Thanksgiving and Prayer for the Saints
Tom Shrader walks through Philippians 1:1-8, explaining Paul's greeting of grace and peace as the foundational atmosphere of the Christian life, available only through God and not earned by human effort. He develops the doctrine of saving grace from Ephesians 2:8-10 and 2 Corinthians 5:17-20, emphasizing that reconciliation with God is entirely God's work and that believers are sustained by the same grace that saved them. Drawing on John 10:27-29 and Romans 8:28-39, Shrader assures believers that God never abandons an unfinished work, and that nothing can separate them from His love.
“Joy is knowing everything is right between me and God. Got other problems, got other issues, got other stuff, got other things in life, but joy is this: I know that God and I are in right relationship.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Philippians
Recorded: 2008 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 52 min
Themes: grace, peace, prayer, thanksgiving, salvation, security, love, perseverance, new believer, doubting salvation, feeling abandoned by god, struggling with worthiness, seeking assurance, young adult, discouraged believer, questioning faith
Scripture: Philippians 1:1-8, Philippians 1:6, Philippians 4:6, 2 Corinthians 5:17-20, Ephesians 2:8-10, John 10:27-29, Romans 8:28-39, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, 1 John 2:15, 1 John 4:7, John 15:19, Romans 10:9, 2 Timothy 1:3, Ephesians 6, Psalm 23
Theological Themes: soteriology, saving grace, reconciliation, eternal security, sanctification, perseverance of the saints, justification, new creation
Full Transcript
Introduction: The Theme of Joy in Philippians
God, it is Your love for us that brought us to this place today. Even as we sing songs of praise and worship, and say that we love You, Your word tells us why that is. It is for one simple reason: because You first loved us. God, thank You for Your love, Your amazing love, the love that so motivated You that You sent Your only begotten Son to come and to live and to die so that we would have eternal life. God, I pray now this morning, as we study Your word, that You would remind us yet again of the grace and peace that is from You, the security that we find in You and You alone. We pray to You this morning in our Savior's name, amen.
Could you open your Bibles, please, to Philippians chapter 1. We started last week our study in the book of Philippians, and let's just read the first six verses, as that is where we will be today.
"Paul and Timothy, bondservant of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and the deacons, grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank you, my God, in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now, for I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus."
Let me also read verses 7 and 8: "For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart, since both in my imprisonment and in my defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me. For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus."
Background: The Church at Philippi
Last week we did a fairly lengthy introduction, so if you missed that, you can go online and get caught up, but suffice it to say that this is a church Paul established in Philippi about ten years prior to the writing of this letter. It was an interesting city, a city of commerce. It had a very small Jewish population and no synagogue, so Paul began to gather together men and women — really unusual in that day and age. That church was driven initially by the women, those women that God saved along the way, and so this church was established.
Now, ten years later, Paul writes back, and it is a really encouraging letter. It is nothing like 1st and 2nd Corinthians, in the sense that in those two letters Paul is writing to chastise and correct the church, saying there is sin in the church and problems in the church that must be dealt with. To the church at Philippi, by contrast, this is simply a wonderful letter. The theme of the letter is joy — joy in the recipient's life, joy in the writer's life, and a call to joy in all of our lives as we are in Christ Jesus.
"In Christ Jesus" is Paul's favorite phrase to describe people who are — we might use the term Christian, or born again, or biblical Christians. Paul uses that phrase, as you can see in verse 1, and he uses it over a hundred times in the letters that he writes. That is his favorite way of identifying those of us who are followers of Christ.
Happiness Versus Joy
The theme of joy can strike you as odd on the surface, because Paul is writing this letter from prison, to a group of people who have their own cares and worries of life. But he makes a distinction that is important for us to grasp as well. Paul is calling us to live a life filled with joy — very importantly, not happiness. There is a difference. Happiness is typically driven by circumstance; joy is typically driven by relationship. Happiness is driven by what I have or do not have, by what I possess or what troubles I am free from.
You can spend your whole life trying to be happy, and you may achieve it, but only momentarily. You can try to snort happiness, or sleep with happiness, or buy happiness. There was a television program the other day doing follow-ups on people who had won significant amounts of money — fifteen or twenty million dollars. They reported that within three or four years, seventy percent of those winners are broke. Every one of us hears that and asks how that can possibly be. It can be because you think there is no end to the money, you get wrapped up in the middle of it, and that wealth becomes your entire identity. You become known simply as the person who won the lottery, and you are identified with all of those things.
Joy, however, is something altogether different. Here is how we defined joy last week — it is simple. Joy is knowing that all is well between you and God. Joy is knowing that everything is right between me and God. You may have other problems, other issues, other things in life, but joy is this: knowing that God and I are in right relationship.
Reconciliation with God
We need to be reconciled with God. Naturally, not everything is right between us and God. Naturally, we are at war with God. It may be a passive war — we may say we are not. I remember one time sitting with a man, and I said to him, "You hate God." He said, "No, I don't." I said again, "You hate God." He said, "No, I don't." I said, "That's the problem — you hate God." He said, "Listen, I hate you, you little—" And I said, "But I don't hate God." I said, "Well, the fact that you hate me means you hate God. You hate God. You can't stand God."
How do we know that? How do I know that he hates God? Because everybody does, unless they are in Christ.
What It Means to Be In Christ
Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17: "Now if anyone is in Christ." There is that phrase again. It means to be a believer, to come to Christ. Let's hit the pause button, because there may be some people here who are not sure what that means. Here is what we are talking about. What it means to be in Christ is that I come to that point in my life where I understand who God is, and I understand who I am, and I understand that I am a sinner.
We may not readily admit that, though. We love the game of comparison. We say, "I'm not as bad as him. I'm not as bad as the Marine. I'm not Hitler." Again, I only tell you true stories, but one night at one of my low points, I was sitting in a bar feeling worthless, and I said to the man next to me, "I have no value." He said, "Schrade, that's not true — you have value." I said, "Really?" He said, "I use you all the time with my wife as a bad example. She'll say, 'You're terrible,' and I say, 'But I'm not as bad as Tom.'" We love to play that game. But when we come before God, He simply says, "You are all sinful."
And the result of that sin is not merely that our relationship with Him has been wounded or infected a little. It is that we have been separated from Him. But here is good news — it does not get much better than this: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature." If I have come to that point where I understand that my sin has separated me from God, and I have cried out to Him — not on the basis of my own merit, but on the basis of the finished work of Christ — I acknowledge that Jesus died for me. I confess with my mouth and believe in my heart that Jesus died for me. What we are talking about there is grace.
"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature." If that is you — if you are a biblical Christian, if you are truly His — you are a new creature. This is good news. "And all the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come, and all these things are from God." What things? This newness. This new relationship.
The Ministry of Reconciliation
Notice the word "reconciled." Reconciliation, reconciling — these words appear five times in just three verses. "Now all these things are from God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and in turn He gave us the ministry of reconciliation."
Let's say you know nothing about me. Mark is sitting here in the front row. You know nothing about Mark, and you know nothing about me, except this one sentence: Mark and I have been reconciled. From that single piece of information, Sherlock Holmes, what can you deduce? That there were previous hostilities. You may not know the depth of them — that is irrelevant. We were at odds, and we have now been reconciled. Paul is saying we were at odds with God and have been reconciled — not through our own merit, not through our own work, not through church, not through our efforts, not through anything — through Christ.
"And He committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us. We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." That is what it means to be in Christ Jesus — to be in right relationship with God, to have an unbreakable union with God.
Grace and Peace to the Saints
Back to Philippians. "To all the saints who are in Christ Jesus" — spiritually in Christ Jesus, and geographically in Philippi. And here is where we stopped last week: "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ."
Let's make a couple of observations before we define those terms. Every time Paul writes these letters — and we looked at eleven of them last week, the letters to churches rather than to individuals — we see some version, if not an identical duplication, of verse two in all of them. Grace and peace.
Ray Stedman writes this: "This is always the salutation in Paul's letters. These two elements are like nitrogen and oxygen, and they make up the atmosphere of the believer — an atmosphere from which we can never be successfully shut away. These are the two elements we continuously need and which are continuously available to us in Jesus Christ. Nothing can keep us from them. They are absolutely inexhaustible. We can never exhaust them, and in this atmosphere of grace and peace from God, all Christians live. The trouble is we don't always breathe very deeply."
It is always in this order — grace and peace — always in this order, because once we have the grace of God, once
Grace and Peace from God
We have experienced saving grace with God. We are now reconciled, we now have peace with God, which gets us to what we really want in our life: the peace of God. Because this grace has been extended to me, I now have peace with God, and now I can have in my life the peace of God. We will unpack that in a moment. The source of that grace and peace is from God — nothing I can conjure up, and by definition nothing I can earn.
I will not find grace and I will not find peace anywhere in this world apart from God. I can speak autobiographically: I committed thirty years of my life pretty hard to trying to find grace and peace somewhere other than God. I remember at a very low point in my life I went to a friend and said, "Here's where I am — I'm a mess." He said, "You are a mess." I said, "Have you got anything? I need help." He said, "Jesus." I said, "Have you got anything else? Have you got a pill? Have you got something?" He said, "Tom, that's what you need. You need Jesus." It was another three months where I thought I was at rock bottom and took it to a new depth before God all of a sudden reached down in His grace and His mercy. I wasn't seeking Him. When I heard of Him, I rejected Him.
What Grace Really Means
Grace is not about something you earn. We use a definition for it all the time: grace is unmerited favor. Grace is that thing in our life that is undeserved. Grace is something that requires no payback. It is not something God gives you and then expects you to pay back — it is absolutely free.
Chuck Swindoll writes about this, asking first: free from what? Free from guilt, free from shame. Free from those damnable impulses that held me in bondage to sin. Free from the tyranny of other people's opinions, expectations, and demands. Free from yourself.
Then Swindoll goes a little deeper and asks: free to what? Now I am free to obey. Before, I could never obey God, but now I am released. As Jesus said, those who are in the Son are free indeed. Free from the consequence of sin.
Freedom from the Consequence of Sin
I think about dying all the time. My assumption was that everybody does, but as I talk about it, I sense not everybody does. The other day I was trying, just with what I know, to picture what heaven would be like. Then I thought about what hell must be like — and then I thought: I will never know. For those of us who are in Christ Jesus, this is as close to hell as you will ever be. For those of you who are not in Christ Jesus, this is as close to heaven as you will ever be.
Free from the consequence of sin, free from the bondage of sin — I can now obey, I can follow Him. There is another freedom worth naming: free to be who God made you to be. It occurred to me the other day that the world probably does not need another me. One of me is enough, and one of you is enough. And yet we tend to squeeze everyone into our mold — telling others what we think they ought to be and how we think they ought to do things. No — we are free to be who God made us to be, and He made us vastly different. We see things differently. We react to things differently. Free by grace.
There is a chorus of a song we sing regularly: *Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that is greater than all of my sin.*
Ephesians 2: Saved by Grace Through Faith
Turn to the left about two pages from Philippians to Ephesians chapter two. For those of you for whom this is not a familiar passage, it needs to be. Here is what Paul tells us: "For by grace you have been saved through faith."
Consider that word *saved*. It fits right into our discussion of being in Christ. Saved means delivered or rescued — delivered or rescued from the consequence of our sin. That loneliness, that isolation, that emptiness you feel when you are not part of the family of God is an indication that you are not right with Him. You need to be delivered and rescued from the effects of sin in your life. That is what the word *saved* means.
Saved from what? It is a wonderful question. How many times have you said to somebody, "Are you saved?" and they have no clue what that means. I moved here in 1975 and was at a Circle K when I saw an old Volkswagen bus with a bumper sticker on the back that said "I Found It." Some of you remember those bumper stickers. I said, "Hey man, you found it — what is it?" He said, "Hey, I don't know, it's my brother's van." That did not work so well. But the answer to "I found it" is salvation. I have been saved. That is the good news. And the first part of the good news is to understand the bad news, which is that you are lost, you are separated from Him. But He delivers you.
Faith Itself Is a Gift
Here is something we really need to hold on to. "For by grace you have been saved through faith. That is not of yourself, it is a gift of God." What is the gift of God? The faith — the very ability to believe. God gives you that. You did not earn it; He gives it to you. He gives it to His children.
Why does God work that way? Verse nine answers it: "Not as a result of works, so that no one will boast." God saves you by grace so that you can take absolutely no credit for it. There are really only two kinds of faith or religion in the whole world: biblical Christianity and everything else. Everything else contains some degree of me — something I have to do. That is why there is such fear in those systems.
Saved and Sustained by Grace
Can I lose this salvation? If you are here today and truly a follower of Christ — you just took communion — is there any possibility that at some point in the future you can lose this salvation? I am saved by grace. Why? So that I cannot take any credit for it. I cannot boast.
All religion has boasting to it. It may not be overt, but it is boasting. It is what I did, how I responded. It may even be that Jesus died and He did this, but then we say, "And look what I did." That is grace — unmerited favor. This is something I am working on in my own life, trying to fully understand and comprehend. This is big. This is huge. I am not only saved by grace; I am sustained by grace too.
One author writes: "Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive, and live out God's unconditional grace and forgiveness; and two, the failure to give out unconditional love and forgiveness and grace to other people. To accept it ourselves and give it to others."
We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace — but that is not where we live. The good news of the gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions. Grace is the thing that separates us from the whole rest of the world and the whole rest of the church world. We can all do good works — feed the hungry, clothe the naked, all the things that go with it. But only biblical Christianity has grace as its core.
I suggest to you that when you grab this truth, it rocks your world. One author writes: "Great Christian revolutions come not by discovering something that has not been known before. They happen when somebody takes radically something that's always been there" — and that would be grace.
Recommended Reading on Grace
Let me recommend a couple of books to you. *Grace Awakening* by Chuck Swindoll is a wonderful book. Philip Yancey's book, *What's So Amazing About Grace*, is another. Over in the bookstore, I know there are two or three titles by Steve Brown. I just finished a book he wrote called *What Was I Thinking?* — just a wonderful book. A lot of the students in the twentysomethings group have also been reading another book by Steve Brown on radical freedom.
Now, there is tension in all of this, because we naturally love doing something — not just resting in grace itself. Grace is a bit edgy. Even when I talk about it, I find that I spend as much time offering disclaimers as I do talking about grace. I want to talk about grace and unconditional love, and then immediately I feel the pressure to say, "Well, that's no excuse to sin." And you know what? That is right — it is no excuse to sin. But somehow I think we miss the whole idea of grace in the process.
Four Things That Happen When You Grasp Grace
Swindoll identifies four things that will happen to you when you get a grasp of grace. Number one: you get a greater appreciation for God's gifts to you. Salvation, to be sure, but also all the other things — life, laughter, music, beauty, friendship, forgiveness. It goes on and on.
My wife Susan said something the other day as we were sitting out back that I do not say nearly enough. She said, "I am so grateful for every day. I get up every morning and say, I am so grateful to be here — so grateful to be able to hold Gracie, to run with Brayden." All of a sudden you begin to see life differently. Because of grace, you begin to see God's grace everywhere. You get this incredible appreciation of who He is. You get swept away looking at the stars on a dark night — like those nights we had in Northern California, right on the ocean, no city lights, billions and billions of lights and galaxies all around — and you just think, God made all of this. The sunrise. The sunset.
The second thing that happens: you can expect to spend less time and energy being critical of and concerned about others' choices. Swindoll writes: "When you get a grasp of grace, when you begin to operate in the context of freedom, you become increasingly less petty. You make room for others and their own decisions, even though they are different than yours." People are made differently, wired differently. Some are swept away by emotion; others are deeply intellectual. Grace makes room for all of that.
The third thing: you can expect to become more tolerant and less judgmental. Externals will not mean as much to you. You begin to cultivate a desire for authentic faith rather than endure a religion based on superficial performance. You find yourself so involved in the pursuit of grace and the pursuit of God that you will no longer lay guilt trips on those with whom you disagree.
We are so focused on things that simply do not matter — so worried about our own rights and our own comfort and trivial things. What somebody said to you, how somebody responded to you, whether you got the right seat, whether it was too cold. And right after the cold complaint comes the too hot, too loud, too soft, too this, too that. Could you take just a moment and remove some of the singular, personal, selfish pronouns from your vocabulary?
The fourth thing: you can expect to take a giant step toward maturity. Grasping grace is going to enlarge your concept of God and who He is — and obviously, when that concept is enlarged, you see yourself for who you really are. Something incredible takes place there. Donald Gray Barnhouse has a remarkable quote on this, and let me see if I can find it.
The Mirror Grows Clearer as We Draw Closer
There is no Christian listening to my voice who will think as well of himself five years from now as he does this morning. What that means is this: right now you see yourself, and as you get closer to Him, because inevitably that will happen in five years, you find yourself closer and closer to Him. As you get closer and closer to Him, He turns that mirror on like a Hubble telescope and allows you to look into your heart, and the further you look in there, the darker and darker it gets. The more selfish, the more petty, the more concerned you are about yourself — and all of a sudden you really see that you very rarely give a thought about anybody else, and certainly not strangers, only perhaps if they could somehow become a potential client.
In a sense, the godliest I feel in my life is at the moment of conversion, because from that time on I just begin to see the chasm between God and who He is — perfection, holiness, purity — and who I really am. That chasm just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. The minute I start to draw a breath and say, "I think I'm doing pretty well," God says, "Really? Let me show you." But I grow in maturity. I grow closer to Him.
Thanksgiving and Prayer in Philippians 1
Philippians chapter 1, verse 3: "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all." We will talk when we get to chapter 4, verse 6 about prayer at length — "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God" — but let me make a couple of observations here first.
That word translated "thanks" is the same Greek word from which we get the English word Eucharist. And I will never be able to look at the phrase "my God" again without thinking of Psalm 23 — "my shepherd" — that personal God. He does not say "a God," he says "my God," the God with whom he has this personal relationship. "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all."
Paul is saying: when these people come to mind, he starts praying for them. A few books later, in 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 3, Paul writes, "I thank God whom I serve with a clear conscience, the way my forefathers did, as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day, longing to see you, even as I recall your tears, so I may be filled with joy." Paul begins to reflect on the people God brought into his life, and they bring a smile to his face, and he remembers them.
Waking at Two in the Morning to Pray
This morning at two o'clock, I had a wonderful opportunity to pray for Patrick Havens. I don't think I've talked to Patrick since he left from Morocco — he's halfway around the world — and he's doing something I honestly don't feel called to do, but I know he is. I can support him, and one of the great ways I can support him is to pray for him. I woke up this morning praying for him, and then praying for our friends from church who are on their way back from Israel, then praying for Bonnie Cotier, and then praying for Susan.
This opportunity just couldn't slip by — it was 1:49. It was 2:22 last week, so we are moving in the wrong direction. I woke up, started thinking, and finally at two I said, "This is silly — why don't I just connect with these people around the world?" And I began to pray for them. God called them to mind, and there was joy in my heart for them.
Somebody said to me the other day, "Tom, we keep you and Susan in our thoughts." That's fine, but I'd rather be in your prayers. I don't know what you're thinking — that could be anything. I don't want to be in your thoughts; I want to be in your prayers. Your thoughts aren't helping me, but your prayers can.
A Little Girl's Heavy Question
Last Sunday, right here, a little girl came up to me — cute as could be, little curly hair, just an innocent thing — but she had this heavy look on her face, a heaviness that should not be on the face of a young girl. I asked her how old she was, and I think she said ten. She had this heavy look and said, "Can I ask you a question?" I said sure. She said, "What should I do to a friend who's just been so mean to me?"
Her daddy was nearby, so I knew I wasn't going to get far into that. I said, "Here's what I would do — I'd ask your daddy, because I really don't know your friend, and I'm probably not the one you want to be meeting with. But I'll tell you one thing you can do, and I don't know how many people can tell you this, but I can: you ought to start praying for that person right now. You ought to pray for that girl or boy who's been mean to you."
We don't think about that so often, do we? Pray for those who are a thorn in the flesh, those who are unlovable, that God drops into your life. He does that for a reason — for our benefit. You don't know if you are truly a loving person until you come across somebody who is unlovable. Any person can love someone who is kind and generous and nice.
Partnership in the Gospel
Paul says he prays for these people with something specific in mind. Verse 5: "your participation in the gospel from the first day until now." The word "participation" is koinonia, from which we also get the idea of fellowship — the idea of being invested together, sharing in something, participating together. William Hendrickson, in his discussion on this section...
Participating Together as Believers
In the book of Philippians, Paul talks about eight things that we participate in together as believers. And he is talking to all of us. One, two, three, four times he addresses the whole congregation. Look at verse four: "Always offering prayer with joy to you in my every prayer for y'all." Verse seven: "For it is only right for me to feel this way about y'all." The last part of verse seven: "Y'all are partakers in the grace with me." And then: "For God is my witness, how I long for y'all." What he is saying is, he is not just writing to a select group — this is something that we all are to participate in.
Let me give you eight things. First, we participate in grace. In other words, we are all saved the same way. "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me." Supernaturally, by God's design, we all participate together in the gospel itself.
The second thing is that we all participate in faith. When the Philippian jailer said to Paul, "What must I do to be saved?" Paul said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 10:9 says, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." We share this common faith.
Third, we share the ability to pray and give thanks. Paul closes his letter to the church at Thessalonica — 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 — with these words: "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in everything." This is something we hold in common. We are to give thanks not just in the times we would call good, but also in the times we would call difficult.
The reality is that you will grow closer to Him in the bad times than in the good times. In the good times, you can slip into the idea that you do not need Him. You will still pray, but it will not have nearly the fire and fervency that it will when you are hurting.
The Doctor's Office and the Depth of Prayer
Think about when you go to God most honestly and most deeply. Is it when you go to the doctor and he says everything is fine? Or when he says he does not like what he sees? I remember being at a doctor and he was looking at my back and said, "Hmm, we do not like to see that." I thought, well, this is not good. When do you pray most — when he says everything is fine, or when he says we do not like what we see? The difficult moments drive us to a depth of prayer that the easy moments rarely do.
Six More Ways We Participate Together
The fourth thing is that we have a commonality of love. "Beloved, let us love one another" — 1 John 4:7 — "for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God."
Fifth, we participate financially. Part of this letter is Paul writing back to the church at Philippi and thanking them for facilitating his ministry in a time of great financial need. Some of you in this room were significantly involved financially at East Valley Bible Church last year, and those receipts are available. But I hope you do not give simply to get a receipt and a tax benefit — you give because it is part of God's work and we can participate in that together.
The sixth thing is that we share in the proclamation of the gospel. "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, teaching them." God saved you for a purpose, and part of that purpose is to become His display cases for the gospel. That does not mean that every time you share your faith, people will respond right away.
The Brownies Story
I remember Susan and I were invited over to a couple's house, and it was the first time I remember anyone sharing the gospel with us. We were having dinner — I cannot remember exactly what it was, though I know it was something I really liked, and they had brownies. Somewhere between the main course and dessert, they started talking about Jesus. They were really pressing hard on Susan and me, and we were pretty lost. Susan was doing a slow burn, shutting down, ready to leave. I said, hey, they have brownies — I do not care how lost I am, let's have the brownies and we can get mad later.
Years later, I was on Hawaii, and I had lost track of those people over time. Then one Sunday night I was teaching over on Dobson, and in they came. They said, "We heard this happened and thought we would come and see it ourselves." Isn't that the truth? You drop something on somebody, and in that specific moment it does not seem to land. That man I once said "no thanks" to — God did not use him in that specific moment. But it was one more thing, and another thing, and another thing. One plants, one waters, but God causes the growth, and we are in that together.
Proclamation, Separation, and Engagement
We participate in the sharing of the gospel — through our words, through our finances, and through partnerships like the one we have with Patrick Havens reaching around the world. That is how God has called us to participate.
Here are the final two things. We participate — and this may sound contradictory — in our separation from the world. Jesus says in John 15:19, "You are not of the world; I chose you out of the world." But then He also says, "I sent you into the world." And 1 John 2:15 says, "Do not love the world or the things of the world." The point is this: do not become part of the world system. But if we are going to be part of the world as those sent into it, we must hold that tension — in the world, but not of it.
a moment where I've walked away from it. And that's not because of me. That's because He who began a good work in me will complete it. That's the promise. God finishes what He starts.
The Certainty of God's Completing Work
So Paul said, "I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." I am absolutely certain of this fact. God saves, and when God saves, He saves completely and He saves eternally. God has no half-finished projects.
If you walk into my office at home, the place is littered with books that are a quarter read or half read — tons of books I've started, and some you can still see the pen left where I dropped off. I like to say I quit when the author ran out of things to say. I don't know that that's always true, but I have a lot of half-read books and a lot of half-started projects. I decided over the holiday to clean my closet. I got one shelf done, looked like a lot of work, and stopped there. You and I lack perseverance. We start things and we stop things. God doesn't.
Let me read to you from the pen of James Boyce: "As men and women, you and I are always beginning things that we never actually find time to finish. God doesn't. God never starts anything that He doesn't finish. God perseveres." Now I ask a question: has God begun something in your life? Have you been born again by the Spirit of God? Then you need not fear that you will ever be lost. You shouldn't have confidence in yourself — neither in your faith nor your spiritual success in the earlier days — but in God. It is He who calls us as Christians, He who leads us in the Christian life, and He who most certainly will lead us home.
There is something compelling about that. Susan and I were not followers of Christ, and God saved me first. My experience is that that's a little unusual — it just seems more often it's the woman who gets saved first, but in our case it was me that God delivered first. I went home and started to share these things with Susan. I smile because at this point we have different memories of what that was like. She says I used to come home and tell her, "You're going to hell, you're going to hell, you're going to hell." I just don't think I would do that, but she said that I did.
It became a point of contention, because I was up reading a Bible, studying, going to Bible study every day, spending a lot of time in God's Word, and my life was changing. I couldn't penetrate, couldn't get through to her, so I had my friend and his wife come over. I remember Susan telling the story — his wife asked her, "Susan, are you intrigued by what you see in Tom's life?" And Susan said, "This is weird, he's just totally different than he was three or four months ago. I just figured it was like everything else. I just figured it would only last a day or two, or a week or a month. But it's been three months, and that's like forever for him." And then she shared the gospel with her, and a week or two later Susan responded to the gospel.
She had identified me perfectly. I have running shoes still in boxes, gym memberships, all sorts of things like that. But this has never changed in 27 years — only grown deeper. There have been times when it's certainly not as vibrant as I would like, and times where you feel even closer. But there has never been a moment where I've walked away from it. And that is not because of me. That is because He who began a good work in me will complete it.
Fellowship in the Gospel and the Call to Community
Let me back up and bring together what Paul has been laying out. God has called us and placed us — in a community, in a school, in a business, in a neighborhood, at the gym, wherever He has placed us — so that we are actively involved in the proclamation of the gospel wherever we find ourselves. At the same time, Paul is saying we are different from the world. Don't get sucked into the way the world thinks. Don't start adopting the same value system the world has. Don't concentrate on happiness — be concerned about joy.
And then there is the fellowship of spiritual battle and warfare. In John 15, Jesus is speaking: "If you are of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, I have chosen you out of the world, and the world hates you. Remember I said, a slave is not greater than his master. They persecuted Me, they will persecute you." You are at war. As Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 6, "Put on the full armor of God." Every time we use that phrase, we should remember that the word "put on" in the Greek carries a particular idea — it means to put on once and for all. Put on the full armor of God, and leave it on.
Think about this: the only time you put on armor is when you are going into battle. And if he is telling us to put it on and leave it on, he is telling us we are in battle 24 hours a day, seven days a week, against a relentless enemy who is out to destroy us. In some cases that enemy really doesn't have to work very hard — it's the world system, his demons, and this spiritual battle pressing in on all sides. And we are in this together. In all the things we have talked about — the gospel, faith, love and giving, prayer and thanksgiving, sharing the gospel, separation from the world — we are in this together.
That is a sobering thing. I could read all of that and say, participation in the gospel, and begin to reflect on everything it involves, and find myself thinking, that is a scary deal. That is precisely why verse 6 is so important: "I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will continue it until the day of Christ Jesus."
The Ups and Downs of the Christian Life
If you were to take a stock and chart it, it doesn't just go straight up. It goes up and down and up and down. The same thing is true in your Christian life. Your Christian life has not been a straight line upward. There have been moments of growth, and then there's down a little, and up and down. But the general trend line is way up, isn't it?
Here is what Paul is saying: that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with God. He is the one who began it. That is why you should not be amazed that it is still hanging in there, because it is not of me — it is of Him. He is the one who began it, and He is the one who will continue it.
The Security of the Believer in John 10
Turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 10. These are familiar passages, and the fact that they are familiar tells you they are important, so you need to keep them together. Next to Philippians chapter 1, verse 6 in your Bible, you need to have written John 10:27 and Romans 8:28. They all flow together and make the same point.
The Jews have just said to Jesus, "If you are the Messiah, tell us." He told them, "You don't get it," and then He said, beginning at verse 27, "My sheep hear my voice." Those who are in Christ Jesus — that would be another way of saying that — hear His voice. "And I know them, and they follow me, and I give eternal life to them."
If we are in Christ, we have eternal life. This is very simple. This is not complicated. This is not difficult. There are no tricks here, no sleight of hand. If the question is, can I lose my salvation, the answer is right there: I have eternal life. When is eternal life over? Never. And as if we somehow missed it, He says it plainly: "I give them eternal life, they will never perish, and no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand." Nobody can separate us.
The Unbreakable Chain of Romans 8
Now look to Romans chapter 8, verse 28. "We know God causes all things to work together for good." For those whom He foreknew, He predestined. Those He predestined, He called. Those He called, He justified. Verse 31: "What shall we say of these things? If God is for us, who is against us?" Verse 33: "Who will bring a charge against God's elect?" Verse 35: "Who will separate us from the love of Christ?"
He then lists all the things — tribulation, distress, persecution. Verse 37: "In all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us." And then comes this powerful declaration: "I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing" — and everything other than God is created — nothing created can separate us from His love.
He who began the good work will continue it in you until the day of Christ Jesus. There may be times in your life where you are disappointed in yourself, but you can never be disappointed in Him.
Living in These Foundational Truths
These are wonderful truths. These are foundational truths that we need to grab hold of and live inside. To be in Christ Jesus means we have found the peace and grace that is only available from God, and only available to those who humble themselves and come to Him in repentance and faith.
To pursue life and try to find meaning, purpose, direction, and happiness apart from Him is a total waste of time. I will not deny that you might find momentary relief. I will not deny that there may be times of exhilaration. But after a while you are going to have to work so hard at having fun that it will not be fun anymore.
Peace is not the absence of conflict and turmoil, because that is simply not possible. Peace is the presence of God. It is joy, knowing everything is right between Him and you. And the longer you live, it seems to me, the more difficult you see life is — more aches and pains and heartaches, more suffering and pain in the world, children who reject you or face problems of their own, neighbors who hurt, and a life that aches. You want to give up, but you cannot.
He Who Began It Will Complete It
Here is why you cannot give up: you are not the one who started it. He started it. He who began the good work will continue it. You have faith, but the only reason you have faith is because He gave you the grace. That grace is given to His children — you, us. He began that work and He will not allow it to stop. He will come alongside and encourage and strengthen.
So what do you do? You just trust and obey. There is no other way to do this but to trust Him and obey Him.
Father, thank You for this wonderful truth. We pray that You use this time in our lives to remind us of grace, and that we become instruments of grace, that we would become gracious to one another. God, focus our eyes on You. Get them off of our circumstances. God, we love You for one reason — because You first loved us. We pray to You in Christ's name. Amen.