Welcome to this message from the teaching ministry of University Presbyterian Church in Orlando, Florida under the leadership of senior pastor Mike Osborne. Today's reading is from Philippians chapter 3, it's verses 17 through chapter 4 verse 1. It's found on page 1,163 in the Bibles under the seats in front of you. Philippians 3, 17. Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. For as I have often told you before, and now say again, even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their God is in their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. Therefore, my brothers, you, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends. The Word of the Lord. What do you think of when I mention the subject, spiritual warfare? What do you think of when I mention that phrase? For some of you, you probably think of those intermittent episodes of temptation. Perhaps, guys, it's when you sit in front of a computer screen, and there's spiritual warfare happening because you've got to resist temptation to go to the wrong sites. Maybe spiritual warfare happens when you go to the mall, and you pass by all of these amazing store windows, and so you have to resist the temptation. That, for many people, would be spiritual warfare. These episodes that come and go, maybe they're a week apart, a month apart, maybe it's when you're out on a date, and you know you must resolve to be pure with your date, that would be for many people what spiritual warfare is. Or maybe some of you go into a little of a darker place when you think of the subject of spiritual warfare, and perhaps you think of demon possession or exorcisms or satanic rituals and things of that nature. I suspect that there may be some of you that for you, because you haven't had the background that perhaps others have had, the subject of spiritual warfare is a confusing one. Maybe you really don't have categories to place that subject in, and so perhaps you even have a negative view of it, perhaps spiritual warfare is what neurotic religious people worry about. Okay, so there's a variety of attitudes toward it, and I'm going to tell you this morning that if you're a follower of Jesus, what you should think of when you hear the subject of spiritual warfare is your everyday experience. You ought to think of spiritual warfare as something that you are constantly engaged in. You might have remembered that old song every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before. Well, I'm not so sure that that is true, but I do know that it's true that every day with Jesus is another day to pick up your weapons and fight. So this morning, we're going to talk about spiritual warfare. It's in our text today, that's why we must talk about it. The last few words of chapter 4 verse 1, the last verse that Diane read, please do have your Bibles out. We're going to look at this passage carefully today. Chapter 4 verse 1, the last few words say, stand firm in the Lord, my friends. And that is what Paul is talking about. Spiritual warfare, the picture that he's painting is that of soldiers with their heels dug in resisting retreat and resisting whatever enemies are arrayed against them. Whether you're fighting the world or the flesh, namely your sinful nature or the devil himself, Paul says in chapter 4 verse 1, to stand firm. It's the Greek word staco, which means to stand fast or be resilient or be stationary. That's why I say digging in your heels to be stationary in the face of whatever enemy or opposition you're getting. It means to persevere. It means to remain faithful and it's in the present, present imperative form, which means keep on doing it, keep on standing firm, always fighting, always resisting temptation and sin and the spirit of the age. It is your constant call to do spiritual warfare. Paul in another place says fight the good fight of the faith. And that's what he's talking about. Paul Tripp wrote a book, some of you have read called Age of Opportunity. And in that book Paul says scripture presents spiritual warfare, not as the violent bizarre end of the Christian life, but as what the Christian life is. Do you understand that if you're a Christian, it is the Christian life that you'd be engaged in fighting. The enemies that God allows sometimes to be a raid against us. So this passage today is a passage about fighting, as you will see in just a few moments, but it's also a passage about loving. So passage about loving Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney did a song together a number of years ago. You probably know the song many of you. This girl is mine. You know what I'm talking about. It's always dangerous for a preacher to mention a song because now your minds are all, oh yeah, I remember that song. Well, at the end of that song, do you remember the little corny dialogue that Michael Jackson and Paul have back and forth. Paul McCartney says, Michael, we're not going to fight about this. Okay. And Michael comes back. Paul, I think I told you, I'm a lover, not a fighter. I'm a lover, not a fighter. Pretty close, huh? Well, through the apostle Paul this morning, God is telling you, you got to be a lover and a fighter. So we're going to look at both of those concepts this morning. Most of the emphasis is going to be on the fighter because that's the thrust of this passage. And then we're going to come back and sort of show that how love brings it around to the right balance. So first, if you're going to engage in spiritual warfare, as you must, if you're a follower of Christ, you've got to be a fighter. Fight what, you might ask. Well, we could talk about a lot of things that we Christians are supposed to fight. But in this passage, Paul's emphasis is on false doctrine. So what he's calling us to is to fight false doctrine. Now, if you've been with us in this study of Philippians, you know that Paul has already addressed the subject of false doctrine even right here in chapter three. If you were with us a few weeks ago, when I dealt with the first part of Philippians three, you might remember that Paul shows us what a fighter he was. Paul was a controversialist. Paul was a polymesist. He exposed error. He talked about the elephant in the room. Right? I mean, he brought out the fact that there were false teachers even now in the Philippian church and trying to get more influence in the Philippian church. Look at verses two and three. You remember this? This is going to be brief, but I want to remind you. He says in verse two, watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh, for it's we who are the circumcision. And we remember, you remember this? We talked about this. He's talking about the Judeisers. The Judeisers were a group of professing Christians who had worked their way into many communities of faith back in that day. And they were teaching these Gentile Christians that if they really wanted to be loved of God, they needed to become Jews. That is, they needed to practice all of the Jewish rituals that were required of Jews back in the Old Testament era. Paul has no patience for these guys. He calls them in verse two, dogs. And then he proceeds in the rest of that earlier portion of Philippians three to defend the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith in Christ alone. So Paul combats, falls doctrine. Let's call it what it is. Heresy with truth. And now here we are in verse 18 and he does it again. In verses 18 and 19, he seems to be talking about a different group of false teachers. He says in verse 18, as I have often told you before, and now say again even with tears, many, notice the word, many, there were many false teachers back in that time. Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their God is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. Wow. Do you get the gravity, the seriousness of those words? Now some people believe that Paul here is still talking about the Judeaizers that he was talking about earlier in the chapter. But I tend to agree with those who say no. This is a different group of people now that he's addressing in verses 18 and 19. I think he's talking about a group of professing Christians who were anti-nomians, anti against Nama's law, anti-nomians were people who were against the law of God. And they may have been influenced by the Epicurean school of thought. Epicureans were those who put all of the emphasis upon their desires. What they wanted to do, they did do, and they were the opposite of the stoics who suppressed their desires. The Epicureans lived out of their desire, and they said anything goes. And so these false teachers were very well probably influenced by the Epicureans, and they were anti-nomians, and that's why Paul says their God is their stomach. They're just living out of their sensuality, doing whatever they want to do. So what we can say is that if the dogs of verse two were legalists, these people were the libertines of the day. They may have, as I say, been influenced by these philosophies of Epicureanism and so on, but they were teaching the heresy of anti-nomianism and some of these Philippians were falling for it. Now it's interesting to me that here we are only about one generation removed from the ministry of Jesus Christ, and already here were all sorts of heresies and false doctrines and distortions of Christianity floating around in the ancient world. And Paul saw his calling as an apostle, partially, to bring these heresies and false doctrines out into the light. You see this in nearly all of his letters. If you go through the letters of Paul, notice this would make a great study for you actually. To go through the letters of Paul in the New Testament, and find out all the times when he had something to say about false doctrine or false teachers. And I could go into that, but I'm going to assign that to you to find that out. It's a lot of references in Paul's letters. But here in verse 18, Paul says about these false teachers that they are enemies of the cross of Christ. He couldn't have picked a harsher word about them than that. They are enemies of the cross of Christ. They are hostile toward God and toward the way of salvation as taught by Jesus Christ. Now, some of you might be thinking, wait a minute here. This seems contrary to something we saw earlier in the book of Philippians. Do you remember back in chapter 1, Paul was writing from prison, right? And he's talking to the Philippians about some preachers on the outside who were preaching Christ, but they were doing so with mixed motives. It seemed that some of them were trying to make Paul look bad and put Paul in a bad light. But nevertheless, Paul says, I rejoice that Christ is preached. So even though he's not fully on board with the way they're preaching the gospel, he still says I rejoice that people are hearing about Christ, but that's not what Paul's heart is here. No, he says in verse 18, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. He is not at all rejoicing that Christ is being preached by these people in Philippians chapter 3. It's interesting about that word live. It's actually the word that means walk. Some of your translations may say that. That word means that they didn't just slip into error. It wasn't just a mistake, but they were actually walking around in heresy. They were practicing false doctrine. They were promulgating falsehood and bad teaching. And that's why Paul is not patient with them. He is not rejoicing because they're not preaching Christ. They're preaching a false gospel. These antinomian teachers were spreading ideas that were directly opposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And notice what Paul says about these people in verse 19. He gives four descriptions about them. He talks about their end, their God, their glory, and their goal. He says about their end in verse 19 that it's destruction. That's where they're going to end up if they don't repent. He says their God, as I said earlier, is their belly. They're living out of just what their appetites tell them to do. Their glory, that is what they take pride in, is in their shame, Paul says. In other words, they are boasting in things about which we should be ashamed as Christians. This says that their goal, or what they most desire in life, is earthly things, money, materialistic values, possessions, and so on and so forth. And the more at the risk of thoroughly offending some of you perhaps, the more I thought about these guys, the more I thought how much they sound like the prosperity preachers of our own day. These folks are called the word of faith preachers. Maybe you know about them. Men like Rod Parsley, Kenneth Copeland, Ken Hagen, Fred Price, Robert Tilton, Benny Henn, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, many others could be listed. Look, I want you to know, if you don't know it already, this teaching that is being done by these people is at best, aberrant, at best. It's off the mark from Scripture. And at worst, it is heresy. Many times what it is is heretical. The word of faith movement, let me just take a moment and make sure you understand what it's like, what it is, what it's built on. It's based on four main tenets. First one is that Christians should expect material wealth to come their way as proof of God's love. Second tenet is that if material wealth does not come your way, it's probably because you are either in sin or you don't have enough faith. You're not trying hard enough to do the right things and plug the right stuff in. Third tenet, if you're going through any suffering or sickness, you're outside the will of God. That just burns me up. Doesn't it you? I hate that. And fourth tenet is that Christians, maybe this one is new to you. The fourth tenet is that Christians should learn how to speak positive confessions until a desired blessing is experienced. Fancy word for that is rheumatology or the theology of the spoken word, more popularly known as name it and claim it. That is actually a part of their teaching. What it means is that they teach that each person can predestine your own future by what you say verbally and by how well you take advantage of certain spiritual principles. You know what I want to say about that teaching about these people? I want to use the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 16, 17, he says, keep away from them. I'm going to say, keep away from them. You don't need that. It's not in harmony with God's word. You don't need it. I'm going to agree with the Apostle Paul in Titus 111. These people are ruining whole households by teaching things. They ought not to teach for the sake of dishonest game. And I'm going to say what he says in Philippians 3, they are enemies of the cross of Christ. Why do I say that? Why am I taking such a harsh stance? I'm saying it for several reasons, but one of the main reasons is that they in their teaching emphasize works. Not the gospel of grace that you and I have come to know. Their theology of health, wealth and success is built entirely upon works. It's all up to you. Listen to it sometime, briefly. It's all up to you. If you'll do the right stuff, if you'll believe the right stuff, if you'll plug in the right words and say the right words and listen to them over and over again and above all, if you'll give enough money called seed, sowing the seed, you'll win. You'll succeed. You'll get 100 fold back. Every day with Jesus will be sweeter than the day before. Heaven help those poor souls who wake up in the morning, struggling with depression and sickness and unemployment and a failed marriage and kids who aren't obedient to God. What do they do? It's tragic to the sixth degree. That's why I say they are ruining whole households of people and creating a hypocritical self-righteousness that the rest of the world wants no part in. If I were a non-Christian, I would never want what I see on Christian TV. Would you watch one of those stations sometime and see if verse 19 doesn't apply to the prosperity teachers. Their God is their stomach, their mind is on earthly things and I say that if they don't repent, their destiny will be destruction. Now look, that's not the only form of false teaching we could talk about today. I kind of went off on a sidebar because that one is very heavy on my heart but there are other things we could talk about. We could talk about the anti-hell teaching made very popular in recent days by Rob Bell and others. Or we could talk about the liberal pastors out there and the seminary professors who teach that it doesn't matter. This is kind of my point with the children earlier. It doesn't matter if the Bible stories are true. What matters is whether you experience them or not. It doesn't matter what the Bible says about homosexuality or abortion or the sanctity of marriage and those kind of things. What matters is that God loves you. That's really what so many are putting out there for the church today. Or we could talk about the Oprah Winfrey new AG form of spirituality that millions of people around the world are swallowing as though it's the gospel. We could talk about the cults. I mean, there are lots of ways that we see false doctrine affecting the church of the day. I can't take time to go in all of those things because the main point I'm trying to make is that truth matters. Truth matters. Part of spiritual warfare that we're talking about today is discerning truth from error, the lie from the truth and helping other people understand the gospel. I mean, if UPC exists as it does to make disciples of all nations, then one of our callings is to make sure that we are accurately putting the gospel out there so that non-Christians hear what the Bible says and the good news that it is rather than the bad news of so much of that other stuff. So how do you do that? Well, let's be practical for a moment before we go on. How do you make sure that what you're putting out there is truth? And the answer is that you just need to know the gospel very, very well. You know what fishing is? I don't mean this. I'm talking about P-H-I-S-H-I-N-G fishing. When you're at your computer, here's what fishing is. All of a sudden something pops up and it says you've got 486 viruses in your computer. And the way to defeat them is to buy this software. And so you're tempted because of this fake website to enter your social security number, your computer, your credit card numbers and you're tempted to buy this. This is what fishing is. It's a fake website that makes you want to spend money and give away your private information. And the only way to know what is fake from what is genuine is to be really sure of what a genuine website looks like. And one of the clues is if it's a fishing website, it's got all kinds of bad grammar in it and lots of misspelled words. I guess these folks, as clever as they are, didn't get a very good education in the English language. But see, you'll never, you'll be taken in. It's fishing. You'll take the bait. You'll be hooked. If you don't know how to discern the difference between true and false, right and wrong. And it's the same way in the spiritual realm. You are always going to be exposed to these hooks, these false teachings that look, that sounds really pretty good. I see Bible references. I mean, this guy's got a seminary degree. You know, it's got to be true, right? I certainly hear it enough times. That's fishing. The enemy is looking to grab you and deceive you and bring you down and make life very different from what it's meant to be in Christ. So what you've got to do is immerse yourself in the word of God. You've got to be a Bible reader. I said this a few weeks ago, you need to read your Bible regularly, study it carefully, expose yourself to good books and good theology. Paul gives us a very practical tip on how to be a person that can tell the truth, the difference between truth and a lie. He says in verse 17, to take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. In other words, follow good examples. Look, I could give you a list of some people that you should listen to if you're going to download sermons. If you're going to listen online, there's some people that you should not listen to. And there's some people that you should. One of the pastors in the church, we could be glad to direct your attention in the right direction. That's a way to grow in your theological foundation. There's a seminary, a few miles away called Reform Theological Seminary. Why not enroll or audit a class from time to time in your spare time? Be a great way for you to grow. Mom, do you need a mother's day application? Let me make this one very brief. Be a theologian. You want to protect your children from danger? Protect them from false doctrine. Be a theologian. Know the Bible well so that you can be one who nourishes your children on the faith of the gospel. What do we do? In order to engage in spiritual warfare, we've got to be fighters. And that's a big but. We also are called here to be lovers. We're called to be lovers of people. One of the things that stand out to me in this passage, as I studied it this week, is Paul's deep love for people, even for those whom he opposed. And it's so very important that you not shut down. You're not thinking about lunch yet, are you? Because you need to give me about five more minutes to deal with this part of this text. You've got to be a lover as well as a fighter. Notice verse one of chapter four where Paul's affection really leaks out. He says to the Philippians, therefore my brothers, you whom I love the Greek word agape, you whom I love and long for my joy and my crown. That's how you should stand firm in the Lord dear friends. Here how Paul is just a lover. He speaks over and over again with such affectionate words to the Philippians. But he doesn't just have affection for the Philippians because look up at verse 18. That's where Paul talks about these false teachers being enemies of the gospel. But look at what he says before that in verse 18. He says for as I have often told you before and now again say even with tears. See he speaks about the false teachers, these antinomians who are getting into the church and misleading people, but he says he does it even with tears. When you speak of those who don't get the gospel, your eyes ought to well up with tears. When you warn other Christians about false teachers, you ought to weep. And so should I. Why? Because we're no better than they. Don't you dare speak about those with whom you disagree with, disdain or a spirit or an heir of superiority? How dare any one of us boast that we have the truth as if by some stroke of genius we figured it out and they didn't. Right? Or as if God saw something in us or me or you that he decided to give us more favor. God forbid that any of us should have that kind of prideful attitude and how dare we use our theology like a club to beat people or categorize them or label them forgetting that maybe just maybe we used to be wrong too. Or maybe just maybe they can change with time. See I want you to be a fighter, but I also want you to be a lover. I want to be both fighter and lover. It's the only way we come into this passage today. See fighters who don't know how to love are what gives the church angry bitter people. And I know some of them and there are way too many of them and truth be known I used to be one of them. I was so right and dealt so impatiently and so critically with those that I thought were wrong. And at the same time lovers who don't know how to fight are Casper milk toast Christians. Right? You know what I mean? Weak, passive, bland, insipid, ineffective, inoffensive. God doesn't want either one of those two extremes. Neither the fighter who can't love nor the lover who can't fight, but we together can help us help one another be both. See if we as a church are both fighters and lovers we'll turn this city upside down because it's so rare to find them both wedded together. So I want to leave you with three little words. How can we begin to put the fighting and the loving together in our lives as individuals as well as as a church? Well, let me leave you the three little words that are in verse one of chapter four that are so easy to overlook chapter four verse one where Paul says to stand firm in the Lord in the Lord. That is the key. See Jesus, the Lord was the ultimate fighter. Right? Read through the Gospels and you'll see it. He was the ultimate, the perfect fighter. He confronted those proud Pharisees. He rebuked those false teachers. He cast out the money changers. Jesus was a fighter, but the enemy's fiercest onslaught was on the cross. Where Jesus faced the enemy and fought death for you and won. Jesus fought for you, fought for your soul, fought for your redemption, fought that you might be with him in heaven one day. And Jesus was the perfect ultimate lover. He was the lover who saw you in your sin and misery, saw you wandering around as a lost harassed sheep and he laid down his life for you on the cross. He took your guilt upon himself and one day as it says in verse 21 of our text, Jesus is going to glorify you. He's going to raise your body up out of the grave, transform it to be like his amazing body and usher you into the new earth where you will spend eternity with him. He is the ultimate lover of your soul. The more you see Jesus and behold him and walk with him as fighter and lover for you, the more that will change you into someone who knows how to fight when necessary and someone who knows how to love. This is how you are to stand firm in the Lord, dear friends. So fight and love and look forward to the day when the battle is won and faith becomes sight. Let's pray. I want you to think as we close our eyes for a moment about your own tendency. Are you a natural fighter by that I mean that your tendency from birth is to want to win. You want to be right. You've got to win every argument. You've got to lead the best meeting so that when you leave that meeting, you think, wow, I did a great job. Or you've got to be so excellent that people will bow at your feet and worship you. That's sort of your default. Or are you more on the opposite end of the extreme. You don't want to ever fight. You don't want to confront or you don't like confrontation or conflict. But you tend to be sort of overly patient, overly accommodating so that sometimes you even let evil go on without doing anything about it. See neither one is God's will. We've got to be more and more like Christ who is both fighter and lover. Identify where you normally lean. And let's pray. Father, we pray that you will help us to understand the gospel at a deeper and deeper level so that we will see Jesus more clearly as fighter for our soul, as lover of our soul and that that might change us into people who become more like Him. Lord, we thank you for doctrine. We know that sometimes it can get cold and unloving. Help us not go there, but at the same time help us to stand up for truth. Help us to fight the good fight of the faith. And now Lord, we bring in an offering to you. We pray that you will bless these gifts that we bring that they might help many thousands of people around the world to come to know Jesus. And we pray this in His name.
We at University Presbyterian Church thank you for listening to this message. Our mission is to help people know God, grow together and serve others. To learn more about the church or how to have a vital relationship with God, visit our website at www.uPC-orlando.com or call our offices at 407-384-3300.