"Satisfied Through Christ's Strength"--Philippians 4:10-14

How many of you enjoy riding roller coasters? Now let me ask a related question—how many of you are invested in the stock market? Emotionally, that can feel like the same thing, right? We watch our investments go up and down and sideways, and then every so often one of them goes upside down! The stock market is well-described by the old children’s rhyme: “Round and round it goes; where it stops, nobody knows!”

My wife told me the other day about a story her grandfather likes to tell about a time where he had the opportunity to invest in one of two fried chicken restaurants. He chose to invest in the one that was sure to take off—Daniel Boone Chicken. After all, it was named after a national hero; how it could fail to do well? And who would choose to eat at the other place, anyway, with a boring name like Kentucky Fried Chicken? Well, you probably know how that investment turned out!

He’s able to laugh about that story today, but there are few things in life that can wipe a smile off our face the way that our finances can. Who doesn’t cringe when you hear the words, “payment due?” I don’t care how much money you have—there’s always reason to worry about it, isn’t there? If you don’t have much, it’s easy to worry about how you’ll pay the bills. If you have a lot, it’s easy to worry about losing it, or about who might be trying to take it from you.

Many years ago the Beatles sang that “money can’t buy me love.” Well, it turns out that it can’t buy contentment either. We can wind up facing anxiety in any financial situation that we might endure. So is there any hope of finding contentment with respect to our cash? Can we find a contentment that will last through all of the financial ups and downs of life? And how about when we see others hit with financial hardship—how should we respond? In our study of Philippians today, we’re going to learn that…

We should be content through Christ in our own financial circumstances and concerned for others who are facing financial hardships.

Why don’t you turn with me to Philippians 4:10–14? You may remember that this letter to the Philippians was intended to serve as a thank you note from Paul for the financial gift that the church in Philippi had sent to him. At the time that Paul wrote this letter, he was in prison in Rome awaiting trial on some trumped up charges that the Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem had brought against him. Now the Roman government didn’t feel that it was their responsibility to take care of their prisoners; in fact, they didn’t even provide food for them, so if a prisoner was going to survive he had to rely on friends and family to bring him meals. Well, the Philippians couldn’t be there to bring him food themselves, but their gift of money would allow Paul to make some arrangements to receive food, so it was a very helpful and thoughtful gesture on the part of the Philippians. So Paul wanted to thank them for their gift, and as he does so he lets them in on a little secret that he had learned about contentment. Let’s read these verses [READ 4:10–14].

Let’s look first of all at what we can learn about being content.

I. Be content through Christ in your own financial circumstances

Some people have seriously misread what Paul was saying in these verses. They’ve thought he was basically saying, “Well, I’m glad you all finally got around to sending me some money. Not that I really needed it anyway because I was content. So, thanks for thinking of me, I guess.”

That’s really not what Paul was trying to say at all! We can see how thankful he was from v. 10 [READ v. 10]. Paul knew that they hadn’t sent him a gift because they simply hadn’t had the opportunity. As we’ll see when we get to vv. 15–16, the Philippians had sent financial gifts to Paul on a regular basis before, but for awhile now they hadn’t had the opportunity—which would seem to mean that they either didn’t have the money, or they had no way of sending it to him.

But now the Philippians had once again sent a gift to him, and Paul wanted them to know how thankful he was to receive it even though he had not given in to despair about his financial situation. In fact, it was quite the opposite—he was actually content, and he describes this in the next few verses [READ vv. 11–12].

Now notice that Paul says he had to learn how to be content BOTH in poverty AND in prosperity. We might think that its easier to be content in a state of prosperity, but in reality both conditions provide their own challenges to our contentment. If we’re in poverty, it may be difficult to be content because we may always be tempted to want more. Jealousy may also tempt us when we see other people who have more than we do. Or, we may not be content because we may desire the peace of mind that seems to come when we have some extra cash in the bank.

But prosperity doesn’t automatically usher in contentment, either. A very wealthy man was once asked, “How much money is enough money?” His answer was very telling—he said, “A little bit more.” Isn’t that so true? No matter how much we have, its easy to think, “You know, if I just had a little bit more, then I would be content.”

If we’re in a state of prosperity, greed may kick in and compel us to want still more and more. Or, we may start to look to our money for a feeling of security in life, and when that happens, we will never have enough money to feel content! We will always be worried about that one bad day on the stock market that could wipe us out, or that one failed bank or failed business. Money almost always goes easier than it comes, so if we base our sense of security upon it, contentment will be impossible to find.

So what is the secret to contentment that Paul refers to in v.12? It is his famous statement in v. 13—“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Now I fear that I’m about to step on some toes here, but please hear me out for a moment. Perhaps more than any other verse in the Bible, we use and quote this verse with complete disregard for the context in which it was written. And so we see athletes writing this verse reference on their shoes, or on the eye black underneath their eyes, as if to say, “I can win this game through Him who strengthens me.” Now I appreciate their desire to publicly display their faith in Christ, but that’s not what this verse is talking about. Nor should I use this verse and say, “I can dunk a basketball through Him who strengthens me.” That would truly be a miracle if I dunked a basketball!

So what is this verse talking about? What does Paul mean when he says, “I can do all things?” I think we understand that he’s not talking about leaping over tall buildings in a single bound, but what is he saying? Remember that Paul is sharing this thought as the secret of remaining content in whatever circumstance he’s in, particularly in whatever financial circumstance he’s in. So a basic paraphrase of Paul’s point would be this—“I can overcome any obstacle to contentment through Him who strengthens me.” So if his situation tempts him to be jealous or greedy, he can overcome that through Christ. Or if his situation tempts him to be fearful and anxious, he can overcome that. He had learned to step off of the spiritual roller coaster that circumstances could put him on by drawing close to Jesus for strength.

As we saw a few weeks ago when we looked at vv. 6–7, our hearts and minds can be guarded by the peace of God in everything when we communicate with God in prayer with an attitude of thanksgiving. We really find the same idea here—we can overcome whatever temptation our circumstances might throw at us by drawing strength from Christ—whether its changing financial circumstances or anything else. Christ will give us the strength to handle our circumstances in a way that honors Him.

So in any circumstance—and in these verses in particular, in any financial circumstance—we can be content by drawing strength from Jesus. But Paul also communicates an important lesson here about helping others when they’re in tough financial circumstances.

II. Be concerned for others who are facing financial hardships

Now Paul didn’t want the Philippians to get the wrong idea here. He has just said that he has learned to be content in any circumstance, so presumably he also meant that he would have been content whether he had received their gift or not. But he wants to make sure that they know they’ve done a good thing, so he says in v. 14 [READ v. 14]. So even though on Paul’s part, he was content with or without their gift, they had done well by giving it to him.

His statement here reminds us of a very simple but important lesson—it is a good thing to give financial assistance to those who have had financial hardship thrust upon them. When we see a Christian brother or sister in need, that is not the time for us to say, “Wow! What a great chance for you to learn to trust in God! Oh, what an opportunity for you to learn how to be content! God is going to teach you some great spiritual lessons through this.”

Well, whatever God may want them to learn, that’s between them and God. On our part, we are supposed to take the good step of offering whatever assistance we can. 1 John 3:17–18 says, “Whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.”

So we are to give what we can, and notice how Paul describes it here—he describes it as sharing in another person’s affliction. This comes through very clearly in the NIV translation, which says, “Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles.” Let’s think through this idea, because its very different than just giving someone a handout. Think about this, by way of analogy. Imagine that you came upon someone who was trying to lift something that was too heavy for them, so you said, “Here, I’ll give you a hand.” Now what happens is that you take on part of the weight, and they take on part of the weight, and the two of you lift it together.

Now think about that same idea in terms of helping someone who’s facing a financial hardship. When you help that person, its like saying, “Here, I’ll take on some financial hardship, too, and we can overcome this together,” because when you give them some of your financial resources, you’re making a sacrifice in order to help them. You’re introducing some financial hardship into your life in order to absorb some of the hardship that they are facing.

I think this picture helps us keep a healthy mindset about giving and receiving help from others, because this picture makes us partners rather than a donor and a recipient. It maintains the dignity of the person who is receiving help, because it can feel like a very humiliating thing to receive help from others. A great novelist once wrote, “It’s horribly painful for a man down on his luck when every person he meets looks at him as if he were his benefactor.”* As that quote suggests, it can also be very tempting for the person who is offering help to become proud and think himself as better than the person whom he is helping.

But the biblical picture keeps things in the proper perspective. If you help someone out financially, its just like you’re helping them pick up something that’s too heavy for them. You’re just joining in the struggle with them to help them overcome it. And if you receive financial help from someone, it’s the same thing. If someone helps you lift something, there’s nothing to be ashamed about—you’re just two people working together to accomplish something.

So I guess we can sum up what we’ve learned today like this—we should be content in our own financial circumstances, and discontent over the financial hardships of others, and that discontent should lead us to share that hardship with them. Money doesn’t have to master our lives. We don’t have to worry about it when we have very little, or obsess over it when we have a lot. We can get off the money merry-go-round that leaves us dizzy and unstable. Instead we can find strength in Jesus to overcome the temptations that threaten our contentment, and once again we can know that peace from God which surpasses all comprehension as it guards our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.


* Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, (New York: Random House, 2003) p. 286.

"Philippians in a Nutshell"--Philippians 4:8-9

Labor Day weekend has long represented two things in our country—the end of summer and the beginning of the school year. Many schools get started a week or two before Labor Day, but many colleges in particular don’t really get going until after the holiday. So right now, college students all over the country are heading off to school, and some of them are stepping onto a college campus for the first time—which means that they are quickly becoming familiar with the three C’s of college: credit cards, coffee, and CliffsNotes.

If you’re not familiar with CliffsNotes, they’re booklets that summarize that contents, characters, and themes of major literary works like “Romeo and Juliet” or “War and Peace.” Many students turn to CliffsNotes rather than the actual books in order to survive freshman English. That way, they don’t have to read the whole book in order to get an idea of what it says—they can just read these summaries and have all the information they need to write their papers.

In our study of Philippians today, I believe we’re going to encounter the CliffsNotes version of the book. Now, like all of those English teachers out there who despise CliffsNotes, I obviously think that we should study the entire book of Philippians. But in 4:8–9, I believe we find the book of Philippians in a nutshell—a summary of the basic ideas that Paul has been trying to communicate in this letter. What is that summary? I believe its essence is this:

The keys to living in peace are having the right mindset and following the right example.

Turn with me to Philippians 4:8–9. In these two verses, Paul makes a final statement about two of his major themes and how they relate to his overall theme of living in unity under the God of peace. Let’s read these verses [READ Phil. 4:8–9].

Let’s look at Paul’s final statement on these two themes…

I. Have the right mindset (v. 8)

It may have escaped your notice as we’ve gone through this book, but one of Paul’s points of emphasis has been having the right mindset—about ourselves, about others, and about our relationship with Christ. This theme started all the way back in 1:9–10 when Paul prayed for the Philippians to have a love that would “abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent.” And what does Paul tell us to dwell on in 4:8? Anything of excellence.

Then in chapter 2, Paul asks the Philippians to be of the same mind (v. 2), to have humility of mind (v. 3), and to let the mind or the attitude of Christ dwell in them (v. 5). Then in chapter 3, he spent several verses talking about the surpassing value of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord (vv. 7–11).

So now as Paul writes, “Finally, brethren,” and brings the main teaching portion of his letter to an end, he wants to emphasize the proper mindset one final time. He lists a series of characteristics here to help us discern what kind of things to focus our minds on—let’s take a look at them. First, he says “whatever is true.” We know what this idea means—it refers to those things which are accurate, those claims or thoughts that line up with the way things really are.

Second, he says “whatever is honorable.” In our country, we refer to judges as “The Honorable Judge So-and-So,” and the idea is that a judge is dignified and worthy of respect. That’s the idea here in this statement as well.

Third, Paul writes, “whatever is right.” This refers to things which meet the standard of what is acceptable according to the proper standard of right and wrong. Fourth, he writes, “whatever is pure.” This idea refers to things that are not tainted by contaminants. They are clean, and without blemish.

Fifth, Paul says, “whatever is lovely.” We know what we mean when we call a woman lovely—we mean that her appearance is pleasant to look at and attractive. That’s what Paul is talking about here—those things which have a moral beauty about them which make them pleasant and enjoyable to think about.

Sixth, Paul writes, “whatever is of good repute” or good reputation. People with a good reputation are spoken well of by others, and that’s Paul’s thought. He’s referring to things that deserve to be praised. Finally, Paul summarizes these traits by saying “if there is any excellence and if anything is worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”

Now this verse is often discussed as a helpful guideline for making good entertainment choices. It is described as a filter to help us make wise decisions regarding TV shows, movies, and music choices. I do think that is a good application of this verse; if we would keep these standards in mind when we make choices about entertainment, we would do well. But we must realize that this was not Paul’s primary point. He wasn’t teaching the Philippians how to make good TV choices because they didn’t have TV!

In fact, Paul really hasn’t been talking about how to interact with the culture in this letter. What he has been talking about is the kind of mindset that makes for peace within the body of Christ, so I think he is once again focusing on that idea. If we as individuals would follow this standard, particularly in the way that we think about each other, can you imagine the way that our relationships with each other would be enhanced? What if we chose to focus on what we know to be true about other people? What if we chose not to simply believe everything we hear through gossip, or if we chose not to exaggerate someone’s faults in our minds? How about if we chose to think about the things in other people that are honorable and praiseworthy? We might find some admirable things, even in people that we disagree with. What if we chose to focus on the areas of their life that are right and pure, those areas where we can see that they’re living according to God’s standards? How about if we looked for what is lovely and attractive in other people? At the very least we can see the image of God in others, because all people are made in His image.

What a difference it would make in our outlook if we chose to use those guidelines to think about others rather than camp out on their faults! This is the attitude of Jesus, who chose to take on the form of a servant and regard others as more important than Himself. This is the way for us to think about each other if we want to remain a strong, united congregation. When we choose to think according to a different standard, we will sow the seeds of division in our church. But this mindset will hold us together through thick and thin.

So to live in peace we must first have the right mindset, and second we must…

II. Follow the right example (v. 9)

Throughout this letter Paul has been holding different people up as models or examples of the lessons that he was trying to teach. In chapter two, he holds up Jesus as the prime example of what it looks like to humbly put the interests of other people ahead of your own. Through His willingness to take on a human nature and come into this world as a servant and ultimately to die on the cross for our sins, Jesus demonstrates the kind of willingness that we should have to give ourselves for others.

Then, in the last part of chapter two, Paul held up Timothy and Epaphroditus as examples of men who were also more concerned about others than themselves. Timothy was a trustworthy partner for Paul because of his genuine concern for others, and Epaphroditus risked his life to see that the needs of others were met.

Then in chapter three, Paul called the Philippians to imitate his example of considering everything to be of no value when compared to the all-surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ. Paul described his continual and ongoing pursuit of a more intimate knowledge of Christ, and he asked the Philippians to adopt the same pursuit.

And now, once again, Paul calls the Philippians to follow his example. Perhaps that sounds a little arrogant to you, that Paul would again say, “follow me,” but keep a couple of things in mind here. First, imitating someone else’s example is almost always the easiest way to learn how to do something. If you like to try do-it-yourself repairs around your house, you know what I mean. It’s not often easy to read about how to do something and then do it; it’s almost always easier if you have someone who can say, “Here—let me show you how it’s done.” So Paul wasn’t being arrogant, he was simply tapping into this reality of learning.

Second, remember that literacy back then was not what it is today. Not everyone learned how to read, and even for those who did, there weren’t personal copies of the Bible available for them to take home and study. So people had to rely on another way of learning the Scriptures and of learning how to live as a Christian, and as I just said, imitating someone else’s example is a powerful way to learn.

Now Paul specifically told the Philippians to take the things they had learned and received and heard and seen in him and to put them into practice. This is the perfect follow-up to what he just said in v. 8, because it does us no good to have the right mindset if we don’t live out that mindset with the right actions.

In James 1:21–25, James calls us to be doers of the Word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. We delude ourselves by thinking that we will be blessed by God for simply hearing the Word, but James says that those who hear it and live it out are the ones who will be blessed. I believe that one of the greatest dangers facing conservative churches today is that we would find ourselves simply being hearers of the Word, and not doers of the Word. We love to hear the Word, don’t we? We could probably fill up every night of the week with Bible studies because we love to learn God’s Word. But if we only learn the Word and we don’t take the next step to live out the Word, we are deceiving ourselves if we think that God is pleased with that. In 1 Corinthians 8:1, Paul writes that knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. In others words, knowledge builds up my ego, but love builds up other people.

Do you know who the serious Bible students were in Jesus’ time? The Pharisees, and they were a wonderful bunch of people, right? Always so kind and compassionate toward other people, and humble too! No, what did Jesus say about them? These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me (Matt. 15:8). They looked so godly on the outside—they went to church every Sunday, they wore Christian t-shirts, they had fish symbols on their cars. Wait, that’s us, isn’t it? But what good does that fish symbol do if I fight with my wife while I drive that car? What good does that Christian t-shirt do if I’m not kind toward others while I’m wearing it?

God does not want mere formality from us. He doesn’t want us to simply have all the right knowledge—He wants us to live it out! We have to have the right mindset AND follow the right example by being doers of the Word and not hearers only. The Philippians had heard—Paul himself had taught them—and now he called them to put the things they had learned into practice. And Paul told them that if they would do this, the God of peace would be with them. Paul referred to God as the God of peace when we wrote to several congregations who had some internal strife among them. To the Romans, the Corinthians, and here to the Philippians, Paul reminds them that God is not a God of strife and conflict but of peace, and they could know His peace in their midst if they would do the things he had told them.

And the same is true for us. I feel that we have a spirit of peace in our church, and for that I’m very thankful. But we could lose that peace if we don’t have the right mindset and if we don’t follow the right example. If we choose to think about each other in negative, critical, or unloving ways, all it would take would be one spark to set off a wildfire of anger in our church. Our if we follow the example of those who view church as a place to be served rather than serve others, we would find the weeds of disunity springing up very quickly. But living together in God’s peace is possible, so let’s pursue it and maintain it by having the right mindset and following the right example.

"Keeping the Peace"--Philippians 4:4-7

During my wife’s recent pregnancy, and now since our daughter has been born, I’ve found my protective instinct getting stronger. I have always been a very sound sleeper, but while my wife was pregnant I never slept as well as I did before. I’m sure there are several reasons for that, but I think one reason is that I always wanted to be “on the alert;” I always wanted to make sure that she was doing okay. But ironically, I have become a sound sleeper again now that our baby has actually been born! It’s funny how that happens…

But as I think about trying to protect my daughter, I find myself thinking, “What kind of world are we bringing her into? What kind of world will she face in twenty, thirty, forty, or even fifty years?” As I think about questions like that, it becomes very easy to worry, and to have a feeling of pessimism wash over me.

It seems today that many American Christians are dealing with those exact same feelings. We look at our society and we sense a general decline in morality and godly behavior, and we become worried. We watch the news, and we become frightened. We listen to the cultural commentators and we feel anxious about what tomorrow has in store.

It can all add up to a general anxiety or fear about life that’s kind of like a nagging cold—its not bad enough to keep you down, but it just keeps hanging around. Philosophers refer to this general feeling of anxiety as “angst.” Angst is not the fear of a specific threat, like the way that you would be afraid of a dog chasing you. Rather, it is a general dread or uneasiness about the world and how you will make your way through the world.

If I could check the spiritual health of Christians in America today, I think I would find a lot of people dealing with angst. But its probably no surprise to you that the Bible tells us that things don’t have to be this way. We don’t need to be dogged by doubts or fatigued by fear. But what should characterize us instead?

What traits should characterize our lives at all times and in every circumstance?

That’s the question before us today as we look at God’s Word together. Turn with me, please, to Philippians 4:4–7. Paul has just dealt with a very specific situation facing the Christians in Philippi, and he told them what to do to handle it. Now in 4:4–7, it seems that he turns his thoughts back toward the general life setting that the Philippians found themselves in. You might remember that these believers were under persecution at the time that Paul wrote to them. Back in 1:27–30, Paul mentioned some opponents who had brought suffering and conflict into their lives. So considering their situation, what traits were to characterize the lives of the Philippians—not only in that situation, but at all times? Let’s find out [READ 4:4–7].

I. A joyful attitude born out of our relationship with God (v. 4)

Paul’s repeated commands to rejoice might sound like a broken record if they weren’t so sweet to our ears! Here in v. 4 he issues this command again and says, “Rejoice in the Lord when things are going well, and complain when they’re not.” Wait…you mean that’s not the biblical approach? Then why do Christians take that approach so often? Hmm…that’s funny.

No, Paul says “rejoice in the Lord always.” Remember, he wrote these words to people who were being persecuted for their faith! He didn’t say, “rejoice in the good ol’ days;” he said, “rejoice in the Lord always.” Then he repeated his command: “again I will say, rejoice!” The verb that Paul used here is in the future tense, so it’s like he’s saying, “I’ve said it today, and I’ll say it again tomorrow—rejoice!” Every day that we receive from God is a day in which we can rejoice—every day without exception.

Now of course, this can only be true if we remember the source and the object of our joy, which Paul spells out for us here. He says, “rejoice in the Lord.” Our joy comes in light of our relationship with Jesus. That’s why we can rejoice every day! Hebrews 13:8 says “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever,” so his love for us and his promises to us never change. That’s why we can rejoice in the midst of changing circumstances—because we have this constant in our lives!

So we may not always rejoice over our circumstances, but we can rejoice in our circumstances because the Lord never changes. But this reminds us that we must allow Jesus to be the delight of our hearts. We must not derive our primary pleasure from our circumstances, our possessions, or even our human relationships because they are all subject to change, and if they do they will take our joy with them.

But delighting in Jesus will allow us to be joyful people no matter how other things may change around us. To quote the author of Hebrews again, the hope we have in Jesus is “an anchor for the soul” (Heb. 6:19) to keep us from being tossed about every time the winds of circumstance may change. A joy that is grounded in the Lord is a joy unshakeable!

And so we should, at all times and in every circumstance, be characterized by a joyful attitude born out of our relationship with God. And second, we should be characterized by…

II. A gentle spirit toward all people (v. 5)

In v. 5, Paul simply says, “Let your gentle spirit be known to all men.” We must recognize here that Paul once again offers no exceptions to his command—just as we are to rejoice always, without exception, so we are also to be gentle to all people, without exception. The word that is translated as “gentle” here speaks of being patient with the faults of others, or acting reasonably toward others even if they act unreasonably toward us. Remember that Paul was writing these words to people who were suffering persecution. A situation like that could easily breed thoughts of revenge and retaliation, so this command was very fitting for their situation.

Notice also that he gives this command in light of another reality—the return of Christ. At the end of v. 5 he simply reminds them that “the Lord is near.” His point seems to be that there is no need for them to take matters into their own hands by seeking retaliation, because the Lord Jesus is coming back, and He will make all things right. There is no need for us to respond to others with vindictiveness because God will make all things right.

Not surprisingly, our best example of this behavior is the Lord Jesus himself. Peter makes this point in 1 Peter 2:21–23. Just before these verses, Peter wrote about submitting to the government and doing what is right as citizens, and then he wrote to slaves telling them to be submissive even to unreasonable masters. Then he wrote this, beginning in v. 21 [READ 1 Peter 2:21–23]. That really is the key—when we entrust our lives to God, we don’t have to worry about taking matters into our own hands, because God will sort everything out and see to it that perfect justice is achieved.

Now, commands like this—to be gentle to all people—sound somewhat crazy to our modern ears. It’s easy for us to think, “Sure…an approach like that may have worked back then, but it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there today! I’ll get walked all over if I respond to people like that today!” When we think like that, we rather naively and ignorantly assume that we’re living in conditions today that no one has ever faced before. We are all also quietly suggesting that God doesn’t really understand the human heart if He’s going to ask us to do something like this.

But the heart is much like our bones—both will break if they are surrounded by gentleness. In a healthy person, our bones are hardened as we walk around and work. When our legs are constantly confronted by the hardness of the pavement or the ground beneath our feet, our bones compress with each step and grow harder. But when a person is bed-ridden for long periods of time, their bones become fragile and will break much more easily because they’ve been so long in the soft and gentle environment of the bed.

Our hearts are very similar. When we are consistently confronted by hard-heartedness in other people, our hearts tend to become hardened as well. But when our hearts encounter gentleness and patience, they tend to soften, and the hardness in our hearts breaks down. That’s why God asks us to respond in this way, because gentleness can actually lead to the end of hostility between people.

By the way, this is a good lesson for parents to remember. If we are constantly hard on our kids, we’ll often harden their hearts against us. If we’re always critical of them or impatient with them, they will usually just grow to resent us. But if we will balance our discipline with gentleness, we’ll give them not only the correction that they need, but our gentleness will give them an affection for us that makes them want to obey. That’s easier said than done, isn’t it? But it’s what we must strive for.

So at all times and in every circumstance we should be characterized by a joyful attitude, a gentle spirit, and…

III. A peace of mind sustained by prayer (vv. 6–7)

Many of you have probably memorized the words that Paul wrote in verses 6–7. He says, [READ vv. 6–7] Such a beautiful promise of the peace of mind that we can have through prayer. Let’s see how we can get there.

We see first that Paul again offers a command with no exceptions. He says, “be anxious for nothing.” There is no situation in which anxiety should overwhelm us. Will it tempt us? Certainly; but we should allow anxiety to settle in our hearts no longer than we would allow a thief to settle in our homes. That’s what anxiety is—a thief. It steals our peace of mind, our trust in God, and sometimes even our sleep and our physical health.

But what’s the difference between anxiety and just thinking about something a lot? How can we know if we’re giving proper thought to our problems, or if we’re worrying about them? It’s interesting to note that the Greek word that is translated “be anxious” is actually used elsewhere as a positive frame of mind. In fact, Paul uses it in 2:20 when he says of Timothy, “I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare.” In that verse it is clearly a positive frame of mind.

So I think this tells us that anxiety is simply a good thing gone bad. It’s a healthy thoughtfulness that’s become diseased. Anxiety is like spoiled food—it comes from something that used to be good for you, but now its just rotten. But how do we know when we’ve crossed the line? Well, our emotional response often tells us, doesn’t it, as we start to feel stressed out and sick? Our ability to think about other things will usually tell us as well. If we find ourselves unable to set those thoughts aside in order to focus on other necessary things, then we’ve crossed the line into the realm of anxiety.

The cure for this malady of the mind is to prayerfully ask God for what we need with an attitude of thanksgiving. Paul says that with “prayer and supplication” we should let our requests be made known to God. “Prayer” is a more general term that encompasses everything we might do in prayer, such as praising God, confessing sin, or making requests. “Supplication” is a more specific word that focuses on offering specific requests to God for the things that we need.

So in order to overcome anxiety, we are to pray to God with specific requests for the things that we need, and we are to do it all with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is so powerful for overcoming anxiety because it reminds us about how good God has been to us in the past. In order to say “thank you” we have to identify specific blessings that God has already given us, and when our minds start down that path, we start to remember how faithful God has been to meet each and every one of our needs.

The result of this kind of prayer is that God’s peace becomes a shield of protection for our emotions and our thoughts. Paul says that God’s peace will “guard” us. The Greek word behind that translation can also be used to describe a garrison of soldiers keeping watch over a city. So God’s peace is like a divine warrior, fighting off the arrows of anxiety that Satan shoots at us. And this peace is one that passes all comprehension; it is beyond our ability to understand. How many times in your life have you seen someone amazed by the way they’ve seen a Christian handle bad news? I don’t envy doctors when they have to tell patients that they’re dying, but I’ve heard so many stories about doctors who have been led to praise God because of the incomprehensible peace that their patients have received from Him. When our minds run wild with worry, the peace of God can tame even the most stubborn doubts and fears.

Rejoice in the Lord always; let your gentle spirit be known to all men; be anxious for nothing. There is no situation that you might face where joy, gentleness, and peace cannot be yours. Rejoice in the Lord; let your gentle spirit be known for the Lord is near; in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. God can carry you through the deepest valleys in your life—center your joy in Him, remember His return, and go to Him with your needs. You will not be disappointed!

"Why Can't We All Just Get Along?"--Philippians 4:1-3

The New Testament occasionally refers to believers as soldiers who are in the midst of a spiritual battle. Sometimes, Christians take that metaphor of fighting a bit too literally. Every so often, we stumble across a story in the newspaper about some people who got into a fistfight at church. Sometimes tempers flare after a board meeting or a congregational meeting, and sometimes people bring their own differences into church with them, but these stories always make headlines because of the sheer irony of a fistfight breaking out in a place that is supposed to promote love and forgiveness.

Charles Colson writes about one rather extreme church fight in his book Being the Body.* This particular church had grown to the point where they needed to expand their facilities. In the past they had raised funds for improvements through things like bake sales, but their new pastor informed them that they needed a fundraising plan that was much more ambitious. So, he decided to introduce some friendly competition into the situation by dividing the congregation into two groups to see who could raise the most money. These two groups then decided that they would compete by hosting weekly bingo nights and inviting their friends.

The bingo nights quickly became a popular attraction around town, and before long the church was pulling in about $7,600 a week for their building project. But with that kind of money coming in, accusations of theft and embezzlement started flying back and forth, and tensions in the church reached a fever pitch. It all came to a head one night when the police had to be called in to break up a brawl that had broken out between 50 church members who were fighting each other with broken beer bottles!

Now I hope that none of you have ever witnessed a fight like that in a church—let alone participated in one! But we all know that disagreements and arguments are sadly far too common in churches everywhere. We might be pursuing love and forgiveness, but we don’t always practice it, do we? So how can we resolve conflicts between church members when they come up? This is the thought that I want to focus on today:

How can we resolve arguments that may come up within the church?

Turn with me if you would please to Philippians 4:1–3. In these verses, Paul is going to address the issue of a disagreement that has come up between two women in the church at Philippi. So far in this letter, Paul has repeatedly urged the Philippians to stand united with each other, and he probably had this particular situation in mind the whole time. And now, as Paul turns his attention to this matter, he gives us three helpful lessons about how to resolve arguments that may come up within the church. Let’s see what he has to teach us [READ 4:1–3].

So how can we resolve arguments that may come up within the church?

I. By cultivating a sincere affection for each other (v. 1)

Paul sets the example for us in this area through the description of his feelings for the Philippian believers in v. 1. Notice the way that he describes them. He writes, [READ v. 1]. What a beautiful picture of the affection that should exist between believers! Notice how Paul twice refers to them as “my beloved,” as if he wants to make sure that they don’t miss that point. He also refers to them as “my brethren,” which is the biblical way of thinking about each other. The people around you in these pews aren’t just people who happen to attend the same church that you do—they are your spiritual brothers and sisters, which reminds us of the affection that should exist between us.

Then Paul tells them that he longs to see them. How often is that our attitude when we come to church? How often do we find ourselves longing to see the other people in our church? Most of the time we’re probably just longing for the kids to get their jackets on and get in the car! Or maybe we’re just longing for our Sunday nap before we try and tackle another long week.

But can you imagine the spirit that we would have in our times of worship together if every time we met, we were like long-lost friends being re-united? Think of the joy that we would have if we would allow the Lord to train us to long to see each other! Perhaps we should all take a minute every Sunday morning to pray to God and say, “Lord, you know my frame of mind this morning. You know that I’m distracted by this, that, and the other thing, but please help me today to turn my focus toward other people. Please give me a heart-felt desire to worship you with my brothers and sisters and to do what I can to encourage them.”

I think an attitude like that would certainly help us avoid the arguments that we might be tempted to have with each other. Or at the very least, it would minimize the intensity of our personal disagreements with each other so that we could allow more things to just roll off our backs rather than escalate into a fight.

So we can solve arguments that may come up by cultivating a sincere affection for each other. And second, we can solve arguments that may come up…

II. By remembering our common ground in Christ (v. 2)

Euodia and Syntyche apparently had their differences at the time of Paul’s writing, but that hadn’t always been the case. In v. 3, Paul wrote that both of these women had shared his struggle in the cause of Christ. They had apparently worked together effectively before, and they still had so much common ground spiritually that there was no need for them to be at odds with each other.

Now from our vantage point so many years removed from this situation, we really have no way of knowing exactly what had come between these ladies. It probably wasn’t a dispute over doctrine, because Paul was never shy about correcting people that he felt were promoting error. And notice that Paul doesn’t single out either woman as being primarily at fault—he repeats his command to each of them.

In doing so, Paul reminds us of the biblical process of resolving conflict with another believer—whenever disagreements or offenses occur, both parties involved should seek to take the first step to make things right. If you sin against a Christian brother or sister, you should be willing to take the first step to repair the relationship. As Jesus said in Matthew 5:23–24, “If you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.” If you need to confess your sin to someone and ask for their forgiveness, that is priority number one—even over other acts of worship!

But likewise, if you have been sinned against, you should also be willing to take the first step to repair your relationship. Let us hear the words of the Lord Jesus once again, this time from Matthew 18:15—“If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.” Obviously, that is not an easy step to take; we must “speak the truth in love” as Ephesians 4:15 says. We must not go into such a conversation in anger or with an air of superiority. Instead, we must approach such a conversation in humility, with a genuine desire to repair our broken relationship. This is a step that we must take if we have been sinned against, particularly when we start to feel the temptation to be bitter and resentful toward the other person. We cannot allow such feelings to fester in our hearts. We must not give in to the temptation to say, “Well! If so and so wants to be my friend again, let them come and beg for my forgiveness.” That attitude is nothing but pride on our part.

Now notice what Paul was specifically asking Euodia and Syntyche to do—he asks them to live in harmony in the Lord. His language here calls to mind his command of 2:2, where he said [READ 2:2]. Normally when we get into arguments within the church, its either because we’re not acting in love, or we’re pursuing the wrong purpose. Sometimes we just plain fail to act in a loving way toward each other, and that understandably causes division and strained relationships.

But at other times, we start to pursue the wrong purpose in church. Perhaps we start to get a selfish focus, and our primary purpose is no longer to simply serve God, but to get our own way. Everyone has their own ideas about what the church should be doing and how the church should operate, and if other people don’t immediately recognize the genius of our ideas, its easy to get offended. And when that happens, we may continue to push harder and harder for our ideas, not because we’re still focused on simply serving God, but because now we want to get our own way.

But no matter what may cause divisions in the church, we can get ourselves back into the right frame of mind by remembering the common ground that we have in the Lord. In v. 3, Paul stated that these women had served together effectively before. I can hear him saying, “Remember the good times of ministry that you’ve enjoyed together before! You can work together—just turn your focus back to serving God.”

But I think Paul mentions the most important piece of common ground at the end of v. 3, where he states that Euodia and Syntyche and Clement and the rest of his fellow workers all have their names written in the book of life. They were all born-again; they were all children of God, and someday they would all enjoy the peace and joy of heaven together. And if that’s true for them—if that’s true for us in our church, can’t we get along with each other today? Can’t we put aside the petty differences that we face from time and time and live in harmony? The next time you find yourself at odds with another believer, picture yourself standing beside them in heaven, singing together the praises of God for all eternity. Doesn’t that make our differences today seem pretty small by comparison?

So we can solve arguments that may come up by cultivating a sincere affection for each other and by remembering our common ground in Christ. And finally, we can solve arguments that may come up…

III. By helping each other overcome our differences (v. 3)

In v. 3, Paul asks a third party to step in and help these two women resolve their differences. It’s not clear to us today exactly who Paul was addressing in this verse, but he asks this individual to step in and get involved. Notice that he doesn’t ask Euodia and Syntyche to seek out help—he speaks directly to the third party and asks this person to get involved.

This request may strike us as being a little strange, because we live in a culture that prizes individuality and privacy. In our society, we tend to think that our lives are no one else’s business, and we resent it when we feel like people aren’t “minding their own business.” But within the church, we are supposed to act like a family, which means that we need to help each other resolve our arguments and disagreements.

The Bible calls us brothers and sisters, so we can compare the church to an immediate family. Within an immediate family, everyone is affected when two members are fighting with each other. Other members of the family may feel pressured to take sides, and overall there will be a lack of peace and an increased level of anxiety.

But within that family structure, the other members do feel like they have a right and a responsibility to get involved and help resolve the conflict. And within the church, we should have the same mindset. If two members of our church are fighting, that is the church’s business! We are not intruding if we seek to help. The rest of us should offer our help to resolve the conflict, particularly those who already have a close friendship with the people involved. If we turn a blind eye and say “It’s none of my business,” we are not practicing love toward each other.

And it may be quite obvious by now, but with each principle that we have just looked at, a tremendous amount of humility is required to carry them out. If two believers find themselves at odds with each other, it takes humility for one to approach the other and seek to make things right. And for those who would seek to help two Christian brothers or sisters make peace with each other, it takes tremendous humility to step into that situation with love and fairness rather than partisanship and heavy-handedness.

But if we will carry out these principles, we can restore peace with each other when disagreements arise. As much as we might hope that we will never be at odds with another believer, we are all still imperfect. We still struggle with sin, and so we might find ourselves in precisely the same position as Euodia and Syntyche. But if we will cultivate a sincere affection for each other, remember our common ground, and allow others to help us when need be, we need not allow our disagreements to linger. Instead, we can resolve our differences and enjoy peaceful fellowship with each other once again.


*Charles Colson and Ellen Vaughn, Being the Body (Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 2003), 69–71.

"Follow With Care"--Philippians 3:17-21

How many of you heard your mother say something like this when you were a child: “If all of your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?” We have probably all vowed that we will NEVER use lines like that with our kids, but I bet that many of us have found words just like that coming out of our mouths. I’m not sure how effective clichés like that really are any more, but we know of course that our moms were just trying to tell us to be careful about imitating other people or following someone else’s lead.

Perhaps some of you have heard of a little rodent called a lemming. Lemmings are often used as an illustration of the dangers of following the wrong leader, and for good reason. Like a lot of creatures, lemmings reproduce quickly, and so every few years they find themselves at a point where there current habitat can’t feed all of them anymore. So one day, some of the lemmings head out in search of a new home, and as they leave, they quickly attract many other lemmings to follow them. Now their typical behavior when they migrate like this is to set out in one direction and just keep going in that direction until they find a suitable place. Well, as you can imagine, sometimes that works out okay, and sometimes it doesn’t, because these little creatures don’t stop when they run into danger. Sometimes their path leads them to the edge of a cliff, and rather than head in a new direction they just run right off the cliff, and many—if not most—of them die. Sometimes their path leads them to the ocean, and instead of turning around they swim out into the ocean, and they just keep swimming until they eventually become exhausted and drown.

I think you can see how this illustrates the fact that we need to be careful about whom we choose to follow! Perhaps the people that we follow and imitate in our lives aren’t going to lead us off a cliff anytime soon, but could they be leading us into some sinful ways of thinking? Could they be pointing us toward the wrong goals for life? Those whom we choose to follow could be leading us down paths that a spiritual dangerous, so the lesson that we need to grab hold of today is this:

Make sure the people you choose to follow are leading you in the right direction!

And how do we know what the right direction is? From the Bible, of course. But we can also see it in the lives of people who are living out biblical principles in their lives. That’s what the apostle Paul is going to encourage us to look for in our study of Philippians today. Would you turn with me please to Philippians 3:17–21? Let’s read this together [READ vv. 17–21]. In this passage, Paul sets up a contrast between two groups of people—the kind that we should follow, and the kind that we should not follow. Let’s first see what he says about the kind of people that we should not follow.

I. Reject the example of those who seek only to satisfy their personal desires

Paul begins and ends this passage by talking about the people we should follow and the kind of mindset that they possess. But in the middle—in vv. 18–19—he describes the example that we should reject and the kind of people who set that example.

In v. 18, we see that Paul has tremendous compassion for these people; he says that he weeps over them. But nevertheless, Paul tells it like it is—he says that they are “enemies of the cross of Christ.” Notice that Paul doesn’t just say “enemies of Christ.” He focuses on the cross—they are enemies of the cross of Christ. From what Paul says about them in v. 19, it seems that these individuals are enemies of what the cross represents. As we saw in chapter 2, the cross of Christ represents humility. The fact that Jesus was willing to die in such a painful and humiliating way demonstrated his tremendous humility. The cross also represents self-denial, as we can see from Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:14—“If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” These individuals however were advocating a very different lifestyle, and thus they were opposed to what the cross represents.

Because of this, Paul notes in v. 19 that they had a terrible end to look forward to. He states that their “end is destruction.” They may appear to have enviable lives now, but their ultimate end is utter loss and ruin. This is all because of their idolatry, which Paul describes next. The next three phrases describe their overall mindset—Paul writes, “whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.”

Their minds were set on achieving earthly goals and satisfying their own earthly desires, and so they sought to indulge their physical desires and cravings, and they “gloried in” or took pride in doing things that they actually should have been ashamed of. And as I think of people in our own society today who would fit this description, my mind goes directly to celebrities—actors and actresses, rappers and rock stars, reality show stars, even sports stars.

Now certainly not everyone in those industries would fit Paul’s description in v. 19, but the vast majority of them are living examples of what Paul said here. When you look at the lifestyle that characterizes most celebrities—the drug use and alcoholism, the immorality and infidelity, the repeated cycle of divorce—it is clear that they are living simply to satisfy their own fleshly desires. And if we are going to take Paul’s warning to heart, we must make sure that we don’t follow their example.

But the reality is that we are probably already mimicking their behavior in ways that we don’t even realize. Friends, if we think we can watch TV for hours each week, and watch movies for hours each week, and listen to secular music for hours each week, and yet somehow emerge with our behavior unaffected by those things, we are simply being naïve. Consider a few things with me—think first of all about the slang words that you use, or the popular phrases that you use. Where did you learn those words? Maybe you learned them from a friend, but where did he get them? At some point down the line they more than likely came from a movie or a TV show. Lines from movies and TV have a way of entering our cultural vocabulary, and often times we end up using those lines without even realizing it.

How about your idea of what romance looks like? Do you think it comes from the Bible? Let me ask you—have you ever actually read the Bible with that question in mind? If the answer is no, then are you sure that your idea of romance comes from the Bible? Or does your idea of romance actually come from Twilight, or Sleepless in Seattle, or Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Gone With the Wind?

How about your attitude toward something like homosexuality? I imagine that we would all say it’s a sin, but do you really feel that it’s a behavior that destroys people’s lives, or is it something to laugh about with our favorite characters on Modern Family, or something to sweep under the rug about as we’re being entertained by Ellen DeGeneres?

So what I am trying to say, friends, is that we may be imitating celebrities and the Hollywood mindset in ways that we don’t even realize because its influence can be so subtle. And the best way to counteract its influence is to saturate our minds with Scripture and minimize our exposure to entertainment like TV and movies.

You can really think of it like a balanced diet for your mind. The Bible is the meat and grains and the fruits and vegetables that you should take in at every meal, and entertainment is like dessert—we should take it in only in small portions and less frequently than everything else.

I do think it is helpful for us to be aware of what the entertainment industry is producing, but I think a quote that Warren Wiersbe once applied to TV is very helpful here. He says, “True, we ought to [be familiar with it]; but only as chemists handle poisons—to discover their qualities, not to infect their blood with them.”*

So, we must make sure that we don’t follow the example of those who seek only to satisfy their personal desires. And in our passage, Paul points toward a better example for us to follow.

II. Follow the example of those who live as citizens of heaven in the here and now

In v. 17, Paul called the Philippians to follow his example, which he had just spelled out for them in vv. 2–16: namely, his example of placing everything on his list of values below the ongoing pursuit of gaining an intimate knowledge of Christ. At the end of v. 17 he also mentions others who are walking according to the same pattern. Undoubtedly he had Timothy and Epaphroditus in mind here, but there were probably others in the Philippian church as well who already followed Paul’s example.

Then down in vv. 20–21, he describes why his example is the correct one for us to have. At the end of v. 19 he tells us not to have our minds set on earthly goals and values and priorities, but why not? Well, he tells us in vv. 20–21 [READ vv. 20–21].

We are not to focus our minds on earthly things because our citizenship, our homeland is somewhere else! It’s like when you’re on vacation. When you go on vacation, you don’t have the same concern for the area that you’re visiting as you do for your hometown. You’re not thinking about putting down roots there because you know you’re only there for a short time. You don’t find yourself thinking, “Maybe I should go to the city council meeting here tonight and find out about the local zoning proposals!” No! You’re on vacation! You’re just passing through, so you don’t focus on settling in and making a life for yourself.

That’s the kind of mindset that we’re supposed to have about this world, because it is no longer our home. Our true home is in heaven, so that’s where we should center our lives; that’s where we should invest; that’s where we should put down roots! The old spiritual says it well:

“This world is not my home
I’m just a-passin’ through
My treasures are laid up
Somewhere beyond the blue

The angels beckon me
From heaven’s open door
And I can’t feel at home
In this world anymore.”

Paul also goes on to remind us why we should be so eager for our temporary stay in this world to be over—we are awaiting the return of Jesus, who will make us fit to enter our homeland! In v. 20, Paul refers to the Lord Jesus Christ as “savior,” which is significant for more reasons than you might think. The Greek word here is soter, and its actually a title that many of the Roman emperors had adopted for themselves. They sometimes referred to themselves as the “Savior of the World” or the “Savior of Humanity.”

But we who have our citizenship in heaven know who the real Savior of the World is—the Lord Jesus Christ! Our highest allegiance is to Him, not to any petty rulers in this world who might put themselves in His place. And when He returns, He is going to complete the work of salvation that He has started in us by transforming our bodies to make them fit for our homeland.

I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that you are still living in a body that is under the curse of sin. We still have to live not only with daily aches and pains, but also with diseases that are much more severe and deadly. But someday, Jesus is going to return to “transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory.” As the apostle John put it in 1 John 3:2, “We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” We have that time to look forward to that is described in Revelation 21:4, where God “will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain.”

That is our destiny! That is where our lives are headed—we are headed home! So that’s why we should focus our lives upon our homeland; that’s why we should live with heavenly priorities rather than earthly priorities. Just as it makes no sense to adopt a California lifestyle if you live in Kansas, it likewise makes no sense to adopt a worldly lifestyle if your real home is in heaven! So we must make sure that we follow the example of those who have this mindset, and not just follow them from afar, but develop a relationship with them and learn from them. It would benefit every one of us to cultivate a relationship with someone who is more mature in the faith than we are, so that is my challenge for you today. Find someone who is more mature as a Christian than you are and get to know them. Invite them over; take them out to eat; ask them for their advice and guidance and prayers. We will always be imitating someone, so let’s make sure we’re following the right example!


* Warren W. Wiersbe, Preaching & Teaching with Imagination, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Books, 2002.) pg. 75.

Reconciliation--Moving From War to Peace

Shortly before the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, he warned his disciples that until the end of this period of human history, there would be wars and rumors of wars (Matt. 24:6). History has shown that Jesus was no false prophet—war has been the norm rather than the exception throughout human history ever since that time (and even before then as well). In fact, a convenient way for historians to trace the history of a kingdom or a nation is to move from one war to the next!

Late last year, I had the opportunity to tour the Museum of French Military History in Paris while I was visiting some missionaries, and let me tell you, it was a huge museum because France has a lot of military history! The French have been almost constantly at war with someone throughout their entire existence as a nation. In fact, most of the European continent has been a battle zone since the times of the Roman Empire.

Even the relatively short history of the United States has been characterized by war. I think we had a couple of decades in the 1800’s where we were at peace, but the last 115 years in particular has seen war after war after war! We can trace our history from the Spanish-American War to World War I to World War II to the Korean War to Vietnam to the Cold War to the Gulf War and now to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With this kind of track record in the world, its no surprise that so many people are willing to give up almost anything for peace. But so far in history, the story of humanity has been a lack of peace. And while this has been true of human beings’ relationships with each other, the same could be said for our relationship with God as well. According to the Bible, when we are born, we all receive the desire for sin that first tainted humanity when Adam and Eve rebelled against the Lord. So at least initially, our relationship with God is characterized by a lack of peace.

But is there any hope of resolving this situation? Can we find peace with God that will restore our relationship with Him? Today we’re going to discover this hope as we look at the meaning of the word “reconciliation.” This is a great theological term that describes one of the things that Jesus accomplished for us in His death and resurrection. So today we’ll take a look first of all at what this word means, and then we’ll take a look at the implications of this idea both for our relationship with God and our relationships with other people.

I. What does the word “reconciliation” mean?

As we look at what the word “reconciliation” means in the Bible, what we find is that it has the same meaning as it does when we use it in common conversation. This isn’t always the case with these theological words. More often than not, if we still use the word in normal conversation, we use it with a slightly different meaning than the Bible does. But that’s not the case here, which makes it easy for us to understand what this word means.

The word “reconciliation” describes the restoration of peace in a relationship that has been broken. And so, we might speak of a husband and wife being reconciled after they’ve worked through some differences in their relationship, or we might talk about two old friends being reconciled when they patch things up after a fight.

So when Scripture says that we are “reconciled” to God, it means that our broken relationship with Him has been repaired; we have been restored to the relationship of peace and friendship that humanity once had with God prior to the Fall. We can see this clearly in Colossians 1:21–22. In these verses Paul writes, [READ vv. 21–22]. In v. 21, Paul describes a time when we were alienated or estranged from God, which means that we were separated from Him, and we were actually hostile to Him in our minds because of our desire to do evil deeds.

But notice that Paul says this condition is formerly true of us, and the difference is that in v. 22 Paul states that we have been reconciled to God through the death of Jesus Christ. So now for those who have accepted Jesus, we are no longer alienated or separated from God; we are no longer far from Him, but now we are near to Him. And we no longer have hostility in our relationship with Him—instead, we now enjoy peace and friendship.

What a wonderful reversal of fortunes! Friend, let this fact sink into your soul—God feels no hostility toward you! Some believers still feel like God sits in heaven eagerly waiting to punish them for something, but nothing could be further from the truth. As Paul put it in Romans 8, God is “for” us—He is on our side! When God looks at you, He looks at His own child, with eyes of compassion and love. When He looks at you, He doesn’t see the tattered rags of your sin—He sees the robe of righteousness that Jesus has supplied for us.

And notice from these verses who it was that took the initiative to restore our relationship with God. Was it us, or was it God? It was God, wasn’t it? God broke down the barrier that divided us. This belief is one of the central doctrines that makes Christianity different from all the other religions in the world. Every world religion believes that there is something in the human condition that makes us estranged from the divine being (whatever they believe that divine being is). But in every other religion, the responsibility is on us to make peace with the divine being; we are responsible to somehow bring ourselves back into harmony with the divine.

But friends, that idea is a lie from Satan, who is a deceiver and the father of lies. He has turned the truth upside down to hide from us the fact that there is nothing we can do to repair our relationship with God. Our sin is so offensive to God that there is nothing we can do to remove that offense. But God in His infinite love took the initiative to restore our broken relationship with Him by sending His Son to pay for our sins by dying on the cross so that we could once again have peace with God.

That is the glorious idea of reconciliation, that God has picked up the pieces of our broken relationship with Him and has made it whole once again. So we have seen what the word “reconciliation” means, and we have seen that it really captures well the work that Jesus has done in our behalf. But we also see in Scripture that our reconciliation with God is supposed to lead us to be reconciled with others. So the second question we need to deal with today is this:

II. What does our reconciliation with God mean for our relationships with other people?

A. Our relationship with other believers should also be one of peace and friendship (Matt. 5:21–24)

If our relationship with God is now one of peace and friendship, our relationship with God’s children should be the same. According to Scripture, when we accept Christ, God adopts us into His own spiritual family. This makes us spiritual brothers and sisters with everyone else who believes in Jesus. And just as you don’t want hostility in your family, God doesn’t want hostility in His family either.

Let’s take a look at what Jesus had to say in Matthew 5:21–24 [READ vv. 21–24]. Now there is much that we could say about vv. 21–22, but I want to focus your attention on His command in vv. 23–24. Jesus was speaking to Jewish people at a time when they still offered animal sacrifices, and he tells them that if they are in the middle of offering a sacrifice, and they remember that they’ve done something to offend a brother, they should stop what they’re doing, make things right with their brother, and then they can offer their sacrifice.

What this tells us is that God considers living at peace with each other to be more important than performing acts of worship. This should be no surprise, because God said this through the prophets over and over again in the Old Testament. God was often upset with the people of Israel because they were sinning against each other and then performing acts of worship as though nothing was wrong.

In our society today, we’ve come up with numerous ways of handling conflict that we think are acceptable. Perhaps one of the most common methods we use to deal with conflict is simply to avoid other people. If we do something that offends someone else and our relationship becomes strained because of it, often times we just avoid each other. And we justify this behavior by saying, “Hey! We don’t get into fights anymore! He has his circle of friends, and I have my circle of friends, and we just keep our distance from each other.”

Friends, let’s not think that God is deceived by our little charade. If we choose to simply avoid someone after we sin against them, what we’re really avoiding is God’s clear command to confess our sin to them and ask for forgiveness! We should seek for reconciliation with someone if we have sinned against them. It is certainly true that they might reject our efforts to make peace, but their response is on their own shoulders. Our choice must be to seek for peace when we have sinned against others.

But sometimes, divisions in the body of Christ are much more superficial. The idea of reconciliation teaches us that…

B. Our cultural and racial differences should not disrupt our peace and friendship with other believers (Eph. 2:14–16)

Sometimes differences in the body of Christ come up over things as petty as racial differences. But the idea of reconciliation reminds us that in heaven we will be part of a choir from every tribe, tongue, and nation that will be singing the praises of our Lord.

Notice what Paul writes in Ephesians 2:14–16. In these verses he is talking about how the death of Jesus abolished any wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles. There was a lot of racism that existed between Jews and Gentiles at this time, but for believers there is to be no room for racism whatsoever because of our reconciliation in Christ [READ vv. 14–16].

In our corner of the world, we encounter people from several different minority groups who have immigrated here to the United States. Anytime cultures collide like this, there is going to be some uneasiness as people get to know each other, but I’m sure we all hear emotions expressed at times that amount to nothing more than sheer racism against another group of people. Friends, we need to make sure that no such hatred exists in our hearts. We cannot allow something as superficial as race to cause us to be hostile to others—especially if someone from another race embraces the Lord Jesus as we do. There should be no such divisions in the body of Christ, and we must make sure that we never feed such divisions by our own words and actions.

In fact, from a biblical perspective, it would be best if we stopped talking about different races of people at all, because there is only one race—the human race. According to the Bible, all humans are descended from Adam and Eve, and then again from Noah and his wife after the Flood. We may have different languages and cultures and nationalities, but we are not from different races. So let’s make sure that we do not perpetuate racial distinctions, particularly within the body of Christ.

Finally, as the Bible speaks of reconciliation, it reminds us that we have a mission to accomplish.

C. Our mission is to bring other people into a relationship of peace with God (2 Cor. 5:17–21)

Since we now have peace with God, we are given the privilege of calling all other men to lay down their arms and receive the King’s offer of a pardon. Let’s read what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17–21 [READ vv. 17–21].

God the King has not only gladly welcomed us back into His kingdom, but He has also made us His royal ambassadors, His representatives to all those who are not at peace with Him. And what a great honor this is! Theoretically, God could have allowed angels to spread the Gospel. He could have sent a hundred million angels out into the world to pay a personal visit to every man, woman, and child on Earth.

But who better to deliver the King’s terms of peace than us, the very ones who used to be on the wrong side of the conflict? Remember, we were alienated from God and hostile toward Him in our minds, but He reconciled us to Himself, and now He has sent us back to our fellow rebels to tell them that the King offers peace, to proclaim that the King will not only accept them back into the kingdom, but will welcome them into the royal family!

Friend, if you have never accepted God’s terms of peace, I pray that you will today. You must understand that you were born into this world in a state of hostility toward God because of the sin that has tainted all of us. Your relationship with God is broken, but God sent His own Son to undergo in your place the punishment that you deserve by dying on the cross. God then raised Him from the dead to show that the price for sin had been paid, and that there was now hope of eternal life for those who would place their faith in Jesus as their Savior. Those are the King’s term of peace—if you will accept Jesus as your Savior, your relationship with God will be restored; you will be reconciled to God, to live no longer as His enemy, but as His child and friend. If you will accept Jesus, you can know that peace in your life today, and know that you will be warmly welcomed into heaven after this life.

"Keep On Keepin' On"--Philippians 3:12-16

One of the sobering realities that we have to deal with as we get older is that we’re not physically capable of doing many of the things that we could do when we were younger. As we age, our bodies start to wear down—we’re not as strong as we used to be or as flexible as we used to be. But of course, we usually don’t realize this until we’re out on the softball field trying to re-live our old glory days and we end up tearing something! It seems like our minds are always about 10 years behind our bodies. Our minds remember what we could do, and they haven’t quite come to terms yet with what we can do right now!

This has all kind of hit home for me lately because I’ve been trying to build up my muscles a bit in anticipation of holding my baby. I’ve discovered from holding other babies that it can get pretty tiring after a while, so I thought I would try to beef up a little bit to prepare for my own baby. Now I’m still a young man, so—as I thought—this should still be pretty easy, right? Yeah, right! My mind is still ten years in the past—back then I could look at a set of weights and put on five pounds! But now I actually have to pick them up and work out, and not just once a week, but three or four times a week. It’s like I’m on some kind of treadmill, and if I don’t keep moving forward, I immediately start to lose ground.

You know, that same kind of feeling holds true in our relationship with God, doesn’t it? It’s hard to grow spiritually in areas where we are weak, and sometimes we let down for just a moment—maybe we give in to a temptation that we’ve said “no” to a dozen times—and suddenly its like we’ve lost all that ground that we had gained.

This morning as we study the book of Philippians, we are going to read as Paul describes the mindset that we need to have in order to keep moving forward in the Christian life, to keep growing more and more like Jesus in every way. We will also discover that there is a prize to be won by those who faithfully serve Jesus and carry out His will for their lives. What we will learn today is this:

The prize for faithfulness is won through a continuous pursuit of maturity.

I think this lesson is so important for us to take to heart, especially for churches like ours that believe in the doctrine of eternal security. According to our doctrinal statement, we believe the Bible tells us that once a person is saved, their salvation cannot be lost. In other words, once a person has placed his or her faith in Jesus and has thus received forgiveness from God and has been adopted into God’s family, that person is absolutely secure in that position; it can never be lost.

I think that is an absolutely glorious doctrine that should bring us a tremendous amount of comfort. But sometimes that doctrine can lead to an attitude that sounds something like this: “Well, it sure is nice to be saved! Now that I’ve got that settled, I guess there’s not much else to do but wait around until I can go to heaven.”

Obviously, that is a far cry from the attitude that we should have, because what we have to realize is that even after you have been saved, there is still an aspect of your future destiny that has not been settled. It doesn’t have to do with where you will spend eternity; rather, it has to do with the role that you will play after Jesus returns and sets up His kingdom on earth. There is a very real possibility that you might miss out on a reward that God wants you to have, so that is why we need to take this lesson to heart today.

Let’s read our passage for today, and then we’ll see what it has to teach us [READ 3:12–16]. Let’s study what Scripture has to tell us about pressing forward in our relationship with Christ.

I. We must continually press forward in pursuit of the prize for faithfulness (vv. 12–14)

In v. 12, Paul states that he does not feel that he had yet achieved the goal that he mentioned in v. 11, which was to know Christ intimately so that he could become part of that unique group of resurrected believers that will hear Jesus say on the day of judgment, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” That was Paul’s goal, but he didn’t think he had achieved it yet, so he writes in the rest of v. 12, “but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” Paul reminds us here that when Jesus saved us, He did so with the goal that we would grow spiritually and reflect his character. Let me take you on a quick tour of the book of Ephesians and I’ll show you what I mean:

[READ Eph. 1:3–4, 2:8–9, 4:12–13, 5:25–27]

So Jesus has the goal in mind for us that we would be spiritually mature, and in v. 12 Paul says that he is “pressing on” toward that goal. The Greek word that is translated “pressing on” here has an interesting connection to Paul’s former life before he was a Christian. This word refers to running after something or chasing something, and its often used in a literal way to refer to persecuting someone. In fact, in the book of Acts when Paul described how he used to hunt down Christians to throw them in prison, he used this word. Now it obviously has a much different application for Paul, but by using it its like he’s saying, “I’ve taken the same intensity with which I used to hunt down Christians, and now I’m using it to chase after spiritual maturity.” What a word picture!

Paul’s wording tells us that spiritual growth is an active process. It is not something that you passively receive by sitting in a pew on Sunday morning. Growing spiritually is not like catching a cold—it doesn’t happen by accident. It is something that requires action on your part; an intense, focused exertion of effort to deny your own sinful desires, to take the attitude of Jesus for yourself, and to follow Him. Nor will it come through casual effort. There must be a pursuit of spiritual growth if we are to lay hold of it.

And to describe this pursuit, Paul uses the image of running a race in vv. 13–14. He writes, [READ v. 13–14]. Now, I never ran track when I was in school. I tried when I was in 7th grade, but I got shin splints after two weeks and decided I had better things to do with my time. So I may not have run track, but even I know that you don’t run a race with your head turned back, looking over your shoulder.

Paul uses this rule of running to make an important spiritual point—the proper mindset for spiritual growth is not one that is focused on the past. Focusing on our past is a distraction, a hindrance, because the goal is still on ahead of us. Like many lessons in the Christian life, I think this one is both a comfort and a challenge. I think it is a tremendous comfort because it means that we don’t have to be shackled by what we’ve done in the past. It is so easy to allow our past failures and disappointments to continue weighing us down. We allow ourselves to be haunted by the sins that we’ve committed in the past, but the glorious message of the Gospel is that those sins have been forgiven. As Rom. 8:1 says, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Psalm 103:12 says, “as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us,” and Micah 7:19 says that God has cast all of our sins into the depths of the sea.

So we don’t need to let our past sins continue to be a hindrance to our spiritual growth today. We don’t have to think that God can’t use us today because of what we’ve done in the past. It would have been very easy for Paul to think that way, but he chose not to. When God called him to preach almost immediately after his conversion, he could have said, “God, surely I’m not fit to do this! I was opposing you just days ago; I’m not the right one for this task.” But instead, Paul chose the perspective that he describes here—he didn’t look back, but chose instead to look ahead and press on to grow spiritually.

But this lesson also provides a challenge for us, because if our focus is not supposed to be on what we’ve done in the past, then that means we can’t rest on our past spiritual accomplishments, either. Even if we’ve been serving the Lord and growing as a Christian for years, we can’t look back and say, “Well, that’s good enough,” and then stop pressing forward to grow as a Christian.

But I fear that there is a growing trend to do just that today, especially as people approach and enter the retirement years. It seems like more and more people are also retiring from church when they retire from their jobs—not that they necessarily stop attending church, but they stop serving, they stop pressing forward in order to grow. It’s almost as if people are saying, “Well, I’ve put in my time at the church. Let’s just let the younger generations take over.” Then these folks go buy an RV and their churches hardly ever see them anymore!

If I can speak to our senior saints for just a moment, I urge you not to stop pressing forward in your spiritual growth and your service for Christ in the world and in this church. I understand you may not have the energy or the physical endurance that you used to have and that’s fine, because your physical strength isn’t your greatest asset anyway—its your wisdom! If you’ve been growing in Christ throughout your life, then you have a wisdom that these young people around you badly need. So focus on building relationships with them. Find some kids who don’t have grandparents nearby and be grandparents to them. Go to their games; buy them presents on their birthday; pray for them and then tell them how you prayed for them. Tell them what you’re asking God to do in their lives. Please don’t look back and say, “That’s good enough.” Keep pressing forward!

And for all of us as we think about how we might spend the latter years of life—let’s focus our thoughts on how we can center that time around service for Christ. Don’t focus on how you can spend the last 15, 20, or 25 years of your life focusing on yourself. Keep pressing forward, because as Paul reminds us here in v. 14, there is a prize waiting for those who will press on toward the finish line!

Over the years people have debated a bit over what Paul is talking about here in v. 14. Some people have said that he is talking about the Rapture, but that doesn’t make sense to me because of the language that Paul uses here. The Rapture is not a prize that we have to win—it is a guarantee, a promise from God for all of his children. So because Paul speaks of a prize here I think he is talking about the rewards that are held out to us in Christ’s millennial kingdom—specifically the reward of serving in a position of leadership and authority in Christ’s kingdom on earth.

I think Paul is continuing the imagery of a runner here by drawing on the picture of a victorious athlete in the Greek athletic competitions. The person who won the race would be called to appear before the judges in order to receive the prize, and I think that’s what Paul is talking about here. When he stands before God to be judged for his deeds in the Christian life, he wants to be called up to receive the prize, to hear Jesus say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” and to serve under Jesus to reign in his kingdom.

That is why Paul won’t look back, but keeps pressing forward, keeps striving to win the prize. And of course, if we are going to press forward, that tells us that…

II. We must not slip back on the path of spiritual growth (vv. 15–16)

In the final two verses of this paragraph, Paul writes, [READ vv. 15–16]. Now v. 15 introduces a little bit of confusion because Paul seems to be contradicting what he said in v. 12 about being perfect. In that verse he had said that he has not already become perfect, but then in v. 15 it sounds like he’s saying that he is perfect. Your translation in v. 15 might say “mature,” which is an accurate translation, but it in Greek, Paul uses the same word in v. 12 as he does in v. 15. So what are we to make of all of this?

Well, we need to make note of the verb tense that Paul uses in v. 12. We can see that he’s using a tense that talks about a completed action that has led to a settled state. He writes, “not that I have already become perfect,” as though he had become perfect and some point in the past and was now settled in some kind of state of perfection. As we see, Paul believes that he needs to keep pressing forward to know Christ better, so it seems that what he is saying in v. 15 is that those who are perfect (or mature, or complete) in the Christian life are those who realize that they are not perfect, those who understand that they are still a work in progress. So I think Paul is simply adjusting our perspective of what it means to be mature as a Christian—it means that we understand that we still have work to do. In other words, if we think we’ve arrived at some kind of final state of Christian maturity, that attitude is proof that we haven’t!

But notice that Paul does acknowledge in v. 16 that as we grow in the Christian life, we really do make progress. He says, [READ v. 16]. Even though we still need to grow, its not as though we’re on some kind of spiritual treadmill, where we strive and strive for spiritual growth but end up stuck in the same place. We really do grow and mature; we really will find ourselves getting the upper hand on temptations that plague us right now. We really will find our knowledge increasing and our love for God growing, and what Paul is telling us is to make sure that that progress doesn’t slip away once we’ve attained it.

If I can use a military metaphor here, what Paul is saying is that once we have gained ground spiritually, we must never give up that ground. We must hold that position and then press forward to new territory. We must always be on the advance, never on the retreat, never yielding the spiritual growth that we have already obtained.

And so, what remains for us today is to take to heart Paul’s command in v. 15 to adopt this attitude as our own. And notice that he offers something a promise with that as well when he says “and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you.” It is not an easy thing to tell if our attitude is off-base. As the Lord said through Jeremiah, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart, I test the mind (Jer. 17:9–10).”

So let’s ask the Lord to do exactly what Paul said here, to show us if our attitude is not what it should be, to show us if we’ve let up in our pursuit of knowing Him. Let’s ask God to show us if we are keeping ourselves shackled by the past—if we’re allowing ourselves to be held back by unnecessary guilt or an unhealthy sense of satisfaction over what we’ve already done. May we keep our eyes on the reward that God offers us for faithfulness to Christ, and press forward to win the prize.