A Life of Change and Constantsw

Introduction

Good morning. Pleasant good morning to all. It’s good to look out and see so many with us this morning who are here to serve the Lord and to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. On Tuesday, June 17th, about 7 a.m., Ryan Joseph Rosado was baptized here at South Bumbi. And I want you all to rejoice with me for his baptism. We rejoice with our newest brother in Christ. Amen.

When I baptized him, I kept thinking of that old song while the ages roll on. You look at that picture, he’s almost as tall as me. And I’m guessing that when he gets back from summer camp, he very well might be as tall as me. Our South Bumby theme this year is transformations. And there are actually two ways in which spiritual transformations occur. And we sometimes probably don’t think about the second way that spiritual transformations occur as much, but I’d like to talk about both of them. One of the ways in which spiritual transformations occur is when changes are applied. And when changes are applied to our life, spiritual transformation occurs. But also when constants are kept, when those things that we see illustrated by God that show his constant way, the way he is, when we keep to the constants of the Lord, that is when transformation occurs.

And so we want to talk about this morning a life of changes and a life of constants. Bookmark, if you will, in your Bibles, Philippi 2, 1 through 3, where we had our scripture reading this morning. Take a bookmark and place it in Philippians, and bookmark Philippians chapter 2, verses 1 through 3. And I will do that with you. Have my red bookmark there, Philippians 2, 1 through 3. I like having multiple colored bookmarks. It’s easier to find stuff. And then my other bookmark is going to be right here in Ephesians chapter 4. You may have remembered Ephesians chapter 4 from last week’s sermon, where we talked about one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all. Saying that God is for us and with us.

1. Changes Applied: Lowliness of Mind

But I’d like us to go back a few verses and look at a life of spiritual transformation where changes are applied by looking at verse 2. Paul is writing as he is in change for change for the Lord, and he begs, that’s what beseech means.

But then he basically says these things very carefully for us in verse 2. He says, with a lowliness of mind and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love. Spiritual transformations can occur in our life when changes are applied. When he talks about this word lowliness, he’s talking about the idea of humility. He’s talking about the idea of saying that we need to be the ones that see when we study the word of the Lord, when we follow after the will, the holy word of God, that he wants us to walk in such a way where when we are striving to follow after the will of the Lord as best we can, then we do so with humility. That we don’t say, well, look what I did, but look what the Lord can do through us all.

2. Gentleness: We Change Our Muscle

Humility is a change to the mind. Where many types of changes we make in life require doing certain things with our body or our choices, what we consume, what we put in our mind, what we place there, we have to change our mindset to say it’s not all about me. Life is about the Lord. Here’s a second transformation he says in verse 2. He says, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called with all lowliness and gentleness. Gentleness is a nice word. That’s when we change our muscle. We change to be meek, we change to be lowly. Jesus was the strongest one that has ever lived. I don’t know how in the world he endured 40 days in the wilderness without food, but that’s some strength.

I know the angels attended to him. I’m aware of that principle. I’m fully aware of that in Mark 4 and it’s parallel passage in Matthew 4. But the whole point is if he wanted to come to this earth and be placed on the cross, and then with all the power that he had, pull up the cross from the ground and throw it out to the other side of Golgotha, and to look like a super giant that was bigger than any Goliath of Gath, he could do it. If there was anybody ever who could have shown power and strength, it was not anybody lesser than Jesus. He could have come to this earth showing hurrah. He could have come to this earth showing physical muscle strength to his enemies and to people and to say, look at me.

That’s what he could have done. You say, how do you know he could have done that? Well, I’m familiar with the passages of scripture in the Old Testament that call him Lord of hosts. He inviting, very hospitable. That’s not what that word means. Yes, we do need to be hospitable according to Romans 12, but that’s not what Lord of hosts means. Lord of hosts means captain of the angelic armies. That’s what that phrase means. And I know in Old Testament times it took one angel, just one, to wipe out an entire town. Another time, one angel defeated a million man army. And so I know that if there’s so many angels, like the Psalm says, that they come out by name and he could mention as many of them as there are stars, that if Jesus is the captain of the hosts, oh yeah, if he wanted to come with muscle, he could have, but he didn’t.

He came meek, he came lowly. We talked about chivalry in our uh middle school Bible class this morning. And young men, it’s not all about how strong you are. A lot of things in life you can show your strength, but realize Jesus came to this earth meek and lowly and humble. And we sometimes need to recognize that what God wants us to do is be gentle. The old testament, full of many good examples in this. I’m familiar with the proverb writer that states, for a soft answer turneth away wrath. But a harsh word stirs up strife. We need to be the type of people that change that in our life. A lot of us love to lift weights, a lot of do a lot of strong things, uh strong man, strong woman competitions, but we need to be meek, we need to be gentle.

3. Changes Applied to Our Patience

And spiritual lives are transformed when that change is applied. Third, spiritual transformation occurs when changes are applied to our patience. Says in verse 2, with all lowliness and gentleness with long suffering.

You guys gotta chuckle a little bit. Preacher, wristwatch, a holding of in and captivated by the wristwatch. No, really, when we are forbearing with one another, when we are patient with one another, and we recognize sometimes it’s time for a timeout. It’s time for not saying, oh yep, you’re gonna finish with this, you’re gonna get this done. I got this to do, I get that to do. We can really truly spiritually transform our life when we’re not rushing through everything. When we’re not looking out and saying, Well, I’ve got interests that I want to get done on my schedule, and this is what I want to do. We need to be patient with one another, forbearing with one another, long suffering with one another.

And that’s a life of change. That’s a life of transformation. Bearing with one another. I like the illustration that Paul gives in another passage of scripture where he talks about the idea of a foot race. The idea of racing. And your life is a race. And you need to win the race in such a way that endures with one another, bearing with one another. We need to change our foot race, though, to link arm in arm and run together. To look at the pace of the person we’re standing beside and saying, Am I outpacing them or am I dragging their feet? We need to link arm in arm spiritually with people and walk together with people. Race in the race together with people, lift up the burdens of those that are weak and not feeling well, and be encouraged to run the race of faith with endurance and patience and love and joy for the Lord.

4. The Ultimate Change: The Change of Our Heart

Spiritual lives transform when changes are applied, to be lowly and gentle and long suffering and bear with one another. And when we give up self and selfishness, the ultimate change that needs to be applied is the change of our heart. He says, with all lowliness, gentleness with long suffering, bearing with one another in love. The ingredient of love is to change my heart to give up selfishness. Let’s turn to this second scripture where we’ll spend the bulk of our lesson now this morning. There are places in the Bible, remember we’re turning to Philippians 2 1 through 3. If you don’t have your bookmark placed there already, there are places in the Bible where God gives statements that are so clearly rhetorical. And what does that mean?

5. Spiritual Lives Transform When Constants Are Kept

Metaphorical? Um, hello, it’s got to be this. That’s kind of what we mean by a rhetorical statement, where he asks a question, but you’ve got to know the answer. Him asking the question is basically one of those questions where you go, well, we know the answer to that. And that’s what kind of what he explains here in chapter 2, verse 1. He says, Therefore, if, now we know it’s a since then, but he says, therefore, if then there is any consolation, if there is any comfort in Christ, if there’s any comfort of love. That’s how he begins this. He says, Therefore, if there is any consolation in Christ, any comfort of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, any joy, any affection, if there’s any mercy, fulfill my joy by being like minded.

Now, here’s the question Is he saying, well, we got to decide if God’s consoles, and we we’ve got to try to figure out if Jesus comforts or if if Jesus and God have fellowship and affection and mercy. If if there’s that, then we’ll do this. No. It’s one of those passages of scripture where he says, guys, don’t you understand God consoles? He comforts, he has fellowship and affection and mercy. And if you guys see that, then you need to do this. That’s kind of how he’s wording that. One of those rhetorical passages of scripture where he says, if then, so you’re basically going, since then I know this.

Since I’m aware of this, spiritual lives transform when constants are kept. Since Jesus consoled. Paracalesis is the Greek word for this. Paraclesis. The idea of consoling is the idea of a mother singing a song quietly to a child. Or paraclesis, the holding of a fallen child that has scraped their leg or their arm and needs a band-aid. Consoling is paracalesis, the idea of the consolation of Jesus. My daughter just turned nine, Rebecca. And the other day I was thinking I was doing a good thing. I went to sing her a good night song. And I was saying, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. You just death. That’s a morning song, a wake up song. You need to have a lullaby, like mom. So I said, okay.

So we sang a different song that was quiet and consoling. It was to the nighttime type of thing. Going to bed. Now, here I go, I’m going to stay up all night. But that’s the thing. We understand what consoling is. We understand what that is. And Jesus consoles. He’s one that offers comfort. He’s one that when we look at the scriptures, he offers paracalasis, discomfort. And spiritual lives are transformed when we understand that’s not some on again, off again thing with God. He’s always comforting. He’s always trying to find a way to console. And through the scriptures, we find this done over and over again. And he says, since Jesus consoles, and since Jesus comforts, then we need to be joyfully like-minded. Paramuthason, that’s the word for comfort, actually uses two separate words in the Greek.

One to talk about consoling and one to talk about comforting. I’ll use a second illustration. My feet, I’m shaped like the letter L. My feet, they’re huge. There’s like a 14 wide. I have trouble finding shoes. If I go into a shoe store and they have a 14, he’s like, take it off the shelf, buy it, because you’re not gonna find them. And then you’re like, well, does it fit? Well, if it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t work. But the whole thing is it comforts you when you’re in something that fits right. It’s comforting. You can go somewhere. You can go somewhere without thinking about the pain that it feels like to have something that’s tight around your feet. Jesus comforts us in our walk as to where we go through this life.

He should surround our being wherever we go. Wherever we go, we should know that Jesus is not trying to constrict us. He’s not trying to pull us apart, he’s not trying to get us to fall, he’s trying to help us in our walk with the Lord. And Jesus comforts us. And that idea of comfort in the word paramuthison, if I can pronounce my Greek right, is that idea of a pleasant comfort in something, something that is workable, something that is done. He says, Therefore, if there’s any consolation in Christ, any comfort and love, any fellowship of the Spirit, any affection and mercy. Now he’s going to talk about three things God does readily. Deity chose to be involved in salvation. God didn’t have to do that.

God did not have to be involved in our salvation. He could have said, they obey, if they don’t obey, uh, they’re stricken with leprosy. Uh, they obey or they don’t obey right away, then I won’t give them my grace. Or he could say what he did say, which was before the foundations of the world, he devised a plan, Ephesians 1, in which he would send his beloved own Son to this earth to be able to rescue us, ransom us, and receive us into his own. And with that power, with that ability, he showed forth his involvement in salvation. For before the world began, Christ Jesus was formulated in the mind of God to come to this earth. Even as far back as the book of Genesis, reading on in the first through third chapter, where we read that sin was involved in the world.

And so God devised a way in which the heel of his son would be bruised, but the head of the serpent would be crushed through the seed of woman, through the choice of God, through the divine care, consolation and comfort, God showed fellowship of the Spirit. He showed a connectivity where he would be involved in the process. We talk about Jesus as the Son of God, He’s also the Son of Man. A conundrum, a puzzle, an enigma, true, something we don’t fully grasp, but yet at the same time we should be able to grasp the big picture about that, and that is that God fellowships, that God has unity with society and the one he wishes to reform the hearts of society through the Lord Jesus Christ.

He cares about you, he cares about me, and he found a way to bring about fellowship and affection and mercy. Deity chose a tender route. Like I mentioned, he could have called thousands of millions of trillions of angels, but instead he showed us the death of his son. You say, how is death tender? Well, he resurrected him. And he shows that death cannot hold the power of God. But when you think of the idea of him sending Christ to die, it’s truly to humble us so that we say, well, if he died on our behalf, couldn’t I recognize God’s love for me? That he cares about me. And his mercy filled state also picks us up, regarding us in pity, seeing who we are, seeing us in our raw form, polishing us and refining us with refiners’ fire, and putting us through the tests of life so that we’ll be golden for the Lord.

Spiritual lives transform, yes, when changes are made, yes, when we strive to be humble and meek and forbear and endure and give up self. Yes, spiritual lives transform when we change. And a lot of people talk about I’m scared of hell, so I’m going to be humble and uh nice and kind and loving, good, but you’ve also got to recognize spiritual lives transform when we keep to the understanding of the constants of God, when we understand these blessings of the Lord that are not vacillating or going up and down and backwards in all different directions. They’re not something that God is on again, off again. They’re consistent with the Lord, and he’s always going to show his fellowship and affection and mercy. He’s always going to console and comfort when that needs to be done.

And so we see this pattern of God, Hebrews 13 8, for Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We see this nature of God, and we ask ourselves the question, then why don’t I recognize that? Why don’t I recognize his love for me is just as important as recognizing his fear and his judgment. Should you be scared of God? Well, sure, for it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. So you connect those things together. By grace ye have been saved through faith, and it is not of yourself, but is the gift of God. Yes, we look at this and we recognize that spiritual lives transform when constants are kept, and so then he carries forth this train of thought with well, then what do we need to do?

6. Fulfill My Joy by Being Like-Minded

Well, be like-minded. What do we need to do? Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each one of you esteem others better than himself. What then do we do? Uh, we look not out for our own interests, but also for the interests of others. What else do we do? We have the same love, the like-mindedness, and the one accord. We follow after those types of things together. We fulfill the joy. Paul writes, fulfill my joy, and we could utter the same phrase, fulfill the joy of the Lord. You look in verse 2, there’s once again uh three different Greek words. He says here, fulfill my joy. Joy is a special word. It’s understanding that even if my facial expressions and my attitude and my demeanor is not just happy and everything’s just wonderful, that inside I know things will be alright.

Inside I know I have true joy. Happiness may be the emotion that is a response to the inner joy, but joy is what we have when we know we have salvation in the Lord. And he says, fulfill my joy by doing three things being like-minded, having the same love and the same accord. Like-minded comes from a word that’s called fruneo, fruneo. It’s the idea of the savoring of something. The idea of savoring a taste or a smell or something like that. Many people have stood in this pulpit and have been from various places. Elijah and I happen to be from Orlando, Florida. Training here. He’s doing a great job. I’m really encouraged by his development so far. But when I was growing up here, there was a wonderful place that I would be able to savor from I-4, the Marita bread factory.

All the Orlandoans are chuckling. They got that. You would drive down I-4 late at night, and Rachel, my lovely wife, who is from Bald Knob, Arkansas, would always say, Why are you rolling down your windows in the city? I said, You’ve not been to Orlando, Florida. The Marita Bread Factory. You roll down your windows and smell the best savoring bread that was there. Do you remember doing that, guys? I’m not going to ask for a show of hands, but I see the head nods. I know the locals. I see where you are. Yeah. It’s a savoring scent. And what is he saying here? He says, fulfill my joy by being like minded. He’s saying we should be the type of people that savor in the mind the same things.

We savor the truth. It brings joy to our heart when we fulfill the joy of the Lord by being like minded, by having unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. That we have the mind in us which was in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and came to this earth in the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even to the death of that cross. That means we are obedient to the doctrines of God. No matter what God says, we’ll follow. If he says, do this, we’ll say, Yep, that’s what I’m gonna do.

If he says, This is the doctrine, uh, sing and make melody in your hearts to the Lord, speaking to one another in songs and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord. Colossians 3, Ephesians 6. If you read the scriptures, you’ll know that means singing and not playing an instrument. I say, Well, you can play an instrument, JR. I go, yeah, of course I can. But when I’m in church services, I sing. Why? Because that’s what God said to do. And when I recognize that, I feel like-minded with those that are of like precious faith, because that’s what he said, and that’s the point. Fulfill my joy by being like-minded. Don’t start an argument over it. Trust what he said and obey it.

Having the same love, we know the word agape. That’s a more familiar Greek word, probably the one that you guys were familiar with before the sermon. Probably not familiar with uh froneo and the savoring smell, but maybe you’re familiar with agape. It’s the type of love that’s self-sacrificial. It’s not a type of love that’s just saying, Oh, this feels good, this is happy, this is no, no, no. Liking and loving are not the same thing. Loving is the idea of having sacrifice for someone else, and he mentions the whole point of that in verse 7 and 8, his humility on a cross. Because of that, what did God do? He highly exalted him above everybody, verse 9, to give him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Christ Jesus is Lord, and that’s what he’s saying.

And so he’s saying, have the same love, have the same sacrifice, be willing to be sacrificial, sacrifice for one another. And then he uses the word suke of one accord. That means the spirit is together with the other people’s spirits, the attitude is together, the disposition is together. And so when you look at Philippians 2, 2, remember three things. Suke, co-spirited, agape, co-sacrificing, and proneo, cosavoring. You can remember those. They all start with the letter S. Spirited, sacrificing, savoring. You look at that, and you see that’s what he’s trying to teach there for us. He’s trying to show us that if you want to be comforted in Christ, you want to have consolation of the Lord, if you want to be what the Lord wants you to be, by all means be like-minded, be of one accord, trust in the Lord, and be of one mind.

Love is the greatest misused word there is.

Americans, we just combine them all together and say love is everything we associate with liking something. The person says, I love a cheeseburger, I love a cat, I love my dog, I love the uh favorite sports team of mine, and I love my wife, but we’re not gonna eat a cheeseburger, a cat, a dog, and a sports team. I love this. We use it for everything. The Greeks had a different way of using the word love. They talked about the idea of uh philaleo, or where we get like the word philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. We talked about the idea of brotherly love, like we’re talking about here, this usage of the word one-accorded love. The Greeks had another word for love called storgae, storge, if you want to say it that way, which is the idea of fraternal love, the idea of a uh familial love, the people in your family.

Uh you when you think about your family and your family traditions, your family values, the things your family stands up for as a family, that’s a fraternal type of love. They also had a word for love, eros, which is used specifically of the intimacy between husband and wife. And then they also had a word for love that was agape. The idea of, well, I’m gonna stop what I’m doing, stop all my selfishness, empty myself, and do something for you. That’s what we got to do to be like-minded. The uh love is, if we looked at how he’s describing it, it’s whatever the opposite of selfishness is. If you can conjure up in your mind whatever the opposite of selfishness is, that’s love. And so we need to be of one accord, of one mind, like-minded, and like love.

Conclusion

Let us be joyfully focused in that. And so we ask ourselves the question in my transformations, am I only dealing with the changes? Or am I going to make a commitment to deal with those changes, to make the changes where they’re needed, but am I also going to transform to recognize God’s constants and then strive to be consistent myself, to strive to be loving and to strive to be merciful. For blessed are the merciful, Matthew chapter 5, for they shall obtain mercy. What goes around comes around. Parable of the sower, what you sow is what you grow. I mean, you look at the concepts of the Bible, and God is showing forth a pattern for us. And so we’ve got to recognize, yes, it is true, there are changes we need to make, and there are a lot of them in our life.

There are a lot of changes we need to make for the Lord. We also need to recognize if we’re going to truly transform, we’ve got to appreciate the blessings God has shown forth through us for his constant nature. And we look at his constant nature, we look at his consistency, we look at who God is and his love for us for creating a place called heaven, in which there will be no sin, there will be no darkness, there will be no sorrow, there will be no death, and we think that’s a place God wants us to consistently, constantly be. If we look to his faithfulness and we look to his mercy, and we look to his affection and love and his consolation and good comfort through grace, it is then we will understand the challenge that we so often have of asking ourselves the question, why am I so afraid of hell and not so longing for heaven?

A lot of people say, Well, I’m not sure I’d be in heaven. No, no, no, no. When we focus on the right transformations, if we’re really doing what’s right, we’re not doing evil, but we’re really doing what’s right, we’ll be looking forward to heaven. And as the Bible says, we’ll be hastening forth the day of the Lord. Hastening forth the day of the Lord? That sounds old King James. Give it to me, simple, preacher. Hurry up, heaven. That’s what it means. I’m ready for the judgment of the Lord. We don’t usually say that. Why? Because a lot of times we’re focused on understanding there’s some changes we haven’t made that we need to change. If there are changes you know you need to make, you need to do, make those changes, but also recognize, follow after the pattern of the Lord’s consistency.

Follow after his constants. Do the things that God wants you to do by fulfilling his joy, by being like-minded, like loved, and of one accord for the Lord. Obey the constants, make the right change. Are you here this morning and not a Christian? If so, we want you to become a Christian. We sincerely want you to become a child of God. And the only way you can do that is by following after whatever God’s plan is that says, This is my plan for you to become a child of God. It’s not something I came up with, it’s not something a denominational preacher came up with, it’s not something that’s in a creed book, it’s not something that is just a tradition. It’s the plan of God.

And starting forth in Acts 2 and carrying all the way to Acts 22, he gives instances and instances and instances of salvation. And with every single one of those, someone heard the word of God, believed what they heard, confessed the name of Christ, repented of their sins, and was baptized for the forgiveness of sins. In every instance in Acts, we see someone that repented and was baptized for salvation. Acts 2 38, 1 Peter 3 21. And Acts 22, 16 says, And now why? Why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord. If we can help you do that, come forward and sit on a front row, even now while we stand and while we sing.