back to index11-13-19 Wed Bible Study Lesson 11
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God, we are so grateful, Lord, that your mercy continues to abound. 00:00:18.360 |
God, because of your infinite character, Lord, we can continue to draw our life from you. 00:00:26.840 |
And God, as we even evaluate even just this week, perhaps we have had many failures, perhaps 00:00:34.120 |
we've even sinned, and perhaps, Father God, we feel discouraged by various things going 00:00:41.080 |
But in the midst of that, God, we can look to you no matter the circumstance. 00:00:48.040 |
And we pray that as we hear the exhortation from Scripture to rejoice in the Lord, I pray, 00:00:55.000 |
God, all the more that we would truly learn what that means and what's more to experience 00:01:13.240 |
Looking at chapter 4, 1 through 9, and it says, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, whom 00:01:18.560 |
I long to see my joy and crown, in this way stand firm in the Lord, my beloved. 00:01:24.920 |
I urge Eurydice and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord. 00:01:29.920 |
Indeed, true companion, I ask you also to help these women who have shared my struggle 00:01:35.440 |
in the cause of the gospel, together with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers, 00:01:50.880 |
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, 00:01:58.160 |
And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and 00:02:05.880 |
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever 00:02:10.440 |
is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence, if 00:02:15.560 |
anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. 00:02:19.520 |
The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things 00:02:28.760 |
Now, as usual what I like to do is kind of break down the passage for you in four segments. 00:02:38.120 |
As I look at this passage, there is a strong, emphatic command in verse one, saying, "Therefore," 00:02:49.320 |
"Stand firm in the Lord" is the major command that's introducing this next section. 00:02:56.600 |
And then in verse two and three, Paul calls for the harmony between these two ladies. 00:03:02.520 |
And then in verse four through seven, it's really interesting because there's this rapid 00:03:09.880 |
Rejoice, there's the let your gentle spirit be known, be anxious for nothing, and then 00:03:19.560 |
But the way that I've kind of summarized those together, I'd summarize that as commands of 00:03:25.160 |
Because, yes, although the emphatic command is "Stand firm," I saw that there was quite 00:03:34.960 |
And then, verse eight through nine, he gives two commands, which is dwell on these things 00:03:49.080 |
This isn't "Thus says the Lord, thou shalt outline my verse this way." 00:03:54.000 |
This is just me looking at the flow of thought, and I hope you guys are getting the pattern 00:03:59.360 |
It makes, it forces you to read and reread the passage over and over, and then just to 00:04:03.240 |
think like, "What is this train of thought here?" 00:04:07.280 |
So, as an introductory remark, there's like way too much stuff to cover in today's lesson. 00:04:14.080 |
I set the major outline of the book in terms of my teaching outline for this session, and 00:04:21.560 |
I realized, man, when we're going over nine verses together, it's pretty tough, okay? 00:04:26.400 |
Now what I'd like to say is this, is a remark of, kind of some preliminary remarks. 00:04:33.440 |
Remember that in the last session, we took a look at verse 20 and 21, chapter three, 00:04:41.080 |
and Apostle Paul talked about, "For our citizenship," as in contrast to those who are enemies of 00:04:46.960 |
And he emphatically talked about our perspective that we belong in heaven, essentially. 00:04:53.640 |
And from heaven, we eagerly await the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform 00:04:57.880 |
the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory. 00:05:02.720 |
God, in his work in this current generation, he is sanctifying us, and then we know by 00:05:09.640 |
what the scripture teaches, we're going to be perfected, glorified, right? 00:05:13.520 |
And then he says he's going to do that by the exertion of the power that he has even 00:05:18.820 |
So clearly, Apostle Paul's mind is currently future-oriented, right? 00:05:24.360 |
He's got the eternal perspective going on, and when he's calling the church, you need 00:05:32.040 |
The exhortation to think that way about your identity in heaven, and then these next commands 00:05:38.480 |
that'll come, it all builds to this exhortation that we need to stand firm in these things, 00:05:46.000 |
So, it fits well in terms of the transition of thought. 00:05:51.040 |
And what's really interesting is if the major command in verse one is "Stand firm," the 00:05:57.040 |
following commands, I'm not sure if you saw like a similarity in all the commands. 00:06:03.560 |
You know, I'm sure you guys noticed, yeah, they have a lot to do with harmony and peace 00:06:09.040 |
But if you think of it one way, I'm not saying, again, this is 100% correct, but if you think 00:06:14.040 |
of it one way, he's saying, "Stand firm," and then he gives you these various attitudes, 00:06:19.880 |
these various conditions of heart, these various things that actually support you standing 00:06:24.720 |
firm because if any one of those things were jettisoned, if any one of those things were 00:06:32.520 |
You would be really, really weak and feeble and wavering all sorts of different fashions. 00:06:36.560 |
So again, I saw it as here's this command in transition of thought, here's the perspective 00:06:41.440 |
Apostle Paul gave, starting even from chapter one, there's perspective, perspective, perspective, 00:06:47.080 |
Christ needs to be exalted, Christ is the most value. 00:06:50.320 |
If I'm, you know, we need to have the attitude of Jesus, perspective, perspective, and he 00:06:54.680 |
says, "Stand firm," and then this is how you stand firm, okay? 00:06:58.800 |
Now what I'd like to do is then, oh, here's the diagram of the way. 00:07:06.560 |
It's because I have this in a different view. 00:07:11.160 |
I'm going to put it into a view where I can see what's coming up next so I know to show 00:07:20.720 |
So in the next, in this next section then, in section one, let's talk about this command. 00:07:28.640 |
Now again, there's a lot of things to cover, Apostle Paul's perspective on the church, 00:07:37.640 |
But I want us to think about this idea of standing firm. 00:07:41.400 |
And one of the things that I challenged you was as we do Bible study, there are times 00:07:48.640 |
when you dig deep and you ask the questions, "How do I interpret this? 00:07:54.880 |
There are times when you're digging deep to think about what we're doing right now. 00:07:58.920 |
It's like he has certain perspectives and teachings and you're looking for deep insight. 00:08:04.320 |
But then if you recall the previous time I said sometimes when the Bible, the passage 00:08:10.000 |
is coming at you not with theology but it's coming at you with direct commands, you should 00:08:16.620 |
And then at other times, I believe it is so important for us to stop and meditate. 00:08:23.260 |
Because when he says stand firm, is that oh so confusing? 00:08:29.440 |
What we should be thinking is just starting to ruminate around, "Hmm, why? 00:08:34.480 |
Why is he challenging us to stand firm in this?" 00:08:37.700 |
And then yes, definitely you should start meditating how. 00:08:41.060 |
But in a more personal way, if the scripture is telling you stand firm, one easy way to 00:08:48.480 |
meditate for yourself is why do I need to stand firm, right? 00:08:54.900 |
Because are you currently experiencing the same exact circumstance that the Philippians 00:09:03.980 |
Now clearly, one of the things that we can relate to is not necessarily just the persecution 00:09:09.760 |
but we talked about how the onslaught of false teaching, the onslaught of difficult circumstances, 00:09:16.000 |
the many varieties of trials that come, you could relate to that, right? 00:09:23.020 |
Because there is never a season in your life where there's something to or there's nothing 00:09:36.280 |
Are there dangers of enticements and lurements of the world? 00:09:40.740 |
But another way to meditate about this is one of the things I start doing is I start 00:09:49.480 |
Not just simply, "Well, how do I stand firm?" 00:09:52.180 |
As an evaluation and meditation of myself, how am I not standing firm? 00:09:58.300 |
Are there any indications in the passage that I've already read that tells me that these 00:10:03.280 |
individuals too, even though they were a model church, even though in many ways they're so 00:10:11.560 |
And we notice that Apostle Paul highly emphasizes the topics of unity. 00:10:16.000 |
Could it be that even yes, godly individuals serving, doing ministry, that there could 00:10:30.680 |
And so again, that was just an encouragement and challenge to you to think about standing 00:10:36.200 |
firm and meditating on just the whys and the hows, and not only in this passage, but even 00:10:45.720 |
Now I do want to share with you that that theme of standing firm, the exhortation for 00:10:51.700 |
us to stand firm, you know it's just riddled throughout so many of the teachings through 00:10:56.400 |
the New Testament, and I wanted to share a couple with you, and here's one from 2 Thessalonians 00:11:03.680 |
"So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught." 00:11:08.640 |
So in one method of standing firm is just make sure, am I staying true and consistent 00:11:15.480 |
to the patterns that have been taught, right? 00:11:17.480 |
"Whether by word or by mouth or by letter from us, now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, 00:11:21.680 |
God of our Father who has loved us, given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, 00:11:26.240 |
comfort and strength in your hearts in every good work and word." 00:11:30.040 |
Here's another passage, 1 Corinthians 15 verse 58. 00:11:33.440 |
"Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm, let nothing move you, always give yourselves 00:11:44.600 |
When we feel like we've done enough, and then we seek to just veg, we seek to turn off our 00:11:55.600 |
A lot of times, actually, it's better to stay in motion, right? 00:11:59.960 |
Here's another passage, Ephesians chapter 6 verse 11. 00:12:02.600 |
It says, "Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against 00:12:10.240 |
Verse 13, "Therefore, take up the full armor of God so that you will be able to resist 00:12:13.880 |
in the evil day, having done everything to stand firm. 00:12:17.680 |
Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, having put on the breastplate 00:12:22.200 |
of righteousness, having shod your feet with preparation of the gospel of peace." 00:12:27.720 |
Now again, because there's so much to cover in today's lesson, I'm going to pause there, 00:12:33.600 |
There are some of you who, you know, in recent, let's say like the last six months or so, 00:12:39.280 |
I feel like our church has talked a lot about drifting. 00:12:42.960 |
I just recently asked the people who are planning for BAM retreat in the winter, "Hey, what 00:12:49.960 |
And they were like, "Oh, it was about drifting." 00:12:53.080 |
We talked about drifting on the couples retreat and all this kind of stuff. 00:12:57.360 |
And then there are some people who are just so frustrated. 00:13:00.840 |
I feel like drifting is just natural pattern of life because we're so inundated with distractions, 00:13:09.600 |
Now, I just want to encourage you, remember that feeling of like, "Oh, I'm standing firm." 00:13:18.520 |
You know there's no one tip advice, but you know what I do on Wednesday nights? 00:13:26.720 |
Clearly, the past tells you there is such a danger that the devil is scheming in multiple 00:13:34.280 |
And the reason why you feel like, "Oh my goodness, is every season drifting season?" 00:13:38.560 |
You know, it's like, it's partially because there's always constantly attack on you. 00:13:43.480 |
I think we have to be sober and realize that, amen? 00:13:46.320 |
But the other part is, remember, the fruit of being able to stand firm comes from such 00:13:50.620 |
investment of desiring to put on not just pieces, not just the one important part, but 00:13:59.240 |
Desiring to have everything God has afforded you, the community, the word, the prayer, 00:14:03.520 |
the work he's given you, all of that God desires for you to take advantage of. 00:14:08.260 |
And so I want to give you that admonition encouragement. 00:14:10.480 |
Like, so much of scripture desires for you to stand firm, not just for a season, but 00:14:20.120 |
In the next section, we have the desire for harmony, the command for harmony. 00:14:28.720 |
It says, "I urge Yodia and I urge Sintike to live in harmony in the Lord. 00:14:33.720 |
Indeed, true companion, I ask you also to help these women who have shared my struggle 00:14:38.260 |
in the cause of the gospel, together with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers 00:14:47.640 |
So when we look at this, the first thing I want to talk about is just like, wow, how 00:14:56.760 |
I mean, you realize that clearly just from observation, you have, I urge twice. 00:15:06.800 |
What else is you have this admonition where in other passages, even talking about some 00:15:13.600 |
of those false teachers, it may have been that those false teachers existed in the church, 00:15:23.400 |
I mean, can you imagine having your name be called out in a public square like this? 00:15:29.040 |
Can you imagine if I pointed, actually like directed my attention and I said, "Dude, 00:15:45.880 |
And then I tell the whole table, "Hey, girls, can you please help her?" 00:15:51.000 |
I mean, but that's kind of like the sentiment here, right? 00:15:54.200 |
Like if you take a moment to think like, oh shoot, he named them. 00:15:59.480 |
And now for the rest of history, it's like written in the word. 00:16:05.780 |
So now you have to start thinking like, why did Apostle Paul see it necessary to do that, 00:16:13.880 |
And just don't worry, I asked him for the permission to use their names before. 00:16:18.480 |
Because some of you guys, if I called attention to you in a room this big, I mean, the weight 00:16:23.640 |
of the pressure would be pretty heavy, right? 00:16:26.160 |
So if you think about it, we know already it's like, the topic of unity is huge. 00:16:33.840 |
If you remember in chapter two, when Paul talked about it, he gave both the like explicit 00:16:38.420 |
command and the example of Christ, and he commanded every single one of them, "You need 00:16:46.100 |
And we know from other passages of the scripture that the topic of unity is so important because 00:16:51.140 |
the ministry, the whole like agenda of what we're doing has to exist in the context of 00:17:02.460 |
We are upholding the gospel with the very character of the church together, right? 00:17:09.420 |
Scripture says that Christ is going to reveal the manifold wisdom of God by joining together 00:17:14.060 |
impossible people, by building this church of individuals so far, so wide, and then drawing 00:17:20.540 |
everybody to a certain degree, not that you're just simply in one room, but that you would 00:17:27.060 |
And that incredible mystery is going to glorify the power that makes us one, which is Christ 00:17:34.900 |
Every single one of us being found in Christ is going to be the power that is revealed. 00:17:41.180 |
And so scripture says it's so important for us to be united. 00:17:47.980 |
So that being said, I want to kind of mention here a little bit, what can we observe about 00:17:55.060 |
I know that's maybe one of the questions that you guys were kind of thinking about. 00:17:58.900 |
And what's really interesting is they were true companions. 00:18:05.640 |
Clearly they're like numbered with the fellow workers, and clearly they're numbered with 00:18:09.620 |
those who are in the book of life, meaning they are genuine Christians. 00:18:12.820 |
Paul was convinced that there are individuals who bore those kind of qualities. 00:18:18.680 |
And so that, I just want to quickly make mention of this idea that then, you know, what's very 00:18:24.720 |
interesting is, A, you could have individuals who are good and godly. 00:18:30.660 |
You could have individuals who are active, working hard, and participating. 00:18:34.740 |
They are present in the ministry of the church. 00:18:37.160 |
And perhaps then they were actually quite well known. 00:18:39.860 |
I mean, to be labeled or I guess named within this letter, then perhaps they were quite 00:18:46.900 |
Now the reason why I say this is because then number one, even when we're doing fine, I 00:18:55.600 |
want you to understand that because our enemy schemes, one of the things that he will do 00:19:12.100 |
So that being the case, have, you know, have you seen, have we seen, is it totally possible 00:19:20.220 |
that sometimes there is even amongst individuals who have been working and laboring that these 00:19:26.600 |
It is not permissible for us to be like, "Ah, you know what? 00:19:32.180 |
Within the church, it is not permissible to say, "Ah, you know what? 00:19:38.840 |
So this kind of disunity is incredibly dangerous and the conflicts must be resolved to the 00:19:42.960 |
degree that in your packet, I highlighted this, we can't ignore the fact that Paul called 00:19:56.600 |
So remember, number one, even good and godly Christians can be susceptible to divisions, 00:20:02.720 |
but what's more, even personal relational conflict does not just reside in its privacy, 00:20:10.840 |
And it's a responsibility, therefore, of the church to come alongside and help. 00:20:16.560 |
And so I'm going to leave that to your discussion. 00:20:18.320 |
In what way are you supposed to help be a peacemaker? 00:20:23.480 |
Now there are some people who operate by the, "If it's not your business, don't stick your 00:20:28.720 |
There are a lot of people who don't want to get involved in that because if you do, you're 00:20:33.000 |
But the fact of the matter is scripture calls us to a higher, I guess, calling for us to 00:20:38.080 |
provide that level of context of harmony within the body. 00:20:42.360 |
A cross-reference to that is Ephesians chapter 4, verse 2 through 6, "With all humility and 00:20:47.640 |
gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to 00:20:52.960 |
preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace, there is one body, one spirit, just 00:20:57.880 |
as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 00:21:02.720 |
one God, and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all." 00:21:08.080 |
So you see the concept that we were talking about earlier, joined together. 00:21:12.280 |
Your unity is reflective of the nature of the gospel and of our God. 00:21:18.360 |
So therefore, no, to be okay with just dysfunctional, like divide and this, you know, this discord 00:21:25.560 |
and conflict, that is not permissible within the church. 00:21:31.240 |
We're going to move to the next section, which is verse 4 through 7. 00:21:40.720 |
So here in verse 4 through 7, it says, "Rejoice in the Lord always. 00:21:50.400 |
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, 00:21:59.440 |
What I did here is just like, you know, I mentioned in previous lessons, whenever I 00:22:06.800 |
I start asking, do I see any kind of similarity? 00:22:13.240 |
And sometimes you're just trying to see like, hmm, is there some kind of sequence? 00:22:24.120 |
You should try to think about the relationships between these things. 00:22:28.240 |
The way that I'm going to talk about it is, remember, I saw it as, man, if you can't do 00:22:39.120 |
But they definitely feed to each other, right? 00:22:42.640 |
That the rejoicing is going to be your source of power for your gentleness. 00:22:48.520 |
And that those things combined is going to produce in you such a steadfast firmness that 00:22:52.760 |
you won't be anxious because you have a resource to turn to, which is your God, your heavenly 00:23:05.760 |
A lot of times you'll sit there and wrestle with, hmm, how do these things link together? 00:23:10.000 |
Now again, for the sake of time, I'm not going to be able to go over everything, but I'm 00:23:13.840 |
going to lump it all together and talk about one really important thing, which is this. 00:23:19.980 |
Every one of those things, rejoice, being gentle, not being anxious, and making requests, 00:23:25.980 |
to me have an emphatic arrow pointing to God. 00:23:36.840 |
The gentle spirit, you letting that know, is the outflow of your rejoicing. 00:23:43.240 |
It's the outflow of you knowing that the Lord is near.