WWUTT 001 Philippians Origins (Philippians 1:1-2)

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The Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippian Church and told them to rejoice always. He said to do everything without complaining, to be anxious about nothing, but with thanksgiving present their request to God.

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And that charge given to the Philippians is commanded of each one of us when we understand the text.

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Welcome to When We Understand The Text, the broadcast. My name is Pastor Gabe, and yes, I said broadcast.

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I may never get used to using that word, podcast. I was in radio for however many years, and whenever somebody asked me what it was

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I did for a living, I said, well, I'm in broadcasting. So that's the word I'm used to using.

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Podcast of course is derived from broadcast, and that word itself, by the way, actually has a spiritual connotation to it, believe it or not.

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Before there was broadcasting as we know it, so a message going out over the airwaves and beamed into radios and televisions and that sort of a thing, there was broadcasting in a field.

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A farmer would plow his rows, and every few rows or so there would be these narrow paths, and he would take a seed bag and put it around his shoulder, and he would walk down those paths.

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He would put his hand into the bag and take a handful of seed, and then throw his arm across his body and scatter the seed, which would fall into those freshly plowed rows.

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And this was a form of sowing that was referred to as broadcasting. So when it came to carrying that word over into sending a message out over the airwaves, the expectation was this, that the news would go out, and it would fall on the ears of the listeners as seed falls in the soil, and then they would take that message and share it with their friends, producing a harvest.

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Are you getting the connotation now? And Jesus uses that same illustration in the parable of the sower in Matthew chapter 13, the sower casting seed and it falling into good soil and growing up and producing a harvest.

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And that is our expectation with this program. I hope that you as the listener would be receiving the word of God.

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That's what the seed represents in Jesus' parable, the message of the kingdom. I hope that you would receive that message, that it falls into good soil and rooted in Christ.

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It grows up and produces a harvest as you take that message and share it with others.

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This is going to be a daily broadcast, Monday through Friday, as we go through the word of God together.

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Now, I am an expositional preacher. That means that I go through the Bible verse by verse, line by line.

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I teach it to my congregation that they may understand how to use scripture to interpret scripture. And I'm going to do that same thing with this program.

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And the book of the Bible that I have chosen to study first is the book of Philippians. It was the first book that I ever taught.

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And then when I became a pastor, it was the first full book that I ever preached through. I came in on the heels of the previous pastor, midway through Ephesians.

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And so I finished up what he was doing and then just kept going and went right into Philippians. So since Philippians has traditionally been the first book that I have taught,

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I decided that that was a great application to throw into this program as well. So we're going to do Philippians together.

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And this is going to be a half hour program. So we'll spend about the first two thirds of the program going through the word of God. And then the last eight or 10 minutes or so, we're going to take an email from a viewer.

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And yeah, I said viewer, because when we understand the text started as a video ministry, we've produced some 75 videos up to the airing of this program.

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And you can find them on our website at www .utt .com. We've fielded so many questions from those videos, it's been difficult to respond to them all.

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So this program would be a good avenue to do that very thing. If you want to submit a question and be sure that we're going to read it, because we get them through Facebook and some other ways.

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We don't always get all of those questions. So to be sure that we're going to get your question, email is the best way to get it to us.

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So www .utt .com and you can send us a message from there. Today, as we get into our study of Philippians, this is going to be mostly backstory.

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So we're going to look at the origin of this letter and then get into the text of Philippians tomorrow, looking at Philippians 1.

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The apostle Paul wrote to the Philippian church and commanded them to rejoice in all circumstances.

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And if there is a theme that we can draw out of this letter, if there's a thesis statement, it would be that.

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Rejoice always. That command to be joyful or to rejoice comes up some 15 plus times in this letter to the

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Philippian church. And here's the thing to remember. As Paul is writing this, he is telling them to rejoice from prison.

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He's been thrown in jail for preaching the gospel. And if Paul could rejoice in Christ, in his circumstance, how important it is for each one of us to express joy in the

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Lord. In our circumstances, the Philippian church knew that Paul had been thrown in jail for preaching the gospel.

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And furthermore, they had heard that there were some Christian men, some other preachers who were making things difficult on Paul.

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And so to encourage Paul in his ministry, they took up a collection and offering and had it sent with Epaphroditus, who almost died on the way there to take it to Paul in Rome.

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And we'll talk about that when we get into Philippians chapter two. But they gathered this gift to encourage

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Paul in his ministry. And Paul is writing this letter to thank them for that gift and taking an opportunity to instruct them as well.

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Now, it's not all great news. It's a very encouraging letter, Philippians is, but it's not all good news because he does actually have a point where he is correcting some behaviors that he has heard about.

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And we'll get into that also. But for the most part, we have this wonderful, encouraging letter that even from prison,

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Paul is able to rejoice in the Lord for the work that he is doing. And he is encouraged and strengthened by this gift that the

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Philippians have taken up for him. So that's what we're reading in this letter. Philippians 2 .14, the apostle

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Paul says to do everything without complaining or disputing. In Philippians 4 .4, that's where he says, rejoice in the

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Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice. So emphatic on rejoicing in the

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Lord in all circumstances that he says it twice in the same verse. And then Philippians 4 .6, a verse that no doubt you're familiar with, to be anxious about nothing but in everything with thanksgiving, we present our requests to God.

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These are just some of the verses that we see in this book, motivating us toward a praiseworthy attitude when it comes to how we present ourselves before the

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Lord. But like I said, this is mostly going to be backstory. So I want to go back to Acts chapter 16, because that's where we see the

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Philippian church get planted. And we get to see some of this backstory and how the church got started. And even

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Paul's attitude before the church, rejoicing in all circumstances. Acts chapter 16.

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You can turn in your Bibles with me there. If you're sitting in your living room or at the kitchen table or something like that, read along with me as we go.

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If you're driving in the car, don't do that. You'll have an accident. Just let me share the word of God with you.

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Acts chapter 16, the apostle Paul and his missionary brethren were going into Asia and they wanted to share the gospel there, but the spirit actually prevented them from doing it.

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And it's not that God didn't want the gospel to go into those regions. He had another mission for Paul and his brothers.

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We see that the gospel eventually got there because the apostle Peter wrote his first letter to those very churches in that region.

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So in chapter 16, verse six, they go through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the

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Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the spirit of Jesus did not allow them.

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So you see these men motivated to want to share the gospel there, but God for some reason is keeping them from doing that.

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He's got another plan. Passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas and a vision appeared to Paul in the night.

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A man of Macedonia was standing there urging him and saying, come over to Macedonia and help us.

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And when Paul had seen the vision immediately, we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

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So you see these pronouns, we and us. This is Luke writing the book of Acts, and Luke is among the missionary brethren with Paul that goes into Philippi, okay?

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So he's writing this from the first person. So in verse 11, so setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Semothrosy, and the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city in the district of Macedonia and a

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Roman colony. We remained in this city some days, and on the

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Sabbath day, we went outside the gate to the riverside where we suppose there was a place of prayer.

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And we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named

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Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods who was a worshiper of God.

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And some scholars actually think that the Philippian church was started in her home. So when the apostle

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Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians, it would have been read aloud to the church that was gathered there in her home for worship.

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And so this is the first person that they led to the Lord. And Paul says, or Luke is writing here,

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Luke says in Acts 16, verse 14, the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

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And after she was baptized in her household as well, she urged us saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the

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Lord, come to my house and stay. So what we see is Paul and his missionary brethren have spent several days preaching the gospel there in Philippi, and Lydia becomes the first convert.

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And likely the Philippian church was there in her home. So what you're going to see transpire from here on as they continue in Philippi is something that's actually been going on for several weeks.

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Don't see this as one day and then overnight this happened and then so on and so forth. As you probably have heard the story that occurs there in Philippi, they were doing a missions work there and starting this church.

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So as we go on in verse 16, as we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling.

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And the word that is actually used here to describe her spirit of divination and this fortune telling that she did is the same word that we get the word ventriloquist from.

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A ventriloquist is actually a demonic spirit that puts the words into the person that the spirit wants that person to say.

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So when you see a comedian doing a ventriloquist act, he's the ventriloquist, the comedian is the ventriloquist, and the dummy is the person that the ventriloquist is putting the words into.

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So so it's kind of spooky to think about this now that the that the actor is is the demon and the puppet is the one possessed.

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But that's actually where we get the word from. That's how that has come about. So she is a is under the influence of a ventriloquist and she followed

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Paul and us crying out. This is verse 17. She's crying out. These men are servants of the most high

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God who proclaim to you the way of salvation. Now she's not attracting people to them.

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She's trying to warn them away. Don't listen to these guys. They're servants of the most high God. They proclaim to you the way of salvation.

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And this she kept doing for many days. And Paul, having become greatly annoyed, greatly annoyed by a chatty girl following around and bugging them.

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Imagine that having become greatly annoyed, he turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.

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And it came out that very hour. But when her owners saw that their hope of gain from this girl was gone, they seized

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Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, these men are

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Jews and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice.

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Now the apostle Paul actually was a Roman citizen, and we're going to see that come back into play in this story as we go on.

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But in verse 22, the crowd joined in attacking them and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods.

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Paul is a Roman citizen should have been given a fair trial, but he didn't get one. Instead, the people are are jumping all over him.

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They're beating them and and arresting them. And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely.

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Having received this order, that jailer put them into into the inner prison and fastened their feet into stocks.

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And this is verse 25 about midnight. Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them.

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So here we already have the testimony of Paul in Philippi is sharing the gospel, being unfairly treated, being beaten and thrown into prison and fastened into stocks because he shared the gospel.

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And yet, what do we find him doing? He is in prison singing hymns to God and he is witnessing to the other prisoners that are there.

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Man, you just could not keep this guy down. But Paul will fully admit that his ability to do these things comes from the strength of God.

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It's not by his strength. When you see his introduction to the Corinthians in 2nd Corinthians chapter one, he says that we've been afflicted so that we feel like that we have received a sentence of death.

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But that was only to make us rely more upon God. It's his strength that keeps us going, not our strength that gives us the ability to do this.

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So Paul gives all the glory to God and he is giving glory to God here in this prison cell and the prisoners are listening to them.

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And suddenly in verse 26, there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were open and everyone's bonds were unfastened.

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And when the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because it was a very shameful thing for any prisoner to escape on a jailer's watch.

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Even when something like an earthquake were to happen, that was out of his control. He sees that all the jail doors are open and the chains have been broken.

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And so surely Paul and his missionary brothers, they're gone, right? And all the other prisoners too, they've all escaped.

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And so the jailer is going to kill himself so not to bring shame upon his family because the

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Roman guard is eventually going to kill him anyway for letting a prisoner escape under his watch.

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But that's not what happened. No one escaped. He drew his sword about to kill himself, supposing the prisoners had escaped.

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But in verse 28, Paul cried out with a loud voice, don't harm yourself. We're all here. They could have left and they stayed in the jailer called for lights and he rushed in and trembling with fear.

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He fell down before Paul and Silas and then he brought them out and he said, sirs, what must

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I do to be saved? The jailers coming to them with a repentant heart. Understand here that the jailer is not asking them, how do

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I get saved from my fate? How do I get saved from the Roman guard killing me? Because he already knows they're not going to, none of the prisoners have escaped.

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So he is asking Paul and Silas, knowing these men are from God, knowing that they have been put in prison because they were preaching the gospel of their

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God. Knowing that they were singing hymns with the prisoners before this earthquake occurred.

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And it was by the grace and the love of God that they stayed instead of escaping so that jailer would not lose his life.

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And they stopped him from taking his own life. The jailer knows this about Paul and Silas and falls down before them and says, what must

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I do to be saved? He comes to them with a heart and a spirit of repentance. And they said to him, believe in the

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Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. Now their message didn't end there.

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That verse often gets taken out of context to say, how should a person be saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

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That's not how the story concludes because we read in verse 32, and they spoke the word of the

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Lord to him and all who were in his house. So they told him to believe and then they told him what to believe.

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Paul shared with him the gospel. And what was that gospel? You know, essentially when we read the book of Luke, we are reading the gospel of Jesus Christ the way that the apostle

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Paul preached it. He told the jailer of the works of Christ. He told them that he was virgin born, that he was conceived by the

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Holy Spirit. He told the jailer, the miracles and the amazing things that Jesus Christ did all the way up to dying on a cross in our place for our sins.

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He took the wrath of God upon himself that was due each one of us so that all who believe in the

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Lord Jesus Christ be saved. And then when Christ died there, spilling his blood for us on the cross, he was buried in a tomb, but he didn't stay there.

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His body did not see decay as we saw Peter declare in Acts chapter two, but he was risen again from the grave so that we would all know that all who are in Christ also will be risen from the grave.

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As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, if Christ has not been raised, then none of us get raised. But we know and we have this hope that because Christ was raised from the dead, we will be also.

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So the wrath of God has been satisfied through Christ and in him, we have eternal life.

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He shared the gospel with this repentant jailer who knew that he was a sinner and his fate was going to be much worse than the

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Roman guard if he did not repent and follow the Lord Christ. They spoke the word of the

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Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them that same hour of the night and washed their wounds.

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And he was baptized at once, he and all of his family.

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And there's a wonderful commentary written by Chrysostom on this verse. Chrysostom writes this, he washed and was washed.

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He washed them from their stripes and was himself washed from his sins. That's from Chrysostom's homilies on Acts.

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He brought them up to his house and set food before them and he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.

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But when it was day, the story goes on verse 35, but when it was day, the magistrates sent the police saying, let those men go.

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And the jailer reported these words to Paul saying, the magistrates have sent to let you go. Therefore come out now and go in peace.

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But Paul said to them, they have beaten us publicly, uncondemned men who are

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Roman citizens and have thrown us into prison. And now do they throw us out secretly? No, let them come themselves and take us out.

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See the apostle Paul used his Roman citizenship, Roman citizenship to achieve sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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And he's doing that even here. You know, folks, we need to use our American citizenship to advance the gospel of Christ.

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We have the freedom of religion in this country, which is a right that is slowly being taken away from us, but we still have that right.

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And while we have it, we need to declare the gospel. We should not be leaving the right to worship to Sunday morning in church.

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We have the right to go and share the gospel of Christ with people in our communities. So let us exercise that right as the apostle

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Paul is doing here because he means to make more of the name of Christ by showing that he was unjustly treated when he deserved a trial and didn't get one.

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And yet through the news that's going to spread about what happened to Paul, the gospel of Christ is going to spread even further.

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Verse 38, the police reported these words to the magistrates and they were afraid when they heard that they were

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Roman citizens. So they came and apologized to them. So now the message in Philippi is the magistrates themselves came to the apostle

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Paul and apologized to Paul and his missionary brothers. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city.

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So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia. And when they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them and departed.

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And so this is the story about Paul and his missionary brothers that was known in the Philippian church.

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When he was unjustly treated, when he was thrown in prison, he continued to rejoice and praise the

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Lord. And now he's writing to the Philippian church, encouraging them to continue to do that very thing.

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Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice.

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We actually have a what video about this very story that we've just read in Acts chapter 16.

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So in 90 seconds, here's the summary of the text that we've just read. In Acts 16,

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Paul and Silas were preaching in Philippi when after rebuking an annoying girl and casting out her demon, they found themselves tried, beaten and thrown in prison.

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The jailer was ordered to keep them safely. So we locked them up and fastened them into stocks. That night, Paul and Silas were singing hymns to God when suddenly there was an earthquake so great that all the jail doors flew open.

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When the jailer ran in and saw the doors, he drew his sword to kill himself thinking the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried out, do not harm yourself for we are all here.

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The jailer asked them, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.

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So we just believe and then we're saved, right? And believe what exactly? That Jesus existed, that he died and rose again, that he is

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God, because even the demons believe that and tremble. Well, the story doesn't end in verse 31.

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After Paul and Silas said believe, they gave the jailer and his household the word of the Lord. Because as it says in Romans, faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

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But there's yet another verse that helps us understand belief, and it appears three chapters earlier in Acts 13 .48.

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Paul and Barnabas preached at Antioch, and when the Gentiles heard the gospel, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the

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Lord. And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. So when we read whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life, we know belief is not our work, but God's when we understand the text.

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And there you go. We're not going to take a listener email today or a viewer email rather, but that was just to summarize everything that we had just read in Acts chapter 16.

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We'll take our first email tomorrow. And again, if you have a question, you can send it to, uh, to us by email through our website, www .utt

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.com folks. Belief doesn't come from us. We do not manifest faith. We do not concentrate hard enough.

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And Oh, if I just believe and bang, there we go. Now I have enough faith and I believe we, we do not channel that somehow

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God gives it to us. Faith is a gift that is given to us by God.

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It says in Ephesians two, eight and nine for by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing.

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It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.

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It is given to us by God. John six 29, Jesus said, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent.

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And we see in Hebrews 12, one and two, that we are to run the race with endurance that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder of our faith and the perfecter of our faith in Romans 10, seven, it says, faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

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And that's what happened for this Roman jailer. He heard the word of God declared.

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It's not simply believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. It's adding in verse 32 and they spoke the word of the

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Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And it was the gospel that he heard that saved him.

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Not because he just concentrated hard enough and then he believed and then he was saved. None of us are going to be able to stand before God and say, here

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I am. It's me. I believed and look where it got me because it is not by works and we will not be able to boast.

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It is the gift of God. Now we believe that we are saved by faith alone, right?

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Sola Fide, by faith alone. And that is true. Even though faith alone saves, saving faith is never alone.

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There is still an expectation of us to show the righteousness of Christ in our lives. And that's where Ephesians 2, 10 comes into play.

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So let's look at Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 again and add in verse 10 for by grace you have been saved through faith.

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And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. Not a result of works so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

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God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. That is the calling for each one of us.

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And I hope that as you have heard the gospel proclaimed here on this program, that you have been called to faith by the spirit and you have answered that call.

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So continue to show that walk of faith by living out the righteousness of Christ.

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Thank you for joining me for this program. And I hope that you would encourage others to listen in as well.

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Tell them to go to our website and subscribe to the podcast at www .utt .com.

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As we close out here, I would like to conclude with prayer. Perhaps I should have started with prayer, but we're going to close our first program out with prayer and ask the

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Lord that this would be a blessing to others and that this is a blessing to you as well.

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So please pray with me. Our gracious heavenly Father, we thank you for this medium that the gospel of Christ would be able to go out in this way.

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And I pray that the seed of that message would fall into good soil, that it would be rooted in Christ, and it would grow up and produce a harvest.

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I pray, Lord, that we would take the word of God, that it would become a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, that we would hide your words in our heart, that we would know that all of scripture is

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God -breathed and is useful for teaching, for training, instruction, and even rebuke in righteousness.

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God may we be convicted by these words, but it is a conviction that leads to repentance, that we follow in the righteousness of Christ and do the things that you have called us to do, obeying your commands because we love

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God. Lord, bless this program to continue to give us our daily bread and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for to you belongs the glory and the honor and the power forever and ever.

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And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. We feature dozens of videos covering a wide range of biblical topics viewed by thousands around the world each day.

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These videos are free for anyone to use for ministry purposes in your church, youth group, Bible study, or to share on social media.

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You can find a complete list of videos and topics on our website, www .tt .com.

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Thank you for listening. Tomorrow we'll continue Philippians, rejoicing together in God's truth when we understand the text.