Talk—Jonathan Csanyi
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Verse three says, And though here on earth rejected tis but fellowship with thee, should we not with joy expect it here like thee our Lord to be? Before we pray, let's read a couple verses. Just an opening in Luke 23.
We were in Luke 23 several times this morning.
I want to read a little bit earlier, starting at verse 13.
And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me as one that perverted the people. And behold, I have examined him. Having examined him before, you have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him. No, nor yet, Herod, for I sent you to him. And lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will therefore chastise him and release him.
For of necessity he must release 1 unto them at the feast. And they cried out all the more at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas, who for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder was cast into prison.
Pilate therefore willing to release Jesus, speak again to them, But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. And he said unto them a third time, Why?
What evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him. I will therefore chastise him and let him go.
And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that He might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required. And He released unto them Him that for his sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired, but He had delivered Jesus to their will.
Let's pray.
Regarding our Father and our Lord Jesus, we thank you for this wonderful week we've had, and we thank you that we can again come together with Thy Word open.
Pray the loudest help us as we open Thy word to have a message for each one of us will help the speaker to clearly convey this message that thou hast.
And we just ask for Thy help as we open thy word. We pray this in Thy name, Amen.
We'll come back to the cross a little bit later. I just wanted to read that in opening. Keep it in your mind.
But I want to turn to Philippians chapter 3.
And before I get into Philippians chapter 3.
Like the sea lion in the Psalms, I want to just stop and consider this for a minute.
Brother Alejandro at the Thing.
Talked about the conductor.
All the different instruments and players.
Were orchestrated by the conductor to bring forth one beautiful.
Piece of music.
A couple weeks ago, Uncle Steve emailed me asking if I'd take this meeting, this address.
And I was thinking.
I was thinking of some thoughts to do with Philippians chapter 3.
Then we come here and we have Philippians in the reading readings. In fact, we get through most of the 1St 2 Chapters.
A bit scary. Have you ever had a talk planned and then a reading meeting is given out in the same passage? Or what could be the same passage if we go through the reading fast enough?
But it all worked out perfectly.
Those that have been here the whole week, we've seen this over and over as the various speakers come.
They can afford the message. Maybe they weren't even here. They're no longer here, most of them. But it was a consistent sound. It all fit together perfectly. Just stop and consider that for a minute before we get into what I had in Philippians Chapter 3.
We'll start by reading a couple verses towards the end of the chapter.
It's been a.
A long week. I know you guys are tired. I don't intend to go through this verse by verse. I don't intend to do an exposition, detailed exposition on the chapter. I want to pick out a couple key points that I think would be very useful to us.
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That capture the essence of the chapter and the essence of whatever Josh mentioned earlier in the week when he said this is the answer, the solution to the problems he has been showing in the life of Solomon.
Let's start verse 15. Let us therefore as many as be perfect. Be thus minded.
And if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
Nevertheless, whereunto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followeth together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example.
For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.
For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working, whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.
There's three groups of people.
In this passage, and everyone of us falls into one of these three groups, verse 15. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. So there's those that are thus minded.
Same verse a little bit later. Those that are otherwise minded.
Then a little bit further down.
Verse 19.
Who mind earthly things? Those that are earthly minded.
And I want to look a little bit at what what it means by these three terms. You know, often our inclination is to well, because we know that Philippians is talking about the unity of the spirit. We know that in Chapter 4, it's talking about the two sisters that had a problem.
Our inclination is to think that thus minded is talking about agreeing with each other, and if we don't agree with each other, God will work that out. God will reveal it to us. I think I have no problem with that. It's a valid application. But I think if we look closely, it's not the actual in the context of this chapter. It's not what's being said.
So let's look back a little bit earlier in the chapter and see what he means by thus minded.
Chapter 3.
I love how everything just kind of fits. My brother Ernie, just in the last reading, gave a summary of the four chapters.
Chapter one was the character of devotion. Chapter 2 The example of devotion. Chapter 3 the power of devotion. Chapter 4 the path of devotion.
So chapter 3 is the power of devotion. I was going to describe it as the energy and motivation.
That allows us to put these things into practice, these expectations that are in the other chapters, the 1St 2 Chapters, and then chapter 4, which is very practical. A lot of exportations. In fact, it's a parentheses. If you look at a more critical translation, it's indicated as a parentheses.
If you look at the end of Chapter 2, the subject there is continued in the beginning of chapter 4.
And in the meantime, he's taking this break.
To tell us about what we need to have the energy to actually do these things that he's exhorting us to do.
So in this chapter, it's personal, it's individual. It's not talking about preserving the unity of the Spirit, it's talking about myself, the state that I need to be in to be able to fulfill the rest of the book.
Let's go back to start at verse 4.
Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath thereof, whereof he might trust in the flesh I more.
Circumcised the 8th day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, and Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law. A Pharisee concerning zeal, persecuting the Church, touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless.
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But what things were gained to me? Those I counted loss for Christ, yay, doubtless. And I count all things but loss for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but done, that I may win Christ.
So Paul's giving himself as an example here.
He's referring to himself and his life. You all know the story. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was in good conscience persecuting the Christians. He thought he was doing God's will.
Concerning zeal persecuting the Church.
But these things that are listed here.
Are things that he used to glory in.
They were things that he used to value.
And he's showing how he no longer values them. His entire viewpoint changed on the road to Damascus.
When he encountered the Lord.
If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh I more.
And, you know, a lot of these things have to do with pride. A lot of these things are not things that we would consider to be bad or wrong. That what might be referred to as the egg, egg of the flesh. That's going to need a bit of explanation. I know. Remember the story of Agag?
King Saul was told to destroy the Amalekites. Actually, let's turn back there just for a couple of verses. It's in First Samuel.
Chapter 15.
So Saul was told.
To destroy them utterly. See that in verse 3, go on slight Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not. But he didn't.
See in verse seven, Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until the chemist is sure that is over against Egypt, and he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Paul and the people spared a gag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings and the lambs of all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them.
But everything that was vile and refuse that they destroyed utterly.
I'm not going to go further in the story of Agag. You know the Amalekites are a type of the flesh.
And they had no trouble destroying that which was vile of the flesh.
But the best parts of it?
The parts that looked pretty good, he preserved them.
And Samuel comes to Saul with a message that basically says you're done being king because he could not obey it. Was that serious?
One of the writers, I don't remember which writer it is, but there's a quote that I found really interesting.
Before I was saved, I wanted to be a great man in the world.
After I was saved, I wanted to be a great man among brethren, and I had to learn that both were wrong, he said.
And sometimes pride is very deceitful, the flesh is very deceitful, and there are these things in our life.
That, like Paul, we need to count them as loss, or even as dung or filth.
Now Paul's giving himself as an example here.
So he talks about the things that were in his life. Each one of us may have different things.
I was born into a Christian family and raised in the assembly. Graduated from university with honors. Career is on a great start, no limit to my potential.
That's basically the same as what Paul is talking about here.
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Our personal goals, attitudes, possessions, careers.
All these things.
Are valued by the flesh.
Things that.
Not.
Not bad in themselves, but their distraction.
And if we value them and are distracted by them, then it becomes bad and it becomes as Paul says.
Paul basically has. I've heard the words paradigm shift used in this context.
Is turned around completely and it wasn't something that happened over years and years. This was very quickly on the road to Damascus.
He was going 100% one way.
And he met Christ.
And he threw away all these things that he had valued before.
And you know, we've heard the saying that.
There's never a vacuum.
There's always something to replace it. And if we're going to keep reading here and see what Paul's new values were, what did he value now? What was he occupied with now instead of these things so occupied him before that catered to the flesh. The good side of the flesh, maybe, but catered to the flesh.
So let's keep reading. Let's go from verse 9.
And be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffering, being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do.
Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
So he's occupied with Christ, that he would know Christ.
My brother Caleb stood up here and talked about.
How we do that? By having thoughts of Christ. And we looked at God's thoughts of Christ.
Paul was.
I'm not going to go through the whole list. There was, I think you could break out seven things here that he was occupied with. I think there's actually seven things that he gave up and then seven things that he was newly occupied with.
But just to point out a couple of them.
You want to know Christ?
He wanted to suffer.
For Christ.
Verse 10. And the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Fellowship with his sufferings.
Even possibly going so far as to die for him. We talked back in chapter one.
About suffering for Christ, and the distinction was made.
Between suffering for Christ and suffering with Christ.
Chapter One unto you It is verse 29. For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.
He wanted to know and become like Christ, to suffer for him.
Risk 12 Middle of the verse, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Bit of a tongue twister, a bit of a play on words almost and it's the word apprehend here is used almost in two different ways and it's the same word in the original that has the same.
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Almost two meanings that are related but not quite the same.
You could use the phrase to lay hold of instead of to apprehend. It might help explain it.
Apprehend can mean to understand or to lay hold of a concept to understand something, but it can also mean to lay hold of to arrest somebody or to to restrain somebody.
If that I may understand that for which also I am arrested of Christ Jesus.
He wanted to know the reason, the purpose. He wanted to understand the purpose why God had arrested him in his path.
This epistle.
Was written from Rome I believe, very late in the apostles life.
And yet he still.
Felt that he didn't fully understand what God had for him.
It's something he was striving towards. It's something he was.
Continually.
Asking the Lord about.
Sometimes we.
We may have.
A work that we feel we've been given to do.
And maybe we get comfortable in that and it becomes a habit and we're no longer exercised about it.
That's not what happened here with the Apostle Paul.
One of his goals, one of his values, one of his objects of his life was to continually understand what God had for him to do.
What the Lord had for him to do, Why he was here.
Verse 13 is a bit of a summary.
Forgetting those things which are behind the first couple of verses I read the things that he had left behind, turned away from.
And reaching forth unto those things that are before his new object, his new goals.
You know he was considered.
A zealot, he was extreme.
Was it?
Agrippa or Festus maybe?
Much learning to make thee mad.
And yet.
This is the example Paul lays out.
As many as be perfect, be thus minded.
Let us therefore as many as be perfect, be thus minded this extreme.
Put aside, he says. Put aside.
Those things that cater to the flesh, those things we're proud of naturally and be wholly, completely occupied with Christ and His things. So much so that the world calls you mad.
You know, in many areas of the world.
Religion is OK.
In moderation.
The man of the world will.
Allow, even encourage sometimes. If it works for you, a little bit's OK, Just don't take it too far.
Both saying.
There's no such thing as too far. Take it as far as you can.
Don't worry about what the world says if the world calls you mad.
Let us therefore as many as be perfect or full grown. That is not babes or children.
You know, many of us may think I'm not perfect, so it doesn't apply to me.
But that's not what it's talking about. It's a full growth adults.
Grown-ups in the faith.
And as I lookout here.
I see a lot.
Of people that could be considered grown up in the faith, adult.
Be thus minded, and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
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You know, if you were to ask each one of us.
I suspect.
Everyone of us.
Knows they're things where we are not fully following like the Apostle Paul.
I'm not. I know I'm not.
But God is working with me, He's working with each one of us to bring things before us, to reveal them unto me. Ways in which we are not thus minded, ways in which we are deviating from this pattern that is being set before us. God's revealing them to us.
And as we address them and are willing to deal with them.
You'll reveal more.
Until we are thus minded.
This wasn't an Apostolic experience. This was something.
That's available to every Christian. It's not just the apostle Paul, because he was an apostle, that he could be such an extreme zealot for Christ.
You know, if we really believe.
The things we say, we believe.
If we believe that the Lord is coming any day.
Why are we so occupied with things down here?
Earthly things.
Why are we so often otherwise minded?
But I said there were three groups of people, and we've talked about two.
Look at the last one.
Verse 18 for many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping.
That they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things, those that are earthly minded. Now, I believe the people being described here whose end is destruction, they're obviously not Christians. They're not believers.
But that doesn't mean we can't be affected by the same attitude as them. Nepal opens the chapter. I didn't read it but he opens the chapter with a warning.
Against evil workers and basically those that would bring in teachings that would point their eyes to the earth.
Bring in aspects of Judaism, bring in other things that would make them earthly minded.
And the part I find really interesting about this is that they're called enemies of the cross of Christ.
And this is where we come back to the passage I read at the beginning in Luke. The cross of Christ was this world's.
Final response to the Lord Their verdict?
This was what the world awarded him.
The cross of Christ.
Why do we want anything to do with this world?
How could we even consider compromising with them when this is what they did, this is how they think. They hide it. They encourage us to blend in with them.
And it's talking about these here, those that are earthly minded.
Mind earthly things. They were enemies of the cross of Christ.
The separation that comes from understanding the cross of Christ. They're enemies of that.
They don't want that separation.
World's not so bad.
In moderation.
Let's make some compromises here and some compromises there. Some people in the world are basically good.
Think of the cross of Christ. This was their response.
And they would do it again.
It wasn't a one time thing.
Galatians.
I'm going to read a verse in Galatians chapter 6.
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Verse 14.
But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
By whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
By whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world, we understand the cross of Christ.
The world is crucified to us. It has no attraction to us.
Turn a couple verses in Mark, the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10.
Mark chapter 10 and verse 17.
And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, saying, Good, Master, what shall I do, that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one that is God. Thou knowest the commandments. Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, defraud not honor thy father and mother. He answered and said unto him, Master, all these things that I observed from my youth.
Then Jesus, beholding him, loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lockest.
Go thy way so whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven. And come, take up the cross, and follow me.
This man was told to come take up the cross and follow him. Taking up the cross wasn't giving away his earthly possessions.
If you reread verse 21 There it comes after.
We are called to identify with the cross of Christ ourselves. Take up our cross.
This man was sad and went away grieved.
And.
But if we identify ourselves with this rejected Christ.
It's not an easy path, the world.
The world awarded him the cross.
And they'll treat us the same way.
But how can we not?
Identify ourselves.
With him, with his cross, with the rejection that he suffered.
When the alternative is to join with the world.
That sent him to that cross.
So those that mind earthly things in Philippians.
Might be those that not only are they not thus minded, they're not following the example of the apostle Paul. They're not just otherwise minded, They're not just a couple things that Lord is bringing before them. They're not willing to look at these things, but they are actively occupied with things down here, earthly minded.
Enemies of the Cross of Christ at solemn, really.
And it goes beyond. I don't want to give you the impression that.
Being earthly minded and enemies of the cross of Christ is just about how we spend our free time and how.
Engage with the world we are.
You know, there's a lot of people.
A lot more people, I should say, that could be called enemies of the cross of Christ.
Than there are that could be called enemies of Christians or Christendom.
With believers that are enemies of the cross of Christ, they don't want that separation personally, collectively, ecclesiastically, all of these things.
The cross of Christ brings in a separation.
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That.
We deny.
Across the.
So I lost my train of thought.
The cross of Christ is a statement by the world.
And we can't just Passover it.
And reach around the cross has been said to shake hands with the world.
So.
About all I had.
Just want to exhort you to reread this chapter on your own time. Look at these things that characterize the Apostle Paul, the things he gave up and the things that he valued.
And maybe those verses where we are exhorted to be thus minded and to be receptive.
If we are otherwise minded to be receptive when the Lord brings these things before us.
Where we have not fully given ourselves to following him.
We say we believe lots of things.
Do we act like we believe these things? Do we Do the decisions we make reflect these things?
Let's pray.
Our gardener Father and our Lord Jesus, we thank me for this chance we've had to be over Thy word. We pray for each one here.
For help in identifying these areas where we were otherwise minded, it'll help each one here.
To become more like this example that's given, and to have Thee as the object for our souls, we pray this now in Thy name, Amen.