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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/norman-crawford/the-gospel-mind/
I'm going to ask you to pray with me, because I need it. So let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for Thy precious Word, but O God, we thank Thee for Thy blessed Son. Thank Thee for the love that brought him from the highest glory to come to this world where he knew he would be hated, and despised, and spit upon, and nailed to a Roman cross.
Lord, we thank Thee for Calvary. Thank Thee for the Savior's suffering. Thank Thee for the value of it. Thank Thee for the eternal result of that agony on Calvary's tree. And our God, we thank Thee for our glorious Lord in heaven today, exalted.
We long to see Him, and we believe, Lord, very soon we will see Him as He is, and His perfect likeness where. So we pray that there might be more likeness to Christ in us now, as Thy Word touches our hearts and our spirits.
God grant that it might be the Word of God to us, to affect us in our daily life, in our home life, in the assembly life, in our testimony to the world. Lord bless, is our humble prayer to God, in the name of the Lord Jesus, amen.
We're going to read again, please, in Philippians 1. Philippians chapter 1, and I'm going to read verses 1 to 11 of this first chapter of the epistle. Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus, which are at Philippi with the bishops and deacons, grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making requests with joy for, and this is a most important statement, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, 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.
Even as it is meek for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, in as much 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 and the tender mercies of Jesus Christ, and this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that ye may approve things that are excellent, that ye may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruit of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God.
Now chapter 2, just three verses of chapter 2, verse 14, do all things without murmuring and disputings, that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life, that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain, yea, if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all, for the same cause also do you joy and rejoice with me.
Now chapter 3, verse 17 of chapter 3, brethren, be followers together of me and mock them which walk so as ye have us for an example, for many walk of whom I have told you often and I'll tell you even weeping that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is in their belly and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.
For our conversation, that is our citizenship, is in heaven, for whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
And God is able to bless his word to our hearts. Now my subject is the gospel mind, and I can't think of a subject in all of Scripture that has greater meaning to me than gospel testimony. I hardly think I should begin with this, but I've spent 63 years of my life having gospel meetings, and I love the gospel.
Just now in the city of Jackson, Michigan where I live, we are having gospel meetings. Two brethren preaching every night, and I've been at every meeting and praying with them before and after the meetings too.
Oh, I'm thrilled to hear the gospel. I get saved in every meeting, but the gospel has tremendous meaning. What a message, what power, what love, what grace in that blessed message of life. So this is an epistle of personal devotion to the Lord Jesus, and that personal devotion to the Lord Jesus is seen in the gospel testimony of believers and of Paul himself.
Now a Christian gentleman is writing a tender letter to Christian friends. There's no apostolic claims in Philippians, as you'll notice. He knew they would listen lovingly. And interesting to me, now this is very important to my little subject, he uses the first person pronoun 120 times.
Well, then it's all about Paul. No, you're wrong. It's all about Christ. Very interesting that when we look into the heart of Paul, we see Christ exalted. So while he refers to himself so frequently, 120 times in these four chapters, yet it is not Paul who is on display, but it is Paul's Lord.
It is our blessed Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. I think you know these words, the glory of Christ is greatest when the glory of self is dim. They have the most impelled me who have pointed me to him.
They have swayed me, they have moved me till I hung on their every word, and fame would arise and follow, not them, not them, but their Lord. Now, how was Paul an example? I have four things, they are right in the text so you won't have any difficulty finding them.
In his devotion to know Christ, in his desire to live Christ, in his duty to preach Christ, and in his dependence on the power of Christ. Now, can I go over those very simply with you? In his devotion to know Christ, doesn't he know him?
I think these words are very, very true of Paul's experience. It seems the more I know him, and all his ways explore, it only sets me longing to know him more and more. What is there to know of him? An eternity of glory, blessing, grace, mercy, love, and holiness, the Holy Son of the living God.
You never can get too much of Christ, dear believer, and we can never know him too well. And I would have to say that to know him means that you have a burning desire to know him better. It is not possible to know Christ, to know him at all, and not long to know him far, far more.
So, in his devotion to know Christ, Paul gives us a wonderful example, that I may know him, the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings, that I may make conformable unto his death.
Conformable unto his death, total commitment, total devotion, total sacrifice, conformable unto his death. Now, if you're like me, you sense, having come far short, I sense that every day of my Christian life.
There's a great wonder in my heart that God would ever use the likes of me, but he does. And it is true that to know the Lord Jesus means you long to bring glory to him. And the better you know him, the more you know of him.
How would you know him? How would you learn of Christ? Tell me, how would you do it? God's Word. It is here that the Lord Jesus is revealed in his matchless worth. And if you're not reading your Bible regularly, then you're not learning more of him.
But it is impossible to miss him as you read the Word of God. I know we read Old Testament scriptures and we see Christ in them. What a blessed thing it is to see him. I wasn't going to tell this, but just the fact that within this past year, we have seen some of our neighbors saved.
And I would have to tell you that it was God that did it, not us. But this dear man came to me one day. I had been speaking to him a little bit about the Bible and about the Lord Jesus. He lives just a block away from us.
And this particular day, he came to me and he said, I want you to know that I was brought up in Communist China and I don't believe in a God at all. I don't believe there is a God. Where do you go from there?
The next day he came back, I said to him, Tom, would you mind if I show you some verses in the Bible? Oh, he said, it won't do me any harm. Go ahead. So I began with Psalm 22. And I read these words. They pierced my hands and my feet.
And I said to Tom, David wrote this, King David, if you had asked him to see his hands, there's no piercing of his hands. What's he talking about? They pierced my hands and my feet. What is he talking about?
He's talking about an event that would happen a thousand years later when the Lord Jesus' hands and feet would truly be pierced with nails. I went over Isaiah 53. I went over a number of prophetic scriptures, actually.
And I said to him, Tom, how did these writers, David, Isaiah, how did they ever know that this was going to happen exactly as they wrote it? I often think this, maybe you don't, but I think, what would it have been like to go up to those four Roman soldiers that are down at the foot of the cross, and they have divided his garments among them, and they have come to that one coat that was without seam, and they say, let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be.
What if you had gone up to those soldiers and said to them, do you know that what you're doing here was written in Psalm 22? They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture. Did you know it was written a thousand years ago and you're doing it today?
It would have been a shock to them, wouldn't it? If there's young Christians here, let me stop for a moment. We have overpowering reasons to believe the Word of God. Only God could foretell events in detail.
How many of them are there? How many prophecies were actually fulfilled exactly as they were written? How many do you think? Do you have a guess? Three hundred and thirty-seven. Do you mean it? Yes. Three hundred and thirty-seven.
You know, a dear professor at Princeton University said if there was one such prophecy fulfilled, it would be beyond human explanation. If there were ten fulfilled, it would be a miracle that only God could do.
There's over three hundred of them. Is it the Word of God? Is it true? Oh, thank God it's true. That dear man that came to me that day and said that he didn't believe in God, he brought the Bible that I had given him, and he put his finger on the outside of the Bible and he said, this is the Word of God.
That was the beginning. And then one night after a gospel meeting, he came and said, I believe that on the cross God's Son died in my place. His wife got saved three days later. Now my friend, the gospel, what power there is in it.
What truth in it. What joy in it. I love the gospel. And as I've been telling you, I've been attending gospel meetings every night the last three weeks, and I get saved every night. I mean, I could get saved.
I probably wasn't already saved. I love the gospel message. It thrills my heart. And I've been trying to preach it for all these years. I never have felt that I've done very well, but God has been pleased to use His Word and give us great joy in seeing precious souls saved.
There are some in this meeting this morning that were saved in gospel meetings when we were preaching the gospel. God is pleased to use His Word. God is pleased to bless it. God is pleased to save souls through it.
And so thank God. First of all, it begins with devotion to a person. And then it continues with the development of testimony. And I want to speak to you about this because Paul says to these people that he's thanking God for their fellowship in the gospel.
What does that mean? Fellowship in the gospel. Now this is heart work. This is truly heart work. Fellowship in the gospel. You see, it's personal. I have a personal testimony. Don't be afraid to give your personal testimony.
I would tell you that two men are preaching in the city of Jackson just now. This is the fourth week, the end of the fourth week of their meetings, and they've told how they got saved every night. Anybody complaining?
I never heard a complaint from anyone. Oh, thank God for being able to personally witness to the saving power of the Lord Jesus. Wonderful testimony. We have a personal testimony. Oftentimes we fail. I'm going to confess this to you because you probably will understand very well what I'm saying.
I meet people that I do not confess Christ to. Do you? Sure we do. We fail. If only we had the exercise we should have, there would be opportunities that we could confess Christ and know that it was God who arranged it and was overruling in it for his glory.
Have you had those kind of experiences? Yes, we've had them and we long for more of them. To know that God has made the arrangement and we were instruments in his hand to testify to the saving power of the Lord Jesus.
So there's personal testimony. There's public testimony. Now, can I say this very humbly? I believe in series of gospel meetings. I believe in a Lord's Day evening gospel meeting. Oh, you say you don't have to say that here because we all practice that.
Well, I have to tell you something. There are many places that once did that and they've stopped. They're not doing it anymore. Mr. Paisley and I were having meetings in Seattle, Washington and I didn't count them but 20 or more people came to our meeting and they stood at the door afterward and they said, this is what we miss.
We never hear gospel preaching anymore. I felt for them. Oh, thank God for the preaching of the gospel. Dear believer in an assembly, support the gospel preaching. Put your heart into it. Put your prayers into it.
Put your efforts into it to bring others to hear it. Gospel preaching. Listen to what the Bible says and we know this verse very, very well. It pleases God. Do you want to do something that pleases God?
It pleases God through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. This is the method God has chosen. Now, I don't fully understand all that but I believe it with all my heart. This is God's method, not ours.
It's God's method. The public preaching of the gospel is the method God has chosen to reach hearts, to reach souls, to save sinners. So let us not fail to do it because public testimony is gospel witness.
It's gospel meetings. And there are other methods, as you know, to reach souls. I believe in children's work. With all my heart, I do. I believe in tract distribution. I believe in family planning. In open air meetings.
And God has used those things and we seek to use them. And if we looked, now I'm saying this to myself as well as to you, if we looked, we would discover many avenues that are open to us for the spread of the gospel.
I know people that put me to shame. You maybe do too. Every person they ever meet gets a gospel tract and a word of testimony. They never meet anyone anywhere that doesn't discover this person's a Christian.
I thank God for people like that. Maybe you say, well, maybe it's their disposition. Well, maybe it's their exercise. Maybe it's their heart burden. So we thank God for those people and Paul thanked God for these Christians.
If you were to go down the verses we've read in Philippians chapter 1, you would read that Paul thanks God for these believers and he thanks God that he can supplicate the throne of God for their need.
And he remembers their fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. Fellowship in the gospel from the first day. Now were they saved at that time? This is a little difficult for me because fellowship is a spiritual word and it's the result of the spirit of God moving on the hearts and spirits of believers to produce oneness, to produce labor that is joined together and the heart.
You know, we can join our hearts. I think you know that, don't you? When we pray before a gospel meeting, it is hearts joining together with exercise, with concern, with a burden for souls. So certainly supplication for the need of sinners is a blessed privilege and it gives us confidence to know that God hears and it's God's great delight to hear to bless his word.
It pleases God. Oh, this is a verse that has great meaning to me. It has for many, many years. It pleases God through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. So dear believer, the gospel, it's our burden.
It's our privilege. It's our prayerful exercise. And Paul's affection for these believers that is mentioned in verse 7 actually was linked to the fact that they had fellowship in the gospel with him. I think it's wonderful to work with other Christians.
It's a great privilege to be able to labor together in the gospel. We don't put one man up and say he's it. We work together heart to heart, soul to soul. We labor together in the gospel. And so Paul was confident that these believers were working with him, fellowship in the gospel.
And dear believer, don't let us not fail. I would have to say this because it's personal, but do you have any neighbors that you've never invited to a gospel meeting? I won't ask you to answer publicly, but likely every one of us here would have to say yes.
Yes, we do. We've never invited them. Why? Ashamed? Cost too much? Make them laugh at you? May God help us to be more exercised. We have people around us perishing. I can hardly take it in that people that we meet day by day, we cross their path, they cross ours.
And those people are going to burn in the flames of hell. And we never say a word to them, never warn them, never plead with them to get to Christ for salvation. I know we fail. I know we do. But I know that we do.
But may God help us that we may be exercised to give testimony that is personal. It can be powerful, God's word to reach into hearts. Paul longs for these believers. That's the truth of verse 8. Verse 9, he's prayer that their love would abound more and more.
Verse 10 is desire that they may be kept until the day of Christ. And then verse 11, the prospect that glory will be brought to God through them. Well, that's a great privilege we have. I can actually as a believer, individually, personally bring glory to God.
Oh, I know we depend a lot on the gospel testimony of the assembly. I know that and we should. But each one of us have a personal responsibility to be a witness for our absent Lord. He left us here. We are still here.
Why? That we might testify about Him. That we might bring glory to His blessed name. That we might win lost souls to the Savior. And it is amazing what God will use. It often amazes me that oftentimes a person is brought to a meeting to hear the gospel and you would say when you look at them and the way they're not listening, there's no hope for that person.
Not true. Not true. Such people have often gotten awakened, convicted by the Spirit of God as guilty sinners. They've gotten to Calvary to trust Christ. So let us not fail. In verse 14 of our chapter, Paul says that they should be blameless.
Well, that's a very strong word. It means that no one can lay a charge against them about their behavior, about their words, their conduct. I think it's a wonderful thing to have a blameless testimony.
I know we may not think we have much effect, but this is personal, but forgive me, but I learned in our last series of gospel meetings that every family in our neighborhood knows that we are Christians.
I didn't tell them, not all of them anyway, but enough of them so that all the rest heard it. Don't forget that. Where you live, you may live on a farm. The neighbors on the other farms know what you are.
You may live in a city. The people on the block probably know what you are and who you are. Oh, that we might live before them as a testimony for God's glory. Be blameless, harmless, without mixture, that they might see we have a great motive for their blessing, for what can be to them the greatest blessing that ever can come to anyone.
The world in which we bear testimony is described for us here in verses 14 to 16. I don't think it misses the mark for our day in 2009. It is a perverse and crooked generation, morally perverted. I can hardly believe this.
I know I'm 82 years old, so the world has changed a good bit in those years, but I can hardly believe that homosexuality is accepted. Oh, I know that there were people who practiced that kind of thing for many years, but it wasn't accepted, whereas we live in a time when such sin is excused and accepted.
What a dark world. What a perverse and crooked generation, morally perverted. Darkness is where light shines the brightest, and our dark world gives us the opportunity to let our light so shine that they may see our good want works and glorify our Father, which is in heaven.
That's Paul's exhortation to these believers. Shine as light in great contrast to the darkness. Now, if you're like me, I've had to confess to God many times that I hid my light instead of holding it forth.
I'm not proud of that. I know Christians who do far better than I in their public testimony or private testimony. You do too, likely. Let us follow their example and be a testimony that others can see a light in a dark place.
Paul was an example to the Philippian believers. He was the father of their faith, and therefore he should be an example, and new believers look to him. But dear fellow believer, young Christians are growing up among us.
There are young ones here this morning. They look to us. Do they see Christ? Do they see reality? Is our gospel testimony of such a nature that heaven and hell are real to them as they see our life, that being saved or lost is the greatest reality of all time?
Do they see that in us? You see, it's so easy to get occupied with the things of time and sense, possessions. I know that many Christians must have certain activities that they engage in, or they think they're not hardly living.
What activities do we actually engage in? Going around from door to door with gospel tracts? Standing on the street corner preaching Christ? Living our life so that others see the Lord Jesus in us? We have a great privilege to be a witness, to be a testimony to the living Lord, and I trust that God will use your life to do as a witness, as a light, a spreading of the gospel to others around you.
I want to speak to you just for a few moments about what it means to be devoted to the person of the Lord Jesus. I know this is very practical, and it makes me a little slow because there is failure on my part to develop true devotion to the person of Christ.
Devotion to Christ means a heart that has been won, a heart that is full of love for the Savior. It isn't difficult, is it? Look at him. Look at that blessed one as he serves the Father with total devotion, complete consecration.
Oh, I know he was the perfect servant. I know that. He never failed. God had perfect delight in his perfect Son, but we are given him as our example, that we might follow his steps, that we might be like him in our conversation, in our manner of life, in our association with others, that we might be like him.
That our deepest concern are eternal things and not the things of time and sense. Because, dear believer, we all admit this, the things of time and sense do make a presentation to us, attempt to hold us, attempt to turn us away from him.
And we need exhortation day by day that we might be more like him and learn of him. Now, the power of Christ was evident in Paul. The power of Christ? Yes, the power of Christ in his witness, in his testimony, in his life, in his labors.
Because he lived in the power of the promise of Christ. It's very interesting. The promise of what? Of his coming, of seeing him as he is, of being like him perfectly in the coming day. And that gives us longing desire to be more like him now.
So the power of Christ was available to him. The promise of Christ was a great blessing to him. The prospect of seeing Christ was what he looked for, what he longed for. And the peace of Christ reigned in his heart.
Now, unbroken peace in the heart is something the world knows nothing of. Thank God we have it. Peace, perfect peace. To know him who is the Lord of peace. The peace of Christ passing knowledge. The peace of God which comforts and sustains and supports.
And if we have that, others will see it. And our testimony will be effective because of it. So devotion to know Christ is the first fact of Paul's letter to the Philippians. Desire to live Christ is the second great fact that he presents to us.
The duty to preach Christ should be our exercise. Preaching by life and by lip and dependence on the power of Christ is the only means by which blessing can be known. Now may God bless this word to our hearts.
I know it's a little early, but I'm not going to keep you longer. I've pretty well gone through my material, so I'll leave it at that.