Holding the Word of Life
Philippians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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text: Philippians 2:14-16
14 Do everything without complaining or arguing,
15 so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine as lights in the world
16 as you hold forth the word of life, in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.
PRAY
Introduction:
We’re going to do a quick survey of the history of the people of Israel this morning. If you know your Bible, it’s hard to read this passage without thinking of the stories of all of the complaining, grumbling, arguing, and rebellion of the people of Israel during their time in the wilderness in Exodus and Numbers. Thank goodness we don’t still have the same problem today!
Paul’s phrase “crooked and perverse generation” is a phrase taken from Deuteronomy 32:5, specifically referring to the people of Israel as a twisted and perverted generation. Paul is warning us with the example of Israel and telling us not to be like them. So let’s take a look at what happened in the wilderness:
Exodus
This is happening right after God delivered the people of Israel from Egypt and miraculously parted the Red Sea, got them safely to the other side, and destroyed the Egyptians. They sang a song of praise, and then 3 days later, they started complaining.
22 Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the Desert of Shur. For three days they walked in the desert without finding water.
23 And when they came to Marah, they could not drink the water there because it was bitter. (That is why it was named Marah.)
24 So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”
25 And Moses cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a log. And when he cast it into the waters, they were sweetened. There the LORD made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there He tested them,
They had forgotten God’s amazing power and goodness.
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Fast forward one month. Certainly they trust God’s power and goodness now, right?
1 On the fifteenth day of the second month after they had left the land of Egypt, the whole congregation of Israel set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai.
2 And there in the desert they all grumbled against Moses and Aaron.
3 “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt!” they said. “There we sat by pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, but you have brought us into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death!”
4 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test whether or not they will follow My instructions.
5 Then on the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”
6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “This evening you will know that it was the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
7 and in the morning you will see the LORD’s glory, because He has heard your grumbling against Him. For who are we that you should grumble against us?”
8 And Moses added, “The LORD will give you meat to eat this evening and bread to fill you in the morning, for He has heard your grumbling against Him. Who are we? Your grumblings are not against us but against the LORD.”
9 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Tell the whole congregation of Israel, ‘Come before the LORD, for He has heard your grumbling.’ ”
10 And as Aaron was speaking to the whole congregation of Israel, they looked toward the desert, and there in a cloud the glory of the LORD appeared.
11 Then the LORD said to Moses,
12 “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.’ ”
Notice that although their grumbling was directed against Aaron and Moses, what does Moses say about their grumbling? It was against the LORD (v. 8).
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Third time’s the charm, right? Surely they’ve learned to trust the LORD by now!
1 Then the whole congregation of Israel left the Desert of Sin, moving from place to place as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.
2 So the people contended with Moses, “Give us water to drink.” “Why do you contend with me?” Moses replied. “Why do you test the LORD?”
3 But the people thirsted for water there, and they grumbled against Moses: “Why have you brought us out of Egypt—to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”
4 Then Moses cried out to the LORD, “What should I do with these people? A little more and they will stone me!”
5 And the LORD said to Moses, “Walk on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you. Take along in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.
6 Behold, I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. And when you strike the rock, water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.
7 He named the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled, and because they tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”
Notice again that while their contention was with Moses, he tells them, it’s really against the LORD.
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Numbers
1 Soon the people began to complain about their hardship in the hearing of the LORD, and when He heard them, His anger was kindled, and fire from the LORD blazed among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp.
2 And the people cried out to Moses, and he prayed to the LORD, and the fire died down.
3 So that place was called Taberah, because the fire of the LORD had burned among them.
4 Meanwhile, the rabble among them had a strong craving for other food, and again the Israelites wept and said, “Who will feed us meat?
5 We remember the fish we ate freely in Egypt, along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.
6 But now our appetite is gone; there is nothing to see but this manna!”
Four times now. And notice that each time so far has been about food or water.
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The fifth time is different. It’s Moses’s siblings complaining about a decision he had made.
1 Then Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married, for he had taken a Cushite wife.
2 “Does the LORD speak only through Moses?” they said. “Does He not also speak through us?” And the LORD heard this.
3 Now Moses was a very humble man, more so than any man on the face of the earth.
4 And suddenly the LORD said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “You three, come out to the Tent of Meeting.” So the three went out,
It goes on to tell us how the LORD punished Miriam with leprosy for a time because of their rebellion.
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The sixth time is perhaps the most serious because of its consequences. Moses sent 12 spies to see the land of Canaan and bring back a report. Two of the men, Joshua and Caleb, trusted God’s promise and encouraged the people to trust and obey the LORD. The other spies brought a bad report…
32 So they gave the Israelites a bad report about the land that they had spied out: “The land we explored devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw there are great in stature.
33 We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak that come from the Nephilim! We seemed like grasshoppers in our own sight, and we must have seemed the same to them!”
1 Then the whole congregation lifted up their voices and cried out, and that night the people wept.
2 All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness!
3 Why is the LORD bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?”
4 So they said to one another, “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.”
5 Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown before the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel.
26 Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron,
27 “How long will this wicked congregation grumble against Me? I have heard the complaints that the Israelites are making against Me.
28 So tell them: As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you exactly as I heard you say.
29 Your bodies will fall in this wilderness—all who were numbered in the census, everyone twenty years of age or older—because you have grumbled against Me.
30 Surely none of you will enter the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
31 But I will bring your children, whom you said would become plunder, into the land you have rejected—and they will enjoy it.
32 As for you, however, your bodies will fall in this wilderness.
The whole older generation missed out on the promised land, and the young people suffered for 40 years wandering in the wilderness because of the unbelief of their parents. They grumbled against the LORD - they failed to trust His promise that He would help them conquer the land.
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If you’re getting tired of this, just think how God felt! We’ve got 4 more to go.
The seventh time
Numbers 16:1-11, 28-35.
1 Now Korah son of Izhar, the son of Kohath son of Levi, along with some Reubenites—Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth—conducted
2 a rebellion against Moses, along with 250 men of Israel renowned as leaders of the congregation and representatives in the assembly.
3 They came together against Moses and Aaron and told them, “You have taken too much upon yourselves! For everyone in the entire congregation is holy, and the LORD is in their midst. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?”
4 When Moses heard this, he fell facedown.
5 Then he said to Korah and all his followers, “Tomorrow morning the LORD will reveal who belongs to Him and who is holy, and He will bring that person near to Himself. The one He chooses, He will bring near to Himself.
There was a period of testing, and then God’s judgment came as He cause the earth to open up and swallow Korah and his family, and fire destroyed the other men who had rebelled, because, as Moses says in v. 30, these men have treated the LORD with contempt.
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Right after Korah’s rebellion, the rest of the people begin to grumble and complain.
41 The next day the whole congregation of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, saying, “You have killed the LORD’s people!”
As a result, the LORD sent a plague, and nearly 15,000 other people died.
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In chapter 17, the LORD gives a test to stop the people’s grumbling against their leaders. God signaled to the people that He had chosen Aaron as priest by causing his walking stick to sprout:
5 The staff belonging to the man I choose will sprout, and I will rid Myself of the constant grumbling of the Israelites against you.”
10 The LORD said to Moses, “Put Aaron’s staff back in front of the Testimony, to be kept as a sign for the rebellious, so that you may put an end to their grumbling against Me, lest they die.”
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The tenth and final case of grumbling became the reason Moses and Aaron were excluded from the Promised Land due to their response.
2 Now there was no water for the congregation, so they gathered against Moses and Aaron.
3 The people quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had perished with our brothers before the LORD!
4 Why have you brought the LORD’s assembly into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here?
5 Why have you led us up out of Egypt to bring us to this wretched place? It is not a place of grain, figs, vines, or pomegranates—and there is no water to drink!”
6 Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. They fell facedown, and the glory of the LORD appeared to them.
But instead of speaking to the rock as God ordered him, Moses struck it twice with his staff. As a result of his disobedience, neither he nor Aaron were allowed to enter the promised land.
13 These were the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites quarreled with the LORD, and He showed His holiness among them.
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That’s a lot of grumbling and complaining! And there may have been other times too that the Bible doesn’t record.
At least we don’t have that problem, do we?
Paul says that one reason these stories are recorded is to warn us against following their example:
11 Now these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.
12 So the one who thinks he is standing firm should be careful not to fall.
They grumbled about their circumstances - lack of food, bored with food, not enough water, bitter water
They grumbled about their leaders’ choices - Moses marrying the Cushite woman
They grumbled about their leaders’ authority - Moses’s leadership, Aaron’s position as priest
Ultimately, who was their grumbling against? God. All their grumbling, and all our grumbling is against God.
When we complain about our circumstances we’re complaining against God.
weather,
job,
economy,
relationships,
mold in your house (not that I would know anything about that)
When we complain about our government or other leaders we’re complaining against God.
Whoever or whatever our complaint is about, ultimately we are grumbling against God.
Grumbling, arguing, and complaining are ultimately an offense against God, because God is in control of all things and has wisely ordained the circumstances of our lives. When we complain, we are basically telling God, you’re not doing a very good job of being God. I’d be a better God.
This is pride.
Humility in Action
14 Do everything without complaining or arguing,
Paul says, none of that. Christian, these qualities do not belong in your life. They are the opposite of the humility you’ve been called to in the previous sections. We are called to consider others more important than ourselves, to look out for the interest of others, and to have the same humble attitude that Jesus had. Can you imagine Jesus complaining?
Everything - every single thing you do, whatever your circumstances, whatever is going on, do everything without complaining and arguing. Don’t complain about the weather, or about your government, or about other people, about the slow driver that pulls in front of you, etc. In all things, especially as it relates to our relationships with other believers in the church, live lives free of complaining and arguing.
When we live this way, it is a beautiful testimony to the world around us:
15 so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine as lights in the world
The three Greek words translated blamless, pure, and without fault are the words that were used to describe the kind of sacrifices that the people of Israel were to offer in the OT. In Romans 12:1 Paul expresses the same idea by saying that we should present ourselves to God as living sacrifices.
We do not become God’s children by living lives free of complaining and arguing, but rather we demonstrate that we are His children when we live this way. Children implicitly trust their parents, and when we truly trust God, we will not grumble or complain against one another, because to do so would demonstrate a lack of trust in God.
Like the people of Israel that we read about in Exodus and Numbers, our own generation could also be described as crooked and perverse, couldn’t it? If you are aware of the events of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, you know that the corruption and perversion of Israel’s day is still around in our own, perhaps even more. Our culture twists and distorts the good things that God gives, and it’s sad.
But our job is not to simply sit and cry or be angry over the perversion and crookedness of our day, but rather to shine as lights (literally stars) in the world. Jesus said in Matthew 5:16 “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Our good deeds in this passage would be doing everything without complaining and arguing.
When we live in humility and love toward one another, it demonstrates our trust in the Lord, and so our light shines in the darkness of this world. But when we live in pride and selfishness toward one another, we demonstrate a lack of faith, and we are no different from the world around us.
The humble attitude that leads to actions of love is the key to having a glowing testimony for Christ in this world.
Holding the Word
16 as you hold forth the word of life, in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.
The word translated here hold forth seems to have a sort of double meaning which you can see if you compare translations - some say hold forth, others say hold fast to. I think Paul may want us to understand both of those things. That would be consistent with v. 27 of chapter 1.
Hold forth would seem to have to do with our public testimony for Christ, as we hold forth His word of life, the message of the Gospel that leads to eternal life with Him. A life of humility and love that is consistent with the Gospel is part of our testimony, and the Gospel message itself is also part of what we hold out to the world, and we say, come to the light. See the light of Christ shining through our lives, and hear His tender voice of mercy in the Gospel.
We must promote the Gospel both by the way we live and through our words as we hold forth the word of life.
Or with the translation Hold fast to the word of life, that would imply perseverance in the Gospel message that leads to life. Don’t let go of the Gospel. Don’t abandon the truth about Christ - who He is and what He has done. Keep trusting Him and be faithful to Him. This would seem to fit with the last part of v. 16 as well.
in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.
Paul knew that he would give an account of his life to the Lord someday, just as we all will. He doesn’t want his hard work in Philippi to have been in vain - for no reason. His work would be in vain if they failed to persevere and proved to not be genuine believers.
It’s interesting to me that Paul uses the word boast to describe how he wants to feel about the Philippians when he gives an account for them before the Lord. This word boast is almost always negative, because it usually means boasting in yourself and how great you are. But what does Paul want to boast in here?
In the Philippians! But not in such a way that the Philippians could say, oh look at us, Paul boast in us, we must be pretty awesome.
No. Paul’s boast is ultimately in the grace of God that led him to Philippi, the grace that brought Lydia and the jailer and others to faith, and the grace that sustained them in the midst of persecution until the end of their lives. As he just said back in v. 13, it is God who is at work. He did it, He gets the glory.
Questions to consider:
How are you doing in the complaint department?
Are you living in humility and love so that your life shines into the darkness around you?
Are you holding tightly to the message of the Gospel and sharing it with others?
PRAY
