Alright, brethren, we're going
to begin, but we're going to be in Philippians chapter 1.
Philippians chapter 1. Thank you for inviting me out
here. I really do appreciate it. It's
nice to meet many of you and see some of you for a second
or third time, so I appreciate it. Philippians chapter 1. We're going to read the first
11 verses. Philippians 1.1, Paul and Timothy,
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 request
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 meant 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.
And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more
in knowledge and in all judgment, that ye may approve things that
are excellent, that ye may be sincere and without offense till
the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness
which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God."
Now this letter to the Philippians, it was authored by Paul, at least
he wrote it. And he calls himself the bondslave
of Jesus Christ. And he's in Rome in prison at
the time that he writes this letter to the Philippians. And
it would be delivered to this people here in Philippi by the
hands of Epaphroditus, whom Paul calls your messenger, and he
that ministered to my wants. And later Paul states, I am full,
having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from
you, an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing
to God. So the Philippian brethren there
had put together a gift that they wanted to send to Paul,
and they send it by Epaphroditus, and then Paproditus gives this
gift to Paul, and he was blessed by it, no doubt, and it moves
Paul to sit down and pen this epistle to him. And you think
about it, brethren, that he returned to them a gift more precious
than that which they gave to him. So that if you ever think,
and you have something in your heart that you want to do for
some brother or sister, some ministry, some serving of the
people of God here, And you wonder in your heart, this seems so
small. What good will this do? Just think about this gift here
that the Philippians gave, and how it redounded to the glory
of God, in that He returned this letter, which has been a comfort
and a blessing to the people of God for so many years, that
we can see another view of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
written sweetly here in this letter to the Philippians. My
title this morning is A Servant's Thankful Heart in Prayer. And I pray that we notice this
morning the care and the desire which Paul had for these brethren
here in Philippi, that they would be established in the Lord Jesus
Christ, that they would grow in the knowledge and in the perception
of Jesus Christ, And that we would also take note of this
willing bond slave's heart for the people here, his thankful
heart and prayer for the people of God. Alright, let's look again
in verse 1. Paul and Timothy, the servants
of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at
Philippi, with the bishops and deacons. Now, as I said, Paul
wrote this letter, but he never mentions his apostleship here,
if you notice. And he did that very often in just about all
of his letters. And he simply calls himself and
Timothy the servants, bond slaves, of Jesus Christ. And I'd like
to just point out two prominent reasons why he would have done
this. First, he calls himself a servant. Because he's in prison.
He's in prison for preaching the Gospel of his Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. And Paul knows very well that
God is able to do whatsoever he pleases. He can do all things. And yet he finds himself in prison
for preaching the Gospel of his Savior, Jesus Christ. But we
find Paul here content with God's good providence. And secondly,
in just a few short verses, Paul calls himself a servant because
he would call the people's hearts there at Philippi, he would call
their attention to the Lord Jesus Christ, when he says in Philippians
2, verse 5, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ
Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation. and
took upon him the form of a servant, that's the same word that he
uses for himself, a bond slave, and was made in the likeness
of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Consider God Almighty, who knew
nothing but the glory that he had with the Father, that he
now took upon him our flesh, the likeness of our flesh, and
he became obedient unto death. And Paul knows the words of his
Lord, that the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they
persecuted me, our Savior said, they will also persecute you. But Paul became obedient unto
his imprisonment, and was the more happy to suffer for his
Lord's sake, because his Lord had for his sake become obedient
unto death. And we also know from the Scriptures
that Christ learned obedience through the things which he suffered. And I have no doubt that this
is weighing heavily on Paul's mind. When he's writing this,
he is truly affected by what Christ has done for him, and
he sees it so clearly now. And he's there in prison, and
no doubt those men who put him there in prison, who wanted to
see him go there, are looking at this and thinking, truly,
surely, this is an evident token that God is displeased with you,
Paul. And yet Paul doesn't see it that way. He sees what God
is doing, what God is working. If you look there in Philippians
1.12, he says, But I would, ye should understand, brethren,
that the things which happen unto me have fallen out rather
unto the furtherance of the gospel. so that we may just pause here
for some sweet reflection to consider how our Lord and Savior
learned obedience through the things which he suffered, and
how Paul here is counting all joy to suffer for his Lord's
sake in the service and ministry of his God and the brethren that
ought not we too. that we suffer and go through
many trials and tribulations, the trial of our faith, should
not we also rejoice that God should treat us as sons and daughters? If He brought His Son, His own
Son, to suffer, and He brought His apostles to suffer, should
we not count it joy that we should be in such company as them?"
Alright, brethren, let's move on to verse 2. Verse 2, Philippians
1-2, Grace and peace unto you, from God our Father, and from
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, grace and peace, these are
very common expressions that are used often in the epistles
by many of the apostles. Grace and peace. But there's
nothing common about these words at all. Paul is speaking to the
saints that are in Christ Jesus. So that from the grace and peace
which comes to us from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus
Christ only comes to sinners that are now called saints in
Christ Jesus. It's so easy for us. I'm guilty
of it. Many times I want to sit down
and read the Bible, and I sometimes just breathe right on through
those opening verses. And sometimes, to my shame, I've
even skipped over them, just to get to what I call the meat
of the Word. And we think that as if these are just some fluffy
little Christian words or some filler to make the epistle longer
or something like that. Brethren, consider the cost,
what it cost Christ our Savior, that we might know the grace
of God and that we might have peace with God our Father because
of what Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. Consider
this grace toward His people, that it's in Christ. Consider
that the peace that we have with God is in Christ. Do you gladly own what that means?
There's many proud men in religion that speak of the grace of God,
and they speak, oh yeah, I know the grace of God, and it's by
God's grace that I'm saved, and I've made my peace with God,
and they boast great things, but they never really consider
what it is that they're saying. Because if you own that, if you
trust that it's by God's grace that you're saved, what you're
confessing is you're a filthy, vile, dead dog, stinking sinner. Is that what you are? Are you
a sinner? Do you need Christ? Has He shown
you that there's nothing that you can do to earn a righteousness
for yourself? That all your very best works
are filthy in God's sight. Anything done in the flesh is
vile and base toward God. So, when we speak of the grace
of God, we're confessing that we are sinners, that we can do
nothing good in ourselves, that we are completely dependent upon
the grace and mercy of God to do for us what we cannot do for
ourselves. And it costs Christ His life.
It cost him his blood, and he lived the perfect life, he took
upon him flesh just like us, and did that which we could not
do ourselves. We are confessing that we are
foolish ones, we are weak things, we are despised ones in this
earth. Paul said to the Corinthians,
For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many rise after
the flesh, Not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God
hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty, the base things of the world,
and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things
which are not to bring to naught things that are, that no flesh
should glory in his presence. So brethren, we're called saints
because of what Christ has done for us. And in this reality of
what we are in Christ, it's not lost on the Apostle Paul. He
understands the preciousness of faith, that no man knows these
things by nature. He might pretend to know them,
he might think he knows them, but none of us knows anything
of any value by nature. We are completely dependent upon
the Lord Jesus Christ to do for us what we cannot do. And it's
not just Paul that knows this, but every minister of God, the
Lord breaks him and brings him to see the preciousness of faith
and our need of Christ to do for us what we cannot do for
ourselves. Look here in verses 3, 4, and 5. the heart that the
Lord has given to Paul for these people. He says in verse 3, 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. Now Paul is writing
these words to the Philippians, and you're looking at these words
and thinking, well this is Paul, and this is what he's saying
to the Philippians, so how does this relate to us? How do I find
any consolation here in these words? Well, what we see here,
brethren, is the pattern of the heart of a pastor. This is what
God brings his pastors to think toward the people which God has
given to him. We see how the Lord has brought
Paul low. Paul calls himself a slave. a bond slave of Christ. He's
been brought low in his own mind. And he's content with God's providence.
He knows that whatever God is doing, he trusts the Lord, that
the Lord knows exactly what he's doing, what he needs to do, and
that is what he is doing. So he labors and he ministers
to the saints of God in Christ Jesus. And here we see his heart's
prayer for these brethren here. I recall hearing on many occasions,
how our pastor said that he prayed for us. Most sincerely, how he
prays for us. Even when I was over at the Reichenbach's
house this morning, your pastor prayed for you, and he prayed
for me, that the Lord would bless his words to our heart. That's
the heart of a pastor, that we might hear the word of God, knowing
that it's God who must work in his people if we're to hear anything. If we're to know anything, and
I remember even here many, many years ago when Pastor Fortner
came and preached, so it would have been June, and how he said
that he prays for you, brethren. The Lord blesses his people with
pastors that pray for them, knowing that it's the work of the Lord.
They're not puffed up and cocky and thinking that it's something
that they do. We know that it's the Lord who does it. If a man
is sent by God, that man is surely, before that Word is being preached,
as he's preparing the Word, he's praying and seeking a Word from
the Lord. Before he goes up to preach, he's praying that the
Lord bless the Word to his people. Because we're not going to hear
it. Not in spirit and not in truth. If the Lord doesn't bless
it, we're not going to hear it. And you can be sure of this,
when he's done preaching the Word, he's praying that the Lord
would bless that Word, that Satan wouldn't come and steal that
Word out of the heart, that we wouldn't grow hard and cold to
it, but that the Lord would indeed bless that word so that it takes
root and that we grow up in Christ. Paul told Titus, in the book
of Titus, he says, this is what we're doing, he says, we're looking
for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great
God and our Savior Jesus Christ. who gave himself for us, that
he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar
people, zealous of good works." So, brethren, the Lord is indeed
prepared a man for you. you could be sure that the Lord
is preparing a man, He's breaking him, He's bringing him low in
Himself, He's frustrating all His worldly schemes and all His
joys and bringing him to nothing in Himself, that he might find
his all in the Lord Jesus Christ. You could be sure of that. And
if He's preparing them, just as He prepares a man, so He prepares
a people. He's never preparing a people
unless He's going to send a man to them. And if He's preparing
a man, He's going to send him to of people. Actually, I saw
this very recently in 2 Corinthians 8. I'll just read it. In verse
16, Paul says, But thanks be to God, which put this same earnest
care into the heart of Titus for you. God put that same earnest
care. You see how God puts an earnest
desire into the heart of his pastors for a people. For indeed,
he accepted the exhortation, but being more forward. He was
already in his heart to do it. He didn't even need to hear the
exhortation. When the exhortation came, his heart was already there
with those people. Of his own accord, he went unto
you. The Lord prepares a man for his
people. We saw it there in New Jersey,
how the Lord took a man who was born and raised in deep South
Arkansas, just a few miles from the border of Louisiana, Clay
Curtis, and he raised that man, he brought that man to hear the
gospel himself and to love the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he
sent him to Tennessee, and he marries Melinda Curtis, and they
have two children, and he has a beautiful home, a good job,
And he had a heart for the people of God, a heart to preach the
word and how the Lord blessed that because the Lord sent him.
If you ask them, Clan Linda, would you like to go to New Jersey
and minister to the people of God there? No. No, not at all. There's very few people in the
South that really want to go to the North and live there.
What a mercy that God should take that man and prepare him
for us there in New Jersey. And he blessed us bringing leanness
into our souls, and we fed upon the husks of dead religion there. That did no good. It brought
us no value at all. So he was preparing us, because
we weren't satisfied with what we were hearing up there, so
that we knew we must hear the gospel. We need a man that God
has prepared that preaches the gospel. That's what we needed. And in the Lord's time, in His
choosing, He brings it all to pass. And it's just as Paul told
the Ephesians, He gave gifts unto men. The Lord Jesus Christ,
when He arose from the grave, gave gifts unto men. And He gave
some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some
pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for
the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ
till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge
of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ, so that it's God who unites His
people together. He brings them all through the
blood of Christ to the obedience of the truth, and He does it
through the preaching of the Gospel. Now in verse 5, Paul
prays for them, being full of thankfulness and joy for their
fellowship in the gospel. Don't ever forget, brethren,
that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. For therein
is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is
written, the just shall live by faith. By this gospel, we
are taught that we are nothing. The Lord brings us to see that
we are nothing. We cannot. We don't know God. We don't know how to worship
Him. We don't know how to approach Him. We think we do. We think
that we know how to worship God before He saves us. And we try.
And we think that we're doing well. And we pat ourselves on
the back many times. But we don't know anything. It's the Lord
who must seek us out, and so he sends out his pastors with
that gospel word, and they preach that word, and through that word
the Lord calls his people to know him, destroying all earthly
wisdom. We read that it's God who hath
delivered us, it's God who hath delivered us from the power of
darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear
Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness
of sins." So the Lord, through that Word, by His Spirit sanctifying
us, He makes lively stones, living stones. We who are just dead
by nature have nothing good to offer God at all, but He makes
us living stones and He fits us into that spiritual house
as it pleases Him. The Lord added daily to the Church,
such as should be saved. And notice, brethren, Paul speaks
of this fellowship. We don't have fellowship with
everybody who confesses the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't have fellowship
with just anyone. As I understand it, there's a
whole congregation down there that does not know the Lord that
just broke off when the gospel began to be preached here. And
we don't have fellowship with them. We're not boasting in what
we've done for the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't boast of our
faith, but we confess and know that the faith that we have is
all the work of God. That's one of the gifts that
God gave to his people. He gave gifts unto men. Instead, we are perfected through
this gospel till we all come in the unity of the faith and
of the knowledge of the Son of God. And Paul goes on, knowing
that we have this fellowship, being taught that we have this
fellowship here in this gospel, Paul goes on to say in verse
6, being confident. Paul is confident. Now, there's
many people in religion that are confident that ought not
to be confident, but Paul knows that it's the Lord, because he's
the one who said to the Corinthians, let him that thinketh he standeth
take heed, lest he fall. So this isn't a fleshly confidence,
but rather 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." So as God works in us, He's bringing us low in
ourselves. He's bringing us low in our own
estimation, and as we're going down, Christ is going up. Christ
is being exalted in the hearts of His people, because they see
that they're nothing, and that all their salvation All the hope
of their salvation rests in Christ alone, and He has indeed accomplished
the work which we cannot do for ourselves. All our boasting is
in Christ. Turn to 2 Thessalonians 2. I
have no doubt you know this very well,
but it's good for us to see it. 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 13. We'll see our boasting here.
This is what the child of God boasts in. 2 Thessalonians 2
verse 13, But we are bound to give thanks all the way to God
for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from
the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the
Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto we called you by our
gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we are gods, then he shall
sanctify us through the Spirit and bring us unto belief of the
truth. All right, so our confidence,
brethren, is in what God has done. It's fixed in God and in
God alone. It's not in our works. It's not
what we do. We trust that God shall indeed
perform His will among us. And He gives all things that
pertain unto godliness. He gives all things that are
necessary that we should be saved. Christ did it all. He accomplished
it all, and so everything that's needed now Done because Christ
did it it's as good as done because it is done. It's settled in Christ
And so there's no worry that God will not save his people
The Lord will send his gospel. The Lord will feed his people
The Lord will settle his people and bless them to believe in
him. All right, let's go deeper in this work of our God verse
7 In Philippians 1 7 Paul says, Even as it is meek
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. Now why is it meek
for Paul to think this? Why is it right for Paul to think
this about these brethren here, these saints? It's because of
what Christ has accomplished for His people. That's why everything
always goes back to Christ. Everything that we have, every
hope that we have, it's founded entirely in Christ. And Paul,
knowing that, that's why it's right for him to think it. It's
no doubt. There's no wonder in what God
is going to do for His people. Remember, Paul's expressing a
thankful heart to God and prayer to God for the fellowship that
they have there in the Gospel. So we consider, brethren, the
Gospel, that through the Gospel we hear and are given faith to
believe of what Christ has accomplished for us. As we hear that Gospel
and we believe, we testify that it's God who must save us. There's nothing No pastor is preaching or giving
us any works to do. There's nothing for the flesh
to do. If we turn from the Gospel and we begin to tell men what
they must do and what they need to be doing, the flesh perks
up and the flesh loves that. The flesh says, oh good, you're
giving me something to do. And we go right to doing it. But
through the Gospel, there's nothing for the flesh to hold on to.
There's nothing for the flesh to latch on to because the Gospel
tears down the flesh. The Gospel turns our hearts from
desiring to do those things that we ought not to do. It's in Christ
that we have all our hope and all our righteousness. Paul told
the Romans, But now the righteousness of God, without the laws manifested,
being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness
of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon
all them that believe. For there is no difference, for
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through
faith in His blood to declare His righteousness for the remission
of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God." And
then Paul asked them, where is boasting then? Is it of works? Nope, it's not of works, but
by the law of faith. Because, brethren, we know through
the Gospel that God made Christ to be sin for us who knew no
sin, that we in Him might be made the righteousness of God. In Acts, we hear that all the
prophets bear witness to this, that whosoever believeth in Him
shall receive remission of sins." And it's God who puts that in
our hearts. It's God that does all the work. Christ left glory, took upon
Him our flesh, the likeness of our flesh, and He fulfilled all
righteousness perfectly, leaving nothing undone for us to do. It's not our work, but His work.
And it's the Lord that works this in the heart of His people
to hear it, and to believe it, and to be settled in it. And
thereby, when we know this, and we know the preciousness of this
Gospel, we are set, as Paul told the Philippians, set for the
defense and the confirmation of this Gospel. Because this
is our hope. We don't want to hear those who
don't preach the gospel, because we know this is our hope, and
so we are set for the defense of the gospel. We want to hear
it preached consistently, every time, because what good are we
if we have not the gospel? But through it, God makes us
all partakers of the same grace which he gave to Paul. Alright,
moving on. Verses 8 and 9, we see the heart
that he gives to his pastors. For God is my record, Philippians
1.8 Any pastor or any preacher of
God knows that if we're to be turned from ourself, if we have
any need, we preach Christ. Do you have troubles in your
marriage? Preach Christ. Do you have a desire to rejoice? You preach Christ. Are you having
trouble at work? Preach Christ. Do you need to
be saved? Yes, preach Christ. Whatsoever
any person has, whatever the need is that we have, any trouble
that we're going through, any persecution that we're going
through, the answer to it all is to preach Jesus Christ. That's what we need to hear every
time. Because you think about it, every time that you're weak,
and you're weary, and you're just stumbling through this life,
and you're thinking, you know, oh, if I just had this, or just
if I had that, when we are brought to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
And the Lord takes our eyes off of the things of this world and
shows us, you know what, those troubles don't matter. The Lord
is blessing His Word to my heart. He brings us to our knees through
these trials. He brings us to see that all
that we need truly is the Lord Jesus Christ. We see many people
in this world who Maybe they even began in Christ for a time. They confessed it, just a fleshly
confession. And then things start to go well
for them in this world, and they just fall away. So brethren,
if the Lord is keeping you humble, and the Lord is keeping you down,
and showing you your need of Christ, that's a blessing. That's
a real mercy. And the preachers of God know
that We are to do one thing, that is to faithfully, faithfully,
faithfully, and consistently preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
That's the one thing needful, is the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything
that we can list, it's Christ as the answer. Preaching Christ.
Alright? Philippians verse 10 and 11,
that ye may approve things that are excellent. How do we do that?
By the preaching of Jesus Christ. That ye may be sincere and without
offense till the day of Christ. How do we do that? Preaching
Jesus Christ. Being filled with the fruits
of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory
and praise of God. Brethren, if we just start preaching
a letter religion, do this, don't do that, better be doing this,
better not be doing that. If we preach that, that's just
a dead letter religion. Any fruit that we bring forth
under such That's of the flesh, and it's dead fruit. It does
no good, no value. We need Christ. Knowledge puffeth
up, but charity, or love, edifies. There's one that will cause our
love to abound yet more and more knowledge. There's one that will
enable us to approve things that are excellent. There's one that
will establish us in sincerity in our defense and confirmation
of this gospel. And that will fill us with the
fruits of righteousness. That One is Jesus Christ unto
the glory and praise of God. I pray that our Lord will bless
us to send pastors after His own heart that would feed His
people and bless you here and the Lord Jesus Christ in preaching
that gospel faithfully. Amen. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord, Father, we
thank You for Your mercy. Lord, you know our need. You
know the need of this people here, Lord. Father, we trust
and pray that you have gathered them here together and you will
not forget this work. Lord, we are confident that you
have a man for them and that you're preparing him and preparing
them for him. Lord, that they may be blessed
and continue in the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray this in his name. Amen.