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Skip Heitzig: I think I may have told you, but I'm not sure. So, if I were to outline the book of Philippians, I would outline it based on its four chapters. Four sections, four chapters. Chapter 1, the marvel of the Christian life, which is love. Chapter 2, the model of the Christian life, which is Christ. Chapter 3, the movement of the Christian life, which is forward. And then Chapter 4, the marks of the Christian life, which are joy and peace.

So the marvel, the model, the movement, and then finally the marks of the Christian life. And that leads us to where we are in Chapter 4. However, we ended Chapter 3 where Paul said, "For our citizenship is in heaven." And I'm bringing you back to that verse in Chapter 3 because in Chapter 4, verse 1, he begins with a "therefore," and "therefore" is there so you can always look back to find out what it's there for.

So, he's playing off the thought of the last couple of verses of Chapter 3. "Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will—and we just kind of talked about this—transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body according to the working by which He is able to subdue all things to Himself." And that is such a great promise, especially those of us who were alive 56 years ago in 1969 when we landed on the moon.

The older we get, that hope of heaven gets brighter and brighter. He's going to transform our lowly bodies. And I don't have to say any more than I said last week about our bodies being lowly, but if you're in touch with reality, you know that to be true. And what I love is that promise in 1 John that we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

Now, the day that the transformation takes place will be the day that we are waiting for, that all of humanity has been waiting for, and that is the Rapture of the church. Rapture day is resurrection day. The dead in Christ, 1 Thessalonians 4, will rise first. And then we who are alive and remain, whoever is a believer living on the earth at that time, we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with Him.

That's the day when our mortal bodies take on immortality. So, the order on Rapture day: resurrection day, dead in Christ rise first. They get their glorified selves at that time, and then we who are alive and remain, right after that, probably it will seem simultaneously, will be metamorphosed, changed, utterly changed, in the twinkling of an eye. That's Rapture day.

And Paul speaks a lot about this. He's in prison. He doesn't know if he's going to live or die, but he knows what's coming. And it's one of the reasons that he is so joyful is he knows that he's going to transform our lowly body, and it's going to be like His own glorious body. You're going to have a body that never gets tired, never wears out, never gains weight, never sags or wrinkles. You're going to be at your peak awesome self forever.

Now, "therefore," Chapter 4, verse 1, "because of that citizenship that is in heaven, because of that hope, my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, beloved." In Chapter 4, there is a little bit of a pivot. Though I mentioned that Paul has no polemic that he is dealing with with the Philippian church, he has no correction of doctrine like he did to the Galatians, no correction of behavior like he did to the Corinthians, there is an issue that was a problem going on in the Philippian church.

And it's the only one that we know of from reading this book. And the problem was a disagreement between two notable, prominent, important, you might say, gals within the church who are about to be mentioned. So, the church was loved by Paul. Paul had fond thoughts of his work there, fond thoughts of the relationship he enjoyed with them through the years. He had known them about 10 years since the church was founded.

But there was this one problem. And finally, in Chapter 4, he gets to it. And it's a problem between these two gals. Other than that, we know of no other issue. I have an interesting journey with church. Now, I'm a churchman. I'm a pastor. So church is sort of my thing. But when I began my journey with church, I wasn't saved, but I was compelled to go to church by my parents. I didn't want to, but I had to.

And when I went to church, the clergyman up front would often speak about our Sunday obligation. And for me, it was an obligation. It wasn't a joy. It wasn't like, "Oh, awesome, I get to go to church." It was like, "Okay, I guess I gotta go." So I did. But then, when I was 18 years of age, just a few years ago, I gave my life to Christ. And everything changed. And suddenly, I didn't have to go to church.

Now I wanted to go to church. And I wanted to read my Bible. And I wanted to hang out with believers. And I wanted to learn Christian songs. And I wanted to talk to others about the Lord. It was a complete paradigm shift. And then, a few years after that, I moved back east to New Mexico. That's how I refer to it. I told my friends, "I'm moving back east." And of course, it's 800 miles from the West Coast.

So that's all I knew. I moved east, a few states away, and I was going to work in the medical field and I was going to start a church, or I was going to do a Bible study. And so I went from having to go to church to wanting to go to church to spending my life hoping that others that I talk to would want to come to church. And I've had the privilege of pastoring for 40-plus years.

So, I've seen the ups and downs of church life. And so I can relate to all the issues that Paul speaks about in so many of the places, including in this one. Now, the ministry of the church is always a ministry of people. It's not about brick and mortar and pews and property. It's about human beings. It's about people. And so Paul gets to the heart of this church, which was the people. He's been speaking to them, but a couple of people in particular.

Now, if a church lives, if a church is alive and vibrant, it's because the people in that church are alive and vibrant. If a church dies, withers and dies, it's because the people in that church are withering and dead. So this church was alive, but there was still a problem involved. So, we'll get to that in verse 2, but I do want to just notice a couple of things in verse 1. "Therefore, based on what I just said in Chapter 3, my beloved." Just notice the tender tone of the apostle. "My beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, beloved."

For some reason, people picture Paul the Apostle as being harsh, rough, aloof, distant, so smart and intellectual and hardcore about certain issues. And anybody who has that view, that austere view of Paul, I immediately know you don't know him very well. He was so loving and tender, or at least he could be. Now, he could be rough, and he could rebuke and reprove when needed.

But you are seeing here the tender side of Paul. "My beloved, you are loved by God and loved by me, and longed-for brethren." I told you that he had known them for 10 years, although he hadn't really seen them for five years. And they were wondering what happened to him. How come we don't hear or see of him? Because Paul had been arrested in Jerusalem. After his last journey, he was arrested in Jerusalem, taken to Caesarea Philippi—not Caesarea—Caesarea by the sea, where he was imprisoned two years. And then he was taken to Rome, finally made it to Rome, and he was there in prison under house arrest for two years. So, it's been about five years since they had heard anything about him, and they're wondering about him.

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Guest (Female): Now, here's more from Pastor Skip.

Skip Heitzig: I understand what it's like to long for people. Some of you know that about 20 years ago I was absent from Albuquerque for about three years in California helping out a church and helping out my pastor, Chuck Smith. Won't get into all the reasons for that now, but while I was absent from New Mexico, there was a longing for the people that I knew and loved from here.

It wasn't that I missed the blue sky—and we had smog out there. It wasn't that I missed the lower prices, because California is a lot more expensive. And I missed the coyote fencing and things like that or the flat roofs. What I missed were people that I had dedicated, counseled, loved, married, etc. And so it had been a few years. Paul missed them, Paul longed for them, Paul remembered their stories, their testimonies.

"My beloved, longed-for, my joy." I love that because so much of this letter is the joy of the Lord. And what Paul is saying is, "A lot of my joy is tied up in you. You're my crown. It's the relationship that I have with you that is my reward. So stand fast in the Lord, my beloved." Now, I just want you to notice real quick—I don't want to belabor this because I do want to finish the book—but Paul, in the next few verses, gives a few little terse commands that show us that his tone has shifted a little bit.

Though he says, "I love you, you're longed-for," and all that stuff, notice: "Stand fast." Notice verse 2: "I implore." And verse 3: "I urge." Even the command in verse 4 is a command: "Rejoice in the Lord." These quick little terse commands show a subtle change of tone. He wants, he needs to command them. So he says, "I implore," verse 2, "Euodia"—here's these two gals—"Euodia and I implore Syntyche." That's how we would say it. The Greek pronunciation would be "Syntyche." I'll tell you what those names mean in a moment. "To be of the same mind in the Lord. And I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel with Clement also, the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always. I'll say it again, rejoice."

The name Euodia is a Greek name that means "good journey." You know how we say, "Have a good journey"? Good journey, Euodia. Syntyche is "fortunate." That's what her name means literally, fortunate. So good trip and Miss Lucky. For some reason, Miss Good Trip and Miss Lucky are at odds with each other. We don't know what it is. We're not told what it is. We would have to guess what it is. It could be anything menial, from the color of the tablecloth at the Thanksgiving women's banquet to some doctrinal issue that makes them at odds with each other.

The thing is we don't know, and Paul doesn't need to tell us. But he does need to tell them: you gals need to work it out. You need to get on the same page. To be of the same mind in the Lord. Now, whatever the issue was, because he brings them up and he tells us just a little bit about them, we can surmise that they were prominent women. Because he says in verse 3, "the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life."

So they shared some kind of ministry responsibility with him. Here's my guess, and I'm just going to guess. When Paul went to Philippi the first time, these two women were among the women who were meeting at the riverside when Paul had the first meeting in that town. Let me refresh your memory. When Paul first came to Europe, he came to Macedonia. The first city he came to was Philippi.

Remember he had a vision in Troas, a man from Macedonia saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." So he sets foot on European soil in the city of Philippi. And it says that he spoke to a group of women who were meeting at the riverside. A group of women meeting at the riverside. Now, there's a lot in that. What that tells me, number one, is there was no synagogue in the city. There were Jews, but there was no synagogue.

So there were very few Jews living in Philippi. Because according to Jewish law, you had to have a minimum of 10 Jewish males in order to form a synagogue. So it tells me there weren't 10 Jewish males in that city, but there were Jewish women, and so they met at the riverside. Why the river? Because that's where living water was, flowing water, water that flowed and wasn't stagnant. And so they could have ritual baths, ritual ablutions in the riverside. That was the typical place where they met.

So I'm guessing that we know one of the gals' names was Lydia from the book of Acts, who believed the things spoken by Paul and invited Paul to be cared for by her. And now I'm guessing there was Euodia and Syntyche. These three gals among the group that was meeting there at the riverside, and now they have a disagreement with each other. What is unfortunate, not for us but for these two gals, is that their names are immortalized in the scripture as being the two gals in Philippi who didn't get along.

You say, "Ooh, their names are in the Bible." Yeah, but look at the context of it. You know, it's kind of a bummer to be forever known—and here we are 2,000 years later talking about these two chicks who couldn't get along in Philippi. And so yeah, their names are written in the Bible, but he had to—he felt the need, he felt compelled to bring it to the surface and tell them to get along.

And then he continues, verse 3, "I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel with Clement also, the rest of my fellow workers whose names are written in the book of life." Now, who is he talking to? We don't know. Some person at Philippi that Paul says, "mediate for us, mediate for them, help them get on the same page." They obviously haven't been able to figure it out on their own, so whoever he's writing to, it's a true yokefellow or companion.

Now, there's a guess. There's a couple of guesses here. If you're interested in this stuff, this is just a little bit of extra FYI. The Greek word for companion or the Old King James says "my yokefellow," yokefellow or companion, the Greek word is Syzygus, Syzygus or Syzygos. Some scholars believe that that was actually the guy's name. And so it should say, "And I urge you, Syzygos, help these chicks Euodia and Syntyche."

So he's actually naming—there was a guy by the name of Syzygos who lived in Philippi that he is referring to. Others believe he is speaking generically of a yokefellow or a companion, since that's what Syzygos is translated into our English language. So it's either a guy named that or it's a guy who embodies that, a companion of Paul. "Help these women who labored with me in the gospel, Clement also, the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life."

To be honest, I would rather just have my name in the book of life than have my name in the book of Philippians like Euodia and Syntyche did. Your name is in the book of life. Do you ever just think about that? Whatever you're going through, no matter how bad your day, week, month, year has been, your name is in the book of life. That's a good truth, and from time to time you ought to just measure what you're going through with that truth.

One of the reasons Paul was so joyful is because of this truth. You remember when the disciples went around the Sea of Galilee and did the ministry Jesus told them to, and they came back and they were all stoked in the Gospel of Luke, I think Chapter 10, and they said, "Man, it was so awesome. You sent us to all these cities, and we cast out demons in your name and they came out of people. We worked miracles and it was awesome."

And Jesus said, "Don't rejoice that the demons are subject to you. Rejoice that your names are written in heaven." Rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Again, I don't know how bad your week has been, but you're not going to hell. "Oh, but you don't know how bad this month has been for me and the disease that I'm facing." Yes, okay, but you're not going to hell. "I have relational issues you have no idea." Okay, but you're not going to hell.

Your names are written in heaven. You're in the Lamb's Book of Life. No wonder he speaks so much about joy in this book. And so look at verse 4—boy, we're going slow—"Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice." That's a command. Because it is a command, I can only surmise that joy is a choice that you make. Makes sense? You can't give a person a command to rejoice unless it's possible to rejoice as an act of one's will.

So, joy is a choice more than it is a feeling. Joy is a decision more than it is a sensation. Joy is an outlook based upon an uplook. I mentioned that last week. Paul's uplook was Christ, therefore his outlook was joy. So he says, as a matter of command, "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice."

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