Stand Firm, Philippians, 4:1
Philippians 4:1 · Vern Peterman · Nov 2, 2003
Philippians (2003), No. 38
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/482623011828

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're glad you could join us this morning. We're looking at, as you've seen, just one verse, okay? Philippians 4.1.

However, as I got into this, I began finding that there is so much in terms of content and depth in this one verse. As a matter of fact, there's more slides for this one verse than any that I've ever done before. So it's just, it's potent, it's packed, okay? So anyway, we'll go ahead and move right into the verse here. Paul writes this and he's starting off the last chapter, four chapters in the book of Philippians, and he's starting off the last chapter. with this one verse.

And therefore, my beloved brethren, whom I long to see, my joy and crown in this way stand firm in the Lord, my beloved. And at first it sounds simple, but then as I began looking at it, oh boy, there's a whole lot in there. Let's take a look at this, this my beloved phrase here. He's used this before.

In Philippians 2.12, we saw this same phrase previously, and now he uses it twice in one verse, okay? And one of the things that's interesting, it shows up about a dozen times in Paul's letters. We've seen now in Philippians three of those dozens, okay? So he's used it frequently with the church at Philippi.

They are indeed beloved people to him, aren't they? We get that impression real clearly. This word beloved shows up. It's agapitas, the ones loved with an agape love. This is a love which is self-sacrificial in nature. God is the source of agape love here. It seeks the benefit of the recipient entirely without return. God didn't love us because he said, hey, I got something good out of this deal. He loved us without expectation of return, entirely of grace. That's the character of this. So agapetas is the ones receiving that love.

That's what he explains there. He makes clear then that Paul didn't just have warm fuzzy feelings for these people, but instead they were indeed dear to him, but he had an agape love for them. not just on the basis of what he could get out of them, but he loved them with this agape love which has God as its source. What Paul had told them and was about to tell them was also based on this agape love. We read through now three chapters. Everything he has said to them is because he has this agape love for them. And he's still got the rest of chapter four to go, is based on the same, because of that agape love.

Let's take a look. I call this the agape-agapitas connection. Here's God who is the source of agape love, and Paul then was actually being the recipient of that. He was beloved of the Lord, agapitas. Now, as Paul writes the church at Corinth, He is both receiving God's love and expressing agape love. So the Philippian believers, he calls the agapitas, they are receiving God's love through him. And we can add to that, we know that they're loved of the Lord too. So they are loved by the Lord through Paul as well as loved of the Lord directly. Both.

The next word that jumps out at us here is brethren, and he connects those together, doesn't he? This word brethren here is in the singular adelphos, and we brought this up before because he's used it before, but just to make sure we've got it in our minds here, it means literally from the same womb, from the same womb, and it was used in those days of physical brothers, as even among Jews the term was used.

But the idea he's got here is that Paul and the believers in Philippi have the same spiritual birth. Spiritually speaking, they have the same birth. They've all been born again. By using this word brethren, Paul is making a very definite point here, and that point is this. He's saying that both he and the believers in Philippi are of the same spiritual family.

See that? He is stating that he and they both have the same position in Christ. He's making that clear. This word brethren he's used numerous times before in the book of Philippians and he is going to use it again a couple more times before the chapter is done, isn't he? Now, he uses this, my brethren. He puts that in front of it. What is he doing?

He's placing himself on the same spiritual level, this positional level, as his fellow saints at Philippi. You see, Paul does have an earthly role as an apostle, doesn't he? Technically, at least, Paul could come in and say, hey, I'm an apostle. I'm above you guys. I've got a spiritual gift that kind of puts me in high priority. And so I'm going to tell you what to do. Does he do that? Is that what we see? No. What we see instead, Paul repeatedly underscoring this point, we are of the same spiritual birth. We hold the same position.

Paul does not take advantage of or exalt his apostleship. Instead, what he does is he puts himself on the same spiritual level as those he's writing to, So, he can rightly call them brethren. Paul isn't seeking to impress and express his apostolic position here, not in the sense of trying to force anything on them, but instead, what does he do? He appeals to them on the basis of humility. He appeals to them on the basis of seeking their interest, because after all, hasn't he talked to them about those things? Humility. He's talking about seeking the interests of others and he's spoken about that even from the very first chapter.

Here's the next phrase, if you will, whom I long to see. That's the way it comes across in the New American Standard. In this phrase here, this is actually just one word, epipositas. Of course you go around the house singing this, don't you? Probably not. But he's used this word before in a slightly different form.

In Philippians 1.8, he just barely got the letter started, and he's used this word in the verb form. He told them that he longs to see them. Epipatheo. And so we have the verb there.

He uses the verb again at the end of chapter 2 in 2.27. Remember, there were four examples that Paul gives in chapter 2. Christ, Paul himself, and then the fourth one being Epaphroditus, who was the one who had brought a gift from the people at Philippi, was staying with Paul, and Paul was sending him back with this very letter we're reading. And he tells them at the end of chapter two that Epaphroditus really misses you and longs to see you.

Same word. Now, with that, This is a word that identifies the believers at Philippi as the ones that are being longed for. This is the only place in the New Testament that this word is used in quite this way, that is, the way that he uses it here, epipathetos.

Now, here at Holly Hills, we are bold people, and we do not mind going where no translator has ever gone before. And why do we do that? We do that because we want to make sure that you understand the original text, right? One of the things that is clear here is we don't just look at the English words. We look at what's underlying it. What is the original language saying, right? So where I'm going to go next is something you might look at and kind of scratch your head at first because the translators don't do it. But there is a reason. You'll see here in a minute. Can you hang in there with me? Okay.

Philippians 4.1.

Paul twice uses this word agapitos, and it's translated beloved. What frequently is overlooked here, he calls the believers at Philippi those who are the ones loved with agape love, so he calls them agapitos. So what does he do? He takes a word here that he doesn't use with any other church, but just with them, and it may even be a made-up word that matches Agapetas, and that's epipatetas, the ones who are longed for. Get the point?

The ones who are loved is agapetas, the ones who are longed for is epipatetas. So it's like he's calling them the belonged ones, dearly belonged. There isn't any such word, but English is funny that way. We say shake, shook, and shaken, but we don't say bake, book, and bacon, or rake, rook, and raken. English is strange, but we're going to use a word here that's kind of unusual because Paul uses...

Am I okay here? Okay, all right. I just want to make sure. I don't want to lose anybody. So Paul uses a word that's unusual here, so I think that's authorization for us to do it. He's saying, my belonged ones. So we could pull it across this way. This is our own style, okay? My joy and crown in this way stand firm in the Lord, my beloved." Get the point? The idea is he's using the exact same form for beloved as he is using now here for those longed for. Okay, now. Whoa, boy, this thing is really jumping. Pardon us. We'll go back here. Don't want to lose you. Okay, one at a time.

My joy and crown. We'll look at this word here, joy. So, this word joy is kara, and we've looked at this before, but just to make sure we've got the point across here, this is a grace-given joy. It's part of a family of words we'll look at here in a minute.

It doesn't result from earthly circumstances. It doesn't say, hey, this and this and this happened just the way I like it. It doesn't say, well, I've got the right set of circumstances, I'm happy about it, therefore I'm joyful. that is regardless of circumstances, because it simply does not rely upon them.

It instead relies upon the grace of the Lord Jesus. So now, what we see, and we've made a point of this before, is that the book of Philippians has consulted all the way through it, from the first verses to the very last verses, This word charis means grace or gifting. And remember, it has this idea that this charis, this grace that Paul draws upon here, for the original Greek culture, it meant to do something that you didn't expect anything back for, but you did it for friends and relatives. The church adopted and adapted that word, but they greatly widened its definition. The Church said, we'll use that word, but we won't use it like the rest of the culture does. Instead, we'll use it where there is grace given, but it's not just for friends and relatives. God was gracious to us while we were what? Yet enemies. Widely expanding the definition of grace.

This word they use for joy here is part of that same family of words. And what we find is that that family of words is used throughout the book of Philippians, and he's going to continue to use it here better than a half dozen times in this chapter. And he's especially going to focus on it in verses we'll be looking at in the next couple of weeks here. Okay, as he goes through this family of words here, he joins up with that, this word joy and crown. So let's take a look at this word crown. One of the things that we brought up before, and this was back when we were studying the book of Revelation.

You remember that, of course, right? There are biblical crowns and rewards. Now, one of the things that I find is that I've taught through this at different times, I'll have people say, don't teach me about that stuff. I don't want to know. And it's happened several times. I think one reason that people tend to react that way is they think of a reward as something like, well, I've got something and you don't have it, and I've got it and it's just for me, right?

And so people, they think you're teaching on something like that. What's interesting is here is a teaching that is consistent throughout Scripture. We look at the New Testament and it continues to go back to this subject. It is woven as a fabric throughout the New Testament. One of the interesting things is what Paul is doing is referring to this kind of usage of it as we find in 1 Thessalonians.

And he's using it similarly here in Philippians 4.1. The other point to make is this crown, as he uses it here, and this is the way it is used in each of these passages, is a Stephanos.

It's a victor's crown. There are two kinds of crowns that are primarily referred to in the New Testament. One is a diadem. This was a royalty crown. This is a victor's crown, so it's different. It was given in the culture of the time for those who had won a race of some kind, a foot race, a chariot race, and so they would be given a victor's crown. We oftentimes see it pictured now as a laurel wreath or something of that sort, and so that's the kind of crown it's talking about.

It's a victor's crown, not a crown of royalty. Now, so what we see here Paul specifically referring to is here in Philippians 1, he puts together my joy and crown. Again, it's this victor's crown, the Stephanos. And then as he writes to the church in Thessalonica, what does he do? For who was our hope or joy or crown of exultation?

Similar usage of words there. Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus that is coming? Now, again, both usages, Stephano's crown, not the diadem type, okay? Not a royalty crown. Look at this, because I think this is going to answer some questions. If you're wondering, what am I going to do with this thing, you know? Do I have to carry it around for eternity? Do I have to have this thing on my head?

Look at what happens in Revelation 4. And as we've studied through Revelation 4, one of the things that's become clear, this is a display of the church in the heavenlies, okay? In Revelation chapter 4 we see the 24 elders, representing the church then, having been taken up to be with the Lord, will fall down before him who sits on the throne and will worship him who lives forever and ever and will cast down their crowns before the throne. What kind of a crown? A Stephanos crown, the exact same one. In the two prior chapters in Revelation, the churches were told you would have a Stephanos crown again. So what does this crown represent?

It doesn't mean something I'm going to have that I'm going to go up to heaven and say, I have a crown and you don't. I don't think we'll be doing that in heaven. Instead, what is it? It is a capacity to glorify the Lord more and to worship Him. Now, isn't that a reward you would like? Yes. It's not a reward of hoarding. It's not a reward of, I have something you don't have. Now that's a good reward, isn't it? That's a good reward.

That's what he's talking about here. He's looking at them and saying, as an apostle, the Lord's going to be looking at the establishment of these churches and the various things that the apostle does, and the Lord's going to say, that's rewardable to this apostle. And he's looking forward to that. Why? He is delighting in the capacity to glorify the Lord more.

All right. Now, how about this next one, Stand Firm? And as you saw kind of the opening slide here, we use these Roman soldiers' boots. They've got these sandals. And as the one sandal shows, the bottom has got spikes on it all over them. And interestingly enough, as archaeologists dig up evidence of the Roman Empire, they keep finding these all over the place. The Roman soldiers, you know, whether they'd wear them out or whether they'd get halfway done and something would happen to them, these ended up showing up in numerous archaeological digs.

So, here's this word, stand firm, or the King James stand fast. The Greek is steko, okay? And the idea is to stand or remain stable, to keep one's footing in place, okay? Stay where you're planted, okay? To be able to stand and not fall or slip, okay?

One of the things we've pointed out before is because Philippi was a very Roman city, where much of the population was either a retired Roman soldier or an active Roman soldier, or people living around Roman soldiers, people would have a clear understanding of what it meant to stand firm. It was a military term. And so this standing firm would be very well understood by everybody in Philippi.

So Paul uses it here, just like he did in 127. Stand firm, steko. And one of the things we find is that Paul has used this word in other places, and it's interesting what he connects it to. Here we have a half dozen different passages in the New Testament, two of them in Philippians, that have this phrase, And then there's the last one, which is called the stand firm, or something like it, with the Greek word steko, stand.

And as we go through those, one of the things we find is the first one and the last one, this one is in the faith. And by the way, in the faith doesn't mean just believing something. When we find the definite article in front of faith in most of the passages in the New Testament, what that is referring to It was an understood set of doctrines and teachings. And so he's saying, stand in the faith. That isn't just keep on believing, but it is also referring to the specific set of doctrines that are laid out there. And what does Paul say? Stand in them.

He repeats a similar message at this one here in 2 Thessalonians 2.15. Stand in what you were taught. Same idea. The very things that you've been taught, stand in those. The next set, the middle four, are something different. They deal more with standing in your position.

The first one, we notice here in Galatians 5.1, says stand in the liberty. What is he saying? Don't fall for legalism because it's not standing in your position. See that? Stand in the liberty that you have in Christ because that's basic to your position in Christ. Then he goes on in 127 and says, stand in one spirit. Why? Positionally, they are one.

And now in this present passage, and in 1 Thessalonians 3.8, stand in the Lord. Our position is in the Lord, isn't it?

So he's got all four of those where it says, standing in our position. So here's these six passages in the New Testament where he says to stand, using that same word steko, What's interesting here is he uses this word, which is, again, a military term, and what we find as we investigate this, each of these letters that he wrote using this word was to a church in a city that was a Roman colony, like Philippi or 1 Corinthians, or in an area that included Roman colonies, like Galatia, which had at least two Roman colonies, In the case of Thessalonica, it was a city to the west of Philippi and right nearby. So every place that he uses this military term to stand firm, either is a Roman colony, has a Roman colony, or has one nearby.

So he picks a term that the people, when they get that word, would understand very well. Isn't that amazing? As you look through the New Testament, the words that are chosen by the apostles and the ones that they sponsor, the words that are chosen are perfect for the people that they're writing to. Well understood.

Now, there's another related word that's used three times in Ephesians, 6, 10 through 14. It's translated stand, and this is where Paul tells the saints at Ephesus about their spiritual armor, their position in Christ, and he uses the analogy of the Roman soldier. This is, again, reinforcing the military use of this word steko. Plus, that's not all, you've got a couple of places where it's translated withstand or stand against, and that's the very same word with the prefix ante, stand against. So, again, you've got further use of that same word, just with a prefix in front of it. Now, we've used this picture before. Here are Roman soldiers, and we've used this previously for them to strive together, but what are they also doing? You notice that they have these same calligae, these Roman soldier shoes on.

What are they doing? They're standing firm as well as striving together. You can see how it's real important that the Roman soldiers stay on their feet, isn't it? What happens if, say, some people in the front row start losing their footing? Everybody's going to start dumping and falling over each other. Not good. Standing firm and keeping your footing, very important. Very important.

Here's a Roman soldier standing firm. One of the things that was real critical, they would say, stand firm, and it's a basic thing to using all the rest of your equipment. Without standing firm, none of the rest of the equipment or the training that the Roman soldier had was of at least the same level of effectiveness and maybe of no use at all. Once he's fallen, slipped, gotten on his back, He's in trouble. Standing firm is basic to being fully effective. That's why he would use that term with these believers. He wants them to be fully effective, and the way to be fully effective is for them to stand in their position.

Make sense? Now, what does stand firm mean to me? You might say, okay, my shoes don't have those cleats on the bottom, Not too often we see too many of these kinds of shoes in the store. So what does that mean to me? I'm not a Roman soldier. Let's take a look here. We live here on planet Earth in our condition, which can change. Our condition can change.

We are called to stand in our position, which does not and cannot change. So he's telling them, stand in your position. He isn't saying, get in the middle of Philippi and just stay there. He's saying, stand in your position, because it will not change. Something that's basic when I say stand in your position, something that's basic to understand is we can't add to or improve our position, can we? We cannot do anything to tweak it, to augment it, supplement it, help it out. Our position is firmly fixed in the heavenlies, unchangeable. We cannot lose or diminish it or even earn it. No believer's position in Christ is better or worse than another's. Think about Paul. Is he claiming anything different for his position than theirs? No. There is no believer's position that is different from or better or worse than any other's.

Our position is entirely Christ's work and is completed. It's a done deal. We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing, and you notice how that shows up in Ephesians 1-3 already, past tense, done deal. There is nothing in our position left to gain, earn, or enhance.

And one of the things we commonly say to one another, and I'm not trying to be legalistic about how we say things, is we'll say, may the Lord bless you, or God bless you. Can He really improve on the blessings that He's given us? No. In truth, in truth, and again, I'm not trying to be legalistic or picky, in truth, the Lord cannot bless us spiritually any more than He already has. Can't. Why? Because we've already been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. 100%, totally, completely. Already, right now, done deal. Okay? But, okay? Big red one there.

While we're not told to ask for more blessings, or for the Holy Spirit to fall afresh on us, nor are we told to attack Satan, or plot the demons on a map, or re-re-rededicate our lives, or have a revival, or slosh through the sewers of our fleshly past, we are told to stand in our position.

Here's this amazing thing. You've heard people say, Don't just stand there. Do something. Here's Paul telling them the exact opposite. What does the flesh want to do? The flesh says, give me something to do. Oh, I've got to do something. Give me something to do. So what's Paul telling them? Don't just do something.

Stand there. We're told to stand in our position. This is the position that he told the Galatians about with respect to their liberty. He's said twice here to the church at Philippi, and he's going to tell it to the church at Thessalonica, which is also plagued with a lot of the same legalism as the church at Galatia. Stand in your position. Sound doctrine. Standing in sound doctrine, given as bookends in those first and last verses there. So here's standing firm, and some of the principles we draw out of it are these.

The position we have for the Lord is entirely by His accomplishment. It's His to do. It's already done. We can't fix it, enhance it, worry about losing it, anything of the sort. That's good news. Ephesians 2, 4 through 7 puts it out this way. If you look at it, but God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, and then we track through the rest of that passage and what do you see? God owns the verbs. God is the one who does the doing in that whole passage. The position that we have as we track through those few verses is entirely by God's accomplishment. He is the one who acts. He is the one who does it all. The next principle there is, standing firm is by the life of the Lord in us and not by our fleshly determination.

One of the things that is famous for taking place among Christians is Christians might go to a retreat or they'll read a book or something like that and say, boy, from now on, I'm really going to follow the Lord. From now on, I'm really going to try to be a good Christian. Guess what?

That's not it. That's not what he's asking for. Standing firm is by the life of the Lord. It is not our doing or by any promise we can make. The flesh has been positionally crucified. So my own determination to go in there and try to be a better Christian is exactly the wrong thing. It is instead the Lord's life and His work. or establish it any better by our own fleshly determination. The third principle is none of our position in which we are called to stand is outside of the Lord. What does he say to both the church at Philippi and the church at Thessalonica?

Stand firm in the Lord. One of the things that comes out of this is this word en that we point out here, a nice easy Greek word. It means in, and it's shown graphically in Greek grammars like this. It means entirely within, is the usual use of that word. And what that means is, standing firm in the Lord means entirely in the Lord. It is not halfway. I can't stand in the Lord 50%, 90%, 10%. It's entirely in the Lord. the Lord plus, or the Lord minus.

Finally, our position in the Lord is integral with our relationship with Him. You see, every believer who has this position in the Lord is 100% blessed with every spiritual blessing. Done deal. It is integral with our relationship with Him. We have a relationship with Him as believers that is tied to that. You don't have a position with the Lord and not have a relationship with Him. At least, not in the way we're talking about here. Our position in the Lord goes right together with our knowing Him and having relationship with Him.

One of the things I brought up in the past is I came here in the first Sunday in June, two years ago, to candidate. And when I got back, I was still finishing up some classes at seminary, and one of the classes that we had, we were translating. They gave us various passages in the Greek, and they said, translate it and bring it to the next class, and we'll take a look and see how you did. And this was one of them that as I translated it, As soon as I got the last words on the page, I couldn't see the page anymore. I began just... I burst into tears because I saw this and it was so potent.

This relationship with the Lord is not some distant, far away thing here. And it says here, see how great a love the Father has bestowed on us. The Greek comes across more like this as I translated it. See the quality of, and this word bestowed is in the perfect tense, which means completed past action, ongoing results into the future, it implies permanence. So think of this. See what a quality of permanent love the Father has bestowed on us. Wow. Permanent.

This isn't a love that, This isn't a love that the Lord says, well, I might love you, but tomorrow we'll see. And this word, see, is like, behold, stand there and ponder it to consider its immensity. Stand there and ponder it to consider its immensity what a permanent quality of love the Lord has given us. Isn't that neat? That we would be called children of God.

The Roman world, it was legal to take any, and the father, by the way, made this decision, to take any child and abandon them. They would take them out on a roadway or out in the forest and abandon any child up until the time where they were legally accepted. Isn't that something? To us, that just seems incredible, and certainly in our culture, that would not be accepted. In the Roman law, it was perfectly legal.

And so what he is saying here, that we would be called the children of God, that means you're accepted. And the Roman law said you could abandon a child at any time, but once you had legally accepted them, it was no longer legal. So that acceptance was permanent. See what quality of permanent love the Father has given us, that we would be called those children of God who are accepted and can never be rejected.

That's the contrast. So when I saw that and thought of what are these people reading, it hit me to the heart because here these people are seeing a character of relationship and love that in that culture was completely rare. Not totally foreign, but rare. And what a marvelous thing the Lord has done here. This position that we have is basic to relationship with Him. and the other way around. They're tied together intimately. Relationship with the Lord. Not just objective position, yes it's true, but relationship is fundamental. Let's look at this expanded and explained here.

And those of you who are tracking with us for the first time, this is on side two of your handout, page two. So Paul is writing, and this is the understanding of what he's saying, Therefore, based upon the inspired truths that I have just written to you, you whom I love with the love which has God himself as its source, and who have an eternal spiritual relationship with me based on your mutual eternal spiritual relationship with the Lord, and whom I long for because you are so dear to me, the very ones in whom I find grace-given joy, independent of my circumstances, and are my living symbol of spiritual victory." How about that? In these ways I have explained above, stand firm as the Lord's soldiers upon the position you have permanently in the Lord, who purchased your position with His very life, those whom I love with God's love.

Isn't that neat? As I look at this, it is very clear that these people are dear but it's not, dear, because Paul just has some sort of a temporary emotional wave coming over him. Paul is instead, as he's chained to a Praetorian guard and been living for a few years now under hard circumstances, he's writing to them and telling them how precious they are to him because it is very clear how precious they are to the Lord. Isn't that wonderful?

Lord, as we look at this passage here, a brief one, a few words, and even some words repeated, how marvelous a thing it is, Lord, that we have this relationship with You. And Lord, even as we've seen here this morning, You desire that we stand firm in what You have given Your very Son's life to buy, that position that we have in You. And Lord, how precious it is that we can have this intimate relationship knowing that we have a love with you that is certain in every way. And it's a love that you have shown to us that it did not depend and does not depend and will not depend on us and what we do. And Lord, we thank you for that precious and marvelous love. In Jesus' name, Amen.