SingleVISION  In  Suffering
by A. Gene Veal, Counselor

Paul is now directly addressing the Philippians. He has prayed for them. He has explained his own view of how God is IN his own suffering. Now he turns to them and begins to deal with some of their problems. One problem they share with him is that they are suffering, also. There are pressures from the outside coming upon them. He wants them to realize who they are and therefore, how they can handle suffering.

He begins with "conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ." That is what the Bible says except that in the original language which Paul wrote it, it is a different phrase. Unless one would explain it, it would not make sense. The actual expression that Paul used was "conduct yourself as a citizen of the gospel of Christ." If you just read that, it would not be too clear. 

Remember that Philippi was a very unique city. It was in Macedonia but it had been granted the right to be known as a little Rome. So inside Philippi they had the laws of Rome. In that sense it was a little Italy on Macedonian soil. When you walked into it, you felt like you were in Rome.  All the stores carried the latest goods from Rome. Everyone wore the latest fashions from Rome. The language of the officials was Latin. The Romans did that in order to honor the city, but also to let the populace know this is what Romanized Philippians are really like.

So everyone could look at Philippi and say, "Now, so that's what Rome is like." Otherwise, Rome would have simply been the conquerors of Macedonia. What Rome wanted to do was "Romanize" all the people they conquered. They did that by planting a town down and just letting them "be Rome." The people got the idea and they began be Roman. Soon they didn’t even look upon themselves as a conquered people. They looked upon themselves as Roman. It was a pretty good way of doing it.

So the word that Paul uses here reflects that idea. It reflects the idea of a colony of foreigners whose life style reflects in miniature the community of the homeland. "Conduct yourselves as a citizen" has got in it the idea that you are a company of foreigners and you are going to reflect in miniature the community of the homeland. So you are not going to act as Romans, Philippians, you are going to be proud of your heavenly citizenship and you are going to wear the clothes of the land of your home.

EXAMPLE: In New York - go to Brooklyn and walk up 8th Avenue and you are in Norway. You had better speak Norwegian because that is all they speak there. You had better like Norwegian food because there is nothing else to eat. It is a little Norway. Two blocks over is little Italy. And so on, and so on. In each community you will find that they dress a certain way, they keep certain festivals of their homeland. When the Mayor of a Norwegian city comes to New York, you can bet he is going to go to the little Norway to visit. That is the idea. You are your country in miniature and you reflect the life style to which you belong.

REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE

Now Paul said to the Philippian Christians, "OK, you are used to that, you are used to being a little Rome in Macedonia. You understand the concept of being Roman in the midst of Macedonians. Now take that a step higher. You are a miniature community of heaven here on earth. You now act on earth in the same way as you do in your fatherland." 

Perhaps Paul is taking to its logical conclusion what is contained in the Lord’s Prayer. "... thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven ...." That is not praying for some never-never land of the future. He is praying intelligently and expectantly that we shall bear on earth the marks of heaven and the will of God shall "be done on earth as it is in heaven." People will look at us and say, "Ah, that is what it is like. That’s what they mean when they say ‘heaven.’" Because the word ‘heaven’ is very vague.

The British do this. Check Bermuda. The police there are just like the police in England. Check any place that used to be a British colony and they will appear to be British. Even in Africa. These black people will have tea and crumpets at a certain time each day and will play cricket and speak the queen’s English. Having sent over people of noble birth to live among the natives of Africa, the natives soon took on characteristics of the British. Nothing was imposed on them, it was rather demonstrated in everyday life. The people liked what they saw and it was taken into their way of life.

Paul is saying, "You are a colony of heaven on earth. Be yourself, the way you have your attitude, the way Christ lives in you, rejoice in it. You are a Colony." We do not come in at gun point and demand that everybody become Christians. We do not mug people into the kingdom of God. Rather, we just be ourselves. As we are being ourselves there is radiating out from us the life style which is none other than Christ in us and the people begin to want what we have.

Take what Christ said of us, "Ye are the salt of the earth." God did not put into our hands the water of life and then tell us to go and shove it down people’s throats. Rather, He said, "You are salt." People get around you and you cause them to thirst. They want what you have. They get thirsty from your "saltiness" and then you can give them a drink. You "adorn" the gospel. You make it appealing by just being yourself in Christ and possessing all that Christ is in you. TO LIVE IS CHRIST. He is very attractive.

As Peter puts it, "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." They are impressed enough to "ask." They see your hope. They see that difference about your life style. They see that radiance from you, the way you handle life and they want to know about that. In fact, the Christian leaves behind a great wake (like the wake of a ship). We leave behind us question marks, and a few exclamation points. When people look at the way we live, they go away questioning. We didn’t shove it at them and demand they do what we do. We just be ourselves and "ourselves" is CHRIST IN US. That’s who we are and they are touching God when they deal with us. They are meeting Him and they don’t understand, so they ask questions. Be ready. They will ask of you a reason for the hope that is in you. You are being the Colony of Heaven on earth.

Remember the illustration of the coffee. You don’t taste coffee by sucking on a coffee bean. You need water to express coffee. Coffee is expressed through the water and then you taste the coffee. So you, with Christ in you, give off the aroma of heaven. How do the people out there know Who God is? Do you give them a tome of Theology to read concerning the attributes of God? No. God gives them some tasteless, colorless, water like us. Only in us Christ lives. So in us they taste of God. They know Who He is and what He is like. 

So Paul reminds them that they are to conduct themselves as citizens - that is - know your heavenly origin. Conduct yourselves among the people of Philippi as actual citizens of heaven itself. Let the world feel, by you being among them, that Christ is your life. We are glad to let our life be the dress of another world. We put on our togas of love, peace, and joy. We walk in the midst of a selfish, introverted world and we express the love of God among a world where "I" is law. We delight to express that Christ is ALL. Do you see? You are a Colony of Heaven.

Paul speaks of that again in 3:20 "Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven." We eagerly wait for a Savior, Jesus Christ, coming from the homeland, who is the Emperor of Emperors. And when He comes He will change us to be like Him and then the whole world will know that we really were citizens. "When Christ, Who is our life, shall appear, we also shall appear with Him in glory."

But then, if that is the case, Paul says that they must be of one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel - if you are a little caucus of people, if you are the community in miniature - there is no point in fighting one with another. You must be of one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel.

The expression "striving together" in the original Greek is "athlete." We just made it into an English word. Paul is saying, "You are a group of athletes." So he has changed his illustration but he’s got in mind the same thing. First he says you are citizens. Now he says you are a group of athletes. "Striving together" gives the idea of a relay team where every member of the team depends on every other member. In a sense, no one person wins, but the whole team wins the race. He says that you are striving together "shoulder to shoulder" (as some translate it). You are a group of athletes that live so the whole team wins and not just one of you. He is hinting at what he is going to come out and say plainly. Some ladies in Philippi were all fighting to be number one, all wanting to be the one who gets the applause of everybody. He says, "Please, shut that up."

Understand that you are a group of athletes. You are of one mind. It isn’t you getting the glory. It is the gospel of Christ winning. So it isn’t that Paul won - it is "whether I live or die" Christ be magnified. That’s the point.

"In no way alarmed ("terrified," KJV) by your opponents" - The world doesn’t like the church. Light hurts. When you first heard the gospel, you probably rose up against it. There is something we don’t like about the gospel. Darkness always rises against light. Death always rises against life. You place light in the midst of darkness and there will always be conflict.

ILLUSTRATION: Go into a very dark room - let your eyes adjust. Then look into the bright sunlight and it will hurt your eyes. Or consider the bugs in the basement. Let in the light and they run away.

Here we are living in the darkness, the delusion of this world and suddenly someone turns on the lights, announcing to us in lip and life the gospel of Christ. "Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil." Paul said, "If you live godly in Christ Jesus you will suffer persecution." There is no doubt about it. In Ephesians he says, "we come to the light" and that hurts. There is joy but there is pain, too.

I may have the attitude of the Pharisee in Luke 18, "I thank thee that I am not as other men are. I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess." And then someone turns the lights on and I see that all I thought was my salvation was "filthy rags" before God and I have to come alongside those I had counted as sinners to receive God’s salvation. It was the worst news I ever heard. I wanted to hide under a hymn book. This is terrible. To come TO the light is painful. They call it repentance. It is a change of mind, a change of heart. It is coming in spite of the pain. "Where shall I flee from God? Where can I get away from this light? There is no place to flee from God. The only way I can flee from God is to flee TO God. When I see God’s Holiness which would destroy me, I turn and flee to the Grace of God in Christ. Suddenly all the joy of the gospel is what I experience and I forget the pain. You hear the bad news before you hear the good news. The goodness of God that leads you to repentance sometimes hurts.

Many times, when you first see the light you react against these colonist of light. You wish they weren’t there. Why do these "colony of light people" have to turn up in our midst? Why do these "citizens" of another world, these who claim to have died with Christ and are now alive, why do they have to bother us? Why don’t they get out?

If you are the Christian, you may well say the same thing about the world. If it isn’t nice for the poor person of the world meeting light, their rebellion against the light is not nice for the Christian either. I don’t like not being liked, do you? I don’t like opposition. Why can’t they leave me alone? The world says it to the church and the church says it to the world. The world says, "Leave me alone." The church says, "Leave me alone." But by the very nature of the fact that light is in the midst of darkness, there is tension there.

The Philippians were experiencing that tension from the mobs of Philippi. Remember the magistrates left them alone because of what Paul had done when he was there, but that was ten years before this. Now things have changed and there is a hint all through this letter that here was opposition, not organized opposition. It wasn’t from the courts or even officially from Rome at this point. It was opposition that came from the regular fellows on the street. It was the kind of opposition you get from the neighbor. It was the kind of thing they do to you at work. I think it is more difficult to deal with that than the organized opposition. I think if it were illegal to be a Christian it would be easier. (At least you would know where you stand.) But when you are accepted as a member of the community but then everybody makes a joke of you because you are a Christian, that is awkward.

A church that doesn’t believe in grace - they don’t kick you out - it would be so simple if they would, but they let you hang around and everything you do and say, they criticize. They make you the object of joking conversation when they have coffee together. That’s tough.

These Philippians were hurting. They were hurting so much that he says, "Don’t be alarmed by your adversary." The word "ALARMED" in Greek means - do not act like a herd of frightened horses. It just takes one or two horses to stampede the whole herd. They are a prey animal and their best defense is to flee. Their fear breeds fear.

That is the word. Paul says, "As you look at all the opposition you are getting based on who you are, there is a fear that has risen in you and if I interpret what Epaphraditus says correctly, you are beginning to run and it is going to lead to more running, until all of you are scattered like horses running before a nameless fear."

ILLUSTRATION: Peter did not walk into the courtyard having made up his mind to deny Jesus. Quite the reverse. He was there because of his unusual loyalty and devotion to Jesus. It was the kid at the gate, who, with a smirk on her face, asked if Peter was one of His disciples. Once he had begun to blaspheme and deny that he ever knew Jesus, "the horses have begun to stampede." When another one who was related to the servant, whose ear Peter had chopped off, brought up the subject, Peter was a goner. Now he is trying to escape like a frightened horse, "alarmed."

PAUL COMPARES IT WITH HIS TENSIONS

"... since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have." The darkness of that city of Philippi, everything that ancient Rome stood for, all its guards, all its mentality, all its very life style, was rising and rising. The darkness was rising up against the Light to put it out. Paul says, "You saw what happened to me back there when I was with you. You saw the mob, the men of the street do what they did to me. And now you have heard what they did to me in Jerusalem that got me here in jail in Rome. So what you saw and heard happened to me, you are now experiencing. You are feeling the opposition of the world. I exhibited it before you. I was your model of how to handle the darkness that is all around you, that darkness that is so hard to define (like we have in America)."

Note what he says, "This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved-- and that by God." He said, "The very fact that darkness is against you is proof that you are Light." Do you follow that? This proves that you are not mistaken, you are not of this world. So their opposition just re-enforces the barrier that is between you and them.

The fact that death comes around you to crush you, proves that you are life. So this tension between you, the Colony of Heaven, and the people of Philippi in the darkness, it is proving that they are pagans, of the darkness, and it is proving that you are of the Light. So when you are attacked by darkness, the first thing you can do is thank God that it is proving that you are of the Light.

Perhaps we would like to do without that proof, but there it is anyway. But remember how the early Christians rejoiced after they were beaten for being of Christ. They rejoiced that they were worthy to suffer for His sake. They counted it a great honor that the darkness had done the work of separating them. The darkness said, "You are not of us." Thank God, we are then of the Light.

EXAMPLE: Sermon on the Mount- "Blessed are you (or joyous man, one to be congratulated, oh happy man) blessed are you when you are persecuted, reviled and all manner of things are said against you falsely for my name’s sake. In that day rejoice, be exceedingly glad. You know great is your reward in heaven." This is not saying that now you have been persecuted you will have a reward. NO! It is saying, you already had your reward for free (grace). God rewards us just because that is the way God is, but here He is saying, "Now you know. You knew it before, but now you know even more because the world has kicked you out. They have said that you are not one of them." You can turn a cartwheel down the street saying, "Thank God, I am not of this world ... I knew it, but now the world is even telling me." Right? Think about it.

THIS IS NOT SATAN WINNING

This is not a matter of Satan winning. God has merely allowed Satan to do his worst. When I say this, I don’t mean that Satan did it and God has to say, "Well, I guess I had better let it go through." NO! God actively allowed it. What Satan does is push his people to do what they wanted to do anyway. So God actively allows it, but He doesn’t make anybody do it. It is still their sin - not His. (See Acts 4:27 - "Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen." and Acts 2:23 - "This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross." It is their sin, but it was God’s sovereign purpose that was accomplished by that sin. Satan did not win, God did and so did we.)

Let me ask you a question. Why are we not suffering persecution the way some believers are in other countries? Do you think that American pagans are nicer than Chinese pagans? In the purposes of God (purposes that I will leave with God) He does not allow them to touch you. If ever they did, it would be because God allowed them to and they would do what they always wanted to do anyway. In the inscrutable Wisdom of God, He has chosen to allow some other persons in the world to persecute Christians in their country, but they could not do what they want to do without Divine permission. Do you see?

Paul is saying here that this is all under God’s control. Don’t stand there saying, "Well, the Devil is winning. Look what’s happening." He says, "In no way ALARMED (TERRIFIED) by your opponents. It is destruction for them but a sign of salvation for you, and that, too from God." So the fact they are against you and the fact that you know you are Light, all of that is from God, not Satan. It is from God. God has allowed Satan, has allowed these people to do their worst; but it is from God.

He thinks they might get a little shocked by that, so he goes on to explain himself. He says, "... it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him ...." GRANTED? Do you know what the Greek word for "granted" is? CHARIS. Charis means "a free gift." Charis in Greek was used often to describe a birthday gift. A gift you hadn’t worked for or earned - just given in the sheer love of the person who gave it. Charis. "It has been given to you."

This special gift was given to them, that they should suffer for Him. Huh? Yes. They had to learn this. We have to learn it. It is not an accident or some diabolical plan that has thrown off the purposes of God when there is opposition from the world. God says, "I’m giving this to you, just like I gave you the gift of believing in Me, I am giving you the gift of suffering for Me." It isn’t that the Devil wins, nor is it that we sit in the darkness and say, "God, are you mad at me?" NO! You can rejoice in it, knowing that God is actively in this. This is SINGLE VISION IN SUFFERING. This is what is meant when they said they counted themselves worthy to have suffered for His Name’s sake.

IS THERE A BETTER WAY?

Why does God allow that? Really. Why doesn’t God just get rid of all the evil? So wicked men want to oppose the gospel, does God have to let them? I can’t give you the ultimate answer to that. There have been theologians for thousands of years that have tried to explain the problem of evil, but there is one or two things I might suggest.

God allows it because He is a Just God. When all is said and done, He will have declared (before His own Name, before us, before His church, and before everyone of the hosts of heaven, angelic and demonic)  that He was just to them. Evil can oppose God, but never win. Evil says, "If you ever let me have a go at it, Your Name will be mud." God says, "Have a go at it." And when all is said and done, evil has been proved an absolute lie (not just because God said so). God demonstrates it. He lets darkness be itself and demonstrates forever that it is a lie. When they choose evil, God doesn’t go into a nervous breakdown. He lets it happen. He doesn’t stop it.

"Do your worst. Come on." And then when evil is ripe, God steps into the middle of evil, endures the suffering to the worst, lets it kill Him and then POW!!!! HE MAKES THE FINAL DEMONSTRATION OF HIMSELF AND EVIL FALLS BACK DEFEATED. Now evil has been allowed to come forth and because He has let it come forth and defeated it by His own Self, it has been done in, it has had it, FOREVER. It has forever been demonstrated as useless.

He took that victory and put it into you and me. Now He has put us into the evil that has already been destroyed and He let it happen. He let the evil pressure us in order that out through our lips the Word of the Cross, the Word of Resurrection, the Word of Who God really is, might be stated by US! And they fall back doubly defeated - defeated in one stroke at the cross and that defeat is said over and over again by millions of little Christians in every kind of darkness. HALLELUJAH!!!!! Do you see what I am proclaiming about you? Go into that darkness and be Light. (Eph. 5:8 "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light") Go back over this. This is glorious ... it is the truth. Know it and the truth will set you free within your suffering. This is SINGLE VISION IN SUFFERING.

You may be in the middle of a certain kind of darkness - a darkness that comes directly from the powers of evil because of the gospel, because of who you are in Christ - DON’T RUN LIKE A FRIGHTENED HORSE. Understand that God has given you the unspeakable privilege while in union with Christ, standing in the middle of darkness, to deliberately, with choice, with understanding, and with your lips, give glory to God and say Light is Light, God is God.

The Devil says, "you think God loves you. Look what He is doing to you." And through the darkness and pressure, you make your statement - "I KNOW GOD IS LOVE. EVEN THOUGH HE SLAY ME, YET WILL I TRUST HIM." The darkness will shrivel and disappear. It is gone! Defeated!

THE EARLY CHURCH

The Church in the beginning in the Acts of the Apostles had it rough. If I were God, I wouldn’t have started it off like that. Look. You have a bunch of men with no experience. Now, giving them the Holy Spirit was a good idea, but then why couldn’t He have looked after them better? They have hardly received the Holy Spirit before they get a thrashing. Now really. Just getting started and the leaders are beaten up. Why couldn’t God have wiped out Annas and Caiaphas? Why not?

Then look what happens. Along comes Saul of Tarsus. He begins a persecution with the stoning of Stephen. Stephen stoned? I would never have taken the best mouthpiece of the gospel and had him stoned to death. Stephen could have done every bit and more that the Apostle Paul did, but he was stoned. He was a brilliant fellow, such potential. I would have struck them dead with some sort of Divine fire. But God actively allowed it.

This persecution spread to the whole church until the church is scattered. Why? Do you realize that if it hadn’t been like that, you probably would not be where you are today. That little church in Jerusalem made a nice little nest. They weren’t going anywhere. They sold everything and shared it all with the believers. That community was a necessary beginning but how is the message going to get out to the whole world?

Persecution, that’s how. Persecution scattered believers all over the world. They went everywhere because of evil, but while they went they preached the gospel. Thank you, Devil. You managed to get the gospel to the ends of the earth with all your evil. You see?

THE PURPOSE OF OPPOSITION ILLUSTRATED

They tell me that to get an airplane off the ground you need two things: power and opposition. If you only have opposition, the plane will not go anywhere. If you only have power, it will just go and go but it will remain on the ground. But when a powerful jet engine moves the plane against the opposition of gravity and wind the plane takes off.

God gave the church the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and He allowed the negative to pressure the church and she "took off" to be who she is in Christ, right in the midst of evil.

We could go on about this, but perhaps you have seen enough to know how to deal with your troubles, with your suffering, with the opposition. We understand that preeminently, God is All and in all. We understand God works in the darkness. In fact, our lives rise against the darkness and confess God in that darkness - in that we have affirmed God and defeated darkness and become better people. We have, in fact, "taken off" for the realms we were always made for.

You have to apply this where you find yourself right now. This is all useless unless you apply this to your life. Go - look through the darkness - look through the confusion - look through the opposition - look through what you thought was God cheating you by not doing what you wanted Him to do - look through it all and SEE GOD - SOVEREIGN, THE ONLY KING, THE ONLY WISE GOD, AND CONFESS THE GODHOOD OF GOD AND THE WISDOM OF GOD AND THE RIGHTNESS OF GOD AND HIS LOVE AND HIS GOODNESS AND HIS SOVEREIGNTY IN YOUR LIFE NOW !!! THIS IS SINGLE VISION. THIS IS SEEING GOD IN ALL THINGS.

I won’t promise you that the darkness will then disappear. Remember, IF HE DOESN’T DELIVER US, WE STILL WON’T BEND BEFORE THE IDOL. So maybe the darkness won’t go, but you have confessed your God, you rest in God, you become a new person on the inside. Don’t forget the confession. If the darkness is going to go, it will be after the confession. It is in your confession of God, in your worship of God that it goes. In your worship and confession of God, darkness has lost its power whether it goes or stays. You have become, in fact, WHO YOU REALLY ARE IN CHRIST.

TO LIVE IS CHRIST.

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