God Finishes What He Starts - [Philippians 1:6]

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Philippians chapter 1. I hope you've all had a good summer this summer.

Some of myself and some of the men here, we've been preaching in different churches and I've had the opportunity to preach through the book of Philippians.

So I'm going to bring one of the messages that I shared with your brothers and sisters in Christ in a different church, actually a couple of different churches.

But, as you're thinking of summer, I hope some of you got to do some projects this summer and based on the type of smiles and giggles

I'm getting, I hope some of them finished well and I know some of them remain to be done.

I actually do know that here in BBC, we have some people who can do some amazing things with cars, who are pretty good carpenters, guys who finished their basements and floors and some of you have beautiful gardens to prove your skills and some of you can knit and do crochet and I don't know which projects you started and finished and are still in the process of finishing up.

But when you look at my home and my projects, they are not as skilled as some of you are.

You can come and see a little playset in my house, it looks very pretty, but you come up close and you say, oh, it's missing a roof.

It's been missing that roof for a few summers now. You can see that I try to do a little landscape and people come and say, oh, that's so artistic and what they don't realize is

I just didn't finish the job and they are very creative in how they look at what I have. And then

I have this bookshelf that I really, really love which I'm kind of impressed that it stands on its own because some of the supports that I put in place are actually supported by the books rather than supporting the shelf.

So we're all familiar with kind of projects that we begin and not all of them end as well.

But how about God? How does God do his work?

Do you think he can finish what he starts? In fact, if you go to the very first verse in the

Bible, we read, in the beginning, God created heaven and earth. That's a little big project, wouldn't you agree?

When God does something, it's amazing. In fact, through the book of Genesis 1 or through the chapter of Genesis 1, you see time and again

God spoke, let there be light and there was light. It wasn't half light, it was the perfect light that God wanted.

In fact, after day, after day, after day, you get to see first day, first night, it was good, it was good, it was good.

And then you go to the end of Genesis 1, verse 31, God saw everything that he had made and it was very good.

When God starts something, he finishes it and it goes really, really well. But then you might say,

Pradeep, if I keep reading through the book of Genesis, I get to see a little bit of a problem. Genesis 1 is fine,

Genesis 2 is fine, and then I come to Genesis 3. Man who is kind of the crown of his creation,

God makes all of these things for man, man who's made in God's own image to reflect the character and goodness of God, he doesn't seem to stick with the program.

He kind of takes his own route, rejecting what God has made, it's

God's project toward it. In fact, right there in Genesis 3 and on, and through the rest of the

Bible, you get to see the pages of scriptures stained with blood. The very first son who was born turns out to be a murderer.

And there's murder after murder after murder in the Bible recorded. There's lies, theft, pillaging, a whole bunch of stuff that shows in the scriptures that it seems like the project that God started, did it actually go well?

But then you go back and read the scriptures again, you get to see the pages of scriptures are not just stained with blood, they are also washed with blood.

We just sang the song, none of this thing was coordinated. These were hymns that were picked, but you get to see how in the blood of Jesus Christ, you have cleansing.

Right there in Genesis 3, you have garments of skin. There was some blood that was spilled.

And then you come to the Mosaic laws and you get to see how God ordained for sacrifices to wash the sins that were being committed.

And all of this pointing to the very culmination of God's plan in the person of Jesus Christ.

So where you get to see Jesus come, live that life, shed his blood so that you and I can have that sin forgiven.

And so along with the horrors that you see through the pages of scripture, you get to see this work of God that is cleansing and redeeming his people.

And one day you just have to go all the way to the end of the book in Revelation 21 and 22, and you get to see the culmination of God's grand scheme in time and history.

You get to see the return of the King as Jesus comes back and there is no more tear, no more suffering, no more sorrow, no more blood that is spilled innocently, but rather there is just a worship of God in heaven above.

And then you can look back at Genesis 3 and ask yourself the question, why did this happen?

And you get to see here, even today we do, we get to see here the character and goodness and the grace and the mercy and the power of God revealed to us in a way that Adam pre -Genesis 3 could not have even conceived of.

Because here you see the Son of God come and live and die and redeem his people and all of this being ordained before the foundation of the earth.

So when we look at God's project, those are much grander than the kind of projects we do.

You know, sometimes I think of God as, you know, I'm made in God's image, so he's just kind of bigger than me, greater than me, more powerful than me.

Not quite. God is on a completely different scale than we are. He is holy, he is other, he is different, and you and I get a glimpse of God as through the pages of scripture we understand who he is and we recognize his grandeur, his majesty, and his awesomeness as we open the scriptures.

Now my message is titled, God Finishes What He Starts.

You know, sometimes it's okay, some of these projects that I've done, I don't need to finish them. But when

I look at my life, there are times when you ask, is this life actually going to finish well?

You know, I started with great joy and enthusiasm in Jesus Christ, and I've had some great victories in the

Lord. Right now, it's kind of tanking, and I don't know if this is going to kind of correct itself or not.

Maybe you're thinking of someone you love who's going through a phase in their life where you're like, I know they truly trusted in the

Lord, but I don't know. Will God finish what he has started?

Philippians 1 .6 says, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. My goal here is two -fold.

Firstly, I want to assure believers here that if God started that work in you, he will finish it because he says so.

And I also want to speak to everyone else who does not know Jesus. I want to exhort you that you would trust in him, that he would begin that work in your life today.

So, with that, let me just read for you Philippians 1 .1 -11, and I want you to be looking at how these scriptures point to the central purpose of the entire

Bible, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. Young ones, you can just maybe count the number of times you hear

Jesus or Christ or God in this passage. Philippians 1 .1 -2 is the greeting.

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi with the overseers and deacons, grace to you and peace from God our

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in verse 3 -8, Paul thanks the

Lord for the Philippians and here he's going to, this is the central passage in which we are going to be studying our text.

Verse 3, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

And then verse 6, I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

It is right for me to feel this way about you all because I hold you in my heart for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.

This morning we're only going to go up until verse 8, but you need to also read 9 -11 because it's part of the same passage and it is the compliment to the first section.

The first section is going to focus on the work of Christ and the second section, which is Paul's prayer, is going to talk about what happens in the life of a believer because of verse 6.

Verse 9 continues, it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

Having this passage roughly in your mind, I want us to focus in on verse 6 and verse 6 ought to give you assurance and my goal this morning, as I said, is to encourage believers of the work of God in your lives.

I want you to think of it as one peg that I'm just going to hammer very deeply, just that one verse that we're just going to kind of expose and understand and dwell on and gain our confidence in Christ.

So if you want to know more about assurance, I would ask you to come to Sunday school because this morning, providentially again, we heard this message about how you can have assurance without falling into legalism or antinomianism and I know that that will continue for the next couple of weeks as they unpack that for you from the various scriptures.

But my goal here is to get that verse 6 embedded in our hearts and in our minds.

So let me read that once again, verse 6, I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Paul here says, Paul here is sure about something. I am certain of this.

I am confident of this. This is 100 % guaranteed, you can take this to the bank.

Paul is not saying, you know, I think this might happen, I'm only 95 % sure it might happen for some of you, maybe it won't happen for others.

This is something that Paul is utterly, fully, completely sure of. And Paul here writing under the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit is actually communicating this not just to the hearers, the original hearers at Philippi, this is actually intended for every single one of you as well.

So you can be 100 % sure of something that God has done in the past with his saints at Philippi and is capable and will do here with the saints here at Bethlehem Bible Church.

But then you might go back a little bit and ask, okay, Paul is kind of sure about this. What makes

Paul's assurance my assurance? Why should I listen to Paul?

If you go back to verse 1 of this chapter 1, we get to see Paul introduced to us or to the

Philippians first. He says, Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus. Here is

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ. You ask yourself the question, why would Paul introduce himself as a servant?

Couldn't he have introduced himself as an apostle? I've been kind of cool. He's high in the chain of command and he does introduce himself as an apostle in some letters, but not here.

If someone was going to tell me something very important, I'd generally like someone who is high in authority to tell me that, hey, you're going to get a promotion.

Okay. I'd like somebody who is up there telling me that. If someone who's reporting to me says that,

I'd be like, okay. I don't know where to take that. But why does Paul talk of himself as a servant of Jesus Christ?

There's a couple of things we want to be thinking of when we read this, Paul writing to the Philippians and by the Holy Spirit to us today.

In one sense, Paul is kind of like the PA to God, personal assistant, right?

I mean, Patty here knows a lot of things that happen because she's there with the pastors and she might know a few things before the rest of us do.

Paul here is actually inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is actually moving

Paul to write those things that his people need to hear both in that point in time in the first century and throughout all time in the life of the church.

So there is a sense in which Paul is this secretary to the Holy Spirit, if you will. But the main crux here is really it's not about Paul.

You know, there was a lot of problem in the early churches where people were saying, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Cephas, and all this.

It's not about Paul. Paul here wants to bring that focus, that emphasis upon his

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I am a servant of who? That's the question you ought to be asking.

I'm a servant of Jesus Christ. And that's why I read that whole verses 1 through 11. You see Jesus Christ over and over and over again.

It's not about Paul. It's about the master that Paul serves. And that's the one you need to be thinking of.

And of course, you know, in our culture, we think of this hierarchy and chain of command. But in the kingdom of God, here you have

Paul, the greatest of the apostles in one sense. But the only way he wants to identify himself is that he is this humble servant.

He gets to be the servant of this great master, Jesus Christ. So the message here is not really about Paul being sure.

It is about the master who has done this work in you that Paul is so assured of.

And so, and not just that, let's just take another moment. I read for us Acts 16 when we prayed.

And that was the account of how the gospel came to Philippi and how the saints at Philippi came to know the

Lord. So Paul here is not just some stranger writing to the Philippians in Philippians 1, but he is actually the one who brought the gospel to them.

Many of them know him personally because he told them about this Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And he's the one who

God used to begin that work in them. So the first time they came to know

Jesus Christ was through Paul. And this Paul says, not only has he begun that work, but he will bring it to completion.

He will finish what he has started. But then if you look back at verse six,

I am sure of this. What is this that Paul is so sure about? It's that next sentence that completes the verse.

He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. What good work might

Paul be referring to here? He is talking about the work of salvation that God had begun in the

Philippians and the very fact that he will also complete it. Now let's think about this phrase that Paul uses and which

I hope many of you have memorized. He who began a good work, he who began a good work.

You know, many a time when I have been a Christian for a while, I can attend to, I need to go back and recognize or remember what began this good work in me.

Sometimes I'm doing so well spiritually, be like, okay, you know, I've kind of gotten all these strengths as a believer.

I'm kind of doing fine. God can, God started this work and I can kind of move on. And that's not really the truth, is it?

The Galatians have attempted with that work when they began by faith and then started to go by works of the flesh.

But when we go back to the very beginning of our life, no one here can say,

I began that work. I actually jumped across the case and from being a child of darkness into the child of light, it is

God who did that work in me. And you and I need to go back and anchor ourselves in that. Remember that it is

God who is the one who started that work in us. He is the one. And so Paul could have said, you know,

I started that work in you. No, it is God who started that work in your Philippians. Remember Lydia? I was the one who spoke the gospel, but who opened your heart?

It was God who opened your heart. So you could even listen to me and not just listen to me that you would submit to the gospel and not just submit to the gospel, but love the

Lord so much that you would open your home and have Paul and Silas and everybody else come in. Who did all that?

Was it Paul's mighty speech? No, he actually says he's not very good in speech. Was it

Lydia's wealth as a purple seller, trader, dealer? No, it was the work of God because he was the one who opened our heart as we read in Acts chapter 16.

And each of you here, you need to go back and anchor yourself in where your work of salvation began.

It is God who opened your heart and he's the one who began that good work in you.

Now, if you think about the Philippians, there is not just Lydia, every single person there you can think of.

We don't know if that girl who had that demon out of her, whether she came to faith in Christ, but there are a few others there and I hope to bring them to your mind as we go through this text and unpack it for ourselves today.

But let's now, we see that God is the one who began that work, but it says he will bring it to completion. He will bring it.

There is no doubt about the fact that the work, the project that he started in you is going to be half complete.

It is certain that he will, he will bring it to completion. And if you think of Hebrews one, we have, we remember

Jesus Christ is the one who upholds the universe. He's the one who, and Pastor Mike talked about this, where upholding is not just a static thing.

It is something that he, he's the one who brought the universe into existence and he's the one who carries it forth and he will bring it to completion at the very last day.

So he's the one who carries it forth. So when you read the word, we'll bring it to completion. You know, sometimes

I look at my justification, I look at my glorification and I know my justification has occurred because God started it.

I know my glorification is assured because God promises it that there is an eternal security that I can be anchored in Christ.

But right now, when I look at my salvation, sanctification, it's like, it's not, it's not that curve that I would look for.

That is a steep incline. I'm getting holier and holier each day, but it's up, down, up and down, up and down.

And even if I try to put a mean, I don't know if it is upward or downward, he will bring it to completion.

In fact, if some of you have NAS, it talks about he will perfect it. He's the one who is working in you through these ups and downs in order to make you conform you into the image of Christ so that one day you will be blameless and spotless as you stand before the throne.

There's just one last thing I want to comment on this verse six, which is at the day of Jesus Christ. So when

I first read this, I thought this was the day of the Lord, because you see the day of the Lord come many times in the old

Testament and also in the new. But this is actually distinct from the day of the Lord. It is very close in time to the day of the

Lord, but it is not the same because the day of the Lord, as you read in the old Testament is a day of judgment.

It is a day that is something that the people ought to be afraid of because the Lord is coming back.

He's the one who created this world. We see in Genesis one, one, he's the one who has given life to all of the people here on earth.

And one day he's going to come back and he's going to come back as a judge. And he's going to, there is a day of reckoning.

And on that day of reckoning, no one can stand before God and say, God, here's what

I've done. I'm good. Because all of the work that people do, even the best intended actions are tainted, corrupted, soiled with blood, with, with sin.

There's nothing that can be pleasing before God. So the day of the Lord is a terrifying day that people ought to be rightly afraid of because there is a consequence for the life that has been lived.

But that's not the day that Paul is talking about here. There are several times in the

New Testament where you read the day of the Lord Jesus, the day of Jesus Christ.

And this is actually talking about, and I think Pastor Bob spoke about this in Sunday school as well.

When you look, understand eschatology well, there is a time when Christ is coming for his own, for his, those whom he has redeemed from sin, from hell.

And these are the ones who will receive the rewards at Christ appearing. And that's the day that Paul is talking about here.

Because when Jesus' work was started in you, when he who began a good work in you, there was something that has happened.

And we're going to look at that a little more closely before we look at the rest of this passage. But you might be thinking, who is the you that Paul is referring to in verse six?

I'm sure of this, that he who began a good work in you, there are some of you here where God has not begun that good work.

In fact, some of you may be thinking, what is that good work? I'm going to use verse five and verse seven, which are an exercise of verse six to help us understand who can have that assurance and who needs to have that work done in us this morning.

The words that are, there is one word that is in common in both verse five and verse seven, which are the either side of this verse that we are studying today.

And the word that I want to point you out to is the word gospel. We're going to look more closely at what verse five and verse seven mean.

But before we do that, I want to ask you the question, what is the gospel?

Some of you can articulate it pretty well. Many of you, I hope, can look back and smile as you think about the gospel.

But maybe for some of you, you don't know what it is, or maybe you just can't clearly state what it is. A few months ago,

I was in Oakdale Nursing Home with Brother Bob and the crew from BBC, and I asked them this question.

What is the gospel? Here are people, dear people, many of them in wheelchairs, some of them sleeping, some of them trying to follow along as we are singing and we are giving them the message.

And there was this lady in the corner of the room, and I'm saying, what is the gospel? And she yells out,

Jesus. And I said, yes, it is Jesus. Because with Jesus, you have great news.

Gospel means good news. You have a great news when you have Jesus, but without Jesus, you have horrible news, terrible news, a news that will shock you, and once you know it, will bring terror into your heart.

What is the bad news that you have without Jesus? Because here's what I was alluding to earlier. Each of us here, sometimes we think that our life is our own.

I came here because of my parents. Wrong. It's not your parents who created you.

It's your God who created you. I live my life because it's mine to live. Wrong.

You live every moment because God is the one who gives you the breath that you breathe in and breathe out.

Any moment now, he can take it away. Don't think about just the Oakdale folk as the ones who are on the verge of eternity to meet their maker.

Every one of us is because we live here because God chooses to give us this life. And so when

I finished this life and I have to go back to my maker and I'm asked to give an account for the life that I give.

I remember when I was when I was not saved, I used to think I do do a lot of good things.

Those should come for something. And if our if God is a benevolent God, a good

God, maybe he will take that and take away some of the bad things that I clearly know

I have done. And the Bible does talk about a God is a benevolent God. He's a

God who gives us many good things, but he's also a holy God. He's a God who cannot countenance evil.

He cannot countenance sin. And the sin that even repulses me cannot ever coexist in the presence of God.

So when I come before him, you have a nuclear explosion. This sin has to be dealt with. And if I go before God, bearing my sin on my own and thinking somehow

I can wiggle past him into heaven, I am in for a deep shock because that sin will be judged.

And the penalty of that sin is an eternity in hell away from the benevolence of God and instead facing the wrath of God.

And that's why we have really bad news without Jesus. So Jesus comes. He comes because none of us is capable of living that perfect life.

He comes as the sin bearer. He lives this 33 years of perfect obedience, no sin, not even one.

And then when he finishes his life of righteous obedience to the Father, where his will is always conformed to the will of the

Father, never once does he say my will be done, but thy will be done. He goes on the cross.

He dies on the cross in my stead so that the sin that I committed can be placed upon him because he didn't deserve to die.

And he takes the wrath of God for those three hours while he's hanging on the tree saying, you know,

I love so much as to give my life as a substitute for Pradeep and for John and for Bob and every single one who would trust in him.

That's a simple gospel. The gospel is Jesus lives that life. I couldn't live and he gives it to me freely.

Would I trust in what he has done? So now when I go before God on the day of the

Lord, Jesus Christ, not the day of the Lord, God, the Father sees me not as one who is sinful, but one whose sins have been paid for by Jesus Christ.

It's a very simple transaction and God alone accomplishes it on our behalf.

So that's the gospel. The gospel. The good news is that my sins have been paid by Jesus Christ and I am now a child of the king.

I'm no longer under the wrath of God. I no longer will merit hell, but I get to inherit heaven.

So that's the gospel. So now let's look back at the Philippians and how the gospel had worked in their lives.

So if you go back from verse 6 to verse 5, in fact, let me read the section.

So you have the continuity there. In verse 3 and 4,

Paul is praying for them with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

What is the partnership that the Philippians had with Paul? I can assure you it was not a partnership in humanism.

It was not a partnership in social aid to the poor people in Philippi. It was not a partnership in good works that would commend themselves as nice people, but it was a partnership in the gospel.

But let's talk about what that word partnership is. The word partnership comes from koinonia, which most of us know as fellowship.

There is a fellowship that the Philippians and Paul had in one thing, which is the gospel.

And how did that look like? So we need to go back to Acts 16. You don't need to turn there. I'll just refer to it. So the

Philippians and Paul had a fellowship, a unity in the gospel, the good news that existed in Philippi when

Paul was in their midst. So if you look at the end of verse five, there are two bookends there from the first day until now.

So the Philippians partnered with Paul in the gospel. And here, this is a short term for the gospel ministry that was going on.

The good news that was coming that came into the city of Philippi. And then there was spreading out there.

These Philippians partnered or fellowship with Paul. How did they do that? Think about that.

What I referred to when we read Acts 16 right at the beginning, no

Christians there. Lydia was a God fearer, which means she was a Gentile who had started to love

Yahweh of the Old Testament. So she was trying to gather with the Jewish people there. They probably didn't have enough people to have a synagogue.

So here they were meeting by the riverside. And you know, Paul's custom, his custom was to first come among the Jewish people, give them the truth about the

Messiah. So they would follow the one that Yahweh was speaking of. And and then when he gets rejected, he would go to the

Gentiles. But here he comes to the riverside. And here is this God fearer, Lady Lydia. She is worshiping

God of the Old Testament. And she gets her eyes open. She gets to see that the

Messiah that God had promised is Jesus Christ. He is the one who has come to save her from her sin.

So the gospel first impacts her as she comes to faith in Jesus Christ. And the moment her heart was open, her house was open.

In fact, the way the language says that she prevailed upon Paul and Silas and the crew to stay in her home because she wanted the gospel not just to reach her and be her own possession, but rather that it would be a position that goes out to the rest of the city as well.

So that was the first day, the first convert in Europe. Lydia was also fellowshipping in the gospel with Paul.

As the gospel went out in Philippi. But then it ends with until now, how were the

Philippians helping Paul, partnering with Paul in the gospel while Paul is writing this?

Paul, at this point in time, is actually writing from Rome. He is in a prison in Rome. And in Philippians 2, you get to see that there is one of the

Philippians themselves who is with Paul, Epaphroditus. And the Philippians had been sending support to Paul in his missionary work because their hearts, we get to read this in Corinthians.

The Philippians loved the Lord. They wanted out of their poverty to support the people of God and the ministry of the gospel because they loved

God so much. So, and this was done in a way, not because not just writing a check.

They gave themselves first to the Lord wholly because they know that everything they have belongs to him.

And out of that, they said, we want to support Paul who is giving the gospel to people that others may know this wonderful news of Jesus Christ.

So they sent money to support Paul's ministry. They sent Epaphroditus who went out there to help

Paul while he is in his chain that the gospel may go forth from there. So from the first day until now, these people were not just the people who received the gospel and said, this is my private position.

These were people who loved the Lord so that they ministered with Paul in his afflictions.

Now that's the beginning in verse five. Now let's move to verse seven. And this actually gives you the reason for the confidence that Paul has of the work of God in the life of the

Philippians. So in verse seven, Paul explains why he is confident that the work that God has begun in the

Philippians will indeed come to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. He says, it is right for me to feel this way about you all because I hold you in my heart.

For you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

Just a brief note about the first two sentences before we look at the second half of this verse.

Paul says, it's right for me to feel this way. I hold you in my heart.

If you're like me, you're thinking feel and holding in heart don't seem to kind of resonate with what

I'm used to hearing here from this pulpit. Why? Because we see a culture where feeling has been driving our actions, right?

If it feels good, do it. I feel a great deal of love for this young lady and I'm going to marry her.

Forget the fact that I'm already married. It feels good. I have a...

You can fill the blanks. You know, there is a lot of things that our culture feels is good and just thinks that must be right because I feel good.

It ought to be good. So when I read a verse like this, I'm thinking, wait, wait, wait. Is that what Paul is saying? So you look more closely at the verse, the word that Paul uses here, the word used here is freneo and the word freneo is not just a feeling devoid of truth or just an emotion that is completely disconnected from the intellect.

This word contains both the feeling as well as the thinking. They are both connected together. Even the word heart that comes later is that being who you are.

It is not just an emotion, but it's an emotion connected with your mind and your thinking. So when you read these two sentences, that's what you want to be thinking of.

It is a feeling that is not disconnected from the truth or the application of your mind.

And for us here at BBC, you want to be thinking of that correctively as well.

You know, we do want feelings. Feelings are not sinful as long as they flow from the right thinking, as long as they flow from the truth.

So if I feel good about something that is sinful, I ought to say that is wrong. But I ought to feel good about those things that are right.

So right now, if I don't have a lot of compassion for the lost here in BBC or in the town,

I ought to have that. My splegna, my being needs to cry out for those people, people in need and so forth.

That's really how this word freneo comes. My thinking needs to be right. And out of that, my feeling ought to flow.

And in verse 7, really what you see is this tenderness of Paul for the Philippians. Here was Paul. It wasn't just a short period of time.

It starts with Lydia. He's been ministering for a while and then finally gets kicked out after being in jail.

But Paul knows these people, how they've come to the Lord and the love that they have for the Lord. And he has deep affection for them as he even writes this verse 7 because he holds them in his heart.

And then you think of it as a stepladder. In the end of verse 7, he gives you the reason why he is so confident about them.

For you are all partakers with me of grace.

You are all partakers with me of grace. He could have said you are all co -workers with me in putting your blood, sweat and tears in accomplishing the work of God in Philippi.

No, the reason he is confident of that God will finish the work is because they partook.

It's actually similar to the word fellowship. It is in my mind and from the English language. I'm thinking, you know, it's like eating something.

You've gotten the grace of God. What is grace? Grace is free, unmerited favor. This is something that I completely did not deserve.

The Philippians are not going to have God's work finish in them because they were smarter, richer, more pretty, more beautiful, whatever.

There's nothing in them. It is all free. God is the one who gave that grace to them. They have received that grace and therefore

God who began that work in them will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Paul knows these

Philippians as he has seen the work of God in their lives as they are partaken of grace, even as he has.

And therefore Paul is confident of the work. But there's a little bit more in verse seven. He says, how were you partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel?

Paul could be referring to either of the imprisonments here. He could be referring first and foremost to the imprisonment right there in Philippi.

You remember when he got that demon out of the girl, the owners put them in jail and there he was in the prison.

And you could be thinking of many things. The scripture doesn't tell us this here. But Paul himself was a recipient of grace while he was a prisoner in Philippi.

Let me just take a moment here to explain this. So we know for sure one person got saved because Paul went to jail in Philippi.

It's a Philippian jailer, right? So let's just take that moment out, expand that. And then hopefully you'll get a sense of what this partaking of grace means.

So here is Paul. And let me begin with Paul. Paul was beaten unjustly,

Paul and Silas. And they are bleeding. They are injured. They are not treated.

And not only are they in jail, but they are in the inner dungeon. And not only are they in the inner dungeon, but they have their feet and hands in stocks.

They can move. They're in an extremely uncomfortable position. And it is dark because, you know, later the jailer had to bring light to see what was going on.

So these were the conditions he is in. And Paul ought to have said, Oh God, why on earth this is happening?

My ministry is getting hindered. Please get me out of here so I can go and do the gospel work that you want me to do.

Is that what Paul said? No. We read Paul and Silas. They were praising

God. They were singing songs. They were praying to God. And what was the result of this partaking of grace that was going on in Paul's life?

All the prisoners there were actually listening. There was the gospel going out right there in the midnight where Paul beaten and deeply injured.

Here is thanking God for what is happening. And who knows how many of those prisoners are right there in Philippi reading this letter as they've said, that's when

I got to be a partaker of grace that came to Philippi. And not only that, you get the earthquake and this is a very interesting kind of earthquake because this is not an earthquake that damaged things.

It was an earthquake that opened things. It opened the gate to the prison. It opened the shackles of the prisoners.

So all of these people could have left. And in fact, this happened once earlier in the book of Acts with Peter and Peter had to be reminded by the angel nudged out of the jail.

Hey, you know, it's supposed to escape now because he thought it was just a vision. But in this particular case, it was not meant for the escape of Paul, but it was meant for the salvation of the jailer.

So the jailer sees the open doors, thinks everybody's gone here. He is accountable to Rome and for honor's sake wants to commit suicide.

But Paul and Silas hadn't escaped. And by the way, neither had none of the other prisoners. Makes you think why?

But Paul calls out and tells him all of us are here. Not one of them had escaped. The jailer comes in, gets to see something that is not natural.

Here is a supernatural work of God. And he says, what must I do to be saved?

You'd think Paul would say, hey, you know, you're a Gentile. Here's a copy of the

Torah. Go ahead and read it and you can figure out how to do what God wants you to do. That's not what

Paul said. Concentrate, repent and believe. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your whole household.

That's it. Trust in him. That's the reason I live the way I live my life. Why am

I singing in the middle of the night? Because I'm a partaker of grace. And here you have the jailer who becomes a partaker of grace.

Now, that could be the imprisonment that Paul is referring to, how they were with him, partakers of grace in the imprisonment.

Or they could be talking about Rome. Because here is Paul in Rome, and you'll see in verse 12 and beyond, the jailers in Rome got to get to see the gospel because Paul being there in jail.

And the Philippians were supporting Paul in Philippi. They had sent Epaphroditus and they were connected with him.

They were just not sending him a check, but they were involved in the ministry that was going on in Rome as well. But when you look at those two words, defense and confirmation of the gospel, the word defense comes from apologia, which is apologetics.

You give a reason for the hope that is in you, 1 Peter 3 15. And so there is Paul time and again is constantly asked, why do you proclaim

Jesus? When the Jews ask him, he explains how Jesus is the Messiah from the Old Testament. When the

Gentiles ask him, here is the savior, the king, the one to whom he owes his allegiance and talks about the gospel.

So that's the defense, the reason for the hope that he has, that one day he will see God and be right with him.

And then the confirmation of the gospel. If you want to think of defense as the negative or the giving the reason when you're questioned, the confirmation is the positive proclamation that goes with it.

So, you know, Paul goes there everywhere he goes. He gives the gospel, the good news positively, verbally and with his life.

And so in both his defense and in the confirmation of the gospel, the Philippians were partakers with him.

So from the time Lydia gets saved to the time when the jailer gets saved, and then he is kicked out of town, you get to see these people involved in the defense and the confirmation of the gospel.

Because they were partakers of grace with him. So my question for you, as we wrap up is this,

I mean, I began by saying I have twofold purpose. One is for those who do not know

Jesus. And the other is for those who do know Jesus. So if you don't know

Jesus as your Lord and Savior, I want you to know. Neither did

Lydia, neither did the Philippian jailer before Paul came into their town, brought to them by God.

Remember, Paul came to Philippi because he had that vision for the Macedonian person calling.

And so they redirected their, they canceled some flights and took some others to get to where they needed to be.

So Paul, by divine appointment, brought the gospel to Lydia and to the jailer.

As you're hearing the gospel this morning, I want you to know it's God who opened the heart of Lydia.

God who brought conviction in the life of the jailer. You know where your heart is.

You know you can't meet your maker without righteousness of Christ. What prevents you from trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ?

And trust is all it takes. The Philippian jailer didn't have to do anything other than repent of his sin.

Repent means turning completely away from. It's not saying, I'm going to clean up all my sin. It just says, I recognize the horror that my sin is, and I do not want to follow after the path that I've lived.

I turn around 180 degrees and I want to follow after Christ. And I believe for the work that Jesus has done on my behalf.

And the Bible says that God gives you a new heart. It gives you new desires for the things of God. The things that you currently love, you will begin to hate.

And the things that you didn't care about, you will begin to love and follow in the way of your master.

And the Bible says in verse six, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Jesus, anyone who comes to Christ, he will by no means cast out.

You can trust in the very word of God that he will finish what he starts in you.

For those of you who are believers, but are struggling in your walk today, I want you to think about the question.

Where is Lydia today? We can be assured that she is in heaven in the presence of God.

Did Lydia have problems with her trades, business going down?

Could she have had problem persecution from the city? Because in Corinthians, we do find that the church in Philippi was severely persecuted.

Maybe they had laws passed against dealers of purple in Philippi. Maybe she had her own crisis of faith as she was going through these.

But he who began a good work in Lydia brings it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

So if you're struggling today with your salvation, you want to ask yourself the question.

This was start very clearly in Sunday school this morning. Where is your confidence? Is your confidence on the finished work of Jesus Christ?

How do you deal with those failures that you struggle with? Are you looking at them and saying,

Lord, I need help? Or are you saying, yeah,

I don't really care about this. If you're the former, you know that you have a very present help in your time of need.

If you are the latter, you go back and say, has God really opened my heart? And the one who began that good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

As we close, I want you to just think about Peter, the apostle Peter. Here was this guy who said, you are the

Christ, the son of the living God. And the very next time says, you know, you shall not go to the cross. Goes up, goes down.

Jesus even calls him, get thee behind me, Satan. Peter was the one who said, even if everyone rejects you,

I will follow you even unto death. And then when the servant girl asked him, you are one of the followers.

He says, I never knew him. And brings curses upon his own head. Here was the

Peter in Acts 2 who gives this great proclamation of the gospel. Thousands get saved.

Then we read in Galatians 1, he's afraid of the Judaizers and goes thanking. If you and I relied upon the strength of character of Peter or Paul or Lydia or the

Philippian jailer, we'd be in for deep trouble. But you and I look at.

Jesus Christ, the servant of whom Paul was, who's writing these words to us. Jesus Christ is the only one who never failed, never faltered, never questioned the work of God.

And he's the one who has done that work for us. And he's the one who will finish that in our lives.

So with that, we want to rest in the finished work of Christ, knowing that he who did begin that work well completed my project.

I don't know how much hope I have for, but I have a lot of confidence that the work that God begins will always end well.

Let us pray a loving and gracious father. We thank you for Jesus.

We thank you for your love that you cared for us to save us, rescue us, deliver us from our bondage.

We thank you for your spirit who is here with us to open our hearts, to help us to trust you and to walk in those paths that you have prepared for us, for your glory.