Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Book: Philippians

  • Beloved: The Bond in Christ

    Beloved: The Bond in Christ

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Philippians” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 6, 1992.

    About this sermon

    The beauty, glory, and perfection of heaven and of Christ come together here, and Paul makes the letter’s intimacy explicit when he calls the Philippians ‘beloved’ in 4:1. That word describes a real bond in Christ. The Lord’s Supper expresses the same intimate bond.

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    Sermon transcript

    This morning we are reading from Philippians chapter 3. We are beginning at verse 17. We will be reading into the fourth chapter. This is Paul’s letter to the Philippians, chapter 3. Listen to the word of God. them which walk, so as ye have us for an example.

    For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.” For our citizenship is in heaven from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

    Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown So stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. I beseech Eodia, I beseech Sympathy, that they may be of the same mind in the Lord. And I entreat thee also, true Yoke fellow, help those women which labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow laborers whose names are in the Book of Life.” Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice. Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.

    Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things, those things which you have both learned and received and heard and seen in me, give, and the God of peace shall be with you.”

    To enter that world with which the Apostle Paul is most concerned, to enter that world that is set out by the Apostle in his writings as he communicates to others, is a strange affair. for many, for it seems that in this world that he sets out before us there is a perfection of joy, a perfection of joy and a perception of glory that seems to be so absolute as to allow no interruption whatsoever when in fact it is contemplated, when it is observed. To enter, then, this world described by the Apostle Paul is to enter a world of sheer beauty and magnificence, a world filled with the things that appear in that eighth of the fourth chapter, a world of things true, honest, just, pure, of things lovely, of good report, things virtuous and worthy of praise.

    This world of sheer beauty and magnificence of unparalleled glory does not belong to this creation. That is not to say that it does not impact this creation, that it does not assert itself within this world order, but it is not of this world order. It comes from without. It is a world of radiant transcendence. a world which is above, a world which is beyond. It is a heavenly world that the Apostle Paul has set before us, which he sets before those to whom he writes. A heavenly world where the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, now resides in his resurrected at his father’s right hand.

    This magnificent world of beauty, of glory, was perceived by those in Old Testament times. They saw that world in many ways reflected in the city to which they often went, the city of Jerusalem the city often called in the Old Testament Zion. It was here that the Old Testament saints saw yet veiled the reflection of this heavenly world, and testimony concerning their conviction was heard repeatedly throughout the Old Testament and specifically in the Psalms.

    You remember Psalm 50, the psalm of Asaph, which sings marvelously about God’s inscrutable justice. Asaph in that psalm identifies Zion, the city of God, as the perfection of beauty. And from here, so says Asaph, God shines forth wonderfully. But back up a few psalms to Psalm 48, and hear what is said there about the great city and its environs, the surrounding territory, the place where it is located. That psalm speaks marvelously along these lines.

    Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great king. But it is not just the city and its location that are beautiful. In fact, as we think of other texts that come to us from the Psalms, we are readily impressed with the fact that the city’s perfection in beauty and in glory is due to the one whose city it is, the one to whom the city belongs, who in the end, you see, When David longs for the city, he longs for it because there he hopes to behold the beauty of the Lord who dwells there. He longs to be brought directly into the great king’s throne room, into his temple, into his sanctuary. there to forever inquire of him.

    And such beauty as this, the Lord has been pleased to share. Such beauty, such glory, such magnificence, the Lord has been pleased to share in that he is bestowed upon one, one specifically. one of whom David willingly acknowledges to be his Lord. Psalm 110, David speaking, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make all thy foes a footstool for thee. This one, then, of whom David speaks, David’s greater son, is himself adorned with the beauties of holiness, the beauties of the Lord himself conferred upon him. David goes further and speaks of this one who is greater than himself. From the womb of the dawn, he says, this one is in possession of an eternal vitality, even the dew of his youth from the beginning.

    And with that, we’re not enough. The beauty of the city, its location, the beauty of God himself, The beauty of this one, marked out by the Lord as his servant most wonderfully now, and as a testament to the incomparable grace of God, this beauty, our great and merciful God, through his Son, extends to all his people. This comes as confirmation of all their labors which they have performed in the light of So says Moses in Psalm 90, Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish thou the work of our hands upon us. Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it, because the Lord taketh pleasure in his people. So says Psalm 149.

    He will beautify the meek, the lowly, the humble with salvation. The beautiful people are not the ones marked out by the world. The beautiful people are those marked out by God. There are those who belong to him who even presently now have been blessed by the beauty of God through their beautiful Savior, Jesus Christ.

    To the discerning spiritual eye, even for those who were in the Old Testament There was the perception of the blessedness of this beauty belonging to God and to that exquisite city in which God dwells. There was the perception of that beauty being extended to and mediated by the promised Son of David. And now you see, as all of this congeals, as it comes together, Even the Old Testament saint was to see the fact that it was in him, this one marked out by the Lord, that the people of God, Israel itself, was to behold the beauty of the Lord. In him, God’s beauty was to come to rest upon them. In him, the work of their hands was to be established. In him, God would beautify his elect with salvation.

    Well, that was the Old Testament, but what about the New? In the dawning of the New Testament, there comes the reaffirmation of all of this, and yet the heightening of it to even greater, greater limits of one’s imagination and reach. With the revelation of the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus, all that which received its veiled debut in the Old Testament is now brought out for a definitive shaping its marvelous form asserting itself and presenting itself, not before the face of the single nation, but before the face of the entire world, all nations now. This world of which we formerly spoke, this world that Paul would set before his readers, and stands out now in glowing and in consummate beauty, the work of God bringing to light that which was promised and seen in figure and in shadow in Old Testament times. And to be sure, as it was then, so there is presently for us. that manifestation of the glory of God, the beauty resident in him.

    This realm of glory and beauty heightened for us because we know it to be a realm in which the scars of sin and the hideousness of evil have been removed. Sin cannot live in heaven. Evil does not survive in glory. This world is one in which we are pleased to behold the surpassing excellence of Christ.

    This surpassing excellence is patently obvious to us. as marvelous as they are as we move from Old to New Testament, even more glorious in the full disclosure of God and his Son, making plain his purpose and even spelling out the depths of that mystery hid from before the foundation of the world.

    Even with all of that, the loveliness Attendant to that word known by Paul is multiplied even more. In fact, infinitely multiplied by the manner in which now he expresses himself to these people. He has been sent to them. He has labored over them. He is bound to them. And in all of that, you begin to hear something of the note of the Savior himself. For was not the Savior sent? Did he not labor? Is he not bound to all those who are his? As it was for the Savior, so also now for the Apostle.

    The Apostle can say without hesitation, For to me to live is Christ. to die is gain, and that to the end that Christ might come to express himself wonderfully and marvelously in the life of this individual, and in that there be a disclosure of that world which the apostle would set before all who would read him or hear him.

    We must understand something now of the incomparable loveliness of this world, what it does, what constraint it lays upon this man Paul and through him, what constraint it lays upon us who would hear him. We might well think that the delight that Paul derives from contemplation of this world, thought about it, would merely be something that finds reflex in these to whom he writes, as if it were a mutual delight, something that they shared in common, and that alone. It is that, to be sure, but it is much more. It is much more than just something that Paul has on his part and something that the Church has on its part, and they share it. in common. It is more than something about which they can talk to each other, as if talking of some object that stands apart from them. No, this delight, this beauty, this glory pertaining to this world of which the Apostle speaks—this beauty, this delight, this glory—is something that they have in each other. The Philippians here are described by Paul not once but twice as his beloved.

    He is seeking to underscore that. He is seeking to underscore just what the nature of his affection for them is. But then he says further that they are his joy and his crown. Now you must understand what the Apostle Paul is doing here. He’s not just being poetical. He’s not merely being literary when he uses these words. He is endeavoring to express something of deepest importance that pertains to the beauty and the glory of that world of which he speaks.

    You see, it is not that the Philippians are a reason for Paul to rejoice with them standing over there as objects of his joy. Nor is it that the Philippians are a trophy that enhances Paul’s reward, and thus are his crown. You feel the full force of what the Apostle is saying here. These people, these Philippians, have literally become his joy. They have literally become His reward, His sense of glory. So utterly and thoroughly precious, so beloved are they to Him, so bound are they to Him, that it is as if without them He has neither joy nor glory.

    Now do you understand the constraint that that lays upon these Philippians? Such constraint is being expressed here by the Apostle Paul. What is this man liable to do if these people are viewed literally as his joy, as his crown, as his glory, as his reward? He incapable of seeing himself devoid of them, robbed of them.

    There I ask you how precious the individual sitting beside you this morning is to you, or in the pew in front of you, or in the pew across the aisle. Can we so speak of these around you as your joy, and if you were robbed of them, would you be robbed of your joy?

    And do you understand how the apostle was able to speak this way? It’s as we intimated earlier, that he has standing behind him the one who literally made his people his joy, so committed was he to them, who literally made his people his glory and his crown, saying in effect that if He did not gain his people, he would be robbed of his reward, and have not. The affectionate language of this verse helps us a bit, because it places before us an illustration When the apostle calls the Philippians his beloved and repeats it, he expresses his affection, an affection that is comparable, comparable to that which a man has for his wife. I don’t know how romantic you are but you may well want to think about saying to your wife at some time at a tender moment that she is in fact your joy and your glory and that without her you would have neither But of course, that illustration gives way to its origin, specifically the love God has for his people. So beloved are his people to him that he identifies them as his joy and his glory.

    The supper set before us this morning preaches eloquently what has been necessary on God’s part through Christ to do for us, we who are in fact God’s joy and crown. Let us pray. Our God, if we marvel at the glory that shines forth from the pages of the Old Testament, are we not stricken doubly so by the glory that now shines forth from the pages of the New? How we marvel, Lord, at the love that is evident we would praise you that you have so bound yourself to us that we could be described as your delight and as your praise. O Lord, encourage us to see this in you but also, Father, to cultivate it within ourselves that we might become to one another a joy, a crown. Through Christ, amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Enemies of the Cross, Inside the Church

    Enemies of the Cross, Inside the Church

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Philippians” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 22, 1992.

    About this sermon

    The ‘enemies of the cross of Christ’ in 3:18 stand inside the church as well as outside it. A ‘method of application’ approach to the Bible falls short of a reading driven by events. Earthly-mindedness marks the dogs and the enemies in every case, even more than doctrinal error.

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    Sermon transcript

    We are reading this morning from Philippians chapter 1. We begin our reading in chapter 1. Yes, we are backing up, and I’ve decided to preach again for the entirety of Philippians. Now, this is chapter 1, verse 12. We’ll start here this morning. But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel, so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all other places.

    But many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife, and some also of goodwill. For one preached Christ of contention, not sincerely supposing to add affliction to my bonds, but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel. What then, notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached.

    And I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. And then turning over to the third chapter, starting with verse 17.

    “‘Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now shall you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction.’ whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, for once also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and my crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.

    I beseech the Odia and I beseech Syntyche that they be of the same mind in the Lord, and I entreat thee also, true yoke fellow, help those women which labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow laborers, whose names are in the book of life.

    Father, whether we are young or old, help us with your word. We who are older and mature in our faith, may we be responsive to the word and a help to those who are younger. And we who are younger, Lord, may we give our attention to your word that even at this point in our lives we might learn who you are, what you would have us do, how we might love you and serve you better even all the days of our lives. Our Father, may we have attentive spirits then as you would speak to us from your word granting us grace by your Spirit.

    And such prayer as we offer presently, we also ask that it may be echoed throughout the world where your people are gathered, that your word may have free access to your own, and your people may be responsive and obedient. We pray it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

    I want you to understand that my messages in Philippians do not all rise from within me and me alone. It’s not as if I am responsible for all of the thoughts on this epistle that I have been giving to you throughout the course of our study in this epistle. Yes, I confess it. I use commentaries. I have been paying attention specifically to two commentaries on Philippians, written recently and, by and large, very, very fine commentaries indeed. They come from the Reformed and evangelical community. and their treatment of this epistle is quite thorough and very helpful.

    There is a problem, though. There is a problem. The problem has to do with those that the Apostle identifies within this epistle as enemies or detractors. The problem has to do with those the Apostle identifies in this epistle as enemies or detractors.

    Commentators cannot avoid the Apostle’s descriptions. They have to face his treatment of these groups, these individuals. Invariably, their descriptions of these enemies or detractors leaves them so remote from anything with which the Christian Church can identify with today as to virtually place these enemies and detractors in a world far removed from our own and distant from us. How are we to identify, then, with Paul’s extreme, seemingly, comments which he directs against these various individuals and groups?

    For instance, looking at the 18th verse of the third chapter, you have Paul describing there those whom he calls the enemies of the cross. Going on into verse 19, he speaks about their end being destruction. He talks about their God being their appetite, their glory being in their shame. He says that they set their minds on earthly things.

    Some have described these as being what are known as libertines, those who are given over to license, those who feed their appetites, those who use religion as a screen behind which then they are guilty of the most profane kinds of activities. So you have these enemies described here the enemies of the cross in verse eighteen of chapter three, but then backing up the chapter chapter one backing up the first two of that same chapter, you have those who are described as the dogs. Beware of the dogs, and some have suggested that here Paul has specifically in mind those who have what are called Judaistic or Judaizing tendencies. That is, they are importing Jewish ceremonies into the Christian religion and demanding that the adherence to Christianity be subservient to those Jewish ceremonies. The problem is, as you think about these enemies, have you run into any Libertines recently?

    Or has anybody come up to you and said, oh yes, I’m a Judaizer. I want you to know it. In fact, I’m proud of it. That’s the heart of my message, and that’s the message that I am committed to distribute. The commentators that I’ve been using do a fine job in giving us historical background for who these enemy or detractors might be. But as I say, in moving through their description and painting the picture in such extreme measures, these enemies and detractors are removed from our world of consideration.

    We don’t identify, therefore, with the Apostle as he describes these enemies, for we know no such enemies. The same thing can be observed in commentaries on the Gospels these days. There are those enemies of Christ, there are those detractors that he confronted. But again, these are described in such a remote fashion, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, as to remove them from our field of vision, from our consideration.

    Unfortunately, the feeling that we get as we read through these commentaries is not only that There are no longer any enemies, such as are described by Paul in the Gospels, but, as a matter of fact, there are no enemies, period. There are no enemies whatsoever, and to admit that there are is somehow a mark of deformity within oneself. The suggestion seems to be that the only enemies to the Church of Jesus Christ with which we need to be concerned are those who say that there are enemies.

    Now, all of this is a particularly amazing phenomenon and development within evangelical and Reformed circles. It is particularly amazing because you see what the evangelical and Reformed world has been through in this century. We are not that far removed from the struggles in the earlier part of this century, when the battle lines had been drawn between truth and error, between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, between right thinking theologically and that which was blatantly an error and wrong. And yet now we have the descendants of that Reformed and Evangelical world speaking publicly as if there were no enemies at all out there to be considered to be addressed. But these commentaries and their conclusions, or their tone, are even more amazing. because of the general commitment within evangelicalism and within the Reformed world to the method of application, a method that they subscribe to, it seems, without fault, without faltering, without exception.

    Now, what is the method of application? The method of application is this. The text is here. You are here. See a problem? The assumption that seems to be pervasive now within the Reformed and Evangelical community when it comes to interpreting the Bible is this. The text is over here and it belongs to an ancient world. But you are over here, and you belong in a modern setting. How is this text from an ancient world going to address you in your modern setting?

    By the method of application. The means by which you overcome the distance between yourself and the text is by applying the word to you and your circumstance. By accommodating the word to you and your circumstance. By tailoring the word to you and your circumstance. By making the word over so it fits into your circumstance. You get the drift? You get the drift?

    The evangelical and reformed community, when it comes to biblical interpretation today, is committed to the method of application which assumes the distance between yourself and the biblical world. You are not living in the same world as the figures that you read about in the Bible itself. You are living in a completely different circumstance, and therefore the Bible must be applied to you and your circumstance. You have to go to work on the Bible.

    So you see why this is a particularly amazing phenomenon when Reformed and Evangelical commentators on Scripture fail to make application with respect to these enemies and detractors that were encountered in the first century to our circumstance in the twentieth century.

    It’s almost as if there’s a failure of method here, or a refusal to follow through on the method. It’s almost as if you’re dealing with a certain form of hypocrisy. People who are not then willing to be true to their method, possibly because the costliness of their method at that point is too great, they’re going to have to say some things that are going to get them into an awful lot of trouble. Especially with a respectable academic community. Especially with what they consider to be the responsible hierarchy of the Church.

    This is a particularly amazing phenomenon because it sets before us a failure A failure within the evangelical and Reformed world to live up to its own principle and method of application. Now, before I go on, it might be helpful to you if I were to set before you an alternative to the method of application. Is there an alternative?

    Do we really live in a different world and environment and circumstance than the first century Christians? Is that what the Bible tells us? The Bible tells us, rather, that we are those upon whom the ends of the ages have come. It doesn’t matter where we live, short of Christ’s second coming. We are in precisely the same age, from God’s point of view, as those first believers. The Bible is always relevant and applicable to us in our predicament and situation because we are living in precisely the same age as those who originally received it. And more than that, we are participants in the drama that is there to thrive. Now, this is telegraphed for us in the Old Testament already. I have brought this to your attention before. I do not weary of doing it. I will say it to you again.

    How did the Jew look upon the redemptive events which God had accomplished on behalf of Israel? How did the Father speak to his children on the Passover eve, when in fact he was instructing his children with respect to the meaning of that ceremony? He says to them, regardless of how far removed from the event in time he is, this is what the Lord did for me. when he brought me out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, as if you were a participant in the event itself.” Now, how does that translate over into the New Testament? You have the Apostle Paul, Jewish in mind, speaking in the same fashion. He talks about the death and resurrection of Christ, does he not? He speaks as if when Christ died, he died. When Christ was raised, he was raised. that he has become a participant in those events.

    There is no gap between then and now. From the biblical point of view, the distance between ourselves and those events is overcome in the saving work of God by the Spirit by which we are made participants in those events themselves. Those events become self-applicatory, and we become then those who are specifically and directly addressed by the text. You are not a spectator to the events of salvation, you are a participant in those events. Neither are you simply reading in your Bible an account of an ancient civilization or an ancient way of life or an ancient view of religion. You have become a participant in those very things. This text is speaking directly to you.

    Well, the problem then that is faced, that is to be faced by us, is no less than the problem that was faced to be faced by the Saints in Philippi in the first century. And as there were enemies and detractors, then there are enemies and detractors presently, and I dare say they are the same enemies and detractors. When all is said and done, they are the very same enemies and detractors.

    Now, the Bible doesn’t present them in a very flaring fashion. In fact, from the biblical description of them, they wouldn’t recognize themselves at all. You get down here to the 19th verse in the 3rd chapter, do you really believe that any of these people are going to stand up and say, yes, my God is my appetite? I admit it. And I’m proud of it. Yes, in fact, I glory in my shame. shouldn’t we all?

    And I don’t know a dog yet who has confessed to the fact that he’s a dog, much less a wolf. Therefore, we do not judge Paul’s descriptions by the estimations which these people then might give of themselves. Nor do we assess Pharisees and Sadducees by the descriptions or estimations that they might give of themselves.

    I’m a very fine person. Can’t you hear the Pharisee saying, I’m a very fine, I’m a very moral person, I’m a very religious person? Isn’t it obvious? The apostle’s description of these people runs the string out to the end, as does Christ’s description of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He runs the string out to its end so that you are able to see these people in light of their conclusion. In light of the consistency that when worked out bears the very fruit of which Christ’s All of these people, I am sure, would be upstanding. They might even wash daily, genteel. I’m sure they all had children above average.

    They would not recognize themselves in the descriptions that either Christ or the Apostle gave of them. The measure, therefore, is not their understanding of themselves, their description of themselves. Even with respect to the extremes that are given in Christ’s descriptions or in the descriptions that Paul renders.

    There is something, you see. There is something that binds them together. In fact, the binding is of such a character that it takes us from the third chapter back to the first. Even though there are those in Rome where Paul is presently imprisoned, even though there are those there that preach Christ honestly and out of love, there are also those, he tells us, who preach Christ out of envy and strife and are driven by selfishness and by crude ambition. These whom Paul describes, even though they are yet preaching Christ as he confesses in the 18th verse of that first chapter, are moving in the direction of those that are later described in the third chapter, the second verse, and in verse 18. And the thing that binds them together is the category that the Apostle Paul mentions at the end of the 19th verse. These are they that mind earthly things.

    There’s the stamp. There’s the identifying mark. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Judaizing dog or you are a Libertine. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a detractor who is driven in your preaching of Christ by envy and strife, or selfishness, or vain ambition.

    The bottom line is that what binds you together with all of these other characters, with all these other critters, is your earthly mindedness. You mind earthly things. Your religion is of the earth, it’s unto earthly ends. you set for yourself earthly gains, you are concerned nearly and solely for those things that belong to this creation. What then separates Paul, even separates our Savior, from those who are earthly-minded is a heavenly-minded First of all, their mind is set upon glory and upon God himself in glory. Their mind is set upon that which transcends. Their mind is set upon the end to which they press.

    You hear about that end to which the Apostle presses earlier on in that third chapter? He says in verse 13, Brethren, I do not regard myself as having weighed hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. What do you think that upward call of God in Christ Jesus is? What do you think the goal and the prize are that Paul speaks of there?

    Nothing short of the resurrection. And it is that, then, that controls the apostle’s mind, enabling him to describe these enemies and distractors in the most extreme form as he sets them over against what the gospel is all about, what Jesus Christ is all about, what the kingdom of our Christ is all about.

    But the threat, you see, doesn’t come to the Philippians nor to us simply because we are faced with flesh-and-blood enemies who would come in, those who would derail us or detract us from our goal. There is that within us against which we must also struggle, against which we must wage war. There is an earthly mindedness that takes its toll in us insofar as we are unwilling to give up ourselves to God and His glory and resolute in our determination not to give ourselves up or be of service to anyone else but ourselves. The danger is real to the Philippians. The threat of the onslaught of flesh and blood enemies is real because presently they are caving into an earthly-mindedness within their race. An earthly-mindedness that expresses itself in selfishness, in a refusal to give. the refusal to love, in an insistence upon place and privilege.

    And thus the apostle presses on his case for the need to live as Christ, to die as God, which means that he likewise is willing to sacrifice himself in the interests of the heavenly kingdom. He does not hesitate to set himself out as an example to the people to whom he writes there in the seventeenth verse of the third chapter, simply because he is setting before them the glory of that heavenly state to which they are all called. And he presses his case specifically in the matter that has arisen between Yogi and Siddiqui, verse 2 of chapter 4, because they are succumbing to an earthly mindedness in this competitiveness that has arisen between them. So yes, we living in the same situation as the Philippians faced with, yes, real flesh and blood enemies and detractors, but likewise prepared for the reception and welcome of those enemies and detractors, if in fact an earthly mightiness triumphs in us, whereby we are given over to a selfishness and envy that is capitalized upon those who traffic in a religion of the same. My contention with you has been that heaven is a category beneath which can be subsumed the totality of Paul’s understanding of the Christian life. Not only is this something that the Apostle puts before these people for their consideration, He is setting it before them as an imperative that they ignore or deny or refuse to their power.

    Our Father, we would not think that we have any strength within ourselves to resist the earthly mindedness of which the Apostle speaks. For surely the blessings of heaven, a life, a citizenship in heaven, these are conferred upon us by grace, but Lord, we would pray that you would persevere by your mercy in this grace which you have given. On the alert, watching out for those intrusions, Lord, that would come upon us and into our souls so as to cloud our vision. Father, direct our attention heavenward. And Lord, from there may we be concerned to live here as a colony of heaven and earth, demonstrating the very blessings, even the duties and responsibilities of that citizenship before those that we see, before those with whom we work and with whom we live. O God, encourage us then to this end, we pray, for the sake of your Son,

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Heaven as a Comprehensive Category

    Heaven as a Comprehensive Category

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Philippians” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 15, 1992.

    About this sermon

    Heaven is a comprehensive category that shapes all of theology. Believers enjoy the blessings of the kingdom even now. Paul sets our earthly bodies beside Christ’s heavenly body, and his heavenly-mindedness holds the two together.

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    Sermon transcript

    Once more, we are reading in Philippians chapter 3. We begin at verse 7. Hear the word of God. But what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ? and I count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but done that I may win Christ. And be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is of through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him, the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend, that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

    Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. And if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk, so as ye have us for an example.

    For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. Therefore, my beloved, dearly, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. I beseech Jodius and I beseech Syntyche that they may be of the same mind in the Lord. And I entreat thee also, true yoke fellow, help those women which labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow laborers whose names are in the Book of Life.”

    Father, strengthen us by your spirit in this bond that we have with you and with one another Encourage us by your word to this end. Surely, Lord, in this bond, we suffer with those who suffer. Therefore, Lord, we pray that you will be gracious to those that are bereaved and stricken, and may your kindness sustain them. in the certainties of our faith and through the power of the resurrection. And with respect to our joys, Lord, we would remind ourselves of how you have proved faithful with respect to our prayers, that you have heard us and where we have cried out to you on behalf of those in need, even in need of employment, You have graciously responded and granted to us our prayer. Receive our thanks, Lord, and we who sorrow and we who rejoice, may we know that our sorrow and joy is in the Lord, and may we gain new strength from your word. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

    What I have contended with you is this. Heaven is a comprehensive category for the Apostle. Heaven itself is a comprehensive category for the Apostle, pertaining to present life and to future hope. beneath which then the totality of Christian experience can be subsumed. We have spoken already about this matter in terms of how the present life is seen beneath the category of heaven. You remember the opening of the twentieth verse of this third chapter.

    Our citizenship, we are told, is in heaven. Now that is not merely pointing us to some future point. That is a comment about present circumstance. That is, we are presently citizens of heaven. Now as such, as was pointed out previously, this means privilege. This means blessing. Paul speaks about these blessings as you build up to this 20th verse, through those verses that we read this morning. He speaks of having gained Christ. He speaks about being found in Christ. He speaks about knowing Christ.

    All of these privileges of our present citizenship with respect to heaven. We also marked out duties that pertain to this citizenship, not just privileges, but duties as well. And at that point, you might recall, we return to the twenty-seventh verse of the first chapter, and we looked through that verse one more time. identifying those distinctive duties that are ours as citizens of heaven. We are told we must as such stand firm. We must as such stand firm. We are told also that as citizens of heaven we must have a common mind because we have a common citizenship. We must think similarly because we have this common citizenship. And in terms of this common mind, in terms of this imperative to stand firm, We are encouraged to strive for the truth of the gospel. We are encouraged to strive for the truth, to struggle for the truth of the faith.

    Now, all of this finds reflex in other writings of Paul. For instance, Paul speaks about privilege that is ours presently, as if these things have already come to pass for us. For instance, in Romans chapter 6, where he tells us that we have, as it were, already been raised up with Christ. As if resurrection were a past event, having present blessing, presently for us. He tells us in Galatians chapter 6 that we have been crucified to the world and we have been made, as it were, new creation already. He tells us in Ephesians 1 that we’ve been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus and that presently, so in other portions of Paul’s writings, he sets before various congregations and various people these blessings with respect to our present citizenship in heaven.

    He also speaks about duty in different language than what we find here in Philippians. He talks about the imperative that falls upon us with respect to the walk that should be ours, where we are putting away sin, where we are refusing sin, where we are instead putting on righteousness and truth and love and kindness and gentleness, where we are cultivating these things. We think of passages in the later chapters in Ephesians. We think also of the latter chapters of Colossians, where these things are spelled out for us. We think of many portions in Romans in the latter chapters there, to be sure, including, of course, reflection upon the sixth chapter once more. privilege and then responsibility and duty, these things pressing in upon us because of our present participation in a heavenly citizenship. But not just present life, as that which is subsumed beneath the category, the heading of heaven. our future hope as well.

    And that future hope spelled out for us in the latter part of that twentieth verse in Philippians chapter three. Our citizenship is in heaven, Paul writes, then he goes on to say, from which also we eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse twenty-one, the work which this one will perform when he comes from heaven, he will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory by the exertion of the power that he has even to subject all things to himself.

    Now, I am bold to say to you even on the basis of this text that the supreme category here for the Apostle Paul is that of heaven. It’s an exposition of this category that he is now setting before this Philippian congregation. And the reason that I say that I am bold to say this to you this morning is because of the confusion and the contradiction that has introduced itself into the Church and into the Reformed world. I know how the argument goes.

    There are those who want to turn us to 2 Peter 3.13, speak to us about the fact that there is a new heaven and a new earth coming, with all of the emphasis seemingly on their part upon the earth aspect of that promise. The new heaven and the new earth, they concentrating then upon the earth and the continuation of and life as you know it presently into that new earth and even unto all eternity.

    My caricature of this point of view is that then God’s children will always be looking up. that other perspective that comes to bear, even on texts like 2 Peter 3.13, texts like Hebrews 11.16, where the enterprising of faith as it pertains to the patriarchal generation, Sarah herself being included, is spoken of along these lines.

    They were looking for a better country. They were in the land of promise. They were looking for a better country, and then the writer to the Hebrews says, a heavenly one. And because of that, God was not ashamed to be called their God, and he has prepared a city for them. So whatever estimation you are going to make with respect to that promise of a new heaven and a new earth, you must submit to the overwhelming power and testimony of scripture that the primary category is heaven.

    It is not the earth. Now I may get a little bit more exercised about this than you do. You see, that’s because I have to read the literature. I have the stuff coming across my desk, day in, day out, that tells me that our objective is the remaking of the world. And that is not the remaking of the world.

    Even from that text in 2 Peter, the testimony is that this world will be destroyed by fire and intense heat. So I press my case, I press my case even here in Philippians 3 verses 20 and 21. But the category that is over all in these considerations from the apostle is that of heaven. His interest is heavenly. He first of all speaks about our citizenship, belonging there. It’s a citizenship that doesn’t end with the second coming. It is rather perfected. You see? This is not a temporary citizenship. This is an eternal citizenship. And it is from this place, this region, this region of glory that Christ comes for those who eagerly await him. As the rest of the verse says, Christ then coming forth from this region for us.

    To what end? As it is expressed in verse 21, the end is the transformation of our body, that is, our body in the flesh, our body in its humble state. Our body as it has been subjected to humiliation and is in fact subjected to humility. This body of the flesh is to be transformed in order that it may be conformed to his glorious body. What body is this which is in view as we move through that twenty-first verse?

    The body of Christ. specifically being the resurrected body, a body fit for glory, a body fit for heaven. The body in you, therefore, is a heavenly body. It is a spiritual body. It is a body now raved by the power of the Spirit, appropriate to dwell within the realm of the Spirit.

    There is reflex here in this twenty-first verse of Philippians 3. Looking back then to Philippians chapter 2, where you have the process described with respect to Christ, who has Himself taken upon Himself a body of humility, and then moved from humility to exaltation. And that position of exaltation is, in fact, a position in glory and in heaven.

    The coming of Christ, then, out of heaven, is for the purpose of changing our earthly bodies for their eternal dwelling, that they, then, who have had faith in Christ, may be made over into his image, having a body like unto his resurrection body. That body, then, never suffering decay. that body never being again subjected to corruption. We could say it like this. Christ came out of heaven to be made like unto us, that we might come into heaven having been made like he had become.

    Now you see, this message is at the very heart of what the apostle wishes to communicate to these Philippians. In fact, this message stands at the very center of the gospel which he preaches. So when he goes on to ask of these Philippians that they stand firm, it is with respect to this doctrine that he is encouraging them to stand firm. And when he enjoins upon them that they might be of one mind, single in mind, it is specifically this common mind with respect to hope and with respect to present obligation under heavenly citizenship, it is specifically these things that he has in mind. And when he speaks about them striving for the truth of the gospel and the truth of the faith, it is specifically this which he has in mind. And by so setting this at the center of things, he is able to make demarcation between those who truly understand the message of the word and those who don’t.

    Who are those who truly understand? Those who are heavenly-minded. Who are those who don’t? Those who are earthly-minded. And it doesn’t matter, you see, what their religious pedigree is. It doesn’t even matter how moral they are. It doesn’t even matter how much they revere the law of God. You can employ the law of God to earthly ends. Do we need lessons in that? Should I bring up the Pharisees?

    But of course, you see, as exercised as I am, the Apostle Paul is gentle and intriguing. He is warm and pastoral. He beseeches, as it were, these who are confused that they might see a light their present life and their future hope in terms of the glories of heaven.

    And my appeal in conclusion should be no different than what we hear from the apostle at the opening of that fourth chapter. As I would speak about you as the dearly beloved of the Lord, as I would see you as my joy and crown, and plead with you that you would keep your heavenly citizenship front and central. The very vitality of your personal life depends on it. The very vitality of this church depends upon it. Once you consider that, the apostles in treaty and meditate upon his words and consider afresh your heavenly citizenship and all that that means. Our Father, the temptations may be severe because we are drawn away by the things that we see.

    We even hold to those things and develop our religious devotion around those things, even justify our devotion to those things because we feel that yes, your law and yes, the realistic and earthy aspect of your revelation in fact vindicate us in our convictions that we pray Lord that we would hear the Apostle that we Lord would be called up short that we would see the more glorious picture in its comprehensiveness in its brilliant colors and be drawn Lord even more to you and to heaven above from which Christ shall come And that day he comes, he shall fit us for our dwelling with bodies like unto his, resurrection bodies that cannot then be subjected to corruption. We thank you, Lord, for our hope, and we plead with you that we might live responsibly as citizens of heaven here in this world. For we ask it in Jesus’ name.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Hawthorne and Heavenly Citizenship

    Hawthorne and Heavenly Citizenship

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Philippians” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 8, 1992.

    About this sermon

    Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Celestial Railroad’ sheds unexpected light on the heavenly citizenship of Philippians 3:20, a citizenship with real privileges and real duties. The word ‘conversation,’ in both 1:27 and 3:20, carries full implications. The mind of Christ makes that citizenship livable.

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    Sermon transcript

    We have returned to Paul’s letter to the Philippians this morning. We are in chapter 3. This is Philippians chapter 3. We are reading from verse 7. But what things were gained to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ. and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect. But I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, For getting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

    Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. And if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, ye followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example.

    For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, for whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. I beseech Iohia and I beseech Syntyche that they may be of the same mind in the Lord.

    Lord, we would not forget your people stretched out across the world. We would not forget those communions that seek faithfulness, who endeavor to stand firm in the faith once for all delivered to the saints. O Lord, we pray on their behalf that they might remain strong in the word. And Father, we would also ask for those that have been compromised, for those, Lord, who had even turned and walked in another direction. May it please you, Lord, to bring them back. And Father, we would also ask for the world itself, that you would draw from that world those whom you would call, those you would be pleased to save. And may we rejoice, Lord, in your electing love. we are children of the word, our boast is in our God, we glory in Christ and in his cross.

    Amen. I want to begin this morning by reading to you a passage, no, not from a biblical writer, but from Nathaniel Hawthorne of all people, a passage from one of his short stories. I actually judge to be Hawthorne’s best. I know many wouldn’t agree with me.

    The story is called The Celestial Railroad. And as those of you familiar with John Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress will recognize, this story is a satirical updating of John Bunyan’s classic. Hawthorne’s purpose is not to satirize Bunyan, but rather to satirize the commercial established American Protestantism of his day. We pick up at the point at which the train, traveling along the Celestial Railroad, has just pulled into the station at Vanity Fair.

    Hawthorne writes, Many passengers stop to take their pleasure or make their profit in Vanity Fair, instead of going onward to the Celestial City. Indeed, such are the charms of the place that people often affirm it to be the true and only heaven, stoutly contending that there is no other, that those who seek further are mere dreamers, and that if the fabled brightness of the celestial city lay but a bare mile beyond the gates of vanity, they would not be fools enough to go thither. The Christian reader, if he had no accounts of the city later than Bunyan’s time, would be surprised to hear that almost every street has its church, and that the reverend clergy are nowhere held in higher respect. And well do they deserve such honorable estimations. for the maxims of wisdom and virtue which fall from their lips come from as deep a spiritual source and tend to us as lofty a religious aim as those of the sagest philosophers.”

    End of quote. Now we are certainly not to understand from this passage that Hawthorne himself had much interest in the true and only heaven, the celestial city, much less in the gospel of saving grace to the chief of sinners espoused by John Bunyan. Hawthorne was on target, nonetheless. in lampooning those Protestants who, although retaining language about heaven in their vocabulary, had no real interest in it. Nor did heaven in any meaningful way affect their lives. In turning to the Apostle Paul, we find a man for whom heaven provided more than passing interest, one for whom the very reality of heaven filled his life. So much is this the case that Paul could describe the Christian life in its totality in terms of heaven.

    And this is precisely what we see in Philippians chapter 3, verses 20 and 21. Listen to him once again. This is what he writes. For our citizenship is in heaven. From whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself. You will note that this statement speaks about our present state, we are in fact citizens of heaven, and our future hope, that as well on the basis of the truth about heaven. Thinking then about the present state, starting where the apostle starts in that twentieth verse. We are described here as citizens, citizens of heaven.

    Our citizenship, he tells us, is there. Now think about the Philippians for a minute, if you will. The Philippians lived in one of those privileged cities in the Roman Empire. A city where the people were born to Roman citizenship. They didn’t have to buy it. They didn’t have to wait for it. They were born into it. Not many cities in the empire had been such an advantage as that.

    And these Philippians, as you might well expect, were quite proud of their status and standing within the Roman world. So Paul tells the Philippians, those who are a part of the church at Philippi, about a greater citizenship. granted them not by birth into an earthly empire under a worldly sovereign, one who might even claim the title of Savior, which in fact Caesar did. Rather, here was a greater fellowship a fellowship granted them by a new birth into an eternal empire under the resurrected Lord of Glory, the only true sovereign and Savior, Jesus Christ.

    Now we are all aware of how great our citizenship is to us, we living here in the United States of America. Consider our privileges, our advantages. Surely our liberties and privileges exceed those known in the first century world under the Romans. But think of it now, even as we reflect upon the words of the Apostle. As wonderful as this citizenship is that we possess in this land, it is exceeded by the superlative citizenship granted us through the marvelous grace and matchless might of God. And what benefits? What benefits are granted us? Such as excel any extended from Rome to the Philippians. Such as excel any extended even from Washington D.C. to us.

    Consider the fact that according to Paul, what we have read today tells us that we are privileged to know on an intimate basis the Lord himself. Look at Philippians 3.10. But I may know him.” That is not with respect to the prospect of knowing him. Paul is here speaking about a present reality into which he has entered. He does, in fact, know the Lord.

    And backing up a verse to verse 9, another privilege there spoken of, for we are privileged to have the very righteousness of God imputed to us because of this vital intimate contact with Christ by faith. Not such as the state may grant us, Not such as might be granted us through our religious exercises even, but the very righteousness of God that can be procured only by the work of God through the giving of a gift. And this then realized in that vital intimate contact with Christ by faith. Even being the personal friend of the President of the United States can’t match being the friend, the intimate friend, of the Son of God.

    After all, administrations on earth change. presidents rise and fall, just as do Caesars. But the administration of heaven never falls. this present citizenship that we have in heaven. We have set before us, well by Paul, privileges, wonderful privileges. But we also have set before us present duty. Even for the kingdom of heaven, you see, there are responsibilities. In fact, we can go on so far to say that while assuming the privileges that belong to citizenship in heaven and mentioning them as we have seen While even going to great lengths to describe what it took on Christ’s part to secure those privileges, He giving up His place in heaven, coming to earth, making Himself then subject to all of the hostilities and oppressions of men, that he might there undergo the wrath of God for sinners and be vindicated by his Father and resurrected into glory, even though we have all of this set before us in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Paul’s letter here, in its greatest emphasis, falls upon the duty, the present duty, that falls upon the citizens of the kingdom of heaven.

    In fact, it seems that here we find the very heart of what Paul has been talking about all along. I want you to notice how Paul has laid this out in this epistle. Let’s look once more, beginning at Philippians 3, verse 20. Paul’s mention there in that twentieth verse, as we have underscored it.

    Notice the mention made of citizenship in heaven. Keep that in hand. Now move on to the first verse of the fourth chapter. We hear Paul in this passage in joining these Philippian saints to stand fast That’s the authorized version, or to stand firm in the New American Standard version. So there we have, we have his mention in verse 20 of that third chapter of citizenship. Now, at the beginning of the fourth chapter, he is enjoining these saints to stand firm.

    Two items, we move on to the second verse of the fourth chapter, where he has something special to say to two women of the congregation, Yodi and Sintokie, and he tells them to be of one mind. Those are the three things I want you to keep in hand. Citizenship in heaven, standing firm and being of one mind.

    Now I want you to turn back to Philippians 1 verse 27. Now you’ll have to take my word for it here. This is where I say that the major portion of the letter begins. I realize that if you don’t have a King James in front of you, you might miss the point. I have taken a little liberty in reading the King James this morning at verse 20 of chapter 3.

    Instead of saying conversation, the word that appears there in the King James, I have used the word citizenship. Now, that word conversation is a 17th century word that speaks about one’s behavior. And that word that speaks about behavior is taken from a Greek word, actually, that talks about one’s politics, because one’s politics is one’s behavior. Or, it reflects upon one’s citizenship.

    So the word conversation appears in 320 in the Authorized Version. If you have a King James in front of you, you will notice that that word also appears in chapter 1, verse 27. Connecting the two, connecting 127 with 320. In the 127 passage, the verbal form of the noun that appears in 320 is used by Paul.

    And this is how we might translate the opening, then, of verse twenty-seven in chapter one. Only behave, only behave in keeping with your citizenship as it becometh the gospel of Christ. Only behave in keeping with your citizenship as it becometh the gospel of Christ. add in that passage a reference to heaven, but he reserves that for when he gets to the last part of the third chapter. So we have then mentioned here in verse 27 of chapter one of citizenship, just as we did at the end of chapter three. But notice further what Paul goes on to say in that twenty-seventh verse.

    He expresses his own hope and confidence that these Philippians are standing fast, standing firm. Remember the three items that we had? The end of chapter three, the beginning of chapter four? They’re going to appear here, it seems, in verse twenty-seven of that first chapter.

    He expresses his own personal hope that these Philippian Christians are standing firm, the very words that he uses in chapter 4 verse 1. And finally, at the end of verse 27, Paul speaks about the unity that these Philippians ought to have as it expresses itself in a singleness of mind, in a singleness of spirit. Words again that reappear in chapter 4 verse 2.

    Do you see what Paul has done? I am told that the device that he is using here is called framing. He has put a frame around the content of this central message in his epistle with these words. Citizenship standing firm and unity of mind. Paul then has placed his message unmistakably before us, as that message is framed beautifully, literarily, by the Apostle.

    From the first chapter then through the fourth, Paul is speaking about one and the same thing. He is speaking about that citizenship that he mentions. in chapter 1, verse 27, as we find out that citizenship is precisely the citizenship of heaven. And his major concern is how do citizens of heaven behave themselves in the world presently? How do citizens of heaven behave themselves presently? in the world.

    And about this he has two things to say. First, stand firm. Stand firm. Now he gives that instruction, you see, because he knows, regardless of what others may say, he knows that heaven has enemies. And it is necessary for the Church, if she is to be true to her heavenly citizenship, to stand firm by striving together for the faith of the gospel.

    Those words also appear in verse 27 of chapter 1. Paul would have these people be aware, and we should be aware too, that the enemies of heaven don’t all come with horns and pointed ears and all carry pitchforks. Sadly but truly, many of them come in clerical garb, sporting religious titles, adept at religious talk, just as Hawthorne described them. Paul tells us that one of their chief distinguishing marks, however, That which opens up the root motivation within these people is the fact that they are, in the end, standing directly contrary to heaven itself, for they are earthly-minded. Do you see how he leads into that twentieth verse in the third chapter by describing those who are the enemies of the cross of Christ?

    He ends by saying that they are earthly minded, they set their mind on earthly things. They might be very nice, they might dress well, they might even speak well, they might know the king’s English, but they’re earthly minded. They might have stories to tell, they might be able to tell you all kinds of wonderful religious tales. that they are earthly-minded. Secondly now, Paul believes the way these Christians behave presently as citizens of heaven while they are in the earth is in such a way so as to reflect a singleness of mind. He mentions doctrine first, and then he goes on to unity. Isn’t that interesting? Isn’t that interesting? Stand firm, and then he speaks about being of one mind.

    The modern church has given up on doctrine. They don’t much care for it anymore, and especially if it’s doctrine about heaven. Paul leads into unity the singleness of mind from a vantage point of doctrine. Such a mind is itself set upon the truth and opposes error.

    But such a mind also goes on to affirm the love that must be manifest among brothers. And Paul here has in mind something more than just tight friendships, bonding at the club. Paul has in mind here the prescription that is laid out in Christ. The mind we ought to have, after all, is the mind of Christ, who demonstrates his commitment to the unity of the body by giving himself sacrificially for his own. True unity of mind then plays itself out in a love that no longer counts cost.

    If you want to read about that mind that we are to have, take a look at the second chapter, verses 5 through 11. This then is our message concerning our heavenly citizenship. and the present privilege and responsibility that that citizenship sets before us. We will have to delay our consideration of the hope that citizenship offers us for another time, but for now, and in closing, I want you to consider why Paul is able to subsume both his description of the Christian life in its totality and his message to the Philippians under the heading of Heaven and Citizenship in it.

    You see, heaven is where Jesus is. Heaven is where Jesus is. Because heaven is where Jesus is, all of Paul’s energies and desires are directed heavenward because there is no one, there is nothing that Paul loves more than Jesus and he longs to see him. For all then who love Jesus and long to see Him, for all who would claim that they love Jesus and long to see Him, this then is where your heart must be.

    Your life must be directed toward it, and graciously from God your life flows forth from it, so that even presently heaven is manifesting itself in the world, through you who have the hope of glory in your heart. The true and only heaven. This is what is at the center of Paul and his consideration of the Christian life. Should it not also have that place in your life?

    Lord, in our love for our Savior, may we long to see him. But also, Father, in our love for him and even our present union with him, may there be the marvelous testimony to the fact that we do in fact know him. O Lord, may we rejoice in present privilege But may we also, Lord, delight in present duty, even as that duty makes us all the more conformed to his image. We pray it in his name.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Christ, the Perfect Judge

    Christ, the Perfect Judge

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Philippians” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 13, 1992.

    About this sermon

    Deuteronomy 16 and Exodus 23 supply the Old Testament’s own instructions for proper judgment among elders, instructions Isaiah 11 already admits are finally inadequate on their own. Paul points past all of that to Christ as the perfect judge, John 7 supplying the New Testament’s fullest picture of what that judging looks like. Judging properly, for the church now, means judging the way Christ does, more than merely following inherited procedure.

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    Sermon transcript

    We will begin our scripture reading this morning in John 7, John’s Gospel, the 7th chapter, and we are reading through verse 24. I will be reading from the New American Standard Version. After these things, Jesus was walking in Galilee, for he was unwilling to walk in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him.

    The feast of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles, was at hand. His brothers therefore said to him, Depart from here and go into Judea, that your disciples also may behold your works which you are doing. for no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world, for not even his brothers were believing in him. Jesus therefore said to them, My time is not yet at hand, but your time is always opportune. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify of it that its deeds are up to the feast yourselves. I do not go up to this feast, because my time has not yet fully come.’

    Having said these things to them, he stayed in Galilee. But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he himself also went up, not publicly, but as it were in secret. The Jews, therefore, were seeking him at the feast and were saying, And there was so much grumbling among the multitudes concerning him, some were saying, he is a good man, others were saying, no, on the contrary, he leads the multitude astray. But no one was speaking openly of him for fear of the Jews.

    But when it was now the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach. The Jews, therefore, were marveling, saying, how has this man become learned? having never been educated. Jesus therefore answered them and said, My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If any man is willing to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak for myself. He who speaks for himself seeks his own glory, but he who is seeking the glory of the one who sent him He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

    If not Moses gives you the law, and yet none of you carries out the law, why do you seek to kill me?” The multitude answered, “‘You have a demon. Who seeks to kill you?’ Jesus answered and said to them, “‘I did one deed, and you all marveled.’ On this account, Moses has given you circumcision, not because it was from Moses, but from the fathers, and on the Sabbath you circumcise a man. If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I made an entire man well on the Sabbath?

    Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. I’m turning over to Philippians chapter 3, verse 17. It says, Philippians 3, verse 17, “…Brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.”

    Our Father, your word is more than a help to us, it is our life. We know, our God, that you give your word into the world, and even now there are your servants who proclaim that word throughout the world, and our prayer is for them, that they may be true to the gospel that they may hold to the infallibility of your word and its clear sufficiency. May it please you, Lord, to prosper them in their labor, not according to men’s estimations, but according to your purpose and plan. Hear us, Lord, that not only may that word prosper other places, but here also. that we might be all that we should be. In Jesus’ name, amen.

    If you turn to the Old Testament, you will find there a particular prescription that the people of God were to choose judges and officers who would judge the people with righteous judgment. You may find that reference in Deuteronomy 16, verse 18, there among other places. specifically in mind in the law are those who are then to lay aside all personal bias and any thought of advantage when they enter into judgment with respect to others and their cases. These are to have a commitment to God’s justice above all else. It is in a similar vein that the people of God previously were called to a complementary standard. When they were asked to testify in court, for instance, they were obliged to lay aside all thought of personal advantage. They were obliged to lay aside every prejudice. that justice might prevail.

    You can read that prescription in Exodus chapter 23, verse 2, among other places. They were not to allow, according to this prescription, they were not to allow the crowd to determine their attitude or disposition. They were not to follow the crowd in doing evil. They were not to be controlled by a mob mentality. They were not to be controlled by the latest poll.

    Now in these prescriptions we have marvelous advice, generally, applicable generally, for elected officials and electorates wherever. But these prescriptions bear particularly not upon the unregenerate world, although there is application, but upon the Church of God, and in the Church of God they have normative legislative force. They are binding, absolutely. As it becomes a matter of applying things to our present condition, these prescriptions that we find in the Old Testament find their implication in the Church’s life as the Church elects judges for itself. And who might those judges be? Elders. ruling elders amongst the people.

    The prescription then, not simply with respect to them, but also with respect to the electorate in view, the congregation, and how the congregation is to conduct itself. Not looking then for personal advantage, not even voting by way of bias or prejudice, but setting God’s justice and truth above all.

    I know that it would be greatly profitable and interesting, especially in this election year, for us to pursue these matters more deeply. along the lines of political realities and the church-state question. But those issues lie beyond our purposes this morning. What we are focusing, then, upon is the Church of God and the history of salvation and the implication of such prescriptions for us as the people of God.

    We have then set before us some Old Testament texts from Deuteronomy, from Exodus, and from these Old Testament texts we move to New Testament obligation. As Israel of old, so now for the Church presently. Our judges, that is, our elders, are to judge with righteous judgment, and we, the congregation of the Lord, are to do the same.

    But of course, we have not done our duty to any Old Testament text. if we merely transpose it wholesale into a New Testament setting. Let me repeat that for you. We have not done our duty to any Old Testament text if we merely transpose that text wholesale into a New Testament setting.

    I know this is the day in which that is done a great deal within the Church of Christ. The transposition of Old Testament legislation wholesale into New Testament setting without any consciousness of the transformation that has been effected in and through Jesus Christ.

    You should be aware of the fact that the Old Testament itself agrees with what I have just said. In fact, the Old Testament telegraphs its own weakness and limitation, its own inadequacy. To be sure, the Old Testament is weak and limited and inadequate, otherwise we would not need a New Testament. The New Testament is aware, as I said, of its weakness and limitation. In order to prove this, I want you to look at a passage in Isaiah, chapter 11. Truly a great prophecy from Isaiah, one that is well known. and looking particularly at verses 1 through 5.

    Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And he will delight in the fear of the Lord and he will not judge by what his eyes see, nor make a decision by what his ears hear. But with righteousness he will judge the poor and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth, and he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Also, righteousness will be the belt about his loins, and faithfulness the belt about his waist.” I want you to consider this prophecy in light of the pattern that was set out for us in the prescriptions that we noted earlier in Exodus 23 and Deuteronomy 16. And I ask you the question, what need would there be for this root of the stem of Jesse, verse one, upon whom rests the Spirit of the Lord, verse two.

    This one who, according to verse three, will not judge by what his eyes see nor make decisions by what his ears hear, or as verse four says, this one who infallibly judges the poor and equitably deals with the afflicted. The elders of Israel and the people themselves in Israel judged with righteous judgment, keeping the word of the Lord. The Old Testament itself telegraphs its weakness, its limitation, its frailty, and its inadequacy. The judges of Israel sinned, the people were corrupt, and by root of their sin they were disqualified.

    Someone greater must come. Someone who transcends them, even in their capability. But note the expectation with respect to this one who was announced by Isaiah. The one who must come does not merely judge rightly as he observes the evidence set before him and hears the cases. No, he goes beyond the external to those things that lie in the realm of eternal judgment. And this one is not in control of himself to render his own judgment, but in the control of the spirit of the Lord. His scrutinizing pertains not to the visible realms, but to invisible truths and the eternal kingdom. He is the one who does not and will not pursue his own interests or judge according to self-interest. The Old Testament then owns up to its own weakness and limitation, and it cries out for one who is righteous where all others have failed, but also for one who in selflessness serves God and the unseen realities of his eternal King.

    Now is the power of John 7 beginning to settle in on you? Is the power of this text beginning to register? We have here a marvelous story about Jesus, one that is too often overlooked, but one that plays upon the theme of the instability and the uncertainty of those things which are seen, the instability and the uncertainty of appearances, and focuses upon those things which are not seen, those things that are not obvious. The identity of Jesus was certainly not obvious to his brothers, his own brothers. The story begins, you see, with an account of them and their misunderstanding.

    They are pleading with him to go up to Jerusalem to the Feast of Tabernacles in order to make a public display of himself. Do something obvious. Do something that people can observe. Make an impact. Won’t you Jesus? Make an impact. Do something that counts.

    Jesus refuses to go with them, he will not cave in to their demands, because he knows what is in them, what is motivating them, and it is something far from the kingdom that he has come to establish. So they go up to the feast by themselves, and he then, secretly, hiddenly, he then, not apparently at the feast, but does come up he arrives and then suddenly presents himself in a public setting in the temple.

    Note the speech that follows, for it bears particularly on this question of the righteous judgments and judges of the Old Testament. Not only does Jesus enjoin his hearers with respect to the obligation to judge righteously, verse 24 of that seventh chapter, that he demonstrates that such judgment finds expression exclusively in him. He is then, with his speech here in John chapter 7, declaring himself to be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy in Isaiah’s eleventh chapter. He is the one who judges the righteous judgment. It is important for us to understand the character, the nature of this righteous judgment which Jesus exercises.

    Jesus will in fact look away from himself to the one who sent him. In this, he brings to bear an assessment that originates in and moves toward the unseen realm of the Father’s glory and the Father’s kingdom. The righteous judgment does not find expression in the one who speaks from himself and seeks his own glory. But as verse 18 of that seventh chapter says, He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who is seeking the glory of the one who sent him, he is true and there is no unrighteousness in him.

    The perplexing question of justice and righteousness. How does one get outside of oneself? How does one free oneself from his own prejudice and limitations? It is a problem that plagues the 20th century, so much so that some have concluded that righteous judgment is an impossibility. I still consider Albert Camus’ book, The Fall, the greatest novel of the 20th century. Why? Because it puts before the world the critical issue.

    A judge who boasts of his legal prowess and ability, in the first part of the book presenting himself who in fact does speak out of his own self-consciousness, self-worth, value, but then in the latter part of the book he unravels and falls apart, concluding that no one can sit in judgment of another. The crucial issue with regard to judgment and the righteous judgment is resolved in Jesus Christ. He is the one who comes in the name of his Father, not seeking his own glory, but the glory of the one who set him forth. He is the one who looks even beyond himself to glory itself, and from the vantage point of that glory then speaks. Seeing all of this, what do we do with the figure of the Apostle Paul?

    We have the seventeenth verse of that third chapter in Philippians. Does this statement by Paul cause you to pause? Does it disturb you a little bit? He says, Brethren, join in following my example. Observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.

    Does it sound as if the Apostle Paul is setting himself in front of the Philippians as a standard? Could we conclude that here is one who speaks out of himself and from himself? Could we conclude, as some have, that Paul is an insufferable egotist, stuck on himself, setting himself up as some sort of example for all others to follow? The true canon for the Church This is, after all, pretty bold talk, isn’t it? Do you go around talking like this? Follow my example, brethren. It may seem as if Paul is a brash braggart.

    They see that he is simply insufferable. But we are to judge the righteous judgment not according to appearances. Paul, possibly appearing here as self-centered, is anything but. For his intention is not to call attention to himself, but to focus attention upon the one who is in him, or the one to whom he is bound, Jesus Christ. What the Philippians are to see in Paul is a man who directs their attention away from himself, actually, when calling their attention to himself. Paul’s own self-denial and his selflessness are coming to expression in this very statement. For the one Paul wants now these Philippians to see, as he calls their attention to him, is none other than Christ. And in Christ, those things that are not seen, those things that are eternal. of the apostles’ remarks to them.

    Verse 7, he says that whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted lost for the sake of Christ. He counts all things, he says, and verse 8, to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus is Lord. Verse 9, he wishes to be found in Him, and knows that he is in fact found in Him, not having a righteousness of his own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ. He wishes then to know Christ, and in fact knows him presently, the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering, being conformed to his death in order that he might attain to the resurrection from the dead.

    And then he goes on to speak about the fact that he is in the process of attaining, that he has not attained as yet. And it is precisely this that the Philippians are to see in him. They are to see that he is in process. that he is in the process of attaining, and precisely because of that, all glory belongs to the Christ whom he serves. The righteous judgment then will come to expression in the Apostle Paul as he points people such as the Philippians away from himself, even in the exercise of calling their attention to himself. that they might better see Christ, and in following his example, be bound to the Christ whom he follows.”

    How marvelous this all is, how deep and rich. For it may be that with the Old Testament legislation things may remain on the surface in the life of the people of God, but now that is a complete impossibility. You must penetrate beyond the veil. You must get beyond the things that are external to those things that are unseen and eternal.

    And the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who now affects the transition so that that is a possibility and a reality in fact.

    You then being brought by him through that veil have been given a vantage point in him whereby the righteous judgment can be effected for you. in you and through you amongst the people with whom you are bound in life fellowship. If there is to be any calling of attention to yourself, may it be But that is merely an avenue by which Jesus Christ himself may be exalted all the more. us, our Father, as we look to you. We who have despaired that the righteous judgment would be found anywhere, may we despair no more and know that it is resident in Christ. Father, we pray that as we are called upon to live in this world and even to make judgments, that we will make those judgments in keeping with the revelation that is come in Christ and the certain and sure knowledge of those things which are above. Our God, glorify yourself in us that we might prove to be a glory to you. We ask, Lord, that it would please you also to strengthen your church with those who would rule in it wisely and well, who would then, while they have the office and by way of that office, have attention focused upon them, yet direct attention to their Lord and Savior. And may we be found faithful, Father, ourselves, as we in Christ then would put far from us any prejudice or bias or any self-interest, as we would plead with you that your justice would be made clear to us and that we would act upon it.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Closed Revelation, Not Continuing

    Closed Revelation, Not Continuing

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Philippians” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 6, 1992.

    About this sermon

    ‘Reveal’ in 3:15b raises the question of continuing or closed revelation, and embracing continuing revelation carries real dangers. ‘Perfection’ in 3:15a raises a separate question. After all Paul has said, boasting in one’s own perfection is plain hypocrisy.

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    Sermon transcript

    This morning we return to Paul’s letter to the Philippians, and we are again in Chapter 3 of that letter, that glorious letter. We begin reading at verse 7. We will be reading through the first verse of the fourth chapter. Philippians 3, verse 7, listen to the word of God.

    But what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. Be doubtless, and I count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but done, that I might win Christ and be found in him.” not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, neither were already perfect. But I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

    Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be less minded. And if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already obtained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk So as ye have us for an example, for many walk, of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.

    For our conversation is in heaven. From whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy I am crowned. So stand fast in the Lord. my dearly beloved. How in the life, Lord, in the fruitfulness of your word, we have been made alive by that word. Now, Lord, we trust there is fruit for you, as your word has its way in us. We do love you, Lord.

    We would be fruitful for you as you, by your Spirit, bring forth a harvest for yourself. Not only in us, not only in this place, but throughout the world, amongst all of your people, and throughout all ages. O Father, We thank you that we are part of this harvest which you have ordained for yourself.

    Through Christ Jesus, Amen. to an Orthodox Presbyterian minister to leave off his study of a particular epistle halfway through a verse, go do something else, and then come back and pick up at the same point, halfway through a verse. And that’s where we are this morning. We are in the fifteenth verse of this third chapter in Philippians. And this is the question that we have for ourselves this morning as we look at the latter part of that fifteenth verse.

    What does Paul mean when he says, and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you? Our interest this morning focuses upon his use of that verb, reveal. What does Paul mean when he speaks in this fashion, when he speaks about God revealing or God’s revelation? Does Paul mean here to commend to affirm, to speak positively about some sort of direct disclosure from God which these Philippians have at their disposal, if that is intention. Does he mean at this point to commend, to affirm, to speak positively about some sort of direct communication or disclosure from God which these Philippians have at their disposal.

    Many have thought so. In fact, some have used this verse repeatedly to defend their particular view of what they call continuing revelation. Now, do you understand what I’m referring to when I speak about continuing revelation? Those who believe in God’s continuing revelation carries them beyond the parameters of Scripture. To the extent that they say God continues directly and unmistakably to reveal himself as he did in biblical times.

    Yes, even with an audible voice. Now there are variations to this position. A great number of Christians presently subscribe specifically to the doctrine that God is dramatically and supernaturally at work today through extraordinary phenomenon, such as dreams, visions, voices, tongues, prophecy, gifts of faith, knowledge, healing. All of these gifts then being direct intrusions and revelations of God by way of his Holy Spirit, in addition to what we would find in Scripture, even apart from what we would find in Scripture.

    There are others moving along a similar line. maybe even more numerous than the previous group we just described, that specifically believe that the nature of God’s continuing revelation is more subtle and pertains to the areas of wisdom and guidance, but no less direct, no less immediate. The former group are more generally known as charismatics. The latter group are more generally known as evangelical pietists. It is not strange to hear these folks from either group saying things like this. The Lord told me to do this or that. The Lord told me. Or, the Lord led me to do this or that.

    These pronouncements, these folks don’t hesitate to offer without apparent, infallible assurance. There is absolutely no question in their mind that they have received a direct revelation from the Lord. He has spoken to them directly and immediately. in your travels, in your spiritual odysseys, maybe in your background somewhere. Maybe you yourself, at one time in your life, have been accustomed to speaking along these lines and even believing these things about your experiences. At one time, possibly, you would have not hesitated to say, the Lord told me to do this or that, or the Lord directly, in some fashion, pressing it upon my mind, generating within me an infallible assurance. He led me to do this or that.

    But you will have to admit, will you not, that you do not usually hear those deeply committed and convinced Presbyterians, like Orthodox Presbyterians, talking in these terms. It is not the way in which they express themselves. As a matter of fact, those who believe in continuing revelation, be they charismatic or evangelical pietists, look askance at deeply committed and convinced Presbyterians, and consider such preachers as unspiritual, as those who have not been yet filled with the Spirit, or as those who have wrapped themselves up in some sort of spiritual deadness. for which they must be delivered.

    But if you, as a convinced and devout Presbyterian, or even an orthodox Presbyterian, find yourself uneasy with all this rather casual, yet infallibly assured talk about the Lord telling someone to do this or the Lord leading someone to do that, If you find yourself a bit uneasy with that kind of vocabulary, that kind of language, there is truly good reason for your feelings.

    Now hopefully it is not because you are embarrassed by people who are open and direct about their relationship with God. May we all be about the business of being forthright about our God and His truth. A convinced, devout Presbyterian should have no difficulty on this score. And if you are having difficulty on this score, well, maybe you are not a convinced and devout Presbyterian. Maybe you’re not even a convinced and devout Christian. At any rate, there is good reason why strong Presbyterians find themselves uneasy with people who seem to be having multiple personal audiences with the Lord.

    And that reason is that it flies directly in the face of our most basic instincts with regard to the matter of revelation itself, specifically with regard to our convictions about the Scriptures and their completeness and finality. We do believe in God’s revelation. that God has revealed himself completely, fully and finally, and here it is in the Bible.

    We are not looking, therefore, for other revelations besides that which God himself has given and sealed for us. We believe that this revelation contained in Scripture has ended God’s former ways of revealing his will to his people. Furthermore, we do not confuse the Holy Spirit’s illumination with direct revelation. We do believe in the Holy Spirit’s illumination of what, in fact, God has revealed. And so we pray for the illumination of the Holy Spirit with respect to that revelation, that final, full, complete revelation. That by that illumination from the Spirit, the Scriptures would be made increasingly plain to us, and we, by wisdom granted to us from above through God in the Holy Spirit, would grow in our understanding and our obedience to the Lord.

    That graces at midnight are not a revelation, from God. Any more than weeping statues of the Virgin Mary, bleeding crosses, I think you get the point. You see, the Charismatics are not alone in these convictions. There is a Charismatic movement as old as the Roman Catholic Church. that always had extra revelations beyond scripture.

    Authorities, voices, words from God which then bound the consciences of the people of the Lord. It was in the name of revelation that God’s final complete revelation of himself and his will in his word that we reject all such so-called revelations. I think that you are willing to acknowledge the seriousness of the subject. some man somewhere is holed up with his family as hostage, gun in hand, and what does he tell the officers that have surrounded the house? God told me to do this.

    And I realize that it is not argument argumentation or arguments that convince people who hold to this continuing revelation view. It is not arguments that convince them. They cannot be convinced. They have infallible assurances. So it’s not arguments that are going to do it. It’s circumstance.

    It’s running up against those individuals who are running around claiming to have a word from the Lord who are guilty of the most heinous crime. And that, of course, stops you in your tracks, and you start backpedaling and reconsidering and thinking the whole question through again.

    Well, what then is Paul talking about in Philippians 3 verse 15? What is he referring to when he says, and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal it to you? That’s the word, reveal. On the surface of it, it sounds as if he is, in fact, supporting the notion of a continuing direct revelation at the disposal of these Philippians.

    But in actual fact, you see, Paul is having as much fun here in the latter part of this fifteenth verse as he had in the first part. And it may not be apparent to you as you look at the text. In fact, you might even forget our message on the first part of this verse. But you may recall some of you what we said about the opening of that fifteenth verse. You note Paul’s use there of the word perfect.

    Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, to get the tone I mean, Paul isn’t here in order to offer us the proper inflection. But his intention is sarcasm, as many as are perfect. Now, how do we know that? How do we establish that from a test? Well, we notice what he has said previously when he used that term, perfect, before.

    Verse 12. And in that 12th verse he flatly states that he himself is not perfect. Do you see it? Not that I have already obtained it, namely the resurrection of the body from the dead, or have already become perfect. That’s verse 12, we move down to verse 15. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, get a drift.

    Perfection, according to the Apostle Paul, strictly defined, is related to the resurrection from the dead, which he has not as yet attained, but he says as much in verse 11. Paul’s intention then is to make any claims to perfection utterly ludicrous, since he and these Philippians all stand yet short of the resurrection. But now we have him in that 15th verse going on to speak as if he and the Philippians were perfect. His intention then is, through sarcasm, to poke fun at some in the Philippian church that they might come to a better understanding of themselves and a truer understanding of the nature of the gospel.

    The word perfect is their word. It’s part of their vocabulary. They’re claiming it for themselves, as many of you as be perfect. Paul then, first of all, in verse twelve, robs them of the use of that term, since neither he nor they have attained to the perfection of the resurrection. But then he gives that term back to them, but in a way in which that term is completely redefined. Now, as defined in verse 15, means the cultivation of that attitude which is found in the apostle himself, which he is presently exhibiting. Perfection is admitting they’re not perfect in Paul’s understanding of things.

    The very thing that some of these Philippians were unprepared to admit. For in their vocabulary, perfection meant privilege. It meant ascendancy. It meant right. It meant superiority. It meant attainment. It meant being beyond the scrutiny of anyone else. It meant, in fact, boarding it over others.

    Such attitudes we might well connect with those that Paul has mentioned previously. In verse 2 of chapter 3, where he talks about dogs and evil workers and mutilators, the friends of the circumcision. So when Paul in verse fifteen, will give back the word perfect, but redefined, and in such a way that he exposes the boast and vanity of those who are using the term wrongly.

    If you truly wish to be perfect, you must forego rights You must forego privileges. You must disdain superiority and confess that attainment is found in the resurrection from the dead through the power of Jesus Christ. You then are to be perfect. You must, in fact, be manifesting the life of Christ in yourself. which is to take the low position, not the high one. The servant’s role, not the Lord’s prerogative.

    Similarly, then, as we move on to the end of verse 15, we have these same Philippians, those ones whom Paul has in mind. as he speaks about this matter of revelation. They were the ones who were claiming that God was revealing things to them. And do you know what that revelation did, how it functioned? It nearly reinforced them in their attitude that they had a right to all of these things that they were insisting upon. the superiority, the first place in the congregation, the Lord’s role. It merely justified them in their attitude of attainment and supremacy.

    Paul, therefore, continues his jabs And if in anything you have a different attitude, which obviously some of you do, in fact, your attitude is being secured by the revelations which you are presently claiming. Paul, therefore, is not interested in suggesting to these people that the revelations that they are receiving have any validity to them at all. by which then they can shore up their claims of superiority, rather he is stealing from them their term, and joining it to the very thing they oppose. If there is going to be any revealing going on here, Paul is saying, if there is going to be any revelation taking place, Paul is saying, It will be in exposing how far off base you are. You all the time imagining yourself to be the standard for everyone else. This means then that Paul’s use of the word reveal, the notion of revelation at work here in the 15th verse is ironical, it is sarcastic. It is intended to reveal, pardon the pun, it is intended to reveal the vanity and the hypocrisy of those who are refusing to be measured by Christ.

    The one whose perfect attitude unveils his love for his people. for whose sake he would forego all his rights and privileges and even surrender his superiority, his supremacy in heaven, taking upon himself the form of a servant, giving himself over even to death, that he before us might attain unto the resurrection. from the dead, and that on our behalf. Let us pray. Our Father, may we be sured up in our certainty concerning the revelation that you have given of yourself in your word. and not be derailed by such revelations as may be claimed by some. And Lord, also, even as we hold to a strong position with respect to the finality and the completeness of your revelation in the Word, may we be pressed with respect to the attitude of our Savior. so that we would have the right kind of disposition within the church and before the world. O Father, we might then loosely attach the word revelation to such attitude, to such behavior, in which the Lord Jesus Christ himself is set forth. than being servants like him and taking to ourselves that form of obedience that is found nowhere else but in him. Help us, our God, especially if we are prone to boast, tempted by vanity. even moved and nudged to insist upon our superiority, O God, will you not bring us low? Will you not then, Lord, confront us afresh with the testimony of your word and the person of Jesus Christ who is central to it?

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Bible’s Own Humor

    The Bible’s Own Humor

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Philippians” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, July 5, 1992.

    About this sermon

    Scripture’s own sense of humor gets real attention here, evident in Paul’s sarcasm toward saints who claim a perfection they plainly don’t have. Real perfection, paradoxically, means confessing that we lack it rather than achieving flawlessness. Humility, laying claim only to Christ’s perfection rather than one’s own, is where this whole passage actually lands.

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    Sermon transcript

    We continue our reflections on Philippians chapter 3, and we are reading this morning from the 3rd chapter, the 7th verse, through the 4th chapter, the 1st verse. This is Philippians 3, verse 7. Here is the word of God. Those I counted lost for Christ lay doubtless, and I count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dumb, that I might win Christ and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, that that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained either were already perfect. But I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, for getting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

    Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. And if in anything we be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule. Let us mind the same thing.” be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example.

    For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. for our citizenship is in heaven. From whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown So stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. the power of your word.

    By your word, we are convicted. By your word, we are converted. Our Father by your word, we are congregated here, an assembly that belongs to you. Father, as such, we would hear your word. We would hear it with fear, reverence. We would hear it with love, with understanding, that you might glorify yourself in us. Through Christ we pray, in the power of the Spirit.

    Amen. directory for worship for the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. had this entry. In time of public worship, let all the people attend with gravity and reverence, for daring to read anything except what the minister is then reading or citing abstaining from all whispering, from salutations of persons present or coming in, and from gazing about, sleeping, smiling, and all other indecent behavior. I think you understand the force of this entry. It was intended to encourage a proper decorum in worship, that the people might not be concerned so much with the people about them, but rather with God, his presence, and his word. I have read that statement many times, and I always stop, linger and reflect a bit about that entry, smiling.

    I know what has happened in our own time, and I’m sure that you are well aware of it too, that some worship has become characterized by a frivolousness. and that humor is used inappropriately as a tool of manipulation and entertainment. Nevertheless, at her forefather’s notwithstanding, humor is rightly used. It is rightly used throughout Scripture. It will not do for us to miss the sense of humor expressed so often, so persistently, and so effectively throughout the Bible. The examples are endless. From the beginning, We are all aware of the humor of the story of Noah. The humor of that story has not been lost even on secular audiences. What about the Tower of Babel? That story conjures up all kinds of images, does it not?

    People living and working together one moment, and the next not even able to understand a word that a friend or neighbor says. The laughter of God, answering the laughing, mocking Sarah, who laughs when she is told that she’ll have a child in her old age. And then the memorializing of that child with the name Isaac, which in fact means laughter. Let me get a good laugh. out of those two proud tricksters, Laban and Jacob, trying to outwit each other.

    May we be reminded of Balaam’s ass? We have been having some excellent lessons in our morning instruction period from Jonathan Stark on Numbers chapter 22 and that hilarious story. where it seems as if, as Jonathan reminded us this morning, the prophet becomes the ass, and the ass becomes the prophet. Further on in that story, what do we make of Balak?

    He wants Israel cursed, you know. And since Balaam won’t curse Israel from one mountain, Balaam takes them to another. Maybe another point of view will help you, Balaam, to get this thing right. What shall we say about the uproariously funny story from 2 Kings 6, in which we have Ben-Hadad sending that army down from Syria because he’s fed up with Elisha. He sends the army to Dothan to capture Elisha, but upon their arrival the army is struck blind, and then Elisha says, Well, let me lead you home. He takes them to Samaria, right into the capital city. And then they realize that the gig is up. We can mention the fate of Amon, who builds the gallows for Mordecai. We have this story in the book of Esther, but then he is hung on his own gallows.

    There are the repeated ironic twists that appear in the books of the prophets, the word plays, the puns that abound. The Gospels themselves are rich in humor, from the descriptions of jealous, bickering disciples, to Jesus’ very words in which he dresses down disciples and detractors alike. You have his description of a feast, a great feast, conjuring up images of guests who are climbing over one another in order to get the chief seats. He calls Herod, humorously, that fox. He chides Peter’s preposterous limitation on the extent of forgiveness, seven times more, by telling him to forgive seventy times seven. And in that marvelous way, divinely humorous story.

    Jesus welcomes a paralytic whose entry before him is on a litter let down through a hole in the roof. The book of Acts is filled with humor too. You hear Peter saying, The feet of the fellows that took your husband out are at the door presently waiting to carry you out as well.” Then there is that outrageously funny story from Acts 19, the story of the sons of Sceva, the Jewish priest. who thought they could command demons if they just used the name of Jesus, even though they didn’t believe in him, even though they didn’t belong to him, even though they had not been called by him. So they attempt an exorcism, and we are told that the demon left its victim and fell on them so that they fled the scene naked and wounded.

    Invariably, the humor we witness in the Bible expresses deep iron. In other words, in view is a significant reversal of circumstances so that things are turned on their head. Evil, which seems to have everything going for it, including human nature, is thwarted and good, which, humanly speaking, has nothing going for it.

    God himself laughs. We are told that in Psalm 2. He has the wicked and their evil devices in derision. His laughter is a laughter of mockery. The Apostle Paul is thoroughly alive to the Lord’s laughter. He is schooled in the Scriptures and by the God of Scripture. As an instrument of the Holy Spirit, he often turns his pen as if it were a knife, and then cleverly carves up the Gospel’s enemies.

    We have an example of him so turning his pen in the second verse of this third chapter in Philippians. He tells the Philippians, Beware of dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the mutilators. That’s how it should be translated, beware of the mutilators. In our messages on that text, you will recall that the apostle is turning on its head, the description these very people have of themselves. They’re not dogs in their estimation, they’re holy, pure, clean. They’re not evil workers, they are the workers of righteousness. They are not mutilators, they are the servants of circumcision.

    Paul mocks them. He laughs, inspired by the God who himself laughs. But Paul, like Jesus, does not hesitate to use the knife ever so deliberately, ever so carefully, ever so delicately, he does not hesitate to use the knife even on the faithful saints, those whom he loves dearly. He turns the knife of humor I use the word, he even becomes sarcastic in dealing with the faithful, the beloved. His objection is not to hurt or to damage, his objective is to correct. He will use this tool of humor, of sarcastic wit, in order to bring his beloved readers to a state where they will be attentive to their sinful and even ridiculous behavior.

    At this point I know what is often done by commentators, by preachers, They want to make sure that you understand that the Apostle, others in Scripture are not laughing at us, but they are laughing with us. I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s the way it’s working out. That’s a very clever twist of a phrase, but I don’t really think that that’s what the apostle is doing, I don’t think that’s what others in Scripture are doing either. No, the apostle is laughing at the saints in their ridiculousness, in their foolishness.

    Paul is laughing at the Philippians. Yes, he laughed at the enemies that are threatening, verse two of that third chapter, but now he laughs at the Philippians in the fifteenth verse of this third chapter, where he says, let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded you, catch the note of sarcasm in his words.

    Therefore, I’m trying to read it in order to communicate it a bit there. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. Humor falls out of his use of that word perfect. Now, we all know that there are examples in scripture where that word perfect is used as a synonym for maturity. And yes, the apostle here is using this word as a synonym for maturity, but with an ironic twist.

    The ironic twist enters the picture because the apostle is addressing this church. a church in which an epidemic of disunity and contention and competitiveness has attacked the body. That epidemic has progressed because some within this assembly, these people in fact whom he loves, This congregation that he speaks so endearingly to, as you note in the opening of that fourth chapter, this epidemic has progressed because some in this church have become convinced about their own superiority, a superiority that has led to boasting and to claims of perfection, that is, claims of maturity.

    But now to these perfect little saints, Paul has a couple of things to say. He has been preparing them for this. We’ll note in the twelfth verse that there also he uses the word perfect, there with respect to himself. He uses the term in that twelfth verse this way, not that I have already obtained the resurrection from the dead or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. First of all then, Paul, with respect to this word perfect or perfection, sets about to rob these Philippian believers of their use of the term. He’s going to steal it from them.

    He tells the Philippians that he has not attained perfection, by which he means that he has not attained as yet to the resurrection of the dead. Any claim, therefore, by these Philippians to perfection must be measured by the Apostle’s confession and set in the context of the expectation of that perfection that comes on the great day of resurrection. So, my friends, if we are going to talk about perfection, let’s get the record straight. Let’s start with a discussion about the resurrection from the dead.

    In light of this, it is obvious now, is it not, and certainly Paul expects this to register well upon his readers, upon his hearers, neither they nor he are perfect. And since all are on the road, all are en route, the boast that really and truly emanates from the flesh, this boast to superiority The prayer isn’t done. He robs them of their use of the word in verse 12, but now he’s going to give it back to them in verse 15. But it won’t come back to them with the meaning they had attached to it.

    For them, perfection, maturity, meant this. It meant pride of place. It meant privilege. It meant respect, and that automatically. By what route they came to this position, we can only surmise. possibly because they thought they had superior knowledge, or they were concerned with the really important matters.

    And even though this church was going through hard times, even though this church was experiencing persecution, the mundane acts of ministry and service to the congregation were beneath them. These folk, considered themselves immune when it came to certain tasks. And if an attitude of servanthood was to be expected from below and meek, it certainly could not be expected from them. There were certain activities and certain habits of mind that were beneath them. After all, They were perfect little saints.

    Paul, however, now says that perfection is found in the confession that we lack perfection. Paul says that maturity is found in the confession that we lack maturity. He tells the Philippians in this fifteenth verse that they ought to have this attitude which he has been expressing. They are to be numbered among the perfect and the mature. And that is just the opposite of what they thought. The whole of the statement of Paul there at the beginning of verse 15 reads like this, Thus therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude be of this mind. What is the attitude, the mind of which the apostle speaks? He speaks of that attitude, that mind, that is expressing itself in abject humility. That is what the apostle has been doing as you move through this third chapter. No more boast in the flesh for him. No more concentration upon his achievements. No, there is this focus upon Christ. Christ alone.

    What is coming to expression in Christ is coming to expression in him.

    The attitude that the Apostle sets before the Philippians is that attitude which he personally is expressing to them presently in this chapter, but it is the attitude as well that has been expressed by Christ. for all of this, then drives us back to the second chapter of Philippians, where Paul says to the Philippians in the fifth verse of that chapter, have this mind, have this attitude in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. If then we are to speak about perfection and maturity, maturity comes in this uncommon way, in this surprising way. It comes in humility and service after Christ himself who knew pride of position and privilege as one equal to God who gave it up his place in glory that he might take to himself human flesh be considered a bond slave and obedience to his father even to the point of death. The mind, the attitude that the Apostle Paul then sets so wonderfully here, so ironically and even humorously before the Philippians, is that which is evident in Christ. The one who was first, but made himself last, that others may be served. To take the name of Christ to oneself, to insist that you belong to Him to say that you are numbered with Him and that you reside in fact in Him means nothing less than that the life of your Savior now becomes expressed in you you relinquishing your pride and your boast you even sacrificing your privilege and position that you, like your Savior, might serve humbly and willingly.

    For the life of a servant, for the sake of others, We then who claim such descriptions as ours are those who then can lay hold of the maturity of which the Apostle speaks.

    And if we do otherwise, may we all be assured of how silly we look in the eyes of God and in the face of hell. Let us pray. Our Father, which they would ever be in us, a claim to strength, a claim to maturity. If we would ever speak about perfection as being a present position, may it be, Lord, that we are trained well by the Apostle himself. May we understand our perfection in light of the resurrection promised us that we one day will stand before you perfected, and that for all eternity. But presently, Lord, if we are to use that term with respect to ourselves, may we do so advisedly, knowing that maturity rises from a confession of immaturity, That perfection expresses itself in us as the Lord Jesus Christ in his servanthood expresses himself in us. We ask Lord that we might be perfect and mature in this sense.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Winning the Race by Sacrifice

    Winning the Race by Sacrifice

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Philippians” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, June 28, 1992.

    About this sermon

    The already and not yet runs through the Old Testament, the Gospels, and ordinary Christian life alike. Paul’s athletic imagery of running a race shows what pursuing Christ looks like in practice. Believers win that race through sacrificial service, and never by simply outpacing others.

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    Sermon transcript

    In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah, We have a strong city. Salvation will God appoint for walls and billboards. Open ye the gates that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. For he bringeth down them that dwell on high, the lofty city, he layeth it low, he layeth it low even to the ground, he bringeth it even to the dust. The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor and the steps of the needy.

    The way of the just is uprightness. Thou most upright dost weigh the path of the just. Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for thee. The desire of our soul is in thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. With my soul have I desired thee in the night. Yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early. For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

    Let favor be showed to the wicked, and yet will he not learn righteousness. In the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord. Lord, when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see. that they shall see and be ashamed for their envy of thy people, yea, the fire of thine enemy shall devour them.

    Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us, for thou also hast wrought all our works in us. O Lord our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us. but by thee only will we make mention of thy name. They are dead, they shall not live, they are deceased, they shall not rise, therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them and made all their memory to perish. thou hast increased the nation, O Lord, thou hast increased the nation, thou art glorified, thou hast removed it far unto the ends of the earth. Lord, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them.

    Like as a woman with child that doth near the time of her delivery is in pain and crieth out in her pain, so have we been in thy sight, O Lord. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have, as it were, brought forth wind. We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth, neither have the inhabitants of the world followed. Thy dead men shall live Together with my dead body shall they arise, awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust, for thy due is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.

    Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee. Hide thyself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation be overpassed. For behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.”

    Then from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, chapter 3, beginning at verse 12. not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect that I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgiving those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

    Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded, and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule. Let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me.

    Our God, we would have strength from you. We might seek it elsewhere. We might look for it in ourselves, we might look for it in some other person, we might even look for it in some thing. But Father, we would confess that all the search for strength apart from you is vain and empty. We come, therefore, to you, our God. and most particularly we come to your word. Lord, now by your spirit strengthen your people whom you love. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.

    It goes without saying that Paul’s letter to the Philippians confuses many. In fact, it even confuses Brockwood Calvinists on occasion. After all, this is the epistle in which the Apostle speaks with such grand confidence, such certainty, a certainty that is certainly rooted in God’s sovereignty. in his predestinating plan and purpose, his election of grace, but then there seems to be all these qualifiers. There seems to be all of these comments that speak to us about striving and straining. comments about working out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Well, I thought that was a settled matter. What are we doing here, working out our salvation with fear and trembling, if we already have our salvation?

    And here, in the third chapter of Philippians, the Apostle is speaking about He speaks in the eleventh verse of attaining the resurrection. He tells us flat out in verse twelve, he hasn’t attained or obtained, and suddenly the whole climate of the epistle to the Philippians becomes quite sweaty. filled with testimony to exertion, work, hard work no less. Well, as I said, it’s not without reason that many a saint coming to Philippians becomes confused, maybe even somewhat disoriented. Even Calvinists have been known to stumble a bit in Philippians. But I want you to know that there is this consistent theme for Philippians as well as other epistles from Paul.

    There is this consistent theme, the theme of possessing yet to possess. the theme of having yet to have. This language in which the Apostle says he’s got it, but he’s still gaining it. Now, understand what’s in the balance. no peripheral matter here of which the apostle is speaking. He is speaking about salvation. And he is speaking as a saved man.

    As such, there is this magnificent ring, this magnificent ring of confidence, this affirmation of gospel truth, inclusive of all that that gospel sets before us. Yes, Christ’s divinity. Yes, Christ’s humanity. Yes, Christ’s life, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, and all of this for the sake of God’s elect.

    Therefore, the Apostle Paul speaks as one who is seemingly absolutely confident, confident of the living, resurrected, reigning Savior who, by his Spirit, has intervened in his life in order to rescue him, in order to save him. He has done this by working faith in the Apostle, thereby uniting the Apostle to himself. So real is Paul’s salvation, his sense of salvation, so alive is Paul to his Savior.

    So compelled is Paul by the truth of this salvation and by his Savior that this man cannot think of his Savior or the salvation that has become his as objects that are out there somewhere. As if they were articles objects that might be sitting on a coffee table somewhere, to be picked up, admired, enjoyed, then to be laid down again. It is out of his confidence and the confident assurance that salvation is his, that the Apostle Paul doesn’t do something like this.

    He doesn’t pick up Christ to put him down. Paul uses the language repeatedly. He puts on Christ. He wears him. It’s a garment that he hopes never to put off. Such is Paul’s experience of Christ and such is his confidence of salvation that he has said, I cannot underscore this enough, I cannot repeat this verse too many times. The Apostle Paul has said, for to me, to live is Christ. To die is gain.

    Now that’s Philippians 1.21, but Paul now is in his third chapter and he’ll take up the theme with respect to this confidence again.

    He says in verse 9 of this third chapter, I am found in him. It’s not the prospect of being found that the apostle is concerned about at this point. He is speaking definitively about His experience over against the loss of all things, losing them for the sake of gaining Christ. This is how He expresses His confidence. I am found in Him. My place presently is in Him. That’s what He’s saying.

    And I am found in him, my place is in him, not depending upon any self-achieved righteousness from the law, but rather the righteousness from God, supplied in the faithfulness of Christ, received by faith, and that only. But it isn’t done. goes on. Not only is he found in Christ, his place is in Christ, he says now boldly, I know Specifically, I know the power of his resurrection by which I am assured the strength to arrive at glory even though I am called to share his sufferings. So then, be aware of just how adamant and insistent the apostle is. He possesses Christ. He has salvation. He can say, I am saved. Yet, still, but, however, Nevertheless, furthermore, he must yet attain.

    He must yet, in the apostles’ vocabulary, be saved. but he must as well be saved the apostle knows so well the already category dimension of redemption that he is also fully aware of the not yet dimension he knows the already but simultaneously he knows the not yet so he speaks of having been saved he will also speak in language that communicates salvation future He speaks about a future salvation, for instance, in that first chapter of Philippians, the 19th verse.

    If you recall our treatment of that text, we concluded that the apostle there is not merely talking about getting out of jail and rule. He is talking about final deliverance, final redemption. He speaks similarly in the eleventh verse of the third chapter when he speaks about attaining unto the resurrection from the dead, that certainly being a future event. And now he will explain that eleventh verse more fully as he progresses from the twelfth verse on. Paul, now in this twelfth verse, openly confesses that he has not attained his salvation as far as his own resurrection from the dead is concerned. to rob language that he has applied to the Philippians themselves, to rob language from the second chapter, the twelfth verse, where he tells them to work out their salvation with fear and trembling.

    Now the apostle applies it to himself. He also is working out his salvation with fear and trembling, by pressing on toward the resurrection from the dead. that in the future he may lay hold of the very thing for which Christ, the risen Christ, has taken hold of him.” How beautifully the Apostle holds together the already and not yet in that 12th verse of the 3rd chapter as you come to its conclusion. that he may lay hold, but not yet, for which also I was laid hold of by Christ.” So then, the Apostle Paul knows full well that his salvation must as yet be completed in the resurrection from the dead. But he also knows, and this is something with respect to the weight of his argument in the letter thus far, he also knows that his salvation and his participation in that resurrection lay in siege presently from the things of this world.

    The things in which the flesh boasts, if in fact the flesh has its way. But the Apostle Paul tells us in that thirteenth verse that he’s leaving all of that behind. It’s like a rocket shot, as if the apostle is leaving an entire world and its existence behind. The world of the flesh and its ghost. He escapes through the deliverance effected through Christ.

    He presses ahead, he tells us, toward the goal. for the prize of his salvation here understood as the resurrection from the dead the veritable goal belonging to life above through Jesus Christ. It is then the possessing yet to possess that having, yet to have, of which the apostle speaks. He has it, he tells us, still he’s gaining it.

    As we suggested at the beginning of the message, this kind of talk sometimes bothers the saints. sometimes confuses the saints. They become a little disoriented when such language is set before them. But let me remind you that this language is not peculiar to Philippians, nor even to the Apostle Paul. It is part and parcel of Scripture truth. from beginning to end. The Old Testament itself is full of it.

    Does not Abraham have God, yet there is a gaining of God yet for him? In the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, does not God come and tell Abraham that he God is Abraham’s reward that he presently is given to Abraham as possession, yet Abraham is one who will come into a fuller realization of his possession of God, and that through trial and testing. Thus Mount Moriah, thus the offering of Isaac and the confirmation of Abraham’s faith.

    Then what shall we say about the children of Israel? Are they not called the son of God? Called out of Egypt to serve their father, yet in the wilderness they are tried and tested. They have that sonship, but yet they must prove it. And how many times in the Psalms do we read about God being a fortress and a refuge and a city for his people to dwell in, yet his people are portrayed as pilgrims coming up into the city. Yes, they have God who is their citadel, but yet they are coming up to God at the same time. They have him, yet they are attaining him.

    And in this respect, there is no more dramatic description of this very thing than that which we read in Isaiah 26 this morning, where in the opening of that chapter, God is described as that magnificent city in which the people of God dwell. But then, as the chapter progresses, it’s obvious to us that the people are en route seemingly two places at once, in the city, with God, yet on their way up into the city, secure and at home, but also on a journey.

    What shall we say about Jesus Christ himself? Is he not declared to be the Son of God from the waters of baptism? You remember the scene? The voice out of heaven, Thou art my Son, in thee I am well pleased. And immediately the Spirit drives this one who is so described by the Father into the wilderness for testing. to what end? That he might obtain sonship.

    Isn’t it interesting, then, that later on the apostles apply that verse from Psalm 2 to Christ, but specifically with respect to Christ’s resurrection? Psalm 2, where it says, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. What day? The day of resurrection. From sonship then unto the attaining of sonship.

    That is the pattern that we find. Having yet not having. Possessing yet not possessing. How many examples can we multiply in our own lives? the son who has the inheritance, in fact, who lives off the inheritance but yet doesn’t have the inheritance in full those of you who are homeowners you say you own the house the bank says you don’t you live in it He possessed it, but there comes that day when they will hand over the deed to you. But as you notice in this text, the Apostle Paul has his own example. It’s not an economic example.

    He’s been using those previously in this chapter. His imagery shifts here as we move into the eleventh and twelfth verses and following. Now he’s using athletic language, sports language. He’s a runner in a race. He’s striving to attain, to obtain. He’s pressing for the prize. Now I think that we can all see how this applies to the not yet category. He’s striving to get something he doesn’t have. So the illustration seems to be a bit one-sided. Paul is in motion.

    But while that is the emphasis, Paul, as we have indicated, has not lost sight of the already dimension, the possession that is his. For you see, the one who has already laid hold of him is himself a runner and is himself the prize. Paul runs the race with the prize in hand. You run the race with the prize in hand. And in heaven, Christ Paul possesses not only the certainty of the race’s conclusion, he possesses the power to run it. And nothing less than the power of the resurrection is at work in heaven. But even more, he has, as we’ve said, the prize itself. firmly in grip.

    He runs with and in Christ, the very one who has finished the course. Do you want to read about the course that Christ ran? Read Philippians 2 verses 5-11. There is the race of the Son of God. Paul then runs with Christ, firmly held in grasp, or even better, being firmly held in Christ’s grasp. The race’s conclusion and its prize are already seen in the apostle as he writes. But now, in conclusion, having made this observation, seeing that Paul has Christ the champion in the race, this should most certainly tell us something about the race itself.

    How is it that Paul runs? Or is he really running at all? Paul really isn’t interested in races, is he? He’s not really chiefly concerned here about an athletic event, is he? Not at all. Paul is concerned about life And the race is an illustration and metaphor. Paul is concerned about his life. He’s concerned about the Philippians’ life. He’s concerned about Christ’s life. Christ’s life then being the source, the wellspring.

    And how is it that Christ lived? Do I really have to answer that question? How is it that Christ ran his race? He lived by giving up his life. He lived by giving himself over to death in service to God and to God’s elect. That is why the apostle stresses the fact at the end of the tenth verse that he is being conformed unto the image of Christ’s death. Here is a race that you win by dying. Dying to yourself and dying to the world. Here is a race that you win by losing. just as Christ won his race.

    And now Paul wins, if we can speak in this language. Now Paul wins as the very life of Christ shines through him in his sacrificial service even for these Philippians to whom he presently writes. Paul gives his life for them, as Christ gave his life for all of us. But this is stuff meant not merely for saviors and apostles.

    It is meant for all who will then run the race. For there is no other way to run but that way that is seen in Christ, imitated by Paul. Notice how strange the race is. We’ve already noted that it is a race that is won by losing. But notice also this anomaly.

    Paul, in gaining the prize, doesn’t mean the prize is now captured, possessed, and no one else can get it. What does it mean that there is only left to us lesser metals? In fact, the very way Paul runs is so that the Philippians to whom he writes might gain the very prize he has in you. It’s not, then, I win, you lose. My prize, not yours. I’ve got it, I’m not sharing it. It’s my glory, another reason for me to boast in the flesh, I’m not in a reason for me to feel proud about myself. This isn’t ordinary athletics. Paul lives in such a way that everybody else will get the prize. The very prize he wants. The very prize. that Christ himself has given. That prize is the resurrection and Christ now will have all of his people blessed with that prize for glory.

    I possess, yet I do not as yet possess. I have, yet I am to attain. Let us pray. Oh God, may we glory in so wonderful a salvation, so full, complete and rich, affording us confidence and comfort and yet inspiring us in our labor that we might be diligent to work out our salvation with fear and trembling unto the procurement of the resurrection from the dead. O Father, may we be mindful of the way in which we are to run this race assigned to us, running it with Christ firmly in our grasp, being held in His grasp. O Father, We ask that the very service of our Savior, His love, might be evidenced in us for the benefit of others who with us would attain such a prize. We therefore press toward the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing less than the resurrection from the dead.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Abandoning Boasting for Glory

    Abandoning Boasting for Glory

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Philippians” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, June 21, 1992.

    About this sermon

    Paul abandons every ground for boasting in order to gain something greater, the glory of Christ himself. That glory includes Christ’s divinity, a new definition of what humanity is, his perfection, and the sufferings he bore in his people’s place. Ephesians 2 gives the fuller account of what Paul receives in exchange.

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    Sermon transcript

    This morning we are reading from Ephesians 2. We will be reading the entirety of the chapter. Let’s start with verse 1, then. And you, Hathi Quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now workest in the children of disobedience, among whom also we had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

    But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he hath loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ By grace we are saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

    For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Wherefore, remember that he being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus ye who were sometimes far off were made nigh by the blood of Christ, for he is our peace, who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.” and came and preached peace to you which were far off, and to them which were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.

    Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are built together for the inhabitation of God through the Spirit.” Turning over to Philippians chapter 3, verses 12-14, not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after that if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. I count not myself to have apprehended that this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Father, we know of the opposition your word faces, but who is as powerful as you? We know, our Father, that in many lands your people are distressed because of hostile forces and even hostile governments.

    We thank you for freedoms that we enjoy here. May we prove to be good stewards of such freedoms. But Father, we thank you for the freedom that we find in Christ. And in this, Lord, we are bound with others who share this freedom, regardless of what governments may say or what governments may claim.

    So protect your people, Lord. May our hearts be with those who suffer for the sake of Christ, and may we be even willing to participate in that suffering with them, that their burden may be lifted. Hear us, Lord, that your Word may prosper according to your appointment. May we see the prosperity of your Word in the world. We ask it through the living Word, Jesus Christ. Amen.

    To this beloved congregation in Philippi, Nephasu Paul, writing directly and intimately, bears his soul. He opens up. He does it repeatedly throughout the epistle. He is doing it here again in the third chapter. And by so doing, he is giving expression to that which is at the very center of his existence. He is speaking about what drives him, what motivates him, that constrains him to rise in the morning, what accompanies him when he goes to bed at night, he was speaking about the sleep and breath of his existence. He speaks so directly about the life of his soul, so directly about that which is true of him from the inside out. He speaks about his spiritual state, his spiritual condition.

    Now he does this not because he’s some sort of spiritual exhibitionist, it’s not because He’s like so many we hear in our present century who are continually telling us about their own spiritual and religious experiences. Now the apostle is not some sort of spiritual exhibitionist Nor is it that he wishes to boast about himself and his religious superiority. This should be obvious to us, should it not? If we have been hanging with the Apostle through his argument, as we have progressed through the Epistle to the Philippians, for him to boast about himself and his own religious superiority would be a blatant contradiction of the very thing that he has been trying to establish. You recall the burden of his message even as he moves into this third chapter.

    He presents his case, had he wished to make matters an issue in a bragging contest, so he contends there isn’t anyone who was his equal. That’s the nature of bragging, isn’t it? If you’re going to brag, you might as well set yourself up as the standard. You’re going to brag, obviously, there isn’t anyone better than you, is there? There cannot be. Why brag, then, you say?

    But rather than moving along the lines of braggadocio, the apostle expresses himself in such a way that it is clear that all that might have been ground or foundation for a boast in himself, he forsakes and forfeits for the sake of the surpassing excellency of knowing Jesus Christ.

    That’s verse 8. It is unmistakable then as the apostle presents himself, even as he speaks in the first person and uses the personal pronoun, I. That here is one that has been absorbed into the person of Christ, that is consumed with Christ. It is Christ, then, that he wishes to set forward, not himself. He now defines his life in terms of being found in Christ, verse 9, in terms of knowing Christ, verse 10.

    It’s as if nothing, nothing matters to Paul but Christ. Everything else, he says, is but rubbish, he uses. even more explicit in graphic language, you may recall. Paul, therefore, has lost himself in Christ, so that the presentation of his present thinking is not, nor can it be, an exercise in vanity. as if he were somehow, after claiming humility, introducing a claim to superiority by the pastoral. His personal comments.

    We hear them again and again throughout this epistle. His personal comments then are for the purpose of setting before us Christ, not himself. There is, of course, for that very important reason, why the apostle should be so consumed by the person of Christ. You might misunderstand this.

    You may think that the apostle gives place to Christ and that out of necessity, because after all, Christ is divine. Christ is God. The apostle coming to that conviction then, of course, gives place to Christ because of Christ’s essential deity. Now, to be sure, Paul glories in the divine Son of God. His heart, his very soul, is set upon Christ as they would be upon God himself. For, you see, in this one, Jesus Christ is the substance of the Godhead. And as the very being of man, the very life of man, having been made, created by God, depended upon God, destined for God, as that very being of man longs for God and is to give place to God, so Paul, knowing Jesus Christ to be God, longs for Christ and gives place to Him as God.

    Paul, therefore, is well aware of the claims of Christ. He is convinced of those claims. Those claims appear expressed by Paul explicitly and indirectly in this very epistle. The explicit references given to you in the sixth verse of that second chapter, where Paul writes about Christ as that one who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as a thing to be grasped. And how many indirect, indirect references are there to the deity of Jesus Christ?

    We think of the opening of the epistle. We think of the greeting, the salutation, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are to be read on a line. The deity of Jesus Christ is here in view. you move down to the sixth verse of that first chapter, and at the end of that verse you have mention of the day of Christ Jesus, where you would have expected a reference to the day of the Lord, the Lord being in that context no one else but God. So once more, reference to the fact that yes, the Apostle Paul sees Jesus Christ as God. We turn to the twenty-ninth verse of that first chapter. For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake not only to believe in him, belief in him reserves, you would think, for God but here to be directed towards Christ, the object of our faith. Yes, Christ is God.

    Paul therefore sets Christ before us in all his compelling splendor, because Christ is God. Paul dares not obscure the glory of God in Jesus Christ by his puny sinful self. But while this is correct, While Paul is certain, with respect to Christ’s deity, as much as the divinity of Jesus Christ is an absolute and indispensable tenet of Paul’s gospel, it is not the reason why Paul sets Christ before us here with such thorough conviction He is not the reason why Paul here expresses himself as he does, as one who is thoroughly consumed with the person of Jesus Christ. No one else but Christ can be presented in him, not because Christ is divine and God, as if by some sort of relationship with Christ, Paul might himself become divine. Rather, it is because of Christ’s humanity. The passion with which Paul now expresses himself with regard to Christ focuses specifically upon Christ’s humanity. For what Christ has accomplished is a redefinition of humanness and humanity for Paul. Paul cannot look to himself, nor can he look to others.

    For humanity and humanness as expressed by him and others really end in that sinful vanity the Apostle has been expressing all along throughout this epistle. The vanity that comes to expression in the obnoxious brothers of Rome who seek to add weight to Paul’s bonds in prison. Those whom Paul describes as preaching Christ out of envy and strife, but not of goodwill. by sinful vanity and pride also being what in some ways is at the center of things at Philippi, generating a combative and competitive spirit that is tearing the church apart. This sinful vanity and pride will always end in silly boasting, such as Paul describes in the third chapter. Humanity and humanness has reached a tragic conclusion in the self. Sin has ruined us. However, humanity and humanness has had rebirth in Christ. It has had rebirth in the man, Christ. Here in Christ, humanness finds perfect quintessential expression. the ruin of humanity being the backdrop.

    The human therefore demands of Paul a radical conformity to Christ. He is drawn into Christ, yes, as he is. He is confronted with God, for Christ is God, but Simultaneously, he is drawn into Christ, and there he confronts true humanness, what it means to be a human being before God. He is found to be in Christ in verse 9 of that third chapter. He does not mean that he has come to share Christ’s deity. Instead, he means he now stands in the new man, Jesus Christ. This new man obviously possessing in himself the requisite righteousness by which humanity would hope to stand before God justified. And then Paul says he knows Christ in verse 10. He does not have in mind a knowledge of Christ in his essential deity, although he does know Christ as God.

    Instead, as Philippians 3.10 goes on to say, Paul’s knowledge of Christ is specifically that pertaining to the dimensions of Christ’s life and experience as man, for it is not as deity that Jesus undergoes resurrection, but as humanity, as man. It is not in his deity that Christ and Paul have fellowship in suffering. It is specifically in his humanity that Christ dies. And in Paul’s humanity, he is being conformed to Christ’s death. It is precisely in Christ that Paul sees what it means. to be a human being. And he now, as a human being, literally has no life but Christ.

    For to me, to live is Philippians 1.21. Paul expressing such passion for Christ means that now his own true humanness may express itself Paul glories in Christ because Christ means the reclamation by way of saving redemptive work means the reclamation of Paul’s own humanness Paul leads Christ because that to Paul is what it means to be a human being It now thoroughly informs his consciousness. It has penetrated him so deeply. It has become the expression of all of his notions. His very words are informed not only by Christ, but with Christ.

    It’s not a matter of engaging Christ when you happen to pick up the Bible, or when you have an occasion to prayer, when you bow your head at a meal. It’s not merely a matter of thinking about Christ when you walk through the doors of this building or some other place of worship. It’s a way of life. Have you ever noticed how little time the Apostle Paul spends on the specifics of formal It’s almost as if he isn’t interested in it. Of course, that’s not true. He’s very much interested in formal worship, but he will not allow his vocabulary and his descriptions to be rolled up within some sort of building someplace or some sort of assembly. No, Christianity is a life lived in which Christ is manifest and seen.

    It has to do with all of your moments. It’s not just a few words, it’s all of your words, it’s not just a few of your actions, it is all of your actions. This is what has happened to the Apostle. Though he speaks in the first person, he speaks with the first-person pronoun, I, that pronoun is giving way at all points to Christ. Christ himself is displacing Paul. You might not like the Apostle’s description of things. Especially as you look at that 10th verse and you hear the Apostle speaking about fellowship in his suffering, being conformed to his death. The Apostle here is setting before us the description of our true humanity. This is what it means to be human.

    I’m not interested, you say. I’m not interested in suffering. I’m not interested in being conformed to the image of Christ’s death. me another gospel, will you please?” Unfortunately, that is what has happened to the majority within the Christian Church of our own time.

    They have asked for and they have received another gospel. What has it done to live in Christ, wants it to be human in terms of this new humanness found in Christ. And I don’t want to start out with mention of fellowship with Christ’s sufferings, because that’s not where Paul starts out. To be human now, according to the apostles, to be aware at the very center of your being of that indestructible life that is at work in you, that which Paul calls the power of the resurrection. Here is the wellspring of our joy. Here is the fountain for our relief. Here is the fountain of our exhilaration. Here is the stream of our zeal and our passion. What earnestness is ours because we, in our humanness, now know the power of Christ’s resurrection. He, in his humanity, has been raised. You, in your humanity, have been raised in him.

    But as the Apostle goes on to say, being human as defined in and found in Christ means present sufferings with and for Christ. Christ himself suffered for the sake of the kingdom of heaven at the hands of those who love the kingdom of this world. He, as the epitome of the new humanity, suffered at the hands of the old humanity. And so it is with respect to all of those who are bound to him. We are not part of the kingdom of this world, we belong to the kingdom of glory. And as such, we will suffer at the hands of those who love this world and love it above all else.

    Christ not only suffered in this fashion, He suffered by entering into the desperate straits of those destined for participation with Him in glory. He identifies Himself with them. There is a vicarious character to Christ’s sufferings, and that is essential to the gospel proclamation. But though we cannot die for the sins of others, we can enter into their sufferings and bear their sufferings with them and even for them. Finally, Christ suffered by making himself servant, by making himself last, that others might become first, that they might be blessed by root of his sacrifice.

    Here is the definition of our humanity, our humanness, blessed and secured by the power of the resurrection at work in us. Our humanness expresses itself in suffering as we bear the opprogrium of unbelief and opposition to the gospel, as we suffer because of our identification with Christ’s elect, as we suffer through the daily exercise of servanthood, as we give place to others, they being exalted by our sacrifice and served by our good works. use the objects of our compassion and kindness, our forbearance and patience.

    Indeed, as the Apostle now goes on in verses 12 through 14, he is able to say, I forget those things which are behind. What an embarrassment, what a tragedy. My expression of humanness prior to my introduction into Christ Jesus. I forget those things that are behind and I press on. that the life of Christ might be expressed in me, this being my sole reason for living.

    Lord, we would not be gods, and we would not displace you, but we would be men and women. We would express the fact that we are your creatures, made by you and for you. And how will we express that? How will true humanity be expressed in us and by us? And how will we be humanity indeed?

    Only through Christ, that man who is set for us as mediator between you and us. that one who in his humanity served and suffered, died and was raised, and in his humanity, now in glory, gives us a picture of that which awaits us in glory also. Forgive us, Lord, Indeed, by your grace, may we forget those things that have passed, and may we press on toward the prize that we might be all that we ought to be in Christ Jesus’ eyes.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Purpose of Philippians

    The Purpose of Philippians

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Philippians” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, June 14, 1992.

    About this sermon

    Paul’s journey to Philippi sets up an outline of the whole letter, with encouragement, rebuke, and warning woven together. Joy in the risen Christ runs beneath all three and gives the letter its purpose. Every part of the letter connects to that center.

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    Sermon transcript

    We are reading this morning Philippians 3 in its entirety, and also going to the fourth chapter, the first verse. Listen to the word of God. This is Philippians chapter 3. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord, to write the same things to you. To me, indeed, is not grievous, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. For we are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more. circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, and Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

    But what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ.” and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I might win Christ and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. that I might know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect. But I follow after, if that I may apprehend, that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

    Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. And if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us.

    For an example, for many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven. For once also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it might be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself. Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.”

    Our Father, we would remember your servants who carry your word. We have prayed for ourselves that our speech may be pure, seasoned with salt, that we might speak with integrity. honestly testifying of the things we know to be true. But Lord, we also ask for those whom you have raised up, who are set in the midst of your people for the declaration of your word, may they declare it with power. And may it please you today, Lord, to use the messages presented to bring many to yourself And may it please you also, Lord, to build up the company of your redeemed, your elect, that they might know even better how great your love is for them and how much they are to love you. We are asking for servants the world over, those who would proclaim your word today in Asia, in Africa, in Europe, in South America, here in North America, throughout all of the continents of this world. And may there be that testimony to your truth, and may men who have loved you proclaim your word with integrity, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

    We have come to a point in our messages on Philippians where it might be well for us to take stock of ourselves and where we have been. We have been working with Philippians for quite some time now, and I know that as we’re going through looking at all the trees, we might lose our grip on the forest. In order to put the fourth back in perspective or bring it before our view once more, let’s take a look then at Philippians as we have presented it. First of all, let’s remind ourselves this morning of the situation, the situation that the Apostle Paul encountered at Philippi. that which led up to the production of this letter.

    The church at Philippi had been founded by Paul on his second missionary journey. This is the second of three, if you’re familiar with the Book of Acts. The congregation in Philippi had been founded by the Apostle Paul during his second missionary journey. Early in the fifties, this would be about twenty years after the crucifixion of Christ, Paul’s founding of this congregation in the Book of Acts, Chapter 16, and there are certainly a number of passages that you know from that story that are quite famous.

    You might recall the Philippian jailer and what happens when Paul and Silas are caught in jail and earthquake strikes. Jailer comes to Paul and throws himself down at his feet and cries out, What must I do to be saved? And Paul’s response to him was, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And we have the salvation then of the Philippian jailer and his household, and surely they’re part of the foundation of that congregation that was established by Paul during his second missionary journey.

    Paul visited this congregation more than just that once. On his third missionary journey, he visited at least two more times. We can read about this journey and his visits in Acts 19 and 20. This places us in the mid-fifties now, so we’re moving away from Christ’s crucifixion and towards the sixties and the eventual execution of Paul himself in Rome. Paul had visited then the Philippian congregation after he had founded it. At the conclusion of that third missionary journey, you may recall Paul returns to Israel, he returns to Jerusalem where he is confronted with the Jews, he is arrested, and he is facing trial.

    That trial takes about two years to unfold. We are now at the years 57 to 59 AD, and we are looking at chapters in Acts, Acts chapter 21 through Acts chapter 26. You know, the conclusion of Paul’s trial there in Caesarea, the seaport city, he makes appeal to Caesar. And by reason of that appeal, he is then shipped off to Rome, where he will face further trial.

    The journey from the land of Palestine to Rome is recorded for you at the end of the book of Acts, chapters 27 and 28, Acts itself ending with Paul’s arrival in Rome. This places us at about the year 59 A.D. Paul is now in prison in Rome, and it is partway through that imprisonment that lasted for a few years that he writes his letter to the Philippians. He usually dates the letter to the Philippians around the year 61 A.D., and this would place it about ten years after the founding of the congregation in Philippi and about thirty years after Christ’s crucifixion. Well, that’s things as they are for the Apostle as we are brought up to the production of this particular letter, this letter to the Philippians. What about the situation for the Philippians themselves?

    They were very proud of their city. Their city was one of historic note, situated in Macedonia. It bears the name of Alexander’s father, Philip. It was named for him, he being a great conqueror and then instructing his son in many of the arts of war that helped his son then go off and conquer the world. Philippi was proud of its heritage and its history and it had special status within the Roman Empire, these people having been made citizens outright of the Roman Empire and very proud of that citizenship. Paul was very close to this church that formed in this city. He was very dear to the folks in that church as they were to him.

    And because of this close bond that existed between him and these Christians in Philippi, when they found out that he was in prison in Rome, they sent to him an emissary by the name of Epaphroditus. You can find him mentioned in the second chapter, the twenty-fifth verse, and also again the fourth chapter, the eighteenth verse. This man was a leader in the church of Philippi, and we don’t know much more about him. We don’t know how he was converted, how he was brought into the church, but at any rate he was a leader in the church at Philippi, and he now is entrusted with a gift and sent off to Rome to visit Paul who is presently in chains. Now, while he is there ministering to Paul, he remains on the scene in Rome ministering to Paul. While he is there, he reviews with Paul the situation in the Philippian church.

    Now, there are encouragements that come to Paul from Epaphroditus’s report that there are also discouraging things as well. The word comes to Paul through Epaphroditus that the Philippians are experiencing persecution and the suffering is somewhat severe. You have reference made to that at the end of the first chapter of Philippians verses 29 and 30.

    For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear to be in me.” So the Philippians are hard-pressed presently. They are undergoing a persecution, and that for the sake of their faith. They are suffering as a result of their relationship to the gospel.

    Therefore, the apostle is concerned to send to them a message of encouragement, a message of hope. And I think that you will agree as you read through Philippians that here we have an epistle of hope and encouragement par excellence. In fact, many of you might have turned to the epistle to the Philippians when you were especially hard-pressed because you were especially in need of some encouragement. Paul’s words certainly were a blessing to those folks. and they are a blessing to us, as the Spirit is pleased to use those words.

    But Paul has not merely received word about persecution and subsequent sufferings that have come to the Philippian Christians. He has also received word that the Philippians, in the midst of this present distress, are turning on one another. They are at each other’s throats. The stress has been great, the difficulty has been extreme, and in the midst of all of this now they have turned on one another.

    So while the apostle is giving them this word of encouragement in the midst of their present difficulty, he is also administering to them something of an admonition, a rebuke, if you will, calling them to be like-minded, to be of one mind. Note what he says at the end of the first chapter, the twenty-seventh verse, “…only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel.” Turn down to the second chapter, second verse, “…make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. And of course then you have his encouragement and admonition blended together in verse 5 of that second chapter, have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus. The common mind that he would have them express is that which is found in Jesus Christ. Now, the particulars of this strain within the congregation are also brought out to us throughout the letter.

    We can infer some things from the conclusion of Chapter 2 that maybe even Epaphroditus was in the midst of things, and his reputation not enhanced all that much now because he’s the tail-bearer who’s gone to Rome and reported all of these things to Paul.

    So maybe it’s not going to be such a royal welcome when Epaphroditus returns to Philippi and brings word from Paul to the Philippians and brings his comments with him concerning their condition. In addition, we have mention made in the fourth chapter, the second verse, about the difficulty that has arisen with regard to two women in the church. Erodian sympathy seemed to be at each other’s throats, and Paul is urging them to live in harmony. So you see, the word now that has come to Paul about the Philippians concerns not just the persecution that this Church is undergoing, they then being in need of encouragement, but also it involves the discord that has erupted within the Church so that people are at one another.

    And we have then the rebuke that is delivered by the Apostle with regard to their circumstance. Now, there’s one other dimension to this predicament, this situation that the Apostle is addressing, and that is, with the Church in this weakened state, weakened by persecution and weakened by internal discord, they have become easy prey for those who would take advantage of them.

    Most specifically, those who are experts in boasting in the flesh. Those who are experts in boasting about their credentials. Those who live for the world. Those who are worldly-minded. Those who really have no place in their consciousness whatsoever for heavenly things, because after all, in their estimation, religion as it is evaluated by them, religion pertains to getting on in this life and making the best of our circumstances and making things good for ourselves regardless of what might be the consequences with regard to the enslavement, the religious enslavement of those whom we profess to serve.

    So, we have encouragement coming from the Apostle with regard to the situation faced by the Philippians, the persecution, we have rebuke with regard to the internal discord, and finally we have warning, warning given to them with regard to the threat that is posed. You have Paul specifically speaking about that threat in the second verse of the third chapter where he tells these Philippians, beware of the dogs, beware of evil workers, Beware of the concision, or the mutilators, as he calls them.

    Now, that gives you a feel for what Paul is dealing with here in a general way. What about the letter specifically as it works itself out, in keeping with the apostles’ ordinary pattern for letter writing? You have his salutation, his customary salutation in 1st chapter, verses 1 and 2, followed by his thanksgiving and prayer, verses 3 through 11. This thanksgiving and prayer working itself out consistently with what he places before these Philippians later on in the 4th chapter, the 6th verse. He tells them, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. When you back up to the first chapter, verses 3-11, and you find there that pattern worked out by the Apostle as he presents to these Philippians his thanksgiving for them, and then his prayer, his supplication on their behalf. This thanksgiving and prayer by the Apostle is followed by what has been called his missionary report in verses 12-26 of that first chapter.

    It is a remarkable passage, we spent a great deal of time working through it, but Paul gives a review of his circumstances in Rome, how he too is experiencing persecution and opposition, not just from those who are outside, but even from so-called Christians who are taking advantage of his change and sort of enhancing their own reputations at Paul’s expense. Paul speaks very pointedly about these folks.

    He says that they are preaching Christ from envy and strife. They are not preaching Christ out of goodwill. They do not preach Christ out of love. They proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition. They do not have pure motives. They think to cause me distress in my imprisonment.

    Paul, though distressed, is not at the point of despair, for he realizes that nonetheless Christ is proclaimed, and because Christ is proclaimed, he will rejoice and continue to rejoice, knowing that even these things that are occurring to him in prison shall work out for his salvation through the prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. One might well ask, how can the apostle be so sure that he too doesn’t preach Christ of selfish ambition? How can the apostle be so sure that he doesn’t preach Christ out of envy and strife, trying to take advantage of others and build his own reputation at their expense? And that’s precisely what he goes on to prove as you fill out that missionary report. especially verses 21 through 26 of that first chapter.

    For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain, he says. So thoroughly absorbed is he by Christ that personal ambition does not intrude. He is determined to fight that personal ambition at every turn, to suppress it. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is man. This day he comes, the Apostle’s Vindication, as he not only proclaims Christ but lives Christ, lives Christ before the face of the whole Church. He is not seeking advantage. He pursues Christ for the sake of service in his name. The course that he follows is not the gain of life, but rather the losing of life for Christ’s sake.

    It’s a marvelous report given by the Apostle. We could hope that missionaries reporting to us would speak similarly. This then, beginning with the twenty-seventh verse of the first chapter, this then is followed by the main body of the epistle, and that main body will continue through the fourth chapter of the first verse, and essentially this is divided into three parts. First of all, there is the call for sanctification, verse twenty-seven in chapter one through the eighteenth verse of the second chapter. What can we say about this call for sanctification. Once more we note that the heavenly mindedness, the citizenship, the heavenly citizenship of the people of God is foremost. That is what is in view in verse 27 of that first chapter as this section begins. It is the working out of that heavenly mindedness, that heavenly citizenship, that is what is coming to expression. That is why unity is so much on the mind of the Apostle. Is there unity in heaven? Yes. What kind of unity? The very unity of Christ. The harmony that is found within Christ.

    The Apostle then is pressing home this heavenly consciousness. this expression of heavenly citizenship and it works itself out in terms of a common mind it works itself out also in terms of service for the sake of the other even as Jesus Christ himself forwent his prerogatives in glory Having existed in the form of God, he did not regard that equality a thing to be grasped.

    He emptied himself, took upon himself the form of a bondservant, which made him a likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Meanwhile, in Philippi, people are grumbling at one another because they don’t particularly like serving each other, and they don’t like serving each other because they don’t like one another.

    The apostle reminds them to work out their salvation with fear and trembling, by which he means, may there come to expression in you this heavenly point of view. May there come to expression in you this Christ-likeness. Do all things without grumbling and disputing, he says.

    So there is the call for sanctification, the first installment of the main body of the is charged to these people, chapter 1 verse 27 through chapter 2 verse 18. Then there comes the proof of integrity, verses 19 of that second chapter through verse 30 to the end of that chapter. The proofs of integrity. The fact that the Apostle sets forth his integrity. The fact that the Apostle sets forth Timothy and Epaphroditus as Again, proofs of integrity.

    They themselves proving their integrity before the Church and specifically with respect to these Christians who are Philippians. And this then being the ground upon which then the Apostle calls for a proof of integrity on the part of the Philippians.

    Here you have these people who are living for you, in fact even willing to die for you. What about you then, in light of these? And then the section that we are currently dealing with, the fight for integrity, chapter 3 in its entirety, including 1st, 2nd, and 4th chapter. warning these Philippians about those who will seek to enslave them and rob them of their joy, who will set their minds upon earthly things and rob them of their transcendence.

    They will be incapable of getting above the affairs of this world simply because of the religious tyranny that is espoused by these people that are coming in for the express purpose of enslaving these folk religiously. At stake is the gospel, the gospel of freedom, the gospel of liberty. If you let go of that gospel of liberty and its transcendent, namely, heaven and heavenly citizenship, you will in fact be enslaved, and in the end you will be destroyed.

    We haven’t reached the end of this epistle as yet. The conclusion begins with the second verse of the fourth chapter, and you have Paul’s final remarks that carry you to the end of the epistle. So that then gives you the outline for the epistle. One more time, the salutation, the first two verses of the first chapter, the thanksgiving and prayer, verses three through eleven. of that first chapter, the missionary report, verses twelve through twenty-six, and the main body of the epistle, verse twenty-seven of the first chapter through the first verse of chapter four in the final remarks, round things up, verse two through verse twenty-three of the fourth chapter. We have then the situation, we have then the epistle and outline. What specifically is the burden? of the Apostle as he writes.

    Paul wishes to communicate in the power of the Holy Spirit the reality of that inner strength which is given to him of grace, the inner strength that is found in Jesus Christ, his risen Lord. Paul wishes to communicate through the Holy Spirit the reality of that inner strength that is his in and through the risen Christ.

    Why is this so important? We have spoken about the liberty in the gospel which is in the balance. But you know as you read through Philippians, what receives such emphasis in this epistle? Is it not the theme of joy and rejoicing? Fourteen times in this epistle, Paul speaks of joy and rejoicing. In the balance is the joy of the believer, and the Apostle Paul is saying to us that that joy is directly bound to the living Christ.

    The living Christ. That means that the apostle is absolutely assured that Christ is presently alive. He is serving a risen Savior. He is serving that one who came out of the tomb on the third day, that one in fact who confronted him on the road to Damascus, He is serving specifically that resurrected Savior. Nothing can undo the resurrection of Christ. Christ cannot die again. And because Christ’s resurrection is permanently set, cannot be undone, because Christ ever lives, The apostle now understands his joy to be unmovable. My joy is as permanent as Christ himself.

    Therefore he does not hesitate to call these Philippians to rejoice, even in the midst of their persecution. Nor does he hesitate to describe his own rejoicing he be in the midst of persecution.” And at the conclusion of the epistle, he will underscore it, will he not, when he says in the fourth verse of that fourth chapter, “…rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice.” Everybody at Philippi was saying, we don’t have any reason to rejoice, and Paul was saying, you have every reason to rejoice if in fact you have laid hold of the risen Christ, this one who has been raised again, who is the source of your inner strength.

    In another context, the Apostle Paul says that though his elder man is passing away, dying, he is being renewed in the inner man day by day. So the burden of the apostle then is to communicate the reality of that inner strength which is his in union with the risen Christ. I am not dislodged in my joy, regardless of what comes, because Christ has been raised from the dead.

    Death itself does not have the last word. Now this is not only the rejoicing epistle, it is also the thinking epistle. For as many times as words about joy and rejoicing are used in this epistle, words about thinking and attitude are also used. So this joy that the Apostle puts in front of us is not some sort of mindless mystical trip, it’s not some sort of flight of fancy, or the expression of some sort of effervescence. Far from it, it is a contemplative a reflective, a meditative type of rejoicing. It is a meditation that focuses upon the Christ who is exalted, that one who is at the right hand of God. Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Be of one mind. Think on these things.

    All of these than be in places that are lifted right out of Philippians, encouraging us then not to allow our joy to become irresponsible silliness, but rather filled with content, substantive, filled with Christ, the realities that we find in Christ. and the truths of the eternal kingdom that belongs to him.

    It is then our meditation upon Christ, our thinking on him, our thinking like him, that works maturity in us, so it would be as the Apostle Paul looks to his beloved congregation in Philippi, that they would mature by such thinking that their joy would be unshakable, that their confidence in the risen Christ would be absolute. Let us pray. Hallowed Father, refresh us with your word and even with this epistle that the Apostle has written to the struggling, sometimes confused and bewildered congregation in Philippi. May we in our bewilderment and confusion also find consolation, encouragement, even rebuke as we need it, and warning as is appropriate. all to the end, Lord, that we might share with the Apostle his joy in the risen Christ. We pray, Father, that we might be immovable in this, that we might be steadfast, that we might abound in joy, because our minds are set upon Christ himself and upon the kingdom which is above. O Lord, we pray for your help. May the very spirit that inspired the Apostle dwell in us so that we would abound with such thinking and with such expressions of joy.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.