Making Your Life Worthy of the Gospel

SPEAKER 01 : 0:00

Greetings to the brightest audience in the country and welcome to Bob Benyart Live. Today we’re getting into another sermon, which I had the honor of giving at Agape Kingdom Fellowship. Yesterday we played my overview of Philippians, the entire book of Philippians. Today we are getting into chapter one of Philippians. And what an encouraging book Philippians is. Paul writing this from jail, sharing his joy, the joy that he finds in Christ and the joy that he finds in other believers, even while he is imprisoned, such an encouraging book. Now join me for chapter one. Please open your Bibles to the first chapter of Paul’s epistle to the Philippians. Now, I wanna tell a story. In the late 90s, when Bill Clinton was at the height of his presidency, my sweet, elderly, kind grandma, Connie, who many of you know, found herself sitting in a jail cell Far from home in Auckland, New Zealand, not because she had done anything wrong or because she had broken the law, but because she was standing up for what was right. There was a group of Christians back then who made it their personal mission to hold President Clinton accountable for his abuse of power, specifically his rape of Juanita Broderick. These Christians, they followed Clinton from city to city, state to state, and even country to country to make sure that the truth would not be silenced or forgotten that Bill Clinton was in fact a rapist. And my grandma was one of them. While they were protesting in New Zealand, my dad, my grandma, and my brother, and a few others, they developed a routine for while they were in New Zealand, which was protest during the day, get arrested, go to jail, and then while they were waiting for those in jail to be released, they would go and have dinner at the local market. And they would wait at that market for everyone to get out of jail. And that was their rhythm. And then on one of those days, my grandma, she got separated from the group. And she kept protesting on her own. And she kind of made like for an easy target, right? You have this little old lady holding a sign. And they arrested her. They arrested my grandma. And she spent six hours being processed. in a jail in a foreign country, completely unsure whether or not she’d be spending the night in this foreign jail. And the whole time she kept thinking, oh man, they’re at the sushi restaurant while I’m in jail, and I’m just in this cold cell. And she was right, because while she was in this cold, dark, unfamiliar jail cell, her family and friends My parents and my siblings, they were at a sushi bar having a grand old time. Josiah, I don’t know, were you there for that? Were you part of that? So Josiah was there for that, so he could tell you better than I can. But here’s what was incredible, is while my grandma was in jail and she was being persecuted for standing up for what was right, and she got out, what was incredible was it wasn’t a big deal to them. It was just part of the mission. And they know that sometimes when you stand up for what’s right, you might be persecuted for that. You might suffer for that. You might even end up in a jail cell in Auckland, New Zealand. And when she got out, they laughed about it. They hugged her. And… Then they went right back out to protest, because that’s what they did, and there was joy even in her suffering. And that’s exactly what we see in Philippians chapter 1. The apostle Paul, he was also in prison, far from home, in an unfamiliar place. dark, damp jail cell, not because he was a criminal, but because he refused to stop preaching the gospel. And yet in this letter to the Philippians that he writes, it isn’t full of bitterness or anger towards the government, but rather it is a letter that is filled with joy. It’s filled with joy and encouragement. And so today I want to show you how Paul, he saw suffering not as a setback, but but as an opportunity to further advance the gospel. And I want to talk about how you and I, how we can have that same joy even in the midst of persecutions or sufferings or difficulties, and we can have joy even when the world tries to shut us down. And so with that said, today’s big idea is that real joy comes when we stop living for ourselves. And so with that said, let’s jump right into Philippians chapter 1. Verse 1, Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus, who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So, right off the bat, we have Paul and Timothy, and they’re greeting their brothers in Philippi. And Paul, he was an apostle sent by specifically for the Gentiles, for the non-Jews, and Timothy was essentially his sidekick, right? If Paul was Batman, Timothy would be Robin. And so they start off with this… greeting of grace and peace. But what’s interesting is Paul and Timothy, they’re both incredible men of God who you would think they have a lot to boast about. But while they’re both really incredible, they identify themselves as bond servants. And bond servant, that’s a really great translation there. Bond servant in the Old Testament, you might have a slave and a slave would be someone’s slave for a set number of years. And then there would be occasions where a slave would begin to love their master and And that wouldn’t necessarily be like, we think of that today as like Stockholm syndrome, right? But that wasn’t quite like that back then. Back then, slavery, as odd as it might sound to our modern ears, could have been a blessing. It could have been like a good gig, right? If you have a good master who is loving, he might provide for you shelter and food, might allow you to have your family there. And so it might be a really good opportunity for you. And so sometimes slaves, they would grow to love their masters. And after their set number of years of service of slavery was done, they would be able to go to the local judges in their local city and publicly proclaim, I love my master. I want to remain with him as a bond servant for life. And then he would be with his master for life. And so here, when we see Paul and Timothy describe themselves as bondservants of Christ, they are saying, I love my master. I want to serve Jesus Christ for the rest of my life. And that is a great attitude that we should try to mimic. And we see that then leading into our first point of the day. Point number one, which I wanna cover, is being thankful for other believers in Christ, which we’ll read about in this next section here. Verse three, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, making requests for you all with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. Just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace. For God is my witness, how greatly I longed And this is cool for so many reasons. When Paul, when he just thinks of the Philippians, when he just thinks about them, he prays and thanks God for them. Imagine if every time someone thought about you, they just thought, wow, thank you, God, that you sent this person into my life. That is such a cool testimony for how awesome the Philippians were. And I think that’s a really healthy attitude to have, an attitude of thankfulness for other believers in our lives, other believers in Christ. And I believe we should be taking two things from this portion of the text here. Number one is that we should strive to be Christians who others are blessed by. And so we should be a blessing to those around us so much so that every time they think of us, they just thank God that we are in their lives. And that would be such a powerful testimony, right? Think of unbelievers. If every time an unbeliever was around you or around a Christian, they were blessed by you, maybe because you served them, maybe just because you were there for them in a difficult time, maybe just because your presence was uplifting for them, or even because perhaps you They just see Christian community and they see Christians serving one another constantly and being thankful for one another. I think that could be a powerful testimony for how wonderful the body of Christ is and something we should be trying to put on display for the world. And not that we’re in any way earning our salvation, but rather we’re trying to live like Christ. We are Christians and Christ, he came as a servant washing the feet of others and And as Paul says, we’ll talk about this a little later in the chapter, making your conduct worthy of Christ. So that’s the first thing, is that we should strive to be Christians who bless others. The second thing is we should thank other believers and thank God for other believers. We should often express gratitude to God in our prayers, but how often have we told other believers that we’re thankful for them specifically? When was the last time that you told another believer, I’m so thankful to have you as a brother or sister in Christ? It could be your spouse, it could be parents, a sibling, a good friend, it could be someone in ministry, it could be a co-worker, right? So when was the last time that you expressed gratitude to another Christian just for being another Christian in Christ? And when we express gratitude, Paul recognizes this here, that expressing gratitude towards other Christians is such a wonderful way to encourage them. It’s just, you know, Paul, he recognizes this. And so he says to these Philippians that he’s thankful for them. And in many ways, Philippians is just a giant thank you letter to the Philippians. And right, you can think about it. Isn’t it such a great feeling when someone tells you that they’re thankful for you, right? And so we can encourage others to have that same feeling by being thankful for them and telling them that we are thankful for them. We also see Paul here, he says something really interesting, which is really great. He says that he, being Jesus, that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. And this is really cool. What’s so neat about this is that we can have extreme confidence in Jesus Christ. We can have confidence in him. You know, hey, things are hard right now. I might feel bad. worthless. I might feel like I never make any progress. I might feel helpless. And you know what? Hey, maybe those things are true. Maybe you are worthless and helpless, but that’s fine. It’s fine because it is Jesus Christ who is doing this work in you and he will complete it, which is just so encouraging to me. Now, Jesus doing this work, this is not an excuse for us to be lazy or to not try actively to serve Christ. Again, we should make our conduct worthy of Christ. But we can know Jesus, he is going to complete the good work in us, which he began. Now continuing in verse 9, “…and this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.” Recently, Karlyn Piper, Danielle’s sister, she’s been reading that book. What’s the title of it? The How to Be a Romans 12 Christian. Is that it? And which is kind of taken our church by storm, right? She recommended it to Will. Will recommended it to the church. And then it’s all about being authentic, right? And I recently saw it on Dimitri’s desk. And then out of the blue, he still started telling me about how difficult it is, but also how wonderful it is. And it’s all about being sincere. And here we read Paul talking about being sincere, right? And, you know, Larry, he might call it a miracle because we’re talking about being sincere in the church. And then we read first Philippians 1.10, where Paul is talking about being sincere, right? And so it’s just so fun that we’re going through this right when Carlin is talking about that. And so in this section, it’s fun, Paul focuses on that, but he prays that we abound in knowledge, abound in discernment, approve of excellence, that we be sincere, that we be without offense, and we be filled with the fruits of righteousness. And why does he pray that? Well, he answers it right there at the end of verse 11. to the glory and praise of God. And isn’t that kind of the entire point of life is to bring God glory and praise? So that’s, you know, that’s why he praised those things for the Philippians and by extension us. Now that leads us into today’s next major point. Point number two, suffering for Christ produces joy, which we’ll see in this next section here. But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard and to all the rest that my chains are in Christ, and most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill.” The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely supposing to add affliction to my chains, but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. What then, only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached, and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice. So this is incredible. Paul suffers, and his suffering furthered the gospel. And then because the gospel is furthered, whenever the gospel is furthered, Paul rejoices. And so suffering… for Christ produces joy. How cool is that? That suffering, that’s so, you know, the modern ear, the secular ear, now it sounds so weird to them that suffering can produce joy, but how true that is. It’s just like my grandma in Auckland, New Zealand, in that jail cell, her suffering produced joy in those around her. And it also produced boldness in those around her, right? Courage is contagious. And when we see a person being brave, very often that makes us brave ourselves. And that’s something to think about. If we want a bold church, a bold body of Christ, we better start being bold ourselves in order to provoke others to boldness. And so let me reread this here. I just can’t help but think of my grandma when I read this. Having become confident by my chains are much more bold to speak the word without fear. So let’s go grandma, you know, you’re getting locked up. Well, I’m going to go right with you and we’re going to go to prison together and we’re going to preach Christ. I think of Cal’s Astro going to prison, right? And his boldness, how that’s just so contagious. And then after that, we read the brief section about people preaching either genuinely or out of selfish ambition. This could be either trying to preach to increase their own wealth or their own fame. And Paul, he says, basically, either way, Jesus is being preached, Christ is preached, and I will rejoice. Last week, we talked about how Susan Sutherland, she posted this verse on Facebook where, when there was a whole controversy about Kanye West, and Kanye West is his conversion genuine, or is it not? Now, hindsight is 20-20. Obviously, it seems to have been fake. And so Susan was wise to not take a firm position in that debate, but to simply say, well, Christ is being preached right now, and I’m going to rejoice for that. Now, in passing, I want to mention something here that’s interesting. I’m going to mention Paul’s defense of the gospel, he calls it. And this is in the second half of verse 17, if you want to look there with me. Paul says, “…knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.” As Christians, I believe we should constantly be trying to defend the gospel and have a biblical and defensible worldview. I often talk about this with Calvinists and I tell them that their theology is absolutely indefensible. Absolutely indefensible. It’s utter absurdity to say that a child who is born, a baby is born without the ability to love Christ, and God chose for that child that they would sin and go to hell, and there’s nothing they can do about it, and that’s just what it is. Too bad, so sad. That is an indefensible, abhorrent theology. And I told them, hey, you need to have a defensible theology. You can’t make this theology work. And very often they’ve responded by telling me, you know, hey, Dominic, I don’t care about defending the gospel. I just care about preaching what I read. And there’s something admirable about that attitude, but there’s also something very foolish about that attitude. Paul, he very clearly throughout his ministry had a focus on appearing reasonable to unbelievers, right? Of course, you know, Paul talks about the things which will seem unreasonable. The resurrection of Christ, for example. The resurrection of Christ will be seen as unreasonable. But the other stuff, well, to whatever degree you can, seem as reasonable as you can. So, hey, let’s circumcise Timothy to not seem unreasonable to the Jews. Or let’s debate and reason with the philosophers in Greece on Mars Hill to not seem unreasonable. or let’s be careful speaking in tongues to not seem unreasonable to those who are unfamiliar. To quote Paul in 1 Corinthians 14.23, therefore, if the whole church comes together in one place and all speak with tongues and there comes in those who are uninformed or unbelievers, will they not say that you are out of your mind? And so Paul, he has this focus on seeming reasonable. And I believe that we should have a defensible and a reasonable biblical worldview today to whatever extent that is possible, without compromising the gospel of Jesus Christ. With that said, let’s continue in verse 19. So now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. So recall how two weeks ago we were discussing that we should not have shame nor condemnation, because there is no shame nor condemnation in Christ. Well, Paul here, the chief of all sinners, he records that he is expecting, in nothing I shall be ashamed. He was the chief of all sinners. He was a very bad sinner. And Paul, he is not ashamed, and Christ will be magnified in him. How cool is that? That Even the chief of all sinners magnifies Christ, right? And so if there is anything in your life that you feel ashamed of or you feel is weighing on your heart, well, allow the peace of Christ to ruin your heart because Christ, he bore that shame. He bore that condemnation on the cross and he bore all of our punishment. That’s so, you can’t even comprehend what that would have been like. Next up, this is one of the most well-known verses in the entire Bible. This is Philippians 1.21. And so he’s saying here that by living, he can continue his earthly ministry here on earth, and he can continue to bear fruit here on earth. and just surviving in the biological sense, surviving in this life, he can continue to preach Christ, and he can continue to teach those who look to him as an apostle, or he can die, and he says, “…to die is gain.” That’s odd. Why would dying, why would that be something that’s gain? Well, if he dies, he can go and be with the Lord forever. He can go and have union with God. And so, of course, having eternal life with God, that is better than what we have right now. So to live is Christ. To live is to have this ministry. To die is to have this ministry. perfect unity with God. And, you know, a lot of Christians sometimes have this attitude of like, you know, honestly, you know, I think I’d be okay dying. I think I’d be okay going up to heaven. And assuming you’re not suicidal, that’s really not that unhealthy of an attitude to have to look forward to our eternal life with Christ. But there are qualifications to this attitude. which Paul explains if we continue in verse 22. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor, yet what I shall choose I cannot tell, for I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better, but Nevertheless, to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith, that you rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ by my coming to you again. So it’s funny, Paul, he’s saying, you know, I don’t know if I want to live or die, if it really comes down to it. I don’t really know what I’m going to choose. But then in verse 25, he kind of like admits almost like, you know, hey, realistically, I’m going to stick around. I’m not going to I’m not going to kill myself, right? Or anything like that. Let me reread this starting in verse 24. Nevertheless, to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith. And that leads me into the third big point I wanna make for today. Point number three, serve others even, or maybe especially when it’s inconvenient for you. Serve others especially when it is inconvenient here. And Paul here, he claims dying and going and being with Christ, right? It’s the greatest possible thing. I can be in love, not in love in like a romantic sense, but literally fully encapsulated within the love of God. I could have that, which is the greatest thing imaginable, but I’m going to inconvenience myself. I am not going to take that for myself so that I can serve you. And That’s just such a beautiful picture of Christ living in the Apostle Paul. Paul is going out of his way. He’s going metaphorical miles out of his way to serve others. And that’s just such an awesome behavior that we should try to mimic from Paul. Let’s imitate Paul as Paul imitates Christ. And that leads us into our fourth and final big point of the day, and that is point number four, making your conduct worthy of Christ. Let’s continue reading in verse 27. which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation and that from God. For to you, it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake, having the same conflict, which you saw in me and now here is in me. And so we are not earning our salvation, but Paul here, he says to act in a way to have your conduct be worthy of Christ and to Like I said, that’s not earning our salvation, but we should be acting as if Christ lives in us, because that’s part of the gospel, is that Christ is now in us. And so, are you living that way? Is Christ, is he pleased by your conduct? Is he pleased by your behavior? If you go out in public or you’re in front of a crowd or you’re out and about at a grocery store or you’re driving, is your conduct worthy of Christ? Or are you flipping off the guy who cut you off? Is your conduct worthy of Christ? Or what about when you’re alone? What about when you’re home alone or you’re driving alone? Are you consuming media which corrodes your soul? Or are you consuming media which helps edify you? Are you reading your Bible? Are you in prayer? What are you doing when you are alone? Are you conducting yourself in a way that is worthy of the gospel of Christ? And there is conduct that pleases Christ, and we should be eager to seek out that conduct and conduct ourselves that way. A lot of Christians kind of have this attitude of, nothing I can do can ever please Christ, ever, because I’m so lowly. And there’s a degree of that which is admirable, having humility, but there are things which please Christ, and we should seek those out and do those things. Now, I just want to make two more unrelated points about this section before we close. And first of all, I would like to reread verse 28, if you want to do that with me. Not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation. And so when your adversaries persecute you because you have… been loyal to Christ. To them, it’s a proof of their wickedness, but to you, it’s a proof of your salvation. And so a lot of people will say, you know, it’s impossible to know whether or not someone else is saved. And I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think that’s completely true. It’s not possible to know whether or not every… Stop the tape. Stop the tape. Hey, we are out of time here on KLTT Radio. 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