WWUTT 034 To God Be the Glory (Review)

The theme to Paul's letter to the Philippians has been joy, and all throughout this study we have learned more about what it means to rejoice in the

Lord, who supplies for our every need. Today, we want to do some review of Philippians 4, 10 through 23, so that it might enhance our joy all the more when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, my name is Pastor Gabe Hughes, a blessing to be with you as we have studied through Philippians over these past 30 episodes, however many number of episodes it has been now,

I'm not even keeping track. I don't know what number we're on until I upload the next episode. That's about where I'm at.

But anyway, this week we've looked at Philippians 4, verses 10 through 23, and we want to go back over those things again today and do some review.

No, it's not Friday. Typically, we do review on Friday, but tomorrow's review is going to be the entire letter.

So right now, we're just going to look at everything that we've studied so far this week. We're going to come to the text, read the whole section, and then go through a five point review, and then we still have a question today.

So I'll be taking a question from a listener slash viewer of what videos in the last third of this broadcast, so that's still to come.

Before we get to the text, why don't we come to the Lord in a word of prayer? Our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you again for this letter.

We thank you for the heart of Paul. We thank you for the heart of the Philippians who gave to Paul in the situation that he was in in Rome, so that Paul might be motivated to write back to them, encouraging them, thanking them for the letter, and instructing them all the more in rejoicing always in Christ Jesus.

We benefit from this exchange so much, the heart of the Philippians, the heart of Paul, that we might learn all the more what it means to have joy in the

Lord. I pray that what we're reading today and what we are reviewing is going to help to stir that joy in our hearts all the more.

Lord, it is a tough situation in our nation right now. It's a tough situation in the world.

Everything that we're seeing happening in the news, a recent debate, conspiracy theories going on widespread, all this kind of stuff that just seems to bombard us from every direction.

Remind us that all that we need is in Christ Jesus. He is our hope.

He is our joy. He is our peace. He is the assurance that we have of the eternal life with God through what

Christ has given us on the cross and with his life, his death, and his resurrection.

We celebrate you for these things. God, stir us, stir in us our joy in the

Lord, which is our strength. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, a five -point review of Philippians 4, 10 through 23.

Let's start in verse 10. We'll go through the text and then come back through it. I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me.

You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation

I am to be content. I know how to be brought low. I know how to abound in any and every circumstance.

I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance, and need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble, and you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel when

I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only.

Even in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs once and again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit.

I have received full payment and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.

And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

To our God and Father be glory forever and ever, amen. Greet every saint in Christ Jesus.

The brothers who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household. The grace of the

Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Back into verse 10. I rejoiced in the

Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.

The Philippians were always concerned about this mission's work that Paul was on. They gave him money to go from Philippi into Thessalonica, which we see from Acts 16 -17.

But then from that point on, they had no other opportunity to support Paul until he had been preaching the gospel in Rome and had been in prison there, which is where he's at currently at the time that he's writing this letter back to the

Philippians. He's been placed under house arrest for preaching the gospel. And so in that situation and hearing about preachers that are out there who are saying some ill things about Paul, they're contesting with Paul, maybe trying to gain

Paul's followers for themselves, or they're putting distance between them and Paul because he's thrown in prison.

And it was just a dishonorable thing to associate yourself with somebody who had been arrested. But the Philippians are showing their support.

And so Paul's saying here, you have an opportunity now to show your support for me because I've been thrown in prison. So when there are others who have not stood by my side, you have, and you have collected this money and sent it to me with Epaphroditus.

And so you've had this opportunity to show your appreciation and support of this ministry work and what it is that I'm doing, not that I'm speaking of being in need.

Okay. The end of this that Paul is talking about is not his need, but for the Philippians and their heart to show their concern for an apostle.

The apostle Paul says, I really don't need anything. I don't need anything materially, even money for I have learned in whatever situation

I am to be content. And that leads to point number one in our five point review of everything that we've looked at this week.

Philippians four, 10 through 23 point number one is be content in every situation.

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Paul says, and he's able to say that because he is content in every situation.

He is content in every situation because he knows that Christ is his strength kind of works both ways in that way.

So we are to be content in all things. Jesus Christ said to us, how many of you could add one hour, one day to your life because you worried?

Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin.

Yet I tell you, even Solomon and all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so close the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you?

Oh, you have little faith. Therefore, do not be anxious saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear for the

Gentiles? Seek after all these things and your heavenly father knows that you need them all, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.

Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

We had read this section of Matthew chapter six when we were looking at Philippians chapter four verse six.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God because we know that God is supplying for our every need.

We can't gain anything by worry. Nobody can get anything by worrying even about the material possessions that they need.

The necessities, let's put it that way. Even about necessities, worrying about necessities doesn't add anything to your life.

God will supply these things for you as well. And the apostle Paul is echoing that sentiment here. I have learned to be content in every situation and so should we, no matter our situation.

We know that the Lord, our God is providing for us. We know that salvation is given to us in Christ. This life can be taken from us.

Happiness can be taken from us. A person can give us an ill comment and boom, just like that. We've lost our happiness and are now into sadness, and we can't even control that.

It's like our body chemistry. How in the world do you control which direction your chemistry reacts to certain things and situations and words that people say we can't even control these things.

So in all situations, we are content because we know that no one can take anything from us in this life.

It is in Christ alone who is our hope in Christ alone. My hope is found as the as the song from the

Gettys goes. OK, so therefore we rejoice greatly in the

Lord with the opportunities that we have to be able to show service to one another, to the saints, not because any one of us are in need, because in every situation we are to learn to be content.

But we have those opportunities to show love to one another. So let's exercise that. That's a point that's going to come later on.

Here's point number two. So point number one is be content in every situation. Point number two, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

I know how to be brought low, Paul says, and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance.

I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Our ability to endure in good times or in bad is by the strength of Christ.

It is never by our strength. And when times are good, we think it's ourselves that are holding us up right now.

Things are good. Nothing I got to look out for. All right. You know, God is good. He's given to me. I don't need to seek him right now.

Sometimes that becomes our attitude. And then it's when times get tough that we tend to fall on our faces and beg

God or ask why. But it is even when times are good that God is sustaining us in times are bad.

He sustains us there as well. And this goes back to Philippians 1 5, where the apostle Paul says, I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus.

I'm sorry, that's verse six, not verse five. But but it is Christ who saves us and it is Christ who keeps us saved.

He is the one who sustains us. His strength is what carries us through this life in good times or in bad and is knowing that that helps us to be content in every situation.

So point one, be content. Number two, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Sorry, I had worded it this way. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

All the joy, all the glory, all the honor is Christ belongs to Christ alone.

Here's point number three. Greet the saints. All right. We are to greet the saints.

We are to show generosity, care to one another at which the apostle

Paul has said here to the Philippians, you had an opportunity to show care for me and you took it not because I need anything, not because you need anything, but it is an exercise, an opportunity to show the love of Christ in the body of Christ.

And we need to take those opportunities. Greeting the saints. The apostle John says, first,

John 3, 16, first, John 3, 16. OK, not John 3, 16, first,

John 3, 16. By this, we know love that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

Now, understand when John's using that word brothers here, he's not talking about anybody and everybody.

He's talking specifically about the brothers and sisters of Christ. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him, how does

God's love abide in him? Little children, let us love not in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.

OK, so it is out of love for the brotherhood. Out of love for the body of Christ, because we belong to this body, because we are family that we should show and bestow love toward one another, providing for one another.

Now, it's not that we shouldn't provide for others who are in need. We should.

As a matter of fact, the apostle Paul says in Galatians chapter six. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

That's Galatians 6, 10. So we show good to everyone, especially to those who are of the household of faith.

So we should care for our own first, but also be showing love to those in all of the world so that we might show the love of Christ to be able to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Wait, did you just say show the love of Christ to the body of Christ first before considering anybody else?

Yes, absolutely. In fact, we see that theme come up continually in the New Testament when Jesus says that what you do to the least of these brothers of mine, you have done to me.

He's talking specifically about the brothers. Any and all poor are not the least of these. Those who are the least of these are the outcasts of society.

Those who have been cast out by especially a secular society because they belong to Christ. Those are the brothers of Christ.

When Jesus appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus, he said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

All right, Saul was persecuting other Christians, not directly to Christ, which was why

Saul asked, who are you, Lord? But Jesus associates himself with his body.

If a member of his body is persecuted is the same as if Christ is persecuted. So we show love to the body of Christ first, and then we care for others outside the body of Christ so that we have the chance to be able to share the gospel with them and be able to draw them into that body.

In in first Timothy five, eight, the apostle Paul says, if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for members of his household, he is denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

So our obligation is to our families first. That's our immediate family, you know, husbands to wives and to children, mothers to their children, to their husbands,

OK, kids to their parents, so on and so forth. And then outside of that stretching out from there, it's to the body of Christ.

It's the brothers and sisters that we have of Christ, the mothers and fathers, even those who have led us in Christ Jesus.

So let us first care for the saints. We are to greet the saints. OK, so point number one, be content in every situation.

Point number two, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Point three, greet the saints, treat the saints, treat one another well.

And then point number four, give to the church monetarily. We should be giving to the church and wherever you are and whatever church you're a part of, that's where your money should go first.

When you make an income and you're deciding what it is that you should give to charity, you give to your church first where you are being fed.

And then if there are other parachurch organizations or other charities that you want to give to stretch out beyond that, when we understand the text is one of those, by the way, if you consider us worthy to donate to consider doing so on our website, www .utt

.com, and you'll see the give button on the top right corner of the page that goes to our church, by the way. And my first encouragement to you would still be to give where you are planted, give to the church that is currently feeding you.

The apostle Paul talks about the gifts that he received from the Philippians that has benefited the ministry.

It was kind of you to share in my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left

Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me and giving and receiving except you only. Even in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs once and again, not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit or the profit that accrues to your account.

All right. I receive these gifts from you because it is to your benefit.

It produces fruit in you. I have received full payment and more. I am well supplied.

Having received from Epaphroditus, the gifts you sent a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.

And that is what our gifts to the church are. A pleasing sacrifice unto the Lord. You know, something else to tie into this.

And I didn't mention this yesterday or the day before when we were going through this particular section. But along with giving to the church, the church needs to give to missionaries.

And that's really the connection that we're seeing here. The Philippian church giving to Paul as a missionary.

And he continues this outreach of the gospel. Now, we're part of a Southern Baptist church, which is part of the cooperative program.

And that program, by the way, we give money into. And then it is dispersed to all of the missionaries that are supported by the

International Missions Board. But we as a church have been experiencing conviction lately to understand that we should not be dumping money into a program that just becomes out of sight, out of mind.

The cooperative program is a great thing, and we're still going to give money into it. But we're also talking about how we can apportion some of that money specifically to missions groups or even raising up missionaries from our own church to go out and plant churches or to adopt a people group, you know, some of those kinds of things.

And so that is a way that the church is able to give to the mission's work of preaching the gospel, just as the

Philippians did for the Apostle Paul. So that's really more the context that we're seeing here in Philippians chapter four.

Your church needs to support that mission's effort of reaching out with the gospel. Be content in every situation.

Do all things through Christ who gives us strength. Greet the saints. Give to the church. Here's point number five.

It's all to the glory of God. And this is verse 20, where the Apostle Paul says to our

God and father, be glory forever and ever. Amen. And he's the

Apostle Paul is following the example of his Lord Christ, whom he spoke about in chapter two, the name that that is above all names.

God gave him that name so that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the father, all that Jesus did, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped.

He emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. All of these things Jesus did to the glory of God, the father.

He is our example for worshiping God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.

He is our example. And Paul is following that example. When he concludes this letter, few verses yet to go by saying to our

God and father, be glory forever and ever. Amen. Everything that he had said previous to that. This is all to the glory of God.

Okay, accepting the gift from the Philippians, knowing that it is through Christ that he has been strengthened, being content in every situation, caring for one another in the body of Christ.

All of these things are to the glory of God. To him belongs all of the glory forever and ever.

Amen. It is to the glory of his great name, and it is in that great name that we pray and ask you,

Lord, to write these words upon our heart. As we've studied through Philippians here, what a great thing to see this relationship between the apostle

Paul and the Philippians. So we still might be able to learn from this 2000 years later, rejoicing in the

Lord in all circumstances to the glory of God. And so, Lord, I pray that you continue to grow this word in us as we have read through these things.

Everybody who's been with us from day one continue to perfect this word as it sits on the internet, and there are others who might come into it and listen to it from start to finish.

Grow this in their hearts as well. And may we be energized and encouraged all the more by the word of God to give glory in the name of Christ to the

God and Father that we worship, who has loved us enough to send his son to die for our sins so that we might know eternal life with our creator.

Thank you, God. Let that be our joy. And let the joy of the Lord be our strength.

And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Carl Sagan once said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

You know what? We agree, though not in a way that an atheist might think, if it could be said that an atheist thinks.

The burden of proof is more on an atheist to show there is no creator than it is on the Christian to prove that there is.

Why? Because all human beings inherently understand design. This is referred to as empirical adequacy.

Pick any object and you inherently know it was created. But no atheist will ever be able to refer to anything coming into existence without cause or creator.

Even if he were to cook up some example of random processes, he runs into what is called the implied creator paradox because he had to create his example of non -creation.

The statement made earlier about how atheists don't think we aren't trying to be derogatory, we're simply following their logic.

If we're nothing but the result of accidental processes, then human beings are just walking sacks of chemicals. And chemicals cannot reason, they only react.

That's a pretty good description of some atheists. Romans 1, 19 -21, For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

There's no reason to have to prove God's existence because everyone inherently knows God is real and his word is true.

All of the evidence is already there when we understand the text. That video actually does play into answering our question today in some way.

This question comes from Jamie in Alberta, Canada, and I've been asked this question many times, but it's Jamie's email that I've chosen to respond to.

Jamie says, Dear what? Why do you have comments disabled on your videos?

I actually like that you don't allow comments. At first I was disappointed because I wanted to leave a comment, but after several videos

I came to appreciate it. I'm not watching a video thinking about a comment I can make.

It allows me to just learn. Anyway, I thought I'd ask and I'd still like to know.

Just curious. Thank you, Jamie, for your email. And one of the reasons why we disabled comments you touched on right there.

We disabled comments because it allows a person to learn. There was a a political website that I read.

This was over a year ago, and it was like when we were about 20 videos into the what ministry. I don't know how many videos we had.

It was still pretty young. Now we have over 80, but at the time it was it was not even two dozen yet.

But I was on this particular political website, dealt mostly with political issues. And the editor of that website, one of the editors was who was writing the column.

And he said that if I could go back and start this website over again, I would disable the comments. He talked about discuss

D .I .S. Q. U .S. You know where you can leave a comment on somebody's page through Twitter or Facebook. He said we would not have any of that.

There would be no comment section built into the website. None of those things. And one of the reasons he gave for for wanting to eliminate the comments is because news today has gotten so interactional.

And as a person is reading news, they're already formulating their opinion and leaving a response before they've given themselves an opportunity to absorb the full argument or the full story.

And and I've experienced this actually even in doing this podcast. There was somebody who was listening to the podcast a couple of weeks ago and they sent me an email and said, hey, have you ever considered this?

And then about 10 minutes later, I got another email from that person who said, oh, never mind. I heard that you touched on it anyway in the episode.

So as they were listening to what it was I was saying in the podcast, they've already formulated an opinion without allowing themselves to hear the full argument.

No offense to that person. I'm not saying that their intentions were bad. It's just that's social media today.

That's the way that we respond to things. Everything is opinionated and I can't just allow myself humbly to be informed.

I have to be part of that informational process. And so eliminating the comments, one of the reasons why we did that is so it allows a person to not be in this mindset where they think they now have to offer their opinion on what is being presented.

We want you to sit and listen to what the Bible has to say about this particular topic.

It's just 90 seconds, guys. Just sit and get through it. All right. If I had control over it,

I would also eliminate the comment section on our Facebook page. And we've heard comments from people all the time.

Like, for example, the video that we just played on proof of God's existence, we get comments about that video even now where somebody will send us an email and say, oh, you

Christians are all the same. You just want to shut everybody out and not listen to their opinion. And that's why you've shut down comments.

No, it's not that at all. We want to hear your opinion. You can send us an email and we'll respond to it.

If we didn't want to hear from you, you wouldn't hear from us. I mean, that's just kind of how that goes. But comment sections in social media are trouble.

And so that's one of the reasons why we disabled the comments. The main reason, if I had to put a main reason on why we disabled comments on our videos, it's because they were just vile.

Some of the comments that we were getting were awful. And that video that we played in particular is a prime example. When we did the video on proof of God's existence, we were getting death threats.

And there were people that were telling us to do obscene things to ourselves. And some people would post pornographic images.

They would say things like, hey, have you ever considered this argument? And then they'd post a YouTube link. And when we click on it, it's something pornographic.

And so we're having to screen those things and having those images burned in our minds. And it was awful things that people were doing to us like that because we're a

Christian ministry. And so we disabled the comments. We didn't want to subject anybody else to seeing those kinds of things, especially when we want to put together something that's family friendly.

And we know even kids are going to watch. We don't want them scrolling down into the comment section and seeing awful things that people say.

I've said for a long time, even before we started the when we understand the text ministry, I've said for a long time, if you want to see a good exercise in human depravity, check the comment section of any popular video on YouTube.

That is human depravity right there. Abraham Lincoln once said, if you want to see the true character of a man, give him power.

And boy, the power of his voice, the character of a person sure tends to come out. I'll tell you, one of the most influential ministries in making the decision to remove comments on our

YouTube videos was Wretched, Todd Friel's ministry. They've disabled the comments on their videos.

And so as we talked about it, we decided we're going to do the same. Thank you, Todd, for the influence that you had on such a young ministry.

Hey, there's the answer to the question. But we still want to hear from you. Send an email to junctioncitychurch at gmail .com.

God bless. Tomorrow, the full review of the book of Philippians. You've been listening to When We Understand the

Texts of Pastor Gabriel Hughes. Our ministry was born out of a local church, and we rely on the contributions of our viewers and our listeners to keep this ministry going.

If our videos or this program has ministered to you, would you consider a donation? All gifts go directly to our church, a non -profit ministry.

Give with card or check at our website, www .wtt .com. We'll continue our study of Philippians tomorrow.