Philippians 4:2-3; Gospel Discipline

PastorRodney’s Weblog

08/18 Philippians 4:2-3; Gospel Discipline; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20240818_philippians-4_2-3.mp3

Instruction Anchored in the Gospel

In Philippians 4, Paul gives specific instructions to the church, but as always, he anchors those commands in the gospel. It is because of the truths of the gospel that you must live in a way that is consistent with the gospel that you say you believe. It is because of your identity in the gospel that you ought to respond in light of gospel truths about you.

Gospel Discipline

Paul is about to call two ladies out publicly in the church, women who were in the midst of some sort of disagreement, and he is about to call them out by name. How would you like to have your petty disagreement made public in the church? Beyond that, how would you like to have your dispute recorded in the Bible for time and eternity, for all to read? Just think of meeting these two in heaven… ‘Euodia… Oh, you’re the one from Philippi who had the disagreement! What was that even about? Did you guys get it worked out?’

Matthew 18

Here’s the thing. Church discipline is a thing. Jesus taught us about it in Matthew 18. He starts his teaching (1-5) when the disciples come to him asking who is the greatest in his kingdom. He calls a child and says you don’t even get into the kingdom unless you humble yourself and receive it like a little child. Then (8-9) he talks about personal sin, and dealing radically with your own sins, and not causing others to stumble (6-7,10). Then (12-14) he tells a story; a story about a man with a hundred sheep, and one goes astray, and he leaves the ninety-nine and goes after the one to bring it home safely.

And then he says:

Matthew 18:15 ​“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

We are to be dealing with our own sins, fighting the good fight, crucifying our own fleshly desires. We are also called to go after those who stray, to bring them back to safety. The goal is always to seek and to save the lost. Church discipline sounds really uncomfortable, and it is, because confrontation is uncomfortable. But it is for your good, for your growth, for the health of the body. Love keeps no record of wrongs, but neither does it allow a brother or sister to self-destruct in sin. Love says ‘I think I see what is going on, and where it is headed, and I am concerned enough that I want to address the issue and talk to you about it.’

We all need help. We need each other. We need the body. We all have blind spots, areas in our lives we can’t see at all, but others can see with perfect clarity. Let me ask you this; have you ever had a booger hanging out of your nose? You’re going about your day, interacting with people, and you go in the restroom and look in the mirror, and there it is! It’s obvious, and it’s gross! What’s your response? ‘Why didn’t somebody care enough about me to point it out to me! You all just let me go around all day with a big crusty booger hanging out of my nose!’ How many people noticed it hanging there and didn’t say anything? We need to have the boldness to speak the truth out of love for one another, and we need to have the humility and the teachability to listen to each other when they take the risk to address something in our life.

Paul addresses a really serious case that the church in Corinth had let go on way too long, and he says

1 Corinthians 5:6 …Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump,… 13 … “Purge the evil person from among you.”

After Jesus gives this teaching in Matthew 18, Peter asks

Matthew 18:21 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

And then he goes on to tell another story about a servant who owed his master a ridiculously insurmountable debt; 10,000 talents. One talent in New Testament times was about twenty years wages; so this servant had been cooking the books and owed his master 200,000 years wages. I don’t know how much you make in a year, but if you work for 50 years, that would take you 4,000 lifetimes to pay off. The guy is about to get thrown into prison with his family, and he falls on his knees and begs the master to be patient with him. The master has compassion, has pity and released him and forgave the whole debt. He writes it off. He says to the servant, you’re free. You don’t have to pay it back. It’s over. It’s gone. It’s forgiven. I will absorb the debt. You are released.

This servant walks out and finds a fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarii (that’s about 20 weeks wages, @$15/hr. maybe around $12,000). That’s a significant amount of money, but it’s a fraction of a year’s wages, and he was just forgiven 200,000 years wages. He was forgiven almost 77,000 times as much as this other servant owed him. But he was unwilling to forgive. Jesus says that’s living inconsistent with the gospel. This guy clearly didn’t get it. He didn’t understand the extravagant forgiveness he had been freely given.

Matthew 18:32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 ​And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 ​And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 ​So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

So don’t be afraid to confront your brother or sister who wrongs you, out of love and concern for them. But do it with full awareness of how much you have been forgiven, and be quick to extend that kind of forgiveness to those who have wronged you.

Discipline in Love

Remember, Paul packages this public rebuke in how he feels about this church, and specifically these two individuals in it:

Philippians 4:1 Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.

Brothers; you are family. You are loved. I long for you; you are wanted, you are desired. You are my joy. When I think about you, it’s not frustration, irritation, exasperation. It’s joy. You bring me joy. And you are my crown, you are my reward, a badge of honor. I’m proud of you.

Because you are beloved, I want you to stand firm in the Lord Jesus, I want your feet to be planted on him and live tenaciously consistent with who he is and all that he is for you. Because you are alive in him, it shapes the way you conduct yourself. Remember, you are loved, beloved.

Gospel Exhortation

Philippians 4:2 I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.

There it is. He is entreating, coming alongside them in their walk with Jesus, calling them to his side to follow Jesus together with him. [παρακαλέω] I exhort, encourage, I call you to my side. Chapter 2 began ‘If there is any comfort or encouragement in Christ’; ultimately our comfort, our encouragement, our exhortation, our entreaty is in Christ. Because we have been called alongside Christ to walk with Jesus, Paul can call us to walk alongside him. He addresses each of these ladies in turn and he calls them to walk alongside him as he is walking alongside Jesus. And think of this, if they are all walking alongside Jesus, what happens? They all fall in step with one another.

Think This Way In The Lord

He calls them to agree in the Lord. The word translated ‘agree’ is a phrase we’ve seen in this letter several times already; literally he says ‘think the same in the Lord’. In a lot of ways this letter is all about agreeing in the Lord, getting on the same page, walking side by side consistent with the gospel; think the same.

In chapter 1 Paul tells them how he thinks about them. He is filled with thanksgiving every time he remembers them. He is filled with joy because of their fellowship with him in the gospel. He is confident that God who began a good work in them will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. This is how he thinks about them, how he feels about them (1:7), because he holds them in his heart; he yearns for them with all the affection of Christ Jesus.

In chapter 2 he invites them, because of the encouragement in Christ, the comfort from love, the fellowship with the Spirit, compassions and mercies; because of all the multiplied blessings of the gospel, therefore fill up my joy by being of the same mind, (same phrase as in 4:2) literally: think the same. And then he says ‘be of one mind’ literally ‘think the one’, and then he goes on to describe this:

Philippians 2:3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

Euodia, Syntyche, (insert your name here) do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourself. Euodia, Syntyche, (insert your name here) don’t look to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Think this in you, which also is in Christ Jesus. Think this, have the mind of Christ, clothe yourself with humility that expresses itself in self-sacrificial lay down your life love for others.

In chapter 3 he warns of the dangers of not embracing Jesus and the gospel, not allowing the cross to shape your life, becoming the enemy of the cross. He says ‘their end is destruction’ whose minds are set on, who are thinking only about earthly things (3:18-19). He says instead ‘our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a Savior’ (3:20). ‘We put no confidence in the flesh; we glory in Christ Jesus, we worship by the Spirit of God (3:3). We consider every gain as loss compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ as Lord (3:8). We know him in the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death (3:10). He says:

Philippians 3:15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.

Think this way. Those who are mature allow their thinking to be shaped by the gospel. If you think differently, (and some of you do, Euodia, Syntyche), if your thinking is out of sync with the gospel, if you are thinking like an enemy of the cross, I am confident that God will reveal even this to you.

And now in chapter 4 he gets specific:

Philippians 4:2 I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.

I call you alongside, to think the same in the Lord.

We Need Help With Gospel Thinking

Philippians 4:3 Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women,

Paul calls someone, it could be Epaphroditus, Timothy, Silas, Barnabas; this could be his name ‘[σύζυγε] Suzuge’. The word means ‘yoke-fellow’; yoked together like powerful animals on a farm working side by side sharing a burden, pulling a load together. It could be that Paul is calling on the whole body as one entity as genuinely yoked together to come alongside him in helping these two ladies.

Here’s the point. Paul addresses these ladies first, calling them to think the same in the Lord. But he also understands that they need help. Outside help. This is a compound word; receive together or hold together. Help together these women.

Sometimes when we have our heads down and our hands dirty working, we can lose sight of the big picture truths and get irritated by small things. Sometimes we have differences of opinion on how things should be done, how things should be handled, how to best move forward. Sometimes we need help from a third party to help get our perspective back. The motive is the gospel, Jesus is our example of selfless humility, and the goal is the glory of God. Sometimes we need someone else to give us perspective, to re-calibrate our thinking to get back on track with the gospel. Paul is not present, so he calls on someone to step in and receive together Euodia and Syntyche, to help them come together in the gospel. To think the same in the Lord Jesus.

Striving Side by Side in the Gospel

He says this about these two women:

Philippians 4:3 …who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.

He calls them his co-laborers in the gospel. This word ‘labored side by side’ [συνήθλησάν] is the same word he used back in 1:27

Philippians 1:27 Only let your manner of life be (live as citizens) worthy of (consistent with) the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side [συναθλοῦντες] for the faith of the gospel, 28 and not frightened in anything by your opponents. …

Contend like athletes on the same team. In chapter 1, he wants them, whether he is present or not, to be standing firm, contending side by side for the faith of the gospel. Here in chapter 4, he affirms that they have contended side by side together with the apostle in the gospel. They are named along with Clement and the rest of Paul’s fellow-workers. Their high-profile participation in advancing the gospel made it all the more imperative that they live consistent with the gospel they helped to advance, and that meant thinking the same in the Lord.

Names Written in the Book of Life

Paul names Euodia, Syntyche, and Clement as fellow-workers who labored side by side with him in the gospel. He acknowledges there are more; he doesn’t name them, but says their names are in the book of life. It would be great to be a Timothy or Titus or Silas or Luke, named in Scripture as those who labored alongside Paul in the gospel. It might be less great to be a Euodia or Syntyche, who although affirmed as co-laborers, will also have the reputation of their disagreement. But better by far to have your name in the book of life. Did you know, God keeps books?

Revelation 20:12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.

If everything you’ve ever done is kept in permanent record, and you are judged according to what you have done, how do you think you will fare? Remember, God doesn’t grade on a curve. How do you think it will go for me if I am a murderer, and I stand before God and say ‘well, yeah, I killed a guy, but there’s over 8 billion people alive today that I didn’t kill. One out of over 8 billion is really insignificant’. And then Jesus says if you hate your brother, you’ve committed murder in your heart. And let’s not even talk about James 2:10 or James 4:17.

It doesn’t matter how many good things you’ve done are recorded. If you’ve only got one strike agaist you, you are a transgressor, a lawbreaker.

Revelation 20:15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

There are books, and there’s a book. There’s what you have done, and there’s the Lamb’s book of life (Rev.13:8; 21:27). Those who belong to Jesus have their names written there. Jesus said:

Luke 10:20 ​Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Paul was confident, that although these two were entrenched in disagreement that threatened the unity of the body, and needed help to get out, he was confident that the one who began a good work in them would bring it to completion (1:6) and he is confident that their names are in the book of life.

Philippians 4:1 Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. 2 I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. 3 Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.

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Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org