Philippians Chapter Two

Name: Philippians Chapter Two
Uploaded: 2025-09-17T11:36:06+00:00
Duration: 44 min 22 s
Channel: Chartridge Mission Church

Chartridge Mission Church

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Harry Smith returns to Chartridge Mission Church to bring us chapter two of our study of the book of Philippians. Written by the imprisoned apostle Paul, Philippians tells the story of the suffering of Christians and the juxtaposition of the joy that comes from being children of God, as well as the glorious future awaiting them. Let's learn the Bible together as Harry Smith teaches from chapter two of Philippians.

Philippians Playlist:

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Chartridge Mission Church, a beacon of faith, was founded in 1844 and remains in the village of Chartridge, just outside Chesham, in the picturesque Chiltern Hills of Buckinghamshire, England, UK.

We are a warm and welcoming fellowship and would be delighted to have you visit us in person. Join us for our Sunday service at 6 pm, followed by refreshments.

Our Church is fully accessible, with wheelchair ramps and an accessible toilet, ensuring everyone can participate in our services.

Chartridge Mission Church, Chapel Lane, Chartridge, Chesham, Buckinghamshire, HP5 2TH

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Recorded on Sunday, 14th September 2025.

Join us for our Sunday service at 6 pm.

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00:00I will proclaim the glory of the risen Lord, who once was saved, to reconcile man to God.

00:22Forever you will be, the Lamb upon the stars, my glory will be, and I will worship you alone.

00:44Well, welcome to those, wherever you are in the world, who are not able to see me tonight, as we're not videoed, but can hear.

00:55Philippians chapter 2.

00:57So, if there's any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord, and of one mind.

01:12Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

01:20Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

01:26Have this mind among you, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

01:37but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

01:51Therefore, God has highly exalted him, and bestowed on him the name that's above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

02:05And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

02:11Therefore, my beloved, as you've always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and tremble.

02:24For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.

02:30Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God, without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,

02:44holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labour in vain.

02:53Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.

03:01Likewise, you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

03:06I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you.

03:13For I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare, for they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

03:24But you know Timothy's proven worth.

03:27How as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.

03:31I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me.

03:36And I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also.

03:41I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier and your messenger and minister to my need.

03:52For he's been longing for you and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.

03:58Indeed, he was ill near to death.

04:01But God had mercy on him and not only on him, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.

04:09I am no more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious.

04:17So receive him in the Lord with all joy and honest such men.

04:22For he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.

04:30We're going through Philippians, and I've been given Philippians chapter 2.

04:36It was only a few years ago that in a weekly Zoom Bible teaching group that I do, I'm told I spent nearly two years going through Philippians.

04:46Because there's so much in this rich book.

04:49Four chapters, but often called the epistle the letter of joy.

04:54Paul had a particular love for the Philippians, the first church, of course, that he founded in Europe, where the Lord, in a vision, shut the other doors and sent him west over to Philippi.

05:11And these brothers and sisters, like all Christians at the time in the first century, were undergoing persecution and trouble.

05:21This last week, just in the last few days, the word's gone out around the world.

05:25And wherever you are, you will have seen and heard about Charlie Kirk in the States.

05:32And what a lot of the world's media has failed to say is that he was a Christian and that his mission was amongst largely students in America

05:43and with offshoots in other countries, including this country, to get the gospel out and to get young people thinking biblically and on biblical principles.

05:55And of course, the world hates that.

05:57And he's had lots of opposition.

06:00And I guess he's a modern martyr for the faith.

06:04But as we know, Paul was in a similar situation.

06:07Paul was in prison, in house arrest, the two years he spent in Rome, on account of the gospel.

06:13But Paul, as in chapter one, had said that was for good.

06:17It gave him a much wider ministry into Caesar's palace.

06:23And therefore, he got the gospel to a place he wouldn't have done.

06:28And our prayer is that during the coming days, the Lord will use the testimony of his wife and those who support that they might be bold to stand

06:40and that the world will hear that this guy was not just an extremist, was not just a hater of women and a hater of the the atheistic leftish propaganda

06:55that so many of our young people in society now are indoctrinated with.

07:00But the gospel still has its power.

07:04It's still effective.

07:05So pray there.

07:07I'd ask you as well, wherever you are around the world, you don't know Andy, you've never seen him.

07:12Andy normally does the videoing.

07:15He sends out these messages on seven platforms, I understand, around the world.

07:21And many, many, hundreds, it might be thousands of folk who feedback are hearing and receiving.

07:28But Andy is not a well man.

07:31Andy struggles.

07:32And he wasn't here last week.

07:33He's not here this week.

07:34I'd ask you, wherever you are, remember the name Andy Burton and pray for him and pray for this little fellowship,

07:43that the Lord will build it up and strengthen it and that the message, the faithful preaching and teaching and stand taken here for many years will continue.

07:52In chapter two, Paul starts off with the subject of unity, unity, which, of course, has been the big problem in that down through the church age,

08:03Satan, one of his main weapons is to cause fallouts between believers.

08:10Non-Christians probably say, why is the church so scattered and splintered?

08:13Why do Christians, churches, all fight each other?

08:16Why are there so many different denominations?

08:19But even apart from that, within churches, how many churches have split over the colour of the carpet?

08:27The kind of hymns we sing.

08:29Secondly, trivial issues.

08:31The devil gets in every which way he can.

08:34And Paul here starts off by saying, make my, complete my joy, have the same mind, have the same love, being in full accord of one mind.

08:49And how do you do that?

08:50By not having selfish ambition or conceit.

08:55Recognising we're all bond slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ.

09:00He is the head of the church.

09:03It was pride that was the first sin in heaven, of course, that Lucifer was thrown out because of his rebellion.

09:10When he took roughly a third of the angels, whom we now know as the demons, were expelled from heaven because he wanted to be like God.

09:19He did not.

09:20He forgot he was a creature.

09:21And instead of worshipping God, he came in with that lie.

09:27Our first parents, Adam and Eve, the deception was, you can be like God, knowing good and evil.

09:32You don't need to worship God.

09:34It's the same old lie.

09:36And he does this.

09:37He comes in with pride.

09:39We're all vulnerable.

09:42We all have to watch ourselves.

09:44And Paul recognised this.

09:45And he says here to these early Christians, they were suffering.

09:50They were under pressure and persecution.

09:54It's so easy when things are hard.

09:57It's so easy to take it out, to vent your spleen, to take it out on other people.

10:03And you usually do it on the nearest and dearest and those you love.

10:07And Satan loves to do that in fellowships.

10:10But the world's looking.

10:12Didn't Jesus give a new commandment?

10:14What was it?

10:17Simple in concept.

10:19Difficult in practice.

10:22Love one another.

10:23As I have loved you.

10:27We find it so difficult in practice.

10:29We so often sing about love.

10:32And loving one another.

10:33Bind us together in choruses and hymns like that.

10:36But do we really make every effort?

10:38Paul is saying here, you've got to work at it.

10:42Not in your own strength, in the strength of the Lord.

10:45But it is major.

10:46It is important.

10:49Satan gets so much publicity.

10:53And so many people rejecting Christianity, rejecting the church,

10:58because they perceive it to be just a group of people who fight and squabble,

11:05not showing the love of God in Christ.

11:10No, we're not to look to our own interests, to the interests of others.

11:14And what are those interests that we seek to build up and edify one another?

11:20We've all had different gifts.

11:24Two principal gifts, categories of gifts in the New Testament.

11:28Speaking gifts and serving gifts.

11:33Wherever we are, whatever we do, God's equipped us.

11:37God's called us.

11:39God will use us if we submit to him.

11:41In humility, recognising, recognising that as Paul did, we're all bond slaves.

11:49We all owe our salvation.

11:51We owe everything we have to the Lord Jesus Christ.

11:55And so Paul starts off by saying that.

11:58And then he goes on and he says, and this is an imperative, it's a command.

12:02Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

12:06And then he goes into this, what's often thought by theologians to be an early hymn of praise,

12:13which speaks about the humiliation and subsequent exaltation of the Lord Jesus.

12:22These are familiar words to many of us.

12:25And it's very easy, because they're familiar, to gloss over them,

12:29to not actually consider them and meditate on them and pray them through.

12:33What's the mind we're to have?

12:34What was his mind?

12:38That back before time and eternity past, in what's known as the, among theologians,

12:44as the covenant of redemption, that God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit planned.

12:51In fact, it was God who planned the salvation of his people.

12:56And he sent the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord Jesus Christ in obedience submitted.

13:05He was the second person of that triunity that is the Godhead.

13:11We cannot understand that.

13:12Don't try and rationalize that.

13:13We can't understand how one plus one plus one equals one, one God, but three persons.

13:22And working together that triunity, that mystery, which is revealed by God's Holy Spirit to believers.

13:33And here we see the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was very God.

13:38The one who was in the beginning with God.

13:41The one by whom and through whom all things were made.

13:44Without him, nothing was made that was made.

13:49Paul, in Colossians chapter 1, picks this up again.

13:52God, that the Lord Jesus Christ, as being very God, the creator and sustainer of all things,

13:58and all things are unto him.

14:01The writer to the Hebrews, again, picks it up in the beginning.

14:05He says that he was God, the Son, the exact image of God.

14:14And here Paul does it now.

14:16And he says that's where he came from.

14:18He came from the highest place that there is.

14:21I nearly said in the universe.

14:23But, of course, it's beyond the universe.

14:24The universe was created by him.

14:27He was in the highest place.

14:30Co-equal with God.

14:31What do we find here?

14:33We find, though he was in the form of God, the word there is the word morphe.

14:39And that speaks about the central essence of who he was.

14:43He was really God.

14:45Absolutely God.

14:48He never ceased to be God.

14:52I love to think of the angels at Christmas.

14:55When the angel appeared to those shepherds, again, to the loneliest people, the outcasts,

15:01outside, looking after the sheep on a night.

15:05And they appeared.

15:06Unto you is born what?

15:09A child, a baby, in Bethlehem, in the city of David.

15:14But what?

15:15Born a saviour.

15:17Who was Christ the Lord?

15:19Who will be Christ the Lord?

15:20Who is Christ the Lord?

15:23We need to remember that he voluntarily veiled his glory.

15:30Veiled in flesh, the Godhead sea, wrote Wesley in my favourite Christmas, not carol.

15:35Carols are all about parties and drunkenness and having a good time.

15:38No.

15:39Christmas hymns.

15:40I don't know why we don't say Christmas, Easter carols.

15:43We say Easter hymns.

15:44Why do we say Christmas carols?

15:46They're Christmas hymns.

15:47Veiled in flesh, the Godhead sea.

15:50Hail the incarnate deity.

15:52Pleased as man with man to dwell.

15:55Jesus, our God with us.

15:58Emmanuel.

15:59That's what Emmanuel means.

16:01No.

16:02He humbled himself, though.

16:04He humbled himself.

16:05Although he was very God, he didn't count that equality that he had with the Father and the Spirit within Godhead.

16:14Something to hang on to, to hold on to.

16:17He voluntarily came to earth.

16:21And although he was in the very form of God, he emptied himself.

16:27Theologians speak about the kenosis of Christ.

16:31This self-enchantment, it wasn't taken from him.

16:34As one hymn writer said, he laid aside his majesty.

16:39It was veiled.

16:40It was hidden.

16:41But it was always there.

16:43And when he came into this world, he emptied himself by taking the form of a, not a servant.

16:51Most of our English translations do lots.

16:54It's bond slave.

16:55In the Roman Empire, there are levels of slavery.

16:59And the bond slave was the lowest slave.

17:01The bond slave was the slave who, dusty desert conditions, visitors would come, open sandals.

17:09Their feet would be smelly and dirty and dusty.

17:13And remember in John 13, what did the Lord Jesus do?

17:17He took off his outer garment.

17:21He girded himself with a towel.

17:23And he washed the disciples' feet.

17:27And told them that if he, their Lord and Master, was prepared to do that, it was a symbolic outpouring or showing demonstration of what was going to happen.

17:37And what had happened anyway, I was going to happen supremely at the cross.

17:43But he emptied himself.

17:44He took the form of a, of a bond slave.

17:48Word there, schema is the word we get schema or schematic from.

17:51Again, it's form.

17:53Our English version here says form.

17:55But if Morphe, if his being equality with God was the very essence of him, you see him as a man.

18:03He started off as a fetus.

18:05He was born as a baby.

18:08He became a toddler.

18:10He became a young man.

18:12He became, I guess he still was a young man at the age of 30.

18:18At the age of 33.

18:20But, like each of us, I was each of those.

18:25I was once a young man.

18:27I guess I was once a middle-aged man.

18:29But, well, we won't go any further.

18:32But you get the point.

18:34I'm a man.

18:36You ladies are ladies.

18:38But you've gone from being babies right through to whatever age you're at now.

18:45And so you've got the Lord Jesus here became a real man.

18:49He went through that same process.

18:52But he did it also as the lowest of the low, as a bond slave.

18:58And it was self-emptying, self-kenosis.

19:02And because he was born in the likeness of men.

19:07The virgin birth has long been attacked by the evil one.

19:11And folk outside the church, unbelievers, will always say we don't believe that.

19:16But the Bible is absolutely clear.

19:21Joseph was not the human father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

19:26The Holy Spirit was, and the scriptures beginning of Matthew in particular, makes this absolutely clear.

19:35That which is born of you, conceived of you, is of the Holy Ghost.

19:39His father was God.

19:42The Holy Spirit.

19:43But he needed to have a human mother.

19:46So that he could be truly still God.

19:50But truly man as well.

19:52He needed to be God.

19:53He needed to be sinless.

19:55He needed to be perfect.

19:56To be able to satisfy God's justice.

20:00To be able to pay the penalty as our substitute.

20:03The substitute of all those who trust him.

20:05To be able to be our sin-bearer.

20:09He had to be a man.

20:11He had to be human.

20:13But he had to be God.

20:15To have no sin of his own.

20:17If he'd had a human father, he would have been born, as we all are.

20:21With a sinful, with a fallen nature.

20:24Because, of course, we don't become sinners when we commit our first sin.

20:29We sin because we are sinners.

20:34And the Lord Jesus had to be sinless.

20:39Undefined.

20:42The hymn writer says,

20:43Oh, make me understand it.

20:44Help me to take it in.

20:45What it meant for thee, the sinless one.

20:49To bear away my sin.

20:52And Paul writing in to the Corinthians.

20:55In 2 Corinthians.

20:56I love this verse at the end of chapter 5.

21:00It's one of those that says it's in a nutshell.

21:04That for our sake, God, he made him, the Lord Jesus,

21:12in the translations to make out, as it says to be,

21:14but in the original, it's made him sin.

21:17God saw him as a sinner.

21:20Bearing the sin of all his people.

21:23The great exchange, the great substitution.

21:25Why?

21:25And he who knew no sin.

21:29So that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

21:35That's the marvel of the atonement.

21:37A little later, when we meet around the Lord's table,

21:39that's what we're remembering.

21:41And that's why the Lord Jesus instituted this little piece.

21:44Nothing fancy about it.

21:46Nothing elaborate about it.

21:47The bread and the wine, as we meet, have no major essence in themselves.

21:54They're still bread.

21:54It's still wine or grape juice.

21:56But they remind us, because Jesus said, why do you do it?

22:02Because we forget.

22:04We need reminding of the great cost of our redemption.

22:07What it cost God the Father to spare his son, to afflict him on our behalf,

22:15to lay our sins on him, for him to face the Father's wrath against him,

22:21because a holy God has to burn against sin, and sin has to be dealt with.

22:26And it was dealt with in the person of his dear son.

22:32And so Paul goes on to say,

22:34he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.

22:38Even death on a cross.

22:41Why was that significant?

22:43Because the Jews, for the Jews, and we read in the Old Testament,

22:47cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.

22:52The Romans worked on what the Phoenicians had originally invented.

22:57Crucifixion.

22:59They made it, they turned it into crucifixion, as we understand it.

23:04It was designed to be absolute humiliation.

23:09You were flogged, you were stripped naked,

23:11and you were left and left to deliberately suffer.

23:14Some poor wretches lived for days, lived.

23:17That suggests that they were living.

23:20Survived, suffered for days before they finally died.

23:24And it became a spectacle.

23:27And here you've got the Lord of glory.

23:30No Roman citizen would be crucified.

23:33It was reserved for runaway slaves.

23:36It was reserved for insurrectionists.

23:39Those who rebelled against the Roman state and tried to overthrow Roman rule.

23:44Here you've got the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, the King of glory, being subjected and obedient to even that death.

23:55But then, therefore, when there's a therefore in scripture, always remember, what's it there for?

24:05Look at what's gone before.

24:06And you know that what's coming is the outworking of it.

24:11Therefore, God, on the basis of that, God accepted it.

24:16God accepted his sacrifice in obedience to his will.

24:20Our love, and I remember singing as a young lad, oh, the love that drew salvation's plan.

24:25Oh, the grace that brought it down to man.

24:27Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span at Calvin.

24:31We often think, and Christians today, wherever you are in the world, don't just think salvation was the Lord Jesus, that it was just the Lord Jesus who suffered.

24:42It was God the Father who's referred to.

24:44Titus, for example, refers to God our Savior.

24:46It was God the Father who planned our salvation.

24:51It was God the Son, the Lord Jesus, who accomplished it.

24:55And it's God the Spirit who applies it through the preaching of God's word, through opening our eyes, giving life and regeneration, new life to those dead in trespasses and sins.

25:09And it's a holy God the Spirit who edifies and builds up and sanctifies us.

25:14The whole Godhead saves and is involved in our salvation.

25:21And so here we find what's God the Father done?

25:25Highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that's above every name.

25:30Now, some people seem to think that's the name Jesus.

25:33But Jesus was a common name.

25:36That's not the name Jesus.

25:37Jesus means Savior, God saves.

25:40Matthew 1, 21.

25:42You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.

25:47The name is Lord, Kurios, absolute, supreme, Lord of all.

25:54The one before whom everyone is going to appear.

26:00And this is what he's done.

26:02There's a day coming when this fallen world, this sad world of sickness, of pain, of greed, of suffering, of sickness, of death.

26:31We'll be abolished.

26:33The Lord Jesus is going to come.

26:35He's not going to come as a suffering bondsman.

26:39He's coming as judge.

26:41He's coming as King of kings and Lord of lords.

26:43And every person who has been born and lived on this planet is going to be resurrected and stand before him.

26:53The Lord Jesus said himself that in that day that all judgment had been given to him.

26:58And he said in that day the angels are going to sort out the believers on the night, those who have rejected him on the night.

27:07And if you've rejected him in this world, he is going to reject you then to the eternal punishment.

27:14Don't be taken and I say wherever you are in the world, there's so much false doctrine going around that saying, well, because God's a God of love, surely he can't condemn anybody to hell.

27:26Surely he can't cause eternal pain and suffering.

27:30It was the Lord Jesus himself who spoke about hell more than anybody else in graphic terms.

27:35And his warnings were largely to professing believers, the wider group of disciples who were following him around and listening to his teaching.

27:46Make sure.

27:48That you believe all of God's word and believe all that the Lord Jesus says about this.

27:55Those who tell you that it's just the case of annihilation.

27:59If it's a case of annihilation, why did God send his son?

28:04Why did the son of God subject himself voluntarily to the pain and suffering of just coming into this fallen world?

28:14And because the word tells us God can't is of pure eyes even to look on sin.

28:20Yet God, the son, whilst the one came amongst him, he was lied about.

28:26He was tortured.

28:27He suffered the most agonizing death that man invented or thought of at that time.

28:34Just if people were going to be annihilated.

28:38No.

28:38To save us from the judgment, the just condemnation of a holy God.

28:43And every tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and every knee is going to bow.

28:51There are two groups.

28:52Those who have bowed their heads, bowed their knees in repentance, accepted, recognised what God says and confessed their sin.

29:05And they're in need of a saviour and seen that that need, that saviour is only Christ.

29:11That there's salvation in no other name.

29:13There's no other name given under heaven amongst men whereby we must be saved but the name Christ Jesus.

29:18Those who have accepted, those who trust and are seeking to live for the Lord Jesus today, will confess.

29:29The word confess means agree with.

29:32We'll agree with what he says.

29:35Are you looking forward to the day that you see the Lord Jesus?

29:40Whether it's because you go through human death, physical death before that, and immediately you're swept into his presence.

29:51Or if we're still alive when he returns, then we'll be caught up to be with him.

29:58Now, the common thing though is everybody's going to have a new resurrection body.

30:05A body suited for glory or a body suited for eternal pain, regret, suffering, and outer darkness.

30:14What's hell being separated from the life of God?

30:18When the Lord Jesus was crucified in the three hours of darkness, what did he cry out?

30:24My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

30:28To be forsaken by God and the life of God utterly is hell.

30:37And the Lord Jesus here is going to be the judge.

30:43Then we've got another therefore.

30:45So he says, therefore, my beloved, you've always obeyed, not only in my presence, but it's much more in absence.

30:50Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

30:53I've got time to go into it.

30:55This is misunderstood so much.

30:57This is one of those great paradoxes of scripture.

31:02We're to work out our salvation.

31:04That doesn't mean we're to save ourselves by good works.

31:08It means, better probably, live out your salvation.

31:12Live as those who are children of God.

31:15Those who belong to the Lord Jesus.

31:17Those for whom he is your Lord and Master and King.

31:21And his word, his rule, is our rule of life.

31:25But then Paul goes on to say, do it with fear and trembling.

31:31Not the kind of fear of absolute terror and cringing.

31:35If I don't get this right, he's going to cut me off.

31:37I'm going to lose my salvation.

31:39But with irreverent fear, recognizing who he is, that he is the Lord of glory and that we are his creatures.

31:50His children, God's children, saved by grace.

31:53But notice, it's God who's working in us, both to will and to do for his pleasure.

32:01He gives us the will.

32:02He gives us the desire to love, to serve, to obey the Lord.

32:08And he works his will out through his people.

32:11It sounds like two contradictions.

32:15The easiest way to think of it is like a pair of parallel railway lines.

32:19As long as they stay, whichever gauge it is you're on, as long as those lines stay exactly parallel, the train doesn't come to grief.

32:28But try and take them apart.

32:31And what happens?

32:33You get a train crash.

32:34Try and put them together.

32:37And it's a train crash.

32:39Deuteronomy 29 tells us we're not God.

32:43We can't know everything.

32:44We can only know what he's revealed.

32:46The secret things belong to God.

32:48Our job is to go to the things he's revealed.

32:50The sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man has been argued about in terms of salvation for years.

32:57Yes, God chooses, God elects, God predestinates.

33:00That's clearly taught in Scripture.

33:02We're told on more than one occasion in Revelation that our names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life from before the foundation of the world.

33:11Yet we are all responsible and accountable.

33:13We're responsible to believe the gospel.

33:16We're responsible to repent.

33:18We're responsible to live for Christ.

33:21But it's God giving us the power and enabling to do that by his Spirit.

33:25Repentance and faith are gifts of God.

33:29That should make us, as we sang in our opening hymn, praise my soul, the King of Heaven.

33:35When we recognize the only thing we bring to the cross is our sin.

33:42That salvation is, as Jonah had to learn, of the Lord.

33:47So Paul says, do it in tension.

33:51Work out, recognizing that God is working his will in you and seek that will.

33:56Seek to please him.

33:57Don't grumble.

33:58He's back to now, verse 14.

34:01He's back to where he started on unity.

34:03Don't grumble.

34:05Be blameless, be innocent, children of God, without blemish.

34:08The world is watching you.

34:11You're in the middle of a crooked and twisted generation.

34:14You're to shine as lights in the world, says Paul.

34:18I say, says Paul, because remember it's God, the Holy Spirit, speaking through Paul.

34:23Echoing what the Lord Jesus himself said.

34:25You are the light of the world.

34:27Let your light so shine that men see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

34:33How many people are put off, put off the church, put off Christianity, when they see professing believers behaving as saints on a Sunday when they're in church and behaving just like, in some cases, worse than those who don't profess faith during the evening.

34:52The world's watching us.

34:55They're looking through authenticity.

34:58We are commanded to let our light shine.

35:00Holding fast to the word of life.

35:02What's the word of life?

35:04Holding fast to the scriptures.

35:06The devil hates this book.

35:09There are many, sadly, in churches who don't know, who don't see the merit of it, who will, and many theologians, and tragically, many respected Christian, I say, in inverted commas, leaders.

35:22Who have led many astray by teaching false things, by denying certain truths of scripture, fundamental truths.

35:30No, we're to hold fast in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.

35:37So that in the day of Christ, I may be proud, I did not run in vain or labor in vain.

35:41Paul was the agent.

35:43Paul didn't convert anybody in Philip.

35:46You can't convert anybody.

35:48I can't.

35:48If God wanted 100% conversions, he could have sent angels to do it.

35:54They'd do it absolutely perfectly.

35:57But he's chosen to use weak human vessels.

36:00Clay pots, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4.

36:03Why?

36:04So that all the glory can be this.

36:07So it can be seen it's his working.

36:08When you witness to somebody, you do not know a group, you do not know who's going to, God's going to save, whose ears he's going to give spiritual ears to, whose heart he's going to work in, and who's going to be converted.

36:22That's his responsibility.

36:25Our responsibility is to scatter the seed and to do it.

36:30And so Paul says, but it gives me joy.

36:33Reminds me of the apostle John in his little second and third epistles, where he said, I rejoice to hear my children.

36:39That's my spiritual children.

36:41They're walking in the truth.

36:44They're staying, holding fast to the word of God.

36:47They're being consistent.

36:49Paul was the same.

36:51Despite his suffering, he was in prison now.

36:53He was beaten.

36:54Many flogged.

36:55We think beaten.

36:55We forget.

36:56Beaten, scourging.

36:58Many people who have beaten, scourged, didn't survive.

37:02He could say, I bear in my body the marks of Christ Jesus.

37:05He knew what it was to suffer for the Lord, but what kept him going?

37:10He fixed his eyes on Jesus.

37:12He said, I consider the suffering of this present age is not worthy to be considered.

37:182 Corinthians 4, 17, I believe it is.

37:20He says, this present light affliction is not right.

37:25Present light affliction, Paul.

37:27Go to 2 Corinthians 11 and just see a summary, a short summary of what he suffered for the Lord.

37:33But you see, we don't look at these things around that we see in him.

37:37We fix our eyes on that eternal hope we have in Christ.

37:40So he says, I'm going to be poured out as a drink offering.

37:44I'm right.

37:45So even if I'm, I suffer, even if I die.

37:48And of course, he was martyred eventually.

37:50He said, I'm glad and rejoice with you all.

37:53Likewise, you should be glad and rejoice with you.

37:57You see, we rejoice with those who rejoice.

38:00We suffer with those who suffer.

38:02Why?

38:03Because we're all members of one body, the body of Christ, worldwide body of Christ.

38:08Wherever you are, if you're in a country where you're suffering because of the gospel,

38:12if you're in a country where you're being persecuted, where to carry a Bible,

38:17to name the name of Christ can mean intense suffering or even martyrdom.

38:23Look up.

38:24Rejoice.

38:26Rejoice.

38:27Rejoice.

38:27You belong to the Lord.

38:28And this life is nothing.

38:32It's just like a vapour, says James, compared with eternity.

38:37And then, briefly, at times, going or gone.

38:41He refers then to Timothy and refers to Epaphroditus.

38:45I like this way he says about Timothy.

38:47He says, I want to send him to you because there's no one like him who's genuinely concerned for your welfare.

38:56Can that be said about you, brothers and sisters?

38:58That you're genuinely concerned about the spiritual welfare of others, of your brothers and sisters.

39:06You see, Paul's already said no room for pride.

39:09You've got to have a humble spirit.

39:11You've got to count others more worthy than you are.

39:16We're to endeavour to do everything, to edify, edifice, build up other believers.

39:23To work for them and to live for them.

39:28So, Paul says here, Timothy's got that.

39:31He's not just concerned or appearing to be concerned by people watching.

39:35He's genuinely concerned and he's got proven worth.

39:41Paul took him on.

39:44Paul mentored him.

39:46And we know from the two epistles he wrote at the end, where he was handing on the baton at the end of his life,

39:53to Timothy, who was going to first of all be the leader of the church in Ephesus and carry on.

39:59Yes, says Paul.

40:01I've proved him.

40:02He's proved to be a faithful learner, a pupil of mine.

40:06And I'm going to send him to you so that he can bless you.

40:11And then Epaphroditus.

40:13Not much said about Epaphroditus.

40:15It seems that Philippians sent Epaphroditus down to Rome when Paul was in prison.

40:21And notice briefly what he says about you.

40:23He says he's your messenger.

40:25He says he's a minister to my need.

40:28He's been longing for you all.

40:30He's been distressed because you heard he was ill.

40:33Epaphroditus was ill.

40:35It knocks on the head, doesn't it?

40:38The head.

40:39The false prosperity gospel.

40:41Health, wealth, prosperity.

40:43That says if you're a true believer, if you have enough faith, you won't get sick.

40:47You won't suffer.

40:49You won't have the other problems that you have in this room.

40:53My Bible tells me the opposite.

40:55And the Apostle Paul here says Epaphroditus, you heard he was sick almost to death.

41:02But God had mercy on him.

41:04And not only on him, but me also.

41:06You see, Paul's genuine concern for him, not for himself, that Epaphroditus was very ill, was facing possible or probable death, it would seem at the time.

41:16And he said, I was concerned for him.

41:20And I rejoiced in that.

41:22He said, God had mercy so that, and on me also, lest I should have more sorrow.

41:30And the more eager to send him there, why is he more eager?

41:33Because Epaphroditus, we learn more when times are hard.

41:39We learn more when we're thrown on the Lord.

41:44Peter says, of course, in 1 Peter, that the testing of your faith, suffering tests your faith.

41:49It shows how genuine it is.

41:50We learn more, we grow more in the hard times than we do when everything's easy and we get complacent and we get casual.

42:00That's when we cry out to the Lord.

42:03And so Paul could say, he nearly died for the work of Christ.

42:08He risked his life.

42:09The time's coming.

42:12Already in many countries in the world, there are more martyrs now than at any time previously in Christian history.

42:19The time's coming.

42:20We can see it in the West.

42:21The pressures are coming.

42:23Wait to stand and name the name of Christ.

42:25Like Charlie Kirk could well be a death sentence.

42:30We need to be prepared to go all the way for our Lord.

42:33And to build up and strengthen, especially younger believers, the younger generations, if the Lord tarries, who are going to face, I believe, much more pressures than we do.

42:45Let us hold fast to God's word.

42:47Let us shine bright.

43:03Let us hold fast to God's word.

43:33Let us hold fast to God's word.

44:03Let us hold fast to God's word.

44:05Let us hold fast to God's word.

44:06Let us hold fast to God's word.

44:07Let us hold fast to God's word.

44:08Let us hold fast to God's word.

44:09Let us hold fast to God's word.

44:10Let us hold fast to God's word.

44:11Let us hold fast to God's word.