Philippians (Program #45) -The Word of Life Being Identical to Living Christ

What is the secret of strong faith in Christ?  Well, today we will look back at the experience of some fathers in the faith to learn helpful lessons from them that would hopefully save us a lot of time and trouble.

It’s good to look back at some of our predecessors in the faith and to see how they learn to receive God’s word through prayer.

We’ve been talking a lot about the relationship between the Word and the Spirit and how these two should never be separated.  When we come to the Bible we need prayer and we also need to add the words of the Bible itself to our prayer.

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Philippians (Program #37) -The Rich Word, the Bountiful Supply, and Unceasing Prayer for Living Christ

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God.”  Colossians 3:16.  We have another life study today revealing the secret of connecting the Word, the bountiful supply of the Spirit and unceasing prayer for the purpose of living Christ.

We come to the critical matter of just how to take this processed Triune God that we’ve been hearing about in recent programs into our being as food.  Many of us have thought that this means to just memorize Bible verses and recite them, may be we have a box full of verses that sits on our dinner table and we practice that. This is a good practice that we don’t put it down. But there is more to this then just memorizing verses.

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Philippians (Program #35) – Living Christ by Receiving the Word Through the Spirit

Do you ever wonder how the Christian life can be more practical to you or how you can experience the rich Christ that you heard spoken of.

We are touching the things that are most burdened with. To review some of the key verses and in this comparison we have been looking at the two verses, Philippians 1:19-20 “For I know that for me this will turn out to salvation through your petition and the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I will be put to shame, but with all boldness, as always, even now Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death.” And the comparison we are going to see 2:12 and16.  Verse 12 “So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only but now much rather in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; and verse 16, “Holding forth the word of life, so that I may have a boast in the day of Christ that I did not run in vain nor labor in vain.”

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1 & 2 Chronicles (Program #8) – Living Christ for the Expression of God

After the division of Israel into two kingdoms, God was still able to point to some among His people that have not given up their proper standing and had maintained at least outwardly some devotion to His fundamental word.  God’s word at that time of course, consisted of the laws.  But many don’t realize the law came in two sections, both of which came through Moses.  The first section is the law of commandments, were the ten commandments we commonly referred to them.  These are the moral laws that God gave to His people cover all aspects of relationships.  The second section is called the ceremonial law, the laws governing the details of the offerings and the priesthood and the feasts that God established for His people.

Though the kings of Judah stood on the proper ground of Jerusalem and professed allegiance to all the laws of God, in reality they kept neither the moral law nor the ceremonial law.  The result was that ultimately they lost their possession and enjoyment of the good land that God had given them.  What can we, God’s New Testament people learn from such a tragic example?

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Philippians (Program #6a) – Magnifying Christ by Living Him (1)

Philippians is a book that shows the reality of experiencing Christ. The apostle Paul presents himself as the living witness as the one who experience Christ in the depth of his being regardless of his outward circumstances or sufferings. Paul had learned the key not just how to endure hardship but how to allow every situation to become an opportunity for Christ to be magnified and expressed even in his body. A wonderful glimpse into the life of a person who was experiencing being one living with our Lord Jesus Christ

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Philippians (Program #1) – The Background and Subject of the Book

Living Christ and magnifying Christ in whatever circumstance is the message of the book of Philippians.

Marvelous book, what a precious book is the book of Philippians. Today is a happy day, because Philippians is a very special book for this ministry because it relates so much so specifically to the experience of Christ.

The past several months we’ve been covered life studies in Matthew, Revelation, Daniel, tremendous books with a lot of prophesies and items related to coming features events and a lot of doctrines and teaching, very healthy teaching.  But we are going to focusing now on Christ and the practical experience of Christ. They are two phrases I like to read that represent the basic concept of the entire book of Philippians and also this life study.  First one is found in Philippians 1:21 “Christ will be magnified in my body”.  And that is not doctrine by any means.  The second is found on the next verse, it says, “to me to live is Christ”. So we have magnifying Christ and living Christ as the big subjects.  We all hope and pray that all of our listeners to get into and appreciate these items more and more in the coming weeks.

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2 Corinthians (Program #46) – Paul’s Vindication of His Apostolic Authority (1)

The last section of 2 Corinthians beginning at chapter 10, marks a strong contrast to the first nine chapters of this book.  The apostle Paul throughout most of the book was pleasant, intimate and very tender  with the Corinthians believers.  But in this final segment, he is forced to vindicate his own apostolic authority, because both he himself personally as well as his ministry and work had been severely undermined by other so call Christian workers who had come in to distract, damage  and confuse the Corinthians.  Just how does Paul approach this delicate and difficult situation?  Actually seeing the apostle dealing with such a problem is a marvelous window for all of us to see what it is to be a person one with  and living Christ.

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2 Corinthians (Program #38) – The Minister’s of the New Covenant (11)

2 Corinthians is a marvelous book giving us both a detailed biography of the apostle Paul and a clear understanding of the goal of the New Testament ministry.  The goal as we have seen is for the believers and unbelievers alike to be fully reconciled to God.  That means that both in fact and in our experience, there is no barrier, no hindrance, nothing separating us from enjoying God and living Christ.  This is the ministry that Paul and the other apostles were commissioned with.  Further, it should be the goal of our own Christian life.  We have been saved many years ago, having settled that question of our eternal destiny once for all.  But do we live a life that’s fully reconciled to God?  This was Paul’s question to the believers in Corinth as well.   Listen 5:20 of  2 Corinthians say:

“On behalf of Christ then we are ambassadors, as God entreats you through us; we beseech you on behalf of Christ, Be reconciled to God.“

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2 Corinthians (Program #16) – A Pattern of Living Christ for the Church

The apostle Paul’s two epistles or letters to the Church in Corinth are definitely related. But if we read carefully we can see that really they are in two different realms.

The first letter dealt with many major problems in the Church. Problems that are in many ways still plague the Church today. The solution that Paul presents in 1 Corinthians is for the believers to live Christ for the church. And this is the link to the other realm that is clearly presented in 2 Corinthians. For in this book more than any other in the Bible, we see the pattern of person living Christ for the church not merely spoken of but demonstrated. The apostle Paul and even other apostles with him really lived this pattern.

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2 Corinthians (Program #2) -Introduction (2)

The apostle Paul was a remarkable person. He was used by the sovereign God to unveil much of the New Testament revelation. He also performed wondrous miracles and was a mighty evangelist. Yet in the book that had been understood to almost be his autobiography, he tells us that his only boast was in the singleness or sincerity or purity with which he and his co-workers lived and served the faithful God by living Christ. Listen to his words to the church in Corinth in 2 Corinthians chapter 1,

12 “For our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in singleness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you.”

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