May 28, 2006: Philippians M5: Progress in the Spritual Life: God' Job or Mine?

Philippians M5:
Progress in the Spiritual Life: God's Job or Mine?

BI “Work at it because God is at work”

When Tim this guy I know and his wife Kathy had their first baby… and the baby pooed his diaper, Tim was close by he called his wife’s name Kathy, “Mike needs his diaper changed!” Kathy said, “Finder’s Keepers…” In Tim’s household growing up, it was his mom who always changed diapers, but in Kathy’s household it was whoever was found out that baby had soiled the diapers.
Psychologists say one of the primary causes of conflict in households involves dispute over who’s job it is to do certain things. If the diaper goes unchanged, if the dishes are left undone, if the garbage isn’t emptied who is responsible for getting the job done?
In the end, lots of things don't get done because each person in the relationship thinks the other one is really responsible.
Today we’re going to look at whose job it is to grow and become more like God… it ours is it God’s.
In our text today Paul talks what it means to work our salvation--salvation doesn’t just mean having our sins cleared from the divine legal record, but also includes become like God: in holiness and love…
One of Paul’s main concerns as he writes his letter to the church at Philippi as he’s demonstrates in chapter 1 is the advance of the Gospel: the message that we can be connected through Christ and be made new people.

He’s troubled by the fact that he hears some of the people in the church at Philippi are fighting over things that aren’t worth fighting over.

He knows that few things will impede the Gospel like people who claim to be followers of Jesus fighting and so he urges them to become people who reflect God’s love to each other in their community life so others will be drawn to the living God.

This morning we’re going to look at the process, what does it look like to become that kind of person…

And, I want to raise the question who’s job is it to become this way?

God’s or ours?

If you have your Bibles please turn to Philippians 2:
Do Everything Without Grumbling
12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
14 Do everything without grumbling or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, "children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation." Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky 16 as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain. 17 But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. 18 So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.

I want to focus on vs. 12
12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
Or more literally in the Greek…

With fear and trembling, your salvation, work it out—for God is at work in you…

Paul says with fear and trembling because this is so important…

When you’re about to get married, or have a child, or embark on some lofty responsibility… you do so with fear and trembling because it’s so important…

When we take out the garbage we don’t do that with fear and trembling… because it’s not as momentous (or maybe just the first time when we got the new the roll out garage can with flip lid!)…

There’s nothing more important that working out our relationship with God and so with fear and trembling…

Who’s job is it to work out our salvation? I.e. whose job is it to free us from us sins and make us people who love like God?

Is it God’s job or our job?

Throughout Christian history, there have been some people who have argued that it’s really all up to us.

What we really need to do to progress in faith is read the Bible more, pray more, serve more….

Or we need to be less proud, less angry less, try to lust less often, try to worry less, try to watch less tv… try eat less chocolate…

Some have argued that progress in your spiritual journey is really riding on your shoulders…

And there’s a great deal of emphasis what you do and what you don’t do…. to make that happen…

I remember in high reading a book on quarterbacking by a professional player named Joe Theisman, in high school he was this slender, undersized player and he said if have some talent and work hard enough at the game you too can turn pro…

And some if you can be an elite, pro level Christian if work at doing certain things and not doing certain things…

(or the prep school illustration)

Historically this approach has been expressed in a movement call pelganism…

Pelagianism and “it’s cousins” is a belief that the human will is still capable of choosing good or evil without Divine aid.

Pelagius taught that the human will, discipline and good deeds, was sufficient to live a sinless life.

Pelagianism has been regarded historically as heresy.

The view that through will power or the power of positive thinking alone we can become saints is… not Biblical….

And then there are those who advocate that there is nothing absolutely nothing we can do about our progress in our relationship, our growth in holiness and love…

So, just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride….

Make your way to hammock….

Just wait till your “zapped” by God… and you will be instantly free of sin…

“Let go and let God…”

Historically one of the ways this has been expressed in a historical movement called Quietism….

The Quietists believed that if we just came to a place of interior stillness before God with no real effort on our part, we could made perfect….

Quietism considered by many to be heretical…

To not be Biblical…

So, whose job is it to become like God ours or God’s?

Both…

In the Hebrews Scripture in Leviticus 11: 44: "I am the Lord your God. Sanctify yourselves, therefore. Be holy for I am holy."

That makes it sound like we have a role…

Paul using an athletic image in his epistle to the Timothy, said “Train yourself to be godly…”

That makes it sound like we have a role…

But he also prays, “May God himself sanctify you through and through… faithful is the God who called you and he will do it…”

That makes it sound like it’s God’s work.

Our text today says we to do our part in become like God in holiness and love because God is at work in us…

Paul says work because God is at work in you to will and do according to his good his pleasure, work because God is at work even in your desires to become like God and do His will…

There’s a part we play and part that simply gift from God…
We cannot forces ourselves to sleep.
As some of us know firsthand that the more we try to force ourselves the sleep, the less we actually are able to sleep.
You’ve got a big exam or job interview early tomorrow morning and you say, shoot is already past midnight.. the more intensely you try to sleep, the less you can actually, you can’t force yourself to sleep, but there are certain things you can do to fall asleep.
You can go into a dark room, lie on a soft bed, close your eyes… or perhaps like my college friend you can grab your math textbook and put by your head… certain things can help foster our sleeping, but sleep is ultimately a gift from God.

Or sailing we hoist the main sail, furl the jib sheet when we sail there’s a part we can play, but we the gift of the wind to move….

Like falling in love, there are some we can do foster fall in love… having a candle light dinner (so you can see each others flaws) and open your heart… you can certain things and there’s a part that’s just gift…

So, it is in the progress of our spiritual lives…. There’s a part we play but there’s a part that simply gift…

So we work hard, but we rest knowing that God is at work in us…

Michael Jordan is arguably the greatest basketball player of all time, said when we he was at his best he was in this flow in this rhythm where he is unconscious of time and competition…

He was working but also at rest….

When Shawn Gatlin broke the world record recently in the 100 meter sprint… When interviewed he said, I let the race come to me…

When great athletes are a peak they are working at the game to be sure, but they in state of rest.

I believe this is how we are live our spiritual lives… working at it, but also in this state of rest…..

Thomas Merton was a partying student at Columbia University in New York City. He was converted to Christ and later was called by God to become a monk in a Trappist monastery.

Thomas Merton, in his autobiography the Seven Storey Mountain, describes 2 kinds of monks at his monastery. There were those who tried to scrupulously live out every rule: they tried to make themselves saints by sheer concentration and effort as though their growth in purity depended all on them.

Then there were those who did not seek to purity themselves, as if none of it depended on them.

Both types of people ending falling away from the monastery.

Merton said those who flourished spiritually those exercised a certain effort, but also relaxed, trusting that God would carry them…

In our spiritual lives, there are certain things we can do, and certain things only God can, so we don’t of a take the posture or a marine, but we don’t take the posture of over a super laid-back, beach bum either. We make an effort, but we rest because we realize there are only certain God can do…

Remember, in the context our growth is not just for us and personal development, but so the we can reflect the love of God others….

14 Do everything without grumbling or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, "children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation." [c] Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky 16 as you hold firmly to the word of life.

As you work out your salvation, Paul says in effect love each other (and it the larger context he means) so that people drawn to God…

A pastor of church I used to attend named John, tells the story of a friend he has who in his words: would not do well in a contest for high piety.

John’s friend has deep wounds that still affect him in many ways. He had virtually no father growing up. His mom was a difficult person. She married five different men, none of them lasting long. She had little time for my friend and failed to give him encouragement.
He's a man now, and some years ago his mother developed a degenerative muscular disease and gradually lost almost every physical capacity. None of her children would have anything to do with her, and not one of the men to whom she'd been married even acknowledged what she was going through.
My friend, however, decided to love. He took her into his home and cared for her, feeding her by hand, combing her hair, and cleaning up after her messes.
John says, I was in his home, and about all she could do was cry and moan incessantly. John wondered, How can he stand this? he thought, I've been given blessings the church, Scripture, family exponentially greater than this guy, and he don't know if I could love like this.
When she died, 16 people came to her funeral. Not even all her kids came. But my friend was there, and on a little toy tape recorder he played a tape of his mom singing a Christmas carol. He talked about how she loved Christmas and how when he was a kid he used to play the guitar and she would sing with him.
He didn't love her perfectly, not by a long shot. But he loved her when loving was hardest. He loved her when no one else would love, and he remembered her with kind words. That's what it grow in God.
Who loves like that? Jesus loves like that. Jesus loves us when you were hardest to love… if he lives within we become who love that.
We to become who love like Jesus not just because we work at it, but God is at work both to do and to will according to his good pleasure.
Silent prayer….

Loved one…

Oh God, Thou who are ever at rest and ever at work, may we be ever at rest and ever at work. Augustine (quoted in Palmer 106).

(The sermon can be heard online at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)

Servant king Philippians 2:1-11 May 21, 2006

Servant king Philippians 2:1-11 May 21, 2006

If you were God for a day have you ever thought about how you might use your powers?

I’m sure our imaginations could run wild here…

In the movie, Bruce Almighty, Bruce played by Jim Carrey gets to be God for a time.

Bruce uses his new powers to walk on water, to beat up a gang that beat him up, get a better job, give his girlfriend a more sexy body and to help everyone in his hometown win the lottery…

In Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi he gives us a picture of what kind of person God decided to become when he became a human being. In giving us this picture God gives us a window to the essential nature of his character.

Paul is writing his letter to the church at Philippi from prison.

He knows that there are a couple of people in this congregation in conflict over something that apparently is not worth fighting over.

And Paul urges them to take on and live out the character of the one they’re united with—the living God.

This morning we’re going to explore what it looks like to become a person who bears the character of the living God.

If you have your Bibles please turn to Philippians 2:

Paul writes:
Imitating Christ's Humility
1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Paul asks the Philippians a series of questions designed to get to think how about how their life has been influenced by God…

He writes:
1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.
The assumption as he writes to the church at Philippi is yes, yes, yes, yes…
If you are in Christ, connected to an infinite pipeline of love--your heart will fill and overflow with the love of God…
If this is the case, which Paul’s assumes is true for the people at Philippi THEN…
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. But, rather in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
Paul says, If you are connected to God’s love, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility value others above yourself.
If you are plugged into God’s love, Paul says don’t try to prop yourself over other people…
Pride has traditionally been considered the worst of the seven deadly sins. C.S. Lewis, the Oxford scholar points out in Mere Christianity people aren’t proud of being rich or good looking or smart--they’re proud about being richer or better looking or smarter than others.
Pride is essentially competitive and if we regard the people around us as those we are going to beat out we’re not going to love them well, we’re not going to be united to them…
Paul says, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others…

WHY? Because Jesus Christ was like this…

Paul says:
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
In some of the older translations vs. 6 reads that Jesus who being in the very form of God did not consider equality with God something to be “grasped,” but emptied himself…
Some people taken from that verse that when Jesus became a human being, he gave up his status and he emptied himself of his divinity… or that he gave up some of the attributes as God when he became a human being…
But the TNIV renders the text in a way that is more consistent with the better scholarship…
Jesus who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used or exploited to his own advantage…
But rather he made himself nothing…
NT scholar Gordon Fee, explains the idea here is not that he emptied himself of his nature, but that Jesus pours himself out like water (use a prop to illustrate) and becomes a servant or as the Greek is likely better translated slave… (in the context the slave would be a better rendering than “servant” because it’s a slave or a political insurrectionist who would be crucified).
And the text tells us that Christ becomes obedient to death, even to death on a cross…
8 And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
This passage gets to the heart of God’s true character…

God could come as any human being he wanted to….

If you or I could back--as any human being who would we come back as?

Would we come as someone with the privileges of a head of state or the ceo of a fortune 500 or an A-list movie star or a world class professional athlete or as some whose job was to lie out on a secluded beach in Tahiti.

When God become a human being in Jesus Christ, he decides to come as a servant, as a slave…

What this shows us is that fundamentally what it means to be like God is to be a servant…

New Testament scholar Tom Wright says, “The only God there is, is a servant.”

The “gods” of the ancient world were capricious, vindictive, and self-serving, but the true God serves.

In John 13, we see that Jesus is one who does only what a servant does--he washes the feet of the disciples…

Jesus said, I have come not to be served, but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many…

Jesus serves… he empties himself in service for others…

Darrell Johnson says that Jesus’ self-emptying is the sign of his divinity…

We are most like God when we empty ourselves in love for others…

We are most our most our true selves, when we serve…

The most fulfilled people are not those living for themselves, but those who serve others…

When I think of the word servant—one of the people who comes to mind is Mother Teresa…

My wife, actually a number of years before she became a follower of Christ had a chance to meet Mother Teresa. People who meet mother Teresa describe as her as being a woman of luminous joy….

When we serve we become like God, we become our true selves, in emptying ourselves we are fulfilled…

Happiness and fulfillment don’t come from trying to making it our life goal to be happy and fulfilled—no people who try too hard to be happy are the least happy… like people who try too hard to have friends don’t have any…

If we don’t make it our goal to be happy, but to serve we experience joy as a byproduct…


I along with a small group of people was recently interviewed for a book that is being written about a leader, identified some years ago by TIME magazine as being of significant influence…

We talked about how this leader has impacted us and others. Someone said he never regards himself above others, but he always put the others person above himself. With no personal agenda, but he pours himself out for others.

He’s a person of luminous joy.

And it’s in serving, we become most like God… it’s in becoming a servant that we become our true self…

Phil 2 tells us that it is as we serve that we become like the one is whose image we’ve been made…

As I’ve crossed onto threshold of middle age (40)… I’ve become more reflective of the meaning of my life… I recently wrote words in my journal 4 things, that I want to focus on… Someone last week who heard me share these 4 things asked me is there a pattern in these 4 words? I said, yes, not that I structured it so there is a pattern, but 2 are about wanting to know God and 2 involve wanting to serve…

I want my life to be about these things… knowing God and serving….

What about you?

Let take a moment to pray…

If in your heart your saying, I want to become a servant and want to pray God make me a servant, if you’re able to this physically quietly kneel as an expression of your desire to become like the God who kneels at feet of disciples as servant and washes their feet.

(The sermon can be heard online at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)

Dual Citizenship: Philipians 1:27-30(May 7 2006)

Dual Citizenship: Philippians 1:27-30 May 7 06


Some years ago, when the New York Yankees were the dominant team in major league baseball, the team manager would say to the rookies, "Boys, it's an honor just to put on the New York pinstripes. So when you put them on, play like world champions. Play like Yankees. Play proud."
In similar way, the apostle Paul is seeking to inspire the believers at Philippi by challenging them to walk worthy of the great God who has called.

Paul realizes that the church at Philippi would have some reasons to be discouraged.

Paul, himself, their friend and the number one messenger for the Christ movement has been thrown into prison because of proclamation of the Gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ died on a Roman cross absorbing our sins in his body on the cross so that we could forgiven and freed from them and God raised him from the dead 3 days later proving the Jesus Christ is Lord savior (not Caesar).

Paul seeks to encourage the church at Philippi by pointing out earlier in chapter one how his being thrown into prison for the Gospel is actually causing the Gospel. The Gospel is making headway in prison and even in Caesar’s household! He points out how more timid sisters and brothers are now being vocal about their faith and how while he is prison both his friends and rivals for different motivations proclaiming the Gospel

Earlier in chapter one Paul points out how his being in prison is causing the Gospel to advance, as the Gospel is making headway in the prison and in even Caesar’s household! and how timid sisters and brothers have become more vocal and by his friend and rivals have stepped in proclaiming the Gospel more vigorously.

Paul rejoices in his imprisonment, because through his imprisonment the Gospel is advancing.

Paul also know that the followers of Christ in Philippi would have been under considerable pressure to not say Jesus is Lord and savior and instead to acknowledge with everyone else that Caesar was lord and savior—if for no other reason to save themselves prison and persecution…

Philippi was a proud Roman military colony that felt indebted to Rome.

The first Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus, had given the city of Philippi, in modern day Northern Greece, to the defeated troops he had defeated in at battle of Philippi as a gesture of good will. Many of it’s would have inhabitants of Philippi been Roman citizens and exempted from certain taxes. Because the inhabitants of Philippi had been favored by Rome they had a fierce loyalty to Rome so there would have been great social force for them to say to Caesar is Lord and Savior

In this context the apostle Paul writes about how to lives as follows of God in their world that’s to their faith in Christ, he talks about what it means to put on the uniform of Jesus Christ.

If you have your Bibles please turn to Philippians 1:27

27 Whatever happens, as citizens of heaven live in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, cstriving together with one accord for the faith of the gospel 28 without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God. 29 For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, 30 since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have.

Paul here is teaching the church how to live in their citizens of both the city Philippi, but of heaven.

In text in vs. 27 the work live is word translated from the Greek text politeusthe, a political term can be translated “citizen.” Paul uses this word because he knows that people at Philippi would have proud of the fact that they a favored Roman colony. They weren’t merely part of the Roman Empire, but they had been singled out as a special, favored Roman military colony.

What Paul is saying to use New Testament scholar Gordon Fee’s paraphrase as citizens of Philippi live as worthy citizens of heaven.

The church at Philippi is being called to take seriously their responsibilities to care for the care for their city and lives as “good citizens” of Philippi.

I was talking to someone I know who when we’re talking about our respective lines of work, he and said in your line of work… you have the ultimate motivation, he just looked up a ceiling in the room were in….

He didn’t say this but he was thinking you work directly for God or as he puts it “the force…”

But when we give our lives to God whether we go into “vocational ministry” whatever we do is sacred: whether we work in the food industry, construction, home making, education, high tech, health care.

When I was about to leave work at certain multi-national I was working for to go theological seminary, my manager said, indirectly ugh, “Listen, uh if things don’t work out in the ministry for you always have a place here…” Around the same time the manager said not to me, but to my young sister who was visiting me in Tokyo, “Ken is the best person I have in the department we’re going to miss him.”

I’m remember I don’t that’s true, but I do know that because I’ve done my work in this secular company as an offering to God… I have been better worker, than I would have been otherwise.

When Paul would have said to me while in Japan would have been lives a citizens of Sony family and a citizen of heaven, live as a citizen of Tokyo and as citizen of heaven, he would to say to us, lives as a citizen of UBC and as a citizen of heaven, live as citizen of Vancouver General Hospital and a citizen of the Kingdom of God, lives citizens of Vancouver and the Kingdom….

If we do better work and we live with greater integrity…

And when we live this way, we help create the conditions for other people to come to know God… So many people come to know God because of someone who knows God who they respect… (Conversely, many people don’t know God, because some claims to know God, but don’t live like it… and even totally non-religious person has an intuitive understanding of what a person who God lives like… by the way, last week I said, if you know Christ, talk about your faith when it naturally as would any friend really important friend or something you like music or snowboarding… but let say if you’re not commit to seek to live out with God’s help, God’s way—don’t advertise that you’re Christian…)

Paul says as citizens of Philippi live as citizens of heaven…. As citizens of Vancouver live as citizens of heaven….

And greatest message ever, the Gospel will advance…

He goes to unpack what this will look like…

In 27 b Paul says so that whether I come to and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together with one accord for the faith of Gospel without being frightened (idea being spooked) by those who oppose you.

Philippi is a Roman military colony and Paul uses a military metaphor here as he calls to stand should stand in unity, should by shoulder as one, striving in one accord of the Gospel.

Paul is concerned as we know in early part of the letter for the advance of Gospel. We also know he’s troubled that 2 leaders in the church Euodia and Syntyche have been fighting and part of Paul is saying part of the way you lives as a citizen of Philippi and of heaven is by living--a life of unity as children of God.
Paul knows that if the church a Philippi is divided by infighting and gossip that outsiders will not want to be part of the Christ movement.

Part of what it means to life worthy as citizens of Vancouver and heaven is to be united with our sisters and brothers. And when that unity is broken to seek to repair it….

There are times when I will hurt people. I don’t to it intentionally, just for the sake of doing—but it happens and will happen again. When it happens, I am committed to doing what I can build a bridge to that person.

I have friend not religious, but has said in my hearing and to others, he’s really impressed by the fact that if something to hurt something, I’ll try to make it right, he understands the reason I do this is because of my Christian faith. I think in some small way this fact has made him this a little more open to Christ…

When we seek to live out our relationships in manner worthy of not only our citizen of Vancouver, but of heaven by relating as Christ would people will be drawn closer to Christ.
A pastor of a church I used to attend, has a friend, a Jewish attorney, who he’s cynic when it comes to Christianity.
One of things thing that fascinates this attorney about this pastor this pastor relationship with a group of Christian brothers that he walks with deeply and who hold each other accountable. He tells him about the highlight of his year. He says, we borrow a friend's boat and sail for five or six hours a day, then tuck behind an island somewhere. We cook dinner and sit from seven till eleven or twelve at night and open up our lives to each other.
It's a place where we feel safe to discuss our failures and our faults and our shortcomings and our deep frustrations. We talk about our marriages and our businesses and our schedules and our finances. We challenge each other, and we work each other over if somebody's out of line a little bit. We pray for each other and cheer each other on.
He says never forget telling him about that, which created an awkward moment, because this hardened, cynical, attorney asked vulnerably, "You think I could come along with you guys some year?"
That man has never known the kind of love…He'd give anything if he could be a part of a fellowship like that, a community like that. Some of us just take that kind of thing for granted.

Seeing this kind of community has made this attorney a little more open to Christ.

Paul when it comes to living out your faith in their in Philippi, in Vancouver, live also as citizens of heaven, be like Christ, be united, be as one in the Holy Spirit.

But Paul also to live as citizen of Philippi and heaven, means you’ll suffer…

Paul says… 27b striving together with one accord for the faith of Gospel without being frightened (Greek word meaning spooked) by those who oppose you…

This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God. For it has been granted to you on behalf for Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had and now hear that I still have.

If they are in the city and living out their faith in the city, but also living as citizens of heaven, Paul points out they will be granted (the idea here it a kind of gift) the right to suffer on behalf of Christ.

As I said in the Roman Empire, it was Caesar who was called Lord (Kurios) and Savior (Sotere), but Paul had proclaimed Jesus Christ was Lord and Savior and as a result he had been thrown into prison and if the people here confessed the same they might suffer the same fate as Paul.

Now Paul was in prison for his declaration that Jesus Christ, not Nero, was Lord and Savior. And the same fate behalf the people at church at Philippi, a city very supportive of the emperor, if they declared this Jesus was “Kurois” Lord and “sotere” savior through what they said or through the way they lived…

In Vancouver if declare that Jesus is Kurios and Sotere, we won’t be thrown into prison or killed, but at some point along the way we too will suffer…

Remember 2 and half years ago, when 3 woman few years were named TIME persons of the year: whistleblower at Ernon Sherron Watkins, Worldcom Cynthia Cooper, and the FBI Colleen Rowley…

It meant being meant being demonized. It means losing friends at the company who preferred to live a lie then to lose their jobs.

It meant putting their own family’s financial picture in great jeopardy.

Each of these women were the chief breadwinners in their families. 2 of them had husbands who are full-time, stay-at-home dads.

For every one of them, the decision to confront the higher-ups meant jeopardizing a paycheck their families truly depended on.

Each all blew the whistle on corruption because of their Christian faith would not allow them to remain silent.

There will be times when the culture of company will clash with the culture of the Kingdom of God, when that happens if choose Jesus’ way and likes Watkins, Cooper, Rowley did as Jesus is Lord and savior and the company then we will too suffer.

I know people in this community who have come to know God and their families some of whom are nominal Christians, i.e. Christians in name are expressing…disfavor over that decision… It’s one thing to attend to church, it’s another let affect the way you live… it’s subtle but real suffering we can experience…

When we suffer for our faith Paul says, it’s a sign we belong to God vs. 28.

Vs. 29 Paul implies it’s actually a gift to be able to suffer on behalf of Christ…

When we are willing to suffer on behalf, Paul says God uses our lives to advance the Gospel.

How do become who inspired to live as worthy of Vancouver and heaven? To live in unity? Even to suffer for our trust in Christ?

By looking to Jesus Christ on the cross and his death on our behalf.

The Bible we are able to love God, because he first loved us…

The night before Jesus went to the cross, he took bread, broke it and said… this is my body broken for you….

(The sermon can be heard online at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)