The church at large today is evidently alarmed at any kind of opposition. So it is sort of scurrying around in an attempt to hide, downplay any offensive part of its gospel. It's refusing to call sin, sin.
Sort of palish it away. To take anything that is viewed as politically incorrect from the gospel and make it more palatable for an unbelieving culture. Have you ever wondered why life seems to get harder, not easier, after becoming a Christian? It's a common misconception that following Christ means smooth sailing, but that's far from the truth.
The Bible warns us that trials are inevitable, and they serve a purpose. Just like navigating rough waters builds a stronger boat, enduring life's difficulties strengthens our faith. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, we'll explore why Paul encouraged the Philippians to stand firm, work together, and not be alarmed by opposition.
How can we stay strong when life feels like a series of rapids? Stick around as we dive into this challenge. Today's lesson is called, On the White Water of Grace. Now today we arrive at a somewhat surprising third action point to be worthy as citizens of heaven.
The first two told us what to do, this one tells us what not to do. He begins in verse 28, just the first phrase for a moment, in no way alarmed by your opponents. In no way alarmed by your opponents.
Let me finish that three point outline in principle form. Not only are we to be committed to repairing any disunifying spirit, not only are we to reject any disengaging attitude, now Paul effectively tells them and us that our conduct as worthy citizens of the kingdom of heaven should be committed to refusing any disheartening perspective, not only for our own selves but for the sake of those around us. Refuse any disheartening perspective.
In no way alarmed by your opponents. The church at large today is evidently alarmed at any kind of opposition. So it is sort of scurrying around in an attempt to hide, downplay any offensive part of its gospel.
Sort of polish it away. To take anything that is viewed as politically incorrect from the gospel and make it more palatable for an unbelieving culture. It's refusing to call sin, sin. To even refuse to describe someone as being in danger of hell. Even if that person actually openly denies the gospel of Jesus Christ. I heard one pseudo pastor on television, in fact just a few weeks ago, being asked, now do you believe if someone doesn't actually follow Jesus Christ that they will go to hell? And I watched that man capitulate, I guess he capitulated, maybe he doesn't believe it, but he said well that's really not up to us, it's not up to me, I'm just going to leave that up to God.
I wanted to climb in that TV, but I hadn't been invited. God has actually left it up to us to deliver the gospel to our world. That this is how you go to hell and this is how you go to heaven.
He's left it up to us. One author in fact wrote a growing number of churches today are intentionally playing down the biblical elements of sin and repentance. And in so doing the gospel is effectively trivialized. It's reduced to unimportance.
It's then repackaged into various forms of entertainment and amusement. I personally believe that at the core of this digression is what Paul is referring to here. It's fear. It's fear of losing the approval of our boss, our contemporaries, our culture. It's fear of not being invited to sit at the table with those who are considered erudite or sophisticated. It is fear of being viewed as out of touch. It is fear of being among the worst offenders of human rights. In fact, as one member of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission recently suggested that any religious system that doesn't endorse same-sex marriage is effectively in the same category as slave traders and Nazis.
That is not a minority opinion. Never mind by the way if you just look at history that Christians, many of them worked tirelessly to end slavery. Never mind that many Christians hid Jews in their closets from Nazis.
And Christians today are loyal friends of the Jewish people. The church is scrambling to avoid any kind of opposition while the apostle Paul clearly tells us to expect it. Now Paul doesn't just say here, pick your chin up and go out there and do your best. What he does is he builds his case for fearlessness on two eternal realities. In fact, go back to verse 28 and notice. He says, in no way alarmed by your opponents which is a sign of destruction for them but of salvation for you. In other words, this whole issue needs to have the perspective of some eternal realities.
One is destruction and two is salvation. So let me redefine opposition for you. Let me give you another perspective Paul is effectively saying. Opposition, he writes, is a sign. You might circle that little word in verse 28.
It's a sign. The word Paul uses for sign is a word that refers to giving evidence that something is true. Opposition gives evidence that something is true.
Let me break it down and put it this way. First, opposition is evidence for a coming judgment. Notice it is a sign of destruction for them. The antecedent of them is those who oppose the church or the opponents of the gospel.
That's frankly a terrifying thought. The opponents of the church are actually opposing God. They are opposing the chief shepherd of the true church and there is a coming day of judgment from God because God has taken note of the evidence. God sees the sign. He can read it. So the acts of the opponent, their actions and their attitudes are turned into evidence that will one day in reality demonstrate they are worthy of judgment, which is why you go to the end of Revelation as the world of unbelievers are judged at the great white throne.
What does God do? He takes out the books and he opens them and he says, effectively, let me show you the evidence. That's not all. Secondly, opposition is not only evidence for a coming judgment, but I want you to notice this. Opposition is evidence of a genuine disciple. Notice again verse 28, in no way alarmed by your opponents which is a sign, which is evidence of destruction for them, but it is evidence of salvation. It's a sign of salvation for you.
In other words, the very fact that you are being opposed is good news. In fact, I want you to leave here after we're done eventually and I want you to be troubled if you do not have in your life some kind of opposition, some kind of trouble. Those who will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer. Lord, how am I suffering for the cause of Christ? It's evidence of a genuine disciple.
Think about it. The apostles, their entire world changed before they're commissioned. After the crucifixion, they're huddled in fear.
If there's any group that's going to stampede, it's them. But something changed. They were terrified, but the evidence was unmistakable. They were cowards after the crucifixion. They became courageous after the resurrection.
I mean, that made the difference. The gospel of Christ was physically, tangibly, visibly, completely, undeniably confirmed. So they are now preaching when they earlier were panicking. It isn't long before they're arrested and they're told to never preach again.
Don't deliver that message to anybody again. Acts chapter five. If you know the book of Acts at all, you may be younger in the faith and not have read that book, but what happens is interesting to me. They're called before the high court, the Supreme Court of Israel, known as the Sanhedrin. Imagine being called before the Supreme Court of our country. They're called before the Supreme Court and they're told never to preach in the name of Jesus again.
So what do they do? They give that classic response that says, well, no, we will obey God rather than man. You're just men, but we're going to obey God rather than men. We're not going to stop preaching in the name of Jesus. How many pastors have capitulated because they were told don't pray in the name of Jesus?
Well, let's just not pray then. They said, no, we're going to keep preaching. And so they weren't used to that, so they had the apostles step out and they collaborated and finally decided, well, if this is of God, we really probably can't stop it.
If it isn't of God, it's probably going to wind down, so let's not go too far here. And then it's easy to think that the apostles were given a free ride. No, they brought them back in and the text says they flogged them and ordered them to speak, and I'm reading from Acts 5, no more in the name of Jesus and then released them. And they went on their way from the presence of the Supreme Court rejoicing.
Wait a second, huh? That's not the verb I'd think would follow. They went on their way rejoicing.
Why? That they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name. And then they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Messiah. Opposition points to a coming punishment for the enemies of God, but opposition also points as convincing proof for the children of God. In other words, opposition against you for the sake of your faith in Jesus Christ becomes the very evidence of your faith in Jesus Christ.
It points to the reality of the fact that you are genuine and you are a loyal follower of this one. I couldn't help but notice a very tangible illustration of that being played out on the news even though we're not given the inside story of what's happening. As you've read, these believers in Niger are being persecuted. The news, the White House press statement said that there's been the loss of 10 lives and the destruction of some houses of worship. No, it is the loss of an indeterminate number of Christians' lives and the destruction of 70 churches. I couldn't help but read as I was reading this past week one particular news report that made me curious.
I figured there's something else going on here that I'm not being told. It talked about how ISIS in the city of Mosul, the second largest city of Iraq is the Christians are being given some ultimatums by the Muslims. They ordered all of the Christians in that city to either convert to Islam or pay a protection fee or leave their businesses, their homes, their possessions, everything and flee or to be put to death.
Those were the options. In the meantime, every house in Mosul occupied by a Christian family was marked somewhere on the outside with the Arabic letter that would be the English counterpart, the letter N. I wondered, what does that mean? Why have their homes been marked with the letter N? Scoured the news reports, couldn't find it.
I don't get the news and disturb her so I assumed it wouldn't end there anyway. I did everything I could, could not find the answer. Then it hit me, I know who knows the answer. I called my friend Hannah. Hannah is a converted Palestinian. He has a ministry reaching throughout the Middle East. He's a member of our flock and also one of our global development teammates. You may know he and his sweet wife Evelyn. At any rate, if anybody knew what this meant it would be him.
I called him up and I said, Hannah, you know what's going on? Why am I reading here that they have written the Arabic letter for N on the homes of those Christians to mark, to make sure that they either leave or convert? What does that letter N stand for?
He knew immediately. He said, well, the letter N in the Arabic goes all the way back centuries earlier, in fact to the seventh century, where it became a symbol for those who were followers of Jesus of Nazareth. And so that N marks them as followers of the Nazarene. I thought, wow.
Wow. How would we handle our culture reaching a point where they mark our home with a letter and then give us a decision? This is a living illustration of Philippians 1.27.
I mean it's played out in a tangible, physical way. These families have been marked by their opponents. And not only that, the letter N scrawled on their homes is also a sign to those inhabitants.
It is tangible evidence that they belong to the Nazarene. Now what Paul will do next is effectively expand his case for fearlessness. And he's going to say some encouraging things to them, three things at least. Let me give them to you these three encouraging reminders. First of all, Paul will remind them that salvation is a gift. Go to verse 29. For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him but also to suffer.
Now before we run to the second part of that startling phrase, let's go back and make sure we don't miss the first one. Salvation is a gift to those who belong to God. For to you it has been granted to believe. The word Paul uses for granted is from chorizo, which means to give graciously.
It's the same root word from which we get choriz or grace. Paul will write it this way to the Ephesians, a verse you know well, for by grace you have been saved through faith. Not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Salvation is granted to you as a gift of a gracious God. So you can never pat yourself on the back. You can never say, let me show you the eight things I did without fail and that's why I'm getting in. It's a gift of God's grace.
Then this is where it gets surprising. Paul is not only encouraging them to remember that salvation is a gift of grace, he also tells them that suffering is a privilege to embrace. Notice again, for to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him but also to suffer for his sake. It has been granted to you to suffer. That sounds like an award. I don't think of suffering as a wow, I got that medallion.
I got that award. That's the language he's using. It's an honor that God in his grace, not his disfavor, saves you and then grants you the privilege of suffering. It's a sign then that God is not displeased but pleased.
White water is his gift of grace. It's easy to believe that when trouble comes that somehow it slipped past the hand of God to grab us by the neck. What Paul says here effectively is that trouble has actually come from the hand of God. Now don't misunderstand. Paul isn't saying, okay church, go out there and spoil for trouble.
Go out there and look for it. There's no virtue in pain for pain's sake. He's simply telling us that when it comes, God has granted it as a gift. Why would suffering be viewed? Why would opposition, why would tribulation, why would persecution ever be considered a gift of God's grace? I spent some time just trying to think of reasons it would be.
The list isn't as exhaustive as some that I came up with. First of all, it takes your eyes off earthly things. It just sort of clears up the fog.
We become so earthbound and that has a way of clearing it up. It weeds out superficial beliefs. It weeds out superficial believers in the church by the way. It strengthens the testimony of those who endure. It adds to the future reward.
In fact, there's a special reward for those who suffer the ultimate persecution who are murdered. It weans us from self-sufficiency and self-promotion. It crushes our pride. It informs us we are not in control. It causes us to worship God with purified motives.
We stop asking for stuff. We realize it's plastic and we want him, the rock of our salvation to name just a few. Salvation is a gift of grace. Suffering is a privilege to embrace. The plan of God is not to pamper us but to perfect us, to mature us, and he uses the rapids of life in a unique way to keep us focused and dependent and aware. This is the rewriting of our perspective which then resists being disheartened. Salvation is a gift of grace. Suffering is a privilege to embrace. Thirdly, trials are expected as commonplace.
Don't be surprised. Look at what he writes in verse 29 again. For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake not only to believe in him but also to suffer for his sake.
Now notice verse 30. Experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me and now here to be in me. In other words, you are experiencing what I am experiencing, implied what every believer experiences. While our situations might be different, James calls trials multi-varied or multi-colored, but it's all the same. Trials should be viewed then not as occasional guests but as constant companions.
Now knowing that doesn't make it easy. In fact, Paul uses the word conflict here in verse 30 for opposition or suffering. He says I am experiencing the same conflict and the word he uses is from the Greek word agon or agonia. It gives us our word agony.
He's not, you know, wiping a little plastic smile on his face and saying, hey, I'm just gonna sing and, you know, just sort of forget it. No, this is agonizing. In fact, it's the same word used of Christ's struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane where we read and being in agony.
Same word. He prayed fervently. First and foremost, Jesus Christ has tasted the agony of suffering.
He can understand yours. Paul effectively says you've seen the agony in my own life and now you're seeing it in your own, which is another way of reminding them and us you are not the only ones who are suffering and that's one of the tactics of the enemy when you do. You sit alone perhaps and you think I'm the only one who suffers. I'm the only one that God seems to have just sort of backed the truck and let it out. You're not the only one. Trials are commonplace. They are a mark of a genuine disciple.
They are the gracious gift of God to mature his children. You're not then the only one suffering. But it also means if I could turn it just a little bit, it also means you are never alone in your suffering.
You're never alone. You're surrounded by the way in here by believers who speak the same language, suffering. It's going to all look a little different, but suffering is the native tongue of the true believer for every Christian is involved in the agonia. Every Christian is in the race. Every Christian has been marked.
We belong to the kingdom of heaven. We close with this testimony of trust in Christ by one who was just beginning her walk of faith. As a college student, one pastor that I read an article by served as a summer missionary in East Malaysia. While he was in East Malaysia, for a few months he attended a Bible-believing church working with him during his internship. At one of the church worship services, a baptism had been planned afterward, and a young teenage girl had come to publicly announce her faith in Christ and her desire to be baptized as a public profession of her loyalty as a follower of Christ. During the service, Jim noticed a worn-out suitcase leaning against the wall of that little church sanctuary. He writes, I asked the pastor why it was sitting there. The pastor pointed to the young lady who had just been baptized and said to me.
Her father said that if she was baptized as a Christian, she could never come home again. So she brought her luggage, evidence of a genuine believer, ready to get on a raft and head out into the white water marked by, guided by, actually granted by the hand of a gracious God who will strengthen you as you walk with him. The lesson you heard today here on Wisdom for the Heart is called On the Whitewater of Grace. We have a booklet that corresponds with this series. It's an easy-to-read paperback booklet called Moving Forward in Reverse. If you've never called Wisdom International before, call today at 866-48-BIBLE. We'll take down enough information to be able to send this to you in the mail. Again, that number is 866-48-BIBLE. On our next broadcast, Stephen will be in the Old Testament looking at the lives of some often neglected saints. That's next time on Wisdom for the Hearts.
