To do God’s work, we are going to have to work with others in Christ.

“³Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.” – Philippians 4:3 (ESV)

In this passage, Paul is referencing two women that have worked closely with him in the spreading of the gospel. These women have been doing great work for Christ and have somehow begun to disagree with one another.

Paul is employing the Philippians to work with these women and get them back on the same page and to realize that they are working for the same goal.

We often find ourselves at odds with others and after dissecting the circumstances and the facts, it will turn out to be personality conflicts as opposed to significant differences in goal. The goal is what should be driving the actions and not the personalities.

Sure, the personalities can bring things to life and encourage others, but the goal should be centered and everyone should be seeking to reach it together. When the people are at odds, the end result is missed, not to mention that the others that are seeking to reach that goal then become confused and divided due to the original odds of those with the personality differences.

When we are doing the work of Christ, we should be doing that work with others of Christ with joy and encouragement in our hearts. We should work as one toward the common goal as opposed to letting our egos and personalities get in the way.

When you are working with other Christians, are you working as one? Are you allowing your personality differences get in the way of God’s work? Are you laboring with other Christians?

It seems a bit bold for me to indicate the title of my study this morning. “No Matter What”. That is a pretty forward thinking mindset.

Isn’t that the point?

“¹⁸What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, ¹⁹for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, ²⁰as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” – Philippians 1:18-20 (ESV)

Paul was a man with a very uncertain future; here in this world. But all was good for his eternity; life with Christ. It was easy for Paul to exclaim his continued pressing to the exaltation of Christ because his future was secure in Christ. He may have been uncertain of what lie ahead on earth in the next few days, months, or years, but his ultimate future with Christ was secure to the nth degree.

Am I secure enough in my ultimate future to proclaim Christ at every turn here in this world? As a Christian, I have the same security as Paul. I should have the same resolve in my ultimate future. I should be living for Christ; “No Matter What”.

Are you proclaiming Christ at every turn in the world? Are you secure in your ultimate future? Are you able to have a life in Christ; “No Matter What”?

“²⁰But that is not the way you learned Christ—²¹assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus, ²²to put off you old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, ²³and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, ²⁴and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” – Ephesians 4:20-24 (ESV)

As Christians, we do a lot of work on and with our hearts; giving, caring, going, and doing. And where that is a great way to approach our work for Christ, that is not all nor where it all begins. In the verses above, here are some of the words and phrases I am referring to: “learned, taught, put off, spirit of you minds, put on”. All of these refer to something more cerebral, or educational and indicate a choice.

We should “love and serve the Lord with all that is in them, including their minds (ESV Commentary)”. Before we can help with our hearts, we have to make the conscious choice to help, and that is with our minds.

Our decision to accept Christ is just that, a decision and that invokes the mind. Yes, we are convicted in our hearts, but it is in the mind that we choose to accept. We may be driven by our emotions, however it is our intellect that allows us to reason that the decision is right and good.

When you think of your life with Christ, are you only thinking of the emotional? Will you take a closer look at your conscious choice? Will you act on your choice of Christ and life with Him?

“²⁰I have been crucified with Christ. It is on longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” – Galatians 2:20 (ESV)

Paul says here in his letter to the Galatians that he as he knew himself is no longer there. When he accepted salvation as provided by Christ, his old self passed and now he lives only as Christ lives in him. Christ died for Paul and now Paul lives for Christ.

As I walk through life as a Christian I should be setting aside my wants. My wants should have died with my acceptance of salvation as provided by Christ Jesus’ death. I died with Christ.

Christ rose from death. I rose with Him at my baptism. I am clean and started fresh. I now live for Christ Jesus and no longer pursue my own wants, only the work of Christ should I be concerned.

When you walk through life, are you still trying to succeed with your wants? Did you “die” with Christ and rise again new? Is your life for Christ?

“⁵Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, ⁶who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” – 2 Corinthians 3:5-6 (ESV)

Where does our life come from? Here we see reference to the letter which is speaking of the “letter of the law”. You see, just following the law gets us nowhere in relation to God and our eternal life. In the Old Testament, man followed the law of God, but the Old Testament is long past.

Now we have the New Covenant, salvation through the death and resurrection of Christ. Now we are given eternal life by the Spirit. We still uphold the law of man, but only through our upholding the marks of a true Christian as outlined in Romans 12.

In the Old Testament, following God relied heavily on following the laws and ceremonial customs of the time. When the veil was torn at the death of Christ, we were given direct access to Him and that direct access afforded us eternal life with our belief and devotion to him. We no longer need the “letter of the law” to guide us, we have the Spirit of the Lord in our hearts to give us the direction we need.

When you look at your approach, are you looking solely at how well you follow the law? Are you looking to the Spirit for your guidance? Have you received eternal life by accepting the salvation provided by Christ’s death and resurrection, and the Spirit of the Lord written on your Heart?

“¹⁷Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches…²⁴So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.” – 1 Corinthians 7:17 & 24 (ESV)

When we came to Christ, he knew us already. He knew who we were. He knew what we had done. He knew our overall condition. He accepted us in spite of it all.

As God has accepted us for who we are, we should remain who we are and work for God right as we are. Whether we are high profile religious leaders, captains of industry, front line blue collar workers, or still trying to find our way, God provided us salvation with the only expectation being we now ultimately work for Him. We were/are not asked to somehow become more than we are, we are only to do God’s work right where we are.

Now, if we have the opportunity to better ourselves, God is certainly for that and as a part of His plan, He will provide for those opportunities to be realized. The thing we have to remember is that wherever and whatever we are, God accepted us in that condition and only want us to do His work in accordance with the plan He has laid out for us.

“⁵Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ ⁶So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’” – Hebrews 13:5-6 (ESV)

Are you content with what you have today? Are you looking only to work for God? Will you serve God with life as you are?

In December of last year, I wrote about God’s Love always being there, referencing Romans 8:38-39. I was studying love at the time and was reminded that God’s Love is never separate from us. This morning I was lead to the same passage as I am studying life.

“³⁸For I am sure that neither death nor life, or angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 8:38-39 (ESV)

You see, we have a lot going on in our lives. We are pulled many directions and in some cases may lose sight of what is important. The thing is that once we are brothers and sisters in Christ, we are never separated from Him and all we have to do is come back.

There is something we do for our return, and to some it may be difficult. You see, we have to repent and recognize that we were wrong. Admitting we are wrong and that we need forgiveness is tough for some to grasp based on our egos. Where that may be, surrendering to God is what we do to get back on track.

Whereas we may drift off the path, we are never separated from God. When we have truly accepted the gift of salvation, God at that moment placed a GPS chip with us so that He always knows where we are. Regardless of our situations, we are never separated from Him.

Have you drifted off the path? Are you looking to get back to God? Will you sit and repent, ask for forgiveness, and allow God to activate the GPS so that you will once again be connected?

Death to sin is quite the statement I know. The newness in life is a pretty great statement as a contrast. But what does “death to sin” mean?

Go with me for a second. As I studied and sat down to write, the adage of “you are dead to me” came to mind. I know that I have seen in the movies and have read that after some event where someone disappoints another there is a declaration by the one of “disowning” the one that disappointed, thereby not acknowledging their existence any longer. This seems like a fitting description of our death to sin. We no longer acknowledge the pursuit of sin.

“⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” – Romans 6:6 (ESV)

We are free from the destructive forces of sin’s pull on our lives as we now have Christ and His plan for our lives to focus on.

“⁴We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” – Romans 6:4 (ESV)

Now that we have buried sin, we can put up our hand and declare the following, “Sin, you are dead to me!”

Now are we done with sin, OH NO! Sin will continue to come around and we will be tempted to allow it back, but if we have truly begun to “walk in newness of life”, we will be able to maintain our distance and keep in holding to our declaration of the death of sin.

In your life, are you enslaved to sin? Are you able to declare, “Sin, you are dead to me!”? Will you take the opportunity to accept the “newness of life” that Christ provides?

You know, we were made sinners thanks to the disobedience of one, and we were given life through the obedience of one.

“¹⁹For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. ²⁰Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, ²¹so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” – Romans 5:19-21 (ESV)

We know the story of Adam’s deliberate eating from the Tree of Knowledge. He knew the rule and chose to break it. Once he broke the rule, sin was introduced to the world. As a result of his rule breaking, the Ten Commandments were given by God to provide our guidance. And then, man decided that we needed more rules and laws to “keep us from sinning”. What we learned from Adam (by way of Satan) is the adage that “rules were meant to be broken”.

Careful with how you interpret what I am saying here, if the law did not outline all of the things we should not do, we may not do those things. The lore of the forbidden drives us to “try” things that we would not normally try. Adam was ultimately intrigued to break the rule and likewise we are as well. His rule breaking ultimately led to our sinful nature.

Jesus on the other hand was without sin. No matter the rules before Him as set by man, He followed the rules of God and therefore did not sin. (See Romans 12 to know and study the marks of a true Christian.) One man, Jesus, brought us salvation from our sinful nature, that one man, Adam, brought us into.

When you look at the sin in your life, are you aware that it is a result of the one man, Adam? Are you looking for the way out of that sinful life? Are you willing to accept the gift of one man, Jesus Christ our Lord?

Christ Died for us as Sinners. He now lives for us as Brothers and Sisters.

“⁸but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” – Romans 5:8-10 (ESV)

We were saved from death by the death of Christ. We are given life in Christ through His resurrection from that death. Our life is made better by the death and life of Christ. He died so we did not have to and He rose to give us life.

“⁸We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” – 2 Corinthians 4:8-10 (ESV)

As Christians, we are a lot of things, but beaten is not one of them. We are always aware of sacrifice of Christ’s death for us, but we should also be always aware of the life given to us by the resurrected life of Christ.

When you look at it, are you aware of what Christ did for you? Are you ever aware of His death so you did not have to die? Are you living the life that He gave to you through His resurrection?