The following message was delivered
on Sunday morning, October 9, 1994, at the Trinity Baptist
Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now will you turn in your own
Bibles with me, please, to Paul's letter to the church at Philippi,
the book that we commonly identify in the New Testament as the book
of Philippians, and follow as I read. from chapter 1, the first
through the seventh verses. Philippians chapter 1, verses
1 through 7. Paul and Timothy, servants of
Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus that 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 upon all
my remembrance of you, always in every supplication of mine
on behalf of you all, making my supplication with joy for
your fellowship in the furtherance of the gospel from the first
day until now. being confident of this very
thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until
the day of Jesus Christ, even as it is right for me to be thus
minded on behalf of you all, because I have you in my heart,
inasmuch as both in my bonds and in the defense and confirmation
of the gospel You are partakers with me of grace. Under the blessing of the Holy
Spirit, a balanced ministry of the Word of God will produce
a company of saints marked by balance, symmetry, and stability
in their Christian experience. And it is this balance that we
have sought to maintain in the ministry of the word in this
assembly over 32 years. And while I have no doubt that
perfect balance has eluded us, I am reasonably certain that
a reasonable measure of biblically defined balance has indeed marked
the ministry of this place. Now it is just this concern which
has determined my decision to bring several messages from selected
texts of Scripture before launching into our verse-by-verse expositions
of 1 Peter. For those of you who have not
been with us, we have just completed several months of an intense
and concentrated season of self-examination while I have preached a series
of sermons entitled, Are You For Real? I have solid reasons to believe
that many of you have honestly and prayerfully brought your
profession of union with Christ your professed possession of
grace and salvation in Christ, you have brought these things
to the searchlight of the Word of God with judgment-day honesty,
prepared to accept the judgment of Scripture in answer to the
question, Are you for real? And as a result, many of you
have spoken to me personally. Others have written to me. Others
have left messages on my answering machine indicating that over
these several months, you have had fresh deep and honest dealings
with God, that there's been a renewal of repentance and faith, and
with that renewal of repentance and faith, you have come to a
more solid conviction than ever that indeed, by the grace of
God, you are for real. Now, it is for the sake of such
tried tested and approved saints that I now desire to preach just
several messages focusing on texts of scripture which are
calculated to do two things, to deepen your confidence in
the God of grace and of your true participation in the grace
of that God, and secondly, to give you further ballast in the
hull of your soul as you face the further turbulent seas that
will yet await you in your journey to a better place. And if someone
were to ask, well, why is this necessary? Well, the answer to
me is quite simple. For all of us, including this
preacher, who have sought with judgment day honesty to bring
our professed hope in Christ to the touchstone of the many
passages that we've studied over the last three months, we have
become aware as never before that if we do indeed have the
marks of a true sheep, that the maintenance of those marks will
become increasingly difficult as we go on in our Christian
experience. That if we do indeed possess
the marks of the true circumcision, the Philippians 3 passage that
we studied, that the maintenance of those marks will not come
automatically if we are indeed those who no longer are living
in the flesh but in the spirit. The Romans 8 passage, that will
not automatically continue without conscious and deliberate effort
And if we have indeed passed through the narrow gate and are
walking upon the compressed or the restricted way which leads
to life, We've come to a new awareness that in that way we
are standing not only against the whole drift of the world
without us and the pressure of a wise and experienced devil,
but we are standing against horrible tendencies that yet lurk in the
dark corners of our own breast. And that if we are indeed by
the grace of God to persevere in that restricted, narrow way
which leads unto life, the words of the apostle recorded in Acts
14.22 will be true of us that it will be through many tribulations
that we shall enter the kingdom of God. Therefore, as those who
are tried, tested, and approved saints, we need to understand
and lay to heart and guard as precious those statements in
the Word of God calculated to encourage us that our labor will
not be lost. that our efforts will not be
in vain, that having come through the narrow gate and being found
for some time upon the restricted way, that we shall indeed continue
in that way even to the end and enter into the consummate blessings
of life in the age to come. And so for at least two or three
Lord's days, I want you to consider with me several texts that are
like precious jewels that should be stored in the heart's affection
and in the mind's grasp throughout the entirety of our earthly pilgrimage. And the first of these texts
is the one found in the paragraph read in your hearing, Philippians
1 and verse 6. Being confident of this very
thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until
the day of Jesus Christ. Now, before we consider the text
with its three simple, basic affirmations, let me say just
a word about its setting. After the apostle gives his general
words of greeting in verses one and two, he begins in verse three
a record that we might call a summary of his prayers for the Philippian
saints. I thank my God upon all my remembrance
of you, always in every supplication of mine on behalf of you." So
he's giving a distillation of what it is that forms the substance
of his prayers for the Philippians. And that summary divides itself
into two major elements. He follows the prescription that
he gives in chapter 4. For he says in chapter 4 in verse
6, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. Well,
here the apostle sets a model. For this summary of his prayers
for the Philippians breaks down into the two categories of thanksgiving
and petition. Verses 3 to 8 could be called
thanksgiving and its causes. Verses 9 through 11, petitions
and their concerns. So you have thanksgiving and
its causes and petition and its concerns. Now in the matters
of his thanksgiving, we see the immediate cause of his thanksgiving
in verse 5. He says, in every supplication,
he found himself giving thanks to God upon remembrance of the
Philippians. And the immediate cause of that
thanksgiving is given to us in verse 5. He thanks God for their
fellowship in the furtherance of the gospel from the first
day until now. Then he gives what we might call
the ultimate or the more remote cause of his thanksgiving in
verse 6. While he gives thanks for the
fellowship that he has enjoyed with these Philippians in the
furtherance of the gospel from the first day until the very
hour that he wrote the letter, He did so with this substructure
of a settled confidence of this very thing, that the God who
had begun a good work in them would perfect it until the day
of Jesus Christ. Now it is that ultimate cause
of Paul's thanksgiving that becomes one of the most precious, one
of the most comprehensive, one of the most unashamedly dogmatic
statements of confidence of the ultimate perseverance of all
of God's people to be found anywhere in all of Holy Scripture. And
in that text, which will be the focus now of our exposition,
I want you to note with me the three basic affirmations made
by the Apostle. The first is this, that it is
God himself who always begins the good work of grace in all
of his true saints. It is God himself who always
begins the good work of grace in all of his true saints. Paul addresses the people of
God at Philippi in verse 1 as the saints who are in union with
Christ Jesus. And with respect to all of the
saints, those who are the true people of God in vital union
with Christ, Paul gives thanks in a context of this unshakable
confidence that it is God Himself who has begun the good work of
grace in all of His true saints. Now remember, it was Paul who
had gone to Philippi and brought the gospel to that city that
in a very real sense was a Roman colony. And in Acts chapter 16,
we have the record of the conversion of at least Well, three different
conversion accounts. The final one involved the conversion
of a whole household. We don't know how many were in
that household. But those of you familiar with
that chapter will remember that Paul comes to the city and he
finds a prayer meeting by a riverside. And there, as he speaks, we read
in verse 14 of Acts 6, that a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of
purple of the city of Thyatira, one that worshipped God, heard
us, whose heart the Lord opened to give heed to the things that
were spoken by Paul, and when she was baptized and her household."
Here's the account of the conversion of Lydia and her household. The
next paragraph gives us the account of what we can reasonably assume
was not merely the exorcism of this demon from this woman, this
young woman who had this spirit of divination, but most likely
resulted in her thorough conversion to Christ. Being delivered from
the power of Satan, she came into the orbit of the power of
God's grace. And then, beginning with verse
19, we have the account of the conversion of the Philippian
jailer, and sometime in the wee hours of the morning, of other
members of his household. Now as we look at those accounts
of how God began his good work of grace in constituting the
initial saints in union with Christ who would comprise the
church at Philippi, we see that in many ways these conversions
are tremendously diverse as to their circumstances. It's as
though the Lord works in the heart of Lydia as a thief, stealing
through the back door in the dead of the night. And we hardly
know the thief has come. Her heart is apparently gently
opened, and like a flower turning its face to the sun, it opens
up without any great trauma, without any great unusual circumstantial
phenomena surrounding it. The Scripture simply says, whose
heart the Lord opened. With regard to that poor demon-possessed
girl, It's as though the Lord Jesus had to come riding upon
his war horse and storm the very bastions of the strong man, break
down the city gate and rescue that one who had been held captive
and wrap his arm around her and ride out with that young woman
as his conquest of grace. And then with the jailer, It's
as though God had to ride upon the wings of the storm and shake
the very foundations of that jail and let this man see both
the physical and the moral miraculous power of God shaking that jailhouse
and then restraining prisoners whose bonds were all loose so
that they didn't all split and run but remained in that very
prison. Well, you see, regardless of
what I would call the cosmetic differences in the precise details
of their conversion, and all that those things do say to us,
yet every single saint at Philippi could be described as one in
whom God himself had begun the good work of grace. And as we were privileged yesterday
as elders to listen to the testimony of five people who have applied
for membership, how vividly this principle was set before our
minds and hearts again. The ways of God in bringing his
own to himself are so diverse If I were to tell you some of
the things we heard yesterday, it's only our earned credibility
over many years that would enable you even to believe us. Some
of the unusual instruments God uses to get his own, but you
see the principle is right here in our text. Paul says that when
he prays for the Philippians, he does so with a thanksgiving
that is rooted in this confidence that it is God Himself who always
begins the good work of grace in all of His true saints, being
confident of this very thing that He who began a good work
in you. And he views the assembly of
the saints with all of the diversity of their personalities and all
of the diversities of their station in life. All of the differences
in the ways that God dealt with them to bring them to repentance
and faith. And he says, here's the common
denominator You are what you are as a company of saints,"
said Philippi, because God initiated that good work of grace in every
one of your hearts. By way of application, let me
say to you, God's people in this place, especially for you who
have been able to sit through the majority of these sermons
under the subject of, are you for real? And you have sought
to bring your professed experience to the touchstone of the Word
of God. And you have been able to say,
yes, by the grace of God, God has brought me to that narrow
gate. I've seen the utter impoverishment
of my own so-called righteousness. I've seen the wickedness of living
for myself. I have seen the abominable nature
of sin and the wretched, horrible complexion of this world system. Yes, I have repudiated self-righteousness,
self-will, sin, and the world. And I am upon that restricted
way that leads unto life. For each one, you and I must
joyfully and intelligently acknowledge that it is God himself and God
alone who has begun in us this good work. As Paul prays for
the Philippians, he prays with this confidence that it is God
God Himself, God alone, who began the good work of grace in them. And why is it crucial that we
never forget that simple fundamental principle? Well, for the simple
reason that the moment we cease to be amazed and stand in wonderment
at ourselves in terms of what we once were until God took us
in hand, we're in big trouble as Christians. When we can no
longer sing with an inward sense of thrill and wonder, amazing
grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see. It was grace that taught my heart
to fear. I was one of those who had no
fear of God before my eyes. God was no factor in my life,
except when my back was against the wall. But in terms of regulating
my standards and goals and use of time and energy, God was no
factor, but was grace that taught my heart to fear my godless,
wretched, self-centered, sinning lifestyle. It was grace that
taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved. that pointed me to a Savior on
the cross, a Savior on the throne by way of an empty tomb, a Savior
ready to forgive and to receive me just as I was. It was grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear
the hour I first believed. Dear people of God who can say
by the grace of God in the full light of the Word of God, I am
for real. Never forget the fundamental
lesson of this text. It is God himself who began the
good work of grace in your heart and in your life. God in the
all-mightiness of His power, God in the all-embracing wonder
of His grace, God in the all-sufficient work of His Son, God in the mysterious
but efficacious work of His Spirit, As our beloved friend Pastor
Ashiel Blaise has said on more than one occasion, it takes the
whole trinity to save one sinner. But thank God the whole triune
God is committed to the saving of His people. And it is He who
initiates the work of grace. in all of his true saints. But then secondly, look at our
text. Being confident of this very thing that he who began
a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ. Paul is confident. He is strongly
assured and persuaded that the God who began the good work in
the Philippians will go on working in them. With respect to the
word that is here used and the form in which it is found, Hendrickson
suggests that a good rendering would be this. Being confident
of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will
perfect. He will carry on towards completion. That's the sense of it. He will
carry it on towards completion. And Reinacher and Rogers suggest
that the word carries with it the concept of not only carrying
it on towards completion, but actually finally completing it. So as Paul prays, you see, he
doesn't throw himself into some mindless emotional tizzy and
then just mumble whatever comes out of his mouth. He's intelligently,
theologically framing his prayers. He says, I thank God upon all
my remembrance of you because I am utterly confident of this
very thing, that the very God who began a good work in you
will carry on towards completion and actually complete the work
that he began. As Paul gives thanks to God for
the Philippians, he does so with the confidence that the God who
brought them through the narrow gate and put them on the restricted
way will continue to work in each and every one of them until
that work is complete. Now notice he does not say, I
give thanks being confident that because God began a good work
in you, it will be completed at the day of Jesus Christ. Now that's the way this verse
is often read, and alas, often preached. That is not what it
says. Look at the text. It does not
say, being confident of this very thing, that God, who began a good work in
you, will complete it at the day of Jesus Christ. No. What
he said was this. being confident of this very
thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it,
will continue to carry it on towards its completion, which
will reach its culmination at the day of Jesus Christ. And
there's all the difference in the world between those two renderings.
One views the work of God as getting a man through the gate,
and there he may slump for fifty years. No evidence that he's
walking the restricted and narrow way. No evidence of hunger for
God and hunger for holiness and desire to see the kingdom of
God advance. No living for the age to come.
But if He made His almighty decision, had a nice little complex of
feelings, and somehow Jesus and the cross are all bundled up
in that, there He may sit for fifty years, and when Jesus comes,
He'll be glorified with all the other saints. My friend, believe
that doctrine and apply it to your life and you'll end up in
hell, as many are already there who have believed it. That's
not what our text says. Our text that clearly teaches
it is God Himself who begins the good work of grace in all
of His saints, teaches with equal clarity it is God Himself who
always continues the good work of grace in his true saints. As surely as his work in the
beginning was a good work, it was not the mere impartation
of some notions. It was God who began a good work. It was God's mighty power that
opened the heart of Lydia so that she attended to the Word,
embraced its indictments about what she was as a sinner, embraced
its offers of mercy as they focused upon the Lord Jesus, embraced
its demands to repent and turn from all that was displeasing
to God, it was The mighty power of God that effected the good
work in the Philippian jailer that changed him from a man hardened
and indifferent to the suffering of Paul and Silas into one who
stoops to wash their wounds. and to gather his family in the
wee hours of the morning to hear the preaching of the Word of
God, and desires to be baptized and openly identified with Christ
in the ordinance of his own instituting. Yes, a good work was begun, and
it is that good work that is carried on to completion. Now why is it so crucial to grasp
this truth and to keep it constantly before us? For the fundamental
reason that it is the certainty of God's ongoing work in us that
is to form the basis and motivation for all of our vigorous activity
in living the Christian life. It is to be the certainty of
God's ongoing work in us that forms the basis and motivation
of all our vigorous activity in the Christian life. Turn over
to chapter 2 for what is perhaps the clearest statement of this
principle in all of the New Testament. Verse 12. So then, my beloved
brethren, even as you have always obeyed," he's talking about what
they do, Not as in my presence only, but now much more in my
absence. Work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling. He is exhorting them to the full
engagement of all of their faculties and powers in the outworking
of the salvation that God has graciously begun in them. God has begun a good work in
them. Now he says, work out that salvation
with fear and trembling. Live a life of careful, diligent
obedience. But now notice verse 13 begins
with the word, for, for, for. You are to do this in the light
of this reality, for it is God who is continually working in
you both to will and to work for His good pleasure. You see, Paul understands that
if the Christian thinks that, yes, it's grace that got me through
the gate, left to myself, I would never have said goodbye to my
own rags of righteousness. I cherish them as something precious. I never would have regarded them
in the language of Paul as refuse or dung. I never would have said
no to self-will and self-serving. Self cannot deny self unless
God intrudes upon the human heart. We would never have said no to
our sins. We loved our sins and would have
gone in the embrace of death with our sins sinking into hell. And the same is true with our
relationship to the world. And we say, surely if God did
not begin the work, it never would have been done. But child
of God, we need to see that it is surely as it is God who began
the good work in us, It is He who is carrying it on to perfection
or to completion. As surely as He began it, He
carries it on. Now, when He began it, yes, at
the point of taking out the heart of stone and giving us a heart
of flesh, at the point of what the theologians call His regenerating
work, we were totally passive. There was no cooperation or co-action. God took dead sinners and quickened
them to life. And in the first consciousness
of that life, we repented and we believed. But as those quickened
to life, there is now cooperation and co-action. We are called
upon to obey, to work out our salvation. But that co-action
does not mean that as God worked solely to get us through the
gate, what the theologians call monergism, mono, one, monergism,
as opposed to synergism, the sinner and God working together
to get through the gate. No, we say it is a monergistic
salvation. Salvation is of the Lord. It is God who's taken out the
heart of stone and given the heart of flesh. And it's not
as though having begun the good work, God just chucks us under
the chin, taps us on the shoulder and says, now I've got you through
the gate. Do the best you can along the way. No, we are called
upon to obey. We are called upon to work out
with fear and trembling. Later on in this very chapter,
we are called upon to do everything without murmuring and questioning.
We are to seek to be blameless and harmless children of God
without blemish. All kinds of injunctions are
laid upon us, but, dear people of God, remember, in laying all
of those injunctions upon us, God does so with the understanding
that He is continually at work in us, carrying on His good work
of grace unto perfection. He is at work in us, and Paul
can rejoice in his prayers, being utterly, unshakably confident
of this very thing, that the God who began a good work in
the Philippians will go on with that work, carrying it on to
perfection or completion. Now, let me ask you. If you have
come to a fresh and settled conviction, child of God, that you're for
real, and that new level of settled conviction and deepened assurance
has come in a context of deep searching of heart, dealing with
some sins that you knew a long time ago you should have dealt
with. That's been the testimony of many of you that through this
series, God has shown you that if you're to have a heightened
and strengthened assurance, it had to be in the way of fresh
actings of repentance and faith. Let me ask you, child of God,
knowing how prone you are to backsliding of heart, How prone
you are to coldness and spiritual dullness. How quick you are to
be seduced by the world, to be tripped up by that one who has
thousands of years of experience in devouring the people of God,
the devil himself. Child of God, are you confident?
that the God who has begun the good work in you will carry it
on unto the day of the Lord Jesus Christ? Can you, when you pray,
say, Oh God, I'm confident of this very thing, that you have
begun a good work in me? I am not what I am by anything
that I possess in and of myself. Oh God, I know when I look myself
in the mirror and face what I am with all of my sins and all of
my failures and all of my shortcomings and I don't know the full measure
of them, one thing I know, in the language of John Newton,
I am not what I once was. I am not what I desire to be. I am not what I shall be. But I am not what I once was. And I know that the only power
that could change me from what I once was to what I now am was
the mighty arm of God's saving mercy. Well, you see, once you
can say that on biblical grounds, Then you must learn as a man
or woman of faith to say, and I am confident of this very thing,
that he who has begun this good work of grace in me will infallibly
carry it on to completion. And it is not presumptuous. for
us to share that well-grounded biblical confidence which the
Apostle had for the Philippians. Surely this man who had great
concern for another group of professing Christians who did
not have the manifold positive evidences of true grace, the
Galatian bunch, he doesn't speak with this kind of confidence
for them. He can speak of these Philippians because, as he says
at the end of verse 7, in all of his interaction, he's convinced
that they are partakers with him of grace. And we could go
through the book of Philippians and see all of the positive indications
that led the apostle to believe that a good work had indeed been
begun in them by the grace of God. And he is confident of this
very thing. that that work, having been begun,
would continually be carried on to completion, even until
the day of Jesus Christ. You see, it's vital for a Christian
to know not only what God has done for him in Christ, but what
God is committed yet to do for him in Christ. If our life, according
to the scriptures, is a life of faith, Faith in the Son of
God who loved us and gave Himself for us. If in the language of
Paul we walk by faith, not by sight, what kind of a life of
faith is it that has no certain confidence that dares to affirm
that God who began a good work of grace in me is and shall continue
to carry on that work to its completion? How can we live the
life of faith against all of our formidable enemies without
and within unless we can stand on this gospel ground with the
Apostle and say, being confident of this very thing, that he who
began a good work in me will carry it on to completion until
the day of Jesus Christ. There was a Bishop Thomas Ken.
I don't know who he is. I don't know where he was Bishop
or when he was Bishop. And I don't know how this little
poem of his ever came into my hands. Whoever sent it to me,
I thank you if you're sitting here. But as I was preparing
for this morning's message, I pulled it out. I keep it sitting on
my book rest where I open my Bible and other books when I'm
studying. And I thought how he has captured this very principle
of the Christian life. Listen to the words of the old
bishop. Stand but your ground. Your ghostly foes will fly. Hell trembles at a heaven directed
eye. Choose rather to defend than
to assail. self-confidence will in the conflict
fail. When you are challenged, you
may dangers meet. True courage is a fixed, not
sudden heat, is always humble, lives in self-distrust, and will
itself into no danger thrust. Devote yourself to God And you
will find God fights the battles of a will resigned. Love Jesus! Love will no base fear endure. Love Jesus and of conquest rest
secure. You see what he's saying? The
man of faith can stand his ground. though assaulted by a thousand
enemies, and say, this I know, God has begun a good work in
me, and I am persuaded God leaves no unfinished products on His
work table. Because what He began in me He
began in keeping with His own eternal purpose and electing
love. What He began in me was the fruit
of the bloodletting of the Son of God in my effectual calling. My being brought through the
gate was the fruit of the sufferings of Christ. But He did not suffer
just to get a people through the gate, but to get them at
last in His presence, wholly made over into His image. That
means they've got to make it along the restricted way for
as long as God sovereignly keeps them on that way. And therefore,
eternal electing love and foreordaining purpose and the efficacious death
of the Son of God and all of the graces and power and ministry
of the Holy Spirit given to me on the grounds of the death of
Christ, be secure my being kept in that way until the day of
Christ. But then there's a third very
obvious truth in the text. Not only does it set before us
the truth that it is God himself who always begins the good work
of grace in all of his true saints. Secondly, God himself who always
continues the good work of grace in his true saints. But thirdly,
it is God himself who will always complete the good work of grace
in his true saints. Again, note the language of the
text, being confident of this very thing, that he who began
a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the
day of Jesus Christ. Literally, until the day of Christ
Jesus. And what is that day? Well, chapter
2 and verse 16 gives us a very helpful suggestion. Paul is speaking
of what the people of God are to seek to be, blameless and
harmless children of God without rebuke, holding forth the word
of life that I may have whereof to glory in the day of Christ. that I did not run in vain, neither
labor in vain. Now, when are the servants of
God going to be reckoned with with respect to the fruit of
their labors? The Bible is clear. They're going to be reckoned
with in the day of the Lord's return. And about 20 times in
the New Testament, the second coming is designated the day
of Christ, the day of Christ Jesus, the day of the Lord. And what this passage is saying
is this. that God's work of grace that
He alone began in all of His true saints, that He is now carrying
on to the point of completion, that that work will reach its
completion. Now look at the text. Not at
the death of each individual believer. But he says, being
confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work
in you will perfect it until not the day of each believer's
death, but until the day of Jesus Christ. Now, it is clear from
this very epistle that the work of grace in every individual
saint is brought to a marvelously augmented level when he dies. For the moment we die, according
to chapter 1 and verse 23, We are with Christ, which is far
better than our present state. Our spirits vacate the bodies,
and somewhere between the moment of their vacating our bodies
and consciously looking upon the face of Christ, they join
the ranks of those described in Hebrews 12, 23, the spirits
of just men made perfect. And every last vestige of sin
in an instant is purged from every, for lack of a better term,
what can I say, from every atom of the soul, if we may think
of the soul in material terms, from every atom of the soul,
every last vestige of sin is utterly, eternally, forever purged. In that moment, the spirit departs
the believer's body and looks upon the face of Christ. But
you see, the Apostle and the whole of the New Testament does
not put the focus of the believer's hope upon the intermediate state,
as blessed as that is. But the focal point of the hope
of the believer is When the Lord Jesus returns, and at His return
bringing the souls of all the just men made perfect, all of
the spirits of the glorified saints with Him, He resurrects
their bodies, and that body now made, chapter 3 of this very
epistle, by His almighty power fashioned unto His own glorious
resurrected body, the perfected spirit rejoins that now glorified
body and God's work has then been brought to consummation,
to completion in every one of His saints all at the same time. Not one of them shall receive
that glorified state in its entirety until we all receive it together. And if you bring up the question
of what about Elijah and what about Enoch, I don't have a full
answer, but all I know is that this text and dozens of other
texts in the New Testament point to the reality that it is at
the day of Christ that God's work in His people is completed. And because there is this corporate
dimension of Christ's redemptive purpose, He died to purchase
a bride. And He doesn't want a bride coming
down the aisle a finger at a time and a toe at a time and an ear
at a time. He wants His whole bride to embrace
His whole bride and sit down at the marriage supper of the
Lamb. And Paul says, I'm confident of this very thing, that there
are those of you there at Philippi, there in that Roman colony, beginning
with that little group by a riverside where God, by His Spirit, opened
the heart of this woman named Lydia and further worked to call
out His own, that there is a people who are part of that larger composite
of His own. And at the day of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the work that he began when he effectually called you
confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work
in you and who has been carrying it on by degrees and stages from
one stage of glory to another in the language of 2nd Corinthians
3 and verse 18, at the day of the Lord Jesus, he shall bring
it to its full and glorious completion. God does nothing by halves. He has no unfinished projects
lying around like the rest of us. And if he has begun a good
work in you or in me, he will carry it on to its goal and he
will complete it. Now in conclusion, what do I
say by way of practical application? Well, first of all, I want to
make a word of inquiry to every professing Christian in this
room this morning. Do you profess to be a Christian?
Then I want to ask you a very simple question. Very simple. You don't need to be a theologian
to answer it. Here's the question. What is there about you sitting
here this morning? The way you think? Your perspective
on life? Truth? Values? What is there
about the way you live? What you do, what you don't do,
where you go, where you don't go, what you see, what you don't
see on the television, in the movies. What is there about you
and all that makes you you that defies any rational explanation
but this? The God who made a world by the
word of his mouth has begun a good work in you. Simple question. Kids, struggling
with assurance? I don't know what I'm saying
to them. I've asked God to give me a new heart and I've prayed.
Just ask the question. What is there about you that
has no explanation but that Almighty God, in sovereign grace, has
begun a good work in you? What can't be explained by religious
traditions? by a good upbringing, by the
restraint of godly parents, by the influence of Christian training
in your homeschooling or Christian school, whatever the framework
has been. What is there about you sitting
here this morning that defies any rational, logical explanation
but that Almighty God in grace has begun a good working? And you start to enumerate the
things? Christ is more than a word to
me. Though my sin and my dullness at times make Him seem so distant
and far away, I can honestly say when He looks at me as He
looked at Peter and said, Do you love me? I can look Him in
the eye and say, Lord, thou knowest all things. You know that I love
you. You know, Lord, that my greatest
joy is when I have the most sense of your nearness, whether it's
singing hymns in church, whether it's reading my Bible by my bedside. Whether it's in company with
others who love you, Lord Jesus, you know that though my love
is a pathetic thing and I wouldn't trust the salvation of my soul
for a millisecond on the measure of my love, it would sink me
into hell. But Lord, as meager and weak
and vacillating as it is, Lord Jesus, you know I love you. And you say that. Any man loves
Christ, there's only one reason. God's begun a good work in him.
Lord Jesus, you know I hate sin, my heart's sins that nobody else
sees. You kids, can you say you hate
your sins, your little mean plans to get back at brother and sister,
your clever little ways to calm mom and dad? Have you come to
hate the sins of your heart? The sins that would make you
say nasty words on that playground during recess time? And then
brag to the other kids about how you got someone to cry. Do
you hate those sins? Do you go to Christ for forgiveness?
Sins of the mind, sins of the thoughts, sins of the motives,
as well as sins of the life. Can you say, I hate the things
that put the nails into my Savior. I hate the things that darkened
the heavens and plunged him into hell. If you can say, I love
Christ, I hate sin. because God's begun a good work
in you. You see, what is there about you that defies all rational
explanation but that God has begun a good work in you? Well, if there's nothing, my
friend, you better have dealings with God and ask if indeed the
root of the matter is in you. And I have a word of direction
to the consciously unconverted. Some of you sit here today. You
make no profession of being converted. What is it that you need above
all else? Well, you need nothing less than
that which Almighty God can do in you in getting you united
to Christ. How did these Philippians become
saints? They got united to Christ. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus,
through the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, to the
saints and brethren in Christ. You need to get into Christ as
the branches in the vine. And you can't put yourself there.
You can walk an aisle, raise a hand, pray a prayer, join a
church, go under the water a thousand times, but you can't graft yourself
into Christ. God can. And He delights when
sinners take their true posture before Him as lost and helpless
and hell-deserving and undone and just cry out, Be merciful
to me, the sinner. O God, you do what only you can
do to get me into Christ. For no man can come to me, Jesus
said, except the Father which sent me draw him. Don't you give that teaching
some name of some man. That's the teaching of the Lord
Jesus. Then I say, A word of consolation
and confirmation to those of you who are for real. Dear people
of God, begin by God's help in new ways to seek to attain to
Paul's level of confidence. It is not confidence in you.
It's confidence in God. And you reason from the greater
to the lesser. What takes more grace and power
to raise a dead man out of his grave or to keep him alive once
he's been resurrected? What takes more power to give
a blind man sight or to continue to help him see once he has sight?
God's done the greater work. He began a good work in you,
Christians. I say it reverently, all that
he goes on to do until the day of Jesus Christ, in a very real
sense, is a lesser work. And therefore, if he's begun
the good work in you, then in the confidence, not of presumption,
but in the confidence of faith, believe God. In the language
of Top Lady, Yea, I, to the end, shall endure, as sure as the
earnest is given, more happy, but not more secure, than glorified
spirits in heaven. I was rooting around in one of
my old hymn books, trying to find hymns that expressed this.
I won't read all of them, but let me read a few stanzas from
two of them. The sinner that by precious faith
has felt his sins forgiven, is evermore released from death
and sealed an heir of heaven. Though thousands snares enclose
his feet, not one shall hold him fast. Whatever dangers he
may meet, he shall get safe at last. Not as the world the Savior
gives, He is no fickle friend. Whom once He loves, He never
leaves, but loves them to the end. The heart that would this
truth withstand would pull God's temple down, wrest Jesus' scepter
from His hand and spoil Him of His crown. Satan might then full
victory boast. The church might wholly fall.
Listen, if one believer may be lost, it follows so may all. But Christ in every age has proved
his purchase firm and true. If this foundation be removed,
what can the righteous do? Brethren, by this your claim
abides. This title to your bliss, whatever
loss you bear beside, oh, never give up this. He who has begun
a good work in me will carry it on to completion until the
day of Jesus Christ. And then I close with this exhortation
to you who are real. Use this very certainty as the
foundation and framework of your prayers. There's a beautiful
example of this in Psalm 32.8, our final passage, Psalm 32.8.
It's an amazing and wonderful example of affirmation of certainty
followed by earnest entreaty. Psalm 32, and verse, now that's
not the psalm, but I know the psalm, the text is, thou wilt
perfect that which concerneth me, and then the psalmist prays
that he would do the very thing that he has confidently affirmed
that God would accomplish in him. thou wilt perfect that which
concerns me." I'm sorry, I have the wrong reference, but the
whole sense of the psalm is begins with affirmation, thou wilt perfect
that which concerns me, but then the text ends with the prayer
that God would perfect the work in him. So what are we to do
with Philippians 1a? Say, oh, well, that's marvelous.
God's begun the good work. I'm confident that he who has
begun it will perfect it until the day of Christ. Now I sit
back and do, no, no. We make that the very basis of
our pleading with God, when in that restricted way we feel,
as the one hymn writer said, a thousand snares at our feet. And we say, Lord, if I go by
what I see and feel, the snares are going to drag me down and
away and totally out. of that restricted way. But Lord,
that would be to violate your own commitment that having begun
a good work in me, you will perfect it. You will carry it on to completion
until the day of Christ. Lord, this is what you said.
And I make the very commitments of your own heart the basis of
my prayers. As you find in Ezekiel 36, God
says, I'll do this, this, this, and this. And then he says, moreover,
for these very things will I be inquired of to do them. You who
by the grace of God can say, yes, I am for real. Be confident of this very thing. He who has begun a good work
in you will carry it on to completion. until the day of Christ. And then in that day, when we
join all of the redeemed of all ages and are resplendent with
a glory that will glorify Christ, for it says in that day, he shall
come to be admired in his saints. We shall then be eternal monuments
of God's faithfulness to this his own that where he begins
the work, he carries it on to completion. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for
this word tucked away in this record of the apostles' prayers
of thanksgiving for the Philippian believers. And we pray that the
Holy Spirit would write it upon our hearts and enable us to take
hold of it by faith, that we may triumph not in ourselves,
but in the work of your hands. For we know that the enemy does
not like assured, confident Christians who, having no confidence in
themselves, dare to boast in the Lord their God. O Lord, may
we be able to say, in you have we made our boast all the day
long. May we boast in the cross of
Christ, boast in the power of your grace, that having put us
into the way, you will keep us and bring us home safely at last,
not the weakest having been lost. We pray for those, our Father,
who have very little to set before their own minds when pressed
with the question, what is there about them that defies any answer
but that you have begun a good work in them? We pray that you
will have dealings with them. Give them no rest until they
can rehearse in your presence what you have done to unite them
to your son and then to describe the fruit that you have brought
from that blessed union. Hear our cry, seal your word
to our hearts, and continue to bless us throughout this day,
we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.