Philippians 2

Brother Jimmy does a fantastic job in overseeing the scheduling, the topics, the themes for this, for our Sunday school here. And I've been assigned this morning in Philippians chapter two to teach on a broader theme or make application to a broader theme of thanksgiving and praise, which is a timely topic for us as we're about to celebrate thanksgiving as is our cultural custom.

And true thanksgiving really, I would say Christians are the ones who can truly be thankful, because Christians are the ones who know the Lord by whom all blessings flow. So while this chapter in Philippians chapter two isn't necessarily a chapter on thanksgiving, I'm going to make direct application there. But we do see here starting in, starting toward the middle of the chapter, or maybe near the end of the chapter, in verse 14, it says, "Do all things without grumbling or disputing, so that you will be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as light in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to boast, because I did not run in vain nor labor in vain." So those verses 14, 15, and 16 are the ones I want to focus in on out of chapter two this morning. And the first thing we see here is a imperative.

We see instruction from Paul to the Philippians for, hey, do all things without grumbling or disputing. Or that could be translated or interpreted as murmuring or disputing. So the idea is here grumbling, complaining, murmuring, disputing among one another. Because really, what Philippians chapter two is about unity through humility, that humbling yourselves, treating one another in the church with humility and charity is what cultivates unity among the body of Christ. That's how you practice unity, is through putting on humility, putting on charity, not thinking of yourselves as better than the person next to you. That's the primary application of Philippians chapter two, giving our premier, our prime example of our very own Lord Jesus Christ himself. Not considering himself equal with God, or in the place of God, even though being God, even though having every in his essence, being truly God. But as we see in his life and in his ministry, and in what the mission, what the task of God, the Son was set to do, we see that he acted in a way, he lived in such a way that he was for the Father's honor, he was for the Father's glory, he put himself in service to the Father, that being our example. Okay, so now with that in our minds, do all things without grumbling or disputing. Now it's right to look at this and make some application to doing the dishes at home, or taking out the trash. And this is something that you were probably taught as a child and what I do in my home and tried to teach, and tried to exemplify though oftentimes imperfectly, is doing things without grumbling or complaining. And so this is why it's even right to train your child and say, "Hey, would you go do this?" Or, "Hey, it's time to get ready for bed," or whatever it may be. And then when there's grumbling or complaining or exasperation over the matter, you can teach them from the Scriptures, it's like, "Hey, the task, just doing the task isn't good enough, but you've got to do the task. The Lord looks at the heart, you should do the task without grumbling, without complaining, without dispute, and those sorts of things." And while that's true, while we can make application to that here, that's not really what verse 14 is trying to teach. Verse 14 is trying to talk about. It isn't so much the task of your daily life, but it's really grumbling and complaining against one another. So it's murmuring against one another or disputing with one another in the church. So let's have, let's kind of narrow our focus here about, "Okay, what are we talking about when we're talking about grumbling or disputing?" Well, it's not all those good to make application in that sense, and maybe taking out the trash at your home.

I keep mentioning that because that's my task, and that's the thing that sometimes I struggle with in grumbling and complaining. So a little moment of confession there. But that's not what this is particularly talking about. It's really talking about the way that we live or treat one another in the body of Christ, as I've already stated. A few cross-references to help us understand this or put this in context. 1 Peter 4 chapter 9 says, "Be hospitable to one another without grumbling." Jude 16, Jude verse 16 refers to grumblers and complainers as walking in accordance to their lust. And then we see in Mark chapter 9, so that's talking about the grumbling/complaining part, Mark chapter 9, when the disciples are disputing amongst one another. Jesus looks to them and says, "Hey, basically," this is my paraphrase, he's like, "Hey, what are y'all disputing about? What are y'all arguing about?" And it turns out that there's the dispute among the disciples about who would be the greatest. And so here we have in Paul's admonition to us, "Do all things without grumbling," or you could also put murmuring or complaining there. So let's think of that in the context of what we read as 1 Peter 4, 9, of being hospitable to one another, serving one another in that way without grumbling or complaining against one another. We want to put off grumbling and complaining because according to Jude, it's walking according to our own lust of the flesh.

Mark 9 · chapter mention Mark 9 · chapter mention

And then disputing amongst one another, like the disciples saying, "Okay, who's going to be the greatest amongst us?" And Jesus Christ is essentially telling them, "Hey, you're wasting your time. You're disputing amongst one another about..." And here's my summary of both of these things, the grumbling and the disputing amongst one another. The reason why it's the lust of flesh is because here's my summary word for it. It's just selfishness is what it is.

It's just selfishness. So you could say as a summary of verse 14, "Do all things without selfishness," without grumbling, without complaining, without disputing amongst one another.

And here's the amazing thing. Moving on to verse 15, "So that..." So there's something that not grumbling and complaining amongst yourselves does. So why, Paul, why should we not grumble and complain amongst ourselves? Verse 15, "So that you will be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation." So this is an amazing thing. He says, "Do not live in such a way. Do not act in such a way. Do not walk in such a way that you are grumbling, complaining, or disputing amongst yourselves, amongst one another in the household of God." I mean, you can almost imagine knowing that the divine author here, being the very Holy Spirit, being God Himself, you can just imagine yourself as kids and your parents getting onto you. "Hey, quit that grumbling. Quit that complaining. Quit arguing with your brother. Quit arguing with your sister." And this is what the Lord is doing to his church through verses 14 and 15 here. "Hey, my children, the children of God, quit acting that way amongst the family of God. Quit grumbling against each other. Quit complaining against each other. Quit disputing against one another." That's not the way that we live in this house.

That's not the way that we live in this household. But the opposite of that, what we should put on though it's not here in our text in these specific verses of 14, 15, and 16, but this is basically opposite of what is opened up in the chapter of putting on the fellowship of the Spirit and compassion and love and being united in the Spirit, thinking on one purpose.

Verse 3 would be the key thing. There's some consistency here in verse 3 and verse 14.

"Do nothing from selfish ambition or vain glory, but with humility of mind regarding one another as more important than yourselves. Not merely looking out for your own personal interest, but also for the interest of others." So you see the verses there. You see the contrast there.

The comparison between selfishness and vain glory resulting in grumbling and disputing.

So that's what, to use kind of Paul's theme from other letters, that's what we should put off.

And then what we should put on is humility of mind regarding others more important than ourselves.

We don't look out for our own personal interest, but also for the interest of others.

So you see what we should put off there, what we should put on, what Paul is trying to correct or teach out of the church and commend to the church. And so that's an amazing thing. And surely thankfulness is part of that. In fact, that's what going back to our own homes and how we instruct our children, we tell them to do things with a grateful heart or a thankful heart. And so surely thankfulness would be part of the not grumbling and complaining. That rather don't grumble and complain about these things, but don't grumble and complain about that brother or that sister.

Rather, you should be thankful for that brother, be thankful for that sister, considering themselves greater than you are, considering not only your personal needs or your personal perspective and whatever this or that matter is, but also considering your brother and sister as well. And notice what this does. Again, going back to verse 15.

By not grumbling, not complaining, not disputing, but having humility, having thankfulness, having charity and compassion toward your brothers and sisters in Christ, it says that by doing that, that you will be blameless, that you will be innocent. Now that's not saying that you're going to be sinless. Oh, you finally reached perfection and you've got this secret that you have the rest of us to tell of how to achieve it. Oh, well, that's easy. Just don't grumble and don't complain. That's not what it's talking about here. It's not telling you how to be sinless or reach sinless, any sort of sinless perfection, but it makes complete sense. This is what Paul is directly commending, that by not grumbling, by not disputing, that you will be without sin in that matter, that you will be blameless and innocent, that you will not sin against your brother, sin against your sister, that you will be children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. So this is an amazing contrast here, that these two simple things that we read in verse 14, hey, don't grumble, don't dispute. And we think of those as little matters. It's just like, okay, those are just basic things. That's just being kind, being respectful. But Paul says that it has a great, that that produces great fruitfulness in the church and in the world. One, that you'll be above reproach in the matter, that you won't sin against your brother or sister in the matter, that you'll be without blame, you'll be innocent before one another, that you'll be children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. So it's an amazing gospel witness. It's the light shining in the darkness, that hey, these people do not treat each other like the world treats people. That's essentially what is being said here. And that by that, that you are proclaiming something, that by that you're shining as a light in the world, you're shining in contrast to the selfish ambition, to the vain glory of it, the world is after. So it's an amazing thing. Humility, selflessness, doing things without grumbling, doing things without disputing with one another, has a great impact on the world. That's an amazing thing. How God uses what we perceive to be such small, simple, little things for great witness, for great proclamation. So we see that there's those two reasons to the so that in verse 15, so that you may be blameless and innocent, and so that you can be children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Moving on to verse among whom you shine as lights in the world. Moving on to verse 16. Okay, shining as lights in the world, you could almost put the word "by" in front of verse 16. Now, I'm not trying to add to Scripture or anything like that, but as your lights in the world, how are Christians doing that? How are Christians being lights unto the world? Verse 16, "holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to boast, because I did not run in vain or labor in vain." So how do Christians shine as lights in the world? Well, we see that two things, both doing things, living in such a way where doing all things without grumbling or disputing. And also, by doing that or in doing that, we're holding fast the word of life. What is that word of life? Well, it's the very gospel, the very teachings of Jesus Christ himself. There's not a separate or unique word of life outside of God's revelation to us, to the Scriptures. So that, so we have multiple"so that's" here. So that. Okay, so how are we going to live as lights in the world by holding fast the word of life? And then Paul's writing, okay, we're going to do all of this. We're going to not grumble and dispute against one another. We're going to hold fast the word of life, being lights in the world, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to boast, because I did not run in vain nor labor in vain. So in the day of Christ, when all things are said and done at the final judgment, Paul's recognizing, he was like, okay, that if the gospel takes fruit among these people, and they're living in such a way changed by the very realities of the gospel, that they're not grumbling against one another, they're not complaining against one another, they're not disputing amongst one another, that that's a fruit of the gospel in the light of the church, that is proclamation to the world against the darkness, against the manner, the way in which the world lives after selfishness, after vain glory, that at the end of all things Paul will have been satisfied. So we know elsewhere that Paul talks about not having anything to boast in, but Jesus Christ. But here he says that in the day of Christ I will have reason to boast.

Well, this is what he's saying, that his labor was not in vain. And that's not contrary to where he says, hey, I don't have anything to boast in but Jesus Christ, because what is he talking about here? He's talking about the fruit which Jesus Christ, the very word of life himself, is producing among his people, amongst the people of God. So don't misread this and say that, oh, Paul's got something here that he wants to take credit for. All Paul is saying here is like, I'm going to be overjoyed. My joy is going to be full, going back to the beginning of Philippians chapter 2 and even some verses following. My joy is going to be full, not because I've got something personally to boast in, but I will have reason to boast in the Lord on the last day. I will have reason to have joy in the Lord on the last day because my labor was not in vain. I did not run in vain.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

I did not labor in vain because of the humility, because of the charity, because of the thankfulness that was produced amongst the people of God through Paul's ministry. So when I'm thinking about these themes, these applications here, the way that we must live amongst one another, let's not make little of things that we think to be little. Let's not think that disputing or grumbling and complaining against one another in the church isn't that big of a deal. Clearly, the Lord thinks that it does, and we've got encouragement, not encouragement, we've got exhortation here, admonition here, imperative here to do not live in such a way, but rather to live in humility, live in thankfulness for one another, putting one another above ourselves, and that, we should not take that lightly as well, as it's the way that children of God are to be conformed to the image of Christ, and also that in and of itself, what we might think is a small thing, is a great gospel light shining to the world. After all, Christ did say that my disciples will be known as his disciples, his disciples will be known as his disciples, how? By their love for one another. And this is, in essence, the message Paul gives us here in Philippians. So put off grumbling, put off disputing amongst one another. I'm happy to say there's not actually very much of that in our congregation, praise the Lord. Unless there's something I don't know about, and if so, this word is for you. But put on humility, put on love for one another. Think of each other as more important. Consider each other more than what you consider yourself. Let's have our time of prayer.

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