Transcript

Well, turn with me over to Philippians chapter 1. I want to complete this morning’s message. Now we are usually going through I John, but I didn’t want to leave a week in between since Dr. Bailey Smith, of course, will be preaching next Sunday morning, as we begin revival. So we are going to continue with normal Christian living. And some things that I believe will probably catch many of us by surprise, as Paul continues to tell us some things about just normal Christian living.

Now this morning, first of all, we talked about conduct. Paul says to conduct yourselves in a manner worthy to the gospel of Christ. Philippians 1, verse 27. And uh, under conduct, we talked about the motivation for our conduct. Our motivation is the reputation of Jesus Christ and the glorious treasure he has given us to carry to the ends of the earth. Folks, that is worth living right for. Young people, mom and dad is not worth it, your spouse really isn’t going to be worth, the preacher is certainly not worth it, but Christ is worth it. He’s worth living right. He is the motivation for our conduct. Then the manner of our conduct. And Paul says, if you are going to go forth with power as a group of believers, you need to be united in principle. It ought to be a uniting principle that you hold to, and as Christians that is cut and dry. We unite around the person of Christ.

And that is when we shared our purpose statement, and how we as a church unite around that purpose statement, and that gives us a unity. In other words, it is not one group over here and they think the church ought to be doing this, another group over here and they think well, the church ought to be going in that direction. Then the group over here thinks the church ought to just sit and do nothing. You know, everybody has got different ideas. No, we know from the word of God, that our purpose is to glorify God, by obediently going into all the world, making and equipping disciples of Christ in the power of the spirit. We are all latched onto that and that unifies us. But then we, we can’t just latch onto a purpose statement, we’ve got to get down to brass tacks. You’ve got to get down to where the rubber meets the road. Well, what do we do. Well, he said, you ought to have unity and practice.

And here God has given us a three fold strategy to practice our purpose, to fulfill our purpose. One of the prongs in the three fold strategy, Sunday school, a place where small groups meet to win the lost, disciple the saved and meet one another’s needs. Secondly, exciting celebration services. And thirdly a personalized world missions ministry. Now, those first two are real exciting, because you could say, well brother Jeff, what do those two have with evangelizing the world. Well, we are seeing God take those first two, that we are living out and using them as a model in different places around the world. So every week when you as a group leader do your job, you are helping perhaps Romanians, and later on Austrians, and later on South Africans do Sunday school, because I am fixing to go to all those places and teach what you are doing. And I’d hate to call your name out in South Africa and say, boy, everybody does good but old Joe. You know, he is not doing a good job.

But literally by the grace of God, until God shows us something different, and folks, if he stopped all of it, amen, I didn’t try to do this anyway, he did it. He can start it, he can stop it, alright. And I am not going to be disappointed, are you? He can do what he wants to do. But literally, as you are living Sunday school, you are also living world missions. Because God has opened up incredible vehicles for us to teach these principles, around the world. Now not teach an American model, but teach biblical principles and how you can work them out through small groups. Now, in Romania, they don’t call it Sunday school. What do they call it Fred? Is it sail, is that the term Onimas used? He picked that up while he was here too. Well, I don’t know what they will call it. They might call it Mickey Mouse or something. I have no idea. But God takes those first two and even used those in world missions and that is absolutely exciting.

And Paul says, you’ve got to be united in those things. He says, striving together. Remember the picture there is two gladiators, or two or more united in their practice, charging forward, blazing a trail, against the foe for the glory of God. And that’s what you’ve got to do. I want to tell you something folks, if you do the New Testament work of the ministry, it is work. You can’t mamby, pamby, puss foot around, just want to sit on your blessed assurance, and get biblical great commission work done, it is hard work. It is about 85-90% perspiration. About ten percent inspiration. That is true. I mean, that is just true. I hate to break it to you, I hate to say that, because some of you won’t join our church now, but that is just the truth. It is just the truth. If we are going to have any model in Sunday school worth taking to Romania, Austria, and South Africa, it is going to mean a whole lot of regular old church folks are working the ministry. You are making the phone calls when you don’t feel like making them. You come to visitation when you don’t feel like coming. You go ahead and share the gospel when you don’t want to share the gospel.

Can I let you in on something. I didn’t want to share the gospel with that fellow on the airplane. You know why I did it? God told me to. You know what else, I’ve missed times when I should have. But see, that is just the bottom line thought. God just said, I didn’t set this fellow down, this guy is not going on this trip to fix a machine, he is going on this trip so you can tell him about Christ. And I got to tell him about Christ that time. Boy, don’t you, aren’t you glad by the grace of God you don’t blow it. Isn’t that good? Isn’t that good? Boy, that is good for me. I tell you what, I am glad when I don’t blow it. I blow it too much. But anyway, it is just going to be some work. It just is. I can’t, but listen folks, I’d rather exhaust you on things that count for eternity than for you to come dragging in here every week, having worn yourself off, goofing off on temporal things, and when you stand at the judgement seat of Christ you say, why didn’t I have a preacher to get my attention, I wasted my whole life. I don’t think you can say that coming to church here. If you wasted it, it is because you didn’t want to get involved. We have a place for you to plug into something that is biblical and will count for eternity. Folks, it may be tiring, it may take some work, but it is worth it for Christ’s sake. Its worth it. Its worth it.

Well, let’s go on, I’ve already preached that sermon once. Let’s go to the second part. Conduct, now we are talking about conflict. A normal part of the Christian life. A regular part of the Christian life is conflict or suffering. Now three words that comes out of the text about conflict. Number one, first word, expectation. Conflict is to be expected. Look at verse 29, Philippians chapter 1. “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” Paul says, it is God’s gracious gift to you to be saved. Isn’t that true? Folks, it is the gift of God that you’ve been saved. It is granted to you, there is no work that you did, there is no way you could merit it, there is no way you could achieve some level where by God says, hey man, you’ve gotten up here, I think I’ll save you now. No, you are in the muck and mire of sin, and God in infinite grace and mercy reached down and gave you a gift and saved you. That is what the word granted here means. It means a gift.

And then he adds something else on. He says, not only is it a granted, precious, grace gift, salvation is a granted, precious grace gift, but equally and inclusive suffering is a granted, gracious, grace gift to you. Now tie that one on. In the same way that salvation is a grace gift, suffering is granted to you by God as a gracious gift. Well, see these are things that you don’t find if you don’t preach expositions, I’d skip this one for sure. Amen. well, you would too. See if I skipped it you would say, aha, he didn’t deal with verse 28. Verse 29 rather. I hadn’t dealt with verse 28 yet. But also to suffer for his sake. Now folks, suffering is not a privilege in itself. But literally it means suffering in behalf of Christ. It is God’s grace grace that we suffer in his behalf. For his name sake, for his reputation. We should not court suffering, but suffering in behalf of Christ in the interest of Christ and in the interest of his gospel is something very different.

Take the apostle for example. The apostle Paul was allowed to go up into heaven and he said, I saw things men shouldn’t be permitted to see. He says, basically man, I saw things so glorious but God knew I am prone to have an ego problem. Now none of us are prone to have that. But Paul said, I know that I am prone to have an ego problem, and, and God sent a messenger of satan to buffet me or humble me so that I would be effective with the gospel. So I wouldn’t think that I was something special because I had that great experience. And I don’t know what all it was, I don’t know what the messenger of satan was exactly, I believe it was, it was physical persecution from at least an individual. I don’t believe it is a sickness. I believe it was someone, not something. But none the less, it was suffering. And it was God’s gracious gift that allowed Paul the glorious privilege of being effective for the King of eternity. My friend, you realize it is no gracious thing, it is not wonderful thing, to be effective for the temporal world that is going to burn. But it is a wonderful thing if God loves us so much to cause or allow certain event in our lives that make us the most effective we can be for a kingdom that will not pass away and we’ll enjoy those treasures forever.

Job had the same basic type experience. Job, he, he suffered but it was in the purpose, in the behalf of God’s reputation. And God’s work. And to this day we have the story of Job and how it has been a blessing and used to bring honor and glory to the sufficiency of God in every situation we face. Suffering is a grace gift, it ought to be expected. Now it is one thing to resign ourselves to suffering. You know, well, I guess so, I, I’m a Christian and the Bible says that I guess I’ll have to take my suffering. That is not the spirit he is talking about. It is one thing to resign yourself to suffering. It is another thing to realize the privileges in suffering. It draws you closer to the Lord. Some of you have journeyed through dark, dark valleys and the closeness of God was absolutely of God was absolutely overwhelming. You know what I am talking about, you know what the writer of scripture talks about. When he talks about God afflicted him in faithfulness. He said, I saw God’s faithfulness in this affliction. It brought me closer to the Lord. Secondly, it confirms our faith, and I’ll talk more about that in a moment. I mean, it confirms we are the people of God, we’ll talk more about that. Because the people of God are going to suffer. Thirdly, it makes our commitment real and tangible. Folks do not know we are committed to God at all until, until a fire breaks out because of our convictions and when you face the fiery trial, you keep a sweet spirit and a confident faith, my friend, then it is real, it is tangible. People can look at your life and see it. Man, anybody can love Jesus when it is going along good though. It is expected.

My friend, anyone in this day and age who attacks evil will have opposition. Anyone who attacks evil will have opposition. I remember our first mission trip, our first direct project, we went to Brazil. And I don’t know this story exactly, and some of the folks remember hearing it. In one of those Brazilian Baptist churches, you’ve got to understand Brazil like much of the third world today has been dominated by Roman pagan Catholicism. I mean, they’ve got so many twisted perverse ideas, but Roman Catholicism rules. And there were two little Brazilian girls that got saved in the Baptist church. They were little girls. And they would get up at night and read their Bibles, because they knew their mother would not allow them to read their Bibles. Only the priests had the Bible. That was evil. And their mom got up one night and saw those two little girls reading their Bibles and she torn them to shreds and threw them away and threatened them, never, never do that again. And the Baptist pastor of that church told us those little girls wait until their mom goes to bed, and there is enough light in the hallway that they can crack their door, and they get up in the middle of the night and crack their door and open their Bible and read it while mom is asleep. I don’t know all that God is going to accomplish through those girls, but the Bible says, not only is it granted to believe in the salvation, it is granted to suffer for his name sake.

See friend, this world is going in the wrong direction. And Jesus headed in the right direction against this world. And what did this world do to him. They crucified him. But the Bible says, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. You see, this is temporal down here. You get to focusing and thinking this is it down here. No this is just a mud puddle in the road. We are going to get through this one. And I’d rather head on toward heaven, even if I go against the flow of the grain of the world, and to go with Christ as to go against the flow and the grain which means I will face suffering because I am following Christ. Now I am not talking about the suffering you bring on yourself because you get in sin. I am not talking about the suffering you bring on yourself because you are immature in your faith, I am talking about the suffering that comes on you when you are honestly only trying to please Christ. And folks, it really hurts deep and cuts hard when you’re lied about and deceived about and the people won’t believe the truth about you and all you are trying to do is honor Christ. The Bible says, it is to be expected. I remember what old Billy Sunday said, boy, Billy Sunday was a fiery hell fire and brimstone preacher. And he, a fellow said, said, said, Billy Sunday you stroke the fur on the cat the wrong way. He said, the old cat is going to hell, if he will turn around, I will stroking him the right way. Well, that’s about the way it is. My friend, we are going against something.

Well, look here at the second word I see about the conflict. First, not only the expectation, notice secondly exposure. The conflict exposes the reality, the root, thing involved in our situations and in our lives. Look at verse 28 here. “In no way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you and that too from God.” First of all, in no way alarmed. That is a word that you would use about a horse. Some of you have ridden horses, I rode horses a little bit when I was young, and I remember riding a horse down the road one day, me and my buddy would always ride his horses down to the store and get candy. And we would ride, and those horses were absolutely crazy. Occasionally those horses would just see a mailbox and spook. Now I am not talking about run away, they would just kind of shy back. And we’d look, maybe there was a monster there are something. You know, the old horse is acting like, oh I don’t want to go, rrrrr, you know I don’t want to go forward. And uh, and it was just a mailbox. It just was a mailbox. You know how horses do. Now that is the picture he has given us here. He says, as child of God, you go forward for God, if somebody gives you a little persecution, you rrh who, whoa, next thing I know, “brother Jeff, I’ve got to talk to you”. And I feel like saying, “what do you expect, you are living for God”. You are going to get persecution. You don’t have to rare back like the horse and get skittish and timid, that’s what it means alarm here. You just, you just realize this is a part of the process of following the one who was crucified by this world. That’s a part of the process. Jesus even said, “I didn’t come to bring peace, I came to bring the sword. Man’s son will be against father, and father against son and mother against daughters, the a man’s enemies will be members of his own household” and some of you have that. we have precious church members who’ve had things like being ruled out of the family will when they were baptized in this Baptist church. Suffering and persecution. It is part of the process. He said, don’t be alarmed now when that happened. He said, don’t be alarmed.

But he says, by your opponents, the word opponents here is an interesting word. It means lined up against or leaning against. What a picture. It means as we go out in the world, we are going this way and you expect all the world to be leaning back the other way. Did you ever feel like that sometimes. It is almost like the moment you wake up in the morning, you open your door, there is people leaning in on you. I mean, and that is the picture there. He said, don’t be alarmed as you go out in your daily life and the way you view things and the approach you make to things because you follow God’s word and you are committed to Christ, you find everything leaning against you. And you feel like you are going against the current. That is not to be alarmed, that is to be expected. So tonight I want you to come to Christ, be saved because we want you to go out there and suffer with the rest of us. That’s right. That’s exactly right. But you hang onto the last verse I give you tonight. Alright, you hang on to the very end.

Now he says something else here in verse 28. “In no way be alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign,” the word sign there is a law term, it means evidence, it means proof. He said, this shows you something emphatically clear. In other words, this exposes something. When you have opponents and you are living for God, it exposes, it makes clear, it is proof that they are children of destruction. He says “of destruction for them, but of salvation for you and that too from God.” So the fact that they oppose you proves that they are not of God, they are children of destruction. You know often the early Christians faced all sorts of difficult things. They were tormented, they were thrown to the lions, they were locked up in prison, can you imagine them coming down here, putting the chains on you, putting you in a prison and the next weekend Saturday night, people filled the stadium over here, they had a big, big wire fence around there, they put wild lions in that pen and they threw you in simply for being a Christian and cheered as the lions ripped you to shreds. And Paul writes, don’t think that as an unusual thing, that is part of being a Christian. Quite a bit different in suffering form what we face today. Suffering today is I can’t go and go to the ballgame, I’ve got to go to revival. We don’t know anything about suffering. And the point would be that this pagan world would say to these Christians. You don’t have a God, you’re God has forsaken you. Why would your God allow this to happen to you? And Paul said, no, right the opposite. This confirms that you are of the kingdom of heaven, you are on the right track and all the world is going to destruction the other way. It exposes, it bears proof, you are on the right track.

Listen to a verse of scripture here. I Corinthians 11:19 says, “for there must also be factions among you.” Now this is talking to the church. “There must also be factions among you in order that those who are approved may have become evident among you.” It says, in the conflict, it becomes evident who is walking with God and who isn’t. Led a division, led a thing of strife arise, and you just be patient and watch and those who are following God become apparent. You see, conflict in the church is like churning milk. The cream rises to the top. Every time. Just give it some time. Give it some time.

So, so, God says, first of all, expect it. Secondly he says, exposure. Conflict reveals you are the child of God going in the right direction. And they are the child of the enemy. Two men came to me today in our church, one is a teacher. And their suffering, the wonderful ACLU of our area is threatening a lawsuit if this teacher doesn’t quit sharing his Christian values in the classroom. I knew it was coming. I didn’t know when. But now it has come. I suppose we are backed into a corner, to where about all we can do is just start us a school, and have one that is Bible centered and Christ centered. And, and it is just absolutely absurd. But folks, that is to be expected. And I am going to tell you, I know about 30 teachers that are members of this church and it could have happened to any of the 30. It just took one child complaining. It is incredible. I read the complaint, and I hope that I am not saying something that this person wouldn’t want me to say, because I respect him and praise God for him. But the complaint was, the child was offended. And now since when did you have a constitutional right not to be offended. Have you thought about that. I am offended every time they teach creation in school, I am offended. Every time they pass out contraceptives in the school, I am offended. My values are offended, my morals… when they took the Ten Commandments off the wall, I am offended. When they can’t mention the name of Christ in school, when I taught my child is the King of glory, and he is the head and the assumption of all knowledge and all truth is in him. Every time they don’t mention that, I am offended. You think they are going to let me go to court on that. Since when is being offended a violation of your constitutional rights. Another person came to me who could out of the AEA because of their Christian convictions. Because of the AEA wedding with the humanistic pagan, NEA. This person got of it, he said, man, they have been jumping me and persecuting me about that. Folks, that is just part of the process. And I am not trying to make light of these people and their suffering, I know it hurts and I stand with them, and I love them and I am for them. This is what happens, when you try to live for God. Some of us are in arenas where we will face more than others. But we will all face suffering if we live for the Lord.

Well, he says, expectation, exposure, and lastly, a word of encouragement. Encouragement about the conflict. Look at verse 30. “Experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me.” The word conflict there is the word they would use for the gladiators in the arena. Those men that would go in there with those mighty weapon and literally beat one another to a pulp until one of them died. Paul said, that kind of conflict, it is a vicious conflict, it is a hard conflict I face. But Paul said, I want you to be encouraged, because I’ve got joy, I have peace, I am writing from the Roman prison and it is recorded in scripture, rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. And I can say all of that and I want all of that to be an encouragement to the rest of you. And as you have seen me face suffering, you will be able to face the same, with joy and peace in your heart.

And Paul suffered. In Philippi, remember the demon possessed girl that went along behind him and harassed him? And later he was slandered and then mobbed and then stripped, flogged with a cat of nine tails, ripping the flesh off of his back, thrown into the prison, feet locked in stocks. Now they saw that in Philippi, that is what happened to him there. Not to mention what happened to him everywhere else. He said, you’ve seen me suffer. And God sustained me and I want that to be an encouragement to you. And he says, what does he say. “Experiencing the same conflict.” He said, you Philippians are facing the same thing. As they live for God, they were in a society built on idol and emperor worship. I mean, about the worse thing you could do in this Roman colony of Philippi was to say you served a God other than Caesar. I mean that would get you persecution real fast. Then they had the legalistic judiasers. Those who would go around and tell them they are not of God if they don’t follow the laws of Jew, Judaism. They had paganistic sensualists. Sensuality was rampant and they would be criticized and persecuted for not participating in these wicked things. Paul said, you are going to have the same kind of conflicts that I had. And why is that? Because we all have the same enemy.

I tell you, it is encouraging though to know that somebody has gone on ahead of you. And faced these things and survived. Not only survived, but thrived. I remember the few days of conflict, and I haven’t had any suffering like the men of scripture had. And so many of our forefathers in the faith, like Adoniram Judson and great men and women of God. But the little conflict and persecution that i’ve experienced, man, I want to tell you, I reached out to some men of God that I knew had faced the same kind of persecution and I hung onto their testimony. I mean, it was an encouragement to me. Encouragement to me. And I am so blessed today as these preachers call me and say, brother Jeff, can you talk to me. I am able to say fellows I have been there, hang on, it is encouragement to them. That is what Paul is doing. I’ve been there, I’ve walked in those shoes, we are all going to face it following Christ, we are going against the grain of this world, but we can learn and lean on one another.

Now finally, I want to read to you 1 Peter 5:10. I Peter chapter 5, verse 10. What an encouraging verse this is. Let’s just go all the way back up to verse 6. I hadn’t even read the context here well, but I want to read it now. I Peter 5, verse 6. “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God.” Isn’t that a good word. “That he may exalt you at the proper time.” In other words, get your flesh out of the way. Get your human ingenuity out of the way. Get your striving and manipulating out of the way. Just obey God. And when it is your time to be exalted, God will take care of that. He will do that. Seven, “Casting all of your anxiety or your cares upon Him, because he cares for you.” Folks, go to God. If you are facing persecution, here is your medicine. Go to the book of Psalms and pray Psalms to God, just pray one after the other to God, pray them to God. Because David was viciously persecuted, for his godliness, and he would go to the book of Psalms and just pray them to God. Wow, he wrote the book of Psalms but he prayed them to God. And that is great therapy. You don’t have to get bitter, you don’t have to get resentful, just go there and pour out your heart with the psalmist.

Verse 8, “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.” In other words, we are not alone. Other people are walking with God are suffering. And here is the verse. What a precious promise. “And after you have suffered for a little while,” what a statement. Add up all the suffering you might face down here, after you’ve suffered for a little while. He said, it is just a little while. You take all you might suffer in walking with God and for God down here and add it all up and compared to eternity, it is just a little while. Have you ever had your mom or dad say, we’ll do it in a little while. That is what he is saying. “After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. To him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

That’s just the normal Christian Life. Let’s pray together.