Philippians 1:27-30

Philippians 1:27-30

We have to a great degree lost, in our churches and in our lives, the concept of holy living. We have often reduced it to a form of legalism. In this way of thinking, we believe we are living holy if we avoid the gross sin from a bad sin list we made up. And we have ways to let people know we are avoiding these sins. We can take an empty-headed stand on certain social justice or political issues that have social popularity, by which we can demonstrate our virtue. If we do these things, we imagine that we are okay.

Paul uses language that describes a different kind of life. Paul says, “Live a life worthy.” The Greek word is the root of our English word “axiomatic,” meaning self-evident. Let your life be self-evident as worthy of the Gospel. He includes in this verse a great word translated as “conduct” or “live.” It was not alive in the sense of biology. Rather, it was the word of being a proud citizen of a city-state. Originally it meant to be a good citizen-leader of the community to be able to promote the laws and well-being of that community. Being a disciple is to promote the kingdom! How do we do that? We do that by unity of spirit and mind or soul. This is a challenging passage to live up to. The unity here is not doctrinal. ‘Spirit’ may be the Holy Spirit or maybe our attitude. ‘Mind’ can mean the soul or life. By both the inner and the outer being, we are to be united within ourselves and with others for the purpose of contending for the faith. The words Paul uses are fascinating. We are to strive together, literally vigorously cooperate, to advance the gospel. The Christian faith expressed in the church is perhaps the ultimate team sport. One person or a very small group of people can ruin the local faith community when they would rather wreck the church than lose their power.

Holy living is not avoiding items on our personal sin list. Nor is it the virtue signaling of a few social justice issues. Holy living is dying to self and living for Christ in vigorously contending or cooperating for the faith. The vigorous struggle for the good news will produce confidence in us and will invite us to share in the sufferings of Christ. Often we are not really interested in suffering for or with Jesus. We want to make sure that our consumer-oriented faith is only a small slice of our life, and we don't want it messing with the rest of life and making us uncomfortable. Paul sees it differently. He sees the sharing of suffering as something that is “granted.” That is the same root word as grace, the gift that makes glad. We are gifted the suffering with Christ, which is not a common thought today.

“Lord, help me to vigorously join with other disciples to contend for the Gospel. AMEN”