PHILIPPIANS #14: CONFIDENCE

On June 6, 2026 By Pastor TomIn Philippians, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Pair of hands raised upward in prayer with sunlight streaming through a church window — Hands lifted in prayer inside a sunlit church

If you feel that you are a bad Christian because of your failures, you might be putting confidence in the flesh. If you feel that you are doing OK as a Christian (because, well, you are doing OK, at least right now), you might be putting confidence in the flesh. But the Holy Spirit calls us to put all our confidence in Christ, not our own performance.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

You can also find us on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/6KKzSHPFT466aXfNT2r9OD (This will open to the latest sermon. You can search from there if you are looking for a previous one)

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Philippians Part 14

This is our third installment on Philippians 3, verses 1-11. Last time we focused primarily on putting Jesus above all else, and considering everything a loss compared to the surpassing wonderfulness of knowing Jesus Christ. But I want to return to something Paul said here:

“For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh”

We talked a little bit about how Jewish people put their confidence in how well they observed man-made regulations about the law of Moses. Paul did that himself. But this time, I want to talk about what it means for Christians to put no confidence in the flesh. Most of us are not putting confidence in how well we obey the Jewish Sabbath regulations, and so on. But even so, we are prone to putting confidence in the flesh.

“Flesh” in this sense means, “not the Spirit of God, but human effort, or human values.” Another way to think of flesh is “the self, apart from God.” So when we put confidence in the flesh, it shows up in two major flavors. One way of “putting confidence in the flesh” is to feel that we have performed well. So, for instance, when I manage to pull together some self-discipline and maybe change some ungodly habits, (like gluttonous eating) I might feel pretty good about myself. Or, perhaps I’ve started a godly habit of praying every day, or serving others every week, and so I feel that I’m in a better place with God than I was a couple weeks ago, when I only prayed once, and dodged every chance I had to help anyone. Now, here’s the important part: In these examples, even though we are trying to live more godly lives, we are doing so by putting confidence in our flesh. To put it bluntly, we feel that we are better off because we have performed better. This was the way in which Paul previously put confidence in the flesh. He was incredibly self-disciplined, and so he performed well, and he thought that made him right with God. Our good feeling is not because we have confidence in Jesus and what he has done for us, it is because we have done well. Our confidence that we’re doing well with God is based on our own performance.

There’s another way that also puts confidence in the flesh, and it is this: we feel badly about our spiritual state because we have performed badly. Yes, this, too, is putting confidence in the flesh. Our hope is in our flesh behaving well, and that hope has disappointed us. But our hope, our confidence, even in this situation, is still in our flesh, not in Jesus Christ. We feel bad because we feel that some measure of the Christian life is up to us. We are still judging ourselves and our performance based on how well (or not) our flesh behaves.

To summarize: If you feel that you are a bad Christian because of your failures, you might be putting confidence in the flesh. If you feel that you are doing OK as a Christian (because, well, you are doing OK, at least right now), you might be putting confidence in the flesh.

This is part of what Paul considers “loss” and “rubbish” compared to Jesus Christ. You think you should feel good about yourself because you’ve managed to stay disciplined for a few months? Rubbish! Trash! Don’t put any confidence in your own good performance. Do you feel badly because you can’t seem to put two decently-Christian days together in a row? Garbage! Filth! Don’t put any confidence in your own bad performance.

I’ve had to wrestle with this in my own ministry. When I was 25, I started a network of house churches. After just two months, the first non-believer became a disciple of Jesus. He was followed by two more a few months later, and then an avalanche of people who had never followed Jesus began to do so. Along the way we experienced miracles of healing and deliverance and words from the Lord. Believers who had been stuck in their faith began to grow. The church grew. People were delivered from demonic forces, from psychological problems, from troubled marriages, and so many other wonderful things happened. I look back at some of the sermons that I wrote then, and think, “Where in the world did I get that kind of wisdom at 25 years old?”

Well, as it happens, both then and now, I knew where the wisdom came from, and where the miracles came from, and everything else: It was all the work of the Holy Spirit. At the time I was very clear about not claiming any credit for myself, and today I stand by that. It was a wonderful work of God, and I just got to go along for the ride.

So, fast forward a few years. I love our New Joy Fellowship, and our Life Together Churches network. I love that a lot of other people I’ve never met tune-in online. But, objectively, things haven’t gone quite as stunningly well as they did during my younger years. Things seem to be moving a lot more slowly. Several years ago, I was kind of lamenting this, and assuming responsibility for it. I thought I must be failing in various ways, since things were so different than they were when I was younger. My wife said to me: “Tom, did you take credit for all those wonderful things when we were younger? Would you take credit for them today?”

The answer was a clear and obvious, “Of course not.”

She said, “So why are you trying to ‘take credit’ for things not going the way you want them to right now? You said back then it was all the Lord. If that’s true, than isn’t this time also all up to the Lord?”

I married a wise woman.

If any of that good stuff when I was younger came about simply because of my effort, then it was not worth much. The point is this: The good stuff is rubbish unless it came from Jesus. And so is the bad stuff. I have never been perfect, when I was young, or now. But it doesn’t matter. I put no confidence in good flesh, or bad flesh.

I want to flesh out (hah!) what I mean by putting confidence in bad flesh. I’ll call out a few of my own sins and failings here. I have been really trying to stop being so angry and judgmental toward the many (many!) abysmal, horrible, thoughtless, moronic, ____, drivers that I encounter when I get in the car (you see my problem). We can laugh about it, but it’s not actually funny. What comes out of me when another driver offends me is ugly, rageful, and rude, prideful and selfish. My family have seen me that way, and I would be genuinely ashamed for anyone else to see me when I’m like that. Now, when I fail in that way, I should, and do repent, apologize to the Lord, and to whoever is in the car with me. But what happens after that? I have two possible paths. One, the path of “bad flesh.” It looks something like this: I think “When am I ever going to grow up and get over this stupid reaction I have? How can I possibly preach to people that Jesus changes us, when, week after week, month after month, I still fail in this way? What kind of pathetic Christian am I, anyway?” If it’s really bad, I can go into a cycle of thinking this way for days. Now here’s the thing we may not realize: when I act this way, spending a lot of time and energy being bothered about my failure, I am putting confidence in the (bad) flesh. To put it simply, I am acting as if the flesh matters. But in Christ we are to put no confidence in our performance whether it is good or bad. When we are in Jesus, the flesh doesn’t matter either way. Good performance doesn’t matter. Bad performance doesn’t matter. We shouldn’t give any weight to our performance, either way.

Paul helps us with this when he is talking about his potential reasons for confidence in the flesh. He starts off mentioning his reasons for confidence in “good flesh:” his birth, circumcision, career as a Pharisee, and so on. But then he says “as to zeal, a persecutor of the church.” Why throw that one in there? I think Paul is saying, “If I wanted to put confidence in the flesh, I could also spend a lot of time thinking about what a terrible person I have been.” In other words, the fact that he was persecuting the church tempts him to give weight to “bad flesh” in his life.

Now, if we really get this, and we say, “The flesh doesn’t matter if it’s good, or even if it’s bad,” some questions naturally come to mind: “Why bother to be good? Why worry about being bad? If it’s really true that neither one matters, why don’t I just live to please my own desires, even if they are sinful?”

The answer to such questions is love. I am legally married to my wife Kari. That remains a legal fact, no matter how I behave. There was nothing in my marriage vows about doing dishes, listening, cuddling, holding hands, taking walks, managing finances, being supportive, or taking the garbage out. I can do those things, or not, and still be married to Kari. So, why would I do any of those kinds of things? The answer is obvious: love. I have learned the sorts of things that are important to Kari, and because I love Kari, I try to engage in such behaviours. I do not do so perfectly, not by a long shot. When I fail to do certain things, it causes injury to our relationship. Listen carefully: it doesn’t end our relationship, it just means that I need to recognize that I’ve hurt Kari, and that we need to talk about it, forgive one another, and move on. I don’t live this way with Kari because of some kind of rule or law. I do it because I love her.

We are in the same situation with Jesus. When we love him, we want to do things that make him happy. When we fail, we need to go through reconciliation. But the whole thing is not based upon performance, but on relationship, on love. In fact, we find that Jesus and his apostles taught us that this is exactly how it works. Jesus said:

¹⁵ “If you love me, you will keep my commands. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. ¹⁷ He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you.(John 14:15-17, CSB)

Now, it can be easy to misunderstand. It can sound like Jesus is saying, “In order to prove you love me, you must do what I command.” But I think what he is actually saying is this: “If you love me, you will naturally, as a result of that love, want to do the things I want you to. If you love me you won’t want to intentionally hurt or disappoint me, and you will want to do the things that are important to me.” He then adds a brief statement about the Holy Spirit. Why? Because it is only through the Holy Spirit that we can truly love Jesus. We don’t have to come up with love for God out of our own strength (that would be relying on the flesh again). No, the Holy Spirit within us helps us to love God.

When a teacher of the law asked him about the commandments, here’s another way Jesus put the same concept:

³⁶ “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” ³⁷ And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the great and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ⁴⁰ On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:35-40, ESV)

Of course, Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan to show us that our neighbor is everyone we encounter in this life. So, if we love God, we will want to do things his way. If we love our neighbor, we will not intentionally hurt other people.

Now, believe me, I know the next objection: “But I do actually do things my own way, rather than God’s (often!), and I do sometimes do things that I know will hurt other people. Therefore I must not really love God, or my neighbor.”

So, two things here. First, a question: Do you want to do such hurtful things? Obviously, a part of you must want to. We’ll call that part the flesh. But isn’t there also a part of you that says, “I wish I wasn’t this way. I wish I could do better. I don’t really want to be like this.” If there is, than you have confirmation of the fact that part of you is made from flesh that is in rebellion against God. That’s the part that is not interested in being loving, unless you can get what you want that way. But the other part of you is the Holy Spirit of God in you. So, there is a part of you that does love God and neighbor. Your heart agrees with God about what is right or wrong, even when you don’t follow it.

I had a friend who wasn’t a follower of Jesus, and then eventually, he became one. He told me that after becoming a Christian, he started to struggle with lust. This surprised me. I asked him to explain. He said, “Before surrendering to Jesus, I didn’t struggle with lust. I just lusted. There was no struggle involved. But now, part of me doesn’t want to lust anymore.”

So, if you struggle to do the right thing, the very fact that part of you wants to do it shows that you do, in fact, love God, and your neighbor. It also shows that your body is corrupted by sin, and is working against those loves. But remember: the flesh is irrelevant.

Loving God is not the same thing as putting confidence in your flesh. Your performance—how well you love God (or not)—is irrelevant. God loves you, regardless of how you perform. You love God, in spite of the fact that sometimes you don’t act like it.

Here is another wonderful thing. As I mentioned above, it is not up to us to come up with love, like it would be up to us to come up with good performance. No, the Holy Spirit, who enters us when we trust Jesus, will himself give us the ability to love God and our neighbor. If you feel like you don’t know if you really do love God enough, ask him to help you love him better. That’s a prayer he will answer!

Put no confidence in the flesh—not when you can make it behave, not when you can’t. Instead, fix your eyes on Jesus Christ. Through faith you have a righteousness that has nothing to do with the flesh, or the law. It is righteousness that comes from the Holy Character and Life of Jesus Christ himself, based upon him, not you.

PHILIPPIANS #13: RUBBISH

On May 22, 2026 By Pastor TomIn House Church, Philippians, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Glowing locked treasure chest glowing inside a freshly dug hole outdoors at sunset — A glowing treasure chest is uncovered at sunset in a scenic valley

This is the heart of the gospel: Jesus is surpassingly good. He, and he alone, is worth everything. Nothing else can compare to him, and when we have only him, then through him, we have everything we might need.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

You can also find us on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/6KKzSHPFT466aXfNT2r9OD (This will open to the latest sermon. You can search from there if you are looking for a previous one)

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Philippians Part 13

We are working our way slowly through this passage in Philippians. These verses are very dense with meaning, so we’ll be spending several weeks here, but I want us to remember that each “lesson” goes along with the whole passage. Last time we looked at what Paul meant when he told the Philippians to watch out for those “mutilators of the flesh,” and that we are “the circumcision.” He continues:

For we are the circumcision, the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, boast in Christ Jesus, and do not put confidence in the flesh — ⁴ although I have reasons for confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised the eighth day; of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; regarding the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ regarding zeal, persecuting the church; regarding the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.
⁷ But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ.

One of the key issues that came up repeatedly in the early church was the issue of following the Jewish law. Last time we looked at how Paul, throughout all his letters, makes it clear that we do not need to follow the various laws and regulations of the Jewish law. The Jewish leaders of the church in Jerusalem agreed with him, and made it clear in Acts chapter 15. Here, Paul says that we are the chosen people of God, who worship Jesus Christ, and “do not put confidence in the flesh.”

What does he mean by this expression? In the first place, he means that we do not put confidence in the fact that we have been circumcised, or that we were born Jewish, or went through Jewish conversion. Paul makes this clear by saying “I could put confidence in the flesh, if anyone could,” and lists his birth into the tribe of Benjamin, and his circumcision among such things. But he adds more. Not only was he born a Hebrew, but he points out he was a Pharisee, which was the strictest version of Judaism, and among Pharisees, he was particularly zealous. He claims that he was blameless in following the law.

Many Christians in modern times wonder how Paul could say he was blameless according to the law? The God’s Word version captures his thought very forcefully:

When it comes to winning God’s approval by obeying Jewish laws, I was perfect. (Philippians 3:6, GW)

We find this difficult to believe, because we have an understanding of the law that has been shaped by the teaching of Jesus. Jews at the time of Jesus and Paul had created a system for how to follow God’s law perfectly. So, for instance, God commanded this, through Moses:

⁸ “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. (Exodus 20:8 ESV)

The Jews were worried about how to apply this, so they made up a bunch of additional rules that, in their minds, would guarantee that they followed this command properly. So, for instance, they came up with a number of steps they were allowed to walk on the Sabbath. They weren’t allowed to “work” by lighting lamps on the Sabbath, so they made sure they had enough oil in the lamps to burn for a whole night and day. They could do certain farm chores, like caring for their animals (almost everyone was involved with agriculture in some way), but not others. Now, the Bible never actually tells how many steps a person can walk on the Sabbath, or that a person shouldn’t light a lamp on the Sabbath. It never actually specifies exactly what should or shouldn’t be done on the Sabbath, except it excludes “work.” But at about this point in history, the man-made rules of this type began to be more important to them than the actual scripture.

What Paul is saying is that he followed all the man-made rules correctly. Jesus is the one who said “if you follow the rules, but you have sin in your heart, you have still broken the law.” By that measure, Paul was never blameless. But by the measure of man made rules, Paul had a perfect record.

There’s something else here, that we may not realize at first glance. What Paul is telling us here, and what we know from other sources, is that he was pursuing a career as a Jewish Rabbi, and he was headed for elite status. His mentor was Rabbi Gamaliel, whose teaching still provides some foundational ideas for Jews, even today. Paul was a rising star, an exceptionally intelligent scholar, with all the right connections, and all the right attitudes. His future was bright indeed. To understand better, imagine a young man today who went to Harvard Law School, and graduated summa cum laude. He passed the bar exam with ease, the very first time he took it. He clerked for a Supreme Court Justice, and knows several senators. Just when he seems poised to take the world by storm, he quits practicing law and becomes a missionary to the country of Djibouti. (If you haven’t heard of Djibouti, that’s the point).

Or, for a more mundane example, imagine someone who has worked her way up the levels in her company. She’s put in hard hours and sacrificed, and seems about to become the first female CEO of her company. But instead of doing that, she leaves, giving up all that hard work, and that huge opportunity.

That was Paul’s situation. He gave up everything he had worked to achieve. He gave up what others thought was a very bright future. He gave it all up because:

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Jesus Christ is worth more than a bright future as an elite leader. Jesus Christ is worth more than an excellent career, or the praise of your peers, or money, or power, a nice retirement, or any of the other things we human beings think are valuable. In expressing this, Paul is simply putting the teachings of Jesus into practice. Jesus himself said:

³⁷ Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ³⁸ And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹ Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:37-39, ESV)

Nothing in this life, not even our closest relationships, are worth as much as Jesus. On another occasion, Jesus put it even more strongly:

²⁵ Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ²⁶ “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. ²⁷ Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. ²⁸ For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? ²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ ³¹ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³² And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. ³³ So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:25-33, ESV)

Jesus makes it clear. When we become his disciples, we have only him, we are to be ready to give up everything else, even our own lives. Anything else we “have” is given through Jesus, and by Jesus, and must be subordinate to Jesus. He even says, in the Luke passage above: “Hey, you should consider this carefully before becoming my disciple. Can you handle this extreme cost?”

Now, does this mean you need to quit your job, divorce your spouse and neglect your children? Not at all. Jesus was using extreme language to make a point. I think what it means is that you have these things—really, everything—only in and through Jesus. I was a disciple of Jesus when I met Kari (so was she). We both felt that it was his desire for us to be married. You might say I am married to Kari through Jesus. In our marriage, my goal is for the will and work of Jesus to be done through me, with and for Kari. So you might say my marriage is for Jesus.

The same sorts of things should be true of our work. If you work in construction, then, for as long as you are in that industry, you are there for Jesus. Yes, you are there to earn a living, and maybe because you enjoy that kind of work. Or, maybe, because you have no other options right now. But regardless, if you are a disciple of Jesus, you are in construction (for the moment, anyway) because (at least for now) Jesus wants you there. Firstly, he wants to reach others who don’t know him, and he wants to do that through you. He also wants to encourage other disciples, and again, he wants to do it through you. And perhaps he wants to build things well—again, through you.

Here’s an analogy that might help. Picture a girl of about twelve years old whose parents abandoned her at a young age. She’s bounced around the foster system for some time. And now, she’s been adopted by a very rich (and kind) father. Before she was adopted, she had some worn out clothes and things—nothing of any real value. Now, as part of the rich father’s family, she has a nice house, and delicious food to eat, beautiful clothing, and opportunities in life that weren’t available to her before. All of the new, wonderful things in her life come through her adoption into the father’s family. She has none of it without the father. With the father, she has all of it.

That’s the way it is meant to be with us and Jesus. I have Jesus, and everything else I have is conditional upon how Jesus wants to use it in my life. My house is his to use. My job is his. I’m not pursuing my own goals, but his goals for my life. Now, that’s not necessarily to say I can never move or change jobs. But when I do, I do so in consultation with Jesus, seeking his purposes for my life, and for any change I might want to make. I have had times in my life when it seemed like Jesus was OK with me changing jobs. I’ve had other times when he made it clear he wanted me to stay put. But this is the deal: I really have nothing, except Jesus Christ.

Jesus put this in a parable for us:

⁴⁴ “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
⁴⁵ “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, ⁴⁶ who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matthew 13:44-46, ESV)

We give up everything in order to have the one thing that is beyond price: Jesus Christ himself. When we have Jesus, then we have everything. When we don’t have Jesus, nothing we have is worth anything.

In the nineteen fifties, there was a young man named Jim Elliot who, along with four other young men, determined that Jesus wanted, through them, to take the gospel to an unreached jungle tribe in the Amazon. A few years before this, Elliot had written:

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

He meant, among other things, that even his own life was not his own to keep. All people die; no one gets to “keep” their own life. So, even if he were to give up his life, he was not giving up anything that was truly his anyway. What he gained by giving Jesus his life was an eternal life that no one could ever take from him.

A few years after writing that, Elliot and his friends were murdered in the Amazon jungle by the tribe they were trying to reach with the gospel of Jesus. He fully gave up what he could not keep. But at least three things happened as a result. That awful event, along with Jim Elliot’s quote, inspired at least two generations of Christians to take seriously the call of Jesus to give our entire selves into his keeping. It also inspired many young people to become missionaries. Thirdly, their martyrdom was the catalyst that led to the peaceful conversion of that tribe to faith in Jesus Christ.

Jim Elliot might have been thinking of this passage in Philippians when he wrote his famous words. Nothing compares to the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ. All things are worthless compared to Jesus. Everything that is good, that will endure, will also be found in and through Jesus Christ.

I let the world tempt me into thinking that I’m missing out, or that I need to chase down my own goals, to have the life I want. But scripture says that all things are rubbish compared to Jesus Christ. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you today.

PHILIPPIANS #12: CHOSEN

On May 16, 2026 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Philippians, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Fiery heart breaking metal chains with sparks and fragments flying — A glowing heart shatters heavy chains binding it, symbolizing liberation.

God’s chosen people are those who belong to his family through Jesus Christ. Through Christ, all the promises of the Old Testament are applicable to those who follow him. What an honor, what unearned favor, that we have been chosen by God!

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

You can also find us on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/6KKzSHPFT466aXfNT2r9OD (This will open to the latest sermon. You can search from there if you are looking for a previous one)

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Philippians Part 12

PHILIPPIANS #12. Philippians 3:1-11

Really, all of Philippians 3:1—4:1 is one cohesive section. However, there is so much within that section that we are taking it piece by piece. As we do so, however, remember what came before, and how it all fits together. So, last time we did a deep dive on finding our joy in the Lord. That thought is related to the rest of the passage. Paul goes on:

² Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. ³ For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—” (Philippians 3:2-3).

Just in case you don’t know the background of this, let me set it up for you. Christianity, when it began, was unquestionably, and entirely, Jewish. All Christians, during the first few years after Jesus was raised from the dead, were Jews who believed that Jesus was the Jewish messiah who fulfilled the teachings of the Law and the Prophets (that is, what we call the Old Testament). They saw no conflict between being Jewish and being Christian, and indeed, there is no necessary conflict. In every generation since that time there have been Jews who are Christian. In the first years of Christianity, the question went the other way: Is it possible for non-Jewish people, (whom Jews called Gentiles), to receive salvation through Jesus Christ?

After a few years, Gentiles began to be converted to Jesus. First, some Samaritans were converted, as described in Acts chapter 8, but the church may have considered them “not fully Gentile,” because they had some relationship with ethnic Jews, and with the law of Moses, and the promised land.

The first definitive record of Gentiles coming to faith in Jesus is in Acts chapter 10, which describes how the Holy Spirit led the apostle Peter to preach to the household of a Roman official named Cornelius. This was probably around A.D. 41-43, eight or ten years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Part of Acts chapter 10 describes a vision that Peter had, and that vision made it clear that God himself desired for Gentiles to receive salvation through Jesus Christ, and that Jewish food laws were not necessary. This was a very big deal, but it probably helped that Peter, who had the vision, and the experience, was the leader of the church at that point in time.

The other thing was that when they considered what Jesus had taught them, and what they had seen him do, the church began to realize that since salvation was through Jesus Christ alone, the Jewish law itself did not save anyone, not even Jews. Logically, that meant that non-Jews (Gentiles) could be saved if they put their trust in Jesus.

But this idea that non-Jews could be included in the people of God was pretty radical to ordinary Jews, and there were some within the church who had a hard time accepting it. In fact, even as leaders like Paul and Barnabas were bringing the gospel to Gentiles, in some places, Jewish Christians were arriving after they left to tell the new Gentile Christians that they must be circumcised. “Circumcision,” or, “being circumcised” really was a stand-in expression that referred to the whole process of being converted to Judaism. It was the last necessary step to take if a man wanted to become officially Jewish. Women, obviously, were spared this, but the implication of circumcision for both men and women was that they had to go through the entire extensive process to become Jewish, and afterwards to follow all the Jewish laws and regulations.

In about A.D. 49, many Jewish church leaders convened a council in Jerusalem. They all agreed that it was not necessary to follow the Jewish law in order to be saved. They wrote a letter to the Gentile Christians, which can be found in Acts chapter 15. They reminded Gentile converts to stay away from pagan idolatry, and affirmed that salvation is in Jesus Christ, and that it is not necessary to become a Jewish convert, or to follow Jewish religious laws.

Even so, as Paul’s letters indicate, Jewish people would still, from time to time, try to get Gentile Christians to follow all the Jewish laws. It’s not clear if these were always Jewish Christians, or if possibly some non-Christian Jews, confused about Christianity, were also chiming in. I tend to think it was both, since, at the beginning, Christianity was part of Judaism.

So, this is what Paul is talking about when he writes: “Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.” Mutilating the flesh means circumcision.

Paul goes on:

For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh

This is a remarkable statement. Paul puts it very simply here, but it contains a great wealth of truth, some of which he elaborates on in his other letters. He is saying this: in times past God’s people, the Jews, were chosen, and set apart, by circumcision and by God’s laws. However, now, through Jesus Christ, God’s chosen people are those who worship by the Holy Spirit and glory in Christ Jesus, and trust Jesus himself, not their own performance. In other words, all those who truly trust Jesus are God’s people—not only Jews, but Gentiles also. By the same token, those who do not trust Jesus, even if they are Jews, are not God’s people.

Now, I do think that the continued existence of the Jewish people with their distinct culture has something to do with the blessing and promises of God. There are many Jews who are not religious—they see Jewishness as an ethnic and cultural identity. However, though their knowledge is incomplete, Jews who do worship God are worshipping the same God as we Christians.

I think that even though more Jews than not have rejected Jesus, God has been using the Jewish people to show the world his goodness and truth. Their continued existence as a unique people-group is truly astonishing. They were without a homeland for 1,700 years, and yet their culture survived. Again, this is a clue to the truth of the Bible and the power of God’s promises. Even so, we must not mistake God’s blessings for his endorsement. He blesses whomever he chooses to bless. That doesn’t mean that those blessed by God are always following the right path, or doing the right thing. In fact the Old Testament history of Israel shows that they often made the wrong choices, over and over again, in fact. Also, I do not think of the modern nation of Israel as “God’s chosen people.” God continues to bless the Jews (all over the world), but the modern nation of Israel is a secular state, and most of the people there are neither Christians, nor even faithful orthodox Jews. It doesn’t make any sense to me to call that secular nation “God’s chosen people” at this point in time.

I do need to be clear: antisemitism is a sin, and Christians should have no part in it. Nothing I’m saying means that we should look down on Jewish people, or discriminate against them, or hurt them in any way. I’m simply reaffirming what the Bible says, which is that salvation comes through Jesus, and Jesus alone.

We need to remember this: according to the New Testament, people are saved through faith in Jesus Christ, and not by any other means. Jewish people don’t get an exception. If they are to be saved, it must be through faith in Jesus. All people must humbly surrender to Jesus. Our ethnicity will not reconcile us to God. Our ethnicity will also never keep us from being reconciled to God through Jesus.

Peter was hauled up in front of the Jewish leadership council after the Lord used him to heal a crippled man. He said:

¹¹ This Jesus is “the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone.” ¹² There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:11-12, CSB)

Remember, he said this to Jewish people. The only way of salvation is through Jesus. Paul wrote:

²¹ But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. ²² We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.
²³ For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. ²⁴ Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. ²⁵ For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. (Romans 3:21-25, NLT)

Paul also wrote:

²⁸ A person is not a Jew because of his appearance, nor is circumcision a matter of how the body looks. ²⁹ Rather, a person is a Jew inwardly, and circumcision is something that happens in a person’s heart. Circumcision is spiritual, not just a written rule. That person’s praise will come from God, not from people. (Romans 2:28-29, GW)

And so, when we trust Jesus, even if we are not born Jewish and we do not convert to Judaism, we are now the true chosen people of God, heirs to the promises given to Abraham and the ancient people of Israel. Here’s more about this, again, from the same letter (Romans):

¹¹ Circumcision was a sign that Abraham already had faith and that God had already accepted him and declared him to be righteous—even before he was circumcised. So Abraham is the spiritual father of those who have faith but have not been circumcised. They are counted as righteous because of their faith. ¹² And Abraham is also the spiritual father of those who have been circumcised, but only if they have the same kind of faith Abraham had before he was circumcised.
¹³ Clearly, God’s promise to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants was based not on his obedience to God’s law, but on a right relationship with God that comes by faith. ¹⁴ If God’s promise is only for those who obey the law, then faith is not necessary and the promise is pointless. ¹⁵ For the law always brings punishment on those who try to obey it. (The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break!)
¹⁶ So the promise is received by faith. It is given as a free gift. And we are all certain to receive it, whether or not we live according to the law of Moses, if we have faith like Abraham’s. For Abraham is the father of all who believe. ¹⁷ That is what the Scriptures mean when God told him, “I have made you the father of many nations.” (Romans 4:11-17, NLT, bold formatting added by me)

The Jews in Jesus’ time were proud that they were descendants of Abraham; that is, that they were part of God’s chosen people. They sometimes used the term, “uncircumcised,” as an insult to Gentiles. But Paul makes it clear: those who trust Jesus, even if they are not Jewish, are the spiritual descendants of Abraham; in other words, God’s chosen people. And those who are literally, by blood, descended from Abraham, are only counted as chosen people if they have faith in Jesus Christ.

Paul also writes that we who trust Jesus have been “circumcised” in a spiritual way.

¹¹ When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. ¹² For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.
¹³ You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. ¹⁴ He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.
¹⁶ So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. ¹⁷ For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. (Colossians 2:11-17, NLT)

Just in case you still have any doubt:

⁷ Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. ⁸ And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” ⁹ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. (Galatians 3:7-9, ESV)

I think there have been times in my life where I feel a little jealous of Jewish people. They are blood-related to Jesus himself! They have a wonderful history of God’s promises and work on their behalf. But I need to remember that through Jesus, all that is mine, also. I am one of God’s chosen people. So are you, if you trust Jesus. The promises of the Old Testament are written for us. The amazing history of God’s work is for us to rejoice in. This is one reason my family celebrates Passover each year. It isn’t because we think we need to, to fulfill some requirement. We want to, to partake I the joy of it. The deliverance and joy of the Passover belongs to all Christians, through Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus himself told his disciples that Passover was about him, and is for his followers. Christian churches all over the world celebrate the Passover (though in an abbreviated form) whenever they partake in Communion.

Let’s connect all this back to rejoicing in the Lord (the message before this one). When our true joy is anchored in the Lord Jesus Christ, we find that we are the chosen people of God. This in turn, leads to even more rejoicing.

I’ve shared a lot of scripture, but here’s one more, about being chosen to be God’s people:

³ Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. ⁴ For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. ⁵ He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One (Ephesians 1:3-6, CSB)

We were chosen before the foundation of the world to belong to God through Jesus Christ. You can’t get any more “chosen,” than that!

Let the Holy spirit speak to you today. You have been chosen by God, to be one of his special people. All the promises of the whole Bible apply to you! This is not something you could possibly have earned, it is a free gift. Rejoice and glory in Jesus for his kindness to you.

PHILIPPIANS #11: JOY

On May 8, 2026 By Pastor TomIn apostle paul, House Church, Jesus, Philippians, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

If our joy is fully in the Lord, then our hearts will always be satisfied, because the one thing that Jesus gives us without limit is himself. If what we want is Jesus himself—not the stuff he can do for us, but his presence—then we can continually rejoice in the Lord. Even if Jesus is the desire of our heart, it may seem sometimes like we are not fully satisfied, but scripture tells us that the Lord is in us, and with us, even when the voices of the world, flesh and devil whisper that our experience says otherwise. We can count on the promises of God to be with us always.

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¹ Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. (Philippians 3:1, ESV)

Just a quick language note. Some scholars see the first word of verse one (“finally” in the ESV) to mean that Paul was actually wrapping up his letter. They think, as a result, that the letter should end somewhere in chapter three, and that chapter 4 was not part of the same letter.

In the first place, if that were true, it doesn’t change the fact that God inspired and preserved all of the words of Philippians for us as part of his word.

However, I doubt that the claim is true in the first place. Every ancient copy of Philippians contains the whole letter, and there is no evidence that this was ever anything but a single letter, so that isn’t likely. In Greek there are actually two words here, that, taken together, literally mean something like “finally.” However, at that point in history, the expression wasn’t used in a strictly literal fashion. So, in English, we might say: “I was blown away,” but we do not mean that some great wind actually came and blew us away, or that we were in an explosion. So, the Greek expression here is, I think, better translated something like: “furthermore.” A few other translations pick up on this: “whatever happens” (NLT), “in addition” (CSB,) “now then” (GW), “further” (NIV).

You probably didn’t want, or need, to know that, but I mention it because some critical scholars use it to try and undermine the Bible, saying that Philippians was cobbled together out of two or three different letters. But the entire argument rests on a poor understanding of the Greek expression. I guess I’m telling you this because I’m sure you realize that there are skeptics, who don’t believe the Bible is even what we think it is. I’m showing you that, at least with regard to Philippians, the skeptics have virtually no ground to stand on. (This is a typical case, which is why I don’t have a ton of respect for skeptical biblical scholars).

Moving on to the text, Paul tells them to rejoice in the Lord, and adds that it is no trouble to write the same things to them. What does he mean? Well, for one thing, this is now the sixth time that he has used the word “rejoice.” He uses it nine times altogether in this letter. He also uses the verb form, “joy,” five additional times in the letter. So this is a major theme. Up until this point Paul has talked about rejoicing in a general way, or rejoicing for specific things. But now he says “Rejoice in the Lord.”

Let’s start by considering a few other places in the New Testament that talk about rejoicing. Here’s Jesus:

¹¹ “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11-12, ESV)

When his disciples came back from their first training mission, they were amazed and thrilled that demonic spirits fled at the name of Jesus. Jesus said this:

²⁰ Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:20, ESV)

Before he left this world, he told his disciples:

²² So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.( John 16:22, ESV)

In the book of Acts, when the apostles were first persecuted, their response was to rejoice:

So they took his advice, ⁴⁰ and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. ⁴¹ Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. (Acts 5:39-41, ESV)

Elsewhere Paul wrote:

²⁴ Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, (Colossians 1:24, ESV)

Peter wrote:

¹³ But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4:13, ESV)

James used the noun form of the word (joy) rather than the verb (rejoice) but you can see that he means the same thing:

² Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, ³ for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. ⁴ And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4, ESV)

Let’s have just one more, from Paul again:

¹⁶ Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray without ceasing, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, ESV)

There are actually many, many more verses. So you see, this isn’t just a major theme in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Rejoicing is a major theme of the New Testament. The Greek verb “rejoice” is used 74 times in the New Testament, while the noun-form of the same word, “joy,” is used an additional 56 times. There are a few other words that have similar meanings, and are sometimes translated as joy or rejoice, but I didn’t include them in these results, because they come from different Greek words. In Greek, the word “joy” is related to the word “grace.” I’m not sure exactly where to go with that, other than that God’s grace brings about joy, and joy impresses upon us the experience of grace.

One thing we can see from the verses I quote above is that rejoicing is not dependent upon our circumstances. In fact, many times, the New Testament tells us to rejoice in trials and sufferings, or records people (like Peter and John, in Acts chapter 5, above) rejoicing in difficult situations.

This tells us that rejoicing is not primarily about accessing an emotion. Rejoicing is declaring to yourself (and others, depending on circumstances) the trust of what we have in Jesus.

I think it is vitally important that we rejoice in the Lord. Psalm 37:4 says this:

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Now, unfortunately, this verse gets misused constantly. Many people take it to mean something like this: “Become a committed Christian, and, in exchange, God will give you the things you want.”

But that’s not what the verse says, nor what it means. I think it is very similar to “rejoice in the Lord always.” It works like this: let the Lord himself be your deepest desire and joy. When what you want most of all is the Lord himself—not what he can do for you, not the blessings he gives you, bur rather, Jesus, for the sake of Jesus alone—then, your soul will be satisfied by Jesus himself. If what you desire more than anything is the Lord himself, that desire will be granted to you. The one thing that Jesus gives us without limit in this mortal life is himself. Nothing else is safe enough, good enough, strong enough, to be the deepest, most important desire of our hearts without corrupting us. If our deepest joy is Jesus himself, we are safe and at peace, and at rest. It is when we rejoice in “Jesus, plus _____” that our souls get shipwrecked. If I need something other than Jesus, or even something in addition to Jesus, to be joyful, satisfied and at peace, then I will never be at peace; I will never be truly joyful.

If we rejoice only in healing, or only when things go the way we want them to, or only when we feel OK, then our joy is not in the Lord. Then, our joy is contingent upon something else, and if we don’t have whatever that is, we don’t have joy. To rejoice in the Lord is to rejoice fully in Jesus. It is to have our joy contingent upon Jesus alone. When that is the case, we can rejoice and give thanks in all circumstances, because we are never without Jesus.

Rejoicing in the Lord is partly a discipline of the mind that we can learn and improve in. We need to remind ourselves of the amazing gift of Jesus, and focus on that, rather than on the things that bother us, or that we feel we lack. Don’t let “perfection” become the enemy of “improving.” If you aren’t used to disciplining your mind, of catching yourself worrying, or angry, and then refocusing on the joy we have in the Lord, it will be a slow process to begin with. It might be a slow process for your whole life. The point is not to achieve something, but to be moving in the right direction. So, suppose you catch yourself wishing you could change something that you really can’t (like, for instance, another human being) pay attention to your habit of thought. Release what you can’t change to the Lord, and focus on the joy we have in Jesus.

Rejoicing in the Lord is also an act of faith. Sometimes, Jesus feels distant. In fact, sometimes, he feels entirely absent. Please understand that this is part of the normal human condition in our mortal flesh. Our own sin, our flesh, the clamour of the world around us, the devil and his minions—all of these can interfere with our perception of the closeness of Jesus. But we need to remember that our perception of Jesus’ presence with us is flawed. Just because we can’t see it or feel it does not mean that Jesus isn’t there. In times like that, we are called to trust the Word of God, to trust beyond what we can perceive or understand. We are called to go on with life as if Jesus is right there by our side—because he actually is.

I am going to quote several different scriptures in which the Lord promises to be with us. Take a moment, right now, to pray something like this: Lord, please help me to hear and trust your promises that you are always with me, and will never leave me. Help me to trust you, even when I’m struggling to see or feel that this is true. Help me to rejoice entirely in you.

Now read these promises prayerfully. Take your time. Pause after each verse. Let the words sink in. You are not alone. Since coming to Jesus, you have never been alone. Jesus is the only worthy thing for you to fully rejoice in. So hear, trust, and rejoice:

⁵ Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” ⁶ So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5-6, ESV)

⁹ Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9, ESV)

And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20, CSB)

¹⁸ “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. ¹⁹ In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too. ²⁰ On that day you will know that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you. (John 14:18-20, CSB)

¹⁰ fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10, ESV)

¹ Now this is what the LORD says —
the one who created you, Jacob,
and the one who formed you, Israel —
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by your name; you are mine.
² When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you,
and the rivers will not overwhelm you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be scorched,
and the flame will not burn you.
³ For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, and your Savior.
I have given Egypt as a ransom for you,
Cush and Seba in your place.
⁴ Because you are precious in my sight
and honored, and I love you, (Isaiah 43:1-4, CSB)

Finally, this one:

²⁶ In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
²⁸ We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ³⁰ And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.

³¹ What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³² He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything? ³³ Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies. ³⁴ Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. ³⁵ Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶ As it is written: Because of you; we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.
³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:26-39, CSB)

PHILIPPIANS #10: ADVENTURES IN DISCIPLESHIP

On April 30, 2026 By Pastor TomIn apostle paul, Bible Teaching, Philippians, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Three travelers on an ancient Roman road

Epaphroditus gives us another example of what it means to live a life surrendered to Jesus Christ.

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Philippians #10. Philippians 2:19-30

¹⁹ I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. ²⁰ For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. ²¹ For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. ²² But you know Timothy’s proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel. ²³ I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me, ²⁴ and I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also.
²⁵ I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, ²⁶ for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. ²⁷ Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. ²⁸ I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. ²⁹ So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, ³⁰ for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me. (Philippians 2:19-30)

Paul pauses here to explain a little bit more about why he is sending this letter. He’s planning to send his ministry protégé, Timothy, to the Philippians, because he knows and trusts that sending Timothy is almost as good as going himself. He says something that reveals he’s very human, and also that human nature doesn’t change much: “For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.”

It’s not hard to become discouraged in ministry, and to feel like no one else is really whole-heartedly following Jesus Christ. After all his labours and journeying, nights full of prayer, days full of teaching and encouraging, Paul feels that the only person that he can really count on at the moment is Timothy. The discouragement was real, and also, Timothy’s faithfulness was real.

Paul decided to hold back on sending Timothy, however, until his court case is totally resolved.

Next, Paul explains that he is sending a man named Epaphroditus to the Philippians. It appears that Epaphroditus was, himself, a member of the Philippian church. In fact, Epaphroditus was in Rome with Paul precisely because, originally, the Philippians sent him there with a gift for Paul.

I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent (Philippians 4:18, ESV)

So let’s lay out the timeline. The church in Philippi decided to send Paul a gift. Roman prisoners were not allowed to work, but they were not provided with food or other necessities, either. So, prisoners had to be supported by friends and family. The Philippians sent a gift to help support Paul. There was no postal service to speak of, so the gift had to be personally delivered by someone trusted. The church at Philippi chose Epaphroditus to be the messenger, and deliverer.

The journey from Philippi to Rome (or vice-versa) was a very big deal. Philippi is in modern Macedonia, to the northeast of Greece. If you were to go the most direct route in those days, you would go overland from Philippi on the Via Egnatia (the major Roman “highway” in the area at the time) across Macedonia, and go into, and then across, Albania to the location of the modern-day city of Durres. Most of that first four hundred miles or so involves rugged mountain country. I’ve been in that part of the world, and still today, to go between Philippi and the Albanian coast is not for the fainthearted, and is difficult, even with vehicles. Roads quickly fall apart in that part of the world, and there is snow in the mountains in the winter, floods in spring and fall, and so on. Most people would make this first part of the journey by walking, which would take about three weeks—but only if the weather stayed good and you stayed healthy enough to walk twenty miles a day (carrying all your stuff with you) with not a single day for rest, or unforeseen issues. It also requires that all the river fords be passable, which was not necessarily something to be counted on. You might wait for several days for a flooding river to get low enough to safely cross (there were few bridges). After finally arriving on the Albanian coast, you would take a few days to find a ship to cross to the eastern side of Italy. Next, you are walking once again, across Italy from east to west, navigating additional mountain ranges to get to the area of modern-day Salerno. From there, you would probably go up the western side of that country to Rome. I have been in that region of Italy, as well, and again the country, at times, gets very rugged. The entire journey would be more than thirteen hundred miles, all but a small portion of it on foot, more than half of it through mountain country. If you figure about twenty miles a day (which is an average in ideal conditions) it would take at least sixty-five days, with zero time off for rest. In reality, it could be significantly longer—say three months.

You could make the entire journey by ship, which would have been easier, but also more expensive, and it would take almost the same amount of time. Ships were used primarily for carrying cargo (rather than passengers), and so ships would have journeyed from port to port over relatively short distances. Periodically, the travelers would have to leave their ship at a port, and find a new ship that was going in their direction, in order to keep moving toward Rome. Remember, these are vessels powered by wind and oars. Even the process of going into and out of a port would often take several hours. Then, to find the right ship and price going their way might take several days, each time they had to change vessels.

The first five-hundred miles of the ship journey would take the travelers south, away from Rome, to get around the bulk of Greece. The ship-journey would cover maybe 1,700 miles. It would include dangers from weather, from pirates, and from crooks and con men and thieves in each port. During the years 2014-2023 there were an average of 2,600 casualties/incidences of accident, injury, or loss of life at sea in and around Greece and Italy. That is with modern ships, using modern technology and safety precautions. You can imagine that things were far worse in the time of Paul and Epaphroditus. In ancient times, travel at sea, though physically easier for passengers than walking, was by no means safe and relaxing. Ships were often dangerously overcrowded and/or overloaded. It was risky.

The point is, no matter which way they did it, it was a really big deal that Epaphroditus (and probably a few companions) traveled all that distance, risking all those dangers, hardships and troubles. The fact that Epaphroditus was carrying a relatively large amount of money as a gift for the apostle Paul made it doubly-dangerous.

As I just mentioned, almost certainly, Epaphroditus took a few companions with him, in case something should happen to him, and also to help guard against robbers. In any case, it appears that either shortly before, or after, he arrived in Rome, Epaphroditus grew seriously ill. His companions returned home to Philippi after they knew that Epaphroditus was sick, but without knowing whether or not he had recovered.

Epaphroditus probably had loved ones in Philippi, because when he recovered, he agonized over the fact that his companions had carried news of his serious illness back home to Philippi. He hated to think of his loved ones wondering if he lived or died. So, some time after he had fully recovered, Paul decided it was best to send him home to bring comfort to the church back there, who didn’t know whether he was alive or dead.

Paul certainly had a great deal of admiration and gratitude toward Epaphroditus. He calls him: brother, co-worker, fellow-soldier, messenger and minister.

Brother, was commonly used by the first Christians to mean “fellow-Christian.” Paul is affirming that Epaphroditus was a brother in Christ. He also calls him a co-worker. The word here means laboring together (it’s actually the word from which we get the English: synergy). So, apparently either at some point in the past, or, more likely, in Rome, Epaphroditus had been engaged in Christian ministry with Paul. Paul then describes him as a fellow-soldier. I assume Paul had been observing the soldiers that guarded him, and realized that following Jesus together is like campaigning together as soldiers (the word could also be translated “co-campaigner”).

The fourth word here, which the ESV translates as “messenger,” is literally “apostle.” I think it might help if we have a clear idea of what that word meant in the First Century Greco-Roman world. An apostle is a designated messenger, someone who acts and speaks on behalf of the one who sent him. So, the apostles of Jesus were his special messengers, who were designated to act and speak on his behalf, to carry out his mission and purpose in the world. But we need to remember that the word existed before Jesus, and had a broader meaning in the culture than “the special representatives of Jesus.” So, Epaphroditus was the special messenger sent by the Philippians to Paul, to act and speak on their behalf to him. It does not mean that we should consider Epaphroditus an apostle of Jesus in the same way that Paul and Peter were. But he was sent by the Philippians to deliver their gift to Paul, and to do for Paul what they, themselves, would do, if they were present. In a way, he was the embodiment of the Philippian church to Paul.

Paul’s final description of Epaphroditus makes more sense, now that we understand the full depth meant by apostle/messenger. Paul calls him “minister to my need.” Paul didn’t use the normal Christian word for minister/servant here. Instead, he described Epaphroditus as if he where an appointed government or religious official.

This little section about Epaphroditus is, in some ways, one of the main purposes for which Paul wrote this letter. The Philippians sent Epaphroditus not only to deliver the financial gift, but also to be part of the gift himself. They sent him to be a co-worker, a co-soldier, a minister in whatever way he could serve Paul. The gift they sent was money, plus Epaphroditus himself. But now Paul was returning part of the gift—he was sending Epaphroditus back. So, here, he explicitly says that Epaphroditus was everything he should have been, and more, but that things have changed, and, for several reasons, it seemed best to have Epaphroditus return home.

One of the reasons for Epaphroditus to go home is because he was extremely ill already before his companions returned to Philippi. It would have taken those companions 3 months or more to get back. It would be another three months or more before Epaphroditus himself could have gotten home. During all that time his loved ones would have been deeply worried about him. On the other side, Epaphroditus was feeling upset that his loved ones won’t be able to ease their minds until he returns.

Second, Paul’s trial had begun in earnest, and Paul expected a resolution, soon. This is one reason he kept saying that he hoped that he himself (or at the worst, Timothy) would see them in person before long. He wanted them to understand that he did not need Epaphroditus in the same way that he might have before. In all of this, he wanted to make sure that they understood that, even though he came close to dying from his sickness, Epaphroditus fulfilled his mission fully in every way, and the fact that Paul sent him home should not be seen in any way as negative for Epaphroditus.

Now, I want to back out a bit, and consider two lessons from Epaphroditus. You may not have thought about it, but there’s something surprising here. Epaphroditus was sick, so sick that they thought he might be about to die. Paul was extremely worried about him. So what? Well, elsewhere, Luke writes about this same Paul:

¹¹ And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, ¹² so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. (Acts 19:11-12, ESV)

And yet here was Paul, who, in the past was used by God for extraordinary miracles of healing, and here was a man whom Paul testifies was a model follower of Jesus, and he was extremely sick. Obviously, he was not healed miraculously, not even through Paul. If he had been, it would have happened when he was first sick in Rome, and his companions would have carried the news of the miracle back to Philippi. Paul himself makes no mention of a miracle of healing. It seems clear that Epaphroditus fell deeply ill, and in spite of the prayers of Paul and the Roman Christians, he got even sicker, coming close to death before he finally began to recover.

There are some people who claim that God always intends to heal a sick person, no matter what. If there is no miraculous healing, it is due to lack of faith. This is not only untrue, but it is a dangerous teaching to spread, because it spreads disappointment with God and bitterness along with it. But Paul says nothing like it. Like most of us at one point or another, he watched helplessly while his friend battled for his life. No doubt he was comforted by knowing that even if Epaphroditus died, he would be with the Lord, but Paul says that in the moment it would have given him “sorrow upon sorrow” (v. 27). We don’t always understand the workings of God, of why some are healed, and some are not. Even the great apostle Paul encountered this mystery. We need to come to terms with some amount of mystery in various areas of our lives.

The second point I want to consider is this: the suffering of Epaphroditus was considered by Paul to be suffering for the sake of Christ. This suffering was not persecution, but rather a sickness that occurred in the ordinary course of life. Paul doesn’t mention anything unusual about it, except that it was a very serious illness. Why does Paul then claim that Epaphroditus, in his illness, nearly died for the sake of Christ?

I think it is this: Clearly, Epaphroditus was someone who had surrendered his life to the purposes of Jesus Christ and his church. Did Jesus need someone to take the gift of the Philippians to Paul in Rome? Then Epaphroditus was up for it, because his whole life belonged to Jesus. He was willing to do whatever was necessary in the service of Christ. In his life, which was surrendered to Christ, all things were for Christ and his glory. So, as Paul already explained, concerning himself, if Epaphroditus lived, it was for Christ. If he died, it was for Christ. In a life that is surrendered to Jesus Christ, all things are for Christ. In a way, what Paul is saying is that Epaphroditus shared the same attitude that he, Paul, had: to live is Christ, to die is gain.

Where does this leave us? I hope we can look at Timothy, and Epaphroditus, and be inspired. I want to live in such a way that I’m not living for my own purposes, but for those of Jesus. I would like to earn the titles of brother, co worker, co-soldier, messenger, and minister. Do any of these strike you? Which ones? What is the Lord saying to you about that?

If I do surrender my life in the way that Epaphroditus did, then I can also trust that whatever transpires (other than my own sin), it will be considered as in the service of Christ. If I am serving the Lord on the mission field, it is for Christ. If I am working at a company in the United States, but if my life is surrendered to him, that too, is for Christ.

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you right now.

PHILIPPIANS #9: SHINING

On April 17, 2026 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Christianity, Church, Philippians, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

If we avoid grumbling and complaining, and we hold fast to the word of life, we will shine like stars, especially compared to the crooked and perverse generation of those who do not follow Jesus.

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Philippians #9. Philippians 2:14-18

¹⁴ Do all things without grumbling or disputing, ¹⁵ that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, ¹⁶ holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. ¹⁷ Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. ¹⁸ Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me. Philippians 2:14-18

Paul has just told us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, while reassuring us that it is God himself who is doing the work. I mentioned last time that one of the keys to doing that is trust. Now, Paul tells the Philippians to do everything without grumbling or disputing. Why does he bring up these two things particularly? How is that related to working out our salvation? Grumbling and disputing arise when we are not trusting the Lord.

The people of Israel, wandering in the desert with Moses, grumbled and complained when they didn’t trust that the Lord was going to take care of them. They wailed and moaned when they were cornered at the Red Sea. They wouldn’t have done that if they trusted the Lord to save them. They griped about being hungry, and the Lord gave them manna. This didn’t shut them up for long. Soon, they wanted more than just plain manna—they wanted meat. So he gave them quail. Then they grumbled about not having water, and on and on it goes.

Maybe sometimes it is not so much that we don’t trust him as that we aren’t really paying attention to him at all. We’re living our own lives, for our own purposes, and so we groan and moan because things don’t work out the way we think they should.

Let’s do a thought experiment about grumbling and trust. Imagine that one day, you and your loved ones need to set out on a road trip, heading toward the Rocky Mountains. You have to take your old car—it’s your only vehicle. After a hundred miles, sure enough, the car breaks down. After you finally get it fixed, fifty miles later, you run out of gas, because someone forgot to fill it up after the hassle with the breakdown. Then, you run into a snowstorm. After the snowstorm, you get lost.

Now, picture the conversation inside the car when these things are happening. What is it like? Probably, there is a lot of grumbling and disputing:

“You were supposed to get the gas!”

“I was too busy with the engine. If you remembered it why didn’t you do it yourself?”

“I told you we should wait until the weather was better!”

“Yeah? Do you have a crystal ball for predicting the weather?”

“We should have taken the other road back there, but oh, no, you couldn’t imagine that I was right.”

It’s all too easy to picture how much grumbling and complaining there could be on such a journey.

But now, let’s change the story a little bit. The reason you are taking the journey is because you had an extremely wealthy relative, about whom you knew nothing, before. Your relative has died, and he has left you a fortune worth 10 billion dollars. You will never have to work again. You’ll live however it suits you, wherever it suits you. The executor of the estate had called you, and informed you that you have inherited this vast fortune. The terms dictate that you need to travel to a remote cabin on a lake in the Rocky Mountains where you will sign papers, and officially take over the fortune. You can come anytime, there is no deadline, so it’s not a big deal if you are delayed. Although the cabin is remote, it is apparently luxurious, and is connected to electricity and the internet. Once you are there, you will be able to leave, when you want, via a float-plane (and pilot on retainer), which is part of your inheritance.

Now, would the purpose of the journey, and the result of the journey, have any effect on the grumbling and complaining along the way? A breakdown, getting lost, running out of gas, and so on, are annoying. But when you think about where you are going, suddenly, it seems a little small-hearted to complain about relatively minor, temporary difficulties, the whole time while you are on the way to collecting ten billion dollars. It’s a pain right now, yes, but soon you’ll be able to buy any car you want to. Soon, in fact, you could take the airplane instead of the car. Yes, while you are lost or waiting by the roadside, it’s frustrating. But the bottom line is, everything is actually quite wonderful. The difficulties are annoying and inconvenient. But they are nothing compared to what’s in store for you.

That’s what we need to remember. We are on a journey to an unimaginably wonderful future. What we are inheriting is far, far, better than ten billion earthly dollars. So, the apostle Paul writes, elsewhere:

¹⁸ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18, ESV)

It’s not worth grumbling about our present sufferings. What’s coming is incomparably better. So, he also wrote to the Corinthians:

¹⁷ For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.¹⁸ So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:17-18, HCSB)

Obviously, we do encounter real problems and difficulties in this life. My daughter has life-threatening cancer at the moment. I am not pretending that it’s no big deal. And yet, in a sense, it ISN’T a big deal. She is an enthusiastic, mature, follower of Jesus. If we are parted right now, my heart will break, but it won’t be broken for forever. The parting would be only temporary. In our eternal inheritance, neither one of us will ever die, or suffer from cancer.

Our future is so much better than simply inheriting 10 billion earthly dollars. Wealth like that, as huge as it is, can’t change our hearts for the better, or end our bad habits. It can’t make us more loving. It can’t bring our loved ones back from the dead. It can’t comfort us in sorrow, or rejoice with us. It can’t save us from ourselves, or from death. But Jesus gives us all of that, and more.

I’ve used this illustration before, but I think it’s helpful. Imagine you are a football player who is playing in the Super Bowl. Many truly great players never get a chance, not once, to play in that game. So you are in the Biggest Game, a tremendous honor given only to a few. You’ve already made $192,000 in bonuses above and beyond your normal multimillion dollar salary for getting through the playoffs. Your bonus for playing in the Superbowl is $103,000 more if you lose, $178,000 more if you win. In other words, you could buy a house with just the bonus you get for being in the big game.

Now, in the game, you play hard. But maybe you make a mistake and cost your team a penalty. Maybe an opposing player gets away with a bad one that wasn’t called. Maybe the refs make a bad call. All these things are upsetting, to be sure. You see players getting upset about such things all the time. And yet, at the end of the day, no matter what happens, you are a multi-millionaire who has earned at least an extra $300,000 this year. When the game is over, win or lose, you have the next several months off, and you are set for money for life. When you are playing, the game feels all-encompassing. The things that happen during the game feel like major events. But when the final whistle blows, even if you lose, you go home to a life that most people can only dream about.

The same thing is true for us. When we draw our final breath, we will go home to a life we can only dream about right now. That should give us some perspective. It should help us moderate the grumbling and disputing.

When we live with a clear view of the perspective of our life in Christ, it will make us stand out from other people. I would guess that at most workplaces, if you don’t complain or argue, you will stand out, in a very good way.

Now, at times we do have to take a stand for what’s right. We can’t be party to doing something wrong, something that will end up hurting someone else. At times, expressing the truth of the Gospel involves disputing conflicting ideas. But I think those times when we need to take a stand on principle are not at all the same thing as grumbling and disputing here in this text. We need to do the right thing, even if it brings us into conflict with others at times. Even so, we don’t stand on principle by grumbling behind the back of the person we need to confront. When we have to stand up for what’s right, grumbling doesn’t really apply. I think it’s safe to say, Paul is talking about grumbling and unnecessary disputing.

Paul says that if we remember that we are citizens of Heaven, and from that perspective, minimize unnecessary disputing, we will shine like the sun when we are among people who are not doing that. I think anyone who has ever had a job where they worked with other people knows that this is true. It seems to be human nature to gripe and moan about life. But because we are heading to an amazing eternal future, we can let the small stuff go.

I do think it is more than simply remembering that we are bound for the New Creation. As we saw last time, it is the Lord himself who works within us. Jesus within us does not grumble or quarrel. The more we recognize that he is living his life through us, and the more we let him do so, the less we will grumble and dispute.

If we avoid grumbling and complaining, and we hold fast to the word of life, we will shine like stars, especially compared to the crooked and perverse generation of those who do not follow Jesus. I think sometimes we get kind of overwhelmed and fatigued with how twisted and perverse the world truly is. We get used to it. If you could take a television show or movie from 2025 back in time to 1991, things that are normal now would horrify and shock us back then.

I remember when pornography was something people were ashamed of. Now, it has been “normalized.” 61% of all people report viewing pornography. That’s 78% of men, 44% of women. 73% of teenagers have viewed porn. One survey of thousands of online porn videos found that almost half of them involved at least one act of violence. No wonder our world seems to be going down the tubes—this is insane. We do indeed live in a crooked and perverse generation.

Paul expects also that the Philippians will be holding fast to the word of life. That is for us, also. This week I’ve come across two different groups of people who believe that Jesus wrote a book and the Roman Catholic church suppressed it, along with other books that were supposed to guide Christians. Those ideas are completely at odds with historical reality, with about as much evidence for it as there is that a secret cabal of lizard people rules the world, but it was clear that these people had found support for their conspiracies online, and fully believed them.

If anyone reading this worries about whether the Bible is reliable, I encourage you to watch this video by Dr. Peter Williams.

Lecture – Dr Peter Williams – New Evidences the Gospels were Based on Eyewitness Accounts

The video is several years old, but not too long ago, Dr. Williams also wrote an excellent (and short!) book called: Can We Trust the Gospels? If, like me, you prefer reading to listening or watching videos, you should pick up that book. You could also look at my own book, Who Cares About the Bible. The first several chapters of that one address the reliability of scripture.

We need to be clear in our minds that the Bible is in fact, the word of life, and we need to hold fast to it. Holding fast means that we know the truth taught by scripture, and we live our lives in step with that truth.

The world around us has mostly rejected the truth of the Bible. Especially online, it isn’t hard to find people living almost the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches. It’s easy to find people mocking the Bible, undermining it. Everywhere we look, people seem to be getting on with their lives as if scripture is irrelevant. We need to understand that this was exactly the situation for those Christians in the city of Philippi. It was a pagan place. Most people neither knew, nor cared, about Christianity. In such an environment, we need that helpful encouragement to hold fast to the word of life.

Paul points out that he himself is holding fast, and if they, too hold fast, then his labor would not have been in vain. This would have been a powerful appeal to the Philippians. In that period in history, in that culture, teachers and leaders were held in very high esteem. Most normal people would have wanted to please someone who was their teacher or leader. It would have been very important to them that the teacher/leader could be proud of them. So, Paul is essentially saying: “Make me proud. Don’t make my work meaningless. Make all my hard work and sacrifice worthwhile.”

Paul ends this section by reminding them that even his death would not be in vain. In fact, both he and they can rejoice if Paul is executed, because it means he will be stepping into his inheritance in Christ. That inheritance is so good, so wonderful and amazing, that it can influence how we live here and now.

PHILIPPIANS #8: WORKING OUT WHAT GOD HAS WORKED IN

On March 20, 2026 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Christianity, Philippians, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Being a Christian means that we trust Jesus in such a way that it has consequences in our daily lives. It’s a bit like marriage. Getting married is relatively simple (you don’t need all the wedding pomp and fancy things). But once you are married, there will be years working the implications of your marriage out into your life. So, in the same way, it is simple to come to Jesus. We also spend a lifetime working our salvation out into our lives. And yet, it is not we who do the work, but God himself.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

You can also find us on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/6KKzSHPFT466aXfNT2r9OD (This will open to the latest sermon. You can search from there if you are looking for a previous one)

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PHILIPPIANS #8. Philippians 2:12-13

¹² Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³ for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13, ESV)

One of the ways the Christian faith is unique is that it holds a number of truths in tension with other truths. So, for example, we believe there is only one God. Yet we also believe that he exists eternally as three Persons. Or, we believe that Jesus Christ was God. We also believe that he was human. There are actually quite a few things like this in our faith. Today, we touch upon another one.

We hear, over and over again, that all we need to do is believe in Jesus Christ, and we will be saved. At the same time, we hear that our behaviour should be different from that of people who don’t believe. We should avoid sinning, and engage in the good things that the Lord calls us to. So, which is it? Do we have to behave a certain way to be Christians? Or are we simply saved by believing? There are verses that say it is just believing. In fact, it was in Philippi, after an earthquake shook that jail, that this was spoken:

²⁹ And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. ³⁰ Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” ³¹ And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:29-31, ESV)

It seems simple right? Just believe. And yet, there is a little more to it than that. The very next verse reads:

³² And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. (Acts 16:32)

So, Paul and Silas obviously explained things to them in greater depth than “just believe.” In addition, I think that in most cases, the Greek word for “believe” or “faith” is usually best translated “trust.” In other words, it involves a lot more than just giving your intellectual assent to a mental proposition. In fact, James says that even demons “believe” in God in that sense.

¹⁹ You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! (James 2:19, ESV)

No, “saving faith” is a real trust in God that leads you to behave and think differently than you would if you did not have that trust. I’ve used this analogy before, but I think it’s really useful:

Imagine your friend tells you about the world’s greatest tightrope walker, The Great Bruno. He has walked across tightropes over deep canyons, and waterfalls, and cliffs. Your friend says, “Do you believe this?”

You think, sure, human beings are pretty amazing. I believe there is such a person as The Great Bruno, and I believe he can do such things. You are giving intellectual assent to the existence of this person, and to his abilities. But this is not at all the same thing as what the Bible calls “faith” when it applies to Jesus Christ. In fact, this kind of faith, mere intellectual assent, is the faith that demons have (as described by James, above).

Now, imagine you have come to see the Great Bruno perform. There is a tightrope strung between two skyscraper buildings, two hundred feet above the street. There is no safety net. You’ve heard about The Great Bruno, so when he asks “Do you believe I can walk across this tightrope and back again, without falling?” you say, “Yes!”

This kind of faith costs us nothing, asks nothing of us. If we say “yes,” it doesn’t really make any difference for us.

“Now,” The Great Bruno says, “who believes that I can carry a person safely across the rope and back again?” Again, you’ve heard of him, and you believe he could do that. Again, that faith costs you nothing, means nothing relevant to your actual life.

The Great Bruno now meets your eyes and points directly at you. “Will you allow me to carry you across on my back?”

Now, the question is about real trust. If you say “yes,” it will have direct consequences for your life. It requires actual trust from you. You have “skin in the game,” so to speak.

Another useful analogy is from marriage. If you want to get married, really all you have to do is repeat the vows after the pastor, and say “I do,” when he asks you. Is that really it? Yes it is. That’s all there is, in essence to getting married.

Is that all there is to marriage? Not by a long shot. You will spend the rest of your life working out the implications of what transpired when you said “I do.”

Do you have to behave like a good husband or wife in order to be married? Not necessarily, but if you don’t want to be a husband or wife, why are you getting married, anyway? Is it required that you behave a certain way after you are married? Again, no, you are married now, no matter how you behave. And yet, you normally will behave differently after you are married. Eventually, if you never actually behave in a loving way toward your spouse, you might lose your marriage. But you don’t lose it just by forgetting to clear the table after dinner once or twice. Ideally, you get married because you love each other unconditionally. Even so, after marriage, there is a great deal to “work out.”

So it is with trusting Jesus. All it takes is trust. Even so, we spend the rest of our lives “working out” the implications of that trust.

If we truly trust Jesus, as the Bible has revealed him to us, it will change the way we think and behave. Jesus said that if we want to follow him, we should die to ourselves daily. He said that we should put him above all other priorities. He said we should seek the kingdom of God first, and to not worry about little things like the necessities of life. He tells us to love our enemies. He tells us that we are forgiven, and that we should not continue to live in sin.

He says that we should live with our hearts and minds set upon the joy that is coming in the next life, that what we should truly treasure and work for are eternal things. If we follow Jesus, we might not be successful in the eyes of others. In fact, we might look foolish and humble. We might make decisions in following Jesus that other people do not understand or approve. These are all things that require trust. This is not merely intellectual assent, but trust that profoundly affects the way we live, and the motivations we have.

And so, though we do not earn God’s love, or salvation, through what we do, our salvation does have profound consequences that must be worked out in practical ways in our lives. This is what Paul is talking about when he says that we should obey, and that we should work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

Paul’s words here apply in two different contexts. First, we are to work out the implications of our salvation personally, as I described above. But we are also supposed to work out our salvation in connection with our fellow believers. From the very beginning of chapter two, Paul has been talking to them about how to go through life together as fellow-Christians. Salvation puts us not only in a new kind of relationship with God, but also a new kind of relationship with others who are being saved. So we need to be diligent about letting our salvation influence how we interact with our fellow believers. Paul has already told us that this involves being humble with one another, and looking out not only for our own interests, but also the interests of others. We should be focused on the same goal, keeping the same attitude, thinking together about things from the perspective of those who belong to Jesus.

Today, in Western culture, this also means that we should have a level of commitment to one another that is maybe unusual in the larger culture. I confess, I think this is harder for people in typical, large churches. But, as you can, find a group of fellow believers with whom you “do life together.”

I think too many Christians look at churches as if they are consumers. They ask, “What will this church do for me? Does it have programs that will benefit me and my family?” Some of those questions are natural when you first move to a new area and are looking for a new church. But Christians should also be asking things like this: “Am I on the same page with these people concerning the Bible? Can I see myself going through life, side by side with them, being an encouragement to them, and leaning on them when I need encouragement? Could I be a blessing to these people in some way?” When Christians have no long-term, meaningful commitment to other Christians, they suffer. They are not fully embracing the life Jesus intends for us. They are not fully “working out their salvation.”

There is one more, extremely important, piece to working out our salvation:

“…for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure”

We are not the ones doing the work of working out our salvation. It is God who does it, in you and through you. In fact, it is God who even causes you to want to work out your salvation. This reminds me of something Paul wrote to the Colossians:

²⁹ For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. (Colossians 1:29, ESV)

You see two pieces here. Paul is toiling, but he is using not his own strength. The energy with which he toils is power that comes from God himself. Jesus taught this himself. He used the analogy of the vine and the branches:

⁴ Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me.
⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me. (John 15:4-5, HCSB)

Our first task is to make sure we are closely connected to Jesus. Next, we make our voices and hands and minds available to him. Finally, we leave the results up to him.

Above all, this text is calling us to believe that the whole enterprise is not ours, but God’s. Working out our salvation into all areas of our lives is something God is doing. He is the one who works in us and through us. Even the will to grow in Christ comes from God himself. The more we trust this, the more we will act like it is true. The more we act like it is true, the easier it gets.

Now, why does Paul talk about obedience, and fear and trembling? This process—God working in us and through us through faith—is a beautiful, holy thing. God himself is at work in your life. We should take this seriously, out of reverence and gratitude. It is no small thing, and we should approach it with respect and joy.

I think the key to all this is to be willing. Part of being willing is making our bodies and minds available to God. For example, one part that is essential for us if we are to work out our salvation is to read the Bible. If you aren’t a reader, listening to the Bible is just as good. God will not take over your body, make you walk over to the shelf, take down the bible and open it up. You have to do that part. Or, you have to call up the audio Bible on your phone and start it playing. But then, once you read or listen, what you get out of it is up to God. This may surprise you, but the Bible is very clear that results are God’s business, not ours. You need to put the bible into your mind and heart by reading or listening. But the second part – the growing and learning and changing – that is what God himself will do, in his own way, and own time. I have spoken to many people over the years who say they aren’t getting much from their Bible reading. That’s OK. What you “get out of it” is God’s business, not yours. Don’t stop reading, just because you can’t tell what is happening spiritually when you read.

I don’t remember every meal I’ve eaten during the past month, but even so, those meals nourished my body. In the same way, the scripture I’ve read during the past month has nourished my soul. Sometimes, I can feel my soul being built up as I read. Sometimes I can’t. But I give God my time and willingness, and he provides the growth in his time and way. I read the Bible almost every day. Many days, what I read does not stay in my conscious mind for very long. But after 40 years or so of regular Bible reading, God has implanted his word deep in my soul, and he uses it to bear fruit on many occasions. How it bears fruit, and when, is up to him.

So it is with everything. Jesus wants to love and bless my family through me. I have to give him my time and my words, but the way those things bring blessings to my family are up to Jesus. I have to be willing to spend time with other people Jesus has put in my life. I need to be willing to speak, or help them in practical ways. But even as I give my time and my physical actions, it is God who uses those things to bless others. I have been saying “I,” but truthfully, this is for all of us. It isn’t just for preachers: Paul makes that clear here, and Jesus made it clear in the John 15 verse I just gave you. This is how we live. We use our voices and minds, and hearts and bodies, but it is God working in and through us at the same time.

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you today.

PHILIPPIANS #6: CITIZENS OF THE GOSPEL

On February 7, 2026 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Philippians, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

We are called, first an foremost, to live as citizens of the gospel of Jesus Christ, in a way that shows the rest of the world that Jesus is worthy. That includes being “family” to one another, sticking with each other throughout all the ups and downs, and also it includes suffering as we “fight the good fight of faith.”

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Philippians #6. Philippians 1:27-30

²⁷ Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, ²⁸ and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. ²⁹ For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, ³⁰ engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have. (Philippians 1:27-30, ESV)

Translation is always tricky, because some languages have words that don’t really exist in other ones. In verse 27, “let your manner of life” is one word, “citizen,” but as a verb. It would be sort of like: “Citizen in a way that is worthy of the gospel of Christ.” I draw this out because it was important to the first readers of this letter. Remember, the city of Philippi was a Roman colony. A citizen of Philippi was a citizen of Rome. This was a big deal to most of the people who lived in Philippi. They would have been quite proud of their status as citizens of Rome. But Paul reminds the Christians there that they are, before anything else, citizens of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. The way they are to “citizen” is to be worthy of the good news of Jesus Christ. The New Living Translation does pretty well with this:

²⁷ Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ. (Philippians 1:27, NLT)

The CSB also gets at the citizen idea, but most other translations don’t. I think this is very relevant also to Americans in the 21^st century. When Philippians was written, the preeminent world power was Rome. They were proud Romans. Today, the preeminent world power is the United States. I know a lot of people are proud to be American. That’s not wrong, in its place. But as Christians, our first citizenship, our primary citizenship is as the people of Jesus Christ. Our first concern should be how to live as good citizens of the gospel. It is not the same thing as being citizens of Rome or citizens of America. If and when there is a conflict between the two, we need to remember that our primary citizenship is with Jesus.

I see both conservative and progressive Christians getting this wrong all the time. Conservatives sometimes think that being American and being Christian are the same thing, and there is no conflict between the two. But at times, the gospel calls us to a different kind of life than America does. Sometimes, people think that being patriotic about America automatically is the same as being a good Christian. At other times, people who are confused about this try to use government to accomplish some of the purposes of the gospel. They want the government to outlaw abortion, and to recognize public prayer and the ten commandments and so on.

On the other hand, progressives also seem to be confused about it. Right now there are a lot of more progressive Christians pointing out that the Bible teaches us to welcome immigrants and foreigners. It does indeed. I do believe we Christians should extend kindness and generosity to immigrants and refugees, because in doing so, we show them practically that God loves them. However, there is a huge difference between showing kindness to refugees on the one hand, and actively interfering with government agents who are lawfully doing their duty. My point is this: Christian nationalism exists on both the right and left sides of the political spectrum. But we are not primarily called to live as Americans who happen to be Christians. We are called to live first and foremost as Christians who happen to live in America. Our true citizenship is in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Should we Christians oppose abortion? Yes. Should we welcome immigrants? Also yes. But I think it is a mistake to start thinking that means that our primary call as Christians is to make our government do certain things. We ourselves, as followers of Jesus, should try to help unwed mothers, to give them options other than abortion. We should also be clear about the Bible’s teaching on sex, with the hope of reducing the number of women who become unwed mothers in the first place. But I’m not sure we’re supposed to get the United States government to do it for us. In the same way, we should welcome people who come here from other places, looking for a better life. We should try to lead them to Jesus with our kindness and generosity towards them. But I think it’s a mistake to try and get the government to do this work for us. In addition, there is no country in the world where people from other places are simply allowed to come in, no questions asked. We should not oppose reasonable immigration laws—that does not seem to me to be part of what it means to be a citizen of Christ’s kingdom.

We are called to live our values as citizens of Christ’s kingdom. What our country does or doesn’t do shouldn’t change our commitment to that. We need to be careful not to think that being a good American and being a good Christian are always and automatically the same thing. In fact, we should expect at times that our way of life looks strange to those who do not follow Jesus.

Most especially, we are not called to live for the things everyone else lives for. The American Dream is not the same thing as citizenship in Christ. A lot of people around us live to earn more money, with the goal of getting all the stuff they want to have, and also gaining financial security and leisure time. While, perhaps, this can be done in a way that is not sinful, we need to be clear that we are called to seek first the kingdom of God, and to not put our hope in wealth.

⁶ But godliness with contentment is great gain, ⁷ for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. ⁸ But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. ⁹ But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. ¹⁰ For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
¹¹ But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. ¹² Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. (1 Timothy 6:6-12, ESV)

And:

¹⁷ As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. ¹⁸ They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, ¹⁹ thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. (1 Timothy 6:17-19, ESV)

To be clear then, even in the New Testament, there were Christians who had a fair amount of worldly wealth, so simply having it is not necessarily a sin. But all of them (and us) are warned not to set our hopes on riches. Of course, this is exactly what so many people do. They spend their lives trying to acquire more because their hopes and dreams are all tied up with wealth. Rich people are warned to hope only in Christ not in their wealth, and to use their worldly wealth to be generous, and for the purposes of Christ. In that way, we build “eternal wealth.” This is part of being a citizen of Christ’s kingdom, rather than the world. We don’t live for more stuff, more money, or more of the dreams that money can buy. That alone will make us look very different from the people around us.

Now, all of this can sound like we have to behave in certain ways in order to be good Christians. But that’s not the point at all. I mentioned this earlier in the series on Philippians: The way we behave as disciples of Jesus can have an impact on what other people think about Jesus. We should not let our lives or behavior become an obstacle to other people following Jesus. We won’t be perfect of course, and part of following Jesus involves being honest about our failures.

Paul particularly wants the Philippians to be “standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents.”

Reading between the lines, it appears that there was some internal strife in the church at Philippi. He urges them here to be “of one mind, striving side by side.” In chapter two he tells them to be of one accord, and one mind. He tells them to be humble, like Jesus, and to not insist on their own honor. In 4:2, he urges two women: Euodia and Syntyche, to figure out how to get along. Here, his concern is that they present a unified front to the world, and to fear nothing.

I do think we in the 21^st century do not really understand how much the culture was communally oriented in New Testament times. Becoming a Christian sometimes meant that you were now cut off from parts of your community. You no longer worshipped with others at the shrine of a false god. Family members might reject you. Your fellow Christians became your family, your “people.” You did life together with others who were citizens of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I still wish for all of the churches in our Life Together Churches network to become more like this. We need to look beyond just meeting together once a week. We should be involved with each other’s lives. Our house church should be “our people.” We live in an individualistic culture, so this is a bit of a stretch for us, but I do think that when the church is also our “family,” that is a testimony to those who are not Christians. In fact, Paul says as much. He says that when the Philippian believers stand together, with one spirit and soul, without fear, it is a sign to everyone else of the truth of the gospel.

Next, comes verses 29-30:

²⁹ For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, ³⁰ engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.

This is both scary, and comforting. Suffering is a normal part of what it means to be a Christian. Until about eighty years ago, this would not have been considered a very big deal. Virtually everyone in all of the history of the world until about 1950 understood that suffering is a normal part of life. People outside of the Western world still understand this. However, during the past eighty years, huge advances in modern medicine, and technologies of all kinds, have made life much easier. Unprecedented economic growth has led to an unprecedented quality of life. But we are living in an ignorant bubble, compared to the rest of the world, and the rest of history. What is abnormal is to go through life without major suffering. Today’s “baby-boomers” are the first generation in the history of the world to experience life in that way.

Some Christians, who don’t like the talk about suffering, claim that Paul is talking about persecution. After all, he says that the Philippians are engaged in the same conflict that Paul himself is engaged in. Isn’t that persecution? Not exactly. The Greek word for “conflict” in v. 30 is found in only a few other places in the New Testament. It doesn’t necessarily mean persecution. In 1 Timothy 6:12, and 2 Timothy 4:7 Paul used that word to describe “the good fight of faith;” in other words, in a very broad and general way, the “fight” of being a Christian in an ungodly world. The struggle to hold on to Jesus with so many things pulling us away. In Hebrews 12:1, where it says, “let us run the race set before us,” race is the same word. So Paul isn’t talking just about persecution. He is talking about all of the suffering and trials of this life which we encounter as followers of Jesus. We’ll look at this again when Paul talks about Epaphroditus. Many people suffer. But if we are followers of Jesus, citizens of his Kingdom, all of our suffering is used to draw us closer to him, and to show the world more about him.

It is normal to suffer as we “fight the fight of faith,” living as Jesus-followers in a world that has largely rejected him. This is part of what it means to be a Christian, period. But it is also good news. There isn’t something “cosmically wrong” when we find ourselves in suffering—this is normal. And thousands of generations of Christians before us have suffered as they follow the Lord, and in doing so provided us with courageous examples.

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you right now through these scriptures.

PHILIPPIANS #5: LIFE AND DEATH

On January 29, 2026 By Pastor TomIn apostle paul, Jesus, Philippians, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

When we are “in Christ,” we are never outside of his loving care, never lost, never alone. To live is to be connected to Jesus, sheltered and comforted by him, accompanied by him along every step of the road. We are not excluded, but we are part of the family: in Christ. This is true, even when we feel like it is not true.

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Philippians #5. Philippians 1:18-26

Yes, and I will rejoice, ¹⁹ for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, ²⁰as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.²¹ For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. ²² If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. ²³ I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. ²⁴ But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. ²⁵ Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, ²⁶ so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again. (Philippians 1:18-26, ESV)

This is a text that has HUGE applications to our lives, but, at the same time, it’s not a very complicated topic. The hard part is not in understanding it, but in living it. I do want to clear up one small matter, however. Paul writes:

¹⁹ for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance

The Greek word that is translated here as “deliverance” occurs forty-four times in the New Testament. Here, and only here, the ESV (and most other English translations) translate it as “deliverance.” In all other cases—forty-three times—the ESV translates the same word as “salvation,” and it refers to the salvation of the entire person which we have through Jesus Christ. I understand why modern translations use “deliverance” instead. They think (or want to think) that Paul is saying that he will be “delivered” from prison and a death sentence. They want it to be this because Paul says this deliverance/salvation will come through the prayers of the Philippians and the help of the Spirit of Jesus. We don’t think of salvation as depending upon someone else’s prayers, and it feels uncomfortable to think that Paul might not be completely sure he will be saved through Jesus. But I don’t think we have to believe that Paul was uncertain about his salvation, or that his salvation depended upon the prayers of the Philippians. Salvation in Jesus Christ concerns the whole person, and I think what Paul means is that he trusts, with the help of the prayers of the Philippians, that his salvation will be obvious to all when he stands in Caesar’s court to make his defense.

It is clear that Paul is not talking about deliverance from prison, because he adds:

²⁰as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.²¹ For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:20-21, italic formatting added for emphasis)

Clearly, Paul thinks he will receive this salvation (or deliverance) whether or not he lives or dies. That would not be true of deliverance from prison, but it is certainly true of salvation.

So Paul rejoices because he knows that whatever happens—life, or death—he has the salvation given in Jesus Christ. I do think the word “salvation” can have a bigger meaning than just “saved from hell.” It means that through Jesus Christ, our entire lives are transformed. Yes, we have been saved from hell, and for the New Creation. But we have also been saved from being slaves to our desires, or slaves to sin; we have been saved from having to live by the world’s values; we are saved from fear, and worry and hate; we have been saved to bring honor to Jesus Christ.

So when Paul talks of the expectation of salvation, he does mean that if he dies, he will be with the Lord—he says so explicitly in verses 20-23. But he is also saying he is confident that, because he has salvation, that he will face Caesar’s court with courage, and that Jesus will be glorified and honored through his (Paul’s) words, attitude and actions. Whether he lives, or dies, Paul is confident in his salvation, and that means two important things: 1) He no longer fears death, and 2) He no longer fears whatever life has in store for him. In fact, he puts it like this:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Sometimes, I think we Christians find the second part easier than the first. If we are serious about following Jesus, we have heard of the His wonderful promises of eternal life in the New Creation, living in the presence of God and of many loved ones. This is a future that so good that it is beyond imagining. We will live in physical bodies, in a physical world, and both the world and our bodies will be made perfect. We will be constantly filled with the joyful presence of God. We will love each other without fear or perversion. We will have meaningful work to do, work that we love, and we also have all of the peace and rest and recreation that we want and need. That is why Paul says: “to die is gain.” He adds, in verse 23: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” Indeed, what could be better? If we really believe the teachings of Jesus, the answer is: “nothing could be better than that.” So, Paul’s heart is at peace if he is to be killed. This should be normal for a Christian.

I know that I don’t fear death. In dreams when I’m in a crashing airplane or something like that, I get excited, because I know I’m about to be fully in the joyful presence of the Lord. I feel a little disappointed when I wake up. To be with Christ is far better than…everything else; anything else. When we really understand the gospel, all Christians should feel this way.

But that’s not the only thing Paul said. He actually started with: “To live is Christ.” What does he mean? He means that everything that takes place in this mortal life is in Christ, through Christ, and for Christ.

We live in Christ, and that means that nothing can separate us from the love of God given through Jesus Christ:

³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? ³³ Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31 – 39, ESV)

We are never outside of his loving care, never lost, never alone. To live is to be connected to Jesus, sheltered and comforted by him, accompanied by him along every step of the road. We are not excluded, but we are part of the family: in Christ. This is true, even when we feel like it is not true.

“To live is Christ” also means that Christ lives through us. One of my favourite hymns is “Yet Not I, But Through Christ in Me.” It perfectly sums up “to live is Christ.” We don’t live in Christ through our own efforts, actions or skills. No, it is Jesus himself who lives his life through each one of us. My main job is to keep saying “yes” to him, and allowing him to use my life as he wants. He wants to glorify God through each one of us, through our own personhood. So, for instance, Jesus wants to live through me, showing the glory of God through who Tom, specifically, is, and is becoming, in Christ. He wants to do the same through you, through your own uniqueness. This doesn’t mean we work hard to glorify God. Instead, it means that we develop the habit of letting Jesus live through us by saying “yes” to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, of surrendering to Him, even when it is difficult. Spiritual disciplines like Bible reading, prayer, fellowship, and so on help us to remain “in line” with what Jesus wants to do in us and through us.

We live for Christ. I don’t mean that we work hard to be good for Jesus. What I mean is that our lives no longer belong to us. We exist to be used as Jesus Christ desires. It’s not hard to sort of slip into the idea that some people, like pastors and missionaries, live for Christ, while the rest of the Christians sort of go about their own business. But that is not the picture we get from the New Testament. A follower of Jesus might live for Christ as a missionary, yes. But a Jesus-follower might also live for Christ in the business world, or a trade, or as a home-maker, a school-teacher, and any number of things. It’s not like Jesus only wants people to hear about him through pastors or missionaries. No, he wants to use all of us to bring his presence into the places where we go and to the people we spend time with. We Jesus-followers all live for him and his purposes.

This should be the attitude of all Christians. If we live, we live in Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. Our lives belong to him, and we exist for him to use to bless others and glorify him. When we surrender to this way of life, we receive tremendous benefits ourselves: love, peace, inner security, joy. We are never alone, we are completely loved.

The biggest thing in “To Live is Christ,” is that we lean on Jesus in simple trust. Right now, trust looks stupid to me. My daughter has cancer, and is literally fighting for her life—and it hasn’t gone that well so far. My pain remains (after typing “remains,” I had to get up and get a heating pad because of it). There has been no miraculous healing for either of us, though I believe God is capable of it. Some of my other children also have issues and struggles. The invitation to trust the Lord comes with a sense of risk and vulnerability. I don’t get a guarantee that things will come out the way I want them to—at least, not in the short term. Paul did not have that guarantee, either. But we are all invited to surrender and say:

“Yes, Lord! I will take you on your own terms, even if it seems difficult, even if I don’t understand. I trust that you love me, that you are the way, truth and life, even though life is hard right now. I trust your Word, even when I don’t feel you, or your presence. I trust that in the end, I will be more than satisfied with who you are and what you have done with my life. I trust that these present troubles—big as they are right now, literally life and death—will not be worth mentioning when we share in your glorious future.”

It is much more a surrender than a hard task. If you find yourself working hard to get something from God, it might be more helpful, to step back and give up, instead, entrusting yourself to him even though you don’t see what you want, or feel what you want from God.

What if we face the worst case scenario: death? Then, it’s even better. We begin the celebration in spirit by joining the Lord, and those who have already died before us. In the fulness of time, we will all receive resurrected bodies, perfect and immortal, to live in, and to enjoy, a perfect, unbroken creation. When we are in Christ, though we walk through suffering and tears, our ultimate future is fulness of joy. Nothing that touches us here can destroy us; nothing can bring us any permanent harm.

When Paul contemplates this, he realizes that what he really wants is to leave this mortal life and join Jesus (v. 23). He says, truthfully, that to leave this life would be the best thing personally, by far, for him.

For me, living out: “to live is Christ,” is much more difficult than “to die is gain.” But Paul gives us an important lesson here. He declares that his life is not his own to do with as he pleases. If it was, he would go to be with Jesus, since, for him personally, that would be far better. But no, he says, contemplating his situation, he thinks that Jesus probably has purposes for him in this life. Therefore, even though he would prefer to die and be with the Lord, he is willing to remain and live in, through and for, Jesus.

I’m good with dying, myself. It means an end to pain and suffering, and the beginning of unimaginable joy. But I need courage from the Lord to remember “to Live is Christ.” This is one reason why suicide is not an option for Christians. We don’t belong to ourselves. Our lives belong to Jesus, and it is up to him when we live or die. Taking my own life is the same as taking the life of someone else (murder), because in both cases, I am killing someone I have no right to kill. Let’s say it plainly: If I am a true follower of Jesus, my life is not my own to do with as I please.

By the way, this text is not teaching that Paul did, in fact, live. Rather, it teaches us the proper attitude for all Christians about life and death. It shows us that Paul was willing to continue to suffer in this mortal life, if that was what Jesus wanted. In fact, he expected that Jesus wanted to continue to use him to bless others, and so was ready to continue to suffer, to delay the joy of being with Jesus fully in eternal life.

I think we have plenty to chew on, for now. Do you recognize that your salvation applies to your entire life—that everything is affected by it? Perhaps you need help from the Lord to see how your salvation affects everything.

What about “to live is Christ?” In what ways do you need help to live in, through, and for Jesus Christ? Do you need help surrendering, rather than working hard to get God to respond the way you want him to?

How about “to die is gain,” and “to be with the Lord (die) is far better?” Do you fear death? Why is that? Or, on the other hand, are you tempted to take your life into your own hands, as if it belongs to you, and not Jesus?

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you about all of this?

PHILIPPIANS #4: SOMETIMES HYPOCRITES SPEAK THE TRUTH

On January 15, 2026 By Pastor TomIn apostle paul, Bible, Bible Teaching, Philippians, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The gospel is bigger and more important than anything: imprisonment, fear, or even hypocrisy.

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Philippians #4. Philippians 1:12-18

¹² I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, ¹³ so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. ¹⁴ And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
¹⁵ Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. ¹⁶ The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. ¹⁷ The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. ¹⁸ What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Philippians 1:12-18

Paul says that “what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.” The natural question is: “What is it that has happened to Paul?” Surprisingly, Paul doesn’t elaborate. Remember, the Philippians sent a gift with the messenger Epaphroditus, and almost certainly others accompanied him. Epaphroditus was sick, and stayed in Rome. But those others would have returned to Philippi, and told the believers there how Paul was doing, and what was going on with him. However now, probably months later, Paul is writing a letter. He’s on trial for his Christian faith. Because he’s a Roman citizen, his case will be decided by Caesar himself, or a close representative of Caesar. I would expect Paul to go into detail about how the case is going, and the attitude of the court toward him, and the evidence given, and things like that. But that’s not what Paul does. He says “what has happened to me has advanced the gospel.” And then, he goes on, as we see, by explaining, not what has happened to him, but rather, how the gospel has advanced.

It’s easy to jump over this small part until you really put yourself in the shoes of Paul, or the Philippian believers. Surely what is happening with Paul must be the most important thing in his life, right? At the moment, he lives under guard. If he is acquitted, he gets to go free. If he is not acquitted, he’ll be killed. This is literally life or death. But for Paul, the really important thing is that the gospel is advancing.

Paul was imprisoned by Caesar’s court. So, apparently, Paul took the opportunity of his imprisonment to tell Caesar’s guards about the gospel. At the end of the letter he writes: “All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar’s household. (Philippians 4:22, ESV)” So, because Paul was imprisoned by Caesar, even members of Caesar’s own household became Christians! That was pretty incredible news, by any standards.

He adds that most of the Christians in Rome were bolder as a result of his imprisonment. This seems like the opposite of what I would expect. You would think that if one of the main leaders of Christianity were imprisoned for being a Christian, that would discourage other Christians. But instead, it did the opposite. I think this happened for several reasons.

First, Jesus himself told his followers that they were blessed if they were persecuted for following him:

¹⁰ “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
¹¹ “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:10-12, ESV)

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you: A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. (John 15:18-20, ESV)

So, Paul’s example probably reminded the other followers of Jesus that Jesus himself told us we would be persecuted for following him. He told us we would be blessed to suffer for him.

Second, when Paul refused to deny the gospel even when he was imprisoned for it, I think it showed other Christians that Paul (along with the other apostles) really meant what he said. If the gospel is true, then it is worth giving up or losing absolutely anything in this world, if by doing so we gain eternal life in the presence of the One True God. Paul showed that he absolutely believed that, that he really meant what he said when he claimed that Jesus was the true messiah, and all else was rubbish compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing him. His willingness to be imprisoned for Christ, and to continue to speak boldly about Jesus even while he was imprisoned for it, encouraged many others to be bold themselves.

Paul then mentions that while there some people who are preaching Christ from sincere motives, there are others who are preaching Christ not sincerely, but because they see Paul as a rival, and so they want him to feel bad, and to take advantage of his imprisonment to grow their own audience and influence, and to shrink his. But such people misunderstand the reality of Jesus. As long as they are actually preaching the true message of Christ, Paul doesn’t care how it might affect him personally. The real point is that the message of Christ is being preached.

I want us to be clear about Paul’s position in his own lifetime. We think of him as “The Great Apostle Paul,” a Christian missionary Hero, used by the Lord to write a large chunk of the New Testament. We don’t even know the names of his rivals who preached the gospel in an effort to spite him. But in his own lifetime, Paul planted house churches in fewer than a dozen cities. Many of the churches he himself planted did not respond well to Paul’s own teaching. Other people considered themselves rivals to Paul. Though the original twelve apostles accepted Paul as an fellow apostle, many other Christians did not. He was embroiled in controversy for most of his time as a Christian, both within the Christian community, and with the governing authorities. By the time of this writing, he was a prisoner, a “con.” He had no idea that the letters he wrote were inspired by the Holy Spirit and destined to become scripture. But none of those discouraging things really mattered to Paul. He knew he was called to spread the gospel, and so that’s what he did, as best as he could, and he rejoiced when other people spread the gospel too, even if they intended it to hurt Paul.

That is a point more pastors and Christian leaders could stand to remember. About fifteen years ago, not long after we started New Joy Fellowship, I helped a fellow pastor as he started a different church in our town, known as The Journey Church (TJC). TJC now has several hundred people in attendance each week. One of my own daughters goes there. Meanwhile, our own New Joy Fellowship remains as just two connected house churches. If everyone from both house churches came at the same time, we could still all squeeze into our living room (granted, it’s a big living room, but still). Over the years, I have often steered people to TJC, because they are looking for a faithful church in town that has many programs and resources that New Joy Fellowship doesn’t have. The point is this: I am not trying to build “my” church. I am contributing to the kingdom of God, and, at least with regard to weekly attendance numbers, I am called to a smaller field than my fellow-pastor who leads TJC.

This is a little off topic, but I think it’s somewhat relevant: If I had started a church that grew to hundreds of people in weekly attendance, I would have had to resign years ago, because my severe daily pain would have prevented me from devoting the energy necessary to a church that size. I can relax. I’m on “team gospel,” and that team is much bigger than any of the individuals on it. This was Paul’s own attitude, and Paul’s words here are one reason I feel at peace about my situation.

This attitude isn’t only for pastors and leaders. I want to reiterate something that has become important to our house church network. We are called to Walk with God; Walk with Others; Work in the Kingdom; and, Stay Salty. Our mission is not necessarily to enlarge our own church or ministry. Our mission is to be faithful to Jesus in all areas of our lives, and to be available to be used by him whether or not it grows our own church. In our little fellowship we have a manager who is known by his coworkers to be a Christian, and they come to him for prayer and encouragement. We have another manager who helps his employees with substance abuse issues, and general life problems, even though that has nothing to do with his actual job. We have an attorney who advocates for children. We have an oncology nurse, and a hospice nurse, a hospital nurse, and a prison nurse, all of whom faithfully shine the light in their workplaces. (We’ve got your nursing needs covered!). There are many others doing similar things in their places of work. We also have mothers and grandmothers who pour love and light into their families. The point is this New Joy Fellowship doesn’t exist to enlarge New Joy Fellowship. Instead, we gather to be encouraged and equipped to spread the gospel in every place we spend our daily lives. Trust me, I would like to see our churches grow. I might feel a little more financially secure if we did. But I am at peace if our people lead other people closer to the Lord, even if those people end up at other churches. The point is that we are being used for the kingdom of God.

Over the years, I’ve run into many Christians who speak of unity. But their vision of unity seems to be gathering a lot of Christians into one place while they lead a program for the gathering. That sort of thing has a place, I’m sure. But Paul shows us real unity here: it is rejoicing when someone else’s ministry grows while yours shrinks, because the end result is that the gospel spreads.

There is something else: Paul’s attitude toward those who are not sincere. For Paul, the main thing is this: are they preaching the true gospel? If so, he isn’t overly worried about the fact that they are people of questionable character. We need to think carefully here, because it could be easy to get the wrong idea. As I write this, only a few days ago, popular Evangelical author Philip Yancey has admitted to an eight-year adulterous affair. Although something about Yancey never really connected for me, I do know that many people felt blessed by his writing and speaking. And, of course, this sort of thing seems to happen all too often. Sometimes it’s a Christian music celebrity, sometimes a speaker or celebrity pastor, sometimes it’s an author. Anyway, someone that many people admire, someone who seemed to be bringing a Biblical message, turns out to be a massive hypocrite. Usually, the sin is sexual, but sometimes it’s money, or abuse of power.

By the way, this is one reason that the New Testament urges Christians not to live in sin (it isn’t the only reason, but it is one). When Christians are so clearly hypocrites, it tends to not be a good thing for the gospel. People can use our own failings as a way to dismiss the truth of what we say. That isn’t logical, but it is what people do. So, part of the reason we Christians are told to put off sinning is because it hurts the gospel when we don’t live like we believe it.

I think it is useful to think about this sort of thing in two ways, even though there is a tension between the two ways. First, we need to consider Paul’s attitude here, and it is this: even if the person bringing the message is a hypocrite, or a bad person, if the message itself is true, we can receive it and be blessed by it. God can use scoundrels to speak truth. We can receive all the good, and still recognize the sinfulness of the person who delivered it. Martin Luther was crystal clear on this with regard to communion. He wrote that even if the priest who spoke the blessing over communion was a bad person, we can still receive the good and pure and true communion as from Jesus. God is not limited by human sin. We trust God’s Word, even if it is brought to us by a broken vessel. The true Word of God is not tainted just because it came to us through sinful human beings.

Jesus himself said:

² “The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees are the authorized interpreters of Moses’ Law. ³ So you must obey and follow everything they tell you to do; do not, however, imitate their actions, because they don’t practice what they preach. (Matthew 23:2-3, GNT)

We do this all the time in other areas of life. You’ve probably known a doctor or nurse who smokes, or is overweight. Maybe you’ve met a personal trainer who drinks a lot, or smokes weed. Even so, these health-related professionals give us good advice: don’t smoke, keep a healthy weight, don’t get drunk or high. The fact that they don’t keep their own advice does not make it bad advice.

So there is precedent for us to learn from anyone who speaks the truth, even if their actions are not consistent with their teachings. We, ourselves, should strive to live as we believe. That is clear. When we don’t, it can hurt the spread of the gospel. But we can receive every good gift as coming from God, even if the gift comes through a very flawed and sinful person.

In fact, when Christian leaders fail, it actually confirms the truth of part of the gospel. The gospel tells us first of all that we are sinful human beings, and we cannot save ourselves from our own sins. People like Philip Yancey are dramatic examples that confirm that this is true.

At the same time, the fact that their teaching is correct is not an endorsement of their sins and failings. This brings us to the second way to think about this: Christians in our day and age are far too influenced by “celebrity Christian culture.” We are prone to think that if someone is a well known speaker, singer or writer, they must be well known because God approves of them. But that was not true in Bible times, and it isn’t true now. I saw this online, and it’s worth quoting:

Platform is not proof of character.

We keep making this mistake.

Someone writes well, we assume they live well.

Someone preaches powerfully, we assume they walk uprightly.

Someone sells millions of books, we assume God is cosigning their integrity.

But gifting and character are not the same thing.

Anointing and obedience are not the same thing.

Influence and faithfulness are not the same thing.

“Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Matthew 7:22-23)

I think the fact that we have a “Christian celebrity culture” is one of the most destructive things to the witness of the gospel in our time. We ought to have only one celebrity: Jesus Christ. No one else is worthy of our allegiance. We need to remember this:

²⁰ So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. ²¹ Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. ²² It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. ²³ So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.
²⁴ But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.
²⁶ Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. ²⁷ Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. ²⁸ God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. ²⁹ As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.
³⁰ God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin. ³¹ Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the LORD.” (1 Corinthians 1:20-31, NLT)

All of this points back to the gospel. Paul is hovering between life and death, but all he cares about is how the gospel is spreading. He has taken seriously some things that Jesus said:

⁴⁴ “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
⁴⁵ “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, ⁴⁶ who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. Matthew 13:44-46

Paul discovered the treasure, and was willing to give up everything else for it. The treasure is that God loves us so much that he came to earth and suffered a humiliating, tortuous death in order to restore our relationships to him, and to each other. He not only died, but he physically rose from death, opening the way so that we, too, will one day be eternally and physically resurrected, and live in the light of God’s boundless joy.

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Clear Bible

Category: Philippians

PHILIPPIANS #14: CONFIDENCE

PHILIPPIANS #13: RUBBISH

PHILIPPIANS #12: CHOSEN

PHILIPPIANS #12. Philippians 3:1-11

PHILIPPIANS #11: JOY

PHILIPPIANS #10: ADVENTURES IN DISCIPLESHIP

Philippians #10. Philippians 2:19-30

PHILIPPIANS #9: SHINING

Philippians #9. Philippians 2:14-18

PHILIPPIANS #8: WORKING OUT WHAT GOD HAS WORKED IN

PHILIPPIANS #8. Philippians 2:12-13

PHILIPPIANS #6: CITIZENS OF THE GOSPEL

Philippians #6. Philippians 1:27-30

PHILIPPIANS #5: LIFE AND DEATH

Philippians #5. Philippians 1:18-26

PHILIPPIANS #4: SOMETIMES HYPOCRITES SPEAK THE TRUTH

Philippians #4. Philippians 1:12-18