Grace To You - Philippians 1:1-2

INTRO

When Hannah and I got married we made a plan.

Before we head out for our honey moon we will swing by open our wedding gifts and then head out on our Honey Moon.

Awful Gifts - Giant gaudy wall clock, a turtle shell

Went on our honey moon, came back, intended to write thank you notes…and then a month went by, two months went by…and we just never did that.

I say that because today we are starting in the book of Philippians which is in essence a thank you letter.

Paul is in Prison facing death and he is writing to a church he deeply loves, a little Macedonian church in Philippi

This church had sent one of there members Epaphroditus with a financial gift for Paul.

Paul writes this deeply rich letter that reverberates with some of the most profound and helpful statements in the New Testament.

This is a deeply helpful book.

From encouraging us to live courageously for Christ,

to seeing the temporal nature of circumstances vs joy in Jesus,

to one of the most sweeping statements on the humility of Jesus,

Philippians is dripping with gospel goodness.

One of the reasons I love Philippians is because of who it is being written to, the church it’s self.

It is one of the more eclectic starts to a NT church.

It would benefit you to read Acts 16 as we walk through this book together.

I’ll give us just a brief summary to set the context before we jump into our text.

Paul receives a vision from the Holy Spirit urging him to change his plans and go to Macedonia.

Paul’s missionary team arrives in a Roman Colony, Philippi

Now the typical pattern for Paul in a new town is that he would go to the synagogue first, but there wasnt one in this Gentile city.

So instead they find a women’s prayer meeting by the river.

There’s a group of God-fearing women, and we meet Lydia.

Lydia was a woman of means, she had a successful business, and she responds to the gospel.

There’s your first church member.

Fast forward the next scene is Paul and Silas casting out an evil spirit from a slave girl.

This leads to an angry slave owner who wanted to profit off of this girls misfortune.

They drag Paul and Silas to the magistrate and an angry crowd and before you know it they find themselves in prison.

That is when we get a well known story of Paul and Silas singing in prison at night.

The Lord brings an earthquake, the jail doors are opened... and just as the prison guard is about to take his life fearing the prisoners had escaped.

Paul stops him.

They were still there.

The guard accepts Christ and then shares the gospel with his whole family in the middle of the night.

Fast forward the magistrate learns Paul and Silas are Roman citizens and with a huge gulps asks them to leave.

Before Paul and Silas leave they encourage this ragtag group a wealthy woman, a poor slave girl, and a blue collar prison guard.

This is the Philippian church.

A generous eclectic bunch.

And Paul loves the mess out of them.

We’re gonna start in this letter today and this is what I want us to catch, the gospel changes everything.

The gospel changes everything.

We’re gonna just start with the greeting today, and even in this we will see how the gospel changes everything.

The traditional greeting of this day after announcing yourself and the recipients was simply to say greetings, salutations.

But Paul can’t help himself.

In these two verses we get so much gospel goodness and it starts with who we now are.

I. Who We Are (v.1)

Philippians 1:1 (ESV)

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,

To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:

We start into this greeting and we see two statements about our identity in Christ.

We are servants and saints.

Paul starts by stating he and Timothy were sending this letter.

Likely Timothy is writing while Paul is dictating.

Interestingly he doesn't give us his usual greeting of Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ.

Instead he introduces himself and timothy as Servants.

Servant or actually better translated slave would have been understood different than what we know slavery as in America, that is chattel slavery.

Which was wicked and wrong.

This is referring to bond-servanthood.

Which listen, it’s still degrading, still a stark statement that should give pause.

Paul’s statement is one of submission and authority.

He is saying that he is under constraint to serve Christ.

One of the major themes of Philippians is to consider and follow in the lowly humble example of Jesus.

Paul is starting right off the bat by laying this identifying trait that we are servants of Christ.

We belong to Jesus.

Have you considered that before?

What does it mean to serve the Lord?

Here are a few direct statements from the Bible on this theme:

- Not Quarrel, But Instruct Gently (2 Tim. 2:24-25)

- Humbly Plant and Water (1 Cor. 3:5-6)

- Use His/Her Gift (1 Pet. 4:10)

- Serve Wholeheartedly for Her/His Reward (Eph. 6:7-8)

- Stand to His/Her Own Master(Rom. 14:4) (Not passing sinful judgement on other servants)

- Prove Faithful (1 Cor. 4:1-2).

- Stand Firm in Freedom(Gal. 5:1)

Does that describe your journey with Jesus?

Have you lived as a servant of Jesus.

A FLIGHT attendant one day wanted to go on a trip and she received a seat that was available in first class.

At no cost to her, she was able to fly to Europe.

An emergency occurred on the airplane that made it so that they were in need of another flight attendant.

She raised her hand and let them know she was a fight attendant, and even though she was on vacation taking a trip to Europe, she would be glad to serve as the additional help that was needed.

She was not serving to get to Europe; that had already been taken care of.

It was part of the package of being a flight attendant for the airline.

But she had no problem serving on the airplane either, because she was just so grateful for the benefit to be able to ride to Europe at no cost to her.

That service was a joy and not a complaint.

It is unfortunate today that many people are serving Christ in order to earn points to make sure they’re saved, rather than serving Christ out of the overwhelming joy of the free ride.

Many serve because they are servants to their own pride and want to be praised.

Coram Deo, God wants your service not as validation for your salvation.

He wants your service out of your joy for the assurance of your salvation.

This brings us to the other identity Paul shows us, we are Saints.

If you are a believer you are a Saint.

We typically think that word is only for the most holy of people.

The word Saint means Holy ones.

What we learn from the NT is that to be a Christian is to be a holy one.

Because we are now found in Christ we are clothed in his righteousness.

We are given his very holiness.

Yes he is making us holy, we are being sanctified but we’re also holy right now.

Because we’ve been washed in the blood of Jesus

In fact, sainthood is not a spiritual attainment, or even a recognition of such attainment.

It is rather a state or status into which God brings every believer.

This morning maybe you hear that word saint and you think to yourself…I don’t feel like a saint.

Remember Paul wrote the same word of the church in Corinth, they were a hot mess express ok.

A helpful analogy for me.

The reign of sin has been overthrown--its mastery broken, its throne toppled--like Saddam Hussein during the Second Gulf War.

His dominion was finished; the statue that symbolized his power had been torn down;

he no longer had the mastery of the country, but for many weeks he remained alive, a fugitive, hiding in a dark hole.

Sin's tyranny is shattered when we are born anew.

We are made holy definitively and decisively.

We are made to live under a new government, the reign of grace.

But the old tyrant of sin lives on, no longer in power, but still lurking in the dark holes in our hearts and characters.

Sin will be put to death in our bodies!

As Saints we no longer live under its tyranny.

This is all possible because of what we see next, where we are.

II. Where We Are (v. 1)

Philippians 1:1 (ESV)

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,

To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:

So according to Paul where are we as Saints?

In Christ.

Those two words you may have read over dozens of time.

But Coram Deo we have to see that identity we just talked about that we are saints and servants is only possible because we are found In Christ.

This statement In Christ was Paul’s favorite phrase for describing our existence as God’s people and the means by which we are God’s people.

This is what theologians call our union with Christ.

This is keen for us to understand our identity.

When someone becomes a Christian we commonly talk about them "receiving Christ" or “Jesus coming to dwell in their hearts," and look that is true enough as far as it goes.

But it is not the way the New Testament prefers to speak about what happens at conversion.

The New Testament's most common approach is not to put Jesus in our hearts, but to put us in Jesus Christ.?

There is a kind of Holy Spirit-created connection, a bond, a union between every Christian and Christ.

A Christian is who they are because they have been transplanted into Jesus.

Jesus is the universe in whom the Christian now exists.

Jesus is their true location.

They have "died, and their life is hidden with Christ in God' (Col. 3:3).

Listen to this from Gordon Fee:

Everything is in, of, by, and for Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus is the basis of their common existence: he is the focus and content of the gospel in which Paul, Timothy, and the Philippians are partners; and he is the Lord, to whom every knee shall bow, including those in Philippi who are currently bowing to "Lord Caesar," the emperor Nero _Gordon Fee

Philippians will get our attention over and over again.

It’s like a splash of cold water to the face.

Wake up!

Life isnt about co-workers, tasks, taxes, hard conversations, trinkets or toys.

We were made for Jesus.

We are found fully and completely in him.

As Augustine said, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in him.

Is your heart restless this morning?

Are you trying to be found in your job, in your title.

Does motherhood define you?

Singleness?

Your job or lack therof?

Be found in Christ!

We were made in God’s image to live in fellowship and communion with him.

We were made to forever trust his promises, obey his commands, to love and be love.

Sin, however has destroyed this fellowship.

Humanity has be rendered both guilty and corrupt, separated from God and deserving of death.

In response, God has undertaken a rescue plan to restore and perfect the life and communion lost.

He has done this in Jesus, who displayed true humanity.

Jesus never sinned yet was wrongly accused dying in our place for our sins.

Death could not hold him.

He has risen.

In his resurrection he has bridged the gap so that we can now know the fullness of God though we are just earthenware vessels.

A Helpful way to think about this.

Standing on the deck of a ship in mid-ocean, you see the sun reflected from its depths.

From a little boat on a mountain lake you see the sun reflected from its shallow waters.

Looking into the mountain spring not more than six inches in diameter, you see the same great sun.

Look into the dew drop of the morning, and there it is again.

The sun has a way of adapting itself to its reflections.

The ocean is not too large to hold it, nor the dewdrop too small.

So God can fill any man, whether his capacity be like the ocean, like the mountain lake, like the spring, or like the dewdrop.

Whatever, Coram Deo, your capacity, being found in Christ makes it possible that you may be “filled with the fullness of God.”

So we start with the reality of who we are, servants and saints

Then we saw where we are In Christ.

Let’s see now what we receive

III. What We Receive (v. 2)

Philippians 1:2 (ESV)

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

What do we receive?

Grace and peace.

Grace is the cause and peace the effect

The first of these words, “grace,” is the very heart of the Christian message.

Grace summarizes the gospel.

It’s a reality they already live in.

They are already reconciled to God through their faith in the saving work of Christ upon the cross.

They have already been made spiritually alive by the Holy Spirit and brought into living union with Christ.

There is nothing that could make them any more a saint than they already are.

So “grace to you” is a request that they enter into a fuller experience of grace in their Christian lives.

It is a request for daily grace that will enable them to live in a manner that honors God—that they would know the all-sufficient grace of God in their lives.

This statement of Grace applied means we understand our profound need for it.

Tragically many Christians have a low view of sin, and an entitled attitude.

Singing amazing grace so many times that the luster is gone and it’s simply expected that God would be gracious.

We have a low view of sin and how it erodes our souls.

But such low views of sin inevitably mean that grace doesn't need to be too terribly radical in its effects.

If we need grace at all, it’s just as a shot of medicine to boost our essentially healthy spiritual immune system while we just get ourselves back on track.

But if we think God is not so holy, and sin is not so serious, and grace is not so radical, then we will not expect the transformation that grace brings to be that intrusive

"Grace," if it can now even be called that, will merely help me do what I am essentially inclined and able to accomplish on my own.

It helps me be the"me" I always wanted to be.

"Grace' is the means by which I achieve self-fulfillment.

There is no battle to be weak and for Jesus to be strong, no fight with the old self, no death and resurrection, no newness of life.

There is no Lazarus moment for us if we're not dead but only sick;

if God is merely nice but not holy; if grace is just a tonic but not the call of Jesus from the tomb of our helpless fallen condition.

May we never believe in such a cheap grace!

May we instead see the abundant, extravagant and deep grace of God.

May our prayer be like the puritans.

I’ve been sitting in this prayer from The Valley of Vision here’s my updated/paraphrased version

Kind Father, I praise you continually for permission to approach your throne of grace,

and to spread before you my wants and desires.

I am not worthy of your blessings and mercies for I am far from sinless;

My depraved nature reveals itself in disobedience and rebellion;

My early days discovered in me discontent, pride, envy, revenge.

Remember not the sins of my youth, nor the multiplied transgressions of my current days,

my failure to be dilligent with my time and talents,

my abuse of mercies and means,

my wasted sabbaths,

my perverted seasons of grace,

my long neglect of your great salvation,

my disregard of Jesus, the Friend of sinners.

While I confess my guilt, help me to feel it deeply,

with self-abhorrence and self-despair, yet to remember there is hope in you,

and to see the Lamb that takes away sin.

Through him may I return to you,

listen to you,

trust in you,

delight in your commands,

obey you,

be upheld by you.

Preserve my understanding from error,

my affections from love of idols,

my lips from speaking deciet,

my conduct from the stain of sin,

my character from appearance of evil,

that I may be harmless, blameless, rebukeless,

exemplary, useful, light-giving, prudent, zealous for your

and the good of those around me.

Help me dwell in Grace. Amen

When we are aware of the grace shown to us in Jesus it brings us to the understanding of the effects of that grace.

Peace.

Peace is the reconciling reality that secures our place in God’s heart.

Nothing but God’s grace could give us peace with God

This peace is a call back to Shalom.

The idea that we receive wholeness in Christ.

We again find rest for our restless hearts.

Paul understands this wholeness, this soundness and well being that the gospel supplies.

The gospel remember changes everything.

Don’t forget that this greeting is being written in chains.

Paul is in prison.

Yet what flows out of him in this book is joy.

It’s the abundance of grace that brings us peace.

Two painters were in a contest where each said they could paint a picture of peace.

One painter painted this sunset with the sun going down over the calm water.

It all looked very nice and the picture had a very calming effect.

The other painter painted a picture of a storm.

In it, the sky was dark and there was lightning, thunder, and dark clouds rolling overhead.

The picture showed the waves crashing against the rocks.

Things looked fairly chaotic.

But in the corner of the painting, at the bottom, were two big stones with a bird in the middle of them.

The bird was singing.

Now that’s peace. Peace is where God’s calm and God’s tranquility overrule your concerns.

Contained in this greeting is the promised abundant supply of God to meet all our needs in troubled times.

Our greatest difficulties can never exhaust the unlimited resources of God.

There is far more grace and abundant peace to sustain, strengthen, and secure us than we can ever need.

Conclusion

In this greeting to this macedonian church we see a framewrok for the Christian life.

We are servants and saints because of Jesus.

We are found in Christ, he is our environment, we live in our union with Him.

That reality means we experience the grace of Jesus and the peace he brings.

All of this written to a church.

A particular people, in a particular place who are to now live this identity, this reality as a compelling witness to a watching world.

We display a deep abiding hope in turbulent times.

We live abundant and full lives because the gospel changes everything!

Today inspect your life.

Are you serving Christ out of delight?

Do you believe that he has changed you and made you a saint?

Are you abiding in him?

Do you see yourself in Christ?

Are you drawing near to him, in his word and in prayer?

Are you drawing near with fellow saints?

Do you experience his grace that results in peace?

Do you need to repent for how you have taken grace for granted?

Perhaps this morning you realize you’ve only experienced cheap grace, and you long for the deep and abiding grace that comes from knowing and following Jesus.

Come to Jesus this morning.

See how the gospel changes everything.

Let’s pray.

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible Chapter 1

with Paul. Not that Timothy had any share in writing the Epistle; for Paul presently uses the first person singular, “I,” not “we” (Php 1:3). The mention of his name implies merely that Timothy joined in affectionate remembrances to them.