A Voluntary Surrender (05/26/25)

There is a strong note of sacrifice to these verses, that activity forming the central image of Paul’s thought here, and no wonder, really.  Here he is in prison, his future uncertain.  It’s not hard to imagine that he might spend a good portion of his time reflecting on those to whom he has ministered these last several decades.  It might surprise us just how thoroughly preoccupied he is with their welfare, but honestly, that’s as it should be.  God’s servant has every cause to be devotedly interested in the welfare of his charges, both past and present.  If we live for God, it ought to be a central concern of ours that our efforts on His behalf have been by His direction and His power, and thus, not matters of vanity and wind.

Reviewing my notes, I see that I spent a fair amount of time on considerations of which sacrifice it was that Paul had in mind here, whether burnt offering, or peace offering, or wave offering.  Perhaps it was less specific than that.  Calvin takes it in a different direction, noting that the particular term Paul has used here in regard to the sacrifice is a term specific to the sacrifices by which a covenant was sealed.  Think of the scene of Abraam receiving God’s covenant, the animals split and laid out along a path through which, traditionally, both parties to the covenant would walk, the blood a seal saying, “Thus may it be done to me if I don’t honor the terms here agreed.”  Is that in view here?  Well, I could accept that faith is evidence of that covenanted relationship, as faith comes of God, not of the will of man.  It is a gift, the promised terms of His covenant with the elect.

This being the case, what is our promise?  What obligation have we undertaken in response?  The answer, given in so many places, is that we have presented ourselves as living sacrifices.  Now, that may blur the image a bit.  If this was the sacrifice that sealed the covenant, then by rights we ought to be looking to Christ as the sacrifice, and His blood the oblation.  “This cup is the covenant of My blood, poured out for you” (Lk 22:20).  Yes, and by it we have been sanctified, made holy.  In that, we have become a people devoted to God.  This isn’t a question of feelings.  This is a question of lifelong separatedness.  We are a people called out.  If we have been called out, we cannot remain in.  If we belong to God, we cannot any longer be preoccupied with worldliness.  This is no call to asceticism.  It doesn’t require the renunciation of all worldly goods.  It doesn’t demand that we no longer find any joy in living, or in the world around us.  After all, God created this place as He created us, and He has wrought wonderfully well.  We ought to find joy in His creation, even though we recognize its fallenness, even though we long for that better city to come.  This is not some hellish waiting room, or at least, it need not be.  It is a foretaste.  And it ought to be the more pleasurable for us who know its active revealing of God our Father.

But even with that, we have set ourselves as living sacrifices.  We can take joy in His Creation, but we live for Him.  Here is that strength by which Paul makes the claim earlier in this letter.  “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Php 1:21).  I am His, wholly His.  I am at His disposal, to do as He sees fit, no more and no less.  And this is the life we are each of us called to live.  Live a life that serves as the seal of the covenant relationship you enjoy with God.  Live out an act of adoration to Him.  Give to Him your first and your best.  But don’t stop with that.  Give Him your all.

This is our calling.  We are in service to our Lord, and if He is our Lord, it is His to command, ours to comply.  We are devoted to Him.  Don’t lose sight of the connection of that term to matters of history.  As Israel came to the Promised Land, there were entire cities declared to be devoted to Him, and the sense was that they would be consumed entire, a sacrifice given unto Him.  This was, in that perspective, a truly violent image.  Devotion to God is, after its fashion, destruction of the thing devoted, at least so far as its value to you is concerned.  There was a reason that the taking of plunder from Ai was so firmly dealt with by God.  Ai was a city devoted.  It was to be a sacrifice wholly consumed by God.  To take, then, of its treasures was to take not from them, but from God.

We do the same when we fail to live as we ought, when we fail to honor God as we ought.  We are taking not from our reputation, but from His glory.  If we live in such a fashion as gives those who meet us cause to blaspheme, we are stealing from God.  Now, let me stress that we are talking just cause to blaspheme, to the degree there can be such a cause.  We’re not talking offense taken because we have in fact been as we should be.  We’re not talking the sort of reviling that comes our way because the darkness in those around us abhors the light that is in us.  We’re talking those lapses of character that beset us in spite of our best efforts, or perhaps more accurately because we haven’t been making much effort.  Living sacrifices:  It strikes me that this is a call to devotion more thorough than that of the burnt offering.  The burnt offering was consumed in a relatively brief moment and it was over.  A living sacrifice is constantly being consumed, always in service, ever on the fire, as it were.  Here, then, whether we see the burnt offering, the wave offering, or the covenant sealing sacrifice, is all call to ‘worship in the full sense.’  I take that phrase, I believe, from the ISBE.

God is to have my first and my best, my all.  This is more than tossing a coin in the plate as it passes.  It’s more than taking care to tithe.  It’s not giving back a portion of what He has provided.  It’s setting the whole at His disposal, and more besides.  This is our call.  Give yourself to the work of God’s kingdom!  That’s not just for the select few who undertake to become pastors.  The work of the Church isn’t something specific to the paid staff.  They cannot bear our portion.  They cannot carry our cross.  And it’s not their job to try.   Too many do.  And we too readily let them give it a go.  Is it any wonder that burnout is so rampant in the clergy?  We keep encouraging them to do what is not theirs to do.  We keep stepping aside from our efforts, seeing how keen they are to work.  And that’s not as it should be.

Now, before I leave this head, I want to look at least briefly at that role Paul assigns himself in this imagery of sacrifice, the role of drink offering.  Somebody or other pointed out that the drink offering was not a thing poured upon the sacrifice as it burned, but rather, poured out around the altar.  I’m not entirely clear.  I don’t expect this meant simply spilling it out on the ground around the altar.  It seems more likely that it was a case of sprinkling it or pouring it on the hot surface of that altar.  In either case, it was a thing wholly consumed in the act, as any offering would be.  And here, Ironside suggests, is an act demarking ‘the voluntary surrender of everything’ joyous.  Wine, after all, was and is a symbol of gladness, at least where it has not been abused.

Does that, then, indicate that we ought to be the sort of dour, grey beings that are so often the caricature of faith, or at least the sort of faith represented by the Puritans who are our forebears?  No.  The direction of these few verses puts paid to any such conclusion.  This is not a call to somber endurance with a stiff upper lip, no.  It is cause to rejoice.  Rejoice!  I am being poured out, my offering accepted.  Rejoice!  You are being poured out.   Rejoice!  For God is doing something glorious here, and we are being granted to be a part of it!  Let not an undue solemnity distract from His glory.  Rejoice!

Obedience as Encouragement (05/27/25-05/29/25)

I remain on the previous topic, that of willing surrender, which is to say, being a living sacrifice.  We have largely lost connection with the idea of sacrifice as it was known to Israel of old, and to so many other cultures in that era.  We have lost connection, for all that, with the necessity of blood-letting in providing meat for the table.  But we lose, as well, the particulars, the nuances of this offering versus that, of the reason for this animal or that quantity.  We just don’t know all that much about the process, for all that it used to be such a common feature of life.  What we have left is the idea that it was at least somewhat costly.  I mean, these weren’t one-off occasions.  Some of these offerings were monthly events.  Every month, a lamb, or an ox was to be taken from your flock.  Every month, a half-gallon or more of wine poured out.  That’s going to add up over time.  Mind you, God had always made provision for those who had not the means for such an expenditure, down to the two rock pigeons that even the poorest individual could go catch and have as offering.  I find myself suddenly curious as to why fish were never part of this system, but they weren’t.

But if you have wondered why Jesus was so upset at the marketplace that had arisen in the outer courts of the temple, it wasn’t just because of the noise, nor was it entirely because these activities had rendered it even less possible for the Gentiles to come worship.  No.  The temple authorities, the priests, had made a profit center of the sacrificial system, and in doing so, they had undone the provision for the poor which God had provided.  I suppose it ought not to surprise, given that the sacrificial system was in part the means of their living by God’s design.  Make a priesthood from imperfect men, and make them dependent upon the offering for their livelihood, with no opportunity for outside work to supplement their income, and perhaps such an outcome was inevitable.  Be that as it may, what was to be a holy offering of one’s best had become instead a usurious system for gain.

This was not an avenue I had thought to go down, but here we are.  And as we are here, best we pause to reflect.  This is not an opportunity to reflect on the faults of ancient Israel, nor even of the Pharisaic system.  It’s not a call to play the judgmental historian.  It was written for our good, who came later, and had less understanding of the events in view.  With that in mind, we do well to take a moment and consider our own parallels.  Are there ways in which we are still managing to undermine God’s provision of holiness so as to profit ourselves?  Our first response may well be no.  We give our tithes.  We perhaps contribute when special collections are taken up for this or that mission of the church.  We maybe give our time to various aspects of church life, serving in worship, or maybe behind the scenes; perhaps supplying meals and care for those less fortunate among us, or those dealing with the crises of life.  But perhaps this is the place to ask how we view the whole matter of Sunday service.  Is it just a job?  I could see how a pastor might well come to such a perspective, though I would hope that if he did, he might seek to be restored to vigor, or else to seek a different vocation. 

Perhaps, as I wrote previously, we have come to view our attendance more as a chore than a gift richly supplied us.  Here is God’s chief chosen means of grace to us, that we can come of a Sunday and be fed from His Word.  We are fed by the sermon.  We are fed by the opportunity to join our voices in song to Him.  We are fed by the sacraments, and by our giving into the work of the Church.  Has it become to us just a habit?  Has it become optional?  Are we tickled with the advent of online streaming of the services, so that we no longer feel the need of actually being present with others?  Are we checking the time to see if the sermon’s running a tad long, too anxious for post-service coffee to attend to what is being said?  Do we have plans for the afternoon that occupy more of our mental landscape than what we are hearing, what we are experiencing together here in the presence of God?  Look.  If I didn’t suffer these very failings myself, I doubt I would find cause to be asking.  But it’s not something to gloss over because everybody does it.  It’s cause to seek God and seek correction, that we may have the full benefit of that which He so richly provides.

We don’t have to bring our best animal to give to pastor as his support.  We don’t even have to tithe.  Nobody will chase you out of the church for not giving.  That’s between you and God, whether you give nothing, give your 10% and not a penny more, or give richly.  Just so you don’t give grudgingly, but give whatever you give as a joyful acknowledgement of God’s provision, and out of a desire to see His work fully provisioned by the means He has given you.  We have observed before how not everybody can just pack up and go out to the field as a missionary, yet we can be part of that work by being the means of provision for those who do.  We are not all of us called to preach, but we can be the means of provision for those who do.  And in so doing, we honor God and His servant alike.  And even this must be seen to be but the minimum effort on our part.  After all, it is little more than payment for services rendered.  And we are called to so much more.

Now, here’s where the sacrificial system has undergone the greatest transformation.  What we do know from our Scriptures is that these sacrifices were a constant need because of sin.  There was constant need for atonement in hopes of staving off the due penalty of our most recent raft of failures.  You know, they love to talk about this island of garbage somewhere out on the ocean, where the currents have collected together all the rubbish humanity has tossed in the waters.  Well, what about the raft of garbage that the currents of life have collected together in our souls, the island of sin?  Something must be done about that!  If there’s a call for environmental activism, far greater is the need to address this inner dumping ground.  Is it a wonder that so many are so messed up, when the means given to address the problem have been downplayed and disregarded?  Junk’s piling up, and there’s nothing being done about it.  Of course it poisons the atmosphere of life.

But look!  All those acts of atonement could achieve very little, if anything.  The person who brought his best lamb and the first of his crops, and the produce of his vineyard to the temple left no better than he came.  He would have to be back again with another lamb, more grain, more wine, because that last offering left him the same sinner he was before.  And so would this one, and so would the next.  And yes, we must acknowledge that our own story remains that we remain sinners though now saints.  Yet, there’s a massive, stunning difference; such a difference as truly sets Christianity apart from all other religions on offer.  Something has been done about our problem.  Something has been done to address that garbage island of sin.  We are no longer in need of this guilty attempt to set things right.  Our debt of sin has been paid.  Jesus paid it all.  We no longer have to try and earn God’s favor by our sacrifices.  Instead, we have opportunity to be thankful, to give from a place of gratitude.  We know His love.  We know His remedy for sin has been richly supplied to us.  The garbage island is still there, but it’s getting smaller rather than larger.  And we have every cause for gratitude to know He has undertaken to take care of it, this looming crisis about which we were powerless to do anything beyond making it worse.

So, yes, it’s a willing surrender to this life of serving Christ, of being a living sacrifice, day in and day out.  It’s not an effort to earn God’s favor because we know His favor is already upon us.  He has richly provided beyond our wildest dreams.  As I commented the other night in prayer, that song, “I Can Only Imagine,” falls short of the reality.  We can’t imagine.  The glories that have been stored up for us as our inheritance in heaven are so far removed from our present experience as to be unimaginable.  Our best imaginations cannot begin to reflect the wonderful reality of an eternity spent in God’s presence.  Just look how words fail the prophets as they seek to describe their visions of heaven.  Look how hard John has to lean into analogies in even trying to describe what he saw.  And we try and make them telling details, people do their best to paint pictures of the scene, but they can’t really, because the scene leaves us not reference points from which to draw our images.

But we have faith, and we have it because that, too, God has richly supplied.  We couldn’t come to it of our own doing.  We can’t maintain it by our own doing.  It is the work of God start to finish, though, as we have seen, He calls us alongside in the work, grants us the opportunity to be an active part of what He is doing.  Such a good Father!  And worthy of our undying love.  And this faith which we hold so dear is not in vain.  It is not an empty and hopeless pursuit.  We shall not come to our end only to find we are most to be pitied, having given ourselves as living sacrifices only to find there is nothing at the end of our road.  No!  Heaven awaits, and the grave is but a nap as we rest in our Savior until that glorious day of His return.  Faith truly does consecrate man to God, as Calvin points out.  It renders us holy and acceptable.  It is the purification of our offering.  And in like fashion, the work of the minister is not in vain, as we see Paul’s concern here in this passage.  Oh!  Let it not be that I have labored in vain! 

We’ve been reading Galatians in our men’s group and there, you can see the agony of concern that Paul experiences on behalf of those he taught of Christ.  I gave you the gospel!  I showed you the truth.  I brought you into His rest.  What are you doing?  Did I waste my time and energy with you?  Are you so ready to run off after a false gospel?  What is wrong with you?  And more critically, how can we together correct that and get you back on course?  But no, ministry is never in vain.  We may not see the fruit of it.  We may think the seed we sow is just rotting in the ground, feeding the birds but doing nothing for the souls of men.  You can read somewhat of Jonathan Edwards’ frustration at being dismissed from the pulpit out in western Massachusetts.  Yet, he knew he had been faithful to preach the gospel.  There would be an accounting in heaven, and those to whom he had ministered would have no alternative but to acknowledge his faithful ministry on their behalf, whether it had in fact been fruitful in them or not.  No, but by their ministry, the faithful minister offers up the sacrifice of the faith of his hearers.  Again, I lean on Calvin for the thought.  What, after all, is the role of the priest in the system of sacrifices?  He doesn’t supply the offering.  He may partake of the offering.  But primarily, his task is to present that offering before God and thereby render the offering holy and acceptable.  No, the minister cannot impart holiness.  That is the Spirit’s doing and His alone.  But the minister is set to minister to God on behalf of God’s people.  And he is set to minister to God’s people from the rich stores of God.

In this work of ministry, the minister must give all to the labor.  Now, I wish to be careful in applying the word must to anything involving our relation to God and His calling, but it is well that one who would minister count the cost first.  This is going to be an all-consuming service you render.  For some of us, that might be a case of full involvement for a brief duration.  I’m not sure that’s as it should be, but it does seem to be the reality of events on the ground.  My depth of engagement in this work of the kingdom when I am overseas is vastly different than what applies at home.  Inasmuch as the nature of such ministry as I am pursuing changes I don’t suppose it’s unreasonable to see such variation.  But inasmuch as all of life is preparation for such ministry and filled with myriad opportunities for such ministry, perhaps I need to rethink this.  Let me soften it ever so slightly, then, in keeping with Matthew Henry’s observation.  Ministry requires our all.

I would suggest it actually requires far more than our all, so far beyond our all that we must lean hard upon our Lord to work in us, to strengthen us, to guide us, to render the work we would do fruitful.  But our all is, if you will, the bare minimum.  Beloved, if we are not giving ourselves fully to the work of the kingdom, what reason do we have to expect that God will be engaged in what we do?  If we give half-hearted effort why should we expect Him to do more?  You may have met with occasions where, in your desire to help a child, a spouse, or a fellow believer, or even just a fellow, you recognize that they’re really not all that engaged with the problem.  They may even be actively resisting the help you offer, or they may simply be ignoring it.  Perhaps you have known times where you were the one resisting and ignoring that help.  It needn’t have been some deep, spiritual issue.  It could be the mundane business of daily life.  Help was offered and you refused it, or you offered help, but your help was dismissed.  Well, then, how long are you going to continue trying to help?  Or how long do you suppose that other is going to continue trying to give you advice?  All that to say, why should you expect God is going to be any different in that regard?

My friend was asking last night whether I thought God might abandon some particular church, some local body, and leave it to wander after its own falsehoods.  In brief, I should have to say yes, He not only might but clearly has in many and sundry cases.  Can we take that to the level of the individual?  Well, on one level yes.  But I would be forced to conclude that where that is the case, said individual was never truly a believer, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.  “They went out from us because they were never truly of us” (1Jn 2:19).  The verdict stands.  “He who began the good work in you is faithful to complete it” (Php 1:6).  That also stands.  “I have called you by name.  You are Mine” (Isa 43:1).  That’s inescapable.  And yet, we see those who we thought to be solid Christians who go fully, and so far as we can discern, finally astray.  How can this be?  They were such active members, involved in so many ministries.  And yet… And it gives us serious cause for concern.  We read passages such as Galatians 5:4 – “You who seek to be justified by law have fallen from grace,” and it quite rightly scares us.  But, Paul!  These are brothers, beloved sons and daughters of our Father!  How could this be?  Well, how could it be that Judas Iscariot, called by Christ and co-laboring with Him, could prove so treacherous?  How could it be that we find the likes of Balaam, clearly askew in belief and practice, used by God to proclaim so clear a prophecy of our Lord that centuries later it led to magi from the East coming on the basis of that prophecy to honor the newborn King?  Beloved, God does as He wills, uses whom He wills.  That in itself does not in any way commend the one used, nor is it cause for boasting in the individual.  Our confident assurance, if it rests on our deeds, is terribly misplaced.  But where that assurance comes on the basis of the Spirit’s testimony to our spirit, it is sound indeed.

Ministry requires our all.  It is a costly thing to come into the service of our Lord.  I was reminded, somewhere along the way, of the way one’s taking up of office is a matter of personal expense.  I think, particularly of those Asiarchs who, in such surprising fashion, turned out to be friends to Paul (Ac 19:31).  These were the ministers of Artemis, the organizers of festival and feast in honor of their deity, and not just the organizers, but the financiers.  Those feasts were put on at their expense.  Go back to the sacrificial system.  We have already considered how those periodic offerings cost the offerer.  That was a lot of stock, a lot of produce, to be giving away when one had family to feed, home to maintain, and so on.  For those who tithe, that can be a significant chunk of change, and I’m sure you and I could conceive of any number of other things that money could be going towards.  And yet, we give unto the Lord with gladness.  And yet, we know that even as we give our all, He will surely supply all our need.  That’s not a material matter primarily, although it assuredly encompasses our material needs.  Food, shelter, clothing, He has been seeing to it as long as there has been a man or woman in need.  He’s not going to stop.  And, as is observed here and there in Scripture, this He does for saved and unsaved alike.  But if we would serve, it will be costly.  It will take time and finances and spiritual expenditure.  The weight of ministry can be heavy indeed.  The energies called forth even in teaching or preaching for an hour or so, because of the seriousness of the material, because of the need to speak, and the recognized need to hear, take a lot out of you, and if you’re not doing it in the power God provides, it will drain you utterly.  As such, it takes far more than just the availability during that brief period.  It takes time spent in prayer, praying not for oneself and the strength to continue, at least not that alone, but for the efficacious presence of the Holy Spirit to make this effort worthy.  It takes time spent praying for those whom we will address.  It takes time spent, as we find Paul so often doing, praying for those to whom we have previously ministered.

It may seem like, with so many faces before you, and perhaps, as with our teaching trips, for so brief a moment of time, it would be impossible to hold them in mind as individuals.  Yes.  It probably is.  But it will certainly prove impossible if you never give it a further thought.  But God moves.  I think He selects for us, out of that sea of faces, the ones to remember, to bear with us in prayer.  It may be the leaders, given that it is with them that we have most to do.  But it may not be.  There are those one or two, I think, in each group who, for reasons we may not even understand, get locked in memory, to come to mind whenever our thoughts turn to those places we have served.  In some cases, it’s because we know somewhat of their backstory.  In others, we know next to nothing of them other than that they were there, and God, for whatever reason, impressed them upon us.  Well, in either case pray.  So often as they come to mind, pray.  The work is not yet finished.  Not in them, not in you.

And as you do so, don’t think to do it with any sort of resentment, or solely on the basis of duty.  We have been called to be living sacrifices unto our Lord, the which Paul tells us is our “reasonable act of worship” (Ro 12:1), or our “spiritual service of worship,” to follow the NASB.  But it’s a joyful pursuit.  It’s not some somber funeral procession to which we are called.  It’s not with head hanging that we approach the altar and give our lives.  Jesus was indeed a man of sorrows, as the prophet foresaw.  Yet, for all the agony of soul that went on in Gethsemane, and for all the pain that must surely have wracked His body as He made His way from Pilate’s palace to Golgatha, there was joy.  “For the joy set before Him He endured the cross” (Heb 12:2).  For the joy of knowing what these light and momentary afflictions were procuring, He gladly served, the ultimate Living Sacrifice.

So you, believer, live the life of a living sacrifice.  Give of yourself unto God, give of God unto those around you.  Live your faith in such a way as gives others cause to rejoice.  Live as you see that Jesus lived, as you see that Paul, and the other Apostles lived.  Pour out that love which has been poured into you.  If I might bring Moses’ advice to Joshau to bear.  “Only be strong and courageous” (Josh 1:7).  Go forth to that work which God has prepared in advance for you to do, and get to it!  Get to it fearlessly, knowing that He is with you (Josh 1:17).  Get to it gladly, knowing that whatever that work, God is being glorified in it.  Get to it with the same gladness you see in Paul here.  “To live is Christ, to die is gain” (Php 1:21).  Whatever it may be that God has in store for me, I am confident that I shall be strengthened to face it in such way as brings glory to Him, and in that I shall rejoice, and I call you to rejoice along with me.  That’s where we are in this passage.  If I come to see you again, we shall rejoice together.  If it should turn out that this is the end, and I am to be poured out, my life-blood the drink offering to the sacrifice of your faith, let us rejoice together in that.

Live this life of living sacrifice, and don’t miss what comes of such living.  Where is Paul’s joy?  It is in the Lord, certainly.  But here, what is in view is the steadfast and growing faith evident in the church.  Go back just a bit.  Just as you have always obeyed, my beloved brethren, keep at it all the more in my absence (Php 2:12).  You know, we get so caught up in the fear and trembling of that verse, that it’s easy to miss the encouragement.  Keep doing what you’re doing.  Stand fast, and know that you do so in the power of God.  Living sacrifice comes of being obedient to those whom God has set as ministers to our faith.  There are those who have the calling of pastors, who both instruct us in the truth and show demonstrable care for us.  We know, somehow, that we are in their prayers as constantly as we find these churches in Paul’s prayers.  We know that, should we find ourselves in difficulty, we can seek them out for godly counsel.  We have, as well, those who have been appointed as elders, by the leading of the Holy Spirit.  And they, too, have charge of us as concerns our true growth in the true gospel of true God.  We have, it is devoutly to be hoped, prayed as to their appointment, and we have quite possibly given our covenant promise to heed their leadership and accept their guidance.  Well, there, too, is a call to obedience.

Now ask yourself, how often have you dismissed that guidance?  To what degree have you tended to treat their encouragements and exhortations more as optional suggestions than as God-ordained command?  I am not, to be clear, advocating blind obedience.  I am not about to give us a pass for obeying the sinful guidance of poor leadership.  We shall bear our own guilt in such an instance, and so shall they.  But where the watchman has sounded a warning, and we dismissed his alarm?  We shall bear our guilt, and he shall bear his sorrow.  Yet, he shall know no punishment for our failure to attend to his warning.

But where there is obedience?  Here is great encouragement to those who serve in ministry.  It’s all well and good to look out from the pulpit and find folks attentive.  It’s certainly helpful if people aren’t wandering off to the facilities mid-sermon week after week.  Or, for those of us who serve in the ministry of worship, how encouraging to find the house full and ready to praise God when we start, rather than straggling in just in time for the sermon.  What do you suppose that says to the worship team?  What sort of encouragement is there in finding half the church avoids having to hear the music?  I could think of those who feel they can skip church when the pastor is away, or when an associate pastor is preaching.  Those are, apparently, optional weeks.  On what basis?  Did you suddenly have less need of God’s grace?  Are these other preachers less godly in your eyes?  What?  You know, if we’re talking obedience to faithful leaders, we’re talking obedience to God.  And if He has seen fit to have this team providing the worship, this preacher preaching, what sort of obedience can possibly be shown by voting nay by your absence?

If we are called to encourage one another – and we are – surely here is the most straightforward path to encouragement:  Show your obedience to God by your attendance upon such means of grace as He has chosen to supply.  Sing the songs.  Pay attention to the sermon.  This is more than stay awake and in your seat, though we ought certainly to seek that we might be prepared by proper rest so as to attend more effectively upon the Word of God proclaimed.  But go further.  Demonstrate that you have heard effectively.  Put into practice that which you have been taught.

I need look no farther than the few weeks spent teaching our congregation about studying this Scripture.  Lots of attentive faces, some degree of engagement.  But then, a near total absence of actually doing anything with what was taught, no sign of anybody actually putting into practice the ideas presented.  I can think of little that could count as more discouraging than coming in that fourth week to find that not a one had anything to offer as concerned applying these methods and gaining insights.  No.  It seems everybody just wanted to be spoon-fed, or, for some individuals, to present their own method.  But then, a few weeks later, comes word from one of those attendees who had in fact been putting these things into practice and was excited by what results had been seen.  What joy!  It wasn’t all in vain.

It would be easy to feel some of that same sense of pointlessness with the stuff we do in Africa.  Come back a year later, and it seems that little to nothing has come of it.  Yet we hear from the bishops that they are pouring over these lessons throughout the year.  There are those moments of seeing the light go on in somebody’s thinking as we present, hopefully, a clearer picture of the wonder of God as He is revealed in Scripture.  And honestly, one moment such as that renders the whole exercise worthwhile.  What joy!

So, yes, I share, in some small way, the response I see in Paul here.   Obey as you have been, and rejoice together with me.  I am telling you now what joy it is to me to find you steadfast, and I call upon you to share that joy, and to take joy in the fact that I, too, am steadfast.  I think of John’s words to the churches under his guiding hand.  “I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth” (3Jn 4).  Don’t you feel that?  Don’t you feel that when it comes to your own offspring, if indeed they are walking in the truth?  Don’t you long to feel that if they don’t?  How much more, then, when it is your spiritual children who are in view?  How much more, when you have devoted so much of life to seeing young believers brought to maturity, and mature believers made stronger and more effective in their faith?

But most of us are not pastors.  Most of us do not teach, nor lead worship.  In any church, the majority are in the pews, and statistically, that’s pretty near the sum of their involvement.  The general rule is that 20% of the church does the work of ministry, and the other 80% just show up, at least if they feel like it that week.  But if your minister is such as finds joy in seeing you grow, and if you have found in this minister one who is truly expending himself in love for the people of God, ought we not to rejoice together with him, even as Paul urges for his own case?  What of former pastors?  Whether we have had cause to move on from their ministry, or they have moved on to minister in other places, is there any less cause to maintain some degree of connection, to rejoice in one another’s continuance in the faith?  If they are prospering spiritually in their endeavor, shall we not praise God for their effectiveness?  If we are growing in our current setting, can we doubt that they would rejoice to hear of it?  If it pains us to hear of a brother who has fallen away, surely it ought to gladden us to hear of a brother who hasn’t.

So, here’s a task for us:  Give your pastor cause for joy.  Be an encouragement to those who give their time and energy and gifts to the business of ministering to your spirit.  Pausing in the lobby to say, “Good sermon, pastor,” isn’t going to cut it.  “Oh, you sang so well today,” isn’t really the point.  I mean, if these things are true, by all means let your appreciation show.  That’s fine.  But if you really want to give your pastor cause for joy, shine.  If you really want to see them excited to even higher efforts, let them find you holding fast and holding forth this word of life, being lights in this dark world.  Live so that they might hear from others of your love for the brethren, of your faithful witness in whatever setting life has given you.

Somebody brought up the old question, if you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict?  It’s going to take more than the presence of a Bible or two in your house.  It’s going to take more than a perfect attendance record at church.  I’ve known atheists who could claim that much.  No.  It’s about a life lived out in consistent application of Biblical truth.  It’s about being the sort of person who is known for the same character and mindset at work as he is in the church.  It’s about – and here, I think it’s even harder – being the same loving believer at home as you are amongst the relative strangers in the congregation.  “I have no greater joy than this.”  May we, in turn, have no greater joy than to prove cause for that joy.  And may we live, in all our varied avenues of life, so as to encourage one another both by our words and by our example, until we all arrive at the full maturity of faith, being conformed to the image of God.

Honored by Joy (05/30/25)

Something in the phrasing chosen by the Amplified has brought me to a slightly different appreciation of the matter of sacrifice this morning.  I have discussed it enough, one would think, this matter of libation and sacrifice, but what seems to have eluded me until this moment is that the sacrifice of their faith was Paul’s offering, not theirs.  How so?  Well, it was certainly a costly endeavor for him to have brought the Gospel to them, and it cost him to continue to uphold them in prayer and in such guidance as he could provide from this distance.  Think of the pains he had endured even in the first period, when he was with them; beaten and thrown in prison for the offense of proclaiming the true God.  And yes, no doubt, they had their own sufferings endured for the faith they had received from God.  Certainly, Epaphroditus, come near to death on their account, had paid a price for his pursuit of lived-out faith.  And they, in having sent him, knowing only in part of his situation, had paid a price in agony of prayerful concern.

Short from, faith is costly, and never more so than in those who seek to pursue the work of the kingdom.  At bare minimum, there is a cost of time.  Likely, there is a cost of finances.  There may very well be a cost in relationships severed by committed faith, whether because we feel the need to distance ourselves from former associates or because they can no longer accept our company, offended by the change in us.  And yet, as Paul makes plain here, there is joy.  There is joy because, whatever the personal cost to us, God is honored.  There is joy, to be sure, in seeing Him achieving His good ends through the means of our efforts.

Paul was no stranger, certainly, to rejoicing in the fruit of his ministry.  He was not ashamed to speak of the effectiveness that had accompanied his efforts.  But he did not pursue such manner of speaking as self-promotion.  Paul has no place in him for self-promotion.  That was done when he cast aside his eager pursuit of Pharisaic training and habit.  No.  He’s in a new place of freedom gained in Christ, still seeking to adhere to God’s Law, but no longer as earning a place for himself, rather celebrating the place now his by inheritance.  He rejoices in what God is doing, and in so doing, he is furthering his compliance with the commandments of God.  As I wrote previously, “Where God is honored, joy is commanded.”  We have it right here before us.  “You too, rejoice.”  It’s so important that the command repeats later.  “Rejoice!  And again I say, rejoice” (Php 4:1).

And because such rejoicing in the effective results of ministry points back inevitably to the power of God, such boasting is in fact boasting in the Lord.  Calvin takes a moment to make this clear to us, for we could otherwise find Paul’s call to rejoice with him as self-promotion of the very sort he condemns in others.  But it’s not self-promotion.  It’s acknowledgement of what God is doing both in him and in them.  It is God-honoring boasting, whatever the phrasing, because it recognizes and conveys the fact that all of this is by God’s hand.

It is this acknowledging of God’s involvement in all that is good – particularly in the effective ministering of the Gospel – which makes rejoicing a commanded requirement.  We find it difficult, this idea of there being commanded emotions.  For joy is, to our thinking at least, a matter of emotion.  And in large part, we view love in the same light.  How can I be commanded to love somebody?  What if they’re unlovable?  It may be because we put too much weight on the aspect of liking them.  But for all that I’ve echoed my former pastor’s view that love is commanded, not like, yet I have to pause and wonder if that is in fact accurate.  To be sure, there are aspects of love that far exceed emotional pleasant feelings.  Love takes action.  Love takes action even if the emotional aspect is missing just now.  I may not be feeling particularly in love with my loved one, may be downright annoyed with them at the moment, yet love does not cease, and loving care for them does not cease.

Could we not say something much the same as regards rejoicing?  I may not find anything terribly pleasant about my current circumstance.  Given this backache that’s been troubling me the last few days, I’m honestly not in a terribly joyful mood.  My sense of humor is not where it would normally be, which may not be all that bad a thing, to be honest.  The joy I might take in having this cat in my lap is somewhat diffused by the twinges of pain as I reach over him for the keyboard.  And these are but minor gripes.  What, when we consider the child that seems bound and determined to stray from faith?  What, should God make that final?  What, when a parent, a child, a spouse is taken from us by death?  What, when the job falls through, when the costs of life are outstripping our ability to support ourselves?  What, when we find the effects of age becoming increasingly impossible to deny?  Shall we rage against God for the unfairness of it all?  Shall we spend our days like Job and his ostensible friends, wrangling over what reason lies behind this, perhaps accusing ourselves of some secret sin that we are committing even though unaware?  How do we respond when things turn sour?  I tell you the man of faith remains a man of faith.  He stands because the Lord his God is able to make him stand.  He rejoices by doing so.  He may not have a smile on his face and a laugh in his eyes at the moment.  Yet joy is there.  There is absolutely joy in knowing that whatever the present case, these light and momentary afflictions are as nothing when measured against the eternal inheritance of glory that awaits us when once we arrive home.  For to us, to live is Christ and to die is gain.  And so, joy is our reasonable response.

And this joy, beloved, finds itself increasing when we are able to promote the joy of others.  You know that feeling you get, to take the simple example, when you have given time and effort to choosing a gift that you hope will delight its recipient.  When you see honest joy in their eyes upon receiving that gift, it brings joy which may very well be in excess of their own.  It gladdens us to have gladdened another.  What joy could possibly exceed that of knowing you have had a hand in bringing somebody to saving faith?  I could go back again to that one who came to let me know how my teaching was impacting her study time, or that one in Lesotho whose sudden grasp of the law/gospel distinction had her so excited.  As counter-example, I might think of my brother, feeling dejected as it seemed to him he was having no impact at all, not even connecting with those we were teaching.  I could think of my own, similar feeling later in that same trip.  But seeing the joyful response of those we care about and care for is cause for joy in us.

Now, let me take it a step further.  Would it be all that surprising to discover that our God responds in much the same fashion?  To be sure, He has perfect and complete joy in Himself.  His joy can neither be increased nor decreased by anything outside Himself.   Yet, I don’t find it unreasonable to expect that He responds in joy to the joy we take in Him.  It’s right there in Scripture.  “The LORD will again rejoice over you for good, as He rejoiced over your fathers” (Dt 30:9).  “The LORD your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior.  He will exult over you with joy.  He will be quiet in His love.  He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy” (Zeph 3:17).  That, it seems to me, goes far beyond simply being satisfied with the results.  There is something of excitement in this, and why?  Well, to be fair, because of what He has done.  “The LORD has taken away His judgments against you, and cleared away your enemies.  The LORD is in your midst, and you will no longer fear disaster” (Zeph 3:15).  He rejoices for the gift He has given you, and for you glad receiving of that gift!  His gift, needless to say, is the giving of His Son, the grant of faith that has led you to trust in Him.  In this, we rejoice, for like Paul, we discover the bondage of sin, the dread of inevitable punishment from inescapable Justice removed, and the sure promise of forgiveness and restoration sealed to us by the Holy Spirit who now is truly in our midst.  No longer need we fear disaster.  We can anticipate only blessing, even in the midst of greatest trial.

There is one further aspect of this commanded joy that I would touch upon; something Ironside makes note of.  He observes that Paul, “rejoiced in everything that the Lord did through others and his jealousy was only for the glory of God.”  If another’s ministry is proving more effective than your own, this is no cause for grief and envy.  Go back to his comments about the situation in Rome.  Sure, some were taking advantage of his imprisonment to make a bigger name for themselves, preaching ‘from envy and strife’ (Php 1:15).  But they were preaching Christ nonetheless.  The Gospel was being spread abroad nonetheless.  “And in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice” (Php 1:18).  God’s work is being done, and frankly, however it is getting done, it is He who is doing it.  I am nothing.  They are nothing.  It’s not about fame and fortune.  It never has been and it never will be.  The only one famous is God.  And seriously, nobody ever grew rich by serving the Gospel, not as the world counts riches.  But, oh!  The joy that accrues.  Oh!  The glad reward in heaven, and the added gladness of laying that reward at the feet of the One Who did it all.  This, I am sure, shall also bring Him joy, and in doing so, shall increase our own joy.

May we, then, find cause for joy at our homecoming, and may we set ourselves to be about such things in the time remaining us on this earth that we shall have such cause to our account.

The First Example (05/31/25)

Ironside makes an observation as to the remainder of this chapter which sets things in a rather different light.  From his perspective, what Paul is doing here is laying before us three examples of Christ-like living, all of them examples that would be familiar to the Philippians.  Here, we are considering Paul himself as the first example.  Truly he could look at his life these last twenty and more years as his being a living sacrifice.  He had let go of all he once held dear in order to pursue the mission assigned to him by God.  He had left behind the prestige he had begun to accumulate in Jerusalem.  He had left behind, certainly, any thought of self-righteousness.  He had quite likely left behind family.  We know he had a sister in Jerusalem, and as a Pharisee, we might well expect he had a wife, though if he did, she is barely to be seen at all.  He had left behind health and prosperity.  And these last three or four years, he had left behind his liberty.  And now, he faces the very real prospect of leaving behind life and ministry.  Still, as he has made clear, if that is the case his life will have been given to the service of Christ who died for him.

So, yes, his present circumstance, atop the years of faithful ministry, serve as a fine example of Christ-likeness, of one willing to obey even unto death for the glory of the Lord.  And note, he does not contemplate the violence of the revolutionary.  He does not anticipate stirring up riots and revolt.  Like his Savior, he expects to face that eventuality in peace and calm by the power of God that is in him.  “Even if I am poured out as a drink offering.”  The wine of that offering may have been years in the growing, years in the aging.  But that act of offering is but a moment, and then, the wine is no more.  If it were poured out on the altar, then so much the faster; a moment of vaporizing and done.  But even if poured out around the altar, it will be but a moment’s work for the dirt to absorb every trace that this wine had ever existed.  Still, all to the glory of God, and all by His command.

The examples of Timothy and Epaphroditus, to which Paul proceeds are not just a random interjection of itinerary in what is otherwise a practical application of theology.  They continue the point of holding firmly the message of life, as the Apologetics Study Bible I am reading this morning phrases it.  We hold forth light by holding firmly to it.  We testify by living as our faith instructs us to live.  These two whom Paul brings before our eyes have done just that, and at no small cost to their own life and health.  They are, like Paul, given wholly to the service of Christ, devoted to the ministry of proclaiming the gospel and discipling those who receive its rich blessing.

It is a life thus lived that lends Paul the calm to quell whatever turmoil his trying circumstances might arouse.  It is a life thus lived that gives him ground from which to declare that for him to live is Christ and to die is gain (Php 1:21).  It is a life thus lived that frees him to focus on their faith and well-being rather than his own comfort and continuance.  He can look death in the eye, as it were, and have no cause for regret.  Why?  Because he knows he has lived a faithful life from the time Christ first got hold of him.  I dare say, from the moment he heard that question, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (Ac 9:4), his life had become the property of Christ.  His immediate response had been, “Who are You, Lord?” (Ac 9:5), but in very short order, though the words themselves are not recorded, it had become the confession of Thomas.  “You are my Lord and my God.”  And nothing was ever the same.  Nothing ever could be.

There comes that later imprisonment as well.  At least, we have generally concluded that Paul survived this present trial, but only for a season.  Writing at that later time, he addresses Timothy, whose example he is about to present here, and the language is much the same, only the uncertainty as to outcome is gone.  “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering.  My time has come” (2Ti 4:6).  It’s no longer come what may.  It is now settled.  It’s time.  And while it may sound sorrowful, I have to think, particularly given the aches and pains that no doubt increased with age and with the physical abuse of his transient lifestyle, his time coming was likely more a source of relief than of regret.  Yet still he could look across his record, and look to events ahead, and know that by his faithful pursuit of God’s direction, the sum of his life could be rightly construed in this image of the drink offering.  I have poured myself out for You, Lord, as You poured Yourself out for me.  And have no doubt but that Paul well understood that the same powerful presence of the Holy Spirit enabled his obedience as it had Jesus.

I incline to think this sense of being a drink offering, having made its association in his mind at the very least during these years of his imprisonment stuck with him to the end.  Even during the period between his imprisonments, as he went about the more usual activities of ministry, it seems to me that this perspective remained with him.  It revealed to him who he was, who he was called to be, in a fashion that far exceeded those years of revelation in the desert.  Those years might have caused another man to fall prey to pride, and I have no doubt that Paul could very readily have done just that.  There is a certain fierceness of pride in his occasional defense of his ministry.  Yeah, I didn’t need Peter telling me what to believe, in fact I had to correct him on occasion.  These leading lights in Jerusalem?  They are no more than I am, and quite possibly less.  Have they done as much to spread the gospel?  But if there is that tendency for pride, there is also that thorn in the flesh to restore humility in short order.  And in fact, that may have been the very point of it, to prevent him from becoming inordinately impressed with himself.  Thus, “If I must boast, I will boast in the Lord” (1Co 1:31).  Thus, “I am determined to preach nothing but Christ, and Him crucified” (1Co 2:2).

What of us?  Would you live without cause for regret, without cause to fear the end?  Then live godly now!  Don’t put it off.  Don’t suppose you can do as you please yet for some time and worry about godliness later.  God knows I have that tendency.  I am a procrastinator of the first order.  I would far prefer to live such enjoyments as I can, dismissing the difficulties until they become matters that must be addressed.  Of course, that leads to build-up, and to facing a list of demands that has become daunting, overwhelming.  Until, of course, one begins to address them one at a time and discovers that really, it just needed the doing, and then it’s done. 

I happened to catch, out of the corner of my eye, a list I made years ago of various needs called for in maintaining this house.  You know, I carefully made that list, talked it through with my wife, so she knew I was aware of these things and thinking about them, and then tacked it on my cork board and pretty much forgot about it.  But there it was yesterday.  Hey!  Remember me?  Oh, yes.  I should probably take that down today and see what’s been done and what has not.  I probably won’t enjoy that.  But one cannot deal with procrastinating.  One must subdue it.  I cannot get things done except I do them.

So, too, this pursuit of godliness.  It’s all well and good to recognize that unless we are working where God is working, we are expending useless effort and tiring ourselves out for no good purpose.  I think that’s what we ought to hear in Paul’s comment at the start of this passage, that concern lest he had run in vain or toiled in vain.  It wasn’t the fear that God might fail.  It was, if anything, concern lest he find he had been laboring at the wrong thing or in the wrong place.  Now, as concerns Philippi, I can’t imagine that having been any real concern.  After all, he had gone there by the Spirit’s call.  Or perhaps he was wise enough to have doubts about such guidance by dream and vision.  How many pursuers of dream and vision had he had to correct and combat over these last decades, after all?  As he neared the end, it would not be hard to imagine a bit of concern.  Was I just like them, then?  But no!  The Spirit testifies to our spirit that we are sons of God!

But should such concerns arise, should you find yourself in a period of doubt as to your own faith, how better to put paid to those concerns than to pray, seek out where God is working in your life, whether it be on you, through you, or both, and set yourself to join Him in the work?  What greater grounds for confidence can we find than in the assurance of our Savior?  And what greater assurance can we seek than that we can look upon our lives and see that they have given demonstration of the pursuit of godliness?  This does not leave us back at works righteousness.  But it does acknowledge the reality that faith works.  Where there is faith, character must form.  Where there is faith, the fruit of the Spirit must grow from the seed of His presence.  Where there is godly character, there must come to be godly worldview, and where there is godly worldview, there must follow godly living.  These are, as it were, the timing chain of life.  And if that chain has broken, then I must suppose the engine of life will seize.

Perhaps we have need of a tune-up.  Perhaps we need to visit with our Mechanic, and let Him set us to rights.  We certainly cannot address such issues apart from Him.  And experience insists that He will not address them apart from us.  He calls us to a cooperative effort.  Yes, the result depends on Him, but everywhere we have this call to active pursuit of His ends in us.  And so, “You too, rejoice!”  This is not some woeful labor.  This is no cause for grumbling, grudging compliance.  Your work days may seem to devolve to that.  But then, if they do, it has more to do with your needing a correction in your perspective than with the fundamentals.  Yes, we have been planted into a life of earning our bread by the sweat of our brow.  That may look rather different in the modern setting than it did to an agrarian culture, but it’s the same basic point.  Work is called for, and it’s not always going to be pleasant.  It may be rather a rarity that it is.  This idea that you should follow your heart, work only at things that bring you joy is, quite honestly, stuff and nonsense.  There’s a place for joy, but it’s not in the working.  It’s in the usefulness, perhaps.  It’s in the provision that God supplies through our earnest effort.  And, God willing, it’s in the way we can render these labors a pursuit of godliness, doing our best, even when the task before us is unenticing, giving our all even when it may go unnoticed.

I think I’ll just let Clarke have the final word on this study.  The call is to live so that others will see that your pursuit of godliness has not been in vain.  That rather necessitates that you live in such fashion that those who see you know your pursuit, which is say, don’t be a closet Christian.  Come out!  That can be scary, it’s true, and perhaps more so now than in years past.  But it’s needed more than in years past.  You can’t hold forth this word of life by hiding it in your house.  Live it!  And let it be known that this is who you are.  Yes, you’re going to fail at it.  Yes, you’re going to have to apologize repeatedly, confess your failures not just to God but to those who observe your efforts.  So let them see your repentance.  Let them see that you seek to make write what has come of your wrongs.  Let them see how God picks you back up, sets you back on course, and brings progress.  Let them see that your character, while not perfect, is trending in the right direction.  Let them discover in you a life poured out as a drink offering in the service of Almighty God.

Lord, I have far to go with this, so very far.  Help me, therefore, to see where You are working on me, that I might more readily and rightly work for You.  I love You.  I trust You.  And yet, I must confess I often find myself annoyed.  Not at You, I don’t believe – and if it has been at You, Oh!  Break that off!  But excess displays of ostensible piety are another thing.  I suppose I must, as is so often the case, request that You correct whatever it is needs correcting, whether me or another.  Restore harmony.  Let true piety prevail.  Let true holiness develop.  And let me, somehow, become more like You in my own thinking, in my character, in my actions.  I so want to represent You well, and not only in the church setting, but in all of life.  It’s hard, Lord.  I am so readily frustrated, and I know bursts of anger are not in that character You seek to form in me.  If that’s where You’re at work, show me my part, and grant me to find the power in You to put to death that part of me.  I want to be like You, not like me.  I want to represent You well.  Help me to do so.