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 #7: THE GLORY OF HUMILITY

On March 6, 2026 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Christianity, House Church, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Humility by Ernst Barlach by lacma is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

I feel that at least on this occasion, we should look at this text in the way that Paul clearly meant the Philippians to understand it. He wasn’t trying to write a hymn. If he was using a piece of an existing hymn, that is beside the point. He wasn’t creating a theology of Jesus, either. Instead, he was urging the Philippians to be humble in practical, loving ways.

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Philippians #7. Philippians 2:1-10

¹ So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, ² complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. ⁴ Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ⁹ Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:1-11, ESV)

Philippians 2:6-11 (the last half of our text today) is very significant for Christian theology about Jesus Christ. Many commentators also point out that those verses appear to be an ancient hymn. In Greek, the words in verses 6-8 create a rhythm, and they seem to be very deliberately chosen and placed to balance one another. However, commentators disagree on where the “hymn” starts and ends.

Also, of course, this text tells us some important things about Jesus, especially, that he is God, who came to earth as a man. There have been volumes written, fleshing out the theological implications of it.

However, I feel that at least on this occasion, we should look at this text in the way that Paul clearly meant the Philippians to understand it. He wasn’t trying to write a hymn. If he was using a piece of an existing hymn, that is beside the point. He wasn’t creating a theology of Jesus, either. Instead, he was urging the Philippians to be humble in practical, loving ways.

Paul has just been encouraging the Philippians to live as citizens of the gospel of Christ in a way that shows Christ as worthy above all. Remember, this letter is addressed to a group of Christians. Now Paul begins to explain that they are not just individual Christians who happen to go to church together; no, they are called to communal life together in unity and humility and truth. The way they are with one another communally is deeply connected to living as citizens of the kingdom of Christ.

Paul begins this section with a kind of rhetorical way of speaking, but his point is that we have been given so much through Jesus Christ. In him we have encouragement, comfort from love, participation in the Spirit, and sympathy. We have these things not only as individuals, but also together with one another. Let’s look at what Paul mentions:

The word encouragement means literally “coming alongside.” The idea here is that Christ comes alongside us through the Holy Spirit to comfort and encourage us. Not only that but in Christ, we have one another, and so we, too, come alongside one another. Many of you have come alongside us as we have dealt with the cancer of my daughter. I have a friend who has chronic head pain. Right now he is going through a tough time, and I’ve been coming alongside him, just letting him know he is not alone, that we are standing with him in spirit and in prayer.

Comfort from love. I prefer the HCSB: “consolation of love.” The Greek word for “comfort/consolation” means to speak tenderly alongside. Imagine a father with his arm around his five year old daughter after her beloved hamster has died. That’s an example of the consolation of love. We have that from Jesus, and through Christ, we can offer that to one another.

Participation in the spirit. The Greek word translated “participation” is koinonia, which includes a very strong idea of community and fellowship. Together, in the spirit, we have fellowship—close community—with God, and also with our fellow Christians.

Affection and sympathy. The word for affection is literally “intestines.” In English, “guts” are intestines, but “guts” can also mean courage. Some Australians and British, when they are deeply upset, may say that they are “gutted.” In a similar way, in ancient Greek, “guts” also meant, “deep feeling.” Personally, I think “affection” doesn’t convey the depth of feeling meant by the Greek word. Maybe it should be something more like “deeply caring.” It is combined with another Greek word here, which means mercy, or compassion. I don’t like the ESV translating this as “sympathy,” because the word “sympathy” comes almost directly from a different Greek word. So, I would call this “deep compassion,” or “deep caring.”

Paul is saying: “Have you received any of this through Christ?” The answer is meant to be an obvious “yes.” And then: “Do you have these things along with, and partially through, other believers?” Again the answer is “yes.” Then, because that is so, he says:

“complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” (Philippians 2:2, ESV)

I spent a ridiculous amount of time with the Greek, because, as the ESV correctly translates, it says “of the same mind,” and then “of one mind.” Why basically the same thing twice? The first “being of the same mind” could maybe be captured by “have the same mindset amongst yourselves.” It’s not about thinking thoughts, so much as it is about attitude. The second “one mind” is telling them to think about things in the same way. What things? What attitude? I’m so glad you asked, because the answer is in the following verses:

³ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. ⁴ Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3-4, ESV)

I bet that almost anyone reading this today feels that it is in poor taste to boast, or to be conceited. Most people do not respect someone who boasts, or who is conceited. We tend to approve of people who are humble, especially when they might have reasons not to be. But that was not true in the ancient world. The powerful people never got tired of telling everyone else how great they were. Humility was not seen as a virtue. Philippi, that proud Roman colony, did not have time for humility. They were Roman citizens, better than everyone else who lived around them. The glory of Rome was their glory. But Paul tells them instead to be humble. The reason almost all modern Western people think of humility as good is because of passages like this one in the Bible. We don’t even realize how much the bible has influenced even secular people. What I’m trying to say is that this teaching would have been stunningly radical to those who first heard it.

I don’t know about you, but verses 3-4 above really cut to my heart, because I don’t want to live by them. I have had a certain amount of selfish ambition in my life, and it dies hard. I always had an ambition to be a famous author. If I’m honest, though I don’t know if today it remains an ambition, exactly, I still would really like to sell millions of my books. Then, I have such a high opinion of myself, and I find it challenging to think of others as more significant than me. I often don’t feel like my own interests are being sufficiently considered, so it’s hard to put the interest of others at the same level as my own. Then Paul really hits us:

⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ⁹ Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11).

This is a profound passage. It provides a foundation for several important parts of Christian theology. But as we look at it today, I want us to remember it’s place in context. In context, Paul was not writing directly about the divinity of Jesus. As we have already begun to see, Paul wrote this to urge the Philippians to be humble. That’s how we’ll look at it today.

My Lord and savior, my ultimate hero, was profoundly humble. He was God in the flesh, and prior to his incarnation, he existed in a form that clearly showed his power and majesty. Jesus called himself “the son of man.” The son of man, in the Old Testament, was someone who appeared to various prophets in visions, shining in glory that so bright that it was painful to the eyes. But though Jesus could have come to earth “wearing” that unmistakable glory, instead he took on a form that no one paid any attention to: the form of a human, with no additional glory peeping through.

Though Jesus created all things, the rich and powerful and ambitious people had no time for him. He had every right in the universe, and yet he gave up every right. He submitted himself to the most horrific and humiliating form of death, death by crucifixion. Crucifixion was meant to kill, but slowly, agonizingly. In addition to the agony, it was meant to humiliate. Though all of our pictures of Jesus on the cross modestly cover his “private parts,” he was almost certainly completely naked on the cross. When he died, if not before, it is likely that his bowels and bladder emptied. This sort of thing is awful to think about, but sometimes we sort of romanticize the cross. It was not romantic. Certainly, the people who lived in the Roman empire at that time could not imagine a more agonizing or humiliating way to die. I’m still not sure I can. And this is what the most glorious being in existence submitted himself to, out of love for you and me.

Let’s consider this picture of humility. In the first place, it doesn’t mean thinking you are somehow worth less than others, or a poor excuse for a person. To think those things about himself would have been a sin, for Jesus, a lie. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis said:

Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call “humble” nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.

A humble person is interested in others as much as, or more then, herself. She will think that what others have to say is as important as what she might say. To her, the lives of others have as much right to be seen and respected as her own life.

I think one key aspect of what Paul is describing in this passage is that Jesus was secure in who he was. He was not insecure. He knew he was worthy, therefore, he didn’t need others to constantly affirm it. He knew he was God, and so, for his sense of personal well-being, it didn’t matter whether anyone else thought so. His only reason for wanting others to see that part of him was so that they would be saved. His own strong sense of self was the stable platform that allowed him to serve others, even if they never recognized him as God, or even as great.

In addition, Jesus trusted God to honor him at the right time and the right way. Even now, Jesus is not fully honored for who he is, and what he did for the human race. But, Paul explains that eventually, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

By the way, I don’t think that this is teaching that all people will be saved. It seems to me that some people will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and be filled with joy about it. For them, that confession will be the glad exclamation after a lifetime of following him, rejoicing that now all people who have ever lived are recognizing who He is.

But others will confess the truth about Jesus reluctantly, angrily, horrified that they must admit it is true. They will admit the truth, but it will only make them more angry, bitter and hateful. My point is that Paul is not teaching that every person who ever lives will welcome Jesus gladly and be saved. Everyone, whether they want to, or not, will be forced to admit who Jesus is: the Lord of all creation, the savior of those who trust in him. Those who are being saved will confess it with joy, but those who are not being saved will confess it with savage anger and hatred. When they confess, it will also be an admission that they were wrong in their attitude toward Jesus.

So Jesus was able to be humble because he knew who he was, and because he entrusted his honor and success to the Father. He was relaxed, not needing to insist that everyone treat him as he deserved to be treated.

We are called to the same kind of humility: that’s what Paul means when he says: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus..” But it can be daunting. Jesus was secure in who he was. He trusted the Father with all things, so he could be humble. But what if I’m not quite as secure in myself? What if I feel that I need to look out for my own interests, because no one else will?

Here’s the thing: Jesus offers us that same security and stability that he himself has. The Lord sees who we truly are, and he loves us. If that is true, it really does not matter what anyone else thinks of us. Through Jesus, we can be secure in ourselves, in our worth as human beings loved by God. Through Jesus we can learn to trust him to look after our interests for us. Jesus, for the most part, did not receive the respect he deserved during his life on earth. He trusted that his Father would work it all out in the light of eternity. So, we too, don’t have to get everything we want or deserve in this life. Our lives are bound up with Jesus, and we will be part of the Father’s exaltation of Jesus in the new creation.

Several years ago, before we transitioned to house church here in Tennessee, I preached “live” every Sunday morning. One week, I was really excited about what the Lord had showed me in the text, and eager to give the sermon. However, that morning, the weather was really bad, and it was a holiday weekend to boot. I found myself standing up to preach in front of my family and about five other people. I was disappointed that so few people were going to hear the cool stuff the Lord had showed me from the text. I prayed silently: Really Lord? You want me to preach this for five people, plus my family?

I felt the reply: What if you were only preaching to an audience of one?

What do you mean, Lord?

What if I was the only one you were preaching for? Would that be enough?

It occurred to me that if I was called to preach only to the President of the United States, I would feel honored. Shouldn’t I feel even more honored to preach for the Master and Creator of the Universe?

My sermons are for the Lord, which is a great honor for me. I can relax about who, or how many others hear/read them. I can stop thinking about myself. I wish I could tell you that I always feel that way. Truthfully, it’s still a struggle. But I find that the more my sense of security and self is grounded in the Lord, the less I worry about myself, and the more appropriately humble I can be. I’m not claiming to have this down all the time. But I think one of the keys to humility is to learn to be secure in the love of the Lord for me, and the value that he puts on me. Then, I don’t have to defend myself, or promote myself.

I find this is most difficult as an author. Since I’m not very famous, most people have not heard of me, and won’t go buy my books, because they don’t even know my books exist. The way of the world is to promote not only my books, but myself. I think this is true of most artistic endeavors, like music, graphic art, filmmaking, performing arts (like acting and dance), and so on. I don’t really know what to do about it, other than to be aware of the potential problem, and consciously invite the Lord into the process of marketing my artistic endeavors.

Over the years, many people that I know met my dad. After about the first ten times, I began to get used to the fact that people were almost universally positively impressed by him. I can’t count the number of times people would say something like: “Your dad is a pretty amazing guy, isn’t he?” He was. He led a full and adventurous life, and he had so many varied and interesting experiences. He was very intelligent, and well read, and thoughtful. But I think what actually made such an impression on people is that he was humble. He was genuinely interested in what other people thought, and who they were. He set aside his own agenda and interests to listen to others, and ask them questions.

To be humble we have to trust God with our own needs; we need to let him take care of our rights, and privileges and honor. Then, we are free to focus on others. Paul shows us what happens because Jesus did that. He did not insist upon his own, rightful honor. Instead he humbled himself, even submitted himself to humiliation and death. Therefore, says the scripture, God (the Father) will exalt him, and everyone on earth will recognize his true greatness and glory.

Even more amazing, to my mind, is that he will include us in bringing glory to him!

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you today.

SCANDALOUS VICTORY

On February 21, 2026 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

From Pastor Wade Jones

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Hebrews 2:10-18

This week we are going to look together at a passage from the book of Hebrews. Hebrews is a bit of an interesting book. We aren’t sure who wrote it (although there have been lots of educated guesses, including Paul, Barnabas, Apollos, and Priscilla). It’s hard to date (was it written before or after the fall of the temple in Jerusalem?). And we aren’t quite confident which Hebrews it was written to (refugees from Rome? The Hellenistic diaspora?). However, it has been accepted as part of inspired Scripture since very early in the history of the church. And, as interesting and helpful as all those details might be, they take a back seat to the role of the Holy Spirit in inspiring and preserving the texts He wanted the body of Christ to have as the revealed word of God. We are going to look at today’s passage without attempting to answer any of those questions, and we will still see some deep and powerful truths about Jesus Christ because of this text.

I will not keep myself anonymous, though. My name is Wade Jones, and I am glad to be back with you at New Joy. I’m a pastor at Priest Lake Christian Fellowship in Antioch, Tennessee as well as a friend and extended part of the Hilpert family. And this week I’m going to lead us through some time looking at Hebrews 2:10-18.

Let’s do a little bit of lead-up first. Without trying to solve all the historical questions around Hebrews, it does seem clear that the author – or maybe preacher, as this feels more like a written sermon than a traditional letter – at any rate, the writer is concerned with helping the readers (and us) come to a clear understanding of the superiority of the work God has done in Jesus. He is the Messiah of Israel, and He has gone beyond all Israel’s expectations for Messiah. So, in the first chapter of this sermon, the preacher compares the place of Jesus to the angelic messengers that are a part of Israel’s ancient and recent history. God has revealed many things throughout Israel’s history, but in Jesus, things have come to a critical point. Jesus does not just bear the message of YHWH; He is in Himself the Presence of YHWH. This is more than they had expected, and the preacher places a great deal of emphasis on the uniqueness of Jesus as a revealer of YHWH. If the listeners truly want to understand YHWH (as far as it is possible for any of us as humans), they are going to have to focus on Jesus. This idea permeates the letter, and hopefully it permeates our lives as well. When we have questions about God: His nature, His actions, His character, we need to begin by looking at Jesus and letting His revelation of God form the lenses through which we interpret anything else we know about God – even other things that God has revealed to us through His prophets and teachers. Jesus Christ is the beginning point for our understanding of God, who He is, and what He is doing. All of that is in mind as we turn to today’s passage. Let’s read that now together. (Hebrews 2:10-18)

“¹⁰For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. ¹¹For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, ¹²saying: “I will declare Your name to My brethren;
In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.”

¹³And again: “I will put My trust in Him.”

And again: “Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.”

¹⁴Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, ¹⁵and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. ¹⁶For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. ¹⁷Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. ¹⁸For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.”

We have gotten so used to the suffering of Jesus that perhaps we forget what a stumbling block – a scandal – that was for many in the first century. Messiahs, Deliverers, and Heroes were not supposed to die. They were supposed to be victorious. And I think this passage remains important for His people today. We often want to avoid the scandal of a difficult or painful life in the belief that our identification with Jesus somehow has placed us above all that. The preacher of Hebrews does not share this belief and is pretty vested in helping the listeners grasp that their identification with Jesus is not a get-out-of-difficulty-and-suffering free card. In fact, difficulty and suffering are key components of our shared life with Jesus Christ. They are an essential part of the path to glory that God has for us.

And that is where the preacher begins in this passage. Jesus came to bring many sons (and daughters) – to bring many children to glory. Glory is our destiny in Christ, but let’s look at how Jesus gets us there. The God of the universe makes the “captain” – and we are going to come back to that word – perfect through suffering. Wait a second! How did Jesus need to be made perfect? Wasn’t He already perfect as God? Well, of course He was. The Greek word translated “made perfect” here carries with it the idea of maturity, of completion. The idea here is not of moral perfection, of sinlessness – Jesus already had that. But the work of salvation that the Father has sent Him to do required Jesus to grow and develop into that – not morally, but situationally. There were some things He needed to go through and experience in order to have the saving effect that He was sent to have. And a major component of that development and preparation came to Him through suffering. Not just the suffering of the crucifixion and all that led up to that, but the normal, everyday suffering that humans experience. It was critical for Jesus, in order to save humanity, to fully enter into humanity.

The preacher really takes seriously the union that Jesus is giving us with Himself. We are “of the same family” as Jesus (verse 11). We are His brothers (verse 12). We His children (verse 13). And we share our flesh and blood, the physical nature of our being, with Him (verse 14). He has been made fully like us in every possible way, except sin (verse 17). And a key part of that is His suffering. Again, not just the suffering of the Passion, but the suffering of enduring temptation. Look at verse eighteen, where the preacher specifically connects those two ideas. “For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.” His ability to set us free in our temptation is connected to the truth that He suffered – that word is intentional – the pains of being tempted. I believe the preacher is saying that before the Incarnation, temptation wasn’t a part of the Son’s experience. James tells us that God does not tempt and is not tempted – but in the Word, the Son, becoming flesh, He made Himself subject to all that was and is part of fallen humanity, including the reality of temptation and the hardship that those temptations cause. Remember, being tempted is not a sin. It’s part of the normal fallen human experience. And going through that on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis for His whole life – and yet never giving in to the temptation – was a part of the suffering of Jesus.

Why did all this matter? Why is it so important for Jesus to have become fully human? The early church wrestled with this a lot because it was such an odd idea. The ancient world had plenty of stories of gods taking on the appearance of a human (or some other creature), but it was unthinkable that these gods would subject themselves to the limits of humanity. And it was just as difficult for the Jews, who had worked so hard to come to the understanding that their God was unlike any creature, to get their heads around the idea that He had become a creature. I think it’s hard for us too. We tend to drift toward Jesus as God, drifting a bit above the ground, and only playacting at being human (if we are theologically conservative), or toward Jesus as man, inspired by God but not really divine (if we are theologically liberal). But the early church (and the orthodox church in all its varieties since then) correctly rejects both of those approaches as heresy. Not just a bad or sloppy idea, but a serious failure to grasp the gospel.

It is critical to our salvation and deliverance from all the consequences of the fall and our rebellion against God that Jesus remained fully God, and became fully human, undergoing all the normal pain, difficulty, temptation, and suffering that are part of the normal human experience. This equipped Him to do the Messianic work that He had come to do. Because in order to reunite us with Him as family, He had to set us free from the bondage we were in. He had to destroy the hold that death has had over us since the exile from the Garden of Eden.

Let’s come back to the word translated “captain” in verse ten, as I read from the New King James. The word, archegos, is one of those words that capture a variety of related ideas. You will see this word translated variously (and accurately) as author, pioneer, leader. In this passage, I love the significance that William Lane puts on the word by translating it as “champion.” That is, as the one who steps forward on behalf of someone else and identifies himself or herself fully with the needs of that someone else. I think about it in terms of a medieval trial by combat scenario.

Imagine, if you will, a poor elderly woman who has been wronged by the local baron. He has taken land that had been in her family for generations, and she has no one to stand up to him. Her husband is dead, her sons killed in wars, and now she will lose her inheritance altogether and there is nothing she can do to protect herself. She has the right to duel the corrupt baron to prove her claim, but what chance does she have against him when he’s a trained warrior and she can’t even lift a sword? And then, in front of the court, an unknown knight steps forward to identify himself as her champion. Her representative. Her defender against evil. And as the music rises to a crescendo, he defeats the evil baron in battle and removes the threat of loss hanging over the elderly woman’s head. That’s a nice story. I love watching those. And what the preacher is describing here is much more than that.

You see, brothers and sisters, we were designed to walk in ongoing, unbroken, complete fellowship with our God. We were created to spend our days and nights breathing His Presence in and out as easily as we fill our lungs with air. In communion with Him, we continually received the Life that flows from His Presence. But when we rebelled, we were cut off from that Life-giving Presence and became subject to death. Which is, of course, exactly what God had told us would happen, but I guess we just had to go and prove it for ourselves. And we, as created beings, are not inherently immortal. So, when we are cut off from God, we are going to die. As Adam and Eve found out, that death is not always instantaneous. But it is inevitable. And Jesus came to destroy the grip that death has had on us ever since that day.

But death could only be destroyed from the inside. Why is it that way? Honestly, I don’t know. There are things about the character of God and how He has to operate that I don’t fully grasp. Perhaps it is something like this. Death was designed to hold rebels in its grip. As such, it was unrelenting in its grip over humans, because we have all fallen into rebellion. Well, some of us tripped and fell into it, others of us have charged into it headlong. And once we have become rebels, alienating ourselves from God, the power of death over our lives was unbreakable. But what happens when Death grabs hold of someone who has not rebelled? Who has not broken that Life-giving covenant relationship with God? Who is, in fact, God Himself? What happens when the Source of all Life makes Himself susceptible to death? What happens when death occurs as an act of obedient submission to God instead of as a natural consequence of rebellion against God? Well, what happens is Death breaks. It can no longer function as it has to function. Life, in the Person of Jesus, is stronger than Death, and when He breaks the power of death, He is able to lead free from it all of us who are willing to come with Him.

What does it mean to lose the fear of death? How many decisions do people make because they are afraid if they don’t do this or that they will die? Esau comes to mind, but he was certainly not the last to give up his inheritance just to put off what felt like impending death a little longer. How many of us through the centuries, faced with the possibility of death, have been willing to compromise the calling of Christ? There is a reason that those who have become martyrs are celebrated in the history of church – they have lived out the truth that death no longer has power over us, because it is no longer the end. Sure, we may die. In fact, all of us will, unless He returns to us first. But death is no longer the end. We no longer go down to the grave to stay there. Instead, we go to the grave knowing that we have been joined to the One who has defeated death, and that as His brothers and sisters, we are utterly connected to a Life that Death cannot defeat. And that frees us to make decisions that wouldn’t make sense if all we had was this life: these fifty or seventy or even one hundred years. If this is it, if death is the end, then let’s eat, drink and be merry. Let’s get all we can for ourselves because the end is coming. But Jesus has set us free from the need to do that. Instead, we can live lives joined to Him, knowing that death, even though it may be a painful interruption, is just that – an interruption to a Life that flows from our Re-Union with God.

I’ll finish with one of the other possible translations of that word archegos. Pioneer. The one who goes into an unexplored wilderness and creates a trail. He makes it possible for others to follow Him. Now, none of those who follow created the trail. They are following the signs and markings that the pioneer left. And if they are wise, they will follow the trail markings carefully. Those incoming travelers want and need to walk in the footsteps left by the pioneer so that they can arrive at their destination.

That’s part of what the preacher is calling the listeners to do. Follow Jesus. Stay on course. The preacher will come back to this theme over and over throughout this sermon. Jesus, our older brother, our champion, our pioneer, has blazed a trail for us to follow. He blazed it with suffering. He blazed it with obedience. He blazed it with mercy and faithfulness. He blazed it for them. And He blazed it for us. It is now incumbent upon us, as it was for the first hearers of this sermon, to resolve to continue to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. We cannot create the trail. But we can follow it because He has made us able to follow it. He is the Maker of the trail, the Keeper of the trail, and the Source of our ability to walk the trail. All He asks of us is the willingness to persevere, to accept His victory over death as our Champion, and to trust that He knows where He is going and we should follow Him.

This week, will you commit each day to follow the trail He has blazed? To receive His help in your temptation and His atonement for your sin? The victory is won. Now it’s our responsibility to walk in it.

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.

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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 #7: THE GLORY OF HUMILITY

Philippians #7. Philippians 2:1-10

SCANDALOUS VICTORY

Hebrews 2:10-18

PHILIPPIANS #6: CITIZENS OF THE GOSPEL

Philippians #6. Philippians 1:27-30