04-14-13 Two Great Gauges Of The Truth

It is with a real sense of loss

that I tell you we are going to leave our study of Phil. 2:12-13

and move on to the next section of Paul’s letter.

During the weeks

that we have been studying these two verses

they have become very good friends.

Paul’s call to us to, “... work out your salvation with fear and trembling;

for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure...

is one of those sentences in Scripture

that a really unbalanced Bible teacher

could spend a year on.

But, being balanced as I am, we are going to move on,

though not without a real sense of loss

and regret.

However, the passage that comes next

holds a fascination

that makes it easier.

This letter we are studying

was written by the Apostle Paul

during another one of those “waiting times” in his life.

At the time the letter was written

Paul had most likely been waiting

under house arrest in Rome,

waiting for his trial before Caesar

on charges resulting from

the chaos and riots

that broke out in Jerusalem among the Jews

because of Paul’s testimony for Christ.

Paul knew his trial could result in his

being executed for treason against Rome.

As he wrote this letter

he knew, too, that this could be

his last communication

with his close friends in Philippi.

Paul understood

as few Christians have understood

that the Christian life

is a life of warfare.

Sometimes that warfare grows out of

the hostility of the society around us

to the message and Person of Christ.

Sometimes it is a warfare

that grows out of battles that rage inside us,

or battles that result from

the way in which evil has touched our own life

or the lives of those we love.

Sometimes we are just simply under attack from the demonic world

with the intention of defeating our spirit,

or driving us to question the love or integrity of our God.

The battles facing Paul at this point in his life were obvious -

he battled a group of Jews

who hated his message of Christ

and therefore hated him

and would do anything including murder

to silence Paul.

He battled the Roman governmental system

that had no reservations about keeping an innocent man imprisoned for years at a time

until Caesar decided he had a few minutes to hear the case.

But Paul battled some other things as well.

He battled loneliness,

and boredom,

and isolation,

and the anxiety that comes with knowing the choices that will determine his future

are choices someone else will make.

Through this letter to the Philippians

Paul reveals to us the principles

that equipped him to fight those battles successfully.

We are going to look at Philippians 2:13-16 this morning,

and I need to warn you that this is another one of those passages

in which our minds will resist recognizing

the power of what is being said

because our human logic

will find it almost impossible to believe

that what Paul says in the first part of the passage

is actually being linked to

what is he says in the last half of the passage.

If that didn’t make any sense,

stay with me and I hope it will

before we finish.

This verse is a little bit like

a comment I made to a friend in a letter I wrote to him

some time ago.

This friend was in the process of

looking for a college to attend the following year.

In my letter to him I pointed out

that selecting a college is an important decision.

Well, actually, this is what I said:

Just keep in mind that the school you attend will very likely determine what career you get into, who the significant people in your life will be, where you end up living, who you marry, what level of success and fulfillment you find in life, whether you contract cancer or develop heart disease, how long you live - and ultimately the course of the entire rest of your life - just try to relax and take your best shot...

I always like to help take the pressure

off of people

and help them relax in the decision-making process whenever I can.

Now, you might think I overstated

the effect my friend’s school selection

may have on his future just a wee bit,

and I might agree with you.

But, unless we correctly see

what Paul is saying and why

in the 3 verses we will look at this morning

we might draw the same conclusion about Paul.

Only we would be dead wrong.

To help us appreciate what’s happening here

I think we’ll back into the passage.

I think we’ll start with verses 15 and 16

and then go back to 14 to see how Paul got us there.

For now I’ll just tell you

that in verse 14 Paul makes two requests of his readers,

and then he goes on in the next two verses

to tell them what will result in their lives

if they fulfill those requests.

Let me read you the results

Paul promises if those two requests are fulfilled.

Paul tells the Philippians that

if they successfully fulfill these two requests they will...

...prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may have cause to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain.

This is one of those great visions

of victorious Christian living found in Scripture.

This is Paul talking to us

about that unique role we serve

in the society in which we live.

Obviously he has no illusions

about what a godless society is like.

He describes it as “...a crooked and perverse generation...”

and he tells us that God has placed us right in the very midst of it.

Paul is not trotting along through life

patting people on the head

and telling them, “I’m OK, your OK.”

He is telling us that the very foundation

of the world system in which we live

is crooked and perverse.

But then he describes the kind of role

the Christian is designed to play in that society.

He describes us as “blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach...among whom we appear as lights in the world...”

Obviously Paul is talking about us

achieving a quality of life

that impacts our crooked and perverse world

in the same way that light impacts darkness.

Now that in itself is remarkable.

You see what’s happening here, I hope.

Paul is talking to his Philippian brothers and sisters

about how they can fulfill

their crucial role in society.

He is talking to them about

how to impact that world

as profoundly and effectively

as light impacts darkness.

And look at where he says

the power to impact comes from.

It comes from them possessing the qualities

of being blameless, innocent, and above reproach.

But where are all the big church programs?

Where are the great evangelistic outreaches?

Where are the world wide ministries?

Isn’t that the way we reach the world?

More than 45 years ago,

back in my college days,

a little book made its appearance on the Christian scene

that I was pleased to discover is still in print today.

It was called “The Gospel Blimp”.

It told the story of a group of Christians

who wanted to find an effective way to reach their neighbors for Christ.

The “outreach” plans grew and grew until

what began as well-intended efforts to reach non-Christians

ended up with a massive program

in which those involved purchased a huge blimp

and used it to pass over the houses of non-Christians

and bombard them with gospel tracts that piled up in their yards.

It’s a great little story

and a perfect illustration of how easily we can loose sight

of what really impacts the lives of those around us.

Paul tells us that our ability to serve

as lights in the midst of a crooked

and perverse generation

is not dependant upon

the effectiveness or size of our outreach program,

it’s dependant upon the quality of our life.

The mental picture Paul is creating is obvious.

What is it that draws a person

in the darkness?

Light. A single point of light.

What is it that draws people in the midst of a crooked and perverse world?

Somebody who’s life is working.

It isn’t someone who has packaged his or her religion

in a really attractive wrapper.

It’s someone who’s life is working.

In fact Paul says that’s what it really means

to hold fast the word of life...

It’s not how well we preach,

it’s how well we live.

But how do we get there?

How do we go about developing that quality of life within us

that in turn allows us to serve

as lights in this world?

When I first read this passage in context

I totally missed what Paul was saying

because it just didn’t make any sense to me.

In verse 14 Paul asks his readers

to focus on two growth points in their life.

He then tells them

that he has singled out those two growth points

because they are the two issues

upon which all the rest of this stuff depends.

But look at the two issues

Paul singles out.

I’ll just read verses 14-16 together.

Paul says,

Phil. 2:14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing;

Phil. 2:15 that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,

Phil. 2:16 holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may have cause to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain.

Now look at that!

If you were to select two sins

that you believed were the pivotal growth issues

upon which our effective witness to the world around us depended

what would you select?

Probably we would opt for something like

sexual purity

and honesty.

But look at what Paul selected -

grumbling and disputing.

And he clearly says that

our ability to fulfill our role

as blameless, innocent lights in the world

is directly tied to the degree to which

we make progress in those two areas.

Now isn’t that strange.

If we were asked to make a list of sins

in the order of their significance

or importance,

we would probably forget to even include

grumbling,

and I think disputing would be way down the list.

So why does Paul do what he has done here?

I have only owned one new car in my life.

Which means, of course, that every other car I have ever owned

has been a USED vehicle when I purchased it.

One of my many used vehicles was a 1966 Ford Falcon.

Now that was a collector’s dream machine if ever there was one...not!s

One of the numerous problems I had with that car concerned the cooling system -

it didn’t seem to cool.

The car had a temperature gauge in it.

And I can remember a time in my relationship with that car

when that temperature gauge

was the most important single feature of the entire beast.

I can remember getting into the car,

starting it up,

and keeping my eyes glued to that gauge.

At first I’d feel pretty good

because the needle was down low.

Then, as the needle would begin to rise

my fear/tension level would rise with it.

And there was a certain place on that gauge

where I knew

if it passed that point I was in deep trouble.

Paul has singled out grumbling and disputing

because he knows that those are the external gauges

on the two most crucial elements

in Christian living.

They have the ability to tell us

what’s really going on inside us.

And they warn us when it is necessary

to pull over and open the hood.

The first, grumbling,

is a precise monitor of our heart attitude towards God

and our practical confidence in Him.

In other words,

it monitors what Scripture calls faith.

The second, disputing,

monitors our heart attitude towards the people God has placed in our life.

Now I don’t want to bombard you

with a massive stream of proof texts,

but for now let me just say that

the New Testament is absolutely consistent in telling us

that the heart of all true Christian growth

involves just 2 things:

growing in our ability to trust God, which is faith,

and growing in our ability love those

that God has placed into our lives.

Paul says simply,

But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (1 Timothy 1:5)

And he tells us in Galatians 5:14

For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

In Matthew 22:26-40 we read, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 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.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

...and on and on.

The problem we have in these two areas, though,

is that facing ourselves honestly

is an extremely difficult thing for us to do sometimes.

We have all sorts of places

where we can hid from what’s really going on inside us.

And so Paul wants to give his readers

two infallible tests,

two highly sensitive gauges

that tell us where we are really at

in these two key growth issues.

You know how I’m rather fond of giving us little tests

to help us to know where we are in some area.

Last week I mentioned

that we could tell where we were

in this whole waiting thing

by looking at the degree to which

we found ourselves thinking more in terms of faithfulness

than in terms of success.

Well, these are Paul’s tests

for the two most crucial areas of practical Christian living.

The first one is grumbling.

And I’ll tell you simply what grumbling is -

it is the external indicator

of our true trust level in God in any given area.

Let me turn it around a bit.

Every time I grumble about something in my life

I am saying my God has failed me once again.

“Well now, that’s a little harsh, don’t you think, Larry?

I mean that’s a bit of an overstatement.”

No, I don’t believe it is.

And this whole growth-in-faith

and grumbling thing is only going to make sense if we see it in the context

of where we are coming from.

You see,

we enter our relationship with God

bringing with us a full life heritage

that has been based on the belief

that God isn’t there,

or if He is He cannot be trusted.

We understand all of life

from that perspective.

Prior to our union with Christ

we have approached every single situation in life from the assumption

that we are our own bottom line,

the only one we can really rely on.

Then we meet our Lord.

But learning to trust Him in practical ways

is slow going at best.

We still always begin with the assumption

that He either doesn’t care

or can’t or won’t bring us through.

Every step of faith we take

is a conscious step on our part

based on a choice to trust Him

that goes against all of our previous training.

Now its true that we can learn

religious language

and religious form very quickly.

We can learn to TALK faith and trust

in a matter of weeks.

We will talk about trusting God here or there,

but when Paul talks to us about grumbling

he is offering us a measure

of our true practical trust level in God.

And every time I grumble

I am simply revealing to myself

and to my world

where I do not yet believe God cares

or is able to meet my needs.

We don’t have time to deal with it,

but in the same way DISPUTING

reveals the true level of our love for one another.

I hear Paul telling us

that these two areas

can serve as our indicators

for where our growth edge is in our walk with the King.

And recognizing them as the enemies they are

and then battling the underlying life attitudes that give birth to them

is at the very heart of our being able to create an approach to life

that proclaims the truth about our God

to the wicked and perverse world in which we live.