Conduct Yourselves in a Manner Worthy of the Gospel of Christ

Daniel, would you come on up? So Daniel has preached here once before. Yes, Daniel is a lawyer. He is a classmate of Timothy Deaton in the pastor's college and has graciously volunteered and been willing to come up to preach this Sunday since I was out of town this past week. So please do give him your heart as he preaches to us. Thank you. All right, good morning. Our text for the sermon today is Philippians chapter 1. So if you have a Bible. open it up. Otherwise, we have it on the screen. Thank you for having me. I appreciate opening your church up to training of pastors, training of the other students that we have, Timothy as well. That's one you give me trust.

And you welcome me to practice and to learn. So this is, thank you for your attention. And this is the word of the Lord. And we're going to read it. And I pray that it will be fruitful for you. So Philippians chapter 1, verses 27 through 30. 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 of you that you are standing firm in one spirit. 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. This is the word of the Lord.

Heavenly Father, I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our heart would be pleasing to you. This is in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. For Christ's sake, God requires Christians to actively participate in the gospel by standing firm, by working together in mind and in heart. And this is because there's opposition. There's opposition to God, and that results in suffering for us. And just to tell you why I picked this passage, I've been thinking a lot about the opposition that we see in our culture. And I saw this instruction in verse 28, in no way be alarmed by your opponents. And that really drew me to try and understand the text. And it's not the thrust of the text, but it just seemed like an important encouragement for today.

We have opposition and probably, you know, historically not, you know, not some sort of surprising opposition, not some sort of like historically atypical opposition, but more opposition than we had five years ago or 10 years ago. And I'm 40 and I can remember these things. I can remember, you know, that the opposition seems to be growing. And so I want to look at that. But the real thrust of this section is the beginning, which I think is also important in light of this opposition. And it makes sense because Paul was writing to the Philippians because they were experiencing opposition. And so he wanted to strengthen them. He wanted to strengthen the church because the letter to the Philippians is written to the whole church. He calls out specifically the elders and the deacons, but the letter is to the church.

And so as Christians, as members of a church, as part of the church, either we can live in a manner worthy of the gospel or we can live in a manner unworthy of the gospel. And I mean, when you say it like that, it makes sense, right? There's two options. It's either worthy or it's unworthy. But it's not a way that we speak very regularly, right? We don't talk about... At least I don't hear people talk about being worthy of God or worthy of the gospel, right? It sounds a little presumptuous, okay? And so right off the bat, I want to clarify and tell you what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that we've somehow earned the gospel, earned the right of salvation by our actions, okay? This letter, as I told you, is addressed to the saints at the church. So these are people already...

They're people in the church. They've been saved. This is not about receiving the gospel, about receiving salvation. There's no concept of earning salvation here, of earning the gospel, earning God's favor. It'd be inconsistent with the gospel that was declared by the Son of God, our mediator, just after the fall, right? I mean, this is something that happened a long time ago, before our actions. This would be inconsistent with the gospel decoration that the Son of God brought from heaven from the eternal Father in view of the free grace and the mercy of God. We know that the gospel promises forgiveness to those who repent and believe, deliverance from sin, deliverance from death and condemnation, remission of sins. And we know that we're not honoring the gospel because the gospel is given to us for the sake of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our mediator.

And we know, too, that the gospel is worked, is effectually worked by the Holy Spirit in our life, that he kindles and excites in us faith and repentance and the beginning of eternal life. So that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about that reception. I'm talking about as a Christian, as a believer. We don't receive the gospel because God demonstrated his love. Romans 5, that God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Okay, so if we're not talking about worthy of receiving the gospel, what are we talking about? What is this conduct worthy of? So the words conduct and the words worthy, we're going to look at that for a little bit here. First, the word conduct. It's an interesting word.

We have conductors. We have train conductors, right? We have things that conduct electricity. They travel along a path. Now, obviously, there weren't trains and there weren't electrical circuits. But what there were were citizens. And the word conduct is tied to the idea of citizenship. When Paul was brought before the Jewish council in Acts 23, it says he looked intently at the council and he said, brethren, I lived my life with perfectly good conscience before God up to this day. And if you look at the NASB footnote on that, it says, for lived my life, it's the same Greek word, it says that I conducted myself as a citizen. Okay, so there's a conduct consistent with citizenship. There's actions, behaviors that are consistent with citizenship. Now, how does that help? Okay.

Because of the gospel, because of the truth of the gospel, you have a change in citizenship, right? Do we understand that? Colossians 1 tells us that Jesus rescued us from the domain of darkness, and he transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. We have the tying of the gospel of redemption, and we have the transferring to the new kingdom. And more explicitly, Ephesians 2, verse 19. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints. So by nature of being saved, being part of the church, we are fellow citizens with the saints. And we are of God's household. And Philippians 3.20 as well. For our citizenship is in heaven. We're no longer citizens here. We've had a change of citizenship. Our citizenship is in heaven from which we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. So now that we've been made citizens, Citizens of this heavenly citizenship were to act in a manner consistent with or suitable to that heavenly citizenship. So you still might think it's presumptuous to say that we can act worthy of the gospel. Because that's where I keep coming back to. My spirit fights that. I've got these, you know, the...

I grew up not reformed, and then I became reformed, and so now I want to struggle any time someone tells me that I'm going to do something worthy of this gift that I've received. That sounds counterintuitive. That sounds wrong. Okay, but this is a consistent testimony of Scripture. Colossians 1.10, walk in a manner worthy of the Lord to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. And 1 Thessalonians 2.12, that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you. So we have worthy of the Lord in Colossians. We have worthy of the God who calls you in 1 Thessalonians. And then 2 Thessalonians, that our God would count you worthy of your calling and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power.

I have to, and you have to, take out the idea that it's presumptuous or it's wrong to say that we're supposed to live worthy of the gospel, worthy of God at this point. So having been saved, this is our responsibility. And if you're familiar with Paul's letters, you know that this pattern of him tying identity and conduct together are very common, right? He's always saying, this is what's happened to you, therefore, this, do this, this should be the result. But to say that it's common, I don't want to say that it's impersonal or some sort of an abstract idea. This letter here is very personal. Look at verse 27. Paul says, so that, this is the transition, and it's a conjunction that's telling us the purpose of something, okay? So that, and then there's this insertion here, whether I come and see you or remain absent, So that I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit. And he goes on. So we see the purpose is that Paul wants to hear of the Philippians, that they're doing well, that their faith is growing, that they're maturing. Okay, and we'll talk about that. But stuck in there, like right after so that, we get this little personal aside. Whether I come and see you or whether I remain absent. All right, this stood out to me because...

It looks like what Paul's doing here is, one, he's in prison. Let me give you that background. So the likelihood of him coming seems pretty low. And he knows that, right? He's got time. He's in prison. He's got time to write. But think about Paul. He went to Philippi. He helped the church be established. He grew the church. He strengthened the church. And now he's not able to go and minister to them. So what's his fear? What's his concern? Why does he have to say, whether I come and see you or whether I remain absent? I think what Paul's doing is he's freeing the Philippians from an over-dependence on him and on his authority. Just think, if you were the Philippian church, how easy it would be for you, let's say your elders are in a meeting and you've got a problem and you're not sure how to deal with the problem. But Paul, you've got Paul. I mean, what do you do? You write Paul a letter and you say,

Paul, we've got this problem. We need you to fix this problem, right? And that's not here. I don't know it for sure. But it makes sense, right? I mean, if you have a super apostle, you use him, right? And you've got that connection. But the problem is, if you've got someone that, you know, like children. If your children are always with you. When I come to Sunday school, I really like it because I get to hear a little bit of the discussion about what you guys are thinking. So as your child grows, they start to get further and further outside of your authority, outside of your control, okay? They start to mature. They start to become independent. So here, what I think Paul's doing is he's trying to encourage the Philippians to be more independent. You know, whether I can come or not, I want to hear that you're growing. I'm probably not going to make it, right? And let's be honest, this over-dependence on our leaders is a common problem to churches, to Christians, to God's people. I was thinking, when the Israelites got worried that something happened to Moses on the mountain, it did not go well for them, right? Exodus 32, we read, Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain,

the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, come, make us a God who will go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we don't know what's become of him. But unlike what Paul is hoping to hear, Moses did not receive a good report of the people that he had left, right? Continuing on in Exodus 32, then the Lord spoke to Moses, go down at once for the people that you brought up by the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They've quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. And they have made for themselves a molten calf and had worshipped it and have sacrificed to it and said, this is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. The Lord said to Moses, I've seen this people and behold, they are an obstinate people. Now then, let me alone that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them and I will make of you a great nation. God's people haven't changed. We're still obstinate.

We still, we get disconnected from the head, we get disconnected from the leadership that we're dependent on, and we're lazy. We don't want to grow, we don't want to mature, we want to remain dependent. You know, even, again, going back to the Sunday school class, you know, the ask was, Pastor Dave, you start a school, right? I mean, it's easy to be dependent on leadership, to be overly dependent, and to not take on that responsibility for growth yourself. So, Don't be afraid. You, each of you, have the responsibility to mature, to grow in your faith. Not just the elders, not just the pastors, but the good news is each of you have the promise of the presence of the Holy Spirit, right? You have the promise of God being with you, so don't be afraid. And we're going to talk later, there's going to be opposition and there's going to be suffering, and those things are good, which we'll talk about.

But don't be afraid because God has promised to be with you. So strive for maturity in your faith because with maturity comes the ability to discern between good and evil. Hebrews chapter 5 talks about this. It talks about this in the negative. This is talking about what happens when believers don't grow and mature in the faith. This is an excerpt from Hebrews chapter 5, 11 through 14. Concerning Melchizedek, we have much to say. And it is hard to explain because you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God. You've come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he's an infant. But solid food is for the mature who Because of practice, now hear that, because of practice, have their senses trained to discern good and evil, right? So don't be overly dependent on your leaders. Love them, be fed by them, take in the milk, desire to mature, but don't let that make you lazy. Don't let that allow you to wither, right?

You know, an interesting thing about, I like to grow things in the garden and fruit trees and things. If you start a seed inside and it grows up and you let it grow too much inside, it never hardens. And so it never, it needs the agitation of the wind blowing on it for that little seedling to grow properly, to strengthen. Otherwise, when you take it outside and it's now, you know, six, eight inches tall. and you plant it in the ground, the first time a breeze comes by or an animal brushes up against it, it doesn't have the strength to stay up. It just falls right over. The same thing's true about your life as a Christian. You need that. You need to mature. You need to step out. And again, the same thing's true with our children. We need to, as appropriate, according to their faith, according to who they are, we need to expose them to oppositions, to challenges.

Okay, we're getting back to the main so that purpose of verse 27. We're still on verse 27. We read that Paul wants to hear a positive report about the Philippians. So what I think is clear from this is Paul loved the Philippians, right? He cared about them. He cared enough about them that being in prison, he still wanted to write to them. He still wanted to encourage them, and he still wanted to get a positive report back from them. And this reminded me, I had a friend, I have a friend, who his son went to boot camp. And I don't know all the time frames and all the details, but there was something about his son was only able to call back once every three or four weeks. And basically, when the son had an opportunity, he had 10, 15 minutes, and he could call his mom or his dad or his mom and his dad, but that was it. Like if they missed that window of the call, it was no more communication for three weeks. And so the dad and the mom.

Kept their phone on them all the time, right? Because they were desperate to hear a report from their son. All right. So is there someone that you love enough to be checking in on their faith? Do you have spiritual sons, spiritual brothers that you're writing letters to? And really, today, we don't have an excuse. I mean, there's not even long-distance charges anymore. Like, I'm old enough to remember long-distance charges. Right? We've all got cell phones. They're always with us. We've got email. I'm not really talking about, like, generic Facebook posts or, you know, inspirational quotes that you post. I mean, like, do you check on people? Are there people that you've had connections with, you've had interactions with, that you love enough to see how their faith is, to encourage them, to strengthen them, to know what their struggles are, to know that they're facing opposition? Are you finding out about it? Because that's what we see Paul doing here. And besides a lack of love,

We really don't have reason for not checking on our fellow saints, our brothers and sisters. I mean, there's a few reasons not to, but none of them are really good reasons. I mean, you know, you call somebody and you find out they're doing poorly, what do you do? Now you have that weight, you have that burden on you. But that's what we do as brothers and sisters in Christ. We share each other's burdens. And that's the work that we have. We have the work to love each other. Or you might imagine that... they're not going to appreciate your call, but really? Who doesn't appreciate being checked in on? Who doesn't appreciate a little bit of accountability? I mean, it might grate, especially if you're straying or if you're being lazy, but Hebrews 3.13 says, encourage each other daily while it's still called the day so that none of you falls to sin's deception. This is a good thing for the church to be involved in. Invest in people, love them, follow up with them, check on them, know them. All right, so,

We're going to keep going through verse 27 here. So far I've told you that Paul wants to hear the Philippians are living consistent with being citizens of heaven because he loves them and he wants them to be strong and not overly dependent on him. But then Paul goes on to talk about what kind of conduct he's looking for, what the conduct that he's looking for that's worthy of the gospel. So he wants to hear that you're standing firm in one spirit and with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel. Standing firm is another one of those words that gets another one of those phrases that used consistently through Scripture. You see it time after time. And it means to persevere, right? To continue to persist. The first letter to the Corinthians ends with, be on alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. And the second letter to the Corinthians, he affirms them. For in your faith, you are standing firm. There's also Galatians.

when the Galatians, they're being warned against looking for righteousness in the law. He says, it was for freedom that Christ set you free. Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery. And then it gets repeated three times in the section in Ephesians talking about the armor of God. This is Ephesians 6, 10 through 14. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the full armor of God. So, the way... Scripture uses stand firm. It kind of has two elements. One is it's expecting opposition, right? I mean, that makes sense. You're standing firm. You're getting in a ready stance, ready to be opposed. I've got the mental picture of like a tug of war. In fact, I was reading something about how the human body naturally stands at a certain angle when you're getting ready to do tug of war, and that's like the perfect angle to resist being pulled. So you've got some sort of opposition that you're anticipating.

And the second is that there's got to be some sort of solid ground that you're standing on because you can't stand firm on sinking sand, okay? And I mean, obviously, I'm thinking of the parable of the wise man and the foolish man, where the song that the kids sing from Matthew 7, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock, okay? So you've got either a firm foundation or you have a shaky foundation. And if you're going to stand firm, it needs to be on a firm foundation. And the only firm foundation that we have is God's revelation and his faithfulness that's been expressed through Jesus' finished work, right? All the grounds for our righteousness or our justification are sinking sand, okay? So you may stand for a while on your education, right? That's a ground that people use. Okay, I've got these degrees. I've got these certifications. I've got this experience.

But all it takes is for someone to prove you wrong or someone smarter than you to show up or some, you know, the value of the certificate or the degree to diminish, and your foundation's shaking. You may stand for a while on political acumen or social media success, but those are dependent on the approval of the crowd and your continued success, your continued ability to be successful. You may stand for a while on your wealth, right? But then... you know, the market could crash or Bitcoin could go down to nothing or, you know, a lawsuit, some liability. I'm thinking in my lawyer brain. And you may stand for a while on your beauty, but time and life affect external beauty pretty quickly. All these grounds are shaky. So there's really only the ground of God's word and truth. The revelation of God and the finished work of Jesus Christ is the solid foundation upon which you can stand firm. Because Again, as I said earlier about the gospel, these are the things that were delivered and planned before time. These are the things that are unchangeable and unshakable. This was the plan of God discussed between the persons of the Trinity planned before creation. It's the work that Jesus finished. It's the work that was published by the patriarchs and the prophets and that was represented by years throughout history of shadows and of sacrifices and ceremonies.

And lastly, because Jesus Christ is the creator and sustainer of all things, and he's done it, and he promises to be with us. So that has to be the foundation that you stand on. Okay, so that's the foundation, and we know there's opposition. Now we get to this one spirit, and then striving together with one mind. Calvin calls this a two-fold unity. Okay, the one spirit and the one mind. And what this means, the two-fold unity, is that, excuse me, The church is united in heart and mind, our desires and our wills, and our understanding of what the gospel is. These are the two ways that the church has to be united. And that reminded me of a quote by A.W. Tozer, which you've likely heard before, but it's about unity. And he says, has it ever occurred to you that 100 pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned not to each other.

but to another standard, which each one must individually bow. So 100 worshipers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become unity-focused, unity-conscious, and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship, right? So this twofold unity, it's not a call to start thinking about each other more, not necessarily, right? It's a call to a greater love for God. And with each of you, all of you, growing in a greater love for God and a greater understanding of his word, there is an inherent growing in unity of your mind, of your desires, and of your motivation and your understanding. Because if you stand firm in the gospel in one spirit, that means you're not desiring different doctrines. You're single-minded in desiring the Lord. And then...

the beautiful thing that happens is it's the Lord who's the one that sets you on that solid foundation. Psalm 40 says, I waited patiently for the Lord. I longed for him. I loved him. And he inclined to me and he heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and he set my feet upon a rock, making my footsteps firm. So it's the Lord who establishes those who wait on him, desiring him. And you as a church, You're united together by each of you desiring that which is holy and heavenly. Okay, so that's our inclination. That's our desire. That's our understanding. But it's not a passive thing. And this is where I really think Paul is encouraging them with conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel. It's not a passive. This is not your church has no autopilot mode, no cruise control. The church is effective. The church is powerful.

when each of the members are actively engaged in the work of the gospel. We're to strive together for the faith of the gospel. Because remember, you are a member of the church. And the analogy of the church as a body is really helpful because we start to see that we have the same purpose, we have the same focus, we have the same mind, but we all are different parts. And those different parts work together best. When they're united in purpose and united in thought. Not when they're all doing the same thing. The hand does something different than the foot does. The elbow, the arm, the ear does something different than each other. But they work together in unison. So we have this striving together. Because there's really two options. You're either going to strive together or you're going to strive against each other. Right? So there must not be fights and quarrels. There must not be dissension.

among the sons of God. Instead, we should look to that one head, that one head of the church, Christ, and it's his mind, his thoughts that we desire to think. It also means that we must not hold ourselves back, either in mind or in spirit, right? Think about a musician or an athlete. They're single-minded in their desire for excellence. They're single-minded in their effort. Someone was recently telling me a book called Outliers, and apparently it says in there, I haven't read it, but in order to be excellent at something, you need to spend $10,000 doing it. And I don't know if that's right or not, but I think the principle that makes sense from there is that it takes work and time and practice in order to mature and to excel. So are you holding back from your church?

Are you holding back? Are your desires split? Are you double-minded so that you're loving things that are not consistent or that are, even if they're consistent, that are not under the umbrella, are not part of the body? Is that pulling you away so that your desires are being pulled away, so that you're not able to devote yourself to growing and understanding, to maturing? We need to have a singleness of mind. and a willingness to exert ourselves for the gospel. We need to exercise those muscles to grow. We need to exercise our minds to grow. And we should pray for that desire and that mindset because later on in Philippians, in chapter 2, Paul says that the Philippians are to work out their own salvation, but that it's made possible by God working in us both to will and to work. So we need to work, and God will.

give us a desire to work, and he will enable us to work, but we still need to strive. There's no, it's either God or it's me. It's God is going to give you this desire. God is going to give you this work, and you must strive. You must practice. You must individually drive yourself and have these desires. So what do we strive for? What do we strive together for? We strive together for the faith of the gospel. Just as God and his revelation are the sure foundation of our standing faith, are standing firm in the faith, this is what we strive for. So we stand upon it and we strive for it. And this is where, you know, the visual kind of understanding of it kind of breaks down, right? You're standing on it and you're striving for it. Well, when the faith of the gospel of Christ is the proper object of our desires and our efforts, then we get to enjoy the other parts of life in their proper perspective, in their proper orientation, family, work, politics, entertainment. They all take their proper role if our desire is

growing, expanding the faith of the gospel. Now, that to say, we can enjoy those things, but living in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ is not all enjoyment, right? There is opposition to God in the world. We all know that. The gospel of John chapter 3 verse 19 says, this is the judgment that the light has come into the world, and men love the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds are evil. So when Christians actively participate in the gospel, there will be opposition because there's opposition to God. There are people, there are powers, there are authorities who hate God and are still at work in this world. So when I first read verse 28, I started thinking, so it says, in no way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you. I thought that the sign was...

are being implacable, right, are being able to overcome that persecution, that suffering, that opposition, are being indifferent to it, that that was the sign. But so I consulted a couple commentaries, and I talked with Pastors Max and Stephen, and I think the better understanding of this is that the sign of destruction for them is their opposition to God. gospel in the first place. It has nothing to do with our ability to not be angered by it, to not be alarmed by our opponents. It has everything to do with the very fact that they're opposing people who are conducting themselves as citizens of God. Okay? You are his representative. You are a representative here of the God that they hate. And the Philippians knew this opposition, and Paul knew this opposition from his time in Philippi.

Acts 16 tells of the first time when Paul was in Philippi. If you have your Bibles, you want to open to that, I'm going to read a little bit, a larger chunk of that section. Paul comes to Philippi, and he sees a slave girl who's fortune-telling. She has a spirit of divination, an evil spirit, and she made her master significant prophets. Okay, I'm going to pick up there. Acts chapter 16, verses 19 through 33. is what I'm going to read. So he heals her, and this is where we pick up. But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas, and they dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought them to the chief magistrates, they said, these men are throwing our city into confusion, being Jews, and are proclaiming customs which is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans. And the crowd rose up against them.

And the chief magistrates tore their robes off of them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods. When they had struck them with many blows, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely. And he, the jailer, having received such command, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. And what I think is great about this section and why I wanted to read it is that it parallels really nicely with Paul's instructions to the Philippians here. Because think about this, the very actions that the wicked gave, it's the token, it's the sign of their destruction. They hate that Paul and Silas would heal a slave girl who had an evil spirit. And why do they hate it? Because they deprived a man of his prophets, right? They would prefer an evil spirit with prophets than no evil spirit and no prophets, right?

Paul and Silas are the ones walking in a manner worthy of the gospel of God. They are the ones standing firm. God's enemies here, clearly the slave owner, the crowd, the magistrate, even the jailer. And it's easy for me to imagine that they had a celebration that evening, toasting the chief magistrate for protecting their economic development. Okay, but their rejoicing was on sinking sand. So at verse 25, about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God. and the prisoners were listening to them. So I think here, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better example of Paul's instruction to not be alarmed by your opponents than to have just been beaten by rods and thrown into the inner prison cell and be singing hymns of praise, right? That shows a complete lack of alarm. And then also imagine you're another prisoner in the prison cell, and you just saw these men dragged in, their feet are in shackles, and they're singing praises.

Like, that's going to seem strange. I don't think there's much singing in jail. And if there is, it's probably not a lot of praise songs. Okay, so verse 26. And suddenly there came a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken. And immediately all the doors were open and everyone's chains were unfastened. When the jailer awoke and saw the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried out with a loud voice saying, do not harm yourself for we are all here. And he called for the lights and rushed in, trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas. And after he brought them out, he said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who are in his house. So now at this point, the jailer becomes united in purpose with Paul and Silas.

And 33, the jailer took them out that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately the jailer was baptized, he and his whole household. And he brought them into his house and set food before them and rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household. So we learn here that when they were singing earlier, they were still bloody from their assault, right? It wasn't until the jailer is united in service to God. that he thinks to clean them, that he feeds them. In both situations, Paul and Silas had a choice. They could live in a manner worthy of the gospel and receive the crowd and the magistrate's opposition, or they could succumb. They didn't have to heal that girl. They could have overlooked that. They could have compromised the truth and the power of God, and they would not have received opposition, right? And we have the same choice every day. In fact, I keep thinking about this. Down in Bloomington, we had a county fair, and Trinity Reformed Church had a booth, and I went and spent an evening there. And we had a bowl of candy, and we had some pamphlets, we had some tracts, and we had some pamphlets about the church, right? So there's one thing that's really easy to give everyone, and there's one thing that's kind of easy to give everyone, and there's one thing that says you're going to die and go to hell if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, right?

The easy thing to do is to call people over and give them candy because no one is going to oppose you for giving you candy, right? The slightly harder thing to do is say, hey, we have a church just down the road. Would you like to come and visit us? And then the thing that is likely going to draw opposition and the thing that's hard to do is to make the choice to say, here's a tract that tells you about your sins and tells you about the only hope that you have to escape judgment, which is to believe. and trust in Jesus Christ. So what do you think I did? I spent four hours handing out candy, okay? Because it's hard. And I mean, we had a good conversation or two, but I look back at that time as not, I made the different decision. I did not make the decision that Paul and Silas made. I made the decision to not draw opposition. All right, the other decision that they had was when they were in jail, right?

Who here would say that they would not be justified to be bitter and angry that they were thrown in jail for helping out a slave girl, right? We'd all count them justified. I hate to think what I would do if I got thrown in jail for something good. If they were angry and indignant, we would feel like they were justified. But that is not a sign of salvation, right? The sign of salvation is, well, let's read it. 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. And the reason that I would probably not be showing that sign of salvation is because I think I don't have a right view of suffering. And I think it's uncommon in the church today to have a right view of suffering. Generally, we think that if there's suffering, You're somehow outside the will of God, and you should have made a different decision. And so now that you're suffering, you're reaping the fruit that you've sown. Okay, but that is not consistent with Scripture. Now, there is suffering as a result of sin. Okay, that's clear. But not all suffering is a result of sin. Not all suffering is a result of being outside the will of God. Sometimes righteousness is rewarded with suffering. And I say rewarded because in verse 29, Paul's clear here.

For to you it has been granted, it's been given for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake. So there's two things given. There's belief and there's suffering. So don't believe the lie that suffering is a sign that you're outside of God's will. Scripture is full of examples and exhortations that suffering is a gift and suffering is beneficial. I'm just going to read a couple to you here. So 1 Peter 3, verses 14 through 17. But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. Do not fear their intimidation and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you. Yet, with gentleness and reverence, and keep a good conscience, so that in the thing in which you are slandered, Those who revile your good behavior in Christ will you put to shame. For it is better if God should will it so that you suffer for doing what is right rather than doing what is wrong. So now think of this. God worked out salvation for the jailer and his household through Paul and Silas' recognition that suffering righteousness is a blessing that God uses for our benefit. Now they didn't earn the salvation.

God used them. God used them for the good of others, right? So be careful how you react to suffering. Be careful how you react to opposition. It is a tool that God can use as a testimony of his righteousness, of his goodness, right? Romans 5, 3 through 5. We rejoice in sufferings. We rejoice in sufferings. We rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope doesn't put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. So Christians, stand firm for Christ's sake. Work together to persevere in the gospel because there is suffering and there is opposition. There are opponents.

There's no autopilot. There's no cruise control. You're the members of the body. Work together. Your conduct matters. Trust the Lord who began a good work in you. Trust him that he will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ. So there's hope for me and my desire to not give the hard message. Pour yourselves out. Be active in your church. Strive together for the faith of the gospel. Strive together for the faith of the gospel. All right, let's pray.