Let's take our Bibles and turn
with me to the book of Philippians. Philippians chapter 1. Philippians
1. Philippians 1. I'd like to read
verses 1 to 8. Philippians chapter 1. Paul and Timotheus, the servants. of Jesus Christ to all the saints
in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi with the bishops and
deacons. Grace be unto you and peace from
God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God
upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine
for you all making requests with joy for your fellowship in the
gospel from the first day until now, 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. Even as it is meet for
me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart,
and as much as both in my bonds and in the defense and confirmation
of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace, for God is my record. how greatly I long after you
all in the bowels of Jesus Christ." The Lord had spoken to the Apostle
Paul in a vision. And he caused the Apostle to
see in that vision a man of Macedonia. And in that vision the man dressed
in outfit, clothing of a Macedonian said, come over to Macedonia
and help us. Acts 16 verse 9. And scripture
says that the Apostle Paul concluded that the Lord had called him
and Barnabas to go to Macedonia and preach the gospel unto them. This is This is a marvel of God's
grace that God would send a preacher to a place to preach the gospel.
For God raises up an assembly of believers that preach the
glorious gospel of God's free grace. That's a miracle. Now,
there was a city, the chief city, in the country of Macedonia. It was called Philippi. That
was the chief place and it was where the Lord was pleased to
bless the Word. That's where Lydia was from,
the one that was the seller of purple. You remember she was
going down to the, they were having a prayer meeting down
on a river bank and Paul was preaching the gospel and the
scripture says that the Lord opened her heart and she attended
to the words that were spoken. by the Apostle Paul. So tender. God gave her a heart to believe. There was a Philippian jailer.
Remember that? Paul and Silas was in that Philippian
jailer. The Lord sent an earthquake and
that Philippian jailer came in and God saved him. Called him
out of darkness. Raised up a church in Philippi. This assembly was a assembly
that was dearly loved by Paul. He was so thankful for those. He had a heart for these that
the Lord had raised up. And Paul the Apostle, who was
Saul of Tarsus, who formerly was a despiser of those that
loved the Lord, who loved the gospel of God's free grace, He
hated them. He hated them before God stopped
him on the road to Damascus. And here was this, he was just
a religious, arrogant, self-centered, bragging Pharisee is what he
was. He said, before I was converted,
he said, in my mind, I I kept the law. I was without blame
before the law. I was blameless. I'm thinking,
you know what? Is that not the most arrogant
thing? Every believer knows this. I've
never done one good thing in my life of myself. If there's
any good in me, it's because it's the goodness of God. It's
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the spirit of Him who is
life. In me, what Paul says, there
dwelleth no good thing. No good thing. And now, here's
this former, arrogant, self-centered, self-reliant Pharisee and God
saved him. Sent him to preach, called him
to be a preacher. Sent him to this place. to admonish,
to encourage these in the faith. Now, there's four things. I've
entitled this, Salvation by Grace. And there's four things that's
recorded in these first eight verses concerning God's mercy
to show grace and compassion to these people and also Paul's
love for them. Four things. Here's my four points. I'll go ahead and give them to
you so you'll know when I'm done. Number one, the reason for his
love. The reason for Paul's love. Number two, the one he thanks
for the love that he had for those at Philippi. Number three,
the confidence. of His love. And number four,
the pledge of His love. Here's the first point. The reason
for His love. Why did He love them? He loved
them. He loved these people at Philippi.
Here's the reason. Here's the reason for His love,
verse 1 and 2. Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ
to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi with the
bishops and deacons. Grace be unto you and peace from
God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ." The ones to whom
Paul wrote were saints. They were saints In Christ Jesus,
they were set apart. That word saint, sanctify, sanctified. It means set apart. It means
holy. Paul was writing to a group of
people that Almighty God had set apart for himself. Wasn't one ounce of difference
in them and anybody else. Out of the same lump, God chose
to show mercy to some. Same lump, same lump of dirt,
same lump of clay. Does the potter have the right
out of the same lump, Romans 9, to make one vessel under honor
and another under dishonor? Does God have the right to do
that? He said all souls are mine. These were saints. in Christ
Jesus. They were chosen in Christ. Paul and Timotheus, the servants
of Jesus Christ, are all the sanctified, those made holy in
Christ Jesus. Those who had their guilt paid
for by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, they had
no guilt to answer for. That they were sinners? Absolutely. All the apostles said, Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He said, of whom
I'm chief. You'll not ever find a believer
that says that I'm not a sinner. Oh, I beg your pardon. We say
we have no sin. We make God a liar. But I said
they had no sin to answer for. He'd put it away. He'd paid their
debt, cast that as far as the east is from the west, behind
his back, cast it into the sea. Where is that? It's wherever
God says it is. But he said, I'm not going to
charge you with it. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Charge him with it. Oh, we are. We're right now. We're sinners,
saved by the grace of God. But those that have been robed
in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the obedience,
His obedience, my obedience, And He's given me a heart and
sense to know it and to love it. I love that it's all His. I love to brag on Him. Let me
brag on Him, not on myself. I don't have anything good to
say about myself. I know just enough about myself.
Here's the reason for Paul's love. These were God's people. They were God's people. Predestinated,
he said, under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself
according to the good pleasure of His will. They were brethren. This reason he loved them. They're
God's people, saints. Not because of their own worthiness
of obedience, but totally according to the merit and the work and
the grace and the compassion of Almighty God to them. God
had shown mercy to him. He says, grace unto you. God's grace unto you. God's grace
unto you. Because the Father chose to show
mercy. And he said, in peace. Grace
be unto you in peace. Which is the effect of God's
grace. Peace before God. Peace with
each other. Peace in my heart. The Lord's
Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I'm a son of God. Why? Because He's given me a
heart to know that salvation is all of the Lord. I believe
God. Not as I would desire to. Not as I wish I would. And not
as I shall. But I believe God. Here's the
second thing. the one he thanks for that love.
Verse 3 to 5, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,
upon every mention of you. I thank my God every time God
gives me a heart to mention you. He confirms this in his next
verse, always in every prayer of mine for you all, all making
requests with joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first
day until now. The reason he loved them because
they're God's people. The one he thanks for loving
them. The one he thanks for giving
him a love for them is the Lord. I thank my God. I thank God. And God's given me a heart to
pray for you. Second Thessalonians 2.13. We're
bound. We're indebted. We owe. I owe to the grace of God first,
but I'm bound to give thanks all the way to God for you, beloved
of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you
to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth. Paul's basis of love was that they were God's people.
The one he thanked was the Lord for giving him heart to want
to pray for him. Thankful that he loved him. He
made us brethren. We are his body. We have fellowship
with him and with each other. I love being with God's people.
I love being with God's people. Stan and Sherry, I wouldn't embarrass
them for anything. I love them dearly. came up,
visited with us this weekend. We were talking last night on
front porch. I told him, I said, you know,
isn't it wonderful that we just sit around, just have a heart,
want to honor him, praise him, thank the Lord for our fellowship
and for you. I thank God for you. Thank God that Almighty God would
send me to Katie Baptist Church. I'm not sufficient for this calling.
I know that. But I'm so thankful that He gave
me a heart for you and I'm thankful for your love for me. I thank
God for you. Pray that God Almighty knit our
hearts together in love for each other and to Him. I thank my
God always, every prayer of mine for you, making requests with
joy. making requests for joy. For what? For your fellowship
in the gospel from the first day until now. From the first
day that God calls our paths to cross. There's some of God's
people I don't know. I've never met them. But I'm
going to tell you this, whoever they are, I love them. Who knows, Lord may give me an
opportunity to cross paths with them, meet them. But I tell you
this, whenever you meet a believer, They talk just like a believer.
They give all the honor and glory and praise unto God, unto the
Lord for them. Thirdly, here's the confidence
of Paul's love. Verse 6, 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. Here's what I have confidence
in. I've got some confidence in the
Lord. And I'm confident of this, the Lord that has given our fellowship,
our P, me and you and you and me and the other churches, I'm
confident of this thing. What the Lord has begun, he's
going to keep us. All that know him, I look forward
to spending eternity with you. We're going to be according to
scriptures. We're going to cast our crowns
before Him. What crown is that? It's the
crown of the righteousness that the Lord Jesus Christ has given.
We're going to say this all honor and glory and praise. These people
talk about I'm earning all these crowns and it gets so high I
don't even know if I can balance them anymore. I'm going to tell
you something. He is our crown. He is our crown
of righteousness. Salvations of the Lord. Here's
the confidence. Confident in Him. I'm confident
that He which hath begun a good work. Ain't nothing good but
God. God is good. It was the Lord
that regenerated him. That Paul said, I thank God for
you. God Almighty had given him a
new heart. Only God can do that. Philippians
2.13, for it's God which worketh in you, both the will and do
of His good pleasure. I don't have any room there.
God worked in you. We look around and behold each
other as saints, God's people, saints of God, those that know
Him, those that believe His gospel, those that believe Christ, believe
salvations of the Lord. And we say this, If the Lord
had not done this, we wouldn't. He hath begun a good work. He hath begun a good work. He
saved us. He saved us. Scripture says He
who has saved us and called us. He has saved us. He is saving
us right now. And He shall save us. In the
day of His power, saved daily, confident. And Paul, secondly,
concerning that confidence, he said, I'm confident that the
Lord is going to finish what He started. He which hath begun
a good work in you. There is a new man. I'm going
to tell you something, there's a new creature. A believer has
a new man imparted to him and that new man does not sin. There's
a new man. Now I'm going to tell you something
and somebody might say, well you're just arrogant. No, I believe
God. But you're looking at a man standing
right here. I've got an old man in me that
has not changed one ounce. Hadn't changed one bit. There's
an old man in me that which is flesh is flesh. And it's never
gotten better and never will get better. There's an old man
in me that still will not bow to the Lordship of Christ. He
will not. But there's a new man created
in righteousness, and that new man that is created by God Almighty
in power that has been imparted. I'm going to give you a new heart.
There's a new man standing right here that does not sin. There's
a new man standing right here that does not sin. And I'm going
to tell you something. I don't see him. I don't see
Him. I don't have any reason whatsoever
to look at myself and say, I don't see anything good in me. I have
no reason to say that. I have no reason to say that
I see something good in me is what I meant to say. I have no
reason to say that except that God Almighty says it so. That
which is born of God sinneth not. It believes God and everything
that I see in me is mixed with sin. I believe Him, but I'm thinking
to myself, Lord, if you did not say it was so, I could never
see that. I'd never see that. Being confident,
Paul says, being confident of this very thing. He which hath
begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus
Christ. even as it is meet for me to
think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, and as
much as both in my bonds and in the defense of the confirmation
of the gospel, ye all are partakers of the same grace that the Lord
shown me." When he says my grace, he's saying the same grace God
showed me showed you. Not Paul's grace, God's grace.
He said it's proper for me to think this of you. And then fourthly,
lastly, Here's the pledge of Paul's love. That is to say,
what is my love for you based upon? What's it based on? Here it is, verse 8. God is my
record. How greatly I long after you
all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. This is the confirmation that
I give you. I give him a word. I give him
a word. Making my pledge only according
to his mercy to me and his mercy to you. This is my pledge. God's my record. God is my record. That's the confidence. That's
the hope. That's the pledge that I give
unto you that I love you. God is my record. This is my oath of confidence. For Christ's sake. That's what
he's saying. For Christ's sake. I love you. God is my record. Here's where I find the strength
for my affection for you. God is my record. God is my witness. God is my witness. Yesterday morning we met together
at our men's class and we were looking at the scripture when
Moses met with the Lord in the burning bush and what that burning
bush set forth. And Moses was going to approach
the bush. And the Lord told him, he said,
come not hither. He said, take your shoes off.
He said, for the place that you're standing is holy ground. Not
because there was anything inherently holy of the dirt, but the presence
of God made that place holy because of God's presence. And I told
the men, This is the confidence that we have when the Lord reveals
that He Himself is present. And I know He's omnipresent.
I know that. There is no place that God is
not. He filleth all in all. He's fullness. When He said, I've made my presence
known, He said, where two or three are gathered together in
my name, I'm in the midst of you. When the church When God's
people assemble in this building, the Lord has said, I'm in the
midst of you. I'm in the midst of you. This
right here is holy ground, where we are this morning. You let
this assembly leave this place, and this is an empty building,
we have no confidence that God Almighty blesses with his presence
like he does when God's people are here. It is immensely blessed
when God's people assemble themselves together. I'm in the midst. He
said when I send you through the water, He said when you pass
through the waters of chastisement, of trials, God's people, because
of God's love for them, He said, I'll be with you. I'll be with
you. Whenever we pass through trials and tribulations, what
you're suffering right now, That's holy ground to a believer. That's
holy ground because of God's revealed presence. And as I said,
I know He's omnipresent, but there's something special. We
have the confidence of God's Word that that's so. Paul says,
this is my confidence. God is my witness. This is the confidence that I
have. He loved the people. They were God's people. It made
him one in Him, giving him a heart. He was confident that God Almighty,
what God had started, God was going to finish. This is his
pledge. This is his oath. God's my witness. I love you. Lord, bless these
words to our heart for Christ's sake.