Two Journeys

This morning we're looking again for the second time at Philippians 4:1-9, Standing Firm for Joy, and that's what this text is calling us to do. We live in a magnificent world, don't we? Magnificent creation from the complexity of God's mind, and it is complex, for who has known the mind of the Lord or ever been his counsel? From the complexity of his mind has come a complex universe, one beyond our understanding though we study it all the time. As we were driving in this morning, the children I were talking about the mind of the Lord, the mind of God. Who has ever stood in God's presence to give him advice, and when did he ever ask for it? Is there ever any a vote up in heaven on what course of action to take? Is God ever confused or brought to a pass and not know which direction to turn? No, this is the mind of the Lord, and he is absolutely perfect in wisdom, and from that complex mind has come a complex universe, a universe of burning stars, balls of gas on fire constantly, with the power of fusion sending off their light and their radiation. And the planets that are going around in perfect God-ordained order in our solar system, everything just where it needs to be, the complexity immeasurable.

And the most complex planet of all is Earth, with all of its ecosystems. They can search for evidence of water at Mars all they want, but we live in a place where we don't need to search for evidence. There is life, there is water, there are ecosystems, there are little bacteria and fungi and all kinds of things mixing together in a way that we will never fully comprehend, all of it pointing toward life. You think of the amazing complexity of this world that we live in, and nothing's more complex than the human body, our bones and our nerves and our systems, all of them fitting together in a way that is so difficult for us to understand. Though we have here in this community and all over the world intelligent people studying it all the time, we'll never fully comprehend it. But the most complex part of the human body is the human mind. I really believe it's the pinnacle of God's physical creation. Nothing is more complex than that tangle of neurons that is between your ears right now.

Now you may think your mind is not as complex as that of your spouse, for example, and you're working on that as you communicate, but the fact is every one of us has a complex mind. To put it in perspective, in the Amazon rainforest, there are... Approximately, it stretches about 2.7 million square miles, and there are 100 billion, they estimate 100 billion trees, in the Amazon rainforest. That's how many neurons you have in your brain. And the interconnections of each neuron are equal to the average tree in terms of its number of leaves. So if you had the leisure and the time to count the number of leaves in the Amazonian rain forest, that's how many interconnections there are in your brain. And that brain, the pinnacle of complexity of what God has created, that is the immense battlefield when it comes to the journey of sanctification. The devil focuses all his attention and his effort on how you think, what you think, what you are pondering, what you are considering. And God, for his part, through the power of the Holy Spirit, focusing all of his effort and his attention and his energy on your mind. It's a battle for the mind.

You were created in the image of God, created to glorify God and to enjoy him forever, created to know the glory of God, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And God has given you a mind to do that.

Now, we've been looking in Philippians at these two journeys, the infinite journeys that are before us, an internal journey of holiness, of sanctification, of growing in grace and in the knowledge of Christ, and the external journey of worldwide evangelization and witness, the advance of the kingdom of God, both within and without. We've been saying here in Philippians 4:1, there is a need for stability, a need to stand firm while we make progress. We talked about that last time. The image I gave you was of a man or woman trying to make their way across a rushing mountain stream in a straight line, needing every footfall to be sure and strong, or a mountaineer on a icy, snowy ridge with wind blowing across and the crampons digging in so that there's a firm footing for progress. So we also need stability. And, in the journeys that are before us, the internal journey in which Paul says "forgetting what lies behind and straining toward what lies ahead," you need sure footing, don't you?

You need to build step by step in what you have come to know and believe and understand that is unshakable about God and about the Gospel, and move on into the new areas, those things that you don't understand yet, to make progress. And so also it is with the Gospel. To take the base that we have already of believers, those that love the Lord, and move out to those that do not know him yet and have not trusted in him. We need stability and strength as we move ahead in progress.

Now, last time I talked about three ways in Philippians 4:1-9 that Paul gives us for this kind of stability as a foundation for joy.

1) Cultivating Harmony in the Church Fellowship

The first is cultivating harmony in the church fellowship. We talked about Euodia and Syntyche, two women who don't seem to get along, who don't like each other for some reason, they're having some conflict. And it's interesting how the Apostle Paul says, literally in the Greek, that they would be of one mind together, that they would be of one mind, that they would think the same thoughts about one another and about the Gospel. You've got to have unity in the church fellowship, you gotta have unity in the family and the people in your life or it's impossible to have stability and joy. It's impossible. It's one of the big attacks that the devil has, is creating and sowing discord, what the book of Hebrews calls the root of bitterness that defiles many after it grows up. And so there must be that.

2) Determining to Rejoice No Matter What

And then there secondly, a determination to rejoice no matter what. Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice. A decision as an act of the will and of the mind that no matter what the circumstances, you're going to rejoice in Christ. You're going to rejoice in him and in his sovereign power and his majestic goodness and in his cross, the blood he shed on the cross. You're going to rejoice no matter what. A determination of the mind and of the heart, an attitude of joy no matter what.

3) Learning to be Gentle

And thirdly learning to be gentle, kind of an interesting thing along the way, but this gentleness, this even mindedness, this reasonableness, a mild response, so that everyone who sees you would know you to be a gentle man or woman. That's what we looked at last time.

Now, today we're going to look at four more. Developing first, a confident trust in the Lord, verse five and six. Secondly, learning to react to problems with thankful prayer in verse six and seven; controlling your thought life, verse eight; and then imitating godly examples briefly, verse nine. And you see that the control of the mind, the issue of the mind and heart is central to each one of these. It is with the mind and the heart that you are confident in your trust and are not anxious. It is with your mind and your heart that you learn to return everything to God in thankful prayer. Verse eight is clearly about mind control, in which it says you must think about these things and not their alternatives. Think about these things, controlling your thoughts, and then imitating godly example I think is more action than it is thinking. But it flows from right doctrine, right living flowing from right doctrine. These four examples.

4) Developing a Confident Trust in the Lord

Let's look at the first one, developing a confident trust in the Lord, 4:5-6 say, "The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything." Now, I know that the verse numbers are helpful to us, aren't they? But sometimes I think there can be a hindrance. I actually think, Let your gentleness be evident to all, the Lord is near, being one verse might give you the indication that the Lord is near goes more with the gentleness than it does with the anxiety issue. But I think it can go both ways, and that's fine with me. The Lord is near so be gentle, just like Christ was gentle, and that's fine, but I'm going to kind of look the other way in terms of the issue of the Lord being near. The Lord is near so don't be anxious about anything. Don't be anxious about anything. Our confidence and trust is based on the fact that God is with us all the time.

The beginning and the end of Matthew's Gospel make this very plain, don't they? The beginning, we have after the genealogy an account of the angel coming to Joseph and announcing the birth of Jesus, and the Scripture that Matthew chooses to focus on there is Matthew 1:23, "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and they will call him Immanuel, which means 'God with us.'" And then at the very end of the Gospel of Matthew, we have, "and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age." And so at the beginning and the end of Matthew's Gospel, we have a promise that Jesus, the Lord, will be with us at all times. He is with us always. He is Immanuel, God with us. And therefore, we need not, in fact, we must not be anxious about anything because God is with us.

To be anxious, the word here literally means to chop up the mind, to divide the mind into bits. Somewhat like part of your brain is wrestling in one way and the other part the other, and you go back and forth and you're torn, you're wrestling. You know what anxiety is like. To work over something intensely in your mind so that you're buffeted back and forth, like a piece of cork bobbing on a troubled sea, blown, tossed, to and fro in your thought life. Forgetting all the time the Sovereign God and his goodness towards you, and his wisdom. Forgetting that and instead focusing so much on the problem that you're anxious about.

Now, I think there are two kinds of anxiety. Two kinds of anxiety. First is helpful anxiety, good anxiety. Now I don't use the word anxiety for these things but the Greek word's the same in these verses. I don't want you to think that care-taking or great concern is never appropriate for the Christian life. It actually is. For example, in 1 Corinthians 7:32-34 it says, "An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs how he can please the Lord." So he's... The Greek word's the same. Anxious over how he can please the Lord today. He's concerned about that, it's on his mind, it weighs on him. How can I please Christ? How can I please him today? It says the same thing about an unmarried woman. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned or anxious about the Lord's affairs, her aim is to be devoted to the Lord both in body and spirit.

Now the context there is talking about the superiority in that case of the single life over the married life and that if you're married, you're going to have a divided mind somewhat, and you're going to be concerned about your family and how to provide for those needs, but that itself is also commanded in other places. If you are a husband and a father, you should be concerned about how you are going to provide for your family. You must be concerned about that but not anxious.

Or it could be a good concern, a good anxiety, it's just concern over the spiritual welfare of others. The Apostle Paul frequently shows us this. 2 Corinthians 11:28-29, he says, "Apart from other things, there's the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak and I do not feel weak, who is led into sin and I do not inwardly burn." he is concerned over the spiritual welfare of the churches he planted. He's worried over them, to some degree. And why is that? Because there's no guarantees that those churches that he planted have genuine saving faith in Christ, they might get deluded or drawn away and so he is praying over them, concerned that some evil attack would come and destroy them. And so the same Greek word is used for these, but I would not use anxiety for that term, it'd be concern, focus, a concentrated effort of mind and will, so you're thinking about these things. But that's not what's in the view in this text, is it? And that's not what you think of when you think of anxiety.

Anxiety is something else, there's the bad anxiety. Do you know what I'm talking about? We're talking about to fret and work over and be concerned over some earthly temporal matter that has no eternal consequence. And how much time do we spend wasting doing this exact thing? Concerned about whether you're going to be late to this or that meeting, right? Got a little bit of a late start, and the light is turning and you're not going to make it, you're just not going to make it, anxious and concerned over it. Or concerned about money. Are you going to have enough to pay the bills this month or next month? Concerned about health and welfare of people that you love, or yourself. Most of the stuff we're anxious over never really happens. Have you ever noticed that? We get anxious over things that never occur.

I've said before, and I think it's true that this bad or evil anxiety is actually the taking of a good gift of God, and perverting it, and twisting it around. It is the gift of imagination gone bad, right? Imagination worst case scenario, what could happen to you? Well, we don't really want to go there in our minds. It's amazing how bad it can be up in here, right. I might slip on a puddle and break my neck and be a quadriplegic the rest of my life. The anxiety comes from an imagination. Now, imagination is a good thing, it's a gift of God to be able to think ahead in the future, and plan or to write children's stories, or poetry or to think of imaginative outreaches and ways to reach people for Christ or have an ambition to go and preach the Gospel in Spain, said Paul, and he's thinking about what that would be like. That's a good thing to have that kind of imagination, but anxiety is a bad use of imagination in which you're laying in bed at night pondering what might happen, working it over.

Frankly, it's a great insult to Christ, isn't it? As you're laying there and anxious and concerned over many things in effect, it says to Christ. I don't trust what you're going to do with my life, I don't trust it. Either, you're going to lack power, or you're going to lack wisdom or you're going to lack goodness, one of those three. You may want to do something good for me, but not know what's good. Or you may lack the power to bring it about, in any case, I just don't trust you Christ and so I'm just going to sit here and marinate in my anxiety. I'm going to be concerned and anxious. Imagine if you were driving down the highway with your 10-year-old, let's say. And it's a rainstorm, it's windy, it's a tense time as you're driving. And all of a sudden your 10-year-old says to you, "Daddy, we're going to die, we're going to die. Oh no, what, what's going to happen? Oh, there's a curve. Do you see the... Do you see the truck? We're not going to make it. Daddy, daddy, can I drive? Will that be okay Would it be alright 'cause it's really rainy and windy. Would it be okay if I drove?" What would you think? I'd be offended. I'd say, "You know how many rainstorms I have driven in. We're going to be okay, we're going to be fine, okay."

But yet, there we are with our lives, saying, "God, it's not going to work out. Oh, see that truck, what's going to happen?" And we're being anxious. And God's saying, I'm in control. I've done lots of these lives. I've gotten lots of people through Zero to 80 or so, and gotten them on into heaven, and I can do it with you too, so be at peace, I know what I'm doing. And there we are wanting that 10 years old to grab the wheel. This is a comprehensive command here. Be anxious for nothing, nothing. Not for cancer or AIDS or SARS, remember that one? We could have been anxious and not sent a mission team. It's amazing how practical this is. Big reports about SARS after the Iraq war was over. Everybody worried about it, concerned, should we go, should we not?

We prayed through it, we found out what we could but anxiety could have derailed a very fruitful mission there because we didn't trust God. Be anxious for nothing, be anxious for nothing, don't be anxious. College students or high school students about grades, about what job you're going to get when you graduate, don't be anxious about anything. Single people about who you're going to marry or couples that would like to have children about whether you're going to be able to have children or older people about what's going to happen to your body. There's so many ways we can be anxious, this says, be anxious for none of it. Be anxious for nothing.

How to Develop Confident Trust in the Lord

Well, how do we do this, how do we develop a confident trust in the Lord? I think it starts with doctrine. It starts with the mind, it starts with retraining the thinking and the doctrine I have in mind is the doctrine of the providence of God. What do I mean by that? Well, it's a fancy word, an important word, an important doctrine, it's the idea that our God is a king who enjoys ruling over his universe. He doesn't just sit back and watch it go like he's watching a movie or something like that or like the passenger in a car on a rainy day. No, he is driving the car, he's in charge of the universe, he is running all things, he is a king who delights to work these things out. It says in Romans 8:28, "We know that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God and who are called according to his purpose." Psalm 115:3, "Our God is in heaven, he does whatever pleases him."

Now, is that an out of sorts, grumbly, irritable God? Or is it a God who sits serenely on the throne of power and who has never been troubled by anything. He's in-charge, he's ruling, he's sovereign, he's a king, and his rulership goes down to the smallest level. Proverbs 16:33, "The lot is cast into the lap but its every decision is from the Lord." He rules actively over his universe, and therefore anxiety has no place in the Christian life. We must renew our minds, by thinking and saying to ourselves, God is a king, he's a good king, he's a loving king who knows what he's doing.

Jesus’ Teaching on Anxiety

At the end of Matthew 6, take a minute and look there if you would, Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus works very hard on the issue of anxiety. In Matthew 6:25 and following it says there, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothing? Look at the birds in the air, they don't sow or reap or store away in barns and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow, they don't labor or spin. Yet, I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown in the fire, will he not much more clothe you? Oh, you of little faith. So do not worry saying, what should we eat or what should we drink or what should we wear for the pagans run after all these things. And your Heavenly father knows that you need them, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Do you realize how much the Lord is laboring on us there that we would not be anxious about anything? That we would not be concerned about anything? The basic idea is, you have a heavenly Father, he's very attentive, he's very alert, nothing escapes his attention. He knows what you need long before you ask, and he is ruling over all things for your good and your benefit so don't be anxious. Don't be anxious.

5) Reacting to Problems with Thankful Prayer

Immediately, coupled with that is reacting to life's problems with thankful prayer. Look at verses six and seven, go back to Philippians 4:6-7, "Do not be anxious about anything," it says there, "But in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." This is the flip side. We're not just going to be not anxious like we're somehow stoics, we're just not going to think about those bad things. No he's calling us to be very active. Whenever you're tempted to be anxious, return it back to God in prayer, whatever it might be that you're anxious about bring it to him in prayer, roll your burdens on him or cast them on the Lord in prayer, that's what he's calling you to do.

We anticipate problems in the future not with anxiety, but with confident prayer. Now, it says, "Prayer and petition." These are just two words for the same thing. It results in diligent persistent prayer. Not just one time, but many times you're going again and again like the persistent widow. You're going to the Lord in prayer, you're going to bring it to him in everything it says. Entrust the matter to God, lay it before his throne for his wisdom and his disposal. Say "Lord, I'm tempted right now to be anxious about this health issue that I'm facing or that my wife is facing. I'm tempted to be anxious about where the money is going to come for school next semester. I'm tempted to be anxious concerning how old I am, and I'd like a spouse and God hasn't provided yet. I'm tempted to be anxious Lord, right now about these things, I want to present this to you. I want you to take the anxiety away and I want you to bring me peace. I want to trust in you." Prayer drives out anxiety.

And you do it with thankfulness. Thankfulness as you look backward at God's faithfulness to you in the past. Thank you God, for all you've done to bring me this far. Thank you God, for all of the mercies you've shown me already, thank you. But even thankfulness, by faith concerning the future. Thank you God, that in this matter, you will do what's best for your glory and for me. I who am your child thank you. So we pray with faith and with thankfulness, ahead of time. We give him thanks. I think that thankfulness drives out anxiety, and it's greatly honoring to God. And the result of this, it says is the peace of God which passes all understanding. Now, I want to make a careful distinction here that has been helpful to me in my life. There is something called peace with God, and then there's something called the peace of God. I think they are two different but related things.

Peace with God has to do with a status of peace between us and the eternal God. And I get this out of Romans 5:1. In which it says, "Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Can anything take that away? Can you ever be unjustified from God? Never. And therefore, you will always and forever as a child of God, be at peace with God and God at peace with you. Christ is our peace similar to the fact that we are not at war with Great Britain. There's a status of peace between our two nations governments, a status of peace, and a friendly relations. It is true that in the past we were at war with Great Britain, a long time ago, but we are not presently at war, and just in the same way we were in the past at war with God, though we did not know it that was part of the warfare.

And God, also at war with us, because we were outside of Christ, but once we have come to faith in Christ, we have once and forever a status of peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That's one thing, but this is talking about, I believe, something else. The peace of God. Now the word "of" in greek is a little tricky. Can either be the peace that characterizes God or the peace that comes from God as a gift. I think it's hard to decide which of the two but let's start with the idea that it's the peace that characterizes God here. He's at peace. He is sitting on his throne right now and he's at peace. We don't know his kind of peace, that's how deep and rich it is. He's not flustered, he's not out of sorts, he's not anxious about anything, but he is at peace and that kind of peace qualitatively that God enjoys all the time, can be yours as a child of God. It is an experience of peace, a feeling of peace, a confident peace that comes over you because you have entrusted the matter to God in prayer. And you can lay in bed at night free from anxiety, free from concern with God's peace in you because you have prayed the matter through and entrusted it to God. The peace of God.

Now the one you always have, peace with God, but the other you don't always have because sometimes we allow anxiety and other things to come in and we lose our peace. At that time, you must go back to God in prayer and get it back. Say, "Lord I want the peace of God right now. I want to experience that. I don't want to be anxious anymore. I want your peace to come over me." And God, who gives that kind of peace, the peace that's from God, he'll give it to you, as an experience.

Now, it does say here, it is the peace that "passes all understanding." What do I mean by that? Well, in one sense you could say it's the peace that contradicts what makes sense in the situation, the peace that makes no sense, right? If your non-Christian friends were around you saying, "Hmm, how can you be at peace? Your spouse is facing a very serious operation tomorrow, and yet you're at peace, how can that be? She might die." Yes, but I prayed the matter through, and it seems to make no sense, but I am totally at peace right now. Just like Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail singing in at peace, not concerned about anything. It's a peace that passes all understanding.

But I actually take a different approach to this, I think it's a peace that passes understanding in that God doesn't always tell you everything, and yet you can be at peace. He's not going to tell you why it's all happening. Isn't that the thing we want? Why has this happened? What are you doing God? What's happening? How does this fit into your eternal plan? Is he going to tell you all that? No, he's not. And he hasn't promised to. There are some things that are secret that belong to him. And yet he will give you a peace that passes all understanding, so you're able to stand up in that moment of testing and be at peace. And so entrust all things to God in prayer.

6) Controlling Your Thought Life

In verse eight, it says, controlling your thought life. Look with me at verse eight. It says, "Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about those things." The implication is, don't think about those things that are not any of those things. Imagine if you had a friend, and he said, "Come here, I want to show you something. This is my prized possession." And he brings you into a room and there is a magnificent Queen Anne desk, the kind with all the little cubby holes and all that kind of thing. And it actually belonged to, he tells you, George Washington. It's been a family heirloom and it was given to him. You say, "Oh, it's magnificent, it's beautiful, it's spectacular. What's in there, in those little cubby holes?" "Mud, I keep mud in there. We have a little river that goes by, and I just go down to the bank and I scoop out river muck, and I put it in the cubby holes there."

What would you think about your friend? You'd think he's nuts. Here's a magnificent desk with all these little cubby holes and he's filling it with muck. And that is the nature of your mind when you fill it with ungodly things. It is a magnificent gift of God, this interconnected brain which was meant for his glory, to know him and to know his glory, and we fill it with what? It's about the same. It's actually worse. Hollywood, the movie industry, the magazines, the books and all that. It's all part of a demonic plan to fill your mind with muck, that's what it's for. To get you to stop thinking about what's true and noble and right and pure and lovely and admirable and excellent and praiseworthy. That's what you should be thinking about. You shouldn't be neutral. We're not mystics in the Eastern Hindu thing or a Buddhist thing where we're trying to empty our minds, we don't want an empty mind. We want a mind filled with what's true, filled with what's noble, filled with what's right and pure and lovely and admirable and excellent and praiseworthy. I want a mind filled with those things.

Recently my family and I took a home school trip to Jamestown, Yorktown and Williamsburg, they're all three in the same area. And it's an exciting place to go, it's so efficient. They're all real close together, and you can do lots of things, and we enjoy going there. And there are there at least three different battle fields you can go see. There was a battlefield in ancient Jamestown, one of the first sites where there was a battle about eight years after they landed there, with the Powhatans. And you can look at the artifacts, and the struggle that they had. And then, of course, there's the battle field of Yorktown, where you can see where the US won their independence from the British. And then there are some bulwarks that the Confederate soldiers put there. There was never a battle fought there, but you can see those erected along there as well, three different battlefields. Now, that's all in a little small area of land stretching out into the James River. Concentrated battle fields. But there's nothing, it's nothing compared to the Battlefield of the mind.

It's exactly what the devil is working on, he wants you to think about certain things that are different than what God wants you to think. Romans 8:5-6, it says, "Those who live according to the sinful nature have their mind set on what that nature desires. But those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their mind set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace." You are to control your thoughts. And the big difference between a Christian and a non-Christian has to do with what they think about, has to do with what's on their mind, how they control their thoughts.

Now, I'm not going to go through each of these words. "Whatever is true..." Want to know what's true? Read the Bible. Want to know about noble things? Read the Bible. How about things that are pure or lovely or admirable? You know what advice I'm going to give you? I'm going to tell you to read the Bible. And how about some excellent or praiseworthy things? I can't think of anything better than the Bible. Now, a little while ago, I preached on why you, even you, should memorize Scripture. Do you remember that? I'm not going to ask each one of you how it's going, but we come again to the same issue. What are you filling your mind with? May I urge you to fill it with scripture? And if you made a resolution at that time that you're going to memorize the book of Philippians, and you have just now completed the third verse of Chapter One, I want to encourage you, good job! Keep going. Fill with verse four and verse five and verse six and keep on going until you get the whole book. Fill your mind with the word of God and not with the things that they want you to think about, which is the opposite of what's true and noble and right and pure and lovely and admirable. Psalm 1 says, "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night, he is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf never withers."

7) Imitating Godly Examples

Now verse nine, we have covered already in depth. And so I'm just going to allude to it again. It has to do with discipleship, you remember, and Paul's pattern of discipleship. He says, "Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me put it into practice, and the God of peace will be with you." Again, the idea is that right doctrine leads to right living, but you must put it into practice. And as you are doing these things, the God of peace will be with you. What an incredible statement. And so follow and imitate godly examples, and be yourself a godly example for somebody else to follow. Say, "Follow me as I follow Christ."

Now, what summary in application can we get from this? Well, we've looked at seven things, cultivating harmony in the church fellowship, determining to rejoice no matter what in verse four, learning to be gentle in verse five, developing a confident trust in the Lord, verse five and six, reacting to problems with thankful prayer, verse six and seven, and controlling your thought life, verse eight, imitating godly examples, verse nine.

These sermons have been, these two sermons have been so practical that I don't think that I need to give you any targeted applications. But I want to make a few comments. First, harmony. If you know of anybody in this church fellowship or in your family that you are out of sorts with, that you're like Euodia and they're like Syntyche or vice versa, make it right. Resolve in your heart that you're not going to let the sun go down on your anger, restore fellowship with that individual. If there's somebody popping into your mind right now, that's a indication from the Spirit that you need to work on that relationship. In terms of joy, determine that you're going to rejoice in Christ, no matter what happens to you, today, or any time. Make up your mind to be joyful. Gentleness, if you're given a harshness especially with a spouse, make developing a general nature a key matter of prayer. Fourthly, trust. Learn to defeat anxiety by confident trust in the Lord, and I especially urge you to fill your mind with scripture so that you can do that. And finally, thought life. Control your thoughts. Don't put mud in your delicate antique desk, put godly things, beautiful things.

We are in chapter four now in Philippians, and as we look at Philippians 4:1-9, specifically verse one, we come to a small mystery in the Christian faith. Now, there are a lot of deep mysteries in our faith. Christianity is a difficult religion to understand. We just got done in Sunday school, in International Sunday School, going through some of the deepest doctrines that there are in our faith. And so there are mysteries to Christianity, and there are some great and mighty ones, but then there are smaller ones too. And as I meditated on Philippians 4:1, I thought this is a mysterious passage, because it says there, "Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown…" that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends." Do you see that? Stand firm.

The Call to Stand Firm

So the text is calling on us that we should stand firm. Paul here refers, I believe, to the great opposition that there is to the Christian life. We know, we Christians know, that this is not a pleasure cruise to heaven. We know it's much more like a battle, like a warfare, than it is like that. And so there's great opposition. We live out our faith every moment in a hostile, contrary environment. We have enemies of our soul. They're fighting against us at every moment, the world, the flesh, and the devil against us at every step, the world with its intricate system of allurements and enticements appealing to our fleshly nature, as we talked about last time, our bodily side. And to live out those drives, those sensual drives, is to make our stomach our God, the very thing Paul commands that we should not do. But we have an enemy in the world, and also in its persecution.

And then there's the flesh, which is so greatly troubling to me. What is that that sinful nature, that part of me that is enticed by temptation, that actually responds favorably to it, the part that I despise the most, the part that wants to sin, to indulge in sensual pleasures, to have a comfortable and easy life free from trouble. And then there's the devil, an intelligent, vicious foe who never sleeps and is always scheming, through his minions as well, to bring us down. Who knows our weaknesses better than we do and seeks fiery arrows directed right to the chinks in our armor all the time. And so that's our situation. We are opposed all the time in our faith. And so there are in Scripture many such calls to stand firm, like this one here in verse one. For example, 1 Corinthians 16:13 says, "Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith. Be men of courage, be strong."

Or Galatians 5:1, "It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Or 2nd Thessalonians 2:15, "So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter." And the best of all, I think, is in Ephesians 6, extended passage on spiritual warfare. Ephesians 6:9-15, listen to these verses. "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground. And after you have done everything to stand, stand firm therefore with the belt of truth buckled round your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace."

So Paul clearly there again and again saying we need to stand, we've got to stand firm, is implying there's a great battle swirling around us all the time, and our response to that must be stability, standing firm, not being moved. It is necessary, then, for us not to get swept away. And in order to do that, we must stand firm and not be moved in the day of temptation and persecution. But the entire Book of Philippians seems to be a call to make progress, that we should be advancing, that we should be growing, that we should be changing all the time.

The Drive for Progress

The interesting thing about this is that this call to stand firm here in verse one of chapter four, is intimately connected to the preceding verses of chapter three. It says, "Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown…" That is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends. Well, "What is how?" Well, you have to read the preceding chapters to know what he's meaning, I think. The central message of Philippians three is, in effect, I press on. I'm not finished yet, I'm not perfect, I'm not done in my journey, and so therefore I must make progress. I've got to advance, I can't stay where I am.

Look again at Philippians three, 12 through 14. He says, "Not that I have already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

That is a dynamic picture, isn't it? Forgetting what's behind, we're going to be moving, we got to move, we got to move in the Christian life. We got to make progress. We've already been told before that in Philippians 2:12-13, we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We're supposed to make progress. And then the whole thing was set up in chapter one, in which we have two uses of a Greek word prokope, which means progress. And he says, "I want you to know that what has happened to me has turned out for the progress or advance of the gospel," that means worldwide advance of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. We have to make progress in that journey, don't we? But, meanwhile, he talks about himself and their ministry and he says in Philippians 1:25, "I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith." So there's a dynamic picture here in the Book of Philippians of two great journeys that we've talked about again and again. The internal journey of sanctification, the external journey of worldwide evangelization.

Now, how can we put these two together? How are we supposed to be standing firm in a static kind of way? Or are we supposed to be dynamically making progress? Well, both, of course. How can we do this, how do we make progress while we also stand firm? And I think it comes from the need for stability, in order to make progress. I meditated on this for a while and I tell you any time you just want to take any text or scripture and just think on it, God is going to show you things. The discipline of meditation, is so valuable. And as I was thinking I was saying, "Okay, we've got to stand firm, but we've got to make progress." Of course, it makes sense. Think about it, suppose you were on one side of a rushing mountain stream, it's spring, the snow has melted and the water is high, about waist high, and you've got to get across at that place. Got to move, you got to get across. And suppose there's a guide rope going to across, but you've got to walk across that stream. Now every step of the way, you need to have sure footing under you don't you? You've got to have a sure grip on the rope or else you're going to get swept downstream. In order to make progress there, you must stand firm step by step.

Or take another analogy, one that we put on the cover of your bulletin there. Suppose you're a mountaineer. Look at that, go ahead and look at the picture. I think it's a great picture. I didn't pick it, but Jeremy picked it it's a great picture. I love it, thank him. Go and say Jeremy that's a great picture. I never want to be those mountaineers on that knife edge. But look at that, here's this mountain climber, and he is literally on the edge of eternity. I mean, really, he could slip left or he could slip right but either way he's history, he's gone. You got to stay right on that edge and it's icy and snowy. And don't you bet there's got to be a wind blowing up over that ridge as he makes progress. Now, I know enough about mountaineering I would never do that but I've read about it, I like to read about things. Okay. I wouldn't get up on the edge okay, but I like to read about it. And so this guy almost certainly has crampons on his boot there, there's steel teeth that are connected to his boots that give him a sure footing on that ridge without that stability, without that sure footing, he's going to die, no question about it, but he must make progress. He can't stay where he is. He's got to keep going.

The Need for Stability in Order to Make Your Journey of Progress

And so, the images come together, in order for you to make progress in the Christian life, you've got to have stability, you've got to have some things that don't move in your life, and that's what we're talking about here. Now the beauty is, God is sufficient for both the stability, the standing firm part and the progress, he's sufficient for both without that stability you're not going to make progress in your personal walk with Christ. Without that stability, you're not going to make progress as a witness for Christ, you must stand firm in order to make progress, but God is sufficient for both. Amen and amen. He is sufficient to make you strong, firm and established and he's sufficient to keep you moving in the Christian life. He's sufficient for standing. For example, I like this verse in Romans 14:4, it says there, "Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls and he will stand. For the Lord is able to make him stand." Isn't that a wonderful promise? God is able to make you stand so that you cannot be moved.

Great Assurance: God Sufficient for Both Standing and Progressing

Alright, well, God is also sufficient, for making progress in our own book that we're studying here, Philippians 1:6, "Being confident of this that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." He is sufficient for stability, standing firm and he is sufficient for incredible progress where you are taken from wretched and wicked and sin all the way to glory in Christ. Now that is an incredible journey. He is sufficient for both. And so we look to him therefore we must not look to ourselves for the stability. I praise God for the scripture reading that Eric chose earlier, 1 Corinthians 10:12, it says, "So if you think you're standing firm, take heed, lest you fall." What's the warning there? The warning is not that you should not consider yourself to be standing firm. The question is, what is your source of stability? Is it your own ability to stand firm, or is it Christ himself?

Now, if your focus is upward, if it's on Christ, then you're fine, but if you think you're standing firm of yourself, you're in big trouble. You're in big trouble. That's the warning there. We must never overestimate our own strength. Never. If left to your own devices this striving would be losing said, Luther. If you're left to yourself, you'll lose, but the right man is on our side, the Man of God's own choosing, it is Christ Jesus Himself, and He will enable us to stand firm in the day of battle. We must not have our eyes on ourselves for the stability in order to make progress. So therefore both the standing firm and the progress that we're making are gifts of God's grace. It's what he gives us in order that we may make progress. Now that's the little mystery but there's another mystery in this text, not just here with verse one, but as we continue on, it has to do with the mystery of joy. Philippians verse four, it's very famous verse, "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice." The progress that we're making, the journey is a journey of joy, it's a journey that should be characterized by joy, step-by-step, and it's a journey in which eternal joy and pleasure and bliss are waiting for us at God's right hand, Psalm 16.

So we're talking about a journey of joy. Well, what's the mystery? Well, how is it that a man could be in prison like Paul was or could be beaten like Paul and Silas were and languishing in prison, and be joyful? How can we have enough stability under us that no matter what is happening in our lives, we can be joyful, no matter what? I want that, don't you? Wouldn't you like to get to the point in your life where it does not matter what's happening around you, you're joyful in Christ?

And I think that's really what Paul's getting at, it's joy in the journey. It's joy with stability that can't be shaken. It's a permanent and lasting joy. And we need a foundation for that don't we? We need some kind of foundation, something that isn't going to move. Now, what is joy? If we're thinking about joy, what is it?

I would think that there is a sense that all of us have that we have experienced joy before. We're not going to get joy from reading a dictionary definition. Most of us aren't, alright. Some of us are very literary in that sense and they'll enjoy doing that but we, we get joy or we learn what joy is by living. Just by living. We've had moments of joy and we know what it is. Now, some Christians make a distinction between happiness and joy. I have a hard time making that distinction. I think that there is an internal heavenly happiness and an earth-bound joy. Some people say joy is kind of permanent and not tied to circumstances, whereas happiness is. I don't find that distinction made biblically, but I think we all know that there is a happy, contented, joyful feeling that comes from having good earthly circumstances and there is a happy, joyful feeling that comes, even in the face of terrible earthly circumstances. And that's what we're talking about today. So I'm not making a fine distinction between happiness and joy. Our education in joy comes from living. That's how we learn what joy is. It comes from a mother's smile or a father's game of chase. Some of my kids enjoy that more than others. Some of them stand and cry and want the game to be over, so we don't do that with them anymore.

But others really enjoy it. And they laugh and they run and they have a good time. And there's joy, and so they're learning at an early age, "I like this feeling. I like what's happening to me now. This is happy." Kids know how to laugh and run and play. They really do. And they know what joy is. They know the joy of their favorite ice cream, they know the joy of opening up the gift and it was inside, the toy they were hoping for. They know those joys. And so we learn joy by living, more than by anything. Now, the Bible gives us instruction about joy, interestingly, from earthly situations. We learn about joy by living and so the Bible says, "Okay, you know the kind of joy you feel when such and such happens, that's going to happen to you in heaven." You know the kind of joy you feel by living in this situation? Well, that's exactly what the kingdom of heaven is like. And so, it takes the earthly education we've all had in joy, and it just raises it up to that higher level. For example, God commanded the Israelites to rejoice and to celebrate and have a party at certain times, for example, the feast of booze in Deuteronomy 16, 15. For seven days, celebrate. That's the God we serve. God is not a killjoy. He's commanding, "I want you to have a good time." And if you don't, there's going to be problems. As a matter of fact, C. S. Lewis himself said, "God threatens terrible things if you will not be happy." Now meditate. That's deep and it is true.

Biblical Instruction About Joy From Physical Things

God wants you to be happy with what he provides. He wants you to be happy, and if you're not happy and you're not content, something's broken inside. You've lost your connection to the giver and you don't trust his promises. But God said, "For seven days, you must celebrate." You must have a good time. You must celebrate the feast to the Lord your God at the place the Lord will choose. For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands and your joy will be complete. I'm going to make you happy in the promised land, God says. Deuteronomy 16. There's the joy therefore of plenty to eat. Listen to 1 Chronicles 12:40. "There were plentiful supplies of flour, fig cakes, raisin cakes, wine, oil, cattle and sheep, for there was joy in Israel." Now that's about as earthy as it gets. Now most Christians say, "Now that's not joy, that's happiness." Well, it says joy in the text. You can have joy over a raisin cake, some of you. They enjoyed their raisin cakes. That was a time of celebration. Or a book of Ecclesiastes says in Ecclesiastes 9:7, "Go eat your food with gladness and drink your wine with a joyful heart." Baptists don't listen to that now but you understand what we mean. Drink your wine with a joyful heart for it is now that God favors what you do.

Cheerful looks and good news bring joy. Proverbs 15:30. "A cheerful look brings joy to the heart and good news health to the bones." The joy of a good son. "The father of a righteous man." This is Proverbs 23:24, "The father of a righteous man has great joy, he who has a wise son delights in him." That's a joy of being a father or mother. That's a pleasure. The joy of perfume and incense and good friends, Proverbs 27:9. "Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart and the pleasantness of one's friends springs from his earnest counsel." So the Bible presents all these earthy, sensual things as good grounds for joy. But all it does is it says, "Okay, you know the joy you get when you're smelling a beautiful perfume? Lift it up now to the higher place. Think about heaven. Think about God." And so, it takes the earthy joys that we do know, that are good and raises them up so that we can understand spiritual joy. Isaiah 9 verse 3. Isaiah, when predicting the coming of the Messiah, likened it to a great earthly joy. He says, "You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy, they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder." Two different scenarios. Harvest time, lots of grain coming in, people are happy, like that. That's what it'll be like when Jesus comes.

Or an army. You're going out, you've won the battle and there's huge plunder to divide. That's what it's going to be like when Jesus comes. The kingdom that Jesus brings is a kingdom of joy and so the joy of the harvest or the joy of the plunder, that's what it's like when Jesus comes. "For to unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." Three verses later. That's the joy that will come when the Messiah is born. Isaiah also compared the joy of salvation to the joy of a delicious banquet. In Isaiah 55:1-2, "Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor and what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me. And eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest affair." This is God speaking through his prophet Isaiah, saying, don't settle for lesser joy. I mean, come on into full joy. I know how to do joy, God is saying. I'm your source of joy and happiness. Don't settle for the other things. But what is he using to teach the lesson? A banquet, where there's plenty to eat and drink. It's an image, an earthly image that he raises up then to the spiritual heights.

And Jesus himself did this, absolutely. In Matthew 13:44, "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, when a man found it, he hid it again and then in his joy, went and sold everything he had and bought it." Now, what a low analogy. Jesus is saying, going to heaven is like finding a box full of gold and jewels hidden in a field. Well, he knew that we couldn't understand except that he used this kind of earthy language. The kingdom of heaven's far better than finding a box of gold in a field somewhere. But you know what that would be like, how would you feel if, I guess the equivalent is you won the lottery? That's what he's saying. In effect, you found incredible wealth, that's what it's like, the kingdom of heaven, it's a matter of joy. And so he's using earthy things that we've been educated in so that we can know what the joy is.

Now the question is, how can we get this kind of joy that survives everything we go through in life? Is that something you want? It's something I want. I want a kind of joy that is enduring, that isn't connected to earthly things that come and go. And Jesus is constantly telling us to do it, "Do not store up treasure on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, but store up treasure in heaven where no moth and rust destroy and no thief can break in and steal, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be" and that's where your source of joy is going to be.

"I want to give you a joy," Jesus says, that doesn't go away, a lasting joy. The kind of joy, the apostle Paul would say, that can survive and even thrive in imprisonment. The kind of joy that can survive and even thrive when you're starving. The kind of joy that can survive and even thrive when you're getting beaten for your faith, or when a child is sick with a terminal illness. The kind of joy that can survive and thrive no matter what happens to you in this world. That's the kind of joy.

Now, if you're going to have that kind of a joy, you need stability, you need to learn doctrinally how you can even do this, this isn't natural, it's a mystery, isn't it? That we could have Jesus' view of suffering. In Hebrews 12:2 it says, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of God." There was a joy in the cross, not in the actual physical suffering of the nails in the hands and feet, in the scourging, in the blood and all of that, no, but rather in what all of that would accomplish. For the joy set before him, he went through all that, that we could learn of joy like that. Now, that's worth learning and it's worth living.

The ultimate joy, eternal pleasure at God's right hand forever more. That was what was in his mind. What's amazing though, is that it was Jesus' joy to give you joy that's love, isn't it? I get joy out of making you eternally joyful. I think beyond that, the addition of a bunch of people from every tribe and language and people and nation, eternally rejoicing in God, Jesus gained nothing from the cross. He had as much glory afterward as he did before. He got his eternal place back with his heavenly Father, but what he gained was us and our joy with him eternally, and he got great joy and glory out of that. And I think that's a marvelous thing, I want to learn that kind of joy. It's a joy that has no roots whatsoever, in our earthly circumstances, none. It doesn't get better or worse with any events in the newspaper or anything you could read or see in the television, no earthly gift can improve it, no terrorist can blow it up, no thief can mug you and take it from you, no artist could make it more beautiful, no PR guy could make it more appealing to the masses, no engineer can make it stronger.

It's an eternal joy, Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world." he also said in the high priestly prayer, John 17, "Protect them Father for they are not of this world any more than I am of this world." Well, I'm saying your joy isn't of this world either, and therefore nothing can touch it, and frankly, when you have a horrible external circumstance and you're singing and rejoicing it actually will greatly increase your joy as you say, "Wait, a minute, this is unnatural. No, no, this is supernatural. I am rejoicing while in prison, beaten for my faith. How could that be except that God's got his hand on me, I'm going to heaven." Oh, that's a beautiful thing, a joy that's not easily moved. So we need stability for that.

The Great Kobe Earthquake

When I was in Japan, my wife and I, we went through an earthquake. And I'll tell you, that experience is something I will never forget. The stability of everything around me was nothing, was gone. I'll never forget feeling the ground moving under my feet, even worse for the people of Kobe, 5,000 people died in that earthquake, a terrible tragedy. And at that point the stability of everything on earth was shown to be what it is, namely, it's not there. There will come a far greater shaking of the Earth. Once more it says in Hebrews 12, "Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." There is nothing earthly that will last eternally, nothing. And so therefore we need an unshakable foundation in Christ alone is that unshakable foundation. Jesus said, "Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice, like a wise man who built his house on the rock, rains came down, the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against that house, but it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who builds his house on sand, the rains came down, the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against that house and fell with a great crash."

Well, that's people's joy if it's built on sand. And here this text is urging us to build on something stable. Now, stability, I believe, is a measure of spiritual maturity. The more stable you are, the more mature, the more mature you are, the more stable spiritually. It is a sign of great weakness and immaturity that you are easily moved by external circumstances. In James 1, it says, "He who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind, that man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord, he is a double-minded man unstable in all he does." So our joy needs to be eternal and set. Mature people are unshakable, solid and immovable like Christ.

It says, "God is our refuge and strength," Psalms 46, "An ever present help in trouble. Now therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea. Though its waves roar and foam and the mountains quake with surging."

Now in this section here, Paul is giving us seven steps perhaps to stable joy. It's a series of injunctions or commands or recommendations that he gives in the Christian life. And I'd like to look at three of them today. Each one of them I think if taken and put into practice will give us a stable joy that that doesn't go away. Now what's amazing to me is that the apostle Paul so skillfully weaves these in with dealing with everyday life circumstances in the Philippian church.

1) Cultivating Harmony in the Church Fellowship

Like the first one for example, cultivating harmony in the church fellowship. Look what he says in verse two and three, "I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you, loyal yokefellow help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the Gospel along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life." Now, Paul has a tremendous love and affection for the Philippian church. He really loves them. He calls them his dear brothers. He says they're his joy and crown. There's a great deal of affection that he has for these people. Very much wants them to experience full joy. But I'll tell you something right now and you know what I'm talking about. Nothing destroys joy faster than human conflict. If you're in a marriage, if you're in a close relation with a friend or in a church, if there is conflict, if there's strife, if there's arguing, I don't know how there can be joy.

And so he goes right to this issue right away here in chapter four dealing with these two ladies, Euodia and Syntyche. Now we've already talked about them. They are the case study, which was the whole reason for Philippians 2, the whole chapter in which he says we should put other's needs ahead of our own and that we should be like Christ and have this mind in us, which was also in Christ. That whole section of Philippians 2 I think is coming out of the conflict that there seems to be between Euodia and Syntyche. Now, I don't know what was going on with these ladies. I really have no idea. It seemed they just didn't like each other. Somebody had said something once that offended and the other person can't forgive. And then they say something that offends and you know how it goes and the relationship is ruptured.

Is that okay? No, not at all. That kind of thing is like a cancer tumor in the body of Christ. And if it's not dealt with, it says in Hebrews that there's a root of bitterness that grows up defiles many and cause trouble. It's got to be cut out. There's got to be a way to get rid of this bitterness and this anger and this unforgiveness. And so he's pleading. There's a strength here of pleading concerning Euodia and Syntyche. I don't think the matter was doctrinal. I think they both loved Paul and loved his message and all that. If there had been a doctrinal side, I think he would've dealt with it there. Now Euodia believes such and such and we've got to refute that. That's not right or Syntyche was wrong about this. I think they just don't like each other.

They agree about everything, but they just aren't getting along. And he asked this man, we don't know who it is. Calls him loyal yokefellow or in the notes "Syzygus" which is a tough name. Aren't you glad it's not in there if you have to do the public reading? Larry and I were talking about that, aren't you glad you don't have to say “Syzygus" this morning? But what it means is... The word literally means being yoked together with somebody. I think the NIV does right in saying that there's a man that Paul considered his yokefellow in the work of the church. And he's saying, "Please help these ladies." Sometimes two people can get themselves into a ruptured relationship where nobody but a third person could come in and as a mediator, talk it through, pray it through until they're united again. But he says, "Loyal yokefellow help these ladies because they're special or they've contended at my side in the cause of the Gospel. Their names are written in the Lamb's book of life. They're godly people other than this conflict," and so let's see what we can do to resolve the church conflict.

I think it's so beautiful that he deals with them gently here. He says their names are written in the book of life. They've contended at my side, see if you can get them back together again. Shouldn't be too hard when you stop and think about it because there's one heaven we're going to, there's one Christ. We believe the same things. Can't we just forgive each other? And so he urges them. And so cultivating harmony in the church fellowship, it's more of a defensive of joy. It doesn't produce joy, but it protects from the great sapping of joy, the locust attack which the conflict does to your joy. It's so hard to have joy in a church or in a family or in any other society humanly if there are these conflicts and these arguments.

2) Determining to Rejoice No Matter What

Secondly, determining to rejoice no matter what. Verse four, "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice." Now this is a very famous verse, Philippians 4:4. But what's interesting to me is that Paul is appealing here to the will. I'm commanding you to rejoice, think about that. It's an interesting thing. You are commanded by God to be joyful today, to be happy. He wants you to be content in your circumstances, and so he's commanding your will. And so what that means is, if you're not joyful right now, if you're not content, you need to work on yourself. You need to think differently. And later in this little section, he's going to tell them what to think about whatever's true, whatever's noble, whatever's right, whatever's pure, lovely or admirable. Think about these things. We'll get to that next week God willing.

But he says, "Whatever you need to do to be joyful, rejoice as an act of the will." Abraham Lincoln said, and I've never forgotten this interesting statement, I don't usually quote him at sermon times, but I think this an interesting statement. He said, "When all is said and done, a man's about as happy as he makes up his mind to be." That is definitely true of a Christian. Why would we be discontent except that we've lost focus on what really matters if we're Christians. Our sins are forgiven. We have eternal life. God is working in and around and through us. Good things are happening. God is here. A man's about as happy as he makes up his mind to be. Do you ever find yourself in a gloomy irritable mood? Do you realize that it's your fault? It has nothing to do with your spouse, it that's nothing to do with your job or your financial situation. It has nothing to do with any of those things, it has to do with you. You're being disobedient to God. It says in Philippians 4:4, "Rejoice in the Lord always."

Now, those of you that are counseling a person who's not joyful, don't say, "God commanded you to be joyful." I don't think that's going to work at that moment, but it is true. God is commanding us at all times to rejoice. Now, look what it says a little more carefully, "Rejoice in the Lord always." There's such a focus on Joy in Philippians. Philippians is called the Epistle of Joy, this is the fourth and fifth time, he's commanded them to rejoice. Philippians 2:18, it says, "So you too should be glad and rejoice with me." Philippians 2:28, he says, "Therefore I have sent him [Epaphroditus] all the more eagerly so that when you see him again you may rejoice and I may be less concerned about you." Philippians 3:1. "Finally my brothers, rejoice in the Lord." Now here, number four and five, "Rejoice in Lord always, and I'll say it again rejoice." But the focus has to be on Christ. Rejoice in timeless, changeless, unshakable things that are true of Christ. Let your focus be on him.

Rejoice in Christ's birth in Bethlehem. Rejoice in Christ's sinless life resisting every temptation. Rejoice in his miracles, every one of them. Rejoice in his teachings, which are unlike any teachings that were ever given. Rejoice in his death on the cross. Rejoice that God's wrath was poured out on him and not on you. Rejoice in his mighty resurrection victory. Rejoice in the Lord, rejoice in his ascension. Rejoice in the fact that he is sitting at the right hand of God the Father Almighty making intercession for his church. Rejoice that some day he's going to return in might and power, and all of his enemies will be put under his feet. Rejoice that there is a perfect kingdom that is coming. Rejoice in these things. And rejoice in the fact that he has begun a good work in you, and that he will carry it on to completion to the day of Christ Jesus. There's so much to rejoice in that is absolutely untied to your circumstances. Rejoice in these things. Rejoice in the Lord always, and pattern your joy after Christ. Learn to focus on Christ and his kingdom and his joy, not so much on the present circumstance. I'm not telling you like a masochist, rejoice in the fact that someone you love was just diagnosed with cancer. That's not what I'm saying.

Rejoice in what the Lord can do in that circumstance instead. Jesus didn't rejoice in the actual nails and wounds that were holding him to the cross, but he was rejoicing in what all of that would accomplish some day, learn to rejoice like that. Rejoice in the Lord always.

3) Learning to be Gentle

And then third, learning to be gentle, look at Verse five, "Let your gentleness be evident to all, the Lord is near." We live, I think in an increasingly harsh and hostile age. Do you sense that, do you sense that people are angry a lot? I feel that. I think they're angry in the roads, they're even angry at Kroger. I'm not going to tell the story, but if you want to come and talk to me about my Kroger experience this week, with the checkout line where you're only supposed to have 12 in there. And I was in the wrong lane and I was... It's a harsh world we live in.

And I didn't mean it. But it's a harsh world. People are angry and they're harsh. And sadly there's harshness even among those committed love relationships. Marriage, there's harshness between husbands and wives, and it's not honoring to God. And then there's a harshness that we might feel toward the outside world. Harshness toward our lot in life. We're commanded to be gentle. Because the Lord is near. This kind of gentleness I think was displayed beautifully by Paul and Silas, when they were beaten in Philippi and they're singing praise songs to God, and there's the earthquake, and the door flies open, and the Philippian jailer thinking he's lost all his prisoners has drawn his sword and is about to kill himself, and Paul and Silas call out and said, "Don't do yourself any harm. We're all here." And he's trembling, and he calls for lights, and rushes in and brings them out and ask, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" They didn’t say, "Well don't ask us. You beat us earlier. I have no interest in talking to you. Alright, so just stay away from me. If somebody's going to preach the Gospel, it's somebody else other than me. Because I'm not doing it." Alright? That's a harsh, mean answer. They didn't have any feeling like that. They were delighted to preach the Gospel to this man.

There was a gentleness there, and a willingness to preach and not be vindictive, and not hold that grudge against somebody. Let your gentleness be evident to all. As William Tyndale was being burned to death, he prayed, "Lord open the King of England's eyes." Such a gentleness there. Or even better, I love Jan Hus, he's singing a child Christian song, kind of like, "Jesus loves me," their version as he was dying on the cross. A child like sweet gentleness, no anger, no hostility, just gentleness.

And this story I read, during the reign of communism in Romania, a pastor in Romania was sitting at the breakfast table with his wife and six small children, suddenly the police broke into his home to search the house and arrest him. The police asked him, "Don't you have anything to say? Have you no sorrow or regret?" Pastor said, "You are the answer to what we prayed for today. We just read Psalm 23, that God prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies. We had a table but no enemies. And now you have come. If you would like anything that's on this table, it's yours. Please sit and eat with us." The man said, "You're crazy. How can you say such things? We will take you to prison and you will die there. You'll never see your children again." With gentleness and contentment, the man of God said, "We also read about that today: Though I pass through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." The officer shouted, "Everyone fears death. I know it, I've seen it on their faces." Pastor answered, "The shadow of a dog can't bite you, and a shadow of death can't kill you. You can kill our bodies, or put us in prison, but nothing bad ultimately can happen to us. We're in Christ, and if we die, he'll take us into his world." I'll tell you something, that kind of gentleness, "A gentle answer," it says, "Turns away wrath." That opens a door for witnessing. And it's very much patterned after Christ. The only description I ever find that Christ gives of himself, concerns this matter of gentleness. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart. And you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, my burden is light." Jesus is gentle.

I had a wonderful conversation earlier with a church member, and we were talking about that passage that I preached on in Matthew, "A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, until he leads justice to victory." He is gentle in his touch with us, and so because the Lord is near, we can be gentle in our touch with others. I want to speak especially to husbands. It's a big temptation. I read it in scripture, "Husbands," in Colossians it says, "Husbands love your wives and don't be harsh with them." It's so easy for that manly strength to bubble over into anger and into harshness towards your wife. Don't do it. Because the scripture here says, "Let your gentleness be evident to everybody." Let everyone who knows you say of him or her, it's a gentle person there, gentle person. Now next week, God willing, we're going to look at four more ways that Paul talks about a stable, stable joy. If you walk with the Lord and allow him to work in you, he will give you a joy that cannot be shaken because it has its roots not on earth, but in Heaven.

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Philippians 3:17-21. The main subject of the sermon is how a God-centered mindset extinguishes sinful desires.

As I thought earlier in this week about the most famous and most expensive bowl of stew in history, I was thinking it must have been incredible. I mean, it must have really tasted good. Of course, I'm talking about when Esau came in from the field and was famished and spend a day of hunting and apparently came up empty. And his stomach was calling and he smelled Jacob's stew bubbling and... I just thought it must have been incredible lentil stew. Now, I've never eaten a lentil stew that was worth selling a birthright for, but I thought it must have been an incredible stew. But then last few days, I think I changed a little bit and now I feel like it must have been probably leftovers, just heated up, because isn't it what the devil does? I mean, wouldn't that greatly honor the devil's whole scheme, is to get somebody like Esau to trade it off for a below average bowl of soup.

Isn't that in effect what C S Lewis said in, The Screwtape Letters when he said, "The whole program of the devil is to get you ever increasingly enslaved to something that ever decreasingly pleases you?" That's what he's about. And I think, therefore, it must have been leftovers, that he sold his birthright for. What a tragic thing that anybody would trade faith for something physical, that Abraham's grandson would trade it all for a bowl of soup. And I'm thinking about this, that Abraham, the great man of faith, who turned his back on a lucrative lifestyle in early Chaldeans and sold most of it, and was willing to live in tents and never get what was promised to him and just lived by faith should have a grandson like that. What a scandal. What a tragedy.

But I see around me in the country I live in, and I see within me in my own nature, the same tendency, the same drive, as it were. And that drive is strong, isn't it, brothers and sisters? And the sanctification that we're called to is in direct opposition to that drive at every moment. John Piper has clarified for us that there are two great drives in the universe, strong and powerful drives. One is the drive that each individual person has to be happy. And the second is God's drive to be glorified in and by his creation. These are strong drives, aren't they? And you cannot resist or refute your internal drive to be happy, you can't deny it. You can't say it's not there. You can do some things about it, we're going to talk about those in this message, but you can't refute it, because it's there. And whether you know it or not, the other drive predated yours and is stronger, and more powerful, God will be glorified in his creation. That's why we were created. And what John Piper's done for me and for so many others is said that in effect the two become one for the believer. We find our happiness in God's glory. We find the meeting of every need, anything that you could want, we find in God's exaltation and his glory.

The Dual Danger of Legalism and License

Now, the Apostle Paul writing this greatest probably of all thank you notes, book of Philippians, obviously has more than just thanking them for the money that he has in mind here. He is a pastor and he's concerned about these folks. The background of his concern is in the devil's relentless attack on the church. The devil is never going to let us alone, ever, for a moment our steps are going to be dogged by this enemy. And so he's always pumping out things to try to stop the work of God, and in this one chapter, Philippians, we see two of his greatest lies. And what's so interesting about them is that they're in one sense, kind of opposites of each other. I think in the end they become the same thing, just different means, but they are legalism and license. We see them both in this chapter, legalism and license. And Paul, the pastor's, concerned about both. He begins the chapter by looking at it, he's concerned about it. He says, "Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh, for it is we who are the circumcision." Now, we are the true circumcision, not those Judaizers who want to subjugate you Greeks into a system of laws and rules and regulations and sap all your joy.

"I want to tell you... " in effect, he says in Philippians 3. "I want to tell you about my own pilgrimage. I came to reject all that as trash and all of my efforts in legalism led to nothing. A joyless existence. I found something that drove all of them out, and that was I saw Christ, the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus. I saw His glory, and there was awakened in me such a longing and desire that has never been fully quenched. I stand as a man who's satisfied, and yet never satisfied, always wanting more, but I know what it is I want. I want Christ. I want to know Christ. Even if it means suffering for me, even if it means death. I want to know him." And so that drove out any concern over legalism. I knew that my legalistic life as a Pharisee would never lead me to Christ. Actually, was leading me away because it made me proud and hard and self-righteous, and I didn't want any of that." And so he says, "Be like me, follow my example, live like me." And if, in some point, you think differently, God will make that clear to you too, okay. Because I'm not wrong about the Christian life. That's what he's saying. And so he's resisted and he's turned away from legalism. But now interestingly, he turns in verse 17 on toward the opposite error. And that's this whole issue of license. And he wants to warn them about it.

Now, we've talked the last few weeks about verse 17, "Join with others and following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you." Well, we kind of took that verse out and talked about it on its own merits, and saw that across Paul's writing, and really across the whole New Testament, that there's a theology of discipleship here that was worth listening to. But now I want to set the verse back in its context and understand it in Philippians 3. And he's saying, "I want you to follow my pattern because there are people around you who are living like godless hedonists, pagans, and that life leads to hell. It leads to destruction. And I want you to be warned about it." So he's a good pastor, you see. He's warning against legalism on the one side and then he's warning against license on the other. The interesting thing is that both, I think, in the end, turn out to be the same thing. Both of them are intensely me focused, aren't they? Both of them looking inward like that Pharisee that was so self-righteous in Luke and stood up and prayed about himself. "God, I thank you that I'm not like other men." Well, it's very self-focused, that legalistic self-righteous approach, but so also is the God is their stomach approach too, isn't it? Always thinking about, "My drive and what I want out of life. What my urges are and how to meet them." It's a very selfish way to live. And so we have selfishness in its religious garb, and then selfishness in its pagan garb, and it ends up about the same thing.

Now, when he talks about people whose God is their stomach, it's an interesting phrase, isn't it? Look at it again. He says in verse 18, "For as I often told you before, and I'll say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ, their destiny is destruction." Verse 19 he says, "Their God is their stomach and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things." Now, the stomach certainly was designed by God to digest food, and it does represent food here, I think certainly. But I think it goes deeper than food. I think it represents any fleshly drive, any appetite, any lust, any desire. Frankly, anything tied to the body and to an exclusively earthly lifestyle. If your stomach is your God, it means that the center and focus of your existence is meeting your earthly drives and desires. It's why you're alive. Your free time is spent on those drives and desires. Your free mental time is spent on them as well.

Frankly, all your time is spent on it because even in your professional life, or if you're a student and you're training and preparing, you're thinking about meeting that drive and desire. The Book of Ecclesiastes says that all men's efforts are for his mouth. And what it means is there's just a focus on the earthly side of life to the exclusion of everything else. I think that's what it means if your God is your stomach. In the end, you worship only yourself, and your own body drives, and you live to meet them. That's all. Now, Esau is of course the ultimate biblical example. And so I brought into our pastoral ministry a while ago, the term, "Esauishness," which doesn't exist in the dictionary. I've looked it up, it's not there. But you know what I mean, it's what we live around all the time. America is surrounded... We're surrounded by Esaus. We're surrounded by people who live for their stomachs. And it's a very difficult thing to observe. I worked for 10 years in industry, and I just... The motive, they put up with the work week and live for the weekend.

And it's just a drive all the time toward the pleasure and toward physical delights. Hebrews 12:16 points this out concerning Esau, says, "See that no one is sexually immoral or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as his oldest son." And so we have these overpowering drives of the flesh. Now, there are different strategies for dealing with them. The body itself is a remarkable gift of God, isn't it? If you really think about it theologically, it is the highest pinnacle of God's physical creation. I think He made nothing better than the human body, including the human mind. It's the peak of what he made physically. And so you are amazing and intricate balance of biological systems, the circulatory system, the nervous, muscular, and skeletal systems, and the digestive system certainly, and the reproductive system, all of these things fearfully and wonderfully made, King David said. And it was a ground for praising God. It's not a bad thing. We're not Greeks saying that the body is evil and we must subject all of its strives.

Well, there are different strategies for dealing with these drives. Now, what drives are they? Well, drives for food and drink, to eat something that's delicious and drink something that's pleasing to the palette or drive for visual stimulation, for sights that are beautiful. Could be anything from a beautiful tree or flower, to a mountain, valley, or anything else that's beautiful to your eye. Drive for sexual pleasure. A good thing from God. It receives an awful lot of press, doesn't it? Even in the recent weeks, when you look at what's happening in our country about marriage, at the core of it is the drive for meeting sexual needs. The drive for sensory comfort. A comfortable blanket on a cold night, I used that even recently. I like a nice, soft, warm blanket when the weather gets like it does, and we have insufficient insulation. Working on that.

But get out of the shower and your body is dripping, nothing like a plush thirsty towel. I mean, these are the sensory things of life, and they're not evil. Skillfully-designed furniture, a couch that doesn't have a spring poking up in your back, something like that. And these are not bad things. Jesus slept on a cushion in Mark's Gospel in the back of the boat. What was the cushion there for? Well, ask him when you get to Heaven, but I think it was to make Him more comfortable. I would think you don't need to go much further than that. And the drive for pleasing sounds, whatever your favorite music is. Those are all things that are around us. Now, the problem really comes ultimately with boundaries, doesn't it? That's the issue. The issue is that God has set boundaries around these drives. He's given the drives, he's given the desires, and then he put boundaries up. Says in Psalm 16, King David says, "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places." That's a contented man, it's somebody who's happy and content with where the fences are set up in his life. But if you jump the fences, you become a transgressor. So there are fences, there are boundaries in life. Now one strategy of dealing with the fleshy drives and desires is to say, "There are no boundaries, literally, there are no fences anywhere." That's the ultimate of hedonism, the ultimate of me-ism, that I can have whatever brings me pleasure. Some people even kind of baptize this theologically and say that the death of Christ on the cross covers that so you can live any way you want. That is the grace of God transformed into a license for immorality in Jude 4. It's mentioned also in 2 Peter 2:18 and 19, it speaks of these false teachers, "They mouth empty boastful words and by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom while they themselves are actually slaves of depravity. For man is a slave to whatever has mastered him." So ironically, they are talking about freedom, but they are living like the ultimate slaves. But that's one strategy, saying that there are no fences, no boundaries, nothing, anything goes, whatever makes you happy. The other sinful strategy is legalism or asceticism. In that case, there are boundaries set much too narrowly. You're to be inside this little area here, and anything beyond it is wickedness and sin. And so these folks draw in excluding territory that God has said is good and right, such as marriage, for example, or eating, or other things.

Things that, it says in 1 Timothy, God made so that He would be thanked, that He would be honored, but they draw in the boundaries so narrowly and say, "You must live here and anything beyond it is wickedness and sin." Some of the ascetic monks, these are some of my most favorite people to study in church history like Simeon Stylites, the one who sat on a pillar six to eight feet high, to get away from everything. By the time his monk career ended, his pillar was 80 feet high, and he would stand for 20 days at a time and pray and sit for 20 days at a time and pray, and they'd give him a modicum of food and he would eat it, wishing probably didn't have to. That was a life of asceticism. The problem with that kind of asceticism is, number one, it doesn't work. Colossians 2 tells me it doesn't work. These kinds of extreme regulations, "'Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch…' These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence." They don't change your heart, you're every bit as lustful as you were before, and God is looking at the heart, isn't he?  So they don't work.

Secondly, in that they do work, they produce some negative effects, harsh thoughts toward God, judgmental attitudes toward others, brothers and sisters, who don't make the same commitments that you do. And so, if you decide to give up something, spectator sports, television, any kind of entertainment, computer games, vacations, I mean the list goes on and on. I actually made a list of the different ways that Americans meet their pleasure needs, and it really was amazing, cruises... I mean, we could go on and on. But if you say, "I'm going to give up all of these things." You are strongly tempted to feel negatively and arrogantly toward those who don't give them up. Well, those are different strategies. Here the focus is on Godless hedonism. Now the word, "Hedonism," comes from the Greek word, "Pleasure," Hedonis is a Greek work for pleasure. And the definition would be, whatever most increases pleasure is right, regardless of who it is it hurts.

Now Greece was the center of certain schools of philosophy concerning this, Epicurus for example, taught this, but I don't really think that Paul was looking into schools of philosophy with the Pagans that surrounded his Philippian Christians, he just said that's the way that Pagans naturally live. Whether they have it organized into a system of philosophy or not, this is what they live for, their god is their stomach.

Paul’s Four-fold Assessment of Godless Hedonism

Now, he says four things about them here, he assesses them, he says, first of all, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ. Look at that in verse 18, "many live as enemies of the cross of Christ." The center of Christ's life was the cross, that's why he came to die on the cross, he came to die, to suffer and die. And he calls on all of his followers to pick up their cross daily and follow him. If you don't carry your cross, you're not worthy of him. Jesus said it plainly. And so the lifestyle of a Christian is the lifestyle of the cross. It's what Martin Luther called the theology of the cross, of self-denial for something better, something higher, a greater joy. And Jesus did it all for joy. He wasn't that kind of Godless ascetic, and there are, by the way, ascetics in every religion, it's not just Christianity. There are some in Buddhism and Hinduism that do the same thing with the earthly drives. But he said, these people they live as enemies of the cross of Christ, they hate the preaching of the cross, and they certainly hate the lifestyle of the cross, they're enemies of the cross.

And secondly, he says, "Their end is destruction." I think end is better than the NIV's pick choice of destiny here. Destiny's a little strong. It just tell us... Which is the end, the end of that road, you living like that, the end of that road is hell. Now that there's no question. Maybe destiny too strong but hell is not too strong. From which we get the word apollyon in the book of revelation.The end is hell. The end of that lifestyle is hell. It says in Matthew 7:13, same word, "Enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it." It's the same word. Some people say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but here it seems to say the road to hell is paved with a bunch of good times. One party after another, one good time after another.

Thirdly, he says, "They glory in their shame." Interesting expression here, I think what it means is that that which they will in the end truly be ashamed of they presently boast in and are excited about. They boast about whoever can drink the most alcohol or have the most pleasure in a variety of ways and there is a bragging and an enticing there. Puritan, Thomas Manton put it this way. He said, "First we practice sin then we defend it and then we boast of it." And that's what I think he is meaning here when he says their glory is in their shame.

And then fourthly, he says, "Their mind is on earthly matters." They think about this stuff all the time. You can't get their minds off of the earthly stuff up into the heavenly realms. They can't think about it, it's not the way they're wired. And so they are always thinking about the next exciting ball game or a sensuous night, or a great meal, or something earthy. That's what they live for. And it says in Romans 8:6, "The mind set on the flesh is death but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace." And so we see the condemnation of godless hedonists.

But let's not miss something in what Paul does here. I went right over it but I don't want you to miss it. In verse 18, he says, "For as I have often told you before, and now say again even with tears..." It's easy for Christians to miss this, isn't it? What is Paul's attitude toward the people who are living like this? Are you shattered over it? I mean, he is crying for them. There is an incredible compassion here for these folks. And this is actually a regular part of Paul's ministry. He did the same thing in Romans 9 when he's talking about Christ-less Jews, those who have not trusted in Christ.

Now, he was a Jew that had trusted in Christ but there were many who had rejected Christ. And what he says in Romans 9 is that, "I speak the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. My conscious confirms it in the Holy Spirit. I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers those of my own race, the people of Israel." He is weeping for the Jews who don't know Christ. Weeping for them. Just like he is weeping here for the pagans who don't know Christ, whose God is their stomach. He's crying for them.

He does the same thing toward Christians, 2 Corinthians 2:4, he had to write a very harsh letter dealing with sin, 1 Corinthians 5 covers it and he wants them to know it was not easy for him to write that disciplinary letter. And so he says in 2 Corinthians 2:4, "I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears not to grieve you, but to show you of the depth of my love for you."

And he just sums up his whole ministry to the elders of the Ephesian church in Acts 20 verse 31 he says, "So be on your guard. Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears." The tears of Paul here, his great compassion. And it was really the tears of Christ because he is patterning it after Christ who stood over Jerusalem and wept over the city. "Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you would not."

The compassion of Christ for the lost is coming out in his apostle. The tears that he weeps here. Ultimately, though, I think his compassion is towards Christians, isn't it? Because he says, "As I have often told you before and now I say again even as tears, many are living in this godless pagan way." Don't do it Philippians, please. Don't live that kind of life. So his compassion is really ultimately for the Philippians here. Although he does grieve for the pagans.

And by way of contrast, he says that's the way they are living, I'm warning you against it but I want to show you the way your life should be. Your citizenship he says is in heaven. You're at a different level. Verse 20 and 21, "Our citizenship is in heaven and we eagerly await a savior from there, the lord Jesus Christ who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."

There is a strong contrast being set up here between the godless pagans, the hedonists that are living for their stomach, and you Christians, the Philippian Christians. There is a difference. Their God is their stomach, your God is the eternal creator of the universe. They are enemies of the cross of Christ. You embrace the cross as your salvation, first through the atoning sacrifice of Christ so that his blood shed on the cross removes forever the wrath and curse of God. Condemnation is gone through the cross of Christ and you know it. So you embrace it as your salvation but secondly, in terms of lifestyle, it becomes the way you live your life. You take up your cross everyday and follow. And it frees you up from the enslavement to passions.

And so they're the enemies of the cross of Christ. For you, the cross is salvation. Their end is destruction, but your end is heaven. Your citizenship's in heaven. There's a contrast here. And he says, "Their mind is chained to earth, but your mind is free to fly to the heavens, because everything in heaven and earth is given to you through faith in Christ. All of it is yours, kept in the heavens for you." It's incredible contrast here. Well, why does he speak like this? Well, he says, "We're citizens of heaven." And I think the Philippians would've embraced or understood this, because they were very proud. The Philippian people were proud of being citizens of Rome. They were a citizen colony of Rome. And what that meant was that any natural born Philippian was a citizen of Rome.

Paul himself was a citizen of Rome, and he used that a couple of times to get out of being beaten or some other things. He thought like a citizen of Rome, and I think he wanted to be a good citizen of Rome, but his higher allegiance was to heaven. Our citizenship's in heaven. I'm speaking mostly I think to Americans. I think since 9/11, there's been an upsurge of patriotism and I understand that. And I think we should be patriotic to a point, but there's boundaries to that, isn't there? If you ever want to study a good case study on patriotism with no boundaries, study Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles, Germany over everything.

Well, I would say Jesus Christ over everything. Our citizenship's in heaven. So we must be good American citizens like the apostle Paul was a good Roman citizen. And the early Christians prayed for the emperor and were submissive to authority and carried out their duties and responsibilities as much as their conscience allowed them to, and so must we. But our citizenship's in heaven. So Paul's point here is ethical. If our citizenship's in heaven, how should we live? Well, not in lust and drunkenness. Not in orgies and wickedness.

Romans 13 says, "Let us behave decently as in the daytime, not in orgies or drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature." And this is going on as we eagerly await a savior from heaven, Jesus Christ. So while you're waiting, what should you do? Is Jesus going to come back today? Oh, I hope so. Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't it be great to have the prayer meeting tonight cancelled because Jesus came back? I'd be happy about that. He has that authority, he can cancel any prayer meeting he wants to. It's his church. So if he cancels the prayer meeting because he comes back, I'll be delighted. And we'll talk to him more directly, won't we? And that'll be wonderful.

But if he doesn't come back, how should we wait? Well, I'm going to give you again those internal and external journeys. Internally, puts into death. Externally, let's speed up the day of God. Both of these come together beautifully in 2 Peter 3. Listen to this: "Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?" You ought to behave like citizens of heaven. "What kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live Holy and Godly lives, as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming."

How do you speed the coming of the day of God? Well, get busy in evangelism, make disciples of all nations. And how do you speed its coming? Put sin to death in your own life. That's what he says. Behave like a citizen of heaven, that's what you are.

And then fourth, we see beautifully the consummation of salvation. He says, "We eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." Oh, I'm waiting for that. I'm excited about that. I'll tell you more in a minute. I had no voice when I woke up this morning. That I can speak at all is a grace of God.

But God is good. But here, he mentions is the second coming of Christ. We are eagerly awaiting Christ to come back. It's like Scott said in the baptism today twice. Are you waiting for Christ to come back? Our sinless savior to come back that we might look up in the heavens and see him there. And that he would at last get what he truly deserves, unfeigned worship. Christ will descend with the clouds, he will come back with the armies of heaven. And he will come back as our final savior from this vile world and all of its temptations and its attacks.

Secondly, everything is going to be brought under his control, that's what it says. All of this disarray that we see in the newspapers and we read about all over the world, we're talking about tyrants that use their political power to strip the rights and freedoms of people and beat on their bodies and even take their lives. We're talking about the scourge of poverty. We're talking about the temptations to the animal drives and lust that we've talked about earlier. This stuff seems like it's out of control. And we're talking about within the bodies even of Christians diseases and decay and problems. And it seems like it's out of control, but it isn't.

Jesus Christ has the kingly right to this whole world. It's already been given to him. All the authority in heaven and earth has been given to him. It's his already. But there's a process going on here, isn't there? And so the father said to the son, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." And that's going on. But when he comes back, he's going to finish that job and everything is going to be brought, the Greek here is very strong, under his arranging control. He will bring all the disarray and make it arranged beautifully as our king, and that includes your bodies.

And so we end up where we began, with your body. Yes, those drives, those desires, the fleshly side of you, which is so much of a battleground now, isn't it? And it makes it so hard to walk a single day in godliness. Paul says in Romans 7 that when he wants to do good, evil is right there with him. Well, it's in the body. He calls it "the body of death," he calls it "the body of sin," he calls it "the mortal body." Here he calls it the "the lowly body, the humiliated body." This is the only vehicle we have for service for Christ in this world. We must have it, but we must keep it under subjection. And what a struggle it is every day.

But the same power that enables Jesus to bring the whole world under his control is going to be at work in your body. Isn't that exciting? And He's going to give you a new one. You know why? Because the old one cannot make it to heaven. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. You must be transformed from the corruptible to the incorruptible. You must be made like Christ. And this, at last, is the finish line of your salvation. And when you've crossed it, you will have been completely saved.

And until this happens, until Philippians 3:21 is fulfilled in you and in all of God's chosen people, salvation's not finished yet. We're not fully saved. This is what was stated in Romans 8:29-30, "For those whom God foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined he also called, and those he called he also justified, and those he justified he also..." What? "Glorified." He's going to make you just like Jesus. You're going to be conformed to his image. In your body as well as in your soul. And that's going to be glorious.

Now, what is our application for this? Well, really kind of infinite. But I'm only going to hold you for another hour. I know your stomachs are grumbling. I know you're hungry. But I kind of gotcha this morning, don't I? Because who's going to admit, I'm too hungry to listen to this sermon. I got to go. But I'm not cruel and I'm not unkind. Just briefly.

A Balanced Life

A balanced life. Can I urge you to look at the legal, lawful pleasures, which God wants you to enjoy? Look at them like a child of God. In that internal journey, I want to urge on you a balanced life of lawful pleasures and self-control. Rejecting, on the one hand, self-righteous legalism and on the other hand, license and freedom to eat and drink and do whatever you want. Obviously now, hear me, Christians must reject all sinful pleasures out of hand. They are rejected and wicked and if you're struggling with anything you know is sin, you must put it to death.

Like John Owen said, "Be killing sin or sin will be killing you." But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the beauties of nature, the taste of food that you enjoy, marital life together in a family, enjoyment of hobbies, other things. How shall we use those things? And what I'm asking you to do is to live a life of self-control in these areas.

1 Corinthians 7, Paul's talking about marriage, and he says, "What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short." This is 7:29-31. "From now on, those who have wives should live as if they had none." Very interesting statement. "Those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; and those who use the things of this world, as if not engrossed in them." That's what I'm talking about. "For this world and its present form is passing away."

So, don't be engrossed in anything in this world. 1 Corinthians 6:12 says, "Everything is lawful for me, but not everything's beneficial. Everything's lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything." How can you tell if you're mastered by something? Can I urge you to give it up sometime? Seriously, for a little while. Fast from it. Whether food, or marital relations, or spectator sports, or hobbies, or other things. And find out how important it is in your life. You may actually be surprised how important it has become in your life. It could be that some mastery crept in unawares, and you lost self-control in that area.

Can I urge you to come back to a disciplined life? And it could be even that some lawful thing has so consistently led you into sin in the past that you must give it up forever. And you have to decide what those are. Jesus said, "If your right eye caused you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than your whole body to go into hell. And if your right hand caused you to sin, cut it off and throw it away." But if God leads you to do that, don't boast about it, please. We're not even supposed to know when you're fasting. You're supposed to put oil in your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you're fasting, but only to your Father who's in heaven. Don't go walking around saying, "Look what I've given up." Because then you've gone that short route from discipline to boastfulness, and you're right into a different sin. Self-control in these things.

A Compassionate Heart

Secondly, can I urge on the external journey? A compassionate heart. I was convicted by this. I don't weep enough for the lost. I'm just confessing that to you. I don't care enough. I don't care as much as Jesus did. And I don't care as much as Paul did. And I want that to change. And the only way that I can do it is to get closer to Christ, to love more what He loves, and to hate more what he hates, and to feel more what He feels when He looks out over Jerusalem. I want to weep more. And I want you to too because it's healthy, isn't it? To weep for the Jews that don't know Christ, like Paul did. And to weep for the pagans that are living for their stomachs.

Pursue Joy in God

And thirdly, John Piper in Desiring God espouses a different kind of hedonism, the kind where the ultimate pleasure is God himself. Because you know in the end that's what you're going to get in heaven. Isn't that marvelous? It's incredible, isn't it? The feast of the wedding banquet is going to be God. And I don't want it to be anything else. I want God, I want him to satisfy me. Might I suggest that you not turn your back on pleasure, but have pleasure be ultimately fulfilled in Christ. Let Christ be your pleasure.

We are focusing today on Philippians 3:17 and we're looking at a pattern of discipleship for the second week, "Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you." Philippians 3:17, partner verse is Philippians 4:9, "Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me, put it into practice, and the God of peace will be with you." If you were to trace the mighty Mississippi River back to its origin, you would find it begins as a trickle flowing out of Lake Itasca in Northern Minnesota. From there, the river grows and flows 2,348 miles until it dumps into the Gulf of Mexico below New Orleans.

Millions, and millions, and millions of gallons of water. The Mississippi River drains 33 states, its watershed covers one half our nation. Fosters cities, commerce, transports people and goods, provides habitat for fish and all kinds of animals, and it's an immense thing created by God. And it all starts with a tiny little trickle up there at Lake Itasca. I've never seen that trickle, I'd like to go and visit it someday. But if in like manner, you were to trace the human origins, human origins now, of the mighty river which is the Church of Jesus Christ. It began one afternoon around the time of the Ministry of John the Baptist, this mighty thing called the Church of Jesus Christ, which has already spread to almost every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, began in an afternoon.

It was an exciting time at that point. The Ministry of John the Baptist was really taking off and there were Jews coming from all over the nation, coming there to hear this wild man preach, to look at him and to be baptized. What a strange thing that John would be baptizing Jews. That was an initiation rite for us dirty pagans. As gentiles, if we wanted to become Jews, we would be washed and cleansed of all our pagan idolatries. But John was baptizing Jews, and so there were huge throngs coming to hear, and preach, and to see the baptism of repentance for sins. One day at a small place called Bethany beyond the Jordan, a day like any other during that time in Israel's history, an obscure man stood in front of John, and if you had been near John and knew him well enough, you would have noticed an incredible change in his demeanor.

John looked perhaps stunned or overwhelmed, amazed as this unknown man stood in front of him. And perhaps only a few people around John heard the change in his tone of voice, a sense of wonder and awe, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" And the response by this obscure stranger would have been incomprehensible, "Let it be so now… we must fulfill all righteousness." That would have gone over your head. You would have said, "What are they talking about?" And then like everybody else, the obscure stranger submitted to baptism. And the next day the Church began. Jesus was just walking along and John saw Him, and said, "Behold the Lamb of God." That's all. And two of John's disciples, his daily followers that John was teaching at that point, heard him say it, and they followed Jesus.

Jesus turned around and saw them following and asked them a question. Jesus is always asking questions, one thing you learn about Jesus, He's always asking questions, and here He asked them a question, "What do you want?" And they said, "Rabbi," which means teacher, "Where are you staying?" "Come," He replied, "and you will see." And so those two disciples went and they saw where He was staying, and they spent that day with Him. It was about the 10th hour, now the Jewish clock begins at six in the morning so that would be about four in the afternoon by my understanding. About four in afternoon, they went and spent some time with Jesus. That's how it started.

This is the quiet beginning of the Church of Jesus Christ. The Church that would spread from shore to shore began with what the British would call "an afternoon tea." A little time with Jesus spent wherever it was He was staying. And now it's spread from shore to shore, to almost every tribe, and language, and people, and nation. And it began with a simple concept, discipleship focused on time spent with Jesus. And Jesus in the end would call to Himself 12 who He named apostles, and He would pour Himself into those men, especially three in particular, and He would build a church on that. And He would command them to follow His same pattern of discipleship to the ends of the Earth.

Now, I believe that the Apostle Paul was following that pattern. I believe he was calling others to, "Imitate me as I imitate Christ." Kind of do ministry the way Jesus did. "That's what I'm doing," the Apostle Paul would say. To some degree, we've come at this topic backwards. Logically we would really begin with Christ's pattern of discipleship, and then we'd go to Paul's, but I thought it'd be better to start with Paul because we're following him in Philippians. And we've seen that Paul said in Verse 17:3, "Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you." And Verse 9:4 again, "Whatever you have learned, or received, or heard from me, or seen in me, put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you." Last week from this, we saw two aspects of discipleship, a pattern of doctrine resulting in a pattern of Godly living. Doctrine, transforming life, and the two of them indispensable. Not just doctrine, not just lifestyle, but doctrine resulting in lifestyle, the two of them together, a pattern of discipleship. This we saw was supported by many scriptures.

1 Corinthians 11:1, I've already alluded to several times this morning, "Join with others," he says there, "Be imitators of me just as I also am of Christ. I'm following Christ, you follow me." We saw also last week in 2 Thessalonians 3:6 and following, "Now we command you brethren in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you receive from us," very strong word. Just like we have in Philippians 3:17, the tupos, the type, the pattern of life in Philippians 3:17, we have what was passed on, the tradition of life as we talked about in 2 Thessalonians 3. And then, 1 Corinthians 4:15 through 17. Again, from last week, "Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ," said Paul to the Corinthians, "you do not have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore, I urge you to imitate me. For this reason, I'm sending you Timothy, my son whom I love who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus which agrees with what I teach in every church."

The pattern of doctrine resulting in a lifestyle. And he said, "I'm sending you Timothy because he kind of knows what I do. He's my son in the faith. And so he imitates me very well, and so he'll help you imitate me as well."

Now, I talked to you last week about how audacious all of this is, that any sinner, any human being would stand up and say, "Follow me and God will be with you." But I think this is exactly what our church needs. This is exactly what not just this local church, but the church in America needs, is men and women who are willing to say the same thing. Not just with their mouths, but with their lives. There is such a great divide I think in the American church between doctrine and living. We believe a bunch of things and we have a hard time living them out. And I think that God's answer is discipleship. It's bringing the two together so that doctrine results in transformed lifestyle. And I think there are some things that you really can't learn from a book. I think you just learn them by living them. You learn them by seeing it exemplified by having somebody with the courage to say, "Follow me and I'll show you how to do that." And I think we need that in our church.

Now, this is all review, Paul's pattern of discipleship. This morning, I want to spend time on Christ's pattern of discipleship. In John 13:15, Jesus said, "I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you." Now, there he's talking about the foot washing, but I think it's not a stretch to say that this was intended in many more areas than just foot washing. He intended to give us an example. We know this, definitely in 1 Peter 2 in which he intended to give us an example of how to suffer in a Godly manner. And so also, I think he came to give us an example of how to build a church. "You build a church the way I have." Well, how did Jesus build the church? Well, that is the central question the two books that have changed my life sought to answer. One of them this AB Bruce's book, "The Training of the Twelve." Now, Bruce's book, "The Training of the Twelve" is about 100 years old, his son FF Bruce, the great commentator on scripture well known to many, but it was his father who wrote this book and basically, all he's doing is just a New Testament study on how Jesus discipled the 12. And he just goes through the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and just puts it together in how Jesus shaped and molded the 12.

The cover art from the book is on the cover of your bulletin. I've used it one other time before, but I love it. I've never forgotten it. It's the master's hands shaping the clay on the wheel, and how Jesus was just using every interaction to just shape the lives of the 12, shaping their lives, preparing them for what was to come. A wedding together of incredible doctrine with perfect example, and Jesus just shaping them at every moment, preparing for what was to come. And that affected my life greatly, The Training of the Twelve. But even more I think in a clear way is Robert Coleman's book, The Master Plan of Evangelism, first published in 1963. And I'd just like to give you kind of a summary of the eight steps that he notices in Christ's pattern of discipleship. You really should read the book. You could read it in about two hours or less. It's a very short book, and brief, and to the point. In it, he looks at eight things that Jesus did, eight steps, which together I think formulate his pattern of discipleship. Selection, that is he chose men to work with. Association, that is he spent time with them. Consecration, he totally devoted himself to them and to the Father on their behalf and expected them to devote themselves as well to him, consecration.

Impartation, he gave himself away, Christ did, gave of himself. Demonstration, that is he lived it out in front of them and did not expect them to do anything that he hadn't first displayed in his life. He lived it out by lifestyle, demonstration. Delegation, he gave them work to do, he gave them projects, sent them out to do things and then came back and assessed how it went, delegation. Supervision, he didn't just send them out and then when they came back they were on to something else, but he worked with them and trained them based on their experiences. He supervised them, he didn't just cut them free. Jesus said later, " I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you." There's a sense of intense training there. And then finally, reproduction. He expected them to be fruitful and do the same thing in other people's lives which he had done in theirs. That's it quickly.

1) Selection

But let's look in a little more depth at each of these. First selection. Jesus' methods were not programs. It was not techniques, it was not marketing. His strategy was men. He was working with these twelve men. He was the initiator in the relationship. In Matthew 4:18 and 19 "As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee he saw two brothers. Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake for they were fishermen. 'Come, follow me,' Jesus said, 'and I will make you fishers of men.'"

Who initiated that? It was Jesus walking along the Sea of Galilee. They followed, He initiated. At the core of this was selection. He chose them for this task. It says in John 15-16, "You did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last." And so Jesus selected them. He chose them. It says in Mark 3:13 and 14, "Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to Him those He wanted, and they came to Him. He appointed twelve, designating them to be apostles so that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach." He chose these 12 at the specific leading of His Heavenly Father. Luke tells us that He spent all night in prayer before He chose the 12.

And so He was with them all night and then He came down and those were the ones He had selected. His principles for the selection were he was looking for men who were willing to learn, who were willing to be consecrated to Him, willing to pick up their cross and follow. We'll talk more about that in a moment, but there were reasons why He chose these men. They are not the men the world would have chosen. You're not going to choose these 12. But Jesus works in a different way than we do. God's ways are not our ways and neither are Jesus' ways our ways. And so he chose these men.

Now, this is where I think the church needs to be like Jesus. Jesus always was ministering to the masses. But his strategy for the world was this; the 12 apostles, and specifically within them three, Peter, John and James that he worked with especially and poured himself into. They were with him in Gethsemane, they were with him on the Mount of Transfiguration. They were with him when Jairus' daughter was raised, the three in particular. So there were kind of concentric circles in Jesus' ministry. Pouring himself into the three, a little less so but still intensively into the 12 and then the disciples that were kind of following him consistently and then the multitudes or the crowds around.

And Coleman puts it this way. He says, "I'm not in any way dismissing the mass evangelistic rally," which is so popular and is kind of the strategy, I guess, of some for reaching the world. We need a set piece room were people come in and listen, get the thing and go out and then you bring in the next group. And this is not God's way. This is one that wasn't Paul's way and it wasn't Christ's. Instead there was the multiplication approach that he sought to use.

Coleman said this, "This is where we must begin just like Jesus. It will be slow, tedious, painful, and probably unnoticed by people at first. But the end result will be glorious," listen, "even if we don't live to see it." We're in such a rush aren't we? We want it now, we want to see results immediately. Jesus was going after quality and then quantity. Did he care about quantity? Of course he did. Every tribe, and language, and people, and nation would be represented ultimately by a multitude that no one could count. But his approach was quality first. He was building into these key folks.

2) Association

Secondly, association. The basic concept here is pretty simple. He stayed with them, he spent time with them and did it constantly. We've already seen this in John 1, the whole thing began with an afternoon with Jesus. We've seen it also in a verse I just quoted but moved through quickly, but take a minute and listen to it again. In Mark 3:13-14, "Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted and they came to him. He appointed twelve, designated them apostles," listen, "that they might be with him." Secondly, "and that he might send them out to preach." There's a definite order there. First they're going to be with him, and then they're going to go out to preach. They're going to just spend time with Jesus and you're going to see this in Acts when Peter and John are there so bold and courageous. The Sanhedrin looks down and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. Their lives had been shaped and molded for three years by the master and they were ready now for their preaching ministry.

We were talking recently about the prices of various seminaries. And one of the wonderful things about being a Southern Baptist is that the cooperative program greatly reduces the cost of going to seminary. Very difficult to get out of seminary with a big debt. Because for the most part you won't and shouldn't be making tons of money in the ministry. And so as a result, to have a huge educational debt is a big problem. We were talking about this topic of how much seminaries cost and the encouragement of cooperative program. And we got to talking about the cost of Jesus' seminary. What was the cost of three years with Jesus?

Well, in one sense it was free. He didn't charge anything. But in another sense he said, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." You want to follow me, you want me to disciple you, you may not know when you'll eat next actually. You know any time I can turn the stones into bread but I'm not actually going to do that frequently. I'll feed the 5,000, you'll have plenty to eat that day. But maybe a few days later you'll be walking through the grain fields and picking heads of grain and eating them because you haven't had anything in a while.

And you may not know where you're going to sleep tonight because you're going to be maybe out in the stars with a rock for your pillow. That's the price tag of enrolling in Jesus' seminary. And more than that, he's going to break you down, he's going to bring you lower than you've ever been in your life. Think about Peter after he had denied knowing Christ. The lowest point of his life. And then he's going to build you back up again and use you like you could never imagine that we would. That was the price. I think it was the cheapest and most expensive seminary in history. The cost of following Jesus. And Jesus spent time with them, he taught them constantly. His lessons were woven together in a way of life. I mean, they'd be walking through the fields and he'd say, "Consider the lilies of the field... Look at the birds of the air." They were out there all the time. He spent time with them.

And all the more as the time drew near for Him to die, He actually kind of closed up shop on the masses and withdrew from them and spent intense time with these 12. In John 11:54 it says, "Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the Jews, instead He withdrew to a region near the desert, to a village called Ephraim where He stayed with his disciples." So there He is, kind of withdrawing, on retreat, as it were, and really pouring Himself into these 12. John 13 through 17 is Jesus' private ministry to His own disciples. He washes their feet. He instructs them about love, and the Holy Spirit, and suffering, and the persecutions that are going to come. And then He prays for them in a lavish and loving way, intensely pouring out prayer, not just for them, but for the world that will hear through their ministry. Pouring Himself out on them.

3) Consecration

Thirdly, consecration. Jesus required total obedience. He gave himself fully to them and expected them also to give themselves fully to Him. Jesus, it says in Hebrews in a very mysterious way, learned obedience from what He suffered. Well, they watched that. They watched him suffering in order to obey. And so he expected them to do the same. "If you're not willing to take up your cross and follow", said Jesus, "you are not worthy to be my disciple." They understood completely what this meant, a consecration to the task. Coleman put it this way:

"We must learn this lesson again today. There can be no dilly-dallying around with the commands of Jesus Christ. We are engaged in a warfare, the issues of which are life and death. There could be no insubordination in his command. No one knew better than Jesus that the satanic forces of darkness against them were well organized and equipped to defeat any half-hearted effort of evangelization."

Satan can knock us aside if we make a half-hearted effort to reach the world for Christ. Half-hearted won't do it. And he is well equipped to knock it aside. Instead Jesus said, "We are going to pour into these 12 and get them ready for the real war that's coming."

4) Impartation

Fourth, impartation. Christ gave himself away to his disciples. He gave himself totally. I think of Jesus at the cross, you know that this week the movie "The Passion" is coming out and a number of folks are going to see it. But if you were to see that image, whether you see the movie or not is not important, it's still the Scripture that converts, not a movie. Keep that in mind. But at any rate, there is going to be a depiction of Christ when you read the Scripture. Now, when you think about that, think about Jesus dead on the cross and ask, "What more could he have given for his disciples? Was there anything left?" I mean, they already gambled away his clothing in fulfillment of Scripture. There was nothing left, he had given everything he had, and that principle was there throughout his ministry. What I have, I give to you, for your benefit. He imparted himself to them. And then all the more after his resurrection when he breathe on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." He gave of himself directly into their souls through the Holy Spirit. He imparted himself to them. So therefore, in effect, discipleship must be of the same type. Impartation, what I have, I give to you.

5) Demonstration

Fifth, demonstration. And this has kind of been the point as we've looked at the pattern of discipleship, we see that this is kind of a central theme here. That Jesus didn't command his disciples to do anything that he didn't display or demonstrate before them. It's interesting to know how long he is with them before he finally sends them out to preach in Matthew 10 and then in Luke 10 also. There is the ministry of the 12 going out in Matthew 10, and all the instructions there. And then in Luke 10. But he has been with them, by some calculations, at least a year, and they have seen him do many things before he sends them out. So he is demonstrating them. You see this, I think, especially with prayer, don't you? In Luke 11 it says, "One day Jesus was praying in a certain place…" And they are watching him pray, that must have been something. It must have been something to watch Jesus pray. To watch the look on his face, to watch his body language, the intensity with which he poured out his heart to God. Obviously the highest of this was Gethsemane, but Jesus prayed many times. And as a matter of fact, in some places he even says, "I'm praying for these people that are watching, so that they may know that you sent me." This kind of thing. He is praying so that they can watch him pray. He wants them to have a hunger for prayer.

And so, one time he was praying in a certain place and the disciples came and said, "Lord, teach us to pray, the way John taught his disciples." And so Jesus at that point teaches them in Luke, it's in Luke 11, the Lukan version of the Lord's Prayer, and then there is couple of parables on prayer and a bunch of other instruction. Do you see the beauty of it? There is lifestyle leading into a question in which doctrine is imparted. What a beautiful thing that is. Jesus did it all the time, but especially with soul winning. Especially with soul winning. He would go from place to place and interact with a rich young ruler and see how he would handle that. He'd interact with a Zacchaeus who was too short, and he is up in the tree, and he spent time with him, the tax collector. Or he'd interact with 10 lepers who he'd healed and then one came back, and he would interact with him. Or he'd interact with the money changers in the temple, and how he would deal with that? I mean, they saw him in a variety of settings and focused on winning souls for the Heavenly Kingdom.

I just think that evangelism isn't really ultimately taught in a classroom. You have to go out and do it. And that is why we every month make available opportunities for you to witness. I don't want you ever to say in the end, "My church didn't give me an opportunity to go out and witness." We do it every month. Every month. We even provide ever increasingly wonderful meals, although I'm not one to tell you that because I don't want you coming for the meal, but they really are good. But then you get to do the work of the Father. All right, you get to come and witness. And I just believe that there's just a beautiful dynamic of going out and having experiences and then coming back and saying, "I've got some questions." and then wanting some training out of that. And Jesus did that.

6) Delegation

Six, delegation. He didn't just keep showing them. Ultimately he gave them work to do. It says in Luke 9:1, "When Jesus had called the twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases. And he sent them out to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick." So he sends them out. He sends out the 70 in Luke 10. He sends out the 12 in Mathew 10. Then at the end certainly with all the great commissions he definitely sends them out. "As the Father has sent me, even so I'm sending you." So definitely he intended them to go out. He gave them work to do. But before the final great commission there were kind of miniature commissions and work to do along the way. And it wasn't just those mission trips, but there would be little tasks or different things that he would give them to do.

7) Supervision

Seventh was supervision. As he gave them these tasks he would keep a check on them. He constantly followed their progress. And real life situations would bring up issues that would then be discussed. Great example of this is in Mathew 17, when Jesus is up on the mountain with his inner circle of three on the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter, John and James. And they're coming down. So the nine other apostles are still down there waiting for them to come off the mountain. And during that time a father brings his demon-possessed son and they, the nine apostles, are not able to drive out the demon. Now this is already after he gave them authority to drive out demons and they'd returned and said, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name." And they're so excited. But now, this time they just can't do it because Jesus isn't there or something.

And the father comes to Jesus as he's coming off the Mount of Transfiguration and said, "Lord, have mercy on my son," he said. "He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water.  I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him."  And then you get this from Jesus, "O unbelieving and perverse generation. How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me." And he drove out the demon. Afterward the disciples came up quietly and said, "why couldn't we drive it out?" We did try. We did pray. He said, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith like a mustard seed you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there', and it will move."

Do you see the dynamic there? The situation would never have popped up in a classroom. It was out in life. And then there was a feedback loop, and a discussion, and further training, supervision.

8) Reproduction

And then finally reproduction. Christ expected them to reproduce. What he was pouring into them, he wanted them to do for others. He wanted them to grow numerically through this kind of reproduction. This was the goal of the gospel work. And Coleman said it ultimately was the acid test of his ministry. If they didn't reproduce, the whole thing is a failure. But it's not going to be a failure. No way. In the end the spirit will guarantee that they will reproduce in this way. And it has been continuing ever since.

But for me as I look at the church, I want to assess, are we doing this? We looked at these eight patterns that Coleman gave us, and even if you don't necessarily buy all the details of Coleman's analysis, I think that these eight things were things that Jesus did. And my question is, is the modern church doing this? Now I touched on this last time. Some have noted two different approaches toward education. One of them the Greek model and the other one the Hebrew model.

I think a beautiful display of the Greek model is in Acts chapter 17 where the Apostle Paul is here to preach to the Athenians. And Acts 17:21 says this, "All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas." That's the kind of Greek style of teaching. They would sit around and discuss, and debate, and argue over the latest points of ethics, or philosophy, or morality, whatever. And they would kind of work it over and talk about it, and then they'd go home. And then they'd come back the next day and they'd do it again. And they just loved to sit around doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas. That is kind of the Greek pattern. And interestingly, I think it eventually affected the universities of Europe and the American educational system. It's basically, withdraw from life, sitting in a place dedicated to the educational process and impartation of a bunch of information, sitting around listening to it, and then you'd go home and try to do it. That's kind of how it works. The Hebrew model is a little bit different. Now I have my understanding or assessment of why these are different. But listen to the Hebrew model.

I think you're going to see this most clearly in Hebrew 6... Sorry, Deuteronomy 6:6 and 7, Deuteronomy 6:6 and 7 in which parents are told to disciple their children, (parenthetically, the best discipleship in the world are Godly Christian parents working with their kids and bringing them to a full and mature faith in Christ. Nothing better than that. We'll talk more about that in a moment). But in Deuteronomy 6:6 and 7, "These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts." There's content. You see it? Commandments are to be on your heart. You're to know the law of God. "These commandments are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children." That's like through repetition. That's that word sharpen. Sharpen them into your children. Impress them on your children. "Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you get up." Doesn't that sound like Jesus? It's just a kind of a lifestyle instruction, a weaving together of instruction with what's really going on in life.

Now my theory is that the Greeks thought that the physical world was evil and that the world of the mind was good. And so what we ought to do is get away from the physical world and kind of sit and talk about pure ideas. But the Hebrew model is that everything God made is good. We know that sin has entered the world, but it's still a good world, and we want a wisdom that's rubber-meets-the-road-ish, if that's a word. Anyway, it's just involved in life, woven together in the way you're really living. We want that kind of a wisdom. Now, let me ask you a question. As you look at the church today, which of those two models more accurately describes what we do for discipleship? I've already asked that question, and I come up with the Athenians, and not the Book of Deuteronomy.

I've come up with kind of us withdrawing from life, sitting in a kind of a dedicated room, talking about content, and then expected to go out and live it. "Do your best. Be praying for you." All right? And then hope that you'll grow. Now, I don't want to sell us short. I believe that many churches and individuals in churches have a mindset of discipleship and things go on throughout the week to that end. Believe me, I'm not minimizing the importance of good, solid teaching and doctrine. The Apostle Paul rented the lecture hall of Tyrannus, and worked and poured in doctrine. There must be there... I've nothing wrong with dedicated rooms in which doctrine is communicated, I'm just saying there's another component that I don't see and it troubles me.

And that is the role modelling woven together with life that was such a big part of what Jesus did and what Paul did. Now, I think, today in evangelical Christianity, parachurch groups do it best. Especially on the college campus. Groups like Campus Crusade for Christ, and InterVarsity, and Navigators, have a vision for discipleship. It's a little unfair because I have to say that college students have the greatest freedom and possibility in one sense to be discipled. But it's not unfair because I think that's great. Use it. Be discipled now. This is exactly the time to do it. When you have a mature mind and freedom in life to just have your life shaped and molded by a mentor.

But I just feel like the church should do it. And so I've been trying to think about that, and how it works. Trying to work it together. How is it that we can be a community of faith? And there is a community involved here. It isn't just one man discipling one younger man, and one woman discipling a younger woman, etcetera. But there is a mutual discipleship that kind of goes on all the time in the community. But, I'm arguing for a man discipling a younger man and a woman discipling a younger woman, more than it's happening. Much more than it's happening.

What's going on? Well, I think the modern lifestyle is the enemy of discipleship. We're too busy. And we're really busy people. And it's almost a mark, or a badge of, I don't know affluence or importance or something, that we're this busy. "Well, I have something on Monday night, and then something again on Tuesday night, and something... " Woah. And there's no room for this. And actually I almost got kind of a sense from some folks in the church, "Is this like another thing we're going to have to do? Kind of on top of all the other things that we're going to do?" And I'm saying, "Do you hear what's going on? What is the great commission?"

"All authority in heaven and Earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age." I want to keep on doing, through generation after generation what I've done for you 12. Teaching them, that's content. To obey, that's lifestyle. That's the great commission. And if we're too busy for that, we're too busy. We have to look again at it. So, I gave myself one more week... This wasn't originally a two part sermon, originally it was just one. But I needed more time to pray through what it is we're supposed to do.

And I'm not done answering the question. I'm not done thinking it through. I just see a difference between what I read in these books, especially in Scripture, and the way we're really doing discipleship here. Somebody comes to faith in Christ in our church, what do we do with them? Do we have an idea of how to work with them? Do we have an idea of how to take somebody that says, "Look, I really feel myself to be very young in the faith and I want to grow. What do I do? Do you have an answer for me?" And I'd be convicted by that kind of question. I have a kind of a jumbled answer but I want a clear answer of what it is that we're going to do.

I'm encouraged by the strong word "pattern". Join with others and follow my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern. The typos, the type that we gave you. We knew what we were doing. We weren't making it up as we went along. We understood how to disciple somebody. Five steps, I think, toward a remedy.

Step 1: Identify a Pattern of Discipleship

Step number one for the church and perhaps especially for those that are called to lead the church, is to identify this pattern. Doctrinally and lifestyle, what is the pattern of discipleship? What is a one year, two year, three year pattern that would be reasonable discipleship?

What doctrines do you need to know, in order to be mature? How do you move from milk to meat and at a certain point you'll be fully trained? Doesn't mean you know everything there is to know about Christianity, you'll never know that. The more I study the Bible, the more new things I learn. But that doesn't mean that I'm insufficiently trained in order to disciple somebody else. That's a cop-out. There comes a point which you know enough doctrine in order to mentor, to disciple somebody else. So, what is that? What is the pattern of biblical content to impart? And along with that what is the pattern of Godly character and lifestyle that goes with that?

In five sub-areas that I've got. Godly personal habits, that is Bible intake, memorization, meditation, consistent prayer, fasting, active church life, family devotions, these kind of things. These are the spiritual disciplines that are foundational. A well ordered lifestyle, discipline in sleep, and eating, and lawful pleasures, good ordered home, discipline in speech, faithfully working at your job, these kinds of things, put order to the life, putting sin to death by the Spirit, a regular pattern of facing temptations and seeing victory over that by the power of the Spirit, putting sin to death, an active ministry in which you're using your spiritual gift finding a place of service and using it, in the context of ministering to the body. Passion for missions and evangelism, all that active ministry, and then stewardship. Time, money, relationships, the stuff of life using it like a steward. Those are the kind of five areas I thought that would go into the lifestyle. If you can think of more, come and tell me. I'm learning more and more, but these are the kinds of things we'd want to kind of figure out, when is a person fully trained, so that they understand these things and they're kind of in their lives? So step one identify a pattern of discipleships,

Step 2: Assess yourself

Step two, assess yourself. It says in Romans 12:3 that we should think of ourselves neither too highly nor too lowly but with the measure of faith that the spirit gives. And so you have to assess yourself. Assess yourself, "Do I need to be mentored, or am I really ready actually to be mentored?" Not, "Am I... " or to be a mentor. "Am I perfect?" That's not the question. We already answered that in Philippians 3 earlier. No, you're not. As long as you're here on Earth you're not completed, you're not perfect. We're not looking for perfect people. We're looking for people who are willing to step forward and say, "Follow me as I follow Christ." If on the other hand, you say, "Really I am not, as I look at these areas, there's some disorder or disarray and I'm not ready. I need actually to be trained."

Step 3: Choose someone

Step three is to choose somebody. Pray that God would give you somebody that you could mentor or disciple if you're ready. And if not, then come to us, come to me or some of the other leadership in the church and say, "I want to be trained. Is there somebody who can do that for me?" Or if you know somebody, come and ask them if they would be willing to do it.

Step 4: Set up the relationship

Set up the relationship. Step four, either be discipled, or disciple someone, for a set amount of time. That's so important. I know that we could go on and on and on, and we should go on and on in friendship, but in terms of intensively meeting and training, Jesus did it for three years. And then they were ready. And then continue to meet.

Step 5: Follow Christ’s pattern

And then step five, follow Christ's pattern as set out in Robert Coleman's book. Or if you've got another approach use it, but understand what you're trying to do. The goal is spiritual multiplication. I want to close with a couple of insights. I don't believe that anything in this area is going to change unless we're willing to make some sacrifices. I think we're going to bump into reality. We're going to say, "I'm too busy for this, I can't do anything like this, etcetera." We're going to keep going on. I think instead we have to start thinking strategically. We have to say, "Okay, I'm going to go to that conference, is there somebody I can bring with me?" All right? "I'm going to go out witnessing on Sunday afternoon, I'm planning on being there. I'm going to call somebody and bring them along." Now, the somebody, somebody, somebody, after a while I think for strategic sense should be the same person, the somebody you're focusing on. You see?

But I'm just saying you're laying somebody's life on top of your life. Instead of adding another thing to your life, you're going to make an extra phone call and pick somebody up and go with them. If you have a day full of errands and you know that there's single guy or girl that's got a little freedom on Saturday, you invite them over and say, "Be part of my family. Be part of my thing while I do... Let's work together. Let's spend some time together." Use the present church activities. We're not... Believe me, we're not trying to increase. We don't want to look like the federal government, folks, and we're not always looking, adding more ministries, more subcommittees and all that. That is not where we're heading. Actually praying the opposite direction, trying to simplify so we can do these kinds of things. Hard to do. Hard to do, but that's what we're trying to do. So use church activities. If you're a busy family... Look, I've got four kids growing up in my home. We are busy. We are. We're probably kind of at peak busy-ness right now in my life, is my guess.

All right, does that mean I cannot disciple? No, it doesn't. But what it it means is that we have to be strategic about that and have people into the home, so that they can observe the way that we do family life, let's say. I mean, how valuable would it be, for a godly couple that's got kids growing up, etcetera, to take a newlywed couple and say, "Be with us for awhile. Let's do family life together, so that you can see how we do it."? Would that not be valuable? I mean it's so much better than reading it in a book. Senior adults have as much flexibility, if not more in some cases, than college students. We really do need godly seniors to say, "You know, follow me as I follow Christ", and to spend time with a specific individual, passing on a pattern of discipleship to them.

Now we have some good ministries in our church right now. Heart to Heart started a few years ago as a mentoring ministry, and I think it's doing a wonderful job. I know it could be better, because I know that some of the women set up their meetings but never meet, actually. Well, that won't help, obviously. I don't mean to say that un-gracelessly, but to set up a relationship and you never get together will not accomplish anything. All right, neither will it accomplish as much as if you get together and are just friends together and don't talk about spiritual content. So you don't have a pattern of doctrine and a pattern of godly lifestyle. There's got to be, you know, up at a higher level I think there in some of the relationships. But the men don't even have the organized ministry set up, and that's something we're praying toward, and something we very much would like to see.

I would like to close by just asking that you pray with me for further wisdom in this matter. I mean, I want our church to make disciples, disciples that will last, fruit that will last. If you are here today and you're listening to me talking about this and you realize that it's not a matter of discipleship for you, you're not a follower of Christ, you've never come to faith in Christ. Won't you trust in Christ today? Won't you believe in him for your salvation? Say, "I need to follow Jesus Christ just for salvation." Come and talk...

What a wonderful day of ministry today. Already two baptisms and that's a wonderful thing, isn't it? When somebody will stand up and testify to the saving work of God on their soul. And also, we will soon be able to enjoy the Lord's Supper, which I think the Lord has promised especially to bless among His people that he sends forth His spirit and that He reminds us of vital things in our faith and that we're called on to look backward to the blood of Christ and to the price that was paid for us, and we're called to look around to our brothers and sisters and to think of ourselves as part of a body, a worldwide Christian body around the world, people who love the same Lord and believe the same things that we do. And to look ahead that we proclaim His death until He comes and some day we're going to see him face to face. So I look forward to that. That's just a little mini sermon in preparation for the Lord's Supper. But it's a wonderful thing and we get a chance also to confess our sins and to do business with you, to lay our sins before you. For forgiveness, yes, but also for transformation of life. And so that's the opportunity we'll have later, but now we have a joyful privilege of hearing your word.

And for the next two weeks, this week and next week, I'm going to focus in on a detail which I think is absolutely vital to our mission here in the church. And the name of the sermon that I've called here is the Church's Great Omission. Now, I got that from a book title I read a number of years ago written by a missionary scholar, Jay Robertson McQuilkin, he was talking about ministry or missions to the Muslim world. And we've seen in the Book of Philippians that there are those two journeys, the internal journey of holiness where we're called to become more and more like Jesus Christ, and then that external journey of worldwide disciple-making. And we call that the Great Commission, and we get it from Matthew 28, and I cited it in my prayer, and we really can't hear it enough, "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always to the very end of the age."

Well, why do I call it the Church's Great Omission? Well, the second part of the title is The Pattern of Discipleship. Let me lay my cards on the table and tell you what I'm going to preach about this week and next week. If you look at verse 17, which George read so beautifully for us, Philippians 3:17, it says, "Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you." Now, that word "pattern" just jumped off the page. What in the world is that pattern? It must be a pattern of Christian lifestyle, a pattern of godliness, a way of life. It must be discipleship, lifestyle discipleship. And the more I studied it, the more convinced I was that we have really missed this in the local church. And I want to talk more about this, not in any negative way, but I think it's important for a pastor to look honestly at his own local church and at the church movement of his day and see where the weaknesses are and where the failings are.

And I put my finger on this as a weakness, and I'm going to talk more about this, but I'm greatly encouraged because I know that God's Word has transforming power, and I know that as we give ourselves more and more to a full-blooded discipleship ministry here, in which we are not simply receiving content, good biblical instruction, but also receiving patterns of godly living from those that are willing to stand up and say, "Follow me as I follow Christ," this church is going to be transformed and people are going to get saved, and more and more good things are going to happen here. There's going to be a river of fruitfulness as we just follow God's example through the Apostle Paul. So, that's what I'm talking about. It's not on my outline, I'm just telling you this is what today's sermon is about and I'm going to preach until a certain time and I'm going to stop and then we're going to begin next week and look at it. But I want to start with this idea of lifestyle discipleship, and I get it from my own life, from my own experiences.

Let me start with just as I was growing up, I remember my mother used to save money by making clothes, and she would do this by buying a pattern. Now, some of you are seamstresses and skilled in that. My wife has made some things recently, and what these patterns were these thin little crinkly pieces of paper, I'm speaking like a man now, I don't know what they were, but I know that they were brown, light brown, crinkly, and they had little outlines on them and you pinned them onto the fabric that you had so carefully chosen. And you pinned them on there and you cut them out and one part would be the front of the shirt or the sleeve or something like that, and then you would sew them together according to the instructions given by the pattern maker. And so I remember that distinctly.

I also remember when I was a student at MIT, I worked in the carpentry shop and there were some people there that made furniture. There was one man in particular that was Italian and he made beautiful furniture, he really did. And he used frequently, patterns that he had brought over from Italy. He would take out an arm of a chair and he would trace out on the outside of the pattern, the wood. And you couldn't really describe the pattern, you had to see it. It really defied description, it's not anything that an engineer could draw on a blueprint, you just had to have one in your hand. And as you looked at it and how the wood curved and how it was shaped, you could, if you were skilled, you could replicate the pattern. It was a pattern for furniture making.

But better than both of these was the example that I've referred to before of Tim, my discipler with Campus Crusade for Christ, who came into my life right after I came to faith I Christ and for one year just showed me how to live like a Christian. He set an example for me, he was willing to have me be with him many hours of the day and he showed me how to live, he showed me how to witness, he showed me how to pray, he showed me many things of the Christian life and I realized that the parachurch groups like Navigators, and InterVarsity and Crusade, and other groups like that do a better job of this kind of lifestyle discipleship than the local church does.

And I wondered why. And I began thinking that this was a good opportunity for me, from Philippians 3:17, to talk about a pattern of discipleship for our church. Now, at that time I read a book that changed my whole way of thinking of evangelism. Many of you have heard of it, some of you have read it, I know in our staff it's a very popular and important book and I'm going to talk about it in depth next week. From this book, Robert Coleman's book, The Master Plan of Evangelism, he sets before us Jesus's pattern of disciple making and how Jesus constantly, while not neglecting the crowd, was zeroing in on some key men and building deeply into their lives. He was working with his 12 apostles and, even within them, with three in particular that He really just spent extra time with, and this was a pattern of discipleship.

Now, what I'm going to do this morning is I'm going to show you that the Apostle Paul followed that example. It was his approach to ministry. So I'm going to go over the Apostle Paul first today because that's our starting point in the Book of Philippians. Next week, God willing, I'm going to go back and look at Christ more carefully, at Christ's pattern of disciple making, so that we can learn from the master how He shaped and molded lives. Also in both weeks, I'm going to try to compare this biblical pattern with what I actually see happening in the American church today and in First Baptist church as well. And finally, in the end, God willing, next week I'm going to try to give us some steps toward a remedy, because a remedy is needed. We are not living up to the biblical pattern. So I want to think together with you on how we can do a better job of discipling one another, alright? So that's what we're going to do.

Let's begin with the Apostle Paul. Now, again, George read these verses, now look it up with me down on the page at verse 17 of Philippians 3. Let your eyes trace over this and it says, "Join with others in following my example, brothers." So there's this word "example."

Now, throughout the letter of Philippians, Paul has been presenting himself as an example. He's presenting himself as a role model. He talks to them in Philippians 1 about his attitude about being in prison. He's presenting his attitude as a role model for them. He is presenting also in Philippians 1 his attitude about living and dying, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Well, why does he tell us that? Because he wants that also to be our attitude. It's not just for me to live as Christ and to die is gain but he wants it to be for the Philippians too, for them. He wants it to be that for them to live as Christ and to die is gain.

So he's presenting himself as a role model. Certainly, more than anything, he presents Christ as the ultimate role model, which he does in Philippians 2, in which Jesus is the example of a sacrificial servant who's willing to lay down His life for the will of the Father and for the good of the brothers and sisters in Christ. He's willing to die that they might have eternal life. He's willing to humble Himself and to sacrifice Himself, even to the point of death. And we should have this mind in us which was also in Christ. So he is following Christ's pattern and he also wants the Philippians to follow his pattern or his example.

All I'm doing is tracing out over Philippians here and we see how again and again, Paul presents himself as a role model. In the second half of Philippians 2, he talks about Timothy and Epaphroditus and says, "They also are role models. You should honor them for their work, you should think about how Timothy as a son with his father, has served with me in the work of the gospel." But again, we get a sense of that pattern, that example that Paul was to Timothy there. And then in Philippians 3, he talks about his testimony, Paul does. And how he came personally to reject his own resume of self-righteousness. He rejected it. He said, in effect, it's filthy rags, this will not save me. He turned away from it. He said, "If anybody had a right to boast in their resume, it was me. But I have come to reject it." And so he's presenting himself as a role model. He does this again and again. How to think about life, how to think about death, how to think about ministry, how to think about servant hood, how to think about money. He'll get to that in chapter 4. How to think about everything in a Christian life. He's presenting himself as a role model.

Now, look over at Philippians 4:9, you're going to see the same thing again. And that's why I, very unusually, had George read two disconnected verses, but they are connected in their theme. If you look at Philippians 4:9, it says, "Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you." I think that's one of the most audacious statements you could ever find in the scripture. It's like he's coming alongside and says, "Do you want God to be with you? Be like me." Now, just stop and think about that, how bold that is. If you want the God of peace to be with you, then learn all of my teachings and imitate my lifestyle and God will be with you. And you think, "Who could ever make such a claim?" But I think it is the desperate need of the church today for people humbly to stand up and say that kind of thing. To in effect, say what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:1, "Be imitators of me as I imitate Christ."

Christ came to earth, took on a human body, became incarnate to give us an example. He was an example of suffering. He was an example of life and of godliness. He did it because life matters. It really does matter what you do with your money. It really does matter what you do with your time. It really does matter how you treat your loved ones. It really does make a difference how you hold down your job. It makes a difference how you live your life. And so yes, we proclaim justification by faith alone apart from works, but we also proclaim a godly lifestyle which must follow that justification to validate its existence.

If that lifestyle isn't following, then we have every good reason to question whether justification has really come to that individual, they are not saved. And so we need role models, don't we? We need people who are willing to stand up and say what Paul said and to say it boldly, "Follow me as I follow Christ." And so he says in 1 Corinthians 11:1.

Now, I have given you a lot of these key verses that got me thinking about this. Write on your bulletin, to spare you from the time of flipping from place to place, I put it there. Look with me at 2 Thessalonian 3:6-9, right there in the bulletin, and you're going to see some interesting things there. I'm going to show you from a variety of verses that this is not a small or minor theme for the Apostle Paul's life and ministry. This was his central strategy, just as it was also Christ's central strategy for discipleship. 2 Thessalonian 3:6-9, he says, "Now we command you brethren in the name of our lord Jesus Christ that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you receive from us." Now, take your pen and circle that word "tradition." That's a potent word. To me it's every bit as potent as the word "pattern." There is a pattern being presented to us, of a Christian life. There is a tradition being handed down to us, of a Christian life. How to live? I'm saying again that this is in this very matter that the church is failing.

We are not giving a clear pattern of the Christian life, how to live Monday through Friday and Saturday, and then back on to Sunday again. How do we do it? We are not receiving it as clearly as we should. Some do it well, but not as a rule in the church do we see this. And so he said, "I urge you to stay away from brothers who don't live according to that tradition." They lead an unruly life. That means they don't have discipline in their life. They're not living well. They live a loose life. And so he says, "Stay away from them," because they're going to lead you astray. They're going to set a bad example for you. And so they don't live according to the tradition which you received from us. Again, that's so vital. It wasn't just a tradition that was floating out around there. It wasn't just something that they could latch into if they were willing. He said they, in a very determined way, gave it to the Thessalonians. They showed them how to live. The tradition you receive from us, verse 7, "For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example."

He just says this over and over, and the more you read, it the less audacious it becomes, and the more you're crying for it. And say, "Oh, God, give me a role model." "You ought to follow our example," he says, "because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you." We were tight with our life, we were careful how we lived, "we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it. But with labor and hardship, we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you." Verse 9, "Not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you so that you would follow our example." Is he not hammering on it? Again and again, word after word, he's saying, "This is the way we lived among you. We did it in a very intentional way, we had every right to be financially supported by you, but we chose not to so that we could make ourselves an example for you to follow. A lifestyle of godliness, so that you would follow our example."

We see the same thing in 1 Corinthians 4:15-17, again I printed on the page for you there. It says, "Even though you have... " This is he speaking to an entirely different church now. He was speaking to the Thessalonians, now he's speaking to the Corinthians and what does he say there? 1 Corinthians 4:15-17, "Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father though the gospel." And that's a fascinating thing to me. He's saying there are lots of guardians, what does that mean? Well, I think about our church covenant. We're called to watch over one another in brotherly love. You should have many guardians in your life. You should have many people who care enough if you're starting to wander in your Christian life, starting to drift, not having those quiet times, not coming to church, not serving the way you used to, you're starting to drift. And you should have many guardians in your life who would come and say, "What's happening with you? I'm concerned about you," and do it early before it gets really a set pattern in the person's life, very hard to turn it back at that point.

"Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father though the gospel."  I think he led them to Christ, many of them. And not only did he lead, it's actually easy biologically to father a child, but it's an incredible challenge to be a father to a child. I'm finding that out more and more. And I love being a father, I do. But you fathers can respond and say, "Yes, it is a challenge to father children." What it means is that you're going to present yourself, instruct them, you're going to be with them through all circumstances into godliness, that's what you are as a father. And Paul says, "I was that for you, Corinthian church, I was that for you." So he says, "Even though you don't have any fathers in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel." Verse 16, "Therefore I urge you to imitate me." Have we heard that before? He's saying this again and again. "Because I am your father in Christ, I want you to imitate me, be like me, follow my example."

And then he says, very interestingly, "For this reason I am sending you Timothy, my son, whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord." Now, for what reason? Whenever I see those kind of logical connectors I want to say, "What's going on there?" Okay, "For the reason that you may be able to imitate me, I'm going to send Timothy. Now Timothy is faithful in the Lord and he's going to come and live it out in front of you so that he will be the pattern, the template for you. I can't be everywhere at once," Paul is saying in effect, "But I've got this disciple, he's faithful in the Lord, his name is Timothy. I'm going to send him to you so that you can imitate me." Isn't that interesting? Do you not see the replicate of discipleship here? And so he says, "For this reason, I'm sending you Timothy, my son whom I love who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church." Is that not poignant? He will commit to them a body of doctrine and a way of life. Let me put them in the order that he gives. The way of life and a body of doctrine. "He will commend to you," Timothy will, "My way of life, which agrees with my doctrine." And so therefore, we have a healthy discipleship. There's going to be a body of doctrines committed, and there's going to be a way of life patterned or exampled, connecting to that body of doctrine. Do you see it? To me that's faithful discipleship.

: And if you're only getting one and not the other, it's not full-blooded discipleship. And I think we get more of the body of doctrine in a good church, the body of doctrine, and we don't get the lifestyle. We don't get it role modeled for us, not the way we could or should. Now, that's his own ministry. He also made statements about his churches. I don't know if this is on your bulletin, but 1 Thessalonians 1:6 says, "You became imitators of us and of the living church." He said, "You become imitators of us and of the Lord. In spite of severe suffering you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit and so you became a model to all the believers throughout Macedonia and Achaia." Do you see it? They imitated Paul who had planted the church and then they in turn became known throughout Macedonia and Achaia. This is an intentional strategy on God's part, to replicate the image of His son Jesus Christ all over the world. That's exactly what it is, because it says, in Romans 8, that, "Those whom He foreknew He predestined to be conformed to the image of His son that He might be the firstborn among many brothers." That's His plan for the world.

He is saving people and making them like Jesus. And his strategy, then, is to commit that image, that modeling, to people like you and me, that we could model it, however imperfectly, for him. That's exactly what Paul says the Thessalonian church was. You see the best example of this with Timothy. Paul took Timothy along, in Acts 16:1-4. He meets them in Lystra and a disciple named Timothy was there. His mother was a Jewess and a believer, but his father was a Greek. He took Timothy, it says in Acts 16:4, "They traveled about from town to town." Now, that's a challenge for me, okay? As a man who knows what it means... For 10 years I held down a job as an engineer. I don't know how we're going to do this. I'm speaking very honestly and I've got one more week to figure it out because I'm going to tell you next week. So pray for me as I think about how we're going to hold down jobs and have families and have a life, a regular life, and maybe it isn't going to be regular anymore, maybe we need to get radical, but we're going to begin thinking about what it means to be a disciple. But Timothy, for Paul and Timothy, it meant leaving home and traveling with Paul from town to town.

Just as it did with the 12 Apostles and Jesus. There was a radicality there. There was a shocking kind of change of Timothy's life. And everywhere that Paul went, Timothy went too, and Timothy watched the way that he lived. And so, in his final letter, 2 Timothy, Paul writing again to his son in the faith, Timothy, he says this. In 2 Timothy 3:10-11, again, I don't know that this is in your outline but it says, "You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecution, sufferings, what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured, yet the Lord rescued me from every one of them." What is he saying? "Timothy, you were there. You saw what I went through." The Greek word "there" in 2 Timothy 3:10 is very strong: "You carefully followed my teaching and my way of life." That's exactly what he says.

Again, the two things: "You were immersed in my doctrine and you were immersed in my lifestyle and you saw the two come together in all kinds of situations. You saw it again and again. And so, as a result, Timothy, I'm about to die," but he says, "I want you to be sure you do the same thing for your disciples." 1 Timothy 4:12 he says, "Don't let anyone look down on you because you're young, but set an example for the believers, in speech, in life, love, in faith and in purity." He said the same thing to Titus in Titus 2:7: "In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity and seriousness." And then in 2 Timothy 2:2, a very famous disciples verse, "The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses and trust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others." Four generations there. It's passed on from generation to generation: Body of doctrine, a pattern of Christian living.

Now, this is the very thing that I'm calling on our church to think through, that we would consider how to do this. The Apostle Paul has been presenting himself throughout the letter as a pattern of life. Now zeroing in on Philippians 3:17, this word that we've looked at. You know, in Philippians 3, Paul has been thinking about the Christian life, talking about it. If I'm not careful I'm going to move and then I'll set a terrible precedent, so I need to stay right here, because I'm not a walking pastor, alright. Others can do that, but if I do that, it's going to be a pendulum effect and you guys will fall asleep and I don't want to do that. But I am very excited about this, I am very engaged in this topic, because I think this is going to be radical for our church.

Philippians 3, he's talking about how he thinks about the Christian life. And he's talking about how he considers everything worthless compared to one thing, and that is to know Christ. And he thinks of it this way, that he doesn't consider himself already to be perfect, but every day forgetting what is behind, pressing and straining toward what is ahead. He presses on toward the goal, to win the prize for which God has called him heavenward in Christ Jesus. That's the way he thinks all the time about the Christian life. And then he says, in verse 15, "All of us who are mature should think the same way. You should have the same view of the Christian life as I do." Again, Paul is given to making these kind of bold statements, audacious statements. If you are mature, you'll think about the Christian life this way, forgetting what is behind, pressing toward perfection every day. And if on some point you think differently, God will make that clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained. Verse 17, "Join with others in following my example." Other people think this way, there's a pattern replicating around the world, be one of those that's following my example. Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you."

Now, that word "pattern" is the Greek word "tupos," from which we... It comes over in English in the word "type," and from which we get the word "typical." So we would say that somebody who follows the pattern is a typical Christian. Now, we tend to use that word negatively, "Oh, typical Christian." But the fact of the matter, what it means is that they are well-conformed to the pattern that we're aware of. And he says, "I want you to be that pattern." Now, that word is a very interesting word. It has to do with an imprint made by like a stamper seal. The word "tupos" is used of those things that were made in Jesus's hands and feet, that Thomas said he wouldn't believe unless he saw them. I've got to see the tupos in his hands and feet, where the nail made its mark.

It also has to do with the way that idols were made. The craftsman would craft it, and then everything cranked out from that mold looked like the same idol. And so there was a stamping going on. Probably the best illustration would be the way coins were struck back then. There would be a skilled artisan that would make a dye, and then copper, or some other metal, would be put in the dye and under great pressure the coin would be struck and the metal would smoosh around the indentations and be conformed to the indentations and you'd get the coin. You are, if you're a Christian, in the process of being smooshed to be like Jesus. Your life doesn't fully conform to Him yet, most of you. Probably all of you. Definitely all of you.

It doesn't fully conform to Jesus's perfect pattern. And discipleship is where those parts of your life that are gapping from Christ, are being smooshed down onto the type, onto the image, so that you be like Jesus. It really has nothing to do with Paul. Paul is just a servant, a middle man, follow me as I follow Christ. The issue is you being like Jesus. But Paul is an indispensable helper to you, and so also is your mentor or your role model. You've got to have them, because you don't know how you're gapping from Jesus, and we need people who are willing to stand up and say, "Follow me. And be conformed to the image of Christ as I'm seeking to do the same."

Now, there are two aspects, as I've said, of this discipleship. There is a pattern, and then there is content. And one of the most fascinating places where the word "tupos" is used, is in Romans 6:17. Don't take the time to turn there, but listen. Look at it later. But in Romans 6:17, it says, "Thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed that pattern of teaching to which you were entrusted." So there is a body of doctrine that has to be committed. We shouldn't so emphasize now lifestyle, that we forget that there's a whole pattern of doctrines that must be committed. And that if your mind thinks differently than that pattern, you're not fully discipled yet. You need to be conformed in your mind. And frankly, you must be conformed first in your mind before you're going to live it. But there is a logical priority, but there is a working together of both lifestyle and doctrinal intake back and forth. And so there's a body of teaching, and there is also a practical life pattern.

The ultimate goal here is that we would, in every way, in every way, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, lifestyle, everything, in every way, be conformed to Jesus Christ. And we need help in the lifestyle side. American Christians are failing in this. And I think they're failing in part because we're not getting this pattern of discipleship anymore. We need to know how to pray with fervency. We need to know how to pray with scriptural knowledge, and to pray perseveringly, because we need to kneel next to a saint, who knows how to do it. We need to know how to study the Bible and rightly divide it. We need to know how to win the lost to Christ. We need to know how to behave in church. We need to know how to worship in spirit and truth. We need to know how to glorify God in everything you do, whether you eat or drink. Learn how to eat to the glory God. Learn how to drink to the glory of God. We need to know how to discipline ourselves for godliness. These are all just coming right out of Bible verses. We need to know how to discipline ourselves for godliness, so that we can grow in godliness. We need to know how to live as a Christian family. We need to know, from role models, how to be a good father and a good husband. We need to know, from role models, how to be a good mother, a good wife. We need people who are willing to stand up and say, "Follow me, as I follow Christ." We need help in this.

We need to know how to handle money as a steward of the Kingdom of God, not as though the money were ours, but as though it's God's, and to handle it as faithful stewards of Christ. We need help in this. We need to know how to bridle our tongue, and to hold our tongue at key moments. Maybe we need to learn from our mentor, who in the moment of attack, says gracious things. And we learn how to do that. We see it lived. We need to know how to handle lust, the appeal to the animal side, which the world around us is constantly barraging. We need godly role models who show us how to do it, how to put sin to death. We need to know how to work hard with our own hands, and to provide for our families, and to lead godly, upright lives, that are worthy of respect by outsiders. We need to know all of these things. We need to know how to care for the poor. How to handle benevolence cases, when they come to you. With what tone of voice and what facial expression? How are you going to deal with them? How are you going to give, when you give? How you give? What are you going to do? You need that role modeled for you. You need to know how to suffer persecution with joy, and if need be, it would be beautiful to have a pattern of discipleship that goes right to the end of life. Even martyrdom for Christ, joyfully for His glory, to do it with dignity. These things have been modeled before in church history, and we can have it again if we seek it and we ask God for it.

Well, I am excited to preach on this passage today, Philippians 3:12-16. I think about the truths in this text every day, and I think we're going to learn some things this morning, I trust, on how to run the Christian race that's set before us. As we've talked, the Book of Philippians sets before us two races to run, we could put it in those terms today. The internal race of personal holiness, so that we are moment by moment growing to be more like Jesus. And that external race of worldwide gospel advance. Have you heard that before? I know it's repetition, but I just want you to know what the Book of Philippians is about, and the scriptures as well. God has a work to do inside you, and God has a work to do outside of you. And in the end, they end up about the same. And the goal of both is that the Church would be perfect in Christ.

Now, that word "perfect" is an interesting word, isn't it? In Psalm 19:96 the Psalmist says, "To all perfection, I see a limit." Now, that's an interesting thing, isn't it? When you stop and think about it, the Psalmist is looking for perfection. He looks around and he's seeking it. He wants to find it. Secondly, he doesn't find it. No matter where he looks, he does not see perfection. To all perfection, there is certainly a limit. If you were an expert in diamonds, you could spend your whole life looking for the perfect diamond, in color, and clarity, and cut, and carat. You would search and you would never find one. You might find one diamond that was better than every other diamond you'd ever seen, but you would not find the perfect diamond. If you are a coffee connoisseur, which I am not but some of you are, and you were to spend your whole life searching for the perfect cup of coffee, you would never find it. You could remember that one cup you drank in such and such a place and every other cup would not come up to that level, for the rest of your life. Some of them badly so. But you would never find the perfect cup of coffee. The expert chef is searching for the perfect dining experience, and never finding it. The composer for the perfect sounds, the perfect tones, and it's never achieved. The poet for the perfect combination of words to evoke from within what he or she is trying to say through the poem, and never finding it.

Perfection eludes us. "To all perfection, I see a limit." And yet, I believe, just like it says in Ecclesiastes, I think it's 3:12, "God has set eternity in the hearts of men." I think he's set perfection there too. Oh, we're hungry for it, aren't we? We would like to see something perfect. And even more, the more we go on in our Christian lives, we would like to be perfect. We would like to be done forever with our sin. And we'd like to live, wouldn't we, in a perfect world? We would like to be perfect because we don't want to ruin that perfect world by being there, but we would like the world around us to be perfect too. And so that's a different way of coming at the same thing again in Philippians, that God is working within us, transforming us little by little until we are as perfect as Jesus is. And God is doing that same work around us in the world, bringing people from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, until at last, His perfect kingdom comes.

Now, all of this perfection comes from God's own nature. We serve and love and worship a perfect God, don't we? We serve a perfect God. God is absolutely perfect. He is perfect in His person. He is unchanging, never changes, that means He is never improving and never getting worse. Because He can't, he is already perfect. He is omnipotent, that means perfect in power. It is impossible for God to have any more power than He does right now. He is omniscient. It is impossible for God to know anymore than He knows right now. He knows all things now. God is perfect in holiness. He hates evil. In Him, there is no darkness at all. He is absolutely perfect in His holiness. He is perfectly just. He loves justice and righteousness, and hates wickedness. And it would be impossible for God to love these and hate the wickedness anymore than he does. He's already perfect. These days, there's the idea of a changing God, a transforming or growing God, that God is growing along with us. That is false. God is perfect now, He's always been perfect, and He always will be perfect. And God is perfectly loving. It is impossible for God to love you, in Christ, anymore than he does right now. It's impossible. It's frankly impossible for God to love His enemies more than He does right now. He sent them a beautiful day, in this area anyway, and he continues to love his enemies with a perfect love as He defines it.

Our God is a perfect God. And not only is our God in His person perfect, His salvation plan is perfect too, isn't it? God had the whole salvation plan worked out perfectly, down to the jot and tittle. He had the whole thing worked out before the foundation of the world, and there's no way that it could be improved to bring Him more glory and us more joy. Amen. It's a perfect salvation plan. To create a world perfect, with no evil in it at all. To allow, in some way unknown to us, a mystery to us, evil to spring up within His world, and to deal with it over millennia the way He has, with perfect wisdom. To have called out a people of his own, the Jews, to lead them out with a mighty hand in an outstretched arm from Egypt, and to give them commandments, which they could not follow in their wickedness. And to put up with that wickedness for 1,000 years of national history in the promised land. And to give prophet after prophet, telling them how wicked they are and that they need a savior, who's going to come and he's going to be like this. To give them a king like David, who exemplified the best a human king could be, and to promise David that he would have a son who would sit on the throne forever.

And to set up in the hearts of the people an expectancy, that someday that savior would come. And to give them a perfect picture of His work through the animal sacrificial system. The blood of the sacrifice shed in the place of the sinners. They get to live, the animal dies. All of it a picture of the Lamb of God, who would come to take away the sin of the world. And then, in the fullness of time, Jesus came. In the fullness of time, born of a virgin, and lived under the law a perfect life of obedience to the father. Never committed any sin, never broke any of Moses's law, obeyed all of it to the Nth degree. Perfect righteousness. Did mighty miracles, that we can't even describe, more than we could even count. The world itself would contain all of the books that would be written, if they were written, of all the mighty works that He did. And at the right time, He died on the cross. At Passover, wouldn't you know, isn't that perfect? At Passover, He would shed His blood at the moment that the Passover sacrifice shed His blood for you. That He would take all of your guilt and your sin and weakness on himself, and shed His blood to pay the penalty for your sin and for mine.

Now, that's a perfect salvation plan, but not done. Because the message had to be gotten out. And for 2,000 years, He's been using people like you and me to share the gospel, to preach the good news. And people have been and are being saved, and they're going to keep on getting saved until the Lord returns and brings in that perfect kingdom. What a perfect salvation plan. Don't ask me to do that again, I don't think I could do it. But that is the perfect salvation plan. From alpha to omega, He had it all worked out before the foundation of the world. Our God is perfect in his person, He is perfect in His salvation plan, and He has communicated to us through a perfect Bible. As a matter of fact, if it weren't for the perfection of the Bible, we would not know that God is perfect in His person or that His salvation plan is perfect. "The words of the Lord," it says in Psalm 12:6, "are flawless. Like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times over." That means they can't be any more perfect. The word of God is perfect.

Therefore, God can have no imperfection around Him. He can't. He can't have any wickedness near Him. Habakkuk 1:13 reminds us that God's eyes are "too pure to look on evil," He "cannot tolerate wrong." Well, if he can't even look at evil, if He can't tolerate wrong, how is He going to live with it in Heaven for eternity? How many sins did Adam and Eve commit to be evicted from the perfect Garden of Eden? Just one. That's it, just one. Because God is holy and perfect. And our God, therefore, commands perfection. He commands us to be perfect. It says in James 2:10, "Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point, is guilty of breaking all of it."

Now, you might think that's not fair. Have you heard the story of the boy who put his finger in the dike? It's a story based in Holland. And I have flown to Holland from the North, from England, going over, and it was early morning, I remember that. It's that transatlantic flight, the night is the shortest of your life, three or four hours of darkness, and then boom. And I didn't sleep at all. And there it was. As we're coming down into Amsterdam, I couldn't tell the difference between ocean and land. It's the low countries. And they have to have dikes to protect the land that they have reclaimed from the sea. Can you imagine if there were a single little hole in the dike? Is that any big deal for you, if you live in that village? Oh, you better believe it's a big deal. Because sin doesn't stay put, does it? It just spreads and spreads and spreads and spreads. It's a cancerous tumor. It's a vicious evil. And so God will allow no evil in His kingdom. He'll allow no evil in you or me.

Christ Commands Us to Be Perfect

He commands us to be perfect. He does it directly in Matthew 5:48, "You must be perfect therefore, as your Heavenly father is perfect." Every time I witness, every time I share the gospel, I try to use that verse. Because you know what people tell me every time, whenever I say that? "Nobody's perfect." Exactly. "That's why we need a savior," I say. I say it every time. They're just perfectly set up. "You must be perfect to go to Heaven." "Well, I'm not perfect." "Well, then you're not going to Heaven, without a savior." You must be perfect, it's commanded from our perfect God.

Now, sin has already conquered us. Sin is already all around us. Sin is already through our bodies like a cancerous tumor spreading through the lymph nodes, it's through the whole body. It says in Romans 7:21, "I find this law at work when I want to do good, evil is right there with me." I can't shake it. "What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death?" I can't get away from sin. Paul says, in Romans 7. So perfection is out of the question. And therefore, all human fleshly efforts at perfection are doomed from the start. Now, there've been a lot of them, haven't there? In 1516, Thomas More wrote a book called "Utopia." The word "utopia" is actually play on words. "Good place" and "no place," is what it could mean depending on the translation. And I think he intended the pun. It's about a perfect society. And he's writing about a perfect world and he's calling it "no place." And that's right, because there is no perfect place here in this world.

Human societies are... Cannot be perfect because they're made up of sinners. Many people have thought that they could set up a perfect society. The French Revolution was an attempt, based on enlightenment philosophies of Voltaire and others, thought that they could set up a society based on liberty and brotherhood and equality. What they ended up with was a bloody, vicious, guillotine-ridden revolution, ultimately ending up in Napoleon's dictatorship and his military conquering ambitions. That's what they ended up with. Communism was an attempt at setting up a perfect human society. And we have looked at the crumbling of what's left of the communist society, in so many places in Europe, and we're still praying for it in other places in the world. It's a total failure. And the reason is, it's not that it's not good to distribute goods so that there's no poor people, it's not that. It's that human sin sabotages the thing from the start. And so communism is a brutal failure.

And then there are individual efforts at self-improvement. I've preached about those the last two weeks. The religion of self-effort, and self-righteousness, and saying, "I will. I will. I will." Trying to do better, to pray more, to give more, to be a better person, to not be so argumentative or complaining, to try better. And it never adds up to anything. Human efforts at perfection lead to nothing. There's a whole market of self-help books. I don't know if you've seen it. You can go into a secular bookstore, and they proliferate. They're selling by the millions because people want to help themselves be perfect, if they can. And they never do. "So I find this law at work," said Paul in Romans 7, "When I want to do good, evil is right there with me."

And so we must have a perfection that comes from the outside in. And brothers and sisters, that's what salvation is. It's a perfection that came from the outside in. It came from God to us, because there was no way that the perfection could come from the inside out. And if you think perfection's not required, you haven't been listening. Our God is a holy and perfect God, and He must have no sin and evil in His presence. And so we must be perfect. It can't come from inside, it must come from the outside in. And praise God, it has. Praise God that God has given us a perfect salvation. Now, I said "has given us," understand that I believe salvation is a process. It's already and not yet. And that's true for every human being that's ever lived, that needed saving. Jesus is fully in His resurrection body, but nobody else is. Nobody's fully saved yet, because nobody has the great resurrection body yet except Jesus. But someday we will. Someday we're going to be fully saved. And therefore, our salvation, as I've said before, is an already and not yet issue. We already have some of it, and we don't yet have other parts of it.

We already have a perfect righteousness before God, if we have trusted in Christ. If you have repented of your sins, come to the cross, seen in Jesus everything you needed for righteousness, and laid down your sins at the foot of the cross and said, "His blood is sufficient to save a sinner like me." You are seen by God to be perfect, now. Isn't that incredible? You can't be seen anymore righteous or more perfect than Jesus's imputed, or gift of, righteousness to you. Already perfect. But are you perfect? Shall I ask your spouse or your best friend? Are you perfect? You are not perfect. And so you say, "Well, I don't understand. We've got this invisible, by-faith, gift of righteousness, but then we've got how we really handle our money, and how we really pray our prayers, and how we really deal with our best friends, and our family members. And how we deal with temptations like lust, and laziness, and pride, and selfishness." Now, that's the real deal. And frankly, there's not one of us, including me, that would want to have our last 168 hours, the last seven days, shown on the screen up here on the wall.

And so we are short of the perfection that God requires for Heaven. Not short in the imputed righteousness, but short in our behavior and performance. Such that if we didn't have Christ's imputed righteousness, we would die for the sins we've committed in the last hour or less. So we're not there yet, and we want to see the growing happen. And Paul in this text tells us how it's going to happen. Because of this already and not yet aspect, we must have a spirit led pressing on toward perfection. By your pressing after perfection, you will not be saved. Without your pressing after salvation, you will not be saved. You're not going to get saved because you're working hard and trying harder and harder, no way. We already showed that the religion of self effort will not work. But I'm telling you, if there's not a principle of pressing, striving, straining, pushing after holiness, you're not saved. You're not saved. The Holy Spirit works that in you.

And Paul talks about it here for himself in verses 12 through 16. Now we see Paul's pattern of pressing described here. And there are different elements that I want to highlight for you. First, in verse 12, he says, "Not that I have already obtained all this or have already been made perfect. But I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it."

1) Not Already His: Perfection Impossible on Earth

Alright. Point one I want to make is that Paul considers that perfection is not already his. In other words, that perfection is impossible here on earth. Now this is so important. Other people have said and have claimed that perfection's possible here on earth. John Wesley is one of them. He wrote a book called, The Plain Account of Christian Perfection, in which he redefines perfection for us, makes it attainable, says that perfection is basically perfect love or at any moment, not violating a known command of God. Well, that's a little narrow, isn't it? Even that is hard enough to live up to, but he claimed that it was possible to be perfect for a little while and then slip back into sin and then be back to being perfect again for a while and then slip back into sin. That is not what Paul has in mind here, I can assure you.

No, no, no. He means perfection the way I understand perfection, body, soul, spirit, emotions, every part of me perfection. And Paul says that's not possible here on earth. I don't consider myself yet to have it. There's a journey to travel. There's a distance between me and perfection, and I must travel that journey. Paul constantly keeps in mind, "I'm not finished yet. I'm not done. I've got a journey to travel."

Now the word is, in verse 13 he says, "I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it." This is the same word he used early in this chapter. The word is logizomai. It comes from the Greek, the word logic. It's a rational thing but it has to do more with accounting, that we are accounting ourselves imperfect. We're thinking about ourselves that way. I consider myself imperfect. I consider myself a sinner.

2) Involves Great Effort on Paul’s Part

Second point that we notice, that this pressing after salvation requires great effort on Paul's part. You want to be saved? It's going to be hard work. Are you saved by your works? We already covered that, no, of course not. But if you are saved, you will work hard in your Christian life. You will. It's just what saving faith does to you. It's what God does to you through the power of the Spirit. He works energetically in you to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Look at verse 13 again and 14, "But one thing I do," he says, "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me Heavenward in Christ Jesus." Do you see these words? Pressing. Pressing, straining. These are powerful words, aren't they? They give you a picture. Imagine somebody wanted to get in really good shape, goes to the Atlantic Ocean, very turbulent, stormy weather, has produced breakers there. And the person goes out and gets a parachute, a little parachute behinds him, and tries to run through the surf as fast as they can. Parachute's filled with water behind them. They are pressing, they are straining. There's an opposing force at every step. That is the image I get that Paul gives us here. That Christian life is one of pressing. It's one of straining. It is not easy to be a Christian. It is not easy to grow in grace in the knowledge of Christ.

3) Success Absolutely Guaranteed: Christ Took Hold of Me for It

The third point that Paul makes is that success in this quest for perfection is absolutely guaranteed. Isn't that incredible? Paul says, "I'm going to be perfect someday." Now, you say, "Well, where do you get that?" Well, you get out of probably one of my favorite verses in the whole bible, Philippians 3:12. Look at it again. "Not that I have already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." Now, there's a lot of words in there and some grammar, let's unfold it. Okay, let's start with the logical order in Paul's mind. He's starting with Christ, actually. Christ Jesus has already taken hold of Paul. "I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." So Christ took hold of Paul, and he did it for a purpose. "That for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." He had a reason. Jesus is a very purposeful being, you'll find that. I'm finding it. The more I grow, everything's for a purpose, everything.

And so Jesus took hold of Paul for a purpose. What was the purpose? In context, there can be no doubt, it's Paul's perfection, his salvation, his completion in the salvation process. Jesus took hold of Paul to make him perfect. And as a result of Jesus taking hold of Paul, Paul presses on to take hold of perfection. "I press on to take hold of that for which, that perfection for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." So therefore, Paul's perfection is absolutely guaranteed. It's as rock solid as Jesus's grip. Do you see that? Oh, that's exciting. Oh, that's encouraging.

I've told some of you this before, but I have enjoyed playing a game with my children. When they were younger I did this, they're too big for me now to do this, but I like to pick them up and just hold them close, give them a kiss on the cheek and just hold them, and then start to let go a little bit when they're little. Bigger, they... I can't even pick them up actually. I think I tried to pick one of them up recently and I thought, "This is the last time I will try to do this because I'm going to end up in the hospital. And that wouldn't be good." But when they were little, I would hold them tight and then I'd kind of let go, and they'd start to slip. Do you know what I'm talking about? And what would they instinctively do when they're starting to slip? They grab tighter. And then that would make let go a little more, and they'd grab even tighter. And they're slipping, and I say, "Well, you're on your own now. You're on your own." And they're screaming, that is all a big game. I don't do it over the Grand Canyon edge or anything, I'm a good dad. I'm not doing that.

But I'm holding on, but then I kind of let go, and they get anxious. Some people look at their salvation that way. They're holding on to Jesus. Jesus is wishing them the best, hoping that they'll have the strength to hold on right to the end. But if not, well, I've seen others fall. It's really sad when it happens. Don't let it happen to you now. Is that the Savior you know? Uh-huh. He's taken hold of you and He will not let you go. Another image is of a free soloist rock climber I talked to. In Yosemite National Park, there's all these great, great rock climbing things. Why anyone would do that, I don't know. And why anyone would do it with equipment and friends, I don't know. But these guys did it with no equipment and no friends.

Just their hands with chalk on them and special shoes and up they would go, expecting it to take 14 hours. And it's kind of like, then people think of salvation, that Jesus is a rock that doesn't move, but you better hold on to Him. You're a free soloist in the climb of salvation, so you better hold on tight as you're making your way up. Is that the salvation that gives you confidence? Is that what Paul is talking about here? No way. No, no, no. I press on to take hold of that for which Christ sovereignly took hold of me and won't let me go until I have it. You're not going to let me go. John 10. "My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one shall snatch them out of my hand." Do you see that? Nobody's going to snatch you from Jesus's hand.

So, as a result, Paul believes his final perfection is absolutely guaranteed. Now, look at the interesting thing. Does that make him kick back, relax, take it easy? The easy chair, La-Z-Boy route to Heaven: "As a result of the fact that I know absolutely I'm going to end up perfect, I don't need to get up early for prayer. I don't need to fast. I don't need to mortify the deeds of the flesh. I don't need to go to church. I don't need to do anything. I don't need to witness. I don't need to do anything in the Christian life. You know why? Because it's absolutely guaranteed that I'm going to Heaven." Is that the way Paul thinks? No. He says, "I press. I strain. I strive to take hold of the perfection that Jesus has in mind for me."

4) The Total Focus of Paul’s Life

Fourth. This becomes the total focus of Paul's life. Look at verse 13. "One thing I do..." Americans are 40 things I dabble at. Really, I mean, the options are overwhelming, aren't they? Through the internet and through air travel and through technology in general, it's incredible the options that are available to you at every moment of your modern lives. And it causes a kind of, almost like infinitely wide and infinitely shallow experience in life. That's not what Paul's talking about here. He said one thing I do, every day, one thing I do. I strain after Christ. I press after Christ. One thing I do. Total dedication.

5) Doesn’t Live in the Past, But Focuses on the Future

Fifth. He doesn't live in the past, but he focuses on the future. Faith is essentially forward-looking all the time. It's just future-oriented. Future-oriented. Look what it says, again. "Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me Heavenward in Christ Jesus." Now, what does this mean, forgetting what lies behind? Well, let's start with the opposite. What does it not mean? It does not mean that we forget Jesus's death and resurrection. Heaven forbid that we should ever forget that Jesus died on the cross for us. Heaven forbid that we should ever forget that he rose from the dead on the third day. No, it's not that. It's not forgetting the truths of the Gospel that we have heard and believed. We should actually go back to them again and again and cherish them. It's not forgetting, frankly, any biblical truths that we've learned.

We're actually supposed to be seeing within us, building a city of truth, brick by brick, layer by layer. We're not forgetting the things we've learned. Actually, so much of the problem in the Christian life is that we forget the things we've learned. And therefore, it's not a matter of forgetting God's faithfulness in the past. We should remember that. And it's not a matter of forgetting past successes in our Christian lives. We should learn from them and glorify Him and grow by considering them. And it is not a matter of forgetting your past sins in one sense. Think of it this way. Suppose you woke up every day with a perfect amnesia concerning the past. Some would say, "That sounds really good. That really is attractive to me." But think of it this way. If you had no memory of your past sins, what good would God's discipline be for you? Aren't you supposed to remember you did this thing, God responded this way, therefore, don't do that thing again? Isn't that the essence of discipline? We must remember.

But, what does it mean? Well, I think first, it means that we should forget our past lives as though we wish we could go back to them. Paul's not attracted back to his old way of life in Judaism. He's not wishing he could go back to the high priest and ask if he could maybe rebuild that bridge that he burned by preaching Christ. He didn't really mean it. He doesn't want to go back to Egypt. He doesn't want to go back to servitude. Jesus put it this way in Luke 9:62. "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of Heaven." Don't look back. We forget our past life. We're not attracted to it anymore. Jesus put it very succinctly in Luke 17:32. "Remember Lot's wife." What was Lot's wife? What was her problem? She was fleeing Sodom and Gomorrah, but wanted to go back and live there. And the angel told them, "Don't look back at Sodom and Gomorrah. It's gone. Forget it." But she couldn't let it go. She looked back longingly. She looked back saying, "I want to live there again." And she was turned into a pillar of salt. Jesus says, "Be warned. Don't look back at your past life and wish you could be there."

Secondly, don't forget... I mean, forget your past failures as if they depress you and bind you and say you cannot make progress toward perfection anymore as a result of this. That's the Devil's great trick. And you have to discern the difference between learning from the past so that you are successful in the future and looking back and saying, "Oh, woe is me. I can never recover. I will never be perfect. I can't do anything, anymore, ever again, because of this sin." No, God is in the business of reclaiming lost sinners. He's in the business of grabbing sinful people and cleaning them up and restoring them and setting them on the path again. Praise God.

So, we don't look back at our past failures and say, "They bind me, I can never do such and such again. I can't serve God." And then we don't forget our past success... I mean, we are to forget our past successes if we think of them as though the race is won and it's over. "Oh, remember back in those days when I did such and such." Living in the past. As Christians, we're not called to live in the past. Your past obedience isn't going to do you any good for today's test, except that you're in the pattern of habits and obedience right now.

The analogy I've used before and it's a good one, is of the 10,000 meter race. 25 laps, 400 meters each. Can you imagine leading at the 23rd lap, you cross the line and then all of a sudden you start to celebrate. You go over to your friends and give them a hug and they're shocked. "What are you doing? You got two more laps to run. Keep running, you're losing now." And you look for your spouse and say, "Where's that big American flag? And I want to jog around the track and celebrate and all that." While they're continuing to run and you're not running anymore. This is especially tempting for senior adults, if I can speak with tenderness. You're not finished yet because you're here now. If you're finished, you'd be home, you'd be in Heaven. And so therefore you still have a race to run. You still have an obedience to do today. You still have good works which God has stored up for you to do every day. Keep running your race until you go home. We forget what lies behind and we strain toward what lies ahead. The race isn't over as long as it's called today. And if today you hear His voice, don't harden your heart, do what He says.

6) Paul’s Striving Follows God’s Constant Upward Call in Christ

Sixth. Paul's striving follows God's constant upward call in Christ Jesus. Every day, God gives him an upward call. Basically says, through the spirit, "This is the way. Walk in it." Every day He says that and that's a great grace, isn't it? Most of the non-Christians in the world, they don't have any idea how to put one foot in front of the other. They don't know where they're going. But God gives us clear guidance. "This is the way. Walk in it."

Now, what is that upward call, that upward call of God in Christ, what is it? I think it's at least the scripture. Some of the simplest scriptures can be an upward call. Try this one, do everything without complaining or arguing. Period. Next verse. Wow. That's simple, isn't it? How have you been doing? I've been talking to some of you about that and you been... I didn't come to you, you came to me and you said, "This is the one verse I'm really working on here." How's it going? It's an upward call, isn't it? It's saying do everything without complaining or arguing and it stands over you the rest of your life and says, "Come up here. Come on up." It's like a magnetic pull upward. Or how about this one? Ephesians 4:2, "Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love." How you doing? Is it going well? Are you being completely humble and gentle? Are you being patient with one another, bearing with each other in love? Ephesians 4:2 is an upward call, isn't it? It's pulling you upward. It's saying, "Come on up here to complete humility and complete gentleness." And there are many other verses, as many as there are in the Bible.

Philippians 3:14. "I press on," this is the RSV, "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

7) Paul’s Striving Will Be Rewarded in Heaven

Seventh. Paul's striving will be rewarded in Heaven. There's a prize far superior to an Olympic gold medal, far superior to an Olympic gold medal. Our prize will last forever. Theirs is temporal, it's going to be corrupted someday. And so there's a prize and what is that prize? The praise of God. That God would look at your life and say, "Well done you good and faithful servant. You've been faithful than a few things, I'll put you in charge of many things. Enter now into the joy of your master." Oh, what a joyful moment that will be. The upward call to win the prize that God would be pleased with our faith filled lives.

8) Everyone (Even the Most “Perfect”) Must Think This Way

Number eight. Everyone, even the most perfect, should think like this. Everyone, even the most perfect. I think you almost could put quotation marks in here. This is for you John Wesley. Okay. "All of us who are perfect should think this way." Well, what way? The way I've been talking. That we're not perfect yet and that we need to strive and strain and press everyday of our lives after perfection. And that we have not already obtained it. I wish the apostle Paul and Mr. John Wesley could sit down and have a conversation about his plain account of Christian perfection and say, "John, you're wrong. Because there is no perfection in this world. There's instead a guarantee of perfection in Heaven and a striving, pressing, straining toward it on Earth."

All of us, who are perfect or mature, should think this way. And if on some point, I love this, this is Paul's personality, you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Don't you love that? I'm not wrong about the Christian life, the things I've been describing here on Philippian Street. They are in fact the real Christian life. And if you disagree, I'll love you anyway, we're still brother or sister in Christ, we're still friends, but someday God will show you. Do you see it, right there in the text? If on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only while we continue to disagree, let us, each one of us, live up to the Christian life we've already come to understand. Let's, today, press after Christ. Let's, today, walk with Him.

9) Living Up to What You Have Already Attained

And finally, living up to what we've already attained. If you don't fully understand the striving after perfection, you don't fully understand Philippians 3, live up to what you do understand of the Christian life. And as you continue to grow, you'll see more and more, this kind of life that Paul lays out for us here.

What kind of application can we take? Well, I think he told us at the end here. You should have this attitude towards salvation. You should consider that perfection's not already yours. That shouldn't be too hard, for most of you. That perfection is not yours already. Secondly, you should be willing to make extreme efforts in sanctification. You should be willing to cut off the right hand and gouge out the right eye if it causes you to sin. You should be willing to make extreme efforts toward sanctification. Destroying pride by humbling yourself and apologizing if you've done something wrong, even if it's really hard. Destroying lust by, perhaps, getting rid of the television from your house.

Destroying laziness by asking somebody to hold you accountable and say, "I want to accomplish these 10 things today. Will you ask me at the end if I did them?" I mean, vigorous efforts toward holiness. To be willing to do whatever it takes to be more like Jesus; pressing, striving, straining. Thirdly, while you're doing all that, would you please be absolutely confident that someday you'll be perfect? I mean, be absolutely totally convinced that someday no sin will trouble you ever again. Be absolutely confident that Jesus is going to get what He wants. Make seeking after perfection the total focus of your life, not 40 things you dabble in. This is the one thing you want, that you would pursue Christ in this race. And don't live in the past.

When you sin, confess it to God, receive his forgiveness, and move on. When you succeed, give God glory, be happy for a little bit, and move on. Keep running the race day after day. If today you hear His voice, don't harden your heart. Set before you Christ constant upward call in Christ, and by that I mean read the Bible every day. Just keep reading verses like, "Be completely humble and gentle," and say, "Lord, make me this way today." Now, if you have listened to what I've been saying, and it doesn't make any sense, and frankly if you know looking inward that you're not a Christian, don't listen to any of the things I just said. Come to Christ, come to the cross. For perhaps the first time, come to the blood and say, "I am lost, I need a savior. Forgive me. Forgive me. I trust in you. That you have the power to forgive sins and make something out of my life." Don't leave this room without coming.

Presentation of the Church Vision for 2004 with a focus on individual and family devotions, personal witnessing, and being part of a ministry for the Glory of God.

I hope you all have one of these attractive-looking vision plans for the aqua cover. Did you all get one? Does anyone need one? I have a few down here in front. Would a deacon be willing or somebody be willing to come up? And if you didn't get one, if you didn't get one raise your hand and Eric will get one or Bob Meter in the back. Raise your hand if you didn't get one, you all have them in the back. Good, I see it. Good. Fantastic, but if you don't have one, raise your hand and we'll get one to you.

Our goal tonight, I'm not going be able to go through all the details in this. That's why we put it in paper, so that you could look at it. But our desire is to set a clear vision for ministry for the church as we feel God leading us, and ultimately a congregational church, and you individually, you're going to follow as you feel like you should, but we feel that this lines up very well with what God is doing in us and around us. And we feel that we're going to be responsible for these mission fields, whether we own up to that responsibility or not, so the idea is that we're going try to be faithful as best we can on the leadership of God, and so we're venturing forth in the year 2004 in these various ways. Now, what I want to do tonight is I want to begin by just giving you an overview of the booklet, and then I'm going to spend a little time looking backward at the year 2003 at our top 10 ministry initiatives, what happened, what was good and what we could still use some growth in. And then we're going to go through this vision plan with the time that we have left. Okay, and anything we don't get to, you're just going to have to read on your own and come with questions and just -we're excited, we really. We're grateful for God's leadership. And we're excited to be here tonight, and I hope you are as well. If you want to just look at the front cover there, and it says a vision for ministry in the year 2004, starting with the basics, and I think we, in the ministerial staff, felt that we needed to emphasize basic walking with Christ above all things.

This year now, this is just based on my assessment of just through counseling, through just being pastor here, and not just me, but the other pastors on the staff feel that unless these things that are related and these four questions are happening, nothing else will really happen or be of any eternal consequence. So we're going to focus on these and we're going to be asking these questions until you probably may get weird of hearing it.  But I'm going to try to be interesting, in the way I'm asking them, but we're going to ask them again and again in private counseling in the halls, in Sunday School classes, in sermons, again and again, these things are going to be in front of you. And they're in front of you. Anyway, they really are. It's not like we're inventing something new, and these are things that God is calling us to do as people, but we're trying to hone and focus on our vision and concentrate on these things, and what are they? They are the area of personal quiet times and devotional life with the Lord. That we'll be faithful, each of us to have a devotional every day that we would be in the Word and in prayer every day. Secondly, that we would be faithful in our roles in family devotions, and I'm going to explain more about what that means. I know that not everyone here sitting tonight is at the same place in life, but we all do have a role to play in family ministry, and then specifically in the area of the family devotion, we're going to talk about that. Thirdly, personal witnessing, that each one of you’d lead someone to Christ this year would be just wonderful. But even more, that we would just be faithful to what God's calling us to do, that we would be witnesses, because you know actually we're not called to lead anyone to Christ, we're going to talk more about…, that's not our job. We can't do that, that's the Holy Spirit's work. But we are called to witness, aren't we? That's what Acts 1:8 says and many other places, and that I want us to do, and I don't think it's a regular part of everyone's life in this church, and we want to help people grow in that area. And the fourth area is, Do you have a ministry? What is your ministry here? And we're going to talk more about that, but that's the overall focus that we're going to be giving.

Now we do have some areas of initiative and we're going to talk about that, that we're going to focus on in terms of moving out and energetically giving effort in those seven areas. But this is, the focus is going to be on the basics in the Christian life. Now, I want to remind you of what our vision statement is, again, on the front page, we exist, it says, “To delight in display and declare the glory of God equipping His people to spread that delight to all nations through Jesus Christ.” That's why we're here, we have a reason for existing, and that's what we sense the Lord leading us to say about that reason, we're here for His glory, and we're here for His glory in the way that's described there.

Now take that booklet and open to the very back page, and you'll find a very homely little cartoon there that was in the booklet last year. And I think it's a good visual representation. You know, I did it because I can call it homely, if somebody else did it, they'll call it beautiful or artistic or creative, but because I did it, I'm going to call it homely, but it looks a little bit like a cartoon, but the idea is, I'm trying to get on one page, just kind of the big picture. The central thing I hope that grabs your eye is the glory of God. Now, I was talking to somebody earlier today, and somebody said that phrase is in danger of going the way of what would Jesus do? We just talk about the glory of God all the time. Well, it's not so much that we talk about the glory of God, is that the scripture makes the glory of God's central, and we are acknowledging that we're seeing it. What do I mean by that? It's the way that God displays or reveals his nature and his plans for the world, whenever God shows himself, whenever he reveals his attributes, his nature, what his qualities are, that is his glory. It's the kind of outward emanation of his nature, and we see it in the scripture, we see it in creation, we see it in each other as we're following God, we see it all around us. And that is really why God created the world. It is the end for which he created the world, that he would display his glory. Anything we do that's off that point, we've missed it, we really have, and so the center of everything we're doing, we want God to be displayed, we want people to see our good deeds that they may glorify God in heaven. That's it. I mean, that he would be central and exalted, so there it is in a kind of a glory cloud there, and from that, we have God moving out through the cross of Jesus Christ into the local church, energetically taking the initiative with us. We're not inventing ways to glorify God, he's glorifying himself through us, he's got the initiative, he moves, we follow, he initiates we respond, that's the way it is. I wouldn't want it any other way, I don't want to initiate and he respond. God has always thought of everything eternally before I ever was born, and his wisdom is of the Ancient of Days, we're following him, but he is moving energetically and we through the cross of Jesus Christ, we are going to be busy in house.

In here, we're going to be busy at 414 Cleveland Street in this place, in this church, we're going to be energetic and active, but there's a purpose, the purpose is spiritual maturity. You see that in the center of the church, a little box there, spiritual maturity, we want to grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ, and we're going to see that happen as we're doing these kind of other ministries and ministry of the word, of worship, of discipleship, prayer. The Deacon ministry, support ministries, comforting ministries, all the ministries of the church, whatever they may be, they're focused on that we might come up into full maturity in Christ as a body. That's our desire to be like Jesus, to think like he does, to feel like he does, to move and be energetic in serving his father as he was. Now, it's so easy for a church to stay there, isn't it, but there's got to be a river of blessing that flows out of the church into the surrounding community and to the ends of the earth, and if it just stays in-house, we've missed it again, we have to grow. But there has to be - there has to be fruits, there has to be a river of blessing flowing out, and so we see that streams of living water, John 7:38 flowing in various channels, those channels I think have remained the same, I don't mind if some get added and others. But this is the idea is that there's going to be specific ways that we're going to see us reaching out through local outreach and urban ministry, global missions, pro-life ministry, prison ministry, student ministry, and internationals, and if there's any others that are sub parts of that, they're in there too, and if there are other major channels we've missed, we want to hear about them, but the idea is still the same, there's going to be kind of predictable and patterns of channels of blessing that are going to go out. It's not going to be disarrayed or hodge-podge, but there's going to be an arrangement of ministry that's going out into a specific field that God's assigned to us to minister.

We're not assigned the universe and everything in it. That's not for us, we're a church of about between 375 and 425 people, that's my estimation. So there's a limit to what we're called to do, the idea of working a field or an assigned field is biblical, it comes in Corinthians, Paul talks about how his assigned field included you Corinthians, our field reached you, and so there's a scope of ministry and we're called to do that ministry and to be faithful. Now in prayer, we can touch the world, we can reach out through prayer and be involved, in financial and giving, we can touch many other things too, although not the world, but still. We can reach out, but still we're going to be working our field, we're going to work and what comes out of that growth, "God causes the growth," 1 Corinthians 3:6-7. And the kingdom in heaven is growing both internally in this church, as we grow up more and more maturity, that's kingdom growth, and as we reach out and see people coming to Christ and they're growing, that's kingdom growth. And all of that ds toward what? The glory of God. That's my kind of picture of what's happening here. Do you get it? The little cartoon in there, okay. Same as last year. And it would probably be the same next year too, but anyway, that's kind of what we're thinking about.

Now, if you go back one page from there, just back one page, we're going to see Top 10 Ministry initiatives a year 2003. And this was in front of us for the year, and we prayed over it, thought about it, made efforts and strove toward these things, and saw in some areas some really wonderful growth and other areas not as much. And so it was a good time for us to assess what happened, the quarterly corporate prayer ministry started. We had four quarterly corporate prayer meetings, they were, I think wonderful. They were Spirit filled, they were good times. They were not as well attended as we would have liked, so we're considering, and I think we've made the decision probably, to move them to Sunday evening once a quarter. And so we're going to be probably having quarterly corporate prayer for two hours on a Sunday evening in lieu of Sunday evening worship. And I'm excited about that. Where we're going to meet, I don't know. I don't like the kind of pew arrangement here for prayer, but we may do it in here if it's really well-attended, that would be exciting, we'll just make due, we'll kind of face each other around the pews and we'll just pray and that'll be great. But that's - I'm already oozing over into the future, and I do that, I do that, I just, it's hard to keep category straight - but looking backward, I think it was a good ministry.

And I feel that God worked in some wonderful ways, the deacon family ministry plan is off and running. Again, we saw some good progress in that area, we have deacons taking very seriously they're shepherding responsibilities, they're making phone calls, they're keeping up with people, they're initiating with the people that are assigned to their care, again, there's more that could be done, just a matter really of faithfulness are the deacons being faithful. And you need to pray for your deacon that he would be faithful to the ministry that God's called them to do. We really need lots of layers of mutual shepherding in this church, don't we?

In Sunday School, that needs to be there. We're just individually supposed to watch over one another in brotherly love, but the deacons have a very, very important burden in this, and that is to pray for and initiate with and keep up with people and just be out there and be caring for people. And I think we've started. But we just need to continue to see that progress. New Member assimilation, there was a very detailed plan that I think Scott Markley especially put together, and we've seen a lot of that come to pass. I know that the new member assimilation team has worked very hard to get new members involved in the life of the church, and I think it's been a good effort and I'm glad about it. I think again, there's still more that we can do, we want to do a better job of getting new members active in ministry and the church, and that's not the new member assimilation team's job per se, they're kind of match makers, just as we are a ministerial staff are match makers between individuals and ministries. But more than anything, we want people to take ownership of ministry and to find ways that they can minister, we'll talk more about that later on. But I think they've done a great job. And we want to see that continue.

Short-term global mission trips, I think really went well this year, we had three of them, two to Haiti and one to China, all three were very successful. It was just encouraging to see the reports of people trusting Christ, praying to receive Christ, of progress in a church building that we felt the Lord leading us to build of medical missions there in Haiti, of basketball and English Camp in China, and so many other things are in the work that we were called to do. So we're very excited by the ministry that God led us to do, as we look forward to the year 2004, I want to see more good things happening and I'm excited about that. I think we should be excited. To me, I just feel like you had to pray about going on a short-term mission trip sometime in the next five years, there's something about actually being there and actually going, that just opens up your vistas, your horizons to the needs of the world and to what you can do and be involved. So that was, I think, a very successful element of our ministry.

And number five targeted neighborhood outreach. I think this is probably one of the biggest successes of these 10 in that we started our monthly Sunday afternoon outreach, we've realized that there will be no organized outreach to the area without sacrifice. It's not possible. There's going to be some sacrifice. The question is, when is the sacrifice going to result in the greatest fruit. When are people, un-church people, most likely to be home, when can we minister to them? And so we hit on Sunday afternoon once a month. And we've seen many, many church members go out, we've seen church members taking steps of faith, they didn't want to be there, and they were there, and they stepped out and they did things that they had never done before. And it's a great avenue for more mature folks to take, people who feel more comfortable witnessing to take along those that are just getting going into it, to observe how to do it. And unless something better comes along, I think it's here to stay. That we're going to be continuing to do that ministry on Sunday afternoon. We've had some good meals that have been provided. It's been great to see the body of Christ come around that. And we're looking forward to seeing more. There were some aspects of that neighborhood outreach that we didn't do. One is that we had hoped to have kind of a host family, host a four-week investigative Bible study to which we would invite people in that neighborhood to go, and it was hard to get host families. And so we just said, “Well, let's put that on the shelf, and let's just go door to door.” And we've done that, but we want to look back again at that, I think it's a great way to get to know people and really study the Bible much better than a quick encounter at the door. So if we could say “There's a home two streets over or just next block, that's going to be having a Bible study starting in a month or in three weeks, four weeks study in the Gospel of John. Would you be interested?” I think we'd probably get five or six people that might come, and we're going to look at doing that again in the summer. I'll talk more about that in a bit, but I think number five was really good targeted neighborhood outreach, and we've seen some good things.

International Ministry Team has done some excellent work, some hard work. Scott Markley has led that up and just worked hard in it, and we have a varied approach to international, so there's a lot of things going on, and Scott and Brad Brown and so many others, Steve Carell, I don't want to name names because I'm going to leave somebody out. And that's the problem you get into, but a lot of people have worked hard in International Ministry; we've seen some good organization that we'd like to see it continue, but the international ministry team is up and running and they meet regularly, and they're thinking about internationals, and we're seeing good things happen there.

Number seven, great commission giving, I believe that last year was probably the best year ever of giving in our church, and this is across the board, if you really just look at how much money was given, the budget was increased the previous year, and we came within $6,000 of meeting it, and that's okay, that's fine. I actually think it was a good thing, you know that we came a little short, we were doing fine financially, we didn't spend to our budget at all, so that was fine. But then if you add into that - what happened with Lottie Moon and what happened with Anne Armstrong, what happened, especially with the Global Priority Mission Fund - it was a phenomenal year forgiving, phenomenal. And I think it's really just the tip of the iceberg. I just feel that there's more and more that we could be doing financially, and I'm excited about that looking forward to what God's going to do next year.

Urban ministry growth, I think is of the 10, the weakest area. I'd be very honest with you, I feel that the Wagners have just stepped out in faith and done some great ministry, and I just feel we could support him better, I feel that there's more people out there that could step up and do mentoring on Wednesday, and we could branch out into other areas. We didn't do anything really with C.E.F. and Adopting a Block, even though John Blake was here and talked about that, and I just feel that it became kind of priority one, if you'll see on our top seven for this upcoming year. I want to see us embrace the urban ministry, I want to see us reach out better. So the other areas, I think we've been really good in, this one I want to see us do better, I just think that there's a whole bunch of folks out there that need the Lord, and they're right near us and we need to reach out to them. So I'm excited about that, I'm looking forward to what God's going to do, and I'm so grateful for those that have worked hard in urban ministry in our church, especially the Wagners, have been there very faithfully and others as well, and it's just been a great ministry, but I just like to see it developed.

Pro-life ministry. I think, again, there's more that we could be doing in that and we need to get specific, it's hard to know, that's a little bit different than some of the other ministries, because there's this, “What do we do?”, and I think it's a matter of, kind of embracing ministries like the pregnancy support services. There was a baby shower for them, and I think it's a great idea. We would like to see that happen again, but with more publicity, a lot of more people knowing about it and getting involved in us embracing it, ministerial staff better, and talking more about pro-life and just having people thinking about what we're doing. We're going to talk more about that in a minute, so, good start, I think, I write a pro-life thing in the Beacon every time now, which I didn't do before, just trying to keep the issue in front of us, but there's more we can do.

And the men's mentoring ministry as such didn't really happen, but it wasn't really that we were looking for. We really wanted to just have a men's retreat, and we did that in the fall. Really, you want to take the word mentoring out and just say, we're looking at just men's ministry, and there are going to be some that want to pair up as the women have with heart to heart. But there are others that just going to want to meet periodically on Saturday morning, breakfast or do some other things, and we're looking forward to that. But looking back, we did meet the goal of what it is we wanted to do, we wanted to have a men's retreat in which we are focused on men's roles in the church and in the family, especially focused especially on the family. And we've seen some good things happen, a number of men have testified how that has really changed their family lives, and we're excited about that. And we're looking forward to this upcoming year. So that's a real quick overview of the top 10 from last year.

And I'm encouraged and I'm looking forward to what's going to go next. Now, if you turn the front of the book, we've already seen the front page, but if you turn inside the front page, we're going to look at back to the basics, we're going to look at four questions. And these questions, like I said, we're going to use to just minister to you folks and to encourage you to be faithful in these basic areas. This is what we'd like to see people do.

Question number one personal devotions. Have you spent time in the Scriptures and prayer today?  Have you done that today, personally? And we're going to keep that in front of you, we're going to be asking that question. Question number two, family devotions, have you been fulfilling your role in family devotions? I'm going to talk more about what I mean by that in a moment, but have you been filling the role? Have you understood what your role is, and have you been filling it? Fulfilling it. Thirdly, evangelism, have you shared the Gospel lately with anyone? And that's something that I just, I think that we as a church can help each other in this area. I think we need to own up to our responsibility and we need to say, "Hey, if it's been five years since I've said anything to anybody about Christ, so that's too long, but I want to change and I want to grow. I want to find out how to overcome any fears I might have, to know how to witness, I just want to witness, I just want to be a witness." And if you witnessed 10 times last year to double that, and then once you've hit that goal 20 times in the first four months, then you'll say, "Okay, I need to adjust my goal again, but I want to become a regular faithful witness to Christ." Have you shared the Gospel lately? And then the fourth question is ministry. Have you committed yourself or have you committed to a pattern of ministry at First Baptist Church? Again, I'm going to explain what that means, but I guess I'd like you to ask yourself the question, What is your ministry? What is your ministry? We're going to see I've written some things on each of these questions. But the one that sticks out is, if you were to ask yourself, “How many hours have I served First Baptist Church, not counting times in which I came to Sunday morning worship, Sunday evening worship or Wednesday evening teaching times?” Not counting those, if we just take those and remove them, and then you say beyond that, “What have I done? What was my ministry?” That's where I'm getting, that's what I'm zeroing in on. What is the ministry? And is it lining up the ministry you have, is it lining up with your spiritual gifts? How are things going with that? Those are the four questions, and we're going to just keep asking, we're going to keep urging people to think about them, we're going to keep saying, Are you in the word? Are you praying? How is it going in your family life? Are you centered on Christ and on his word? Have you witnessed anybody? Are you taking faith steps? Are you embracing your responsibility to be a witness and fourthly, “What is your ministry here at this local church?”. Okay, let's look a little more deeply at these questions. If you turn the page.

Question number one is, Have you spent time in the Scriptures and prayer today? Personal devotionals are vital for growth and fruitfulness, it is impossible to grow in grace and to be eternally fruitful apart from dwelling moment by moment in Christ. Jesus made this clear when he said, "I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing." To remain in Christ means to walk with him, to be conscious of his presence, to talk with him and to listen to him, it means to obey his commands and worship him in spirit and in truth. The key to this is the simple discipline of the quiet time or personal devotions. This is un-hurry time totally focused on two basic things, hearing from God through the Scriptures and talking to God through prayer. May I say boldly that if you are not doing this on a daily basis your ability to grow and bear fruit will be severely impaired. Some might say that's not really bold. Alright, that is just true. If you're not in the word and in prayer, if you're not having your daily time with the Lord, you're not going to be fruitful. You're going to be more of a problem than a solution. Jesus said, "Anyone who does not gather with me is scattering." So you're going to be a scatterer that day if you're not really walking with the Lord. I've found that to be the case for me. I've scattered some days more than gathered, and I want to be in the word and in prayer.

Second section, top priority is that you hear God speak today by Scripture. Nowadays people complain of the pace of life, saying they don't have time for quiet time. To realize how shocking this is, you need only to understand what time was given for. There's a magnificent passage in Hebrews 3 that puts this all in perspective, quoting, "So as the Holy Spirit says, 'Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion." Hebrews 3:7 and 8, the author to Hebrews is quoting an Old Testament Scripture, Psalm 95, and using its strong message to warn people of rebelling against God, of drifting away, Hebrews 2:1, turning away, Hebrews 3:12 or falling away, Hebrews 6:6 from God. That it is a quotation is clear from the "Today, if you hear His voice," and from the way most English Bible set this quotation apart in special font or a special paragraph arrangement. It is Psalm 95 verses 7 through 11 that the author to Hebrews is quoting. King David wrote that Psalm, as the author readily acknowledges in Hebrews 4:7, but in Hebrews 3:7, the author says, "As the Holy Spirit says, 'Today, if you hear His voice…'" Whenever we are reading Scripture, we are hearing the speech of the Holy Spirit, he's speaking directly to us. Note that the verb tense is present; he doesn't say as the Holy Spirit said, but as the Holy Spirit says, this present speaking by the spirit is also emphasized by the quotation itself. "Today, if you hear His voice…" Every time we read Scripture, we are hearing the very voice of God himself. And that should happen today or, "…as long as it is called today," Hebrews 3:13. Your life is made up of a series of things called today, you can't obey God yesterday, and you can't obey God tomorrow. You can only ever obey God today, and the key to walking with him is to hear his voice and obey him today. And when we hear him speak to us today, we must obey, we must not harden our hearts as they did in the rebellion. Therefore, a healthy Christian life, must center every day on hearing God speak to our hearts by reading Scripture.

How should we read? Deeply, carefully, thoughtfully with meditation and memorization, not quickly, lightly, thoughtlessly as if to check a box on a to-do list. Read that your heart may be renewed and transformed, Roman 12:2, by what you read. So our first priority as Christians, as we're going to hear from God today. Jesus said in John 10, "My sheep hear my voice. They listen to me and they follow me." How are you hearing Christ speak to you? I'm just urging you, be in the word. Be in the word. Let Him speak to you. Say, "Lord, please speak to me today, talk to me, tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it." And he speaks clearly through Scripture.

Secondly, you need to speak to him in prayer. There needs to be a conversation, he's speaking to you through Scripture and you're speaking back to him in prayer. You need to speak to God in prayer. Prayer is the language of the soul, and the soul that breathes no prayer to God is dead. There are so many commands to pray in the Bible that there is no need to list them here, but let me encourage you not to substitute moment by moment, quick situational praying which is a good thing, by the way, like Nehemiah did before the king. In Nehemiah 2:4 for the totally focused on your knees, doing nothing but prayer time that I have in mind. Both are vital to a healthy walk with God, but here I am advocating a quiet time, a time in which you concentrate your mind totally on prayer. Let your worship flow in prayer. Let your complaints and requests be laid before the throne with faith, let your heartfelt confession of sin cleanse your soul, 1 John 1:9 and Hebrews 4:16, spend more and more time in prayer in 2004, intercede for others as you were commanded in Ephesians 6:18, always "…keep on praying for all the saints” and wrestle for them in prayer.

You've got to pray. This church isn't going to go any further than it goes on its knees; we've got to be faithful in prayer, you need to pray for this church, we need to pray for each other. It says that we're to watch over one another in brotherly love. You can't do that any better than by praying for them. Pray for each other. Be faithful in prayer.

Now, it gets controversial here, morning is the best time. I'm not going to be dogmatic, I know there are some people that are just not morning people, but I think those that are just not morning people can honor and glorify God even more than those that are morning people. By having a morning quiet time. It is a sacrifice. It is a challenge. Jesus set the pattern for us in Mark 1:35, it says, "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he prayed to His father." The Psalmist also display the same pattern, "In the morning, oh Lord, you hear my voice, in the morning oh lord when I lay my request before you and wait in expectation." Also Psalm 80:13 and 143:8 and others. Now, if you can't have a morning quiet time, I'll understand. I think an ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure, and if at the end of a day of not really walking well with the Lord, you can kind of clean it all up with a good quiet time, that's wonderful. But I just think every day is a new and fresh day. "His mercies are new every morning," and I think it's good to begin a day fresh with a time in the Lord, a time in prayer and in reading Scripture. So the closing exhortation is, make it your top priority in the year 2004 for to grow in your consistency, depth, fervency and love and devotions to God. It is the foundation of everything else you'll try to do. Turn the page.

Question number two. Have you been fulfilling your role in family devotions? Now, I'm not going to read through every word of this like I did the quiet time. I wanted to get a clear emphasis on a quiet time, so I read that. Let me summarize what it is I'm going to say in here. Basically, the family is God's central and first human institution; the family is what God first set up before the church, the church therefore is made up of what the family has produced, not just biologically folks, but in terms of our character, who we are as people, it's a vital and important role. Baptists are right, I think, to emphasize evangelism and witnessing and to think about Damascus Road conversion experiences, but the fact is, even in Baptist Churches most people were raised in Christian homes.

The Christian home is a powerful tool for witnessing and for discipleship, isn't it? And so I think it should be a central concern of our church, how healthy are the families in this church, and that's where I want to get into the idea of roles. I'm well aware that not everybody who is listening to me tonight or who will get this document and read it with interest, is in the place in life where they have school-aged children or they're able to have a family ultra-time, I know that. I know that there're widows and widowers. I know there are some that have never married. I know that there are some that are hoping some day to marry but aren't married yet. I know that there are college students. There are youth, there are children, everybody is kind of at a different place in life, and yet I believe we all have a role to play in this issue of family devotions.

What do I mean? Well, certainly, if you're the father of a house full of children with a wife, your responsibility is to gather the family regularly around what I call the family altar, and if that terminology isn't beneficial to you, just family devotions in which you're opening the Scripture and reading the Scripture and praying and leading your family spiritually. If you are a wife in that family, you have a role to support and respect your husband's leadership, to pray for him, that he be faithful in that and to set a good example for your children. And during the actual time of devotions to be the co-disciple along with the husband of the children, sharing and talking and leading by example. If you're a child, your responsibility is to look forward to those times to be excited about them, to say, "I can't wait for family devotions," to contribute as your parents allow and as the Lord leads for you to be a positive force for that and to talk to your friends about how much you love family devotions, and to really be encouraging. And fathers to exhort other fathers to do that.

Now, if you're a widow or a widower, or if you're in one of those other situations, you can at least do this: you can be praying for the families that have children that are growing, that they would be faithful. Older women can disciple and mentor, and set example for younger women, older men can do the same for younger men as is laid out for us so beautifully in Titus chapter 2. We can set examples, we can encourage each other in the halls, we can exhort them, we can say, "I'm praying for you and for your family that you be faithful in family devotions. How is it going?" We all have a role to play, and if you're a grandparent you can in a creative way with your children, encourage them in that area, I know it takes a light touch and figure out how best to do that, but just be praying that they would be faithful in this matter of the spiritual life of the family. And so this is what I'm urging you to do. Have you been faithful in fulfilling your role in family devotions? Turn to the next issue.

Three, evangelism. Have you shared the Gospel lately? The Great Commission was given to us at least five times. It actually was given to us far more than that. If you look at Matthew 28, and Mark 16, as it's listed there, Luke 24, John 20 and Acts 1:8, these are all various forms of the Great Commission. Before Christ left, before he ascended up to heaven, he gave us a job to do. I like what it says in John 20, "As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you." Well, how did the Father send him? Specifically why did the father send him? I think the father sent him to seek and to save what was lost. If our church is not seeking and saving the lost, we are missing it, we're sick spiritually, we are not healthy, we're not engrafted into the vine, we're not compassionate the way Jesus was who wept over Jerusalem, we are not linked in with what he's doing in the world. He is saving lost people, and so we have to be active in evangelism.

Is it just for the trained professionals? Not at all. Church history bears out that the most effective witnesses are everybody, not just the trained folks, but those that it says in Book of Acts, in effect kind of gossip the Gospel, they just chattered it and talked to their neighbors and friends at the marketplace, and they just shared. It was common people, it was the slaves, it was the low man and woman, it was the child, it was anybody and everybody who was called to be a witness. And I want us to embrace this. In the end it's a joy. I know it's a little scary, but frankly, I think that's a good thing. It's good because it causes to let go of some things that are not really that vital anyway, namely praise of man and woman to be concerned what people think. To be thinking too much about your earthly reputation.

I didn't say much about it here in this section, but the workplace is a phenomenal place for witnessing, it really is, it's maybe one of the best places where you can get to know non-Christians and be faithful in witnessing. More than anything, the whole focus or burden of this section is that you would embrace your personal responsibility to evangelize the lost. That you would ask yourself, “Have I been faithful in witnessing?”

And if you look in the next page C, it says, wherever you are, take the next step, look at this with me. Acknowledge that you have a personal responsibility to be a witness for Christ, if appropriate, confess your sins to God, say something like this, "I've failed in my personal responsibility to witness for Christ, it's been such and such days, months, weeks, years, since I opened my mouth and said anything to anybody I didn't know about Jesus." And that's fine, the Lord knows anyway, but just speak it to him and tell him what it's been. Repent from the sin and resolve to make this upcoming year the richest and best year of personal witnessing you've ever had. Assess your level of maturity and ask God to show your next step. If it is simply to invite someone to church, then do it. If it is to get a good gospel track and to give 10 of them out in the next month, do it.

If you need additional training, then get it, but beware sitting in the classroom is not enough to discharge your responsibility to witness. We're kind of good studiers, and that's fine, but the best place to learn how to witness is go out and do it, and then they ask those questions that you have no answer for, and then you come and say, "Oh no, what do I say when they say such and such?" Etcetera. You get all excited and you're highly motivated when you're out there doing it. The thing I'm excited about Sunday afternoon outreach once a month, is that you have a regular ongoing vehicle to go out and try. To go out and go door to door and let the Lord be there, and frankly, it's a great entry point for you. You could say, "Look, I am at such and such a place in witnessing, I'd like to just go and observe." I guarantee there will be somebody who will take you along and say, "Just come and watch. Let's do it together." It's a great setup, and I'm urging people more and more be involved in those Sunday afternoon outreaches, if you're afraid to witness, confess your fear and ask the Lord to help you.

Number seven, if you haven't witnessed in years, witness once to someone in the first three months of the year. Invite someone to church. Give them a track. Speak the name of Christ. Say something like, "He's a wonderful savior," or something. I knew a guy that used to do that. He'd be playing basketball and somebody would take the name of the Lord in vain, and he'd say, "May the name of the Lord be praised," that's what he'd say every time he'd hear Jesus or Christ, he'd say, "May his holy name be praised," something like that, and they'd always kind of stop and look at him. That's a good opportunity, kind of an odd one, to turn it around like that, but to use it as a witnessing opportunity. Number eight, rely on the power of the Holy Spirit. And number nine, make a commitment to come to our monthly neighborhood outreach, and there you can learn by watching and eventually become more and more experienced yourself.

Now listen to this, D, a key daily prayer for you, central recommendation challenge here every day, pray the following prayer to God, "O Lord, please give me a chance to witness to someone today, I will trust you for the chance and with your help, make the most of it." I have found that when I pray that prayer, I am much more active in witnessing. Someone said, "Yes, that's why I'm not going to pray that prayer." So at least they're honest. And I appreciate that, I really do, but I think it's a good prayer to pray, say, "Lord, it's a Monday, give me a chance to witness today. Just bring somebody across my path and then when it happens, just tug on me inside and say, 'This is it,' and then tell me what to say." I'll know what to say.

Okay, fourth question, Have you committed to a pattern of ministry at First Baptist Church? Do you have a ministry? Alright, here, I'm going to urge you more than anything to make the most of your time, I think of giving money and giving time. It's harder to give time. I do, I just, I think money is a sacrifice, but time's a bigger sacrifice, and so for you to be faithful in giving of yourself of your time is a sacrifice. It's a commitment.

There are two patterns of spiritual ministry in a church, one of them is spiritual gift ministry and the other is just general loving service type ministry, and we're called to do both, I just think we're called to do both. First spiritual gift is you have to find out what your spiritual gift package is. It's not just one gift, but it's always an arrangement of special abilities that God gives you that enables you to minister very effectively, consistently in a certain area, whether it's administration or giving or prayer, or witnessing or teaching, or any one of a combination of those and others, that's your spiritual gift ministry. You need to maximize your ministry hours in the church doing that. But there still should be a chunk of the pie left for the second type of pattern of ministry and that is just willing to pick up a mop or to clear a table, or to drive somebody somewhere, or to come to a workday, shovel snow, whatever. Willing to serve in any way, just as Jesus was willing to wash feet, we're willing to do anything. And the question is thinking differently about the church.

Look on at C there, the question, “What has the church done for me lately???” That's an interesting question, isn't it? Especially with three question marks. What has the church done for me lately? Deadly consumerism has crept into the American church, in which people look on the church as a place in which they pay for services received, and in which they are able to assess constantly the performance of the church in meeting their needs. It's like we're kind of a company where you kind of buy services by giving it to either offering and then you expect those services to be performed well, and so there's a whole reversal here. It's not, “How can I serve, how can I love?” but “What have you done for me and my family lately?”

I think this church needs to not have any part of that attitude, I think we need to get rid of it. We need to not think that way, this reverses everything and it's deadly for the individual Christian and for the local church, and yet I have seen this kind of attitude again and again even in our church, sometimes. Christ instead has given us a different pattern of sacrificial service to others for the glory of God. First Baptist Church will succeed or fail in this mission in Durham based on the sacrificial service of its members.

Now, on the next page, I give a series of questions for personal examination. I'm not going to read a single one of them, but I'd like you to read them. I'd like you to take them before the Lord in prayer in your quiet time, and just allow the Lord to probe you in each of these areas, hold on to this booklet, use it throughout the upcoming year. I'm going to use it in counseling and encouraging people, just asking these kinds of questions, which will kind of get at how these areas are going for you.

Back to the basics folks, I feel that if we're faithful in these four areas, the next areas will come really just naturally. I think they're going to come. Turn the page after the questions and you're going to see top seven areas of initiative in 2004 and we can go through this relatively quickly. On the one facing page, it tells you what they are: urban ministry growth, great commission giving, local outreach, corporate prayer life, pro-life ministry, shepherding and accountability and international ministry team. Now, if you were to compare this with the top 10, you'll say, well, what happened to this, what happened to that? Nothing's missing, but I think that it's more consolidation and kind of focus. We're going to zero in. You can say, where is the Deacon Family Ministry Plan? Well, you can easily find that in the shepherding an accountability aspect, it's there, but just defined this way.

Now let's look at what we're hoping to see happen in these areas. I would love to see 10 times more than this happen, but what we put on this, on these pages, we feel are reasonable goals for our church, they're going to stretch us in some areas, but they're reasonable. We didn't put down that we want to see 3000 people baptized this upcoming year. That would be exciting, with some caveats there, I think it'd be exciting and tremendous upheaval, but it'd be thrilling and I would love it, but we didn't set that as a goal, frankly, that's not really for us to do. Rather, we set some other goals that I think are reasonable. Urban ministry growth, this initiative is coming right from those that are involved in this ministry, they need seven people to be involved in their once a night mentoring program. Is that an attainable goal in this church, do you think? I think so. And frankly, you're going to keep hearing about it until we have the seven people, and if we end up with 14, that's great, but we're going to get those seven folks. And it may be you, whoever you are, but God may be speaking to you saying, "I can do that, I can do once a night mentoring, I can take an inner city child and work with them in their school work and also lead them to Christ. I can be a spiritual figure to them, and I can do that."

So urban ministry growth. And if we see much more than that happen, I will be thrilled. Second, great commission giving, we're setting these goals. Annie Armstrong, $7500, Lottie Moon, $50,000, that's an increase of 50% over our goal, but we keep making this anyway, so let's set at this the goal and see it go up to $75,000 or even more. Frankly, we're praying through the idea of keeping Lottie Moon in front of you 12 months a year, so that we could see this goal really greatly exceeded.

Now, you could say, what's the difference between Lottie Moon and the Global Priority Mission Fund? Well, Lottie Moon is our denominational missions, that's people that we know and others that we don't know who have gone out as Southern Baptist missionaries around the world, that is our commitment to support them, and we're thrilled about that. We are a Southern Baptist Church and we want to help. The Global Priority Mission Fund is for everything else that this church would like to do in terms of short-term missions, anything. We want to be involved in that, and the goal of $150,000 may seem ambitious, but frankly, we've seen that much come in this past year, and I'd like to see it happen again. Wouldn't you? I think it's exciting. So let's pray that God would. And out of that we're going to be ministering to parachurch groups, we're going to be ministering to many other missionaries that come, people that are involved in our church now that are going to be raising funds for their ministries, and you, as you go on short-term mission trips and need financial assistance.

Okay, third, local outreach initiatives, we want to continue targeted neighborhood outreach and we want to average 75 laborers for Sunday, so we're going to keep a record of how many people show up on Sunday afternoon, and not of names, that's between you and the Lord, and we know that you're not necessarily going to make every outreach. I am just not at all about guilt manipulation when it comes to evangelism, I'm just not. I want to keep speaking very positively about what God's going to do, to do this church, but I'm going to be praying and trusting that 75 laborers will show up on average over this upcoming year on Sunday afternoon outreach. Again, that's reasonable, we've seen that number once or twice, but that's not been a regular number, so that's going to stretch us a bit. And that we would have two targeted neighborhood Bible studies. That's what we'd like to see happening. And then as Stephen mentioned, we want to visit everybody that visits our church and fills out a visitor card, we want to call them on the phone Sunday night and visit them within the next 10 days, after they visited our church. That gives us two Wednesdays and a full week and another Wednesday beyond it, to visit them to set it up and go and just get to know them, perhaps lead him to Christ or talk to them about the church, whatever, that's a dual commitment. We're initiating with those that have no interest in our church, we're going to go reach out to them, and then we're going to be reaching out to those that have shown interest in our church by coming. That's outreach.

Corporate prayer life, two initiatives. We're going to be recruiting 24 people to serve bimonthly to pray through the Sunday morning worship. That's something that Landis Bonn started and others have joined with him. We're going to get a regular schedule and we're trusting God that 24 of you at least will step forward and say, "I'm willing to give up every other month, Sunday morning worship and just pray with a few brothers and sisters." We don't ever want to have less than three there, so that way, we don't ever need to worry about who's praying with whom or anything; gender, males, females, it doesn't matter. If we get three people, at least and more, we'll be fine, and so we're excited about that, and if you're interested in doing that, you can be part of just the power of the Lord through that time.

And I've heard Landis has said, sometimes it's been better to be there than here and that's fine. I can't leave. Wouldn't that be odd if in the middle of sermon, I said, "I just really feel called to go there and join them in prayer, and I'm going to go do that.” But you have that freedom, and I think you ought to take advantage of it the more people we get, the less of a burden it is. And after a while, it's not even an issue of burden, it's that we're going to have eight to 10 more people. After a while, I think there'll be a limit to it, I'm going to urge that more people be here, but - I'm just kidding. But anyway, we want it, we want prayer and just, that's something, and as I mentioned, move quarterly corporate prayer to Sunday evening, 6 to 8. That'd be quarterly. So I think that's it. That's a winner. I think that's going to work well and people will be coming, it'll be one hour longer on the Sunday evening, but it's going to be a great time of prayer.

Pro-life, we're going to seek to take part in the Right to Life Chain. We're going to have, God-willing, a baby shower for pregnancy support services. We did this past year, grateful for those that got that going, but I'd like to see that embraced and really a success this year. We'd also like to see, especially on Sunday evening, bimonthly testimonies or reports focused on how you can get involved in the pro-life movement: Letters to the editor, political activism, counseling, being involved in PSS, whatever God's calling you to do. I want to keep that in front of the church.

Turn the page. Shepherding and accountability, these bullets. Deacon Family Ministry Plan, we're going to urge the deacons to contact all their people quarterly by phone, we're going to have deacons ask the four questions of people when they call. So we just want to keep those four questions in front of people, "I'm going to get tired of those four... " Don't be tired of them, these are good questions and just say, "How's it going for you? This is how it's going for me, we're just going to help each other in this area," this is what I think it means to watch over one another.

New member assimilation: we're going to improve new member assimilation by following the New Member Plan, which is a very good plan, I think. And we just need to give a great assistance, especially to the key people in the New Member Assimilation Team that may feel over-burdened, we want to just help more and more with them, improve team communication. With Sunday school, we wanted to see what we can do to improve or increase oversight in caregiving accountability. Sunday school needs to also be a shepherding arm, and we want to see that more and more, and it is in many cases. I'd like to see that even better. The men's ministry, we want to see three Sunday morning breakfasts.

We want to do another retreat and motivate men to foster discipleship relationships within the church, that's what we're seeking to do with men. And women's ministry, we want to help Heart To Heart be all that it can be. There are a number of women that have been very involved in that, it is a challenge and a burden to keep that going, and it's a joyful one, but we want to continue to see that ministry, which has been one of the big successes the last several years to continue to grow and to be spiritually fruitful.

And then finally, International Ministry Team, the initiatives, establish a unique adult Sunday school department with a blend of international FBC members, committed to a relational ministry with internationals and transition to a more team-based ministry through the active involvement of international team and the ministry members away and form a more individualized ministry. So that's our goal is we want to see the I.M.T. work.

Now, the next few pages, I'm just going to mention, I will not read through them, but I want to give you a sense of what we're already doing. Okay, so you have here, and this is going to be very useful for new members, if you think I'd like to get involved in this and that, we're going to give you as best we can, a contact person within the church. Now, if you're one of the contact people and you wonder why your name was there, please come see us, we really need to talk to you, but we did our best to assess what we think you folks are doing. Internal ministry, administrative church members, we define internal as ministry we do to ourselves, church members. External is ministry to non-church members and whatever, it's just broad definitions.

Internally, we do preaching and teaching, discipleship ministries, corporate worship, corporate prayer, support ministries, comforting ministries and stewardship. Externally, we do local outreach, urban ministries, global missions, pro-life ministry, prison ministry, student ministry, and international ministry. That's a lot, isn't it? It really is, there's a lot going on. Turn the page and you'll see it's even bigger than you thought. There's a lot of things going on here. And it could be as we're praying through these things, we're going to see perhaps some consolidation, it could be that we're doing a lot of things and we need to zero in on some things. I don't know, but you see how every sub-category has a name and a phone number, and a way to contact somebody, almost everyone, I think there's still some missing gaps. And if you feel like God may be leading you to do it – now, look at that and if you have any questions, certainly come. But let me urge you, if you don't have a ministry, if you answer that, frankly, as I look at myself, over the last two months, I have not spent more than an hour or so doing anything for First Baptist other than just coming to worship, well, then pray about how you can have a ministry here. And there's a detailed list in these next few pages of things that we could do and are doing. There's also the initiative things that we just shared, pray about it. We will do the best we can, ministerial staff and the deacons will do the best they can, and the New Member Assimilation Team will do the best they can to marry you together to a good ministry, but ultimately the initiative is with you, find a ministry and do it.

Well, I'm very excited to preach on this section of scripture, Philippians 3:7-11. We began this message last week, this is really kind of a two-part message. There's a negative aspect to what Paul's doing in Philippians 3:1-11 and a positive aspect. We looked at the negative one last week, how Paul came to reject as trash what was his treasure, his spiritual resume, his self-righteousness, how he came to the point of rejecting that as worthless. Now, we get to the positive aspect of what it was that caused him to do that. What glorious thing expelled that from his heart? What was his treasure that he would sell everything in his life to possess? And that was to know Christ.

I read recently about... And I love this kind of thing, these little moments in our culture and in history. It was 1989, August, and a man was at a flea market. Now, I don't go to flea markets. To my untrained eye it all looks like garbage to me, but to other people, they can see things that I can't see. So I'm not necessarily going to spend a lot of time at a flea market, but there was a man there, and he was looking and he found a dark, dismal country scene, a picture, but he wasn't interested in the picture, it was the frame that caught his eye. It was attractive. It was kind of ornately gilded, and he thought it would go well with another picture that he had been looking to frame at home.

And so, he bought is for $4. When he got home and tried to get the picture out of the frame, the frame disintegrated into many pieces. And he immediately felt that he had wasted his $4, until a folded-up piece of paper in the back fell out onto the table, and he opened it up and there was the Declaration of Independence. And it was strange, he thought it was probably just one of those copies that have been mass produced for the Bicentennial or something, except that he noticed something unusual. At the bottom, there weren't reproduced there all the signatures, instead John Hancock's name was printed, like the rest of the text, like the work of a printer and he wondered about that. He thought it was odd, folded it back up, and forgot about it. He mentioned a couple of years later to a friend, he said, "Well, let me see it." Brought it out and he said, "You need to get this thing appraised, this thing may be worth a lot of money." Well, he contacted Sotheby's in New York, and it turned out to be one of the 24 copies of the Declaration that was printed by the Continental Congress the night of July 4th, 1776.

There were only three left available and this is what he bought for $4. It was auctioned later that year for $2.4 million, that's what he got for his $4. And so, one man's trash can become immense treasure at that moment. Now, that's not likely to happen to you. Don't get any ideas about flea markets and all that kind of thing, but it did happen to him and I find it fascinating how somebody's trash can become priceless treasure.

But the reverse can happen too, how something you thought was priceless treasure becomes worthless trash. Between 1915 and 1921, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired some, so they thought, rare terracotta statues of Etruscan warriors, that was the predecessors to the Romans and the Roman Empire. They were valued parts of the collection until 1960, when it was discovered that they were fakes, because in the black glaze on it, there was manganese, which was never used back in the ancient times.

They tracked down eventually one of the forgers, Alfredo Fioravanti in Italy, and he proved that he had made them because he had a missing thumb from one of the warriors, and they had made it and foisted it off as a fake. How embarrassing for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that something they thought was a priceless treasure was actually worthless trash. Now, what is true materially here, namely, that we can be shocked at the value of something that we thought wasn't worth anything, or we can be shocked the other way, that something we thought was of great value actually turns out to be nothing, is immensely more important in the area of spiritual life. And that's exactly what Paul came to realize, that his whole standing before God was based on something he came to reject as trash. That's the word, I know that's a shocking word, but that's in effect the word he uses. He counted them rubbish, dung, worthless things compared to something of surpassing greatness.

The world offers actually many counterfeit treasures, things that you can build your whole world upon, things that you can cherish, human esteem and praise, academic or professional achievement, material prosperity, all of these things can be as, ultimately, a life goal are worthless trash. Nothing on which to base your life. How much more a false religious system based on works righteousness, self-righteousness, in which by learning to pray the right prayers or spinning the prayer wheel or doing the right little acts of worship at the shrines, or whatever the religious system is telling you must do to work out your righteousness before God and be self-righteous, to find on Judgement Day that it was all worthless and that the God of the universe will reject all of it and will say, "Away from me, I never knew you, you evil doer." I think it's good to know now. I think it's good to know now what is trash and what is treasure. Too late the person discovers that they've been duped and that they will be lost for eternity.

And so, it would've been with the Apostle Paul, Saul of Tarsus, as he was on the road to Damascus, so filled with himself, so filled with his spiritual resume, so filled with his accomplishments in Judaism, top of his class, rising, he was on the fast track to leadership in the Sanhedrin. He was a ladder climber, an ambitious man. It was Paul's false treasure, self righteousness through religious achievement, and oh, how good he felt about himself. And a few more notches on his belt as he went to the city of Damascus to collect up men, women and children, and drag them to prison, serving God. Salvation, he said, by religious ritual, Hebrew of Hebrews, circumcised on the eighth day, the people of Israel, a tribe of Benjamin in regard to the law, a pharisee as for zeal, persecuting the church as for legalistic righteousness. "I was faultless," said Paul, that was his false treasure, but suddenly on the road to Damascus, there came a light from heaven, blinding, brilliant, spiritual, pure and perfect. And with it came a voice, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord?" he said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." And at that moment his world fell apart.

His self-righteousness was shredded by the purity, the glory of Christ and he came to realize that he was undone, just like Isaiah. "Woe is me, I'm ruined. For I'm a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the Lord, the resurrected Lord, Jesus Christ." And so he went to fast and pray, he was physically blinded by the light that he'd seen. And in that time, he came to realize there was only one thing he wanted. He wanted to see it again. He wanted to see Him again. He wanted to see Christ. He'd never seen anything like that, the beauty and the glory, and the purity, and the holiness. And he was inexorably drawn to it. It became everything to him. "Oh, to see it again and to see it forever." That's what he wanted. He wanted to be in the presence of God and that became his treasure.

And he was led into a life of assessing at that moment, as we do all the time, putting a price on something. If you're going to have a yard sale or something, you've got to put price tag on everything, weigh its value and you're going to decide what it's worth. Paul went through everything in his life and put a price tag on it and, in effect, put on it, worthless, worthless, worthless compared to this knowing Christ.

Actually, it was worse than worthless, because it was positively keeping him from faith in Christ. It was dragging him the wrong way, it was actually the enemy of his soul, all of this righteousness, the self-achievement, and so he thought differently. The proprietor of his soul, that's what he was, and he was going through and he was assessing, he was considering and he was using accounting language, the ancient Greek accounting language. Loss and gain, reckoning and considering. "I count everything a loss," he said, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ." It wasn't just theoretical, he really did trash his career as a ladder-climbing Pharisee. It was gone after he began to preach Christ, there was nothing left.

He trashed his reputation as a Roman citizen. In the end it would be Rome that would execute him. He trashed all the things he cherished, he burned his bridges. There was no turning back. Jesus said, the Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again. And then in his joy, in his joy, he went and sold everything he had to buy it. It was worth it to him. It was a bargain. "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things." Well, that was last week's message. That was the negative side, how Paul came to reject as trash what he used to treasure, his self-righteousness.

Now, we look at the positive side in which Paul names what his new treasure is. He actually names it in great detail. He goes through it in great detail and explains what it is that drove out his self-righteousness. What was his new treasure? And he says it very plainly. It was number one, and we're going to look at it like a diamond with five facets. Number one, personal knowledge about Christ and of Christ. Number two, the gift of righteousness through faith in Christ. Number three, the power of Christ, resurrected life inside of him. And number four, the fellowship of sharing in Christ's sufferings. And number five, glory through Christ's resurrection, he told the Lord, that's what he has, that's his treasure, those five things.

Facet #1: Personal Knowledge ABOUT Christ and OF Christ

But the center of it all. If you could boil it down, I want to know Christ. I want to know Him. And just pause before we look at these five facets of this beautiful diamond. What an incredible thing it is that this man, the author to the Philippians, is saying, I want to know Christ. This is a man who saw the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus. This is a man who went up to the third heaven and saw incredible things, things that a man is not permitted to talk about, indescribable things. He had a vision of glory. A man to whom the Lord appeared at several times in the Book of Acts and presented Himself to him. And what does he want? I want to know Christ. He's not satisfied. It's not enough. Can any of you say, I know Christ enough? Really? That's all I really want to know of Christ.

No saved person would ever speak like that. We have tasted and it's good and we're not satisfied yet, we want more. And that's the way Paul was, the more he knew, the more he wanted to know. I wonder if it's going to be infinitely accelerating in Heaven. We'll get there and just the more we know, the more we'll want to know. Only we won't be flesh and blood anymore, we'll be able handle the strain of pursuing Christ and being so perfectly satisfied in Him. But the amazing thing that the Apostle Paul, who had seen so much of God, wanted more. John Piper said, "The heart is a desire factory." What do you desire today? What's your heart cranking out? What are you looking forward to? What's your treasure? That's worth thinking about, isn't it? The Apostle Paul wouldn't have hesitated, "Jesus is my treasure, I want to know Christ." Let's look at the first one, personal knowledge about Christ and of Christ.

First, I want to start with knowing about Christ. Now, this is just the start, but it's essential, it's vital. How can you call on someone you've never heard of? How can you trust in somebody that you know nothing about? How can you love somebody that you're ignorant of? We must know things about Christ, and Paul wanted to know about Christ. Just like a lover wants to know everything about the fiancé or the husband wants to know everything about the wife. "Tell me everything about you, I want to know about you." Knowledge about is not denigrated in a healthy marriage. We want to know about each other. And so people denigrate head knowledge. They say want we really want is heart knowledge. Do you know any heart knowledge doesn't begin as head knowledge? We must know about Christ.

And so the Apostle Paul would speak like this, "I want to know all about you, Christ. I want to know what you taught line by line. I want to memorize your teachings, I want to know the Sermon on the Mount. I want to know your parables, I want to know what you said in John 10, the Good Shepherd teaching. I want it to be part of the way I think, I want to know your words. I want to know every story of your life. I want to know how you interacted with the Scribes and Pharisees, when they brought challenging and tough questions to you. I want to know what your answers were. I want to know every interaction you had with the humble sinner, broken-hearted and needy, and how you displayed your compassion and your mercy and your miracles. I want to know your miracles, all of them. I want to find out how many there were and what you did. I'm not satisfied with the fact that all the region of Judea and Samaria came to Jesus and you healed them all, I'd like to know about each story. I'd like to find out about each blind man, and each lame man and each demon-possessed boy or girl that you healed, I want to hear the stories. I want to know about you, Christ."

"And I want to know how it is you considered it joy to die on the cross for my sins. I want to understand your way of thinking there, I want to know what was on your mind. And I want to know why it is you wept over Jerusalem. And why did you weep before raising Lazarus from the dead? I'd like to ask you that question, what was in your mind and your heart? And why did you sweat great drops of blood in Gethsemane? I want to know your humility, I want to know your gentleness and your compassion and tenderness. I want to know how God the Father created all things through you. What does that mean, through you? I want to understand that. And I want to know how it is that you're sustaining all things right now by your powerful word? I want to know you, Christ, I want to know all about you."

But that's not enough, is it? It's not enough. "I don't just want to ace the theology exam, get all the right answers on Jesus, that's not enough for me. No, I want to know you. I want that covenant love relationship with you, like a husband and wife relationship. Even better than that, I want to know you the way your Father knows you, with that perfect union and that intimacy, I want that kind of knowledge and I'm not going to be satisfied 'til I have it. I want to know you the way your Father does. I want to know you, Christ. I want to know everything about you and I want to know you." Jesus said, "Now this is eternal life that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." Paul's basically saying, "I want to live, I want to live and I want to live forever. I want eternal life."

Now, Moses achieved the highest that the Old Testament had to give. Miriam and Aaron were jealous of Moses' position of leadership, but God put them both in their place in Numbers 12. God said to them, "Listen to my words: "When a prophet of the LORD is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?"  Basically, "what I reveal to Moses, Miriam and Aaron, is better than what I show you."

But let me tell you, what God reveals to us in Christ is better than He showed to Moses. And Paul tasted, and he wanted more. Well, how much did God reveal to Moses? Well, Exodus 33 tells the story. The intimacy is so powerful and poignant, and I think this is what Paul has in mind here. Exodus 33, the Lord would speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide, Joshua, did not leave the tent, so Moses said to the Lord, "You have been telling me, 'Lead these people,' but you've not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, 'I know you by name, and you have found favor with me.'  If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so that I may know and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people."

That's the way Moses spoke to God. "I want to know you, God, show me yourself." The Lord replied, "My presence will go with you and I will give you rest." Then Moses said, "If your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?" And the Lord said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked because I am pleased with you and I know you by name." Then Moses said, "Now, show me your glory." I tell you, this is the heart cry of a Christian. "Show me your glory. I want to see it. I want to be in the presence of your glory. I don't want a space anymore between me and you, Lord. Show me your glory." And the Lord said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence." And then He says this, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. And I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." Do you know what he's saying there?

"I don't owe you this because you're a sinner. You don't deserve to come into my presence. But if I have mercy on you, I will do the very thing you've asked. I will bring you right into my presence. I will have mercy on those people I choose to have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. But," He said, "You cannot see my face. For no one can see me and live." And so He put him in a cleft of the rock and He went by. And at the last minute, He took His hand away and Moses saw just the back part of God's glory. And his face shone like the sun after that. Now, what I say to you is the experience, the intimate experience that Moses had on that mountain with God is nothing compared to what you will have in Heaven with God. And it's what Paul was hungry for. "I want to know you. I want that. I want to be in your presence. I've tasted Christ. I've seen your resurrection glory. I saw you on the road to Damascus, but I want more. I want to know you. I want to know you."

Facet #2: Gift of Righteousness Through Faith in Christ

The second facet is a gift of righteousness through faith in Christ. In verse 8 and 9, he says, "That I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to be found in Him," that's union language. "I want to be united with Christ spiritually so that His righteousness becomes my own. I want to get rid of my shabby rags, more filthy and vile than the worst drunkard in the gutter, those are my righteousness." Rags. Jesus said, "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and teaches the law, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Paul said, "Then strip me of it. I don't want it anymore. I want your righteousness, a perfect robe of righteousness woven by your constant obedience, your loving obedience to the Heavenly Father. 30 plus years of perfect obedience to God obeying every jot and tittle to the point of death, even the death on the cross, everything you did." That's the righteousness that Paul wants. He said, "I want that righteousness on myself. I want to stand in your righteousness, Jesus. I'm tired of my own. It's worthless, it's trash. I want your righteousness." That's the second facet on the diamond, Christ's righteousness and no other.

Facet #3: Power of Christ’s Resurrected Life Inside Him

The third facet is I want the power of Christ's resurrected life inside me. Verse 10, "I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection." He says it again, he keeps repeating himself, "To know Him. I want to know Him and the power of His resurrection." What does this mean? His resurrected power, energy working in me. It means more than that, but we'll get to that in the fifth facet. But right now, it means spiritual life and energy inside me, transforming me, changing me, making me godly, making me holy and making me fruitful and powerful and energetic for God. I want to know that energy, that resurrection life inside me. Resurrection power over sin and temptation, resurrection power to serve God mightily. Every day of my life, storing up treasure in heaven, fruit for His glory. I want that energy in me. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth.

Colossians 1:29, "To this end I labor, struggling with all His energy which so powerfully works in me." That's the resurrected life of Christ. "I want to know that life in me. The power of His resurrection. At the moment of temptation, I want to feel the temptation and overcome it by His resurrection power. I want to know His life. I want to see Him conquer my fear to witness. I was with those Corinthians in weakness and fear and much trembling, but I want to know His power to overcome that weakness and fear and trembling. I want to know Christ's power, His resurrection life."

He talks about this in Ephesians 1:18-21. "I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know three things, the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints and His incomparably great power which is at work in us who believe, His power for us who believe. That power is like the working of His mighty strength which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule, and authority, power, and dominion, and every title that can be given. Not only in the present age but also in the age to come." That's the power at work in us. Paul says, "I want to know that power. I want to find out just how powerful it is. I want to see what He can do through a man filled with the power of Christ's resurrected life." Is that all it means? No, it means more. It extends to his physical body too, but we'll get to that in facet five.

Facet #4: Fellowship of Christ’s Sufferings

Facet four is the one that I think about probably the most right now. I want to know how to suffer. I really want to know how to die. Verse 10. "I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death." I want to learn how to die, to die every day to myself and to my own desires. I want to learn how to suffer joyfully. To be glad to go to the lesser cross of persecution and hardship that others might have eternal life because Christ went to the greater cross of wrath and condemnation before God. I want to know what it means to take up my cross daily and follow Jesus. I want to know how to suffer each temptation to the 100% level until it goes away and I didn't sin. I want to know how to suffer right to the end, the way Jesus did. Every temptation that was brought Him for 30-plus years. I want to exhaust every temptation and see those temptations dead on the field of battle. I want to know what it feels like to be rejected and hated and despised and mocked and spat upon and trampled by the world because my master was so treated and a servant is not above his master.

I want to know how to suffer like Jesus did. He was a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. And what is more, I want to know Christ in the suffering. I want Him to stand by my side and give me strength. I want to have that fellowship as I'm fighting the good fight of faith. I want to know He's with me and pleased with me because I am standing firm for Him, both internally in holiness and externally in witness. I want to know the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings. I want to be with Him. I want to know the joy that comes from being beaten for Christ and then singing all night in a Philippian jail. I'd like to know that joy. I want to know how to suffer for Jesus. The Apostle Paul said at 2 Timothy 4, "In my first defense no one came to my support but everyone deserted me, may it not be held against them. But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength." I want to know that, don't you? I want to know what it feels like to have everybody desert you and you're witnessing to a megalomaniac Nero, Emperor of Rome, and Jesus is with you doing it too. I would love to know that, to know the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings.

Paul knew what it was like to have an unmistakable sense of Christ's immediate presence during times of immense suffering for the Gospel. And to Paul it was all worth it. It was all worth it. I want to know Christ in His suffering, and I want to know Christ in my suffering for His sake. I think this is kind of the central lesson of sanctification for me, to learn how to die. I'm going to learn how to die every day, every moment. Learn how to say no to myself. To take up my cross every moment and die, and die again, and die again, and die again, again and again until God calls me home. Michael W Smith wrote it in his song Too Many times.

Too many times, I'm back inside.

Wanting desperately to hide

and yet I know, I know you say

you have to die.

Too many times You hear my cries.

I'm at the end of all my tries,

so I'm open now, Lord,

so teach me how to die.

Elisabeth Elliot wrote a biography of Amy Carmichael entitled, A Chance to Die. Amy Carmichael was an Irish missionary who spent 53 years in South India, without a furlough, rescuing Indian children from degraded temple prostitution. The name of her mission was the Dohnavur Fellowship. And if you wanted to serve with her as a missionary, she welcomed you, but she was going to ask 25 simple questions, 25. Among them were these: Do you truly desire to live a crucified life? This may mean doing very humble things joyfully for His name's sake. Does the thought of hardness draw you or repel you? Can you mention any experience you have passed through in your Christian life which brought you into a new discovery of your union with the crucified risen and enthroned Lord? A brief summary of it all, do not come here unless you can say to the Lord and to us, "The cross is the attraction." In other words, do not come unless you view it as a chance to die.

2 Corinthians 4:10, Philips translation, said this, "Every day we experience something of the death of Jesus, so that we may also know the power of the life of Jesus in these bodies of ours." This is the central lesson in my life, and I'm just speaking very openly and honestly. I keep turning away from it. I don't want that. I don't want to die. It's hard. It hurts. It's not on my outline here, but I'm just telling you from my heart, it's the kind of thing that we get afraid of and it hinders our growth. And if you're not willing to die, you can't make progress internally or externally.

You can't grow in holiness, and you can't be a witness for Jesus, you just can't. And so this is kind of central lesson, isn't it? To learn the fellowship of sharing in Christ's sufferings, to be willing to do hard things for His glory, to be willing to be hurt and rejected, and to be willing to stand firm in a time of temptation and not yield. This is very much the issue of sanctification. George Müller, when he was speaking to somebody who asked him the secret of his service, he said, "There was a day when I died, utterly died, died to George Müller, to his opinions, his preferences, tastes and will, died to the world, its approval or censure, died to the approval or blame even of my brethren and my friends, and since then have studied only to show myself approved unto God." There was a day, George Müller? A day? One day? What day was that, George? I think, theologically, it must be the day he became a Christian. Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." That day. And from then on every day, he counted himself dead to sin, but alive to God. Dead to himself, dead to his thoughts, dead to what he wanted, and alive only to serve God and to serve Christ.

If there's no suffering, there's no glory. But if you know suffering, you will know glory. Romans 8:17 says, "Now, if we are His children, then we are heirs, heirs of God, and co-heirs with Christ. If indeed, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory." Paul didn't care the cost. He didn't care the occasion. He didn't care the pain or the circumstances, he wanted to know the fellowship of sharing in Christ's sufferings.

Facet #5: Glory Through Christ’s Resurrection

The fifth facet was glory through His resurrection. Verse 11, "I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead." The ultimate goal of perfection in Christ is uppermost in Paul's mind. He does want to know Christ in a dirty Philippian jail, and at the bottom of a pile of rocks outside the city of Lystra. He wants to know, but not just for that. He's not a masochist, loving pain and suffering for its own sake. No, he wants it for glory. He wants it for good things, for a revelation of God and His nature. He wants it so that the Kingdom can get built and so other people can get saved. He wants to go through all of those things for glory and for resurrection and for the new Heaven and the new Earth, just like Jesus, who endured the cross, despising its shame for the glory and the joy set before Him. It wasn't just because of the cross, but for what good things could come from it.

He wants, you know what he wants? He wants to be like Jesus in His resurrection body, he wants to be free from corruption and sin, and death, and mourning, and crying, and pain. He wants to be free from it all. He wants to be saved. Finally saved, gloriously saved. Look at verse 20 and 21. He says, "Our citizenship is in Heaven and we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body." Amen and amen. No more surgeries, no more medicine, no more hospital visits or funerals. No more any of that corruption. No more dental bills. I'm not trying to be insulting. I'm grateful for dentists while we're here, but I'm looking forward to the day when there'll be no corruption in my mouth.

At every level, I mean that. No corruption. He said, "I want a resurrection body. I want to be like you, Jesus, and you're glorious right now. You have a body that I can't understand, It's a spiritual body, whatever that is. It goes through walls, it appears and disappears. It can do anything. I'd like a body like that. That's exciting to me, I want to be saved. And I'm physical now, and you intended to give me a body, but you intend to give me a better one. I want to be saved. I want to know His glorious resurrection." 1 Corinthians 15, "So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;  it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: 'The first man Adam became a living being'; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven. I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed-- in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?'"

This is Paul's central treasure, knowing Christ in five facets. Knowing about Him and knowing Him in a convenantal relationship. Secondly, the gift of righteousness through being united with Christ by faith alone. Thirdly, the power of Christ's resurrected life inside Him. Fourthly, knowing how to suffer and die with Jesus. And fifth, knowing how to be raised eternally with Him too.

Now, I have some questions for you. Do you treasure Christ like this? Is this Christ your central treasure in life? Do you have a deep and abiding hunger and thirst to know Jesus? Are you willing to study the Bible more and more with a hunger and a thirst to know Christ in the scripture? Are you willing to live every moment of every day with one single purpose in mind? "I want to know Christ and become like Him more and more." Do you see yourself clothed in Christ's righteousness alone? Are you still clinging to the idea that you're basically a good person? Have you rejected your own spiritual resume as completely as Paul rejected his, and as God rejected His? Do you see your own righteousness as trash and Christ as treasure? Have you suffered anything at all or lost anything at all so that you may know Christ better? Has it cost you anything to be a Christian? Is the world dead to you and you to the world? Do you yearn to know, to learn how to die like Jesus did? To die every day to yourself? To say no to sin? To say no to earthly things and to follow Christ? Do you want to become more and more conformed to His death? And finally, have you totally set your heart on the glory that will be given you when Christ is revealed, the glorious resurrection?

Perhaps no author in the 19th century captured the spirit of upward mobility which so inspired people from around the world as did Horatio Alger. Some of you have heard of Horatio Alger's stories. He was an American novelist, he was the son of a debt-ridden New England Unitarian minister, who then went into writing moralistic novels. He wrote 118 published in book form, over 280 novels produced in magazines, 500 short stories. He was certainly prolific. But his novels all followed a kind of a recipe. The titles were things like, Struggling Upward. I like that one. The Cash Boy or Joe the Hotel Boy, or The Errand Boy, or How Phil Brent Won Success, or Paul the Peddler, or Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant. Basically, these stories all followed the same recipe as follows, an adolescent boy with rural background sets off to earn his livelihood in an urban setting. He triumphs over circumstances and temptations and starts advancing in his career. At some point, he will be betrayed or falsely accused by one of his peers. Ultimately, the hero will be vindicated. While pluck and hard work play a role in the success of an Alger hero, there is always an older male who takes on the hero as his protege. That mentor plays a critical role in the success of the Alger hero.

The Alger hero never takes revenge on those who mistreated him. He secures what is rightfully his, but he is never vindictive. There's the story. You can do that again and again, and then get 118 novels out of it and it makes for interesting reading. But I think it also highlights an aspect of the American dream, the self-made man who pulls himself up by his bootstraps, who finds success by looking inward and finding greatness there, greatness he never knew was there. And so we became a nation of entrepreneurs, of enterprising people whose relentless vision for personal greatness propelled them to great heights of success, tamed a wilderness. It's how the West was won. America, a place where you could make something of yourselves, a meritocracy, where it didn't matter what station your parents were, what mattered is what you could do with your life, like a Horatio Alger boy.

And so, for us, too, we think about the ladder to success, building a resume, achievement by achievement. Good grades in high school, accolades and awards. Acceptance at a good college. Good grades in college, accolades and awards. Making strategic use of your summers, getting an internship at Capitol Hill or in Wall Street, accolades and awards. Graduate school at the finest institutions, more accolades, more awards. And then it's time for your first job, your first real job. And then comes the interview. If you look up on the internet and get some advice on how to do an interview, they're going to tell you this, "You need to sell yourself. That's what you need to do, you need to sell yourself." An interview is best approached as a sales meeting in which you are presenting yourself as the product that they're looking for. You are perfect to meet that niche. So you're going to emphasize what's good about you and about your life in your resume, and you're going to downplay those things that are maybe skeletons in your closet professionally.

You have to learn the skill of being able to talk around why you were fired from that job, or what you learned from that experience and how you have overcome that adversity. You have to learn the skill of selling yourself in an interview.

Well, I guess all of that is fine in business and in a career, but it will not work before God. It will not work for you to build a spiritual resume before God. A list of good achievements and good works, of having the right experiences and doing the right good deeds and praying the right prayers and amassing and accumulating a spiritual resume that will stand you in good stead at that ultimate interview called Judgement Day. We have a picture of that kind of mentality in Luke chapter 18 " "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men-- robbers, evildoers, adulterers-- or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'" Now, that was his brief resume. If he had time to give a more extended resume, I'm sure there would have been other achievements he could have talked about. "I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get," was his best stuff, but he had other things besides on his spiritual resume.

I think that Saul of Tarsus was that kind of a man. I think he was a resume builder. He was a spiritual ladder climber. He was self-righteous and self-satisfied. One commentator said that the man who was struck to the ground on the road to Damascus was not searching for anything other than Christians to persecute. He was satisfied with his life. He felt he had everything he needed. And if he died, there was no question in his mind that he would go straight to Heaven and be in the presence of God, the fullness of joy at his right hand forever.

He wasn't searching, he wasn't wondering about his status. He was on a mission from God, so he believed. He was persecuting Christians. And so the writer of our letter here, the Philippians, gives us an assessment of his spiritual resume and how it became for him, what was treasure at one point became trash. And the thing which was of no value to him whatsoever, namely Christ and His followers, became treasure to him. That is an incredible story. Ultimately, it's a question of what is true religion in God's sight. What will truly stand you in good stead on Judgement Day? On what basis will you be able to stand before God, a holy and perfect judge?

In the end, I think for all of the options you have in this world, there are only two religions. In the end only two. Perhaps the most popular religion in the world is a religion of righteousness through self-effort, what we could call building a spiritual resume, achievement by achievement. Basically, the idea is, following the synopsis like the Horatio Alger story, some spiritual authority or tradition gives you a set of do's and don'ts. You follow that do's and don'ts the best you can. You amass achievements greater than anyone else of your own generation. And on that basis you're going to stand before the deity, righteous and blameless. Muslims follow that kind of approach with the five Pillars of Islam. They think that by following these five Pillars, which include prayer and alms-giving and a trip to Mecca and other things, they're going to be righteous before Allah on Judgement Day. Buddhists follow it by spinning their prayer wheels and by meditation and understanding and ultimately achieving enlightenment.

Hindus follow it, a system of righteousness and righteous acts they call "puja," little acts of service, whereby they can appease the various deities in their lives and ultimately escape the cycle of karma and come into nirvana. Modern Jews follow it by ignoring much of the Old Testament and all of its regulations and the Laws of Moses, and coming up with kind of a system of righteousness that their Rabbis teach them is a good life. And they're going to live according to that good life. Ancient pagan idolatrous systems told you that you had to sacrifice at this temple or shrine with this kind of sacrifice, and in that way they were building up a spiritual resume. Even irreligious, atheistic people trained in the West have an approach like this. They feel that they're basically good people because of the list that they can give you at any given moment. Medieval Roman Catholics followed this same approach. A religion of works, righteousness, whereby if you followed the ladder of success through the sacramental system, praying the right prayers on the right saint's days and offering the right amount of money and buying the right indulgences, you could escape the fires of hell. Well, that, all of that, is one religion. Now, it's lots of different versions of that one religion, but it's all the same religion. And it's the religion of Saul of Tarsus before the road to Damascus.

True Christianity: Salvation by Grace Alone

Now, over against that is the true faith of Christianity. Justification by faith alone, apart from works of the law. Simply by grace, our sovereign God, a perfect God, the creator and King, the lawgiver who alone stands over the entire human race, who makes laws and expects them to be fulfilled, who speaks to a sinful human race His word, who gives them His law, but they can never follow it because of their wretchedness and wickedness, who puts therefore a sinful man under the death penalty for sin. But then, through His graciousness and through His love, sends His Son who takes on a human body and stands as a substitute in the place of sinful man and exchange is effected spiritually, our wretchedness, our wickedness and sin transferred on to the substitute, Jesus Christ, who dies the righteous penalty that God the judge requires. Meanwhile, His perfect righteousness given to us as a gift. And on that basis, we will survive, even thrive, on Judgement Day.

Those are the two religions in the world. You can have the one, a religion of self-righteousness through ladder climbing and building a spiritual resume, or you can have the other and simply accept it by faith and by grace. Now, the Apostle Paul, in writing a letter in Philippians, is thanking them for money that they sent. It's a thank you letter. But he also realizes that they are in the middle of the spiritual battle that happens around local churches all the time. He's fighting for their soul. He's fighting for their doctrine and their right understanding. And they are being besieged by false teaching.

And so, as we get into chapter 3, he's going to protect them from the false teaching that they are facing. And so, he gives them a command and a warning right here at the beginning. Look at verse 1 with me, Philippians 3:1, it says, "Finally my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again and it is a safeguard for you."

Paul thinks that by repetition he's going to protect the Philippians. Good teaching is repetitive, not too repetitive, hopefully, but it is repetitive. You're going to take the central points and you're going to emphasize them again and again. And he says, "I want to safeguard your joy." Well, what is at stake here? Well, I think what's at stake is the Gospel itself. The true Gospel, or symptoms, let's say, of the true Gospel are, that God gets the glory and we get the joy. God gets the glory for our salvation and we get the joy. If you have a man-centered religion, both of those are gone. They're both gone. God no longer gets the glory and we no longer get the joy. It says very plainly in Galatians, "What has happened to all your joy?" Where did it go? Because you're following works righteousness, the joy is out the window. And so also, he's concerned about the Philippians, because there are false teachers that are attacking them and trying to bring them back into the other religion, the works-righteousness religion.

And he says, "If that happens, you will lose your joy, for it will be gone." And so he says, "Finally my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again and it is a safeguard for you." And then in verse 2, "Watch out", he says. "Be on your guard," this is a severe warning. "Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh." See, Paul is a good pastor. And a good pastor is not only going to be speaking sunshine and light and positive things, he's also going to give warnings negatively about things that can attack you. A good pastor, a good preacher, a teacher of the Word cannot only be positive. He must also be negative. There must be promises, there must also be warnings. And here is a severe warning.

Watch Out! A Severe Warning

He says, "Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh."  Now, I've said before, that the devil has three great attacks on the local church. And they are persecution, worldliness and false teaching. In this particular case, as in every church around the world, false teaching is a threat. Even if the church is going through persecution, like the church in China, false teaching is still an issue. And of the three great attacks that the devil has on the church, this is the worst, because it perverts the Gospel itself. It actually attacks the message that we cherish and that we believe, and so he's got to warn them about this false teaching. Now, who are these people? Well, they are the well-known Judaizers, the circumcision group, those that taught that unless you Gentiles are circumcised and required to keep the Law of Moses, you cannot be saved. Paul deals with these people again and again, city after city. Everywhere he goes, he's got to face them. They followed Paul from place to place, hence I think he calls them a pack of dogs. "Everywhere I travel, they're yipping at my heels. I can't ever seem to get free of them."

Now, the world dog here is not of the house pet type, but more of the stray dog, the rabid type that would be roaming through the streets looking for raw flesh on a pile of garbage. These are dangerous dogs, the kind that you'd probably shoot on sight because they're rabid. They're dangerous. That's the word that he uses, "those dogs," he calls them. They are attacking the faith. They're dangerous. He also calls them "men who do evil." Now, this would be ironic for them, wouldn't they? Because these are good works doers. I mean, you can't build a spiritual resume apart from good works. Now, that's going to be the warp and woof of the textile of your resume. That's what you're going to be weaving it out of, so you think, is good works. And he says, They are "men who do evil." What a shock. Men who do evil. Now, how can it be that these good works doers are actually men who do evil? Well, in two senses. First of all, Paul says in Romans 14, "Anything that does not come from faith is…" What? It's sin. So anything not done for the glory of God and of His Christ is actually evil. It's sin. It's wrong. And so any of their good works, which none of them are being done by faith, they're actually evil deeds.

But the second sense is that these people are evildoers because they're actually fighting against God, they're actually opposing what God is truly doing in the world. Jesus warned about this. He said in John 16:2, He said, "They will put you out of their synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God." Isn't that interesting? These Jews are going to put you out of the synagogue and they will hunt you down and seek to kill you, and think in so doing, they're offering a service to God. They are evildoers. Now, I would say that our author here knew very well what he's talking about. He was hunting Christians down, too, he was persecuting them. Now, he calls them evildoers. Is that an insult? Is that harsh language? Well, think about this. Imagine their shock when that title is ascribed to them on Judgement Day by God Himself. What then? When they thought they were going to stand on the basis of their many good works, and Jesus will say to them, they will speak, saying, "'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you, away from me, you evildoers." That's the exact same word used here.

They are evildoers, and I think it's loving of Paul to call them what they really are while there's time to repent. Because on that day there will be no opportunity to change their status, the Lord will send them away. And how shocked will they be on that day, when they find out they were actually evildoers?

Thirdly, he calls them "those mutilators of the flesh." What does this mean? I think it must be referring to circumcision. These were people who were chasing Gentile men around and saying, "You want to become a Christian, you must be circumcised." And so they had to submit to physical circumcision in order to be saved. Paul says all they're doing is mutilating flesh. Galatians 5:3 says this, "Again, I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised, that he is obligated to keep the whole law." You want to do that? Then you are under the whole burden of the Mosaic Covenant, which no one has ever been able to bear. If that's what you want, if you feel you must be circumcised in order to be saved, then you've got to keep the whole law.

James 2:10, "Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it." These men were the bitter enemies of the true Gospel. The false Gospel is a righteousness that comes from obeying the law by your own efforts. Romans 3:20, Paul says this, "No one will be justified by observing the law, rather through the law we become conscious of sin." None of us are going to stand before God on Judgement Day and present our record of law-keeping as the basis of our entrance into Heaven. Anybody who's standing on that basis is not saved. No. On the other hand, we know in Romans 3:21-24, there is a righteousness from God, which has been revealed, a righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Nobody's going to stand on the basis of law-keeping. No, the true Gospel's on the basis of Christ's finished work at the cross, and the righteousness that comes to us in that exchange. And so these Judaizers were following Paul around. This pack of dogs. Everywhere they went, they were undoing his preaching. They were attacking people's consciences. They were making people worry about their standing. Because there is a kind of a wisdom, it seems, to asceticism and tough living, and being willing to go through something like circumcision and say, "Well, it must be of God. It's something I don't want to do." And so there's a kind of an earthly wisdom here, and a toughness to the life. He says, "The whole thing's false." In Acts 15 they followed him to Antioch. So men came down from Judea to Antioch, and were teaching the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved." This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. That was Paul's life. And here he is warning the Philippians against the same teaching. He does the same in Galatians 1:6-9. He says to the Galatian Christians, "I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different Gospel, which is really no Gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion, trying to pervert the Gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from Heaven should preach a Gospel other than the one we preach, let him be eternally condemned. As I have said before now, so I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a Gospel other than what we preach, let him be eternally condemned." But that's what these Judaizers were doing. They claim to be Christians now, they say, "Oh, we honor Christ, we worship Him, but you must keep the Law of Moses." And Paul said, "No." Galatians 6:15, "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, what counts is a new creation."

Being born again through faith in Christ, now, that's what matters. Salvation by works drains your joy, and so he said, "Rejoice always, and let me protect your joy by teaching you the true Gospel." Salvation by works drains your joy, and salvation by works robs God of His glory. And so it must be fought. And so that's what he's doing here.

Definition of a True Christian

In its place in Verse 3, he gives us the definition of a true Christian. I believe this is the greatest, single Verse definition of a Christian in the New Testament. I like efficient verses like this. And this is an efficient Verse that gives us so much theology in a little package.

Philippians 3:3 says, "We are the circumcision. We who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus and who put no confidence in the flesh." That's a great definition of a Christian, isn't it? "We are the circumcision" means we are God's people. We are His chosen race. We are the Israel of God, those who believe in Christ. We are His circumcision. Whether we have been physically circumcised or not, for a man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical, no. "A man is a Jew if he is one inwardly, and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code," Romans 2:20. We are the circumcision. Paul's "we" there is inclusive with Gentile believers, isn't that beautiful? "We" are the ones who are God's people. "We" are the circumcised. And then he says we are the true believers who worship by the Spirit of God.

Did you do that this morning? Did you worship by the Spirit of God? Isn't that marvelous? To come together with other brothers and sisters, in unity, like this? And worship by the Spirit of God. To offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, a fruit of lips, that confess His name. To have our hearts knit together by the Spirit of God; in effect, He, the Spirit, passing you thoughts and concepts and feelings, and you taking that in by the Spirit, heating it up with your own love for God, sending it back up to Him in worship. We are the ones who worship by the Spirit of God.

And we boast. We glory in Christ Jesus. We delight in His accomplishments. We focus on the second person of the Trinity, who was very God, but took on a human body, who entered the world, who lived a sinless life. And we delight in that, because that's our righteousness, isn't that wonderful? Christ's perfect righteousness is ours. And we're not boasting about ourselves, but we're going to boast in what Jesus has done. We're going to tell everybody about it. We're going to boast about what Jesus did at the cross. What incredible love was displayed there. How He was willing to take my wretchedness and my sin on Himself. And drink to the bottom the cup of God's wrath, 'til it was gone. And there's none left for me or you, if you're a Christian. We boast in that, and we put no confidence in the flesh. I don't trust what I can do unaided by His grace. I've shown what I can do unaided by His grace. "Apart from me you can do nothing," said Jesus. We understand that to mean nothing good. We do many things apart from Christ, don't we? We can all testify to that.

I've done tons of things apart from Christ, but none of them are going to stand the test of Judgement Day. Apart from Christ, I can do nothing. I don't put any confidence in my flesh, and what I can do if Jesus hadn't come. No, I deserve hell. So that's a definition of a Christian, that's what we are.

Now, what does it mean to put confidence in the flesh? Well, Paul then describes that. He says, We "put no confidence in flesh, though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more." He was good at this kind of talk. This is the way that they talked among the Pharisees. If anybody thinks he's good, I'm better. Anything you can do, I can do better. That's the way it works. I have more reasons for a confidence.

Now, what is he talking about in these Verses? Well, we come into a kind of a business mentality, just like at the beginning of the message here, "the spiritual resume," the "entrepreneur" thing, this is really business language. Some of you may be studying business. This is an accounting sheet here. These words were used in first century Judaism, and in Greece for debits and credits. "Whatever was to my gain, I count loss, whatever was profit to me, I've written it off." There's the black and the red on the ledger sheet. And he's talking like a business owner here. The Greek word for "gain" and "loss" are business terms. He also uses another business term, "reckoning," or "consider". Look at Verse 7 and 8, he says, "Whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in Him."

This is the kind of reckoning or considering that saves your soul. Because God thinks of you a certain way. He's chosen to think of you in Christ. It says in Romans 4:3 the exact same word, it says, "What does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was credited to his account as righteousness." You could imagine having a numbered Swiss account. Do you have one? I don't. But you could imagine having a numbered Swiss account and some anonymous source has just deposited $2 billion in your account. Like, "Wow, I don't know how could I spend that all in one day?" Well, you can't. I've thought about it, it's impossible to spend $2 billion in one day. But at any rate, that's a huge deposit that was reckoned to your account. This is the righteousness that was credited to your account the day you believed in Jesus.

That is, on that basis, we're going to stand before God, not on the shabby self-righteousness of your own resume. "And so I reckon like God does", says Paul. "He reckoned my good stuff rubbish. And so do I now. I've come to reckon them and to think about them differently." Now, what were those assets? Well, he lists his resume here. And it may seem strange to you. You are a Gentile, and so his good stuff, you would say, "What's there to that? Being circumcised on the Eighth Day? What is going on there?" But this is his resume. Paul clung to this, I believe, like a treasure box with rare and beautiful heirlooms and gems, he would open this up and just fondle these things mentally.

He'd think when he was ready, when he was concerned about his soul, he'd say, "Yes, but I am circumcised on the Eighth Day. I am of the people of Israel, after all. I am of the tribe of Benjamin. I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews, but I didn't stop there, I made progress. I was more zealous than any of my fellow boys in class. I excelled them all. I was top of my class. I was thoroughly trained under Gamaliel. I went to school, in the best school in Jerusalem. I learned the traditions of my fathers. And I was more zealous for them than anybody. I was running a race, and I was in first place. I was on the inside track for the highest level of the Sanhedrin that I could reach as a member of the tribe of Benjamin." What were these things? Well, salvation by religious ritual. He says, "Circumcised on the Eighth Day." Salvation by race of the people of Israel. The salvation by rank within that of the tribe of Benjamin, that was a good tribe, you want to be in that one, or Judah. Salvation by tradition, a Hebrew of Hebrews. So the more zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

Fifthly, salvation by the right religious school in regard to the law of Pharisee. He says, "I was in the Pharisees, a part of that group who really restrict law keepers. And even within the Pharisees, I excelled by my religious zeal. As for zeal, persecuting the church, sixthly. And then seventh, "As for the law, I kept it."

Now, that's a fascinating statement, isn't it? Remember the rich young ruler coming to Jesus, and he says, "What good thing must I do to get eternal life?" Jesus said, "How do you read the law? Tell me about the law." Interesting that Jesus starts with the law. He lists some things, some of the laws Jesus did, honor your father and mother; love your neighbor as yourself. And the man says, "All these I have kept." "I'm fine. The law left me unscathed, I'm in good shape for the law." Now, we'd learn later from Paul in Romans 7, he said, that whenever he read the law about coveting, he actually secretly coveted things. The law actually stirred up sin inside him.

But here he thinks and says, "As for the law, blameless, blameless." Well, this is a man who looks good on the outside. He's righteous, and he's heading for hell. And unless he's converted, he will go to hell. Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and teachers of law, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." This is not enough. And if you stand before God with this kind of thing, you also will not be permitted to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

And so Paul, Saul of Tarsus, must be converted. His treasure must become trash. And that which he thought of as trash had to become treasure. The story is told in Acts 9:3 and following, "As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from Heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' 'Who are you, Lord?' Saul asked." Now the hammer blow. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." He was never the same after that word.

Here is this ineffable light, this glorious resurrection light. Resurrection glory filling his mind, blinding his eyes. And that word "Jesus" in the center of it all. He was never the same again. And it left him totally satisfied and totally hungry at the same time. It left him ashamed and yet loved like he'd never been loved before. And it left him looking at his good stuff and saying, "What is that? It's trash, it's rubbish." That light that blinded his eye was more spiritual than physical. God said at the beginning of creation, He spoke into nothingness, and He said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And at that moment on the road to Damascus, God spoke a spiritual light into the dark soul of Paul. 2 Corinthians 4:6, "For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." He never forgot that vision, it changed everything. And here in Philippians 3, we see that yearning, "Oh, I want to know Him. I want to know Christ. I want to know His resurrection. I want to know His power. I want to know His sufferings. I want to know everything about Him."

"But, Paul, what about that resume?" "Resume? It's trash. It's trash, my friends. It's worthless. It's actually worse than trash, it's the enemy of my soul. It was fighting against my coming to faith in Christ. I thought it was good, and it was blocking me from seeing Christ, because of my self-righteousness." This became for him the treasure hidden in the field. He was willing to sell everything. He was willing to burn every bridge. All of his contacts, his rolodex or his little contact cards in his computer, which they didn't have back then, burn it. Relationship with the high priest, burn it. It's gone. He counted everything lost from that point on, because there was something better that he wanted, he wanted Christ. And so, he was willing to sell everything to buy the treasure in the field. Matthew 13:44, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in the field, when a man found it he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."

Paul had found something of infinite worth. And he was willing to call all of his little personal self-righteousness shabby garbage, by comparison. What was gain, became loss. He had a completely new understanding at that moment of personal righteousness. Salvation would not be by religious ritual. Being circumcised on the Eighth Day would not save your soul. Salvation is not by race. Being of the people of Israel will not save you. Salvation is not by rank. Being of the tribe of Benjamin will not save you. Neither is salvation by tradition. Being a Hebrew of Hebrews will not save you on Judgement Day. Salvation is not by religious schools. Being a Pharisee will not save you. Neither is religious zeal that attacks the church of Christ. Oh, no, that's not going to save you. Being a persecutor of the church will not stand you in good stead on Judgement Day. Not at all. And neither will you thinking that you are perfect in front of the law save you on Judgement Day either. None of those things will. What will save you? The righteousness of Christ.

Look at Verses 7-9, we'll cover this, God willing, next time. "But whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss, compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him. Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." What was the treasure hidden in the field to Paul? It was Jesus. It was Jesus in all of His glory. It was Jesus in His death on the cross. It was Jesus in His resurrection power. It was Jesus that he wanted, and next week we'll look at that as a Diamond of Five Facets: Personal knowledge of Christ, a gift of righteousness through faith in Christ, the power of Christ's resurrected life inside him, the fellowship of sharing in Christ's sufferings and glory through Christ's resurrection.

Let me ask you some questions. Frankly, it's really just one question. You can read the questions that are written in the bulletin there, but I want to just sum it up into one question. Have you in your life come to the point where you have rejected your spiritual resume? Because, let me tell you, God already has. And you get converted the time at the point in which you and God come to the same conclusion on that matter. Have you come to the point that you have rejected your spiritual resume, and are trusting in Christ alone for salvation.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Psalm 139. The main subject of the sermon is how human life should be understood to be sacred.

This Sunday, this morning is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. The word sanctity means sacredness. It means that human life, we believe is set apart, is unique and sacred and special by God. We, having been created in the image of God, we are in his likeness, and therefore we are precious to Him. Human life is sacred. This is the world view that the Bible presents to us. This is biblical truth, that we are in the image of God, and that means accountability and blessing. So we celebrate human life today. And I must tell you that life at its heart, for me at least, and probably for you too, is unpredictable. I'm never quite sure what's going to happen on any given day. I have a good idea. I thought probably I would come to church today, I thought probably I would preach today and some other things, but the sermon that I expected to preach to you, I'm not going to preach. I'm going to preach a different Sanctity of Human Life sermon, one that some of you have heard before, changed a little bit. The sermon that’s in your outline is a good sermon, maybe I’ll preach it in the future, but not today.

Okay? I put all that work into it. But the Lord said, “No, a different one.” And so I said, “Yes, Lord.”, and so we’re doing something else today.

We have gone through another year. And in that year, abortion has remained the law of the land. That means, if statistics hold true, probably somewhere between 1.3 and 1.6 million babies were killed, legally, in our country this past year. Legally killed in our country. Is that acceptable to you? It’s not acceptable to me. And so that’s the bad news, abortion is still, as many politicians remind us, the law of the land, that is true. What that means is that the initiative must rest with us. Do you see that? If we do nothing, it will continue to be the law of the land, and millions of babies will continue to be killed, legally, in our country. And so the initiative must rest with us. So another year has passed, but it’s not all been darkness, we know that in this past year, in 2003, we saw the Partial Birth Abortion Act passed on November 5, 2003. George Bush signed into law this Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003, making illegal that hideous practice of killing babies that are almost born.

That anyone would not see the wisdom to that is shocking to me, but immediately, a federal judge overturned it or put an injunction against it, and the ACLU and many other lawyers are determined to fight this unjust law, so they believe, and bring back some sanity in their way of thinking to abortion. They are concerned about the so called slippery slope, that once you give up a little bit, its gonna go all the way, and there will be no freedom for abortion in our country. Oh may it happen. May it happen. I want that slippery slope. You know why? Because there is no difference between life outside the womb and life inside the womb in God’s eyes. And there is no philosophical barrier you can hold up, as we’ll talk about later in this message, it just doesn’t hold up. And they know it. And so its even got to the point where some ethicists are willing to say, “We acknowledge its human life, but it should be legal to kill anyway for the following reasons.” Isn’t that shocking? At Princeton...ethicists are saying those kinds of things? But that's where we’re at.

And we’re in a kind of a legal schizophrenia now, as you know. The Scott Peterson murder trial where he can be held possibly for the murder of his pre-born child. This is schizophrenic, you understand that? How it could be legal in California to abort the baby, but if there’s no indication whatsoever that the mother doesn’t want the child, its assumed that she does want the child, and so therefore he can be held for the murder of a pre-born child. This is unbelievable to me. I don't understand how you can have the one and not the other, I don't. It is schizophrenic and more and more people are seeing it this way. Polls are showing that more and more people, young people entering college students and others are not seeing the logic of abortion, they don’t see it, they don’t understand it. And so that whole base is eroding and that is good news, is it not? But our work isn’t finished yet. Because abortion is still the law of the land. The church is still, in 1 Timothy 3:15, the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. And so what we have to do is we have to refute satanic lies that the devil is telling and has told. The devil is telling lies, and we must get out there and refute them.

Now, I preached this sermon a year ago, and I’d like to ask, as you think about this sermon, have you told the truth to anybody this past year on these issues? That’ all. Basically, you have an opportunity here from the word of God, again, a refutation of six lies that the devil has been telling. But what I want you to do is ask yourself, have you spoken these truths to anybody who needs to hear them? See, we must take the initiative. It’s up to us to change things. If things remain the same, if we do nothing, if we remain comfortable and think its too difficult to challenge minds and hearts on this issue, if we’re going to pay a price relationally with relatives or friends, acquaintances, co-workers, then nothing will change, and it will continue.

We must agitate. We must be willing to pay the price. We must refute Satan’s web of lies. Jesus said in John 8:44 of the devil. “When the devil lies, he speaks his native tongue...,”. Isn’t that wonderful? “For he is a liar and the father of lies.” Now, Father of lies means that he begets, he gives birth to lies. He speaks lies, its what he does. And so therefore, these lies, we can trace back to their satanic origin. And therefore, he tells I think three great lies to society which we must refute. First is that the pre-born is not truly a human person. Secondly, that the child is a burden and not a blessing. Third, abortion is beneficial to the life of the mother. He also is telling two lies to the church. Number one, abortion is so entrenched as the law of the land that nothing you can do will make any difference whatsoever. Secondly, he tells this lie, simply changing the law to make abortion illegal will completely solve this problem.

Thirdly, He tells lies to individuals, to guilty sinners, specifically in this matter. Your sin is so great that nothing can take it away. There can be no forgiveness for you in the area of abortion. Let’s start to dispel each of these lies with truth, shall we? The word of God refutes each of these six lives.

Let's look at the first, namely that the preborn is not truly a human person. Now, I could speak from the language and findings of biology, and it would be right for a Christian to do so, because we believe that God created everything. And so, there is ample biological evidence of the uniqueness and personhood of the child from the moment of conception. I know that there are some dehumanizing terms used of the pre-born such as fetus or even worse, product of conception. They are put in place...these words...to separate us somewhat from the personhood, that we’re dealing with a genuine human being in the womb. But let me ask you a question. Any mother who is excited, looking forward to the birth of their baby, when they feel the fetus...the product of conception kick their womb inside, do they say, “Oh, my fetus just kicked me. Oh, come and feel.” They say to the husband, “Come and feel the fetus as it moves around, the product of conception. Oh, listen, can you listen to it’s heart beat?” No, no one talks like that, do they? They say my baby, don’t they? It's just the way it is. It's a baby. And that's the way we think. You have to be trained out to think a different way. And the training is available. It's out there. We’re being trained to call it a fetus, so I could speak of the genetic uniqueness of the child from conception. Its it’s own person from the moment of conception. I could speak about the development, which is getting easier and easier to see with the 4D ultrasound that GE came up with. Have you seen on the internet? You can look and see some of the... A rendition of what you’ll see through the GE 4D thing. What it is, you can actually see a real time moving like motion picture of your baby. Isn’t that exciting? And more and more clinics are using these. Pro-life, pregnancy support type clinics are using this very expensive equipment to show women who are wrestling with the issue of what’ going on in their lives, to see their babies. And this is amazing, something like more than 60% of those women who come in, determined to get abortions decide not to after seeing that evidence.

That’s those that are convinced they’re going to get an abortion. How about those that aren’t sure or even those that are excited about the baby? There’s no doubt in their mind, this is a baby, and they can watch it, they can see. So we could speak at the biological level, but you know me, I would rather speak scripturally. Does the Bible give us any indication that the pre-born is a human person? And the answer is overwhelmingly yes! From Psalm 39, we have great evidence. Turn in your Bible is Psalm 139 and take a look with me, and you will see some of this incredible evidence. Now the context of the specific statements we’re gonna look at this morning, of Psalm 139, the overall message is of an omniscient, omnipresent God in intimate, personal relationship with David. And omniscient, omnipresent God in intimate, personal relationship with David. You could sum it up into this little phrase, “You and me, O God, you and me”. Now, as I read over the first few verses of Psalm 139, see if you can hear that you and the me. You and me. "O Lord, You have searched me, and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord, you hem me in behind, and before you have laid your hand upon me, such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from Your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you were there. If I make my bed in the depths, you were there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn and settle on the far side of the sea, even there, your hand will will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you, the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you,”

I’ll stop there. Do you see the you and me dynamic there in those first 12 verses? Very much the intense relationship between a sovereign, powerful, omniscient God, omnipresent. No matter where you go, there is God. And David says, I can’t get away from you. Not that he would want to, but it’s an incredible thing to be so thoroughly known and loved by God. He feels hemmed in, as it were, behind and before by God’s omniscience and omnipresence. Even David’s secret actions in the dark are fully open and they bear before God, who sees all things.

Now, that’s the context, look at verses 13 through 16, and we get to some relevant verses to the issue. We see, in verses 13 through 16, that this intense relationship began while God was knitting David together in his mother’s womb. Even at that point, David was being formed to have a relationship with God. Look at verse 13 and the following. “For you created my in most being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

Studies show that newborn infants can recognize their mother’s voice. Now, how is that? Well, because they’ve been hearing it for months and months. And so they recognize Mom’s voice and in like manner, David’s relationship with God began inside the womb. Thats where it started. David didn't fully know that, eventually, he would come to know it, but knowledge was being built up piece by piece, beginning inside the womb, not beginning when he was born, but beginning even before he was born. The pieces of his relationship with God were being put into place even at that point. Now, look at Verse 13, it says, “You created my in most being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Now, I appreciate Dr. Walker being with us to help us with translation. And this morning, those of you that heard him, heard him talk about kidneys and livers and other things like that, and we’re gonna see that right in this verse. In Psalm 139, verse 13, the King James Version gives us this. “For thou hast possessed my reins. Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.” Now, reins is related to renal, like kidney, and that’s where it is.

It’s...definitely, the translation would come out of the word kidneys, its the same thing we see in the sacrificial passages, for example, in Exodus 29:13, it says, “Take all the fat around the inner parts, the covering of the liver and both kidneys with the fat on them and burn them on the altar.” Okay, so it means physical kidneys there, no doubt about it. But here, it has a more metaphorical sense, like we would use the word heart. We use the word heart to mean if somebody has heart catheterization or some kind of heart trouble, it means that they're having problems with the muscle that pumps the blood through their body. But when we say how my heart yearns within me, we’re talking about the immaterial nature of us, which relates to God and which thinks and feels and decides. And there’s a molding together of those. We are spirits in bodies, are we not? And that gets knit together in the mother’s womb, it gets woven together. The immaterial and the material, just getting formed by God, only he can do that. And so we have this word, the kidneys, used in this way, Psalm 7, verse 9, “O righteous God who searches minds and hearts.”

When was the last time you had your kidney searched? But that’s what it says, "God searches your kidneys.” What does it mean? He searches your heart, your immaterial nature, your mind, your heart, your thoughts, your passions, your aspirations. He searches them, he knows them completely. Psalm 16:7, I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel. In the night, also my kidneys instruct me. I think you ought to listen to your kidneys, I really believe that when at night your kidneys are instructing you, I think you should listen to them. But I think what it means is that immaterial nature of you is speaking to you, and it’s speaking wisdom to you through the Word of God. Best of all, I think in Job 19:25 and following, I love this, “I know that my redeemer lives and that in the end, He will take his stand on the Earth.” That’s Jesus Christ, Jobs’ redeemer is Christ. Who else could it be? And in the end, Christ is gonna take His stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh, I will see God resurrection. I myself will see him with my own eyes. I am not another. How my heart yearns within me, there are those kidneys again, my heart, my kidneys are yearning for that day, when I can see Jesus take His stand on the Earth. My heart is yearning for the day when I will be in my resurrection body. Oh, I look forward to that.

Well, that’s what God was knitting together inside David’s mother’s womb. His heart was being... His kidneys, knit together, physically and spiritually, just put together as only God can do. But what is more? The Hebrew word is not actually “create”, but “qanah”. Which usually means to acquire by purchase, to possess or to come into ownership of. In short, God came to own or possess David’s kidneys, his in most being inside the womb. He said, “This is mine because I made it”.  It’s mine because I made it. And just because you have the technology to seize it from me does not make it right. It is mine, you possess my in most being.

You created it and it is mine. And so we see this intense personal activity, verse 14-16. “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my inner most body.” Now, don’t let the poetic language put you off, there’s a highly technical thing going on here. Now we can speak of technical things in poetic language, it doesn’t take away the truth of the matter itself. God made David and did it skillfully inside his mother’s womb. Now, if we’re gonna go into the hidden places of the earth and all that kind of thing, that’s poetry, and we all acknowledge that. But he’s saying what happened inside his mother’s womb. David was skillfully woven together. I’m gonna use a little more poetic imagery. Like The skillfully woven sash of the high priest was woven together. That’s the same verb. And so it’s the art of a weaver. That’s what God did to David inside the womb. And why did God do all this? So that someday, David would come to know Him and believe in Him.

Some day he would come to trust in God. That’s the whole reason. Oh Lord you and me, you and me, God, You have searched me and You know me. I want to know you too. God knew us before we knew him, and so it was that we might come into a relationship, and so even inside the womb, David’s getting prepared for that, isn’t he? God is shaping him. And so it says, even out of the womb, when he’s nursing at his mother’s breast, it says in Psalm 22:9, “You brought me out of the womb, you made me trust in You, even when I was nursing.” How did David trust in God while he was nursing? Well, the phrase in God or in you isn’t in the original, but it’s well in the context in Psalm 22. In other words, he learned how to trust at his mother’s breast at some point it got transferred to God and he trusted God the way he used to trust his mother. Do you see that? And so the whole relationship was getting prepared from inside the mother’s womb, and we have no right to stop that, clearly. Who are we to interfere with that process? We have no rights. There’s also evidence in Luke 1, look over there if you would with me, Luke 1:41 and following.

Of the six lies, I’m spending the most on this one, if we can nail this one down, namely that the pre-born is a human person. Do you see that everything else fits into place? Even some of the toughest ethical issues don’t become tough anymore, when you start to realize this is a human person we’re dealing with. Look at Luke 41, it says, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with Holy Spirit. In a loud voice, she exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear. But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” Leaped for joy. Isn’t that wonderful? There are two great evidences here of the personhood of the pre-born, the first is that filled with the Spirit, Elizabeth calls Mary, the mother of her Lord. Now, Jesus is, I would measure just a few weeks after having been conceived, I mean, just a few weeks, she is into her pregnancy, she’s already a mother, and not just the mother of anybody, she’s the mother of Elizabeth’s Lord. That’s evidence number one.

And then there’s John the Baptist, who just seemed to leap for joy, any time Jesus was around, the Holy Spirit would come on him and he would just be filled with the Spirit, there was just like a prophetic magnetic attraction there, there’s Jesus. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He was just filled with the spirit from his mother’s womb even. And so when Mary’s voice enters Elizabeth’s ears, John the Baptist leaps for joy. I don’t know any product of conception that’s going to rejoice, but I do know people rejoice. People rejoice. John the Baptist was a person, and he’s inside his mother’s womb. And so the Bible speaks very clearly an unmistakable refutation of The Devil’s foundational lie that it’s telling to society, namely, the pre-born is not a person, he most certainly is, the second lie, the child is a burden and not a blessing, I think the general goal here is for a... Satan’s goal is to cause us to hate children as much as he does. I think that’s what’s going on here, but just take it a step back and look at it, you know why because he just hates the image of God.

He just does, he hates God and he hates anything in his image, Sanctity of Human Life, he hates it. And so He wants us to join him in that attitude and that rebellion, and part of that is to resent children, to look on them as essentially a burden to cause the parents to despise the child, to despise its personhood, calling it an it and not a baby. To despise the effect the child will have on their life financially in lifestyle, in career, in plans, in comforts, who knows, but to despise the child, that’s the goal. And so, abortion gives us the evil sense of ownership over children as though they are ours to assess and debate over, such as Planned Parenthood’s motto, “Every child’s a wanted child.” Who are you to want or not want the child? Think about it now, suppose I came up to one of you and said, I don’t want you. That’ an odd idea, isn’t it, when you stop and think about it? If I were to just come up to any church member or a visitor, that’d be a bad way for a pastor to try to build a church, “I want you to know I don’t want you.”

Well, I don’t have a right to want or not want the person in an absolute sense. It’s not my place. God wanted the person, you see. And so what ends up happening is a creeping despising of children that comes in, and we’ve got to speak biblical truth on this, nowadays, even children think of... Even Christians think of children essentially negatively, how much money they cost to raise, how much of an interference they are on your plans, your careers, your pleasures. Planned Parenthood told us that if every child was a wanted child, child abuse would go down, actually the numbers have absolutely skyrocketed because these mentalities come in essentially despising children. We have to speak biblical truth on this matter. Every child is a blessing from God, every child’s a blessing from God. And someone once said, too many children, that’s like too many flowers, think about that. There’s just too many flowers in the world. Psalm 127:3-5, “Behold, children are a gift of the Lord. Children are a gift of the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward like arrows in the hand of a quiver. So are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies of the gate,” Children are a blessing.

I can’t imagine my life without my kids, look at the cover of the book’s in_____. Just take a minute, look. Have you seen it? I’m not going to embarrass the father and mother of this child by saying who it is, but somebody who’s near and dear to me, this is not my child, I did not do that, but I was tempted. My kids can look kind of cute, but that’s little Isaac right there with the beast of some sort in his mouth, I don’t know what it is. Is it a rabbit? I haven’t looked at...is it a rabbit? Here it is. What a blessing. What an incredible blessing? Any parents whose kids are fully grown, can you imagine your life without your kids, all those experiences, all the things you went through, your memory, the hard times too, all of it, its life. Children are essential blessings from God. Now we have to speak another word of truth, and that is that children are hard to raise, they do come into the world as sinners and it’s hard to train them, it’s not easy. And so God gave provision, a father and a mother married to each other in covenant relationship, surrounded by godly people, a church. All of that is needed but primarily father, mother together, married foundation for the child’s growth, right?

If you have a child born in a different situation like that, you will have incredible difficulties, but God is gracious, he is gracious and he is able to overcome those difficulties, just like for a widow and for orphans, he’s able to make up the difference. He is gracious, and we need to speak that word of hope into very hopeless situations, say God is able and God’s people are able, we better be able. We better be willing to step up and speak the truth, the children are a blessing.

The third lie is that abortion is beneficial to the life of the mother. Now, a greatly concealed factor are the incredible risks to a woman of abortion. They don’t want you to know, as a matter of fact, so much that they don’t want you to know that they’re starting to be legal rumblings about consent, informed consent concerning abortions. Many times people, women are not told the full medical story the way they are for another kind of surgery like LASIK or some other things where you’re told all the things that might happen, you’re not told in the matter of abortion, and there are some lawyers, pro-life lawyers that are starting to look at that and say, “Is there informed consent here?”. But there are serious dangers, physical, psychological, emotional and definitely spiritual to abortion. Psychologically, Isaiah 49:15 says, “Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb, even these may forget, but I will not you,” Just built into a woman is a yearning for her children, she just loves them, and there’s a connection there. You have to repress that and squelch it and it comes at a cost, it damages, psychologically. Comes with the cost of a seared conscience. Really, I think 1st Timothy 4:2. Now, I know that sometimes, sadly, some therapeutic abortions have to be done to spare the life of the mother, but we know in those cases the baby would have died too, and it’s just part of the problem of this sin cursed world that we have difficulties like that. But we have to speak the truth. Abortion is not a benefit to the life of the mother; it is greatly damaging and greatly dangerous. There’s an increased risk of breast cancer that’s been linked, it’s been proven, they want to refute it, they want to deny it, but its there, and there is certainly a spiritual risk because people are turning away from God, and they don’t feel that they can come back to God and believe in him and trust in him because of what they’ve done. We’ll get to that in a moment, because you can, they can. We need to speak the truth of the church as well.

Satan’s fourth lie is that abortion is too entrenched to overthrow. So let’s just give up. Let’s just give up. Its too tough. We’re not making any progress. Well, that's false. We are making progress. Lets just give up, you know why? The devil wants you to believe that because he knows very well better than you do, the power of your offensive weaponry and the strength of your defensive shielding. He knows it better than you do. He knows offensively that our weapons are not the weapons of this world. They have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we’re ready to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. That is the power of the Word of God, it’s powerful and strong. It is able to pull down satanic bad ideas, bad thoughts, he knows that, he knows. He also knows that your defensive shielding is more powerful than anything he can throw at it. Ephesians chapter 6 says, “Put on the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand your ground, and after you’ve done everything to stand, you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one,” and the devil knows it very well. So what is he gonna do? Well, first of all, he’s going to get you to not trust in the power of your offensive and defensive weaponry and stay at home, just stay at home, be defeated, be deflated, be weak, be supine, lay on the couch and lament that there’s nothing you can do.

Just like the spies, when they came back and spoke of the promised land, and it was a good land, but 10 of them spread a bad report saying, “Oh, the cities with walls up to the sky, and we appeared like grasshoppers in our own eyes.” [Number 13:31-33] And God raised up Joshua and Caleb to say, “Oh, with God’s strength and power. We can do it. We can take the promised land.” A year ago, I talked to about two witnesses from church history, and I think were very encouraging William Wilberforce and William Lloyd Garrison on the issue of slavery, Wilberforce for 40 years fought the slave trade and slavery in England, 40 years. The gentle firm consistent patience of a marathoner, that’s what we need here. He labored for 20 years to stop the British slave trade, and then for 20 more years to get rid of slavery altogether. An enemy of Wilberforce said this, “It is necessary to watch him”, you gotta be careful about this guy because, “he is blessed with a very sufficient quantity of that enthusiastic spirit, which so far yielding that it actually grows more vigorous with blows”.The harder you hit him, the more he comes at you, he just doesn’t go away, but he’s so friendly. He’s so positive, he’s so optimistic, I don’t know what we’re gonna do about this guy, he just won’t go away.”

And he was a little too, he was like a little guy, a little lightweight guy, but he became...becomes like a monster when speaking the truth, and they couldn't get rid of him, he’s like a big block of cork and you push him down and he pops right back up. He just doesnt give up. Just don’t.....we don’t give up. And then there’s William Lloyd Garrison, fearless fiery preacher of righteousness through journalism. I don’t really know if he was born again, I hope so, but I do know this, his cause was just...as he fought against slavery in America for decades, fiery zeal as a journalist and this is what he wrote, he said, “I need...I need to be all on fire for I am surrounded by mountains of ice. I need to be all on fire for I’m surrounded by mountains of ice.” You gotta deal. You can't just be winsome and positive, like a big piece of cork, but you have to have a fiery zeal, a willingness to tell the truth. His most famous declaration on abolition was this, “I am an earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch and I will be heard.”

Can we say that? Can we do that? Can we not play games? Can we not retreat a single inch? Can we make ourselves heard? I just wanna encourage you, our weapons are strong and they’re effective. Let’s not be intimidated. Let’s take the field. Now, on simply changing the laws, you know, that’s not going to be enough.

Lie number five is, abortion will be defeated if we merely changed the laws. Well, that’s not gonna be good enough. When I started in the abortion fight back in 1980, it was ‘88 or ‘89, Operation Rescue was really involved at that point, and what they did was they would blockade clinics, they would physically chain themselves so that you couldn’t get in, and their enemies mocked them by calling them operation reschedule, because they hadn’t convinced anybody of anything, they just made it physically impossible, that’s human nature, when you wanna do something and you’re not persuaded but just blocked, you’re gonna try even harder to do it. There has to be a persuasion going on, there has to be... There has to be, there has to be reasoning with people’s hearts, and I gotta win hearts and minds on this, it’s not enough to just blockade, I don’t believe in it.

Also we have to realize there are reasons that women get abortions, there are reasons, economic reasons, they might feel themselves to be too poor to raise another child, there are family reasons, bad family situation, abusive husband and unsupportive parents, or maybe a young teen girl gets herself into difficulties, spiritual reasons, no convictions whatsoever in the matter, selfishness or ignorance, there are philosophical reasons, dislike of or children are seen to be an interruptional lifestyle, etcetera. The church must respond to these reasons, the church must transform the situation, the church must speak peace and hope and not just with words into the situation.

And lie number six, your sin is too great for God to forgive. I think we’re all guilty in this matter, to a greater less degree, you could be guilty of sins of omission, or you may be guilty of sins of commission, but either way, we need to repent. And either way, we need God’s grace and mercy and forgiveness. And the great, glorious, good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that that grace, that mercy, that forgiveness is abundantly available through Jesus Christ, I mean, abundantly available. There is no sin you can commit, that God’s grace cannot cover through the blood of Christ.

Here is a trustworthy saying, worthy of full acceptance. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst. 1st Timothy 1:50, its trustworthy. And so the devil wants to lie you and tell you there's no grace and no forgiveness, but there is. The spirit of abortion says to the abortionist doctor, there is so much blood on your hands that God can never accept you, your soul is lost forever. The spirit of abortion says to pregnant women, whether... Or a pregnant woman with a child conceived out of wedlock, you’re pregnant through sin and God has abandoned you, there can be no forgiveness for you, there’s no hope, you might as will abort that baby. The spirit of abortion says to the woman who’s already had an abortion, you’ve killed your own baby, and now God will reject you forever, there can be no mercy and no grace for you. That is a lie, that is a lie. The spirit of abortion says to the man who abdicated his responsibility to care for the child he fathered, you’re a poor excuse for a man, and there can be no forgiven for you.

It says to the pastor who’s neglected personal involvement and the abortion issue because of fear or desire for a quiet, simple, comfortable life,God will not forgive you, you’re a hypocrite and a coward. Says to the politician who’s hardened his heart and seared conscience by advocating a woman’s right to choose in order to get an elected to an office that he coveted, you can’t be forgiven. There’s no mercy for you. It says to a Supreme Court Justice who votes a certain way on certain cases, violating their own conscience, there can be no forgiveness for you, you’re responsible for millions and millions of deaths, and there can be no forgiveness for you. This is all the devil’s lie. We must come to the cross of Jesus Christ with repentance, with broken-hearted submission and with glad acceptance of his mercy and his grace and his forgiveness, he is tender-hearted and compassionate to the broken-hearted sinner.

Now, what application can we take from this? Well very simply, first of all, believe the Bible, the pre-born are truly persons. I was reading in World Magazine recently, an acronym that stuck with me partially, and I forgot to bring it with me this morning, so I’m gonna do my best at giving you the acronym, and if the world has a different one, all the better, and you can have even more truth. But it’s talking about the person who are the unbeliever and uses the acronym, I think it was sled, S-L-E-D, talking about how there is no difference between the infant in the pre-born philosophically, S size, are you more of a person because you’re bigger and less of a person cause you’re little? L Location, are you more of a person on a mountain top than you are in a cave? Is personhood dependent on your location. E experience, is personhood dependent on your life experiences? The more you experience, the more of a person you’ll be. How about D dependence, is personhood diminished if you’re dependent on a heart lung machine?

And if you answer, “No” its not dependent on any of those things, then how can you refute the personhood of the pre-born? On what grounds? Science, location, experience dependence, doesn’t work. Take that to them. Talk to them. Be courageous and communicate. Ask questions. If you see a bumper sticker that says something like this, “Don’t like abortion, then don’t have one”. Ask this question, can I do that with genocide? Don’t believe in genocide, then don’t do it. Or rape, don’t believe in rape, then don’t do it. But leave us alone we who want to rape or want to commit genocide. It doesn’t make any sense. Please refute these things with truth. When politicians say silly things like, “We need to keep abortion safe, legal, funded and rare”. Say, “Wait a minute, please, I’m confused. Just a moment, please. Okay. If the pre-born is a person, then why should abortions be legal, and if the pre-born is not a person, then why should they be rare? Talk to me, politician, tell me why?” That’s just politician speak. It doesn’t mean anything. Refute it with truth. Thirdly, persevere in prayer and action to abolish abortion, let’s be all in fire like William Lloyd Garrison. Let’s not go away. Let’s look and see what we can do better in the year 2004, let’s find out more about what pregnancy support services there are. There’s an insert in your bulletin what they need financially for volunteer hours. There were a few pro-life things that happened in our church this year, I’d like to see more this year.

Number four, radiate hope. Shine as a beacon of hope and grace and faith for the desperate. They need the word of hope. Christian, give it to them. Speak hope into their situation. And then finally come to Christ if you’re listening to me today and you don’t know Jesus as your Lord and Savior don’t leave this room without trusting in him and if you’re already a Christian but you’ve committed some sin in this area or any other area come to Christ again for forgiveness and healing and cleansing and he will take your sins and the scripture says in Micah, throw them into the depths of the sea, covered by a sea of his grace through the blood of Christ.