Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:28 — 25.1MB)

6-16-2019 Weekly Message

This week’s Meditation: Isaiah 53:1-12

Text: Philippians 2:1-16

The title of the Word: Let us make our salvation thoroughly  obeying the will of God with mind of Christ

         The most mysterious thing that has ever appeared on the earth after Pentecost is that Christ is indwelling in all who receive Christ by the Holy Spirit. Apostle Paul testified of this mystery:

” Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God;

26Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: 27To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:“(Colossians 1: 25-27)

        How mysterious thing this is? And how we became mysterious men? Isn’t it the fact that Christ is in us is that God the Father is within us with the Holy Spirit? Natural men dare not even imagine. Not only did He create heaven and earth in the beginning. How can he be in us that is the creator of heaven and earth in the beginning, but also made all things countless all hostesses in heaven with his fingers, and made man in his own image and likeness making him a living soul, in the body of  man?

        Jesus said, Did He who said, “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30). How he appeared in the form of man in the sinful world leaving his Father in heaven?  We must deeply meditate how He had forsaken all the glory that He had with His Father, putting on the form of servant humiliating Himself, and obeyed the Father’s words, even to the death of the Cross. Jesus, the Creator God, had made such a  great obedience to the Father: and we must never forget that the Father raised Him so high so that all things in the heaven and the earth may glorify Him by confessing that Jesus Christ is the Lord with their tongues. Through His obedience, the Father has given Him the title of Lord of Lords and  King of Kings.

         Likewise, he has opened a way to become a royal priesthood for all Christians when they obey Gos unto death with the mind of Christ. Apostle Peter testified of this great truth:

“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:” (1 Peter 2 : 9)

         Therefore, Apostle Paul commanded Christians in the name of God who received the mysterious and enormous blessings in Christ in Philippians:

” Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

13For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. “(Philippians 2: 12-13).

         The word “work out your own salvation” does  not mean to strive for salvation, but to act in accordance with the Father’s will given to each one by the Father within each one of them

          In other word, do not forget that in all who become Christians, the Father in Heaven is within them, as Christ was fully united with the Father, and  obeyed the father unto death, we have to be united with the mind of Christ to obey God unto death also.

           In Christ’s thought, he lived a life of complete obedience to the Father without any murmuring and disputing to be ensample for us. Prophet Isaiah prophesied in the Holy Spirit of this image of Christ:

” He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

8He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. “(Isaiah 53: 7-8)

          That’s right! A Christian who lives with the mind of Christ will live a life of rejoicing, praying, and thanksgiving for all things under any  persecution and mockery not murmuring and disputing not opening mouth.

          Apostle Paul told the saints to do the same thing for them as he had shown his life in the mind of Christ. . He testified to the Corinthian Saints about the life so much equivalent to the suffering of the cross that he had received for Christ:

” Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.

24Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.

25Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;

26In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; 27In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. “(2 Corinthians 11: 23-27)

            Also, Apostle Paul testified to the saints about two of his co-workers who lived with the mind of Christ in their hearts. The first person is of Timothy, a pastor who served with the gospel with Apostle Paul:

” But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort, when I know your state.

20For I have no man likeminded, who will naturally care for your state.

21For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.

22But ye know the proof of him, that, as a son with the father, he hath served with me in the gospel.

23Him therefore I hope to send presently, so soon as I shall see how it will go with me.

24But I trust in the Lord that I also myself shall come shortly. “(Philippians 2: 19-24)

             The second brother was a man who served the Saints and  the Apostle Paul to his wants without caring for himself:

” Yet I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labour, and fellowsoldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants.

26For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard that he had been sick.

27For indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. 28I sent him therefore the more carefully, that, when ye see him again, ye may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful.

29Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness; and hold such in reputation:

30Because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me. “(Philippians 2: 25-30)

          In these days, most number of Christian  are caring only for their own affairs, but only small number of them are caring the servant of God with the mind of Christ. God will exalt them to receive the glory with Christ forever more.

Amen! Hallelujah!