Today we begin a study that will take us through the end of the year. 

Please turn with me to the book of Philippians. 

One of my favorite books in the New Testament because it’s so encouraging.

A backstory before we jump in:  

• Philippians is a letter written to a church in the ancient Roman colony of Philippi, which was in what is now northern Greece.   

• The apostle Paul had planted this church during his second missionary journey.

• You can read about Paul’s first visit to this area of Macedonia (during his second missionary journey) in Acts 16. 

• The short version of the story is:

• Paul, Silas and a young guy he picked up along the way by the name of Timothy were journeying around preaching the gospel and encouraging believers.  

• By the guidance of the Holy Spirit they ended up in a port city called Troas (Modern day Turkey). 

• While they are there, Paul has a vision from the Lord in which a Macedonian man was standing in front of him begging him to go to Macedonia to help them.  

• Paul took that as a sign that God wanted them to go preach the gospel there too. 

• So they land there in Philippi, which was the main city in the Macedonian region.  

• It’s notable that this is the first time the gospel made it’s way to Europe.  

• On the Sabbath, they go down by the riverside and preach the gospel to a small group of women who are gathered there for prayer.. 

• One of them is a business woman named Lydia, and it says “the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul” (Acts 16:14). 

• She gets baptized, her household gets saved too, and they become the first European converts. 

• Later her house becomes a gathering place for believers. 

• Later on in that same town, they come across a slave girl who is demon possessed, and has a demonic ability to fortune tell.

• Remember, it’s not that other forms of spirituality are not powerful; it’s just that they’re demonic in origin.   

• Her masters are making money off of her.  She sees Paul, starts making a racket about how he’s a servant of Jesus.

• Acts 16:17-18 She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” 18 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.  

• But there was a problem.  No more demon meant no more fortune telling, which meant no more profit for her masters.  So they seize Paul and Silas and drag them before the authorities, who throw them in prison. 

• But, at night, while they are in prison, God sends an earthquake, all the prison doors fly open, the chains break off of everyone… 

• The Roman guard is about to kill himself because he figures all the prisoners had escaped and he will have to pay with his life…  

• Acts 16:28–34 (ESV): 28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” 29 And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.

Now, fast forward about a decade. 

A lot has developed in the city of Philippi… 

The Jailer and his family together with Lydia had obviously done what Christians are supposed to do: they told others the good news about Jesus, and eventually a church had been established in Philippi!  

The Philippian believers had become dear friends of Paul, and financial supporters of his ministry.  

What started with a few unlikely converts had become a mature, generous congregation. 

And it all began with Paul and the gang being sensitive to the Holy Spirit, going where God told them to go, and intentionally starting gospel conversations with people God put in their path.  

Don’t ever underestimate what God can do with a simple step of obedience! 

A lot has developed for Paul as well… 

Paul has continued faithfully preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.  

And because an essential part of the gospel message is that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and not by religious works, some of the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem accused him of teaching against the Law of Moses, and a riot breaks out (which you can read about in Acts 21).  

The Roman soldiers intervene to protect Paul, he is taken to Caesarea and held in custody, he eventually appeals to Caesar (which he was allowed to do as a Roman citizen), which sends him on a perilous journey to Rome, and now he is on house arrest in Rome, chained to a Roman guard, awaiting his trial which will either result in his release or his execution.  

And in the meantime, he is ministering to whoever he can, and writing letters to his friends in the faith to encourage them… and it is one of those letters that we begin looking at now…     

Philippians 1:1–2 (ESV): 

1 Paul and Timothy, 

Paul is the primary author here, Timothy is the young guy he mentored and treated like a son.  

Everyone needs a Paul in their life, and everyone needs a Timothy.  

• We need someone ahead of us in the faith, who can pour into us and help us navigate challenges and continue to grow… and we all need someone (at least one), who we are pouring into.  You don’t have to reach a high level of maturity to pour into someone; you just need to be a little further along than they are.  

• If you don’t have these sort of relationships in your life, I encourage you to spend some time today praying and asking God to give you someone ahead of you in the faith and someone behind you in the faith.  Someone to pour into you, and someone you can pour into.    

Listen to how Paul identifies himself and Timothy: 

servants of Christ Jesus, 

You might expect that the great apostle Paul, a guy who God used powerfully to launch churches and write much of the New Testament, would have given himself a grander introduction than this.  

Honestly, we would also expect Paul to differentiate himself a little more from Timothy. I mean, we’re talking about an apostle commissioned by Jesus Himself… who had done so many amazing things for the Kingdom of God already…  Timothy was just a young guy he picked up along the way. A sidekick.  An understudy. 

But Paul doesn’t make a distinction.  

• In some of Paul’s other letters, he mentions his apostleship out of necessity, but he probably doesn’t feel the need to do that here because of his intimate relationship with the Philippians.

It’s clear that prestigious titles didn’t mean much to Paul. 

Just a few chapters later in this same letter, Paul explains why earthly prestige no longer matters to him:  

• Philippians 3:4–8 (ESV): …If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ… 

This is instructive for us within the church.   

Remember, the way of Jesus is not like the way of the world.  

• In the Church, we don’t vie for power and position like the world does; we don’t throw titles around; we know that we are all on the same level before God.  

• Doesn’t matter what role we have in the church, or how long we’ve been a Christian, or what kind of ministry we’ve been able to do; We are all servants of Christ.  He is the only exalted One.  He is the only one with superior status. We are just His servants.     

On the other hand, there is no higher honor in this universe than to be a servant of Jesus Christ.  

See, the paradox of Paul’s humble introduction is that by claiming the status of a servant he’s actually claiming the highest status a human being can attain to: to be in direct service of Jesus Christ our Lord.  He was willing to trade every earthly accolade he had to be Christ’s slave.  

Are we?  Are we willing to give up earthly status to be a slave of Christ?  Or are we like those of high status in Jesus’ day who, in John 12 we are told “[they] believed in him… but they did not confess it…for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God” (John 12:42-43).   

Next, Paul addresses his audience: 

To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: 

So we have three categories stated here: saints, overseers and deacons. 

Contrary to what some church tradition has led us to believe, ‘Saint’ is not some higher category of Christian. All Christians are saints.  All of us have equal access to God through our mediator Jesus Christ. 

The word ‘saint’ comes from the Greek word hagios which means “holy”, “set apart”, or “consecrated”.  It’s someone who has been set apart by God for His service. 

• If you’re in Christ, this is true of you.  

• God has called you, consecrated you, and commissioned you into His service.  

In 1 Peter 2, Peter writes to Christians of all backgrounds and affirms a similar thing about their identity in Christ:

• 1 Peter 2:9–10 (ESV): 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

So…Paul is writing this letter to the saints––the general assembly of believers in Philippi. 

But he also specifies two other subgroups: overseers and deacons.  He wants to specially acknowledge the leaders, perhaps because he has a personal relationship with them, and perhaps because they are especially responsible for steering and protecting the rest of the flock.   

• An overseer is just another word for the office of elder or pastor. 

• It’s someone tasked with serving the church through teaching and leading.  

• It’s important to note that whenever the New Testament mentions the office of overseer it’s always in the plural.  There’s never a church model in the New Testament where it’s just one guy at the top of the pyramid who wields total power and control.  Instead, it’s a team of biblically qualified, mature men who are appointed to lead together.  

• Deacons were those appointed to handle other tasks and ministries that didn’t have to do with teaching and oversight of the flock.  Practical things.  

• A good depiction of how elder and deacon roles work is in Acts 6.  

• The apostles are getting bogged down with tasks and managing a food distribution ministry, so they appoint several other men of godly character and full of the Holy Spirit to handle the tasks while they devote themselves to the ministry of the Word and Prayer.    

And here’s his classic Pauline salutation in verse 2: 

2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

This greeting is more than just a formality!

It’s very clever what Paul is doing here… 

Grace was a derivative of the common Roman greeting, and Peace was the standard Jewish greeting (shalom).  

So Paul takes these two common cultural greetings and combines them, but he infuses them with gospel meaning.

In other words…   

• Not just general ‘grace’ like the Romans would say; but grace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.. 

• Not just general ‘peace’; but the peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.. 

So Paul has taken two cultural greetings and merged them into a distinctly Christian salutation.  

In a way, it’s also a call to unity.  

Much of Paul’s ministry was devoted to breaking down the dividing wall between these ethnic groups and helping them understand that if they are in Christ they are part of a new entity, the Church.  

• Ephesians 2:14–18 (ESV): 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.

• So this simple greeting draws in people from different backgrounds and unites them under the banner of Christ. 

Let’s also not forget that besides that, Grace and Peace are perhaps the two most important benefits you and I have in Christ.  

Grace is God’s unmerited favor towards us in Christ Jesus. 

• Our good standing with God isn’t something we earn; it’s an undeserved gift.

• It is essential for Christians to understand that our salvation is a free gift, not something we work for.    

• Ephesians 2:8–9 (ESV): 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 

• As believers, our entire identity and eternal security rests in the fact that God has been gracious to us.  He has not repaid us as our sins deserve but instead has lavished His favor upon us and given us a new identity and a new status as His adopted children. 

• Our lives are to be lived as flashing neon signs telling of the grace God has had on us.

Peace, as Peter O’Brien puts it, has to do with wholeness, especially with reference to relationships. 

• Through the gospel, we have peace with God and peace with others.  

• This is not just an arbitrary feeling; it is a reality for those who are in Christ.

Paul’s ordering of grace and peace matters. Because of God’s grace, we have peace with God and with others.  True peace flows from a genuine experience of God’s grace.      

• Spurgeon: “Grace first, for that is the fountain. Then peace comes, for that is the fitting stream to flow from the Fountain of Grace.”

• We cannot get true peace any other way.  We can’t earn it, we can’t get it through self-help books or by changing our habits or by taking more vacations… it only comes via an experience of God’s grace.  

And all of this comes from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The fact that Paul puts the Lord Jesus Christ right beside God our Father is a powerful statement of the divinity of Christ and His role as a conduit of grace and peace from God to us. 

Remember last week, we talked about how Moses acted as a mediator between God and Israel, and how he was a foreshadow of the true Mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ.  

This phrase enforces that idea.  

• Jac Muller “This title brings forward his glorious Name as Mediator…From God the Father the richest blessings flow to the Church, by virtue of the mediatorial work and atoning sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ.”  

Just like the Philippians, you and I have been shown grace through Jesus Christ.  And as a result, we have peace with God and peace with others, and we are members of the body of Christ, the Church.  

If you’re here this morning, and you are far from God, Jesus wants to show you His grace so that you can have peace with Him forever.  Just like He did with Lydia and the Philippian Jailer, He wants to open your heart to understand and embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is simply this: that your sins have separated you from God.  But in His grace and mercy, God sent Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, to live a perfect life and die in your place to pay your sin debt.  And He raised Him from the dead. So now whoever repents of their sin and places their trust in Him will become a child of God. The message to the jailer is the same message for you: believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.  

If you are here today and you are a follower of Christ, I believe the Lord is prompting us to be more like Paul in several ways. 

• First, in his sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. God wants us to listen and obey like Paul so that He can accomplish great things through us. 

• Second, in his humility. God wants us to stop exalting ourselves and start thinking of ourselves as servants of Christ in every area of our lives.  

• Lastly, I believe God wants us to be like Paul in our understanding of His grace. Let’s remind ourselves daily that we deserve nothing good from God, yet in His love He has given us eternal blessings through Christ and adopted us into His family by faith.  

Much to be encouraged by today, as we begin this encouraging letter.  We will continue next week. 

Pray.  

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