Philippians 1:27-30 • Signs of Joy
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Let me ask that you would look in your Bibles this morning at Philippians chapter 1, Philippians chapter 1 verses 27 through 30.
The Apostle Paul has already expressed his uncertainty about whether he will ever return from prison and be back among those at Philippi, and yet he says, "I want you to stand together and work together for the cause of the gospel." I want you to think about that at the end of today's service. As you think about what it would mean for somebody to support you for the sake of the gospel, I wonder if there are prayer requests that you may have. Maybe something you filled out earlier on the cards today, or maybe something that will occur to you during the course of the message. We want to be that kind of New Testament church that says, "We support one another, and prayer is one of those ways." We'll give you an opportunity at the end of the service to think about someone praying for needs that you may have. You'll see why as we get there. For now, let me ask you to look with me at Philippians 1 verse 27. Let's stand as we honor God's Word together.
The Apostle who does not know if he will return to Philippi writes to the people there, "Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents, this is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation
and that from God.
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him, but also suffer for His sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have." Let's pray together.
Father, grant us insight into Your Word and commitment to one another.
No passage in Scripture speaks more of the blessing that we can be to one another. Because side by side we uplift and support and defend and take in prayer to You.
So grant, Father, that because we have been here we would feel Your strength from Your body for the gospel's sake. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated.
Have I been a good man?
Have I lived a good life?
The question is asked by an old man through tears of doubt as he kneels beside a cross
in the cemetery at Normandy.
The cross marks the grave of a man who gave his life almost 60 years earlier for the man who now kneels at his grave site.
In that war previous, Private James Ryan was the fourth son of a woman who had already lost three sons in World War II and military regulations said that she should not have to lose a fourth son.
So Captain John Miller, played by Tom Hanks in the movie Saving Private Ryan, takes a squad of eight men to go save Private Ryan. And in the saving of that pride, all eight of the squad members are killed, including Captain Miller, whose dying words to Private Ryan are, "earn this."
So we flash forward 60 years to the 80-year-old in Normandy Cemetery on his knees, still being crushed by the weight of trying to be worthy for the sacrifice that was made in his behalf. What would that sacrifice actually require of his earning? Captain Miller actually expresses it earlier in the film. He better be worth it. The one we save, he better go home and cure a disease or invent a longer-lasting life bulb or something.
But at the end of his life, we see the 80-year-old on his knees, still asking the question, "Am I worthy?
Did I earn it?" His children, his grandchildren are around him in a beautiful family, and still he does not know the answer. He's being crushed by the doubt.
And maybe it's a doubt that we ourselves feel when we read a passage like this that begins with the words, "Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ." It's almost as though we can hear ourselves at the cross and Jesus' dying words to us are, "earn this."
And if those are the words that we hear coming from Jesus' mouth, we will always wonder, could we possibly be worthy?
But of course those were not the last words of Jesus. His last words were not, "earn this." His last words were, "It is finished.
The debt is paid. All the penalty is done. You are made worthy, not by your merits, but by the mercy of a God who provided Jesus Christ in your behalf.
And when you know that, that you are made worthy by His act, not by yours, your life is not trying to earn Jesus' sacrifice. It is responding in love for the sacrifice that has been given to you. It's actually the wording that's here in this passage if we will read closely and not just hear "worthy" as the crushing weight of guilt upon us. But remember that it was God's will to crush him, to take guilt off of us.
The key words are right there at the beginning. Verse 27, "Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel." That language, the number of your footnotes will actually explain to you, is actually saying behave like a citizen, like a citizen of heaven, which by the way means that you already have the citizenship, that what Paul told us previously was you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but citizens and members of the household of God, not by your work, but by His. And because you are citizens, reflect that in the way that you live, but you're not earning your citizenship. That is what He has provided by His work upon the cross, Jesus Christ in our behalf. What would it mean for us that we would live like citizens purchased by the work of Christ?
You know, if you are a citizen in a country, you have no greater responsibility than when you are called to be willing to give your life for your country.
To be a citizen of heaven means to live the responsibility, to be willing to live your life as a citizen of heaven. And that means if we are called to conflict, we are willing to go as a citizen of heaven. And it's precisely a conflict to which we are called. Verse 30 is the Apostle Paul saying to those at Philippi, "I urge you to be engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had." This is, in essence, a call to battle. And the Apostle Paul is saying, "If you are living as citizens, then I'm going to hear certain things from you from the battlefield." Verse 27 again, "Let your manner of life citizens be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit."
The Apostle there, he is in prison, but he's listening for the sounds of battle. And what he's saying is, "I hope that I will hear from you that you are standing firm." Two implications, one is simply that we are not pushed over, forced to retire, forced to retreat by the work of the enemy, that we take the opposition and don't give way.
The Apostle Paul well knew what it was to be a Christian in Philippi and knew the opposition that could be there. Because he challenged the idolatry that put money in the pockets of certain people. He was beaten by the people of the town, then dragged before the Romans and beaten with rods and then thrown into prison.
Paul well knows there can be opposition, the payment of a price. And still he says, "I pray that I hear those of you at Philippi will stand firm for the sake of the gospel." And in do that, you accept the risk to do so. But it's not just about standing firm against opposition, it's standing firm for the gospel.
Whether it's an employer, a professor, a spouse, a friend who is challenging, pushing back,
do we stand firm? What would that look like? The Apostle Paul says, again, verse 27, that you would let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ.
Every word key, the good news of the anointed one who came to die. This gospel that the Apostle will say later on in verse 29 has been granted to you for the sake of Christ that you should believe in Him. The Apostle, while he's not putting it all together, is just speaking out of the background of his own understanding of the gospel. It has been granted to you to believe in the gospel, the good news of the one who came to die in your behalf. That your faith is not in what you do. Your faith is not in your performance. What has been granted to you, the very work of God, is that you would believe by faith God has worked in your behalf through the work of His Son as we approach the 500th anniversary of the Reformation at the end of this month. And remember the reform is stood by those principles, faith alone, in grace alone, provided by Christ alone. And here's the Apostle saying, the faith has been granted to you to believe in Christ who provided for you. And don't give way on that.
That's the message not of your performance or any else's performance. It's not any other message in the church. I want to hear that you're standing firm, not being pushed away by the opposition, but not moving from the gospel.
It is possible for the church to move from the gospel.
Russell Moore, the head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of this Southern Baptist Conventions United States writes this, "In a politicized era, we can morph the church's mission into a message about political influence or family values or upward mobility.
But if any of these take over our efforts, the gospel loses ground. We lend a voice to every just cause.
We work against every moral compromise, and we pray for every spiritual blessing. But we stand for Jesus Christ and Him crucified."
Paul said it, "I resolve to make nothing known among you but Jesus Christ and Him crucified." His work in your behalf, and that message is our core. Everything else results from that. But from this message, the church itself is not to move. For when we hold to that, we actually have the ground which gives the church its spiritual power in the world. And with that spiritual power, the apostle has expectations. He says what they are. The end of verse 27, "Hear that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel." Not just standing firm, but striving together to implications. If you are striving, you are moving forward. It's not just standing firm. Not just saying that's our obligation not to let anybody touch us. But the goal of the gospel, the apostle will state in the very next chapter, "It is ultimately so that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." Our calling is to be salt and light within our society, not just to retreat into a corner culture, not just to take pride in our own church, not just to insulate our own families, but to ultimately say as we are standing for the gospel, there is another step to take. And that step is to take forward motion into the calling that God gives us. When Robert Morgan was here last week, do you remember he said that when the children of God were there encamped on the Red Sea believing the Egyptians were about to take them, the first command?
Stand firm.
Second command?
Step forward.
There is a job to do, but not alone.
Striving side by side, one spirit, one mind, one faith, the message of course is that our citizenship is not one of independency, that we are not called by Christ to just be okay with Jesus ourselves, that we are called into a corporate relationship into the citizenship of the kingdom of God. And because we are called into citizenship, we are called together for the sake of others. When the Apostle actually uses the language here of striving side by side, the image that would be called to mind in his time was of the Roman Legion, shield against shield against shield, marching against any enemy, unstoppable as one body, virtually one man moving against the opposition. But what would it mean for us or even the people at Philippi to be saying we are to strive together moving forward side by side, shield to shield, shield to shield going forward into the society in which God calls us? Already we're being taught. The Apostle began this letter saying, "I Paul with Timothy. Here I am a Jew, older man with a mixed Jew and Gentile, younger man, and we are together in this prison situation now giving an example to you. And who are you that I'm calling side by side?" Well Lydia was there. There's a Greek woman, businesswoman, and at the same time we know in the churches the Roman jailer, historical enemies, mixed genders, different ethnicities, different languages,
different backgrounds, different social status, side by side for the sake of the gospel. What would it mean for us to say different generations together, side by side that we are called together into church citizenship, what we call membership in our day and age, not just to swell our roles, not just to increase our stature, that what we are actually doing is we are believing that we are committing ourselves to one another by saying, "I'm not in this alone. I'm for you and you for me." And we are together in the mission of the gospel. There are things that believers do.
When we commit ourselves to Jesus Christ, we show our loyalty by baptism.
I say to the world and to the church, "I am made right with Jesus Christ not by my works but by His shed blood. It is His blood that washes my sin away and in baptism I show my loyalty to His work. But when I do that, I show my membership in the body of Christ. I commit myself to other people financially in the vote like the congregational meeting we just had, committing to each other in prayer meetings, in small groups, because we know we have to be shield to shield, side by side. And when we do that across generations and across ethnicities and across demographics, we are actually showing to the world the work of Jesus Christ among us. Do you remember in Ephesians, the Apostle Paul said when he was calling people from different ethnicities to work together in the church for the sake of the gospel, that they were doing it so that the multicolored wisdom of God would show forth to the authorities in the heavenly places.
Have you ever thought about what that actually means? That the manifold wisdom of God, which by the way in the New Testament is the same word that is being used to translate Joseph's multicolored coat in the Old Testament, that the multicolored wisdom of God because of what's happening in the church would actually be displayed to the heavenly authorities. Now we think of heavenly only being describing where the angels live. But in the book of Ephesians, remember we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against what?
Leaders and authorities and spiritual wickedness in heavenly places.
The Apostle is saying that when the church comes together, shield to shield, life to life, supporting one another in small groups, in prayer, across ethnicities, across gender, across age, all of that together, that even the demons take note and say, "My, what kind of God are we dealing with?" They can get those people together, working together for the sake of the gospel. Sometimes we think that in the church where we talk about working cross-generationally and cross-ethnicity and cross-regions and cross-nationalities, that we're somehow just bowing to the present ages political correctness. No way. There is as if we're a ladder of tolerance as the Bible is describing it for believers. One ladder of tolerance is, "I'll not hate you." That's the bottom rung, "I'll not hate you." A little higher ladder says, "Well, I'll accept you. You know you're different than me, but I'll let you in."
But a higher rung says, "I actually desire the gospel to show by God bringing together in one body people of different backgrounds." But there is a higher rung. And the highest rung of all says, "I don't only desire different kinds of people here, I need them."
For the gospel to be in its place, for the demons to scatter, for the work of the gospel to go forward, we actually need to show that the gospel is not just for a homogenized church, just people like us, just people of my age, just people of my demographic, just people like me.
No, when is that the church? I'll form my church and I'll get mine and you go form your church and you'll get yours. How is that the gospel? The gospel is where people are saying, "We will put shield to shield knowing that every generation, every ethnicity has strengths to give." I mean, I think of the beauty of being in a legacy church like this and to recognize what it means for a younger generation at times to look across a congregation and say, "You know what? I'd lost faith in marriage. I'd lost hope that a family could hold together." But in that church, their people have been married 30 years or 40 years or 50 years or in this church, 60 years plus and say, "I take hope again." The gospel really can mean something in families. And there are older people who begin to think at times that there is nothing we have done that makes any impact in society. And then you look at a younger generation for whom there is absolutely no currency to live for Christ today, no benefit. And yet they are going against the current of the ideals of our universities, of sometimes their friends' practices and habits and things. "I'm going to stand for the Lord and I'm going to be a part of a body of Christ and I'm not just going to go over to a 20-something church and meet with more 20-somethings. I'm actually going to believe that there is power in the generations coming together, that there is intentionality of God in putting shield to shield working side by side for the sake of the gospel. And I'm not just going to say, "You get yours and I get mine." No, it's selflessness. It's living. It is sacrifice for the sake of others. And when we are moving forward in that way against all odds, against all the differences, crossing all the boundaries for the sake of the gospel, what then happens? We become fearless in the cause of God.
It's verse 28. "As we are striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, Paul says, "I want to hear you are not frightened in anything by your opponents, that by having people around us who are standing firm, by having people around us who are side by side with us linking shields in prayer, in small groups, in finance, in supporting missions." When we are side by side, when we are that Roman legion moving forward, well, fear just doesn't occur to us.
We got people all around us backing us up, supporting us, praying for us, helping us. And that reality of not only standing firm and striving forward by being stout, fearless for the sake of God, has implications the apostle wants us to know. He says, verse 28, "What happens if you're not frightened?" He says, "This is a clear sign to your opponents of their destruction, but of your salvation."
I mean, the picture is this. If fear hasn't come into your eyes, if because you're standing firm and holding together with fellow believers, then there's a fearlessness that takes over in your heart that begins to drive back the forces of the opposition to the gospel.
If just to be silly about it, it's almost like, you know, in the small western town, you know, where the townspeople finally begin to pull together and recognize if they will just hold together the gunslinger doesn't have any more power in the town. And when the gunslinger sees there's no more fear in their eyes, he knows it's time to get out of dodge.
And our opponents, when they recognize we are holding together, that we are striving in unity for the sake of the gospel across all the differences of our cultures, then they know their own destruction is ahead.
Why do we need to know that, that our unity is so important? Because we see a society in which it seems that civility is collapsing, when our political answers of the moment seem virtually hopeless, when there is economic instability, employment uncertainties, racial and ethnic violence, generational tension.
But what if in the midst of all that, the church of which we are members did not show fear?
What would we be actually demonstrating?
Our own salvation.
Our hope is not in this world, our hope is not in this moment. We believe that we are eternally secure. And no matter what may shake us in the temporal realm, it is not going to shake us for our eternal hope. We are strong, we are fearless. So even as we are fearless, we are marking the destruction of those who do not know the hope that we have, we are signaling the hope we ourselves have. When we will stand firm for one another, it can make such a difference for the gospel's sake in whatever culture we go. I think of my own experience in Senegal, a western African nation some years ago, in which I was trying to teach a group of pastors what I try to say to you Sunday after Sunday, that the gospel is not just in the New Testament, it's not the nice God of the New Testament and the mean God of the Old Testament, that the Bible is unfolding in a planned way so that God is showing us how His grace is necessary against all other alternatives. And so all the horrible things that are happening are so many ways in which God is saying, "That is not the way, that is not the answer, that is not the answer until Christ come and says, there's your answer."
And when you see the Bible that way, this unfolding message of grace, what it means is that God has throughout all the Bibles not just been saying, "You need to straighten up and fly right and be better and then you'll be okay with me."
What God is saying is, "I have shown you a path through all the Scriptures how people need my grace and here is Christ the culmination of that message so that you knowing that you have been saved will live not to earn His favor but in reflection to the grace you have received." I was trying to say that in a deeply legalistic culture that's still coming out of its animistic roots.
And not only was I trying to explain the Old Testament and the New Testament and their relationship to a group of pastors whose language was not my own, my translator was Muslim.
And he was trying to get it to.
And at some point there was this great stir among the pastors that I was talking to and they were getting angry. And I finally said to my translator, "What did you just say?"
And he said, "Well," I said, "What you said." And I said, "What did you say that I said?"
And he said, "Well, I told them that Abraham was not saved by his faith, he was saved by his works."
And I said, "That's not what I said."
But it's what he heard because that was his background. His understanding was it was being good enough that made you right before God. And the gospel is such a turn on that, such a twist on that. It's not your race, it's not your background, it's not your education, it's not your ethnicity,
it's not anything about you, it's what Christ has done that is your hope. And when we are together in that message, it begins to move forward with power. My Senegalese pastors understood it. I told you they so much struggled to hear what I was saying. And I will tell you, at the end of that day I just felt totally frustrated. I mean, I just felt like I was just beating my head against a wall to get them to understand.
But late in the afternoon after my host had kind of taken me for some relaxation, we came back by the classroom where I had been teaching all that day. And there in that classroom, with virtually all the ministers still seated.
And I said to my host, "Why are all the pastors still here?"
He said, "Well, what you said today was hard for many of us.
And so no one will leave until we all understand."
Shield to shield.
We understand that we're in a culture that does not receive the gospel. We understand sometimes our own hearts do not understand the gospel. We understand that everything in us is resistant to the nature of grace that is the power of the gospel. But when we are saying, "We have to hold together. We have to get the message together. We have to stand together. We have to move forward side by side with this gospel understanding." There is power that we begin to learn from everybody else. It is what God is saying to us if we will but hear Him. And in that strength, in that not being frightened, there are definite things that will occur. This is not pleasant, but recognize what they are. The Apostle says in verse 29, "It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him." Now I love that. It's been granted to you to believe in Him. Great, not me. I'm going to believe in Him.
"But also to suffer for His sake.
If we are standing firm and striving together and not frightened by the opponents, I will assure you something will happen and it is called suffering."
But what does the Apostle say? It has been granted to you to suffer for His sake. As though this is a gift. How could it possibly be? There are two clear things the Apostle is saying in that 29th verse. First that suffering is a gift and second, it is a gift you are not supposed to open by yourself.
How do we know that suffering is a gift? I'm going to give you six quick reasons to see why the Apostle would say that suffering, one that believers go through, is a gift from God Himself. The first reason that suffering is a gift is it proves we are disciples of Christ.
"A servant Jesus said is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. All who desire to live a godly life will be persecuted." It is the way the master went. How do you know you are walking in his steps?
Because what happened to him will happen to you. That's how you know you are a disciple of Christ. The consequences of his life begin to touch you. What else is suffering indicating? Number two, suffering is a gift because it shifts our joy from passing realities of earth to the secure blessings of eternity.
Jesus said, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Our present afflictions are not worth comparing with the glory that shall be revealed in us. And the reason that we do not put our hope in the passing evidences of this world of God's blessing is because His blessings are secure in the next world. And we say, "I'm not going to bank my faith. I'm not going to bank my hope, my joy on what's happening in this broken, fallen world." And sometimes our sufferings are weaning us from this world so that we will truly put our security in the world that Christ is securing for us. Suffering also gives opportunity to bear witness to Christ. If we're loyalty to Him, we want the opportunities to bear witness to Him. And Jesus said that they would come. Jesus said, "Some will insult you.
But others will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to synagogues and prisons. And you will be brought before kings and governors for My name's sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness.
But it is not just governors and not just kings. Keep listening.
You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends.
And some of you, they will put to death as you bear witness in My name."
Suffering gives us opportunity to bear witness sometimes to those who are actually closest to us, who know us so well, know our weakness, know our fears, know our insecurities. They even know our sin.
But when we say, "I will suffer for the sake of My Savior," we bear witness to a higher reality and a deeper devotion than even those closest to us thought we could possibly give.
Suffering justifies the judgment of the wicked.
Paul wrote, "God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you." When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, inflaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not obey the gospel of Jesus Christ, they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction. Why? Because they have afflicted you, God will afflict them. God is just reminding us it is a moral universe.
And our sufferings are actually at the hands of the wicked, the just sentence that will come against them for eternal judgment. That God is actually using we, His saints, to write the warrant for the arrest and ultimately the punishment of those who are against Him.
Suffering sanctifies and matures us.
Paul wrote, "We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that our suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character boosts hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given unto us. Through Christ's suffering I begin to learn aspects of His suffering that I never would have understood otherwise. And I learn in standing for Him how my own character has changed and how my hope has increased and the reality of heaven becomes so much more important. If it was just easy street every day, would I trust Him at all? Would I even want to live for Him? But my suffering is putting my head in the right place. It's where my heart is. It is living for Christ. And in living for Him I'm actually changing my character as my suffering is allowing me to see the importance of the things of heaven more than the things of earth.
Only what suffering does is it unites us with the church universal and ancient.
Peter said, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trouble when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice in as far as you are sharing in Christ's suffering with all of those who name Him Lord."
You are uniting your heart with those across the world right now in the Sudan, tens of thousands starving to death because of a dictator who, wanting to fight Muslims, is taking away the aid from Christians.
Right now there are those who are suffering under ISIS. Right now there are those who are suffering under Al-Qaeda. Right now there are those suffering under Boko Haram. And you are uniting heart with them. You don't want the suffering, but God is saying to you, "As they are depending upon you, you are brothers and sister with them. You unite yourself with the church universal and also the church ancient. Bless are you when they revile and persecute you, for so they persecuted the prophets before you," says Jesus. The church ancient and the church universal becomes kin to you as you stand for Christ in the midst of suffering. What He's saying though, of course, if you are part of the church universal and part of the church ancient, this isn't for you alone.
That ultimately the reason you are part of a church is we need each other not just for united witness, but for united support. This is the world we live in. It is broken. It is fallen. And we live with hope in a better world. In a better hope we have Christ who is our Savior who secures us. And our suffering is saying to us, "I will stand for you because I've been there. And I want you to stand for me because you know what I'm going through." And when we have those shields locked together in mutual support, the congregation living for one another, in prayer for one another, then we can face the world and its hurts and its hardships because we know, "This is not something strange happening to me. I am part of the body of believers. And in that body of believers, I stand for you. I strive with you. And we are not frightened together because we know whatever we face is going to advance the cause of the gospel when I support you and you support me and God is now working in our midst."
How do we do that? So many ways. The small groups, the Sunday school classes, those of you, some of you have been in groups for decades, I know. Some of you need to get in a group where somebody just put their shield up with you.
Some of you I know earlier today you wrote something on a card where you were saying like a hundred people do every Sunday in this church, "Will the staff pray for me?" We love doing that.
But that can seem remote and sometimes I know you wonder, "Did anybody actually read that? Is somebody actually praying for me?"
I'm going to ask right now that the prayer volunteers that we're going to now begin using in this church with regularity if you come forward, here's what we're going to do. We are going to try with greater regularity just to be side by side with you and to say, here are some people who are volunteering their time on this Sunday morning to pray with you. If there's something in a marriage, if there's something in a home, if there's a health issue that you're facing, every single one of us have the challenges of being in this broken world. Jesus said it would occur. It doesn't mean there's something weird with you. It doesn't mean there's something wrong. And you are stronger when there are people you know who will pray with and for you. That's what we're going to do. I'm going to ask Kevin that he would come now and help us sing. And as we're singing, if you simply said, "I wish somebody would pray with me about something that I'm going to stand with this group over here and we're going to pray with you." We did it in the first service. We had people who simply said, "Thank you for being willing and we'll do it for you now.
I'm going to pray, then we'll sing. And if you think of something you want us to pray for, we are going to stand with you. And we're going to pray with you for the work of Christ to be strong even in the suffering you may be facing. Father, thank you for an apostle who knew what it meant to suffer and taught us how to endure and to be there for each other.
And I thank you for these believers. I feel like this is virtually a commissioning prayer right now for this prayer team and ones who will join them in future weeks.
Help us to be that New Testament church we want to be, that where people are saying, "I just want somebody who's got their shield up with me so that we can move forward by faith in one mind, in one spirit for the sake of the gospel.
Work in us for this cause, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen." Let's stand and sing.