The Gospel-Worthy Life

Whenever I preach to Americans on a passage that talks about persecution, I always feel a bit embarrassed when we consider what our brothers and sisters in the global East and South experience. There was a ministry some years ago that invited people to come on a luxurious cruise through the Caribbean to hear from some of the best teachers and do you know what the theme of the cruise was? Christ’s call to endure persecution and suffering….as they cruise the Caribbean. Now, I’m sure their intentions were good, but you can imagine how that went over on the internet. That’s kind of how I feel talking about persecution in Orlando, Fl.

So right out the gate, I want to acknowledge that we have it easier than Christians in many other countries. But that doesn’t mean that our faith is not challenged or that our churches aren’t opposed. It often just takes a more subtle form. And it certainly doesn’t mean that Paul’s words in this passage don’t apply to us. Paul is writing from a prison cell in Rome to a persecuted church in Philippi and he’s telling them how to face persecution and even flourish in it. And he’s giving us invaluable teaching about how we thrive when our faith is opposed in some way. Now, I do meet self-righteous, pushy Christians that want everyone to act, vote, and educate like they do and they mistake the push back to their bravado as persecution. That’s not persecution.

One of the questions I like to ask people is, “what is it like to be a Christian in your workplace?.” And I get a lot of different answers depending on the workplace. I rarely meet someone with a strong Christian faith who doesn’t have their faith challenged in some way in their workplace. I have heard stories about being limited in how high someone can move up in their corporate environment because of their faith. I’ve met academics that can’t be taken seriously because of their faith. I’ve talked with Gen Z kids who are seen as crazy for their Christian sexual ethic. I think it’s fair to say that anyone really trying to walk with Jesus will have their faith challenged on a regular basis.

When we face any kind of suffering, our tendency is often to just push on, work harder, maybe isolate or cope. We tend to try and get through it as fast as possible. But Paul tells us something very different. He says that when we experience pain that comes because of our faith, that God has purpose and blessing in it and that if we isolate, we will miss it completely. He says the path to that blessing is living a gospel worthy life. And that’s what I want to unpack in three questions: 1) What is a gospel worthy life? 2) How can we live a gospel worthy life? And 3) What happens when we live a gospel worthy life?

1. What is a gospel worthy life?

Paul is in no way teaching that our lives earn us forgiveness from God and a place in heaven. If you’ve been at OGC for a while, I hope you know that I sometimes draw illustrations from mainstream culture and politics and I try very hard to hit both sides. But, this week President Trump was being interviewed on the peace efforts he’s making between Russia and the Ukraine and he said, "I wanna try and get to heaven if possible. I'm hearing I'm not doing well…But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons." I’m not making any judgments on his faith, but this is not what Paul is teaching.

And before anyone rakes Trump over the coals, we need to consider how we live our lives in the same way. We may not explicitly say these words, but we can implicitly live these words out when we feel like God loves us more when we do certain things. Just be honest with yourself for a moment. What are things you do that make you feel better than other Christians and that God must be happier with you? Your parenting? Doctrine? Environmental care? Health conscientiousness? What is it for you? Our hearts are always looking for a way to earn our own righteousness. Our moral efforts will never get us into heaven. That’s like standing below the Empire State building and arguing over whose head is closer to the top. The only thing that will save us is faith in Jesus who paid the price for our moral and spiritual failures. Faith in Jesus who gives us his righteousness. And what Paul is saying is that we are to live our lives in a way that displays that faith to the world.

If there is one ditch on the side of the road that feels like we need to earn God’s grace, there is a ditch on the other side that feels like God’s grace allows us to live however we want. 100% true story. I had a friend named Jeff in college. He was and is the funniest person I have ever met. He had a job in college as a runner for a law firm and he was terrible at it. He was always late, took long lunch breaks, and messed up the documents he was supposed to run to various offices in Tallahassee. One day he slept in and was over an hour late to work and he arrived and said, “So sorry I am late. I was driving to work and the circus was arriving in town and there was a terrible wreck and the animals were everywhere. There was a giraffe blocking my car. I was chased by a lion and got away, but I couldn’t get past that bear. He grabbed me and there was nothing I could do. So that’s why I’m late.” And he was immediately fired. He was fired because it was clear he was making all this up and making light of his irresponsibility. There were lots of obvious problems with his story, not least of which was if he had been attacked by a bear, it would show. He would look different. There would be signs that he had been attacked.

It’s a real problem when someone professes faith, but their lives don’t look any different. James says that that faith is dead. Paul is calling us to live out the grace we have received. The words ‘only let your manner of life’ in Greek is just one word. It means to live as a good citizen. And I feel very confident that Paul is not talking about Roman citizenship. He’s talking about heavenly citizenship. Which actually should make them the best Roman citizens. Paul’s desire is that the Philippians honor the Roman government, but that they only bow to Jesus.

The last song we sang, Only A Holy God, is one of my favorites. Come and behold Him, the One and the Only. Cry out, sing holy, forever a Holy God. We simply cannot experience the One True Holy God and remain the same. We must live our lives in a way that displays Christ as our ultimate treasure, our greatest joy, and our true hope. If we have experienced this God, as flawed as we still are, there is a desire to filter every decision we make through one question: How is Christ most glorified in what I do here?

But, the irony is that living in this way will bring opposition into our lives. People will not understand or even not like seeing us live for something more. They will not like to be reminded that the things they desire and do are not honoring God. They will not like the conviction that being around even the most gracious Christian can bring them. So, if living our lives in a manner worthy of the gospel will actually bring opposition, how can we live that gospel worthy life? Second question.

1. How can we live a gospel worthy life?

Paul actually says that the power to live in a manner worthy of the gospel comes through our unity. He says, “..whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you xthat you are standing firm in one spirit, with yone mind zstriving side by side for the faith of the gospel.” - Phil 1:27b Let me break that down. One Spirit. He’s saying that his hope is that each church would stand firm through our common experience of the Holy Spirit. If you remember earlier in the chapter, this one spirit language is in stark contrast to the preachers who are sowing division in the church in Rome and making Paul’s life in prison harder.

There is something supremely powerful about a group of people, filled with the Holy Spirit, encouraging each other in our daily lives. It’s an environment where humility grows, gossip dies, and love flows out of us in contagious ways. I would go so far to say that if we are not substantively connected to other believers in the church, living a gospel worthy life will be so incredibly hard.

Then, Paul says one mind. Now, this is another one that can and has been misconstrued. Unity of mind does not mean conformity of values. The early church thrived under pressure because it was unified around the gospel. We know they did not agree on everything. Paul wrote a lot about that. Unity doesn’t come through agreeing on everything. It comes from agreeing on the most important thing: Jesus.

This misunderstanding about one mind was one of the great flaws of Fundamentalism. Fundamentalism as a movement began in the 20th century as a response to modernism and theological liberalism. The impulse of fundementalism has always been the opposite of an impulse towards evangelical gospel unity. It often took a narrow set of secondary beliefs, behaviors, or experiences and elevated them to the point of essential orthodoxy. It created an us-vs-them mentality creating barriers between them and everyone who didn’t vote like them, school like them, advocate like them, or read the Bible in exactly the same way they did.

Fundamentalism saw ‘one mind’ in a way that caused the church to fracture around politics, cultural issues, and preferences because they saw their views on these secondary and tertiary issues and their views on application of wisdom as God’s views. A fundamentalist view of ‘one mind’ doesn’t strengthen a church, it fractures it. But, when one mind means that we agree on Jesus, it puts all those lesser things in their proper place and it creates an environment of grace and charity which fosters unity.

Then, lastly, we have ‘striving side by side.’ This is a military metaphor. Troops sometimes fought in densely packed groups eight ranks deep that could move together. Their shields overlapped with their spears extended. They did more together than they ever could alone. Paul isn’t saying that our unity will take our enemies out, he’s saying that it allows us to stand firm.

The key takeaway here is that Paul has no concept of a lone ranger Christianity. We can tend to read Paul’s letters through the lens of how it applies to the individual, but Paul is writing to a community. A community who would have gathered together and heard this read to the group. A couple weeks ago at our elder meeting we were talking about the growth we have experienced recently. And, let me say it’s both an awesome and humbling thing to come back from three months of sabbatical and see how much the church grew in my absence. One elder said, “I just want to make sure as we grow, we remain small.” That really connected with me. That’s what Paul is talking about here. We will only strive side by side if we know each other. If we pray for each other. If we are open and transparent with each other. Not with every single person here, but with at least a handful.

I read a great book this summer called Beneath A Scarlet Sky about the experience of a young man in Milan during World War II. One character who had a very hard life said, “By opening our hearts, revealing our scars, we are made human and flawed…and whole.” What this character is saying is wholeness comes from being really known AND accepted. No where can this happen more than the church. We live with one spirit and one mind knowing that we are fully known by God and fully accepted in Jesus. And the overflow of that brings us together as we open our hearts to each other, reveal our scars in appropriate ways, and grow in wholeness together. That is what will allow us to stand firm and thrive.

Kurt Thompson says "This mindset of 'I am on my own', which is far more pervasive and destructive than we realize, stands as a significant cultural structure contributing to our suffering in the first place... Moreover, his presence is mediated by the Spirit through the body of Jesus - others who are with us in the middle of our pain. If fact, the absence of such a body for us is what makes perseverance so difficult - and the presence of His body, the vulnerable community of believers around us, makes perseverance not only possible but even energizing. As we grow in our unity, we grow in our joy of Jesus and the fear the opposition we face brings is never going to win. That’s why Paul finishes his sentence with “not frightened in anything by your opponents.”

And this is something we have to fight for. Maybe harder than any other church Paul was writing to. We are so spread out and so busy. It’s hard to make Sunday morning a priority. It’s hard to make room for a community group. It’s hard to make time to pray with other believers. It’s hard to say no to other good things that will free us up to make a growing church feel small. But, when we do this together, beautiful things happen. This brings us to our last question.

1. What happens when we live a gospel worthy life?

Paul says that living a gospel worthy life will bring two blessings: Signs and suffering. First signs. This is aa clear sign to them of their destruction, but bof your salvation, and that from God. - Phil 1:28b Our lives will be signs of destruction and salvation. Those who oppose Jesus and His church will be destroyed. It’s not fun to say that, but that is what Paul is saying. This destruction won’t come in the form of lightning striking them or a sign in the sky. The sign is the unity of the church against opposition…our refusal to cower or conform…that becomes proof to us of our own salvation and the judgement that will come to those who oppose Jesus. And some unbelievers will see our unity and hate it, but others will see it and be attracted to it. When a group of people from different cultures, ethnicities, and social standings are brought together because we belong to Christ…who is our greatest treasure…no one will be able to ignore that.

Paul says to some we are the stench of death and others the fragrance of life. We can’t control how people respond to us, but our salvation will become sweeter to us and the horrible judgment that will come to those who oppose Jesus will be so clear to us that instead of hating them, we mourn what they cannot see. It fundamentally changes the way we view those who oppose us.

That’s the sign. Then Paul takes a hard turn we might not expect. The blessing of suffering. For cit has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also bsuffer for his sake, - Phil 1:29 I’ll be honest, if Paul was dictating this letter and I were the scribe writing it, I might stop and ask Paul if this is really the best encouragement he can offer. We can’t get around the fact that Paul gives no instruction on how to lessen or avoid opposition. He doesn’t because he not only sees it as unavoidable, but necessary for the church.

The suffering we experience because of our faith, Paul says, is for the sake of Christ. When things get difficult, it’s easy to feel like God isn’t listening or our prayers are just bouncing off the ceiling. Or maybe that the gospel isn’t as powerful as the Bible says it is. But Paul is saying that suffering because of our faith isn’t a sign God has left you, but a sign that you are His. The grace we receive isn’t only forgiveness and mercy, but also suffering. That’s wrapped up in the gospel. This is the essence of the Jcurve we have been talking about.  Just like the shape of the letter J, we experience death in our loss, pain, and persecution and it is in those deaths that Jesus draws us into deeper union with Him. And in this deeper union, God brings the resurrections of life, endurance, joy, and more boldness with those who oppose us.

If we are in Christ, we follow the pattern of Jesus by dying to ourselves daily only to experience resurrection after resurrection in our hearts. Suffering for our faith is not an outlier, but a blessing because of what it produces. Paul says in Romans five that suffering produces hope and hope is something we can’t live without. Gospel opposition is a gift that conforms us more into the image of Christ.

And, as we experience this daily Jcurve together, it actually fuels us becoming one spirit, one mind, and our striving side by side. Suffering is not a curse, but a pathway to blessing. So you could rightly say that a church that doesn’t experience opposition or persecution will never know the blessings of unity with Christ and each other the way God intends.

In honor of David and Leigh Swanson being here today, I’ll give an illustration from Presbyterian history. In the 17th century, during the reign of Charles II, the crown sought to force the Church of Scotland under royal control, suppressing Presbyterian worship and requiring conformity to the state church. Many faithful believers refused and held illegal worship gatherings in fields and barns. They were hunted down, fined, imprisoned, and even executed. This period became known as “the Killing Times.” On the surface, it was a season of humiliation and loss: pastors driven from their pulpits, worshipers scattered, families torn apart. Yet through this “descent” God brought resurrection life. The suffering purified the church, drew them together like they had never known, deepened believers’ courage, and preserved Presbyterian convictions for future generations. Instead of extinguishing their faith, persecution made it burn brighter, eventually shaping a freer and stronger church in Scotland. The J-curve is clear: their descent into suffering with Christ led to a surprising ascent in spiritual vitality and endurance.

The first step in withstanding opposition is to see the blessing in it. Then, we experience the blessing in our own lives. It doesn’t matter what party is in control in Washington, whether you work in liberal academia or Chick fila, if you walk with Jesus, you will experience opposition. The question is will we be able to withstand it? And if our posture is to isolate, push on, or cope, we are going to miss the blessings completely. So, what is your next step toward what Paul is calling us to? Maybe it’s joining a community group. Maybe it’s joining this church. Maybe it’s radically reorienting your life to make regular Sunday morning worship work. Maybe it’s opening up to someone else and feeling the stings of our flaws and the blessing of being made more whole.

Will we draw closer to Jesus and each other and have the unity of spirit and mind that will make us courageous and bold? In a culture that runs from pain and loss more than maybe any that has ever existed…in a culture that fosters anonymity in worship and blesses an a la carte Christian life where we pick what is easy and leave out what is hard…I think we have the opportunity to shine brighter in this city than we could imagine. The problem with the American church isn’t that we ask too much of our people, but that we ask too little. We lower the bar to make it easier for people to come, but what we are really doing is starving them from what they need most. Will we dare to heed Paul’s call to be the kind of church that sees gospel opposition as a blessing and instead of fearing it or running from it, we withstand it by running to Jesus with one mind and one spirit?

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