Putting Truth Into Practice - Philippians 4:9 Series

And remind yourself of how much effort - all the blood sweat and tears you put into learning these principles. Think of all the hours in church, and all the countless hours reading and meditating on Scripture throughout your life. You put forth all that effort for a reason!

Think of the people who have died - all the blood that has been spilled through the ages by missionaries in order to get this message to you. Think of how hard pastors work to study and teach. Think of the work of the scholars – men who spend their entire life studying ancient languages or who go through the arduous effort of learning Greek and Hebrew and Latin and German and French and Spanish and Italian just so they can wade through scholarly theological works written in those languages so they can have a little better understanding when they write a commentary. Think of how much effort has gone into getting these truths to you.

All that just so you would get this message and obey it. Our behavior is so incredibly important to God.

Why is Behavior so Important?

Why? Why is behavior so important? Why does it matter so much to God that human beings act a certain way? He’s running the entire universe – doesn’t he have more important things to do than worry about whether I’m cutting corners on my tax return or thinking some impure thought or being gentle and understanding with my wife? Why do things like that matter so much to God?

The Kingdom of God

To answer that question, it helps to back up and consider how v.9 fits into the whole, big picture of the message of the entire Bible. The Bible is basically the story about the kingdom of God. It begins on page 1 of the Bible which is the first place where we see this idea of ruling over the whole world. It's going to happen through these creatures that God has made in his own image.

But then, these creatures that are supposed to be the ones through whom God reigns, his vice regents, rebel. They are supposed to carry out his reign, but they don't even submit to his reign themselves. Under the influence of the serpent, they establish their own kingdom. So now you have two kingdoms - a human/satanic one, and God's Kingdom.

So how is God going to fix this problem? It starts with a guy named Abraham. God promises to bless the whole world - all the nations, through this man. And the farther you read in the Bible, the more God reveals about how that is going to shake out. It will happen through a human king, like David. You keep reading in the prophets and you find out this king is going to be God himself - the wonderful counselor, everlasting father, prince of peace, Mighty God. And of the increase of his kingdom and of peace there will be no end. All the nations all of humanity will willingly, gladly, joyfully, eagerly bow before his authority.

So along comes Jesus. And here’s how he summarized his entire message:

Luke 4:43 I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God … because that is why I was sent.

And that’s what he trained the 12 to do as well.