Philippians (Lesson 26)

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Welcome And Scripture Reading

SPEAKER_01 0:37

And thank you so very much for that kind word of introduction. Thanks to each and every one of you for tuning in today. I'm Brother James, and I greet you one more time in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. And I welcome you to the preaching of the cross radio broadcast. We are studying together the Bible book of Philippians. If my count is correct, this is lesson twenty seven, program number twenty-seven, in our verse by verse, line by line, word-by-word study of this marvelous book of Philippians. We're about to move into a new section of the book, starting at Philippians 2 and verse number 12. Hope that if you're able, you'll get a Bible and follow along with us. If you're on the job or driving your vehicle, I hope you won't get a Bible and follow along with us. We don't want you to get fired. We don't want you to cause an accident or be hurt. But we'll do our best. Just read to you what the scripture says, talk about it together, and trust the Holy Spirit of God to lead us and guide us into all truth according to his promise. Philippians chapter two and verse number twelve is our starting place on the program today. Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do, of his good pleasure. Do all things without murmurings and disputings, that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life, that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain, yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. For the same cause also do ye joy and rejoice with me.

The Danger Of Two-Faced Christianity

SPEAKER_01 2:59

In this section of Scripture, God points to His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as humbling himself and becoming a servant, and he does so in the context of the life that we live outside the church house, and the life that we live when we are not in direct fellowship with our brothers and sisters in the Lord. God absolutely despises two-faced, double-minded, two-life living, church-attending hypocrites. He absolutely despises them because they are the single greatest enemy of the gospel in this world. When a man goes to church on Sunday and then gets to work on Monday and gripes and complains and fusses and whines and loafs and cheats the boss man and fails to do his dead level best, he is a greater enemy of the gospel on that job than any Jehovah's Witness, Mormon, atheist, or Satanist could ever be. Because the world doesn't say, I don't want anything to do with Jesus because of the doctrines of those cult members. The world says I don't want anything to do with Jesus because that guy calls himself a Christian and won't pull his weight on the job. The Bible says here that if the only time you are holy is when the preacher is around, you are not holy. The Bible says the only in this passage, if the only time you've got a decent vocabulary is when the church folks are around, you don't have a decent vocabulary. The Bible says here, if the only time your mind and your conversation centers on spiritual things is when you're around somebody who is spiritually minded that you're trying to impress, you are a fraud and a phony, and you know it, and God knows it, and sooner or later everybody's going to find it out. You can only wear that mask for so long before somebody catches you without it. And when they do, they'll be surprised and you'll be embarrassed, but God won't be the least bit alarmed. He's known about it all along. Now the Holy Spirit, through the Apostle Paul, is writing to the Christians at Philippi. And he says to them in verse 12, I don't want you to just obey in my presence. I want you to obey God in my absence. If you are only abstaining from evil when you are relatively sure you might get caught, you're wicked and you know it. The fact that I don't know it yet doesn't mean anything. The fact my wife hasn't found out, the fact your Sunday school teacher hasn't found out, or people you go to church with would be shocked if they knew what kind of language you really used, or if they knew the kinds of amusements and entertainment you really enjoy, if they knew what you were doing with your girlfriend or your boyfriend in the late hours of the evening, the fact that we'd be shocked by it doesn't really mean a thing. There is a holy God in heaven who knows exactly where you are, exactly what you're interested in, he knows exactly how you live when you're free to live your own life and do your own thing. And why in the world do you think it's to your advantage to deceive me when I'm not the one that blesses you or to deceive your pastor when he's not the one that chastens to deceive your brothers and sisters in Christ when they don't hold your life in their hand? And yet think that the God of heaven, with whom you have to do, knowing what you really are, knowing how you really live, to think that that how you live before God is not important? Why that just shows people are one inch away from being full blown fools. Think about it. If the people on your job would give a different description of you than the people in your church, you're a phony. That's right. If your family members or your neighbors know a different you than the people you go to church with, you're a fraud. And you're not hurting the world by playing along with them as much as you're hurting the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Children, you need to learn to act the same way when your mother's around and when your mother's not around. Oh, we've had them in our church. My sweet little angel would never do that. No, not with you watching, he wouldn't. But you ought to know the kid we know when you're not around. Look, if a man had live uh as as true to his wife when he's not with her as when he is with her, he'd never run into any trouble. That's what he's talking about here.

Work Out Salvation Not Work For It

SPEAKER_01 7:48

In verse 13 it says, It is God which worketh in you, both the will and the do of his good pleasure. God would have you under his control. Verse twelve work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. God would have you to outwardly be what he has made you on the inside. The Bible doesn't say work for your salvation. The Bible says work out your salvation. That is, make it outwardly evident and visibly manifest that you are saved. Now I'll grant you, it hurts God's testimony in a community when a preacher is not sincere and zealous. I'll grant you that. But let's put this thing in perspective. Granted, there are some priests around that ought to be in jail, and I don't understand why they're not. But they're the ones getting the media coverage. Not the 99 guys out of a hundred that are straight as an arrow. You know what kills our testimony in a small town, every small town in America? You know what, you know what hurts it? It's when church attending, Sunday school teaching, fish on the back of the car displaying, men and women don't pay their bills. You know what that's called in the world? It's called stealing. You know what the world does when a Christian steals? They make a very, very big deal out of it. You know why? Because it is a very, very big deal. Whatever you claim to have, I there there needs to be evidence of your Christianity. And when a man blows his stack, just like the drunk blows his stack, people see no evidence of Christianity. When you gripe all day, just like the heathen gripes all day, nobody wants you to invite them to your church, it hasn't done a thing for you. Now, the scripture, the scripture is pretty clear that God wants, God expects, and the world needs people who are saved to live like it. Those who have salvation within them should allow that Savior to work his way into their hands, their feet, their eyes, their ears, their tongue, their their body, their actions, their thoughts, so that the world that doesn't know about grace, the world that doesn't know about the new birth and two natures, all they know is you say you're a Christian and they want to see something. The world expects God's people to be godly. Now, verse 12, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Let me give you some examples

Serving Christ At Work Every Day

SPEAKER_01 11:09

here. In Ephesians 6, verse 5, the Bible says, Servants be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart as unto crafts, not with eye service, as men pleasers. That is, you work like mad when you know the boss is around, and as soon as the boss goes around the corner or drives away, you're dragging around or doing nothing until he shows back up again. That's how the world approaches a job. The scripture says it's not supposed to be that way. Not with eye service as men pleasers, that is, you don't check the crowd to see who's watching. You just do what you're supposed to do, and then it doesn't matter who's watching you. Not with eye service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart, with good will doing service, Philippians, as to the Lord and not to men. Now, how does digging a ditch, how does running electrical wiring, how does mowing a lawn, how does uh teaching a class, how does typing a letter, how is that serving the Lord? Because once we have said we are a Christian, once we have invited somebody to church, once we have told someone that we are born again and they need to be, from that day forward those people are watching to see if what we said has made any difference at all in the way we live. As I live the Christian life by honestly and fervently obeying Jesus Christ for all to see, I show the world that I do indeed have a relationship with the servants servant of servants, the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't I don't just want to say it with my lips, I want to back it up with my life. The Bible says, the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 11, and that you study to be quiet and to do your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you, that ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing. Those that are outside Jesus Christ, those that are without salvation. The Bible says if I don't live the Christian life, I am being dishonest toward them. How can that be? Because I really am a Christian, I really am saved, I really am different. So it's dishonest for me to act like them. It's dishonest for me to pretend like I'm what they are. It's dishonest for me to fit in with a bunch of people that are going to hell. I'm not going to hell. Be honest. Don't flirt with the opposite sex on the job. Don't flirt with the same sex on the job. Be honest. Don't join them in their griping parties. Don't join them in their murmuring parties. Don't join them in cutting out thirty minutes early. Don't join them in stealing tools and stealing property from the job site. Be honest. Show them you got something. Let them see it. Now come back to Philippians 2. Do

Quit Murmuring In Home And Church

SPEAKER_01 14:58

all things. Verse 14, do all things without murmurings and disputings. Now let me help you moms and dads. I can help you. Let me help you kids. If you let your children gripe their way out of doing a job around the house, you're preparing them for a long, miserable life. Low income, poverty, broken homes. Job to job to job to job, because if they don't learn to clean that room and clean it right because you said so without griping about it, it's going to be a long, miserable life. Verse 14, do all things without murmurings and disputings. Can I say this, students, family members, church members, working men? Anything is difficult when done with reluctance. A bad attitude will add a weight and a drag to that job that is impossible to overcome. Church members like horses. They quit pulling when they start to kick. You can't kick in the yoke and pull the plow at the same time. Let me say something else about this.

Dating Warnings About Hidden Character

SPEAKER_01 16:20

As ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only. Young fellows, it won't be long and you're gonna be looking for her. Oh yeah, her. That one. Can I tell you something? Unless you are a spiritual and a moral zero, and then you're a faker. If that girl has one set of behaviors outside the church and another inside the church, get away from her right now and stay away from her. She's a phony, a fraud, a hypocrite, you can't trust her. Young lady. Listen to me. Listen to me. He might be a wonderful, marvelous Christian boy around that church house. But he's got his hands all over you as soon as he's outside the church house. If when he's in church he's singing hymns and outside the church, he's mocking the preacher, the church members, the manner of worship, you better wise up. You better wise up. He's a fraud, he's a phony, he's a fake. He's a practiced habitual liar. Look, either he's lying to you in private pretending to be worldly when he's not, or he's lying to the brethren in the church house pretending to be interested in God when he's not, but either way, you can't trust him. You can't trust him. How about that? How about that? If you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, the salvation that's inside you is supposed to be worked out in your life so that it is visibly manifest to all that you know Jesus Christ.

Shining As Lights In A Crooked World

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Look at verse 15. That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life. Now, when he says blameless, if I'm reading it right, that is among the world. If he says harmless, that means among the world. In the passage in the context, if he says without rebuke, that means among the world. God wants me to live. So that lost people would have no grounds upon which to criticize my testimony. They might not like the gospel, they might not like the Savior, they might not like my preaching to them or witnessing to them, but they can't say I'm not paying any attention to you because you're a thief, a cheat, you're profane, you're vile, you're so on and so forth. Live so that you are a genuine, valuable, consistent representative of the Jesus Christ you supposedly know, trust, and have met. He's supposed to have changed your life. Romans twelve one, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Now think about this. Prove to who? I don't have to prove to God. I don't have to prove it to the saints. To whom do I have to prove that it is best to submit to God? It would be of the world. They want you to prove it. They don't want you to say God is better. They want to see if you live for God because you have found that it is better. How about that? How about that? Verse 15, that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke. Without rebuke. In the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, and it surely is, among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain. Do you see what he just said? If same people don't live right when they're outside the church house, everything the preacher did on the inside comes to nothing. He said if the only time you're living right is in church and you're not living right in the community, then what we do in the church doesn't matter to the community. It's canceled out, it's null.

Jesus Offends With Truth Not Conduct

SPEAKER_01 22:02

And the example is the Lord Jesus Christ. He worked with his hands as a carpenter. He obeyed the laws of God. He obeyed the laws of man. He paid his tribute money. And when the unsaved secular authority heard the charges against Jesus, he said, I find him blameless, harmless, and without rebuke. Now think about it. Pilate stood before the assembled crowd, having heard all the charges, and said, Luke 23, 4, and said, John 19, verse 4, John 19, verse 6, I find no fault in this man. I find no fault in this man. How about that? You know what Jesus did? He offended the world not with his conduct, but with his doctrine. Not with how he lived, but with what he preached. Now you cannot avoid that offense. But you can, you should, I can, I should live so that the world is not rejecting the gospel because of the life I have lived. They are rejecting the gospel because they don't believe it or don't want to repent, but it is not because the messenger has discredited the message. The Bible says in Joshua twenty two, verse one. Ye have not left your brethren these many days unto this day, but have kept the charge of the commandment of the Lord your God. Isn't that a blessing? Verse twelve says, As ye have always obeyed. That's the kind of lives we ought to be living for our God, for his gospel, for our families, for our brothers and sisters in Christ, and in this passage that we've been reading today, for the world as a whole, they need us to show them that we have something real, something life changing, something that has made such an incredible difference for the better in our lives that it can't be denied, it can't be ignored. That's what Jesus Christ desires. And so my friend, I urge you, I plead with you, I encourage you with all my heart to let the Holy Spirit so control you, to let the Word of God so guide you, to let the love of Jesus Christ so influence you, that you're not acting like a Christian when you need to be or when it's convenient, but that every moment of your life you are living like a Christian for the benefit and for the well being of others.

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SPEAKER_01 26:15

Well, this is the preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast. It would be a marvelous thing if we could just spend all day long studying the Bible together. We can't do it over the over the radio. We could never afford to be full time, be the only voice that you hear on the radio, nor would we would we desire that. There are many, many men that God has gifted to preach and teach His word, and we hope you benefit from all those that are true to the scriptures as you listen to this radio station. But if you'd like more of our teaching and our ministry, we'd be more than happy to help you obtain that. You may find a listing of all our available Bible study materials books, booklets, tracts, uh audio, recorded sermons and Bible studies. All of that is found on our website, and the address for that website is JamesKnox.com. Now everybody, everybody's not uh doing the computer thing for one reason or another, and that's fine. I certainly understand that. So if you'd like, you may write to us in the good old time way at 872 Glenwood Road. 872 Glenwood Road. That's in D-Land, just like it sounds D-E-L-A-N-D, D-Land, Florida. And that zip code number is 32720. 32720. And that mailing address is in the United States of America. This program is heard by God's grace on this station and many others around the world. We don't know what time of the day it's aired, and so the announcer will be on in just a moment to let you know when this program will be heard again over this radio station. And we hope that uh you'll help us, not only by listening, but by inviting a friend to listen with you to the preaching of the cross radio broadcast. Until then, I'm Brother James. May the Lord richly bless you. And good day.