David Pawson - Phillipians & Philemon [2] - Unlocking the bible

I want to draw your attention to a very unusual passage right in the middle of the book of Philippians in most modern Bibles this passage is printed as poetry in short lines with gaps of paper between rather than prose like a newspaper column and it does look like a poem of six verses with three lines each even in English it reads poetic lists it's the most familiar passage in Philippians and it's so often read in church Christ Jesus who being in the very nature of God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father you've heard that so often but it's a passage that has been a source of great controversy and a lot of discussion and the biggest question of course is why is it in here and why is it different from the rest it's got a double theme which is very clear emptied exalted down up it's got a beautiful balance the poem about Jesus coming all the way down to the cross and then going all the way up to the very top his emptying himself and God exalting him but having said that what's it doing in here and and what is it really some people treat this passage as a liturgical passage Paul is quoting a hymn they say which the early church used to sing it just came in useful to him well we have no evidence for that it may even be that Paul is composing a hymn here but when something touched Paul's heart deeply he often lapsed into poetry and the Hebrews thought in poetic terms when his heart was moved and all through the Bible prose is to communicate God's thoughts to you but poetry is to communicate feelings to you and we still use poetry for that purpose there'll be a lot of poems flying around on February 14th some Valentine's Day and why do people express their thoughts in poetry on such days or why a birthday cards full of poems because you want to communicate heart to heart and poor when he really had something on his heart became poetical 1 Corinthians 13 is poetic well it may be a hymn he's quoting or his may may be a hymn he composed himself or it may be that he's just touched in his heart about this but the biggest controversy about this passage is treating it as a theological passage as if it's discussing the nature of the person of Christ and from this passages come a whole discussion about what is called the cannot ik theory of Christ after mentioning because I'm afraid all the commentaries do and all the Bible teachers mention it that word comes from one word in this poem the word emptied which in greek is kenosis ke NOS is he emptied himself and the scholars then debate how much of God did he empty himself of when he became a men what did he let go and from it then comes a very dangerous theological assumption that Jesus was not a hundred percent God when he was on earth that he emptied himself of part of his divinity in order to become a man well it's certainly obvious that he left his glory behind mild he lays his glory by born that man no more may die you sing it at Christmas but he also left his omnipresence behind he could no longer be everywhere now that Jesus is in a body he can only be in one place at once that was said limitation it's also clear that he did not now know everything he confessed that there was something is he didn't know he didn't know the date of his return only God knew that he was sometimes surprised which means that he didn't know what was going to happen and God does know he left behind his omnipotence because he could only do miracles after the power of the Holy Spirit came on him he didn't do miracles as the Son of God but as the Son of Man baptized in the Holy Ghost which gives us the hope of doing those things as well which we couldn't do if we if he did them as the Son of God so there's no doubt about it that he did empty himself of many of his privileges and his powers but the key here is this he did not therefore in any sense cease to be God he didn't become 50% God or 75% God he wasn't 50% divine and 50% human as some people of misunderstood he remained 100% divine and 100% human he was fully both the things he gave up were not of his nature but of his privileges you understand what I'm saying that's where many people have gone wrong in discussing this passage but it is unafraid led many theologians to talk about Christ being less than God when he was on earth know the fullness of the godhead still dwelt in him bodily even though he laid aside his privileges if I gave up the house we live in in the car I Drive and a lot of other privileges that I have that doesn't mean I've ceased to be me I've chosen to give up my privileges do you follow me I am still 100 percent David Paulson and though he emptied himself of his equality with God he did not empty himself of God do you he emptied himself of his position and his privileges but he didn't empty himself of his divinity his godhood I just mentioned that because this passage has caused a lot of damage by being interpreted in that other way it's been very popular around the church actually this whole passage is now the liturgical to be treated as a hymn nor theological to be treated as a theological principle it is an ethical passage a moral passage it is about Christ's attitudes and his choices you can tell a man's character from his choices if you hand a person a whole different lot of cakes you can immediately tell something about the person from which cake they choose my grandfather had a reputation that whenever he was handed a plate of fruit and there was one bruised or rotten he always took that one always and when somebody asked him why he always took the rotten one he simply said because if I didn't somebody else forget it now I heard that about my granddad that tells me something about his character doesn't it doesn't it tell you something do you always take the rotten one do you see what I mean and a man's choices tell you what kind of a person is and Paul is here saying look at the choices that Jesus made his first choice was to become a man now you know I used to talk to children like this and say look at those tropical fish in that tank supposing you saw them fighting and killing each other and you knew that you could save them if you became a fish when to live in the tank knowing that they would probably kill you but don't worry we would lift you out of the tank or lift your body out of this and Englund give you the kiss of life and bring you back to life after you've done all that for them but there was only one thing we couldn't bring you back to where you were you'd have to stay a fish for the rest of your life okay it's a silly way of saying that you know when you consider that he was equal with God and all the glory and heaviness the Son of God and he chose to be a man knowing that he'd be killed for coming here to try and help us and knowing that even after God raised him from the dead he would have to remain a man for the rest of eternity and is still like one of us and always will be one person of the Trinity will always be a human being like us what a choice would you do it but he did it and his second choice was when he was born what sort of level of society would you choose supposing you could have chosen your parents supposing you could have chosen the house you'd be born in and the level of society where you'd be born where would you choose well we know the answer most people choose the best house they can afford a mortgage for yet he chose to be a slave he chose to put himself at the bottom of society and to wash feet and then his biggest choice was at the age of 33 he chose to die and a horrible humiliating painful death the worst that's ever been devised for human beings crucifixion which took from 2 to 7 days normally and he chose to die at 33 now that's the kind of mind Christ head not the kind of brain he had the kind of mind he had the word means as we say I have a good mind to know it means the bent of your character what you want to do and these choices says Paul fitted him perfectly to be given authority and power because God looks for people he can trust with power and authority and he can only trust those who have no interest in their own power of status or wealth and because his son chose to be poor though he was rich so that others might become rich and because he chose to die when others would have chosen to live and because he chose to be a man like everybody else God said I could trust this person with all authority in heaven and on earth wherefore God exalted him and gave him a name which is above every name see because he could trust him with the control of the universe because he would never have any self-interest now that's the meaning of this passage and if you look at the context the context is rather than each of you looking after his own interests each of you trying to be the leader each of you wanting to be at the top have this mind in you which you also have in Christ Jesus who made this kind of choice to go down instead of trying to go up and then God can trust you with authority now that's what it's all about it's not about theology it's not about liturgy and him singing this little poem is about ethics it's about unity essentially Paul is saying if you got the mind of Christ you will have unity in your fellowship and he also tells them why they must have unity he says I long to hear that you stand fast together for the sake of the gospel this unity in the church is the quickest way to stop that church's influence on society but unity within the church is the strongest demonstration of the one God the one Christ so he says have this mind in you now he's not saying imitate Christ he says have this mind among you which you already have in Christ he's not saying this was the mind of Christ therefore try and be like Christ he's saying you've already got the mind of Christ if you're in Christ therefore let that mind of Christ be expressed in your relationships with each other it's a deeper thing than just saying imitate his outlook or his attitude it's saying you already have his mind but you're not letting his mind control relationships have this mind between you that you already have in him it's a profound appeal and immediately it's followed by so work out your salvation for God has worked it in and it's a tremendous appeal so we come to the major teaching bit of the letter to the Philippians and I've just tried to give it a little outline to pick out the major points from the beginning of chapter 3 onwards well know from immediately after that poem about Jesus he then tells them how to work it out in practice let me just run very quickly through it first he says you have an experience to apply you have experienced this in Christ his death resurrection and exaltation you've experienced therefore God has worked it in you work it out if you've had an experience of Christ than now work it out secondly we work this out by seeking righteousness but there are two kinds of righteousness one is your own and the other is his you know the thing that most people find so difficult to understand is that we must repent of our good deeds as well as our bad deeds most people think repentance is just repenting of the bad things done it isn't it's repenting of the good things you've done if they made you feel better see what a good boy am i that's why it's much easier to convert outright sinners than religious and respectable people they're not bad enough and they won't repent to their goodness but Paul says when I consider my righteousness and here comes it's very blunt he says I feel like a child who's just emptied his bowels and is holding up the potty and saying look what I've done God uses a pretty down-to-earth word he's in the Greek in anglo-saxon he says it to God when I consider the good things I've done that's what it's like to God and I throw it all away I count it but dung it uses the word for human excreta in Greek he said that's what it is it stinks it's filthy even my good deeds he said the righteousness I want is his not mine this is a huge difference between the righteousness of people of their own good deeds and having the righteousness of Christ his righteousness so there's a righteousness and end to pursue not ours which usually is based on our birth in our life and our background and upbringing but his which is based on dying and rising sharing his sufferings and sharing his resurrection that's what makes for righteousness of his in you dying to self and rising to newness of life then there's a responsibility and effort to make and there's a lot of effort in the Christian life it's not just you know singing choruses at the bus stop till the bus comes to take you to heaven it's it's making every effort after holiness forgetting the things that are behind forgetting your failures and your successes forgetting all that and keeping your eyes fixed ahead and pressing on toward the goal for higher ground as it just been seen pressing on and Paul says I don't feel I've arrived yet but I am pressing on now that's the right attitude that's the effort to make to go on until you apprehend that for which you've been apprehended until you get hold of what God got your hold on for so there's an effort to make forgetting the past and forging ahead to the future then one of the best things in that is to have models to follow I've got a row of books on holiness on my shelves but I tell you I've not learned about holiness from those books but from people I know of walked with the Lord I've learned far more from looking at other people than reading all the books on my shelf and I think most of you could think of somebody in your life a grandparent or a friend or somebody you've known who was a holy person who really was christ-like and you saying I want to be like that and they don't lecture to you just by being with some you feel you want to be better do you know what I mean and I call supreme new it with Jesus that's how you feel he doesn't need to say anything you just say I'm a sinful man Oh Lord depart from me but he said watch it that you use an example to follow not of a bad earthly minded person but of a good heavenly minded person he said there are both in the church there are those whose God is their belly who dig their grave with a knife and fork don't follow them follow someone have set his mind on the things above see the models you choose the people you want to be like they are so influential in your life and he urges them to choose the right people to follow choose the right ones to model yourself choose the right ones to say I want to be like that person and finally there's an event to desire and Paul says I press on I share his sufferings and his resurrection why what's it all for he says that I might attain the resurrection out from the dead in fact he uses the word out twice in that the literal grief says that I may attain the out resurrection out from the dead and the book of Revelation explains that because it says there will be two resurrections at the end of history and the first is the resurrection of the righteous and the second is the resurrection of everybody else for judgment there's quite a long time between the two the first one is the resurrection out from among the dead the second is the resurrection of the rest of the Dead and he says I want to be in the first resurrection that's what my goal is my goal is to be erased from the dead when Jesus gets back and you notice that that's a goal he's still working for he's still going for he isn't saying I'm bound to have that because I got my ticket to heaven no he says I'm pressing on because I want to be in that first resurrection once again there is the negative side that little warning you could miss that and then you're just resurrected with the rest for judgment we press on for that resurrection out from among the dead and that's what our goal is to be so that's a practical application of it well I must finish Philippians because we've got to look at Philemon there's just one final thing I want to say what we're really saying is you see that so many of the promises of Scripture are conditional on us working at it that's not a popular thing to say we love to claim the promises I don't know if you remember those little chocolate boxes full of rolled-up promises with a pair of tweezers did you ever see one of those and everyday you pull out a little slip of paper and unfold it and it gives you a promise to live by that day invariably the promise is taken without the conditions attached to it for example here's a promise lower I am with you always even to the end of the world beautiful promise but there's a condition attached that promise the promises go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in teaching and lo I am with you always people want the low without the go therefore they miss the blow if I'm willing to go and make disciples of all nations then that promise holds low I am with you always and many times I'm a minister and somebody tells me they've lost the sense of the presence of the Lord with them I say then go and convert somebody else go and win someone else for the Lord and your recovery will be immediate of the sense the presence of the Lord with you because the promise of his presence is conditioned by you going to make disciples go and lo well there's a promise here that the peace of Christ will guard our hearts and minds of beautiful promise the end of this lovely letter is as the peace of God keep you the peace of passes understanding may that you'll have peace God will guard your heart and mind with peace but there's a condition and the condition is that you control your thoughts and that you only think about things that are honest and good and pure and true you control your thoughts and the peace of God will guard your mind you get it so important that we don't try and claim the promises without working it out without applying it without doing our bit to make sure that promise applies and all the way through the New Testament you can concentrate so much on the promises that you forget that constantly were told how to make them work how we respond to that promise so he says think on these things keep on thinking about things that are good and true and honest and the peace of God will guard your heart and mind and there'll be an inward harmony in you that nothing can disturb people say how can they be so peaceful in those circumstances that's because the mind has been controlled well let's move on to filing them it's a little letter so we don't need to spend too much time at it but it's a lovely little letter it's only one page in the New Testament you know the letters of Paul unfortunately have been arranged badly they've been arranged on the same principle as the prophets in the Old Testament the principle was though longer the book the earlier the place it gets in the Bible which is a crazy way of arranging it isn't it so the letters of Paula arranged in two blocks his letters to churches and his letters to individuals and within those two blocks the longest comes first and the shortest comes last so you get them all out of the wrong order we've been studying in in the right order you see Thessalonians were the first and the next session will be on the pastoral epistles Timothy and Titus which were the last and we should read them in order and study them in order but unfortunately someone put Romans first among the letters to the church because it was big and the last little ones of Thessalonians and then the personal letters to individuals little Philemon comes last of all because it's so small but it's a very important little letter it's the shortest letter yes and it's the only one that is purely about one individual a runaway slave and it's a bit of private correspondence so we have to ask two questions number one why was it written the answers of two that's fairly obvious the second question is why has God put it in the Bible if it's a private letter about one individual so we've got two questions two occupiers but it is unfortunate that the little books of the New Testament tend to be ignored and neglected we're going to study Jude later there's a neglected book but it's only one page and here this one page letter written on one sheet of paper is a little note we might say from Paul to Philemon well the story behind the letter is quite simple it's a a personal drama here's a slave who is not a very good slave solemn lazy rebellious resentful and eventually he decides to run away and a slave who ran away must go somewhere he can hide and the obvious place was to go into the big city and the bigger the city the more he could hide run away today make for London if you want to hide you make for the big city and so this slave made his way to Rome little dreaming what would happen I don't know how but he met a man chained to a Roman soldier called Paul that's fatal and it really did see this fate now in those days a runaway slave the normal punishment was crucifixion but if his master was particularly kind he would take a branding iron with the letter F and brand him on the forehead with the letter F fugitivus or fugitive and he would have to wear that brand forever afterwards which would of course get him into a lot of trouble that was the kindest the best he could hoped for if he was caught the worst of the crucifixion and here he meets up with Paul and he becomes Christian and he came to Rome hoping to hide and Paul said you've got to go back to your master you know now this is very interesting you see many people think that when you converted and become a new creature in Christ you can run away from your past no you can go and put your past right now now far too many think that when you come to Christ you forget everything in the past but you can't do that you are called now to put the past right if you can that's a very important point of repentance repentance involves restitution putting the past right you can't go to the Halifax Building Society and say hey the person who took out that mortgage is dead he's been crucified with Christ and Christ has paid all his debts at Calvary and I'm free I'm a new creature you can't do that no can you run away from a marriage or a divorce because you become a Christian you are a new creature but now you can handle those commitments properly and put them right Zacchaeus remember when Zacchaeus he didn't say to Christ oh Jesus I'm a changed man from now on I won't defraud anybody I'll keep my finance right from now on he didn't say that what he said was I'm gonna pay back everybody I've defrauded with interest so that nobody loses by me and Jesus said today salvation has come to this house Zacchaeus didn't run away from the past he faced it properly and put it right I've known a man who as soon as he was converted went and confessed to a crime to the police that had never been discovered and he got the lightest sentence from the judge because he'd confessed he got two months in jail and when he got into jail the prison said what are you in for and they said such-and-such how did they find out you did it oh I went and told him you what he went oh yeah what nurse did you tell them for what I've become a Christian and you know he began to lead other prisoners to Christ but when his two months was up he had to leave his convents so he went to the police station confessed another crime that he'd commit and got back in and paid and paid for that crime and followed up his disciples and you know what he said to me said I'm the only evangelist in Great Britain entirely financed by Her Majesty the Queen but he was he was putting the past right he wasn't running away from the past and repentance involves putting it right not running away from it and Paul said you realize Onesimus for that was his name I've got to send you back but by an amazing coincidence God must have had his hand on this actually his master his owner was a Christian at colossi and he said I'll send you back with a letter to him and I'll explain everything and he writes this beautiful letter now there's a pun in the letter which opens the whole letter up the pun is this on ISA misnamed you know what it means it means useful that was the name is master forgiving him come here useful but he said Paul says you may have found him useless in the past but I'm sending back a useful slave to you the lovely play on his name and he said I'm not just sending him back useful to you now I'm sending him back as a brother and he says that money he stole from you I'll repay it and I signed this with my own hand they send him back now you could look at this story from many angles the personal angle Mannion Paul lays on the appeal a bit sick he says I'm an old man and a prisoner so no I mean he really lays it on thick and he has this kind of sob story in there it's it's a very human document and Philemon a church was meeting in his house and his wife was involved and his son and Paul said it's gonna be hard for all three of us it's hard for me to let him go I've come to value him it's hard for him to come back and it'll be hard for you to accept him and forgive him but he said let's all do the hard sing and he did it well a personal story it's a letter full of affection full of personal interest you can study it from a social angle from the question of slavery Paul didn't try to abolish slavery he just broke it up from the inside by changing the relationships and the attitudes this man is a brother now he's not a piece of property any longer he's a dear brother in the Lord and it was that that over the centuries would eventually break slavery treating human brings his brothers but two ways you can deal with the social evil you can either use force and crack it or you can break it with love from the inside Paul shows that second way haven't time to say more but those who say poor condone slavery are absolutely wrong in the first letter to Timothy Paul lists those whom God could never accept in heaven and he says murderers of parents children of metal their parents and then he says slave traders so don't believe those who say the New Testament doesn't condemn slavery Paul does but he deals with in a different but there's a spiritual side to this letter that I want to look at finally why is it in our Bible it's a perfect picture of our salvation because you are that slave you ran away from God you were no use to God and somebody came and paid your debts and presented you back to God as a useful servant again and Jesus did that for you and in this little incident you have a perfect picture of your salvation you ran away from God you were no use to God and yet Jesus stopped you and he changed you and he sent you back to God to present you a useful servant it's all there it's a mini thing but ultimately there's an ethical aspect to this letter and it's this Paul is simply doing for that slave what Jesus had done for him see and the whole message of the letter is this what Jesus has done for you you now do for others Jesus paid for you and rescued you and recycled you and send you back to serve the Father then now you go and do that to others in other words our relationships to others are conditioned by what Christ has done for us you follow me you go and recycle people and send them back to the Father you be willing to pay the price for them as Christ paid the price for you Paul is showing here that his personal salvation Christ became the way he lived that all that Christ did for him he now did for others it's a beautiful example of working out your salvation dear Philemon I'm sending him back to you old useful you'll find him really useful now that's what Jesus is saying to the Father about you you'll find him useful father now you'll find a useful again I'm sending her back to you totally different a member of the family now amen

Channel: BlueXiphoid

Views: 13,077

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Keywords: Epistle To The Philippians (Religious Text), David Pawson (Person), Epistle To Philemon (Religious Text)

Id: wVYPVPM6DC0

Length: 36min 3sec (2163 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 05 2013