Our Primary Calling

So how should we as a local church live together in this world?

That’s an important question and the answer to that question is found in our passage today, still in Philippians Chapter 1 — which means we’ve been in the same chapter now for a total of six weeks. It’s been good to slow down in God’s word. 

Paul has been saying amazing things in Philippians 1 and he’s not done! Verse 27 actually marks the start of a new section. Up to this point, Paul has been giving a personal update. He’s been telling the church how he’s doing and what he’s been thinking, but now he turns to the church, and rather than ask them how they’re doing, he tells them how they should be doing. 

Verse 27 starts a section of exhortation. Paul tells this church how they’re supposed to be — and in terms of relevance for our church, this is exactly what we need to hear right now. 

What I’m about to say might sound like an overstatement, but I really believe it.

I believe “God has decreed in himself from all eternity” that we would be in Philippians at this time because there are things in this book that we especially need to hear the first part of the year of our Lord, 2024 — the tenth year of our church’s life together.

And among those things that we need to hear is the main exhortation from today’s passage.

So here’s the plan for the sermon: I’m going to start, in just a minute, by giving you a summary of Paul’s main exhortation, and then we’re gonna break down that summary and look at it in three parts. 

But before we get there, let’s take a minute and pray together.

And the reason I want us to pray again is that I don’t know exactly what each of you anticipate over the next half-hour, but I’ve been praying that God would give us watershed clarity about our church’s primary calling, and I’d like to invite you to pray for that with me. So as I lead us in a prayer, if you can, from your heart, would you pray it with me?

Father in heaven, in your great mercy, in this moment, we come to you and we ask that you would give us a special enabling by your Spirit to receive your word and to embrace your calling on our church, We ask this for your glory, in Jesus’s name, amen.

The Main Exhortation

Okay, we’re looking at verses 27–30, and we’re gonna focus mainly on the first part of verse 27. Here’s the summary of Paul’s main exhortation for us:

It is absolutely necessary that our church’s life together in this world witness to the all-satisfying value of Jesus. 

That’s what Paul wants us to know. Here it is again:

It is absolutely necessary that our church’s life together in this world witness to the all-satisfying value of Jesus.

Now let’s break it down in three parts. We’re gonna answer three questions:

1) Why is this absolutely necessary?

Notice that the first word in verse 27 is the word “only.” That’s how the sentence starts, and for that to make sense, we need to back up and see it in context. So remember what we saw last week: 

Paul is in prison in Rome, awaiting a trial, and his life is in jeopardy. He’s not sure exactly what will happen to him, but he just knows that Christ is going to be honored in his body one of two ways: Either he’s gonna live or he’s gonna die. 

And so he’s been thinking about that … and he concludes: it’s far better for him to depart from life in this world and to be with Christ — that is “far better” — But it’s more necessary for the church — or we might say, it’s “more strategic” for the church at Philippi — that he stays alive and remains here in the flesh. 

In fact, it’s so important that he stay alive that he becomes convinced that’s what he’ll do. He says his life will be spared and he’s gonna continue serving this church, verse 25, “for your progress and joy in the faith.” That means, verse 26, that he’s gonna come see this church again in order to make them abound in their glory in Christ Jesus. 

Never Apart From Jesus

Everybody look at verse 26 for a minute. Now I appreciate the way the NIV translates verse 26. Verse 26 in the NIV says, “so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me.”

The key phrase there is “your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound.” Now I want you to see that verse 26 is a restatement of verse 25. 

Verse 26 is explaining more of what verse 25 means. Your progress and joy in the faith (verse 25) means that your boasting in Christ abounds (verse 26). In other words, if you’re growing in faith, if you’re joy in the faith is increasing, it means your confidence in Christ is increasing. 

I don’t want us to miss this. Another way to say it is that: there’s no such thing as growth in the Christian life apart from abounding confidence in Jesus. Do you wanna grow as a Christian? It means you must trust Jesus more … 

You must seek Jesus more. 

You must know Jesus more. 

You must love Jesus more. 

That’s the only way. There is no progress, there is no growth, apart from more of Jesus. And Paul says “That’s worth living for!” He wants that so badly for this church that he says, That’s why I’m alive! If I live, I live for that!

And so Paul is gonna come visit this church and he’s going to find them increasing in faith and abounding in joy and boasting in Christ, but wait a minute!

Paul is going to find this church like that on one condition.

THE ALL-ENCOMPASSING ONLY

And this is where the “only” of verse 27 comes in. This is a big word. 

Paul is about to tell us the one thing that the local church must remember — if their faith and joy are gonna increase, if they will have an abounding confidence in Christ, this is the one thing they gotta do.

Now of course there’s all kinds of things that matter. There are lots of commands and instructions for churches in the New Testament, but what Paul is about to say is an all-encompassing non-negotiable! 

As in: if they just do this one thing, everything else will take care of itself. But without this one thing, even if everything else goes perfectly, they will fail in their calling.

This is a big deal, and I love this kind of simplicity. I have a “one thing” kind of brain, and over the years I’ve learned this the hard way … like last Saturday when I installed a new garbage disposal in our kitchen sink. 

THE GARBAGE DISPOSAL

I don’t know if any of you in here love garbage disposals, but if you do, I might hurt your feelings here. Last Saturday, I installed our third garbage disposal in about a five-year span. Garbage Disposal #2 stopped working and so I bought a new one, Garbage Disposal #3, and thought: “I’ve done this before; I’ve got YouTube; this should take about an hour.” 

By Saturday afternoon, about four hours later, I had to take apart the entire thing. I had to move the electric cord from the old one to put it in the new one; I had to make a couple of trips to the hardware store; I redid the kitchen sink thing, I let the plumber’s puddy dry on that one thing — and after all that time, I was finally ready to debut this brand-new Insinkerator Badger 500. 

So the family is all standing around, I called all the neighbors over, Mom and Dad flew in … I plugged it in, flipped the switch. Nothing happened. So I run around, check everything, check the breaker, try it again, still nothing. 

And eventually I figured out that it was the outlet that was broken the whole time. Only the outlet. The old disposal was fine. I just needed electricity. That was the one thing. That was the most essential thing, and I overlooked it. I spent all that time and I had missed the one thing that was absolutely necessary. 

And Paul does not want the church to do that! So he tells us the one thing. 

Verse 27:

“Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ.”

Or in other words: Only let our church’s life together in this world witness to the all-satisfying value of Jesus. 

Now why am I saying it like that? Well let’s focus on that phrase there “your manner of life” in verse 27. This is our second question:

2) Why does verse 27 apply to our church’s life together in this world?

Paul says “your manner of life.” So who is he talking to? And what does that phrase mean?

First, Paul is talking to the church corporately. “Your manner of life” doesn’t mean the individual lives of the members of this church, but he means the church’s life together. That’s gonna be more obvious as we keep reading because there’s nothing that Paul says here that could be done in isolation from one another. All that he says envisions and depends upon a corporate body. So this is about the local church together — our church’s manner of life.

Now what does that mean? This is fascinating. The Greek behind that phrase “let your manner of life be” is actually one word (πολιτεύομαι). It’s a verb that’s only used one other time in the New Testament, and a more exact translation of the verb is to say “live as a citizen.” Paul is saying, literally, “Only live as a citizen worthy of the gospel of Christ!”

A CITIZEN OF WHAT?

But now a citizen of what? 

When we think of the word “citizen” we immediately think of our local, earthly context. We are citizens of America, of Minnesota — we’re Twin Citizens. But I want you to see something here. Turn over one page to Philippians 3, verse 20. In Philippians 3:20, Paul says there are those who set their minds on earthly things, 3:20, “But our citizenship is in heaven” — and from heaven “we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Get this: the noun there for “citizenship” in 3:20 is the same word used as a verb in Chapter 1, verse 27. 

So when Paul says, “Only live as a citizen worthy of the gospel” — he’s not talking about being a citizen of Rome or America or wherever, he’s talking about being a citizen of heaven. 

That’s what he wants us to know! We are citizens of heaven. That’s who we are! But where do we live right now? Not heaven! We’re citizens of heaven, but we’re not in heaven yet! For now we live in this world, and we’re supposed to feel the tension here. It’s not supposed to be easy! We are called to live as citizens of heaven in this world. 

And I don’t think we could emphasize this enough. According to Paul, this is the way to think about our lives in this world. We are citizens of heaven, and sometimes we know that we are so far from home, and so we pray everyday how Jesus taught us to pray: 

“Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth just as it is in heaven!”

We pray for that, and we become agents, ambassadors, for how that happens. That’s who the church is. That’s what we’re doing here! Our church is an embassy of heaven in this world — that steeple is our flag! — and we are here to point to another kingdom, a better country — from which our Savior is gonna come. And so whatever else we do, we do that. That’s what Paul is saying. That’s what he lives for! He says to this whole church:

Hey, I’m living for your progress and joy in the faith. I want your boasting in Christ to abound, so here’s the main thing: 

Above all, live together in this world as citizens of heaven … worthy of the gospel of Christ. 

And I’m summarizing that to mean: “witness to the all-satisfying value of Jesus.” So how do I get that?

3) What does it mean to be worthy of the gospel of Christ?

That word “worthy” in verse 27 is the idea of being congruent or fitting. “Worthy of the gospel” does not mean deserving of the gospel. We could never deserve the gospel — and this is important because I think there’s a common mistake we can make on this point. 

We might all agree that we’re saved by grace, at least at the start, but sometimes it’s easy to think that after we received the grace then we gotta work hard to make sure we deserved the grace. Sometimes, by accident, we can think that living the Christian life is a kind of payback for the grace God showed us in the past. And I know about this because I used to think that way. 

Y’all’ve heard the story before that when I was 17, I got into a terrible car wreck, and God spared my life. It was a clear miracle. And in the weeks and months after that, I really got my act together. I was gonna make the grace count, so I became very religious, very driven — and do you know what happened? I became spiritually proud, because I was doing so good! 

And then one day, in Ephesians Chapter 2, I discovered the true meaning of grace. The gospel of God is his grace and grace can never be earned — that’s what it means for it to be grace. Grace is forever a gift we don’t deserve, which means the dumbest thing you can do is be proud. Grace humbles us … which means we don’t try to pay God back, we never could, we just keep getting more thankful. Because it’s just grace upon grace upon grace.

So Paul is not saying to live as a citizen in a way that deserves the gospel of Christ. He means live as a citizen of heaven in a way that fits with the gospel of Christ. 

So what is that? What is congruent to, what fits with, the gospel of Christ?

JESUS ABOVE ALL ELSE

Jesus actually teaches us this … in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 10. You don’t have to turn there, I’m gonna read it for you. Maybe you’ve heard this verse before, but listen to what Jesus is saying, Matthew 10, verse 27:

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

So you have father, mother, son, and daughter right here and you got Jesus over here on the other side. And Jesus says that if you love them more than you love me, you’re not worthy of me. 

Which means, loving them more than me doesn’t add up to “who I am.” It doesn’t fit with who I am.  

See, Jesus understands that he’s the most lovable person in the universe, so if we love anything more than the most lovable person in the universe, it doesn’t work!

And so the only way our lives can fit with who Jesus is, is if we love him above everything else.

To live worthy of Jesus, to live in a way that’s congruent to him, to live in a way that fits with who Jesus is, it means we live in way that shows that Jesus is more valuable to me than anything else.

What fits with Jesus is when Jesus is your all-satisfying treasure.

That’s what Paul is getting at. He wants this church corporately to follow his personal example. 

AN EXTRA GRACE?

And I think that becomes clear in verses 29–30. So skip there for a minute. We’re going to end here (next week we’ll look at the rest of verse 27 and verse 28), but for today, verses 29-30: 

“For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.”

That word for “granted” in verse 29 is literally the word “graced.” It has been graced to you, or graciously given to you — and when Paul starts a sentence like that, we’re about to open a present, right? Paul is about to tell us something really good!

He says “It has been graciously given to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also … suffer for his sake.”

What? I thought this was supposed to be a bonus. I thought this was supposed to be good? Does this mean that Paul thinks it’s a grace to suffer for Jesus?

Yeah. 

And church, we’re in deep waters here. This does not mean that suffering or pain itself is good — it’s not. We weep over suffering. We don’t want it. But the grace, the gift, is in how the suffering relates to our faith. 

See, if it has been graced to you to believe in Jesus, that’s enough, right?! We believe in Jesus — we’re happy! We’re good! 

But if you are also graced to suffer for Jesus then it means your believing, your faith, is experienced and expressed in the highest degree.

Now this is gonna be a little rough, but we need to go here. Hang with me. 

A CHRISTIAN NAMED JOB

Use your imagination for a minute and think of a hypothetical Christian. Imagine a hypothetical Christian man, and let’s call his name Job. 

Job is a Christian. He believes in Jesus. He’s been forgiven, overcome by grace, Jesus is his greatest treasure. And also, Job has a lot of kids. This guy is blessed. Jesus has given him a big family and they all get along, they’re all friends. Jesus has also given him like 7,000 sheep and camels and oxen and donkeys. His garbage disposal never breaks. Job loves Jesus and Jesus has given Job some pretty amazing gifts. He’s comfortable.

Which, could make us wonder … is it really Jesus that he loves or is it the comfortable things that Jesus gives him? Which does he love the most?

I don’t know. We don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t even know? How could we know?

Well, what if some of those comfortable things are taken away …

See, if we’re honest, and this is the part that’s rough, it’s hard for us to say that we love Jesus more than our comfort until we lose our comfort. 

See, there’s loving Jesus — and every Christian has been graced to do that! — we love Jesus …but then there is loving Jesus when Jesus is all you have. When you know that the main gift Jesus has given you is himself.

That’s deeper. The experience and expression of our faith in Jesus through suffering is deeper. That’s what Paul is talking about here. 

Not just believing for the sake of Christ, but also suffering for the sake of Christ…

MAXIMIZED WITNESS

…which maximizes our witness. People will see that and say:

Wow! This person really believes! They believe so much in Jesus — Jesus is so valuable to them — they’re gonna keep loving him even when that happens! They’re willing to give that up!

You mean, Jesus is more valuable to them than life itself? 

You mean, for them, that being with Jesus is greater than anything? 

Like they believe so much that when they die they will be with Jesus, that they consider death to be gain?!

Wow! See, it has been graced to you, Paul says, graced to you that “for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.”

Then in verse 30, Paul says: 

That means, church, we’re the same. Because you’ve been graced to suffer for the sake of Christ, it means that what you’re going through is what you saw me go through, and what I’m still going through. 

IN THE SAME BOAT

Verse 30 is what brings all of Chapter 1 together. The reason Paul spent so much time giving a personal update in Chapter 1 is because he knew that the church in Philippi was in the same boat he was. And this confirms that Paul intended his example to be followed.

Everything that he said about his passion in Chapter 1 applies to the church corporately. He expects the church, as a whole body, to embrace Jesus as their all-consuming passion and all-satisfying treasure. So this is for us.

It is absolutely necessary that our church’s life together in this world witness to the all-satisfying value of Jesus.

That’s what we’re doing here. 

That’s what brings us to the Table. 

The Table

I want you to know that it’s not just that Jesus is more valuable than anything else, but it’s that he will truly satisfy your soul above anything else. 

See, it’s one thing to know about a treasure that’s worth more than every other treasure in the world; but it’s another thing to know that the all-surpassing treasure is actually what you need. It’s what you’ve been looking for. It’s why you were made. Jesus is that treasure, and he’s the only one who can satisfy the deepest longings of your soul.