Model Spiritual Servants, Part 1: Paul B

How can Paul live like this?

How can he be a prisoner chained to some Roman? How can he go through everything he goes through and have a spirit that says, I offer my life willingly and I rejoice in this? I'll tell you how he was so close to Christ that he knew the very attitudes that were the attitudes of Christ in his own joyful self-sacrifice. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Today John will look at some living lessons from the Bible, a study simply titled, Heaven's Heroes. John began this study by looking at Hannah, a tremendous example of faithfulness for mothers, and really for each one of us today. Then he looked at a man who started off as anything but a hero of the faith, but who, fair to say, had the greatest influence on the early church, and who is a model for us today, and of course, that's the apostle Paul. So with that, take your Bible, turn to the book of Philippians, and follow along with John as he shows you more about the life of the apostle Paul.

And we come to Philippians chapter 2, and the text where we find ourselves begins with verse 17 and runs down through verse 30. Thus does Paul present himself as an illustration of sacrificial joy. Paul says, I am now offering my life as this final topping off libation, or drink offering, upon another sacrifice. This is the completion of this full sacrifice. Now notice that phrase, upon the sacrifice and service of your faith.

The sacrifice they were making was really the giving of their lives for the cause of Christ. Preaching, teaching, proclaiming, living for Christ. And he calls it the service of your faith. The service of your faith. The word service is leitourgia, from which we get liturgy.

Why? Because it means sacred service, religious service, priestly service. It would be so used in the Septuagint. It's used of Epaphroditus in verse 25. It says of him there that he offered spiritual, liturgical, sacred ministry or sacred service. So Paul looks at them and he sees them as priests, just like Peter says, holy priests, royal priests.

1 Peter 2. And he sees the Philippians as priests who are offering up their lives as a sacrifice and his, by comparison, is just a little topping off compared to theirs. They were a faithful people. They were a sacrificial people.

He rejoiced over them. He just rejoiced over them because of their faithfulness to the Lord. In chapter 4, verse 18, he says that the money you sent me, which was sacrificial, they didn't have as much as they sent, they sacrificed.

They didn't have that much to spare. And he said, what you have sent, the end of verse 18, with Epaphroditus, what you sent is a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. You see, he saw their life as the major sacrifice and it was demonstrated in the generosity with which they were endeavoring to meet the needs of Paul in a monetary way by sending money to him. But they were a sacrificial people. His life was just the topping of that sacrifice.

But let me go a step further. You can't just look at this as comparing them a greater and a lesser sacrifice. There's a sense in which there's unity here as well and it's really one sacrifice.

For it was customary that the sacrifice was laid on the altar and then the one who brought the sacrifice poured out the drink offering as the final element of that one sacrifice. So what Paul is really saying is you and I together are offering to God the sacrifice of our life. There is a real loving, loyal, sort of brotherly act in this sacrifice. He sort of ties his heart with the Philippians and said, I don't mind a bit being a part of your sacrificial service to Christ.

Together we are offering ourselves. So he had reached a common altar with the people he loved and they had reached a common altar with the apostle they loved. And that's why we say that Paul here illustrates sacrifice. His whole life was a sacrifice. But notice the attitude that went along with it, alright? Back to verse 17.

This is key. He says, since I am being poured out as an offering, I rejoice. The I rejoice connects to the since I am being poured out.

It's the fact that one led to the other. Why are you rejoicing? You know why I'm rejoicing? I'm rejoicing because I am being poured out as an offering. You say, wait a minute. It's not joy in spite of, get this will you, it's joy because of. Can you handle that? It is not joy in spite of, it is joy because of.

What do you mean? What I mean is that the highest expression of Paul's life was to give himself a sacrifice, therefore build into it was the greatest experience of joy. Did you ever sit back and say, how can such and such a missionary live under those conditions? How can such and such a missionary go to that place, stay in that place, endure what they endure for years and years and years? How can they handle that?

I'll tell you how. Because they view life as a sacrifice well pleasing to God. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the joy. The more supreme the offering, the greater the exhilaration.

That's the bottom line. It is not joy in spite of, it is joy because of. And we will affirm in the testimony of Paul here that his greatest joy came at the time of his greatest sacrifice. And the reason some of us know so little about that level of joy is because we know nothing about that level of sacrifice. And so we can't relate.

It's difficult to relate to that. His joy was in the sacrifice. His joy was in the offering because that is that for which he lived. That's why he said, if I live, I live to the Lord. If I die to the Lord, either way I'm the Lord's. That's why he said, I count not my life dear to myself.

I just want to finish what the Lord gave me to do. And his greatest joy came at the point of his greatest sacrifice because that was his greatest goal. So he is saying to the Philippians, don't worry about me folks.

I've never been so happy. They were concerned. They sent Epaphroditus.

They sent money. They want to meet his needs. They're burdened about him.

And what does he say to them? Verse 17, I rejoice and I share my joy with you all. And you too rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me. What do you mean rejoice in the same way?

Well you're going through suffering and you're going through persecution and you're going through opposition. You rejoice too and I'll rejoice and we'll rejoice together that you have put your lives on the altar, that I have poured my life on the altar, that it is all well pleasing to God and that is our great joy. This whole epistle, as you know, is full of joy. Back in chapter 1, verse 4, he has joy every time he thinks about them. He prays for them with joy in every prayer. Every time he thinks of them, he has joy. He has joy because the gospel is being preached. Verse 18, Christ is proclaimed and in this I rejoice and I'll continue to rejoice even though they're criticizing me. He has joy because of his love for them. Chapter 4, verse 1, my beloved brethren whom I long to see my joy and crown and he calls them again my beloved at the end of the verse.

Verse 10, I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern for me. He not only rejoiced in his love for them, he rejoiced in their love for him. He rejoiced every time he thought about them.

He rejoiced in their sacrifice. This is a time for joy. And so he says to them, you rejoice.

Don't be sorry for me. You rejoice. I'm sharing my joy with you.

You share your joy with me. You see, this joy, beloved, is not related to circumstances at all, but most of our joy is. If the circumstances are positive, we have an earthly joy.

If the circumstances are negative, we lose our earthly joy. Many Christians have never known the exhilaration of a spiritual joy born out of sacrifice. But here he says, I rejoice and I share my joy.

Soon, Cairo, together we are glad, he says. This then is the model of what we'll call the sacrificial rejoicer. This man, Paul, is amazing because what he shows us is that the greater the sacrifice, the greater what? The joy.

And that's so foreign to most of us. And we look at a person like a missionary or someone who is devoted to the work of God in a hard place, destitute, alone, hard-pressed, uncomfortable, miserable by human standards, and we say, how can they endure that? What a miserable existence and quite the opposite is the truth because in their ultimate sacrifice they have found the ultimate spiritual joy which we know so little about, but which is a gift of the Spirit of God to the ultimately obedient sacrificial believer. Paul, by the way, refers to this same kind of joy on a number of occasions. 2 Corinthians 7, 4, he says, I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction. I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction.

See, he's a perfect illustration of not grumbling, isn't he? It didn't matter what was happening to him. He continued to rejoice with joy. In Colossians 1, 24, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, he says. 1 Thessalonians chapter 3, verse 7, he talks about distress and affliction. And then in verse 9, what thanks can we render to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice? He was rejoicing in the midst of affliction again.

So here you have this sacrificial rejoicer, and this is so typical. I have read Foxe's Book of Martyrs a number of times. I have read many different things of the early church. I've read about martyrs that died.

I think there are very few martyrs in history who died and left any kind of record anywhere that I haven't read at some point in my life. And I read and read, and what I hear every time I read these things is how they rejoice as they're being burned at the stake, how they rejoice as they're being crucified, how they rejoice as they're being whipped. And your flesh says, well, how can they do that? And you go back to the fact that ultimate sacrifice produces ultimate joy. Again, F. B. Meyer said, It was thus that the martyrs pressed to the scaffold and stake, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ's name. And then he says, When once the soul has caught sight of the true significance of life and has learned the privilege which is within its reach of identifying itself with the Son of God in His great act of redemption, a similar glow of joy begins to cast its radiance over passages of life that hitherto had been dark and forbidding.

Boy, that's so true. You look at trials and difficulties, hard places, physical discomfort, pain, and even death as dark and forbidding. But when you get to the point where you totally abandon yourself to the will of God to be pleasing in His sight, nothing is dark, nothing is forbidding, light is shed on everything, and ultimate sacrifice leads to ultimate joy. And the reason we know so little about that kind of joy is because we know so little about that kind of sacrifice. For us, you see, the only thing that brings joy is what we do for ourselves. And once in a while, the joy of seeing something done for someone else. But I wonder how many Christians really aren't consumed with the joy that is theirs because of the total sacrifice they have made for Christ. We get joy out of what we do for ourselves. We get some joy out of what we do for others as a satisfaction in feeding the hungry, helping the poor, whatever it might be, helping little children, sick people. But how many of us are exhilarated with joy in the sacrifices we make for the cause of Christ?

Let me ask the question. What are you sacrificing in service to Christ? What amount of treasure, what amount of time, what are you sacrificing for the cause of Christ?

Put it another way. What have you said no to in order to say yes to God's will? What have you said no to in order to say yes to God's kingdom? What have you said no to in order to say yes to God's church?

That's the question. Paul lived a life of sacrificial joy. And I'm telling you, I'll say it probably till I die someday, the reason we have such a discontent, unhappy society is because, and even among Christians, they are trying to find joy in possessions rather than in sacrifice where ultimate joy lies.

And so they are chasing an illusion. You say, well, I don't mind my life. It's not that bad.

Well, that may be true. God is gracious and you may have a modicum of happiness, but you will never know true joy, surpassing joy, sacrificial joy, the joy that allows a man being burned at the stake to sing with expressions of joy in his lips the hymns of his great God and Savior. You may never know that exhilarating joy, the joy that comes out of sacrificial giving, sacrificial effort, the greatest joy. Now let me wrap this up and I want you to get this.

This is really the key. If you're like me, you're saying, well, I mean, I'm a long way from the Apostle Paul. How am I going to know this kind of joy?

How am I going to experience this level of living? Where did Paul learn it? Can I tell you where he learned it? He learned it from Christ because it was Jesus Christ in Hebrews 12 to 2 who endured the cross because of the what? Joy that was set before him. Jesus is the perfect illustration of ultimate sacrifice and ultimate joy. Jesus in giving his life, enduring the cross, did so for the ultimate joy of offering to God the ultimate sacrifice that was well pleasing to him. Paul learned it from Jesus and he longed, he longed to learn Christ in his own life.

Look at Philippians chapter 3, chapter 3 verse 10. Look at his prayer, that I may know him. You say, well, you already know him. Oh, I want to know him more. I want to know him more, more deeply, more fully.

And what about him do you want to know? I want to know the power of his resurrection. That is power to give my life as a sacrifice, power to lay everything on the line. And then I want to know the fellowship of his sufferings and I want to know the joy of suffering in ultimate sacrifice. That's what he's saying. You see, he found his model in Christ and I believe he found his strength to live out that model in his relationship to Christ. I don't believe there are any gimmicks to this.

I don't believe there are any tricks to get to this kind of place. The truth of the matter is, as you look at the world and assess it and look back in history, it seems like most of the sacrificial people lived at another time, doesn't it? They lived in another era.

Some people would think that's impossible because Christian counseling wasn't invented yet. How could they deal with their struggles and problems? But it seems to me that most of the totally sacrificial people lived in another age.

Or if they live today, they live in another culture than this one. And yet they knew how to give everything. They knew how to put their life and all they had on the line and in so doing to receive that ultimate joy. How did they know that? Same way Paul knew it. They got close to Christ. They got close to Christ. Everything was flowing out of the relationship with Christ. Now let me just close, but this is so important.

Listen. I have a great fear about that because I personally believe that in the doctrine of sanctification, what the Bible basically teaches is that your effectiveness as a Christian is directly related to one thing. And that is simply this. Your effectiveness as a Christian is directly related to the proximity in which you live in intimate fellowship with Christ. That's the issue.

And I don't hear anybody talk about that. That's not the popular thing in the new sanctification. But I believe I can look at a person's life, look at their conduct and their behavior and tell you how intimate and how close their relationship is to the living Christ.

Because that's what dictates the kind and quality of life they live. You see, these kinds of spiritual attitudes that make a person sacrificial and finding joy and sacrifice are attitudes that flow out of Christ's heart because that's how He felt about His sacrifice and it comes to one who is intimate with Him. The heart and soul of sanctification or spiritual growth or becoming all you need to be is bound up in your union with Christ.

It is as an abiding branch that you bear fruit. You were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. You were chosen to become like Him throughout all eternity. And in the time in between while you live, you are to live in Him and through Him and by Him. And yet the current stress on sanctification mentions very little about Christ, very little about cultivating an intimacy with Him through prayer and study of God's Word and through longings and affections and deep love for Christ which is cultivated by those disciplines. Today it's gimmicks and formulas and Christian psychology and self-image and introspection and getting in touch with yourself and examining your deep problems and searching for clues in how your parents treated you and in your past and fussing around with all that stuff.

And it's a diversion away from the solution to people's needs which is a deep, abiding, penetrating, consuming union with Jesus Christ that is cultivated on a moment-by-moment basis. Where did Paul find the strength for this? He said in 3 10 that I may know Him. I want power from Him. I want joy and suffering that comes from Him. In chapter 4, he knew, verse 13, I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Where do you go for your strength, beloved?

Where do you go? Christians are running all over the place trying to find strength in everything but an increasingly growing, intimate, profound relationship with the living Christ, cultivated out of prayer, time in the Word, and a growing affection for Him. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Then he says in verse 19, my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus. So all your strength and all your needs are bound up in Christ.

And if you go on into Colossians, all you have to do is go to chapter 2 and read verse 3. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom, all the treasures of knowledge. You want strength that's in Christ. You want your needs met, it's in Christ. You want wisdom, it's in Christ.

You want knowledge, it's in Christ. And I'm telling you this, he says in verse 4 of Colossians 2, so nobody deludes you with some persuasive argument. He says, I want you to remain disciplined, verse 5. I want you to remain stable in your faith in Christ. Verse 6, you received Christ, now do what? Walk in Him. You've been firmly rooted and you're now being built up in Him.

That's the key. And verse 8, don't let anybody take you captive through philosophy, deception, tradition of men. That's elementary principles, humanism rather than Christ. For in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. In Him you have been made complete. He is the head over all. Beloved, can I be so basic as to say that every Christian's relationship is built on a continuing intimacy with Jesus Christ.

Therein comes the solution to all life's exigencies. How can Paul live like this? How can he be a prisoner chained to some Roman? How can he go through everything he goes through and have a spirit that says I offer my life willingly and I rejoice in this? I'll tell you how he was so close to Christ that he knew the very attitudes that were the attitudes of Christ in his own joyful self-sacrifice.

You say, how do I reach that level? You have, beloved, may I assure you, dwelling in you the same Christ. Is that so? The same Christ. The only question is whether or not you have appropriated His presence and whether you continue to cultivate that union which will yield for you the fullness of sacrificial joy. Well, let's pray together. Father, we thank you for the example of this dear man, Paul, who walked with Jesus, who was an abiding branch, for whom to live was Christ, so much so that he said, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. Lord, help us to have such an intimacy with Christ. May Christ be always in our thoughts and may our love for Him increase to the point where we are so lost in the union that His attitude becomes our attitude and sacrificial joy expressed by Him becomes our way of life. We thank you for that hope that by your grace we can so live in Jesus' name.

Amen. You and I have access to the same Christ, the same divine power that Paul did. That's encouraging truth from John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary.

His current study here on Grace to You is titled Heaven's Heroes. Now, John, as you've said many times, including on yesterday's program, after the Lord Jesus Christ, the apostle Paul is the person in the Bible who you say has most influenced your ministry. So why exactly is Paul your primary model for ministry as opposed to all the other biblical characters, for example, the apostles John or Peter? Well, I think because we don't see the drama of the apostolic life of John unfolding. We don't have a history of John to speak of, except in the book of Acts, and he just stays in the shadow of Peter. We have a brief history of Peter in the first 11 chapters or so of the book of Acts. But we have Paul from chapter 12 to the end of the book of Acts, and then we have 13 letters. You know, in the case of Peter, he wrote a couple very short epistles. In the case of John, he wrote the three epistles, which would be messages to the church. But by sheer volume, Paul dominates the New Testament. So he gives us the most broadly comprehensive look at an apostle. So if you want to see the model for ministry, it is the apostle Paul. And that leads me to talk about something that is so exciting to me, because it's never been done before, and that's hard to say.

Almost everything's been done before a lot of times, but this hasn't. A book called One Faithful Life. It's the story of Paul, but it's done in a very unique way. It's all scripture. We take all that the book of Acts says about the life of Paul, all that he himself said about his life in conversion, like in the latter part of the book of Acts where he gives his testimony, and all that he says about his ministry in his epistles, like he does in Galatians in chapter 2 when he talks about confrontation with Peter. So it pulls it all together in chronology. So you get the flow of the apostle Paul's life, and at whatever interval he wrote a New Testament letter, that letter is placed in the book. So you follow the flow of his life, and you're with him, and he wrote the letter, and then he picks his ministry back up again, and then you're with him, and he writes another letter. It's all scripture, and it's all footnoted with extensive notes drawn out of the MacArthur Study Bible, so the whole thing is explained in the footnotes. There's no other Bible study tool like it. We want you to order this book.

Contact us today. You need to get a copy of this. It has included in it a yearly reading plan, so in one year you read through the whole thing.

That's right. This really is a unique book. It gives you everything the scripture says about Paul and everything he wrote in the Bible in chronological order.

This could be a great gift for a loved one on this Christmas. Order One Faithful Life when you get in touch today. Just call 800-55-GRACE, or go online to gty.org.

One Faithful Life costs $17 in hardcover, and shipping is free. Again, to order, call 800-55-GRACE, or go to gty.org. And friend, if the Lord has used grace to you to help you grow spiritually, we would love to hear your story, especially if God used this ministry to bring you to repentance and faith in Christ. Email your story to letters at gty.org, or you can send your note to Grace To You, post office box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. And remember also, at our website, gty.org, you will find thousands of free Bible study tools, including daily devotionals, there's our blog with articles by John and other staff members, also the Grace To You television broadcast, and more than 3,600 sermons by John, all of them available for free in MP3 and transcript format. Our web address again, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and our staff, I'm Phil Johnson with a question. Do people simply become heroes, or are they made heroes? John will answer that tomorrow as he continues his study called Heaven's Heroes with another 30 minutes of Unleashing God's Truth One Verse at a Time on Grace To You.