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.

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.

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