1949. Servants Through Grace For the Gospel

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. His intent was to make a school where Christ would be the center of everything so he established daily chapel services. Today, that tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from the University Chapel platform. Today's speaker is Dr. Pearson Johnson, a seminary professor at Bob Jones University.

Turn your Bibles to Philippians chapter 2. Undergrad in math was certainly a trying time for me. God used it to teach me patience and endurance and not sure why I finished my bachelor's in math because, you know, I went on into the ministry but God used it in my life. My time in Sigma Spartans was a blessing. I still have very close friends.

Make good friends when you're in society and your other majors and small groups. They'll be an encouragement to you for years to come. I'm very thankful for that.

And there are several good societies from which to choose. Thankful for the opportunity to teach many of you and to have counseled many of you. It's a real privilege that you let people into your life to spend time with you, to share God's word with you, to help you understand what God is doing in your life, to help you recover from difficulties in your past.

It's a great privilege. Today we're going to talk about being servants for the sake of the gospel from Philippians chapter 2. If you haven't noticed, Dr. Benson has mentioned on a few occasions the trends nationally about church attendance, about church membership. One writer, Nicholas Kristof, wrote a column in the New York Times last week, August 23rd, titled America is Losing Religious Faith. He says that while much of the rest of the industrialized world has already become more secular over the last half century, the United States has appeared to be an exception.

Politicians, for instance, still will usually end their speeches by saying, God bless America. And at least until recently, there were more Americans that believed in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ than in evolution. Yet evidence is growing that Americans are becoming significantly less religious. They're drifting away from churches.

They're praying less. They're less likely to say that religion is important in their lives. For the first time in Gallup polling, only a minority of adults in the United States say they belong to a church in particular, or a synagogue, or a mosque. And most of those, 90% of those, belong to churches in the United States. Kristof says the U.S. remains an unusually pious nation by the standards of the rich world, but Pew Research reports that still 63% of Americans identify as Christian. But that is down from 78% in 2007. And there's been a significant increase in those who identify as having no religious affiliation.

They're termed the nones. Not N-U-N, but N-O-N-E-S. That's risen to 29% in that same timeframe. Writers Jim Davis and Michael Graham write in their book The Great Decherching, we are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in the history of our country.

We hear those words and it can be discouraging to us who are part of churches, who love the church, who want to promote the church. Albert Mueller commented on this article yesterday in his briefing podcast and he said, certainly COVID was a major part of this trend. People's schedules were interrupted. Their patterns of life were done away with and they established new patterns and many of those people that were away from church during COVID did not return. He said, this is what we saw in COVID. You pretty much find out who the more serious believers are after COVID.

So we have circumstantial situations. Certainly we have cultural issues that have come to bear. The rise of a disbelief in the scripture and moral principles has been something that's been rapidly growing in popularity among the majority of our nation. We have cultural issues coming to bear, but we also have church issues that are responsible for this. In many cases, the church has ceased being the church. We've become a social organization with which we're comfortable or we're not comfortable.

It's become a part of our habits, but not really a part of our hearts. Christof goes on to write, he says, the reason given by Graham and Davis is that to many people, the church doesn't seem very Christian. He talks about, and he's a secular writer, he talks about Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and the public church moving from being a ministry to being a political organization or a policy promoter. Falwell was famous for saying that AIDS was a scourge, a judgment of God upon gay people.

And Robertson and Falwell both said that September 11 was responsible as a specific judgment on our nation. This didn't sit well with much of our population to hear them proclaim such things. To many, the embrace of Donald Trump as a political savior with, yes, his good policy positions often but his bad, very bad personal character and moral positions is embraced by the church as turned a lot of people in communities away from listening to what the church has to say, from listening to our true savior who is a humble and holy one, Jesus Christ.

It led to even more disillusionment. Kristof does go on to lament the decline in the social impact of churches. He says churches, conservative churches particularly, have worked, quote, worked tirelessly and without much recognition to address things like disease and poverty and to build up social structures within particular communities.

So he does lament the social impact of the decline of the church. So how are we as believers, how are we as the church, for believers are the church, how are we to react to these trends? Well, we can be discouraged by these things, but today I want to remind us that God in his providence is giving us an opportunity to refocus on his mission and on being who Christ has called us to be and saved us to be. We are to be servants for the sake of the gospel. We as the church are to serve one another and we're to serve the world for the sake of Jesus Christ and for the sake of the gospel. Paul tells us this in Philippians chapter 2.

Take a look at your copy of the scripture. He says, if there be any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels or affections and mercies, fulfill ye my joy that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal to God, but he made himself of no reputation and took upon himself the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

How do we react to the trends in our culture and our nation? We react by being like Jesus Christ, being servants of the church and the world for the sake of the gospel. It seems that in the early church, Paul's writing to the church in Philippi, that one of the most powerful means of the gospel's spread was a unified, distinctive, heartfelt, humble, servant-oriented, Christ-mindedness in the lives of believers and in the church and in their commitments, their priorities, and their activities. And so, in the brief time we have together, I want to outline two major areas of focus from this passage, Philippians chapter 2, if we are to have a genuine gospel influence in our world today.

Don't be discouraged. God has a plan for us. God has a will for us. He has a means to accomplish his will. I just read Philippians chapter 2, verses 1 through 8. The first verse I want to focus on for the first point.

And listen carefully. I believe it's absolutely necessary that each one of us have a genuine, life-changing, holistic, experiential knowledge of God. Each one of us needs to have a genuine, life-changing, holistic, experiential knowledge of God.

When you sang that song earlier, you sang so well. It's so nice to come in from the rain, dripping, and then to sing praise to Christ, isn't it? Christ will hold us fast. When you sang that song, was there something within your heart that said, this is true, and I want to praise Christ for what he's promised to do in my life? That's a genuine knowledge of God. Paul says here in verse 1, if there be therefore any consolation in Christ, comfort of love, fellowship of the Spirit, affections or bows and mercies. This first verse is Trinitarian in nature.

You probably noticed that. He talks about Christ, and then he talks about love, which love represents the Father, and he talks about the fellowship of the Spirit. Is God in all the beauty and fullness of his being at work in your life? Have you experienced his work in your life? If you have, you will make a difference in the culture around you.

You can't help but make a difference. The first thing he says is, if there is consolation in Christ, and this method he uses in the grammar, he asks, it's an if-then method, but he really means since you have experienced this, if you're a true believer, you have experienced these things, since you have or because you have experienced the consolations of Christ, you should be like-minded and be a testimony of humble service to the world. Have you experienced the consolation of Christ?

This word consolation literally means to call to one's aid. Have you found yourself at some point in your life dead in your trespasses and sin and heard the Word of God in the Gospel and heard the Spirit talking to your heart and saying, you need to turn from your sin and trust in Christ as your Savior? Have you heard that Gospel and recognized it as good news, as a consolation? You knew that if you were to die in your sin, you would spend an eternity in hell separated from God forever. And so that Gospel was a real consolation to you. It was a joy for you to hear it and for you to embrace it and to say, Christ has come alongside of me.

He's died the death I would have died forever. He's lived a life of righteousness I could never live. He's become my Savior. Have you experienced the consolation of Christ?

Romans says God showed or commended his love toward us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. What a wonderful Savior we have. What a wonderful consolation it is to be called Christians, to be known by Christ, to be saved by Christ, to be indwelt by Christ, to be headed to be with Christ forever.

What a consolation that is. In a watching world that sees us speak foully of Christ or commonly of Christ, they're not impacted by that, but if they hear us speak lovingly of Christ and in praiseworthy terms of Christ, they will listen to what we have to say. Do you ever thank God that you were born into a family or into a place where you regularly heard the Gospel? Do you ever praise God that you were born into a land of light where you heard about Christ and you had the opportunity to believe in him? Think on these blessings.

Have the experience of Christ in his consolations through his cross work and his resurrection. Are you weak? You know what? If you are weak, you probably are feeling weak, especially freshmen.

You know what? When you're weak, the power of Christ can be displayed in your life as you trust in him. Do you fail? When I fear my strength would fail, Christ will hold me fast, right?

Do you fail? Thankfully, you don't have to trust in your sinfulness, but you can trust in Christ's righteousness. Are you suffering? Are you enduring the curse of sin in this world, in your body, in your relationships? Are you suffering? We have a hope in the final redemption of Christ. Christ will set all things right someday.

Are you lonely? Christ sticks closer than a brother. Do you fear the worst, even death? Know that the resurrection of Christ has conquered death. He is the first fruits of all of us who die. We will be raised with him. What a consolation. Matthew Henry, the devotional commentator, said, the sweetness we find in the doctrine of Christ will certainly sweeten our spirits towards others.

Meditate on the consolations of Christ. The next thing we see here is, if any, comfort of love. And when you see that word love, it could just be talking about love itself, the experience of love, but I think it's really talking about the love that comes down from the Father. 1 John 3, 1 says, behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us or given unto us that we should be called the sons of God. What love God has shown to us by sending his son Jesus Christ to die for us. John 3, 16 said, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but what?

Have eternal life or everlasting life. What love we have experienced. God's love is seen in our daily experience too in the comforts that he gives. 2 Corinthians 1, 3 through 7 says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comforts. He comforts us in our distresses. He causes us to feel and experience his presence and trust in his sovereignty in such a way that whatever we're going through, we are comforted. And he does that so that we will comfort others with the comforts we ourselves have received from God. Paul says there in 2 Corinthians 1, what a comfort is the love of God, the hymn writer said. Can we, could we, with ink the ocean fill or were the skies a parchment made where every stalk on earth a quill and where every man ascribed by trade to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry nor could the scroll contain the holes though stretched from sky to sky. God's love is immense, it's unfathomable.

I have a hard time with that word. It's indescribable, it's deep, it's wide, it's undeserved, it's gracious. We experience the comfort of the love of God. I hope you experience that today. And the third thing he says, we experience if any fellowship of the Spirit, any fellowship of the Spirit. And in context chapter 1 verse 27 had just said this that only let your conversation be as it becomes the Gospel of Christ that whether I come and see you or else be absent I may hear of your affairs that you stand fast in one Spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel. We have fellowship of the Spirit. We have fellowship in the Spirit. We have fellowship by the Spirit. The fellowship of the Spirit is the fellowship of the believers in the church.

Paul knows that at conversion we are baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ and so united with the universal church. And then we're organized and united with local churches in different places and we enjoy real heartfelt genuine fellowship with those believers in those places. And that fellowship of believers has a common mission to make disciples, to love their neighbors and to spread the Gospel.

The fellowship is enhanced by the way the Spirit has gifted each person in the body as well. I thought about this today we're starting ministry chapel in the Stratton Hall and many of those who are headed they think God is leading them into full-time ministry. They're in that chapel and you may sit here and think well I'm not going into ministry and I would say read your Bible because the Spirit has gifted every one of us for ministry in the church. And every one of those people that train and are called to be pastors are going to be pastoring a group of people whose gifts from the Spirit are vitally necessary for the growth of the body and for the spread of the Gospel.

We are all in this together. Sometimes we can fall prey to the thinking of individualism in our culture where we go to church because we like going to church. We go and we leave and we get something out of it and that's good to a point but that's not what the church is about. It's to go and minister to others and to receive ministry from others and to grow up together and then together as you grow up to reach out to the lost and share the Gospel with them. A genuine experience of the work of God leads to an outreach of those who need God's work in their lives.

We have a fellowship of the Spirit. We are involved in fulfilling the mission of the church and I think sometimes that's the problem in our culture today. We think evangelism has to be done by someone that is a very gifted orator or we think evangelism is only effective if we have someone that's very famous that comes to Christ and they can give a testimony. And God said actually I gave the task of evangelism to the church, the local church as all the people work together to spread the Gospel in their community. You don't have to be famous.

You don't have to be a gifted speaker. You are part of fulfilling the mission of the church. The whole person of God is involved in the progress of the Gospel in our lives. The Son, the Father, and the Spirit and this results in this last phrase in verse 1, if any, bowels and mercies, a strange translation from the King James but it really means affections, the deep seated affections that you have for something you genuinely love.

The whole person of God is involved in the progress of the Gospel in our lives. Do you ever feel something so strongly that it affects your whole person? I remember feeling grief when my dad died at the age of 46, a deep grief where you just weep, you can't help it. I remember feeling a great deal of peace when I stood at the altar with my wife.

It was a real blessing to say I finally found the one I'll spend my life with. I remember the tears of joy that squirted out of my eyes when my children were born and Grace when she was born and Pierce in the fourth when he was born. Such a joyous occasion that you just result in joyous weeping. The work of God in our life should affect us like that. It should affect our whole person and I think the church needs to return to recognizing what has Christ done for me? How has God showed his love to me? How does the Spirit work in and through me and through us as a church?

Are we experiencing a genuine work of God that causes us to be genuine testimonies of the Gospel to those around us? Second point and I don't have much time to spend on that, but we must also exhibit the selfless sacrificial humble spirit of the servant Savior Jesus Christ. The rest of this passage goes on to talk from Paul about how the church can be united in love.

He says, fulfill my joy. You be like minded. You have the same love, the same purpose, the same mind that we avoid strife. We see strife as a unity killer that we avoid vain glory, trying to take glory for ourselves. And then ultimately Paul tells us that we must have the mind of Christ.

I want to encourage you this week to take some time and meditate on this passage about Jesus Christ. We like stories about the little guy winning the gold medal or one of my favorite movies Hoosiers, you know, where the Hickory Huskers beat the South Bend Central basketball team. Or like stories where someone that is a common person gets bit by a spider and becomes a superhero, right?

We like things to flow that direction. But what about the opposite direction where the king of all the universe, the creator of all things, the Lord almighty Jesus Christ, who was in heaven with his Father and with the Spirit, humbled himself and came and was born in a manger. He lived his life of righteousness, was persecuted for it and ultimately humbled himself to the point of death, even death on the cross.

What about that reverse hero story? Christ humbled himself and Paul says, let the mind of Christ be in you. So as you engage in community relationships, how are you humbling yourself and showing sacrificial love for those around you? As you engage in political situations, how do you express the humility of Christ and a love for your fellow creatures? As you engage in personal relationships in the church, how do you look out for the interests of others instead of your own interests?

If we're to be a genuine testimony to a lost and dying world, we must follow the humble spirit of the servant savior. I'll close with this illustration. Back when I was a student, we had a multimedia presentation called the show window and it was the goal to present the education you get at Bob Jones as an excellent education that produces, quote unquote, show window material. People, the world looks at and says, they're excellent. They know what they're doing.

They look good. And in its time when Christianity was culturally popular, that was an appealing thing. But I got to tell you, most of what I find in a show window is plastic. It's hollow inside. It's dressed up.

It's not real. And so I want to challenge you instead of thinking about yourself as show window material, think about yourself as a street level servant, someone who goes out, has experienced the love of God through Jesus Christ and the fellowship of spirit in the church of the spirit of the church and goes out and loves her fellow brother and by sharing the gospel and serving the world and serving the church, let's pray and ask for God's help. Father, I pray that you would help us to meditate even today to be encouraged by what you've done in our lives through the work of Christ, how we've experienced your love in our lives and how we enjoy the fellowship of believers.

But God help us to really think about how genuinely experienced that in such a way that when people look at our lives, they see that that's real to us. And God help us to go forth from our churches and from our houses and from our places and serve others to be humble, sacrificial, loving servants. Help us to be street level servants who meet the needs of those around us and do so for your glory. And God, we all look forward to the time when every knee will bow and every tongue confesses that Jesus is Lord, but until then we have a mission to do. And help us to do that mission for your glory in Jesus name. Amen. You've been listening to a message preached by Dr. Pearson Johnson, a seminary professor at Bob Jones University. Join us again next time as we'll hear more messages preached from Bob Jones University Apple Services here on The Daily Platform.