of philippians paul's in prison writing it the truth hasn't stopped working it's just stopped on a new plateau until it rises to a new dimension

sometimes brethren and sisters araclesia seems to do that it goes into a plateau stage we feel there's no progress the numbers are dwindling we haven't got young energetic families coming up well okay that's a plateau but often you'll find a few years down the track that ecclesia now turned around and a lot of young people have joined it it's now splitting at the seams they need a bigger hall all these things happen

but basically we must trust in the lord and work on with good objectives and noble insights into the work of god and trust that he will strengthen us which he does

the work doesn't stop because we don't seem to be doing a lot of progressive work that we can statistically write out as our achievements in the last 12

months

work takes place sometimes quietly and humbly in a corner where a great deal of catalysis is going on a new wave of being being spread a new a new kind of institution of resourcefulness is being bred and it'll break out and rise to greater heights than we ever thought possible just like the little grub that goes into the chrysalis hides itself for a while and then comes out and flies in the heights of heavens as a new creature

that happens from time to time in our experience in the truth so let's not reject the day of small things

let's value the greater and the higher noble objectives of the apostle paul and follow his example

now he turns our attention now to a very important point of spiritual stasis

by spiritual stasis we mean of spiritual standing

in which we create like a homeostasis a spiritual homeostasis where we grow together and hold the floor

and he shows us now the grounds upon what spiritual stasis can can be found and grow

it needs a right foundation to keep it going and now he gives it to us in what he calls the peace of

god

now in effect when you look at the cause of anxiety

the cause of anxiety is that we believe we are out of control we have a responsibility but we don't have the power to fulfill it

that's what causes anxiety

you can often find a person a young man in a new executive responsibility in his job will have this problem he's given a lot of responsibility i want that sales record up by next year or your head's on the line

and then he gets into the job he says sure we'll do that we'll fix that problem he's got a responsibility to get the sales record up by next year it's got to be doubled

and then he goes back and says right now i want some more sales well sorry we've got no money for more salesmen well i've got to have somebody well you just have to work harder yourself okay typical situation in in business institutions no money but there's the objective

so here's a young executive who says i must achieve but i haven't got the power to achieve it but i got the responsibility to achieve it that's a typical anxiety attack syndrome

we find in our lives in the truth and you know one way we find it too is that we feel responsible for other people in the meeting it's good to feel responsible

but it's not good to feel over consumed with governing the lives of other brethren and sisters

we may think we think they that they should be doing this they should be doing that they should be doing different things we want to organize everybody and tell everybody what to do

and all of a sudden we find people don't want to do what we want them to do

maybe we don't pay them enough money

but of course in the truth it's all voluntary isn't it and we can get reactions and counter reactions very easily by going about the things the wrong way and not

giving enough love and care and consideration for what the other person might think is right too we think we're the managers we know what should be done and we want to govern others to do it and all of a sudden we find hey these brothers and sisters are not doing what i ask them to do

should they do what you asked them to do well they've got their own salvation to work out we should all try and work centrally to the work of the truth but we should not try and organize the lives the private lives of other brethren and sisters that's not our task some brethren get a little bit off course and they try to do that too much

we must all have a voluntary willful skillful hand to put to the work because it's coming from us remember that every person who brought things for the tabernacle when it was built in moses day had to bring it from a willing hearts if they didn't want to give it moses did not want it

god's the same

unless we bring a willing offering here in the morning

he doesn't want us he'd prefer we stayed in bed till half past 11

then bring along an offering which is lame and blinds and mames and the worst we can give to god

he doesn't want that offering if that's the kind of offerings god god's getting says the prophet close the doors of the temple and don't let them in god doesn't want that

unless our offerings come from our hearts willingly voluntarily it's no use to god nor used to the ecclesia and that's the reason why paul is reminding us don't be anxious about things and the truth over this why we can't control other brethren and sisters lives it's not for us to do so

and often brethren get anxiety attacks because they have a responsibility they take a great responsibility upon themselves for a pleasure work and then they find they can't do it and they go into anxiety attacks

anxiety attacks are really common maybe you've had some yourself you get these panic attacks you the hyperventilation you start to shake you know that's a typical anxiety attack and we get it because we build up and up and up till the tension in the spring becomes so so tight that the spring breaks temporarily and we get a reaction to it

we're over anxious

rest in the lord wait patiently for him and how do we get this peace of god

now the peace of god really means that in the midst of the battlegrounds

we can relax in the lord

laboring furiously as a warrior but saying the outcome does not concern me god's in charge of the outcome i leave it in his hands

now that's the capacity we need to develop the outcomes in the hands of yahweh let us labor onto the best of the wisdom and insight we have seeking his guidance and his care and his direction all we can get on with us do the work

the lord will fall it out as he wants it to go trust in that

after all it's not the achievements we make with our own hands

it's what he does in us that achieves his victories not what we achieve

therefore the peace of god is that wonderful inner contentment that says

yahweh is in heaven i'm upon earth

let us keep silence before him and rest in him

wait patiently for the solutions that he has in mind

there's the peace of god wonderful peace

and those brothers and sisters that have learned that

they last a lot longer they do a lot more on the truth

and they spread a wonderful calming nature to sometimes the tumult in the house of the lord

well he tells us about how to achieve this verse heaven when the peace of god which passes all understanding it shall keep your hearts and minds through jesus christ a peace which is superior to every human state of meditation

passes our understanding

and it passes the understanding of people who look upon a christodolphy in the midst of a battlefield and they're saying why aren't you worried about what's going to happen and the christian offense is no no no not at all god's in control doesn't matter who wins this war the lord's hand is in control much the same as when there's a furious war about to erupt in the middle east or something happens which threatens the world security and peace and and everybody's running around with anxious faces the christian says terrific it's happening because it means

the crisis is getting closer to christ's return and our peace passes their understanding we've got to have the peace that we share too in the ecclesial ambat

well he says finally brethren let's look at the foundations of this piece of god finally brethren whatsoever things are true the beginning of eight qualities of divine character that paul appeals to whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honorable

honorable whatsoever things are just

where justice and righteousness exist whatsoever things are pure

unassailed and impregnated with the with the decay of man's inventions whatsoever things are amiable loving and caring

whatsoever things are of good reputation

of kindly speech

if there is any virtue

goodness if there's to be any praise

attentively consider

meditate upon these things

those things which ye have learned and received and heard and seen in me do them

that's why he says be followers of me

and he says the peace of god

shall be with you isn't that wonderful the peace of god

shall be with you that's how you establish it so here was the apostle paul

he's going back towards jerusalem on his third journey he all the way back he was passing by the ecclesias and brethren and sisters were coming out who had the power of the holy spirit in prophecy and they were warning paul you're going back to face chains in jerusalem don't go

agabus the prophetess comes and says look with the same rags with which i buy and bind your arms up paul this is going to happen to you when you go to jerusalem says paul brethren i must go paul don't go if you go you're going to be bound up they're probably going to kill you and then where will the truth of god be who's going to be the vanguard for the proclamation of the gospel then

they warned him everywhere paul gets to the end the last place he leaves approximately ephesus on his third journey they say the same thing to him again he says brethren why do you keep breaking my heart like this

you weep upon my shoulder you mourn over circumstances that before me in jerusalem look pray brethren that i'll be able to escape these bonds

pray that i might not for my benefit but to keep the work going

he knew what was going to happen in jerusalem did this lead to an anxiety attack

did this lead to paul to take a quick trip off to spain somewhere find a boat for spain get out of it

to do a jonah

you know get out of the works so you can be safe and secure and not be put into any threatening situation

this wasn't paul's work paul went off but you see paul had that peace of god

he knew the lord was in command

and even in that one moment when he was you know incarcerated in the prison in caesarea the lord appeared to him and said paul be of good cheer i'm with you

sometimes brethren sisters we could do with that couldn't we

you know when we feel really against the wall we're battling things that collegially spiritual whatever it is we feel embattled

and sometimes in those moments of depression when problems overcome us and we feel so depressed so why is it going like this i wish i was dead have you ever said they never thought that

i wish i was dead

i think most of us have at one time or other had that thought

i wish i was asleep dead away from all this anxiety and pain and sorrow

it's a very human wish

and often at those moments

we would just wish the lord jesus christ would break through the silence and say

brother i'm with you sister i'm with you everything's all right it's going to be right

but you know oftentimes we might not have the lord jesus christ breaking the silence or any other angel from heaven but i tell you what

at those moments it would be very nice if some brother or sister broke through the silence and said that wouldn't

sometimes we don't know each other well enough

to know when we are suffering and when we're not

we're too distant

too preoccupied with our own worlds our own pre-considerations

we don't tend to see when others are troubled under anxiety in need of a little comforts

just a little sympathy care an embrace a warm kiss a warm hug just to help say yes we know what you're going through the lord's in control don't worry

see paul had that inner peace that gave him that monumental strength by which he gave peace in the hearts of the whole ecclesial world at this time to those in philippi he gives it again he sends his dear friend to them epaphroditus he sends his right hand man timothy unto them to comfort them they needed it too and they were trying to comfort paul and here's paul in the midst of his crisis and he sends them the help

what a wonderful selfless

spiritual mind he had

so he talks to us about the peace of god

and gives us a very important proverb

in verse 11

i have learned in whatsoever state i am there with to be contents

oh boy isn't that important

i just want to learn this learn to be content

and though paul said himself look i'm in the twixtor straight here in chapter one he said i will have a desire to be with christ but it's better if i'm in the flesh i can continue to serve you once then

i'll continue laboring

having all my problems overcome me having all the sufferings i go through if i go through these for you it's better for you that i stay alive but i'm happy to die

i'm happy to see the executioner do his work because the next moment is christ is here the one thing i longed for

he had a wonderful mind a wonderful attitude

that's how he saw it paul had learned how to be elevated he'd learned how to be praised and he'd learned how to be vilified with contempt would slander against him

he'd learn both

he could live under both and with whatever state he was in at the time he was contents

that this was the lord's doing

not an accident of history that he was the unfortunate victim of always notwithstanding divine prominence

he'd learned to be content

now he gives us a rather beautiful message in verse 12.

he says i know both how to be a based and i know how to abounds

everywhere and in all things i am instructed both to be full to be hungry to abound to suffer need i can do all things through christ

who strengthens me

and you know that the description there i am instructed

is a definition of the word mystery in the bible in the new testament we find this word mystery frequently used like the mystery of ungodliness the mystery of babylon the mystery of the nations the mystery of god calling out the gentiles for his name the mystery of godliness this word mystery mysterio means a sacred secret

known only by the initiated person

so you're inducted into a secret that god gives you and only the initiated understandings and that's the word he uses here i am instructed

it's the same base word mysterion

i have been inducted into this sacred secret

i know how to abound i know how to be a beast and he's really saying not many people know the secret the saints of gods the gods are the only ones who know it not many know this secret it's a very valid and a wonderful and a precious piece of information and it's only known by the initiated into the truth who love and know the things of christ he says i am initiated

i understand

do you know the secret

do you understand the sacred secrets

if you do then you'll know how to be elevated without pride

and you'll know how to be crushed

without abject oppression

you'll be content with what god gives you

and isn't this a wonderful word coming from the apostle paul here because here he is in prison in rome in chains awaiting a possible execution

and is rejoicing in the peace of god that passes understanding content to be in whatever state god has given to him because he's been initiated into that sacred secret

he knows how to go forward he knows how to go backward he knows how to be hungry he knows how to be full he knows how to suffer

he understands it suffering is not the evidence of god's rejection

it's the testimony of his love

he chastens every child that he receives

and sometimes we reject his chastening

no chasting for the present seems to be a joyous thing but

afterwards breeds the peaceable fruits of righteousness the fruits of that which is true honest just pure amiable good virtuous meditate on those things says paul

if you meditate on all your problems you never get to sleep at nights and it's better to count sheep than do that

but rather count your blessings while you may

and that sends us to sleep without anxiety without sleeping tablets no cerapex no valium we don't need the drugs we need to rest in the lord

count our blessings

count the wonderful gift of the truth

think about the peace of god which passes understanding and then we will be fine because as he says to us it's vain to sit up late

to eat the bread of sorrows

we can all do that anxious about everything no says the the wonderful psalmist it's vain to do that because god giveth his beloved sleep

don't be anxious be trusting

don't be depressed and overwrought with problems in their presence rest in the lord and wait patiently for him and count your blessings while you may

wonderful words from paul

words that our community desperately needs today

i can do all things

through christ who strengthens me and if that's the attitude we have we shall build mountains we shall change great things

because the lord is behind us and who can stand against us

so he directs his attention to his beloved philippian brethren and sisters now you philippians know also verse 15

that in the beginning of the gospel when i departed from macedonia no church or ecclesia communicated with me with me concerning giving and receiving but you only you were the only ones who were there concerning concerned about the giving and receiving of the brotherhood for even in thessalonica you you sent once and again unto my necessity that even when he was in thessalonia and the thessalonian brethren should have looked after him they still sent gifts unto paul they were constantly concerned about paul and not because i desired a gift says paul

but i desire fruits that may abound to your accounts

i don't want the gifts but i tell you what i love the fact that you want to give it to me

because that means you are loving you are caring you are outgoing you are trusting

that's what i love to see i don't want the gift i want the fruits of your open heart to come forth that's how he puts it

and he says but he says

i have all and abound i'm full he says i've got everything god wants for me

having received the epaphroditus the thing which you sent from you it was like an odor it was like a sweet smelling sacrifice acceptable well pleasing to god it was like you took through a great truck full of wonderful odors of the on the altar of incense and you offer them up to god as your prayers and a sweet smelling savor to god well pleasing it's like you took a whole semi-trailer load of of cows and sheep along and offered them on the altar of god

as your demonstration of sacrifice

that's what it's like what you've done for me

has made me so happy

i've seen the evidence of your love at work but nevertheless he says verse 19 but my god shall supply all your needs too i know that you have needs as well as me according to the riches of the glory by jesus christ

god will look after us

never worry don't be over anxious i might be in prison you may be under difficult circumstances work together in harmony in the brotherhood work for the same mind as christ strive for that unity and the peace of god and the wonderful fruits of the spirit to work through your lives

and then god will give us everything we need every little thing we need will be there

what a wonderful testimony a wonderful confidence he has

knowing

that god was there

the peace of god that passes understanding

and so in conclusion he says now unto god

our father he's always there

may there be glory unto him for the ages of the ages

coming up of course the kingdom age the ages of the ages may his glory shine throughout this earth when the kingdom of god fills this earth as the waters cover the seas that was what was on the mind of paul when the glory of god fills the earth in the ages of ages

that day would be coming christ would be returning soon

salute every one of the saints in christ jesus the brethren which are with me they all greet you every brother in rome here all the brethren and sisters in rome we're all sending you our love

isn't that beautiful that that takes place

the love is sent the spontaneous warm greetings they go and all the saints salute you too but chiefly

they that are fellow prisoners with me in the praetorium guard house

caesar's palace

isn't that beautiful

of course the ecclesia of philippi founded in a jail

now from the jail of rome comes comforting stimulating spiritual greetings

to the ecclesia at philippi

and the grace of our lord jesus christ be with you all

wonderful words

comforting words

spiritual and sincere heart speaking

and it'll be a wonderful time brethren and sisters

when christ returns

and we have the opportunity if god's grace is upon us

to meet paul

can you imagine the scene of paul

reunited with all his brothers and sisters that he knows so well

he wept over them his bowels yearned for them

when he's reunited with them all

imagine paul

imagine paul

and stephen looking at each other

the one whose murder he had helped to conspire

imagine that scene

stephen looking up

when he had looked up previously to see paul there saul there holding the garments as the official witness of the sanhedrin council that this death sentence was executed efficiently

stephen looks up remember stephen's prayer

lay not this sin

to their accounts

like christ said father forgive them

and there

one man

was forgiven one man came out of that death one man turned the roman world upside down

he witnessed the death of stephen and stephen prayed for him you imagine when stephen and paul face each other in the kingdom

imagine how paul's going to feel when he sees stephen

i murdered you

i really hope to murder you

and yet the grace of god

has been so great that i

i saw

the christian hunter

i'm here today the kingdom of god

incredible thinking about it and what is stephen going to think

he won't be saying what are you doing here

stephen will be saying oh

i never realized the grace of god was so abundant

and when paul comes and talks with christ

and when paul looks back

he takes hold of the hand

of abraham

he takes hold of the arm of isaac

he embraces jacob

and he even kisses benjamin whose tribe he belonged to

can you imagine the scene of

paul's bowels moving on that occasion

what enormous love

will fill this earth in that day

and if the grace of yahweh is upon me to be there on that day i just look forward

to going to paul

and embracing paul

he might even be smaller than me

he was called paul the little

that's what the name meant paul the little he selected the name paul rather than saul that means change chosen of god he selected paul meaning little

and i just love to hug paul and say

thank you paul for everything you wrote

because your example

has helped me come here this day to the kingdom of god

Transcript

dearly beloved brothers and sisters i also share the fellowship and greetings of the brethren sisters who met a few hours ago in blackburn in australia

we have the wonderful opportunity brethren and sisters of sharing fellowship as we do this morning each sunday as one of the great gifts that god has given to us

it is a source of enormous strength

it is a wonderful consolation in a world where there is so much war where there is so much hatred and malice

where there is so much murder of reputation and persons all around us

we have the wonderful opportunity of sharing of this with our lord because he also has been through the veil of the flesh and is able to understand and perceive the many difficulties which we experience in life

he is indeed the sympathetic high priest who was made perfect by the things which he suffered and is therefore able to sucker those who experience problems in their lives

the lord jesus christ of course being made the son of god

was a very unique man in a way in which we can never follow him

whilst we as individuals sustain a personality made up of the influences of both environment and heredity

from that heredity we receive the weaknesses

and the personal benefits that are attached to both our maternal and paternal origins

in other words we receive a double injection of human weakness

into our characters at birth

it's there to start with it ensures that we will all sin

and fall short of the grace and the glory of god

because of this condition this perennial completes and ever ongoing sin man was never able to survive his own sin and his own death

therefore it meant that the law of sin and death was inexorably tied to mankind and all descendants of adam whether they sinned as he did or not would sin

this is the legacy of the fallen states and the consequences of adam's sin but the sin is ours the weakness is ours the failure is ours

how then would redemption ever occur

only by god sending his own son

in the likeness of sinful flesh and on account of sin condemn sin in his own flesh sin not morally that was jesus christ had done as any lawless act against his father's will but the sin he condemned was the cause of sin that metonymical sin serpent thinking the old flesh the devil

that was what the lord jesus christ crucified

thus he made that wonderful moment of the fulfillment of the prophecy in genesis 3

15 that there would be a crushing of the of the serpent seed and therefore the beginning of a new type of atom a new system in the earth a new way of thinking a new leadership of human beings it's that leadership to which we have come this morning it's that leadership we adopted in our baptism and declaration that we were joining his victory we were joining his sacrifice joining his battle

and we've come here this morning as part of that battle to seek a resource of strength and our building and encouragements

ideas that will help us through the coming week to battle a little more successfully than we have last week

because of this reason

that jesus christ had to be a unique man which he was

because he never inherited any weaknesses whatsoever

from his father

there was a possibility of victory

over sin and its flesh nature

which he inherited from his mother

but of course this means that jesus christ was different to us

he had to be but yet he also had to be our representative

this means as he went through life and was able to sucker us knowing of our feelings and the passions of humanity that surround us all

he is ever able to understand the impulses to sin

the striving against weakness

the difficulties of dealing with the lusts and affections of the flesh he understood the impulses

but he never understood the experience of sin

he made in the mind of his father in the likeness of the image of the personality of his god he had assumed the great and wonderful admonition about against mankind but in himself had had a wonderful minds in which he rejoiced in a capacity of mind far greater than ours as the heavens are above the earth

he was monumental in his moral structure he was a giant in the earth

he was the one that was able to understand human weakness but never ever experience human sin

that was the unique way of overcoming the problem which mankind had brought into the world

and so we come to a time in scripture

where the apostle paul takes up a role

in which he leads us in a way that jesus christ never led us

and that's what we have in the introduction to chapter 11

first corinthians

here the apostle paul said be ye followers of me even as i also am of

christ now of course this wasn't the first time he said that he also said it in the fourth chapter verse 16 he said wherefore i beseech you be ye followers of me

for this cause if i send unto you timotheus who is my beloved son and faithful in the lord who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in christ as i teach everywhere in all the cliches and every ecclesia

now isn't it so that the lord jesus christ is our exemplar

he is our example he's the one we aspire to follow

he is the leader he is the author and and finisher of our faith unto whom we look isn't it so that he is the only example why then is the apostle paul saying that we should be followers of him

because in this distinguishable way

paul was something that christ never was

paul was a man of human weakness

paul was in fact at one stage in his life a murderer of the brethren of christ

paul was at one time an arrogant pharisee

a self-made man one who benefited above many his own equals in his own religion

a man who aspired to great judaistic greatness and was a great man there is little doubt of that

and in the records of the rabbinical writings it has been said

that since rabbi gamaliel has died the glory of the law has ceased

and that's true

the jewish people have had to completely revise their whole understanding and notions of following any mosaic legal system since rabbi gamaliel died but you know rabbi gamaliel was the teacher of paul

and it is truly a poor teacher that cannot put out a student better than himself

kimbell was no poor teacher he was a great leader an exponent a writer a commentator a great foundational father of judaism and rabbinical judaism

but since he went of course there has been none greater but paul

and paul ceased the job

paul turned to christ

and impales greatness and the arrogance of his own mind and heart before god he was the one who set out to win salvation and win righteousness by actions of a zealots until he saw the lights and when he saw the lights then he turned to god

he turned to his lord and he followed him with great insurmountable dedication

now the apostle paul became one who was chief among sinners

but became the most humble servant of the most high god

he and his dedication turned towards god to serve him with as much dedication as he once served himself and his own mistaken view of righteousness

paul now served himself and he dedicated him his mind to the things of god in serving himself as part of that truth as part of his lord he was now part of his lord

now the apostle paul was one who in absolute dedication turned the world upside down and gave to us messages and writings which are so great and so helpful and so monumental in an exposition of the reason why christ died we all need them we all are encouraged by them we are exhorted by paul's writings but paul was still a human man after his baptism he was still a man who failed

he was a man who had sins that surrounded him

he was one who constantly needed the grace of god and you'll recall when he reflected upon his own failings of service before god he besought the lord three times to remove his own infirmity in the flesh but the lord said paul

my grace is sufficient for you

for in your weakness is my strength made perfect

what was it the lord was saying to paul

we do understand that grace is given with sin abounds

therefore the grace given to paul was given to him because he was failing to achieve the level of righteousness he aspired unto because of his own weaknesses and failings he also was sitting like we do every week and every day

but the difference was he was a man

who needed that grace he obtained that grace

and that grace became a means through his weakness of god perfecting his strength in that man

very wonderful example for all of us there

it kept paul humble

it kept arrogance a thing of the past

it made him a servant to god aware of how great god was and is

and how supremely righteous was the lord that he served

and that's the reason why brethren and sisters we can read those words in first corinthians be ye followers of me because we follow paul in a way that we can never follow christ christ was perfectly obedient paul was a sinner

but you see the key to understanding what it means to follow paul is in that chapter we read back in first corinthians chapter 4 and in verse 16

where he said be followers of me

then clarifying what he means in verse 17 for this cause have i sent on you to mathias who is my beloved son and faithful in the lord who shall bring you into remembrance

of

my ways

which be in christ

my ways

what were the ways of paul

the ways of a servant of god who was able to humbly and truthfully admit i'm a chief among sinners if it was the ways of a man who turned his dedication to god to serve him day and night wherever and whenever and to show the love of god unto his brothers and sisters and to serve them with absolute dedication pouring out his heart his mercies his bowels to their benefits

that's the ways of paul

and that's the way in which we follow paul

no we don't aspire after human weakness we don't seek to serve sin we seek only the lord in that position but all of us brethren and sisters fail every day

you know it's a rather foolish suggestion but if we try and think back to the failures of a day if at the end of this day we put our head upon the pillow and we try and reflect upon all the things we've done wrong today

we will reflect upon the first weakness that we've got

bad memory

we probably couldn't think of everything we did wrong

some things we like to exorcise from our lives things we never want to remember again those dark moments of life of indecision of foolishness the stupidity we just hate them we want to exile them

but nevertheless

the biggest sins are probably the ones that we never think about

we tend to think of sins of commission the things we do wrong

but however can we think about the thousands of things

we never did that we should have did done

the sins of omission

they're so omitted from our lives we don't even know about them

how can we think about what we don't know about how can we meditate upon a list of fanning so great

that compared to the lord jesus christ we are woeful indeed

now that's the truth of it

some have suggested foolishly in the past that there might be a day in which we haven't sinned

that might measure a bit more victory for the spirit a little more victory towards that goal of perfect obedience that that person seeks

but in truth brethren and sisters we can never seek a goal of perfect obedience not for us

the foolishness of the flesh to ever contemplate one day in which we have not sinned is gross foolishness indeed

paul could only say i am dying daily

because i fail to appreciate the level at times

of how great god is and how foolish am i

it is foolishness brethren and sisters to think that we could ever aspire unto let alone achieve any measure of sinlessness

it is necessary brethren and sisters for us to see paul as the one that we follow because there was a man as great and as monumentally as he was in the work of god was one that failed every day to achieve perfect obedience that's why we follow paul he is our model of how to follow christ in his grace

and that's what he meant

as he reminded the corinthian brethren and sisters timothy will put you in remembrance of my ways

which be in christ

and paul's ways are what we must follow

which really brings us to the 11th chapter of corinthians where now he again commences with those words saying be followers of me even as i am also of christ

and he brings us now to consider in appropriate preparation for the memorial meeting the words that took place surrounding christ's memorial supper he raises those words we often read on a sunday morning verse 23 for i have received of the lord

that which also i delivered unto you now i would see in a sense verses 2

through to verse 22 as being in parenthesis like they're in brackets

so i would read from sort of verse one saying be followers of me even as i am also of jesus christ for i've received of the lord

that's which also i delivered unto you there's the connection christ paul and us

then he says in the lord jesus christ the same night in which he was betrayed he took bread

why was he saying it that way

the same night in which he was betrayed he could say well look in the same night in which he died in which he was taken by the jews in an illegal arrest in which he was arraigned before the gentiles

but he put it the same night in which he was betrayed

a brother in his midst

turned him over

to the lawless ones

a brother in his midst was a hypocritical taker of the emblems at that table

a brother in his midst did not understand the significance of his death

and therefore obtained his own greater condemnation because he had great privilege in being the memorial table of the lord didn't he

but in the same nights

in which there was a hypocritical brother

who really stood as part of a conspiracy of murder against his lord he took the emblems

and so the apostle now picks up from that and he shows us the significance the importance the solemnity

the meaning of the memorial meeting we now enter into

for he says here and when he had given thanks he break it he broke the bread and said take and eat this is my body which is

for you

this too as a remembrance of me

now the important thing of that solemn occasion was that he was to highlight a memorial service there after which of course his his death his resurrection many many thousands of his brethren would be involved in this solemn memorial feast

and all of them with the opportunity of thinking about what had just happened with the lords

he had died

he was raised again he lives in newness of life he has gone unto heaven and he is the head now of the body his ecclesia he has gone on ahead

but now

where is his body

his body was put into the grave his body was taken out of the grave that mortal body was consumed of immortality that body of flesh and blood ceased to exist so that a body of flesh and bones went to heaven

a great spiritual body

so where is the flesh body of jesus christ it has ceased to exist

has it

isn't it the excitation of the apostles to the colossians that we are the body of jesus christ today

he is the head

what we are therefore left to do is complete the sacrifice

that jesus christ started

we are now the body of christ

and therefore when we come to the table before us here we are partaking of the body of christ and it's it's us we are the ones who are eating it we are the ones who are consuming his body into us by the symbol of this bread we are the ones who are now the body of christ continuing [Music] his sacrifice albeit an incomplete and insufficient sacrifice but on the basis of following paul's example it's a sacrifice under grace in which by god's grace the measure of our insufficiently sufficiency will be built up by the measure of that grace which will forgive us and call us righteous

though not one of us have a right to that title

so he says when you do this take this is my body this is you

share my sacrifice

be with me

as we've said recently this week

our baptism is into the death of the lord jesus christ

but our baptism is only a symbol

of what the thief did on the cross with christ

some of us have suggested that the thief on the cross was not baptized

he in fact is the only one that has ever been baptized

he died with christ

and he was given that wonderful token thou shalt be with me in the garden of god there's his reward held out for him he died with christ on that stake brethren assist as our baptism simply symbolizes that horrible pain that this man went through he acknowledged his sin acknowledged he was a sinner

acknowledges failure to achieve righteousness but said lord i acknowledge you as my lords he saw him as the redeemer and then he said lord remember me when thou cometh into thy kingdom there he gave an exposition of the gospel the things concerning the kingdom of god in the name of jesus christ he understood it

and now he died with christ

and thus the covering of christ was with him his body died with christ's body

and that effectively brethren this is what the lord meant when he said take my body and eat it this is the word made flesh but the flesh might be overcome repudiated buried in the earth rejected as a governing force and power over his life any longer

when we partake of these emblems brethren and sisters we come here to eat his flesh

to eat and partake of the principle for which he died

a repudiation of serpent thinking a repudiation of the lusts and affections of the flesh

and they that a christ says the apostle paul in galatians 5

they that are christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and loss that's our labor that is the work of the labor of the saints of god that is what the bread represents to us

and that's effectively negative isn't it it's what we are putting away what we are rejecting what we have declared war on what we are neutralizing as a powerful force in our lives to lead us or to command us

so we put it off

but that's only half of the emblems isn't it

now he goes in to say after the same manner in verse 25 also he took the cup when he had stopped saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me

what is it we're remembering the dedication of the life blood poured out of the lord jesus christ upon that stake for us and when we remember it

we are putting his blood into our veins we are putting his life into our minds into our hearts into our souls into our strength we are putting christ into us we are putting him on he is now the new governing force of management over our bodies

and that becomes the force to govern to direct to move to to inspire

and to give us the mind of god as he gave it in his words and his works

this is what we're remembering the lord's death

in us that's why we are doing the eating we are doing the drinking to make it ours and so he goes on to say the apostle for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you do show the lord's death how do you show the lord's death the lord died on that state how can we show it by by what we might eat and drink

the only way we show it is showing it in us

we show it in us we are remembering our death not just christ's

we're remembering our sacrifice not just his we're remembering us putting off the old man of the flesh not just what he did and putting on the mind of the spirit the life of the lord jesus christ

and so he says wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the lord's

that word unworthily is better translated as a common thing

as if we're to come along here and have a party without thought to what we're eating and drinking

then he says this person shall be guilty of the body and blood of the lord and that was exactly judas situation he was guilty of the body and blood of the lord because he drank that cup as a common thing thinking not for what it meant

he took that bread and ate it thinking only of how much money he was going to earn out of this transaction dealing of conspiracy to betray this jesus who looked as if his shining light was going out anyway

and yet when we come to the emblems here brethren sisters it's so easy

to follow a tradition

yes we take the bread and the wine and as we take the bread we think a little about christ we take the wine we think a little about his blood and there can be no connection between him and us there may be no careful consideration and meditation of the connection

because unless we get that connection

there is no life for us

so he says but let a man examine himself

and a woman and so let them eat of that bread and drink of that cup for he that eats and drinks

the word unworthily is best omitted in the translation he eats and drinks

condemnation to himself

if he does not discern

what the lord's body is

that's what he's saying if you don't discern what the lord's body is now

then you've lost the whole points

of the emblems

we are the lord's body now and if we can't discern that we are the lord's body now we are surely eating and drinking to our condemnation now

which shall only be confirmed that the appearance of the lord jesus christ

this is a very important matter isn't it and to most of us yes we do recognize the significance and solemnity of this feast but sometimes brethren and sisters we need to to rekindle the inside as to what we are doing and why we are doing it it is not a tradition of communion as the churches call it

it is the significance of the sharing

of our dedicated sacrifice for the lord jesus christ

when he set up his law and the policy of his kingdom he did so upon the demise of the institutions of the law of moses

and whilst the law of moses had many many rituals attached to it of necessity it was a school master to teach principles it had many rituals when we come to christ we have only two rituals two rites

baptism

and taking of the emblems and they both tell us the same message

identification with the death of the lord jesus christ

everything else in our collegial autonomy our ecclesial organization as an institution is optional interpretive and cultural these are the only two things we have been commanded off

and they tell us the same message

why were we given this this tradition this this ritualistic part of our lives when almost all literal all the literal um legal systems and declarations of customs under the law were done away with

because brethren and sisters we have to appreciate

that by doing something physically

baptism a physical act by partaking of these emblems physically we are eating and drinking physically literally

we are reminding ourselves

of how much the sacrifice of christ must become a literal a personal a physical thing in our lives

and if it's not we fail together

but we know that when we leave this meeting hall we go outside yes we go out to the world again around us we're going to fail to achieve those aspirations we're going to fail through weakness with sins of commission and omission

but that's why the apostle paul so gracefully reminds us

discern the lord's body and be a follower of me

even as i also am of christ jesus

but we are greatly strengthened to do this when we know the ways of the apostle paul

and that's why he sent timothy to the corinthians to remind them of the ways of his life the method of service the dedication that he gave to his lord

that brethren this is what we must meditate upon now yes think about our failures confess our sins come confidently to the grace of god and obtain that help in a time of need

but above all brethren sisters

follow paul's ways

one who served his god with incomplete holiness

one who served his god without perfect obedience but such dedication such love such labor showed that he belonged to the body of the lord jesus christ

and then we can contemplate the wonderful words in matthew 26

i will next eat these emblems

eat this bread drink this wine with you in my father's kingdom

and that brethren sisters will be done literally and physically

and that'll be a wonderful feast

as we sit down with our lord jesus christ and we all contemplate together

that we have come here through the mercy of god

we shall eat the bread then

drink the wine take the cup

and share in a wonderful post-victory feast

that through the blood of the everlasting lamb has the whiteness of the garments of righteousness come upon us

but only through yahweh's grace

only through his forgiveness and our alertness

to our failings

that we are the body of christ

and that we so much need

that forgiveness and grace

that will humble us brethren and sisters humble us to serve one another in the beauty of holiness as we serve our lord

although with difficulty at times

although with great failures although sometimes with abject depression

if we serve him

that service will spell out for our lord and for our god the desire of our hearts

that want to so much be the body of christ

may we rejoice with our head in that day when the head and the body once more come together