The Opposition
Notes
Transcript
Good morning church. Turn in your Bibles to Philippians 1. That’s where we will be here shortly.
We have been looking honestly at who we are as a church and speaking from Philippians 1 and 2 about UNITY in the body. If we are going to be the Body of Christ in this world, we must be stand together and move together. We have to be on the same page about what we are doing!
Today is kind of a continuation from last week’s message because the verses we are looking at come as part of the same sentence as last week!
Paul reminds us that for our church to be a good team, we have to think about THE OPPOSITION. Every team has an opponent to play. We are no different. Paul tells the church at Philippi three ways they should approach their opposition in Philippians 1:27-30
Let me read it, pray and then we will come back and look at it.
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.
Pray
I can remember playing basketball at home against Tanner my Junior year. They had like 6 guys on the team who could dunk. And they had 3 guys who could tear the rim off! And they were doing it all during warmups. We are on our end doing layups and stretching. These guys are literally doing 360 dunks on the other end! We were watching them more than we were warming up!
Something was happening in those warm up drills… We got intimidated. The whole first half was hot garbage and as our coach told us at halftime, we were playing like we were terrified!
I’ll be honest… That’s how I feel in life sometimes as a Christian! If I’m not careful, I will live my life totally defeated. When I get up in the morning, I have already given up on being used by God greatly! I’m down from the start.
Anybody resonate with that sometimes!?
There is no need in sharing your faith, they’ll probably say no anyway...
There is no need to try to live right today, I’m gonna sin sooner or later...
Why would I try to live different at my workplace, everyone would just treat me bad or make fun of me and make my day even worse than it normally is...
If we are honest, this is often where we can find ourselves! But, that’s not a good place to be! Just as Coach Sanderson told us at halftime, you were beat before the tipoff!
This is what Paul is addressing in this passage. How do you face THE OPPOSITION?
He gives some really good and even kind of surprising advice.
Remember from last week, Paul is showing the church at Philippi how they can live their lives worthy of the Gospel of Christ. Last week we talked about Standing Together and Contending or Striving Together. But now, Paul says, as we are standing and contending, there will be opposition. For the church at Philippi, he is speaking of persecution.
Being a somewhat important Roman city, Philippi would have had a lower population of Jewish people. It would have been highly Gentile (which is a Bible word for non-Jew.) So, the church that had grown and was meeting in the city would have been of a similar makeup: a few Jews, but mostly Gentiles.
It was seen by the Romans as absolutely ridiculous that there was only one God. In their religion, there were MANY! So Christianity to them, was silly. The persecution that the church in Philippi is facing is probably not so much from the Jewish leaders mad that they had become Christians. It was probably from those who had bought in whole heartedly into Roman polytheism.
So, Paul knows they are facing persecution and he gives them three ways to face it well.
The first thing he says to the church is to be...
1. Fearless
1. Fearless
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.
Paul says, “don’t be frightened in any way by your opponents. Fun fact, the Greek word Paul uses that gets translated “frightened” is only used here in the whole New Testament. It is used in other literary works though to help us understand what it means. The image being portrayed is of a startled horse.
I know nothing about horses. But I know that even a greatly trained horse can throw a rider if it gets startled. That’s why the KJV translates it as “terrified.” Paul knew that the Church in Philippi would naturally be startled and scared when they experienced persecution from the world around them.
But he was challenging them to stand fearless in the face of persecution.
John Knox was a preacher in Scotland in the mid 1500s. This was a time of intense persecution for the church in Scotland. The queen at the time (known as Bloody Mary) burned some 280 Christians, including some of Knox’s friends. Knox had every reason to hide out and shut it down. He had every reason to be fearful. But it was said years later at his funeral, “Here lies one who never feared the face of man.”
What a word to be said?!
Think about that? Could that be said of you? or me?
You see, John Knox lived out the idea that Paul is getting at here. He stood and contended in the face of opposition with fearlessness!
But this idea didn’t originate in Paul. Jesus Himself had told his disciples not to fear man in Matthew 10:28.
Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Jesus says, “In the big scheme of things, what control does man have!?” Right? The only one we should allow to change our opinions and plans is GOD, not our opponents! We cannot live in fear of man.
A big reason why is found in the second way we should stand and contend...
2. Assured
2. Assured
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.
Paul says to be fearless before our persecutors and also assured. What can we be assured of? That we are in Christ! That we are saved!
When we stand and contend against opposition to the Gospel, it is to be a reminder that we have been saved by Christ’s blood and have been made new!
Jesus made this haunting statement to his disciples...
You will be hated by everyone because of my name,
That’s depressing, isn’t it? But it’s followed up with the truth that the promise of life is greater than the hatred they will face! There is life in the name!
These statements to the disciples and to the church at Philippi are not unique to them though. The same truth stands for us today! When we have an opportunity to stand or contend against persecution, it should remind us of our eternal home that has been once and for all secured in Christ. It may feel like a battle every day, but we can know that the battle for our soul has already been won. We can be assured as we face The Opposition.
Not only can we face the opposition fearless and assured, we can also face them as...
3. Honored
3. Honored
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.
When Paul says “it has been granted to you” the image is a privilege. Isn’t that backwards and weird? It is a privilege to endure hardship for the sake of the Gospel!
The Philippian church was probably experiencing some major persecution during this time. Don’t think being forced to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas at the Target. We are talking life and death pressure that was drastically affecting much of what they did as people and together as the church!
I want you to think about what you would say to a church family that was experiencing persecution like this.
Take them to court! They can’t treat you that way.
Stay away from them. See if you can figure out a way around the persecution.
Paul says, Don’t fight it. Don’t avoid it. It’s a privilege! Do you see that? Paul sounds crazy!
But James said the same thing when he wrote to the churches that were scattered abroad because of persecution...
Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials,
GREAT JOY? Are you kidding me?
But HOW? and WHY? How can we face persecution with this “honored” feeling?
First, Paul says in Philippians that we are sharing in Paul’s sufferings.
since you are engaged in the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I have.
Paul says, “Hey man, I’m out here struggling just like you guys. We are in this together.” To be considered alongside the Apostle Paul would have been incredible encouraging to these Philippian Christians. They knew of Paul’s trials. He had been beaten and stoned, run out of town, left for dead, and now imprisoned. For the Philippians to be treated similar to how Paul was would have brought a good pride to their hearts. It would have brought confidence that they were doing the right thing as they lived out the Gospel Paul had taught them.
And this is the only explanation that Paul gives here. But when we zoom back and look again at some other passages that say something similar, we see another reason we can find honor in our opposition...
Dear friends, don’t be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you, as if something unusual were happening to you.
Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may also rejoice with great joy when his glory is revealed.
If you are ridiculed for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.
REJOICE as you share in the sufferings of Christ! Peter is saying that, not only do those who are persecuted share in the sufferings of the Apostles, like Paul and Peter; they are sharing in CHRIST’S Sufferings! They are being treated just like their Savior.
Jesus was beaten and killed by persecutors. If we are saying that we are following him, we ought not be surprised if we wind up experiencing similar treatment, right? This is why Jesus said, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you!” How can we expect to be treated better than our Master?
So, let me ask you: When someone makes fun of you for being a Christian or treats you poorly, is you first response to feel HONORED?
Probably not! We don’t like to experience hardship. We are Americans for goodness sake! We should be treated with respect!
Paul and Peter and James would argue with us that we should take that persecution and smile instead of getting mad or upset! It is a privilege to experience the same sufferings as Jesus!
Let’s be ready to face the opposition when it comes. Let’s be...
Fearless
Assured
Honored.
The questions on the table today are this...
If you are experiencing persecution right now, how are you handling it? And how can you begin to see that persecution differently after studying this passage today?
If you are not experiencing persecution right now, why? This is such a good question to wrestle with! Often times, this is because you don’t look any different from the rest of the world! Other times, it is because you only hang out with people like you! Both of these are wrong and should lead us to repentance today before God!
And, If you have never trusted in Jesus as your Savior and asked him to change you, you need to know that Christ did suffer! A LOT! And he did it all so that you and I could be right with God! You can turn from your sin today and believe fully in Jesus. When we do that, God changes us and makes us new!
If you need to be baptized or talk to us about joining the church, we can have that talk too.
I will be down front, and we will have two counselors in the back.
You respond as God leads!
Pray