Please open your Bibles to the
book of Philippians. Philippians chapter 1. I was
listening to a message by someone this morning on this. And they
were bringing forth, it was really neat how they brought it forth.
They said, imagine, you know, here's Paul and his merry band
of evangelists with him. And they go into Philippians.
And do you know what? This is the first time the gospel
stepped on European soil. first time. God's providence,
the Gospels going to the Gentiles. Isn't that amazing? So this book
is pretty incredible that way. And if we had seen that first
meeting on the banks of the river, we thought maybe someone is out
for a picnic with a bunch of friends, right? But here's these
four men preaching to these ladies and others around there. And
the Lord, what? Opened Lydia's heart and she
believed. But think of that though. This
is the first time the gospel's been preached in a European city.
Isn't that incredible? I found out too that the city
was established by Philip IV, I think. You might not know him,
but you might have heard about his son named Alexander the Great. This was a pretty important city.
As I said last week, historically too, they say that if you visited
Philippi, you basically visited a mini Rome. It was set up just
like Rome. It was actually made to be like
that, to be a copy of Rome, but just in smaller, a lot smaller
scale. But still. And then it also had
a very famous road that went from one portion of the empire
and it traveled through Philippi to another portion of the empire
and it was all one of the Roman paved roads by the engineers.
And beloved, God used that road to bring Paul right into Philippi. And then the gospel spread like
wildfire. And those roads, they were made
for quick travel. Well, the gospel spread like
wildfire all through the Roman Empire after that. Isn't that
amazing? How the Lord in his providence
uses these things and we don't even always see it. So, it's
amazing. Okay, we're going to read Philippians
chapter 1 verses 3 to 11. 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, this is
our verse today, being confident of this very thing that he which
hath begun a good work in you Notice the verbage here. He that 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, insomuch
as both in my bonds and defense and confirmation of the gospel,
you are all partakers of my grace. For God is my record, how greatly
I long after you in the bowels of Jesus Christ. In 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 these Philippians were going
through several trials for their faith. They were going through
trials from their family members, trials from the fact that they were former
idol worshipers and now they're worshiping the one true God.
And I want to say this, this life, this life is attended with
dangers for the born-again blood-washed saint. Trials, tribulations come our
way. It's attended with dangers. And
I like what Spurgeon said. He said the life of a Christian
is a series of little miracles. Little miracles. You know why? Because God upholds us by his
power. What would happen to us if God
didn't uphold us? We'd all be gone, wouldn't we?
We'd all follow it. We'd all be lost. Amen, brother
Dave. Because we never would have come to Christ. in our natural
state. And think of this, the new nature,
being born again, which is called a good work. In verse 6, that's
regeneration. That's to be born again. So, the new nature is kept alive,
think of this, between the jaws of death, preserved by the power
of God from instant destruction. preserved by God. And think of
this, the new nature couldn't exist except by divine power. As we saw in the text, and how
do we know that? Well, look at what it says in
the text. 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. Look at how the verbiage is so
God-centered, so God-honoring. It gives him all the glory, doesn't
it, Sister Carolyn? It gives him all the glory. It
brings forth that He is the one who began this work, and He did
it in us, which is to be born again by the Holy Spirit of God.
And he will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. And all who are redeemed, we
learn more about our sin. Well, we're in this world, you
know, I hear people saying all the time, oh, the sin people
are doing. We learn more about our own sin, don't we? We learn,
and we're in a world of a bunch of sinners, but we're chief. We're chief. And think about
this. The more we learn about our sin
and the sin in this world, we find ourselves, again Spurgeon
said this, like a defenseless dove flying to her nest. Well,
10,000 arrows are leveled against us. Think of this. Think of a
dove flying in the, what a picture, a dove flying in the sky and
10,000 arrows are shot all at once at one dove. And the Christian's life is like
the anxious flight of that dove trying to get away from those
arrows. Moving around, right? All these
things that are coming at us. And the dove would thread its
way through between those death-bearing shafts, because any shaft that
would hit it would be death. See, we wrestle not against flesh
and blood. People all worked up about the people around us.
We don't wrestle against flesh and blood. We wrestle against
princes and principalities and spiritual weakness in high places. In those death-bearing shafts,
the fact that we are not hit by one of them through this life
is a miracle of God. It's a miracle of God, beloved.
Isn't that amazing? Oh, what comfort that can bring
us. And then, here's another picture. The born-again pilgrim,
the blood-washed pilgrim, which is every believer in Christ,
is like a traveler. Traveling on a narrow summit
of a mountain, on the top of a lofty mountain ridge, Now on the right hand are gulfs
unfathomable. And on the left hand is the same,
gulfs unfathomable, just down, down, down, like you were way
up in that mountain, brother. You guys were way up in that
mountain in the depths of the valley there. I've seen it out
in Oregon too, huge mountains in the depths. There was a road
we used to drive on to go up to the top of the mountain, and
there was a guardrail, And it was a sheer drop, just a sheer
drop as far as you could see. There was a bottom down there,
but it was real far down. So the Christian travelers were
like on that high ridge of the high mountain, and all around
us is danger. Danger all around us. My oh my. And you know what? Our feet are
made like Heinz feet. Our feet are made like Heinz
feet. And we're able to stand on those high places, beloved. We would have long ago fallen
to our destruction. But God's kept us. He who's able
to start that work is able to keep us all through this life.
and then finish it. I'll tell you what, it's amazing. It's absolutely incredible. So
let us always remember, as the scripture here says, this verse
says, he that hath begun a good work in us will perform it until
the end. Look at the text again. Being
confident, Paul's confident of this very thing. that he which
hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day
of Jesus Christ. It's Christ who saved us from
our sins, and not we ourselves. We couldn't save ourselves. It's
Christ who ever keeps us, no matter what comes at us in this
world, no matter what we go through in this world. He keeps us, beloved. He keeps us. Amidst all the trials
and tribulations of this life, And look at the first part of
this verse. This is wonderful. Remember, Paul's very acquainted
with the Philippians. He was used by God to start the
work there in Philippi, along with Timothy, Silas, and Luke. And so they're very well acquainted
with the Philippians. They were there for a little
while, too, preaching the gospel. And look what he says here. This
is wonderful. Being confident of this very
thing. So he's specifically saying he's
confident of something. He's confident of something.
And what he's doing here too, he's bringing forth the reason
for his joy and thanksgiving. This book has no censor in it
at all. It's a book of joy, a book of
thanksgiving. Right? He's in no way is he censoring
the believers at Philippi. And he knows these folks. Like a preacher knows, and I
don't say, I had one preacher one time, I asked him, I said,
why don't you preach in Christ? And he says, well, I know my
audience. And I said, well, I don't know. I mean, never heard anything
like that. I love the folks, you know, I
love you guys, but I don't know inside. Now there's evidence,
and this is what Paul's talking about. There's evidence that
we've been changed. And we're going to find out what
the Greek word means here. And this is incredible. Because
we confess with our mouth, don't we? That Jesus Christ is Lord
to the glory of God the Father. We confess now who we are, sinners,
hell-deserving sinners. But we brag on our Savior, don't
we? we beg on the one who saved us
from all our sins, the Lord Jesus Christ." Look at this. So he's
bringing forth his thanksgiving and his joy and the reason for
him making requests with thanksgiving for this church, the Philippians. And we see the reason is that
God has done a good work in them. Isn't that wonderful? Paul having
been with them when the Lord saved them, and continued in
fellowship with them until he had to flee. He, with
confidence and full persuasion, believes that they were born
again by the Holy Spirit of God. And they will one day be glorified
with Christ. Well, they're glorified with
Christ now, aren't they? Oh my. Now think of this too. In the
Greek word here, confidence, it means this. To convince, to
persuade. To convince. So we read that
and think confident. It means to convince. It means
to persuade, and then this also was added to it, meaning to induce
one by words to believe. They proclaimed that they had
been saved from idols and by the power of God had been turned
to serve the one true living God. They were born again, beloved.
And they confessed the same Lord and Savior of their souls, Jesus
Christ. You know, I was talking to my
boy yesterday, and you all know that he doesn't confess Christ,
but he said something. We were talking about how people
say, I said to him, yeah, I was watching this video, and they
were saying different things about what people say, and then
they say, oh, you're saved now, and one of them was just make
Jesus Lord of your life, and he goes, what? Dad, I've never
understood that. Pray for him, because he's really,
he said, I've never understood that. If God is God, then he's
already Lord. And I said, yep, you're right,
son. And he says, and so how would
somebody make him Lord of their life if he's already Lord? And
I said, you got it, son. Sounds like he's learning some
stuff, eh? It's true, isn't it? He's already
Lord. He's already God. And so these
Philippians are confessing Confessing the fact that they've been saved
by the grace of God in and through Christ and his precious shed
blood to redeem their eternal souls. And they now have repentance
before God along with faith, right? They've been given faith
and now they have repentance too. Repentance means a turning
away, right? They've turned away from the
idols they used to serve. And now they're serving the one
true living God. Isn't that amazing? And that
happens to every believer, doesn't it? That happens to every believer,
beloved. It's wonderful. Let's read verse
six again. Being confident, so being convinced,
being persuaded by their words of this very thing, that he which
had begun a good work in you will perform it until the day
of Jesus Christ. So Paul, again, brings forth
again the reason for his joy and thanksgiving over the Philippian
believers because they've been born again, which is the good
work in our text. They've been regenerated by the
power of God, the Holy Spirit. They're now trusting for their
salvation in Christ alone and Paul's rejoicing over this fact.
Let's read it again. Being confident of this very
thing that he which hath begun a good work in you, or yeah, in you will perform it
until the day of Jesus Christ. Now see the Greek, or see the
word begin, or begun, see the word begun, being
confident this very thing that he which hath begun That word
there means to begin, to make a beginning. See, we were dead. He's given us a new heart, isn't
he? A spiritual heart. The hungers and thirsts after
righteousness. He's made it. He's made this. He's done this. Turn, if you
would, to Hebrews chapter 12. So to begin to make a beginning,
see, and don't get me wrong, but sometimes in modern day preaching,
they make the sinner the beginner. It's God who begins the good
work in us. It's God who regenerates. We
can't come to Christ. We can't even have faith in Christ
until we're born again. And then God gives us faith,
doesn't he, Brother Brian? It's a gift to God, not of works,
lest any mention those. Or His workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus. It's all Him. It's all Him. My, oh, my. Now take note of
the word perform. Let's just put your finger back
in, I'm sorry, I already had us turned, but keep your finger
in, keep your finger in Hebrews chapter 12, I went too far, too
fast. Okay, so look back at Philippians
1.6, being confident of this very thing, that he which hath
begun a good work in you, so that begun is to begin to make
a beginning, right? Will, will, there's no doubt
there, is there? There's no human interaction
in between that, is there? Will perform it until the day
of Jesus Christ. Now the Greek word there for
perform, listen to this, this is wonderful, this will make
your heart sing, means to bring an end. To begin and to end. Who's doing the work? Someone
tell me, who's doing the work? Christ is doing all the work,
isn't he? God's doing all the work. He begun the work, and
he's gonna perform it, which means to bring it to an end.
I'll tell you, this is the most wonderful news for sinners. This is wonderful. It means,
again, to bring an end, to accomplish. To accomplish. And you hear,
listen to this word. Perfect. Perfect. And also this one. We say this all the time, Dave.
Complete. Who are we complete in? Amen,
brother. And Paul even wrote that to the
Colossians. He said, ye are complete in Christ. See, the scripture
means what the scripture means. It's only a fact of, do we believe
what the scripture says? And I like what Norm says all
the time. I'm going to keep saying it. If we'd only believe what
the word of God says. This can give us so much joy. This can give us so much hope.
This can take all the pressure off of us. Now, we just live our life, don't
we? Joshua's telling me, he's listened
to a guy who's a professing Christian, and he did a video on the book
of Philemon. So it's one of the most underrated
books in the Bible. People just skim right over it.
And I said, yeah, it's actually a book of redemption. Paul says, whatever he owes,
put it on my account. I said, it's such a picture of
redemption. And people just fly by it. But if God doesn't begin a work, we won't have any interest in
it, will we? And if God is the one who does
the saving, then salvation's of the Lord, right? It's not
based upon man's performance. But we live a life, and what
Josh was saying, he goes, I like listening to this fellow, Dad,
because he does his work on the internet,
and he also professes to be Christ. I said, he's normal, right? He's
just a normal believer, right? And he goes, yeah. He doesn't
have to put arrows on. And I said, he already knows
what we're all like. He says, you guys are the freest
Christians I've ever met. He knows something there too,
doesn't he? Somebody's taught him something. Because it's true. Isn't it? We're free, beloved. We're not antinomians, but we
sure are free. We don't believe you can go out
and do whatever you want. We won't want to do that. See, Paul's
rejoicing in this wonderful fact. And this is what we should rejoice.
When someone says they're born again, let us rejoice. Let us
take them at their word and rejoice. Right? Not bring out a list of
doctrinal things and say, well, do you believe this? And do you
believe this? And do you believe what they
profess? And they believe in Christ. Let's rejoice. When I was a baby, I didn't know
nothing. Did you? We learned things, didn't we? As we grew,
and we learned, and we grow. And the better teachers we had,
the more we learned, right? Well, we have the best teacher.
It's the Holy Spirit of God. He guides us into all truth,
right? Isn't that wonderful? I'll tell you, we are most blessed
above all people in this world, God's people. It's wonderful.
My oh my. So now let's turn to Hebrews
chapter 12. And so we've seen in our text
by the Greek words, right, begun and perform, we've seen right
in our text that God, the good work we know is regeneration,
so God begins the work and God ends the work. Well, we're born
again, we live through this world, and then what? When we're conformed
to the image of the sun, he takes us home, doesn't he? It's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful. And
let us rejoice that he's purchased our eternal souls already. He's already purchased our souls. Sister Dee, he bought us with
his blood. It's wonderful. It's already
a work done. And then he works in us too. to perform this good work. And
what did the Lord say to him? This is amazing too. The Lord
said, you must be born again. And then he does the work. You
know why? He's not leaving nothing up to
man. It's grace from beginning, grace
in the middle, and grace all the way to the end. Isn't that
wonderful, beloved? So we can rejoice. We can rejoice
in this wonder of salvation. Look at this. Look at this in
Hebrews chapter 12, verse 2. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher. The author. What does an author
do? He starts and sits down and starts
something. Starts a novel, right? And we've already seen that begun
in our, which is to make a beginning in our text, right? And then
he says here, the author and the finisher. Well, we've already
seen that with the word perform in the Greek means to complete.
Look at that. Scripture, see, always people
pull things out of context, but this scripture goes exactly with
that scripture. Isn't that wonderful? Look at
that. Looking unto Jesus, that's number
one. We look to Christ, don't we?
for our salvation. We'd be made willing in the day
of God's power to look to Christ. The author, the beginner, and
the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before
him. Now this is part, Zane and I
were talking about this on Wednesday night with Sister Diane. Look
at this. The joy that was set before him. He's gonna suffer on the cross. And he calls it the joy that
was set before him. You know why? He's redeeming
his bride. The love that he has for us,
beloved, we can't even fathom it. It is so vast and so debtless
and you can't measure the width of it. And to redeem our eternal
souls, he had to bear our sins at Calvary's tree, suffering
the wrath of God in our place. And it says here, let's read
that again. For the joy that was set before
him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at
the right hand of the throne of God. It is finished. That's good news, isn't it? Is
that good news, beloved? That's good news. Turn, if you
would, to Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6. My oh my. And I'm going to read our verse
again. If you want to, if you have your finger there, you can
turn back there because look at this too. Let's actually turn
back there first. Look at this. Being confident
of this very thing that he which hath begun A good work in you. Well perform it until the day
of Christ. Now notice those words, in you. Look at this in Romans chapter
6 verses 1 to 9. We're being conformed to the
image of Christ, right? Look at this. We'll read from
1 to 9. What shall we say then? Shall
we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall
we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Know ye not
that so many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized
into his death? Therefore we are buried with
him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should
walk in newness of life." So we walk in newness of life, don't
we? We walk serving Christ and loving Christ. We don't go out
and go crazy. We don't even desire to do the
things that we used to do, except when the flesh starts battling
against us, right? Against the Spirit. My. For if we have been planted together
in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness
of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man, the old
nature beloved, is crucified with him. crucified with him,
that the body of sin might be, look at this, look at this, might
be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. We were
servants of sin before we were born again. Before God did this
good work in us, we were servants of sin. But look at this, this
is wonderful. For he that is dead is freed
from sin. We're dead in Christ. We died
in Christ, beloved. That's what this is bringing
forth. Isn't this wonderful? Look at this. See, remember,
born once, die twice. If you're born again, or no,
born twice, die once. Born, born, or die, I got it
all messed up. I got it all messed up. It's
born once, die twice, and born twice, being born again, die
once. Look at this. See, we died with
Christ. Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall
also live with him. What a hope we have. We have
a hope that we are going to be with our King. Knowing that Christ
being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion
over him. Now again, let's go back to verse
6 of Philippians and tie this in there too. Look at this. This
is just wonderful. So we're being conformed to the
image of the Son. We're walking in newness of life
now as believers. In verse 6 says, being confident
of this very thing that he which has begun a good work in you. God's begun this work. Christ
has begun this work. Isn't that wonderful? Christ
has done a work for us, and Christ has done a work in us. He died
on the cross for us, and this verse brings forth that He's
done a work in us. Right? He which hath begun a
good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Now, listen to this in Ephesians. It's very familiar to all of
us. But listen to this in light of this verse of being this work
in us, right? We can't do this work. It's an operation of God, beloved.
You must be born again. Look at this. For by grace are
you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. Right? It is a gift of God. Not of works,
lest any man should boast. But a lot of folks just stop
right there. But listen to verse 10 of Ephesians
chapter 2. For we are his workmanship. See he's, brother Charlie, he's
begun that work in us. Right? And he's continuing to
do that work in us. And we're his workmanship. Isn't
that, it's wonderful isn't it sister Barbara? It's wonderful.
It's absolutely wonderful. For we are His workmanship created
in Christ Jesus. There's the word begun, right,
in our text. Created to make something new.
Created in Christ Jesus, being born again in the Holy Spirit
of God. Unto good works, walking in the newness of life, not even
knowing when we're doing these things, right? Which God hath
before ordained. that we should walk in them.
Also take note, let's read verse six again, being confident of
this very thing that he which has begun a good work in you
will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. This work of
regeneration is called a good work. It's a work of which God
himself is the author and the finisher of our faith. and rejoice,
beloved of God. Salvation is of the Lord from
beginning to end. It's all His work. He's the wise
master builder, isn't He? He's the wise master builder.
And He's begun a work, and He's going to complete that work.
And He's working in us. In us. But did you know that the beginning
of The good work of regeneration is in fact but the finishing
of the first and original plan of God. Think of this. I got this from
Robert Hawker. This is amazing. It's the first,
it's the last of, it's the finishing of the original purposes of God
in election. God chose us in Christ. We were
redeemed by Christ, and we're born again by the Holy Spirit
of God. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, and
it's confirmed. Our election in Christ is confirmed
by the redemption of Christ for us, and then it's sealed, and
we, in time-space, we have the enjoyment and the knowledge of the fact that God chose us
in Christ because we're born again. We didn't even know that before,
did we? This is incredible. This is wonderful. What are some of the things we
find out? Well, we find out that the love of God is an eternal
love. The love of God the Father. And
that His love for his people is an eternal love, an unchanging
love. It doesn't change based upon
who we are and how we are. It's eternal. Because he loved us even when
we were dead in trespasses and sins, didn't he? Yeah. Oh yeah. He loved his sheep from eternity. And by this gracious act of being
born again, what's called a good work in our text, God's children
are brought into spiritual life, and then they discover, I've
been chosen by God, as we grow and learn. We don't know that
right off the bat. We don't understand all the precious
doctrines when the Lord first saves us. But, and we can, yeah, can we
fathom, can we really fathom these precious truths as they
are? We just sit back and marvel, don't we? Marvel. My oh my. So think of this. God
the Father chose a people in Christ before the world was.
They've been redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ in the time
state of the church, right? Because he made time and he came
into time, beloved. He was outside of time and space.
Came into time to redeem us. And in time-space, we are born
again by the Holy Spirit of God, and then we're taken out of time
into eternity. I'll tell you why. And Paul calls
it a good work. You know why? Because it's beyond
our comprehension. He can't even explain it. We
can't even comprehend this wonderful work that God's done in us and
for us. But it's true. And you know why
it's incomprehensible? Because of its goodness and its
greatness. Its greatness. And because it was God's will
that this work would be done in us. My, so it's impossible,
therefore, to be found in any kind of human worth, because
it's God working in us, right? There's no human worth in this
at all, no merit. It's all God's grace to bestow
this upon us, and this wonderful salvation, this wonderful regeneration,
which God has wrought in us, is called a good work. You know
why? Because I live, or because he
lives, We'll live. Praise his mighty, mighty name.
Brother Jim, can you close us in prayer?