The Necessity and Joy of Proclaiming Christ

After exhorting the church at Philippi to leave behind mediocrity and strive for excellency, Paul gives an example in his own life. He gives a testimony of how he has poured himself into the ministry, and how he has found great peace and joy in proclaiming Christ is whatever situation he is in.

Text: Philippians 2:12-18

Paul emphasizes three things as being essential to living a joyous, purposeful life of joy in Christ.

1. Christ must be proclaimed
   It is fairly easy to talk about God and religion. But a true presentation of the gospel must include Jesus Christ. Talking about Jesus will invite scorn and ridicule - the gospel is foolishness to the natural man - but, it is the power of God for salvation. But we must not be afraid of a little scorn, and we cannot water down the message to make it more palatable. Are we so concerned about a little rejection that we are unable to share these glorious truths?
   
   The basic gospel word is all Christ. We have several good examples of a gospel presentation in Acts - chapters 2, 5, 10, 13, and 16 for example. This gospel word consists of presentation of Jesus as a historical fact - his life, death and resurrection - and also includes a call to believe on Him, and a warning for those who reject Him.
   


2. God presents opportunities
   Paul presents his imprisonment as an example of how God creates opportunities to share the gospel in all circumstances. He was a prisoner, but his guards were the real "captive" audience! And the Word spread "throughout the whole praetorian guard".
   
   What are our opportunites in our circumstances? For parents, our children are an audience we should not neglect.
   


3. Sharing the gospel of Christ brings peace and joy
   Paul rejoices in God's plan and prupose and states that he will rejoice! He as committed himself to do so. It is choice. So we know for a certainty that this life of proclaiming the gospel is a life of joy and rejoicing.

Paul's Prayer for the Phillipians

Here are some notes from our sermon on October 4th.

Text: Philippians 1:9-11

Three observations about Paul's prayer for the Philippians in these verses:

1. Paul prays (v.9) that their love would "abound still more and more". We know that love is more than emotion; "Love" is an action verb. Love motivates us toward some action for that thing that we love. We should have love towards God, our pastors, our brothers and sisters, and towards the lost.
   
   Paul prays for their love to abound still more and more. The picture here is like the waves of the sea, continually coming in one after another.
   
   
2. Paul wants their love to be (v.8) bounded by "knowledge and discernment."
   NOT - in ignorance and insensitivity
   NOT - in stupidity and hamfistedness
   NOT - in sentimentalism and myopic nostalgia
   
   In knowledge - we know that which we love. And knowledge, in Biblical terms, encompasses a knowledge of the facts of the gospel, along with an experimental knowledge of the Christ of the gospel.
   
   In judgment - in insight, ability to discern the excellent thing, a moral perception across the gamut of life's experiences.
   
   
3. Paul prays (v.10) that they would be able to "discern the things that are excellent". There are good things, better things, and the best things. We should press on to better and better things! For example: we have lots of ways we can use our money to further the kingdom. We can give it to a "good" cause. But we should seek to find the best use for the money (perhaps a more excellent missionary).
   
   Another example: our family devotions. We should seek not just to have good family devotions, but to pour ourselves into our family such that our devotions are excellent.
   
   
4. Paul prays that they would be "filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus" (v.11). This is a very New Covenant view of our sanctification! There is no mention of a moral code to look to. We are not to evaluate ourselves against a set of laws, and believe that we are righteous because we are measuring up pretty well. But we are to pursue excellence and holiness out of gratitude and love for Christ.

And this pursuit of excellence is the word for today. Being done with being satisfied with where we are today! Seeking to know more, experience more, of Him! Christ is at work within us -- there is no need to settle for mediocrity!

Looking for God in all the Wrong Places - A Summary, Part 3

"Sitting in the presence of the Holy One of Israel and engaging Him in the holy dialogue that we call worship should surely excite the worshipper's emotions." - (pg 6)

"Worship is an act of the understanding, applying itself to the knowledge of the excellency of God, and actual thoughts of His majesty. It is also an act of the will, whereby the soul adores and reverenceth His majesty, is ravished with His amiableness, embraceth His goodness, enters itself into an intimate communion with this most lovely Object, and pitcheth all his affections upon Him" - Stephen Charnook

One of the most-discussed elements of worship is the role of feelings and emotions. Surely, emotions are affected in our worship. "The problem comes when emotional stimulation is mistaken for true worship. This leads to emotional experiences being sought as ends in themselves, rather than Holy Spirit-inflamed emotions experienced as a by-product of God-directed worship." - (pg 7)

Healthy worship, in contrast, results in the Word of God arousing faith in the worshipper, in part by promoting confidence and certainty regarding things not seen. "That faith causes the believer to worship; he thanks God, praises God, prizes God, and adores God. Word-driven thanking, praising, prizing and adoring erupts from the heart and mobilizes the affections." - (pg 7)

What is the worshipper's ultimate goal? It should not be to achieve a feeling or emotional high, rather it should be to render unto God the glory due His name. "The worshipper worships as an end in itself, not as a means to the end of being emotionally happy." (pg 8)

The role of the Word of God in worship cannot be overstated. "The Holy Spirit normally works in conjunction with (and not independent of) God's Word. If we want the Holy Spirit to move in our worship services then we must have Word-saturated worship services. How do we quench the Spirit? By quenching the Word!" (Eph. 6:17; compare John 3:5-6 and 1Pet 1:23-25; compare Eph 5:18-19 and Col 3:16-17; compare John 14:16-17, 26, John 15:26, 16:13-14, 17:17, Ps 119:142, 160 and 2Tim 2:15) - (pgs 7-8)

"A consequence of Word-based worship is that we sometimes meet with God in surprising ways - it may not be a comfortable emotion - it may be conviction of sin before a holy God. When this does happen we will see that God's rod and staff do comfort us (Ps 23:4) and God's sin-exposing holiness posesses its own soul-arresting beauty (Ps 50:1-3)." - (pg 10)

Looking for God in all the Wrong Places - A Summary, Part 2

What is true worship? Who is worship for? Worship is not something to be experienced, rather it is something to be offered. God is the object of worship; we present it to Him. (Psalm 95:6, 109:30,34:3)

Worshippers do the worshipping; God receives the worship. Worship is not about what we like but rather about giving God what He desires. Many people are looking for emotional stimulation and spiritual feelings, but these feelings are not necessarily evidence of the Holy Spirit's work.

The Holy Spirit's presence and activity is evidenced by conviction of sin, repentance, world-forsaking faith, doctrinal maturity, growth in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Regarding ourselves instead of God as the object of worship is scandalous and disastrous.

Looking for God in all the Wrong Places - A Summary, Part 1

Looking for God in all the Wrong Places, An Appeal for Word-Based Corporate Worship, by Robert G. Spinney, is an excellent little booklet that summarizes much of what we believe about worship. The following few posts are a summary of this booklet put together by one of our members. Many of the phrases and sentences in this summary are taken directly from the author, and most are put in quotation marks, but there may be instances where a sentence was taken directly from the booklet and accidentally not put in quotation marks.

Introduction:

In the past 40 years Christians have begun separating praising and worshipping from preaching and teaching. Why?

There are two main reasons. The first reason is a growing sense that worship is exclusively emotional. Singing stirs the emotions, but preaching does not. The second main reason stems from the Word of God being deemphasized.

The author's main thesis is "to reclaim an approach to worship that could be called Word-based worship; this helps to create what could be called a Word-driven church; this calls for Word-based worshippers."

Perseverance of the Saints

The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, simply stated, says that all those whom God has chosen and for whom Christ died will persevere in their Christian walk until "the end", or until their earthly sojourn is over.
Every true believer will persevere, and that by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, preserving him by the inward workings on the heart and mind of the believer. It is inconceivable that God would elect a man, Christ would die for that same man, and yet we would finally fall away by returning to his unbelief.
It is not inconceivable, however, that a man might make a false profession, give some temporary evidence of conversion and finally return to his unbelieving condition. American, evangelical churches are full of such "Christians", and an unbiblical, unsound and largely unspoken belief system has developed among Amercian protestant churches to accomodate the presence of these "worldly Christians." Church policies and practices have been compromised to attract these "lukewarm" believers and the fruit of their position is usually the fact that they do not persevere, and sooner or later they abandon their faith altogether or become totally indifferent to any real Christian commitment.

Irresistable Grace

The phrase "irresistable grace" simply tells us that the grace of God, when applied to the heart of a sinner, is irresistable; that is to say God draws the elect sinner to Himself without fail. "God is able" to quote the Saviour, "to turn stones into children of Abraham." (Luke 3:8) This He does with lovingkindness through conviction of sin, leading to regeneration, so that the sinner comes willingly and happily to the foot of the cross. As the old hymn says - "He does not compel them to go 'gainst their will, but He just makes them willing to go."


So God, through regeneration, lovingly draws men to the Saviour by the loving administration of the Holy Spirit through the application of the Holy Scriptures to the soul of poor helpless sinners, resulting in their inevitable conversion to Christ. God, who cannot fail in anything He determines to do, draws those whom He has chosen, to the foot of the cross.