Contending for the Gospel
Philippians 1:27-30
27 Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel 28 without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God. 29 For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, 30 since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have.
Religious people are better than atheists. It’s not that all atheists and irreligious people are evil, but that in general, religious people are more law abiding, more generous and more helpful than nonreligious people. Study after study has shown this to be true, including a recent research article published in the journal Science. It was this author’s opinion that religious people are better behaved for two reasons; to enhance their personal reputation and out of a fear of punishment from God. In other words, we do good things so that people will like us and so that God will not punish us. Sadly, I think his conclusions are pretty close to the mark. Religious people, and even evangelical Christians are too often obsessed with what others think about us, and we certainly want to avoid being punished by God.
But we are called to both a higher standard of behavior but also a higher motivation for our behavior. If you have been with us the past two weeks, you know that we have keyed in on verse 27. Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. To live in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, is to live with right behavior and right motives, and that motivation is the gospel.
Last week I said that the intersection of the gospel and our good deeds is like a chemical reaction, like this one.
4Fe + 3O2 à 2Fe2O3
iron + oxygen à iron oxide (rust)
The arrow in a chemical reaction indicates unstoppable forward progress. Even with all the powers of modern technology, you cannot stop iron and oxygen from producing rust. But what we can do is to add oxygen inhibitors which remove oxygen from the equation. High tech paint and rustproofing chemicals are applied to metal to inhibit the presence of oxygen. You are not stopping the reaction from moving forward, you are merely changing the equation by removing the oxygen.
Similarly, to live a life worthy of the gospel looks like this.
Christian + Gospel à Deeds
When the true gospel comes in contact with a saved person, it will produce right behavior coming from right motives. All the forces of Hell itself cannot stop this from occurring. The only thing which prevents a life worthy of the gospel is when we apply “gospel inhibitors”. If the gospel cannot impact our life, then good deeds cannot be produced. Why do we do this? Why would we apply gospel inhibitors in our life?
One main reason is because we have an impersonal gospel. The gospel is not some dry, theological truths. The gospel is the gospel of Christ. It is the good news about Christ. The gospel is not an it, it is a person. If you reduce the gospel to mere words, you have lost the gospel. I can give you the gospel words in about ten seconds. If you have a watch, time me. Ready, go. We are sinners in rebellion against God. Jesus became a man, died for our sins, rose from the dead, and if we place our faith in Christ alone, we will be saved. There, that’s it—that’s all there is to the gospel. Is this enough to save you? This is a skeleton of the gospel and I would be the first to say that it is sufficient to save you, but how many of you are inspired run out these doors and give your all for Christ? How many are ready to die a martyr’s death for these ten seconds of words?
As I have been saying, some churches are guilty of gospel dilution to the degree that the gospel of Christ has disappeared from their church.
Some churches are guilty of gospel pollution because they have polluted the gospel by substituting a false gospel. It is a gospel of works or a gospel of health and wealth or some other distortion.
Still other churches are guilty of gospel inoculation. Gospel inoculation happens when a ten second gospel is preached and then the preacher says to them, “If you received Christ this morning, you are saved form your sins and you have eternal life.” It might be true or it may have merely been a quick decision, or just a fire insurance policy against the flames of hell. From that point forward, such people are inoculated against the gospel. If they hear the gospel message in the future, they think, “Well, I already did that when I when seven years old. I don’t need to do it again.” The antibodies of their false conversion fight against the gospel. Sometimes this is called “easy-believism”.
Finally, there is gospel malnutrition. Gospel malnutrition is a little tricky because in these churches, the true gospel is preached faithfully and completely. They are not guilty of gospel dilution, pollution or inoculation, but their people are malnourished because the only diet they receive is the gospel preached to unbelievers. Every Sunday the gospel is preached as if the church were filled with mostly unbelievers. Every week there is an altar call. I submit to you that this is not the full gospel because these people don’t get fed from the rest of Scripture. They do not get to see how the gospel is applied in every area of life. They don’t come to an understanding of what it means to live a life worthy of the gospel of Christ. If the believers in these churches were athletes, they would have absolutely enormous biceps, but scrawny little chicken legs. They are imbalanced and malnourished.
Here at Grace, our desire is to preach the gospel every week, but we preach it, Lord willing, so that some can be saved and so that all can be brought to maturity. This is why I have spent so much time on this one verse. It is a turning point in the book of Philippians, but it is also a wonderful summary statement on how to live the Christian life. Everything we do must always be linked back to the gospel. Every part of our sanctification is rooted in our justification. Why should we forgive others? Not because it will make us feel better, even though it will. Not just because God has commanded us to forgive, even though he has. We are to forgive others because of the gospel—because we have been forgiven—because our debt paid by Christ is infinitely larger than nay debt that others might owe to us. Husbands—why should we love our wives? Not because it makes for a happier home, even though it does do that. Not because everyone will think we have a good marriage. Instead, we are to love our wives because it reflects the beauty of the gospel and because you must depend upon gospel power to act in love. Children, why should you obey your parents? Not because you fear being punished. Not so that they will buy you a Nintendo Wii or Playstation 3. Obedience to your parents is rooted in the gospel. Your parents have authority over you in the same way that Christ has authority over the church.
Coming up in Philippians Paul will instruct us not to grumble or complain, to be content in all things, to consider suffering for Christ a privilege, to give preference to others at all times, to give generously, to work out interpersonal conflict. Each and every behavior that is commanded is rooted in the gospel. What if I struggle with depression? What if I am working through grief of a death or divorce? What if I have just been given a diagnosis of cancer? What movies should I watch? All of these questions and issues are rooted in the gospel of Christ. I don’t want to suggest that the gospel can be applied simplistically like a band-aid to any problem. “Oh, your wife just died? Well, here’s a gospel band-aid for you.” On the contrary, living a life worthy of the gospel means doing the hard work of meditating on every aspect of the life of Christ and his good news.
This is why lain old laziness is a common gospel inhibitor. If all that you have is a ten second gospel, then all you will have is a ten second Christian life. If you ignore the basic disciplines of personal Bible reading and study, then there is no way that the gospel can penetrate your life. There is simply no substitute for this. You cannot live the gospel if you do not know the gospel. As we get into chapter two of Philippians, we will mine the depths of the incarnation of Christ. There are a multitude of ways that the incarnation applies to our lives, but how many of us have considered this aspect of the gospel?
Closely related to laziness is another gospel inhibitor—a lack of creativity. If you know the gospel you can creatively illustrate the gospel so that it becomes more knowable. For example, I used the illustration of the beans to demonstrate Christ’s teaching on forgiveness. For some of you, probably not all, that illustration will stick with you and will help you remember the foundation of forgiveness. The illustration of the gospel as a type of chemical formula will help some people. But you might be thinking, “yeah, that’s fine for you cuz you’re a preacher, but why should I bother with creating illustrations for the gospel?” Well, if not for you, what about for your children?
When our kids were younger Karen and I used spanking as one of the tolls in our parenting toolbox. You know how the spanking routine goes. The parent and offending child goes into a bedroom or isolated area. Mom or dad might give a little lecture to make sure the child understands what they did wrong and why they are being spanked. Finally, the spanking implement is applied to the general spanking domain, possibly followed by a hug or other conversation. One time I went through this routine with one of my kids and once I made sure they understood what they had done wrong and why they needed a spanking, I asked my child to turn around. I picked up the spatula in my hand and prepared for a stinging reminder of their sin. Then I turned the child around, gave the spatula to them and said, “Here, I want you to spank me.” Once my child figured out that I was serious, they took the spatula and gave me a few good swats. Then I explained that this is what Jesus did for us—he took the punishment of his sin so that we did not have to bear it.
We have spoken in general terms about what it means to live a life worthy of the gospel of Christ. Let’s look more closely now at how Paul describes living a life worthy of the gospel. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel. There are three things listed here, the first two of which are woven together
1. standing firm in one spirit
2. striving side by side for the faith of the gospel
When we hear phrases like “stand firm,” we immediately think in terms of individual perseverance and strength. In fact, we generally think in terms of our own spiritual maturity. We are an individualized society and we have an extremely individualized faith. It’s not that we don’t have concerns for one another. If you are a parent, you want your kids to be growing spiritually. If you are in some teaching or leadership role at church, then you will have concern for the group that you lead. But even then we our concern is for the individuals in the group, not necessarily the group itself.
But when Paul wrote about standing firm, the next phrase describes how he wanted them to stand firm: “striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.” These two phrases are inseparable. In other words, if you are not striving together with your fellow believers, then you are not standing firm. Paul is saying something quite radical here. He is linking our personal spiritual maturity with what we often call Christian unity. In fact, he links them so strongly that the individual aspect simply disappears in his language. Paul is not thinking in terms of percentages here. You see, that’s what we do. Let’s say more than half of the people I our church are growing spiritually and standing firm in the gospel. We might think that better than 50% doing pretty good, after all, it’ll win you an election, right? But Paul is not thinking in terms of percentages. He doesn’t care o count heads to see how many individuals are standing firm. His concern was for the whole church—either the whole church is standing firm by striving together or they are not.
The word for “striving together” comes from the word sunathleo, where we get our word athlete. Sunathleo means athletes together. What do you call it when athletes strive together side by side? You call it a team. If you watched the Olympics this year you saw that several teams dropped the baton in the relays. Both the men’s and women’s in the 4x100 m relay dropped the baton. I have never seen so many falling batons in my life. Now remember that when you pick a team like the 4x100 M relay, you are choosing the fastest four runners in the country. The men’s team had the four fastest male sprinters and the women’s team had the four fastest female sprinters. Each of the eight people were elite sprinters in their own right. Not one of them fell in the middle of the race. Each of them ran as fast as they could. They were all superior athletes, but on that day they did not have sunathleo.
The spiritual life is not an individual race. If you running way out in from in your spiritual life and you say to yourself, “Wow, I love this. I love the wind in my hair. I love serving God. God must really be pleased with me.” Right at that moment I want you to look around for your teammates. Are you striving together or are you standing alone?
One of the last things Paul wrote abut in this letter is problem between two women. “I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord.” How would you have liked to have been these two women? For all eternity their names are forever carved in history as two women who seemingly could not get along with one another. But these women were not a couple of immature, busybodies who were always causing strife and division wherever they went. Listen to the rest of Paul’s description. “Yes, and I ask you loyal yokefellow, help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.” These two women were what we would call “mature believers.” They both contended side by side with Paul in the cause of the gospel. And right there we see the word sunathleo again. Euodia and Syntyche contended at the side of Paul. They all had sunathleo. They were each mature believers who all had sunathleo—they strived together for the sake of the gospel. But then Euodia and Syntyche dropped the baton. They lost their sunathleo. They no longer were striving side by side. Maybe Euodia started her own women’s ministry. Perhaps Syntyche became the first century equivalent of an AWANA commander. But that’s not what Paul mentioned, is it? They had sunathleo and then they lost it, and this broke the heart of Paul. Pauk pleaded with them to get along. Paul called them out by name so that they would strive together again.
Now we see another reason why the bean illustration of mutual forgiveness is so important. If I am holding any level of unforgiveness against another person, I am in trouble because it’s going to eat at me and destroy me, but thus is especially true if I hold unforgiveness against another brother or sister in the Lord. Some of you are Christian athletes, but do you have sunathleo? You see, even that is the wrong question to ask. I should ask, “Do we have sunathleo?” If we are not striving together, then we cannot stand firm. And a church is not some generic team, is it? A church is a team that strives for the cause of the gospel.
Prepare for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper next week. Reconcile. Invite someone over. Show up at the work site and work side by side with someone you barely know.
Rich Maurer
October 26, 2008