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, October 20, 1991.

Once more, Genesis will wait, and we turn to Deuteronomy chapter 32. I probably should give you a little explanation of the Genesis problem, and that is that my schedule has been almost inhuman And while I’m working in Philippians, it is much easier for me presently to just continue to work with that single text at this particular point. And I’m hoping to get a little breather where I can then get into Genesis the way in which it deserves. And I hope that you can hang with me on that.

But here we are in Deuteronomy chapter 32 this evening. And we will be reading the first 22 verses of this chapter. Well, we’ll begin with verse 30 of chapter 31. Then Moses spoke in the hearing of all the assembly of Israel the words of this song until they were complete.

Give here, O heavens, and let me speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. Let my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, as the droplets on the fresh grass, and as the showers on the earth. For I proclaim the name of the Lord, ascribe greatness to our God, the Rock.

His work is perfect, for all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He. They have acted corruptly toward him. They are not his children because of their defect, but are a perverse and crooked generation. Do you thus repay the Lord, O foolish and unwise people? Is not he your father who has bought you? He has made you and established you.

Remember the days of old. Consider the years of all generations. Ask your father, and he will inform you, your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob is the allotment of his inheritance.

He found him a desert land and in the howling waste of the wilderness. He encircled him, he cared for him, he guarded him as the pupil of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that hovers over its young. He spread his wings and caught them and carried them on his pinions. The Lord alone guided him, and there was no foreign god with him.

He made him ride on the high places of the earth, and he ate the produce of the field, and he made him suck honey from the rock, and oil from the flinty rock, curds of cows and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs and rams, the breed of Dacian and goats, with the finest of the wheat and of the blood of grapes, you drank wine. But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked. You are grown fat, thick, and sleek.

Then you forsook God who made him, and scorned the rock of his salvation. They made him jealous with strange gods, with abominations. They provoked him to anger. They sacrificed to demons who were not God, to gods whom they had not known. New gods who came lately, whom your fathers did not dread. He neglected the rock who forgot you and forgot the God who gave you birth.

And the Lord saw this and spurned them because of the provocation of his sons and daughters. Then he said, I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end shall be. For they are a perverse generation, sons in whom is no faithfulness. They have made me jealous with what is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their idols. Sir, I will make them jealous with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. For a river, I’m sorry, for a fire is kindled in my anger and burns in the lower part of Sheol and consumes the earth with its yield and sets on fire the foundations of the mountain.

Then turning over again to Philippians chapter two. Hearing once more verses fourteen through eighteen. Do all things without grumbling or disputing. That you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life so that in the day of Christ I may have pause to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain. But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. And you too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.

Now this morning, we endeavored to lay out for you the incredible depth of these five verses in Philippians 2. It’s clear to us all, I’m sure now, that these verses are rich. They are rich in Old Testament background. And we are endeavoring now to unearth those riches, to dig out that wealth. This morning we specifically looked at verse 14. And we noted its rooting in the wilderness experience of the children of Israel. And we attempted to get at the specific line upon which Paul was moving in utilizing the phrase murmurings and disputing the specific line upon which then he was applying the murmuring and disputing mentality. It is so obvious from Exodus through Deuteronomy amongst the Israelites.

We said that the line was found in the covenant. Now I didn’t use that word this morning but I hope that some of you picked up on that. The line was found in the covenant and the notion of a covenantal head. The people then being in union with that one who was over them.

Israel was reacting against her covenantal head, Moses. She was, in effect, rejecting her identity in him, refusing to be defined by him. The church then, as we saw, murmurs and disputes when in fact she refuses to be defined by to be defined by her covenantal head, the Lord Jesus Christ. At issue specifically in Philippi is the serious matter of the unity of the church. Harmony within the membership.

Now, we have stressed this all along in our exposition of Philippians. You might recall how we made a point of Paul’s repeated use of the word all in the first chapter. So as to impress these Christians with the fact that in Paul’s address to them, none was to be excluded. This is underscored as well in the first verse of the epistle.

Paul and Timothy bond slaves of Christ Jesus to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi. The unity of the church, the harmony of the membership, they’re in view. But then Paul goes on to say, including the bishops and the deacons. as if somehow they were being excluded by some, or as if they might be excluding some. So the unity of the Church at issue.

And this is specifically the point as you come to verse 27 in that first chapter, where you hear Paul saying this, only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The words used there by Paul are suggestive of the citizenship of these folk, namely a citizenship which they have in common, citizenship in heaven. Only conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith, the gospel. Well, that sets off the section that we are presently dealing with. Note what he says is that section progresses, and we enter the second chapter, which speaks there this way, if therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, etc. Is it not clear, then, that that issue is the unity of the Church, harmony for the membership? It is in this context, then, that the murmurings and the disputings spoken of by Paul in that fourteenth verse take on a definite colouring.

These murmurings and disputings are the eruptions which are occurring specifically over the demands that the membership of the body of Christ bring upon one another, and that inevitably, simply because of the nature of the body. In this situation, it is specifically that sacrificial service is called for in the relationship that the saints bear towards one another. Now, it can be said at this point that suffering caused by a hostile world, due to those who are hostile to the gospel and enmity with God, is the occasion for this command, demand, this imperative articulated by the apostle. But that suffering caused by the hostile world, though the occasion, is not the specific substance of the imperative which the Apostle gives in that 14th verse.

Do all things without grumbling and disputing. We can go further. It may well be that certain Philippians have complaints against God. Why is my lot as it is? Why are things not turning out for me as I vote? It may even be that the leadership of the church is at issue in some regard. Either because they are not accepted, or they are administering their office improperly. and thus grumblings and disputes have arisen.

These issues of complaint against God or complaint about leadership or by leadership are not irrelevant, but they are not the precise interest of the Apostle at this point. His concern is Christ-likeness. like Jesus. And that in a specific way, namely in sacrificial service for one another. It is this Christ-likeness that stands at direct variance to the self-centered school scorecard approach.

That threatens the effect you know what I mean. The kind of attitude that is always how. Keeping an account. Keeping a score. They owe me. They better pay. I did this for them. Shouldn’t they be doing such and such for me? Why, it isn’t fair. I expend myself so much, but no one seems to care about me. No, no. That’s not the mind of Christ at all. The mind of Christ is the sacrifice of self. And as one enters upon a life so defined, it is a life then that excludes murmurings and that arise out of self-interest, or out of an interest to see that we get our due.

How well then this exposition of verse 14 then fits with Philippians 2 verses 5 through 11. Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, and you know how that goes. how well this fits in with what we have already said about verses 12 and 13, where we have expounded the obedience of verse 12. You know how Paul speaks of obedience there. So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, how we have expounded that obedience, and the phrase, working out your own salvation with fear and trembling, and the phrase, God’s good pleasure in verse 13, which God is at work in us to perform, how we have expounded all those terms in light of this point.

Christ-likeness. That’s obedience. Christ-likeness. That is working out your salvation with fear and trembling. Christ likeness, that is God’s good pleasure, which he is at work in you to perform. And we can see as well that this fits in so well with what is coming in verses 17 through 18, where Paul speaks of himself As a drink offering that is being poured out upon the sacrifice and service of the Philippians. In our service one to another. Let there be no grumbling. and complain. You know the gospel. You’ve read them. Do you remember any grumbling and complaining on the part of Jesus. As he was pursuing the fulfillment of his father’s will. In service for us.

Well, this then helps us understand a bit better, a little bit more deeply, the intent of the Apostle. In some ways, all we’ve done this evening is reinforce what we’ve said this morning. My hope was to be able to go on with you into verse 15 and expound for you the passage that has to do with the crooked and perverse generation, and I’m sure you picked up on that in our readings from Deuteronomy 32. But we’ve run out of time this evening, and so we’ll conclude at this time.

Here is our Father. Encourage us with respect to this lesson that is so vitally important. Once more, we offer prayer for those who are officers in our midst, that each of us might be sure to pursue this line, outlined for us by the Apostle, whereby in our service there would be an absence of murmuring and complaint. But also, Father, we are asking that the entirety of the congregation might also learn the lessons of Christ, and that the beauty of our Savior may be found in us, as then we would stand forth in distinction from the world. We pray that you would help us, that you would deal with us And that there would be that resolve within us born by your spirit. Wherein we would prove to be truly. That final that consummate Israel the people of God. Truly blameless and innocent. In that we are the sons of God. Children of our father. And not children of the world. Here as we pray in Jesus name, 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.