The Fulfillment of Paul's Joy, No. 2 - PH35-02

Advanced Bible Doctrine - Philippians 2:1-4

Which way we will react is determined by something that has previously been established within us, and that is the mentality that we have formed--the viewpoint which we have formed. It can be either human viewpoint or divine viewpoint. Our reaction to undeserved suffering will be determined by this viewpoint.

One of the techniques I tried to warn you about last time is that Satan attempts to convert undeserved suffering into deserve suffering through those who are close to us. The way he does this is to cause people who are close to us to be negative to the Word of God; to be resisters of God's viewpoint; and, to be indifferent to the instruction and the principles of Bible doctrine. Consequently, people who are close to us in any area of life, whether it be family or business or social areas, can go negative. When they are negative, there is a situation set up where their negative responses bring discipline of God upon their lives. We are caught up in the context of that discipline, though we ourselves are not directly under that discipline. We ourselves are not under that suffering as deserved suffering, where someone close to us is under discipline as deserved suffering.

The danger in that condition is that you will react in such a way according to the restrictions upon your own volition. All you have to do is think some time recently you've had an experience (it happens to us constantly) where somebody's negative volition response has caused a restriction on our own volition and on our own expression of our choices. We have been restrained. We have been boxed-in by somebody else's resistance to God's viewpoint.

When you are boxed-in like that, there is within us a spirit that rises up in indignation, and where we were not suffering because we deserved it, we react to being boxed-in by somebody else's negative volition in such a way that Satan traps us into receiving suffering which we now deserve.

You may find your volition being frustrated, and this is wrong. One of the divine institutions is freedom of your choice. Whether it is within the family; whether it is government; whether it is in social affairs; whether it is in school; or, any place at all within the context of lines of authority which do exist, your volition is to be free to make its choices. So Satan uses negative responses of people close to us to cause us grief, which otherwise we would not have, and our response to that grief brings us suffering which we deserve.

Well, since suffering is a fact of the Christian life, Paul, at the beginning of Philippians 2, draws a conclusion. We're going to tie this together. Actually, I want to give you a little preview that there was a problem in the church at Philippi. While this was a splendid church, it had its problems in some direction. One of these problems he's going to take up in the very last chapter of Philippians. These two verses set the scene for what he has to say about that problem a little later on. What he has to say in these two verses is the kind of a problem that you and I too will face in our day. So what we have here is a very tremendous lineup of what is true about us on the one hand because we are believers in Christ with the full revelation of the Word of God, and what we should be in our practice. We are forever trying to tie our position and our practice together. Verse 1 gives us our position. Verse 2 tells us what our practice should be. Later in the book, he ties this in as the answer to solving a problem that exists in the church at Philippi.

If Statements

For example, suppose that you're planning on going and seeing the football game tomorrow. One of the disasters you may have would be a rainstorm. It would be a matter of doubt if you were to say, "If it rains tomorrow, I'll get a rain check." Now, here's a doubt. You don't know whether it's going to rain or not, but if it does rain (maybe it will and maybe it won't), there is a certain kind of condition that is called a third class condition in Greek that could say that. It would say it in a certain way. One might say, "Maybe it will or maybe it won't, but if it does, I'm going to get a rain check so I can use my ticket at another game."

However, you might say something like this: "I confess my sins." If you were to come to me and say, "Well, I confess my sins. I use the technique of the confession of sins." I could respond to you and say, "Well, if you do that, then you are a spiritual Christian." Now I have used the word "if" again, not in the sense of doubt like I did in whether it was going to rain tomorrow. I am using it in the sense of "since." It is true. "Well, since you do that, then I can tell you that you are a spiritual Christian." You said, "I confess my known sins as I become aware of them." I replied, "Well, if you do that, then you are a spiritual Christian." That's the condition for spirituality in the Scriptures.

The First If--Comfort

The comfort, we pointed out, comes as the result of the fact that you have within you inner happiness, if you have come to spiritual maturity. If you have not come to spiritual maturity, you don't have any kind of happiness. But if you have come to spiritual maturity, you have inner happiness. When suffering strikes your inner happiness, comfort is the result, and the appeal of that comfort is that you should respond with divine viewpoint responses. So the first "if" says that the Philippians do have a comfort from the inner happiness of the spiritual maturity structure which they built in their souls, and during undeserved suffering, this comfort of the Lord appeals to them for a divine viewpoint response to their suffering.

The Second If--Love and Solace

The word "paramuthion" stresses the agent of this comfort, and the agent of this comfort is love. The word "love" is the "agape" love. There are two different kinds of words for love in the Bible. This is "agape." "Agape" love is a mental love. It is what we have referred to as a relaxed mental attitude. It is a mind which is free of all bitterness and all other mental attitude sins. So a mental attitude love makes us happy in the midst of the angelic conflict. The word that we have here for love is that distinctive word, and you should distinguish it from the other word which has an emotional connotation. This is the relaxed mental attitude in the mentality.

Forgiveness

If you are bringing up what someone has done in the past, and of course, in the heat of argument, in the heat of some conflict, this is what Satan is standing around doing. Satan is standing around, and you're beginning to have your emotions rise and your mind is beginning to blank out. Your emotions are taking over. Satan is standing there saying, "Hey, do you remember last week what that person said? Do you remember what she said? Why don't you remind her and refresh her memory on that? So you do remind her. Here you have this mounting tide of remembering. That means that you never forgave in the first place.

It would be horrible if God acted in forgiveness the way we do. God says when He forgives, He forgets. The two go together. You cannot forgive without forgetting. If you do not forgive and forget, I can tell you right now that you do not have a relaxed mental attitude. You are plain unadulterated out of it. You do not have divine viewpoint thinking. No way. You may comfort yourself and you make it yourself and you may be a great church worker and everything else, but you don't have it here at the crucial point. The Lord Jesus Christ, through God the Holy Spirit, could reveal to the apostle Paul that the Philippian Christians were a group of believers in those various local churches that were in the city of Philippi who had developed a relaxed mental attitude. They had "agape" love. They were not going around with bitterness and mental attitude sins toward other people. They had basically the spirit of forgiveness.

If you have a spirit of forgiveness, you won't have mental attitude sins. They're all hinged on that. Any sin you have; any hate; any revenge; any competition; any slander; any gossip; and, anything similar that you have is all hindered to the sense of forgiveness. You go ahead and keep wanting to keep the record straight. You go ahead and keep reminding people. You go ahead and shoot your mouth off all you want to some individual that has injured you and to everybody else, and I'll tell you that God will bring your house down around your ears so hard you'll be screaming with pain. There are some people who are never going to learn that what they do with their mouths is what God pays most attention to. This is because the mouth is revealing the mentality. If you want to bring real grief into your life, just ignore what the book of James reminds us--that our mouths are like somebody going through a beautiful national forest and throwing a match in the dry brush. It sets the whole forest aflame. It rages and tears without reason and without sense, and it destroys everything in its path.

So this was a great thing for Paul to be able to say concerning these Christians. "If (and it is true that) there is a comfort and a solace of love among you, a mental attitude." So when suffering comes into the life of the believer, it strikes his relaxed mental attitude, and he is encouraged to go on. So the second "if" says that the Philippians enjoy a tender solace of love, which eases the pain of undeserved suffering and encourages them to move ahead.

The Third If--Fellowship with God the Holy Spirit

That's why it is a horrible thing for us to go through the day without being sensitive to the need to stop and say, "Father, that was wrong what I said; that was wrong what I did; or, that was wrong what I thought," and to make confession immediately as we are aware of these sins. This is crucial to maintaining the status of fellowship with God our Father and with the Spirit of God as a partner.

When suffering hits a believer who is in the status of spirituality, he is filled with despair, he will respond with divine viewpoint to his suffering. The Philippians were meeting the angelic attack as those who were in partnership with the Holy Spirit. One thing that is very desirable when you're in combat of any kind, it's great to know that you've got members on the team who are reliable; that you can depend upon; and, who are going to do their job. Nobody likes to go into combat with people that you're not sure of; people who are untrustworthy; or, people that you don't know whether they will stand in battle or turn and run. It is great to think that we are in the angelic conflict, and of all things, we have on our combat team in this conflict God the Holy Spirit. He's not going to turn. He's not going to run. He's going to be there when we need Him, and He's going to come through for us.

It is true that we believers are all filled with God the Holy Spirit. It is also true that if we have used the technique of confession of sin, that we are in fellowship as partners with Him, functioning partners with God the Holy Spirit. So the third "if" here says that the Philippians are in temporal fellowship, so they are controlled by God the Holy Spirit during their undeserved suffering. It is a bad thing to be experiencing undeserved suffering and not be controlled by God the Holy Spirit.

The Fourth If--Goodwill and Pity

This should not be unusual to us. They just used a different part of the body than we use. When you want to express feelings, what do you think of? You also think of an organ of the body. It's not as distressing, and it's less offensive to our minds, because we speak of the heart. The heart is just a physical organ, and it has no relationship to emotions whatsoever. But we use the word "heart" in that way. The Bible also uses the word "heart," but it means "mind." When the Bible uses the word "heart," it is in terms of thinking--the mentality. So when you look at it in the Bible, "heart" is a place for thinking, where to us, "heart" is a place for feeling.

Well, these people thought about the abdomen and the organs of the abdomen as being the place of feeling. This is not unusual in actual practice because under emotional crises, that's exactly where people do feel things--in the pit of the stomach, so to speak. So what this translation means is "tender mercies" or just plain "affections." It connotes feelings of kindness and goodwill. So tender mercies (intestines) means "feelings of goodwill." The word "compassions" is the word "oiktirmos." That simply means pity for someone else in this suffering. This is pity which expresses itself in mercy. It connotes a sympathetic, emotional response toward others who are in suffering.

We have this, for example, demonstrated in Genesis 43:30, 1 Kings 3:26, and Philippians 1:8. It is the idea of pity or a sympathetic response for the suffering of other people. So the fourth "if" here is saying that the Philippians have a feeling of Christian goodwill and pity for others in their undeserved suffering.

So here's what we have. All four of these are true of the Philippian Christians. They have a comfort that they experience because there is an inner happiness within them. This comfort is an appeal to them that they respond with divine viewpoint. There is a comfort or an encouragement (a solace) because there is a relaxed mental attitude within them. They have a mind that's free of mental sins. They also are in fellowship with God the Holy Spirit. They have all known sins confessed, and they are in temporal fellowship. Therefore, they are in partnership with God the Holy Spirit. They have tender mercies and compassion. They exercise affection and pity. They are capable of an emotional response. This will determine, therefore, their actions now.

Verse 2 comes along and it answers the question: "So what, this being true?" Well, in verse 2, we have the apodosis or the conclusion. Paul says, "Because these four things are true of you, I now feel free to ask you to do something for me, and that is to fulfill my joy." "Fulfill you my joy." That's the conclusion. The apostle Paul has a spiritual maturity in his soul. Therefore, he has an inner happiness within his soul. But there is an element that would complete; that would expand; and, that would bring to fulfillment the inner happiness that he has. It is something that they can do. Then he proceeds to tell them what these things are.

But the conclusion in itself is "fulfill". The word "fulfill" is the Greek word "pleroo" which you have met before. "Pleroo" has several meanings in the Bible that are very illuminating. You have to determine which meaning is used. Let's look at these briefly because this word is a very significant word in the Bible.

One of the meanings is "to fill to the full." We have this in Matthew 13:47-48: "Again the kingdom of heaven is like a net which was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind, which when it was full." That is, here was an empty net, and it is filled to the full. "They drew to shore and sat down, gathered the good into vessels, and cast the bad away." So that's one way in which "pleroo" is used. That is the sense of removing a deficiency. Something that is lacking is now filled.

Then it is used in the sense of completing something. We have this in Colossians 1:25: "Of which I became a minister according to the dispensation of God which was given for me to fulfil the Word of God." Here the Word of God is completing something in them. It is completing their relationship in the expression of that which Christ had begun in suffering, and they are going to complete now in their own lives. This is the meaning of the word as it is used in Philippians 2:2. This is the idea "to complete something"--"to bring it to a finished state."

It also means "to fulfill something." We have this in John 12:38. Here it is bringing to fulfillment a prophecy: "That the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled ('pleroo') which he spoke, 'Lord, who has believed our report?"

Then it is used in the sense of bringing something to an end. You have this in Acts 12:25 where it is used in this way: "And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their ministry." That is, when they had brought their ministry to an end.

So the word "fulfill" that Paul uses here in Philippians 2:2 is used in the sense of the second definition--to complete something. So Paul is saying, "You can do something to complete the happiness that exists in my soul." And the reasons he then gives are also fourfold, just like there were four things that were true of them. Incidentally "pleroo" is aorist sense which means it's at the point where the Philippians will complete Paul's joy by something that they do. It is active. The Philippians have to choose to make Paul happy in this way. But it is an imperative, which is interesting. It's a command. Paul is commanding them to finish his joy since this is a mental attitude that he is calling upon them, and this is God's will for them as a local church.

So he says, "Fulfill you my joy that." The word "that" is the Greek word "hina" which introduces the basis of his joy and what would make him happy. The word "that" is a signal for, "Here's what will make me happy if you will do this."

Like-Minded

What he is saying is that they are to be of a certain mental type. When they walk into that local congregation, they should be of the divine viewpoint type of mentality. He says, "You be like-minded." The word "like" here is the Greek word "autos," and it means "same"--that you have the same pattern of thinking is what he means--the divine viewpoint mentality. This will bring joy. Human viewpoint mentality doesn't bring joy to anybody.

The Doctrine of Mental Attitude

1. Number one in the doctrine of mental attitude is that every Christian must choose between human viewpoint and divine viewpoint as his mental attitude (Isaiah 55:7-9). God's thoughts are one thing; our thoughts are something else; and, we choose one or the other. You are a very deluded person if you think that just what you think naturally is what God also thinks. What you think naturally, God says, leads to death. What you think has to be something that God has developed in your mind so that you're functioning on a divine viewpoint outlook.
   
   
2. What a person is and does is determined by his pattern of thinking (Proverbs 23:7). What you are is what you think. The Bible is very clear about that. If you don't like what you do in life, then change your thinking. If you don't like what your children are doing, then try to change their thinking. Don't be telling them, "Well, you should act like this and this and this." That may be true. But the problem with them is that they have wrong lines of thought. So you go to them and you try to feed into their mental computer divine viewpoint doctrinal principles. Then if they will accept it and go positive, they'll start reacting outwardly in the right way.
   
   
3. The Bible commands Christians to use divine viewpoint thinking (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). We are to bring our minds so that they are captive to the mind of Christ.
   
   
4. Unbelievers and carnal Christians operate on human viewpoint thinking. So if you're going to be real close buddy friends with some unbeliever, you just better understand that everything that comes out of the mind of that person is human viewpoint orientation. You are going to be very much tempted to be picking up a lot of bad ideas and mistaken notions. For example, if you are going to get yourself tied in to life, you might get interested in some girl. If you men get interested in some woman who has human viewpoint thinking, what will happen to you is that you will recognize this and cut yourself off, or you will acclimate yourself to human viewpoint ideas, and you'll bring grief into your life.

   I've had some experiences recently where people have come to me and they have said, "Now, I have this person I'm interested in. I might want to marry this person. But as I found things coming out about this man, he, in effect, had human viewpoint outlook." But what these people have discovered is that when they apply divine principles of doctrine, they spotted these people, and the problems that were involved in them.

   One lady told me, "This man is changing. He is coming to church. He has gotten off the marijuana. He's really listening to audio recordings." But she was sharp. She gave it time. She didn't say, "Well, let's go down and get married now that you're off of pot, and you're on the Bible. What could be better than the man who's off pot and on Bible?" Then she began to discover that it was human viewpoint thinking to satisfy her thinking until they were married.

   This is the thing that you have to understand. You cannot deal with any human being who is not deeply versed in the Word of God. I don't care even if he's a Christian. If he is not deeply versed in the Word of God, the man or woman; parent; boy or girl; child; or, whoever it is, you cannot deal with those people and have a frame of reference. If you are going to live on divine viewpoint attitude, you will have no relationships with human viewpoint mentalities. You will have nothing but friction and conflict. So you be careful how closely you allow yourself to become attached with people who tell God where He can go, and they reject every opportunity to discover what He thinks. Unbelievers and carnal Christians can only operate on human viewpoint--nothing else.

5. Since doctrine is the mind of Christ, learning and going positive to doctrine shapes one's mental attitude (1 Corinthians 2:16, Philippians 2:5).
   
   
6. Divine viewpoint practices bring the inner happiness of the spiritual maturity structure to completion in our experience (Philippians 2:2).
   
   
7. God's plan of grace calls for a new mental attitude in a believer (2 Timothy 1:7, Philippians 2:5, Romans 12:2). Since we are new creatures in Christ, we do have to have a new mentality, a totally different kind of mental outlook.
   
   
8. Part of the divine viewpoint mentality is a spirit of personal confidence which results from knowing Bible doctrine (2 Corinthians 5:1-8). I'll tell you, when you find that you have divine viewpoint mentality because you have taken in God's Word and you're positive, you know some things. You know some things that God thinks, and you can take a stand on it. You will have more friction at that point. People will call you proud; arrogant; egotistical; God; and, every other dirty word they can think of to call you. Why? Because you exude a confidence which is the result of having a divine viewpoint mentality. You'll know where you're going. You'll look at a politician and you'll know what it's all about.

   One of our college students came to me telling me how he enjoys the class that he has. Apparently, it's a history class. The teacher is a Czechoslovak refugee, a man who has escaped from communism. And I've had college students who attend state schools who come to me every week, and they're in agony. They say, "Boy, was this a traumatic condition this week that we had to listen to. We have college professors who are promoting socialistic ideas, and all the disorientation that that connotes."

   Well, this student enjoys it because he said, "This man is really laying it out on the line. He is not caught up in detente. He has lived under the agonies of having volition denied and the fears of the secret police. He is one who knows what it's like out on that other side with that human viewpoint thinking." This man mentioned several American statesman that he had been a professor with in Minnesota. He said, "You've got senators, you've got congressmen. I know these people personally because I have been a college professor with them in the same schools." He said, "These men are good, wonderful men, but they are juvenile in their mentalities concerning the realities of communism. Consequently, they are promoting upon this nation that which is destructive to the nation."

   Well, part of having a divine viewpoint mentality is that you have a confidence concerning things like communism and capitalism; what is the source of blessing; and, what is not the source of blessing in governmental actions.

9. Stability is a mental attitude (Isaiah 26:3-4, Philippians 4:7, 2 Thessalonians 2:2).
   
   
10. Giving is a mental attitude (2 Corinthians 9:7). The reason you will give is because you have a divine viewpoint mental attitude. How much you give will be determined by that mental attitude. You have certain principles; values; and, concepts that will guide you as to whether you will give or not give, and how much you will give. You will not give because somebody whips you up to give. That's what generally is done in churches--they whip people up on some emotional basis to give. You will give according to your thinking.
    
    
11. Love is a mental attitude in the soul so that your capacity for loving is a function of the soul, not of the sexual function of the body (1 Corinthians 13:5). The people who made great lovers are the people who are deeply steeped in Bible doctrine. Every time I say that, I get a lot of snickers. I get all the intellectual sophomores in college and the other sophomoric mentalities around the place that all like to grin and snicker. They say, "Do you know what he is saying? He's telling me that if I learn the Bible, I'll be a better lover. Isn't that ridiculous?"

    Well, you just ask people who have conflicts within their marriage: How great is their sex life? You just ask them how if you have people who are not steeped in the Word of God and who do not respond to the consequent divine viewpoint, just what kind of lovers they make. They're a bunch of clods. Just pray to God that you never find yourself in that kind of a position; in that kind of a friction; in that kind of resistance; and, in that kind of tension. It is true, as true as it can be, that love is a mental attitude in the soul. When you have mental attitude produced through the Word of God, you will have a physical expression that will be something that you won't believe.

12. Worldliness is a mental attitude--the mental attitude of human viewpoint (Romans 12:2, Colossians 3:2). You always thought that worldliness was wearing hot pants, didn't you? Wearing hot pants is bad taste. We have this trouble all the time in club meetings, especially on the junior high level. Girls discover that they have some things that they've never had before. So they want to display these things, and they feel that the world has never seen these things before. So they come to club meetings in the briefest kind of attire in order that they may share with us these things that have now broken on the scene of human experience and on the human horizon. If it wasn't so funny, it would be pathetic. The club leaders are coming to me saying, "What are we going to do about these girls--what they're wearing to club meetings?"

    Well, I always tell them call to call their fathers--not their mothers. Their mothers are usually involved in looking at these things with amazement and saying, "You know, the world ought to be introduced to this." Well, the world has seen it before. Call the father and say, "Would you have your daughter wear something more suitable to club meetings? We've seen it all before. We don't need her help." And that is no joke.

    Out there in the public school world, this is the common practice. It isn't only kids. We have the same kind of trouble sometimes with adults who haven't caught on that we know all about these things, and they don't have to educate us.

    So worldliness is up here in the mind. When you have a divine viewpoint mentality, it will show itself on the kind of clothes you wear. You're not going to be anybody's display horse. When you have a divine viewpoint mentality, you will not go to certain places. This is not because it's worldly to go there. You just won't have the mentality and the desire to go there. You won't say certain things. You just won't have the taste for it. You won't look at certain things. You won't have the taste for it. But we can't get people to do what is pleasing to God by listing all these things they shouldn't say; things they shouldn't do; places they shouldn't go; and, so on. It's because worldliness is the result of human viewpoint. If we can change your mentality from human viewpoint to divine viewpoint, you won't have any trouble with worldliness.

13. Evil primarily is something one thinks rather than what one does (Luke 6:45, Galatians 6:3). Evil, first of all, is what you think, not what you do.
    
    
14. Mental attitude sins from a human viewpoint frame of reference produce self-induced and deserved sufferings. So the apostle Paul says, "Please fulfill my joy." Then he proceeds, and he matches up, one-for-one. He says, "This is true of you over here. Therefore, this should be true of you in your practice. This is true of you over here in your position with Christ; therefore, in your practice, this should be true of you over here.

    We're going to look at that match-up next week as the apostle Paul reveals to us a very amazing line of consequences from these four "ifs" that are true of us, and what we should be. If we obey verse 2, we will remove all real human conflicts, whether they be in your home; in your work; in your school; or, wherever it is. And, most of all, we will remove them within the church, because this is what Paul is doing. He's setting up the ground for the removal of a friction that existed in the church at Philippi. In the next session, you can hear the relationship, and what can be true of you with your experiences with other people.

    Dr. John E. Danish, 1973

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