Preaching Christ, Living 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 15, 1991.

Sermon transcript

morning from Philippians chapter two, beginning of verse seventeen. Philippians chapter two, verse seventeen. Listen to the word of God. If I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. for the same cause, also do ye joy, and rejoice with me.

But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort when I know your state. For I have no man like-minded who will naturally care for your state, for all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s. But you know the proof of him that has a son with the father. He has served with me in the gospel him. Therefore, I hope to send presently so soon as I shall see how it will go with me. But I trust in the Lord that I also myself shall come shortly. Yet, I suppose it’s necessary to send to you a paphrodite is my brother and companion in labor and fellow soldier, but your messenger and he that ministered to my wants.

For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard that he had been sick. For indeed he was sick, nigh unto death. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. I sent him, therefore, the more carefully, that when ye see him again, ye may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful. Receive him, therefore, in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such in reputation, because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service For me.

Paul has been opening his soul in this letter to the Philippians. He has taken us deep within his own soul by what he tells us about himself in the first chapter in this epistle. And he has taken us still deeper now with verses 17 and 18 in this second chapter. But he will go deeper still as he opens up his soul even further by what he has to say in verses 19 through 30 of this second chapter. In these verses, we find the proofs of the man’s integrity.

You see, Paul goes at his ministry with more than just rhetorical flourish. He goes at his ministry with more than just fine words and great lines. Language, for some, is an art form at which they work very hard in framing fine lines and great words.

To my own way of thinking, the seventeenth verse of this second chapter in Philippians achieves great wine status. The King James reads, “…yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all.” The New American Standard reads even better. to me, 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. What makes this a great line, simply from a literary point of view, is Paul’s twofold play upon the idea of sacrifice. the Philippians sacrifice and his own. The power of the image he uses with respect to himself, portraying himself as a drink offering with its suggestion of his own death.

And the poignancy of his expression of love for these Philippian believers. And notwithstanding, in the English translation, the nice way the phrase, the sacrifice and service of your faith reads. All of this adds up to a great line, literarily. This is a first-rate classic.

Paul, however, is interested in more than scoring points with the Philippian church with his literary ability. by the same token. Paul goes at his ministry with more than a doctrinal competence and a biblical, theological expertise. Please don’t misunderstand me at this point.

I am the first to acknowledge the crying need of the church presently. The fact that she is suffering from a doctrinal and a biblical malaise. The crying need within the church in our time. is that the church would cast off its ignorance and be freed from the shackles of the tyranny of that ignorance. We are wallowing in one of the worst periods of doctoral and biblical ignorance. It’s almost as if the Protestant dark ages have come upon us. And sadly, we aren’t helped much by those who should be helping us the most.

Recently, I read an essay by the president of a conservative reform seminary. He was joining the chorus heard now in America, chiding the educational establishment with the fiasco that has overtaken this land in its schools. But he went on, and he railed against the Church and against Christian parents for their part in contributing to biblical and doctrinal ignorance. I was anxious to read the conclusion of his essay. How did he end up? Predictably, I’m afraid, that’s right, with an appeal for funds.

Because his seminary, amongst all the seminaries, had been doing such a good job in stemming the tide. For as it turns out, His seminary has been doing such a good job in curbing Christian ignorance that it no longer requires its students to learn the original biblical languages, Hebrew and Greek. A real model for us, indeed. We should all be inspired by such examples. What would be more helpful is a willingness from someone like this president to lead us in repentance for the mess to which we all, including him and his institution, have contributed.

So when I say Paul pursues his ministry with more than a doctrinal competence and a biblical theological expertise, I trust you understand I don’t wish, by this, to denigrate doctrine or biblical literacy in either the Apostle or ourselves. As a matter of fact, if Philippians 2 verse 17 exhibits Paul’s literary ability, verses 14 through 18 establishes mastery of doctrinal and biblical material.

I have pointed these matters out to you before, but in the space of these few verses, we move through references and allusions to Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Daniel, and the Gospel of Matthew. All of that crammed into those few verses. We touch upon creation, the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, the wilderness experience of the people of God, the institution of the Levitical system of sacrifice, the captivity of Judah, the promise of the servant of the Lord, the glorification of the elect, and the arrivals of the new heaven and the new world. And in doctrinal and biblical summary, in short, we can say that Paul treats this Philippian congregation as if it were the new Israel of God, the center of God’s new creation, to whom belongs the previous revelation from God and the precious promises that are pertaining to that revelation which he gave.

As far as verse seventeen is concerned, the Philippians do not offer up lambs from their plots or produce from their fields at a central altar in Palestine, but they offer up the fruits of their faith. and offering, not adorned with the customary flask of wine, but with the loving sacrifice of the Apostle, who, with Christ’s likeness, places himself at the disposal of these saints, even to the point of pouring out his own life’s blood for them.

Fine words. Finer theology. But so what? So what? Words are cheap. Even when they drip with sincerity. Church throughout her two thousand years has never lacked for fine words. She has even been blessed from time to time with truly great theology. But what is at a premium? Beyond all those artistically crafted liturgies and exquisite prayer notes. Beyond that company that actually believes that they will be heard for their fine words. Beyond all those thoughtful theologians with their impressive theology that masks hollow souls. What is at a premium is a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is never content with preaching Christ, but must, because he preaches Christ sincerely, honestly, with integrity.

To see how that sets Paul apart from those who were his distractors in Rome. Remember the first chapter where he’s talking about those who preach out of envy and strife, verse 15 of that first chapter. Those who do not preach out of love, those who preach from impure motives, who preach out of selfish ambition. In verse 18, Paul says that he will rejoice even though these preach, because they preach Christ. But what sets Paul apart is what we find in verse 21 of that first chapter. Not only will Paul preach Christ, he tells us there he will live Christ. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is We meet, therefore, in the Apostle Paul, one who is fully capable of a great line, one who is zealous for the doctrines of the Word, but more than this, one who fights to administer his affairs so that those he says he loves With the doctrine he is so concerned to maintain are not forgotten or even worse, reduced to a mere constituency. You see what the Apostle Paul is up to them in chapter two verses nineteen and following.

To be sure, he has just spoken eloquently with doctrinal cogency to these dear saints about his joy in serving them, even if it means his death. But now he prepares to send to them Timothy to determine if they are ready to crown their faith with joyous sacrificial service, not just for him, but for one another. And only this will encourage him. Since only by this means will he be assured that Christ is formed in them as surely as Christ is formed in him.

The apostle Paul would have little regard for the present-day itinerating ministries that have overtaken the evangelical world. The apostle Paul was no whistle-stop evangelist. breezing along from city to city, pumping audiences for decisions and dollars, then turning them over to an impersonal follow-up campaign. The Apostle Paul was driven by Christ to give himself completely, to offer himself completely to those he served. He was driven by Christ to be satisfied with nothing less than Christ shining in them in these folks proved through their own self-sacrifice. In fact, they would offer themselves up on behalf of one another. There’s another point.

As Paul is no whistle-stop evangelist, neither is he a mahogany desk executive. Nor is he a steel desk official, from officialdom. And it’s almost as if Wandering into these latter verses of the second chapter of Philippians, we have set before us by God the divine answer to arrogant managerialism and unresponsive bureaucracy. It’s a marvelous antidote. Think about that managerialism Think about bureaucracy. Those monsters of efficiency that are brought now into the church, and when they are, they so effectively rout genuine love for the very people they so self-righteously claim to serve. In the hands of managerialism and bureaucracy, These dear souls, for whom Christ died, become a faceless mass, names on a computer list, potential donors, statistics to be employed for selfish ends. But Paul sends Timothy.

Nothing less will do than that personal contact, a demonstration of the love that this one bears to those to whom he sends this emissary. And shortly, Paul says, I plan to come myself. Paul knows because of God’s own involvement with us in Christ. God himself was not guilty of managerialism, presiding over an immense bureaucracy from his mahogany desk in heaven. He sent his son And in sending his son, he sent himself. And for the Apostle Paul, nothing else will do. Here, as we move into the latter part of the second chapter of Philippians.

Is God’s answer? To those things that have now begun to play even the church. She endeavors to do what is right in serving the same. Intimacy that is demanded. The sacrifice. That is demanded. The law. Is called for. that must be expressed. All of this now being concretely demonstrated before our eyes as Paul sends out this emissary, Timothy, with the promise that he shall shortly follow. Our God, we do rejoice in the love that you have shown us. would deal with others, and especially those whom we say we love, that we would be pressed by this devotion which you have shown, whereby we would be willing to offer ourselves as sacrifice in the service of our Savior, to the end that others may be helped. deal with our selfishness, our self-centeredness, deal with our unwillingness to be of help, to be of comfort, to be a strength and an encouragement to those we profess we love. We ask it 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.