Philippians 1:1-2

[Intro]

We’re going to be going through Philippians today. Let’s get a little background on the book first before we read it.

This was a letter from the apostle Paul to the church in Philippi. Scholars believe it was written sometime around ~62 AD. Many times when Paul would write to a church it would be to address an issue of behavior or their theology. In this case, Paul did not write for those reasons. This was a letter of warm encouragement. Many define the theme of this book to be about joy. And not just Paul writing to be joyful, but you get the feeling of the joy he has and why he has it amidst everything he’s going through. The one delivering the message for Paul is a man named Epaphroditus, who had actually brought a monetary gift to Paul from the Philippians.

To fully grasp the situation that Paul is writing in, we should know not only where he is at now but also how the church in Philippi started in the first place. You can read about how it started in Acts chapter 16, we won’t read it all today but I’ll give you most of the details. Paul was with Silas, Timothy (who we’ll talk about more later) and Luke is also believed to join them when they headed to Philippi. They were looking for where to preach the Gospel next. They had tried a couple of other places first but God closed the door on them. It actually reads the “Spirit of God did not allow them to go there”. That’s all it says. So one night as they’re still pondering where to go, Paul has a vision. He sees a man from Macedonia in northern Greece pleading with him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us!”. So after Paul and the rest of the group conclude that this vision was from God, they headed that direction.

They get to Philippi, a major city in the district they were in of Macedonia. And things don’t turn out one might think after receiving a vision from God. Paul doesn’t see the specific man from his vision. They were there several days and on the Sabbath they headed down to a riverbank, where people would be meeting to pray and worship God. Now this might sound odd, Paul would usually start at the synagogue to preach the Good News, but Philippi didn’t have a synagogue. You need 10 Jewish men in a city to have a synagogue. So we can assume this city did not have the required amount.

When they go to the riverbank, they meet with some women that were meeting for prayer. One of them, named Lydia, accepts the Good News of Christ and then her whole household accepts it as well and they’re all baptized. They are the first converts in Philippi, and then some stuff happens that results with Paul and Silas being beaten and put into prison, unjustly, as usual. Now this prison story is probably one that some have heard. This is where Paul and Silas, in prison, begin praying and singing hymns to God and then an earthquake strikes, opening the prison doors and releasing everyone from their shackles. When the guard on duty woke up and saw what had happened, he was going to kill himself since he was the one on duty when everyone would have escaped. But Paul and Silas hadn’t run, they were still there and they stopped him from killing himself. And the result? They shared the Good News with the prison guard and he and his whole family accepted Christ.

So there you have a wild turn of multiple events that led to the start of the church in Philippi from the first few converts. And many believe this to be around ~50 AD.

[example of God’s plan vs. how we see it sometimes]

Now let’s review the situation Paul is in now. Many believe that he was in Rome while writing the letter. And, of course, he’s in prison again, for false accusations against him. And this isn’t a situation where he’s thinking he’s for sure going to be released. Being put to death was definitely a possibility for him. So that’s the state of mind he’s in. Falsely accused, in prison, again, and now will either be released or maybe even put to death. And then one of the members from the church of Philippi comes to him with gifts from the church.

[Prayer]

[Body]

Philippians 1:1–2 NLT

1 This letter is from Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus. I am writing to all of God’s holy people in Philippi who belong to Christ Jesus, including the church leaders and deacons. 2 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

So we know the author is Paul, but he also mentions Timothy here. Paul met Timothy during one of his missions in trips in Asia Minor (modern day turkey) in the city of Lystra. Timothy had an unbelieving father who was Greek and a mother who was a faithful Jew. So he had a different upbringing. Now when Paul came through his town preaching the Good News, Timothy, His Mom and grandmother all accepted Christ. Timothy was also very highly spoken of by the people in his town. And some believe he was around the age of ~16-21. From there Timothy accompanied Paul on some of his missionary trips along with Silas.

Now in verse 1, Paul starts by calling themselves slaves. In some translations you might see servant, or bond-servant. In the Mosaic law, when someone that was a slave of a Jew that had come to the point where they were to be set free, they could actually choose stay a slave to their master forever. You can read about it in exodus. But the point is this term is referring to a completely committed believer. It’s a great description of the christian life. As Christ is our master, he bought us with His blood, and we submit to him willingly and joyously. This isn’t something we always live out the greatest. Often times we feel like we’re in control, my way or the highway. In reality though, even when we are so ignorant to think we know how to run our lives without God, He is still Lord of our lives because He is Lord over all. We can’t change his position.

The world would say wow being a slave sounds kind of weak and not very fun. But in this sense, it’s the greatest source of joy and strength there is. From what we’ll read later in Philippians and what we see in Paul’s other letters, he is joyful in all the tough circumstances he faces. And it’s all because of his relationship with Christ. That is His source. And that is our source.

Now who Paul addresses this letter to the holy people and the church leaders and deacons. In some other translations holy people will read saints. Usually people think of the word saint based on someones performance of works or how “good” they’ve been. Paul can refer to them all as saints, even though saint means a holy person and they surely had their own types of battles. He knows they are believers in Christ and anyone who is a believer has the righteousness of Christ imputed onto them and can be called a saint.

1 Corinthians 1:30 NLT

30 God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.

This happens at the time of justification, not sanctification. Sanctification would imply you have to earn it or progress towards it. We do not earn salvation, without Christ nobody can be a saint. All believers in Christ are saints.

Now he also refers to the church leaders, or in some translations it would read overseers. In 1 Peter we talked about the different positions in the church and specifically overseers. It can really be viewed as an elder, pastor, or some leadership position in the church. Deacons used here is interesting. It’s not really a position within the church that’s mentioned elsewhere in scripture. Nobody knows exactly what it means, but in the secular world at that time it was more-so someone that was in charge of regular welfare duties for the community. So deacons here likely refers to someone that’s not necessarily in a leadership position but someone that handles administrative tasks.

Verse 2, Paul finishes his greeting like he always does in his letters, which I hadn’t picked up on before. We’ll read it again.

“May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.”

At first you might be thinking what’s so profound about that? There’s a lesson in the order of the words he uses. The order that Paul uses here is grace first, then peace. Through Christ we receive grace and from the grace we have received we can have peace. Sometimes as Christians we can not only hinder our joy and peace when we focus on the world too much, but also when we think about our good works as a performance and think “would God really save me? Am I really a Christian? He’s probably disappointed with me after what I did yesterday”. Now self-reflecting and checking our walk with God isn’t a bad thing, if we recognize sin in our lives, especially habitual sin, we should repent and should pray for God to deliver us from that sin. But do not let that make you think you are not saved. Jesus + any works for salvation is a false gospel. Actually when we recognize our sin, we should be all the more thankful for Christ. We have joy because of the sins we’ve been forgiven of in the past, but Christ’s death on the cross is atonement for all the times we will stumble and sin in the present and future. We recognize our sin, repent, and you can know through that sin not once had you fallen from grace or lost salvation. You didn’t lose it and gain it back once you repented. You always had your salvation. Eternal security is for the believer.

Let’s go to Romans as Paul speaks about salvation in Romans 11:6

Romans 11:6 NIV

6 And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.

Grace + works do not equal salvation. If it were by grace + even the smallest good work, I would be terrified to die. I would have no peace because I couldn’t be sure of my salvation. There’s no security in that. And as Paul says, if there are any works to gain salvation, it cannot be grace. It is by grace alone. It is a free gift to us. And that is very comforting.