Philippians 1 - Introduction to Joy in Suffering
Tom Shrader begins a study of Philippians, emphasizing that Paul wrote this most joyful letter while imprisoned in Rome, chained to guards, and facing possible execution. He explains that biblical joy differs from happiness—it's a settled conviction that God controls all circumstances for believers' good and His glory, rooted in doctrine rather than feelings.
“What you know trumps what you feel.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Philippians
Recorded: September 15, 2016
Duration: 39 min
Themes: joy, suffering, persecution, imprisonment, contentment, peace, grace, servanthood, facing persecution, going through trials, feeling imprisoned, struggling with circumstances, new believer, church leader, facing uncertainty, enduring hardship
Scripture: Philippians 1:1-2, Philippians 1:6, Philippians 1:13, Philippians 1:21, Philippians 2:3, Philippians 2:5, Philippians 3:4-6, Philippians 3:7-8, Philippians 3:10, Philippians 4:6-7, Philippians 4:13, 2 Corinthians 11:24-28, Acts 9, Acts 16:12-40, Romans 5:1, Ecclesiastes 1:2
Theological Themes: philippians, prison epistles, pauline theology, biblical joy, servants of christ, bond servants, saints, overseers and deacons
Full Transcript
If you have Bibles, open them to the book of Philippians. We start a new book study today. This is my favorite way to teach—to just take a book and work our way through it, not be held to an outline.
Today is introduction, and my experience in a book is it tends to go a little slower at the beginning. I think we'll be in this book at least until it hits a hundred outside. So I'm going to give you a bunch of background today and look at verses 1 & 2. We're not going to get any further than that for sure today.
"Paul and Timothy, bond-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."
Without any sort of Bible training you can pretty quickly see that the author of this letter is Paul. He adds Timothy to that. We know a little bit about Timothy because we looked at that last week, and he describes himself as a bond servant. He's writing to people who are theologically in Christ Jesus, geographically in Philippi, and then he has a wish for them: grace and peace, and he tells us that's from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
My Preparation Process
One of the things for me when I know I'm going to teach a letter—there's just a process that I go through in preparation for that. I have a Bible app on my phone and I'll go to that passage. What makes it really easy on the phone is I don't know how many translations there are in there—tons of them—but I'll use a New American Standard, an ESV, the Message, another translation or two, and I'll read through the book and just see what are the things that hit me, what are the impressions I get as I work my way through the book.
Then I'll come back and study. I'll typically pick for me the New American Standard and I'll use the Message, or there's another old paraphrase called the J.B. Phillips paraphrase—it's actually called a translation though it is not—and I'll use those. Then I'll get my commentaries. For me the commentaries is finding the authors of those commentaries that I want, and then that starts my study.
In this particular study there was James Montgomery Boice's commentary. Chuck Swindoll wrote a book years ago called *Laugh Again* which is his commentary on the book of Philippians. Also MacArthur has one, obviously Barclay, and Ray Stedman. So I was able to pull all of those.
Why I Chose Philippians
What I want to do is read you just introductory comments from each of these guys so that you'll get a sense real quickly of why I picked this book.
Here's Stedman: He said the letter to Philippians has been called not only the tenderest letter Paul ever wrote but also the most delightful. It brims over with expressions of praise, confidence, rejoicing. Now here's the key—despite the fact that this is one of Paul's prison epistles written in Rome during his first imprisonment.
Here's Swindoll: "I know of no greater need today than that of joy—unexplainable contagious joy. When that kind of joy comes aboard our ship of life it brings good things with it like enthusiasm for life, determination to hang in there, a strong desire to be an encouragement to others."
Here's James Montgomery Boice: "Any Christian who is feeling down or discouraged about anything should study Paul's great letter to the Philippians. This is true because of Paul's circumstances when he wrote it. He'd been kept in prison for two years in Caesarea without a trial, being held for an unknown amount of time in Caesar's jail in Rome. He survived perilous storms on the Mediterranean Sea. He'd been deserted by most of His friends. Others, even Christian leaders, had spoken against him hoping to get him into even more trouble with the government. He was facing possible execution for His faith. Terrible, yet no book in the Bible is so filled with joy as Philippians. What was Paul's secret? How could He remain joyful in such circumstances? This is what we find out as we study the letter."
Ray Stedman again: He said, "Paul is in Rome a prisoner of Nero, although He's allowed to stay in His own rented house awaiting trial before Emperor Nero. He is chained day and night to a soldier." They would have somebody chained to him and then they would alternate these guards about every six hours. "Paul knew His life could easily be forfeited when He appeared before Nero, yet this epistle glows with radiance and joy, confidence and strength. It is a great encouragement to any downcast or discouraged heart to read this letter to Philippians. If you're going through times of pressure and trial, I urge you to read this little letter. It'll be encouraging you, especially if you remember the circumstance from which it comes."
Paul Knows Suffering
ESPN does the 30 for 30 series—I don't know if you've ever seen those. It's a wonderful series. They'll take a director, they'll give him a topic, and then he'll do an hour or two hour special. There was just one on Bo Jackson. I forget what an awesome amazing athlete Bo Jackson was, and ultimately then you know he is popularized in the culture through the Nike ads: Bo knows, Bo knows football, Bo knows baseball, Bo knows.
Well if we're going to do a Paul ad, here it would be: Paul knows suffering. You turn to the left two books to 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 11. Paul had earlier in this letter talked about life and talked about momentary light affliction producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
In 2 Corinthians chapter 11, beginning in verse 24, Paul talks autobiographically about this momentary light affliction: "Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers..."
Paul's Testimony of Suffering
Let me continue with Paul's testimony from 2 Corinthians 11. He speaks of "dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers in the sea, dangers among false brothers." So he's in danger with the Jews, danger with the Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger on the land, danger in the sea.
Verse 27: "I've been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure." Everybody wants to stop there, but maybe the pastoral heart here kicks in. Verse 28: "and apart from such external things there's the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches."
Paul's in the midst of all this and yet he writes about joy.
The Sacrifice of Joy in Adulthood
Here's Chuck Swindoll: "My question is this, when did a healthy well-exercised sense of humor get sacrificed on the altar of adulthood? Who says becoming a responsible adult means a long face and an all-serious attitude toward life?"
"My vocation is among the most serious of all professions. As a minister of the gospel and a senior pastor of a church, the concerns I deal with are eternal in dimension. A week does not pass without my hearing or dealing with life in the raw. Marriages are breaking up, homes are splitting, people are hurting, jobs dissolving, addictions of every description are rampant, needs are enormous, endless, heart-rendering."
"The most natural thing for me would be to allow all of this to rob me of my joy, to change me from a person who's always found humor in life as well as laughing out loud into a stoic frowning clergyman. You know them. No thanks."
The Modern Pursuit of Happiness
John MacArthur observes: "People today are consumed by a passion and pursuit of happiness. Self-help books, motivational speakers, advice columns claim to offer the key to happiness, but for many people the door remains locked."
All of those things he mentioned are based upon you - telling you to unlock the secret with you, the power within you as a natural person, meaning apart from Christ. "Jump into your strengths, you can do it." So all that motivational stuff that sold seminars and filled coliseums and arenas to tell you how great you were, but you knew inside you were just a sniveling sham who was putting on this big thing for everybody outside.
I was at a meeting here in town, and we had 36 young business guys in town. One of the things that was interesting the first night was the contest of how you let the other guys know how successful you are without appearing to be bragging and verbose. Yet by the third night, the guys were saying, "I walk into these meetings and I'm intimidated by all of you. I'm afraid of my reputation." You've been in that environment a million times, right?
The Failure of Circumstantial Solutions
That's what MacArthur's saying. So here's all this stuff and ultimately it fails because ultimately there's this idea of "I know who I am and I can fool you, but I can't, for very long anyway, fool me."
"Unable to control their circumstances, they find themselves instead controlled by their circumstances. When their job, relationships, house fails to make them happy, they dump it and look for a new one." We talk about this all the time. Second marriages fail at a higher rate than first marriages, third higher than second, fourth higher than third, fifth higher than fourth. Those are just statistics - government statistics. The idea generally, not always, is "I have this problem, it's you. If I get rid of you, I'll get a newer model and everything will be happy."
He says that doesn't work and you know it. So your life becomes going from person to person to person, house to house to house, job to job to job, vacation spot to vacation spot.
A Jackson Hole Illustration
I had a friend who was going up to Jackson Hole on vacation and got there and said, "This is pretty awesome, maybe we ought to buy a house." So they hooked up with a realtor, walked into the first house, and there was this beautiful moment - here it is and you can see the mountains and all that goes with it. The realtor said, "Listen, we've got a really motivated seller here, they're going through a divorce."
They went to the second house, same thing, even more beautiful. Realtor said, "We have a really motivated seller here, they're going through a divorce." This happened on three consecutive houses - beautiful house, amazing house, motivated seller going through a divorce. Finally my friend said to him, "What's the deal here? Something in the water? What happened?"
The realtor said, "Here's what happens: everybody comes to Jackson Hole, they bring all their problems with them, they think if they're in a beautiful place like this, all those problems will go away, but the problems are still there."
That's what MacArthur's saying. It fails, they dump it, they find a new one. "But on the merry-go-round of life, they never quite seem to catch the brass ring. Having fruitlessly pursued happiness through pleasure and self-gratification, they arrive at a jaded view of life expressed by the preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 1 verse 2, 'vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'"
Biblical Joy Versus Happiness
"But if happiness, the fleeting feeling of exhilaration is elusive, joy is not. Biblical joy, the settled conviction that God's sovereignty controls the events of life for every believer's good and God's glory, is available to all who will believe Him."
The Doctrinal Foundation of Philippians
The book of Philippians is also noteworthy for its great doctrinal statements. It's not intended as a doctrinal treatise as are Romans and Galatians, but it's filled nonetheless with doctrine. Paul thought doctrine. Consequently, great expressions of Christian faith fall like ripe fruit from his pen. At times, this seems to happen almost incidentally.
I think I can explain the doctrine part of this. Here's a fundamental basic truth of life for us: We're going to survive in this based on what you know.
Trumps what you feel. So when Paul's looking around at his circumstances, chained to these guards, living in prison for two, three, four years, shipwrecked, all the things we talk about, he's going, wait a minute, I got to go back to something that I know is true. The outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day. I've got to look at the things that are seen that the things are unseen because the things that are seen are temporal, the things that are unseen are eternal.
You've got your book open in front of you, chapter 1 verse 6, we'll get there next week. Paul said, "I'm confident in this very thing that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." That's jammed with doctrine. Paul says in the middle of all of this stuff and he's writing to this church that has problems, the majority of the people, as close as we can determine, are poor, they are being persecuted for their faith, they are under attack of false doctrine, the church has two high-profile ladies who are arguing with each other and threatened to pull the church apart. Paul says in moments like this, I need to remember, chapter 1 verse 6, that God started this and God will finish it. That God began this. It's filled with doctrine.
The Power of Doctrine in Difficult Circumstances
One of the great joys, and I reflect back over my 22 years at East Valley Bible Church Redemption Church, has been, and it sounds almost perverse, to watch the people in our church grow through some incredibly difficult life circumstances. The loss of a baby, the sickness and loss of a spouse, economic hardship, and I watched them go through this and almost every time it's the same story. I wouldn't have selected it, it wouldn't have been my decision, I don't want to go through it again, but I wouldn't trade it for the world, because I saw God in the middle of that. That's why this doctrine is so important.
I was talking to a guy several years ago, he was explaining to me the importance of my participation in this somewhat ecumenical program that was taking place, and I said, I don't really know, and he said, listen, you have got to learn to play better with others. I said, I'm okay with that, I'm up for that, and he said, if you're going to do this, you're going to have to set doctrine aside, and I said, well, the dues are too high for that club for me. I can't do that. Not because I'm hung up on some sort of doctrinal, ethereal, theoretical discussion, it's the doctrine that gets you through life.
Doctrine is extraordinarily practical, and it's not incidental to me that as Paul writes this, he flips back into these doctrinal truths over and over and over again. Understanding life, here comes life, you can't stop it, it has all this stuff coming in.
Joy vs. Happiness
That's how I ended up, by the way, in the book of Philippians. As I thought, okay, I'm so frustrated, here we go. This was the news last night. The early indications are that with more money being taken out of the check, the American people are spending less money. Really? That's a surprise to you? I mean, this is like human nature 101. You have to spend less, you have less. And you look at this, and the frustration is so high, and I've probably worn out Sandy on this, and probably worn out many of you, and some of you are wearing out me on this, because we reinforce it, it's confirmation bias, we reinforce it.
I need this idea of joy, not happiness. I gave up on happiness a long time ago. Happiness is circumstantial. So for me, Wells Fargo stock is important, just because of a variety of things. So I have an app where every day I look at Wells Fargo stock. If Wells Fargo's at 37, I'm happy. If it's at 27, not so happy. That's happiness, right?
If I come home, and there's Sandy, she's standing in the doorway, and she's got this little, you know, see-through thing on, and I go, wow, you look amazing. What's that smell? And she said, oh, it's your cheat day, you can eat whatever you want today. I get one meal a week, cheat meal. It's a cheat meal, and that's meatloaf, and gravy, and mashed potatoes, but we want you to have a cinnamon roll first. And so, you're on the horns of a dilemma. Do you want to ravage me, or eat? And I'm going, well, man, I think we could do both, if we're creative, and turn on the TV, and have a trifecta here. We could hit them all. Now, it's pretty easy to be happy in that environment.
It's not as easy when you come home, and you go, what are we going to have to eat? I don't know. You got two hands, two feet, you figure it out. And I've never had either one of those happen. You can be happy in this. We're not talking about happiness. We're talking about joy. Joy that's a byproduct of an intimate relationship with Jesus.
Paul's Life of Suffering
Now Paul's already told us that. Here's this momentary light affliction. Paul comes to faith immediately he's a controversial figure. We look in Acts chapter 9 they want to kill him so they lower him out of the city over a wall in a basket. He goes from there to Iconium they run him out of there. He goes to Lystra they stone him there they thought he was dead. He goes to Philippi they throw him in jail. Thessalonica there's a riot. Berea they mock him they beat him. He goes to Athens they try to humiliate him intellectually. This is his life.
Paul writes this book against that backdrop. Paul that's who he is. He's an apostle. You know the story in Acts chapter 9 he is a full-out equal opportunity persecutor on his way to Damascus. Letters from the authorities, he's comfortable that the Christian faith has been suppressed in Jerusalem. He's going to Damascus to arrest people men and women to take him back to Jerusalem and it's on that road that God saves him.
So when you're trying to figure out how God works and salvation that's a great practical illustration. Paul's not looking for God he's convinced he's already got Him but God intervenes.
In his life God saves him. Paul—and I love the illustration—he's this zealot. Look in chapter 3, if you have the book of Philippians there in front of you. In chapter 3 Paul gives this resume that he has. He says in verse 4, "If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more." He's talking here about earning God's pleasure and favor through works religion.
He says, "Here you go," verse 5: "Circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews." Well, he didn't have anything to do with that—that's his ancestry. He's talking now about orthodoxy. He is—and I say this not in a pejorative way at all but in a descriptive way—he says, "I'm the super Jew. I'm a Pharisee. I didn't just play at it." Verse 6: "As to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless." That's who he is—he's an intense, driven person.
God saves him. This is really cool to me—He doesn't really change his personality. He just changed his jersey. He's just as intense, just as driven: "This one thing I do, I press on." That's the Apostle Paul.
Paul Arrives at Philippi
Now he's come into this city at Philippi. Philippi was an important city, like all cities really, because of the location. Also outside of town there were some gold mines. Philip the second of Macedon—he was the father of Alexander the Great—annexed the area, changed the name of the city to Philippi after him. They used coins and modeled their coinage, their dress, their architecture after Rome.
Paul comes into this city. Let's go ahead and just see the founding of this church. Mark that place in the book of Philippians. Turn to the left—you're going to go back three, four, five books to the book of Acts and the 16th chapter. Paul is going to arrive at Philippi and do what Paul does when he comes to a city.
He's got one or two strategies. He leaves Troas in verse 12. He goes to Philippi, which is a leading city in the district of Macedonia, a Roman colony, and he's staying there. Verse 13: "On the Sabbath we went outside the gate to the riverside." Now that piece of information—we're going to find the Bible scholars in the room—what does that tell you right there? Probably a small Jewish population. So small, not large enough to have a synagogue, because if there had been a synagogue, that's where he would have gone. So he's dealing primarily with Gentiles here.
He goes to the riverside, "where we were supposing there would be a place of prayer; and we sat down and began speaking to the women who had assembled." The group is essentially women. And a woman named Lydia—this from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple—she is a happening business chick. She is successful in her business. She is in high-end business, selling valuable, expensive material. She's a worshiper of God, meaning she understands that there's this one God—still a Gentile.
But look what happens: "The Lord opened her heart." Why did she respond? Why were they sitting there and here are these 15 women and Lydia responds? Why did Lydia respond? Smarter than everyone else? No. She heard something different than anyone else? No. They all heard the same message. God opened her heart. It's a picture of salvation. It's the picture of how God moves. He opens her heart, she responds, she and her household are baptized, and she says, "Stay with me."
The Demon-Possessed Girl and Imprisonment
Verse 16: And now Paul's going through the city of Philippi and there's a demon-possessed girl who's being used by some of her masters to generate profit. She's walking behind Paul and the guys with him, and she said, "These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation." She said, "That's who these guys are," and she continues to do this.
Verse 18: "Paul was greatly annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, 'I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!' And it came out at that very moment." And when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas, dragged him to the marketplace before the authorities. And Paul and Silas, unjustly now beaten, arrested, they're put in prison.
Verse 23: "When they had struck them with many blows, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely; and he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks." So he says, "Here's the deal. They're telling him these guys get out, you're dead." And he said, "Oh my gosh, if that's it, then we're going into lockdown to the most secure part of the prison." And he doesn't just put him in there—he chains them in there.
Verse 25: "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them; and suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened." The jailer awoke, he sees the prison doors opened, he draws his sword. Why? Because he understands: the prisoners, doors are open, they're going to be gone, they're going to kill me. I'm going to get it over with as fast as I can.
And Paul cries out, verse 28: "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here!" And this jailer is saved. Look what he says, verse 30: "What must I do to be saved?" Same question that we ask—what must I do to be delivered from the consequence of my sin, brought in right relationship with God? I come to Christ in repentance and faith. It's to believe in Him, to trust Him.
The Perfect Backdrop
That's the backdrop. Look at—there's probably a whole side issue that sets up this book of Philippians right there in verse 25. Paul's in prison. He hasn't done anything. He's been beaten. Future's unsure. And it's midnight. And I'd be sitting in the corner going, "You know, God, this is an odd way of doing things. You call me to do something, I do it, I'm beaten, here I am."
Paul's singing praise. It's a perfect backdrop. These people in Philippi, when they get this letter now and they're going to go "joy, joy, joy," their mind's going to go back and "Do you remember that incident?"
Let me give you four key verses, one out of each chapter, and unpack a little bit of these first couple verses. Chapter 1, verse...
Paul said, "For me to live is Christ, to die is gain." Paul said if he had to choose between these two, this would be difficult for him because he's experiencing the richness of knowing Christ to such a degree and seeing God do some amazing things.
Look at chapter 1, verse 13. What happened is that Paul's chained to these guards and they inevitably strike up a conversation. It doesn't take much to imagine you can hear him saying, "What are you in for?" and he says, "Well, let me tell you," and he tells them. Over a period of time, apparently God saved some of these guards.
God's Bottom-Up Strategy
We would think, "Boy, we want to get the gospel into the palace. What would we do?" Well, I think I know what we would do. We would rent a room at a nice place and we would invite Nero. He wouldn't come, but we'd invite Nero. He wouldn't come, but he'd want to send somebody and we'd have a banquet, and that's how we would logically move into the palace. That's fine, that's a good way. There's nothing wrong with that at all.
God's strategy through Paul was very different. It was a bottom-up strategy. God saves these prisoner guards, and we understand in chapter one, verse 13, that now the whole Praetorian guard know of Christ. Amazing, isn't it? Paul says, "I got this going on, this richness. I don't know if I want to leave that."
The Mind of Christ
Chapter two, verse five—when we get here, we're going to camp on this for a while, this is huge: "Have this attitude in yourselves which is in Christ Jesus." Some of your translations will say, "have the mind in you." Paul's going to say, "I want you to think like Christ."
I was at Scottsdale Bible Church a Sunday. I was originally scheduled to be there in March, and the minute that Jamie called and asked if I would do it in March, I went right to Philippians chapter two, verse five and said, "I know what I want to talk about. I want you to think like Jesus. I want you to think like Jesus," and so here's the lead up to it.
See at verse three: "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit." This is huge. When Paul wrote Philippians chapter two, verse three, he had to create the word humility. It didn't exist in the Greek and it didn't exist in the Latin. When I went back and said, "Is that true?" I called a couple friends and said, "Is that true?" And they verified, "Yes, that's true." All of a sudden I said, "Wow, this is huge." That's how foreign humility is to the human experience. We don't have a word for it. It never would occur to us that it was something that anybody would want.
Jesus' Model of Humility
We're driven by selfishness, empty conceit. I want you to follow the model that Jesus gave us who, although He exists in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. That word "grasped" means to hang on to it at all costs. So at a time when we're wired because of sin to intuitively say, "What about us?" Jesus comes along and says, "No, the question to ask is what about you?"
Chapter three—key verse in chapter three is verse 10. It comes after that passage we looked at earlier where Paul's giving His resume. He said, "Whatever things were gained to me," verse seven, "these things I count as loss for the sake of knowing Christ." Verse eight: "I want to know Christ Jesus, my Lord." He said, "I have suffered loss of all these things. I count them but rubbish." The King James says "dung."
Knowing Christ Above All
Here's what Paul's saying. Listen, human effort is of no value in pleasing God or no merit as it relates to salvation and ultimately knowing Him. I want to know Him. I want to know Christ. Jesus said, "I'm the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me. In Me there's life. This is life that you might know Him, the one true God and His Son Jesus who sent Me."
I want to know Him and I want to know the power of the resurrection. I have this power in me. It's not me intuitively; it's Christ and the Holy Spirit in me. I have the power to live a life filled with joy, not happiness.
Strength Through Christ
Here's the last of the four key verses: chapter four, verse 13. "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." And you see it all over. The context that He's writing about here is living in the circumstance of life. "I've learned to be content."
Chapter four, verse six: "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." What an amazing truth. He said, "Don't be anxious for anything, but pray about everything."
I had been teaching a little bit and I got the first ever call I got from somebody who was a head of a men's study in some church saying, "Will you come and do a retreat?" And I said, "You know, yeah, I think I can do that." And they said, "Let me give you the verse—the theme verse. It's Philippians chapter four, verse six and seven." And I'm new to this. I'm like, "Really? Hang on, let me go check this out." So I said, "And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension." "So you want me to come and speak to you four times on something that's beyond comprehension? That sounds like calculus to me." Yes, what's beyond comprehension? Because in this world, in the midst of all of this travail, I can find joy.
Bond Servants of Christ
Paul writes the letters. Paul the apostle, Timothy's with him. We talked about Timothy last week. He's His son in the Lord. They're a bond servant. They're a slave. There were three ways you could become a slave in that time. One is a slave by conquest—someone conquered your city, took you captive. The second was slave by birth—your parents were slaves, so you're a slave. And the third was a way of solving debt—parents frequently sold their kids into slavery.
Paul's a slave. There are a variety of words available to him. He describes himself as a bond servant. That was a slave who was utterly, completely, totally dependent upon His master for any provision at all. And Paul doesn't put this in a negative light, but a positive light. He said, "We're bond servants. We're bond servants of Christ Jesus."
I'm writing to the saints who are geographically in Philippi, theologically and spiritually in Christ. Catholic grade school, high school, college. From the time that I can remember, we had discussions about saints. All of our churches, or many of them, were named after saints. We had St. Paul's Church, St. Joseph's Church, St. Alphonse's Church. These saints were guys who were spiritual superheroes. They'd live extraordinary lives. The church had scrutinized their life. They were canonized after a process to prove there were miracles done in their names.
When we hear saints, or I hear saints initially, that's my flinch. That's not what Paul, and how Paul, or how the scripture uses the word saint. Saint means set apart, and these guys are set apart not for what they did, but for what God would do in them. They're not an extraordinarily special group because of their individual actions or merits.
In March of 1980, in a moment in time, God changed my designation from sinner to saint and my destination from hell to heaven. He did that.
Grace and Peace
He said, I'm writing to these guys, and two things to you, and then we'll pick up here next week. Grace to you in peace. Grace, this idea of unmerited favor. Peace, not the absence of turmoil, but the presence of God in my life.
Just something that you should know, they're always in that order. It's the grace from God that allows me to experience the peace of God. Paul writes in Romans 5, verse one, and he says, it's through Jesus Christ that we have peace with God, that our natural circumstance is at war with God. That's how we come into the world. That's what sin does. But in Christ, I now have the cessation of that hostility because while I was a sinner, while I was helpless, while I was an enemy, Christ died. So I have the peace of God. Now I can have peace with God. Isn't that awesome? That's His normal greeting.
The Message of Joy
Now He's going to get into, when we get to verse three, He's going to start talking about this personal gut. Hopefully you understand why we selected the book. You get the backdrop of it and you get the message. The message is joy. Joy in the midst of a fiscal cliff, in the midst of a marriage that's fallen apart, in the midst of kids that are in rebellion, in the midst of all the stuff that life throws at you, you find joy because of that relationship with Christ.
Let's pray. Father, thank you for this amazing truth, 2000 years old, practical as if it were written today, because you haven't changed, nor have our hearts. God, thank you for that truth. Drive it deep in us. We ask it in Christ's name, amen.