Unpacking the introductory comments of Paul to the Philippians reveals a lot about ourselves that is vital to know.
Captured By Christ; My Life in The Introduction of Philippians
Philippians 1:1-2
Pastor Kerry Kinchen, Bridgeway Bible Church
Please turn to Philippians 1:1-2. We are starting the book of Philippians this morning, and I am excited about preaching through this great epistle with you. The passages that we are going to study are Paul's opening remarks of greeting to the Christians in Philippi. I am excited to get into them because what I have found is that typically, the opening remarks of an epistle are filled with volumes of doctrinal truth that is packed tightly together. I find that I get a lot out of unpacking, and opening up all the things that are there that God has given us for our edification. It is my hope that this epistle, and Paul's introduction, will build us all up in the faith as we cover some vital truths concerning our Christianity. Please read the opening verses with me,
"Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Christ Jesus, To all the set apart ones in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:1-2
I ask you to prepare your hearts to learn from God's word with me through this this sermon titled,
Captured By Christ; My Life in The Introduction of Philippians
[prayer]
Looking at this opening passage, the first word we see mentioned is Paul. Paul the apostle is the author. Paul starts out this epistle in his typical manner. He quickly names himself in establishing his authority as the apostolic prophet who is about to launch into writing the precepts of the Lord. They are Paul's words, but it is God's word and Paul knows it. The Philippians also know it. We know it too. But it wasn't always this way with Paul's words. Paul did not always speak forth the revelation of the Lord. Paul did not always speak the good news of Christ. Paul was once an antichrist. He was an apostate Jew who hated Christ, and he hated Christians. That is what lost people are. They are people who hate Christ, and they hate Christ's people. It is the hatred in lost hearts. You may not always see it manifested in blatant actions of anger, but the sincere, Holy Spirit led devotion, understanding, committed, communing, and truth based love for God and His elect is absent. Lacking this love, the words Paul spoke before his salvation were words that attacked Christ and His church. But something happened to Paul in the midst of his hatred for God and God's people. It is the same thing that happened to all of us who are saved. Paul's life, like our lives, is a testimony of God's grace and miraculous power. Originally Paul, whose known as Saul of Tarsus, was a man well aquatinted with religion. In fact, Saul was well aquainted with being a religious leader, but like a lot of us who thought we were following God, but weren't, (where we were really lost and separated from God) so was Saul. Saul thought he was saved, but he was unregenerate. He was unconverted. He did not know it, but in that state Saul was separated from God in spiritual lostness, darkness, and deception. The word is sin. Saul was lost in his sin. But Saul did not yet realize this fact. In fact, Saul claimed to be a righteous priest of God who taught God's people, and yet, Saul was an unrighteous murderer of Christians. In the dark depths of his heart, Saul secretly hated God. Like all lost people who think they are following God, Saul would have argued against that point fervently. But, we see the evidence of Saul's hatred for God when we read in Acts 7:58 of how Saul, as a young man, took part in the stoning of one of the original followers of Jesus--another young man named Stephen. After preaching the good news of Jesus Christ, Stephen was condemned to die. Saul, thinking he was a zealous follower of God, was one of those who took part in stoning Stephen. While Stephen was being murdered by apostate Jews, he prayed to the Lord. Stephen's last words were
"Lord, don't hold this sin against them." Acts 7:60
Saul was lost in sin, and in sin he participated in the execution of one of God's servants. In Saul's hate filled task of hunting Christians, he sincerely thought he was serving the one true God. Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witness cultist also think they are sincerely serving the one true God, but they are not. Like Saul, they are religious, but they are lost, and they show their lostness in the fact that they do not love God, and they do not love the body of Christ, which God calls the church, Colossians 1:24. What they need is what we all needed to be saved. It is what Saul needed. He needed miracle intervention. This is the way it is across the board. To be saved, we must be rescued by a miracle action that disrupts our lives. And it happened to Saul when Christ miraculously intervened in Saul's lost life. It was a sovereign act. It was a true miracle. The resurrected Lord appeared to Saul while he was on his way to capture Christians to be killed. When Christ appeared, He captured Saul instead, and in a miracle work, God, in a certain sense, killed the old man Saul, and God brought forth a new man by His regenerating power. In Saul's situation, the resurrected Lord initially hurt Saul. Yes, in love, God does that kind of thing. How many of us here recognize that fact? We need to recognize that fact. God did this in His love; but God is also the one Who defines love, and sometimes God hurts those whom He loves and saves. Then, in His same love, He brings the comfort to us of His embrace after we have been brought low and He has our attention. The risen Lord actually hurt Saul by blinding his eyes. Then the Lord told blinded Saul that Saul was not just persecuting followers of Christ. Christ told Saul that he was actually persecuting Christ Himself. Christ asks,
"... why are you persecuting me?" Acts 9:4
What kind of statement is this? Saul is on his way to round up Christians and the blinding presence asks Saul, "why are you persecuting me?" Shocked, humbled, confused, blinded Saul answers Christ with another question. As Saul asks his question, he at least gets the identification correct. He says,
"Who are you Lord?" Acts 9:5
The answer comes back,
"I am Jesus whom you are persecuting." Acts 9:5
This is such a huge revelation for understanding the spiritual reality of the body of Christ, which is His church. By the way, I love this doctrine immensely. I love to preach it. The principle is that when someone persecutes Christians, they are, in a certain way, and in a certain manner, really persecuting Christ Jesus the Lord. This was when Saul of Tarsus became saved. He converted to the Messiah--the same Messiah he used to persecute. He was born again--a new creation, created in Christ Jesus as he later says of all who have been saved by the same miracle in Ephesians 2:10. Later after becoming known as Paul--not Saul of Tarsus, but Paul of Christ's Kingdom, Paul recognizes how amazingly miraculous the whole event was. But Paul of Christ's Kingdom also recognized how miraculous the stark change was in his heart. Paul describes his miraculous conversion in Galatians 2:20. He says,
"20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; ..." Galatians 2:20
The old man is dead. The new man is alive, and he is alive to God in Christ. In fact, his life is the life of Christ. Paul is now a part of the very same body of Christ he used to persecute. It is the same body of Christ that we are all members of. We all have our story of being crucified with Christ where it is no longer us who live, but rather it is the life of Christ in us that gives us life. This is what it means to be saved by grace through faith. You are completely God's work. You are not your own work in your salvation. You did not do any work for your salvation. You are God's work of salvation, based upon Christ's work on the cross, and in His resurrection. But, this is Paul. Once the persecutor, now the persecuted who serves the Lord. In Paul's persecution, he served the Lord from prison, and this is how the Philippians, we, and all subsequent generations of Christians, have received this epistle as holy Scripture. As we continue to look at Paul's opening greeting, we notice that someone is with Paul in Rome during his time in prison there. Paul writes,
"Paul and Timothy, ..."
Timothy was a young man who attended to Paul's needs from the outside of jail. Timothy was called Paul's true child in the faith in 1 Timothy 1:2. Paul nurtured and groomed Timothy to be an overseer and an ordainer of overseers. Timothy, (even while a young man), became the first elder over the whole church of the city of Ephesus. The Philippian Christians were familiar with Timothy because Timothy was with Paul when the area of Philippi was initially evangelized by Paul. We read the account in Acts,
"1 Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra and a student was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek, 2 and he [Timothy] was well spoken of by the brothers who were in Lystra and Iconium. 3 Paul wanted this man to go with him; and he took him and ... we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and on the day following to Neapolis; 12 and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia, a Roman colony; and we were staying in this city for some days." Acts 16:1-12
Then we continue to read on in Acts of how Paul began ministering in Philippi to the point that he and Silas were arrested and thrown in jail. This is the typical lifestyle of the apostolic band that worked with Paul. Luke, Silas, and Timothy were all there in Philippi at the beginning where they all were experiencing ministry and persecution for their Lord. It is the life of the missionary evangelist. It is the life of a bondservant of Christ, and this is what Paul said that he and Timothy were,
"Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Christ Jesus, ..."
The Greek word that Paul uses for bond-servants here is douloi. In the Roman world, someone would be a doulos (slave) because they were born one, or captured in battle, or because of debt, or they were purchased as chattel property, and so forth. When Paul uses the Greek term doulos in his writings in reference to being a a bondservant of Christ, what Paul is doing is making a theological statement, where he is referring to a slave of Christ that is a willing slave of Christ. Dr. Wallace explains this Greek word this way in His footnote on this verse,
"The most accurate translation is 'bondservant' (sometimes found in the ASV for doulos), in that it often indicates one who sells himself into slavery to another. But as this is archaic, few today understand its force." Dr. Wallace
The word's force is understood in its striking power in the fact that Paul is alluding to be being a willing slave as a metaphor that is reflective of the Israelite covenant custom in Exodus 21:5. According to the custom, a slave's time of bondage to a master would come to term, and the slave could finally be set free if that is what he desired. If at that time, the slave wanted to stay with his master out of love, then the slave could become a bond servant;
"5 But if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master, ... I will not go out as a free man,' 6 then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently." Exodus 21:5-6
The pierced ear was the sign that everyone would see that there was a special brand-mark of the master, which signifies that the man was brought to God by the master, pierced by the master, and had a master that the bond-servant willingly gave his life to serve out of love and joy. The slave-master relationship with Christ is such a strong understanding of Paul the apostle, that he makes a similar kind of an allusion to having the marks of a slave given by his Master in Galatians. The ancient Greek word used for when a master branded his slave was stigma. In Galatians 6, Paul uses the Greek word stigmata, when he says,
"From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus." Galatians 6:17
Paul's brand-marks were of Jesus his Master. This is why Paul said earlier in Galatians,
"If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ." Galatians 1:10
Paul calls himself by this same word all throughout his epistles. He even says that he willingly proclaims himseld to be a bond-servant of all the Christian in Corinth, saying,
"5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus' sake." 2 Corinthians 4:5
James Peter and Jude describe themselves as bond-servants in their epistles. Paul recognizes that this is the calling of other followers of Christ, when he says,
"24 The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged," 2 Timothy 2:24
This is what Paul and Timothy are. They are bond-servants of Christ Jesus. This is what you and I are. We are bond-servants of Christ Jesus, and just as salvation is a miracle of God, our slavery to God is just as a much a miracle, and in fact is intimately married to our salvation. You might be wondering what I mean. What I mean is that our great Lord earned us. He secured us for Himself in the great purchase of the cross. The value of Christ's death is infinite, and in the infinite value of His sacrifice, a finite number of people were actually purchased on the cross. Those people that God foreknew since before the foundation of the world, are always saved at the proper time, and in their salvation, they become His slaves. This is what happened to Saul on the road to Damascus. When he was miraculously saved in the middle of hating God with no desire to turn to God, he was captured for Christ, where Christ took hold of His own possession that He purchased on the cross, and then Christ Jesus drafted that possession into His kingdom as a slave to serve Him. The way this works for all of God's children, is that initially Christ foreknew all of us that He had pre-elected. It is as we sung in worship this morning:
I know You had me On your mind when You climbed up on that hill
For You saw me with eternal eyes while I was yet in sin
Redeemer, Savior, Friend (1)
He elected us when we had nothing of worth to offer Him to gain His favor. Jesus purchased us on the cross with His own infinite worth, and the purchase was real and effectual. All who are saved, and those who will be saved, were purchased back two thousand years ago where Christ knew us as His rescued property way before we were born. He has always known us. Our names have always been in His Lamb's book of Life since before the foundation of the world. John references that book in Revelation 13:8 and 17:8. In those Revelation passages John explains the sad fate of people who are not in that book. Paul refers to that particular book of life, which is Christ's special book, in this epistle in Philippians 4:3. So Christ paid His own price in His own worth, then at that time, and through the preaching of the gospel, and the miracle of regeneration, we necessarily come to Christ by grace through faith in His effectual call. In other words, at the right time, God enables all whom He purchased to run to Him willingly and in great desire, by replacing our previous willingness, and worthless desire to run away from him and follow the lies of the world, just as Saul did before being saved on the Damascus road. This is called the effectual call that Christ accomplishes for His elect, and it follows the effectual purchase of long ago that Christ accomplished for those very same elect.
Now, here is how we become bond-servants. Listen carefully; When God rescues us out of the domain of darkness, where we were slaves of sin, and He transfers us into the kingdom of His beloved Son through the atonement, propitiation, purchase, and effectual call by grace through faith, He captures us for His glory. In other words, He takes that which is not glorious, and gives it glory in Himself, and then He gives it to Himself. Captured by Christ, we are His slaves and we had no previous choice in the matter of our predestination. But, through His divine enablement, we who are His purchased slaves, are given the gift of faith. Yes, our faith, (just like our slavery) is a gift. We find it in Acts 16:14, where Lydia (she was a Philippian--one of the first converts there) had her heart opened by God to see with eyes of the gift of faith. We see it in Acts 18:27, where those who had believed, were only able to do so as a grace from God and not from their own selves. We find it here in Philippians 1:29 where faith is a grant gift from God. We see in 2 Peter 1:1 as a faith that we receive from God. We know it in Romans 12:3 as an allotment from God in measure. It is proclaimed well in Hebrews 12:2 where God authors, as the writer, architect, and completer Who perfects faith. And we are humbled into pure thanks of our Master when we see John 6:29, where our Lord Jesus proclaims that faith is the work of God. He says that this specific work that God works is that we believe in Him, and so what happens in this work of God, is that we are given our desire for the Lord that we previously rejected. But now, in our born-again slavery, (captured by Christ--freed from bondage to sin) we are His slaves. We are given the gift of faith, and so now the slaves hunger for their Master as willing bondservants. What happens is that we willingly choose to be His bond-servants in intense desire and love for our Lord, King, and eternal lover. In other words, we want to be slaves. More importantly, we want to be His slaves. We do not consider slavery to Him to be cosmic oppression. We consider slavery to Him to be the only possible state of existence to crave, want, live, and experience. We hunger for it. We thank Him for it. Yes, at times, some of us even die for it. We worship our Master; we praise Him, and we readily glorify Him. We willingly serve our Lord in great joy, and it is only because He willingly served us in great pain and anguish to bring it about for His own joy, through the purchase, atonement, and propitiation of the cross, and the actual miracle of the effectual call that is accomplished in the hearts of His elect. To the natural mind all of this sounds wrong. In other words the beauty of the good news, and the liberation from the bondage of sin by being slaves of the Great Master seems oppressive to the futility of the Gentile mind. Sinful minds pervert all that is good concerning God, and our beautiful relationship to Him. Part of the problem is a complete misunderstanding of this special relationship that God has created us to be part of. CS Lewis, the Christian apologist of the last century, expressed a logical way of thinking when it comes to viewing master-slave relationships in light of a fallen world. When one analyzes the state of humanity in respect to sin and error, it is easy to think as CS Lewis laments,
"Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters."--CS Lewis (2)
But, all is turned on its head when we realize that Christ is the only one fit to be our Master, isn't it? All is changed into rightness, when we realize that He alone makes us fit to be His slaves. The door to clarity is opened when we recognize that the whole process is accomplished and continues in pure love where He loves us, and He created us to love Him in rescuing us from damnation.
Now, let's get down to more areas of the practical side of what this means. What this means is that Christ is our Boss, folks. We love Him (our great Boss) as bond servants, and we serve Him as bond servants. This is why we call Christ our Lord.
"Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Christ Jesus, ... Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:1
Jesus Christ is the Lord. The Greek word literally means master, and in the New Testament context of Jesus Christ, it means that Jesus is the Master of His church. As His bondservants we are wholly devoted to Him. Paul says,
"35 This I say for your own benefit; not to put a restraint upon you, but to promote what is appropriate and to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord." 1 Corinthians 7:35
This is our primary job. We start with devotion to the Lord, and from this place, we do the work of service which manifests our devotion. Our work is not a restraint. Our work is our promotion of what is appropriate as bond-slaves in doing our part in securing undistracted devotion to our Lord. There are so many ways for us to do this. Telling people about Jesus is one way. Explaining the good news to lost people, and preaching to exhort people, and all the various things of discipleship are ways to serve the Lord. But, serving the Lord is not just evangelism, or preaching, or singing praises to God, or fellowshipping with the saints--(all those things are service to Him); But, serving the Lord is also in things like sanctification. Immorality is what we do when we are not being obedient. Immoral activity is activity of a disobedient bondservant. Talking about keeping ourselves separate from sexual immorality, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6,
"... you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
We bondservants have been bought with a very high price. Now our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. This means that we really, truly, do not belong to ourselves. Everything; our minds, our choices, and even our bodies belong to our Master. The point is that Christ is Savior, and to say that Christ is our Savior, is to also say that Christ is our Lord. This bears repeating:
To say that Christ is our Savior, is to also say that Christ is our Lord.
He is both as His state of being, so He is always both to us. And so we submit to Him in respect to His commandments as our Master. A faithful bondservant has as His ambition to love the Lord with all His heart, and to love His neighbor as Christ loves Him. These are His commandments, and as John says, they are not burdensome. Further, when we fail, our great Savior Boss is always there to pick us up in forgiveness. All this leads us to recognize that these particular bondservants of Christ, (Paul and Timothy) are sending this letter,
"To all the set apart ones in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the overseers and deacons" Philippians 1:1
In most translations, set apart ones is translated as saints. All Christians are saints. The word, and the phrase here, in the Greek (in the context of the New Testament) actually means the set apart ones in Christ. The Roman Catholic church sought to redefine saints as a special class of people within the church, but the Roman Catholic church has given the word, saint, a wrong definition. It is a definition that has led to an improper understanding of the term for many people. For example, the Roman Catholic church has redefined a saint as someone who, first of all, must be in the Roman Catholic organization. From there, to attain Roman Catholic sainthood, the person must have done two miracles or have been martyred, or both. But this is not what God has said. In other words, you don't find any of that in the Bible. A Saint is you and me and anyone who has been set apart by God in salvation--it's the rescue. The fact of the matter is that nobody does any work for being set apart. Being set apart is a miracle action of God. He sets us apart in Christ the New Covenant. Christ is the one who did all the work in setting apart His people. We don't do one miracle, or two, or become martyrs to be set apart by Christ. Christ does the miracle for us. Christ was the martyr for us who died for us on the cross. So, the Roman Catholics have gotten it all backwards. The point is that God sets all saved people apart from the curse of sin and death to live in Christ and to follow Him. This is why Paul says,
"... To all the set apart ones in Christ Jesus ..."
Our being set apart, by necessity, must be in Christ Jesus. What Paul says of himself in Galatians 2:20 is true of all of us. All of us who are saved have been crucified with Christ in His grueling work of the cross. Now it is no longer us who live. Now it is the crucified and resurrected Christ Who lives in us spiritually; and in this state, we are miracle works of God, separated for Him. This is one of Paul's favorite doctrines to proclaim, and he proclaims it all throughout Philippians. It is the great doctrinal truth of Christ in us, and also, us in Christ. Paul uses both terms in his writings. This truth is how we identify with the One who purchased us in our position in Him, where He is our all in all in our salvation. In other words, because Christ is set apart, we are set apart in Him. Everything points back to Him, and up to Him. In our regeneration, the goodness that is our life, is not our old life after Adam, but our goodness is Christ's goodness, because our goodness is our new life in Christ. But, I want us to recognize that Paul uses this positional kind of identification language throughout Philippians. In verse 8 Paul says that he longs for the Philippians with the affection of Christ Jesus. The literal Greek states, with the inward parts of Christ Jesus. Paul is expressing that it is not his own affection that brings the longing, but it is Christ's longing in Paul. In verse 20, Paul says that he hopes that Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in Paul's body. In 2:13, Paul says that it is God who is at work in Philippian Christians, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. In 3:9 Paul says that he wants to be found in Christ, not having a righteousness of Paul's own. It is righteousness in Christ through faith in Christ, verse 9. In verse 10 Paul wants to know the power of Christ's resurrection and the fellowship of Christ's sufferings, being conformed to Christ's death. In 4:13 Paul says that he can do all things through Christ who strengthens Paul. This is our great privilege in salvation where it is all about Christ, and very little about us. What I am saying is that our importance is found in Him who saved us. Our importance as bond-servants is found in being in our Master. Don't miss what I said:
Our importance as bond-servants is found in being in our Master.
He even did this when we were still sinful practicing enemies. Paul says that while we were yet sinners Christ saved us not on the basis of our deeds, but upon His own favor that He decided to bestow on us according to His own good pleasure. We are saved on the basis of Christ's good deed, and we are in Him Who to us is righteousness. It is an amazing relationship where we really can not boast. If we do boast, then we can only boast in Christ. And so here is the bottom line:
We are in Him, yet we are his bond-servants. He is in us, yet He is our Lord.
Finally, Paul addresses the letter in such a way that he says,
"... with the overseers and deacons."
The overseers and deacons are those who serve the body of Christ in an official role. The role of such men is not arbitrary. It is a God ordained office meant for the church, and it is based upon calling and gifting, of which there are qualifications that help point out who these people are. The first qualification, according to Scripture is to zealously desire the office in the fist place, then from there, certain things are looked at to determine if such men are identified through the qualifications. When we look at what Paul wrote to Timothy, and to Titus, in ordaining overseers, we see that elders must be above reproach; one woman men, which I take to mean that they can not be practicing polygamists. They must not be people who linger long over wine, meaning not drunkards; they must know how to manage their own households; They must have a peaceable character, and they must have a proper perspective on money, they must be prudent, orderly, holy, self controlled, hospitable; they must be lovers of good, and just; They should not be new Christians, and they must have a good reputation, and the must have an ability to teach, and they must desire to be overseers, and not become one under compulsion.
The word overseer is a word that describes what these men do. Overseers practice oversight over the body spiritually. The word is used four times in the New Testament of men who have oversight over local churches. Pastors, shepherds, and elders are all the same thing as overseers. Philippi had these same kinds of men who led and protected the church. Deacons served the church by attending to the needs of the saints. Unlike the overseers, deacons are not the official decision makers, counselors, principle preachers and teachers. A deacon is an official servant of the church.
By the way, I think that something good for us to recognize, is the fact that the Philippian church actually had overseers and deacons, plus the fact that Paul mentions them in his epistle. This fact is of great significance in annihilating an argument of higher critics of the truthfulness of the Bible. What I mean is that Bible critics start with false presuppositions to say that offices of ministry were developed later on in church history. It is their theory, and it is not true. They want to believe this based upon their own speculations, but it is a fictitious invention that is created for the sole purpose of arguing. Just like the theory that all life spontaneously sprung up from ooze, and slowly evolved to more complex forms over millions and millions of years is a fallacious theory, so is the Bible critic theory I am talking about. The critics want to say that the original church of the first generation before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD never had overseers, and so based upon this false theory, they say that 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus, where faked. Those epistles are among the last ones written. So the critics say that since 1 Timothy 3:2, and Titus 1:7 lay out the qualifications for overseers, then that is proof that those two epistles must be fabrications. But, the whole argument of straw rests upon the religious belief in the false theory that the offices of deacons and elders did not exist before 1 Timothy and Titus. Now, here in Philippians is the match that sends that whole specious foundation of straw burning up in a flash of fire and a puff of smoke. The reason is because the epistle of Philippians is universally recognized as written by Paul in his first Roman imprisonment. It was written between 60 and 63 AD. Further Philippians is virtually undisputed, by even the most hardened Bible critics, to be completely authentic. So, keeping those things in mind, we see that right here Paul mentions the overseers and the deacons that are there in the Philippian church. Presto, this particular attack on the Bible, and by extension, an attack against us and our Savior, is instantly evaporated.
Now, as we look at this greeting to the set apart ones, the overseers and the deacons, what we basically see is that what Paul is doing is showing that the letter had significance for everyone in Philippi. Paul wants to make sure that all the saints understand that everyone of us is a co-laborer with Paul and Timothy who work for our Lord Jesus Christ. Later, in 4:3, Paul mentions two women who have shared his struggle in the cause of the gospel. Paul also mentions a man named Clement who struggled with him in the cause of the gospel. Paul also mentions the rest of his fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. All of us set apart ones are fellow workers, sharing the struggle's that Christ's church encounters in the cause of the gospel. All of us are doing this in some way. We are all serving the Lord in advancing the kingdom. As His children, we are impacting the world around us. We may not be able to put a solid label on how we are impacting people at every corner of our lives, but we are. Think about this: One way that God is using you that gets way too diminished by people who are looking for something else, is that God has us building one another up in simple Christian fellowship. Over the following weeks, we are going to learn so much more from this great epistle concerning how to accomplish those very things in our own Christian walk.
In the meantime, we need to continue considering these people to whom Paul is writing. Paul says that he is sending this epistle to the city of Philippi. Macedonia, (which is now Greece) is where Philippi was located. Philippi is where the first church among the Gentile territory was established by Paul. The Christians in Philip were mostly Gentiles but there were some Israelite Christians there too. Obviously, by the time of the writing of this letter, there were already overseers and deacons in the church. Just like in most of the churches in our community, there was a wide spectrum of people from different races, cultures and social classes. Lydia, was one of the first converts there. She was an upper-class kind of a woman. She was a merchant. There was the Roman jailer--Remember the Roman jailer mentioned in Acts that got saved? He was a Philippian who was somewhere in the middle-class. 2 Corinthians 8:1-2 indicates that a majority of the church were poor people, so they were more than likely of a lower financial class. But we also know that even though this was their financial state, overall they were very liberal in giving to the ministry. As in most all the early churches, there were probably a good number of slaves that were in the church. Christ is the great equalizer though, and so they all enjoyed true Christian familiness and community in the bond of the Spirit. They all shared something else. According to 1:28-30, we know that all the Philippian Christians were being persecuted for their faith. Persecution is something that most of the Christians experienced to a great degree in that generation. They were persecuted by the Jews. They were persecuted by the Gentiles. They were persecuted by prior friends and family.
This leads us to recognize something else that affected the church at Philippi. It was a problem in all the churches of that time. Essentially unsaved Israelites were becoming a problem in the church as is mentioned in 3:1-6. This not only was a typical problem infecting essentially all the churches that Paul started and nurtured, but it was a problem that Paul was constantly battling. Huge volumes of our theology come directly from Paul's letters where he address the problems brought into the church by judaizers.
Another thing we should know about Philippi is that Paul was persecuted by both Jews and Gentiles every time he visited there. In 1 Thessalonians 2:2, Paul alludes to being treated badly by the general population of Philippi. On one particular journey, Paul decided to pass by Philippi and move on to the city of Thessalonica because of the persecution. Nevertheless, regardless of all the persecution that the Philippian church experienced, it grew and flourished by God's sovereign hand. The Philippian Christians were strong. One particular thing the whole church was known for, was being very giving. They were one of the few churches that continuously and consistently supported Paul in his ministry. But, God wants us to realize that the Philippians were like any group of Christians. They were like you and me. What I mean, is that they were far from perfect. Sure they had their areas of pronounced fame, and virtue, like in giving, but then again they had some issues. All churches have issues. We here in Bridgeway have our own issues at times. In 3:18-19 we see that a carnal tendency of earthly mindedness was starting to creep into the Philippian church. There was carnality, but yet there was also stability. Unlike other letters Paul wrote to the various churches, very little is mentioned in this one about doctrinal error. There didn't seem like a lot of bad theology to correct, which indicates that the Philippians had already had a very strong discipling foundation laid. The overseers there were schooled very thoroughly in the apostle's teaching. So generally the Philippians were pretty stable in the doctrinal foundations that had been laid. We need to learn from this fact because what I have said thousands of times is so true:
Your doctrine will drive your actions.
This is why being discipled in the word is so very vital to our stability.
Finally Paul says,
"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:2
This is a common introduction to Paul's letters, but as we finish this morning, let's take a look at the beautiful things that God is telling us in it. One thing this indicates for you and me is that we can speak blessings to people. Further, we can expect it to be more than a trite passing cliche'. When Paul says something like this, or when you say something like this to another person, what we are doing is a kind of prayer. Think about this. Because when we say something like
Grace to you,
or
Peace to you from God,
what we are doing is invoking God to grant our request. This is what it means to speak a blessing upon someone. Certainly God can say no if He wants to do so. It's just like any prayer. God can answer yes, or no, or maybe, or in any way He has determined. The point is that what Paul is doing here with the Philippians has a strong principle behind it. The principle is that you and I can do this, and we should be doing this. We should be speaking blessings to one another. James says that out of the same mouth should not come both blessings and cursings. One of the best ways, then, to halt cursing, is simply to replace it with blessing. In other words, if you don't have anything edifying to say about a brother or sister in Christ, which is anything that is a cursing kind of foul slander, then just don't say anything. But, we don't need to be quiet. As God's children, in love, we can say something. Our task is that we need to be making blessings into one of the staples of what we should be speaking on a consistent, continuous basis. When we do this, then we are guaranteed to be doing something that is well pleasing to the Lord. God is our Father. He has given us birth through His only begotten Son Jesus Christ. We pray to Him for favor, and peace. We bless others with favor and peace. That's how it works.
Saints, I urge all of us to be recognizing that we have been captured by Christ. Be remembering your Christian life as it is found in the introduction to Philippians. Like Saul of Tarsus, you and I were all lost in our sins. We must never think we were in neutral. We were all opposed to Christ. It is just a matter of how our lostness was made manifest. Jesus cried out on the cross for His Father to forgive the lost sheep of the house of Israel who did not know what they were doing. Later Stephen cried out, "Lord, Don't hold this sin against them," concerning the lost sheep who were stoning him. In our salvation, all our sins were washed away by His blood. Now, the resurrected Christ Who is our great Master intercedes for you and me perpetually. He is our Perfect Master. He always embraces us when we (his frail servants) fail. In His enduring love, He teaches us to be successful. And no matter what, He is always there as our living success. You and I should continuously take comfort in knowing that our Lord always says that He does not hold our sin against us. We are saints. We are set apart by Him for Him. We must always be mindful that we are as Paul said to the Corinthians. We have been
"... set apart in Christ Jesus, set apart ones by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:" 1 Corinthians 1:2
So, knowing this, let us glorify God in our bodies. Let's serve our Lord in the truth. We have been captured by Christ. Now we are willing bond servants. When people see us at work, they should not only see us working for the boss that is there, or working merely to make a buck. They should be seeing us as Christ's bond-servants who are working for Him while working at our jobs. We are His bond servants, and He is our Lord in our families and personal relationships. This is what it means to be Captured By Christ where we see our life in the Introduction of Philippians.
(1) "Reedemer, Savior, Friend" Darrell Evans, Chris Springer c 1999 Integrity's Hosanna! Music / Integrity's Praise!
(2) C.S. Lewis in "Equality" from Present Concerns, quoted in Christianity Today, February 3, 1989, p. 31
