01 Introduction to Philippians (Philippians 1:1-8)

Speaker: Thank you for downloading the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta. This is the first book in our series on the book of Philippians. You can follow along with lecture notes and find links to everything mentioned in the talk by going to our website, and you'll find that at wednesdayintheword.com slash Philippians 1. Thanks so much for joining us. When my daughter was in middle school, she had a friend whose parents purposely raised her without any religious instruction because they wanted their daughter to make up her own mind and reach her own conclusions. Like many baby boomer parents, they considered being a seeker of virtue, so they considered it a mark of academic achievement to be so open-minded that you considered everything, tolerated every viewpoint, and are open to anything. Well, anything except Christianity. When my daughter began explaining her faith to this girl, and it began to make sense to her, these tolerant, open-minded parents forbid the two girls to have any future contact with each other. It was heartbreaking for both of them. The message was clearly you need to be open minded and choose your own spiritual path as long as you don't choose biblical Christianity. Well Paul's message in Philippians is the exact opposite of that. I would sum up the message of this book as choose life, or as John MacArthur put it, pursue Christlieness. Moses made this same point in Deuteronomy thirty verses nineteen through twenty. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice, and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days. Paul's message in Philippians is essentially the same as Moses in Deuteronomy thirty. Choose life, and you do that by loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice, and holding fast to him. We don't want to be the kind of people who are always learning but never come to a heartfelt knowledge of the truth. History, theology, exegesis, all of that are important, but they're worthless unless you choose life. The goal of Bible study is not to further our academic understanding, it's not to earn spiritual brownie points with God, it's not to make us look like super spiritual Christians. Our goal is to choose life by obeying God's voice and holding fast to him. And Paul's primary task in this letter is to explain that choice and encourage his readers to choose life. We're going to start with the historical setting for this letter and then look at the first eight verses. The author of the letter is the Apostle Paul. There's not much debate about that. I assume you know the basics of who Paul was. He was a Jew and a Pharisee. He was a persecutor of the Christian church until he met the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus. After his conversion, he spent some time in Arabia learning and then went on to become one of the world's greatest evangelists. Paul made three major missionary journeys, which are recorded in the book of Acts. It was on his second journey that he first visited Philippi. So we're going to start by looking at Acts 16. You might want to consult a map. I have several links to maps on our websites, which you can find at wednesdayintheword.com slash Philippians resources. I'll be reading the names of several cities, so it's helpful to locate them on a map. It gives you a sense of the journey that Paul took and where he was in the various sections. So I'm going to start by looking at Acts 16. We're going to look at start in verse 8. So passing by Mycia, they went down to Troas, and a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us. And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. So setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace and the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city in the district of Macedonia, and a Roman colony. We remained in this city some days. So that was Acts sixteen verses eight through twelve, and what we find is that Paul was traveling with Silas, and they were going through Asia Minor. They meet Timothy on that journey on the way, and he joins them for the rest of the trip. They traveled through Galatia, stop at Troas, and it's there that the Lord told Paul not to preach in Asia Minor. So they passed on to the west coast of Asia Minor, and he has this vision urging him to come to Macedonia. Now there's an interesting pronoun shift in these verses. I don't know if you notice, it switches from they to we. So in 1608 it says they went down to Troas, and then 1610 we sought to go to Macedonia. Luke is the author of Acts, and scholars take this pronoun shift to mean that they meet Luke in Troas, and Luke goes with them to Macedonia. So first Paul and Silas and Timothy are traveling alone, then they meet up with Luke and Luke goes with them. Tradition has it that Luke stayed with Paul to the end of his days. They were separated at times, as we'll see, but according to church history and tradition, Luke was Paul's physician and took care of him to the end of his life. So where did they go? They went to what we call Greece. Today what we call Greece takes up the entire western and northern shore of the Aegean Sea, but in Paul's time the northern part of that was called Macedonia, and the southern part was Acacia, and today those are one country which is Greece. Acts 1612 tells us that Philippi was a Roman colony, so we ought to ask, what does it mean to be a Roman colony? At least for the city of Philippi, being a Roman colony meant that it was like a little Rome. Lots of Roman soldiers lived there and had retired there. It had the highest set of privileges a city under Rome can have, meaning it had autonomy from the provincial government, it was exempt from paying some taxes, it operated fully under Roman law, and all its citizens had Roman citizenship. Latin was their official language, and they adopted Roman customs and culture and they modeled their city government after that of Rome. So let's go on with the story. Let's pick up again in Acts 16, verse 13. And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyrotira, a seller of purple goods who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul, and after she was baptized and her household as well, she urged us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay, and she prevailed upon us. So Lydia is Paul's first convert. She's from a town called Thyrotira, which was known for its production of highly sought after valuable purple cloth, which is Lydia's occupation. Most likely she didn't make the cloth herself, but she was part of a guild that produced the cloth, and her job was to sell that cloth in Philippi. So the cloth was most likely made in Thyrotira, and then she was a seller who sold it in Philippi. She's described as a worshiper of God in verse 14, and yet she does not yet know the Lord. She is most likely what was elsewhere called a God fearer. These were Gentiles who didn't convert to Judaism, but they were very sympathetic to the faith. They would listen at the synagogues and were very interested in all things about Yahweh, but they didn't actually become Jews. So one thing we can deduce from this picture is that there are very few Jews in this Roman city of Philippi. Typically when Paul entered a new city, he would go into the synagogue on the Sabbath and proclaim the gospel there. Since they don't go to a synagogue, we presume there was none. The law at the time required a city to have at least ten Jewish men who were heads of household in order to form a synagogue. So presumably there weren't even ten devout Jewish families in Philippi. Instead, there's a place by the river where some women are having a prayer meeting. And he goes there, preaches to them, and Lydia is among the first converts. So going on with the story, picking up in Acts 16, verses 16 through 18. As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling. She followed Paul and us, crying out, These men are servants of the most high God who proclaim to you the way of salvation. And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the Spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her, and it came out that very hour. Let me pause there to comment on why Paul got annoyed. I don't want to get too deep into Acts 16 itself because our purpose today is really to look at the background for Philippians. But Luke says, Paul, having become annoyed, cast out this demon. So what's going on there? Especially as we'll see later in chapter one of Philippians, Paul talks about those preaching the gospel of Jesus out of selfish gain. And he says it doesn't really matter that they're preaching for selfish motives, because the gospel is still being preached. So why here in Acts would he be bothered by a girl proclaiming the truth? These men are servants of the Most High God, and they are proclaiming the way of salvation, so you would think that would be a good thing. Remember what's missing from our text is tone of voice. You've probably all been in situations where someone made a true statement, but they made it with a mocking, sneering tone of voice such that it made the statement seem ridiculous. Something like, oh, look at her. She's a Christian. She believes that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. Well that's a true statement, but you can say it in such a way as to imply, isn't that the stupidest thing you've ever heard? Which is what I tried to do with my tone of voice. You're trying to imply with your the way you say it, can you believe she would be so idiotic as to believe that? I suspect it's quite likely that something like that was going on here, and that the slave girl was undermining and hindering Paul's ministry by what she was doing, and so he finally put an end to it. Well that creates problems for Paul. Look in Acts sixteen, verse nineteen. But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, These men are Jews, and they're disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice. The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods, and when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Paul casts the demon out of the slave girl, and her masters are incensed. Paul and Silas are arrested, and notice the charge that's brought against them in Acts 16, 20 and 21. They're charged with advocating customs that are not lawful for Romans. If you've read Acts, you're probably more familiar with Paul getting arrested because the Jews are complaining that he's going against their Jewish customs by preaching Christ. But here in this very Roman city of Philippi, the citizens are complaining that he's proclaiming Jewish customs that are not Roman. That tells us something about the nature of life in the city and the kind of opposition the church Paul will leave behind is going to face. So we can surmise that insofar as their new faith conflicts with the Roman way of doing things, they're going to face persecution, harassment, and opposition. So finishing the story, looking at Acts 16, 24 through 40, I'm going to summarize it just for time's sake, but I encourage you to read it for yourself. In that section, we learn that Paul and Silas are praying in jail when an earthquake shakes the prison and breaks their bonds. The jailer rushes in and is about to kill himself, thinking that they have escaped, but he learns that they remained inside, even though the doors were open and their chains were off, and he falls before them and asks, What must he do to be saved? He comes to faith, he believes, he takes Paul and Silas to his home and treats their wounds, and the next day the magistrate orders Paul to be quietly and secretly released. But Paul insists on a hearing, as is his right as a Roman citizen, and the magistrates fearing retribution for treating a Roman citizen so badly come apologize to Paul and ask him to leave the city. So when Paul leaves Philippi, he leaves behind a small church comprised of at least Lydia and her household, and the jailer and his household and probably others, but we don't know how many. And we can see what kind of city it is. As Jews, they were brutally beaten and imprisoned for advocating things that were not Roman. They were never asked for their side of the story, they weren't asked who they were, and the magistrates could have gotten in serious trouble for treating a Roman citizen this way. So they're quite ready to make amends once they find out that Paul's a Roman citizen. We can also also deduce that not only did this group of Gentile believers listen to Paul preach by the river, but they embraced the faith and they watched as he was arrested and beaten. They most likely heard about his miraculous release from prison, and now he leaves, and they are left to face life in a town that viciously opposes anything non-Roman. Their fellow citizens are not going to take kindly to this Paul fellow they're listening to. Well, they didn't take kindly to him, and they're not going to appreciate anything this new young church does that might turn people away from the way of Rome and the worship of Roman gods. So as Gentiles, they're not going to be welcomed by any Jews that happen to be in Philippi, and as Christians, they aren't going to be welcomed by Roman citizens. If they are Roman citizens, that's going to offer them some protection and the same kind of protection it offered Paul, but it's probably not going to save them from harassment or persecution. So we can see some reasons why Paul might write to them and encourage them not to be alarmed by those who are opposing them and to rejoice in whatever ways God has granted them to suffer for the sake of Christ, because their situation is quite likely to be difficult. We can also speculate about Luke's part in all this. We have another pronoun shift. Notice in 1640 it says they departed, and we don't find the pronoun we again until Acts 1620. On Paul's third missionary journey he comes back to Philippi, and when he departs from there it says we sailed from Philippi, and then the pronoun stays we for a while in Acts. So scholars think that Luke stayed behind and taught the church in Philippi. When Paul visits again on his third journey, Luke leaves Philippi with him. We know that Timothy visited Philippi at least once and probably more than that, and at the end of his third missionary journey, Paul's arrested in Jerusalem. He appeals to Caesar and he's ultimately taking to Rome, waiting for the outcome of his case. It's probably during this imprisonment in Rome that Paul is writing this letter. Scholars debate which imprisonment it was, but I think it's most likely this first imprisonment, which would put the letter being written around 60 to 62 AD. So Paul visited Philippi first during his second missionary journey. He came back during his third missionary journey, and it's after that journey he's arrested. He's in Rome and he's writing this letter. This Roman imprisonment is the traditional view. There are lots of arguments for dating this to one of his other imprisonments, but I don't find them persuasive. If you're interested in that debate over the dating of this letter, you can find that in just about any commentary. Paul's belief that his case is about to be decided points to I think it being near the close of his imprisonment, so probably closer to 61 or 62. We can also note as far as background that several times in Paul's letters he mentions the financial generosity of churches in Macedonia, and that would include Philippi. So in Romans 15.26, he mentions a gift from Macedonia for the poor in Jerusalem. In 2 Corinthians 11.9, he notes that he didn't need financial support from the Corinthians because churches from Macedonia had supported him. And then here in our letter in Philippians 4.15, he speaks specifically of the generosity of the church at Philippi. And as we'll go through this letter, we can see that the Philippians have, of their own accord, sent a generous financial gift to Paul. That's going to come up in the letter. And in part, he is writing to thank them for their generosity. So let's turn to the letter itself. We're going to try to get through the first eight verses today to kind of get our feet wet and get us into the themes of the letter. Look at the first two verses. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in who are at Philippi, with the overseers and the deacons, grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's not surprising that Timothy would be named in the greeting of this letter. He'd been with Paul at the founding of the church, and he had visited them in person on at least one other occasion. But even though his name is in the greeting, his this letter is written by Paul. The thoughts and the content belong to Paul, and notice when we get to verse 3, the very first word is I, not we, and that I is clearly Paul. When Paul is writing to people or churches he's having trouble with, he often starts his letters by highlighting his authority as apostle. You can see that, for instance, in 1 Corinthians, Galatians, and Colossians, and all of those he cites his apostleship. But notice here in Philippians there's no mention of any authority. He just describes himself as a bond servant of Christ Jesus, a slave who is under obligation to serve his master, which suggests that he was on good terms with the church at Philippi. He didn't need to remind them of his authority, or he knows they are going to listen to him. It's unusual for Paul to mention overseers and deacons in his greetings, so scholars like to speculate on that. Perhaps he wants the leadership to pay careful attention to the content of this letter, but I think it's more likely that these people are friends of his. They would have come from the early converts of the church. They would be people he would know well, and this is a way he can greet them without naming a lot of names. Okay, let's look at the next three verses. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you, all making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Well, right off the bat there's an interpretive question. Verse three, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, is literally, I thank my God in all the remembrance of you. And that can go two ways depending on how you understand the possessive. So just like if I say the phrase the love of God, depending on the context, I could mean either my love for God, or I could mean God's love for me. Love of God that possessive could swing either way. In the same way, remembrance of you could be my remembrance of you, or your remembrance of me, depending on the context. So Paul could be saying, I thank God every time I remember you, or I thank God because of all the ways you have remembered me. Well, until recently, I always thought it was the farmer, I thank God every time I remember you. And I didn't even consider any other options. But this time through, as I've studied Philippians, I've shifted to the second view. I think Paul is saying, I thank God because of all your remembrance of me. It's not a big interpretive deal, but part of my goal in this series is to be more upfront about Bible study methods and conclusions. So part of my goal in this series is not just to tell you, here's what I think the passage means and apply it, but I want to show you why I think it means that, how I reach that, and what kinds of questions I ask to get to those conclusions, and this is my first chance. Grammatically the phrase can be translated either way, but I lean toward the second because this is a letter written to thank, at least in part, it's written to thank the Philippians for their generous financial gift. And it would make sense for him to start out by saying, thank you for all the ways you have remembered me. Chapter 4 deals with Paul's gratitude for the fact that the Philippians have sent Epaphroditus to him with a large gift of money. Now Paul is sending this letter back to Philippi with Epaphroditus, and it just makes sense that he would thank them for their generosity right off the bat. We have the same kind of interpretive question in verse 5 when he talks about because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. What is their partnership in the gospel? Is he thankful because they share the same faith, they believe the same truth, they believe the same things about Jesus Christ? Well, that is certainly true, but there is another option. He could be thankful for their partnership in the proclamation of the gospel, that is, all the things they have done to encourage and support his ministry, which would include their recent financial gift. So he could be saying, I'm thankful that we are both believers and we're fellow believers, or he could be saying, I'm thankful for the ways you have supported my ministry, including this gift. So how do we decide? Well, we have clues in the context to help us, and one of the clues is the added phrase, from the first day until now. Well, certainly they shared fellowship with Paul from the day they came to faith until now. But can we also say that they supported Paul financially from the start of the relationship? And as a matter of fact, that is also true. We know that the Philippians church sent Paul financial support almost immediately, and that that is unique among the churches he served. Look at Philippians 4, 15 and 16. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only. Even in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs once and again. So he mentions in this very letter the fact that as soon as he left them, before he'd even gone any farther than Thessalonica, they sent, had sent him financial help. So since part of his purpose is to write, to thank them for their generosity, it just makes sense to me that he would be writing right up front saying, Thank you for all the ways you've you've supported my ministry, thank you for the ways you've shared with me. And these opening verses then give us this picture of this warm relationship between Paul and the Philippians. The Philippians have so embraced the gospel that they have begun they begin supporting Paul financially almost immediately, and they have continued that support over the years of their own free will. And Paul is grateful for the way the gospel has taken root in their lives, such that they want to share in his ministry. He's encouraged and grateful for their financial support. And then he says, And I am sure of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. I want to look more at verse six in the end. So let's look at verse seven, and again we have the same kind of interpretive question. What does he mean by partakers with me of grace? And again we have the same basic two options. He could be speaking of the fact that they're fellow believers, that they have realized their sinfulness, they have come to a knowledge of saving faith, and so, like Paul, they are partakers of the grace of God because they are all fellow believers. And so he could be saying, You have partaken of grace just as I have come, I have by coming to faith. Or he could be referring to his ministry. He could be saying, You've been partners with me in this ministry of grace, referring to the fact that they've supported him from the beginning, that they've encouraged him, they believe in his ministry, they believe in his ministry and not that they want to support him financially, and so they have been partakers with him in this ministry of grace. Now, either way makes a lot of sense, and again, what clues do we have to help us decide? Well, we have this interesting phrase both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. So we want to ask how could they have been involved in his imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel? Well, we know that they have generously supported his needs, we know they've been his financial partners and helping him through a difficult time, and while he's in prison, he can't go out and earn a living, so their financial generosity would help him through that difficult time, and I think it's in that sense that they partner in his imprisonment. But perhaps the more interesting question is why? Why have they so generously supported Paul? And what does that financial support reveal about them? Well, I think their gift is a response of faith, and what Paul is rejoicing over here, and what he's grateful and thankful for is not so much the money that they've given him, but rather that the gospel and the proclamation of the gospel is so important to them that they want to support it. As far as we can tell, all their generosity was of their own free will, their own initiative. We have no record of Paul asking them for money, and he says in other letters and other places that it was his practice not to ask for support when he came to a new town, so we can reasonably assume that he didn't ask for support in Philippi and that the Philippians have given to him out of their own generosity without being asked. And for that Paul is grateful, not so much for the money itself, but for the fact that they wanted to support him, that they viewed the gospel as so important they wanted to share in its proclamation by supporting him financially. Now notice Paul's tone. He's not thankful that he got all this money. He uses all this language about partakers of grace and partnership of the gospel. He's thanking God that the Philippians wanted to give because they have so embraced and committed themselves to the gospel. And we're going to talk more about that in a second. But you'll notice if you're using the study guide that I frequently ask you to write a paraphrase to clarify your understanding. So I thought I'd give you my paraphrase for an example, and I'll put a link to this in the lecture notes, which you can find at wednesdayintheword.com slash Philippians one. So here's my paraphrase. I thank my God because of all the ways you have remembered me, including this financial gift. My prayers for you are filled with joy because of the way you have partnered with me in spreading the gospel from the day we met until now. My joy is rooted in this. God began a work in you, he gave you a faith that led you to value and support the ministry of the gospel, and I am confident that he will continue to mature and perfect your faith such that you will persevere until the day Christ returns. It is only right that I have these joyful feelings for you because you have been my partners in this ministry of grace while I have been imprisoned and struggling to defend and confirm the good news. So to summarize, Paul is grateful to God because God has given the Philippians such a strong and enduring faith. Their spiritual health means a lot to him. Think about his life. He has suffered for taking this message around the world or the Mediterranean world. And then he suffers again as he watches the churches that he's founded get swept up in heresy or entangled in controversy or bewitched by false teachers. So he spent a large chunk of his life traveling all over, proclaiming the gospel, encouraging people to believe it. He's nearing the end of his life, and he's endured a whole lot of hardship, dealt with a whole lot of problem churches, and here finally is a church that gets it. Here's a church that's doing well, a church who has chosen to embrace the gospel and chosen freely to partner with him in the proclamation of the gospel, and they've responded to the faith with such enthusiasm and gratitude that they are sending him money. Paul understood that there's a road that leads to life and there's a road that leads to death, and he rejoiced every time he saw God taking others down that road of life, and here in Philippians he sees them choosing life. So to wrap this up, what can we learn from the opening? I want to focus on three things. First, Paul's view of prayer, second, Paul's view of money, and third, his view of the Christian life. What and what we can learn about those from this opening. So notice what this opening reveals about Paul's prayers. He claims, Do you want to know what's important to me? Look at what I'm praying about. In many of Paul's letters, he starts by telling the recipients how much he cares for them, and the evidence he gives of his concern is that he is praying for them. He appeals to his prayers as evidence of what's really on his heart and what really matters to him. And I think that shows us that for Paul, prayer is an expression to God of what we care about most. If prayer were merely a religious obligation, a discipline to check off your morning list or a tool to get something you need from God, then Paul's prayers wouldn't prove anything. They wouldn't demonstrate anything about his concern for them. But he's claiming I can demonstrate how much I appreciate you by how joyfully I thank God for you in my prayers. Well that fits with my understanding of many other passages about prayer. The Bible does not seem to be concerned with having us go through the motion of a prayer routine. The Bible is concerned with what we're praying about and what's on our hearts because that's what's reflected in our prayers. Anyone who believes in God is going to pray sooner or later, and I don't see the biblical authors concerned with how much we pray or whether we set up disciplines and routines, but they do seem to greatly concern with what we're praying about because what we pray about says or reveals what we think is important, how we think about God, how we think about the God we're praying to, what we value and what we think is important, all of that comes out in what we pray about. And Paul is telling the Philippians, one of the things I really care about is the fact that you are persevering in the faith. And whenever I see evidence that your faith is strong and enduring, I joyfully thank God in prayer. So I think we should learn to understand prayer more as an expression of our inner thoughts, our inner concerns, and our relationship with God and what we really value, and learn to think of it less as a routine or a discipline or just something I have to go through each day to get it marked off my list. So next let's look at what we can learn about money. Part of Paul's purpose in writing this letter is to thank the Philippians for their financial gift. It would be very easy to get cynical here about Paul and say, oh yeah, yeah, right, Paul. They sent you this big, large sum of money and you're thankful for their quote, faith, right. Oh yeah, I'm sure that's what you really care about. Well, I think that would be unfair to Paul. I think Paul is describing his attitude fairly and accurately. As I just argued that what we pray about reflects what we value and what we think is important, I would also argue that where, how, and on what we spend our money reflects what we value and what we think is important. And when the Philippians sent money to Paul, it's because they valued the gospel ministry. They cared about his ministry. He came to their town, he taught them the gospel. While he was with them, he was brutally beaten and put in jail. Then God supernaturally rescued him, and you can just picture this bruised and battered Paul encouraging them and then limping out of town. So having gone through that experience with him, they trust him, they believe him, they send him money almost immediately, and their gift reflects their hearts and their priorities. We're going to look more at that issue in chapter four, but I just want to introduce that theme for now and realize that what we do with our money reflects what we consider to be important. So just as Paul says, my prayers are evidence of how much I care about you because I'm praying about what's important to me, he can say, I'm cheered by how much you've supported the gospel financially, because the way you spend your money it reveals what you think is important, and I'm grateful that you think my ministry is important. So finally, I want to talk a little bit more about 1 6 and what that reveals about Paul's view of the Christian life. 1 6 says, I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. So the Philippians recognize the work of God in Paul. They see Paul proclaiming the gospel and suffering for it, and they freely, without being asked, support him in that work. And likewise, Paul recognizes the work of God in the Philippians. He sees the reality of their faith as demonst demonstrated by their perseverance in the faith under suffering and their support of his ministry, and his response is joyful gratitude for what God has done. Not, oh hey, you guys are so great, what great guys you Philippians are, but what a great work God is doing in you. And I love that picture of the Christian life as a journey which we will successfully complete. Paul clearly believes here that God sets our feet on that journey and God makes sure we finish it. So he begins it and he finishes it. And we could ask the question, why is Paul so confident for the Philippians in particular? Is he just confident that God will perfect every true believer? Well, that's certainly true. Or has he seen something in the Philippians in particular that has encouraged him and sparked this outburst of confidence? Well, it's true that once God gives you saving faith, he will ensure that you make it to the finish lines. I do think that's true. There are a lot of passages that teach this. But I think in this particular context, Paul seems to be saying something more personal. That yes, that's theologically true, but he's saying something about his relationship with the Philippians. He rejoices because he has confidence that he has seen God at work in their lives. He's seen evidence of faith in them, he's seen that they are on the right path and the work has begun, and he is confidently expecting God to complete it. And I think that's how we ought to learn to see ourselves and each other. When our spouse or our friends or our coworkers or whoever sins against us, maybe even again and again, we should be humbly willing to forgive because we ought to recognize God is not finished with them. Likewise, when I see sin in myself, maybe even the same sin I struggled with last week and now I'm struggling with it again, or when my patience runs out and I yell at the kids, or when I'm too selfish or cranky to encourage a friend, there's a sense in which I should not be surprised because God's job is not done. God has begun a work in us and He is not yet finished. So, yes, we should still grieve over sin, we should repent of that sin, we should seek to turn from it and long for the day when God changes us. But we should not expect our faith to be fully formed and complete now, because God's still at work. We can see signs that that work is progressing, we can see signs that we're getting stronger or that we're making progress, but we ought to be encouraged because God will see us through to the end, we will make progress, and we will get there. Let's pray. Father, thank you that you are a God who began a good work in us and that you will bring it to completion. And we just pray that you would teach us to have this kind of joy in the faith of others that we see progressing, and joy in our as we see faith progressing in ourselves, and that you would make us more people like Paul, who would be confident in your actions, confident in your word, and eager to wave and watch your own.