©1998 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
|
1/24/99
|
In This Way Stand Firm
|
Philippians 4:1
|
1/24/99 In This Way Stand Firm In The Lord
Phil. 4:1 Therefore, my beloved brethren
whom I long to see, my joy and crown, in
this way stand firm in the Lord, my
beloved.
This is the concluding statement
in a six verse section of the letter
Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians
from his prison cell in Rome.
The section begins in Phil. 3:17
and runs through this verse in 4:1.
We spent the past two weeks
studying the passage together
and we have almost
but not quite finished with it.
There are some things going on
in this last verse of the section
that are too important
for us to skip over.
And the first thing I want to point out to us
is that one phrase "... in this way stand firm
in the Lord..."
For us to appreciate
what Paul is saying in this section
and why he is saying it
we must hear that phrase.
"... in this way stand firm in the Lord..."
You see,
through that phrase
Paul is telling us he believes
that what he has just shared with us in
this section of his letter
will enable us to do just that - to stand firm in the
Lord.
In other words,
he believes he has provided his readers
with several tools
that have the ability
to bring significant stability
into the lives of these Christians.
Now I have to tell you that,
from a preacher's point of view,
finding a statement like this
is like digging a hole in your back yard
so that you can plant a tree
and suddenly finding a huge gold nugget
at the bottom of that hole.
This morning in thousands of local churches
throughout our country
thousands of frustrated preachers
looked out at their congregations
and wondered how in the world
they could go about
building some measure of stability
into the lives
of those God has entrusted into their care.
And then all of the sudden
you come across a statement that says,
"... in this way stand firm in the Lord...".
When I see a statement like that
it makes me desperate to understand
what Paul is saying in these verses.
You see,
left to ourselves,
without passages like this one,
our natural tendency is to gravitate
toward human flesh-based
techniques
in our attempts to build
stability and consistency into our Christian lives.
You know what they are.
We've talked about them before.
Maybe we'll try the pep-rally approach -
get everyone all pumped up
and emotionally excited
about being really good Christians,
and then yelling "Charge!!"
as everyone files out of the building.
Or maybe we'll try to use the negative emotions -
guilt
or fear
or shame.
"After all God has done for you,
shouldn't you do something for Him?
Look at your life!
Look at the mess you've made of it.
Don't you think you'd better make some
changes?
If you don't shape it up
you're going to experience
the wrath of God something terrible."
And we say those things
to ourselves
and to one another
often times from the most sincere
and genuine longings to bring
stability into our lives.
And they all last
just as long as the emotion lasts -
a few minutes,
or a few hours,
or at best a few days.
And then we find a statement like this:
...in this way stand firm in the Lord...
It doesn't just say, "Stand firm in the Lord!"
It isn't simply a call to faithfulness.
It says in this way stand firm in the Lord.
It's Paul saying,
"What I have just told you
will be of tremendous value
in equipping you to build
greater stability into your life."
And a statement like that
makes me want to go back
and make sure I heard what Paul was saying.
And let me give you four statements
that will help summarize
what Paul has said to us so far.
1. First, he encouraged us to draw strength from the
good examples
God has placed around us.
I'm not going to reteach this whole thing again,
but I will say this -
one of satan's great lies
in his attempts to defeat the Christian
is to try to convince us that
what God has called us to
is either unreasonable
or unattainable.
Most of you know that
I came to Christ during my sophomore year in
college.
For the next several years
all the other Christians I knew personally were
college students.
I can remember a point early in my Christian life
suddenly realizing that
I didn't know one Christian personally
who's life was actually working well.
I just assumed that defeat
and failure
and frustration
were the norm for the Christian.
I felt that way
because I was isolated in this little group of
baby Christians
and we had become our own standard of
measure.
And then God began to bring
some mature Christians into my life,
and in so doing
He broke the power of satan's lie.
Defeat was not the norm for the child of God.
And the first thing Paul tells us
when he provides us with the tools
to stand firm
is to open our eyes to those around us
who have been where we are
and who have found God faithful.
And through them
He gives us a vision of where God is taking us.
2. Second, Paul talks to us honestly
about the drop-outs,
the failures,
the loosers in the church world.
He doesn't want us naive.
He wants us to know
there will be those people around us.
But he also wants us to know
we need never be one of them.
3. Then Paul offers us
the two crucial truths
that have the ability to enable us
to truly stand firm.
The first: our citizenship is in heaven,
and second: our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
can and will transform our physical bodies,
both now,
and at His return.
In other words,
our ability to stand firm
requires our having a vision of where God is
taking us,
having an understanding of who we really are,
and then having a clear understanding
of why we still battle sin
and how God brings us victory in
that battle.
Now, he doesn't expand on those topics here,
but he does want us to know
that those are the points of focus
that will bring growing stability into our
lives.
I think maybe I'm getting a little too academic here.
Let me turn this passage into an imaginary
conversation
between us and our God.
We begin by saying,
"Look, Lord! That Christian over there
seems to have a stability in his walk with you
that I don't have.
Why is that?"
And God responds,
"My child, that is because
he has a much better understanding
of who he really is."
"Well then, who is he, Lord,
and who am I?"
"You are My Holy One,
recreated by Me at the deepest level of your
being.
I have placed a pure, perfect heart within
you,
and filled you with My Holy Spirit."
"But Lord, if that's true,
then why do I still battle sin?
Why do I still sometimes find myself
so powerfully drawn to evil?"
"It is because your body doesn't believe the truth
about who you are.
Before we met,
before you were my child,
when your heart was in rebellion against
Me,
hiding from Me,
running from Me,
you trained your mind
and your emotions to act as though I didn't
exist,
or as though I didn't matter.
Now all those memories,
and emotions,
and flawed reasoning processes
continue to exert tremendous force in
your life,
telling you lies about who you are,
lies about who I am,
lies about how your needs can be met."
"But Lord, then what can be done about it? What
hope is there for me?"
"My child - I am your hope. My Son will
transform the body of your humble state into
conformity with the body of His glory, by the
exertion of the power that He has even to subject all
things to Himself. He will work with you,
here and now,
to bring changes into your mental
and emotional processes.
And when you see Him face-to-face
He will complete the process
by giving your spirit a brand new body."
It is that learning, growing process
that Paul is reminding us of,
and it is through that process
that he calls us to in this way stand firm in the
Lord.
And before we move on
there is one more ingredient in this passage
that I want to point out
in order to complete the picture.
Did you notice the tone Paul brings
to this whole learning process?
Here he is,
talking with us about some of the hardest growth
issues in our lives,
teaching us how to stand firm.
And yet, he wraps this entire conversation
in a blanket of respect, and affection,
and love.
Look at the way in which
Paul addresses his readers
in that first verse of chapter 4.
He calls them "my beloved",
he calls them "my brethren",
he calls them "the ones I long to see",
he calls them "my joy",
he calls them "my crown",
and then a second time in that one verse
he calls them "my beloved."
And through those titles
I see Paul doing three things.
1st, of course, he is telling the Philippians
how he really feels about them.
He's opening up his heart
and allowing them to see
the place they hold in his life.
2nd, his love is giving them
both the freedom
and the motivation to grow.
Have you ever had a person in your life
who truly believes in you?
Someone who sees good
where no one else saw it before?
Someone who cares deeply about you
and sees strength in you
in places you can't even see it yourself.
If you were fortunate
your parents were that way.
Or maybe it was a teacher,
or a coach,
or an employer,
or a very unusual friend.
If you had such a person,
how did their confidence in you
make you feel?
Very likely it gave you hope,
and strength,
and encouragement,
and a hunger to grow.
Paul was doing that for his friends at Philippi.
3. But there is something else going on here as
well.
Paul was writing specifically to the Philippian
church.
But he was also being used by God
to write a letter
to every Christian who would ever live,
a letter written by Paul,
but a letter written FROM God Himself.
And in this first verse of chapter 4
Paul is also mirroring
God's attitude toward us.
Every one of these titles
that Paul uses for the Philippians
are also titles
that God uses for us.
1. My beloved...
The term "beloved" appears 59 times in the
New Testament.
9 of those times
it is used to describe God the Father's attitude
toward Jesus Christ -
"My beloved Son..."
Most of the other 50 uses
describe God's attitude toward us -
His people,
His children,
those who are "beloved of God".
And I hope you heard what I just said.
God the Father uses exactly the same word
to describe His love for Christ
and His love for us.
"My beloved."
2. Then He calls us "his brethren".
And the remarkable thing is
he's not ashamed to call us his brothers.
Heb. 2:11 For both He who sanctifies and
those who are sanctified are all from one
Father; for which reason He is not ashamed
to call them brethren,
3. And then Paul tells the Philippians
that he longs for them.
The New American Standard translation
uses the phrase "I long to see you",
but the literal translation
says simply "I long for you".
And remarkably,
in James 4:5 James quotes God Himself
as saying that the Holy Spirit
whom God has made to dwell in us
LONGS TO dwell in us...
And it's the same word.
God's Spirit longs to be with us
just as Paul longed to be with his friends in
Philippi.
Do you remember a few weeks ago
when we were studying Psalm 139 together?
Ps. 139:17 ¶ How precious also are Your
thoughts toward me, O God! How vast is
the sum of them!
Ps. 139:18 If I should count them, they
would outnumber the sand. When I awake,
I am still with You.
Do you know why He is still with us
when we awake?
Do you know why
when we leave Him in sleep
he doesn't leave us?
Because He doesn't want to.
Because He longs for us,
He wants to be with us.
4. And then Paul talks about
the Philippians being his joy,
just as Christ
talked about US being HIS joy.
Heb. 12:2 ... who for the joy set before
Him endured the cross, despising the
shame, ...
That joy, His joy was us -
the relationship with us
that He would know
as a result of His work on the cross.
5. And then Paul talks about
the Philippians being his crown -
his reward.
And in the same way
Christ talks about us being His reward.
In fact, Paul wrote the book of Ephesians
to reveal to us
the position we hold
in God's overall plan
and the riches He receives through us.
He begins that letter by saying,
Eph. 1:18 I pray that the eyes of your
heart may be enlightened, so that you will
know ... what are the riches of the glory
of His inheritance in the saints,
Did you hear that?
He is praying
not that we will know what OUR inheritance is
in God,
but rather what GOD'S inheritance is in us.
In other words,
he wants us to understand
why God was well pleased
with what He received as His
inheritance
as a result of the death of Christ.
When the Last Will and Testament of Jesus Christ
was read in heaven
following the death of Christ
God inherited US
and He was well pleased!!
Paul goes on in that same book of Ephesians to
explain why.
He says,
Eph. 3:10 ... the manifold wisdom of God
might now be made known through the
church to the rulers and the authorities in
the heavenly places.
In other words,
our very existence as the people of God
proves to all of creation
the manifold wisdom of God.
He began with a creation
in total rebellion against him,
dead in our trespasses and sins,
by our very nature children of wrath,
having no hope
and totally without God in this world.
And from that
He designed a way in which
we could be reunited in an eternal love union
with Him.
And our existence as the children of God
crowns Him with honor and glory.
Paul says to the Philippians,
... my beloved brethren whom I long to
see, my joy and crown...
And our God says to each of us,
...my beloved brethren whom I long to see,
my joy and My great and crowning
achievement...
Now tell me,
is that what you expected
when you first turned to Him?
Or did you perhaps expect
the scowl of disapproval,
the thinly veiled wrath,
the hesitant and conditional acceptance.
There is only one battle we ever fight.
It is the battle to once again
discover and reaffirm
the ultimate truth of all existence -
that our God is GOOD,
and that He is eternally GOOD
to all those who come to Him.
Heb. 11:6 And without faith it is
impossible to please Him, for he who
comes to God must believe that He is and
that He is a rewarder of those who seek
Him.