This is actually the 14th week of our church's existence.
We spent the last 13 Wednesday nights going through the book of Hebrews, verse by verse, chapters 1 through 13.
And now we're starting our second book, Philippians.
Now I'm excited about this book. The theme of Hebrews, of course, was Jesus Christ.
This book is probably my second favorite book in the Bible, and I'm kind of just hitting my favorites first.
We did Hebrews, now we're doing Philippians.
Now this is actually probably the oldest, I think this is the oldest book that I ever memorized.
And so if you were here on Hebrews, chapter 8, this one's been in the fourth stomach for a long time.
You have to be in that lesson to get that one, but this is a great book in the Bible.
Now, this is probably one of the harder to understand books in the Bible.
You might have noticed, just as we were reading it just now, a lot of big words, a lot of complex ideas here.
But there's so much great truth here. Let's start in verse number 1, the Bible says,
Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus,
which are at Philippi with the bishops and deacons.
Now the first thing I want to point out about this verse is that word saints.
Now there are religions in this world that exalt people and call them saints.
And they even pray, basically the Roman Catholic Church, and they even pray to these people after they're dead.
Communicating with dead people and they say these are the saints because they've lived a great life for God.
But according to the Bible, every Christian, everyone who's born again, everyone who's been saved is called a saint.
I'm a saint, and if you're saved tonight, you're a saint.
Because the word saint means holy.
And Jesus Christ said to those that have been saved in 1 Corinthians chapter 6,
But ye are washed, ye are holy.
He said when you get saved, you're holy, you're a saint.
And so God is saying here, I'm writing this letter to the church at Philippi,
to all the bishops, which will be the pastor, to the deacons, and to all the saints.
Verse number 2 says, Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now you notice here he says grace unto you and peace.
Now this statement is made in the Bible probably, I mean many times.
Every one of the Epistles of Paul had this exact statement in those words or slightly different words.
And you notice the order that God puts things in is always the same.
It's always grace be unto you and peace.
You're not going to have the peace until you have the grace of Jesus Christ.
See, the grace of God which brings salvation has appeared unto all men.
Talk about peace in the Middle East.
The Middle East peace crisis.
Every president of the United States who's ever been around,
you know, whether it was George Bush or Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan,
they all had the road map to peace in the Middle East.
Did it ever work? No.
It never works.
You're never going to have peace in this world, you're never going to have peace in the country
unless you have the gospel of Jesus Christ,
unless you have the peace of God which passes all understanding.
You see, whenever there's a godless country like Iraq, like Afghanistan,
a country that rejects Jesus Christ, there will never be peace there.
President Bush, there won't be peace there.
Send in your troops, send in democracy.
And I'm not against the war in Iraq, I'm not saying that at all.
I'm obviously going to back up whatever our country does.
But I will say this, there's never going to be peace in the Middle East
unless there's Jesus Christ exalted, unless Christianity is exalted in that nation.
Look around the world today at the countries who have thumbed their nose at the things of God
and tell me if you'd like to live there.
Would you like to live in Red China tonight?
Or are you glad that you're living in America?
Would you want to be living in Afghanistan at Kabul right now?
No, you don't, do you?
Do you want to live in Baghdad tonight?
Do you want to live in Russia tonight?
No, because any country who rejects the things of God, there's no peace there.
And there's going to be no peace in your life, there's going to be no peace in your home
until you accept Jesus Christ as savior.
Now, peace is sometimes misunderstood.
People often think that we just need to have peace at any cost.
And that as Christians, for example, that we're supposed to be non-violent.
There are even some sects of Christianity that will not even fight in wars.
I mean, if they're enlisted, they'll refuse to fight in the battles of America.
Now, that's totally ridiculous.
God teaches throughout the Bible that fighting is acceptable in certain scenarios, of course.
Fighting for what you believe in, fighting for the things of God.
Fighting a war to protect your country, fighting to protect your family.
I mean, if somebody comes in this front door,
you know, I'll beat the fire out of them if they're trying to hurt my family, of course.
And God is not always going to give you peace with everyone else.
The Bible says, as much as is possible, so much as is in you, dwell at peace with all men.
He says, look, try to get along with everybody.
Try to have peace.
But then David said, I am for peace, but when I speak, they're for war.
He said, every time I seem to say what I believe,
or every time I seem to preach the word of God, somebody brings the fight to me.
So we're not to go looking for a fight, and we're to try to live peaceably with all men,
but you know what, I'm going to draw a line in the sand,
and I'm not just going to say, well, I'm going to have peace at any cost.
You know, look at the Middle East again, land for peace.
Let's give up our land so that we can have peace.
No, look, if that's your land, fight for it.
And so peace and grace, always in that order, grace first, then peace is second.
Look at verse number three, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,
always in every prayer of mine for you all making requests with joy,
for your fellowship in the Gospel from the first day until now,
be confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you
will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
So Paul is saying here, listen, Philippians, I want you to the Lord.
I got you saved. I was there the first day you got saved.
I walked in town at Philippi, I preached the Gospel, people were saved,
a church was established, and I was there from day one.
And ever since then, I've been thanking God for you,
and I've been confident that God would finish the work that he began in you.
What's he saying here?
Let's pay some homage again to the zeros that we talked about
about a week and a half ago on Sunday night.
Let's talk about the zero crowd.
They're the crowd who look at us, the soul-winning crowd,
the numbers crowd, the excitement crowd, and they say,
well, I don't know if those people that you won to the Lord are really saved,
so let's watch them for about the next 40 years,
and make sure that they're really saved.
Now, I'd like to say to these zero crowd,
maybe you should read Philippians chapter one,
where Paul won somebody to the Lord, and from the first day he said,
I'm confident in you, I thank God for you, I have confidence in you,
because I know that God is going to finish in you the work that he started.
Don't have this attitude where you treat people like they're not a Christian,
like they're not saved, like they have to somehow prove themselves to you.
That's ridiculous.
The Bible says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
It doesn't say you have to be baptized to be saved.
It doesn't say that you have to come to church to be saved.
It doesn't say that you have to quit all your sins to be saved.
It says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
If somebody confesses with their mouth the Lord Jesus,
and believes in their heart that God has raised him from the dead,
why don't you treat them like they're saved?
Why don't you call them brother?
Why don't you treat them like they're accepted and the beloved?
And Paul is saying, I don't go around with this attitude
where I'm just constantly down on people,
and saying, well, you know, I don't know if they're really even saved.
Look, if they say that they believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior,
he's the only way to heaven, he gives you eternal life,
you just trust him and you're saved eternally one time,
if they say that with their mouth, then by their testimony they're saved.
Now, do we know if everybody's saved?
Of course not.
There could be a Judas Iscariot among the crowd.
But you don't see Jesus treating Judas like a Judas Iscariot.
You see him just treating him like everybody else.
And the point is, have confidence in the people that you win to the Lord.
Have confidence, have a vision, like we talked about in Hebrews chapter 11,
seeing that that person will become a great Christian someday,
that that person will become a soul winner someday,
that that person will win people to Christ and be faithful to the church,
and have some confidence in people,
and then maybe you could, through your confidence and through your prayers,
that person could turn out for God.
But Mr. Zero, he's not winning anybody to the Lord.
He wins somebody to the Lord once in a blue moon,
and so he's going to point out the guy who's winning people to the Lord
and question everybody's salvation.
When they said that they're saved, they said they're believing on Jesus Christ.
That's not what Paul was like at all.
He said, I have confidence in the people that I win to the Lord.
Another thing we can learn from this verse is that God always finishes what he starts.
It says, being confident of this very thing that he which hath begun a good work in you
will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
That means that we as Christians, if we start something,
if we're going to be like Jesus Christ, we need to finish what we start.
Nothing worse than starting something and not finishing it.
It'll make you depressed in your life if you start a bunch of things and don't finish them.
I was thinking about my job, fire alarm systems.
Well, you'll have certain technicians, and they work, and they get things done,
and they go out to the job site, and they're productive,
but they just have a hard time with finishing things for some reason.
They can get the job about 90% done or 95% done,
and they just have a hard time just tying up the loose ends, getting things done.
Boy, get in the habit of when you start something, finish it.
Don't quit things and have all these little false starts where you started something,
or you start some hobby, you start some idea, finish everything that you start.
Unless, of course, you started something that wasn't finishing, obviously,
and don't finish that.
Look at verse number 7, it says,
Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all.
Same thing, he's saying, look,
I should think of all of you that I wonder the Lord,
that you're all going to turn out for God.
That's what he's saying.
He says, Jesus Christ will perform it until the end,
and it's meet for me to think that of you all.
He says, I expect every one of you to turn out a great Christian.
Everybody I wonder the Lord, I expect them to turn out great for God.
Here's another thing we can see here,
having different standards for different kinds of people.
Boy, I've been to the mission field, as I talked about a few weeks ago.
I was in Germany for four months,
and for some reason, some of the missionaries there,
they didn't feel like the German people could ever become just a sold-out great Christian.
And so they just had low standards.
They wouldn't preach on sin.
They wouldn't preach on things that were perhaps controversial in Germany.
They wouldn't preach and expect people in Germany to live like Christians live in America,
a little bit more sold-out, a little more separated, a little more on fire for God.
You know, if it's good enough for the United States of America,
it's good enough for Germany, it's good enough for Timbuktu,
and it's good enough for every Christian in the world
to be a sold-out, fundamental, hellfire and damnation preacher of the gospel
and a soul winner and living for God.
That's what God expects of everyone.
He doesn't expect there to be a church full of people who sit around and do nothing.
They're never going to be a soul winner.
They never plan on winning anybody to Christ.
They just sit around, and then just a couple of people
are supposed to be the ones who win souls,
and just a couple of people are the ones who bring visitors to church.
No, everybody is supposed to get involved.
Paul said, it's me for me to think this of you all,
that you're going to come all the way around
and be the kind of Christian that God wants you to be.
He says, it's me for me to think this of you all, all of you.
Every one of you needs to set the bar way up here
and try to live for God and do right.
The Bible says in verse number seven,
I think I only read the first half, it says,
inasmuch as both in my bonds,
it's talking about because he's in jail as he's writing this epistle,
Paul was in jail when he wrote Philippians,
inasmuch as both in my bonds,
and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel,
ye all are partakers of my grace,
for God is my record,
how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.
Boy, look at that phrase right there, God is my record.
So, many times in the Christian life, you're going to be slandered,
you're going to have people say something negative about you,
they're going to say something about you that's not true,
or some kind of a criticism of you, they're going to be critical of you.
Or maybe you're going to do something for God,
or for somebody else, or something at work,
and you're not going to get the credit maybe that you deserve.
You know, you ever do something at work,
and somebody else just gets all the credit for it,
and you're just totally left in the shadows,
something of that nature.
But look what God says here, it says, God is my record.
Did you know that God keeps a record of everything
that goes on in the world?
I've heard somebody say, there's a scoreboard in heaven,
and it always reads the right score.
And God knows what's going on.
Don't always feel the need to defend yourself,
don't always feel the need to promote yourself.
God is my record.
God knows that I'm going to get what I deserve,
and other people are going to get what they deserve.
If somebody slanders you, you know what the best thing that you can do?
It's just not even fight it, just ignore it.
I've had people slander me in the past,
I've had people say things about me that were not true,
as probably almost everyone has at some time or another,
in churches and different times.
Somebody said terrible things about me,
somebody said terrible things about other people in my family.
And you know, I didn't feel like I needed to go around defending myself,
and telling everybody, you know, I didn't do anything.
And I remember, you know, most people believe lies and slander.
By the way, when somebody tells you something,
and it's not substantiated with facts, you shouldn't believe it.
If somebody tells me something negative about somebody else,
it's just hearsay, or they have no business telling me about it,
because now it's second, third-hand information.
You know what I tell somebody?
If somebody says something negative to me about anybody,
I say, that's not true, you're a liar.
Now, I don't know whether it's true or not, but that's just my gut instinct,
to say, you're a liar, don't tell me that.
Because I don't listen to scuttlebutt about people,
I don't listen to negative garbage about other people.
Even if it's true about that person, why would I want to know about it?
I want to dislike that person, I don't want to know about it.
But when somebody said something negative about me,
I remember in the past, somebody tried to slander me.
Well, I just said nothing about it.
Of course, you know, a lot of people believed the lies, and that was fine.
I said nothing about it.
And just over the course of years,
it became evident who was telling the truth and who's lying,
just because you see the life.
You know, you watch the life of the people that are the liars,
and the deceivers, and the slanders, and the gossips,
and their life goes down the toilet.
And then you watch the person that's being accused,
just the same day after day.
You know, Brother Hiles, I think of Brother Hiles back in 1989,
was slandered with all kinds of garbage,
attacking his character, attacking his morality.
And he just didn't really fight it.
He just said, whatever.
And over the years, it was so evident.
I mean, God was blessing him.
It came out that the people who were slandering him were idiots, they were liars.
He was totally vindicated of everything.
Years and years down the road, it just became more and more evident
that the people who were slandering him were full of garbage,
and that he was the man of God.
And that's the way it always is.
The Bible says that the memory of the wicked shall rot.
And the Bible says that the just,
I don't have the verse memorized,
but about how their memory is going to be blessed,
and the memory of the wicked is going to rot.
You think about the people that we know of in history.
I mean, think about Bill Clinton.
Okay, I mean, he was Mr. Popular,
Mr. President of the United States, top of the world.
But what's everybody going to remember about him?
Are you going to remember all his great achievements?
I can't even think of them.
You know, I'm sure he had some great achievements.
I can't think of any.
The only thing that I'm thinking of is the shame and the reproach
and the garbage and the scandal,
and his memory is going to rot.
Let's face it.
People of the past who've been in a jail cell and suffered,
and like Paul here,
boy, everybody knows who Paul is.
Do we even necessarily know the names of the people
that threw him in jail, the people that lied about him?
No, we don't know who they are.
We know who the Apostle Paul is.
Because when you do write,
God has a way of setting it straight.
In the history books,
he has a way of setting it straight up in heaven.
And so, God is my record.
Don't ever feel the need to defend yourself.
If you live for God,
defending yourself will become a full-time job if you let it.
Because when you live for God, people attack you.
Let's face it.
There's a story in the Bible
where a man named Ben-Haddad
is going to war against the armies of Judah, the southern kingdom,
and he tells his soldiers, he says,
shoot only at the king.
He says, shoot neither at man,
nobody, you know, small, great.
He says, except only at the king of Israel.
And I think what God's trying to show us is that,
you know what, when you're on top,
when you're the king,
when you're doing something,
when you're getting something done,
you're the one that's going to take the fire.
You're the one that's going to take the attack.
So, live for God.
Do great things for God.
And when the attack comes, blow it off.
Don't even let it waste your time and say,
God is my record.
Look at verse number nine.
It says, in this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more
in knowledge and in all judgment,
that you may approve things that are excellent,
that you may be sincere
and without offense till the day of Christ.
Now, this is a great verse.
Philippians 1-10 here.
It says that you may approve things that are excellent.
Now, think about what the word approve means.
If I approve of something,
that means I think it's okay.
You say, well, do you approve of...
Like, let's say my wife went and bought a new outfit, okay?
And she comes home and she says,
do you approve of this outfit?
You know, maybe it wasn't quite what it should be,
you know, maybe it was, like, a little too short
or a little too tight or something.
And, you know, I'm not saying that this happened,
you know, a couple, two days ago.
No, I'm just kidding.
Anyway, let's say it did happen.
And she would say, do you approve?
I say, I don't approve of that outfit, you know.
I'm saying that I don't think that it's acceptable.
I don't think it's okay.
I don't think it's up to the standard.
Well, look what God's saying here,
that you may approve things that are excellent.
Does he say you should approve of things that are just okay?
Say approve of something that, well, I can get by with it.
I think I can slip this one.
Is that what he's saying?
No, he says approve things that are excellent.
Boy, that word excellent, you know,
it's probably thrown around a little bit in today's lingo,
like, yeah, excellent.
But the word excellent, it comes with the word excel.
Excel, it means that it's just going above and beyond.
It's the ultimate.
It's excellent.
God says of himself, his name alone is excellent.
Now, are we just supposed to approve of something that's just okay?
No, it's approve of things that are excellent.
Why?
That you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ.
The word sincere means pure.
That's the original meaning of the word sincere.
And God's saying, I want you to be pure.
I want you to be without offense.
That means I don't want you to offend people.
I don't want you to offend Jesus Christ.
And I want you to approve of things that are excellent.
People have this attitude of what can I get away with in my Christian life?
This is the attitude that the Pharisees had.
When the Pharisees came to Jesus and said,
can a man divorce his wife for every cause?
They said, can I divorce my wife for anything I want?
And they had this attitude of,
is it all right for me to divorce my wife?
Can I do that?
Can I get away with that?
Now, are they trying to live?
Are they trying to be excellent?
No, they're trying to see what can we get away with
so that we don't have the wrath of God.
Can I get by with divorcing my wife for this reason?
Or does it have to be this reason?
Or does it have to be this reason for me to divorce my wife?
And you know what God says?
Jesus Christ says?
He said, you err, not knowing the scriptures.
He said, Moses gave you, he commanded you to give your wives a bill of divorcement
because of the hardness of your heart.
But from the beginning it was not so.
For God made them male and female.
And the Bible says, what God therefore hath joined together,
let not man put asunder.
He said, in the beginning, open your Bible
and you won't have to read very far.
You get to chapter 2 and you'll see that God said,
I made one man and one woman.
I joined them together in marriage.
And what I put together, don't you split apart.
And you say, well, isn't there some kind of a grounds for divorce?
Isn't there some way that I could get a divorce?
God says, this is what I want you to do.
And if you don't do what I want you to do, you're sinning.
Because you're disobeying what I told you in Genesis chapter 2.
And you're a liar because you said, till death do us part.
And you swore to God.
You say, well, what if my husband slapped me in the face?
Well, then why don't you lie to God then?
If your husband slapped you in the face, then it's OK to lie to God?
It's never OK to lie to God.
And it's never OK to get a divorce.
The word grounds for divorce is an oxymoron.
And I don't care whether that flies or not.
I don't care if that hair lifts the whole stinking world.
The Bible says what God has joined together, let not man put us under.
Hallelujah.
That's what the Bible says.
And I'm not trying to be what I can get by with.
I'm trying to be excellent.
You say, well, this music, I think this music's OK.
I think it's all right.
Is it excellent music by God's standards?
Oh, man.
It's probably a million miles from being excellent music.
So let's not see how much we can get by with.
Let's say, what can I do that would just be exactly what God wants me to do?
What can I wear today that would just be exactly what God wants me to wear?
What can I listen to that would be just exactly the thing
that God wants me to listen to?
You mean something that's OK to listen to?
No.
You mean something that's good to listen to?
No.
Something that is the greatest thing in the world for me to be listening to.
That's the way I want to live my life.
I want to be excellent.
This is the difference between what we believe
as independent Baptists, salvation by believing on Jesus Christ,
and what the world believes in their work's salvation.
When you're believing on Jesus Christ for salvation,
it's not, well, what can I do?
What can I do?
I can get away with anything.
I can go take a gun and gun down somebody tonight,
and I'd still go to heaven, because I have eternal life given to me
by Jesus Christ.
He says, I promise them eternal life, and no man
shall pluck them out of my hand.
I give unto them eternal life.
This is the promise that he had promised us, even eternal life.
So it's not a question of what I can get away with.
I can get away with anything.
Paul said, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient.
He says, I can do whatever I want.
But I'm not trying to do whatever I want.
I'm trying to be excellent.
I'm trying to live the excellent life for God.
The work-salvation crowd, they say, well, I
have to do this list of do's and don'ts in order to go to heaven,
and that's all I'm going to do.
I'm just going to do exactly the minimum.
I'm going to go out and party and get drunk and fornicate,
and I'm going to go confess it to the priest,
because that's the minimum that I can do, and still make it into heaven.
That's not what we believe.
We're salvation by grace through faith.
We're already in the door, son, and so now we're
trying to see how excellent we can be, because we love God,
because we love the Lord.
If you don't love the Lord, live however you want.
If you're saved, you'll still go to heaven,
but God says he'll curse you the whole way.
He'll curse you in this life.
He says, blessed.
He said, there's a blessing if you keep all the words that
are written in this book, all the words that are written in this book.
And if you don't keep all the words that are written in this book,
he says, then there's a curse on that.
Every time you disobey God's word, there's a curse.
What goes around comes around in this life.
Nothing to do with whether you go to heaven or hell,
but it has a lot to do with whether you have God kicking you
in the backside all the way to heaven, or whether you have God
blessing you all the way to heaven.
The choice is up to you.
So approve things that are excellent.
You say, well, do you approve of this music?
Do you approve of this television program?
And the answer is no on that one every time,
whether I approve of the television program,
because I don't approve of any television program.
But because it's all the world's garbage, and just flipping on
and find out whether I approve of it.
Do you approve of this movie?
Do you approve of this music?
Do you approve of this clothing?
I'm against all of it.
I don't even know what it is yet, and I'm against it.
No, I'm just kidding.
But anyway, just ask me if I'm against it.
Yes, I'm against it.
I don't even know what you're saying yet,
but I'm just kidding, of course.
But I want to approve it if it's excellent,
not if it's mediocre.
I don't want this church to be mediocre.
And by the way, I love this church.
I love Faithful Word Baptist Church,
because basically everybody who comes to this church
and either goes soul-winning, has won people to Christ,
brings people to church that get saved,
everybody who comes to this church has done that.
I was just thinking about today,
I was just thinking about everybody who comes to our church,
how they bring people to church,
how they're always bringing visitors
and winning people to Christ,
and they tell me about how they won their daughter's friend to the Lord,
and they tell me how they won their mom to the Lord,
and then they're always telling me
how they want to win people to Christ,
because this is not a mediocre church.
This is a great church.
This is an excellent church, and I love it.
Philippians chapter 1, the Bible says here,
in verse number 11,
Being filled with the fruits of righteousness,
which are by Jesus Christ under the glory and praise of God.
What is the fruits of righteousness?
He said, I want you to be filled with the fruits of righteousness.
Well, the Bible is its own dictionary.
The Bible always tells us what it means.
And Proverbs 11, 30 says,
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,
and he that win its souls is wise.
So God says, if you win people to Christ,
then your fruit is going to be,
well, what's the fruit of the lemon tree?
Lemons.
What's the fruit of the orange tree?
What's the fruit of the apple tree?
And what's the fruit of the Christian?
No, the Christians, exactly.
I wish that you could explain that
to about 99.9% of pastors across America,
since they don't believe that.
But it's pretty simple, isn't it, kids?
And so, the fruit of the righteous
is not just another Christian, though.
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life.
God doesn't say, I just want this orange tree to produce oranges.
He said, I want it to produce oranges
that fall to the ground and die
and become another tree.
My goal as a soul winner, winning people to Christ,
is to win somebody to the Lord
and teach them to be a soul winner.
Until then, I have not brought forth
the fruit that God is talking about.
Until my convert wins souls.
That's when the cycle is complete.
Just like we talked about where we did the numbers.
You know, where we're saying 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128.
And it keeps doubling and doubling and doubling.
It's never going to double unless you can reproduce yourself
as a tree of life.
So God says, the fruit of the righteous
is a tree of life,
and he that winneth souls is wise.
So the Bible says,
being filled with the fruits of righteousness,
which are by Jesus Christ,
under the glory and praise of God.
You say, boy, I just love to go to church
and just praise God.
You know, you go to these big worship services,
and woo, you know, and oh, I feel it.
I feel the Spirit, you know,
and oh, and you know, you close your eyes.
Oh, yeah.
That remind you of our services a little bit.
But anyway, is that what glorifies God?
Is that what praises God?
No, God says,
I'm glorified by the fruits of righteousness.
I'm glorified when you're full of fruits.
Boy, I think of John chapter 15.
Turn to John 15.
I want you to see this.
John 15, fourth book in the New Testament,
about three-quarters of the way through your Bibles,
80% through your Bible there.
John chapter 15.
I want you to see this.
This is one of my favorite passages here.
John chapter 15.
I'm going to begin reading in verse number one.
The Bible says here in John 15,
I am the true vine, Jesus Christ is speaking.
Of course, I am the true vine,
and my Father is the husbandman.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit,
he taketh away.
God just doesn't have time for Christians
who don't bear fruit.
He just says, I'm sick of you.
I don't have time for you.
Get out of here.
I'm going to deal with the people that are bearing fruit.
That's what God wants.
Look at this.
Every branch in me, somebody who's in Jesus Christ,
but they beareth not fruit, he takes away.
And every branch that beareth fruit,
he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit.
So here's the step.
Number one, you get in Jesus Christ.
That's when you get saved.
Number two, you start bringing forth fruit.
What's the first thing that you're supposed to do
after you get saved?
Preach the gospel to every creature.
You say, well, I don't have my hair cut just right,
and I don't have just the right clothes,
and I'm still drinking,
and I'm still smoking,
I'm still cursing,
and I'm still doing bad things.
Hey, you can still be a soul winner.
You say, I don't want to be a hypocrite.
How are you a hypocrite if you're telling people
that all they have to do is believe on Jesus Christ?
You believe in Jesus Christ.
You're telling them to believe on Jesus Christ.
What's the hypocrisy?
You're telling them to do what you did.
I believe on Jesus.
I want you to believe on Jesus to be saved.
Where's the hypocrisy there?
There's none.
Step one, get saved.
Step two, bring forth the fruit.
Step three, God will purge you
so that you may bring forth more fruit.
What's that mean?
That means God's going to take out the pruning scissors
and say, this is what I don't like about your life right now,
and I think I'm just going to snip, cut it off.
This is what I don't like about, oh,
here's the cord to your television.
Oh, man, I don't like, you know, as a man, you know, long hair.
I think I'm just going to cut it off.
And so God will come in because you're producing fruit,
because he sees something that he likes about you.
God says, I like how you're bringing forth fruit.
I like how you're getting people saved.
I like how you're bringing people to church.
I think I'm going to purge you
so that you can bring forth even more fruit.
And boy, I've been through some purging in my life,
and let me tell you something, it's a painful process.
You want somebody to take a big set of shears
and start chopping away at you?
Well, it happens if you're bringing forth fruit.
And it's painful, but God says,
I'm doing it so that you can bring forth more fruit.
And I'm going to skip this.
I'm running out of time.
I want to blow through this.
But look at this right here, verse number seven, okay?
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you.
Well, that sounds like memorizing the Bible, doesn't it?
My words abide in you.
If you abide in me and my words abide in you,
you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you.
He says, when you memorize the Bible,
when you abide in me, just ask me what you want,
and I'll give it to you.
That's what God's saying here.
Boy, what a promise for prayer.
And then look at verse number eight.
These go hand in hand, by the way.
Herein is my Father glorified.
How do we bring forth glory to God?
How do we praise God?
Is it with a rock band and praise worship songs?
No.
It says, Herein is my Father glorified,
that ye bear much fruit.
So what brings glory to God when you bring forth much fruit?
And then it says, So shall you be my disciples.
Jesus says, If you're going to be my disciple,
bring forth much fruit, and now you're my disciple.
Listen, everybody who's saved is not Jesus' disciple.
Everybody who's a Christian is not necessarily Jesus' disciple.
Jesus said, If you want to be my disciples,
you've got to forsake everything,
and take up your cross and follow me
if you want to be one of my disciples.
Jesus said, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
That means if you're not a fisher of men,
then you're not following Jesus, because he said,
If you follow me, I will make you fishers of men.
He didn't say, I might make you one.
He said, That's what I'll make you.
If you follow me, I'll make you a fisher of men.
He says, If you bring forth much fruit,
so shall you be my disciple.
So Mr. Zero, that we talked about on last Sunday night,
he's not a disciple of Jesus at all.
He's not even following Jesus.
He's following something else.
He's following money, as we talked about.
So how do we bring forth fruit?
What's the fruit of the righteous?
Winning souls, getting people saved.
Much fruit is what God wants.
Let's turn back to Philippians,
get back into our chapter here.
It says right here in verse number 12, it says,
But I would ye should understand, brethren,
that the things which happened unto me,
he's talking about the fact that he's in jail,
as we saw a few verses ago as he's writing this,
he's writing from a jail cell.
He's been beaten with rods.
He's been whipped 39 times.
Paul was whipped 39 times, five times in his life.
And this is toward the end of his life.
So he's been beaten.
He said, I've barren my body,
the marks of the Lord Jesus.
He said, I've been beaten,
and I have just physical scars all over my body
from being beaten.
But look what he says,
But I would ye should understand, brethren,
that the things which happened unto me
have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.
He says, I want you to understand
that the bad things that have happened to me,
God has actually used them to further the gospel.
He's actually used it for good.
You know, a famous verse that you have in here,
Romans 8.28,
For we know that all things work together for good
to them that love God,
to them that are the called according to his purpose.
And people often quote that and say,
boy, all things work together for good.
Something bad happens and you say,
you know, God's going to work this out for good.
And that's true.
But Paul isn't saying here,
I would ye should understand, brethren,
that the things which happened unto me
have fallen out rather under the furtherance
of my bank account.
But I would ye should understand, brethren,
that the things which happened unto me
have fallen out rather under the furtherance
of my personal success in life.
Is that what he said? No.
He says, the things that you've suffered,
God's going to use them
for the furtherance of the gospel.
You say, well, I'm not interested in that.
Well, then you're obviously not Jesus' disciple.
You're obviously not even following him
if you're not interested in people getting saved.
If you're not interested in the furtherance
of the gospel.
And he says, the things that,
bad things that have happened to me in life,
God has used them for the furtherance of the gospel.
Look how.
In verse 13 it says,
so that my bonds in Christ,
the fact that I'm in prison,
are manifest in all the palace
and in all other places.
He said, everybody sees what happened to me.
Everybody sees how I got arrested and put in jail.
Verse number 14,
and many of the brethren in the Lord,
waxing confident by my bonds,
are much more bold to speak the word
without fear.
He says, it's kind of ironic,
but people have seen the fact
that I've been thrown in jail
for preaching the gospel,
that I've been thrown in jail
for taking a stand for the things of God.
And he says, that has actually
made them more bold.
You say, well, didn't they get scared
that they were going to get beaten
and that they were going to put in jail?
He says, no.
He says, they saw the fact
that I got thrown in jail.
They saw the boldness of my stand
and they said,
I think I'm going to be like him.
I think I'm going to be bold like him.
The Bible even says here
that some people started preaching the gospel
even for the wrong reason.
Can you believe this?
Look at this.
Some indeed preach Christ,
even of envy and strife.
He says, some people just started
preaching the gospel
because they just like to get in fights
and they see how it got me in all these fights.
And so they just want to be controversial
and they just want to make people mad
and so they're like, man, this is cool, you know.
I can just start preaching
and people get mad and I get in a fight.
That's what he's saying.
But you know what he says.
He says, I'm glad.
I mean, I'm skipping a lot,
but he says, I don't care.
As long as they're preaching the gospel, great.
He says, I don't care why they're doing it.
And boy, some people put,
and I don't want you to take this the wrong way,
but some people put too much emphasis on motives.
They're always judging.
I mean, how do you measure somebody else's motives?
But they're always judging other people's motives.
Well, they just do this because of this, this, and this.
Is that what Paul says?
Paul says, I don't know.
He says, some of them are preaching the gospel
for the right reason.
Some of them are preaching the gospel for the wrong reason.
I don't care.
He says, I just rejoice
that they're preaching the gospel.
They're getting people saved.
Hallelujah.
Who cares?
Because it's not Paul's place
to judge some other preacher in his motives.
And I'm not going to judge somebody else's motives.
You say, well, yeah,
he's getting a lot of people saved building that church
and getting all his people baptized and everything,
but I think he's just in it for the popularity.
It's like, who cares, man?
Who gives a rip?
If that's the truth,
then why can't he deal with God on that?
Why don't you just quit being a zero
and why don't you learn how to be like him?
Because he's getting something done.
But the Bible says here,
many of the brother and the Lord waxing confident
by my bonds.
See, God wants us to be confident.
And he says they're much more bold
to speak the word without fear.
Don't go around, you know, especially for the men,
okay, the men in the room right now,
don't go around like some pansy
with your tail between your legs,
like a dog that's been whipped or something.
You know, why don't you have some boldness?
Why don't you have a little confidence
and not always apologize
for the fact that you're a Christian
and apologize for the King James Bible
and apologize that you go to a Baptist church
and why don't you go on the offense and say,
yes, I'm a Baptist, why aren't you a Baptist?
What's wrong with you?
Just kidding, of course.
But why don't you get a little boldness?
Why don't you quit being afraid all the time?
You say, well, I'm afraid to go solely,
I'm afraid somebody's gonna slam the door in my face.
You stinking wimp.
Grow up, man.
Get over there and knock somebody's door
and tell somebody the gospel and don't be a wimp.
You know, God is not the God of wimpiness.
The wimpy God is the devil, okay?
That's all I'm gonna say.
Because God says,
I want you to speak the word without fear.
I want you to speak with boldness.
I want you to get some guts to preach it like it is
and boy, especially pastors, good night.
I mean, it's one thing, you know,
you're at somebody's door and obviously
when I go to somebody's door
and I'm talking to one of my friends on the job,
I use courtesy, I use kindness,
I use tact, I use appropriateness
and I'm not some kind of a jerk or something like that.
But good night.
You get preachers who are afraid
to stand up in their pulpit and preach the truth.
They're afraid that some woman in the church
is gonna get mad when they get up and rip on sin
and preach on their soap opera or whatever
and they're gonna get all mad
and get all, you know, bent out of shape.
I wish that the preachers of America
could just drink a big dose of manliness
and a big dose of boldness
and get up and preach the word of God and say,
Thus saith the Lord.
I don't care whether you like it or not.
I don't care whether it's popular or not.
I don't care if you ever come back to this church or not.
The door swings both ways
and this is what God's word says.
Boy, we could use that, couldn't we?
We could use a man of God who's not just worried about,
My name's Jimmy, I'll take all you give me,
Mr. Moneybags in the back row
putting money in the offering plate.
Hey, your money pairs with you
if you don't like this kind of preaching,
you can go to every other church in this city practically.
Where some guy's up preaching on the love of God
for the 300,000th time.
Because he won't preach on sin
because he doesn't have any boldness to preach on sin.
You know, the person who loves you
is the person who tells you the truth.
The person who loves you is the person that says,
I'm not worried as much about whether you like me or not.
I'm worried about whether God is blessing you or not
because you're obeying God or not.
And I'm not going to withhold information from you
because I'm afraid it's going to make me your enemy
or that you're not going to like me
or that you're not going to come back
or you're not going to put as much money in the offering plate.
Boy, I wish that the preachers of America would get some boldness.
I wish that Christians in America would get some boldness.
Maybe if we weren't on the defense all the time
then the queers wouldn't be taking over our country.
They're not on the defense.
They march down the streets in San Francisco
and have every kind of filthy, wicked thing just on display.
What they don't show you on the news
is all the filthy, sick, perverted trash that's just right there on the street.
The police don't do anything about it even though it's totally against the law.
I'm not even going to go into it.
The filthy garbage that goes on in California in these gay pride parades,
it's not on the news.
The police won't touch it because they're so bold.
They just say, well, you know.
I mean, good night.
How many people in this country are a faggot?
A couple percent?
It's not that many.
I mean, it's not the majority.
So why are they just taking over the television?
Why are they taking over the country?
Because they have boldness and Christians are a bunch of wimps.
That's why.
Why is it that more than 50% of the people in America are against abortion
yet abortion is legal?
Why?
Because the people who are against it aren't any guts to get up and say something.
They're always so worried about their pension
and their four-bedroom house and their fancy backyard and their SUVs.
Then they say, I don't want to offend people.
I'll get kicked out of my church.
I'll get kicked out of my denomination.
Why don't you care about what God thinks about you?
This world is not my home.
I'm just passing through.
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.
I'm not laying up for myself, treasures on this earth.
My treasure is in heaven.
My life is just like a vapor.
I live here for a little time and vanish away.
And so I'm not on the defense tonight.
I'm not running scared.
Oh, no, I'm afraid people are going to think I'm a fanatic.
Yes, I am a fanatic.
Yes, I am a widow.
Yes, I am eccentric.
Yes, I am mad and angry and temperamental and angry and mad and fired up
and you name it, I am.
Yeah, exactly.
Somebody's getting excited about the message.
Yeah, same to you, buddy.
But anyway, back to Philippians here.
The Bible says,
For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer
and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,
according to my earnest expectation and my hope,
that in nothing I shall be ashamed.
I'm not ashamed of anything.
Ask me what I believe about anything, I'll tell you right now,
because I'm not ashamed of anything I believe.
Look right.
You want to know what I believe?
Just open this up and find out what I believe,
several of it's laid out.
Do you care if it's popular or not?
Put it in your pipe and smoke it if you don't like it.
And you know what?
It's all there.
And so I'm not ashamed of anything I believe.
Ask me a question of what I believe.
I'm not going to beat around the bush and say,
Well, you know, it's kind of a gray area.
Look, I'll tell you what I believe right now,
because I'm not ashamed of anything.
He didn't say I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ only.
That's what he said in Romans, chapter 1.
Here he says I'm not ashamed of anything,
that in nothing I shall be ashamed,
but that with all boldness, as always,
so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body,
whether it be by life or by death.
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor.
Yet what I shall choose I wot not,
for I am in a strait betwixt two,
having a desire to depart and to be with Christ,
which is far better.
Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.
So what he's saying is, I'd just as soon go to heaven right now.
He says I wish I could just go to heaven and just be through with all this.
But he said to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.
He says you need me to preach to you.
Other people need me to win them to the Lord.
This is what the Apostle Paul is saying.
And look at this. This is a phenomenal verse, verse 25.
And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide.
Now, you could read over this really quickly,
but I've sat down and meditated on what this verse is talking about.
Let me explain this to you.
It says here, he's in a strait betwixt two about desiring to depart.
He's talking about dying, to depart and to be with Christ.
Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.
Look at this.
And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide.
What's he saying?
He's saying, because I know that God has work for me to do on this earth,
because I know that you need me,
because I know that I'm not done with what God has given me to do on this earth.
He says, he knew that he was not going to die.
Is that amazing?
He's not afraid of dying at all because he says,
I know that I'm not dying any time soon.
Boy, isn't that a bizarre statement?
He actually said, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all
for your furtherance and joy of faith.
Then you look at 2 Timothy chapter 4,
which is the last chapter that the Apostle Paul wrote while he was on this earth,
and he says,
For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
He knew that he'd finished the work that God gave him to do.
He knew that it was his time to go.
Again, the theme of this chapter seems to be not living in fear.
Don't live in fear.
Have some boldness.
Don't worry about dying.
You're not going to die until God lets you die,
until God says, okay, if you're serving me, I'm not going to let you die
until your work is done.
But on the other hand, John 15, he talked about those branches that beareth not fruit.
He takes them away.
He rips them down.
He throws them in the trash, and so God might kill you.
On the other hand, if you're not living for God,
but if you're living for God, it's almost like you're immortal.
You cannot be killed until God says you're going to be killed
when you've finished the work that he gave you to do.
Isn't that amazing?
It's pretty interesting.
Let's skip a little bit of this.
We're almost out of time here.
Again, look at verse 28, the same theme of this chapter,
not living in fear, having boldness, not being scared and running scared.
Look at verse 28.
And in nothing terrified by your adversaries,
which is to them an evident token of perdition.
He's saying their fear is an evident token of the fact that they're not saved.
Boy, you can tell people that aren't saved,
because the Bible says that they have a fear of death.
They just live their lives based on fear,
and that's an evident token of perdition.
But to you, the fact that you don't live in fear of salvation and that of God.
Now look at verse 29, and I'm almost done.
But verse 29, and this is a great verse.
It says, For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ,
not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.
God said, This is my plan for you, to believe on me and to suffer for me.
Boy, that doesn't sound too good.
That doesn't sound like what the TV preacher said,
how I was going to, if I mail him my check today,
that God's going to give me a big mansion,
and he's going to multiply it a hundred times,
put your hand on the screen right now,
and feel the Spirit, and then put one hand on the screen
and the other hand on your checkbook,
and see if you can feel the flow,
and watch the money flow from your bank account into my pocket right now.
But anyway, that's not what the prosperity preacher said.
He says, If you're sick, you're not right with God.
You know, there's garbage that they preach,
and if bad things happen, it's because you're living in sin,
and if you don't have any money, it's because you're ungodly.
You know, that's garbage, because God says here,
unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ,
not only to believe on him, that's only part of the package,
but also to suffer for his sake.
He says, Believe on me for salvation,
and then I have a cross for you to bear.
I have some suffering for you to do in this life, for me.
But, of course, Paul said, I reckon that the sufferings of this life
are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
He says, If you compare the suffering that you go through in life
with the glory that you get when you get to heaven,
he says, you can't even compare it.
It's like trying to compare inches with light years or something.
It's just not even on the same scale.
There's no comparison between the suffering that you put in for Jesus Christ on this earth
and the glory that's going to be revealed in heaven.
Man, it's going to be exciting, isn't it?
God said that if you give up your brother,
relationship with your brother, if you give up a relationship with your sister,
if you give up houses and lands for my sake and the Gospels,
he said, I'll give you a hundred fold in this life
and in the world to come life everlasting.
Boy, in the millennial kingdom, we're going to have a hundred times
whatever we give up for God.
That's a 10,000 percent interest rate.
If you know about math, a hundred fold means 10,000 percent interest.
Boy, put your money in the bank and see where you can get 10,000 percent interest.
It's not going to happen.
But God says that's how I pay you when you suffer for me
and that's my plan is for you to suffer for me.
We're always rejoicing, but we're always suffering.
That's the Christian life.
A life of joy and a life of suffering.
Joy through suffering is the Christian life.
Look at verse number 30, it says,
having the same conflict which he saw in me and now here to be in me.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, thank you so much for the lesson tonight, the Bible study,
and God, I love the book of Philippians.
It's such a victorious book.
It's a book about living a life that's not plagued with fear.
It must have been 10 or 11, 12, 13 times reference made in chapter 1
to not being afraid, not being terrified,
being bold, being confident.
God, give us that boldness, every one of us, give us that confidence
and help us to live our lives in a way where we are not ashamed of you
and we're not ashamed of the things of God, but that we're boldness.
We have boldness and not a life of fear.
And in Jesus' name I pray, amen.
All right, now I believe we're going to have some baptism.