7,12,16 & 27, 2:22, 4:3 & 4:15 Topic #4 Paul & the Gospel #2

All right, so we're going to use the handout again today, which is not going to be a big deal. There's not a whole lot going on. I don't have any fancy PowerPoint transitions that you're going to miss right here. So it'll be okay. Thanks for looking into that, Roy. Oh, no worries. It's just the way it works sometimes. You always got to have a backup plan. That's why these printouts are handy.

So we're continuing on with the second part of the gospel. We started last week and we said that we wanted to break down the way that Paul thought of the gospel in the book of Philippians and build that theme or that topic as it's related to Paul's understanding of Philippians. And we looked at the first four verses last week and we said there are four additional verses that use the word Ewangelion, that gospel, the good news word that we see repeated there in Philippians eight times. So we looked at the first four verses last week and we're going to look at the last four verses this week and I'll use it to kind of jump into some additional thoughts and then close with some personal experience and some things that has come to our family in terms of the gospel and the way that we've tried to equip ourselves and sharing that message and maybe can offer some thoughts there as well kind of as a closing. So what we'll do is we'll start today and just look at, you've got the the gospel theme in Philippians, I think it's slide 3 on your handout. You can see all of the different quotes or the little pull quotes that we use to represent each verse. So last week you looked at participation in the gospel, defense and confirmation, progress of and defense of.

And we built a case for understanding better Paul's thinking around the gospel, also the body, and how there was a participation with other believers. It was not a solo act. It wasn't a missionary out on a crusade by themselves, but there was a close and very neat, tight unity that Paul shared with the body of believers in Philippi. And we mentioned how in Philippians this is a group of believers that's quite mature. And we thought to ourselves, how can we, as the body of Holly Hills, think about ourselves being in the Philippians' shoes and having that privilege of participation with others in the gospel.

And we thought of different missionaries that we support and even those that are present, Ruth. Roy, being part of the group in Canada now and just extending, any kind of effort that's related to a focus on the Gospel, and how do we participate in that? How do we stand firm? And how do we pray on behalf of them? And how does Paul, or the missionary that's maybe removed from the setting of the body, how do they think of the support team behind them? We talked about how Paul's prayers and faithfulness and the joy that came from knowing that he had that group of believers standing beside him, even though he was many, many miles away. So we looked at the participation.

We also looked that Paul was appointed to defend the gospel. He had that unique privilege and assignment from Christ himself to defend the gospel and take it to those that didn't have the law, meaning the Gentiles, and we saw that We also looked at the fact that the progress of the gospel was something that began, and we'll look at that beginning actually today. Chapter 4 verse 15 talks about the beginning of the gospel, as Paul shared in Macedonia, and we'll look at that a little bit. But it's interesting that the gospel doesn't happen once and it's over. It wasn't an event.

It's a continuing progressive message that gets passed on, and we'll see some of that progress that's related to Timothy today as well. So we had that progress, and in light of progress, there was the hope that was connected to that. The hope of the fact that the gospel will continue on, and we looked at that verse that's often used as a sanctification verse, but was used to give hope and courage to the believers in Philippi, that he who began a good work would continue that work, that work of the gospel message, and their participation on it, or with it, until the day of Christ Jesus. And so we had that progress, that hope, that understanding that this is not a done deal. This is something that will continue on and continues on even to today, and we looked at that.

So to jump into 127 today, worthy of the gospel, we'll be focusing on those last four verses. And so I've given a few of the verses I felt like would help us understand the context of each of these, and then I'm going to try to build off of this one.

I think chapter 1, verse 27, is a pretty unique fully packed verse with relation to the gospel. In this particular verse it's mentioned twice, at the beginning, only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, and at the end, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. It's interesting the connection of the body and Paul and their mindset, their freneo, And even their citizenship and the gospel, a lot of our themes are wrapped up in this verse. And it goes on in verse 28, as a result of these things, in no way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you and that too from God. And so we have that context of chapter 1 verse 27. And looking at the slide with the title, Conduct Yourselves, I thought that this was an interesting way of thinking about this verse.

You know, here we've got some imperatives. We've got some, you know, this is how you are to behave, and this is how you are to act, and this is how you are to be. These are the kinds of things that people should see from you as a result of who you are, and we're going to build on that. And Roger mentioned this word conduct, and it's heavenly citizenship, I believe, the theme. And I mentioned that in this one, chapter 127, there's these, there's almost all the main topics that we talked about, heavenly citizenship, the gospel, freneo, the mindedness.

But you've got this conduct yourselves, and it's that politic, you know, the politi, politi me, I can't pronounce the Greek word, but it's where we get our English word politics from, right? But the ideas are to be a citizen of a state, to live as a good citizen, uh oh, we got good there, and conduct, and you know, to conduct yourself according to the laws or the customs of a state. And so the conduct of a citizen, and this would have been packed into the mind of the Philippians and definitely into the mind of Paul in Rome as he thought about what's worthy of a Roman? What's worthy of being under Roman rule? those that are under the rule of Rome behave themselves. And so Paul would have been speaking to something that was very much top of mind for them as being part of a state, being part of this Roman ruling citizenship that was so prevalent throughout everywhere that they turned.

And so here he's using something that's common, and we talked about that heavenly citizenship, but he's using it in such a way that he connects it to the gospel. And we want to kind of think through that a little bit. And just as a final thought to that, conduct yourselves, it generally means to live or to order your life in conduct with a certain rule. So what's the rule? What's going on here? And I ask the question, and it's open for answer here, but how do we understand this imperative to adjust our conduct? What rule do we order our life according to? What's going on here?

I could see this verse being used as kind of a proof text for really maybe trying to rein people into a lifestyle of presenting the gospel, a regular accountability to doing such a thing. I mean, you've got some ideas that could, oh, you're not conducting yourself in a way that you can share the gospel. There's no testimony here. So there's rules packed in. How do the imperatives relate to the identification that we've been looking through? And what are some thoughts with regards to this?

Well, first you want to look at the nature of the gospel and kind of say, what's the nature of the gospel? It's a gracious gospel. So your conduct is to be in line with that. So that kind of strikes me. We have a gracious gospel focused on our Savior and what He's done. And none of the things that we do, our conduct as a heavenly citizen should be in line with that.

That's interesting. Let's flip to the next slide and just continue that thought. I think that's a good transition into the next slide. But this idea of worthy. Conduct yourself in a manner that's worthy of the gospel. So it's not just conduct yourself and be a really great evangelist. It doesn't stop there. It says the type of evangelist or the type of one who conducts themselves does so in a way that is worthy of the gospel. And so what does that mean? What's this worthy concept?

And yeah, go ahead. Looking back at verse 11, and the conduct that's talked about here is a result of something. And 11 is, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Which is the source. That's right. There is a source here, that's right. And in some ways, if you pulled it out of the context of that previous verse, you might lose sight of the source here.

In fact, the book of Philippians has a lot It doesn't have as many imperatives as others. I mean, we looked at many imperatives. Do, do, do, do, do. You know, all over the place in 1st John, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John. We saw that, but we saw that of course you do. John's a very black and white minded person. Paul is much more of a sourced imperative person, meaning he explains the source and then you have the imperative related to that. And so yes, there is a conduct, and it comes out of the source of who you are. We're going to see that in several other examples, but that's a good catch.

And in thinking about the full context here, it's not just a conduct, but it's a conduct that's worthy of the gospel. So this idea of worthy, and I've got this on the top of that slide, worthy of the gospel, it says it's pertaining to having a relatively high degree of comparable merit or worth. And Roger, you mentioned that it's a gracious gospel. Well, here it's saying that your conduct should be in the same weight as the message of this gospel. Meaning, if you were to take it out and put it on a weigh scale, it would weigh justly. It would be comparable in terms of the way that it's communicated.

Well, if you think about the gospel message, we looked at that a little bit last week. If you think about it, it's a complete It can be wrapped up in the idea of sacrificial love, right? And that's really the essence of grace is this sacrificial love and that's the essence of our message and that's the essence of Christianity. It's the essence of New Testament, the grace that we talk about regularly here.

This is a gospel not of the kingdom, but a gospel of substitution, and your conduct should be in comparable weight to this kind of sacrificial message that's being communicated through the death, burial, and resurrection. And so I put there at the bottom of that slide, I say, as believers, our conduct should have a comparable worth to the gospel that we believe.

Is this a gospel of judgment and condemnation? So would that kind of conduct be worthy of such a gospel? So I relate it to potentially, we've used the term Bible thumper. You know, beat somebody over the head with the Bible. You know, and when we're going into this mindset of defending the faith and sometimes, you know, it's difficult because you just hear someone slaughter what you believe and you're trying to share the gospel in light of the situation. It's difficult to conduct yourself in a manner that's worthy of that gospel.

It remains sacrificial. It remains gracious in its mindset. It's not one of those things that you slam somebody down on the ground and twist their arm and get them believing. That's not the kind of conduct that Paul had in mind as it was in the same way or in comparable value to the sacrificial message.

And so that brings up some questions. How does one who wants to carry out, and we know that the source is God, how does one that wants to allow Christ to carry out a conduct that's worthy of the gospel in our lives, how does that look? You know, what does that look like? And I think we've got some good clues about that as we move forward. I did ask the question, I think it's related to what we've been talking about. Does this mean that we need some kind of gospel-sharing accountability plan so that we can obtain comparable value?

You know, I've been in situations where I wanted very much to share the hope that I had, you know, 1 Peter 3.15. I wanted to be one who could communicate the gospel message in such a way that people understood it.

And I found different groups that were active in that. And without mentioning any particular group's name, this was back in my university days, I got involved with a guy who was very, very enthusiastic about it. But he had a very rigorous schedule for me, and I had to perform a certain amount of sharing on a regular basis, and I had to commit to a certain amount of discipleship alongside that gospel training. So it was a matter of, you know, there are, and it wasn't that there was a set number of dorm room doors that I had to knock on, but there was a set number of hours that I had to spend doing it. So I could go to one, but as long as I spent the right amount of hours, you know, being a part of what was a very aggressive gospel conduct. It became much like an accountability program where I was having to perform in such a way that I brought about results for the kingdom, and that's the way that they referred to it at that point. You probably have been involved in different evangelistic efforts like this. Interestingly though, Paul had something to say about these evangelistic efforts, didn't he?

That even though there's wrong motive, He still rejoiced the fact that Christ was being shared. So, looking back, I don't have a frustration with the fact that we were sharing the gospel. I have a frustration with the fact that it wasn't in line with the life of Christ and how we see the imperative to be conducting ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel. I think it was very law-centered and less grace-centered. And I think that Paul is very grace-centered with his communication about the gospel here. So I just mentioned that. We don't have that going on here.

It's a different kind of mindset and it's a freeing, it's a liberty of sharing a message and so that's good. It doesn't mean that we can't sharpen our mind around it and gain greater unity together as a body surrounding the message and encourage one another further. There's definitely room to grow in the Lord with it.

But it doesn't mean that we're sitting around holding accountability classes and measuring how often or how regular a person is sharing the gospel. And there's a lot of just, I guess, you know, when people start talking about sharing the gospel, you know, I remember sitting in a chair thinking, well, I just haven't done that very much. And am I being, you know, what God wants me to be? And, you know, I don't have as many notches as that guy has on his belt. So what does that mean to me? I need to get out there and get going and really push ahead. I don't believe that that's what's going on with Paul here in the Philippians.

It was a result of the fact that they were standing firm and of one mind surrounding the gospel truth. We're going to look at that more. But it was a result of their focus in the Word that this message and this ability to conduct themselves when the time allowed for them to do it It came out naturally. Why? Because they had an intimacy with the Savior who is the essence of the gospel. And so it's not about memorizing a certain way of saying something. It's about understanding the story that you came to faith in and being able to share that same story in a way that's biblical.

I think that's where we get down to it. So we've got this law. I've thrown something here that's been thrown at me in this past month, and I've talked to Vern a little bit about this, and I'm still working through how to phrase it, but we've got conduct, and it's just worthy of the gospel, and it's walking, and walking worthy. And if you look at that word worthy throughout other instances of Paul, it's always connected to walking, and conducting, and doing things. And we've talked about good deeds and good works, even in the book of Philippians. What about this law of Christ? Is this the law that we're supposed to conduct ourselves according to? Is this the heavenly citizenship?

Because it says in 1 Corinthians 9.21, to those who are without law, as without law though not being without the law of God, but under the law of Christ, and the law of God being the law of Moses, and then being compared to the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law.

What does win mean? Does that have in context a gospel communication and someone that is coming to faith? Yeah, I think very much so. I think it's talking to those that are Gentiles, that are without the law, the law of Moses, and he's just saying that he is under the law of Christ so that I might win those who are without the law, so I might win the Gentiles, which he was appointed in the defense of, right?

And then in Galatians 6, it says, bear one another's burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. And I was told recently that this is the law of believers, for the New Testament. It's not the Old Testament mosaic law, but it's the law of Christ. And all the laws that Christ renewed, those are the laws that we now have.

And it's a continuation of what Vern's been talking about in the Long Grace series, and it's a confusion of the text itself. But I mention here in these particular verses, and we've been talking about heavenly citizenship, we've been talking about the message that we carry, and I'm going to talk about ambassadorship in a moment, but it really drives home a lot of the citizenship concept.

I think the gospel message is a part of our citizenship. It's the message that we have the privilege of being able to share. So, you know, it's neat that we've talked about heavenly citizenship and we've talked about the gospel. We're going to talk about our ministry of reconciliation and ambassadorship in a moment.

But what's this conduct, this law, that as citizens are we under the law of Christ? And we mentioned here, and this is how Vern helped me understand it, that translators have chosen not to distinguish between the words law and principle in these instances. And so Vern's been very specific about using the word principle, the way things are, the way something fundamentally works, and that that is a better use of the term here.

So the principles of Christ. Now if you're in Christ, and you're walking, you're a walking believer, you're in Christ, placed positionally in Him, and you're in fellowship conditionally, will you be conducting yourselves according to the principles of Christ? Of course you will, because He is the one that's doing it. So is it your conduct, or is it Christ's conduct through you?

Interestingly, this principle of Christ, or this law of Christ, in the next verse, we thought it might be best to summarize the way that you see this principle of Christ as it pertains to an overriding theme. of how a person sees themselves in relation to the commandments or the imperatives or the laws of the New Testament is being fulfilled in 1 John 4, 21. We talked about this last season.

In this commandment we have from him that one who loves God should love his brother also. So sharing the gospel is the ultimate expression of love to the unbeliever. We talk about fulfilling the law of Christ by bearing another's burdens. Well, what is the burden of an unbeliever? And remember, we're not talking about law of Christ in the same sense that we use the word law in the Old Testament. We're talking about principles, the way fundamentally things work in terms of being in Christ. Well, the unbeliever is under sin, right? That's right. He's under sin. So what is his fundamental principles? And what does he need more than anything? He needs the message of reconciliation, right?

And understanding of substitution. That there's been a sin payment that has been made on his behalf. And so it's interesting that Paul relates this law of Christ and this heavenly citizenship and this conduct worthy of a citizen and this law of Christ all to the love of others. And ultimately being fulfilled through Christ himself. Do you remember in 1 John it says this is his commandment that we should believe on the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another as he gave us commandment. Both in the gospel of John and in the epistle here of the first John, apparently the apostle that gospel. It's something that I understand. Is this correct, Jim?

Is this a summation of Christ's law, maybe, in one verse? I'm not saying that it's like the Old Testament law. I'm just saying this is the way God works. That's what this says. I think that that would be a way of referring to it. I've been working to use the word law of Christ, or Christ's law, and trying to use the word principle, because I think that's the proper way of thinking about it. So, in order to fulfill the principle of Christ, it is Christ's love, through you loving others, that fulfills that.

But you haven't mentioned the belief on Him when He has said... Well, that's for an unbeliever. Right. Well, isn't it for us too? To believe on Him? Yes. Well, yeah, it is, but at the moment that you believe, you're placed in Christ, and from that point forward, it's His love being expressed through you.

Right, but it's our belief in Him that He's asking us to do, isn't it? Say that one more time. Isn't it that Christ is asking us, that's the work of God, that we may believe in Him whom He has sent? That's in the Gospel, and here it says, believe on the name of his son, which is everything that he is. You know, and we learn from the word, right, about him. And we believe that.

Well, it's interesting that in both situations, or in both, you mentioned that passage there, and then in 1 John 4, 21, the commandment that's being mentioned in a New Testament context is related to the gospel itself, and the love that comes out of having understood that gospel.

And so whether you're believing as an unbeliever, you're believing in the love that Christ has for you to the point that he died on the cross, was buried, and rose again, or you are believing as a believer, and so allowing Christ's love to be expressed through you, It is a gospel-centered command. And you're just looking at it from two different perspectives, right? From an unbelieving perspective, you have no ability to love another person. So you can't fulfill the principle of Christ, because you don't have Christ as your substitute. But on the flip side of that, looking back now as a believer, that is the command, that we love one another, thereby fulfilling the love of Christ. We bear another's burden, as we said in Galatians 6.

So without trying to get into a situation where you have all these lists of things that you do to fulfill the principles of Christ, it is literally Christ doing the living through you that fulfills that, and love is the expression of it. And I guess what I was trying to do rather than get into, and I knew I would do this to myself, I got myself into a little bit of a soapbox in a rabbit hole, whatever, but it's okay because it's a good thing. We've got all these impairments. Conduct yourself and do this and preach the gospel. And so you could be sitting there saying, well, I'm under the law of Christ and I've got to preach Christ and I've got to do it in such a way that I can feel fulfilled in my role as an ambassador. So what I wanted to do is relate the fact that this principle of Christ had to do with love itself, and not a list of things that you do, and how often you do them, and how regularly you're engaged in sharing a clear message of the gospel. It had to do with Christ doing the living through you, and that in that context, the love of others would reign.

I mean, that's the principle that's seen there. I think the commandment to believe is a component of that, but it's a preceding thing, and there is no commandment for a believer to love one another, or an unbeliever to love one another, because they don't have love. They must believe in order to have that love of Christ.

So here we go, move on to the last part of Philippians 1.27.

Does that make sense? Am I leaving anybody kind of like, ugh, this is confusing. I think that what Vern is doing in the Law and Grace series is something that hasn't been done quite as well yet for me. I don't know that it's been taught this clearly and this exhaustively ever before in such a way that you can really see the differences and the distinctions made in scripture. We talk about rightly dividing the word and dispensationalism has given us a lot as a body. But I don't think it's rightly divided in such a way that we can start to see this law and grace in such a clear way.

And so what we're going through as teachers and what Vern is leading us through as students of the Word is something that we're grappling with the best way to communicate some of these terms. And I'm excited about it because we're getting sharper in our thinking. And how does that pertain to the gospel? I wanted to try to bring that to bear on what we're learning here, because I'm learning those things.

And so if we're working through some of this terminology for a first time, it's a good thing, because I think we're charting a little bit of territory with a body that I don't know that it's been charted quite this way before. Is that fair to say? Have you guys kind of sensed some of that unique opportunity too? I mean, what a privilege it is to be going through some of these things. humbling. I mean, you just go back and you've got all this baggage, and you're like, hey, turns out I packed a lot of clothes in this suitcase, and I don't think they fit anymore. I don't know if I should be thinking this way. And it's been great to start to think these things through.

I've been interested in the term that Vern used very much over this last several months, and that is that grace as a principle of living may require things of you that the law never dreamed of. And I think that's what this conduct has in mind here. It's not a matter of carrying out specific things and laws in order to gain righteousness. Righteousness has been granted. It's already been given. It's 100 percent sealed. The deal's sealed. Now it's a matter of motivation for what you've been given.

And grace may require a conduct that's worthy of the gospel that the law could never have identified with how to do. So that you might love another, bear that person's burdens and therefore carry out the principles of Christ because Christ is doing the living through you. That's the way I'm starting to try to understand some of these imperatives because there's many of them in the New Testament and for someone that's coming from maybe a Calvinistic or even, you know, kind of a hybrid Calvinistic dispensational background, like many of my friends and maybe some of yours, there's this tendency to want to carry the nature of the law in the Old Testament into the New, and the Gospel is one of those things that you better get out there and get going.

You know what I mean? And there's a lot of guilt placed on you, and you feel guilty when the Lord doesn't want you to feel guilty. That's right. He wants you to share a life, not a set of rules. That's why it's so critical to understand the gracious nature of what Christ has done for us. That's right. And he wants us to, as it says, live in a manner worthy of that.

And that's not a burden. It's not a burden. It wouldn't be a burden if you're sharing about your wife and your family. You say, hey, I got this great family and I got a wife and you do that without even, you know, and that's the way, you know, our Savior is the same way. We do that without being burdened, you know, and now I have to share it. It's just totally different.

I'm going to talk a little bit, hopefully at the end of this, about ambassadorship and the nature of it. And I think that will help tie in the fact that there's not this guilt related to ambassadorship. There's no intended guilt in that role. The Ministry of Reconciliation doesn't carry with it a set of condemnation that comes from us.

It's a message that's not our message. It's absolutely not ours. It's Christ's message. So we have a privilege, but it's not something that if someone likes it, it's not a personal attack on us. It's a personal attack on the Savior. I mean, at the end of the day, it's not our message, it's His. Now, we're in Christ, and ultimately we have ownership now in the fact that we belong to Him, but still, it's sourced in Christ Himself. So, standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. I like this.

This is a body's perspective of the gospel, and it's interesting that what precedes striving together? Uh-oh, oneness. I've got this Eastern concept that's been stolen and made into, you know, one with all the... Well, here we are saying one. That as a body we stand firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. So it's the faith of the gospel. This is a set body of truth here. But it's an athletic metaphor. And as a team, this is what Paul has in mind here, as a team, where we are keeping fit together by studying the Word of God, and thereby standing firm together, and striving together, and our mind is being developed together.

And that's how we're able to, as a result, strive together for the faith of the gospel. You can't have a body that strives together without having a body that lives together and works through the doctrine of the scripture together. When we don't have an opportunity to lay things out and sharpen ourselves, ask questions, get them refined, even if it takes years, if we don't have that opportunity to do that, the Gospel itself, the progress in this body of the Gospel going out will be greatly impaired. How important is it to have one mind on a matter? It relates to even the ability to strive together for the Gospel.

So, you know, oftentimes what we'll do is we'll package the gospel efforts into the missions committee, you know, and they'll kind of do their thing. And we don't see, you know, they'll kind of study that particular area and then go off and do it. And it's great to have a committee. Or I'm not, I don't know, I'm not making a judgment on a committee. If you want to call it a committee, whatever. It's not necessarily disconnected from the rest of the body, this mindset related to the gospel. It's a body thing, not a committee thing. Well, that's one reason why there's been a conscious attempt to make the missionaries we do have known by the body. They're not like Joe Blow, which we knew 20 years ago. It's people that we know and have some interaction with. And that really makes a tremendous difference, You know the person and you know where they're coming from and that encourages you. Just like Paul, he knew the Philippians and they knew him. If there's a disconnect there, it seems like it just doesn't work. A name on a piece of paper that's over in some place, it's very hard to truly get involved and strive to get with that person because you don't know them.

I asked the question, how do we ensure that we, our church bodies, strive together for the faith of the gospel? If the gospel is a conduct worthy, or I'm sorry, if the Christian's life is supposed to be a conduct worthy of the gospel, meaning weighted out at the same, gracious life, gracious gospel, all being How then do we, in that mindset, strive together for the faith of the gospel?

How is that related? It's interesting. If you wanted to really kind of boil it down, at least in my mind, I'm working with this idea. You help the body understand identification and the rest takes care of itself. Because it's Christ doing the living and thereby there is a unique oneness that cannot be recreated in any other sense. So you teach the Word of God and specifically you teach the principles of identification in a body. And as a result, you stand firm in one spirit. Why? Because you're sourcing in Christ. We're all in the same source. You're in one spirit. Why?

Well, we have the same spirit and we understand the ministry of the spirit in our lives. We understand we're all in different places and there's grace extended to the fellow believer in that situation. What about striving together? Well, we know striving is a matter of us trudging through this muddy, unbelieving world, trying to share a gospel message.

It's a life and a liberty that comes from an understanding of identification. So, as I look at these things, I think, man, there's so many different kinds of little committees and classes and things that we could do to try to better equip our body for this kind of thing.

And I think, you know, it's all being done in the message of Christ himself in terms of death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. Yeah. In the previous verse, it says, for they all take their own interests, Do you think that if we not sought our own interests, and then the rest of the verse, not those of Christ Jesus, so being in one mind, if we all seek the interests of, just focus ourselves on Christ, then we'll all be in one mind. What are you trying to say, Tony?

I do, I think it's good to see the context there. In fact, I was reading just through the book of Philippians this morning, and I was like, this is... We should sit down as the final, and just read through it all. I'll talk to Bob about doing that. Yeah, let's just read through it, and then it'll all kind of come to clarity, and in context it's so good.

Well, I think along the same thing that Debbie was saying, part of that striving is striving against what your mind initially thinks it is, because these are spiritual truths that he's going through that we don't know unless he tells us. So, you know, you're dependent on the spirit, there's a time factor involved there, and there's a striving. Yeah, I think that's right.

You're bringing out identification stuff, right? our identity. Identification is kind of a catch term, but we kind of drill it down to our identity or our ID. Can you pull out your ID? This is who I am. I promise this is me. I was just thinking that'd be cool if we all had the same ID.

That's right, and we do. And I've been thinking about that, but it's interesting, our identification, our driver's license or whatever, passport, has been issued to us by a state, right? Well, we have an identity that's been issued to us by the heavenly state, and we have a citizenship there, and we have a message that we're sharing as ambassadors from there. And so, this heavenly citizenship, understanding that, which has to do with identification, helps determine all this conduct and this behavior.

I mean, Paul's just saying, this is where you're from, this is who you are, this is how you behave, and this is what you say. I mean, because this is who you are, and this is where you've come, and this is how you behave, and this is what you say. I mean, it all connects. It's not like, oh man, I've got to start doing something I don't feel comfortable with.

Well, no, because once you understand your heavenly citizenship, You understand, I conduct myself as a heavenly citizen because Christ does the living through me. That's where I'm sourced. And, when I have an opportunity to share the message of substitution that was made known to me so that I could be a heavenly citizen, I share it in a gracious way just as I received it. Or maybe didn't receive it, but would have liked to have received it. Sometimes we got thumped over the head with it. But actually that message would be helpful to some people that, hey, I started down this path and, you know, and you don't have to go down that path of legalism. It's true. Let's look at verse 22. He says, For I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare, for they all seek their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.

But you know of his proven worth that he served, this is Timothy, served with me in the furtherance of the gospel like a child serving his father. Interestingly, the privilege of having the gospel as a message to share creates relationships with people that believe. Not only heavenly relationships, but in this case Paul related it to a father and a child. And this has to do with that progress of the gospel. And I'm sure that you, you know, if you haven't had that opportunity, it's really interesting to see someone come to know the Lord through a message that you were given the privilege to share and the relationship that you have there. And Paul was very confident in having, in other words, after he had spent time with Timothy, he was confident that that person could now continue to share that message.

And so it doesn't have an end in and of itself until the day of Christ Jesus. We know that from Philippians 1, 6, I believe. So it's really neat to look at the relationship that the gospel produces not only to the unbeliever who becomes a believer to Christ.

So now there's an adoption process, but there's also a kindred spirit that happens between a father and a son kind of relationship with one who shares and one who believes. And it's a special thing the Lord gives us as an opportunity to communicate, to grow and share in the relationship with a brand new baby believer and to see them growing up and then moving on and sharing the gospel in their own way. Like a child serving his father, there's this furtherance of the gospel. Interesting that the progress of the gospel is related to family.

Not this like war. Even though there is a war and there's a battle and there's a defense and apologetic and there is that, Paul brings this family connection between himself and Timothy. And then also how Timothy's relationship to them would be one of kindred spirit and genuine. Because he's concerned about them.

This is the principle of Christ. And then we've got that furtherance, we talked about furtherance of the gospel, and then 4.3 here, again, he's talking about his companions, the two women there, and I struggle to pronounce their name correctly. Verse 2, urge Eurya and Synecdoche, Synecdoche, It's tough to live in harmony in the Lord. Indeed, true companion, I ask you also to help these women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel. So now there's a father-son relationship and there's a sharing in the struggle of others that are sharing the gospel.

So here's a question. What if you're not the one who waters the seed that grows? What if you share in the struggle by planting the seed. What if you share in the struggle by watering the seed? And what I mean to say is that we think about the gospel as, alright, 30 minutes, it's going to be understood, and that person's going to either believe or not believe, and it's over, right? But you think about all the ways that believers shared in the struggle of sharing the gospel in your life. Maybe it was your mom for a while. Maybe it was your dad. Maybe it was your uncle or your aunt or a believer at a church. However, the process of the gospel eventually became clear.

There was a struggle as a body that was being being shared for the cause of the gospel. And its purpose was to introduce people to the loving and gracious Savior. And it's neat because it causes rejoicing to know that Paul has this gospel participation with the body of the Philippians. And, you know, how do we struggle alongside one another in the cause of the gospel? He talks about them as being fellow workers together with him. You know, do we think of ourselves as fellow workers to one another and even to the quote-unquote missionaries that we, you know, we support? And that's how Paul thought of it.

Any final thoughts on that? I kind of rushed through the last couple there just because I wanted to have a few minutes to talk about some of the kind of practical things that the Lord's kind of introduced us to as a family. But any kind of final thoughts as we wrap up those eight verses, this is a gospel book. I mean, I guess every book is a gospel book, but this is what gospel ministry looks like.

This is context, this is together, striving, struggling, defending, I mean, these are the things that are growing here. Verse 15, we didn't look at too greatly there, but he talks about preaching. So striving, preaching, struggling. I mean, these are athletic metaphors. These are heavenly citizenship metaphors. There's a lot going on here with relationship to the gospel.

And I think it's really interesting that we brought that back down to You keep your mind beholding Christ and His Word, encouraging one another in the intimacy of Christ, and these things, the striving and the struggling and the preaching, these things come out of one who is walking in a state of belief.

Do you know what I mean by that? From first to last by faith? You believed at the beginning of the Gospel, and you keep on believing. You don't do, you don't believe and then do. You believe and then you keep on believing. It's a life of faith. And as we keep solidifying where our faith is grounded in our position as believers, these are the kinds of things that will come out of us.

No doubt about it. It's the way that Paul intended us to understand it. And I think that that's clear. Any final thoughts about Philippians in the gospel? I scratched the surface. I mean, not even. And I didn't even go into a lot of the New Testament that would help further identify that. I did mention this one passage.

I wanted to mention to you 2 Corinthians 5.17-20.

Syncretians 5.17 is often used by ourselves to ground us in an understanding of identification. Let's start with that. I'll just kind of wrap up there.

It says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. That is a new creation. That is 100% what we're saying. You've died. You've been resurrected. You now have new life. Paul is very, very clearly, before he says anything else, making sure. Therefore, as a result, we have this truth that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature because of these things. The old has passed away, new things have come.

Now, all these things are from God, verse 18, who reconciled us to himself. through Christ Jesus or through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation because you've been made new and you've been reconciled now you have a ministry of that same reconciliation that's gospel stuff right there ministry of reconciliation namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against him, and he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. He's given it to us.

Therefore, and here's that term I've been using, therefore we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God were making an appeal through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. So we have this ministry of reconciliation. We have this role of ambassador. Well, that makes sense, of course. We're new creatures. We're heavenly citizens. We speak because Christ has given us that reconciliation and we speak on behalf of it. And it's not like we're speaking from an observing standpoint. We're speaking from an experiential standpoint. We were reconciled.

And so being an ambassador and having that opportunity to share a message that's not your own, but we implore others on behalf of Christ to be reconciled. And I'm not saying it's passive, because you did experience the reconciliation yourself, so you have a testimony, but notice that we're not being implored to share the testimony. We're being implored to share the message of reconciliation, the word, is what he says, the word of reconciliation.

Just something I thought I would throw out there as kind of a final thought. We spent about five years working through this ambassadorship process and trying to understand how to share with young children, how to share with people of different cultures and worldviews. And we took a lot of time to study in the scripture and think about how to address worldview evangelism is the way that we refer to it. And I see it much more as less removed from the body, but more of an equipping of the body to say, okay, you've got all these different worldviews that you come into contact with on a regular basis, regularly.

And one of the things that I did at Good Seed was to better help people understand how to traverse through some of this worldview frustration that people have is they come into smack contact with something that just doesn't make sense to them anymore.

They don't get it. It's very confusing. It's gotten to a place where the gospel itself is being communicated in a song and it's an emotional thing or it's a very simple message that's written down on a napkin and they can't bring to bear all that they can to make sense of it. So what are some of the different tools that are available?

And that's what we did at Good Seed is talk about some tools, not the only tools, but some tools that could be helpful in working through worldview evangelism and thinking about where a person is presently. and how to communicate it so that it's clear, not so that they believe it, because that's not our job.

But how do we make it clear to someone that has an Eastern mindset, that thinks everything is one? And how do we make it clear to a Jew? And how do we make it clear to a child? And how do we make it clear to this mixture of belief that people have, especially in this area of the world? We've got the syncretism of all different kinds of beliefs.

It's like the pizza religion. You just take a little bit of everything and put it together and you make your own pizza. And that's what you believe. How do you deal with that kind of thing? And how do you get to that message and make it clear so that they have an opportunity to believe it?

So I just wanted to extend that to you guys and let you know that if any of you are interested in just understanding some of what we've done and some of the tools that we've used, I know that they're being used in the church now. The lamb is one of them. A few of the other books that I've used, and each of these, you don't need these books to lead someone to the Lord, and I'm not saying that, but I have seen the Lord use each of these tools, each of them, in a very unique way with different worldviews. As an ambassador, I've had the privilege of seeing it take place.

By this name is a walk through from creation to cross, and we've had a box in the office and we've passed them out, but it goes through chronologically from creation to cross, for the Eastern mindset, someone that's mixed up. It's got a lot of different worldviews. So that was intended for the Eastern mindset?

Yes. Okay. Yeah. It actually was. It's a reincarnation type thing. Yeah. Okay. It'll introduce you to all those kinds of terms that come from Buddhism, Hinduism, and yeah, we actually use the ancient Egyptian religion, which was very, it has its origin in a lot of these other common Eastern mystical themes. Okay.

But we use the, you know, the Egyptian religion was a prevalent way of thinking all throughout the time of Abraham. So it introduces all those themes and it shows how Israel was set up to distinguish itself from Egypt and all the other world religions of the time.

So this is very helpful in that way. All the Prophets is what I used with Hassan to introduce him to one tool that he might be able to use. I'm not sure that he's using it, but we did get to talk to him about the way that we can share creation across with the Muslim worldview. So that's more the Muslim? All the Prophets. Yep.

And then The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus is one that was written for those who have an introduction to Christianity, which is becoming less and less common. because you have less familiarity with Christianity, but Catholicism, you know, you might have some of these, just grew up in the house, but never really kind of understood it, but had Christian influences, never really got it. This is going to be someone that's Western in mindset, you know, kind of got a nod to God, but not a real understanding and definitely not a believer. Does that make sense? So that's what The Stranger is.

And then, of course, they have workbooks that go along with them and I could introduce you guys to more tools. But if you're interested in these tools, I just wanted to extend that to you guys. This book called Emigating with Moses will give you the rationale behind all of them. the ideology behind going from creation to cross and why that is one way of going about it. It's definitely not the only way. But how do we as Christians teach this message as ambassadors in a postmodern world? And so that's what the tools are designed to deal with, is the struggle that we have with postmodernism and different and varying cultures and worldviews.

I'm available to talk to you about any of those things. Roy and I have connected on a number of stuff in this way. Bruce and I have as well. Jim? Yes. I find it useful, too, that they have a little booklet. It's about 80 pages. It's small. And it's literally the text of the Lamb, but put in an adult way. And it's a great, like, attract. Yeah. What is Christmas and Easter all about? It's meant to be a tool that's handed out during the season. Not anymore. I didn't mean to pitch Good Seed or promote Good Seed per se. I just wanted to make myself available. I haven't done that for the last several years that I've been here.

Given this context and where we've been, I thought I'd open that door for any of you. And also, if you've got someone that you want. to go through a lesson or through a study. I've come and struggled alongside other believers in that way. They have a relationship, but they don't maybe have the time or feel comfortable going through this particular approach. I'll say, you've got a son or a daughter that you want me to go with.

I've met an actual massage, she was a massage therapist and she had her building and so we literally did an entire study on a massage table. with her sons and herself. And she became a believer through that episode. It was really interesting to see the Lord do that. But if there's any opportunities that you maybe could point in the direction, I would love to talk about that in the context of these tools if you were interested.

So let's close in a five-minute late word prayer. Lord, I thank you that you've given us this privilege of being not only heavenly citizens, but having the opportunity to share the message that results in one being adopted and being made son, being made family and into your family. And Lord, we just are so I'm thankful that through all these things, having a source in you and knowing our identity in you leads to a correct understanding and beholding you in your word. And I just pray that as we continue to do that as a body, that we would find ourselves interested in seeing your message communicated and that we would encourage one another, strive together, one mind, one spirit, as a body. Thank you for your truth, who you are and what you've done, for your grace. In your name we pray. Amen.