Stand, Fight, and Don’t Run Away
Oct 24, 2010 Phil 1:27-30
Intro:
Only some of you here today have experienced military service. Only some of you know what it really means to go through basic training, to be put in a squadron, to be taught how to fight as a unit, where your very lives are in the hands of a person next to you. Thankfully, only some of you have ever actually been in the situation where a physical battle is raging, bullets are flying, and your group is actually under attack. For those few of you, you have a better opportunity to really understand the passage in Philippians which we look at this morning.
The rest of us will try to imagine it, from the best frames of reference we have. Perhaps a sports team, where the people really came together as a team; or maybe a workplace team on a project where things really clicked, the personalities meshed well, and you accomplished more than you imagined; or maybe a family that came together through some time of crisis and really supported and cared and needed one another on a far deeper level than everyday life. Keep that experience in mind as we approach this morning’s text.
But first a question: last week we studied Phil 1:27a – “Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ.” Now, without looking ahead, let’s brainstorm for a moment about what that means as we live it out. How do we “live as citizens of heaven”? What does it mean to “conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ”? Ideas?? call them out…
As I read Philippians 1:27-30, recall that place in our lives when we faced an obstacle or a goal as a united group, and we experienced some amazing things.
Phil 1:27-30 (NLT):
Above all,
you must live as citizens of heaven,
conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ.
Then, whether I come and see you again or only hear about you, I will know that you are
standing together with one spirit and one purpose,
fighting together for the faith,
which is the Good News.
Don’t be intimidated in any way by your enemies.
This will be a sign to them that
they are going to be destroyed,
but that you are going to be saved,
even by God himself.
For you have been given not only
the privilege of trusting in Christ
but also the privilege of suffering for him.
We are in this struggle together.
You have seen my struggle in the past,
and you know that I am still in the midst of it.
Outlining the Passage:
I’ve put the passage on the screen in an outline format rather than a single paragraph. In the original, it is actually all one sentence, and I’ve laid it out in such a way that I hope to help us understand how it is organized: It begins with the “above all”, calling us to recognize the importance of that which is to come. Then the main topic – “live as citizens of heaven, conducting ourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ.” We spent all of last week on those words, so what I want you to see today is where Paul goes next: he tells us how to do that. He answers for us the question, “what does it mean to live as a citizen of heaven?”, by listing three specific ways we are commanded to do that, which you can see in the outline. Let’s take them one by one.
How do we live as citizens of heaven? 1. “stand together with one spirit and one purpose”:
It starts with a stand. “The command to stand firm was ‘used to indicate the duty of the soldier in battle, or to describe the taking of a position vis-à-vis that of an adversary’. Like soldiers on a battlefield, they must not yield an inch of ground no matter how hard their adversaries press against them” (Hansen, G. W. (2009). The letter to the Philippians. Pillar New Testament commentary series. Grand Rapids Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing. p. 96. Internal quote attributed to Geoffrion, The rhetorical purpose and military character of Philippians.). We have our first military-type word and idea. Living as a citizen of heaven means we take a stand for something and we determine that we shall not be moved, and we stake our very lives on that.
Now, we are in no way alone in this, we “stand together with one spirit and one purpose”. What on earth is powerful enough to bring people together into true unity – people from different cultures and languages, rich and poor, highly skilled and handicapped, broken and whole, old and young – what can bridge all this great diversity? What is powerful enough to overcome any differences, disagreements, or competing perspectives? How about the “Good News about Christ”. I believe virtually every division in the church, and even in our own church, has either been directly caused by or at least made significantly worse by something else becoming more important than the “Good News about Christ”. This is the “one purpose” Paul talks about, for which we stand firm.
That might sound utopian, unrealistic, and out of reach. Some of you might even be thinking “yah, right, not in this lifetime…”. So let’s get the words in the middle: “with one spirit”. Now there is an academic argument about whether Paul means “spirit” (lowercase “s”, referring to our human “spirit” or heart) which then becomes (in the phrase) the emotional connection we all have to one another and the purpose; OR, that Paul means “Spirit” (capital “s”, referring then to the Holy Spirit (see TNIV)). Without getting deeply into it, I believe Paul meant the Holy Spirit, and I further believe that the Holy Spirit really can unite us together around one grand purpose: spreading the Good News about Christ.
And this is the first thing it means to live as a citizen of heaven – to be united by the Holy Spirit with one purpose – the same purpose God Himself has, and has entrusted to His people – the “Good News about Christ”. Is that the most important thing to us? It is number one for Paul, we’ve seen that all through Philippians thus far. When it is, everything else falls into perspective, and we start to live “life to the full”.
How do we live as citizens of heaven? 2. “fighting together for the faith”:
This second way of living as citizens in heaven continues the military language, “fighting together for the faith.” Again we note the unity and together-ness of the phrase, and again Paul brings us right back to the Gospel “for the faith which is the Good News”. How do we hear this word, “fighting together for…” here in our culture as Canadians in 2010? We don’t like to fight, we prefer peace and peace-making, many of us in our personal lives avoid conflict as much as possible, and we avoid people who don’t avoid conflict lest we even observe it. Now we are ok with self-defense, and maybe with fighting to protect the innocent, but most of us I think have a tough time imagining being aggressive with the Gospel – it seems incongruent with the message.
So help me out… what does this second phrase tell us about what it means to be a citizen of heaven? Thoughts??
I’ll tell you how I understand it: we must be united (and empowered by the Holy Spirit) in the purpose of spreading the “Good News”, and indeed we must be confrontational about it. BUT, our confrontation is NOT with people who do not yet know (I mean experientially here, not intellectually), it is (perhaps) with other Christians who are not united in this main purpose and are focused on minutia, but more importantly our confrontation is “against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6:12). What I’m saying is that maybe, just maybe, in our intention and activity in taking the Good News about Christ to people, we had better be “fighting together” on our knees in prayer.
Now this is one of those things that is unpleasant to speak because I must first preach it to myself. I don’t do enough of that – I don’t bathe my ministry opportunities in prayer nearly enough. So I could feel all guilty and lousy and like I’m a bad Christian and “no wonder my ministry isn’t more impactful”, and likely all that would do is take me further from the battle. Or I could dream about changing who I am, seek a different set of spiritual gifts from the ones I have, take courses and read books on prayer, and that could also turn me inward and again further from the battle. Now there might be some good and temporary purpose in both of those, and absolutely I need to pray more. But a third comes to mind: to send out a plea to those of you who do have gifts of intercessory prayer to join “together”, visibly, actively, persistently, and use your gifts alongside mine and alongside others as we “fight together for the faith”.
Maybe that is what it means to “live as citizens of heaven, conducting ourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News” – that we each, everyone of us, rise up and use the gifts and resources God has given us in unity, “fighting together for the faith”.
How do we live as citizens of heaven? 3. “Don’t be intimidated in any way…”:
Paul’s third way to live as a citizen of heaven is, to paraphrase, not let anything (including enemies) get in the way of our one purpose. And again we have a term with military overtones – the word our translation makes “intimidated” was a Greek word that was often used of horses in battle that get spooked by something and stampede away – they get scared so they turn and run. Paul says, “don’t do that…”. He is saying it doesn’t matter what else we might face, even if our enemies make progress against us and we end up suffering, that Paul says is “the privilege”.
There is lots more here, and lots we could say about what it means to suffer for Jesus, and what a privilege that would be, but you know what I honestly think? Most of us really don’t have a clue, here in our culture. Some of you might, from your past, and maybe you actually have suffered because you took a public and noticeable stance that Jesus is your Lord and that created some real suffering. But I don’t think most of us can really relate. And our lack of experience creates a fear of suffering which sometimes then keeps us from engaging at all, which leaves us not participating in any of the things Paul has just finished describing as those which constitute “living as citizens of heaven, conducting ourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ.” So I’m going to recommend instead that we start with engagement, and IF we end up facing some opposition and feeling intimidated – if we see each other start to get “spooked” like a horse might, we’ll come back and explore this further.
For now, let’s just take the third statement about how to live as a citizen of heaven in its simplest form, as commanding us to not allow any enemy, any real or perceived threat of suffering or rejection or ridicule or anything else, intimidate us off of the field of engagement.
Conclusion:
So let’s go back to our list of what we thought at the beginning about what it meant to live as a citizen of heaven, and how we thought we could conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News, and see how it compares to Paul’s three. Similarities? Differences of emphasis??
What is the take-away this morning? Maybe it is this: there is, I think, a huge difference in what it means to be a citizen of a nation at peace and to be a citizen of a nation deeply engaged in a ferocious battle. Those of you who lived through especially World War 2 understand this in a far deeper way than I could, and those of you who have served in the military also have a far deeper understanding of this than I do.
So why do we tend to think or expect that our experience as “citizens of heaven” is as citizens of a Kingdom that is at peace with the other kingdoms around it? There is peace, and there will be peace, but the peace that is promised now as citizens of heaven is not peace with the world around us, it is peace with the God who made us and who rules the One Kingdom that will be victorious, and the One Kingdom worth living in, where we can experience the many good gifts of God. It is peace with our own betrayals, as we experience grace and forgiveness. And it is peace in our relationships with other people in the Kingdom as we set aside our differences and forgive our sins against one another because of our over-arching commitment to the Kingdom of God.
But there is another kingdom, which we are called to fight. And this kingdom has a lot of prisoners that need to be rescued, a lot people trapped in darkness, a lot of lies screaming that they aren’t valuable, they aren’t loveable, they aren’t significant, they only exist to consume temporary pleasures.
And here is what this whole section, this whole chapter, this whole book of Philippians is actually about: Good News about Christ – that Jesus came to set the prisoner free, Jesus came as the light of the world for those walking in darkness, Jesus “the way, the truth, and the life” that tears down lies and points people to a truth that will set them free.
Jesus did it, but He calls us to announce and to demonstrate and to exist as a visible witness and an alternative, attractive, better Kingdom. Our part – “standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith… Don’t be intimidated in any way by your enemies.” This is what it means to “live as citizens of heaven, conducting ourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ.”
