Morning Musing: Philippians 1:27-30

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“Just one thing: As citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or am absent, I will hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, in one accord, contending together for the faith of the gospel, not being frightened in any way by your opponents. This is a sign of destruction for them, but of your salvation—and this is from God. For it has been granted to you on Christ’s behalf not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him, since you are engaged in the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I have.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We are in the thick of college basketball’s conference season. Teams all over the country are playing their conference rivals in a quest to finish the season on top of that smaller contest so that when the time for March Madness finally arrives, they’ll be well positioned to secure their spot in the Big Dance, as they call it. In this effort, wins are what count most. You don’t get credit for anything other than that. Playing well but not outscoring the other team is meaningless. A loss is only a loss. But what if it wasn’t? What if a loss only seemed like a loss on paper, but what really mattered was how you played? As Paul points out here, in our efforts to advance God’s kingdom something entirely more like that is the case. Let’s explore these powerful verses.

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Morning Musing: Philippians 1:22-26

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“Now if I live on in the flesh, this means fruitful work for me; and I don’t know which one I should choose. I am torn between the two. I long to depart and be with Christ—which is far better—but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. Since I am persuaded of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that, because of my coming to you again, your boasting in Christ Jesus may abound.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What is the thing that most motivates the decisions you make? While there are perhaps many answers to that question, it really boils down to one of two things: what you want, or what someone else wants. We live in the midst of a culture that insists we should be motivated most by the former. The guys who contributed to the New Testament, helping us understand with the Spirit’s help how to live out the teachings of Jesus, pointed in a different direction. We see that here in Paul’s reasoning out his future. Let’s explore all of this in more detail as we work through his thinking with him.

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Digging in Deeper: Philippians 1:20-21

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“My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now as always, with all courage, Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Humans have always been on a search for the fountain of youth. Sometimes this search has taken the form of looking for a literal source of water with magical powers. Other times it has been more figurative than that. The point is that we are always on the lookout for something that will extend not only the amount of time we have in this life, but the quality of that time as well. We want to live, yes, but we want to live in good enough shape to be able to enjoy it to the fullest. This desire in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But when it becomes the primary desire of our life, we can be drawn off the track that actually leads to life in pursuit of one of a variety of things that don’t. Starting here and running through the next few verses, Paul offers us a better way. Let’s take a look.

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Gospel Situations

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If we are going to understand something well, we have to start with theory. There are basic things that need to be understood in any kind of a new venture. But eventually, theory has to give way to practice, or we don’t ever really learn the material very well. For the last four weeks we have stayed pretty abstract as we have talked about how to share the Gospel in post-Christian environment. Last week we took a step toward practicality, but we didn’t go far enough. Today we’re going all the way. Sharing the Gospel in a post-Christian environment will eventually require us to…you know…actually share the Gospel in a post-Christian environment. Let’s talk about how to do that as we wrap up our series.

Gospel Situations

Have you ever worked really hard to set up a perfect situation only to have it go awry on you? Maybe it was a date. You planned everything down to the smallest detail you could think of. But you didn’t account for that one thing, and it turned out to be a landmine that blew up the whole affair. Maybe it was a conversation with another person you knew was going to be difficult. You were dreading it, but you also knew it had to happen. So, you prepared the ground as carefully as you could in hopes of getting through it without too many bruises. But as soon as you started off down the path of whatever the subject was, everything fell apart on you. 

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Morning Musing: Ephesians 4:15-16

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“But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head—Christ. From him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building itself up in love by the proper working of each individual part.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

My church publishes a newsletter each month. Our faithful office manager puts it together, prints it out, puts mailing labels on them, carts them to the post office, and out they go. It’s old school, I’ll admit, but it’s mostly working. I think we send out somewhere north of 200 of them. It’s a lot of work and some expense, but if we reduced the number of hard copies that we put in the mail by the number of folks who would almost assuredly be just fine with an electronic-only version it would actually cost us more to keep sending the smaller number to the folks who really do want the paper version because of the way bulk postage rates work. So, we keep sending them out. This month I was able to just brag on the church to the church because there have been so many things to celebrate lately. I’m awfully proud of this group of believers. They are a special bunch indeed. Here’s what I had to say to them.

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