Normal Christian Living, p.2

All right, I've entitled this exposition, Normal Christian Living.

You could almost call it normal church life, because once again, while it certainly does address our individual lives, and that's very important to God, he really narrows the focus in on acting normal as a family together, church family, in your unity with one another, in your relations to each other. But the context is how it's difficult in this anti-Christ world. It's difficult in a world where the Apostle Paul, who in effect pastored this church, he's locked in prison. And so he understands that to stand for the truth and to live for Christ has a cost. And he's going to tell this church, that's normal Christianity.

Did you hear me church? That's normal that your Christianity results in some opposition from the world. Sometimes it comes out of your marriage partner. Jesus said, a man's enemies will be members of his own household.

Sometimes it comes from that person you work with, or in the neighborhood, or young people at school. Young people listen to me, if you live for Christ, people at school are going to be against you. But Paul's going to say, that's normal Christianity.

Let me give you this quick backdrop. Most of you know something of my testimony. I was converted at age 19 as a college freshman, actually listening to a preacher on the radio, driving back to college on a Sunday night. And as I started to attend church, I began to hear stuff like, well, boy, that person's really sold out. Now they're really committed. Now they're really faithful. And I thought, well, if they are, what's wrong with the rest of these people in the church? Are they just not committed or something? And then as time went on, and as I studied the Bible more and read church history, and read how good, solid, faithful churches of the past and pastors of the past conducted themselves, I realized that we had created an unbiblical dichotomy in the local congregation, which said this big bunch over here, maybe 70%, they're Christians, but they're carnal Christians.

And this minority over here, maybe 15, 20%. Now they're the really spirit-filled dedicated Christians, but we need all of them. And I said, I'm fine with that if it's biblical, but it's really not. There's not divisions of Christianity. You follow Christ or you don't follow Christ. You honor Christ or you don't honor Christ. There's no levels other than, of course, offices of service. That didn't make you a higher level.

It just makes your service different. But we're all to be true, my wording, normal Christians. And we find out as time goes on, you know, a great percentage of those in Baptist and evangelical churches are not truly Christians. For generations, we've developed a system that worked people through the motions. We had our own little sacramental system almost.

Well, we really did. The Catholics have theirs, the Episcopalians have theirs, and Baptists got their own. Go through this motion, walk down the aisle, jump through this hoop, we'll declare you safe for eternity. Now, if you just go out there, but just don't commit mass murder and you're okay.

That's a little exaggeration, but basically what it was. We find out that in Southern Baptist life, the denomination we are most closely connected to, though we're not any more officially, that they claim 12, 15 million. I don't know how many million members and maybe 5 million show up at church on Sunday.

That's not what the Bible teaches. Yes, a Christian can backslide, but it shouldn't be 70 to 80% of our folks. Maybe 10 or 20%. Folks find out that at least up into the pandemic that we will run 90%.

We have run up to 94% of our worship attendance, faithful and small group attendance. And people are aghast at that. How in the world?

How do you do that? Y'all are special. Y'all are unique.

Y'all are sold out. No, we're not. We're normal.

Barely normal, I'd say at that. So Paul writes here to talk about church at Philippi, and of course it applies to all churches of all ages being part of sacred scripture. Here's what normal Christian living and normal church life looks like. Verse 27, chapter 1, Philippians. Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear that you are standing firm in one spirit and with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel. In no way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too from God.

For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me and now here to be in me. We started off with Roman 1. This will be a brief review. Our conduct that exemplifies our citizenship. The point Paul is speaking of here is that we're all citizens of a new higher true kingdom, the kingdom of God, and we are to conduct ourselves like we're part of that kingdom and not conduct yourselves any longer like you're citizens of the world. We talked about how, I was just reading recently that the region of Philippi, when Rome conquered it, the emperor required many of the Roman soldiers to stay there and live and occupy it and to encourage those soldiers. He says, we'll just consider Philippi soil as Italian soil. So you're a true Roman now, your own Italian soil. So they were proud of their Roman citizenship in this community. But now Paul says there's something far greater than that if you belong to Christ.

You're not just a Roman citizen, you're a citizen of God's kingdom. Now conduct yourselves properly as a citizen of God's kingdom. Now we talked about the motivation for that conduct and he asked that phrase in verse 27, live worthy of the gospel. Live like one that God's changed through his gospel. Live like one that's been transferred out of the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of light.

Conduct yourself in consistency with who you are now. Now we all struggle, we all slip and we all fail. Somebody gave the little illustration that a church was out and a little girl in her pretty little church dress runs out the door and she falls in a mud puddle.

Well, stuff like that happens, but you wouldn't expect to show up the next Sunday and she's still laying in the mud puddle. We repent and we go on and we keep striving to conduct ourselves worthy of the gospel. The motivation is this is Christ who saved us. And like the apostle Paul, we're ambassadors for God. We ought to be gospel worthy Christians.

Now the second sub point under the conduct that exemplifies our citizenship is the manner, the manner. And here's where he points again at our unity together, our oneness, the last part of verse 27, he says, for the faith of the gospel and he uses the plural pronoun, you referring to all of them, all be together in standing for those cardinal doctrines of the faith, doctrine matters. We're not to be so mildly biblical and have a gushy synchronizing of our doctrines with the other common teaching to the world.

Absolutely not. If our doctrine happens to line up with some other teachings doctrine fine, but we are not adjusting our doctrine to get along in this world, period. So united in doctrine, then we talked about being united in spirit. He says there in verse 27, in one spirit, last part of the verse, in one spirit. And this is not the Holy Spirit, though it requires the Holy Spirit to do it.

It means you are in camaraderie. You're part of a team, different roles, different responsibilities, but we all agree together. Let's be of a united spirit to go forward for God's work. And here's what you got to understand in the cultural context of the day, maybe the reason why there wasn't such a open specific. Well, I should say repeated open specific commands about meeting with the church was because if you named Christ, you are outcast immediately in that culture. You were considered the out scourings of the culture.

You are considered considered as the Bible says, a sheep to be slaughtered. You needed one another is what I'm saying. So it wasn't the task that we have today to tell people, you ought to be faithful in your church. There was nowhere else to go.

I mean, even members of your own household would hate you very readily if you became a committed member of Christ church. So they needed each other and as they're together, they're to be like a well-organized ball team. I heard, have you heard there's, I think there's an important ball game tomorrow.

Is that right? Y'all know anything about that? Those players on those teams all have different roles, but they're of one spirit. We know what our coaches told us. We know what our modus operandi is. We know how we do offense. We know how we do defense.

We know how we do special teams, et cetera, et cetera. And we're one in this thing. You're not going to get to the championship game.

If your team's not one in spirit. So Paul says, and again, I've said this so many times to you, and I'm going to keep saying it because the Bible keeps saying it. The hallmark evidence that you know, and love Christ is you know, and love his local church.

Now I have to give a little balancing addendum to that. If that local church has not been reformed and it's full of unsaved people, that's difficult. I get that. Many of us have been part of churches where a lot of folks in the church don't act like they know the Lord. And so it's hard. You can't, it's hard to be one in spirit with somebody who don't have the spirit.

So that does happen. But if a church is decently, biblically, spiritually healthy, you're going to be drawn to it and a passion for it and be one in spirit. Well, United in truth, United in spirit.

And then thirdly, I said United in service. And Paul keeps using these metaphors from the gladiator games of the day, the gladiator contest. And here's one of them at the end of verse 27, striving together.

It would be used as gladiators strive in their contest, fighting each other in the, in the Roman Coliseum. So he says church lock arms. And the way those gladiators fight to the death, even most of the time, you're to strive with one another, United in doctrine, United in spirit, get the work of the church done. That's the manner of your conduct.

That's the way it ought to look. And I think Paul would say the church at Philippi was a pretty good example of that. Not perfect.

And we're certainly not perfect, but they were, they were better than others at being on the right page. Now let's go to new material, Roman numeral two. In verses 28 through 30, let's notice the conflict that identifies our citizenship. The conflict that identifies our citizenship. Verse 28, in no ways alarmed by your opponents. You're going to have those who oppose you. You see conflict is a regular part of the normal Christian's life.

Let's get, let's talk now a little bit about this particular context. Your church being in conflict with the world is a regular part of normal church life. Pastor people talk about us and people think we're this, and people call us a cult. That's normal.

That's normal. It's abnormal when your church just kind of goes with the flow and everybody thinks you're wonderful. Can I remind you the flow is not toward heaven. The flow is not flowing toward God in this culture. We might start using this more formally and that's this phrase right here. Christ's life church of muscle shows, the oasis of sanity.

You go to churches today and they're putting on shows that would rival Las Vegas reviews. Nonsense. Either they're deliberately teaching false doctrine or they're keeping their orthodox statement of faith, but they're actually functioning in false doctrine. Trying to make sure the world still likes them.

Sure. The world that nailed our Lord and Savior to the cross. We're going to somehow massage our doctrine, which is his doctrine, so that they'll love us, even though they crucified him. Now we don't go out trying to cause trouble.

Did you just show up and love Jesus? You'll have trouble. Conflict is normal.

Well, I ended this kind of already gotten on this a little bit. Expectation of conflict. Paul says basically expect it. That's why he says, don't be alarmed by it.

And he says something interesting. Did y'all put a up there brothers? Did they put that up there? Just now or about a while ago. I'm sorry. While ago. Okay. I'm sorry.

I didn't see it. Expectation of conflict. Verse 29. He says, in no way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction with them, but of salvation for you. And that too for God.

That was 28, 29. For to you, it has been granted for Christ's sake. Interesting word granted. The Greek word granted there is Doron, or Doron, the guy says on the computer. And it's the same Greek word for gift. Ephesians 2, 9, or 2, 8, I think. Ephesians 2, 8. For by grace you've been saved through faith, that not it is the gift of God. Same Greek word. God says, I gave you grace that saves you as a gift. And guess what?

I've given you suffering now also as a gift. I would say that means we are to expect some conflict. Now God's sovereign in this. It's interesting that in some ages and in some countries and cities, the church, there's always some personal conflict and some people who oppose you for your Christian faith, but there's not that organized cultural wrath and opposition.

I would say in America, up until about 50 years ago, generally the culture was with us on our values and our convictions. It's no longer so. Just read a little news clip this morning. I don't normally look at a news clip on Sunday morning, but it came across it.

And they said there was a race, a swimming meet, and a boy who now claims to be a girl was swimming in the meet, and he's swimming against a girl who claims to be a boy, but she hadn't transformed enough, so she still gets to swim with the girls. Insanity. Bizarre. And brothers and sisters, what is this at its root? It's a spiritual problem at its root. At its root, it is this. I reject any creator mandating anything to me.

I don't care what he made me. And here's their phrase. That's not my truth.

Well, I've got something to tell you. You don't have truth. Truth is objective.

It's outside of you. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. It's a rebellion against God our creator is what it is. So as these things go on and you and I stand for what's right, we're going to be called the problem.

You're going to be called the malicious haters, and on and on we could go. But Paul said that's normal. Expect that. It can be on a personal level, or it can come from a cultural level, and this church experienced both of that, and we are increasingly going to experience more of that in our culture. It's a gift from God to suffer for his sake. That's what he says in verse 29.

Suffer for his sake, literally in behalf of Christ. So therefore, do not be alarmed about it, he says. Now, let's remind ourselves that suffering itself is not a privilege. We should not look for conflict.

We should not have a difficult personality and a confrontive nature. But trust me, if you live for Christ, it will find you. So we shouldn't court suffering, but we should be willing always to suffer in behalf of Christ, the interest of our Lord, his gospel, and his church. And the apostle Paul, of course, is a good example of that for sure. Now, it's one thing to resign ourselves to suffering. It's another to realize the privileges that come through suffering. So when Christ says, I've given you suffering as a gift, listen to me now, some of the sweetest, most glorious blessings will come to you when you suffer for Christ. That's another one of the seeming paradoxes of our faith. Paul said, when I'm weak, I'm strong. Paradox, but true in Christ.

So when you're placed in a spot that either deny the clear teachings of scripture or deny your Lord or be faced with opposition, and you choose to do what's right and be faithful to Christ, God's going to give you gifts through that. You can't see yet. Now, here's what you want to do. I want to see the gift first.

Then let me figure out if it's right. No, the gift may be that you get to go to heaven quickly. That's what happened to Paul in prison. But by the way, anything wrong with going to heaven and enjoying eternal bliss and pleasures forever? Nothing wrong with going to heaven. But there are blessed gifts. And one of the rich, rich gifts is sanctification. When we suffer for Christ, we're drawn closer to Christ. I like to say it this way.

When you stand in the fire, your heart stays warm. Now, if you're God's child, you're never happier than when you're closest to him. So you can be like so many of our Baptist brethren of yesteryear, whom the state churches of Europe persecuted them mercilessly because they would not accommodate the state religion. They stayed with the Bible. They wouldn't have their babies sprinkled in the false state church. They would only immerse true believers who were saved. And for rejecting the state churches and sprinkling, they were, many of them drowned. They said, you like baptism? You like going in the water?

Okay, we'll drown you. Many of them were burned at the stake and we have record after record after record after record after record that these martyrs sang with joy as the flames took their lives. You say, how does that work? You get grace when you need it.

You get an extra dose of God's blessing and enablement when you need it. I've told you this before, when you've preached to people 42 years, you've told them everything before. Dr. Jerry Vines was on a plane and he was coming in for a landing and they hit some terrible turbulence. And he said, we were shaking all, you had to hold on or you'd fly out of your seat.

Didn't have a seatbelt on for sure. He said, and I was so scared, I thought we're gonna die. Sure enough, we popped out of the cloud and landed on the runway. And Dr. Vines said, Lord, I've taught my people the whole time I've been their pastor, when it's their time to die, you'd give them grace and they would have peace. And here I am, I was terrified and scared to death. He said, the Lord said to me, yeah, but you didn't die either. So if God hadn't given you comfort and grace, probably nothing really bad is gonna happen. But what I'm saying is there's a gift of God in suffering. He comes to you, he draws us near, it's special.

We were in Brazil that now I can even say decades ago now. And there were a couple of little twin girls in the church, 12, 13 year old girls. And they just seem to have a vibrant faith, very happy little girls. And the pastor said, do you know what those girls have to do?

And I said, no, what? They said, well, their mama's a devout Catholic. And in the third world, in the old world, the Catholics are more, should we say stringent maybe. And they don't believe in you reading the Bible. You take your instructions from the priest only.

And so those little girls get up in the night and they go crack their door because there's a light in the hallway and they sit and open their Bibles by that little light coming through the hallway to read their Bibles every night. Expect conflict. The expectation of conflict. Well, number two, conflict that identifies our citizenship, we'd expect it. Now notice the exposures resulting from the conflict. The exposures resulting. God's exposing.

He's making some things manifest. So it says in verse 28, don't be alarmed by your opponents. Now the scholars tell us the word alarmed was basically used in this day for a horse that was startled. You ever seen a horse that was startled?

I mean, they get really jumpy and nervousy and shaky. He said, don't let it mess you up that people are coming against you. In other words, as if that's not to be expected. The word opponents there, don't be alarmed, he says, by your opponents. The word opponents means leaning against.

He said, you stand up for Christ and there's all these people that want to push back against you. You see the world's leaning the wrong way. The world's leaning toward hell and when we get saved, we start leaning toward heaven. Jesus said, choose the narrow way. You know what the narrow way, it doesn't mean there's a wide way and there's a narrow way. The narrow way means you're going down a narrow passage against the people who are all going the wrong way.

You're going against the current. Don't be surprised if you run into an employer, if you run into a work associate, if you run into a family member, if you run into a friend at school or wherever it is, they have snide remarks and cutting remarks and undermining remarks. I was talking to one of our ladies this week, no, a couple of weeks ago, three weeks ago and she's been with us a long, long time and she said, brother Jeff, it was really hard for a long time.

Some of you hadn't been here very long and I know this will shock you, but people hadn't always loved us and they certainly didn't love you if you stayed in this church. And she said, it was hard for a long time. Then she said, but it's been worth it all with the big smile. She said, I faced opponents just by being a part of this church and I think I've been studying this. I think I said, yeah, that's normal.

That's normal. That stuff's going to happen. Now here's what he said, here I get to the exposures. Notice what he says here in verse 28, in no way be alarmed, don't be startled by your opponents, those who are leaning against you. Now here's it, which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you. In other words, it's evidence. It's evidence that they're not of God and it's evidence that you're saved and you are of God.

That's what he means by sign. Actually, it's a legal term, which means proof. It's proof that you're God's and they're not. So the fact that they oppose you proves or exposes that they are not of God. They are what he calls here, children of destruction.

Now that's a powerful word. He's going to go on and say in verse 28, and that too, from God. In other words, God is the agent that is coming to destroy. And they are the children of destruction. Destruction doesn't just mean something bad happens along the way. Destruction means it's an intentional thing. You're set aside for ruin and wrath. Those who are God's through Christ are set aside for blessing and salvation.

That's the point he's making. So these things just prove. They're the evidences that come through conflict. Now it gets challenging at times to deal with conflict and deal with opposition because of your Christian faith. For example, the early Christians were often tortured. Sometimes they were thrown to the lions. And when these terrible things happen, false believers would say things like, well, see, they're not really God's or that wouldn't be happening to them. Here you are suffering. Let me just talk to pastors for a minute now.

A number of them watch our broadcast. Here you are going through terrible things because you're trying to lead your church to be solid. And then all of a sudden, so-and-so Christian leaders or mature Christians rather than saying, the reason you're going through that is because you're not right with God. And they did that to Paul all the time. He's not a true apostle. That's why he's locked in prison, they would say. And this whole thing, and for me personally, this was the toughest thing to deal with.

Constantly taking everything you say, bring it out of context, put a spin on it to put you in the worst possible light. Oh, Jeff Noblitt teaches this. Oh, Jeff Noblitt believes that. And I want to say, no, I don't. Don't take one paragraph out of 42 years of preaching to form my convictions. And they will do that to you.

Oh, you believe that? Just a snide-cutting, snarky opposition. This is 1 Corinthians 11, 19, talking to the church at Corinth, which had a lot of unbelievers in the church, or at least meeting with the church, I should say. He said, for there must also be factions among you, that's in among this local church, in order that those who are approved of God may have become evident among you. Through the conflict, the factious conflict, God over time begins to show who really belongs to him and who really does not.

He exposes. So the Lord says, there's some real exposures that result through conflict. When these people confront you for your Bible beliefs, your convictions about your church and about your Lord, it's a sign, it's an evidence they belong to Satan.

They're children of destruction, but it's a sign that you are a child of salvation and you belong to the Lord. Now you and I would say, can we not have a different way to show this? Not a different approach than having to suffer?

No, there's really not. And I'll be honest thinking just about us here in America, here in the Southeast, our suffering hadn't been a lot really. Sometimes the emotional element of it is really tough, but then I had a man tell me one time who really suffered on the mission field physically. He said in the average American church, the emotional, psychological pain of how you're attacked for trying to be true to Christ is greater than the pain I felt physically by being persecuted on the mission field. So I don't want to belittle that if you're not locked in prison, you're not really suffering yet because God gives grace for wherever we are. He gives prison grace. He gives emotional distress grace.

He's faithful to us. Oh, so much more I could say, but let me go on to see here, encouragements in the conflict. Paul's going to say something here to encourage the church at Philippi to keep on keeping on.

Don't be knocked off track. Don't be alarmed by this conflict and these opponents. He says in verse 30, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me and now here to be in me. Now, Paul's in prison at this time and they knew Paul's ministry well.

He was just constantly berated, mocked, stoned, left for dead, shipwrecked, beaten with whips, imprisoned more than once. And he says, and you'll experience the same kinds of things. He didn't mean every single Christian.

He just means it's generally true. They're going to hate you like they hated me because they hate our Christ. Can I say something to you, Christian?

And this is a good word for Jeff Noblitt. Are you listening? Don't miss this. It's not about you. You're not all that important. He is. They're attacking him. They just happen to be in the way. They're after him. And the ultimate climactic ending of their spirit is the Antichrist himself, who will take the throne of earth and bring in the great harlot church. Many Baptists are going to be in that group.

And they'll be a tiny remnant of true believers and they'll crush them. But it's not about the believers. It's about the Christ they hate. It's not about us. It's not about you.

It's about him. That'll help you if you'll remember that. Come to church and be encouraged, huh? Well, the apostle Paul says this is encouragement because you've got to know this is part of the schedule.

This is part of the plan. And the Philippians face the same type things. They have idol and emperor worship that dominated that city. Now, are you listening to me? The moment you said Jesus is Lord, you became the enemy of the emperor who had the power of life and death in his hands. Think about that.

Powerful. So Paul knew they were going to face some real tough days. Of course, they had the legalistic Judaizers who would come into the church and try to undermine the doctrines of grace and teach that Christianity is just another type of keeping rules. Then of course there was the pagan sensualist who lived for their lust like our culture does today. Our culture today says any lust even below the animal kingdom ought to be celebrated. What a vile people we are.

That's so wicked. God gave us our sexual desires to be governed and be guarded so they could be the most pleasure and bring him glory. But we pervert everything as a people. And by the way, Paul reminded the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, I always forget that reference. 10, 13, no temptation has seized you except what is common to man. Paul says here, I have the same type of things. So when you say, but my situation is special and unique. Oh no, no, many, many others have been through it too. Yeah, but you don't know what they're saying about me.

Oh no, many others have gone through it too. And I just want to say this and I want to say it to our younger folks. It may be likely that you will lose at least one job before you get to retirement age if you get to get there for your faith in Christ. Our people in the public school system. And by the way, we've got some of the finest godliest people in the public school system. And I thank God for their missionary work in the school system. Amen.

But there may come a day when you cannot give pledge to the oaths they want you to take to work there. I don't know. I don't know. But nothing has seized you, Paul tells the Corinthians, except what is common to man. Others have gone through it.

Others are going through it. One of the things that, again, keep coming out in this text is the metaphors Paul brings out of the Olympics, but more specifically the gladiator contest of the old Roman empire. For example, that word conflict in verse 30, the word opponents in verse 28, striving together in verse 27, all would be used in a gladiatorial contest of the day. The word conflict also is a word that's translated as fight. Paul will use it later in 2 Timothy as we get there in our exposition, fight the good fight.

It's also a word for race where he says run the race with endurance. So here we are in our culture today. Matter of fact, I just heard some politician the other day say that they are committed.

They didn't say fight to the death, but that's what they meant. Fight to the death to avoid this Christian state that's trying to be raised back up in our country. Anything that reflects double teachings, we are against it. The new religion of progressivism is the religion of America. Wokeism. What a horrible religion it is. It has no forgiveness and no redemption.

If you have certain skin color, you're just doomed as depraved and beneath the rest. It's an awful thing. Hillary Clinton runs for president against Donald Trump and I'll never, I mean, these words just pierced my heart and I can't understand why more people didn't grab hold to it. She said emphatically the churches are going to have to change their doctrines. I'll tell you what.

I got news for Hillary Clinton. We don't take orders from her. We're not changing our doctrines.

We don't care what the culture thinks about it. We care what our Lord thinks about it. So in the balance or in the context of encouragement, let's read Revelation 6, 9 through 11. Revelation 6, 9 through 11. When the lamb broke the field seal, I saw underneath the altar, the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God. Of course, context is a great tribulation when persecution against the church will be at its very worst and because of the testimony which they had maintained. I think that's an interesting phrase because a lot of people professed Christ, but as the pressure came on, they went with the antichrist and the great harlot church. But there are some who wouldn't, they maintained.

They stayed true. Verse 10. And they cried out with a loud voice saying, how long, O Lord, holy and true, will you refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?

Now in balance of biblical truth, we're to be forgiving of everybody and be gracious toward everybody. But here, these saints, already glorified in heaven, are saying, how long before you avenge our blood? There's a righteous vengeance, brothers and sisters. There's a righteous revenge. There's a righteous retribution.

And here's Paul. Paul, the Lord encourages them in verse 11, and there was given to each of them a white robe. That white robe speaks of, you're my redeemed ones. You bear my righteousness.

And they were told that they should rest and you have eternal rest for a little while longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed, even as they had been, would be completed also. So revelation says that God in his sovereignty has marked out only so many of his children that could be slain, martyred. You remember in my candlelight message, I said the darkness has a bound put on it. The darkness can only go so far. God controls the darkness. He's Lord of the darkness.

So we throw our, are you listening? We throw ourselves on our loving God who is absolutely sovereign, and we say with Esther, if I perish, I perish. But there's a God who's going to avenge my blood too. So he encourages those in this scene from glory that were martyred. Now, at the end of the day, everything comes from the Lord's hands. Look at verse 28 again, the last phrase, and that too from God. In other words, all that God's doing or all that is happening is God's doing. And we look to God, our reward is from God. Our treasure is in God, not in this world. We do not look to this world for our approval.

We look only to God. The gladiators of this day in the arena, they would fight in battle and it was grotesque and bloody, awful. Sometimes they didn't fight to the death, many times they did. But at the end of the contest, the custom was that the gladiator would look up at the emperor and the emperor would decide, have you pleased me enough?

Have you been approved by me? And there was a gesture, a thumb gesture. We don't know if he's up or down, but we'll assume if it's life, the emperor would say, I approve you, you live. If you didn't fight well or right, the emperor could say, I disapprove.

You die. I like what Lightfoot said in his commentary. The Christian gladiator does not anxiously await the signal of life or death from the fickle crowd. We don't wait for this world to tell us. We labor on for God, we work in his church and we work without regard to the opposition for our approval comes from another. And as we end our striving together, we look up at our Father in heaven and we're looking for the approval or the disapproval. And our Father in heaven looks at his Son, Jesus, to whom he's given all authority. And if you're in Jesus, God the Son, Jesus, looks at God the Father and smiles and says, and then God our Father looks down at us and says, you're approved. And that's all that matters. So could I charge you this morning to keep on being a normal Christian, keep on being a normal church in your conduct and in the conflict. I'll close with this, 1 Peter 5, 10. And after you suffered for a little while, the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. Strive on, keep on being a normal Christian.