Untitled Sermon

We are at the book of Philippians in our study through the word of God. And Philippians, as I mentioned, the first service only has four chapters. So we should probably only be in that book for about a year, I think. And we'll read through the chapter this morning, but that's about it. So I intended to get through verse one at least, but we didn't even get there.

So hang with me on this. I want to give you some background on the book and where Philippi is. Now, this is Caesarea. This is where Paul was in prison. You come on down the coast to Tel Aviv and inland a little bit to Jerusalem. Up here is Antioch. This is where the believers were first called Christians. And it's from Antioch that Paul and Barnabas were sent out on Paul's first missionary journey.

And Paul went into this area. He went into this area of Galatia and Iconium and began to establish churches in this area. And in starting that journey with Barnabas, Barnabas wanted to take his nephew, John Mark, with him. And Paul agreed, and they started off on the journey. And somewhere as they barely got going, really, John Mark had a change of heart. And we don't know why.

We don't know if he just became afraid. He was afraid of everything that was expected. And maybe he was still young in his faith and didn't know, you know, really what was going to happen. We don't know. All that we know is that John Mark turned tail and headed home. And that upset Paul quite a bit. So that when they were ready to go out again and Paul was ready to take Barnabas with him,

and Barnabas said, well, I want my nephew, John Mark, to go along again with us. Paul said, no, I'm not going to take the kid this time. You know, we don't want anything to happen like happened before. And there was a contention that arose between Paul and Barnabas over that. And you need to realize that, that the great Apostle Paul and the great Barnabas, who was the peacemaker, had contention, had some strife.

But God worked in the midst of that to spread the gospel. Barnabas went ahead and took John Mark with him. And they went on to do another work. And Paul took Silas with him and went on to come back through and revisit these churches in Galatia that he had established. That the Lord had established through him. Now, that's where we come into Acts chapter 16.

So go with me back to Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16, verse 1. It says, Paul came to Derbe and to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was a Jewess and a believer, but whose father was a Greek. The brothers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. This is the area of Iconium here. The brothers spoke well of Timothy. And so, Paul decided to take Timothy with him.

Verse 3, Paul wanted to take him along on the journey. So he circumcised Timothy because of the Jews who lived in that area. For they all knew that Timothy's father was a Greek. And Timothy submitted to this. And Timothy was probably a teenager and submitted to the circumcision so that he would not be an offense. He would at least appear to the Jews to be a proselyte

so that Paul would have an opportunity to share with the Jews. And then share the gospel with them without Timothy being an offense and having him turn off whatever Paul was going to say initially. Verse 4, Back in chapter 15, we read where there had been a contention among the churches that were being established because there were now Jews and Gentiles fellowshipping together as Christians, as believers in Jesus Christ. as believers in Jesus Christ.

But there was a race thing, a cultural thing that was happening. The Jews had so long been ingrained with the keeping of the Sabbath and with their feast days and with their rituals, such as circumcision and all, with their rites and their foods, that now the barbaric Gentiles come in and just the thought that Gentiles could partake of the same Holy Spirit and all was initially offensive to the Jews. And so there was a group of Jews called the Judaizers who were going around to the different churches and saying specifically to the Gentiles, now listen, you guys really aren't saved. You're really not a part of the true church unless you're circumcised and unless you keep the feast days and unless you keep the Sabbaths

and unless you abstain from certain foods. You don't eat these certain foods. You really aren't a part of the true church. And it again was causing another major contention within the church, strife among the believers. And so there was a council that was convened in Jerusalem. All of the apostles met together in Acts chapter 15. And they were hearing the reports of what was going on in the different churches,

of how the Holy Spirit came upon Cornelius' house before when Peter was there. And Paul and Silas were bringing, and Barnabas were bringing all of the messages as to what was going on in the churches up in the areas of Galatia. And around Ephesus and all. And how the Gentiles were being saved and filled with the Holy Spirit as well. And so it was decided that the decision was made

that they wouldn't put anything on these new believers, on these Gentile believers, any more than they themselves could not keep. James stood up in the midst of this assembly and said, why are we going to put on them what our record shows that we didn't even keep? We couldn't even keep all the stuff. So why? Why saddle them with all this too? And it sounded good.

The elders agreed that what they needed to do was just to ask them to abstain from fornication, so there would be no sexual sin. To abstain from meat that had been strangled, so there was no blood in the meat that would settle in the meat. And putrefy it, because we do read in Leviticus that the life is in the blood. Life is in the blood. Sin is passed down, I believe, by our bloodline.

As you come to Christ, you receive a new bloodline. But we inherit sin from Adam from the bloodline. And so they were not to eat anything strangled or eat blood. Nothing of blood. And they said with those three things, it was good. They wouldn't put anything else on them. And so this is the message that Paul and Silas and Timothy now are coming and bringing to all these churches is,

hey, the apostles have decided, you know, you don't have to follow all the rituals of Judaism. The Jewish Christians can do that. But they don't require now, the Gentile Christians to do that. We're still one. And the main thing is just one in the Lord. So verse five, the churches grew and were strengthened in the faith and they grew daily in number. Now in verse six,

Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. And when they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. Paul came in and he wanted to come, come down into this area again and come into the southern portions of Asia. And this time it says, and the spirit forbid him, the spirit wouldn't allow him.

So he wanted to come on up here then and go up into the northeastern part of Asia and Bithynia. He wanted to take the gospel up there, but the spirit of God forbid him again. And he mentions there the spirit of Jesus forbid him. And that's always been a puzzle to me because we're so quick, we're so quick, to assign to the enemy when things don't seem to go our way or the way that we think they ought to go.

It's the enemy. Just an attack from the enemy. How is Paul so easily able to discern when he wanted to go back in this region here and then up in here that it was God that was keeping him from it? Did Paul hear a little voice? Did he hear it? No, Paul, you know, not this way, not to Asia, not to Bithynia or those other names we can't pronounce. We're not going into those regions.

I don't think so. Some scholars believe, and I like to lean that way, that Paul got sick, that Paul was literally physically ill and God was not letting him move into those particular regions because he was ill. Oh, the devil made him ill. That's the demons that got him. Well, the spirit of God and the spirit of Jesus, he said, forbid him from going into those areas.

So what did Paul do? Paul persisted in prayer. Paul didn't give up. He just continued to pray. In verse 7, when they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the spirit of Jesus would not allow them to, so they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. And during the night, Paul had a vision of a man in Macedonia standing and begging him,

come over to Macedonia and help us. And after Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. I want you to hang on to some of this because we'll get to that in a minute. It was the spirit of God that forbid him from going into these areas, but it was God, they were convinced, it was God that was calling them in a vision to go on into the areas of Macedonia.

Now, they're at Troas where they've come, they've tried to go this way, they've tried to go this way, and so they just come to Troas and they're waiting and praying and God gives Paul a vision. And Paul has a vision of a man who's standing in Macedonia, the regions on over here where Thessalonica and Philippi are, saying, come over here and help us. And so they are convinced now that this is God speaking to them to come over and preach the gospel to those in Macedonia. Verse 11, Now, Samanthras is not on these maps, but there's a little island right off the coast there that they feel is probably what Samanthras was.

Neapolis is right, you can't see it real well, but Neapolis is right at the sea coast edge in Phrygia. Philippi borders it. It's like Neapolis was the seaport city for Philippi. Philippi was a strong city, a huge city. It actually had more commerce and trade than Thessalonica did, but Thessalonica was considered the capital of this Roman colony. Rome ran this whole section

and Thessalonica was the seat of the Roman government in Macedonia. But Philippi had more trade. There was more travel that would come across from Asia and come through Philippi and down into Rome and would bypass Thessalonica. So Philippi was a very large, very active, very strong Roman colony. And this is what it says in verse 12 here in Acts 16. From there we traveled to Philippi,

a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days. And on the Sabbath, we went outside the city gate to the river where we expected to find a place of prayer. Now that verse right there is very telling. Easy to read right over. Here's a huge city, strong city, big, filled with probably hundreds of thousands,

maybe even close to a million people. And yet on the Sabbath day, Paul goes out to a place of prayer by the river, which indicates that there weren't any Jewish synagogues. Now you had to have at least 10 adult males over the age of 20 in an area to establish a synagogue. Now there weren't any synagogues established because Paul had to go to a place of prayer that he'd evidently been in the past.

But he had to go to a place of prayer that he'd evidently heard about. He'd asked around and found out that there was a place of prayer down by a river right around the edge of town. And so he goes out to that place of prayer. Now that either means that there weren't very many Jews in Philippi, which some hold to, or that there were Jews that were in that area from the dispersion, that because there was a strong area of anti-Semitism, the Jews were not declaring their Jewishness.

They wanted to blend in with the Gentiles. They wanted to blend in with the structure that was there and not stand for their Jewishness, not openly worship Yahweh. And there are scholars who lean that way. And I tend to lean that way just from looking at the city and what happens after the church is established in Philippi, that this was a racist area, very strongly racially biased against the Jews.

So Paul and Silas and Timothy come out and they come to a place of prayer. Down by the river on the Sabbath. And we sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. And one of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. Now, I want you to grab onto some of this because this is the first church of Philippi being established.

And this is Lydia. There's a group of women that are there that Paul comes down and begins to teach. And these women, there's one woman, who is prominent there, who is predominantly mentioned, named Lydia, who evidently was leading this group of women who had been praying. She was a worshiper of God. And she was from where? Thyatira, which is where? Where Paul wanted to go,

but couldn't because the Holy Spirit forbade him to go there. He was wanting to go down into this area and the Holy Spirit said, no, I don't want you to go there. He wanted to go up in this area and the Holy Spirit said, no, I don't want you to go there. Why? Because there was help needed in Macedonia. Well, why did Paul learn that there was help needed in Macedonia?

I believe it's because Lydia and these ladies were praying, beseeching God night and day, persistent in prayer, continually in prayer. Lydia was from Thyatira, where Paul was wanting to go minister anyhow. A dealer in purple. She had some sustenance, probably some family and influence in Thyatira. As soon as Paul would lead her to Christ and begin to disciple her,

very probably Lydia went back to Thyatira and was a very significant part of helping establish the church in Thyatira, strengthen the church that was there. So what Paul wanted to do, God was going to accomplish, but in his own way, in response to prayer. The prayer of some persistent ladies in Thessalonica. Now, another reason why I believe that this whole thing had some racism at the base of it is because what did Paul see in his vision?

A man in Macedonia saying, come over here and help us. What do you think Paul would have done if he would have seen a woman in his vision, if there was a woman saying, come over to Macedonia and help us? No, this is all speculation. I don't know what Paul would have thought, but the idea is there. It's at least implied because it's mentioned what Paul saw. He saw in his vision a man,

but he goes to Philippi and meets women. Paul, remember, is a former Jewish rabbi schooled by Gamaliel, one of the highest ranking rabbinical teachers of the day. Paul was so against the church, remember when it was established, because he felt like it was a threat to his Jewishness, to Judaism itself, that he would literally go out and hunt down believers and drag them back to Jerusalem to be killed. And when God saved Paul, when Jesus met Paul on the road to Damascus, that was one of the first things that God began to transform was Paul's attitude towards the church, towards believers.

And then Paul, because of his Jewishness, would have had a separateness towards Gentiles, towards non-Jews, because of his Jewishness. And so God was going to deal with Paul's separateness where the Gentiles were concerned by making him the apostle to the Gentiles, sending him to the very people that he had at one time detested to bring the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ to them. Now, within Paul's Jewishness also was class distinction and class division. And to the Jewish mind, a woman was simply an object, something to own, something that if a wife did not satisfy a Jewish husband, he could put her away.

And the big question was among the rabbis at the time that Jesus came was, well, specifically for what reason can we put her away? Do we have to have a reason or can we just put her away? That was the biggie, you know. It wasn't abortion or whatever at that time. It was the woman. Can we just can her for nothing or do we have to have a reason? We have to have a specific reason.

So now Paul is still resting. I mean, I don't know if you realize this or not, but when the disciples got saved, they were not immediately made Mr. Clean. You know, they weren't perfect immediately and neither was Paul. The growing that we go through, they had to go through. And so God is dealing with Paul's Jewishness at the same time that he's wanting to establish a church in Philippi.

And I really believe if Paul had seen a woman in a vision, he would have attributed it to an attack from the enemy. This is an enemy attack. We're not going to Macedonia. But he meets Lydia and these women who were praying down by the river. And she is a worshiper of God and God opened her heart, it says in verse 14, to respond to Paul's message. And when she and the members

of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. If you consider me a believer, she said, come and stay at my house. And she persuaded us. Now the personal pronoun us is there. So you see that Luke has joined Paul and Silas. And Timothy, Luke is right, has written the documentation of the acts of the early church. And so Luke is now with Paul and Silas and Timothy.

And verse 16, he says, once when we were going to the place of prayer again, which is obviously down by the riverside, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She was a fortune teller that was possessed by a demon. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune telling. This girl followed Paul and the rest of us shouting, these men are servants of the most high God who are telling you the way to be saved.

And she kept this up for many days. Now that's another question, you know, should raise a question. I mean, if she was demon possessed and Paul knew she was demon possessed, why didn't he just immediately cast the demon out? You know, why put up with this? See, I believe we can get our focus so off onto the enemy that we miss the main focus, which is the Lord.

And we can so look at things that are coming into our lives as an attack from the enemy that you're just so looking for the enemy that you're missing God. And it's only after several days and Paul's annoyed at this and the spirit of God is probably talking to Paul and saying, okay, go ahead, that he turns around and he casts this demon out. She kept doing this for several days. Verse 18, finally, Paul became so troubled, so irritated that he turned around and said to the spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her.

And at that moment, the spirit left her. When the owners of the slave girl realized their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them to the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, these men are Jews and are throwing our city into an uproar by abdicating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept her practice. And the crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten.

And after they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. So upon receiving such orders, the jailer put them into the inner cell, into maximum security. And fastened their feet in the stocks. And about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. And the other prisoners were listening to them.

We've talked about this section before. And suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And at once, all the prison doors flew open.

And there were obviously murderers that were there. And so if one of them was scheduled for execution and got out, which he obviously did, that meant the jailer died. And he figured, why wait? I'll save him the trouble. And was ready to kill himself. But Paul shouted, don't harm yourself. We're all here. And the jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.

And he then brought them out and asked them, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they replied, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. And then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all others in his house. Now, a lot of people, I'll just, I didn't mention this first, sir. There's a lot of people jump on this and they say,

well, you and your whole house can be saved. Well, if they hear the word, yeah, I mean, there was no magic in this. Paul didn't say you can be saved and your whole house can be too. Anybody, this is two for one day. You know, we get two for the price of one. No, you hear the word and respond. And that's what he did. Then verse 32, they spoke the word of the Lord to him

and to all the others in his house. And they all responded to the word of God. At that hour of the night, the jailer took them and washed their wounds. And immediately he and his family were baptized. They believed in the gospel as it was presented to them. And the jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them. And he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God.

He and his whole family, implied, came to believe in God. When it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with this order, release those men. And the jailer told Paul, the magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released. Now you can leave, go in peace. But Paul said to the officers, they beat us publicly and without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens

and threw us into prison. Now you don't do that with Roman citizens. You can do that with Jews, but you don't do that to Roman citizens. If you beat and imprisoned a Roman citizen without a trial, without any charges against them, you could be killed, just outright killed right there. They just order you dead. You don't get a trial because you violated the rights of a Roman citizen.

And so Paul says that, you know, we're Roman citizens and you want to get rid of us quietly? No, let them come themselves and escort us out. Verse 38, and the officers reported this to the magistrates. And when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were shaken. They were alarmed. And they came to appease them and escorted them from the prison,

requesting them to leave the city. And after Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia's house where they met with the brothers and encouraged them. And then they left. And from there, they went to Thessalonica where they were there for three weeks. And then they were run out of town to Berea. And then Paul went on down to Athens and we picked it up from Thessalonica.

That's where we were in our study in Thessalonians. So we're actually looking at the cities backwards, but actually in the order in which Paul communicated. Paul wrote to Thessalonica first. Many believe it was probably one of his first epistles. And this epistle, Paul is writing from prison in Rome. You remember after Paul had made his missionary journeys,

he had, he'd wanted, during his journeys, he collected finances from the different churches to take down to the church in Jerusalem because the church in Jerusalem was really coming under the most severe persecution. They were predominantly Jews who had believed. And because of their faith in Jesus Christ, they were kicked out of the temple. They were kicked out of the marketplace.

They could not buy or sell in the market areas. They were having a rough time of it. They were starving. And so Paul, in his circuit of the churches that he had established, was taking up an offering to bring back to the church in Jerusalem. And he had committed himself with a Nazarite vow, a vow of commitment, a vow of holiness before God, that he was, that was a purpose with him.

He was going to fulfill that purpose to come and bring this assistance to the church in Jerusalem, the church that he, that he had initially persecuted. And so I could, he's got to see that this is really deep set in Paul's heart. He's seeking by this to come and minister God's grace to the place where he first started killing people. And so he makes a vow to God called the Nazarite vow.

It's a, it's just a total vow of surrender. It's a vow where he doesn't cut his hair because it's, it's, he's consecrated to God till he fulfills this vow of bringing this offering to Jerusalem and giving it to the church. And he finally comes to Jerusalem after all kinds of warnings for him not to go because he was, he was going to end up in, but he comes in and he comes to the disciples with his offering. And he, and the disciples say, well, you know, there's a lot of tension, a lot of unrest here still because of you.

But if you take some of these brothers, they're fulfilling a vow too. You go with them and fulfill your Nazarite vow in the temple and the people will see that and they'll really be blessed because they'll realize that you haven't given up your Jewishness and these brothers are there with you and there'll be an encouragement for you. So Paul cuts his hair, literally shaves his head and is ready to take the hair in as an offering before God. That's part of the Nazarite vow to offer it as a sacrifice.

Before the Lord, the fulfillment of the vow. And he goes in with these brothers and somebody recognizes him and they'd evidently seen Timothy with him. And Timothy, they know is a Greek. Even though he's circumcised, he's a Greek and no non-Jew was to be allowed beyond the court of the women. They couldn't go any further than that. And here is Paul inside the temple grounds

and past the court of the women and somebody says, he's got a, he's got a Gentile in here and the whole place goes nuts. Well, right next to the temple area is the Antonia Fortress where the, where the Roman soldiers are. And the captain of the guard says, what's going on down there? So he runs down with a contingent of men, separates Paul out, starts to bring Paul back for his own protection.

And Paul says, can I talk to them for just a second? And the guard says, okay. So he starts telling them why he's there. I have come and God's been working and you have, the ones that killed Jesus and, but he's the one that God delivered to us as the Messiah and God has now raised him from the dead and there's life now for those who believe in him and he sent me out now as his apostle to the Gentiles to bring that same message to the Gentiles.

And when the Jews in the temple heard the word Gentiles again, they went nuts. They threw dirt in the air. They ripped their clothes. The captain of the guard thought, oh boy, we're in trouble now. So he takes Paul on into the, on into the fortress and holds him there for safekeeping. Well, make a long story, not quite so long. They learn that there's a plot now

that 40 men have taken a vow that they're not going to eat or drink anything until they kill Paul. That's made known to the captain of the guard. He sends Paul by night with a whole contingent of cavalry and foot soldiers up to Caesarea, the bottom of the map, for safekeeping to hold him there until they can have some kind of a hearing and determine if they should have any charges or what the deal is. Well, Paul's there for a long time and the procurators change in that area.

Festus comes, who's the head of the Roman colony in that area. And Paul shares with Festus what's going on and the Jewish leaders come up from Jerusalem. They share with Festus what's going on and Festus is thinking, there's no reason to hold this guy. I don't have any real charges against him. And so he says to Paul, why don't you go on back down to Jerusalem

and I'm sure if you present your case there, they'll understand it. I don't want to hold you, you know. Paul knows that these guys have taken a vow. Now, these guys have either died from starvation because Paul's been there for a long time and there's 40 more guys that have taken their place or they've eaten and rethought their vow. They're still going to kill him

but after a good meal. So Paul says, you know, I don't want to go back. I appeal to Caesar, which was his right to do as a Roman citizen. If you have any kind of case, it's like appealing to the Supreme Court. Taking the appellate process and going to the Supreme Court. Paul says, I appeal to Caesar. He had a right to be heard from Caesar. Festus is wanting

to let him go. He says, okay, he's appealed to Caesar. So he sends him to Rome. And when Paul gets to Rome, he still has some sustenance, some support that he gleaned and he was only under house arrest at that time so he bought a house in Rome. He was able to buy a home and was under house arrest for about two years. So it's during this two year period that he writes

his epistle, to the church at Philippi. Now, now we finally get to the heart of Philippians. It's almost, we're almost done but we're finally getting to the heart of Philippians. Too many of us today, in these last days, the pressure is intense. God said it would be. The suffering is increasing. God said it would. The persecution, as you take a stand as a believer,

is going to increase. God told us that would happen before he came back. But something I'm seeing in the church, something I'm seeing in my own life more than I want to, is that we are too often circumstantial Christians, if I can use the word. Circumstantial Christians. There is, and you've been made aware of it over the last few years, the emphasis of situational ethics

in our educational system. Basically what that says is there is no basic standard for behavior anywhere. It depends upon the individual and the particular situation. So in other words, there's no absolute right and wrong. I mean, you can say you can't do this, but you aren't in my shoes in my situation. And so all of life has been reduced to the fact that it depends on the situation

and the individuals in the situation. If the same situation were committed by some other individual, it might be okay for them, but not for this one because it depends upon the situation as far as what's right and what's wrong. That's situational ethics. It's ridiculous. It's part of the cause of the downfall of our country. We have an absolute standard of right and wrong.

We need to stand on it. Situational Christianity or circumstantial Christianity is simply a phrase that I've coined because it's implying that my walk with Christ and the joy of the Lord that I experience in my walk with the Lord is too often dependent upon circumstances or situations. If I have enough finances to pay all my bills, if I have enough money to pay all my bills, if I have enough money if I have food in the cabinets, if my things are running, my cars are running, the house is fine, the water heater works, my kids are healthy and not in jail or pregnant, then I rejoice in the Lord and I'm walking strong in the power of God. But if the circumstances change and the car breaks down at the same time that the hot water heater goes out,

at the same time that a son or a daughter is imprisoned or the daughter turns up pregnant or the daughter or flunks out of school or you have family strife and somebody runs away from home or you're in major crisis in your marriage or you all of a sudden lose your job and there's no finances to take care of certain bills, now my rejoicing in the Lord is kind of done here and the circumstances are so bad. I don't know if I'm going to make it. I just don't know. I just really don't know.

That's circumstantial Christianity. If the circumstances are great, my rejoicing in the Lord and my relationship with God is great. My walk with the Lord is superb. But if the circumstances change, then my walk with God is He seems distant. He seems far away and my rejoicing, my ability to rejoice in Him seems really not too good right now until the circumstances change.

But here we see Paul. Here we see Paul, the dynamic missionary, visionary. I mean, he's going to take the gospel as far as God will let him go. He's going to take the gospel into Asia if God will let him. He's going to take it into Europe if God will let him. He wants to go and establish churches. He wants to preach the gospel to the multitudes. But now he ends up in prison.

Well, surely this is a tactic of the enemy. Surely this is the enemy who wants to thwart the power of God and wants to thwart the gospel of Jesus Christ from going out into the world. He wants to short-circuit Paul. But it's while he's in prison, in this imprisonment, that Paul writes four letters that have become a part of our scriptural canon. Ephesians, Philippians,

Colossians, and the little book of Philemon. From house arrest, Paul's going to get sent to the dungeons underneath Caesar's palace. It's from there he writes 2 Timothy. Paul has an amazing ministry of intercessory prayer while he's in prison. I mean, how would you like to have the apostle Paul praying for you? I mean, you say, well, we have Jesus who's at the right hand

of the Father making intercession for us. We have the Holy Spirit of God who intercedes for us with words that cannot be uttered when we don't even know how we ought to pray. Amen. Praise God. But how would you like a flesh and blood individual here like the apostle Paul who, I'm praying for you, Mark. Oh, okay. You know, I'm ready to go. Paul has a tremendous

ministry of intercession. He has a fabulous prison ministry. I mean, while he's in prison, while he's under house arrest and all, he has guards around him. When he's finally in the dungeon, he has guards chained to him. But he has guards that are coming in on four-hour shifts, two guards. Every four hours, they change. And what does Paul do? Does he sit there and go,

woe is me. I could have had a dynamic, dynamic ministry. I was destined to be the apostle to the Gentiles, but I don't have a home now. I'm in chains. My family's left me. I mean, he could have done that. You know what he did? Have you heard about Jesus? You want to know why I'm here? I'm here because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

He'd share with shift after shift after shift after shift to the extent that later he'll say that even those in Caesar's household send you greetings. You know, those who are believers in Caesar's household. Can you, these guards are, you know, coming in and Paul's leading them to the Lord and they're having Bible studies with Paul and I'm writing down all this stuff. I, this, you know, I have an imagination writing down all this stuff and they go back home and this guard just happened to be married to Caesar's niece and he says, this Paul is what Paul says today, you know, and it's pretty interesting stuff, you know, and he starts leading her to the Lord and then there's a women's Bible study in Caesar's palace and, you know,

and then all of a sudden he got a men's group going over here in Caesar's palace and Paul had a tremendous while he was locked up. You see, here Paul's in prison. He's not able to do what he wanted to do. Even more than that, he's not able to do what he really believed God had called him to do, to go out and take the gospel to the world. He's locked up in jail,

yet he's productive and here's the key, he is rejoicing. He is not only productive, he is rejoicing. This Philippian letter has the tradition of being called the epistle of joy because 18 times in this letter the word joy or rejoicing or its derivative is used by the Apostle Paul. So as you and I study this epistle together over the next however long, anticipate learning how to rejoice in the Lord because that's what Paul wrote it for and he wrote it to the church of Philippians.

Now, there's some Bible students that'll say, well, this was written to the Philippian church. Yes, it was written to the Philippian church but it doesn't say to the Philippian church only. All other readers will be totally disqualified, have no bearing at all on what's being written there. No, this is God's word. God gave us this epistle so that when we read it,

we would also learn how to rejoice in the Lord because that's why Paul wrote it to the Philippian church. Now, Paul is in jail in Rome and the Philippian church heard about it that he was in jail at Rome and they were upset. Why is Paul in jail? So they sent a fellow named Epaphroditus and Epaphroditus brought some finances from Philippi to help meet Paul's need and Epaphroditus evidently got there and goes, whoa, this need is beyond this and so Epaphroditus went to work.

He got a job to try and help support Paul to try and meet Paul's needs and he evidently almost worked himself to death. Paul says in this epistle that he was near death. Well, word of that got back to, to Philippi that Epaphroditus, our beloved brother is near death and they got upset and they sent word and in the meantime, Epaphroditus, God healed Epaphroditus and Epaphroditus hears that Philippi is worried about him and he's upset because they're worried about him when they need to be praying for Paul and so he wants to go back and Paul wants to send him back to Philippi and encourage the church at Philippi with Epaphroditus' presence and so he writes this epistle to send with Epaphroditus to encourage the church at Philippi to go back to Philippi

to rejoice in the Lord not to get bogged down with the circumstances. Regardless of the circumstances, whether you have finances or not, whether the hot water heater is working or not, whether, no matter what the circumstances are, you can rejoice in the Lord. It's not a mind game. It's not power of positive thinking. It's taking God's word at face value for what it says.

This is what God's promised. Real quickly, this is the four areas we're going to look at. The overall heading of this study is going to be learning to rejoice in the Lord. Now, if you'll let the Holy Spirit minister this to your heart as we go through this, you will have a total change in your Christian walk by the time we're through with this book. Just coming through Thessalonians,

you should have an anticipation of the Lord's return. But God is coming soon. Jesus is coming quickly for his church. As we come through Philippians, you're going to have a renewed joy in the Lord that even if he doesn't come as soon as we want him to and the suffering increases, that's all right. God's in control. God's got a plan. God's got a purpose. I can learn to be content

in this particular situation. Chapter one, we're going to look at rejoicing in the opportunities to serve Christ. We've talked some about this before, but we really see in depth what Paul shows by example and also teaching as far as our rejoicing in the opportunities to serve Christ. Secondly, in chapter two, we'll see rejoicing in having the mind of Christ.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. What all's involved in that? What does that mean? How can I have that mind? What was the mind of Christ at the particular time that Paul was writing this? What did it involve? It involved an emptying. Well, how do I empty? Do I have anything to empty? What do I fill? How do I fill it with? How can I have that mind that...

And we'll look at all of that. Chapter three, rejoicing in the calling of Christ. You are called of Christ. Not just saved, but called and sent. Chapter four, rejoicing in the provision of Christ. Rejoicing in the provision of Christ. And once again, we're out of time. I still have a page and a half of notes. And I want to read through chapter one with you.

Just real quickly. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons. Now, I intended to get that far today. I really wanted to go through verse one. And we'll have a whole study in verse one next time. Because verse one is, I mean, it's the foundation that's laid for the rest of the book.

If you can understand what he's saying in verse one, it makes the whole rest of the book make sense. So read that over. Read some different versions this week. King James, New King James, New American Standard, New NIV. Read the Living Bible. Read some Greek, New Testaments if you have some. The Weiss Translation. Look up some of these words. Look up servants.

Look up saints. Look up overseers. Look up in Christ Jesus. See how many times that's mentioned. Those are keys to your rejoicing in the Lord. Let me give you a hint. In verse one, you'll learn who you are, what you are, and where you are. And if you know those three things, you'll be able to rejoice in the Lord. Satan gets your attention off of who you are

and what you are and wants you to focus more on where you are, which isn't where this says you are. And that's circumstantial. If you know who you are and you know what you are and you really know where you are, you won't have a self-esteem problem. You won't have problems with anxiety. You will not have problems with depression if you keep bringing yourself back

to who you are, what you are, and where you are. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy. There's that word. Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you

will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you since I have you in my heart. For whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love

may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you may be able to discern what is best. That's another key. Discerning what is best. And we'll talk about that when we get to it. And may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ. Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. Now I want you to know,

brothers, what? That what has happened to me, imprisonment, chains, bondage, stopping him from going to see all the other churches, has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I'm in chains for Christ. Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.

It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so in love, knowing that I'm put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I'm in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing, is that in every way,

whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached and because of this, I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice. For I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now, as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. For if I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet, what shall I choose? I don't know. I'm torn between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. But it's more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain

and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith. So that through my being with you again, your joy in Christ, Jesus, will overflow on account of me. Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you.

This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved and that by God. For it has been granted, it has been gifted, it has been graced by God to you on behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him. Since you are going through the same struggle you saw that I had and now hear that I still have. Father, there's so much here.

And may we, with anticipation and excitement, look forward to what you have for us in this study of Philippians. Father, that it would indeed turn us from being circumstantial Christians, situational Christians, into those who have learned how to rejoice in the Lord in whatsoever state we're in to be content, knowing that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, knowing that you who have begun a good work in us will continue it until its completion in the day of Jesus Christ. God, we anticipate a good, good, enriching, growing time in the study of your word. You can come today, though.

That would be fine. And we just learn it face to face. We just learn it face to face. First to him. But Father, strengthen us, I pray, through this study. In Jesus' name, amen.