INTRODUCTION

Alright. Good morning again. It's so good that we can spend time praying together.

I appreciate your willingness to do that and hope that we never get tired of that. Thank you Nathan for leading us through that. If you have your Bibles, let's go ahead and open up to the book of Philippians.

As you're finding the book of Philippians, just a couple quick things to make you guys aware of. Last Sunday I mentioned a couple of resources for you. I mentioned bookmark that we made that has some key verses in the book of Philippians. You can grab one of those in the lobby on your way out today. And also I mentioned some scripture journals last week. it's the book of Philippians and it has pages for notes as well. If you'd like one of these scripture journals, I think there's still some more out there. I know we had several or quite a few this morning before the first service. And so if there are some out there, go ahead and grab one and you can have that as a gift and resource. If we run out, we will get more. But hopefully that will be helpful to you as we're going through Philippians together.

One other quick thing, just kind of a fun thing to mention. It was eighteen years ago this Sunday that Evident Church was started. And so today's our 18-year anniversary as a church. So yeah. Yep, and as I always say I was five years old and it was good time. I had somebody at first service actually say you looked five years old and that's true. That is very true. But we're so thankful for God's grace and thankful that you're here with us this morning and gonna open up God's word together. So Philippians chapter one. before we get into our first couple verses there in Philippians, let me go over where we have been in the series.

SERIES RECAP

We started the series last week. we're gonna be in Philippians for this fall, right up just before Thanksgiving. And we're looking at the book of Philippians, specifically the topic of the believer's joy.

The believer's joy. Now, Philippians is about more than just that, but we're gonna see that theme throughout Philippians as we go through and we started last week with an overview of the theme of joy, and we contrasted true biblical joy with this kind of worldly superficial version that is very you know that our culture promotes and focuses on. Biblical joy is different than that.

And so here's kind of some baseline things. This is what we started with last week. I'm gonna review them real quickly and we'll jump into today's text.

Last week we first talked about number one that joy is God's desire for every believer. That God desires you to be filled with joy. Jesus said to his disciples in John 15, He's told them these things so that his joy may be in them and that their joy may be full. So God has made you and created you for joy.

Number two, that true biblical joy is always possible in the life of the believer. That's a challenging thing to consider. And what I'm saying is not that every person would walk around with a fake you know smile on their face like everything's perfect and fine. That's not what we're saying. But we're saying that joy is not just an emotion. Joy is way more than just an emotion. And so there's this deep-seated gladness that can come about by God's work in a believer's heart and life that is always possible because the believer is always vitally connected to Jesus, and Jesus is our source of joy.

Number three, that true biblical joy is essential fuel for the Christian life. That you need this as a believer, that this is something that will help sustain you as a Christian in Christian living, and also especially as you persevere through trials. I love this verse in Jeremiah 8:10, which says, The joy of the Lord is your what? Is your strength. The joy of the Lord is your strength. So we want to learn about that.

And then lastly, number four, we learned last week that true biblical joy must be fought for. I shared with you that I had this faulty idea or belief that joy was just something that happened to me and I was passive in it. And that may be true for the emotion or feeling of joy. But there's other things that we can do to foster this true biblical joy that we have to be aware of. 1 Thessalonians 5:16 says “rejoice always, for this is the will of God for you in Christ,” it goes on to say. I think that this is a vital series for us, and I really hope that you'll be encouraged by it. If you're new to us, what we do is we walk through books of the Bible, and right now Genesis is on pause for a few months, and we're going to be walking through Philippians together, and I'm very grateful for that.

So if you would, let's stand together and honor the reading of God's Word. Philippians chapter 1, verses 1 through 11, is what we're going to be looking at this morning together.

Philippians 1, starting in verse 1. Here's how the letter begins.

SCRIPTURE READING - PHILIPPIANS 1:1-11 ESV

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

PRAYER FOR THE MESSAGE

And if you would join me as we pray. Lord, thank you for your grace that's poured out to us. iIf anything, if we walk away with anything this morning, help us just to get a better glimpse and picture of just how great that grace is. That all we are and all that we have and it's all by your grace. I'm so thankful for each person that's here and for what you're doing in their lives.

God, I pray that today would be another thing that you do to help them to grow, to draw them closer to you, to weed out sin in their lives or in our lives, God, that we can draw closer to you. I pray that you'd continue to teach us about this thing called joy. Lord, that we would have the wisdom to recognize that the things that the world says are the sources of joy are not the true sources of joy, God, that we look to you and continue to find this joy and this hope rooted in Christ. And use this time for your glory and your purposes in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen.

THE MESSAGE

You can be seated.

So I think that this type of sermon at the beginning of going through a letter is one of my favorite sermons because we get to talk about some of the context and background of the book of Philippians. I think it's also one of the hardest to preach because it's like an airplane kind of getting off the runway. We've got some things to go through and we'll see how the Lord uses it, but I'm excited.

So you guys understand the adage in real estate that the most important thing in real estate is what? Is location, location, location. And so similar thing is true in Bible interpretation. The most important aspect of Bible interpretation is context, context. So what we're gonna do this morning is just spend some time understanding who is it that wrote the book of Philippians, who was it written to, and it helps us to understand kind of the background and and have greater understanding of what's going on in the letter that's written here in front of us. So what I want you guys to do is I want you guys to hold your spot in Philippians 1 and go with me to Acts chapter 16 and we're gonna look at some of the context and background for this letter to the believers in Philippi. So if you saw there in the first couple verses, it says “Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to the saints who are in Philippi to the overseers and deacons.” So this tells us that Paul is the author of this letter, and he's writing it to believers. He's writing it to Christians in this town called Philippi. What's awesome about the book of Acts is the book of Acts is a 30-year, like a three-decade history of the early church.

So Acts chapter one shows us the ascension of Jesus. So right at the end of Jesus' resurrection, he spends time with his disciples, and then he's he ascends to heaven, and then from there from roughly 30 AD to roughly 60 AD, the book of Acts is a history of the early church. So what's awesome is you can take many of the other letters of the New Testament and you can overlay them over the book of Acts to see where they fit in the history of the early church. So if this letter is written to believers in this town called Philippi, we would want to ask the question, how did this church begin? How did they hear the good news of Christ? And what's the history behind it?

So Acts chapter sixteen gives us that history. In fact, if you look at the first couple of verses of Acts sixteen, it says Paul came also to Derby and Lystra. A disciple was there named what does it say? Disciples are named Timothy. So this is the same Timothy that we find in Philippians chapter 1.

So this is Paul's first interaction with this young disciple, this young believer named Timothy. And it tells us some of Timothy's background. Timothy's mom was a a Jewish woman and Timothy's dad was a Gentile. It's a a unique marriage and unique relationship, and that makes Timothy unique as well. So this is when Paul kind of takes Timothy under his wings and begins to disciple Timothy. And that's why he's mentioned later on in this letter.

So then we see Paul travels to this town called Philippi and he begins preaching the gospel. And it tells us, as you look at like at verse 11, for example, it tells us who the first believers were in this town. So typically, what Paul would do is Paul would travel to a city, he would find a Jewish synagogue, and he'd preach there, and as people became followers of Christ, then they would start a church in that town, but Philippi didn't have a Jewish synagogue, which means that there were probably less than ten Jewish men in that town. That's what we learn from history. But he did find some believing women or some Jewish women who were praying at a river or a water area, and he actually just begins preaching the gospel there.

So the very first believer, the very first Christian convert in Philippi is a woman named Lydia. And Lydia, it says, is a seller of purple cloth. So she had her own business. We don't know much else about her, but it's simply she was probably well off. She was probably financially set. And she actually becomes someone who helps Paul's ministry later on with her financial abilities. But she hears the gospel, she comes to faith in Christ.

As Paul and Silas were traveling doing ministry in that town, a young girl though starts kind of calling out, like, hey, you guys are preaching the gospel, and she kind of gives them a hard time. You'll have to read about it, and it starts in verse 16. And Paul actually then prays with her. She's a demon-possessed girl. She has, she's a slave to an owner who's using her supernatural abilities to make money for himself. He's exploiting her. And so Paul gets kind of frustrated and he prays with her, and the demon is cast out of her, and the text doesn't say it, but she probably becomes the second convert to Christianity in the town of Philippi. Paul and Silas, the town is kind of in an uproar over this. The slave owner is not happy because he lost his means of making money.

So they raise trouble in the town, and Paul and Silas are thrown in prison. You can again read this all in Acts 16. About midnight it says Paul and Silas were not grumpy, not complaining about their circumstances. They were doing what? Do you guys know the story?

They were praying and they were singing songs and singing hymns of praise to God. And in that moment, as they're worshiping God, God miraculously allows the stalks to come off their wrists and their feet and the prison doors to be opened wide. And the jailer observing this assumes that they've escaped and he knows that the punishment for this will be his own life. So going to take his own life, Paul cries out, like, don't do that, we're still here. And then this Philippian jailer cries out, says, What do I have to do to be saved? And so they lead him to understand the gospel. He gives his life to Christ. His whole household is impacted by this. He becomes the third convert to Christianity in Philippi.

So this church plant, this church plant team was made up of Lydia, a slave girl who was formerly demon possessed, and a Philippian jailer, a gentile. It sounds like the beginnings of a joke. It wasn't a joke. Like, this is God's work in this town. So Paul spends some more time there. Eventually, Paul travels on, and this is the beginnings of this church.

So about 10 years later is when Paul is writing this letter back to these believers here in Philippi. I think we have some pictures. I love being able to visualize these things so you guys can see where these things are. This is a picture of the Mediterranean Sea. You guys can see Jerusalem there in the bottom right and then Philippi up in the top left. And this is tracing Paul's journeys as we see in the book of Acts. And you can see where the town of Philippi is. you can actually still go there today. You can still go see ruins from the first century You can go see an amphitheater as a part of their culture, this is on my bucket list. I will go, Lord willing, to see these things. But it's just fascinating to know this these aspects of history.

All right, so now flip to the end of the book of Acts, go to Acts 28 for just a moment. I'm going to show you where Paul is when he's writing this letter. So Acts 28:16, for just a minute. So Paul spends many seasons in and out of jail for preaching the gospel, and this is another time, about ten years later, when Paul finds himself in chains. So Acts 28:16 says “And when we came to Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier who guarded him.” Now go again to the last two verses of the same chapter, Acts 28:30-31 - “Paul lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.”

So this is a moment or a season in Paul's life when he's in prison, but he's under what's called house arrest. So he can have visitors, but he can't leave. And if you notice from verse 16, like I mentioned, there's always a Roman guard with him. And so it's during these two years that Paul writes several letters of the New Testament. He writes the book of Ephesians, he writes the book of Philippians, he writes the book of Colossians, and the book of Philemon. So it helps you to have this context that Paul is writing this from this Roman imprisonment.

I think we have a picture as well. I just had AI make a picture of what it might have looked like. And so it's just fun to imagine, it's fun to think about.

So this gives us a lot more understanding as we read the letter to the Philippians where Paul is and what's going on. Right. And so I really want us to try to look at Paul's theology of joy and how we can see that played out in these verses.

Okay, go back to Philippians. So Paul begins his letter by identifying himself, Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus. And he says “to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, to the overseers and deacons. So this is being written to the entire church.”

The word saint is just the New Testament's way of saying a Christian. So this is being written to all the believers who were in Philippi. And he identifies himself as a servant of Christ Jesus. We don't see it as clearly in our English translations, but really what Paul is saying is that he's a slave of Christ Jesus. Now nobody in the first century would boast of being a slave, but Paul does. Paul has no problems identifying himself as someone who is who belongs to Jesus.

So one of the questions I guess we have to ask ourselves is why would Paul identify himself this way? It's because he just simply understands the depth of the gospel, the good news. That Jesus Christ has paid for his sins. And he is now indebted to Christ. So for him, it's no problem to say, I am a slave of Christ Jesus. And I honestly think this is the starting point of true biblical joy. When you understand who you are in Christ, when you understand what Christ has done for you, this is the starting point of true biblical joy. And so Paul has no problem with this. Paul says, I am a slave, I am a servant of Christ Jesus.

So, what I want to do for the next few minutes is just walk through the next part verses 3 through 11. And I want to learn from Paul. I want to sit at Paul's feet and just understand a little bit where he's coming from. And so I guess one of my questions as I was looking at this, knowing the background, one of my questions was, why is Paul so happy? Right? Isn't that a good question? Is he just the eternal optimist? You know, is he just always excited, always happy? I don't think that's the case. I think Paul knows who he is in Christ. He knows what Christ has done. And he's got this foundation.

So I want us to see, I just observe a couple things from Paul's life, and I'll use them as applications for you as well. So the first thing I want to challenge you to see from Paul's pattern is I want to challenge you to find joy in fellowship. I want to encourage you or challenge you to find joy in what we would call Christian fellowship.

If you've been in church for a long time, you guys know that's a church word, right? Fellowship. I don't think many people use that much outside of the church. But it just means relationships with other believers. And this may be a surprise facet of true biblical joy, but the Bible encourages us to find joy in spending time with other believers. I want you just to pay attention to Paul.

Look at verse 3 again. He says, I thank my God in all remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy. So when Paul's praying for the believers in Philippi, he's just gushing with joy and gladness as he thinks about them.

Well, quick question for you: As you think about other believers in your life, is that your response? Is your response when you think about other people that you know in Christ that are maybe part of our church or online or in your family? Is that your response? Are you just grateful with joy for them. And he gives the reason. Look, there's another in verse seven.

He says, “It's right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace.” So Paul is recognizing the value in other believers because they are also recipients of the grace of God Does this make sense? And I just think it's so important for us to recognize the value of Christian fellowship. That's one of the places where joy comes from, is from spending time with other believers. Yes.

This past Sunday. So you've heard us talk here about membership. Membership is a way for you to formalize your commitment to the local church. And we get together quarterly for members' dinners and we had one this past Sunday evening and part of that we have several people who are candidates for being deacons in the church and elders in the church and part of that we had them share their testimony.

And it's just so encouraging to hear from them of God's grace in their life. And even though their stories are not identical or the same as maybe my story, it's just so encouraging to hear those common elements of God's saving grace. And it's so uniting for us as believers to hear of God's grace in other believers' lives. It gives us an appreciation for one another. And it gives us a joy. Where we can essentially say, “you know what, that's my story too.” Like the details are not the same, but it's the same grace that was at work in my heart that draw me to drew me to Christ, that God used to draw you to Christ.

And I just appreciate Paul and the value that he sees in God's work of grace in others. And I just wonder: do you value that as well? Do you value and do you find joy from the fact that there are other people who have been saved by God's grace and you get to spend time with them, maybe in prayer, or encouraging one another, or in scripture. And just this does not happen through sitting on the couch at home. This does not happen through an AI chatbot. This happens by this, by spending time with other believers. And I just I pray that you have that in your life, and I pray that you long and desire that. And I just want to ask, why would we why would we take that for granted? Why would we minimize the relationships that we have. We have Christ in common.

I don't know if you know Paul's backstory. You get again, you can read about Paul's life in the book of Acts. It tells about his conversion. Paul grew up in a very religious home. Paul was a very religious man himself. He kept all the right rules and rituals, but at the end of the day, that never changed his heart. But he did encounter Christ. And he counted Christ in a powerful way, and basically Jesus said to him, Paul, you're gonna not you're gonna serve me now. And Paul was like, Okay. And so that's Paul's backstory: a sinner saved by grace. And so I can imagine as he's thinking of Lydia, as he's thinking of this slave girl, as he's thinking of the Philippine jailer, and thinking of God's miraculous work of grace in their lives, he's got this great affection for them. And I just wonder if that's a part of your life. And if it's not, why isn't it? One of the ways that we find joy as believers is we find joy in fellowship with other Christians. And I know it's messy, and I know it can be ugly sometimes. That's part of the thing we have to risk if we're going to also experience the joy.

Second thing we see from Paul here, and this is one of my favorite verses in this book for sure and in the Bible. Number two, we find joy in the fact that God will finish the work.

So when you become a Christian, when you give your life to Christ, God saves you by His grace, and that begins a work. That begins a process that we would call sanctification. Just a fancy word of God helping you grow to become more like Christ. And I love that Paul gives this assurance in verse 6. He says, “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus.” That's a great verse. There's a there are a lot of good coffee mug verses. That's a good coffee mug verse. It's a good reminder to those who are there in this town that are believers. You know what? God began this work in you, and God will complete this work in you. It may not feel like it always, but God is the one who began it. God is the one who's going to complete it. Now we can ask the question when will it be completed? And the answer is in the verse. What does it say? When will this work be completed? It says at the day of Christ Jesus, doesn't it?

So if you're not sure what that day is, that means when either Christ returns or we go to be with him. So I'm partly encouraged and discouraged by that verse. I'm discouraged that it doesn't happen sooner than that, but I'm also encouraged that it is going to happen. That this is a promise of God. That if he began the work in you, he is faithful and he will bring it to completion when Christ returns, or you go to be with him. I pray that that brings you great joy as a believer.

I love this quote by Richard Baxter. He said, “Is our joy in first seeing and believing so strong? So sweet, what will be the joy of full possession?”

So we've got this joy that God is at work in our lives by his grace, and how much sweeter will it be when we finally have full possession of all the work that God has planned for us in Christ. And I hope that that's part of what motivates you and drives you is that you know there's this finish line, and God is moving me toward that finish line in Christ, and I can see that, and I’m excited for that. I think God calls us to that. God committed to complete the work he began.

God never breaks a promise. If you are in Christ, you don't have to question God's love for you, his purposes for you, and his faithfulness to you. Paul, sitting in a Roman prison can say, you know what? God is good. This is only working toward my sanctification and for God's glory. I pray that that's my heart. I pray that that's the way that I respond to things like this. Lord willing I'll never be in a prison or a Roman prison or any prison for that matter, but if I am for the right reasons for preaching the gospel, I pray that I can have the same perspective.

I think the third thing that we see from this, we can find joy in growing in righteousness.

So I think that we as Christians should find joy in the process of God making us more like Christ. Sometimes it feels like we're being put through the mill, but that's the way that God brings transformation in our lives. We'll talk about that more next week specifically.

But sometimes God uses trials, and we can find joy in the fact that through this trial, this is sanctifying me, this is making me more like Christ. I think that we should find joy in the work. Yes. So look at those verses nine through eleven.

Paul said -

“and it's my prayer that your love may abound more and more, so that your love will increase with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.”

So Paul is praying for these believers in Philippi that they'll grow in their love, that they'll grow in their knowledge and discernment. These are great things. And that this will allow them to be able to know what is excellent and pure. And then they will be filled with the fruit of righteousness, filled with the fruit of living obedient lives for Jesus Christ. And I'm telling you, this is this is huge for joy in the believers' life. There is great joy in being obedient to God.

I was talking with a friend from the church here about a week ago. He'd been out of work for a while and he found employment again. God provided for him and he said he's so excited that he can begin tithing again. I promise this is not a tithing sermon or tithing Sunday. But this is what he was sharing with me. And I just can resonate that there's so much joy in knowing that you're living in obedience to God.

For the believer, that's so important. So Paul's praying for them that they'll grow in their knowledge and understanding of God's will and desire for them, that they can walk in that and experience the fruit of that in their lives. Yes.

That's where true joy is found is in living for Christ. And we're called to find joy in this process of growing in grace. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says -

“And we all with unveiled face, (so it means that the veils have been lifted from our eyes and we can see Christ) behold in the glory of the Lord, are being transformed in the same image from one degree of glory to another.”

So there's this incremental growth and pro and development in a Christian's life as they walk with Christ. And Paul said in second Corinthians 4:16, “so we don't lose heart, though outwardly or our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” I think that's an interesting as I read those verses, as I read that verse, I think we can resonate to a degree. It probably has to do a little bit with age and stage of life, but you know, the outer self is wasting away, and there's like a “yeah, we can okay, we all we can say, yeah, we get that.” and then our inner self though is being renewed day by day. And that is the truth. Yeah. So we're called to find joy in this process. We're called to find joy in this process of God helping us to grow by his grace.

So I'm not sure where you're at this morning. I'm not sure. Sure, if you're doubting your ability to carry on in the Christian life, the good news is it's God's work by his grace as you trust him. And I have to imagine that Paul is, as he's writing these words, that he's remembering back to who it is who are the first converts to Christianity in Philippi. As he's remembering back to Lydia. He's remembering back to this slave girl, demon formerly demon-possessed, and he's thinking back to the Philippian jailer.

And I would have to imagine that he has them in mind as he pens verses like verse 6 that we already talked about. He's trying to encourage them. I'm sure of this, that he who began a good work and you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

And as Paul's writing these things, his hope and his faith in God is so strong and so full that his joy is almost spilling out over in this rented apartment that he has as he's waiting for his trial. But he's so full of joy as he thinks about other believers in Christ, as he thinks about God's promise to complete the work, and as he thinks about even just the process of growing by God's grace. So

I pray that you will enjoy what God is doing. I pray that you'll treasure other believers in Christ. And I even hope that there'll just be this sense of you know what we get to grow in the Lord Jesus Christ and our love together.

I think that's something that we should praise God for. That's one thing I've always tried to do from the time our kids were very little. And I've shared this if you've been with us at all much the past eighteen years, you've heard me say this before, but especially when our kids run diapers, they're not in diapers any longer. They're teenagers, they're not in diapers any longer. Just wanted to clarify that. but especially when you're in some of those stages, you know, it's like, oh man, another one.

I was talking to a young dad this morning and they went through a couple of different clothes changes before they got to church this morning. That's just how it goes. But just reminding ourselves in those moments like I get to do this. I get to do this. And I pray that we have that same attitude as it comes to our walk with the Lord and our fellowship with one another. I get to do this. I get to be with other believers. I get to grow in the grace of God. I get to worship him and sing to him and pray to him and walk with him even through trials.

Oh, what a great joy it is to be able to be united to Christ. Let's pray.

CLOSING PRAYER

Father, thank you for you for just this beginning part of Philippians and as we just kind of launch into the series as we've talked about joy is a a supernatural thing

And so I pray that by your grace, by your Holy Spirit, you'd be allowing the light bulbs to come on, allowing the connections to be made. And help us to you really grasp and internalize and I pray that you would give us this joy. God, I thank you that this joy doesn't come from circumstances that there's something much deeper and much stronger and much better.

Lord, just continue to build this into our hearts, into our lives. We can't thank you enough for the sacrifice that was made for us on the cross. Your grace was poured out into our hearts that we can be made right with you.

We don't deserve it. We don't deserve it for a minute. But it's your grace. So God help us to build from there. We are recipients of grace. Grace upon grace. God fill us with your joy and again give us your grace. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.