Stand Firm in the Lord

Well, I wanna ask you to pray with me as we prepare our hearts for God's word. Pray with me, please pray for me. Lord, we just come before you this morning. Lord, we come to you.

Confessing our need for you. Recognizing, Lord, just how much we need for you. To minister your word to us. Lord, we come to you, giving you thanks and giving you praise.

Thankful Lord for Jesus who died on the cross for us so that our sins might be forgiven, and how Lord, you have placed your spirit inside of us and that Lord, we are new creatures in Christ that to sin and alive to God and that Lord, there is no condemnation. We give you thanks and we give you praise. We are asking Lord that you would use the preaching of your word this morning. To minister to us, Lord, to strengthen us, to build us up, help us, Lord, to, to, to hear what it is that you have to say to us through your word, help us to be attentive, to your word and to receive and to be built up.

Lord, we ask you these things because we know that unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain to build it. We know, Lord, that apart from you, we can do nothing. We cannot even hear. And so we ask, Lord, open our ears, open our hearts, open our eyes.

Help us, Lord, to see you through the lens of faith. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. I have in the past shared with you about my grandfather Stuart and his conversion, how it is that on his deathbed he came to faith in Jesus Christ.

One of the things that I have not shared with you is how he was a World War II veteran. And as soon as England got involved in the war, as soon as the declaration of war against Germany was issued, the New Zealanders, my grandfather was from New Zealand, they got involved in the war almost immediately within. A few days, they began to rally their people and get their troops over across the sea, into the northern part of Africa. And my grandfather Stuart was involved in the war for a number of years.

He went up, beginning in Northern Africa, up into Egypt. He made his, way into Greece and then Italy and then on his way up into France, and so he was quite involved. Involved in a number of battles, and there were 3 particular battles that my grandfather was involved in. And by the end of these three particular battles in my grandfather's group of men in, in, in his, not the battalion but it's it's, it's in the group of 40 I believe it was, it may have been 60, but, but on 3 particular battles by the time the battle ended, my grandfather.

And his good friend Jim. We're the only two men remaining in this particular troop. You see, bullets were firing from all directions. My grandfather was in the midst of the crossfire.

He saw friends of his in New Zealand, they call them mates. And he saw a large number of his mates go down in battle while he was fighting. For New Zealand against the enemy. Similarly, We are engaged in a battle.

We are engaged in a fight. There are people around us who are falling. There are those around us who are wounded, and we cannot be ignorant of the fact that we are in the midst of spiritual warfare. According to one Southern Baptist study, as they're trying to figure out what is going on with their young people, one study says that 88% of their young people who go on to a secular 4-year university end up leaving the faith.

According to a Barna study, 61% of young people reared in the church will eventually go on to leave the church on the other side of a secular humanistic education. Now, I'm not exactly sure what the precise numbers are, but I think suffice it to say that we are involved in a battle and the world in which we live is designed to attack us. In our day, the family has fallen under attack. The family has fallen under attack.

Marriage between one man and one woman is not fully embraced as the only option, and traditional biblical roles within marriage are increasingly frowned upon. You see, brothers and sisters, the evil one has been on the attack and his attack started way back in the garden with Adam and Eve, and this attack has been ongoing ever since. We cannot be ignorant of the fact that we are involved in a battle. A biblical perspective on masculinity and femininity has come under fire, and we live in a sex-crazed society.

I took my family to a movie a couple of weeks ago. We went to see Godzilla. Godzilla was a good movie, but the problem that I had is, unbeknownst to myself in my own ignorance, that the previews for the movies before the actual movie Godzilla was shown, they contained, those previews contained things that were just not fitting, not just for my children to see and to hear, but for myself as well. There were images that, that we should not have seen and, and I guess I should have known better, but I, I've gone to like 2 movies in the last 10 years and, you can point your finger at me and say you're just ignorant and I would agree, I'm ignorant.

I know better now. Be careful. Be careful. We live in a sex-crazed society.

The porn industry. And this figure is as of 10 years ago, is a $57 billion industry compared to a grand total of $6.2 billion for ABC, CBS, and NBC combined. Human trafficking is a worldwide problem. It is the fastest growing criminal business in the world next to the drug trade, and the United States estimates that nearly 2.5 million people from 127 different countries have fallen victim to trafficking.

If you do not know what human trafficking is, essentially it is slavery. And people are being enslaved for one of two purposes. One, simply to work as a slave labor, and secondly, and most commonly, people are being enslaved so that they can be forced into sex acts. I have read how young ladies, and I have seen on video how young ladies and even boys 8 years old and younger.

Have been kidnapped or even sold by their own family and forced into gratifying multiple partners a day, sometimes 20 even more partners a day. Brothers and sisters, we are involved in a battle. We are engaged in warfare. This world in which we live is not our world.

And I believe that something needs to be done. The largest and fastest growing group of consumers of Internet pornography evidently are those who fall between the ages of 12 and 17 years old, according to Internetfilter Review.com. And the average age of exposure to pornography is 11 years old. 47% of families, according to a poll done by Focus on the Family, 40% of families say that pornography is a problem in their home.

We are Involved in warfare. And sad to say, the church is not immune. We cannot bury our head in the sand and pretend like there isn't a problem, let alone pretend that the problem can't come through the doors of our homes and infect our own family. One survey estimates that 50% of Christian men struggle currently with pornography.

According to Barner Research, 49% of so-called born again Christians. Now please understand they distinguished between born again and those that are conservative evangelical Christians. The conservative evangelical Christians have percentage marks that are much more encouraging, but for those who would consider themselves born again Christians, 49% believe that sexual thoughts and fantasies are morally OK. And Jesus says, if you so much as have lust for another person in your heart, you are guilty of adultery, and yet these people, 49% say it is OK.

The same number or the same percentage of born again Christians believe that it is acceptable to be physically intimate with someone that you are not married to, and the Bible calls that fornication, and it warns us that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. According to this Barnet research, 28% of born again Christians see nothing wrong with looking at pornography. And Christianity Today did a survey in which 37% of pastors admitted that cyber porn is a current struggle.

And in case you're thinking, well, that's a man problem, there were a number of statistics that I found, but one of those statistics would basically indicate that 30% of those struggling with pornography are in fact women.

We are in the middle of warfare. These are but a few of the things that we can point to in order to argue the fact that we are in the midst. Of a battle. Within the church, brothers and sisters, the battle is not just that of morality, but the battle is that of theology as well.

In some branches of the church, and please, please don't mishear me. I'm not, I'm not here to blast all the churches. God is at work. He is alive, and he is well, and he is at work and, and Jesus says, I will build my church and the gates of hell cannot come.

Against my church and so we understand that God is at work and he is, he is causing his church to be built up. Nevertheless, there are issues, theological issues in the church and the church has come under attack. There are those who would refer to themselves as process theologians. And their thinking has, has, infiltrated some ranks of the church and what they believe is that God is in the process of discovering Himself.

And in so saying they undermine the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. They believe that God is discovering Himself, that he is not sovereign, and so therefore they reject the unchangeableness of God. And what they have done essentially is they have exchanged the truth of the God for a God in their own image, in their own making. Furthermore, Scripture has fallen under attack.

Satan wishes for us to reject what God in His word has to say to us. The authority of Scripture, the inerrancy, and yet even the sufficiency of Scripture has fallen under attack. I went to 2 seminaries and to 1 Bible college and in 2 of the seminaries that I went to, I took some biblical counseling. I took a biblical counseling course in each of those seminaries.

And one of the things that we were trained to do is after 5 1-hour sessions, we are to pass the counseling off to some expert out there, and the expert does not necessarily have to be a believer. And so you see what we have done is in the process, we have jettisoned the biblical doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture. We know and we believe and we affirm the fact that God through His words and through the power of the gospel can affect change in the lives of his people. Yet there are those who are being trained in seminaries who are being taught to reject that belief.

Brothers and sisters, we are in the midst of a battle, and there are those who are caught in the crossfire, and there are those who are wounded and those who are dying. Biblical creation is a, is a doctrine that has fallen into question as well. There are some who would reject a literal 6 day creation. There are some who would say that we evolved from lower life forms, and we here at Cornerstone would reject that teaching.

We believe that in the beginning God created all things and in a literal 6 days he created all things and on the 7th day he rested. There are those who, who are on a search for the so-called historical Jesus. And in the process, what these, theologians have done is they have rejected the miraculous, and they have concluded that the miracles that are, that are recorded in scripture that Jesus performed didn't happen after all, and they would go so far as to say that Jesus did not die on the cross, nor was he raised again.

He was not raised bodily from the dead, and the scripture tells us that if Christ is not raised, then we are of all people, most to be pitied.

Also The biblical doctrine of justification. Has been questioned. There are those who, according to the new perspective of Paul, would say that justification is a process. that our works must combine with justification in the hope that the day will come in which God will accept us.

That is the idea, but we here would affirm the biblical teaching that justification is a declaration of God that says that that person is converted, forgiven, they are just as if they have never sinned. When we repent of sin and believe in Jesus, God is the one who declares us to be justified, and it is a once for all declaration by God. And yet this doctrine has fallen under question in parts of the church, and some would say there is no hell. We are engaged.

In the war And it is in the midst of the war that we do well to hear the command of God through the apostle Paul, where he says, stand firm in the Lord, stand firm. In the Lord, and we do well. To come alongside one another. And in praying for one another and in exhorting one another to get one another together so that we as one body is a body that stands firm in the Lord.

So our message this morning is entitled Standing firm in the Lord, standing firm in the Lord, and we will consider 4 truths regarding Paul's command to stand firm. That should inform how we minister God's commands to one another. So what I want for us to do is, is I want for us to consider the command to stand firm, but I want for us to consider the package inside of which the command is delivered. I want for us to take a look at the apostle Paul and to consider his exhortation to his readers to stand firm in the Lord, and I want for us to understand the package inside of which the command was given because I think the package as well as the command itself is every bit as important to our understanding how to exhort one another in the commands of God.

If you would turn in your Bibles with me then to Philippians chapter 4, Philippians chapter 4 verse 1. Understanding that Paul's burden for his readers is that they stand firm in the Lord. His concern for them is that they, that they don't get caught in the crossfire though they are in the crossfire. He doesn't want them to get hit.

He does not want for his readers to be wounded in the battle. He does not want for his readers to, to, to die in the battle, as it were. And so he's gonna, he's gonna speak to them these words in Philippians chapter 4 verse 1, therefore, my beloved brethren, Whom I longed to see My joy And my crown. In this way, stand firm in the Lord.

My beloved There are 4 truths regarding Paul's command to stand firm in the Lord that we will look at that should inform how we minister God's commands one to another. Truth number 1. Paul's command to stand firm is rooted in the gospel. I'm sure you could have filled in the blank.

It is rooted in the gospel. Please understand. That when Paul says, therefore, he is linking what he has just said in the last two verses specifically to what he is about to say, and the main thing that he is about to say, the main kernel of what he communicates is stand firm in the Lord. And he is going to link gospel truth with standing firm, you see, theology should always result in application, doctrine should always result in transformation of life.

There is a connection between those two things, and this is exactly what Paul does. When he says, therefore, he is pointing back to Philippians chapter 3, verses 20 and 21. And there in those verses, we read Paul saying that our citizenship is in heaven. As opposed to the enemies of the cross, who set their mind on earthly things, we are different from them.

Our citizenship, Paul is saying is in heaven. That is our ultimate citizenship, that is, that is our home, that is where we belong, and Paul is saying, I want for you to know who you are based upon what Christ has done for you. You are citizens in heaven, he says, from which we eagerly wait for a savior. The Lord Jesus Christ.

And here in the use of the word savior, he is reminding them once again. Of what it is that Jesus did for them. In dying on the cross, he secured for them forgiveness for their sin, their salvation, their citizenship in heaven is connected to the fact that they have a savior who died for them, so that their sins would be forgiven. And so he is bringing to their attention, if you will, the cross of Jesus Christ.

Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory. Jesus will transform us. Philippians, Jesus will transform you.

You can take that one to the bank. This is not a maybe, and this is not a perhaps, this is something that Jesus will. He will transform the body of your lowly state into conformity with the body of his own glory, and how will he do that? By the exertion of the power that he has, it is through his power that he will see to it that your lowly bodies will be transformed into conformity with the body of His glory.

By the exertion of the power that he has, even to subject all things to himself. He is the one who is in charge. And he in the sovereignty and in his power is the one who is calling the shots, and Paul is encouraging his readers with the fact that he will see to it that you are transformed. I want you to take a peek at the future, Paul is saying, and I want you to understand what will happen to you.

And by way of extension, I want you to understand and to be reminded of brothers and sisters, what will happen to you, you who are in Christ, you will behold the Lamb of glory. You will see him face to face. Your bodies will be transformed, and you will no longer be able to sin, and you will be able to see him and worship Him in all purity and with passion, and with energy and with excitement and with joy. This is what await you brothers and sisters, the Bible says, he will, he will remove every tear.

No more pain, no more sorrow, no more sickness, no more, no more death. This will be removed, the curse will be lifted, and the day will come, Philippians, when you will stand in the presence of the Lord, and I myself long for that day, and I want you to understand this is something that will. Happen to you. This is gospel truth.

This is good news, truth, and this is what Paul is wanting to encourage his readers with. He wants for his dearly beloved Philippians to know these gospel truths so that they might be motivated by grace to heed the command to stand firm in the Lord. This is, this is where Paul begins. In the issuing of the commands.

Paul's command to stand firm is rooted in the gospel. Well, let us move on to truth number 2. Paul's command to stand firm is delivered within the context of relationship. I'm not sure that I am going to be able to express to you the depth of what is going on here, the emotion that is in the heart of the apostle Paul as he says the things that he is about to say.

But what I want for you to understand is that the command of Paul to stand firm is delivered within the context of relationship. Let us not underestimate the quality of the relationship that Paul had with the Philippians. Brothers and sisters, he loved them intensely. They were very important to him.

He had lived to some degree, he had lived life with them. He knew them face to face. Let us consider some of what Paul has to say to the Philippians. He says, my beloved.

My beloved, clearly he loves them. The word for beloved here is the word agape. It speaks of Christ-like love. It is a selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love.

There can be no more tender word that Paul could use in order to express to his readers just how much he loved them. Paul would say to the Philippians, you are my beloved. And furthermore, he refers to them as brethren. And really the main idea here is that you are my brethren and as brethren, I love you.

And so as Paul addresses them as his brethren, he sees them as family. You are my family. You are my family. In a healthy functioning family, everyone loves one another.

Everyone has one another's backs. Everyone wants what is best for the other. people in a healthy functioning family are those who would gladly lay down their lives because they love. Members in their family and they will lay down their lives in service to the members of their family.

People in a healthy functioning family are concerned not just for themselves, but they are concerned about the well-being of others in their family, and the apostle Paul is saying, you are my family. You are my family. You are my brothers and sisters in Christ. And what is interesting is that though Paul is an apostle, though Paul could have asserted his authority, he comes alongside as an equal, as a brother in Christ, and he communicates to the Philippians, you are my brethren.

You are my beloved brethren, and continuing on, note what he says, whom I long to see. Paul strongly desires to see them. This speaks of an intense longing, great desire, craving. He, he would have loved to hang out with the Philippians.

He would have loved to have been in the immediate presence of the Philippians. He has communicated. To them here how much he longs to see them. I wanna see you with my own two eyeballs.

I wanna hang out with you. You see, he looks forward to fellowship, he looks forward to connecting. He is a relational man because he was created in the image of God and the power of the gospel had so touched him. He just had a heart that was filled with desire to be connected.

This reminds us of how when Paul is praying for the Philippians in chapter one, he says, God is my witness. How I have longed for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And so Paul here is communicating to them just how special they are to, to him. And from the Philippian perspective, there would have been no question.

Hey, Philippians, do you think Paul cares for you? Yeah, he does. How do that he cares? And I'm sure that every single Philippian would have been able to say something by way of a testimony of how they know with certainty how much Paul cares for them.

He says, whom I long to see my joy. My joy, you are a source of my joy, the joy that I have inside of me, though I am in prison and though I may be heading to the chopping block, I may very well be executed any day from now, but in the midst of my execution, in the midst of the possibility that I will die, I want you to know that my circumstances have not robbed me of my joy. I have joy and furthermore, you are my joy. You are a source of joy to me because of your participation in the gospel, because of your love of Jesus, because of your willingness to, to live for Christ in a dark age.

You are my joy. I derive pleasure. Through you. As my brethren in Christ, and then he goes on to say my crown, my crown.

Now there are a couple of words that can be used for crown. There is the word diadem which speaks of a king's crown. This is not the crown that the apostle Paul is referring to. He's referring to Stefanos.

Stefanos is the Greek word for crown that is being used here. If your name is Stephen, your name means crown. If your name is Stefan, your name means crown. And the type of crown that Paul is referring to is a laurel wreath that would have been placed upon the head of a person.

This crown would oftentimes be given to an athlete who had won an event. And so you can imagine an athlete preparing for an event, wanting to win the event, and so he would do all that he could, could do to train hard in his attempt to prepare himself so that when entering the event he would be successful with the goal that at the end of the day he would win the event and upon winning the event, guess. What would happen, he would stand sometimes before an audience and the and the crown, the Stefanos would be placed on his head to symbolize the fact that he had, he had trained hard, he had entered the event, he had competed according to the rules, and he had come out at the other end, the victor.

The crown would have been the reward that the athlete would have received.

And so what Paul here is communicating to his readers is that you are my crown. You are my reward. You see how relationally intense the apostle Paul is and how much he cares for and he is communicating to them the fact that he values them. They are his rewards.

There is, in the use of this term for crown, there is an eschatological sense to it. Now that's a fancy word that basically means the study of the end times or the study of last things. And Paul, as he has already done, is now doing so here again when he uses the term crown, he is thinking of the future day. He is thinking of the day in which he will be in the immediate presence of Jesus, and he is thinking of the day when the Philippians perhaps would be lined up one by one before Almighty God Himself, before, before Jesus Christ, and there they would be lined up to receive the reward.

And the apostle Paul. is saying That is my reward. You are my reward. My relationship with you is my reward, and what will happen on that day when I am there to observe the rewards being ministered to you by the Lord Jesus Christ and I hear him speak to you, well done, good and faithful servant, that is the day that I long for and that is the day upon which I will experience my rewards.

The fruit of my labor will be shown, it will be evident. And this is, Paul is communicating confidence that they will stand on that day. Earlier in chapter one, he says, being confident of this very thing that he who began the good work in you will carry it out onto completion until the day of Christ Jesus, but here he is referring to them, as, as his reward, his crown. And so truth number 2, Paul's command to stand firm is delivered within the context of relationship.

He loved them, he saw them as family, strongly desired to see them, derive joy from them, and he sees them as his ultimate reward. It reminds me of Jesus when the Bible says that who for the joy set before Him endured the cross. That must have been a theme verse to the apostle Paul because he was doing the very same thing that Jesus was doing. Jesus on the way to the cross, saw a joy that was set before him and the joy was the relationship he would have with us in eternity, and the apostle Paul is thinking Christ-like in that sense.

The apostle Paul is anticipating that day when in the presence of the Lord, he would be filled with, with joy as he, as he sees his reward, receiving the reward. In the presence of Almighty God. We need to position ourselves relationally in the lives of others in a way that is similar to how Paul positions himself with the Philippians. There's a lot that we can say about the history of Paul with the Philippians.

He planted the church. He had visited them on his 3rd missionary journey a couple of times, and here he is, after all of the other churches he's planted, after all of the 10 years that have passed him by, here he is still with a longing for the Philippians. What love, what care and what concern. Well, let us move on to truth number 3.

Truth number 3, Paul's command to stand firm is clearly communicated. This is where we get to focus our attention specifically on the command itself. Finally, the command itself, stand firm. Please note.

It is in the imperative. It is a command. There is no option. You cannot pick or choose.

The fact of the matter is, is that God wants for you to stand firm, Philippians. God wants for you cornerstone to stand firm. Implied in the command is the fact that God gives to this. He gives to us the ability to do so.

God would not tell us to do something that he did not empower us with the ability to do. And so we ought to be encouraged that we can stand firm in the midst of an age where we are caught in the crossfire. We can stand firm. We do not have to fall prey to the devil.

We do not have to fall prey to the enemy, to the world system, or even to the flesh that would want to rear his ugly head and bring us down. We do not have to fall prey to these things, but we can stand firm in the midst of the fight, in the midst of the battle. So it's a command and it is in the present tense, which would indicate that Paul would, would want them to know, don't put it off till tomorrow. OK, right now I am commanding you.

I am commanding you to stand firm. OK, there may be ways in which you are struggling. There may be ways in which you find yourself falling to the left or to the right. There may be ways in which sin is, is there at the door wanting to devour you.

There may be ways in which you are tempted to capitulate and, and, and God through Paul here is saying right now as I speak to you, I want you to stand firm. Stand firm in the Lord, present tense, it's in the active voice. This is not a, a let go and let God make it happen a thing, but this is something that we are responsible for. God is saying, I want you to take action.

I don't want you to just sit around and wait for holiness to happen. I don't want you to sit around and wait for yourself to get strong enough to where you can stand firm. I want you right now to get up off of your, off of your tail and stand up and stand firm is what God is saying here. I want you to stand firm, take action, don't, don't wait for God to make it happen in your life.

And so this is the human side of the equation. This speaks of our responsibility before God. But what is cool here is he's gonna go on to say in the prepositional phrase in the Lord. We'll get to that here in a second.

And please note that the command is plural. It is plural. He is not speaking to just one or the other. He is speaking to every single one of them together as a collective whole.

And Paul is saying to the Philippians, I want you in the midst of the battle, all of you together, I want you to stand firm. His desire for them is unity in Christ. His desire for them is that in being united with Christ, in, in focusing on Christ and seeking to live to the glory of God, that they could together stand firm. This speaks of the fact that they need to have one another's back.

I cannot stand firm if my fellow brother or sister is not standing firm. It doesn't work that way. We must be standing firm together. And when my brother or sister is weak in the Lord, I ought to have concern, and, and we ought to come along, alongside one another, to boost one another up, to give to them gospel and to, and to love on them and to come alongside and to exhort them in the love of Jesus to stand firm, you can do it.

The other day I was speaking to a, to a brother in Christ who was struggling with a particular sin, and I was able to use this passage to say to my brother, you can do it, you can stand firm. How do I know he can stand firm? Because of the gospel, but how else do I know that he can stand firm? Because I have seen God in His grace give me the help that I've needed to overcome the same sin that he is struggling with.

You can stand firm. You have what you need. In 2 Peter, it tells us that God has given to us everything that we need for life and godliness. You have the ability to stand firm.

And so you might be tempted in one sin or another, but God in His word here this morning is saying, stand firm and do it together, have one another's backs. Do not think that you cannot be concerned for your fellow brothers, sisters in Christ. Recently, My family has gone through. A difficult time.

And without getting into the details of what happened in my family. There were brothers and sisters who came along. And who loved us. And who encouraged us and who ministered to us.

We need our brothers and sisters in times of my own struggles. I oftentimes think of people in my own care group, and I think of the stuff that they have gone through. I think of the pain and I think of the loss and I think of the disappointment and I. Think about them and I am instructed by their example and through their example I can stand firm.

I have seen it modeled before me so that gives me the encouragement myself to stand firm. I learned so much through the people in my care group and there are so many ways in which I learned and they don't even know. They don't even know. Brothers and sisters, there are so many ways that you can teach your fellow brothers and sisters and you won't even know about it and so stand firm.

Stand firm in the Lord. The meaning of this command would have been perfectly clear to the readers. It is a military term suggesting that they are in fact in a battle. They are in a battle.

This term would indicate to the readers the fact that they needed to work together and that retreat is not an option, that they must hold their ground, may not, not allow themselves to be easily pushed around or shoved aside, but. Stand firm and since it is a military term, it also suggests the idea that you don't just stand there, but part of what your purpose is to, is to protect your territory but to take enemy territory as well, go on the offensive and attack, OK? Expand the kingdom of God, fight for the kingdom of God.

And then it says we are to stand firm in the Lord, in the Lord, that is the key, isn't it?

It's in the Lord. Later on, the apostle Paul says, I can do all things through him, through the Lord who gives me strength. It is in the Lord. There is so much that we could say about this prepositional phrase.

We don't have the time to get into it. But in the Lord we can stand firm. In the Lord we have strength. In the Lord Jesus Christ, we have the resources that we need.

In Him, we can thrive spiritually, even in the midst of fierce opposition. In Him, we have the strength and the ability to forgive our enemies when they sin against us, we can respond with mercy, compassion and kindness. In the Lord, we have power. This term here indicates the fact that we are to be beholding Him.

We must abide in Him. Jesus in John chapter 15 says, I am divine and you are the branches abide in me. He says, apart from me you can do nothing, and we can stand firm. Let us move on to truth number 4.

Paul's command to stand firm is clearly illustrated. I believe this is pretty critical to what is going on here. You see, it would be one thing for Paul to speak the words, stand firm, but here we have something entirely, entirely more going on here. I don't know if that sounded right, but it is something entirely more going on here.

The apostle Paul is not just telling them in word to stand firm, but he is showing them by his own example what it looks like to stand firm. Paul's command to stand firm is clearly illustrated by Paul himself. Please note where he says in this way. Let us take a big step back.

Let's read the whole verse again. Paul says, therefore, my beloved brethren, whom I long to see, my joy and my crown in this way, stand firm in the Lord. The immediate context helps us to understand what Paul is going after when he says in this way, in the way in which I am standing firm, Paul is saying. And so here we have the apostle Paul in jail.

The very real possibility of his head being thrown on the chopping block awaits him. He doesn't know with absolute certainty if whether or not he would live or die, and here he is in the midst of a difficult situation, and here he is focused on himself. No. Here he is focused on the Lord.

Earlier he says that I may know Him. I consider all things to be lost in comparison with the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them dung, that I may know Him. You see the apostle Paul in his own example, in the midst of being in jail, he is focused on the Lord Jesus Christ, but even in this immediate context, here's the example. Therefore, My beloved brethren whom I long to see my joy and my crown in this way, in the way that you see it modeled in me.

In the way that you observe it in me, as you see me in the midst of difficulties, and yet here I am standing firm in the Lord, in this way, stand firm. I would submit to you that we need examples to look to that would show us what it looks like to stand firm. While it is good to hear God's word being preached, while it is good to, to study the pages of scripture, it is also good for us to be able to observe indeed what this looks like. We need the examples, and Paul is pointing to himself as an example for the Philippians.

We can see this in the immediate context, but we can also see it in the larger context. Earlier on, Paul says, brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. But here he says, join in following my example a little bit later, in verse 9 of chapter 4, a few verses later, Paul says, the things that you have seen in me. The things that you have seen in me, with your own eyeballs, what you have been able to observe in my person, he says, these things do.

The things that you have seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace shall be with you. All right, Paul, what are some of the things that we learned about you regarding your example of standing firm in the Lord? Just a few things as we come closer to our conclusion. He remained prayerful, chapter 1 verse 3.

He remained confident in the Lord, chapter 1 verse 6. He remained joyful and we see it in this passage that we are looking at this morning, but we see it in other passages as well. He remained optimistic. Earlier on in chapter 1 verse 22, he says, if I live, that will mean fruitful labor for me.

I know If God chooses not to bring me home and to behold my Jesus face to face, if he allows for me to live, I know what that means. It means fruitful labor for me. There is the optimism there. He remained courageous even in the face of death.

And do the one thing that concerned Paul about himself? Do what the one thing that he was concerned about was? His number one concern. Was that if he were to be led to the chopping block.

That in being led to the chopping block, somehow, some way, he might cave in, and somehow, some way, he might say something or do something that would bring, bring reproach upon the name of Jesus. That was his primary concern as far as his own self. The last thing in the world that he wanted was even in death, to do anything or to say anything, to think or feel anything that would dishonor his savior. He remained courageous, he remained relational.

This is what this message is all about in many ways. He remained evangelistic. He's preaching to the Praetorian Guard for crying out loud. And he's all pumped up because guess what, because of his imprisonment, many other believers have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear.

And so he's pumped up about this, and it's like, what, the evil one is trying to put chains on the gospel, and in his very attempt to The Gospel is not changed, yeah, it is going out all the more and the apostle Paul is just pumped up about this. The gospel is going out. How can I be sad when I know that God is alive and well and he is at work and people are being saved. And so the apostle Paul, again, this is the example, this is what it looks like to stand firm.

He remained humble. I don't question God's sovereignty. I do not question God's plan. my commitment to Christ has led me to the imprisonment, possibly to death, but I see this as, as under the sovereignty of Almighty God Himself.

I will not grumble, I will not complain. I accept what God has in store for me. There is this humility before God and even this humility before the Philippians. My brethren, we are equals together at the foot of the cross.

And he remained focused. If you have time, take a look at chapter 3 and beginning in verse 8. His focus was on the Lord, and I really believe that this was the key to his success. I really believe that all things put aside, this is what made the man function in the way he did.

This is what allowed him to stand firm in the Lord. Notice what he says. I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. I count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, faith in Christ, relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.

He goes on to say that I may know Him. I wanna know him in the midst of my suffering. I want him to use my suffering to help me to gain ground in my comprehension of the gospel. I wanna know him.

At the end of the day, I want to worship the Lamb of glory. I want to behold him on this throne high and lifted up. I want to be connected to him. I want to worship him in spirit and in truth.

I want to be transformed by his power in the deeper part of who I am, and I want to view him through the lens of faith. I want to behold my Jesus. That's what I want. And I believe that was the key.

At the end of chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians, as we behold him, we are being transformed. Where did his ability to stand firm in the midst of the struggle come? It came from beholding him. It came from his intimacy with Jesus, abiding in him, and as a result, he bore much fruit, and we see this here.

He remained focused on the Lord, he remained sobered, enemies of the cross. Earlier he talked about enemies of the cross, and what does he say about them? He talks about how They are enemies of the cross, but he also talked about how he, he weeps for them. They're enemies of the cross, point the finger, holler at them, shout at them, let them have it.

But instead, the apostle Paul in regard to the enemies of the cross, he talks about how he weeps over them, so he doesn't, he doesn't capitulate. He'll, here he is standing firm and part of what standing firm looks like is when you have compassion for your enemy. When you look at those who are your enemies and your heart goes out to them in mercy and compassion, and you want for those people to know Christ and you weep for them because that the condition of their souls is such that at the end of the day, unless they repent and believe in Jesus, they will go to hell.

Oh, we're just gonna have to fill in the blanks, but.

But just consider this thought. Had Paul ever seen this example of doubt before? Think about Steven. Stephen was an example to Paul.

I am sure that when he was in the dungeon or under house arrest or when he had his chains on and, and he's thinking about am I gonna die tomorrow or not, I am sure that on a number of occasions his mind went back to Stephen. And he saw Stephen being stoned to death, and Stephen beholding the Lamb of God standing up to greet him, and I am sure that that allowed him to have the confidence that he needed, that even if he were to die, all will be well. He saw it modeled ahead of him.

And how helpful it is to watch saints die?

It is extremely helpful to observe the death of saints because what they do? When they die in the power of the gospel, they give me the hope that when the day comes and he calls me home, I'm gonna be OK. I'm gonna be OK. Have you ever seen a dear saint die in the Lord?

Have you ever been at the bedside of a person who died in Christ? Have you ever observed the peace that is theirs when they're walking in Christ, having their sins forgiven, and with a smile on their face, I'm gonna go home to see my Lord. I have courage when I think about the examples that have gone on before me, but do where our ultimate example is? Let's point to the ultimate example and this is where we're gonna wrap it up.

Jesus. Jesus serves as the ultimate example. Jesus was the example that, that, Steven looked to. Jesus, I know, is the example that Paul would look to as well.

Paul refers to Jesus in his humiliation in chapter 2 in Philippians, doesn't he? And how Jesus, though he were God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied Himself, and then he goes on to talk about how he died on a cross and therefore God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every names, so that the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the praise of God the Father. And so the importance of example.

The command to stand firm is linked to the gospel.

The command to stand firm is delivered within the context of a loving relationship. The command to stand firm is clearly delivered, and the command to stand firm is backed by the very example of the one who is issuing. the command himself. On the human side of the equation, it is Paul.

On the divine side of the equation, it is Jesus Himself. God is the one issuing the command. And so brothers and sisters, let me exhort you this morning, stand firm. In the Lord and in the strength of His might.

He is more than able. I can do all things through Him who gives me strength. When sin comes knocking at your door, say no to sin and stand firm in the Lord. When temptation comes your way, when the enemy comes knocking at your door, when People come along to do things to try to get you upset or whatever, let me encourage you that in the strength of the might of the Lord Jesus Christ, you can stand firm.

When lust is knocking at your door, say no to lust and stand firm, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Oh, I trust, I trust that God through His word this morning has given you something to lift you up and to encourage you. Pray with me, please. Dear Lord, we just come before you this morning and we thank you for your word.

Lord, I just pray that you would help us as your people to stand firm. I pray, Lord, for my brothers and sisters that you would just build them up and edify them and strengthen them. I pray, Lord, that You would help us to behold you and to remember that the day is coming when we will see you, and help us, Lord, to remember that you are our savior and that all of our sins, past, present, and future have been atoned for. Lord, I pray that you would help us, help us to be the example that Paul himself was to love your people, the way you love your people, Lord.

I pray Father, that you would help us to stand firm together, that we would have one another's backs. I pray, Lord, that you would just help us to be the examples of what standing firm looks like and oh God, forgive us for the ways that we have fallen short. And Lord, we, we embrace your forgiveness in our lives and we ask that henceforth let us to be those who stand firm. Now let us worship you now in song, in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.