Introduction to Philippians || Philippians || Pastor Ryan Nichols || 01/14/2024 || 8:30 AM

Morning. Would y'all stand? Would you join me in prayer? Father, we thank you for this opportunity to gather to worship this morning, Lord, to study your word. Father, please be glorified. We give you praise and thanks, and we just ask for your blessing on our service this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. We want to welcome all of you tonight and those who are here. Lord, we just ask that you keep everybody safe in this weather.

You can tell it's really cold outside. If you would grab your bulletin, we'll go over some announcements. Over on the left-hand side are the things going on throughout the week, and all of those are going this week. So wait, women's study is canceled. So I forgot to send that through last night. Monday night, women's study is canceled for this week. So that's the only thing that's canceled.

In the middle section of your bulletin, men's breakfast is coming up this Saturday.

This group is going to be starting back up. Those are the things that are coming up, and we still also have three spots available. Mission's trip in May. So if you're interested in that, make sure that you talk to Jana. And then, of course, don't forget your reading plan is on the back page of your bulletin. So those are the things that are going on. If you would, make sure that your mobile device

is silenced. And then for our responsive reading this morning, we are going to be in Psalm 14. Psalm 14. Looking at the New American Standard so we sound the same. Should be one in a row around you. As a matter of fact, I just got a whole bunch more in. So the rows are pretty full of Bibles right now. And as you're turning to Psalm 14, if you are able, please stand in the honor of the reading of God's word. I will read the odd verses if you will

follow along with Pastor Allen and the even verses. Psalm 14 for the choir director, a psalm of David. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt. They have committed abominable deeds. There is no one who does good. The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after. God. They have all turned aside. Together they have become corrupt. There is no one who does good,

not even one. Do all the workers of wickedness not know who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the Lord? There they are in great dread, for God is with the righteous generation. You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted, but the Lord is his refuge. And if you'd read verse seven with me. I know that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion when the Lord restores his captive

people. Jacob will rejoice. Israel will be glad. And Father, we do thank you, Lord, that you are the one place for salvation. And so, Lord, may we look to you today. Father, as we spend some time in your word, I just ask that your Holy Spirit would move through our hearts, that you would move through the congregation this morning, both those here in person and those that are watching online. And Lord, may we be ministered to in the way that only

your Holy Spirit can. In Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. And if you would, open up in your Bibles to the book of Philippians chapter one. Philippians chapter one. Well, before Christmas, we started off, we finished off the book of Ephesians, and I've been praying since then about where to go next and whether just keep trucking through the New Testament like we are

a couple of different ideas in mind. But ultimately, what brought me back to the book of Philippians is the theme of the book of Philippians, because the theme of the book of Philippians is joy. And I feel like in our culture right now, what we really need is a church that is truly full of joy, because joy is one of those fruits of the Holy Spirit, one that is produced in our lives by the working of the Holy Spirit. And quite frankly, for the early church, the joy of the believer was one of the greatest draws to Christianity. It was one of the greatest draws of people to come to

Christ because they saw the joy of the believers. And sometimes I think we as a Western culture church can sometimes kind of lack that joy. We unfortunately can end up falling into the discouragement, the difficulties, the hopeless feeling that the world around us has. And we as believers need to, through that working of the Holy Spirit, experience that joy that he has for us.

And that's the theme of the book of Philippians. And so this morning, with that as a backdrop, we're just going to take a look at the first couple of verses, because I would like to give some introductory statements before we get into the book. And so starting in Philippians chapter one, verse one, it says this, Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Christ Jesus to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and the deacons. Praise to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, those two verses

form for us the introduction to the book of Philippians. And so there's three things I would like to talk about this morning. I want to talk about the writer. I want to talk about the recipient. And I want to talk about the greeting that he gives. Now, some of this is going to be reviewed. Some of you may know a lot of these things, but again, it's not a bad thing to go

back and review exactly how we ended up where we are and with the people that we're talking about. And I want to talk about the greeting that he gives. Now, some of this is going to be reviewed. So the first thing that I would like for us to look at is I would like for us to look at the writer. And ultimately there are two names mentioned as the writer or those who are sending

this epistle. There is Paul and there is Timothy. So first of all, let's talk about Paul. Let's remember where Paul is when he's writing this. Paul is writing this from prison. This is one of the four prison epistles. As a matter of fact, most think that this is towards the end of his time in prison there in Rome. And so it's towards the end of his imprisonment there in Rome, which is pretty ironic when you

think about the theme of the book of Philippians, because the theme of the book is joy. And it's interesting that that would be the theme of a book that someone would write from prison while he's chained to a Roman guard. As a matter of fact, in the book of Philippians, the word joy is used four times. The word rejoice is used eight times. And the word glad is used three times.

There is a lot of joy in this epistle that he writes from a jail cell. Now that's where Paul is when he's writing, but let's remember Paul's history, shall we? Most of us know the story of the conversion of Paul, but let's talk about it anyway, just because I never want to take for granted that somebody may not know the story of something that takes place in Scripture. Paul, whose Hebrew name was Saul. Some people think that Saul changed his name to Paul when he became a

Christian, but really Paul was his Greek name. Saul was his Hebrew name. Saul was a firm believer in the law. He was a firm believer in the old covenant, and he was an incredibly religious man. As a matter of fact, from all outward appearances, Saul would have been considered perfect by the people that were around him, because he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was a Jew of the

Jews. He did everything that he was supposed to do. As far as the law was concerned, he was blameless. And that was Jesus. He didn't like Jesus. He didn't like what he stood for. He didn't like that he seemed to upset the apple cart as far as the law was concerned. And he wanted to do everything he could to destroy Jesus and the work of Jesus through this group of people known as apostles.

So Saul started a persecution that began with him holding the coats of those who stoned Stephen, the very first martyr of the early church. He held all of their coats and gave consent to their faith. He was a righteous man of God. And after the stoning of Stephen, Saul unleashed a persecution on the church that was unlike anything that had been seen up to that point in time. As a matter

of fact, it drove most of the church out of Jerusalem and into uttermost parts of the world, or at least Judea and Samaria and other parts of the nation of Israel. And so Saul decided that the best thing that he could do is continue the work that he had begun in trying to destroy the church, and so he sought letters from the high priest to go to Damascus where he could round up more Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial. And so they said you go ahead and do that. And so he went with a guard, and he was on his way to Damascus when at that point in time an Angel of the Lord appeared. It knocked him down, probably knocked him off of his donkey that he

was riding, and he said Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you? And he said, I'm none other than Jesus. buried in holy water. But he was the first man THAT he ever saw. the one that you're persecuting and of course in his later account he said that jesus told him it's so hard for you to kick against the goads you've been fighting this for so long why do you keep

fighting and he said lord what should i do he said go on into town go to a place that i'm going to tell you and i'll send someone to you so none of the other guards saw what was going on they heard the voice but they didn't see anything and then all of a sudden the bright light was gone but when paul looked up he couldn't see there were great scales over his eyes and so he went into town and stayed in the house that the lord had told him to stay at at that point in time ananias was called and he came and he prayed for him it says great scales fell off of his eyes and at that point in time paul became a believer in jesus christ and he at that point in time became one of the most devout preachers of the gospel that perhaps the world has ever seen you

he went from unleashing a persecution unlike had been seen up to that point in time to being a preacher of the gospel unlike had been seen up to that point in time because that is the power of the gospel that's why paul in the book of romans wrote for i'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of god unto salvation because that's the difference that the gospel makes in the life of somebody who will surrender their heart to jesus christ and so paul then began to uh go on missionary journeys as a matter of fact because of the persecution that he had unleashed a church started in antioch up at the north end of of israel a church that was made up of hellenistic

jews in other words not truly pure jews and gentiles so barnabas a name that you'll hear again as we go through this time here this morning barnabas went up to check out this work that was going on he was one of the disciples and he went out to see what was going on and when he saw this great work that was going on that there were all of these converted gentiles that had no idea what the scripture said he goes i know the exact right person to come and lead this group i'm going to go find paul and that's exactly what he did he went and he found paul he searched him out he brought him to antioch and barnabas along with paul and several other gifted bible teachers taught the church in antioch everything that they needed to

know well while they were in antioch preaching teaching breaking bread together praying together and even fasting together the lord had a work that he wanted some men to do so the holy spirit had said separate unto me paul and barnabas for the work that i've called for them to do so paul and barnabas set off on a missionary journey as a matter of fact paul would go on three missionary journeys that would encapsulate really the work of his life and the ending of that third missionary journey would land him in prison where he is right now and so that's a little bit of the background of paul paul was a great man who had seen a great salvation in his life and was a great servant

of the lord but it wasn't just paul that was with that was writing this letter paul was with another young man by the name of timothy now timothy is kind of a fascinating character in scripture because we don't know a ton about his background we really don't know a ton about him in scripture although he's a name that comes up quite a bit in acts chapter 16 so paul had taken a second missionary journey as a matter of fact there's kind of an interesting story that goes with that paul and barnabas after they completed their first missionary journey which was full of all kinds of ups and downs all kinds of difficulties and yet god moved massively and started all kinds of churches at the end of that first missionary journey paul was back in

antioch with barnabas praying and seeking the lord and he said hey barnabas i feel like the lord is leading us to go back and not only strengthen the churches that we've been in but to strengthen the church that we started go back and visit them but maybe carry the gospel even further and barnabas said that's a great idea let's bring john mark along with us now john mark had gone on the very first missionary journey he was barnabas's nephew but john mark left when the going got hard they were at a place where paul was very ill where the ministry was very tough persecution was heavy and john mark said i can't do it anymore and he went back home well barnabas being the really encouraging guy that he is the guy that will

always take the weak person under his wing said let's take john mark along with us and paul said that's a terrible idea if he goes i'm not going as a matter of fact we're told there was so much tension between paul and barnabas at the beginning of that second missionary journey that they had to part ways they could not take that second missionary journey together barnabas took john mark and they went and uh and did some more work of the lord and paul took along a guy by the name of silas who is really important for the philippians story to go and do the work that they had been called to do well as they're traveling traveling along they come to a city called lystra in the second missionary journey and paul and silas come

across a young man by the name of timothy all we're told in acts chapter 16 is that he was a young believer who had been led to the lord by his mother and his grandmother and his father was a greek and paul took a liking to him he was well spoken of by the brethren this young man who was and paul said you know what i like him let's take him along with us let's make him someone that we can train up to do the work of the ministry and so basically from that point on through the rest of paul's life timothy is going to be a part of it he's going to train timothy he's going to teach timothy he's going to turn him into a pastor as a matter of fact the very last book that paul will

write is to a young man by the name of timothy that book is simply titled second timothy and a pastoral epistle because timothy was a young pastor who needed the encouragement of an older man of god and so this young guy timothy was brought along on paul's second missionary journey and who was with him when paul was in prison timothy timothy would come and visit him and encourage him and strengthen him and so you have these two writers you have paul and you have timothy but i want to point out a third thing to you about these writers of this epistle to the lippians you may have taken note of the verbiage that's used here it says paul and timothy bond servants of jesus christ i personally don't prefer that translation of that word because i think it

softens that phrase i actually prefer the old king james translations which is bond slave because that's exactly what it was a bond slave the greek word is the word doulos d-o-u-l-o-s and it simply means this it is one who is devoted to another to the disregard of your own interests in other words i fully devote my life to this person even if it means i make sacrifices in my own life and now this type of slave could either be voluntary or involuntary it was considered one of the lowest forms of servitude and that's who paul refers to himself as but there's also an old testament connection to this word bond slave you see most of the slavery that takes place that we see in the bible especially in the old testament

is what we would today call indentured servitude in other words you got into debt and you couldn't pay your debt off so the person that you owed that money to you went to work for them and you went to work for them for a certain amount of time in order to pay off your debt well if a man went to work for someone else and while he was living in that house he found a wife they had some kids and there was a young woman who had a baby and she was a slave and he was married to a couple of women and they were both very wealthy she didn't have the money to support the family and she was also a slave and she had a weak heart and she was the only one who had the money that she needed

and she was in the house with her body and her husband and she was a slave but she was also a slave and it took them to the door and they would take him to the door and he would take him to the door and they would pierce his ear with an awl and he would be referred to as a bond slave he would be a slave for life to that man he would voluntarily devote himself to what he had to live to that person for the rest of his life that's the idea behind what paul refers to himself as in this first verse as a bond slave of jesus christ not only is he one who has devoted his will to the will of another to the detriment of himself but he has done so voluntarily why because he owed a debt that he couldn't pay and once his master paid off the debt he responded

by voluntarily making himself that master's slave for the rest of his life and that's who paul viewed himself as that's what timothy viewed himself as as a bond slave to jesus christ and i would like to draw a quick personal application to your life here whose slave are you you see we don't like to admit this in this culture and this can probably get me in trouble for saying this but everyone's a slave to something you're either a slave to pleasure you're a slave to money you're a slave to uh to what people have to say about you uh your your reputation you are a slave to your job you're a slave to you name it you're a slave to the things of this world or you are a slave to jesus christ there is no happy medium ground where you don't

serve anybody and we're told in scripture no one can serve two masters no one can serve two masters you have to choose who you're going to serve i always like to use the illustration of a dog when it comes to this you ever notice dogs only have one master dogs only have one person that they will truly listen to and if that person is around they won't listen to anybody else they'll only listen to that one person we've owned several dogs none of them by my choice i've never been the one who's like hey we should go get a dog and yet the dogs become mine right and so we've owned several two of them have been mine i got in trouble for not including carl the last time i told this story usually i say one dog that we've owned of the same person and i've

got several that we've owned has been mine and that's beck and then i tell the story that beck has two turntables and a microphone and nobody gets it except a few of you that grew up in the 90s but but beck was my dog and beck did everything that i said when we first brought back home my wife was the one who wanted him but when we first brought back home she got sick and so who spent the first two days with beck i did right who sat with him at night when he was kind of nervous to be in a new place and he nervous shed everywhere i did who fed him every single morning i did who gave him water who let him out who did all the things for like two or three days straight i did so who was beck's master me and it didn't matter who else was around it

didn't matter what anybody else said if i went somewhere beck was following me if i told him to do something he would do it because i was his master well now we have carl who's like a miniature version of beck and he absolutely personifies the name carl with an underbite and everything and and and and carl is now that exact same way if i sit on the couch he comes and sits with me if i get up off of the couch he will follow me wherever i go aaron will offer him a treat and he will still go and then come see me because i'm his master that's just all that there is to it no man can have more than one master and i have a question for you who's your master who are you a

slave to because so many people think they're living in freedom because they're pursuing all these things and they say we've thrown off the restraints of religion and now we're free to live however we want to and what i would tell you is once you throw off the restraints of jesus christ you are not free you are now in bondage to another sin you're in bondage to something else because the only freedom comes by being a slave to christ so paul gives us this little introduction by introducing himself and timothy that they are bond servants of jesus christ and then we see him as a slave to the recipient now in philippi we'll deal with the word saints in just a moment

to the philippian church now over in the margin of your bible i want you to turn there but i want you to write acts 16 acts 16 because acts chapter 16 tells the story of the founding of the church in philippi it's a really cool story so paul goes on this second missionary journey he goes to lystra and he finds timothy and then he comes all the way to the edge of troas a small port city and he's looking for where to go next he tries to go south into what we know of as asia minor which is called asia at that point of time but the holy spirit said no he tried to go north up into uh i think it was thrace that's just north of there and the holy spirit said no so he sat there in troas he couldn't go north he couldn't

go south and he had no direction from the lord and so he did the thing that we all have to do when we sense that there is no direction from the lord he waited now i tell you that because one of the things we're terrible at in this culture is waiting now i don't know about you i watched the chiefs game last night and it was on a streaming service so it's the internet and every now and then the little buffer circle would come up right and it would kind of buffer for a second and you know what i would do in all of the patience of the man of god i am oh come on right because it was usually at the time when i did not want that to happen you know why because i'm not good at waiting and if i'm not good at waiting for the

cheese game i'm really not good at waiting for what god has for me next right and we're not good at that sort of thing and sometimes we find ourselves in a place where we go i have no direction what am i supposed to do and i tell people the exact same thing then you're supposed to actively wait serve god where you are and wait for what he has to say too many people want to force god's will they're like okay i kind of want to go here so i'm just going to go here and and you're going oh i don't think that's what you're supposed to do and they do it anyway and they come back and you know what they say i don't think that's what i'm supposed to do and i'm like huh where'd you hear that one i don't know the best thing that you can do is wait

wait on what god has for you next do you know that there are things that you learn right and the time of waiting that you can't learn any other way there are things that you learn in the time of waiting that you cannot learn any other way because in the time of waiting is when god teaches you to listen for his voice to listen for what god really has to say well while they were waiting in troas they couldn't go north they couldn't go south they were just stuck paul had a vision and the vision that he had was a man from macedonia which by the way is east a man from macedonia crying out come help and he took that as god's direction he woke up the next morning he said i think we're supposed to go to macedonia and so they did so they crossed the the water

and they went to macedonia they go to a couple little cities and finally they land in a city called philippi and while they were in philippi they were in a city called philippi and they were in philippi they did what paul would do everywhere do you remember what paul's thing that he would do any new city that he went to he would go find a synagogue so that he could be around other jewish people and hopefully preach the gospel well you had to have at least 10 jewish males to start a synagogue and in philippi there was no synagogue and so it was well known that if there was no synagogue that there would be a body of water perhaps a river and there might be a prayer

meeting now so that's exactly what he did he went down by the river and he found a prayer meeting the lady that was leading it was a name a lady named lydia and lydia was a seller of purple which is the dye that would have been used to dye the royal robe so she was a lady with some money but it's kind of interesting because the man from macedonia turned out to be a woman she was the one praying that god would send someone to minister to them to preach the gospel and so paul first of all gathers with these ladies that are down by the river praying and he ministers to them and teaches them and preaches them to them and so lydia says you guys meaning his missionary party which would have been paul and silas and timothy you guys are going to

come stay with me and they tried to object but they she forced the issue and so they went and stayed with lydia well so they were preaching and teaching in the town and everywhere that paul silas and timothy would go there was a young lady who would follow them around and this young lady

was a medium she was demonically possessed and could uh had access to the spirit world and so this demonically possessed young lady who made a lot of money for her masters as a medium would at that point in time just like they would today made a lot of money for her masters everywhere that paul and silas and timothy went she would follow them and she would cry out these are servants of god and finally one day paul got annoyed and he looked at her and he said be gone and the demon went out of her and she was in her right mind and she no longer practiced divination she was no longer a medium because she was no longer demon possessed yay she set free from the demon except there's a problem she stopped making people money and

isn't it funny that most people have no issue with religion until it affects their finances until it somehow affects the way that they live their life and that's what happened and so her masters went to the people that were in charge of the world and they went to the people that were in charge of the city and they said these jewish men are causing chaos in this city telling us to worship another god so they put paul and silas in prison and they beat them with rods in other words they took a very long stick and they probably would have pulled their top of their robe down and just beat the tar out of them on their back and then while they were in prison they put them in stocks now i don't know how you

picture that someone being in stocks perhaps you picture the old west thing of like hand hand head right now it meant that they spread their legs all the way out like they were doing the splits and they took a post and they made sure that they stayed that way so that they couldn't get up and try to escape so their legs are completely stretched out like they're doing the splits their back has been beaten and it's the middle of the night undoubtedly they can't sleep because they're in too much pain so what do paul and silas start doing they start singing praises to god i don't know about you but when i hurt i rarely find that i can praise god very well i'm pretty good at complaining about it i'm pretty good at invoking god's name and saying god

why right it goes straight nancy kerrigan on that thing but but other than that i'm not really one that sings a lot of praises but that's exactly what they did and you know what happened when they started singing the praises of god in the middle of the night about midnight the entire prison shook and it opened up all of the doors and their stocks fell off i could be wrong but i'm pretty sure that that earthquake was a little bit more jesus than it was just an average earthquake i can't just run by this without drawing the spiritual uh application here when we praise god it shakes the ground and it usually changes our perspective it usually sets us free from whatever it is that's holding us in bondage there is power and praise and so the prison doors

open their stocks fall off and the guy who was supposed to be uh in charge of them we simply know him as the philippian jailer knew what was coming because for a roman guard if your prisoner escaped you faced the same fate that that prisoner faced and so rather than deal with what the romans were going to do to him he decided he would end his life himself and he was going to end his life and he had his sword ready to fall on it and paul and silas who by the way this would be the perfect time for them to just let that happen and escape right but that's not their heart paul and silas say stop everybody's here you do not need to end your life and you know what the philippian jailer

said to him he looked at him and he said what must i do to be saved and of course paul looks at him and he says believe on the lord jesus christ and you will be saved and that's exactly what happened that night that philippian jailer came to faith in jesus christ and he took paul and silas back to his house and he doctored up their wounds it says he washed their wounds the rest of his whole house got saved the next morning they brought him back to jail and and eventually paul and silas were set free so when we think about this philippian church we may not know the names of everybody in the philippian church but we may not know the names of everybody in the philippian church but we know a handful of them we know that there was a

lady named lydia who was faithfully asking the lord for god to send someone who would teach them for god to send someone who would disciple them and was willing to help fund whatever ministry took place there we know lydia and all of her friends were there we know that there's a young lady whose name we don't know other than the fact that she was set free from demon possession she's a part of the philippian church and we know that there's a jailer there is a roman guard who now him and his entire family got saved we know that they are all a part of the philippian church now interestingly enough the very next day after paul was set free from prison he left philippi and he moved on so what those people did with their message we're not sure but

we know that a church was started a church that needed overseers or elders and deacons so a pretty significant work that takes place here so it's pretty fascinating that here in this church because of what took place in acts chapter 16 a beautiful church was started as a matter of fact this church was very near and dear to paul's heart when he continued on in that second missionary journey he came to another city called thessalonica and when he was in thessalonica the philippian church sent support to him so that he could devote himself completely to the preaching of the word while he was in thessalonica as a matter of fact the entire region of the philippian church was set free from demon possession so that he could

have hiskeys and spears and recognition and so on now paul's letter is written the reason he's writing this letter is because the philippian church who had been so concerned about the man that had meant so much to them they figured out that he was in prison under house arrest in rome and so they sent a care package to him while he was in prison by the hand of a guy by the name of epaphroditus most think that epaphroditus was probably the pastor of the philippian church paul actually is writing this letter for two or three reasons one to tell them thank you for their not only throughout his ministry but the wonderful gift that they just sent him two to let them know

how he's doing and not to be worried about him and his place where he is in prison because god is always good no matter what and three to encourage them to mend some relationships that he knew needed mended which we'll get to at the very end of the book of philippians and so that's why this letter is written so it's written to the philippian church but i want you to notice what he refers to this philippian church as in verse one says paul and timothy bond servants of jesus christ to the saints in christ jesus who are in philippi that's a great word isn't it saints it's not just a really bad football team in new orleans it's actually a group of people the word saint is the uh is the greek word hagios h-a-g-i-o-s and it means this it means sacred

holy or set apart it was anything that was set apart unto god and these believers in philippi were saints in christ jesus because of who they were in christ they have been set apart unto god now you and i whether we realize it or not we are saints usually and in a lot of the church world views it this way they they see a saint as a matter of fact i think the church has some qualifiers for being considered a saint you have to have performed a miracle or some such thing like that but according to this that's not the case according to this a saint is simply one who is in christ jesus you see that's who you and i are we are saints and it's not because of the things that we do it's because of the one in whom our faith is we are saints because

we are in christ jesus because we have been set apart unto god and this is an important point that i want to make to us there is no such thing as progressive salvation there is no such thing as progressive salvation you don't have to hope that over time you'll eventually become saved the day that you put your faith in jesus christ as your lord and savior you are as saved as you're ever going to be you are as sanctified as you're ever going to be now are we walking out that sanctification and learning about it on a daily basis absolutely but there is no progressive salvation there isn't hoping that one day you'll do enough that you'll be saved because brother and sister i hope that you're going to be saved

brothers and sisters if you are in christ you have already done enough because you've put your faith in jesus after all when the philippian jailer asked paul what must i do to be saved what did he say believe jesus in john chapter 6 when they came to jesus and they say what must we do to work the works of god you remember what jesus said he said this is the work of god that you believe on him whom he has sent that's jesus you see how do we achieve this place of sainthood it's not by acts of righteousness that we do it's by one act of faith that we put in jesus christ as our lord and savior and so brothers and sisters you are the saints in christ jesus at calvary chapel of ark city

isn't that great now when those people that don't like you tell you how terrible you are that's not true i'm a saint and when those saints go marching in right it's going to be a sin it's going to be amazing so he calls them saints but the last thing that he addresses the book to also is to the overseers and the deacons or the elders and the deacons now that means a couple of things number one it does mean that this is a well-established church at this point in time it was big enough that they needed overseers and deacons that they needed elders and deacons to uh to run the church but it also means that while in general the book of philippians is not a corrective book it does have some forms of correction in it and it's important for those

overseers and deacons because paul is going to call on them at the end of the book to help restore some relationships and so we have seen the writers paul and timothy who are bond servants of jesus christ we've seen the recipients the saints who are in philippi even though we know that in general it applies to all of us that are saints and now we see the greeting verse two grace to you and peace from god our father and the lord jesus christ the siamese twins of the new testament grace and peace the word grace is the greek word charis and it simply means unmerited favor there's something about that word grace that just sort of washes over you amen there's just something about knowing that you have

been shown grace by god that makes you want to show grace to other people that makes you want to pour out that grace on the people that are around you because the more that you understand god's grace in your own life the more you want to lavish it upon the people that are around you because you're so aware of what god has done for you that you want to make sure other people experience the same thing as a matter of fact i would tell you that the most judgmental people within the christian church don't really understand grace themselves if you are judgmental of other people and constantly take on the grace of god you're not carrying down other people critical of the people around you i would ask you to ask yourself a

question do i really understand god's grace in my life because if i understand that what he has given to me is unmerited favor then how can i hold it over someone else's head when they've done something wrong because all i can do is show that same unmerited favor to them because if i didn't do anything to earn it then why should i require them to do something to earn it he says grace unmerited favor be upon you now there's a second thing that's true about that word and that's that grace is the traditional greeting of the gentiles when when when the greeks saw each other they would look at each other and i think i've shared this with you before they would say

grace to you right what what an amazing greeting how much better is that than what's up right and that's what i say all the time too but every now and then i'm like man you should probably use something cooler like grace to you be a lot nicer way to greet people and so he says grace and then the second thing he says is peace the word peace i looked this up to see if i could get some sort of a good definition for peace it's kind of hard but i pulled out two words from all the definitions that i saw that were really good the word peace means quietness or rest because a lot of the definitions had to do with the fact that nations weren't at war right which is true because before

we came to jesus christ we were at war with him right and because of our sin he was at war with us but now that we came to the truth of jesus christ through his grace we're now at peace we have quietness and rest in the land because of what he did for me and of course peace is that typical jewish greeting they would greet each other shalom or peace to you that was that greeting and so there's a lot of different ways to greet each other and i think that's what i'm going to talk about in a little bit but there's a couple of things that are really significant about about that greeting that paul gives the first is this and i'm not the first to make this point but

it's an important important one to be made you cannot know the peace of god until you first know the grace of god you cannot know the peace of god until you first know the grace of god and i got to tell you there's a lot of people running around in the world and there's a lot of people running around in the church that don't have very much peace in their lives as a matter of fact their life is full of turmoil you ever been around someone like that perhaps you have a picture in your mind of somebody right now maybe you have your own face in your mind right now where when you're around them you can just almost feel the angst inside of them that they just lack peace and i would tell you it's because they don't really

understand grace either they don't understand grace because they're living in sin and they know that god's wrath is upon them and they need god's grace in their life or they don't understand grace because they're still trying to earn their way to god through legalistic things and they really don't have god's peace because they're still not sure if they've done it you cannot know the peace of god and this came out of the olive tree enhanced bible dictionary gave about five different definitions but i thought this was so good in defining peace it says for the christian it is the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through christ so fearing nothing from god and content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is let me read

that to you again because i just thought it was great for the christian it is the tranquil state of soul assured of its salvation through through christ and so it fears nothing from god and and can be content with your earthly lot because you know it's from him in other words peace means i'm not scared that i haven't done enough to earn god's uh god's grace in my life because he's already given me that but peace also is my ability to handle whatever comes in my life because ultimately i know that god is in control and if he didn't withhold his own son and salvation from me how much more will he not withhold from me every good thing i tell you that because i want to remind you once again

where is paul writing this from he's writing this from prison and he doesn't write a letter saying please write the congressman so that i will be released from prison because i'm wrongfully in prison right now he's not telling them to start a riot to make sure that he is set free from prison he's not trying to introduce prison reform now what does he write to them about he writes them about joy because even in prison god is using him because even in prison he's using him to make sure that he is set free from prison because even in prison he's using him to make sure that he is set free from prison he has learned the secret to contentment that he can do all things through christ who gives him

strength why he knows the grace of god therefore he knows the peace of god so i have a question for you this morning where do you not know god's peace what what in your life what in your life is causing you that anxiousness whether it's your earthly lot in life something that's happened to you something that's come into your life something that is taking place in your life right now and you're struggling with having peace because you're like why would god allow this why would why would this be taking place in my life right now or or whether it's because you feel like you are never going to be good enough for god whatever it is what's causing you to fail to have peace in your life right now because i want to tell you

if you will ask god to teach you about his grace and i promise you he will give you is peace. He says, grace and peace to you. Now, there's a third thing I'd like to point out to you about the fact that the words grace and peace are used here. It's the greeting to the Gentiles, and it's the greeting to the Jews, meaning that whoever was in that church, Jew or Gentile, this letter is for you. Because I will always come back to this same statement, and the

divided world that we live in right now, and we live in an incredibly divided world right now, the word of God is for everyone. It's not for the elites. It's not for the really rich people. It's not just for the poor people. It's not just for the white people. It's not just for the black people. It's not just for the Americans. It's not just for the Europeans. It's for everyone,

because the word of God crosses every barrier there could possibly be. We talked about this in Ephesians. He has broken down the middle wall of separation and brought the two together and made them. And all of that takes place, notice what it says in the very last phrase, grace to you and peace from our God and Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Where does it come from?

It comes from God, the Father. It comes through God, the Son, Jesus Christ. That peace, that tranquility, that ability to be with God, that peace, that tranquility, that ability to be with you, to handle whatever comes next. It doesn't come from anything I can do. It comes directly from God. And so brothers and sisters, over these next few weeks, as we get into the book of

Philippians, bear in mind that this is a book that will lead us not only into the peace of God, but into the joy that comes only from him. Amen? Let's all stand. And if you'd bow with me. Lord, we come before you and I thank you for the time that we've had in your word this morning. And I just want to thank you for the time that we've had in your word this morning.

I just want to ask that you would continue to strengthen us in you. Lord, take the truth of what we've learned in your word. Lord, may you marinate our hearts with it and help us to come out smelling just like you. So Lord, do the work that only you can do, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.