Seeking for the help of the Lord, I direct your prayer for attention to Philippians chapter one and verse six. Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians chapter 1 verse 6, a good work begun in you. May the Lord be pleased this evening, where he has begun a good work, to assure you of it, and also to give that assurance that he will complete it. and also along the way give you that assurance that you truly are His. You would be mindful that when the Lord first begins, often that soul does not have a knowledge of it at first, and doesn't have assurance of it until the Lord's time. that he sets his seal upon that work. With the church here at Philippi, we are favoured to know from the Acts of the Apostles how that church begun, how the Lord had begun with individuals in it. In Acts chapter 16, we read of that work. Firstly, how even the apostle was brought to come amongst them. They were aware of that as well. And this can be very encouraging for us as well. When we realise how God has brought a minister, or how the word has come, and to be assured like those at Philippi, Paul would have told them that he had sought to go elsewhere first. You read in Acts 16, verse 6, how that he was forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. They tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them not. And then Paul was given the vision to go over into Macedonia, come over into Macedonia and help us. And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them. It's interesting, isn't it? The Lord didn't appear in the vision and say, Paul, go over to Macedonia and preach the gospel to them. He just had men come over into Macedonia and help us. But Paul gathers from that the help that they needed, the help that God had called them to, was to preach the gospel. With David, when David was appointed king and brought to be king over Israel, we read that he perceived that the Lord had established him as the king of Israel. Sometimes we want things more clear than what the scriptures give, but it's a blessed thing to perceive that the Lord has begun with us. or to gather from what the Lord has done, that this is what the Lord's intention is. And those at Philippi would have known how the Lord had directed his servant to them. And then how, first Lydia, when Paul and his companions went to the riverside where prayer was wont to be made, that her heart was opened. And we read how the Lord began with her. She attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. We might have one. I hope there are those of you here. You attend unto the things that are spoken. You're interested, you're attentive to it. But what we read before in this account Lydia's heart was opened. But how many of you have discerned that your heart has been opened? That's why you're intentive. That's why you listen. This is what the scriptures say of Lydia. And then we have the case with the jailer and his household. But how are they to hear the word? The jailer is working in the prison. But the Lord has a way to bring the preacher into prison. And so he allows or appoints this damsel possessed with the spirit of divination, that as Paul and his companions are going to prayer, they have her following, and saying, these men are the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way of salvation. And she did that many days. And so Paul, he turned and said to the Spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And they came out the same hour. But she had masters. And she brought her masters much gain by her soothsaying. And they lost their gain, they lost their income. And so they brought Paul and Silas into the marketplace, to the rulers, and laid charges against them, laid them with many stripes and put them in prison. And as they were in prison and prayed and sang praises at midnight, prisoners, the other prisoners heard them, the jailer no doubt heard them. And then there was a great earthquake, the foundations of the prison opened, the jailer was going to kill himself, but Paul cried out that we are all here, do thyself no harm. And it was through this that Paul Silas was able to speak unto him the word of the Lord and to all his house. They showed their love by dressing their wounds, washing their stripes. They were baptised here in all their straight ways. Interesting, isn't it? At what point people were baptised in the scripture? Very early on, wasn't it? As soon as they discerned the Lord had begun and really were clear it was the Lord's work, that's when they were baptised. The important thing is what we have in our text, being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. Knowing the actual path that Paul had walked, Lydia had walked, the jailer in his household, is a good start for us on such a text as this. I want to look this evening at three points. Firstly, grounds for confidence. Our text begins being confident of this very thing. And there are other times in this chapter as well that Paul speaks about being confident of something, sure of something. So grounds for confidence. And then secondly, a good work begun in a sinner. And especially to notice it is an inward work. It's a spiritual work within, evidenced by fruits outwardly, but it is an internal work. And then lastly, a work performed until the day of Jesus Christ. Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. But firstly, a grounds for confidence. Perhaps to use some illustrations first, because there are many things in life that We must have a degree of confidence to be able to do something. If you go to the chemist and you've got a prescription and it's a very, perhaps a powerful medicine or drug you're going to take, how do you know that that is not poison? How do you know that that will do you good and not harm? You don't know the lab that might have been done overseas. You don't know the whole process, but you do know that in this country there are regulations. You do know that there are laws that govern what can be sold and the packaging and the care in how these things are brought to us. And so, perhaps even without thinking, you've got confidence in that pharmacist, you've got confidence in the process, it may be you say, well, yes, I have confidence in them, but my confidence overall is placed in the Lord, that he will bless medicine and keep me from harm. But there's many aspects in our life that we learn to have confidence. When I was in engineering as a design engineer, I had to be able to design things on a drawing board and to do the calculations and without trial, as it were, design and have a machine built that had to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, constant in production and not break down. How could I be confident from my calculations? Part of what helped in training, we used to do perhaps calculations on a bending of a beam with a certain weight, bending a beam over a span. And I would calculate with that weight and that section of beam and what material it was, how much it would bend. And then we'd try it out. We'd put the beam, and we'd put a weight on it, and we'd put a dial gauge on it, and lo and behold, It meant just what I calculated it would. And that gives you confidence that your calculations reflect what is in real life. And then of course later on as you do machine after machine, then your confidence grows that You can rely on those calculations, you can rely on the figures you've got, the values that you've been given, and it is very necessary in many aspects of life to actually have confidence. If you are relying on the strength of a rope to hang on, If you're relying on fencing to keep hens in, you've got to have some confidence that you've done it right and you've buried it in. I thought I had confidence once. I hedged about sweet corn, thought I'd keep the badgers out, but that wasn't good confidence. They just dug straight under it. But we generally have a ground for confidence that we can really trust in something. And so especially in the things of God. We do not want to have vain confidence. I think Bunyan pictures his pilgrim. They had one that was going before them, one that just didn't know anything, thought that all would end up right in the end. And at the last, over the river of death, or what Bunyan pictured at it, he had the ferryboat. vain confidence, that there's a way from heaven right down to hell. It's not good enough just to have a confidence with no basis upon it at all. And sometimes other people can see and think, that won't work. You might say it will, you might have confidence, but I can see and know it won't work. And especially in the things of our souls, You need to have a real basis, a ground. If someone were to say, well, what ground have you for confidence? You know, Paul here, he would have said, one of the grounds I have for confidence in you is how I came to be amongst you. Another ground he says of, is that, and is immediately after our text, he says, even as it is made, or good or right, for me to think this of you all, to think that God had begun it and would continue, because I have you in my heart, God puts his coming people in the hearts of his other people. Thou to be partners with them in Christ's throne, they're to be with them in the church, they are lively stones built up together, and he'll give that love. We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. And often we put it in the way as a coming sinner, loving the brethren. That is a scriptural ground of confidence, that we know that we've passed from death unto life. But it does work the other way when you find that God's people who have been many years in the way love you too and want to be in your company and speak to you and seek your good. And Paul was like that. He said God had put these Philippians in his heart and he prayed for them. He thanked God for them. for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now." They hadn't just been converted and then said, well, goodbye, Paul. We don't need you anymore. They'd had fellowship, one with another. And so that is a ground of confidence. The Lord will have regard unto the work of his own hands. This is the Lord's doing, marvellous in our eyes. sent his servant to get a wife for Isaac. And the servant comes, he prays at the well, the Lord answers his prayer remarkably, and when he goes to the house with Laban Bethuel, he tells what had happened, what he'd prayed, and how the answer, how Rebecca had come, and how that she had done what he'd asked, to give that drink for him and for his camels also. And they said, the thing proceedeth from the Lord. They could see that. That gave them confidence to be able to let their sister go with this stranger to a man they'd never seen and she'd never seen. believing it was of the Lord. Sometimes we can overlook the greatness, the miracle of that, of the family being able to let her go in that way. But they had reason for confidence because they could see the Lord's hand in it. And so we are also to watch for the Lord's hand, often in timing, the suitability of it, to notice his handiwork and to recognise that what we have been brought through, there are places in scripture that mirror that. Now God has chosen to put these accounts in scripture so that we can see them. The Word of God, it is according to the Word of God that we gain confidence in what the Lord is doing, what the Lord has done. Think about coming to the throne of grace. Paul says in Hebrews 4, for we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are. yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly, or we might say with confidence, unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. The more we prove answers to prayer, the more we prove the Lord has helped us and known us, gives us more and more confidence to go again and to ask again. Later on also, in the 10th chapter of Hebrews, we have this word in verse 14. For by one offering, he, sorry, yes, for by one offering, he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, wherefore the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. For after that he had said before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. And then Paul applies it like this. He says, having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his flesh, having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near. full assurance of faith. And he's speaking of this confidence, a soul that has been taught by the Lord. Their ears have been opened, their eyes have been opened, they've been given a teachable spirit, they've been given every evidence of spiritual life. Those are those that are coming in this new and living way. And Paul says, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. We know the Lord is the author of faith, and he is the one that gives faith. And that faith given by him, we don't have to prop that up. It props us up. It keeps us up. I know I've used this illustration before when I used to see the residents in Bethesda walking along the corridor, and they're holding their walking frame up. They're lifting it. And I think, well, you'd be a lot better off without that walking frame. You'd get on much better. You see another one, and they've got their walking frame firmly on the ground. They've got all their weight on it. They're leaning upon it. They need it, and they're using it. It's doing them good. That's what real faith is. Supports us. We don't have to support it. We don't have to imagine things. It gives us that assurance, that comfort. But do remember this, dear friends. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. So when we bring these things before you in the ministry, this is where the Lord takes that word and gives you faith through it, so that then you can rise and maybe for a few moments, maybe for an hour or two, or maybe for a day, you feel the Lord has begun. He is my God, it is the Lord's work, and you really feel it. Those are sweet moments, like the hymn writer said, sweet the moments rich in blessing, which before the cross I spend. And the Lord's dear servants now in glory in New Zealand. When I asked him about assurance, he turned to me and he said, assurance, have you got assurance? Don't look for it 10 minutes later. Now it doesn't mean that one moment we believe we're God's people and one moment not. But what he meant was that assurance in such a way that drives away the doubt, we really feel persuaded, and know it is so. It doesn't last long, but we remember it. And the witness that it gives, we remember that. And it's good to remember that. The Lord's people don't walk hour by hour, day by day, in really the sweet assurance and interest in Christ. We do by faith, but not by feeling. Not by feeling. One time at home, so blessed, I really felt I could, if I'd have died then, I would have gone straight to heaven. But I didn't remain in that frame. And faith is that which holds on to the word of God. Thou saidst, I will surely do thee good. It's like David, who says, although my house be not so with God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure. Now sometimes it can come on unexpected times, driving to Gravesend this afternoon, and on the motorway, just unexpectedly. Looking at the countryside, I thought, I'm here in England. And it just, one after the thing's another, how the Lord has brought me over here. And all the years of exercise, of expectation, promises, things have been brought to pass. And just in a moment, I felt for a few moments, few minutes there, a real sweet assurance, yes. The Lord was my God. He had brought me here and he had blessed me. And that balances those times of doubt or unbelief or uncertainty. And those are sweet times. And sometimes you can come very unexpectedly and the Lord taking things you hadn't thought of and in effect saying, this is my work. I begun this work. I began this work of grace. I began this in providence. This is my handiwork and he owns it to be actually his work. And so we need those grounds, grounds for confidence, especially in the things of God. We are favoured to have a faithful translation of the Word of God in our own tongue and it's a blessed thing to know the Word of God and have that Word of God laid in our hearts, taught of God. I hope the Lord will bless this Word and give some of you here to know that you do have grounds of confidence that the Lord has begun a good work in you. But I want to look then secondly of a good work begun in a sinner. We need to be clear on this and I know we've touched some aspects of it. We mentioned when we made this heading at the beginning that it was in. It's an inward work and very often a secret work. It may be noticed by those round about and noticed by the fruits as well. Sometimes it will be noticed because of decisions that actually have to be made. I know in my case where the Lord begun No sooner had the Lord given life and a desire to attend the house of God that my father said he was going to sell up and move to Tasmania, away from the house of God. So I had to do something. The Lord, in his timing, had brought me to the end of my apprenticeship, fitting and turning. And I said, well, I'm not going. I've saved up enough. I'm going to buy a house. I'm going to stay here. And that's what I did, and lived on my own for 10 years. And so the beginning of that work, even before I had any assurance, before the Lord had really blessed my soul in a way that I realised was a blessing, the effect was that it made me make decisions I would have never made otherwise. I would have said, good, we're going away to Tasmania. I don't want to go to chapel anyway. I've been trying to get away for years. But it had the complete opposite effect and other ways that made effect as well. All of the orchestras that I was involved with and some of them playing in as well, violin, I couldn't enjoy that anymore. I didn't link the two together. I didn't link the concern for my soul for a lack of desire for the worldly company that I was going in. But looking back, I can see the link. The Lord were working in both ways. When the Lord blesses in the soul, he gives a new desire, a new life, a new attraction. And those things at once have taken up all their attention, our love, our money, and time, they just lose, they're dull. They're not completely taken away. And sometimes it's quite a wrestling to give up some of these things. But you see, they're incompatible. And the Lord has said, come ye out from among them and touch not the unclean thing. And the Lord is the one that makes that difference, changes the sense. changes our affections, changes our desires, changes our priorities, changes what we feel is important. And so it is a work of grace, it's as one of the Lord's dear servants said who came here, the Lord instigates a work of grace. It is his work from beginning to end and this is the The blessing of this text, if we cannot see the Lord has begun, how will it be a comfort to us to have added, we'll perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ? We need to know that it is the Lord that's done it. The Lord says to the disciples, you have not chosen me. I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go forth and that you should bring forth fruit. We know how the disciples, they were chosen, and the Lord called them to follow after him. And the Lord does call his people, my sheep, they hear my voice and they follow me. But like Samuel, we read, Samuel did not yet know the Lord. And all of God's people, that is how the Lord has found them. They might have been brought up under the sound of the truth. But until the Lord reveals himself to them, they do not know the Lord. And Samuel was like that. He was in the temple. He was serving in the temple. He heard Eli. He knew Eli. And when the Lord began with him, he thought it was Eli talking to him, calling him, that Eli perceived and again There's this perception, isn't there? God didn't say to Eli, Eli, Samuel, I'm calling. Can you tell him that I'm calling? Samuel, Eli perceives that it is the Lord, because he comes again and again. Someone is calling, but it's not me. Samuel thinks it's me, but it's not me. It must be the Lord. And it was. And Samuel knew the Lord, by the word of the Lord. We read, the Lord appeared again unto Samuel by the word of the Lord. That is how God appears and speaks to his people. And it says the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. That still small voice, the Lord making us to hear his word, receive his word. That word enter into our hearts. and shall not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Thy word hath quickened me, or made me alive. That is where the Lord begins. It begins with bring his people to know the secret of the word of God, and ear open to it, instruction given, things that touch their heart, things that move them, affect their lives, bring forth fruit, change who they love, change who they want to be with, a new birth, a new beginning, the Lord's work, a good work begun in a sinner. The Apostle Paul, he speaks of this good work as when the Lord convicted him. And remember again, he was a religious man, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Religion doesn't save us. Religion, however much Paul knew the scriptures, that could not show him Christ. He needed to have him revealed. Man by just study cannot find out Christ. He must be revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. He's revealed to us through the Word of God, through the preaching, to see Him in the lattice of the Word, to see Him like those two on the way to Emmaus. Their heart burned within them while He talked with them by the way, while He preached to them from the Old Testament Scriptures. They saw Christ. They saw him in the types, the shadows, all these things. But going back to Paul, he says, I was alive without the law once. But when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the law, that which was ordained unto life, I found to be unto death. That was the beginning. Often the beginning is traced by conviction of sin. by being brought down, by being brought to see our need of the Saviour, or our sentence of death upon us, that we are not ready to die, that we don't have any grounds of confidence, that we are out of the secret. Often the beginning is being brought down first. and then lifted up again. It's the Lord that does both. He convicts and then he brings the gospel. Have we been brought to receive the gospel or ready to receive it? We think of our Lord's parable of the sower. The one that brought forth fruit was prepared ground. And the difference between the The first hearer and last was the first did not understand the word. The last that brought forth fruit did understand it. When the Lord told the parables, the disciples couldn't understand any more than any of the others. But those that heard most of them, they went away. To them it was just a story. There was nothing underneath. But the disciples, they said, interpret to us the parable. They wanted to know what the spiritual meaning of teaching was. And the Lord then taught them. And when he appeared after he rose from the dead, he opened their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures. And with Philip and the eunuch, his first question was, understandest thou what thou readest? But he didn't say. There's no hope for you because you don't understand the word of God. There was hope. He was already reading it. He confessed that he didn't understand it. And he desired Philip to come up. And he began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. That word was blessed to him. A portion of the word that he couldn't understand, was the very portion that the Lord blessed him. The wonderful thing, if that was so, is some of us here may always remember that.

There's some in John 6, when they couldn't understand things, they went back, and they walked no more with him. It's a good thing when we can't understand things, that it doesn't stumble us. And we use that as the very thing to take to the Lord in prayer, say, Lord, Interpret this. Show me what this means. Unfold it to me.

A good work begun in a sinner. Go may the Lord shine and bear witness in souls here that he has begun or where he hasn't, that your prayer and desire that he will begin, to tell him, Lord, I need thy work. Begin in me. Make my soul alive. Ask for these things. Ask for what we really want the Lord to do.

I want to notice with our last point, a work performed until the day of Jesus Christ. When the Lord begins, he always finishes. He spoke one parable about a man that would build a tower. He doesn't start to begin without really considering whether he's got enough or able to finish it. Well, the Lord, when he begins, He will finish. And sometimes we can be tempted. We can think, well, the Lord, I trust, has begun. But I don't think he realized what a stubborn, rebellious, sinful creature he had when he begun with me. But the Lord did. He knew, and he knows exactly what we are. It doesn't take him by surprise. Is anything too hard for the Lord? No. No person too hard. He knows how to deal with his people.

You know, in a family, a family here, I have many children, and each has a different character, a different way that they need dealing with, even with our two children. And I deal with them quite differently. They're very, very different characters. And the Lord's people are different, but he knows how to deal with them. And that's what makes his dealings with them very unique, so that they know it is the Lord, and he knows them, and he's suiting his word and teaching just to them. He knoweth our frame, he remembereth we are but dust.

It is God that works this work. I've often thought of this, those of us that have been in the way some 45 years, as I have, I don't need to keep looking back to the beginning of the way, because I can look back to what the Lord has done yesterday, or the day before, or what he is doing still. He hasn't forsaken that work. He still chastens. He still teaches. His hand is still there, sometimes in the smallest things, but able to recognize it because his handiwork is the same today as it was 45 years ago.

And each of the people of God the Lord deals with different. So if I was to describe The certain hallmark of the Lord to me, it may be very different to you. But one thing I've found is the Lord is consistent with His people, with each individual, so that they recognise His handiwork. They recognise how He visits to bless them. They recognise how He chastens them. They recognise how He comes in for them and answers prayers. And sometimes, as there's been many a time with me, how He's forewarned me of things. Sometimes not. Sometimes, and things more recently, taken completely by surprise. But other times, forewarned and known of what things are coming up. But what an assurance here, where the Lord has begun. The Lord doesn't begin and say, now it's up to you. I've given you life, I've given you a hearing ear, you go and you're on your own now and I'll be watching and if you don't perform right, I'll condemn you. No, that's not the Lord. He continues. And so we'd ask that question again, at what point in this continuing, at what point do we make open profession And do we tell to sinners round what a dear Saviour we have found? When the Lord brings, and may it be through the word, that confidence of the Lord beginning, an assurance of that. With these Philippians here, with others that were called, the 3,000 at the Day of Pentecost, the 5,000 when The lame man was healed. They were baptized. They were certain of this. The Lord had begun with them. But they had much teaching still to go on. You think of the letters of Paul to the Corinthians. He really shows them and writes to them as the people of God had been called. But how many reproofs he had to them. how much teaching, how much instruction he has with them. We'll be learners and be instructed all our days. But the important thing, is it the Lord's work? Has he begun? Has he put his stamp, his mark on it? And there's something very, very sacred, very beautiful, where the Lord does give that confidence and able to own it and then to really look forward, look forward to a life of the Lord continuing that work and carrying on what he has begun. This is what the Apostle, he was confident of this, confident of the beginning with them, confident that the Lord would perform it and he told them so. He told them in this letter, he conveyed it to them. I often think many times of how the apostle encouraged those that he wrote to and said, I can see God's stamp in you. I can see the Lord's work. I thank God for you. I pray for you. It was a good thing. They were able to encourage one another in this way. And when the Lord perhaps turns the mirror around, I've known some of the Lord's people, as the Lord's begun with them, they've looked at others of the Lord's people, I said, and they've actually said, you know, I so see the grace of God in that person. I'd like to be, that is what I want to be. And over time, the Lord has made them like that. So imperceptibly they haven't realised it. until we had to remind them and say, you know what you used to say? You know what you used to say is the mark of God's people that you could see? I can see that in you now. You have that. And they may not perceive it or know it. And the apostle was doing this with those at Philippi, those in Ephesus as well, and Corinth. May the Lord bless it to this end this evening. being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. That is, when the Lord brings his people safely home to glory, I and the children whom thou hast given me, or for most of us, it will be when the Lord comes and takes us home through death and brings us to be with him. The Lord who suffered, bled and died for us. The Lord who has redeemed us and then called us and quickened us and worked in us. He will have his people to be with him, formed by his own hand, by his workmanship, to his honour and glory. You know, if the Lord would say that he'd bring that unto just the day before the day of Jesus Christ, We'd ruin it in that last day. But the Lord says, no, right to the end, right to the end. He won't forsake his people. The Lord bless the world. Amen.