Sermon Cloud

February 8, 2009

Philippians 1 27-30 “Worthy of the Gospel”

            Welcome to our second week here at our new facility. We are looking at one some call the central idea in the whole letter to the Philippians:  More than just about anything else we want to be worthy of the gospel. 

What it does and doesn’t mean to be worthy of the gospel

1a. It does mean that it’s a manner of life (27).  This is a “wisdom-y” term that pretty much means everything.  Let me explain why it brings such glory to God when obedience is formed in us.  When God’s grace is embedded in us so deeply that it begins to seep into all of the areas of our lives, it demonstrates His worth.  He has saved and he has healed and he has transformed! 

            It should be our desire to see every single area of our life to be lived in a way that reflects the grace of the gospel.  Our career dreams, our hopes for future spouses, our hopes for our marriages, our hopes for our children and grandchildren, how we respond when people interrupt us, our perspective on possessions, everything. 

1b.  It doesn’t mean that you just need to clean your life up.  Going back to the manner of life thing, I often find that initial “conversions” that people make are really a desire to do that even before they really know much about the gospel.  This doesn’t mean that God isn’t involved and that He isn’t beginning a work of grace in them.  No, in fact, being dissatisfied with how we’ve lived and what we’ve valued is the first step in looking to Jesus for real life and real satisfaction and reconciliation with God.  But a desire to turn over a new leaf and wanting to live better is not identical to conversion. 

            Instead, I would advocate looking simultaneously at areas of your life that need to change and also at Jesus.  You need to fight like crazy against those things and put accountability in your life to help with the fight and also cultivate your love for Jesus.  When you taste God’s grace over and over and over, He’ll change your appetites.  I often find people only fight sin with inadequate means.  They’ll fight struggles with porn an internet filter only.  OK, I’ve got one.  That’s half of the fight.  But if you aren’t looking into your soul to figure out why it’s such an issue, you will miss this manner of life thing.  If you cultivate your soul by reading the Bible, regular attendance in corporate worship, and regular interaction in community, you’ll find help for porn and you’ll see growth in other areas that are completely unrelated.  It’s the difference between putting some antibiotic ointment on a scratch on your hand and taking an antibiotic shot that helps that scratch on your hand and the bacterial infection that you didn’t know you had.  Cultivating your soul is systemic, not localized.

One last thing: Being worthy of the gospel doesn’t mean you have to be good enough to receive it or that you are ever good enough (in yourself) to maintain it.  This is a real difference, in fact, between Christianity and every other world religion.  It’s just not “clean your life up.”

2a.  It does mean that we are made to be a gospel-centered missional family (27).  The gospel forgives us and pronounces us righteous and loved because of Jesus.  It also levels the playing field and makes us equal before God and allows us to see our differences as God given means of grace to make Jesus known to people.  One Spirit.  One mind.  Striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.  I love it!  The gospel brings us together and causes us to be unified with a single purpose-the gospel and its progress!  It causes us to love well.  It causes us to work for each other’s growth.  It causes us to work together to bring the gospel’s restoration to the world around us.  Let me keep going.  This word striving should make us more like Russell Crow than Martha Stewart!  It’s a word that is not only loaded with athletic, competitive connotation, but is used in conjunction with gladiators!  Think of that scene in Gladiator where they are fighting for their lives and to survive they had to band together and fight as a unit.  That’s the picture here.  It’s fierce.  It’s life and death.  It’s not an individual effort.  It’s a team.  And instead of death, we bring life, but we advance with that same sort of courage! 

            It seems like these are 3 separate areas (gospel-centered, missional, family) where we might be strong in one and weak in another, but it doesn’t work that way.  You can’t say you are strong on the gospel if you are weak in unified love or missional reach.  You can’t say you are strong at unity if you are weak on mission or on deep consideration and application of the gospel. All 3 work together.  If the gospel grabs us, we’ll be of one mind and spirit and we’ll strive side by side for the faith of the gospel.

2a. It doesn’t mean a false unity that assumes we will share all of the same opinions or that any disagreement is bad.  We are not dishonoring God or His gospel when we disagree. In fact, some of the worst church and family decisions ever are made because it isn’t thought out well and one individual with a lot of power makes a decision that seemed like it made sense from their perspective, but they hadn’t considered other sides.  No, disagreeing often produces much better decision making and causes the group to think more critically. 

            It also doesn’t mean that we give up discussing secondary issues.  It might be tempting to only talk about primary, gospel issues so that we can maintain unity.  But that’s not how the Bible is written.  We are given the Bible and it hits on primary and secondary matters and it prioritizes them accordingly.  But it does hit on them and so should we.  This will make things tricky because we are sure to disagree on the many important, but secondary issues.  Charismatic gifts?  How the church should be led? Predestination and free will?  How the end times will work out?  Where our church should be located?  When should the services be?  How should we integrate people generationally?  How should we go about being a cross-cultural church? We’ll be sure to disagree on some of these.  Let’s talk them out and be gracious about it.  Don’t be a jerk.  Listen, we are reformed here, but some of my reformed brothers are the worst in the world about being a jerk about, get this, grace.  This passage doesn’t command us to agree on everything, but to commit to be of the same Spirit, the same mind about what matters- namely the gospel’s progress and that we’d lock arms together to advance it.

3a.  It means that we shouldn’t be easily intimidated by opponents of the gospel (28).  Maybe the simplest way to say this one: Does a gladiator get scared? I didn’t think so. The threats are real, but we face them with the courage that God supplies.   I’ve had to come to grips with this reality as a pastor-criticism from friendly and unfriendly people is part of it. 

3b. It doesn’t mean that every “culture war” is what we are after here.  A lot of Christian groups just love the idea of not being afraid of hostile non-believers.  In fact, this attitude is a major barrier to mission right now.  The religious right is largely seen by the country as a group that uses power to get their moral agenda across.  There are even some fights going on in our own city that many (most) Christians I hear just assume this is one of those issues to draw a line and hold our ground.  Be thoughtful.  It probably helps if your issue is clearly in the Bible.

4a. It does mean that we need to believe and suffer well (29).  I don’t think this is something we hear enough about.  I’ll just take it for granted that every person is an addict to comfort, so we probably see any and all forms of suffering as public enemy number 1.  I mean we hate it in all its forms.  Mild forms like boredom or awkwardness or medium level suffering like financial stress or temporary illness or serious stuff like life threatening illnesses or the loss of people that are close to us.  And typically, we set our life up to fight it.  We try to have solid entertainment options close by at all times and to have a close group of friends that aren’t too awkward.  We try to have enough money that we can try to prevent as many things as we can and try to avoid it wherever we can. 

            The problem is that we can find ourselves almost always taking the path of least resistance.  Consider the more extreme forms (which actually fit the context of this passage better since they are willing to suffer for Jesus’ sake in a very hostile environment).  Are we willing to suffer in the hard places in the world where our message might find a harsh or even violent response?  Are we so addicted to comfort that we might not move to a certain part of town or go to the nations because it would mean we wouldn’t live as well?  I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that if we aren’t willing to endure suffering on the mild, we won’t be willing to lay our lives down for the gospel.  But remember the words here.  We should live lives worthy of the gospel because it’s been granted to us that for the sake of Christ we would not only believe, but also suffer for His sake!  God grants belief and suffering so the gospel advances. 

4b. It doesn’t mean that we pretend the suffering itself is good or to put a silly spin on tragic events.  Just because we’ve been counted to suffer, like Jesus, doesn’t mean that the suffering is good.   God takes something really bad and does good things in and around us through it, but the suffering is not so good.  Be slow to interpret tragedy.  In fact, be very cautious about doing it with someone that is grieving on the back end of pretty rough days.  It is nearly impossible to see in the midst of tragedy how God is using it to grow people’s affections for God.  The reality is that often times, serious suffering slowly, painfully reorients our life around Him and impacts others as they see the great value in Jesus.  This doesn’t take away from the horror of the suffering itself.

Gladiators

            Tie it all together.  We are called to live in a manner of life worthy of the gospel.  This reality doesn’t happen passively.  It’s a fight.  We ask God to let it soak deep in us so that gospel realities come out…that’s we’d be a unified family and that we’d strive side by side for the gospel’s advance.  Gladiator style.  It will require intensity and courage and graciousness all at the same time.  As a first step in applying this truth, let’s lock arms and strive for the gospel by taking the Lord’s Supper.  We have prayer people in the back if you desire prayer for any reason in any of our services. In taking it today, let’s commit to be thoroughly soaked with a love for Jesus that forms us as a missional family.