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So we are beginning this afternoon, a sermon series that I've been looking forward to for quite some time, just in my own personal preparation, as we come to the letter to the Philippians. The letter to the Philippians in a series that I've entitled Deep Joy.
Deep Joy, this is going to be our study for this summer, the next 12, 13 weeks, Lord willing. And so I'd love to jump straight in. So if you have a Bible, and I hope you do, take it and turn with me to Philippians chapter 1.
Philippians chapter 1, Philippians in chapter number 1, and we're going to read from verse 1 through to verse 11. Philippians chapter 1, from verse 1 to 11, if you grabbed one of the red hardback Bibles we give away, that's page 1040, page 1040 in those red hardbacks that we give away.
Philippians chapter 1, and we're going to read verses 1 through 11. We're really only going to look at verses 1 and 2 this afternoon. But just to have a good running start as we begin, Philippians chapter 1 and verse 1 through to verse 11.
If you're able to do so, can I invite you to stand with me out of reverence for God's word. Philippians chapter 1, beginning in verse 1. Brothers and sisters, these are God's words. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you, always praying with joy for all of you in my every prayer. Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
I'm sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Indeed, it is right for me to think this way about all of you because I have you in my heart.
And you are all partners with me in grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness how deeply I miss all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
And I pray this, that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment. So that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ.
Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. The grass withers and the flowers will fade, but this word of our God will abide forever. Join with me as I pray.
Ask for the Spirit's help and we launch into our study this afternoon.
Let's pray together.
Our Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that every time we open it, we are simply given another portrait of your grace. We are shown the love and the mercy and the grace that you have shown to us in Christ.
And we pray that as we begin this new study, working our way through the letter to the Philippians. That beyond seeing our own circumstances, seeing our own needs, we would see Christ as we march our way through this letter.
Father, as we pray for our fellowship here, we also pray for First Baptist Church of Phoenix. Thank you for Pastor Brett and all the wonderful work he's doing there. Thank you that you have raised up two elder candidates for them there, Dustin and Paul.
And pray for that continued process as they are trained and examined, not just by Brett, but by the congregation there. Pray that you would strengthen that body. Pray that their witness for you would remain vibrant and strong.
Father, would you build a family of co-workers in that place there so that Phoenix would know your gospel and that lives would be transformed. And Father, we pray that that would be the case even now as we open up your word.
We ask all these things in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Please be seated. Well, as I said, we are starting a series that I have entitled Deep Joy. Deep Joy. And this afternoon, really what I want to do is just to begin the process of introducing Philippians as we begin this study that's going to last all summer.
You really can't put a price on joy if you really think about it, can you? If we're honest, it's priceless in its value, it's precious in its worth, and possibly it's the hardest thing for a local church to fight for.
The Bible says a great deal about joy and its part in the church's identity. As we get started, we'll look at just a few verses where Paul mentions this idea of joy in relation to God's people. So in Romans chapter 14, which we've talked through before here at Redeemer, Paul is dealing with the issue of what makes the people of God the people of God.
Is it that we all agree on every disputable matter or is it that there are some things that transcend the areas where we disagree? In Romans 14, 17, Paul says that the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking.
And his point there is very simple. It's not what you eat or drink that makes you a Christian. It's not whether you partake or don't partake, whether you eat everything or you're a vegetarian. These things do not make you acceptable before God.
And these things are not the markers of a people who are accepted by God. He says the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Part of the identity of a citizen of God's kingdom is Spirit-empowered joy.
In fact, in the next chapter—so we just read Romans 14—in Romans 15, Paul is explicit in reminding us of the source of that joy. So Romans 15, 13, he says, Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The source of joy for the Christian, as I'm going to come back to this a couple of times in this message, is not circumstantial. It's not even emotional. No, true Christian joy is a work of God's Spirit.
In fact, the work of those of us who are in vocational ministry, according to Paul, is many things, but one of them, according to Paul, is tied to the pursuit of Spirit-empowered joy. So 2 Corinthians 1 .24, Paul says that he and the apostles, who I believe is who he's talking about in the context there, he says that they did not exist to lord it over the faith of God's people, but he says, but we are workers with you for your joy.
True gospel ministry is many things, like I said, one of which is seeking to encourage God's people and to fuel God's people in their pursuit of Spirit-empowered joy. It seems to me that I would be failing you, as the person who opens the Word of God most weeks here at Redeemer, I would be failing if I didn't do something at least to help you in your pursuit of joy in the Spirit.
Well, as I said, we're beginning a study in Paul's letter to the Philippians this summer, and as we begin this study, we're going to actually learn a great deal about true, deep joy. And at times, it's going to seem paradoxical the way in which we experience this joy, because this is going to be really important.
If you think of joy primarily as an emotion, you'll never actually achieve it. If you think of joy primarily as I'm happy all the time and I never feel anything's wrong, I never feel the weight of anything, guess what?
That kind of joy just doesn't exist. The kind of joy that Paul's going to describe for us in the letter to the Philippians is something you can't generate from within. It's only something that God can give and God can sustain, and he does it in some rather unusual ways, as we'll see.
Now, as we get started in Philippians, the temptation can be to just start at verse 1 and just jump straight in, which isn't the worst thing we could do. But I'm going to argue that that's maybe not the most responsible way for us to read our Bibles.
Now, as much as you can't just pick up Philippians and start reading, and you will be blessed by it, I think as we come to study God's Word, and I think I've mentioned this before, doing a little bit of work on the front end goes a long, long way in helping us to get the most out of the book of the Bible that we are in.
In your study guide, you should see a diagram that looks something like this. If you're wondering what on earth is this thing, don't worry. I will explain it in just a moment. It should be on the first page there of the study guide.
When we read our Bibles, the temptation can often be, as you can see there, there's text and audience right there at the bottom. The temptation can be to just read the text. So I open this Bible. Oh, I'm in Philippians.
Okay.
I open this. I read it.
Straight to us is the audience today. It's kind of the example of that really awful Bible study question that some of you know I really can't stand, the question, what does this text mean to me? Doing that might be most meaningful to us, but it's ignoring a major problem, which is that the Bible wasn't written to us as the first audience.
I believe the Bible was written to us as the ultimate audience, but God wrote to real people with real circumstances, and the text has no meaning to us now, separated from its meaning to them. So when we study the Bible, we probably want to start with the hard work of deriving the meaning out of the text.
That's that first vertical line has that fancy term exegesis. All that simply means is you are drawing meaning out of the text and out of the world of the text. Now, we may sit there and say, okay, that's great, and that's wonderful.
Other people may say, no, you don't start there. Actually, you start with the gospel. You start with Jesus. And so what you end up doing is start with the text right there in that bottom left corner, and then make a beeline straight to the cross.
Well, the problem is since you've ignored the original audience, and you are not that audience, you end up having to either spiritualize, take passages that say one thing, and kind of give them a spiritual meaning, or you allegorize.
Now, what happens, what should happen actually is you start with drawing the meaning out of the passage. You do the work of considering what I've put there in the little diagram as theological reflection.
How does this passage, and the truth it says to the original audience, play itself out across the rest of Scripture in light of the gospel? And then we can do the work of now saying, now that we understand in light of the gospel what this means, how does this speak to me?
And so that's the approach we generally try to follow here at Redeemer. We start with the text and what it says to its original audience. Once we determine its meaning, then we're able to do the work of understanding, how does the gospel shape the meaning of this passage?
And then we can ask, how does this speak to us? So when we start a new book of the Bible, we typically take the first message to do that work of understanding who the author is, who the audience were, what did the author intend, writing under the inspiration of the Spirit, for them to understand.
That's what I want to do in this message. As we start Philippians, I want to take some time and, as it were, paint the backdrop to Philippians. And my hope is that as we do that, we'll have some tools that will help us to get the most out of our study of this very important letter.
In particular this afternoon, I want to consider four key tools that will help us to get the most out of our study in Philippians. I will do my best not to make this long and complicated, but we'll see how it goes.
First of all, consider with me that if we're going to get the most out of Philippians, we need to identify the major characters. We need to identify the major characters. Who wrote this and who was he writing it to?
Well, thankfully, we don't have to look too far. All of our major characters come to us in Philippians 1. So look at verse 1 with me. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons.
Very simple. You've got two sets of major characters here. First of all, you've got the author. You've got the author. Simple enough. It's Paul. Paul wrote the passage that the book, I should say, that we're going to be studying for the next 12, 13 weeks.
Even the most liberal scholars who deny everything else in the Bible generally have no problem in saying Paul wrote this letter at least. Timothy's with him. That's why he's mentioned in the greeting there in verse 1.
And when it comes to Philippians, that's the easy part. We know Paul wrote this. Timothy's with him. The big question isn't so much who wrote this. The big question is where is he writing from? Well, we get some clues as we look at the book.
So we know he's in some sort of imprisonment. So look at verse 7, Philippians 1, 7. Indeed, it is right for me to think this way about all of you because I have you in my heart, and you are all partners with me in grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.
Again, in verse 13, he mentions the fact that his imprisonment is because he is in Christ. Verse 17, again, he talks about those who are preaching the gospel from bad motives, saying that they think they will cause me trouble in my imprisonment.
So Paul is writing this from prison, which Paul seemed to have a season ticket for prison. He was always there in one place or another. So the question is which imprisonment? I think we get another clue in verse 13 because of who's with Paul in this imprisonment.
So verse 13, after he says that what's happened to me has actually advanced the gospel, verse 13, so that it has become known through the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ.
Ah, so Paul's imprisonment has him close to the imperial guard, the personal guard of the emperor of Rome himself. One more piece of the puzzle real quickly. There's only one place Paul could have been where he was close to the imperial guard.
We know this because I didn't plan this, but it just worked out in our Bible reading today. He's in Rome. He spends two years in basically house arrest. And typically house arrest was overseen by Caesar's own personal guard who were based in Rome.
So where's Paul writing this from? Paul is writing this from house arrest, imprisonment essentially, in Rome. Now that helps us in knowing when this was written. It's about AD 6162, which is where the book of Acts ends in terms of its history.
Okay, Kofi, fun history, I guess. Why does that matter? Well, actually, that matters massively for everything you're going to read in this book. You see, the man whose letter we are going to study and we will read from was not writing from soft, cushy surroundings when he tells the Philippian Christians multiple times to rejoice.
He's not writing this out of convenience. He's writing this out of conviction. And that begs the question, if he's writing this out of conviction, how can you have the conviction of joy when you don't have the convenience of comfortable circumstance?
How does that make sense?
How can he tell these people to rejoice, be joyful, that he himself has joy? How can that be true when his circumstances are far from favorable? Well, actually, that can be true. And this is going to be important.
In fact, if you're not taking, I'm going to write this down. The only way in which that can be true is if you distinguish between happiness and joy. Not everyone agrees with me on this point, by the way.
Some people say that happiness and joy are the same thing. I think you run into some major problems. Here's a really big one. Happiness might be circumstantial. You might have great circumstances today that make you happy.
Sports fans in the room, you know how this feels. If your team wins, you generally feel happy in that moment. I'm a football fan, the real football, not the hand egg that you all talk about. But as a football fan, one of the most painful things about football is you could be winning a game, or you could be close to winning a game, and then it all falls apart a few minutes before the end.
You're happy, happy, happy, and then the circumstances change, and you are not so happy. Why? Because happiness is generally circumstantial. When you have the circumstances you want, you are generally happy.
Joy, on the other hand, is a very different thing. One of the things we're going to learn from Paul is that joy is really not dependent on your circumstances. Some circumstances may make you or may make joy easier, but the reality is the call to joy is not based on the circumstances that you are in.
And that's why Paul can issue a call for deep joy out of the worst possible circumstances, precisely because true joy, deep joy, as we've named this series, isn't dependent on the right mood or the right events or the right set of circumstances.
And so we gather all of that just from knowing who the author is and where he's writing from. But not only do we need to know who the author is, it might help us to know a little bit about the audience.
It might help us to know a little bit about who Paul is writing to. Let's start with the city of Philippi itself. Philippi was originally founded by Alexander the Great, who at one point basically conquered most of the known world.
And he named this city in honor of his father, King Philip of Macedon. And so it was a decent city, but it wasn't really a major city. That doesn't happen until A .D. 42. One commentator does a really good job of building up this background.
It's going to be a longer quote than I usually read, but it's going to be important.
He says this.
In 42 B .C., Philippi became famous as the place where Mark Antony and Octavian defeated the Roman Republican forces of Brutus and Cassius. Those of you who know your history, those are the people who killed Julius Caesar.
The victors settled a number of their veteran soldiers there and established Philippi as a Roman colony. These settlers, along with some of the previous inhabitants, constituted the legal citizen body.
Philippi was given the highest privilege possible for a Roman provincial municipality. In other words, the highest honor you could give to an area, a city area, was given to Philippi. What was called the Ius Italiacum.
In other words, this place, typically Rome functioned on an agreement where you followed some Roman laws and then you get to keep some of your local laws. Philippi was not one of those places. Philippi was governed almost entirely by Roman law.
This commentator goes on. The citizens of this colony were Roman citizens, which, by the way, not everybody who lived in the Roman Empire was a Roman citizen. You could buy your citizenship. In fact, Paul alludes to that.
We've seen it in Acts where he talks about, I didn't buy my citizenship. I was born with it. Well, if you were born in Philippi, you were born with Roman citizenship. While the Constitution was modeled on that of Rome itself, the city itself was modeled on the mother city, Rome.
It was laid out in similar patterns. The style and architecture were copied extensively. The coins produced in the city bore Roman inscriptions. The Latin language was used, and its citizens even wore Roman dress.
I think, Kofi, why does all of that matter? File that information away. I'm going to come back to it later on. But for now, bear in mind, this was a city that prided itself on the fact that it had a very, very strong link with Rome.
Well, how does the gospel come to Philippi? Well, the gospel comes to Philippi in Acts chapter 16. In fact, turn there with me. I want us to look here for just a moment. In Acts chapter 16, this is how the gospel comes to Philippi.
For some context, this is the second of Paul's three recorded missionary journeys. You know, there's one more that he makes. He alludes to in the Book of Romans. But in the Book of Acts, three missionary journeys are recorded.
This is in the middle of journey number two. Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16. And as I was reading this week, I came across a really helpful way of summarizing this section from a pastor, Tony Meridi.
He passes out in North Carolina. He summarized this whole section. We're not going to read everything. But from verse 6 through to verse 40, when the gospel comes to Philippi, he summarizes it in two headings.
He says, first of all, you see Paul's submission to the Spirit. You see Paul's submission to the Spirit. So pick it up with me in verse 6, Acts chapter 16 and verse 6. So they, referring to Paul and his now new companion, Timothy, went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia.
They had been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. So they're in the east. At this point, they're in Galatia, which is kind of northeast, if you will. They're trying to go further east into Asia.
And the text says that the Spirit, they were forbidden. In fact, I have the King James Version memorized. It says, the Spirit forbade them to speak the word in Asia. Verse 7, when they came to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.
Passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. During the night, Paul had a vision in which a Macedonian man was standing and pleading with him, come over to Macedonia and help us. To give you some context, Macedonia at this point is the furthest west that Paul would have traveled.
He's not been to Macedonia before so much in our study, well, in our reading of the book of Acts. And so verse 10, after he had seen the vision, we immediately made efforts to set out for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
We might miss the importance of this, but this right here that we just read, these very simple verses, this is the first recorded move of the gospel in what we today know as Europe. At this point, the Christian message has, for the most part, stayed within the East.
But now we have, for the first time, a recorded account of the gospel going west towards what we today know as Europe. The crazy thing about this, this was not in Paul's plans. Paul wanted to stay in the East, but the Spirit of God had other ideas.
This wasn't Paul's intended plan, but isn't it just like God, if I could pause for a moment, isn't it just like God to interrupt our plans for our lives? Might not be pleasant, might not be what you want, but it is definitely what you need.
Paul's contact with the Philippians was birthed out of submission to the Spirit's leading. And as a result, that led to, number two, not just Paul's submission to the Spirit, but led to Paul's evangelistic encounters in Philippi.
Again, I won't read the whole section because we still have a ways to go. But really, Paul has three sets of evangelistic encounters in Philippi. First of all, there is the story of Lydia, who was clearly a rich woman.
She sold purple, which is a very valuable item in the ancient world. And Paul meets her and some ladies who are meeting by the river. That tells us that Philippi did not have enough Jewish men to start a synagogue, so they met to pray by the river.
The Bible says that the Lord opened the heart of Lydia and she received the things that Paul had to say. That leads right into the next encounter, which is this slave girl that Paul encounters as he's seeking to preach the gospel.
This girl who has the text says the spirit of divination, verses 16 to 24. And then there's a story that many of us know from the book of Acts, the story of the Philippian jailer. You know, Acts 16 .31, we quote it all the time.
So what must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Well, that story happens here in Acts 16. And so you have these three different evangelistic encounters. To use the modern language that church planters use, this essentially was the core group for the church at Philippi.
You've got a rich businesswoman and her friends. You've got a slave girl who is no longer useful to her masters. And a Philippian jailer who almost killed himself because he thought Paul ran. Talk about a bunch of misfits and unlikely lads.
But here's the thing, Paul knew these people personally. And as a result, Paul had a very personal ministry to the Philippians. That means that as you read this letter, you are reading a letter written to a church with whom Paul had a very personal and deep relationship.
He loved them and they truly loved him. And that's why as you read Philippians, Philippians is one of those books where there's almost no rebuke. The closest thing we'll see is in chapter four. And even then he kind of says, you know, ladies, you disagree.
Figure it out.
That's about as close to rebuke as he gets. This is a very positive letter. Why? Because this was a church that he had nothing but warmness and genuine concern for. Well, by the time that Paul has written the letter to the Philippians, the church has matured.
It has elders. It has deacons. There are identified workers in the body. This is not the little core group he started with. This thing has grown and matured a little bit. In fact, we know from the letter that the church had so grown spiritually and physically.
They were able to send Paul financial gifts to support his ministry. So look at chapter four. Join with me in chapter four for a moment. Chapter four in verse 15 and 16. Paul says, and you Philippians know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me, excuse me, in the matter of giving and receiving except you alone.
For even in Thessalonica, you sent gifts for my need several times. And in verse 18, he alludes to the fact that another gift had been given to him while he was on this house imprisonment. And he's essentially writing this letter kind of as an extended thank you note.
This letter is an update and a thank you letter from the apostle to a church that had made great sacrifice to partner with Paul in just about every aspect of ministry. And so those are our major characters.
These are the people we need to understand if we're going to get the most out of this book. Paul, who is the author, writing from house imprisonment in Rome, and the Philippian church who had partnered with Paul for the spread and advance of the gospel.
All right, we've done all of that work. We now have that vital information in our back pocket. We can start the work of actually thinking about, secondly, how we appreciate the major themes, appreciate the main themes of this letter.
Now, one of the ways you find the main themes of a book, kind of a preview. I've talked about we're having a summer seminar, end of July, on how to study the Bible. Here's a free tidbit from that. One of the best ways to know a theme of the book of the Bible is to read that book of the Bible over and over and over again.
Well, as you read the letter to the Philippians repeatedly, four major themes rise to the top. There are four big things that come up again and again and again. To make these easier to remember, I've given them all the same letter.
They all begin with the letter P, since we're talking about Philippians. Easy way to remember it. Think of these four Ps. The first big theme you see in Philippians, let's call this one progress. Progress.
Unlike any other letter from Paul, Philippians says a lot about progress and growth in the Christian life. You can look at any—Paul wrote 13 letters. I believe he wrote 13. The 13 letters that I believe Paul wrote, you look at all of them.
None of them have as much language about progress and growth and maturity like this one. But what's fascinating isn't so much the focus on progress, but how Paul understands progress to happen. See, for Paul, it's not enough that, okay, well, are you making progress?
No, there's a right kind of progress. There's a right way in which the people of God make progress. You see, it's kind of twofold. Not kind of. It is twofold. You see, on the one hand, the gospel makes progress through the work of the people of God.
So look at Philippians 1 .12. Philippians 1 .12. What does Paul say there? Now, I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel. The gospel doesn't just make progress on its own.
It makes progress through human beings who are committed to its progress. But here's the flip side. Yes, the gospel makes progress through God's people, but here's the thing. The people of God make progress empowered by the gospel.
So look at Philippians 1 .25. Paul says, since I am persuaded of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith. That body of belief that all Christians have with the gospel at the center.
Passage that many people know well from Philippians. Philippians chapter 12, 3, excuse me, verses 12 to 16. Not that I have already reached the goal or I'm already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
Therefore, that all who are mature think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you. In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained. The gospel makes progress through people and people make progress through the gospel.
If I can pause for a moment and make some application here very quickly. The poorly understanding of the Christian life has no room for a Christian who stagnates or makes zero progress. Slow progress, yes.
We understand that none of us are perfect. Scientification is not completely perfect in this life. We fully get that. But there's a difference between making slow progress in the Christian life. How did my pastor back home used to call it?
Scientification at a snail's pace. That happens. There's no problem with that. And we shouldn't have a problem with that. Where the problem comes, brothers and sisters, is when there is no progress being made.
Even a snail makes progress, just makes very small progress. Paul has no room in his understanding of the Christian life for a Christian who stagnates or makes no progress or for a church. Remember, this is not written to individuals.
It's written to a church. Paul's understanding of the Christian life makes very little to no room for a church that stagnates and makes no progress. In Paul's understanding, a church that is centered on the gospel is one that is always seeking, both as individuals and as a collective, to make spiritual progress.
And if we can be blunt, if a church or a Christian is stagnating, that doesn't mean they're not a Christian, but it does mean we need to have a conversation. First and foremost, a conversation with God.
And then a conversation with one another, like, how can we help? How can we come alongside you? How can we help you make progress? But praise God. For the believer, stagnation isn't inevitable. And what we're going to see as we study this letter together is that Paul is going to help us to see how progress happens as the people of God from a gospel perspective.
This is not white-knuckling it and trying harder and doing better. No, this is gospel-empowered progress. So progress is the first main theme we see here. But there's a second theme that we see, which is partnership.
Partnership.
I've spoken at length in various messages about the reality that our Christian lives are not merely individualistic. You know, just you and Jesus sitting on a cloud, awaiting glory. Yes, the Christian life is individual.
But it's also a life that is lived in gospel partnership with others. One thing you'll notice, I encourage you this week, go home and read the letters of Philippians from start to finish. Take some time and work your way through it.
One of the things you'll notice is that the language of partnership and the language of fellowship comes up a lot. In fact, in your study guide this week, I put every reference I could find where this kind of language is used.
I probably missed some, so I encourage you to read it. And if you see any more, point them out to me. Paul has a lot to say about the nature of gospel partnership. Probably my personal favorite in all of them is Philippians 1 .27.
Philippians 1 .27, just one thing. As citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, when I come to see you or I'm absent, I will hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, in one accord, contending together for the faith of the gospel.
One of the things that's fascinating about this is that for Paul, the church is not stuck between a choice of gospel partnership or not. It is not that there are some people who are partners and others who are not.
No, Paul's understanding is very simple. Are you an active partner or are you a passive one? Progress, partnership, well, these all sound like very massive things. How is anybody supposed to do all of this?
Do we just, like I said, white-knuckle this, you know, try harder and do better, put some programs in place? Is that how we fix this?
Not according to Paul.
In fact, that leads to a third thing. Progress partnership, this is kind of a long one, but I'll explain why it's long in a moment. Paul sets out for us the reality of a pattern and power which is achieved through purchase.
A pattern and power that is achieved through purchase. I probably mentioned this before in our times together in God's Word here at Redeemer, but we have to be very careful that we don't assume that you get saved by grace.
And once you are saved by grace, once Jesus saves, then now it's you on your own. This is not a two-step program here. The way in which we come into faith in Christ is the way in which we progress in faith in Christ.
Jesus provides for us both the forgiveness of sins and the power to live in the kind of way that glorifies God. I think I've quoted this before, but John Calvin, in his Institute, he says this, that Christ was given to us by God's generosity to be grasped and possessed by us in faith.
By partaking of him, we principally receive a double grace. Namely, number one, that being reconciled to God through Christ's blamelessness, we may have in heaven instead of a judge, a gracious father.
For every person who turns from their sin and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, when they do that, when they believe on the Lord Jesus, they no longer have a judge in heaven. They now have a heavenly father.
That is true for anybody who will place their faith in Jesus, who will say, I repent of my own righteousness, my own attempts to make it my own way, and I throw myself entirely on the mercy of God shown to me in Jesus.
But he says, and secondly, that sanctified by Christ's spirit, we may cultivate blamelessness and purity of life. Beloved, the gospel saves, and the gospel sanctifies, and it empowers. I bring this up because throughout this letter, Paul will point to the fact that because of Jesus' death, because of his purchase of us on the cross, because of that, we both have a pattern for how to live as the people of God, as well as the power to live that way.
I'll give you just one example. We'll come back to it in more detail when we get to it. But Philippians 2, 5 -11, have this mind in you that was also in Christ Jesus, you know, that wonderful passage we all love, you know, though he was a son, he humbled himself to the point of being a servant, even to death on the cross.
We all love that passage. What often gets missed is, we start in verse 5 and we miss verses 1 -4. Verses 1 -4 is a call to humility. He says, you should pursue this kind of humility and life together as the people of God.
Oh, and if you need an example of how this plays itself out, look no further than Jesus. Paul will time and again point to Jesus' person and work as both the pattern and the power for the kind of life that we cannot live in our own strength.
In fact, in chapter 3, he'll get explicit and say that the way to live the Christian life is not by doing the works of the law, it's not by your own works, but by the life-giving gospel of God. Progress, partnership, pattern and power, you put all of that together and you come up with, fourthly, a very particular product.
A very particular product. Product, that's the letter D there. You were probably expecting me to start in my main theme by talking about joy. After all, I call the series, Deep Joy. But here's where this business of joy can get a little bit tricky.
Like I said earlier, if you start with joy as an emotion or joy as something you need to muster up, you'll never find it. Here's my contention. In fact, I thought this was so important, I actually put this as a slide on the screen.
Joy, according to Paul, is the spirit-empowered product of our shared progress in the faith, following the pattern of Christ in the power of Christ. Let me say that again. Joy is the spirit-empowered product of our shared progress in the faith, following the pattern of Christ in the power of Christ.
One passage I didn't quote at the beginning, which I probably should have, Galatians chapter 5, the fruit of the spirit, one of the manifestations of the fruit of the spirit. It's one fruit with many manifestations.
One of those manifestations is joy as God's people. So the reality is the seed of joy exists in the heart of every Christian. But how do you cultivate that? Well, the spirit of God has to empower that through our progress in the faith as we follow the pattern of Christ in the power of Christ.
It's as we continue in the faith, as we continue in fellowship, as we follow Christ and we feed from his power, that's how we start to discover and to live in deep joy. In fact, for a moment, let me give you my definition of joy up front.
Let me not wait till next week when we actually start looking at this letter in detail. Let me give you my definition of joy up front. I heard this years ago. It's not original to me. I actually can't remember where I heard it.
But clearly it was good because it's just stuck with me. Here's a definition of joy that I've kind of worked with for years now. Joy is a supernatural delight in the person, plans, people, and purposes of God.
Joy is a supernatural delight in the person, plans, people, and purposes of God. Joy is not the kind of thing that you can sit down and say in your basement and say, hey, I'm going to work up some joy today.
Like, that's not how this goes. Joy, first and foremost, is a supernatural affair. It is something that only the Spirit of God can give to his people. That's why I was very clear in saying that I don't believe joy is an emotion.
Think about your emotions. Your emotions are affected by circumstances. They're affected by how you feel physically. All sorts of things play into your emotions. Joy is not that way. If that were the case, the Philippians should have no joy because Paul's in prison.
And Paul should have no joy because, once again, he's in prison. If you start with joy as more of an emotion than something that God produces, you'll never have it. And that's why we say that joy is a supernatural delight in the person, the plans, the people, and the purposes of God.
This letter is Paul's encouragement to a body that very clearly loved him. But you get the sense they're concerned about Paul. For some of the things that he says, you can tell. They're concerned about Paul.
They're worried that, man, Paul's in prison. He's in Rome. That's the one place you really don't want to be in prison. I hope he's okay. And so this is his encouragement to a body that loved him and yet felt worried and concerned about him.
And Paul's answer to their concern is not to give them a pep talk. It's not to say that, oh, guys, it's okay. This isn't that bad. No, he's in imprisonment. It's not that great. Paul's answer is to say, no, this isn't so bad.
Always look on the bright side of life. Paul's answer is to say, don't look at me. Don't look at my situation. First and foremost, look to Jesus, which is always a good piece of advice for life in general.
When things get hard, don't start with how things are hard. Start with Jesus. Look at Jesus and then look at each other and find joy there. So four major themes as you read this letter. Progress, partnership, pattern and power through purchase, and then the product of joy.
Well, how are all of these things connected? That's the third tool we need. We've identified the major characters. We've hopefully appreciated the main themes. That puts us in a position to, number three, isolate the melodic line.
Isolate the melodic line. Those of you who are regulars at Redeemer, you knew this was coming. For our folks who are new here, allow me to explain what I mean by this language of a melodic line for a moment.
It's, again, not original to me, but it's language I absolutely love using. Every book of your Bible is a work of design. Everything is where it needs to be in the ordering of God to get its message across.
God has designed every portion of his word to profit his people in some way. 2 Timothy 3 .16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. As a result, every book of the Bible has a central message that's running through it.
Since it is the product of design, Paul doesn't do... I'm trying to think of an illustration here that works. Paul doesn't write, or John doesn't write, James doesn't write, the gospel writers, the prophets in the Old Testament.
None of them write like fortune cookies. You ever had a fortune cookie before? You can have five fortune cookies, break them all open, read the things inside, and they have no connection to each other?
Absolutely none. Well, thankfully, the Bible is not written that way. If you can use a musical analogy, there is an underlying melody in every book of the Bible that ties that book together. And so I use the language, again, not original to me, but I use the language of a melodic line.
What is the central message that runs through this book and gives this book shape and structure? If this book has a melodic line, and I'm convinced every book in your Bible has one, well, think of the themes we just looked at, those four themes, think of them as the individual notes.
Those are the individual notes of this melody. These are the themes that come together. We also know that he's given us something of a purpose statement by saying that he's writing to let them know about the gift that he has received.
And so you put them all together, and we're going to start to develop something of a melodic line for this book. As I've spent the last few months reading Philippians over and over and over again, and trying to get my head around what I think is the central message of this book, I've brought it down to one sentence.
It's going to govern this series, and you know how we do here at Redeemer. Beginning next week, that melodic line will be on every one of the study guides. What's the melodic line for this book? Very simply, as God's people pursue deep joy in Christ through progress in the faith and partnership in the gospel.
As God's people pursue deep joy in Christ through progress in the faith and partnership in the gospel. That seems simple enough, but as we walk through this letter, oh, what layers we're going to uncover week by week, as Paul, as it were, peels the onion a little more and takes us deeper and deeper into what the pursuit of joy looks like as the people of God.
So let me say it one more time. As God's people pursue deep joy in Christ through progress in the faith and partnership in the gospel. That's the through line that I'm convinced. You may disagree.
You may find another one.
That's fine.
But for the purposes of our study, the next 12, 13 weeks, we're going to see how this unfolds as Paul speaks to this church that he so dearly loved in this letter. You've been great. I'm almost done for this afternoon.
We've identified the major characters. We've hopefully appreciated the main themes. We've isolated what I believe to be the melodic line. For a few moments, finally, as we conclude, I want us to prepare for the major lessons we're going to learn from this book.
I want to get very personal to this body as we study this letter together. Again, my aim in this preaching series, as with every single series I preach, is to speak directly to our body for its growth, its equipping, and hopefully for its encouragement.
That being the case, I want to consider some major lessons I believe that we will learn from this letter to the Philippians. First one is this. Advancing the gospel is difficult, but Jesus is worth it.
Advancing the gospel is difficult, but Jesus is worth it. One of the things I love about Paul. I would love to be like Paul. I'm not perfect. I'm not able to be Paul in every way that he was. But one of the things I love about Paul is his all-consuming passion for Christ.
Paul was a one-note man, and that note was Christ Jesus. And as you read this letter, he is constantly fueled by the worth of Jesus. So, three times in this letter, 1 -6, 1 -10, and 2 -16, he looks forward to what he calls the day of Christ.
The day of Christ's return. In fact, 1 -13, he views his imprisonment as imprisonment for Christ. Philippians 1 -20, when he is torn between, do I go home to be with Jesus, or do I stay and be fruitful in my labors for you?
The thing that's deciding for Paul is not, do I love the Philippians or do I love being alive? It's how do I honor Christ? And of course, we alluded to Philippians 2 -5 -11. And that high view of the person of Christ for Paul only led to the response of humility with one another.
Yes, seeking to advance the gospel had landed Paul in a very tough spot. But given the one he was serving, you get the sense from Paul almost, not entirely, but almost, that the suffering he was going through was nothing because he was suffering for Jesus.
And my hope is that this letter will lead us as a body to that same kind of single-minded, inconvenient, downright difficult, but oh so joyful, devotion to Christ. Advancing the gospel is difficult, but Jesus is worth it.
There's a second lesson I think we're going to learn as a body from this, which is that gospel joy is a fight. Gospel joy is a fight. I mentioned Tony Merida earlier. He says this in his commentary on Philippians.
Paul gives us a picture of what joyful service to Jesus looks like, and he mentions it with some joy-related terms about 20 times. This is crazy joy because it doesn't derive from pleasurable circumstances.
It comes from Christ and is experienced even or especially in suffering. But this joy doesn't come naturally. We must pray for joy, and we must fight for joy. We must fight against overvaluing things in this life, and remember that Jesus is our greatest treasure and our highest good.
We live out of the overflow of our hearts, and we must find our greatest pleasure in knowing Christ. If we're going to experience true and lasting and deep joy as God's people, let me just give you a spoiler.
This is not going to be easy. It's a fight. But I happen to think that rather than turning around and fighting each other, wanting our own way and our own fleeting happiness, you can expend your energy fighting that way.
You can.
You're a human being. You have volitional choice. You can do what you want. You can choose to fight each other. All we can follow the path that Paul wants to lay out in Philippians is don't fight with each other.
Fight together and pursue lasting joy. Gospel joy is a fight. Third lesson. Third lesson. We need to view ourselves as gospel coworkers, not spiritual consumers. We need to view ourselves as gospel coworkers, not spiritual consumers.
For those of you who've been in our growth groups the last six weeks, this should not be big news to you. We just spent six weeks reading, in my opinion, one of the best single books in print on this reality.
That God's purpose for the church is not to have some people doing ministry and other people just consuming the ministry. God's purpose for the church is we are all being equipped for the prayerful speaking of God's word to one another by which God's kingdom is expanded.
Paul viewed the Philippians not as spiritual customers, as it were, surveying his apostolic wares. But he viewed them as his coworkers. It's fascinating that Paul doesn't just view himself as the guy who came, he teaches, he does the things that we need him to do.
Great, wonderful Paul, doing a good job. The Philippians didn't view Paul that way. And Paul didn't view the Philippians that way. You know, it's a danger in ministry that you sometimes just view people as, especially someone like me who loves preaching.
Let me just be honest with you and be transparent. There can be a danger that for me, and I've had, praise God, I've had great mentors who've helped me in this. The temptation can be, well, I like preaching, so that's all that matters.
The reality is my ability to preach is neither here nor there. The reality is God's design was never that one person does the ministry and everyone else just consumes from that one person. Or that handful of people.
Paul would have us to understand, and the Philippians had this identity. That they were partners, they were coworkers, co-laborers. That Paul was not above them dictating the law, but he was alongside, they were alongside him, excuse me, laboring together in gospel ministry.
Again, that language of partnership and fellowship that we talked about earlier makes this point all by itself. And believe you me, as we hit it at various points, I don't apologize for it. I will hit this kind of hard.
Finally, big lesson I hope that we leave with, the local church is the embassy of the coming kingdom. Remember I told you to file away that information about Philippi for a moment? The fact that Philippi was basically a carbon copy of Rome.
The culture was exactly like Rome, the laws were exactly like Rome, they even dressed like they were in Rome. Paul knows that. And so later on in chapter 1 and in chapter 3, I'll come back to this again.
Paul picks up on this identity that the Philippians had. Roman colonies were not that many. It's kind of like me coming from the UK, there are some areas that are known as royal boroughs or royal towns.
Not everybody gets that title. Philippi was a Roman colony and the people were proud of their Roman citizenship. So much so that they perpetuated the culture of Rome even though they were hundreds of miles from Rome.
They lived like Rome, they dressed like Rome, they had Rome's exact laws. They knew what it was to be a subset of the kingdom they were a part of. So what does Paul do? To a people who know what it is to be citizens, he pulls on that understanding that would have been close to their heart.
And he says, listen, yes, you are citizens of Philippi, but don't get it twisted, you are not just citizens of Philippi. You are citizens of the kingdom of God. That's why Philippians 3 .20, one of my favorite verses in the New Testament.
But our citizenship is from heaven, from which we are awaiting a savior, the Lord Jesus, who will transform our lowly body to be in conformity with his body, even by the power by which he is able to sustain all things.
1 .27, I love how the Christian Standard Bible translates this. I think it does a good job where a lot of translations kind of miss the point. So in the Christian Standard Bible, Philippians 1 .27, as citizens of heaven.
Why? Because the word that's translated there is actually where we got our word politics from. It was the word for being a citizen. And at times I have to wonder, when I look at the church in the Western world, have we forgotten the fact that we are ultimately the local church?
Every local church is designed by the Spirit of God to be considered like this, an embassy for this other kingdom. But here's the thing. Whereas most earthly embassies exist to foster a good relationship between this kingdom and the kingdom that they are in, the New Testament conception of the church is radically countercultural.
In fact, sometimes it's anti-cultural. We are an embassy of a different kingdom. We are here to tell the people of this kingdom, the kingdom of this world, think about this, that its kingdom is corrupt, its wisdom is foolishness, its goals lead nowhere.
And frankly, according to Jesus and Paul and James and everyone else in the New Testament, this kingdom is on borrowed time. But that's all the bad news.
Here's the good news.
There is a kingdom that is eternal. There is a kingdom that will indeed last forever. So yes, the kingdom of this world is on borrowed time. But while we still have the chance, we implore people, 2 Corinthians 5, we quote all the time, as ambassadors for Christ, we motion to people and say, come be part of a kingdom that will endure forever.
And here's the thing. Philippians is going to challenge us to ask really a fundamental question. I'll leave you with this. Do we live in the kind of way that says exactly that? Does our approach to time say that?
Does our approach to money say that? Does our approach to relationships, our priorities? Does the way in which we live reflect the fact that, yes, we live in this world, but ultimately we are not citizens of this world.
We are citizens of a world to come. Can I put it to you that actually as we study Philippians, Philippians will not help you to be a more acceptable Christian by cultural standards. It really won't. It won't teach Redeemer Bible Fellowship how to be more liked and loved because we do what the world wants.
In fact, anything is going to teach us the polar opposite. What I hope our study in Philippians will teach us is how to be the best possible embassy of the kingdom of God that we can be. Yes, imperfect.
Yes, manned by imperfect people. No denying any of that. But my hope is that by the time that we finish this study this summer, we will have at least in our own hearts and minds and as a body begun to make some progress to being the best possible embassy of the kingdom of God.
And so I leave you with this final question. Will we heed the lessons that this letter will hopefully teach us? Heavenly Father, we ask that as we begin this study that we would do exactly that. That we would not simply hear these words to hear these words, but that this letter would be transformative in our own lives as individuals and as a body of believers here.
Father, we've acknowledged that we cannot do this in our own strength. That if we are to pursue any of this, any pursuit of this kind of life is only possible because of Jesus. And so I pray if anyone here does not know the Lord Jesus, that they would repent.
That they would change their mind about who they are and change their mind about what you have said. And that they would come to the foot of the cross in faith. Receiving the truth about who Jesus is.
Agreeing to it.
Clinging to it. And Father, for those of us who do know you, may we live the kind of lives that says, yes, advancing this gospel is not always easy, but it is so worth it because of the one we proclaim.
May we be willing to fight, not each other, but fight together for gospel joy. Father, may we not just be spiritual consumers, but may we be gospel coworkers. And above all, above all, may we as a body of believers who gather here be the best possible embassy of the kingdom of God.
We ask all these things in Jesus name and for his sake.
