Poured out as an offering

Well, turn your Bibles to, or maybe push the button to get to, isn't that weird how that's changed? If you don't turn your Bibles anymore, it's like, please open the Bible app on your mobile device. We're going to look at Philippians 2, 17 through 18.

We've titled it Rejoice and Share, and just kind of dovetailing off of each week, You know, have different teachers. Fortunately, I was able to do last week and so I get to kind of keep the pace that we set last time with it. You'll have me one more time next week and then you finally get a breather. Get a breather with Roger.

I think you're up next, right? Yes, that's right. That'll be good. Well, we've got a lot of material to cover today. Let's go ahead and get started here. I'll read for us, and if you want to read along, that's fine. But don't feel like you have to read out loud here. Verses 17 and 18 of chapter 2. Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise, you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

I was talking to Les a little bit about these verses this morning, and there's not a lot of doctrinal information packed in here. These aren't the kind of verses that you get in a tizzy about over your salvation passages or sanctification passages. But there's some really neat nuggets of information here, especially in the context of the book of Philippians as a whole. Philippians is just such a unique book in all of the New Testament.

It's not written to correct a lot. It's meant to, it's meant, mintent? Is that a word? It is now. It's mintent to do this. It's meant to provide a lot of encouragement to a group of believers who had been ministered to by Paul many years before and were now removed through letters of writing some 8 years, 800 miles, or was it 10 years? a fair amount of time that had passed since Paul had spent time with these believers that he had trained up. And now he's chained down to a Praetorian guard in Rome and he's writing these letters out of a condition that actually begins to show in some of these verses.

But through the entire book of Philippians, we've seen a lot of Paul's affection for these believers and how he chooses to encourage them about their situation. Obviously, they had folks in their presence that were teaching the gospel out of the wrong motives, right? You remember the disunity that was taking place with the Philippians. And so that's a little bit of the background here. And then Paul goes on to talk directly to the Philippian believers.

And he starts bringing in all this new verbiage, things that actually, they're new at first glance, but they're not new if you actually look underneath it and get a feel for what he's talking about with regards to, we've got the offering, sacrificial, faith, rejoice, and so forth. So we want to delve into this and get a feel for what this is all about. Just as a way of getting the bigger picture, Paul is still focused on the concept of others first. If you remember in chapter 2 verse 3.

He talked about doing nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. And we talked about what a tall order that is, especially when you're without the life of Christ, doing the caring and humility and looking out of the interest for others. That's almost just impossible, you know, as a law. But with Christ, it's absolutely 100% what you would expect from Christ through us.

And so we looked at chapter 2, verse 3, and saw that whole concept of others first. Paul is still reminding those Philippian believers to make sure that it's others first. You know, we tell the kids often, you know, is it me first or others first? Because right now you're having a me first moment. And I'm pretty sure we could say that to ourselves quite a bit too. Oh no, here we go, me first moment.

But that's what Paul is saying, it's not about you, it's about them. And Christ has that interest, and that's the only way you're gonna share that interest as well. He also, Paul, is dealing with the issue of disunity among the believers in the church at Philippi, and we looked at that. Just to bring up verse 27, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you, that you are standing firm in one spirit and one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. So they were continuing to share the message that he had started when he was there. And he says, you've partaken that. You're partakers in the gospel.

Remember, we looked at the fact that the Philippians were actually partners with him. Even though he was many, many miles away, many years away from having shared that message, they were still partakers. And Paul considered it a co-mission effort, even after that many years and that distance away. So what's this whole life of sacrifice?

We see a pattern here of sacrifice through the book of Philippians. We see it first in Christ. Paul makes that really clear, drives that home. And then we see it in Paul. We're going to see it in Timothy next week. and at Epaphrodites with Roger the week following, I believe. And so we see these examples of sacrifice that Paul is bringing up to the Philippian believers and asking them to take heed of and to look at and to remember. And it's not a matter of mimicking these people. Remember, there's a way that this all gets done. The whole life of sacrifice is done a specific way. We'll look at that in a minute.

But just to review here, Seeing the example of Christ back in chapter 2, 5, 11, he emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant. This is all sacrificial verbiage that we see throughout the book of Philippians so far. Paul, again, in the verse that we're looking at today, poured out as a drink offering. We're going to nail that down and get a good picture of what that means today, I think.

And then next week, we're going to look at Timothy. He served with me in the furtherance of the gospel. Again, these guys are are doing and living and breathing the things that Paul is talking about. And even Epaphrodites, which is probably the starkest of them, he says he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life. So we see this pattern of sacrifice, don't we?

It's not something that's new in the book and it's not something that's going to be missing when we go into the next few lessons ahead. But nonetheless, I want to go back to chapter 2, verse 13. This seems to be, in this chapter, a big one for me. For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Who does the life of sacrifice? It is our sacrifice. It is our sacrifice. And I've actually made some observations through this particular group of verses. I think it's pretty cool and I want to throw it out to you guys here in a little while and see how it hits you based on what we're going to learn today. But this whole idea of sacrifice and being poured out as a drink offering in the New Testament and these We are priests. Every Christian in the New Testament era or the Church era is a priest. What does that mean? What does that look like? Why are we going back to the sacrificial system? Why is Paul bringing that terminology back into a New Testament context?

I want to look at some of that today and make some observations. Hebrews does a lot of that too. Romans does some of that. We'll look at that. In fact, these are some of the illustrations from the altar, and we're going to look at the altar more specifically in a minute.

But these are some of the verses throughout Paul's writings, and I include Hebrews, while Paul may or may not have been the author, he definitely was impacted by the same perspectives of the sacrificial Old Testament system. So, your body is a living sacrifice, somebody quoted that one. What's that like? Paul's offering of the Gentiles. Paul's life a drink offering. We're looking at that today.

And actually the exact same verbiage and exact same words are used in 2 Timothy 4.6. Paul's life is a drink offering again. gifts of a fragrant offering, thanks, a sacrifice of praise in Hebrew. So these sacrifices and these pictures going back to the Old Testament altar are all things that should be in mind as you read verses like the ones we're looking at today.

So let's have a look at 2 Timothy 4.6, just to kind of get the context of a verse written by Paul that says almost the exact same thing. It says, For I am ready, I'm all ready, being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.

What do you think he's talking about here in 2 Timothy? Now remember, Timothy is about passing on the torch, isn't it? There's a lot that goes on there with passing on the torch to the younger. And he's entrusting a lot of the ministry that he's been involved in to the younger folks. And of course there's doctrines that need to be established by that way. But here Paul's making note to what? What's the departure?

The death. I think so. Do you think that in the book of Timothy, Paul is using this verbiage about being poured out as a drink offering to communicate how he's really seeing the end of things coming here. It's not far. And what he's having to go through, he relates to being poured out as a drink offering. So we want to get a picture of what that is. But I bring up 2 Timothy because contextually with the book of Philippians, it brings a little bit more light to what Paul was having in mind as he talked about being poured out as a drink offering. But there's some specifics in Philippians that I think are really cool we want to take a look at.

First of all, I put a map of Jerusalem on here. I would actually start on Google Earth and here we are in space and zoom all the way in if I could take the time to do that. But anyway, this is in Jerusalem and you can see Israel present day here. You can see the detail. This is the West Bank.

And the temple, Herod's temple, was facing, this is east, and this is west, like where the mountains would be for us. This is facing the prairie. And so the entrance of the, I'm just giving you geographical context here. The mountains over here, you know. But anyway, the temple is actually facing east and the gate to entrance was facing east. And so that's where the temple was.

And of course you're looking at the courtyard there. And you've got, if you zoom in, what way is this? If this is the beginning of the entrance into the courtyard and so forth, what way is this? Okay, so you guys, you got it. So you're walking in east and you know the ocean for them is over there instead of the mountains, right? So you walk in and it's actually here where the temple courtyard, you've got the priests and all the Levites doing their duties within this area and here you've got the altar. You've got the labor where they did ceremonial cleansing.

Here's where they actually did the sacrifices. So this was a very purposeful place with a lot of activity going on. This is clean and obviously a graphic, but nonetheless, there was the sacrifice that took place in the time of the Philippians took place in this location. It was actually on the altar that the sacrifices were made. I worked with Good Seed for five years and we're big on these visual aids, and so one of the things that we did, a buddy of mine actually did an entire model set of the tabernacle, which in this case, the brazen altar or the bronze altar would look the exact same in the temple. And so you have this piece of furniture that's sitting in the middle of this temple area where the sacrifices took place.

At any time, the Philippians looked at the bronze altar that the Jews were involved with at that point in time, what did you think it pointed to for those Christians? Was this a place of activity for them anymore? Not for the Philippians, but it was still present and active, wasn't it? For a time. But this bronze altar for them was the place that Paul was pointing back to as being poured out as a drink offering. And actually what took place is the...

This is really heavy, so I'm not going to pass it around. We should have been more friendly with that. But you can take a look at it later if you want. But actually underneath here, you can see all the ventilation. That's where they put all the coals and the wood and so forth. And then the priests who would stand about so So tall? Actually, maybe they're... I don't know.

But at any rate, this is where the sacrifice was made, and they had different tools that they would use to move the sacrifice on top of the altar. But it was a place of death, and it smelled like a place of death, it looked like a place of death, and the drink offerings that were associated with it came out of the Old Testament Levitical system. And what they would do is, in the morning and in the evening, they would take a glass of wine, or a cup of wine, or whatever tool they had to hold the wine, and before they would offer the ram, the bullock, or the whatever, they would actually pour a drink offering out as well, and it would mark the beginning of the worship to God through all the sacrificial activity that would take place through the day. So it's neat that the drink offering actually accompanied the burnt offering.

It's kind of neat. So if we take a look at that just a little bit more, Paul is saying that he is being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of the faith of the Philippian saints. Paul is creating an illustration out of the Old Testament Levitical Law. And so in this illustration you can kind of see him working the sacrifice on top of the altar.

And what's all around the base here? Blood was poured out as well. That's part of the offering too. So if we just kind of get the idea of what this drink offering is, and I said this a little bit, but just to refer to your notes there, so accompanying other offering was the drink offering which was taken by the priest and poured out like the blood at the foot of the altar of burnt offering. In the temple service, the drink offering was poured at the morning and evening sacrifice as a signal for the priests and Levites to begin their song of praise to God. So that's the definition of what we're working with with this whole drink offering concept.

There's two things that Paul's pointing to, and I think it's pretty cool. This is where something kind of clicked for me as I delved into the Old Testament picture there. But the sacrifice, what does the book Philippians 2, 17, the one we're looking at, what does it say that the sacrifice is? Does anyone want to read verse 17 again?

Even as I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifices and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. What's that? The drink offering? Yeah, he's the drink offering. And what's this? What is the sacrifice? Service? Service of who? Of who? Who's there? Philippians. Yeah.

The sacrifice that Paul's talking about is the Philippians faith. And he's saying, I'm poured out as a drink offering accompanying your sacrifice of faith. I've never quite picked up on it that way, but the illustration of the sacrifice and service being the faith of the Philippian saints and the drink offering, which was Paul's life, shows that these continue to point to Christ and being satisfying and pleasing to God. So more than Israel's repeated physical sacrifices could, He's saying that it's not about this burnt offering that we all knew so well and Paul took great activity in being a Jew of Jews to his own labeling. But it was this that the Philippians were thinking about. They were putting in mind that it was our sacrifice of faith that Paul's drink offering accompanied. But what is the sacrifice of faith pointing to? Our sacrifice.

It's interesting, and see if you can follow me a little bit here, because this is a working thought that I want to throw out to you guys in class. We think about being priests in the New Testament age, in the church age, and we think about what do we offer? Do we offer burnt offerings anymore? A lot of the priestly passages of the New Testament have us doing a lot of works to give to God.

Our works are our sacrifice. And those are the things that bring pleasure to God. And a lot of Christians perceive works as being what we bring to God as a sacrifice. It's your works that you bring. What do the Philippians bring that Paul says he accompanies us to drink coffee? They're bringing faith. See, what's neat is the sacrifice has already been made and all you have as a priest now is to trust in the sacrifice that was made. And guess what? You do perform works. And are they sweet to the Lord? Does He take great pleasure in them? He does. But whose works are they? They're His. They're the sacrifice's work. The living sacrifice's work.

And so it's a totally different perspective that Paul now had that he was communicating to his Philippians. It's not about you bringing your works to me. you know, from God's perspective. It's not about you going to the altar and burning sacrifices anymore.

All that was was a picture pointing to Christ, and they knew that. But beyond pointing to Christ, all that they had to offer now was faith in Christ, their living and breathing, you know, resurrected sacrifice. Yeah, Jim, you know, you can really nail that down by reading in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

And read Philippians 2.13, someone else, just dovetail right off that, one more time. For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work, for His good pleasure. You see guys, that's where we're at. That's where this whole sacrifice, Christian sacrifice is. It's faith in Christ, and Christ does the living. The message hasn't changed at all. It's just when you bring the Old Testament pictures to the New Testament verbiage and perspective and context, you have to be very careful to consider the other things that Paul said.

And Ephesians 2.10 is a great example.

It's not the sacrifice that the Philippians were making to share the gospel. It's not the sacrifice that the Philippians were doing to keep out those that were not sharing the proper message. It wasn't about walking in a crooked and perverse generation in such a way that they were the ones that were active, they were the ones that were receiving the title blameless, above reproach, children of God. It was Christ doing the work through them that gave them these titles and gave them an understanding of what it meant to live as a sacrifice. Romans, living sacrifice? What does a living sacrifice look like for the believer? Well, Paul clarifies for the Philippians, hey, your sacrifice is your faith.

And guess what? We just talked about Christ, who did all the work, emptied himself out, and he's the one that wants to do the work through you to his goodwill and pleasure. So if you trust in the Lord, Paul's saying, that's a sacrifice that I want to be accompanied with as a drink offering. So let's go move on. Let's look at the Greeky Geeky terms. This word, I am being poured out as a drink offering, how many words is that in English? I am, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 words. It's one word in the Greek. Spindomai. Spindomai. This word is used literally in the Greek Old Testament, that's the Septuagint, right? In Genesis 35, 14, for pouring out a drink offering as part of the offering of a sacrifice.

And guess what? The Jews weren't the only ones that did sacrifices, were they? There was all kinds of other unbelieving sacrifices. And the drink offering was one that was associated with many forms of idol worship. But these Philippians would have not only had that in mind as a background, because that just was the reality of their Old Testament training and their heritage, they would have also had in mind specifically the Levitical system that God gave the Israelites by way of this offering.

So Paul is using the word figuratively here. Is he literally being poured out? No. This is a figure of speech, and he's relating himself to that picture in the Old Testament there as an illustration for the saints at Philippi. But think about the drink offering.

We said that his life is coming near. He's being poured out. Their faith has been the service and the sacrifice that they've made. Their faith is related to that service and sacrifices that they made. And he's relating himself as the end of his life. He's literally coming to the end of his life as well. And these are all things that have to do with these verses.

But this word sacrifice, to see a sacrifice as the Old Testament law, but used as a metaphor and an illustration. We looked at 12.1, we talked about a living sacrifice. The sacrifice in this case was the faith of the saints at Philippi. So just very practical, simple perspectives here that often get miscommunicated and man, you just start thinking about, if you get wrapped up in a law perspective with the sacrificial issue in the New Testament, you hear, what do I have to give to God today? Jim, you know, people really kind of get down on themselves. They think, well, all I got is my faith. All I can do is trust the Lord. That's all I got. But that's exactly what he wants.

And that's what Paul was commending here of the Philippians, wasn't it? He was. He's saying, in my life, it's been poured out. And based on 2 Timothy, it's coming to an end. It's an imminent thing for me. But there's something about this sacrifice that causes me to respond. And that's the next part of these verses. And we'll look at that in a minute. But this sacrifice that Paul's dealing with, this life reality that he's coming to an end very near at some point, or he at least assumes that he is, brings about an emotional response and that emotion is based on the facts of scripture. We'll look at that in a minute. First of all, the word service here. Laeturgia. This word is used literally for the service which the priests would perform.

It is priestly service as in Luke 1.23 of Zachariah serving in the temple. Here we see Zachariah next to which piece of furniture? Anybody know? What is he offering up? in the Holy of Holies. Where was Zachariah in the temple? He was a high priest with me. Okay, it's your homework for next week.

But all those who are believers in Christ in the church are priests. 1 Peter 2, 4-9. So if you want to know where I got that, that's where we get our understanding that we are priests. And what do we have to offer It's faith. Say it again. We talked about holding fast to the Word of God last week and grabbing the Bible. Come on. It's faith, man. We can't say much more.

That's kind of what we herald from the pulpit. The altar. That's what I thought an altar was the first time I heard it. I grew up in a Southern Baptist church and I'm like, I know where the altar is, man. I've been down there a lot. I had to get right with the Lord. That's not what's going on here.

And to call you welcome priests, you know, have you ever heard that? Well, first Peter heard it. Let's look at the response that the sacrifice of faith in this pouring being poured out as an offering brings. I just realized I think the verse that we read that I read in the very beginning was missing the service and faith part for some reason. Anybody notice that? You were wondering about that? I think I did not paste it correctly. This is the full version here. And you read it for us earlier, so we got it straight away. So here he is being poured out as a drink offering.

Do you know what that is now? Have you got the picture in your mind of how that works? Upon the sacrifice and service of whose faith? And what does it cause him to do? He's excited about those believers that he taught who are now operating in service by faith. And it makes him respond a certain way. He gets excited. He says, I rejoice and I share my joy with you. In fact, in 18, he says it another way. You too, Eric, you rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me. So there's a response here that's taking place.

But I want to back up and Vern is so good at seeing the bigger picture and one of the things that he picked up on when he was working through the book of Philippians that I thought was just so cool. was this family of words that occur in Philippians around the Greek word charis, which is grace, right? It's a beautiful name. We have a friend that has a daughter named Charis, and we really like that name. But the Greek word itself is a base to a lot of other Greek words.

And in the English, you don't see this. You don't see, oh look, there's a part of grace in that word, there's a part of grace in that word, there's a part of grace in that word. And there's all these words all through the book of Philippians that have a piece of charis in them.

And here's just a few of them. Eucharisto, Eucharistia, Cara, Cario. Can we pronounce that one? Santerio and Karizoma. I worked on those. I really did. I sat there with my kids, and you know what I said? It was, which one was it? I can't remember which one it was, but I said something, I was walking up the stairs, and he goes, tortilla? He thought I said tortilla. Tortilla. Tortilla.

I was like, that's not how you say it, and don't confuse me. Anyway, I've made it a point to start working to pronounce this a little bit better. I've got to work on my alphabet pronunciations and such. But at any rate, I think we get the full picture when we get into the Greek, so I'm getting geeky that way.

Look at all these words, though. These are all in the Book of Philippians, and look how they come out. Chapter 1, you know, these are the verses that have these words in it. Grace, thank, thank, joy, grace, rejoice, joy, and right now we're looking at 17 and 18 four times. You know, we see a word with the base of charis in it. I mean, it's right there. Rejoice, joy, rejoice, joy.

We see this four times just in these two verses. It's really neat how many times this is there. So these are ways that you can see themes throughout the book. And one of the themes of Philippians is what? Joy, joy, thankfulness. It's all tied to the same base principle that Paul has in mind here. So here he's talking about Rejoice and joy.

These two words that come out together. And they're used each in both verses 17 and 18. So rejoice is the same root word in each case as is joy. Both are grace given with God as the source. Did you catch that? Both rejoice and joy are based on grace.

But the Greek word for joy is a very special word. Let's look at that one. Sunkaryo means to joy together. That's what's really cool about that one. It's not just your joy, it means let's joy together. We've seen some other terms like that. I'm trying to remember one of the ones that burn.

Oh, truthing in love. When we talk about truthing in love, it's just the way that you say it. It's so different, because there's not joy at the expense of truth, there's not truth at the expense of joy. Truth and love is something that always goes together.

And it's that, this little part of the word in the front. that brings it together, and it communicates the togetherness. And that prefix, actually I'm bringing it here on the bottom, is together with, and Paul uses this prefix a lot, including when he explains our identification with Christ and his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. That sung, sung, you know, right there is attached to a lot of different Greek words. And it's used specifically of us being seated with and being associated with. And Paul uses that, he loves that, together with concept. It's all throughout his writings. And in the Greek you can kind of see that. It's pretty neat. But this in 2.6.

Someone who will read Ephesians 2.6 will kind of see that together seating. And he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. OK, and Roy, what's the word there? It starts with soon.

Yeah, it does. I already told you that. You've got to look it up on your tablet. I'll give you a few minutes. I'm going to give him a hard time and put him on the spot. He's always got the Greek answers, though. We've got to use our resources. We're going to come back to that. And it'll have that soon prefix to it. And we'll ask him to pronounce it for us, because he's better at it. But it's that together with, and Paul's saying, let's do it together.

The result of your sacrifice of faith and me coming to the end and being associated with having taught you and trained you, let's do this together. This is a body thing. I am in Rome, you are in Philippi, and let's rejoice together. You think they're rejoicing at the same time? Maybe. Not likely. I mean, maybe. But the point was that there was an acknowledgment that they were both sharing in the same joy for the same reasons. And whether they did it at the same time or in the same place wasn't the important part.

Paul was just saying, let's make it a point to rejoice about these things. So you can imagine in their intimacy with the Lord in prayer, they would have rejoiced over these things. You know, thank you, Lord, for just how you brought our little body in Philippi to a place where we are walking by faith and you're doing the living. And that's what they got excited about. I don't know if there was a lot of clapping or what they did. I doubt it. That's not their culture. But nonetheless, they rejoiced. And it was intense for them. So let's let it sink in.

Now, I want everybody to pay attention to this really cool animation. Did you find the word, Roy? I did. It's a Suds-u-voy-et-kul, if I'm pronouncing it right. with or to make alive with. I like it, man. We're going to have to start a new greeting. Zoom hello. Zoom joy. That's goofy. Watch this animation. It's cool. Let it sink in. Okay, you want to see it again. So we have these three parts. that we want to get sunk in. God, Paul, and the Philippian saints. And here's what this verse is driving home, I think. We talked about this grace being the base of their joy.

Go back to Philippians 1.7.

You all are partakers of grace with me. So here he's saying, with me, we got grace, we get a lot of it. And guess where we get it from? We're partakers from God. God is the source of grace. How many times have we talked about the source of grace? It's a pretty common theme around here, but that's the presupposition that Paul has in mind here, verse 1, chapter 1-7. We're partakers of grace. We talked about this, and guess what? 217, our verse today, I rejoice and share my joy with you all, Philippian saints, because I partake in grace, and I'm sharing it with you. I'm seeing the grace take place in your service. I'm seeing the grace take place in how you choose to walk by faith, and God's doing the living there.

And guess what? In verse 18, you too. I urge you. He says, I am asking you to not forget that you're a partaker of grace too. That word urge is intense. There's an intensity there. I urge you, rejoice in the same way. So do it just like I'm doing it. Get excited about, you know, what's taking place by a walk of faith in your body. Because I'm excited about it. And then he goes on at the end of 18, says, and share your joy with me.

Like, don't just leave it there. You know, let's share it. So, you know, together with that word. So, here's what it looks like if you back up a little bit. God gives the grace-given joy to the believers, and then guess what the believers do with that grace-given joy? They share it all around. They talk about it, and they rejoice together with it. That's what he's talking about here. It's pretty cool.

Any thoughts before I get into this? Any thoughts here? You know what's interesting, it's not tied to your circumstances. There are circumstances also that are not very... I mean, in the world's view, it's not... I'm in prison tied to a... Yeah, let's paint that picture. Because today it seems like, well, my circumstances have to be good before I can rejoice. I have to be doing well. That's right. And that's not the picture that Paul has. It's a different picture. It's interesting. I think it's a really good point, Roger.

I mean, here you've got, like we say, you know, Paul just has no earthly circumstance to be talking like this. It's like, what are you? You have got to be grumbling and complaining, really. You may not say you are, but we bet you are. Well, Paul was at a place in his walk where grumbling and complaining just didn't fit. Did it fit Paul? The answer is yes. Grumbling and complaining, the ones we talked about last week, those things that you're to never do, Did that fit Paul, the person? Not anymore. Fleshly Paul? Yeah, but Paul wouldn't be a grumbler and a complainer because he would be walking and abiding in Christ. And that was his point, is that there's no place for this in the life of Christ.

Grumbling and arguing, the whole dissension and dialogue of dispute. Oh, and Roy, we talked last week about the word dispute, and just having a dialogue, and you use it in the context of Christians, and is it wrong for us to have that kind of dialogue? I went and looked up the use of that word throughout the entire New Testament, and every single usage of it, you can check me on it, but I'm pretty sure every single usage of it was with a negative connotation. I didn't ever find the word outside of a, it was evil thoughts. It was translated thoughts, dialogue, disputes, but it was always accompanied with an unbelieving way of thinking or an actual dissension with an unbeliever and a believer.

Could you say that truthing in love fits here in this? It absolutely does. So, going back, sorry I jumped ship to last week a little bit, but absolutely, I mean, there's a way that you show sacrificial love to an unbeliever or to a believer who's out of fellowship, but you don't sacrifice the truth with it. Because truth and love are of equal importance in the Lord's mind. So this idea of, let's just love them, doesn't fly scripturally. You love them in truth. And you don't pound them over the head with truth either and forget that there's that sacrificial love, that agape love that accompanies truth. So when we think of love and truth, they're actually tied together. Two sides of the coin.

Do you think this would change your prayer life as you understand this? This here? Yeah. Well, tell me what you're thinking. How might that change your prayer life? We always have a list, you know, that if things on our physical level, if they're not up to par, we all hope that God would change that circumstance.

Paul didn't even go close to that. He totally takes the other opposite. You look rejoicing. There's something about that, you know, I mean, especially just thinking about a teacher, when you see a teacher... not even going to the place where you know they're struggling. But here he is talking about not grumbling and not disputing. I mean, and they must be thinking, I can't believe he can say this. I mean, can he really say this to us? But sure enough, he does.

I mean, they're real people too. And you know, they must have been empathizing with Paul's situation and it must have hurt him. to know that he was suffering. But Paul's point was never about that suffering to a point of feeling sorry for me. He never tried to draw out some kind of a selfish perspective. It was for a purpose. It had a reason.

And he was excited that the gospel was continuing to be shared all throughout the Praetorian Guard. his life that they would focus on Christ just like he was. I guess a real practical illustration of this is, in preparation for Saskatchewan, they got the book of James to try to teach the kids.

And I'm saying, okay. But the opening statement is, the Bible is a book of rules. So let's look at James to see what those rules are. And I'm saying, wait a minute. Where's Christ there? We took our eyes off of him and we looked at the rules that he's given us that are for our benefit. We get the wrong message. It's I doing something versus him living his life. And this is his story when we look at the book of James. You know what I'm saying? It's truthing in love. And so we need to present Christ like Paul did, right? Let me ask you a question, class.

Are there behaviors that the Christian has? I mean, is it all pie in the sky, or are there behaviors that Christians have? Are there things that Christians do that cause a person to say, oh look, that is a work that an ex-believer is doing, and look, it resembles the family that he says he belongs to. I mean, we just talked about, you're called a child of God, and your life, your behavior, the way you are perceived, should resemble the family that you belong to. Is that true? Now, who does the behavior? See, that's what's really cool about it, and that's what the world is missing today altogether, and Christianity is largely missing that today, too. It's much more behavioral modification. It's come to church so we can get your behavior back in line and remind you of the things that you need to be doing so that you look like you should be looking, instead of looking where you're supposed to be looking. Bob. Yeah.

There's the little words of reminding myself that I should look the way I'm supposed to look or whatever, however you just said that. There's these little terms which I think always go back to doing something. I'm reminding myself, I'm remembering, and so on, so on.

And I guess there's an element of doing that without it being a work. But at the same time, Roy and I were talking about this a little bit last night, that when we're born again, we are no longer the same. we have a new nature that is different in character and life. And so if we, along with that, the expression of the life of Christ comes out, without us even thinking about it, and without reckoning a lot of times, it's there, because He is there, and He is doing this living. And so I think that can happen without reckoning, without reminding myself all the time, I should look like this. This is the way I'm supposed to be. I'm not sure. I want to think about that some more.

I do think there comes a point where, in the Christian walk, you're not reminding yourself, but it's because you've been in fellowship, and the intimacy is so frequent. The intimacy is frequent with you, and so you get get on a roll, so to speak, and that roll, you are becoming more familiar with the nature that is positionally true, and your condition begins to settle in to who you are in Christ. Up front, as a new believer, or even as a, not a new believer, but a new to the walk of abiding, there is a lot of reminding yourself. But as you continue to abide and abide, you start to, and I don't know how to say it, but you get on a roll of abiding and it just becomes, you find out that that's where joy is and you become less enamored with trusting yourself. So I do believe it's a mental activity that we do have the mind of Christ, but it is that reckoning upon the truth and it's that continually reminding ourselves to the point where it just lives and breathes in a natural sense. Like our condition and our position are becoming much more aligned with one another on earth.

I don't know if that makes sense, but I'm just having a hard time understanding the idea of not thinking about it, because I know if I stop thinking about it, I start... And the flesh side of it has the opposite reality too. you can just be like, I'm going to go solo at this for a while, and you can go on autopilot that way too.

But, Jim, I think where she was coming from is that you don't want to get in the mode where you're saying, I'm reckoning, I'm reckoning, I've got to reckon, I've only reckoned five times today, I've got to do a little bit more. You want it to be simply trusting and walking with the Lord, and you're not necessarily thinking, well, this is the sixth time I reckon today. If you do that, you're making it a law then. Yeah, I wouldn't want to count it, that's for sure.

But I do go that way, and that is how it is in my mind, because I am having to make a distinct decision about my human viewpoint versus biblical viewpoint, and I'm tempted with the human viewpoint. And so there is a rationale of reckoning that's mental, and it is focused, and it's purposeful, And sometimes it is very, should I say, it's easier than other times. It's easier sometimes. And sometimes you get on the walk of faith where each decision just kind of builds into the next and you're walking and you're abiding. But other times it's very distinct.

It's like I've got to go back in my mind and remind myself of how I beheld the Lord in this way because I'm tempted to not. And so it is a mental, faith-based exercise that you go through, and I think it should be quite purposeful and not accidental.

Go ahead. Well, if Romans 12 presents your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, if we get up in the morning thinking, Lord, this is your body, And your life is holy and acceptable. You've accepted that offering that you made. And you are living today through this body. And then you just rest in that. And when you come up to a situation, like you said, where during the day, is that from who I was or is that who I really am? The reality is, I have been crucified with Christ. That's real. And one thing you just brought to mind is that this is all with a person.

This is intimacy with Christ, and it's dialoguing, and faith is an intimate conversation. So reckoning, and I think reckoning is a great thing, even if you do it six times a day, because it's a personal choice that you're making with a personal Savior to say, I want you to do this, know that you're able and I'm you know who I was doesn't have any place in this situation I want you to do it is I recognize you are doing this but well just resting in that real our position is with Christ in the heavens? I still think that there is a role that we play by faith that brings about rewardable... That's what faith is?

That's right. So, faith requires two... there's two sides of the coin there. So, it requires a mental decision to trust in a person so that he will do the living. And there's the opportunities, and you know what they look like, that we don't choose to see Christ do the living through us. So, at any rate, I think we're on the same page. It's just a matter of not allowing the faith-based life to be a set of rules.

It's about a personal relationship with Christ, and it's an intimacy. And the way that I reckon is going to be different than the way that you do in terms of how the dialogue goes down. And you're going to need to go through beholding the Word of God in a different way than I'm going to need to go through it because I'm more stubborn than you.

Let's wrap up in the last five minutes here, and I appreciate your dialogue, and there's no disagreement, it's just an opportunity to clarify and get closer to how we rejoice together over our faith, because one way or another, we're all at different phases in intimacy with the Lord.

While positionally we are 100% there, we are all encouraging one another and extending grace to one another where we are. And even with the privilege of getting up here and sharing with you guys, I am at a certain place with my walk with the Lord, and I need you, and you need me, and that's the joy of this whole thing.

And Paul says share it. So just to kind of go into the expanded translation here in 17 and 18, even if I am right now continuing to be figuratively speaking poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, In which case both are pointing to Christ, the ultimate and final sacrifice, and are pleasing to God in our present service, I rejoice with God's grace given joy within myself and share my grace given joy mutually and together with you all, in a joy and unity that this world cannot begin to comprehend." That's expanded. That's what's packed in. both in the original languages as well as the larger context of Paul's writing of joy and this kind of thing. Verse 18, I've got five minutes here.

All of you too, every single one, I urge you, since it is of utmost spiritual importance, that's what the urge means, he's saying this is of utmost spiritual importance that you do this. Based upon who you are in Christ, both individually and together, rejoice with God's grace-given joy together within and amongst each other in the same way as you have seen in me, and likewise share your grace-given joy which you have together with and in union with me." Now that's a mouthful, but that's what's packed into this stuff as you read it and as you study it and you start to think about it.

Paul had a really street-level view of how a life of sacrifice and faith, even as it related to the picture of the Old Testament, how it impacted the church at Philippi. And also, for us, how it impacts us. And so here's a few key takeaways for what I saw, as well as what Vern saw in the Book of Philippians here. Paul's ministry was costly, not without hazard and ultimate expense of his life.

We know that that was the case. And he was anticipating that reality, for sure. Though not identical, yours will be too. I think that's pretty important. Guess what? Suffering is part of the Christian life. And it has a purpose, and it's part of what God has allowed us to experience in order for us to shine as lights in a dark world. We talked about that last week.

For you to be seen as blameless and above reproach as you're trusting Christ to do the living through you, what needs to happen in your life? pressures, circumstances, relationships, you know, the people that you just wish you didn't have to talk to. That's part of where God wants you, right there in the world, in a crooked and perverse generation. Even though they use twisted speech, He wants you there being blameless, above reproach. And who does the blameless and above reproach? Who makes it so that we can be seen as a child of God and a light in a dark world?

It's all about faith in Christ and Him doing the work. but in the same way that Paul ultimately would have to give his life for his faith, I mean, you too will be put in circumstances of suffering where your faith will be put to, not to the test, but to the opportunity for Christ to shine.

You know, that's where, tests of faith, forget that word. It's not a test. Test means you gotta come out victorious, and it sounds like it's our test, and if we pass, good, check. If we don't pass, oh, back to the drawing board, you know, didn't work that out, gotta go find me a new church or something. Test of faith, that's not what it's about. It's opportunities to trust. Throw that word out, test of faith, and think, opportunities to see Christ do something through me that I can't do. On my own at all and it's not possible and it's been prepared beforehand that I walk right in it And there's a life of faith in that rest.

That's what's really cool We have no physical altar here at Holly Hills because the presenting of ourselves is directly to God We are priests as well. And how do we present ourselves? By faith in Him who does the living beholding him Rejoicing in the midst of real life is grace given by God and is meant to be shared.

So even when you're in a circumstance like Paul, whenever you find yourself chained to a pictorian guard, you can still share your joy with other believers. It's possible. And it looks just exactly like the life of Christ because that's where Paul was. He was surrounded and walking with Christ and he was focused on Christ.

So it's not about behavior, it's not about rules, it's about trusting him and that's what follows. Does that make sense? Final thoughts? Alright, let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for the truth that this isn't an exercise, you're not putting us through tests, you're a loving, gracious, joy-giving Father that wants to walk alongside us and do the living for us. Lord, our position is that You have already done this. You have already made us to be children of God and we're seated, co-seated alongside You together with in the heavenlies. And Lord, we struggle sometimes to reckon on the truth of who we already are.

I just pray that we might find ourselves in our own unique ways, how we all go through the process mentally of doing this, but finding ourselves serving you as priests by bringing faith, faith that you would do the living through us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.