CHAPTER TWO

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CHAPTER TWO

SOARING IS NEVER BORING

Philippians 2:12 - 3:21

An oral version is available.

I THE THREE SEGMENTS

Apostolic Need (2:12-24) and Sacrificial Service (2:25-30)
Epaphroditus and Strategy of Delayed Healing

Paul rejoices in the tenderness and consecration of some, even though many are self-serving. Already to the Church at Philippi he has sent Epaphroditus who "ministered to my need". Indeed "he was distrressed because you had heard that he was sick," and "he was sick almost to death," though God took mercy to him. So does God, as with Job, appoint sickness for service, or dismiss it, as He will, but is known marvellously to respond (Acts 9:20-43). Never available for manipulation, He is yet a marvel of intimate compassion.

Updraft of Faith (3:1-12) ... " if by any means ..."

Spiritual uplift and thrust

Here is the intensity of Paul's desire, the fire that ascends, the thrust for the heights, the elemental seeking, thirsting for God (as in Psalm 42). He will not yield to resignation, but in heart aloft already, he seeks to soar, drawn by immeasurable desire. To this we return later.

Stability in Humility (3:12-16)

It is as in Isaiah 33:6

"Wisdom and Knowledge will be the stability of your times,
The fear of the Lord is His treasure."

Intimacy with God does not produce presumption but friendly movement mixed with awe, towards cohesion and companionship. Paul does not present himself as one who has attained in this spiritual flight, but his mission is undismissible, and where he has now reached, he desires that with others, there should be security on solid foundation, and awareness of the wonder granted, not insatiable claims. It is the placement in Christ which matters, even amid the soaring ascent.

Splendid Assurance of Culmination (3:17-21)

This in no way counters, but rather accompanies the utter assurance of the end of the whole matter, the resurrection of the body, the removal of the ruins of a cursed world, and the wonder of the finale, secure and established (cf. II Timothy 1:12).

The journey has many a trial and divinely mandated test. This is the approach; but its resolution and its terminus is secure, including a life which is interminable, eternal (Philippians 3:20). Let us consider an illustration.

It is found in the nautical journey of Hudson Taylor with Many Missionaries, to their chosen site in China, and begins in the effect on the crew of living with these missionaries, and the eventual testimony that developed. Thus the praying missionaries seemed like aliens to the crew at first; but helping on the ship and continuing their meetings as was their custom, they found more and more attention to the messages till many of the crew became Christians. When storms assailed and almost broke the ship, it could seem counter-productive, but trial is never divorced from truth in this, that you test all things for all things sound, actually work, in the presence of God: the point being not ease but endurance, not suffering but testimony to truth, as in ordinary laboratory experiments, where not people but objects are often the topic. At last they arrived intact, but the ship almost wrecked.

When therefore the news became public of another ship from that sort of storm arriving with only 6 crew members left alive, whereas in Hudson's ship, NONE of crew or passengers were lost or even seriously injured (they being bent on the work to come), this gave testimony. It showed the wisdom which is not seduced by mere appearance, short-term results, but confirmed by divine action in a Christian prayer milieu.

It CAN lead to crucifixions, it is true, but not in vain. Thus Peter was saved absolutely by absolute miracle from Herod (Acts 12), but God elected to let James die at the royal murderer's hand. The team of those who unremittingly love and seek to obey the Lord and His word, the Bible, has much to do; and the important thing in the interim, where the word of God is honoured, is to love one another, be fearless for the truth, and in loving Christ, to love His word, and in loving it, to follow it, ship it out, and abide in Him (John 14:21-23). Love may seem small, but in result, to bypass it is like not bothering to put oil in our engines. Results can be amazing! as they were on the ship, but purity of heart needs attention. They can grow and surge, as when hundreds of missionaries joined them, and followed; they can run into storms, as when persecutions and then Communism set in, its desolation of man including millions of murders of the citizens of that land. But its testimony continues past test, and its result ?

It is said there are more Christians in China than members of the Communist Party, and certainly there are large numbers of those who do not present their churches as virtual State agencies, objects of spiritual plunder. What was to be, is, test and triumph alike, and the payments of love to the testimony of truth continue, as divinely appointed, the updraft on the soul unabating.

Now briefly consider

II THE FOUR FUNCTIONS in Ch. 3.

We could see them in an aeronautical imagery.

These include

The Take-Off Conversion (3:1-10)

Rehearsal on Rubbish,

the discard of what is below the divine gift of Christ's righteouenss;

Revelation on Faith Life

in which there works

The power of the Resurrection
with the Fellowship of His Sufferings.

In this, the apostle speaks of

Being conformed to His death:

Like Shoots going Downward that Sprouts should go Upward

Eyes Set on Goal in aspirational desire

The Long Flight (3:12-16)

The Inspiration of the glory
The Continuing Thrust in the Suffusing Light of Understanding,
these topics considered above.

The Crashing of Gliders (3:17-19)

Minus Spiritual Motors (Ephesians 3:16)
Lost in the ascent,
Merely finding the natural level,
Many find their wings no more aloft,
The engines of faith missing,
The shortcomings of mere watching exposed fatally.

Theirs a popular club with its own traditions and culture,
often specialising on EXPERIENCE and ignoring structural facts,
such as having the engine of faith with the fuel of truth.

The Landing (3:20-21) comes at last.

Faith set on consummation

with the intractable power of God,

never retracted,

finds God sublimely operative
and in Him is utterly assured.

III DIVERSE ELEMENTS IN ONE THEME

B and D are diverse elements of one theme, like husband and wife, friend and friend,
vision and effort, activation and compilation, ideas and words, love and sacrifice,
thirst and water. In nature the one does not guarantee the presence of the other; yet in the domain of eternal life, gift of God, grace governs and vitality presses, while faith secures.

In quietness and humility the eternal life given by God may yet show itself in agility so soaring in uncontainable desire for the heights and depths of the knowledge of God (Philippians 3:8-15), that it might almost seem consumed in thrust. Yet underlying, at the same time, in assurance and expectation, that nurtured faith expects with all but unutterable assurance (I Peter 1:5-8), the culmination at the end, that transformation into conformity to His glorious body (I John 3:1-3, Romans 8:30), through Him whose power is able to subject everything to Himself (Philippians 3:21). In confirmation of this is that citizenship in the kingdom of heaven which even now is valid with divine authority.

Thus, the aspiration and zeal, and the embrace of faith, are but current counterparts. It is one whole, with every thrust like a lively agent of the gladdened heart, an avenue to the sight to come, by faith rendered as if present. Thus in heart, the assured rest from the quest sings even amid the soaring, and operates beyond, since past all, it is inscribed with the hand of God (Ephesians 1:5,11). So the soul is energised with a vast longing while joy moves with peace, and zest aligns with spiritual knowledge.

Thus, just as the attraction of eternity grips the heart and empowers the mind, surging with life into the spirit, so comes like a background to a scene, the knowledge of its assured participation personally as promised, in the triumph of Christ's swallowing up of death in victory. Indeed, the ravishing reality that this comes is surer than any law in the universe, this being direct from the power, word and action of God Himself (Romans 8:16). In His presence (Colossians 1:27), therefore, the yearning of steadfast seeking comes with the background of an embracing rest, that is incapable of being wrest away, since the omnipotent has spoken (John 10:9,27-28), and made the greatest grant of all time for this earth (John 3:16), speaking outright the eternal word of salvation to secure it (Micah 5:1-3), forge its function, secure its estate (Ephesians 1:13-14).

Thus is conferred on every believing Christian, who has received the words of God and the work of the word of God in Jesus Christ, without equivocation, addition or qualification,

	that lively citizenship that is received from Him,
	that immortality which is no mere word in the air, but secured as if a king fought for years to gain a kingdom, and then made it an inheritance for his son.

v We who are His are His sons and daughters, adopted by grace, for whom He has prepared an inheritance in grace, as duly prepared in place (John 14:1ff.,II Cor. 5:1ff., I Cor. 15, Ephesians 1:11,Daniel 12:13,John 11:25-26), one reserved, undefiled, unfading, that does not pass away (I Peter 1).

We have inherited an earth which teems with information in the vital DNA of life, though it has now stopped its advent, as in the Bible so in life (cf. Ch. 4, The Original and Eventual Magnificence).

We have inherited a Gospel, though its basis is now fulfilled and complete, and information has ceased concerning it, as a work done. The DNA is of its own kind, beyond the powers of man, but as a witness and fiddler. The Gospel likewise, is of its own kind, and while it may be changed, being presented to the mind and life of man, this time it is as spiritual foundation, rather than physical means.

The word and will of God, it is as unalterable as the life basis itself, and more so; for while that may be touched here or there to try to cover the depreciation of DNA over time, as with any design in an environment not wholly kind to it (cf. Waiting for Wonder Appendix), this may be changed only in order to inherit the curse, and worse, as first made, and from which it is the only divinely ratified^*1 escape (Hebrews 6:19, Galatians 1, Acts 4:12).

Man's dreams are many; God's plans are one (cf. The Original and Eventual Magnificence Chs. 2, 3, 5, 10 and Epilogue, Barbs ... 17). Man imagines many things and attributes them to his god or gods, personal or principial, products of his own mind (cf. News 57). God did not imagine man, but made him; did not imagine sacrificial substitutionary salvation, but did it, does not offer to man a quest for thought merely, but an aerodrome for landing, a mission for life and a commission for eternity, the end of the matter.

NOTE

See

DEITY AND DESIGN, DESIGNATION AND DESTINY

together with

LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST

WHO ANSWERS RIDDLES

AND WHERE HE IS, DARKNESS DEPARTS

Bible or Blight, Christ or Confusion:
The Comprehensive Resolution of Man's Intractable Problems
is Found Only in the Bible, the Word of God.