Sermon Tone Analysis

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 walk, 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 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 before we jump into our text.

Paul receives a vision from the Holy Spirit urging him to go to Macedonia.

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

Typically Paul 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 women of means, 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 they find themselves in prison.

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

The Lord brings and earthquake, the jail doors are opened.

and just as the prison guard is about to take his life fearing the prisoners escaped.

Paul stops him.

They were still there.

The guard accepts Christ.

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 this letter off and we will see that 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 usual greeting of Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ.

Instead he introduces him 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.

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.

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.

At the gate 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.