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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/joel-portman/the-example-of-paul-a-spiritual-man/
I want to read with you a number of places in the epistle of Paul to the Philippian assembly. Philippians chapter 1. Philippians chapter 1. These are very familiar portions of this precious epistle. I love the epistles of Paul to the Philippians.
Wonderful thing to notice he speaks about Christ in every chapter. Rich in all of his description and all of his appreciation of the Lord Jesus. I would to God that I had some measure of appreciation of Christ like he did and I'm sure we would all echo those words.
Reading from chapter 1 in verse 20. According to my earnest expectation and my hope that 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 me to live or for me living is Christ and dying is gain but if I live in a flesh this is the fruit of my labor yet what I shall choose I want not for I am in a straight 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.
Going down the chapter please to chapter 2 rather chapter 2 verse 17. Yea and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and suffering of your service of your faith I joy and rejoice with you all for the same cause also do ye joy and rejoice with me.
Chapter 3 verse 7 but what things were gained to me or gains to me those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless that I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but done that I may win Christ and be found at him not having my own righteousness which is of the law but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith that I may know him in the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings be made conformable onto his death if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead not as though I had already attained either were already perfect but I follow after if if if that it might be may apprehend that which also for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Now last of all in chapter 4 verse 11 not that I speak in respect of want for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound everywhere and in all things I've instructed both to be full and to be hungry both to abound and to suffer need.
That's all I'd like to read. I think as you get older you ought to become wiser and wisdom also allows you to recognize the fact that there are many things that we think that we are perhaps that we really aren't and there are things that we need to come to face to face with as we become more capable of analyzing us and comparing ourselves with what the word of God says and sometimes sometimes we feel or we find out anyway hopefully in a way that we're really not what we ought to be.
I'm looking at a man that epitomizes to me a spiritual man with spiritual exercises with the evidence of a of an overwhelming desire that consumed him and that was Christ and that was all that mattered.
Sometimes we can get involved with the frivolities of life we can become involved also with different details of what ought to be and what ought not to be in terms of practice behavior dress and all the rest of it.
I'm not negating those but the main thing we need to focus our lives and mind on is Christ. Now what I'm going to speak to you this morning is not really directed toward you so much it's just what I've been preaching to myself for several weeks or months because when I look at Paul and when I look at what really constitutes a spiritual believer I've had to confess that God's presence are really not as spiritual I might have thought it was.
Have you ever thought of the standard and how far we come short? I'm not criticizing others I spend my time far more I hope in a way criticizing myself that's I said to someone recently I don't need to start criticizing other believers because I start with myself and that's I can't go any farther that's enough to fill me up with the rest of my time just looking at my own failures and my own weaknesses.
But I think Paul was a man who epitomized a genuine spiritual believer that was occupied consumed driven by one great desire Christ and that was all that mattered. You know a spiritual person is one who was dominated by controlled by moved by empowered by the Spirit of God.
It's not it's not defined by how much you and I might know of the scripture. I could be convinced for years that a new believer could be as spiritual as a one that's gone on long. It's been 70 years since God saved me and I sometimes wonder if I'm any more spiritual than the babe in Christ because you and I are living in bodies that are are shall we say arenas of warfare because there's a constant battle going on between the flesh and the spirit.
The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. Paul says in Galatians chapter 5 it's a constant problem and someone has said there's a lot of Christian service that is carried on in the activity of the flesh.
But the Spirit of God wants to control. He wants to move our lives. He wants to have absolute authority. He wants to be the one who empowers us in every direction and I can tell you this all that he does will focus your life and mine on the person of Christ.
The Lord Jesus said in John chapter 16 when he shall come he will glorify me. He came to glorify Christ and to magnify him in our souls and to fill our hearts and minds with such a craving and such a desire to know Christ and I'm not talking about knowing about him I'm talking about really knowing him.
The knowledge of Christ is that which was so dominating in the life of Paul. I oftentimes think that the questions that Paul asked as he was arrested on the Damascus road nearing that city. First of all he said who art thou Lord and then what shalt thou have me to do.
Those two questions are enough to control your life and mine in such a way that we are pleasing and honoring the Lord and going far beyond superficialities and going right to the heart of what Christianity really is.
Paul I believe was absolutely what shall I say impelled by that one question who art thou Lord and he wanted to know him and he desired to know him with all of his heart and soul and mind and strength and nothing else really mattered and all of his servants and all that he did from that point on was the result of that one dominating factor.
Now I'm looking at Paul as a spiritual man he was a godly man it was a man who epitomized to a heart and mind a life that was absolutely devoted to the person of Christ. I don't know at what stage in Paul's life he wrote this epistle he was in the prison it was a rather imprisonment in Rome he'd been going on a long time in the faith and serving Christ faithfully and honorably and here he is in confinement limited.
He was a man that was a man of activity. He longed to be out preaching the gospel he longed to be out serving the Lord be active in all of his affairs and now he's limited but think of what he has to say.
The profundity of what this man expresses under those conditions overwhelms me with the realization that he was a man who was focused on one thing whatever it might whatever it might be Christ was all that was all.
But I want to notice for you what he says in these four different passages were read as a spiritual man. First of all in chapter one he says my whole living the essence of my living everything concerning my life from day to day morning to night every moment of it is Christ for me he says living is Christ.
Someone has said if you took Christ out of Paul's life he'd have nothing. Christ was the son around which he revolved. It was a center of his life. It was a focus of attention it was a motivation of his service.
Christ was everything and all else didn't really matter if it didn't fall into place in respect to that one great ambition for me living is Christ. You marvel when you think about his circumstances. When he wrote these words he's writing from his confinement possibly chained to a Roman guard continually not able to be out and active in his activities.
Other things that he would like to do he says he doesn't say for me living is preaching. He doesn't say living is is all the other activities that I might be engaged in. He says living is a person and that person is the only person that really should matter in your life and mine.
I made a plaque one time. I've never distributed because I just keep it to myself and put it on the wall of my office. I put in the middle of it for me to live is blank. And then I got a few things around the outside edge of it and you can fill in whatever you want.
But for many of us if we have the wisdom and the honesty to acknowledge it we wouldn't be able to say Christ being critical. Perhaps I'm just talking about myself. But you have to ask yourself what is the reason for your living.
What is the focus. What's the purpose. What occupies us. What are we really directed toward. What do we think about. What occupies our desires. What is a it's. What moves our emotions. What really constrains us.
Paul could say Christ. He took Christ out of his life. He had nothing. You know Christ is not a crutch. He's not just a means of salvation. He's a real person. And he wants you. He wants every one of us.
And I think oftentimes in my life have deprived him of the place and the fellowship he longed to have. He says Christ is of my life every moment of his life. I can see Paul every morning rising in the morning.
His thoughts are for Christ. What can I do. How can I know more of Christ today. How could I serve him more faithfully today going to bed at night if he ever went to bed. I don't know if he did his occupation during the night and praying for God's people and praying for saints and praying for the near lost ones that he could serve was concerned about what for Christ whatsoever no matter what it was that Christ.
He says that even now on these under these circumstances as it has been in the past Christ may be magnified in my body. Whether my life or my death. It doesn't make any difference to him whether he lived or died so far as he was concerned.
Oh he says I know Christ today. I enjoy Christ now. I live for Christ now presently. I have Christ in my life now and if I die it's just more of Christ. It's not a loss. He wasn't trying to preserve his life only for one purpose.
He says for the blessing of God's people because they belong to Christ. So you see this is a man that epitomizes what really ought to be characteristic of our life. We could go about the motions we go about the outward outward practices perhaps.
And I'm not. I'm certainly not condemning practices not at all. But what troubles me very deeply is that Israel maintained the outward practices of the religion without heart and without a love for God without the deep sense of what their obligation was the one that had done so much for them.
The trappings of religion the trappings of outward practice can be maintained with fidelity and orthodoxy. But do so without Christ. That's what the Pharisees did. That's what the chief priests and scribes did.
Christ had no place in their life. But the attitude that Paul had toward living was Christ. That's a spiritual man. All the other things one said about a man long ago I don't remember who it was but he was a man who cobbled shoes.
And they said about him that he lives in heaven. And he comes down on earth to cobble shoes for a living to pay his bills. I don't believe in that old expression that I've heard probably from the time memorial memorial.
He's too heavenly minded for his own good. I don't believe that never have. I believe we're not enough heavenly minded too earthly minded. The word of God condemns earth dwellers in the book of Revelation.
We're here on this earth brethren. But we're here for Christ. And what I'm saying this morning I've been saying to myself for weeks. I can only tell you that I want to be honest in chapter two he says it's not a matter of just my living.
My living is Christ. But he says as a spiritual man your service the service of other believers that were inferior to him. He says your service and your sacrifice are a far more important thing to God than what I can do.
He says I just want to be a little drink offering the little bit of wine that was poured out alongside the altar when that large animal was being offered for God and the glory of God. He says your sacrifice and your service is far greater than mine.
And if I could just be a little part of it thank God. You know a spiritual person appreciates the service of other believers appreciates the value of what others are seeking to do for God. That's a real test.
Sometimes I can say that personally and I'm sure we all agree that we always time we always I'm paraphrasing. Maybe I'm speaking out of turn. But we oftentimes think that our service is more important than anybody else's.
What I do is more valuable than what somebody else does. I don't know brethren a spiritual person looks upon others and he esteems them better than themselves. They think about them more highly than themselves.
Paul says in Romans chapter 12 right into the believers there he says not to tells him not to think more highly than you ought to think but to think soberly reasonably intelligently even as God has granted the measure of grace to every man.
Oh Paul says my service in all of its I believe truly faithful and great in every aspect of the word. He says there's nothing really compared to yours. It's wonderful if you and I can look upon what someone else is doing what God could do as doing through somebody else and and think of them in a far more favorable way than even ourselves.
Someone has said that you and I wouldn't believe that Paul was the least of all saints. Or that he's the least of the apostles. Would we. I wouldn't believe that. But Paul did. Paul did without a question.
In his mind he says I'm the least of all the saints. I'm the least of the apostles. I persecuted the church to think what I did. No he says they're far better than I am. They're far greater than I am.
Far more important than I am. Because a spiritual believer is moved by the spirit of God to esteem others as better themselves. They looked at that dear assembly. I guess that I would believe that the assembly in Philippi was much like the one in Thessalonica.
They were gospel-minded. They were active. Ever notice that those two assemblies in Macedonia were marked by activity and faithfulness fidelity to Christ. Something about them. Never thought about that until the other day in comparison with the assembly down in Achaia.
You know Corinth. What a contrast Paul says in my attitude toward my servants. My attitude toward my work is that I think yours is better than mine far more great. That's a spiritual man. That's a spiritual person.
That's what I'll mark us. An appreciation for the lives and the service and the efforts of others. Chapter three. We have his attitude toward his entire purpose of life. His goal. What is my goal. Well he says there are those that were coming among them and they were doubting their their their credentials.
They were telling you about how great they were in the Judaistic hierarchy and what they were descended from in terms of the religious attainments and all the rest of it. Oh he says I could tell I could tell far more than that.
He does summarize very quickly what he had to at one time what was really the most important thing to him. Because it was very important prior to his salvation that he was a he was a Benjamite. He was a Hebrew of Hebrew parents.
He was one who was faithful to the law in every possible way. He had all the right credentials. He had all the things going for him that would have given him a high place in a position in the religion of the Jews.
He could obtain great things and had a great position and power and recognition prominence. He said. I have all of that. But he says I came to a point of my life when I came in and I came in contact with Christ.
I just threw it all away. Absolute garbage. The most vile kind of garbage he says. And those things that would naturally be to my credit. Things that I would be honored for. And things that would be most important to me he says I just simply discarded them completely.
He never heard him talk about them again. Sometimes we do tend to boast about those things that we have in ourselves or that we have that we think are very important in our lives. I guess none of us as parents can can refrain from telling other people about our son or a daughter who's got a PhD and such and so and so.
I don't blame you. I know what that's all about. Nothing wrong with an education. But I'll tell you this. Paul says all of that is so unimportant. I came to the point of my life I cast it away. I just discarded it as done because it was all a hindrance to me in terms of knowing Christ.
So they want to gain Christ. You say Paul didn't you have Christ. Yes you had Christ. He had Christ as a savior. He knew Christ as his Lord. He knew Christ in a personal way and Christ had him. But he says I'm not.
I'm not satisfied. I want more. You know the things that you and I ought to be perfectly satisfied with our life. I hope you are. I am so happy that God saved me. I can't thank him enough every day. I hope you give thanks to God that he ever reached you and saved you by his grace.
It's a marvelous thing to think how God has dealt his start crying to think about it just to think about the marvelous grace of God to save us in spite of what we were what we could have been. He says.
That's not the end of it. All that's just the beginning. The beginning is when you came to know Christ as your savior. That's when he arrested you when he laid his whole hold his hand upon you. And it's not to change your life and to direct your your your entire being.
Paul says I've cast all the things that would naturally be important to me and I've thrown them away for one purpose. I want to win Christ. I want Christ above all things. I've thought that chapter 3 of Philippians is the highest expression the expression of a highest spiritual expression that a Christian can have.
He says I'm longing for one thing. I want to know Christ. Look what he has to say. Read it with me. He says. Concerning the verse going down to verse 8 I've suffered the loss suffered the loss of all things.
Listen. Think of what Paul had suffered the loss of. He lost his family possibly lost a wife. I don't know if he was married or not. He lost all the things that were valuable to a person's life prestige honor position power recognition.
He lost all that he had no possessions. He had no place he'd call his home. He had nothing. He says I've suffered the loss of all things. What. For that I may win Christ. Because if you and I pile up all the things that we might accumulate in life all the things that are important in the normal sense of the word and compare them with what it really is to win Christ.
I have to say I'm not preaching from experience because you and I and I say for myself primarily that's too great a cost. It's a tremendous cost. But if you'd asked Paul was it worth it he would have said no question at all not a question to the will.
And they put them on one side of the balance and put Christ on the other as it were. And Christ outweighed them all. There was no comparison be found in him not having my own righteousness which is of the law but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is God of God by faith.
And that I may know him I may know him. I don't know about you. But sometimes I ask myself how well do I really know Christ. Well we can talk about the doctrines and we can discuss the attributes so we can go down to different features of his life and the facets of all the experience and his humanity and all the rest of it.
But do you really know Christ. You know my wife and I were married for 54 years and I still think after 54 years I didn't know her as I should have. There's something about that intimate relationship and a closeness that sometimes we fail to realize that the things of this life and the things of this world could crowd out that most important thing in the life of a believer and the spirit of God wants to draw you and me in our hearts and souls to the Lord Jesus and to make him the entire reality and focus of our living.
He says that I might know him and the power of his resurrection. You take these doctrinal ways whatever you want to. I'm not trying to exposit them. I'm just saying this is the consuming purpose and desire of his heart is to enter into the reality of what it meant to be raised with Christ and living with Christ and moving with Christ and fellowship with Christ.
He says even if it means dying I want to gain and attain to the resurrection of the dead to be like Christ and with him for eternity. So that's the whole purpose of my living. That was his attitude so far as his goals of life were concerned.
It wasn't to have a bigger house it wasn't to have a bigger car it wasn't have to BMW in the driveway or whatever it might have been. Or all the rest of the things that sometimes we think about. Oh I've got to have a a nicer this or something else.
No he says I don't. None of that really matters. It's only Christ just Christ. Because brethren and sisters those things of that nature legitimate as they are can crowd out the person of Christ in our life and dethrone him from the place he ought to have.
There's one that said I think it was a poor person. This is a quote I don't just picked out of my own mind somewhere I got it. They didn't have very much hardly anything in life. And the answer that they gave to the person that questioned them is I have Christ what it want.
I more. I remember brother McShane one time in Seattle when I was a lot younger than this. He's on the verge of returning to Ireland. He'd been in Vancouver for the Easter conference. I think it was. And he's with us for the Lord's day.
He said I can't wait to get back to Ireland and go visit some of the old widows so they don't have to lock their door because they got nothing there for anybody to steal. He says they're happy. Paul ends in chapter four.
I'll just mention this before I sit down in chapter four. He says whatever state I'm in I'm happy. I'm content sometimes he says I have plenty more than I need. Sometimes I don't have anything. I'm content.
Why. Because his life was not fixed on material things. His life was not occupied with the things of this damp this empty dead world. His life was occupied with the one great person and he never changed.
He has contentment. And the more you and I are occupied with the person of our Lord Jesus. And I say this to myself more than anyone else the more content I'll be with whatever I have. The Lord Jesus was absolutely content when he was in the wilderness for 40 days.
Bread was all around him stones on every hand. He could have converted any one of them to bread. And the devil said do it. No he says I'm content. It's not the will of God for me to have those stones and bread.
So wherever he was he was content. No brethren if our hearts and minds are fixed on things above as Paul says in Colossians chapter three our Christ sitteth at the right hand of God we'll be content. We won't be grasping for things in his life and seeking for the things that are passing away.
My wife once said to me I don't know what brought up the subject. As he said all these things that we might be going in for he says they're all going to be burned up and they will be. They'll be left behind.
And all the times you see on the wall that plaque only one life it will soon be passed. And only what's done for Christ will last. Do we believe it do we really believe it. I hope we do. At least I hope that I do.