12-02-12 The Message and the Motive

Phil. 1:15-18

We are going to look this morning

at a passage of scripture

that has fascinated me for years.

I’ve been a Christian

for about 45 years now,

and in that 45 years I don’t recall

ever hearing a sermon preached on it,

not because it’s difficult to understand,

but, I think,

because it is NOT difficult to understand,

and it plays havoc with the way

we normally do business

within the Body Of Christ.

The passage is Phil. 1:15-18,

but before we get there

I want to lay a little background

for what we’re going to see.

I want us to start in the book of Ephesians.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was written at about the same time as his letter to the Philippians,

from the same prison,

in the same year,

very possibly within the same month.

The Ephesians letter was sent

to his friends in the church at Ephesus,

while the Philippian letter

was sent to the church at Philippi.

Paul wrote this letter to the Ephesian Christians to describe for them

exactly what the church is,

how God put it together,

and then to reveal to them

the unique purpose given to the Church by God.

In it Paul describes how all God had to work with

when He first began

was a group of people in open rebellion against Him.

In Ephesians 2:1 and following listen to the way Paul describes us:

EPH 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, [2] in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. [3] Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

In this rather painful passage

he strips away all of our carefully constructed social facade

and allows us to see exactly where we are in our relationship with God

prior to Christ’s entrance into our life.

But then he goes on in chapter 2

to describe the way in which God

works to bring both Jews and non-Jews to Himself,

and how He ...raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, [7] in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

He goes on in chapter 3

to explain that God did what He has done...in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.

In other words,

God took us from our determined rebellion against Him,

reshaped our lives from the inside out,

raised us up and seated us with Christ in the unseen world,

so that He could now use us as His P.A. system

with which to broadcast His wisdom

throughout all of creation.

It’s as if He’s saying,

“Do you really want to know what kind of God I am?

Well, then, look closely at the way

I have chosen to deal with My people,

My Church.

Look at My compassion,

look at My great plan of salvation,

look at My ability to heal,

and to restore,

and to elevate My people

to positions of great value

and integrity.”

Then, after painting this remarkable picture of the church

Paul makes this statement

in Eph. 4:1-6.

EPH 4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, [2] with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, [3] being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. [4] There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; [5] one Lord, one faith, one baptism, [6] one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

...There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; [5] one Lord, one faith, one baptism, [6] one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

Now it’s important to realize

that Paul is not saying here that there should be one Body, one Spirit, one faith...

He is making a simple statement of fact

that there IS.

Scripture makes it very clear

that from God’s perspective,

there is only one church,

and it’s membership is made up of

all true Christians.

OK, but now look at this -

several years ago I opened up the phone book for the Kenai Peninsula

and looked under churches

and guess what I found!

There were more than 100 churches listed

just in our little directory,

and I’m sure that number has continued to increase since then.

There were more than 30 major sub-headings under churches:

Churches: Apostolic

Churches: Assemblies of God

Churches: Baptist

Churches: Bible

Churches: Brethren

Churches: Catholic

Churches: Christian

Churches: Episcopal

Churches: Lutheran

etc. etc. etc.

So what’s going on?

If there is really just one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one body,

which of these groups is the “true church”,

and where did all of these other groups come from?

Don’t worry, I’m not going to launch into a detailed study

of how all the denominations got started,

and obviously no single answer

explains how we got where we are today.

Some of it has to do with temperament

or ethnic heritage.

Some of the structural divisions that exist

within the body of Christ

are there because we tend to group ourselves with other believers

who have experienced similar things

to what we have experienced in our walk with God.

Some of the of the divisions exist

because of honest disagreements

about the correct interpretations

of certain passages of Scripture.

Many are the result of Christians

grouping themselves around

different leadership personalities.

To be honest,

the roots of our literally hundreds of denominations that exist today

can be seen way back in the time of Paul.

In his first letter to the church at Corinth,

Paul said:

1CO 1:10 Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. [11] For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you. [12] Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, "I am of Paul," and "I of Apollos," and "I of Cephas," and "I of Christ." [13] Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?...since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? [4] For when one says, "I am of Paul," and another, "I am of Apollos," are you not mere men? [5] What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.

Even in the infancy of the church

there was a strong tendency on the part of some Christians

to group themselves on the basis

of personalities

and doctrines

and teachings.

And to those who were getting pulled into such divisions

Paul says very clearly,

“You are not following God’s Spirit,

you’re just letting your own fleshly motivations run wild.

You want to win the argument,

or you want your group to have more people,

or you want your interpretation

to be proved right,

or you want your leader to control the church.”

To all such thinking

Paul says simply - it’s FLESH,

it’s just plain old selfish,

egotistical,

self-centered flesh.

And it has no place in the family of God.

Now I’ve brought all of this up

because I want us to realize that

as Christians we live right now

in two very different worlds at the same time.

First,

there is the real, eternal, unchanging world of truth -

the world Paul is talking about

when he tells us that there really is just one body, one faith,

one baptism, one Body of Christ

made up of all those

and only those who have received God’s offer of forgiveness through Christ.

Nothing we ever do

or don’t do can change that real world

in the least.

The rules for that real world

were written by God Himself,

and our acceptance of them

or rejection of them

cannot change their reality or validity.

We may pretend we are not one body,

but it doesn’t change the fact that we are.

And then there’s this temporary physical world in which we now live.

It is the world in which reality is all smeared and coated by our own perceptions,

and temporary human structures,

and our organizations,

and our flawed belief systems,

and our personal motivations.

These two worlds co-exist in our lives,

one of them real and eternal and unchanging and unseen,

the other temporary,

and changing,

and flawed,

and at best only a rough reflection of reality,

sort of like looking at our own reflection

in a wavy pond.

This whole thing is complicated, of course,

by the fact that the temporary, confused world

is the only one we can communicate with

through our 5 senses.

And because we can see and hear and feel

and taste and smell it

we like to pretend that it’s the real,

permanent, unchanging world.

But it’s not.

Here we all are sitting here this morning calling ourselves a church.

We tend to think that our church

is made up of all of us who attend regularly

and participate in church activities

and help support the program in various ways,

and we also may tend to think

that God views it in much the same way.

We might even think that He looks at this group

and sees who’s here

and uses that as a basis for determining whose name gets included

on the BIG list of worldwide church members that He keeps in heaven.

But its not that way at all.

When God looks at us here this morning

He sees a temporary human organization that we have chosen to call Peninsula Bible Fellowship.

Within this organization there are some

who are truly His people,

indwelt by His Spirit,

and a part of His real, eternal church.

And there are some who are not.

And He knows our motives for being here.

He understands that our motives

are always at best mixed

in everything we do.

Do you know when my most faithful time of church attendance in my life was,

the time when I did not miss a meeting,

when I attended Sunday morning,

Sunday evening,

and every single Wednesday prayer meeting?

It was between March and October of 1976...

when I was dating Sandee.

I wanted to be with her,

and sit next to her,

and hold hands with her when we prayed,

and church was a great place to do that.

The Lord knew I wasn’t there for the sermons,

and it didn’t bother Him a bit.

You see, He understands

not just what we do,

but why we do it,

and the WHY is always far more important than the WHAT.

Now, with all of that as background

let me read you these fascinating verses

in Phil. 1: 15-18.

You remember that Paul is in prison,

and he has been talking about the “brethren” around him

and how his being in prison is affecting them.

Last week we saw that many of the Christians

responded to Paul’s imprisonment

by being tremendously encouraged.

They saw Paul’s attitude

and his lack of fear as he faced

the very real possibility of his own death

and gained a great incentive

to keep faithful in their own walk.

But then in verse 15

Paul goes on to describe another group of Christians

and how they responded to Paul being in prison.

15] Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from good will; [16] the latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel; [17] the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. [18] What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice.

I have to tell you

that I find this passage remarkable.

In these few verses

we have Paul openly acknowledging

the powerful potential for flesh-based,

flesh-driven power-seeking within the family of God.

There is a fascinating parallel between physical children and the children of God.

And it is a parallel that makes both of them

especially vulnerable to abuse

unless those who hold leadership over them

are careful to protect and guard them from that abuse.

God has carefully designed the minds and hearts of children

to respond in trust

to any adult who enters their life.

He has done this

because that mind and heart of trust

is essential for the training and growth and development of the child.

It is what allows the child’s spirit

to drink from the spirits of the parents and other significant adults in their life.

But it is also what makes a child

so vulnerable to the most hideous and extreme abuse

from adults who target children for their own flesh-driven ends.

But as I have spent most of my adult life

involved in areas of leadership within the family of God,

it has fascinated me to discover

the way in which God’s Spirit

creates within the Christian

the most amazing child-like spirit

within all those who come to Him.

I understand exactly what our Lord was saying

when He told His disciples,

Mat 18:3 “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Certainly part of what He’s talking about

is that simple trust in the voice of our God

when He tells us He’s paid our debt forever through His own blood,

but there’s more to it than just that.

Because when our Lord creates that new spirit within us,

when He gives us a new heart,

He designs that new heart

with both a hunger for the Word of God

and for knowledge about our God.

In short, He gives our new heart a child-like spirit

that trusts and feeds from those who hold leadership positions within the church.

And when the family of God is operating the way God designed,

those who hold those positions

will never ever loose sight of their God-given obligation

to protect and guard and treasure those open spirits that God has given into their care.

But the same thing that makes the people of God able to grow and learn from those who teach,

that open, trusting child-like spirit,

is the same thing that makes the body of Christ

so vulnerable to those who seek to use Christians for their own flesh-based ends.

And the history of the family of God

is littered with the stories of men and women

who have, well, as Paul put it, ...proclaimed Christ out of selfish ambition...

They learn the language,

they learn the message,

they proclaim it skillfully...boldly,

and then they use their positions of leadership for prominence, or power, or greed.

In Paul’s case here in Philippians

he makes it clear that they rejoiced to have Paul locked up

because it gave them much more freedom to use the family of God for their own goals.

But what fascinates me with this whole thing

is the way in which Paul responds to those who were doing this in his time.

Rather than trying to silence them

he says, What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice.

And with that statement

he is making a clear division between the message being preached

and the messenger who preaches it.

What he’s saying

is that even when the message of the grace of God

is coming out of the mouth of someone who is using that message

for his or her own selfish ends,

the message itself can and will be used by the Spirit of God

to bring healing and redemption in the lives of some who hear.

Now certainly, there are other passages in the New Testament

in which Christians are strongly instructed

about the importance of testing the quality of the lives of men and women

before they allow those individuals to assume leadership roles in the church.

And there are other passages

that talk about the Lord Himself bringing judgement on any who wilfully abuse His people

or use that trusting spirit within them for their own ends.

But the amazing thing

is the way in which the truth of the message of God’s grace

has a life and a power

that is independent of whatever is happening within the life of the messenger.

This is such a remarkable partnership that exists

between God and His creation.

The truth our God offers us,

the truth about His offer of redemption,

and grace,

and healing,

and new life in Him

is absolutely pure, and powerful, and able to transform all who receive it.

But then God has chosen to communicate the message

through us.

And with that...with US

there always comes...

well, let’s call them complications.

Our spirits are pure,

but those pure spirits live in constant warfare

with all sorts of flesh-driven impurities.

In this passage Paul specifically targets those who are overtly driven by flesh motives,

but the truth is that with all of us

we never ever do right things for completely right reasons.

And yet our Lord is both well aware of that,

and apparently well pleased with the bargain He has struck with us.

And His assurance to us is that

even when we are flawed in our presentation or our motivation

His Spirit will take His truth

and give it life and power in the lives of those who have ears to hear.

Of course, when we see wilful corruption in the messengers

we should have the courage to address it when and where we have a way of doing so.

And we should seek and pray for our Lord’s continual cleansing in our own lives,

giving us eyes to see where our flesh

corrupts the life He seeks to live through us.

But in the end,

it is not the perfection of the messenger,

but rather the purity and the power of the message

that brings redemption to the human race.