Union Church

Philippians 3:1-11 - Joy, Threats, Freedom

Listen along as we continue our series through the book of Philippians.

Notes//Quotes:

Phil 3:1-11

Acts 15:1

The key passage is Genesis 17, and the important point can be simply expressed. The covenant is God’s promise. He goes on oath in certain specific matters. Abram is the recipient of the promise which is first personal: Abram becomes Abraham (verse 5), a vivid promise of regeneration or a new nature, for with the new name there is created a new man. Secondly, the promise is national, a multitude of nations (verses 5b–6). Thirdly, it is spiritual, ‘to be God to you and to your descendants after you’ (verse 7). Fourthly, it is territorial, the ‘land of your sojournings’ (verse 8); and finally, by way of emphasizing the most important point, spiritual again, ‘and I will be their God’ (verse 8). Circumcision symbolizes the application of the covenant promises to those individuals whom God has chosen to receive them. This came to be seen as the essential heart of the covenant promise and the most quoted verse in the Bible: ‘You shall be my people, and I will be your God.’ Paul, the Philippians, the whole company of Christian believers down the years—we are the chosen people of God, individually born again, individually and collectively heirs of the Lord’s purposes of grace. It is as though Paul said: We may be sure that God has set his personal seal of choice and ownership upon us, for we are the circumcision-  Alec Motyer

Eph 2:11-16, 
Gal 3:26-29

“I consider them rubbish is too weak a translation for the shocking word Paul uses (skybala). Found only here in the New Testament, skybala could refer to refuse, stinking and decaying food, or even human excrement. It carries the idea of something that is only fit to be thrown out because it is so disgusting. As a result, filth or the coarse colloquial term “crap” better captures the detestable quality expressed in this term. Paul could hardly have stated his revulsion toward his former sources of pride and self-righteousness more emphatically - Dean Flemming

"Christians who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously, radically insecure persons. We must first make real to them the grace of God accepting them daily, not because of their spirituality or their achievements in Christian service, but because God has accounted to them the perfect righteousness of Christ.” Richard Lovelace

Matthew 7:24-27

Philippians 2:19-30 - Working Out Witness

Listen along as we continue our series through the book of Philippians.

Notes//Quotes:

Philippians 2:19-30

1 Cor 12:21-26

“The Christian community demonstrates the effectiveness of the gospel. We are the living proof that the gospel is not an empty word but a powerful word that takes men and women who are lovers of self and transforms them by grace through the Spirit into people who love God and others. We are the living proof that the death of Jesus was not just a vain expression of God’s love but an effective death that achieved the salvation of a people who now love one another sincerely from a pure heart” - Tim Chester

1 Peter 2:9-10

John20:21)

“The Swiss psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross once wrote,
"Beautiful people do not just happen." Do you know any of these beautiful people? People who shine with an inner luminescence, who radiate a kind of moral beauty? These kinds of people don't
"just happen" by accident; they are formed, or forged, often in the fire of suffering and pain, over a long period of time, into people of love.” - John Mark Comer

Almost anything in life that truly matters will require you to do small, mostly overlooked things, over a long period of time with him - Eswine

Philippians 2:12-18 - Working it Out

Listen along as we continue our journey through Philippians.

Notes//Quotes:

Philippians 2:12-18 - Kim
Working It Out

“The doctrine of justification concerns God’s gracious judicial verdict in advance of the day of judgment, pronouncing guilty sinners, who turn in self-despairing trust to Jesus Christ, forgiven, acquitted of all charges and declared morally upright in God’s sight.”
- Philip Eveson

Ephesians 2:8&9:
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” 

“While the language of sanctification in theological terminology has focused on the progressive aspect of growing holiness in the Christian life, the Bible uses the term sanctification to point towards the status as consecrated and holy that we have in Christ through our union with him.” 
- Fred Zaspel

“Just as God assessed and then reacted to the worth of his Son’s life of obedience (verses 9–11), so the Christian must ponder the example of Christ and determine upon a worthy response (verses 12–18).”
- Alec Motyer

Romans 11:33:
 “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”

 “If we are to follow Christ, we must continue to call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We must continue to receive God’s grace. We must continue to manifest the fruit of the Spirit. We must continue to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We must continue to come before God in prayer. We must continue not to reject the assembling of ourselves for worship, but we must continue to gather for worship, so that, in all of these things, we are doing just exactly what we are called to do…It means that when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, and it says, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,”that we actually do forgive our debtors. It means that when we are called to be witnesses, that we actually witness. It means that all of the benefits which have been made available to us are being utilized, and all of the responsibilities and challenges to which we are being called are being assumed.” —Alistair Begg

Numbers 11:11-15:
11 Moses said to the Lord, “Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? 12 Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,’ to the land that you swore to give their fathers? 13 Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me and say, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’ 14 I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. 15 If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness.” 

“How can you come to grips with someone giving himself utterly for you, without you giving yourself utterly to him?” 
— Timothy Keller

Philippians 2:1-11 - This is Yours

Listen along as we continue our time in the letter of Philippians.

Notes//Quotes:

Philippians 2:1-11

When salvation has taken place in the life of someone under the sovereign hand of God, they are set free from the penalty of sin and its power. In a body without the Spirit, sin is an unshakable king under whose dominion no man can flee. The entire body, with its members, affections, and mind all willfully submit themselves to sin’s rule. But when the Spirit of God takes back the body that He created for Himself, He sets it free from the pathetic master that once held it captive and releases it into the marvelous light of its Savior. It is then able to not only want God, but it is actually able to obey God. And isn’t that what freedom is supposed to be? The ability to not do as I please, but the power to do what is pleasing. Jackie Hill Perry

Romans 12:9-10 -

Gospel doctrine - gospel culture = Hypocrisy 
Gospel culture - gospel doctrine = fragility
Gospel doctrine + gospel culture = power 
Ray Ortlund

Romans 8:31-32, 

2 Peter 1:3-4

“It follows, then, that we cannot start with a definition of God and try to fit Jesus into it. We must look first to Jesus himself, who reveals to us the identity of God. If we want to know what God is like … God is like Jesus" Dean Flemming

What greater mercy is there than this, which caused to descend from heaven the maker of heaven; which reclothed with an earthly body the one who formed the earth; which made equal to us the one who, from eternity, is the equal of the Father; which imposed “the form of a servant” on the Master of the world—such that the Bread itself was hungry, Fullness itself was thirsty, Power itself was made weak, Health itself was wounded, and Life itself was mortal? And that so that our hunger would be satisfied, so that our dryness would be watered, our weakness supported, our love ignited. What greater mercy than that which presents to us the Creator created; the Master made a slave; the Redeemer sold; the One who exalts, humbled; the One who raises the dead, killed? - Augustine

The present passage uniquely unfolds the cross as seen through the eyes of the Crucified, and allows us to enter into the mind of Christ. We tread, therefore, on very holy ground indeed. We do well to remember that this privilege is given to us not to satisfy our curiosity but to reform our lives - Alec Motyer

Philippians 1:19-30 - Everything Jesus

Listen along as we continue through Philippians.

Notes//Quotes:

Philippians 1:19-30

An important clue is that Paul’s words, "this will turn out for my salvation," are an exact quotation of Job 13:16 in the Greek Bible. Here Paul’s unmarked quotation evokes clear analogies between the apostle’s present situation and the former plight of Job. In Job 13, Job defends himself against the accusatory arrows of his pious “comforters.” The charge is that his suffering is the direct result of harboring some secret sin. In response, Job pleads his innocence, declaring that ultimately he will be vindicated by God (Job 13:16, 18). Similarly, Paul, in the face of afflictions and the attacks of rival preachers, looks forward to vindication before God in the end. - Dean Flemming

James 4:13-15

“If the biblical story is true, the kind of certainty proper to a human being will be one which rests on the fidelity of God, not upon the competence of the human knower. It will be a kind of certainty which is inseparable from gratitude and trust.” - Lesslie Newbigin

If you are a Christian, you are not a citizen of this world trying to get to heaven; you are a citizen of heaven making your way through this world. - Vance Havner

Philippians 1:12-18 - The Sweet Sovereignty of God

Listen along as we continue our journey through the book of Philippians.

Notes//Quotes:

Philippians 1:12-18 - Kim

 

The Sweet Sovereignty of God

 

“Rather than detail the hardships he faced, Paul took a divine perspective.” — Richard Malick

 

“Paul has a definition of life that enables him to face anything. In this passage he is teaching that its not the circumstances of your life, its not whether things go well for you or go ill for you. It’s not the circumstances of your life but the way you define life that will determine whether you stand or fall in this world.” 

— Timothy Keller

 

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

 

Because Romans 8:28 exists, those who love God and are loved by him can have confidence that he is working through all of life’s circumstances to bring good out of bad, light out of darkness, joy out of sorrow. It’s not that God is especially agile, a kind of cosmic PR man adept at manipulating circumstances, but rather that he is the Planner, the Engineer, the Designer who has ordained the means just as much as the end. He ordains the calm and the storm, the darkness and the dawn, the famine and the feast. This being the case, no event is meaningless, no situation purposeless, no condition ultimately hopeless. God is working out his good will not despite dark days, difficult trials, and broken hearts, but through them. Such circumstances are the raw material he uses to form and shape his good plans, his perfect purposes.

 

God’s specialty is not bringing good from good, but good from bad and Romans 8:28 gently tells me that if I trust him through my tears, he will give me reason to laugh; if I trust him through my pain, he will teach me to praise; if I trust him through my grief, he will afterwards show me all the good that came with it and through it. He will show me the precious flowers in the dry desert, the beautiful blooms against the sharp thorns, the gentle petals beneath the vicious skies. For behind every black cloud is a yellow sun, behind every dark night a bright day, behind every frowning providence a smiling face—the smiling face of the God who works all things for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. 

—Tim Challies

 

“God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.” 

— Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Philippians 1:3-11 - Becoming Who We Are

Listen along as we continue our series through Philippians.

Notes//Quotes:

Philippians 1:3-11 - Karen

Every other ethical system calls us to the costly effort of becoming what we are not. But in the full salvation already bequeathed to us in Christ, the new nature is already ours, waiting for expression, poised for growth, until its potential is triggered by our obedience to the word of God - Alec Motyer

“A striking feature of this verse is the way that Paul stacks up the words for all and always. The rhetorical impact is strengthened by Paul’s use of alliteration (each word begins with the letter p) and by a play on words with similar sounds (pasē … pantote … pasē … pantōn). This serves to spotlight “the all-inclusiveness of his prayer … None of the Philippians Christians for any reasons whatever was excluded from the apostles’ love and concern” - Dean Flemming

“I coined the word 'eucatastrophe': the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce.The Resurrection is the greatest 'eucatastrophe' possible in the greatest Fairy Story – and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled.” JRR Tolkien

“Paul’s confidence is not in the Christianity of the Christians, but in the God-ness of God, who is supremely trustworthy, able, and committed to finish the work he has begun” Markus Bockmuel

“God is always good and I am always loved. Everything is eucharisteo.” Ann Voskamp 

Acts 16:11-15

“We are not to reflect on the wickedness of men but to look to the image of God in them, an image which, covering and obliterating their faults, an image which, by its beauty and dignity, should allure us to love and embrace them.” - John Calvin

 

“We must understand that God does not "love" us without liking us - through gritted teeth - as "Christian" love is sometimes thought to do. Rather, out of the eternal freshness of his perpetually self-renewed being, the heavenly Father cherishes the earth and each human being upon it. The fondness, the endearment, the unstintingly affectionate regard of God toward all his creatures is the natural outflow of what he is to the core - which we vainly try to capture with our tired but indispensable old word “love” - Dallas Willard

 

“The word affection (splanchna) originally referred to the inner organs (heart, liver, lungs), which were seen as the seat of human emotions. In the Gospels, it expresses Jesus’ heartfelt compassion toward others. Here Paul says that he loves his dear friends in Philippi with the same affection that Christ has for them. At the same time, Christ loves the Philippians through Paul. This testifies to a “three-way bond” of love between Paul, the Philippians, and Christ” - Dean Flemming

What God desires from us, he graciously forms in us as we grow in our love for him. Ruth Chou Simmons

 

Philippians 1:1-2 - A Bright Book

Listen along as we begin our time in the book of Philippians.

Notes//Quotes:

Linda - Philippians 1:1-2

 

“How is leadership to be exercised? What is the relationship between leaders and led? The one word with provides the answer: ‘… the saints’, writes Paul, ‘… with the bishops and deacons.’ The strong natural leader chooses the easy path of being out front, taking it for granted that all will follow; the low-profile leader ‘plays it cool’, submerges his own identity and takes the risk that the tail will soon wag the dog. The more demanding exercise, the sterner discipline and the more rewarding way are found in companionate leadership, the saints with the overseers and deacons.

This kind of leadership has many facets. It involves realizing that leader and led share the same Christian experience: both are sinners saved by the same precious blood, always and without distinction wholly dependent on the same patient mercy of God. It involves putting first whatever creates and maintains the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. It means that leaders see themselves first as members of the body, and only then as ministers. In this way they face every situation from within the local body of Christ and not as people dropped in from outside (or even from above!). It involves patiently waiting for the Holy Spirit to grant unanimity to the church in making and executing plans. It involves open relationships in which the leaders do not scheme to get their own way or play off one against another, but act with transparent integrity. It involves willingness to be overruled, to jettison role-playing and status-seeking, to be ready to cast a single vote with everyone else. It involves putting the welfare of the body of Christ before all personal advantage, success or reputation and it involves co-equal sacrifice for the Lord and his gospel. It is the leadership of those who are content to stand among the saints as those who serve.”

- Alec Motyer

 

Philippians 2:5–11 “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

 

Hebrews 13:20-25 - Landing the Plane

Listen in as we wrap up our series through the book of Hebrews.

Notes//Quotes:

Hebrews 13:20-25

“The author wants believers to live out God’s will in light of the work of Christ.” - George Guthrie

Here is the sea, great and wide,
 which teems with creatures innumerable,
 living things both small and great. There go the ships,
 and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it. These all look to you,
 to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up;
 when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
 when you take away their breath, they die
 and return to their dust. (Ps. 104:25-29)

Food comes at proper seasons (verse 27) and is gathered (verse 28) yet through all it is God who is giving us food (verse 27). The great sea creatures “frolic” and leap in the air (verse 26) and the swallows perform Ariel acrobatics. While those activities may also have practical purposes, in some deeper sense, these creatures know the joy and freedom of doing what they were “formed" to do by God. We too, can know joy and fulfillment only as we live, according to God's design. At this point, nature has us beat. As Elizabeth Elliot has said, "a clam glorifies God better than we do, because the clam is being everything it was created to be, whereas we are not.”
Prayer: Lord, disobeying you is easy in the short run but hard in the long run because I'm violating my own nature. And so obedience to you can be excruciating to start, but it's wonderful in time, because I become my true self. Oh, help me to remember this when things get hard! Amen. —Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller, The Songs of Jesus

Hebrews 13:1-19 - Life and Leadership

Listen along as we near the close of the book of Hebrews.

Notes//Quotes:

Hebrews 13:1-19

In friendship, we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another...the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting--any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends, "Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others. - CS Lewis

“Radically ordinary hospitality is this: using your Christian home in a daily way that seeks to make strangers neighbors, and neighbors family of God.” - Rosaria Butterfield

”In any relationship, there will be frightening spells in which your feelings of love dry up. And when that happens you must remember that the essence of marriage is that it is a covenant, a commitment, a promise of future love. So what do you do? You do the acts of love, despite your lack of feeling. You may not feel tender, sympathetic, and eager to please, but in your actions you must BE tender, understanding, forgiving and helpful. And, if you do that, as time goes on you will not only get through the dry spells, but they will become less frequent and deep, and you will become more constant in your feelings. This is what can happen if you decide to love." Tim Keller

“Church membership, in other words, is not about “additional requirements.” It’s about a church taking specific responsibility for a Christian, and a Christian for a church. It’s about “putting on,” “embodying,” “living out,” and “making concrete” our membership in Christ’s universal body.” - Jonathan Leeman
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” - GK Chesterton