Gracepointe Church (Dover, OH)
Gracepointe Church (Dover, OH)
Philippians Series | Part 1 |Randy Garcete
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Welcome And Scripture Reading
SPEAKER_00I um love coming here, sitting amongst you all with a full house, uh a lot of distracting noises. It's the sound of a of a of a group of people that are alive and well, and that there's um it's just it just feels good to be here. So in some ways almost like a sort of a chaotic family reunion. Um, but I've I've enjoyed our time together so far. Melvin, thank you for leading us through uh the Sermon on the Mount. There's something really good about just sitting in and listening to a long passage of of scripture like that. Uh um, so uh so far I've I've enjoyed being here. I invite you all to turn your Bibles to uh the book of Philippians, Philippians chapter one. Over the past year, I uh spent that was about a year and a half that I spent preaching through the book of Exodus, and we finally made our way out of Exodus, and now I've decided I'd like to preach through uh through the book of Philippians. Uh this is a short book, and today I'm going to uh spend a significant portion um sort of laying out the the the back uh the background, the uh some of the context, and the first 11 verses of the letter that Paul wrote to the church at Philippi. I invite your prayers this morning. I've I've felt a little scattered this this weekend, and I've uh sort of been getting over a head cold. And um, so I told my wife this morning, like, I can I'll get the plane off the ground and hopefully land it, but there may be some turbulence uh in between there. So, but this is about God's word, and it's about what he can do in and through his spirit, and so we invite him, and I'm I might just pray again if that's okay with you all. Invite his spirit to do the work that only he can do in our lives. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your grace and your goodness that is new every day, your mercies that are new every day. Lord, I invite your spirit to to um come in our midst and uh just work in us, work through us, God. We open up your word right now with uh reverence and fear and uh uh a desire to know what you have for us. So please work in your people in Jesus' name. Amen. All
Why Philippians And Today’s Plan
SPEAKER_00right. So, the letter to the Philippian church. I want to ask a couple questions. One, what is what do we know, what can we know about the church at Philippi? Um, why did Paul write this letter? And what are uh some of the major themes that run through this letter? And then we're gonna sort of focus in on the first 11 verses, Paul's introduction uh and initial statements uh to this church. The church at Philippi, uh, Isaac, I'm gonna ask you to pull up the that that map if you don't mind. So Philippi was uh a city in ancient Greece or in Greece during Paul's time that was uh named after Philip II, who happened to be uh Alexander the Great's father. Um
Philippi As A Mini Rome
SPEAKER_00he settled this this city back in 356 BC. And um fast if you fast forward up to uh 42 BC, this was the the place where a f uh one of the major battles in the Roman Civil Wars were fought. Um I don't have a pointer, but if you look up at the top, you see here, the top uh left, just to the left of uh the word Thrace, way at the top there is, yeah, right there, Isaac, thank you, is the uh city of Philippi. This wasn't just uh another Greek city, it was a Roman colony that was given this honor after this the Roman Civil Wars. On a plain right outside of the city in 42 BC, there was a major battle that was fought between Mark and with Mark Antony and um Octavian, who who later became Emperor Augustus, was it the uh Caesar Augustus during the time of Christ's birth? They fought a battle against the assassins of Julius Caesar, uh Brutus and Cassius. They defeated Brutus and Cassius, and later, when Octavian or uh the the uh Emperor Augustus, Caesar Augustus became emperor, he honored the city of Philippi by by um by giving it the status of a Roman colony. This was a city in um sort of on the outskirts of the Roman Empire. And he honored it by giving them this status, which meant they didn't have to pay taxes anymore. They uh they were settled by by uh uh army army veterans, um soldiers and and officers that were army veterans of the Civil War, moved into Philippi and settled down into there. This was a very patriotic, very proud uh mini Rome, if you will. It was modeled after the city of Rome. Uh the way it's the governing structures were were set up, the um their their uh the worship of the cult of the emperor, there was uh a high focus placed on honoring the emperor, honoring the Caesars. So if you think of the the uh the the the of Rome, the might of Rome, the city of Rome, Philippi was a mini-version of that, uh sort of a copy and paste, almost like a little mini-version of Rome. And I'd like to keep that in mind as we work through this this letter, um, that what I want to look at over the course of the next several months is how do citizens of Rome live as citizens of heaven? That's a major theme in this, in this, in this letter. What does it look like to be a citizen of Rome while also living out the life of a citizen of heaven? This was a pressure cooker environment for the church to grow up in. I was trying to think of a modern-day analogy, and I the it's an imperfect one, but it's one that I think uh that I think might maybe make sense to you. So imagine um imagine a Portland, organ, uh very, very sort of socially and politically uh progressive, um, very, very left-wing. Um that climate, imagine walking in to that city wearing a MAGA hat. That's maybe a little taste of what it was like to live in this, in this, uh, as a Christian, in this uh proud, patriotic, um, I guess it'd be reversed there, but uh city. This is the environment that that um birthed the the church at Philippi.
Why Paul Writes From Prison
SPEAKER_00Now, why did Paul write this letter? This letter to the Philippians is is essentially a thank you letter. It's a thank you letter to the church at Philippi for a couple of things. Number one, Paul thanks this church for their ongoing and faithful support financially and spiritually while he is in prison. Paul is currently in prison uh as he writes this letter, probably chained to a Roman soldier. Um there's debate amongst scholars as to where he's at in prison. He had multiple imprisonments, but general consensus is that he's in Rome at this time. Um Paul wrote to. They don't have, you know, uh the problems of the Corinthian church. They have the same pressures, but they seem to be in a healthier place than the Corinthian church. Um commentator wrote about this letter that this is more of a progress-oriented than a problem-solving letter. Paul isn't here um trying to address a bunch of problems that have cropped up. He is sending a letter of thanks and encouragement while also addressing some of the pressures that they might be facing as a church.
Acts 16 And The Church’s Origin
SPEAKER_00Now, just for a little bit of biblical background, I invite you to flip back to Acts 16. Acts chapter 16. Just to just I want your eyes just to sort of glance over this. This is Paul and Silas's first encounter with the city of Philippi. They were uh they were redirected by the Holy Spirit, prevented from going to where they had wanted to go. And uh a vision appeared to Paul in the night. It's a man in Macedonia. Uh Philippi was part of the map of the region of Macedonia, a vision of a man saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us. And when Paul had seen the vision, vision, he immediately immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. What's the next scene? Paul and Silas walk into Philippi. This uh this proud, uh patriotic, mini Rome. The first scene we see there is this interaction with the seller of purple cloth, uh Lydia. We uh see her uh uh become converted. She joins joins uh the Christian movement. Uh right after that, we're told of the account of the of a slave girl, a fortune-telling slave girl, who is making her masters a lot of money. Paul rebukes the demon that is that is in her, and the spirit evil spirit comes out, and as a result of this, her owners drag Paul and Silas to in front of the magistrates. Uh, they end up in prison, and uh, we most of you probably know the story of how that ended up. Paul and Silas in jail in the middle of the night, singing, praising God, and uh the earthquake that happens, uh, the jailer that is gonna commit suicide, because again, he's he's a jailer in a society made up of Roman army veterans uh who fought valiantly, were very, very proud, and he's gonna kill himself because he is like, I let these prisoners go free on my watch. What's the point of even living? Paul and Silas stop him, and as a result of their interaction, they're able to testify, witness to him. He goes on to uh to be born again, converted, him and his whole household are baptized and join the church. This is the birth of the church at Philippi. And when Paul writes the letter to the Philippians, uh it's about 10 years after Acts 16. So fast forward about 10 to 12 years when when most people think that Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians.
Three Big Themes In Philippians
SPEAKER_00A couple of themes that run through this letter is number one, the first theme that that that we'll see and we'll explore over the next several months, Christ's example of humility. Christ's example of humility. We'll see how countercultural that mindset is. Secondly, joy and suffering. Where is Paul when he writes this letter? He's probably chained to a Roman guard in a in a dungeon somewhere. Joy and suffering. And thirdly, Roman citizens living as citizens of heaven. So I'm excited to dive into this. We're just gonna take. I'm not sure how long this is gonna take. Today we're gonna focus on verse 1 through 11. I'm gonna read uh these verses all at once, and then I'm gonna uh just work my way through here, make about three observations, and then really hone in on the last one as sort of takeaway for us today. I invite you all to stand. If you have the ESV, I want you all uh to read it together with me out loud. Um, this is the ESV. We're gonna read verse 1 through verse 11. And I might pause you all. It's
Reading Philippians 1 Through 11
SPEAKER_00again, I said there might be some turbulence. I'll pause you all uh at a couple points here just to make make a couple of points to note. All right, let's read together. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi with the overseers and deacons. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, for you all making my prayer with joy. Okay, we're gonna pause right there. The major theme is joy in this letter. Uh, there's 104 verses in this letter, and 16 or 17 references to joy or rejoicing. That ends up being about every six to seven verses, Paul mentions joy or rejoicing. Um major theme here. Verse five. Because of your partnership in the gospel from the time until now, and I am sure of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me in 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. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. All right, amen. You guys can be seated. Thank you very much for that. This is Paul's
Servants Of Christ And Humility
SPEAKER_00introduction to the letter that he's writing. The first thing I want to hone in on is uh is his the way he introduces himself in verse one. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus. Servants of Christ Jesus. The Greek word there for servants can also be translated as slaves. It's the uh the word Isaac, you can take that down if you don't mind. Doulos, or I think that's how it's pronounced, Daulos. And these it it can be you can translate it as servants or slaves. And this was much more, I think this is very, very significant in how he introduces this letter because normally in most of his other letters, he introduces himself as Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. Uh there's only two other places where he calls himself a servant of Jesus Christ in his introduction, and this is the only place where he simply calls himself a servant of Jesus Christ. This was a very, very counter-cultural idea, uh, especially in the setting of Philippi. He is identifying himself and Timothy as servants or slaves of Jesus Christ. A servant in the Greco-Roman culture was uh was somebody who essentially had no rights. Uh Tom Holland, he's a a historian that I I really enjoy some of his books, writing about how a slave or a servant was portrayed in Greco-Roman culture. He says this a slave was a person who had no right to a family, no right to their own body, and no right to an identity. They were, in the most literal sense, a non-person. Paul is saying, This is who I am. I'm a servant of Jesus Christ. Everything that I am is to the praise and glory of Jesus Christ, my Savior. And he's identifying with the lowest of the low in a society that despises the lowly, that looks down on the lowly. In the Roman world, servants and slaves weren't merely local status, low status workers. They were categorized socially and culturally as instrumentum vocales or tools with voices. If you were a slave, you were, that's all you were, you were a tool with a voice. And probably not even that. So I think it's it's uh the first point I want to make here is that Paul demonstrates humility. Paul demonstrates humility just in the way he opens up his letter. He sets the tone for how the rest of this letter will go. Um I think it takes a ton of faith, uh, knowing that uh, or a ton a lot of faith on Paul's part to trust that God is gonna work. He doesn't have to make himself uh uh uh great, he's simply a servant of the church, servant of Jesus Christ, and the rest is up to God. He's trusting that God will work on the Philippian church's behalf. I'm nothing, Christ is everything. That will be a theme that keeps keeps coming up. Paul imitates his savior's humility, Paul imitates his savior's humility. The second piece of this introduction that is is uh of note is a second part of that. Servants of Christ Jesus. Uh Christ there is Kairos. Uh it can be basically means king or emperor. And in a city that was uh that was given the status of a Roman colony by the Emperor Augustus, by Caesar Augustus, this was a uh a direct slap in the face to the Roman uh the Roman powers, saying, I'm a servant of a different king, Jesus. Not Augustus, not the uh the power and might of Rome, but of a slave uh or of a of a servant, a man who died the death of a slave. Uh but we all know that's not the end of the story. Alright, let's move on to uh verse three through four.
Koinonia Partnership In The Gospel
SPEAKER_00The other uh piece I want to highlight here is in uh I guess it's verse three here. Yeah. He says, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, for you all making my prayer with joy. Now, why does Paul feel joy? He says, Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. He calls he he points to the partnership that they have uh with Paul from the first day until now. He's saying, from the time that the church was born ten years ago, when Silas and I walked into your city and God's spirit was poured out on the Gentiles, you have partnered with me. The word for partnership there in Greek is koinonia. Some of you might might be familiar with that that term. It can also be translated into fellowship or communion communion, and it's often used in reference to to believers, um, the love that believers have for each other, the the fellowship that that believers have. But this is much deeper than coffee and cookies at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning. As much I love coffee and cookies at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning. This is a deep, deep um love and almost a bond. That Paul has with the church. This was not, Koinonia was not a strictly religious term uh before the New Testament. It was often used to describe formal business partnerships within uh within sort of the uh the the business world in the Greco-Roman world. So think of um a couple examples of this, and you can find actually papyruses that that demonstrate this. Two owners of a property, uh, two owners that share a property were in koinonia together. They were partners of this of this of this uh real estate contracts um of shipping companies or uh uh fishing businesses or farming uh ventures, they used the word koinonia or partnerships to describe their working relationship. In Koinonia, both partners shared in the investments, they shared in the ups and downs, they shared the profits, the losses, the risks, and the rewards. Uh Paul here is using that language to describe what him and the Philippians have together. If you look back at chapter 4, I'd invite you all just to flip back to that real quick. He says in verse 15, verse 14, it was kind of you to share my trouble. You Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership or koinania with me in giving and receiving except you only. That's a close, close bond that Paul has with his church. And he speaks of it with a deep, deep affection. They're kingdom partners, they're at work uh together, and they demonstrate the power, the effectiveness of the gospel uh when people, when believers partner together to advance God's mission in the world. Powerful things happen. I have to think of missionaries today that we support, that we uh pray for, that we give to. Missionary work is hard work. I've never been one. I I married to a former missionary. I uh have missionary friends. And one of the one of the uh I guess one of the there's many challenges to being a missionary. But I'm struck with with uh an example that Brad Hoblet, if I if I may, um gave one time. He was sharing here at church about their experience in Tanzania. They spent, I think, about a year and a half in Tanzania, and he had a picture of a of a cereal box, and he just said how grateful they were for the cereal box that I think Cross Point maybe sent over to them. And he talked about the unbelievable, like uh just monotony and boredom that they would experience at times living on the mission field. They were i they felt isolated, they were away from the people they loved. Um, and that's just one of the challenges that missionaries face today. Um financial stress, isolation, boredom, spiritual oppression, um, potentially even persecution. When we come alongside and partner with uh with those who are doing God's mission, uh God uses that to advance his work in the world. We can be part of God advancing his mission in the world when we partner with missionaries. That's what the Philippian church is doing here for Paul. Uh so that's one one maybe one takeaway for us as a church is how are we how are we partnering with uh with God's missionaries? How are we supporting them as a Philippian church did for Paul? How are we praying for them? How are we giving? Let's move on uh to the third uh point right now.
God Completes The Work He Began
SPEAKER_00When to cover verse six through eleven. Verse six, I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. I uh here about two weeks ago, I uh ordered a bunch of tomato seeds from the internet um and finally got my my my my tomato seeds. I actually have one a little packet right here. This is the um the better bush hybrid tomato. And uh I have probably 10 to 12 other um other versions of this. But I get got my my children together, um Florence and Oscar, and we got out our 60 cell um seed starter tray, and I bought a a too expensive in my opinion, um heat mat and light uh for my seed starter tray on Amazon and got that all set up. Bought a little bag of seed starter soil, and my kids helped me um uh just lay out all the the dirt in each of the cells. And then we took a pencil and just poked, poked a little hole in each in the center of each cell and dropped a little seed. And I just opened this up to show you how small these things, these things actually are. You almost can't see them. They're just, I mean, you probably can't, they're like the I think I dropped one. Yeah. They're tiny, they're tiny. Now, um I watered it, put the light, you know, put the lights on, put it on the heat mat, and about four to seven days later, we started seeing these little shoots start poking up out of the soil. And since then, they've continued to grow. Um, some of them haven't appeared yet, um, but I trust that God is at work even when I can't see uh what's going on underneath the soil there. Here in a couple weeks, I'm gonna take transplant those those little seeds into my garden outside. And I'm gonna show up every day, hopefully, water my my my plants, uh take the weeds out, um, observe them for for uh for for bugs, for disease. What would happen? Imagine if I would just uh come middle of of June, I just abandon my garden. I just stop stop checking in. What are some things that could potentially happen to those those seeds, those plants? They'd stop growing, okay. Anyone else? What are some potential problems that might arise? The weeds would overtake, okay. Yeah. They become unruly, especially cherry tomatoes. Very good. The point I want to make is that if I stop um tending to my plants, they're going to be susceptible to disease, bugs, drought, and will either not grow to full maturity, they won't bear, they potentially won't bear fruit, and they'll potentially die. What Paul is saying here in verse 6, he says, I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you, God, the God who planted the seed of his spirit in you as a church, he began a good work in you, he will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. When you and I were born again, God did uh two things. Number one, he justified you, you gave you redemption, freedom from uh the sin. You were fully justified, fully redeemed. The second thing he did was he began the process of sanctification and the process of transformation through his spirit. Paul describes what that lifelong process of ongoing transformation is going to look like in the following verses. What does a transformed life look like? It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent. And so, and he describes what the end goal is here: be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. Come August, hopefully I will have a full ripe, mature tomato. What Paul is saying is God wants to take what he began, the work he began in you as a believer. He doesn't want to just abandon your the the the seed that he planted there. He doesn't want to just give up on you, but he wants to can he wants to see that fruit that comes uh from the Holy Spirit. So that you may be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. And three markers of this, he says, is love that abounds more and more. So a love for God and others is one marker of what a transformed life looks like. Secondly, is it that we grow with knowledge, and knowledge there can mean spiritual wisdom, knowing what is knowing and understanding what is true. Thirdly, with discernment, to understand clearly or to judge wisely, and perceive what is not immediately obvious. This is a church that needed discernment, needed wisdom that came from God. And that wisdom, discernment, and love would only come as a result of the fruit of a transformed life in Christ. The older I get, the more I see a need for God's transforming power in my life. Sinful thought patterns, unhealthy habits, um, the ways that I hurt my family, my wife, my children. And I'm painfully aware of my own brokenness and my own flaws. And sometimes I can wonder, is like, is is God actually working in my life? Is he actually doing something? Um because sometimes I feel like I'm I'm you know, I'm in my 30s. I feel like by now I should have had it all together, I should have had it figured out. Um, but I see some of the of you in your 50s sort of chuckling to yourself that no um God's still working on you. God's still working on me. There's that kid's song that says, He's still working on me to make me what I ought to be. Um and the promise here that that that we have and the hope that we have is that that work that God began when you were initially born again and saved, maybe as a young young teenager, that God is gonna keep tending that seed in your heart, and he's gonna continue tending it and working in it until he sees the fruit that he wants to see in your life.
Practical Encouragement And Closing Invitation
SPEAKER_00The blessing in that is that it takes the pressure off of me to fix myself. There's no end to the books, podcasts, uh advice, um, self-help, uh, answers for self-transformation. And if we're not careful, we can buy into the lie that I need to fix myself. If I just optimize my life with the right set of habits, the right set of routines, I can somehow maybe sort of make the fruit appear. Now I'm not denigrating that there is responsibility on our own part to um partner with God in that. But there's this paradox that Paul writes and covers a couple of different ways here in Philippians where he says, later he'll he says, Um, work out your own salvation in fear and trembling. He says, for it is God who works in and through you. So God is working, he's at work, even when it doesn't feel like feel like it when we don't see it necessarily. And this is a tremendous uh hope for me at least. And it takes the pressure and the burden off of me having to fix myself. I think of older saints, if you will. Um, and I don't I don't know if you can maybe think of someone who, you know, someone who's come to the end of their life, who's walked with God year after year, and with each passing year, as they get, you know, their hair gets whiter, there's a there's a sense in which which the fruit of righteousness is becomes more and more apparent in their lives. And those are people who have allowed God to work in their lives, surrender to his spirit, and that is evidence of God's faithfulness in be uh in bringing that work to completion. And that's the hope for you and you and I is that even when it feels like you fail, you mess up, and you make mistakes, maybe as a dad, you know, losing your patience with your children, maybe as a maybe as a mom, you know showing your your frustration at your children in unhealthy ways, maybe as a young person struggling with with unhealthy patterns or habits. Um, but yet knowing that the seed of the spirit is in you, uh, he's not giving up on that. And he's gonna bring that work to completion. God has no unfinished projects. He does not leave unfinished projects. He finishes what he starts, and that's the hope for the Philippian church. The work that God began in you, God will bring to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Maybe just uh one sort of practical takeaway that's been helpful for me or a way to think through uh think about this process of transformation. Don't compare your growth or lack of growth to someone else's. Pay attention to God's faithfulness in your life over the over the years. And as you uh ask God to and surrender that process of transformation and allow him to tend to your heart, the fruit will appear. And it's God who does that work in you. So that is the encouragement for today. Um, I invite you all to if you uh if you feel up to it this next week, read through the entire letter uh to the Philippians. I thought about just doing that this morning, um, but we had already a pretty lengthy uh scripture reading this morning, and I I figured I would I would leave that. Um but I look forward to seeing what God has for us, like the Philippian church, learning to live as citizens of heaven. Learning to live as citizens of heaven. So um I invite you all, uh I invite Sean to um take over at this time.