Philippians 1:1-2
Notes
Transcript
Church Business
Before we get into our message this morning, I wanted to start off with a few items of church business
We’ve been announcing for a few weeks that Pastor Eric was going to be taking a 3-month sabbatical
Last Sunday we had the board come up and pray for him and Kimber as it was their last Sunday before that sabbatical
Keep them in your prayers. They’re hitting the road for about a month, and then will be back in the community but not working
It’s a time for Pastor to seek the Lord, get refilled, & fan the flame that’s within him.
He’ll be back in the pulpit in January
During this time, I’ll be teaching through a series on the book of Philippians.
And if you need anything, you’re looking for counseling or you have needs, just reach out to me
You can email/call/text. I’m here at the church Mon-Thurs if you want to stop by and chat
These 3 months aren’t a time to set it on cruise control, we’re going to charge forward for the sake of the Kingdom
Our church is going to continue to offer ways to get plugged in, either through a small group, an event, or by serving here at the church
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be announcing a few new ways to get connected
One new thing already in place is a monthly newsletter that we sent out this week.
Each month, we’ll send that out to everyone we have contact information for. It’ll have info and registration links to all of our events and small groups. We’ll also include updates on nursery, children’s and youth ministries, and there will be a short devotional from one of the staff or board members.
What if you didn’t get it?
Great segue into the second new item we are pushing - the Church Center app
Pull out your phone, go to either the App Store or Google Play Store and search for Church Center.
You can download the app, and then it’ll give you a list of local churches you can join. Select CCF to set as your home church, and you’ll be able to easily register for events, pre-check kids in for class, give, and manage your profile.
Once you’re registered, you **should be** automatically added to our distribution list
Download the app. Get plugged in.
We’re pushing this all not b/c we want to see our church grow (I mean, we do), but the whole goal of this, of what we do here, it’s to see Jesus glorified in our community.
Pray
Lesson - Philippians 1:1-2
Intro/Background
This morning we’re going to start a new study in book of Philippians
Philippians is one of my favorite books in the Bible.
It’s a short book, just 4 chapters, but it is so powerful, there are so many practical things that we’re going to learn out of this epistle (letter)
The Apostle Paul wrote this book to the church in the city of Philippi while he was under house arrest and awaiting trial before Caesar in Rome.
Paul had founded the Philippian church several years before this - you can read the account in Acts 16.
Paul was on his second missionary journey with Silas in 49-52 AD
On that trip, Paul would meet Timothy who would become Paul’s spiritual son and disciple and go on the journey with him.
Dr. Luke, the writer of the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, also joins Paul on this journey.
Before he went to Philippi, Paul was in modern day Turkey going from town to town
He would first go to the Jewish synagogue in that town and preach that Jesus was the promised Messiah, then he would go to the Gentiles (non-Jews) to preach.
Paul had this desire to go westward, further into Asia, and Acts tells us that the Holy Spirit forbade them
Kind of interesting, why would the Holy Spirit prevent Paul and Silas from doing a godly thing?!?
Paul tried to go north to northern Turkey and the Spirit said no to that as well
So Paul, wondering and confused about what God had for him, gets a vision from the Lord
A man from Macedonia, modern day area of Greece and the Balkan Peninsula, appears to Paul and pleads with him to help his people.
Paul then immediately goes
God will open and close doors for us in the same way He did for Paul.
7 “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, ‘These things says He who is holy, He who is true, “He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens”: 8 “I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name.
We need to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and not try and Kool-Aid Man ourselves through a door God has closed.
God shuts, and no one can open it. You might be banging your shoulder into the door, trying to get it to open, and God is just saying, “I’ve closed that door, I have something else for you.”
In Paul’s case, the closed door was something godly (sharing the gospel in Asia), but God needed Paul somewhere else
We need to be in prayer, listening to the Holy Spirit, asking God to close doors He doesn’t want us to go through, and to open doors to lead the way for us
And then, immediately go through those open doors!
Paul heads to Macedonia and goes the the city of Philippi
12 From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days. 13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14 One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.
This city did not have a synagogue because of how few Jews were there
It was customary that if a city had at least 10 Jews, there would be a synagogue
But Philippi didn’t, so the couple of Jews that were there would meet by the river to pray (another custom back then).
Paul goes and preaches to them and a woman named Lydia and her whole house get saved.
Lydia we’re told was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira (a small city in modern day Turkey that was known for its textile industry)
Purple cloth was associated with luxury and it’s assumed that Lydia had become wealthy from her business
She had a large house to accommodate Paul and his missionary team, and later in Acts 16 you can read that Lydia hosts the Philippian church that would start in her house
Something else interesting about Lydia’s business - back in this time (we’re talking ~50AD), women could not normally run businesses, she’d have to do that through he husband. Roman law did allow a woman to run a business if she had at least 3 children though.
It was a status known as liberorum
We can assume then that Lydia has some sort of history - either she was divorced, widowed, or she had these kids out of wedlock. Whatever it is, Lydia has some baggage and hurt that she had been carrying with her
But she had been trying to get her life right. She had been attending these prayer meetings. She was a Gentile, so this was something new to her, not growing up as a Jewish girl and listening to the Word.
And then Paul and his team come along, they preach the gospel, and Lydia is transformed. The gospel captures her heart and she gets saved.
A church would be founded in Philippi, and as I mentioned before, Lydia would host that church at her house.
The Lord would use her to save her family, and to bless and serve the church
What a cool example for each one of us. It doesn’t matter what your past is. It doesn’t matter if you come here today with baggage, a difficult past, or hurts.
God wants to change your heart and use you for His glory.
He didn’t use the head Rabbi in the city, He didn’t capture the heart of the local scholar, God chose to use Lydia. A business woman. A mom. Someone who had a past.
That’s who God chooses to use even today.
27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29 that no flesh should glory in His presence.
So Paul starts the church in Philippi and then stays in the city and preaches the gospel
There was this slave girl in the city who was demon possessed, and her masters used her as a fortune teller.
Acts tells us that she followed Paul around for 3 days saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.”
Not in an informative way, but in a mocking way
After 3 days, Paul had enough of that, and casts the demon out of her
And instead of everyone being happy that this girl was healed, they were mad. Her masters realized that their profit maker was gone, so they dragged Paul & Silas to the authorities, and the magistrates ordered them to be beaten with rods.
Paul & Silas are beaten and then taken to jail where they were chained up
25 But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.
Instead of grumbling and complaining to God
“God we did this great thing for You, we shared your gospel and You allowed us to get beaten and thrown in jail?!?”
Or quitting the ministry, they choose to worship and pray
It reminds me of how the apostles responded when they were arrested and beaten for their faith in Acts 5.
41 So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.
Paul & Silas’ response has an effect, the other prisoners were listening to them!
People are watching our response to times of trial.
And if you choose to respond to trials with prayer and worship, people are going to notice
God then sends this earthquake that opens the doors of the prison and frees all the prisoners from their chains.
The jailer was about ready to commit suicide
The punishment for prison guards losing a prisoner was that the guard would have to receive the same punishment as the prisoner. Some in that jail were sentenced to die, to the jailer thought he was going to be killed and that it’d be better to take his own life
But Paul cries out and says, “Don’t do it, nobody has left, we’re all here!”
And Paul gets an opportunity to share the gospel with the jailer, and he and his whole family get saved.
Word gets back to the magistrates about what happened, but they also find out that Paul was a Roman citizen
It was illegal to beat a Roman citizen w/o a trial, so the magistrates try to smooth it over and release Paul & Silas quietly, but they wouldn’t have it.
Instead of secretly departing town, they use it as a chance to stay in Philippi and continue to encourage and grow the church.
This church meant a lot to Paul. He had founded it, gone through great adversity for that church, and the church had supported and loved Paul.
Part of the reason that Paul was writing this letter was as a thank you note.
They had sent one of the leaders in their church, Epaphroditus, who perhaps was the head pastor of the church, with a gift for Paul while he was in prison.
Remember, Paul was in Rome under house arrest for ~ 2 years when he wrote this letter, waiting to stand trial before Caesar Nero.
Paul wrote this book sometime between 60-62 AD, so about 10 years after he had founded the church.
It’s one of the 4 prison epistles written by Paul, the others being Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon
The main theme of the book of Philippians is joy
The words joy or rejoice are mentioned 16 times in our English translation
Remarkable considering Paul was in prison for his faith when he wrote this letter, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to live or die.
But he was able to be joyful b/c he had Jesus in his heart
11 Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: 12 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Verses 1-2
Paul starts his letter with a traditional Pauline greeting
He names the author of the letter, the audience of the letter, and then a greeting a grace & peace
Authors:
Paul & Timothy
Paul identifies himself and his disciple Timothy as bondservants
The Greek word for “bondservant” is “doulos” (doo-los) which means slave, but not just an involuntary slave, but one with “complete and utter devotion” to the master. So we get this idea that a bondservant is a slave by choice
There were ~60M slaves in the Roman Empire at the time Paul wrote this. For the most part, they were treated very poorly as you may remember from history class.
But the Jews had a different idea of slavery that was laid out for them in Exodus 21. It was an idea more of service than how we think of slavery today
If you owed someone money back then but couldn’t pay them back, God set up a provision in His law that you could become that person’s slave or servant for 7 years to pay off the debt.
At the end of the 7 years, you could go free with your debt paid off
But if you liked your time there, your master treated you well, maybe you even got married and had a kid or two during that time, you could elect to remain a servant and work for that master.
If you wanted to do that, they’d take you to the judges to declare this intent.
The judges would pierce your ear and you would then serve your master forever.
Paul calls himself a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and it’s a calling each one of us should aspire to
We owed a debt to Jesus that none of us could repay. The debt of sin we all owed was taken away by Jesus’ death on the cross
He took all of God’s wrath and judgement for sin on Himself so that we wouldn’t have to experience it
We can’t pay that back - there is no amount of service or good that we can do
But at the same time, God has been so good to us.
He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing
He gives us His love unconditionally
He gives us His grace and His mercy
So we should want to serve Him out of gratitude for the rest of our lives.
And just like that Hebrew bondservant would be physically marked by the piercing of their ear, our commitment to serve the Lord will leave us visibly marked/changed so that everyone around us can see that we belong to our Master.
Audience:
All the saints in Philippi
God doesn’t consider the saints to just be a special group of people that a particular church has labeled as a saint after you’ve met all of the qualifications, the Bible uses that term synonymous with the people of God - His church.
So you can go around calling each other, “saint”
The Dictionary of Theological terms says of this word, “Its OT antecedence implies the idea of being set apart for God as well as conformity to God’s likeness through the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit”1
We live in a day and age where we need that more than ever - we need the saints of God to be set apart, to stand out, to be different than the world around us which is perishing.
Instead of getting angry about the direction our country is headed or being fearful about what our kids are learning from the world, we need to resolve to be set apart for the Lord.
We need to live for Jesus, to conform to His likeness through the work of the Holy Spirit.
That means each and every day you need to open up your heart to the work that God wants to do in and through you.
“God, use me today. Make me more like Your Son. Open my eyes for how I can be a light for You.” And then you follow the Spirit’s leading.
Also written to the bishops & deacons
The bishops were the overseers, the pastors or elders of the church
They are responsible for the spiritual needs of the body
The deacons were the workers/servants at the church
The deacons were to meet the physical needs of the congregation. They practically served the people
The idea of the deacon came from Acts 6 where there was this issue in the early church that in the meals ministry they were doing (kind of like a soup kitchen today where you could come get fed if you were hungry), some people were getting missed. So the Apostles picked 7 men to serve tables (be waiters) to bring food to people instead of letting it happen buffet style.
3 Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business;
Not everyone is going to have the job of a bishop, or pastor, but God has another incredibly important role for you to play - one of a servant, a waiter.
They will practically meet the needs of the people. They’ll make sure there’s enough coffee between service, take out the trash, help fix things up around the building, take care of your kids so you can sit in service, or take someone a meal who just had a baby.
Even in that service, God wants that man or woman to be “full of the Holy Spirit”
Don’t look down on your service - do it for the Lord with as full of a heart, just as a Sr. Pastor would. God needs both roles, the bishop and the deacon.
Greeting:
Paul always starts his letters with this greeting of Grace & Peace
They’re always in that order b/c you can’t experience peace with God w/o first experiencing the grace of God.
Communion
This morning, being the first Sunday of the month, we are going to take communion as a celebration of what God has done for us.
As we talked about being a bondservant of the Lord, a slave by choice, we noted that we do it b/c God has been so good to us, and that he paid our debt of sin by taking the wrath of God, which we deserved, on Himself when He went to the cross
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
His body was broken on that cross, and His blood was spilled for us. And that’s what we remember. The bread represents His body, the cup represents His blood, and we remember His death though this.
If you haven’t ever given your heart over to the Lord, you haven’t become His servant by surrendering your life to Him, do that first. Then you can take communion.
Give instructions
Pray
Close
Footnotes:
1: Stanley Grenz, David Guretzki, and Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 105.