Philippians 11: Commands for the Church
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Phil 1:9-11
N:
Welcome
Welcome
Bye, kids!
Good morning, and welcome to family worship with the church body of Eastern Hills. Whether you are here in the room, or online, thanks for being part of our celebration of Jesus today.
If you are visiting with us for the first time today, thanks for choosing to worship with Eastern Hills! We would like to be able to thank you for your visit and to pray for you, so if you wouldn’t mind, please take a moment during the sermon to fill out a visitor card, which you’ll find in the back of the pew in front of you. If you’re online, you can let us know about your visit by filling out the communication form at the bottom of our “I’m new“ page. If you’re here in the room today, you can get that card back to us in one of two ways: you can put it in the boxes by the doors at the close of service, or I would love the opportunity to meet you personally, so after service, you can bring that card to me directly, and I have a gift to give you to thank you for your visit today.
The wet cement feedback session on Wednesday night was great! I wrote a little note for the church to read about it, which you’ll find on the front of the EHBC Life, our weekly bulletin, this morning.
I’m guessing you’ve noticed, but in case you haven’t, every week I try to say thanks to a group of people who faithfully serve in ministry here at Eastern Hills. Multiple people have been given credit for the quote, “What gets celebrated gets repeated,” and that’s what I want to do every week: to showcase a ministry area where groups of folks are faithfully serving, thanking them and celebrating that faithfulness. I want to thank one group in particular this morning that I don’t know as I’ve ever thanked directly during this time.
Deanna Chadwick and her Family Services team are incredible. They do so much work planning for, providing for, and setting up for events that take place in this building. They truly minister to people going through loss through the receptions that we give for families holding memorials or funerals. They make things like the wet cement session that we had this week fun and attractive with decorations and such. They do SO MUCH work for church-wide things, like they will next week for our Thanksgiving meal (don’t forget to sign up to help!). Thank you Deanna, and thanks Family Services team for your ministry to this church family!
Announcements
Announcements
Week of Prayer information: half-sheets on the Get Connected table in the foyer
December 1-8
Monday night Dec 2 7pm to 830pm Dessert Prayer Fellowships (in host homes):
Chris & Jane Tegard
Chris & Jean Searcy
Harold & Cathy Smith
Ron & Arlene Flury
Tyler & Amanda Bowman
If you could RSVP to the location that you plan to visit on December 1, the hosts would appreciate that very much.
Wednesday Dec 4 6:30 am to 7:30 pm Day of Prayer in the Prayer Room: Sign up for a 30 minute time slot. I believe that there four left (and I think they’re all in the afternoon)
Friday Dec 6 11am to 1pm Potluck Prayer Lunch in Miller Hall (drinks provided)
Opening
Opening
This week in staff meeting, we were discussing last week’s sermon on giving, and as we did so, one of the staff (I think it was Rebecca), said, “That was the last sermon in Philippians? It didn’t really feel like a last sermon for the book.” Before we started Philippians, I had kind of a vague plan to preach a message on Thanksgiving today, but the writing of that message hadn’t really ever gotten any traction in my head and heart. When Rebecca made that comment, and as I reflected on my sermon last week, I was struck that she was right: we hadn’t really “wrapped up” the book of Philippians, even though we preached every verse in it. As I prayed about it further throughout the week and re-read the whole book a couple of times, I was convicted that there is a challenge this book issues to the church which we need to consider.
We’re going to begin with Paul’s prayer for the church that he gives in in Philippians 1:9-11. So please turn in your Bibles or your Bible apps to Philippians chapter 1, and stand as you are able in honor of the reading of God’s Word:
9 And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, 10 so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
PRAYER
Paul’s prayer here at the beginning of Philippians really says what he would like God to do in the life of the church going forward. As I said in my first message in this series, this is a prayer that I share with Paul as I pray for Eastern Hills. I will not work through that text again as I did at the beginning of this series, but in a way, Paul’s prayer in chapter 1 is echoed in Paul’s instructions throughout the rest of the letter.
But this opening prayer for the church in Philippi isn’t our focal passage today, because I guess you could say that the focal passage is the whole book of Philippians, or more accurately: the commands in the book of Philippians. Generally speaking, verbs given in the imperative mood are the direct commands of Scripture.
In the book of Philippians, there are only 22 imperatives in the Greek text, and not all of them are directly applicable to us today, such as the command to the “true partner” (or possibly a person named “Syzygus”) to help Euodia and Syntyche in their conflict in 4:3, and Paul’s command to the Philippians to “greet all the saints” in 4:21.
However, if we take the rest of them and kind of step back a bit and take them together, they all fall into three basic categories: commands regarding standing firm in the faith, commands regarding the unity of the church, and commands to rejoice in the Lord together. I believe that these three things form Paul’s overall challenge to the church at Philippi, and to Eastern Hills Baptist Church today. We of course considered each of these verses, and touched on each of these themes during the series, but to paraphrase what Paul said to the Philippians in the last part of chapter 3, verse 1: To preach again about this is no trouble for me and is a safeguard for all of us.
1: Stand firm in faith.
1: Stand firm in faith.
Eastern Hills church family, our foundation is only the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are made secure through faith in Him. In fact, we are commanded by the apostle Paul to stand firm in the Lord:
1 So then, my dearly loved and longed for brothers and sisters, my joy and crown, in this manner stand firm in the Lord, dear friends.
This verse really shows the love and affection that Paul had for the church at Philippi, as he appeals to them as his “dearly loved and longed for brothers and sisters,” his “joy and crown,” and “dear friends.” But the crux of the verse isn’t all of the affectionate titles that he gives them: it’s the command.
Paul was telling the Philippians and us that because our true citizenship is actually in heaven, and that we look forward to the return of Christ and the resurrection and glorification of our bodies through His awesome power (3:20-21), then we can stand firm in faith. As we walk in that trust in God and what He has promised, we have a steadfast hope to cling to. The psalmist wrote:
1 Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion. It cannot be shaken; it remains forever.
As firmly established as Mount Zion is (it’s a mountain… it’s still there), so is the one who trusts in the Lord. The command to stand firm in the Lord in Philippians is reflected in three “flavors,” if you will, throughout the letter: Walking in obedience, resisting legalism, and imitation of the faithful:
A: Walk in obedience.
A: Walk in obedience.
The first imperative statement in the letter to the church at Philippi is honestly one of the most convicting verses for me personally in all of Scripture, and I even titled the third message of this series, “Just One Thing:”
27 Just one thing: As citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or am absent, I will hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, in one accord, contending together for the faith of the gospel, 28 not being frightened in any way by your opponents. This is a sign of destruction for them, but of your salvation—and this is from God.
Notice how closely related the command of 4:1 and this command here in 1:27 are. Both reference our heavenly citizenship (if we include 3:20-21 in the scope of 4:1), and the same Greek word that is used in the imperative mood to “stand firm” in 4:1 is in 1:27, just in the indicative mood: “standing firm.” Paul here clearly connects our obedience (how we live) with our ability to stand firm on the foundation of the Gospel. It’s not that Jesus gets shaky when we walk in disobedience, or that our salvation itself is in jeopardy. It’s that we get shaky—our reliance, our focus, our trust in the Lord—because we return to acting in the rebellion that characterized our lives before we came to faith.
Do any of you lift weights? I do a little weight lifting now, but for a while, I was lifting pretty regularly back before I hurt my neck. But after that happened, I took several months off of lifting. And when I went back to it, I looked at what I was lifting before I was injured, and at first attempted to lift the same weight. How do you suppose that went? I couldn’t lift the same amount. My being away from it eroded my strength.
Similarly, when we don’t trust the Lord through walking in obedience, then our faith doesn’t get any stronger, because we don’t experience the faithfulness of God to the same degree. If we want our faith to get stronger, it has to be pushed. It’s like working out. And while our connotation of that phrase almost certainly isn’t exactly what Paul was thinking when he commanded it in 2:12, it’s a helpful picture for us to consider when we think about obedience:
12 Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13 For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose.
Paul equates obedience to “working out our own salvation.” The word for “work out” is literally to “spend energy doing.” So “working out” isn’t much of a stretch, is it? To be clear according to what Paul said here, only God at work in us through the abiding presence of His Spirit can empower us to live that kind of life, but the fact that we are commanded to “work out” our salvation through obedience reveals that our submission to His work is our part in the process. Paul had connected the command to stand firm to four other commands in 1 Corinthians 16:
13 Be alert, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong. 14 Do everything in love.
All of these are things that we’re commanded to do as a part of walking with Christ. God empowers us to do them through His Spirit’s work, but we’re still to submit to doing them in obedience to Him, or they wouldn’t be commands. We cannot escape the fact that standing firm in the Lord requires our obedience.
As Jesus said in the parable of the wise and foolish builders in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7), only building our lives on hearing and acting on the words of Christ is a firm foundation to stand upon.
However, our salvation isn’t faith in Jesus plus anything. Trying to add anything to salvation makes it less incredible, not more. That’s why our second flavor of standing firm in faith is to:
B: Resist legalism.
B: Resist legalism.
Remember from my message on chapter 3, verses 1-9, that the Judaizers had come in and tried to convince the Philippians (who were mostly Gentiles) that they needed to jump through the hoops of Jewish ceremonial law if they really wanted to be saved. Paul commanded the Philippians to “watch out” or “beware” of those liars:
2 Watch out for the dogs, watch out for the evil workers, watch out for those who mutilate the flesh.
This wasn’t the first time that Paul had written regarding legalism. Early in his ministry, after his first missionary journey to the churches of the province of Galatia, the same thing had happened. Legalistic Jews who claimed to be followers of Jesus came and tried to say that the Gospel was Jesus plus works. But Paul informed them that we have been set free by Christ, and that following legalism is just slavery to a cruel yoke. And he commanded the Galatians to stand firm against it as well:
1 For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.
You don’t make yourself “more saved” through your obedience. And adding rules on rules to your salvation doesn’t help your reliance on Jesus—it actually hinders it. Trust in Christ for your salvation and obey Him out of love. And one good way to do that is to look to others whose lives look like Jesus:
C: Imitate the faithful.
C: Imitate the faithful.
And has been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. However, Paul’s goal in instructing and even commanding other believers to imitate him had nothing to do with flattery. He walked with Christ, and if less mature believers imitated his life, then they would experience the peace and confidence that comes through consistent obedience. He essentially commanded imitation of him and others like him twice in Philippians:
17 Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us.
9 Do what you have learned and received and heard from me, and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
And the Philippians were not the only ones that Paul commanded to imitate him or his teachings. His command regarding imitation of him was even more blunt to the church at Corinth:
1 Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ.
And in fact, he connected the following of his teachings with standing firm in the faith when he wrote his second epistle to the church in Thessalonica.
15 So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold to the traditions you were taught, whether by what we said or what we wrote.
So we should find believers whose lives are worthy of being imitated. We can find some of those brothers or sisters right here in the church family. Ask questions and spend time with someone you look up to spiritually. We can learn church history and about the faithful who came before us, or read the biographies of paragons of Christian faith or Christian martyrs and missionaries.
But deeper than that, this command to imitate others who hold firmly to the hope of the Gospel should cause us to ask a vitally important question: “Is my life worthy of imitation?” Paul’s life was. Can we say the same thing about ours?
So we are commanded to stand firm in the faith through walking in obedience, resisting legalism, and imitating other faithful believers. And as we do that, we will find that we are bound to one another more and more closely, because we will look more and more like Christ. This is why Paul also commanded us to be united through humility.
2: Be united through humility.
2: Be united through humility.
When Trevor preached his message in the series, he preached the first 11 verses of chapter 2. The entire theme of his message was unity, and he paraphrased verse one by saying, “If there is anything to Christianity, be united.” The command, however, isn’t until verse 2:
1 If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.
Paul’s command was that the Philippians “make his joy complete.” Well, how were they supposed to do that? By being united. By thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on a single purpose. They were to make his joy in them complete by not acting in selfish ways or thinking they were better than each other, or more important. They were to look out for one another’s concerns, not just their own. All of this points back to Paul’s command to make his joy complete. We can follow the same instruction, even though we can’t directly make Paul’s joy more complete.
It is apparent from this letter that the church at Philippi had a little bit of division and rivalry going, and Paul instructed them to be united to one another through humility. What kind of attitude do you have? One that promotes unity through humility, or one that demands your way or causes dissension? Paul followed this call to make his joy complete with another command: adopting the same attitude as Christ:
5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. 7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.
Of human beings, only Jesus ever had the complete right to have things be exactly His way at all times, because, “...everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and by him all things hold together.” (Col 1:16-17) But He emptied Himself of His divine rights as God the Son, coming to earth as a human being, and then He demonstrated for us the heart posture that we should assume if we want to be like Him: humbling Himself by dying at the hands of the very creatures he came to rescue.
This is the hope of the Gospel—Jesus died in our place so we could be saved from the penalty that we owe because of our sin, our rebellion against God, which I mentioned earlier. The passage in Philippians 2 doesn’t end with the death of Jesus—it ends with His victory over the grave and His Lordship over all creation:
9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The Bible tells us that there is salvation in no one else other than Jesus. Will you surrender in belief to Him as Savior and as your Lord, humbling yourself before Him in faith?
When we are saved, when we’ve come to Jesus in faith, believing the message of the Gospel, then God begins a transforming work in our hearts and lives, which I mentioned earlier—something that can only occur through His power. So Paul tells us to put away our grumbling and our arguing by way of a command, because those things don’t promote unity in the church:
Philippians 2:14–16a (CSB)
14 Do everything without grumbling and arguing, 15 so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world, 16 by holding firm to the word of life.
Are you a grumbler? A grouch? Do you tend to find yourself in conflict with others in the body of the church? Then can I just say that the issue is probably not with everyone else? Who is the common denominator in your conflicts with others?
See, Paul commanded this so that we could promote unity in the church, because a unified, loving church is a testimony to the world that we belong to Jesus, according to John 13:35:
35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
In fact, Paul further commanded us that we are to:
5 Let your graciousness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.
Are you gracious with others, or are you easily upset or offended? I know that sometimes, I’m really stoic, and so I personally struggle with this one. But this is a command, folks. We are to display grace at all times, so that others will see it. This points people to the cross, and according to Peter, we need to always be ready to tell people about what Christ has done for us and the hope that we have in Him:
15 but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. 16 Yet do this with gentleness and reverence, keeping a clear conscience, so that when you are accused, those who disparage your good conduct in Christ will be put to shame.
A united, humble church, a church family where we “love one another deeply as brothers and sisters,” where we each “take the lead in honoring one another,” (Rom 12:10) is such a welcoming place. We don’t need to fight for our rights, our recognition, or our reward. Jesus has already taken care of that. So instead, we can be glad and rejoice together!
3: Be glad & rejoice together.
3: Be glad & rejoice together.
The last theme of the commands of the book of Philippians is for us to be glad and rejoice together. I hit this pretty hard throughout the series, but again, it’s what we are called to through what Paul wrote in this great letter.
17 But even if I am poured out as a drink offering on the sacrificial service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. 18 In the same way you should also be glad and rejoice with me.
Don’t forget that Paul was in prison, awaiting a trial before Caesar which could mean his death. The earlier command of just one thing from 1:27: to live your life worthy of the Gospel of Christ, was to a certain extent still in view here in verses 17 and 18 of chapter 2. And the culmination of that command was a command to joy. Paul wrote that even though he faced martyrdom for his faith, that he was glad and filled with joy because of the Philippians, and his command to them was to be glad and rejoice with him.
Two other times in Philippians, Paul commanded the church to rejoice in the Lord:
Philippians 3:1a (CSB)
1 In addition, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!
What I want us to see in this command is that there is no situation in which we might find ourselves where remembering and celebrating our renewed and restored relationship with God through faith in Christ is unwarranted. It is through the sacrifice of Christ and our faith in him that we have reason to rejoice, and every day is a day in which to delight and that fact. As the psalmist said:
24 This is the day the Lord has made; let’s rejoice and be glad in it.
Joe preached on the connection between rejoicing and peace when he preached on the first 9 verses of chapter 4. Just two verses after Paul’s admonition to rejoice in the Lord always, he wrote the last command that we will consider as we wrap up the book of Philippians:
6 Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Rejoicing drives out worry! Have you ever been driving in your car, contemplating the worries of your life, when one of your favorite steering-wheel-drumming, toe-tapping, singing-at-the-top-of-your-lungs songs comes on? Maybe it’s a worship tune. Maybe it’s a great jam from the 80’s. Doesn’t matter for my illustration. Think of that time. While you were rejoicing in the music, were you worrying? No!
Isaiah even said this was the case:
Isaiah 35:10b (CSB)
10b Joy and gladness will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee.
(speaking of the Israelites returning to Jerusalem after being in captivity).
To be fair, it can work the other way as well: focusing on our worries can squash our joy.
I wonder if this is why Paul wrote this command so soon after his call to rejoice—because he knew that worrying would make rejoicing difficult. But we are commanded to not worry. That seems almost impossible, doesn’t it? So we are to bring our worries to the foot of the cross through thankful prayer, trusting that God is in control, so that we might experience His peace, and be restored to the joy of our salvation.
What an incredible gift we have been given!
Closing
Closing
And so we truly come to the close of our series on the book of Philippians. This is such a great book to come back to over and over again. It’s a short read, and so many great “life verses” come out of it. And through Paul’s commands to the church at Philippi, we are challenged to live out our faith by standing firm, to strive for unity in the church through humility, and to be glad and rejoice together. This letter was for them, but it’s for us as well. Thanks for being here for this series. Next week, we will have our special missions speakers, Jason and Cheryl Dietz, and then the following week, we will begin our Christmas series, Among Us. Plan to be here to celebrate the advent of Jesus throughout the month of December.
If you’ve never trusted in Jesus as your Savior and Lord, I pray that this morning as you’ve heard about what the church is commanded to be and do from the Scriptures, you’ve listened to where our hope comes from: Jesus. He died to set us free from our sins and restore our relationship with God, and He defeated death so we can live forever with Him if we belong to Him through believing in what He’s done to save us.
Baptism
Church membership
Prayer
Giving
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Bible reading (Ecc 7, Ps 135)
No Pastor’s Study tonight for Business Meeting —we need a quorum of 50 members to conduct business, and we have a few important things happening tonight—voting on the budget for 2025, which we discussed at length a couple of weeks ago, voting in a new Financial Ministry Group Leader, and hearing about where things stand with the Endeavor campaign. And afterwards, we’ll head to Wendy’s on Montgomery for dinner and a frosty.
Prayer Meeting
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
Just as we saw in our last point this morning: can rejoice in this day, because it is the day the Lord has made. And we get to rejoice in it together! Let’s sing Hymn #571: This is the Day together as our benediction today.
Hymn #571: This Is The Day
This is the day, this is the day
That the Lord has made, that the Lord has made.
We will rejoice, we will rejoice
and be glad in it, and be glad in it.
This is the day that the Lord has made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
This is the day, this is the day
that the Lord has made.
