Grace And Peace

Well, we are going to go to our main sermon now and a very short reading. I'm not even going to read the whole of the first chapter of Philippians today, just the first couple of verses. We're going to the book of Philippians. So turn with me please to the book of Philippians in the New Testament. So it's 1st Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians after that. So right in the middle of these little epistles that the apostle wrote to the churches is the book of Philippians. Put your marker in there because if the Lord allows, we will be returning for a few weeks to the book of Philippians. I just thought we would have the first couple of verses today and by that means it would supply us with an introduction to the book.

So we're in the epistle of Paul to the Philippians, and we are reading Philippians chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. Philippians chapter 1, verses 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. Amen. May the Lord bless this reading to us. The gospel I am going to preach to you today, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, differs from every religion in the world in one vital point. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is a message of grace alone. God's gift of salvation and reconciliation is free, pure, unadulterated grace. If you think of the gospel of Christ, think of grace. That is what defines it. That is what characterizes it. That is synonymous with it. And for that reason, Paul calls it the glorious gospel of Christ and the glorious gospel of the blessed God.

Every religion in the world, except the Gospel of Christ, tells you to do something to recommend yourself to God. But the Gospel of Christ tells you what God has done for you. It is the business of all false religions to help their followers to patch together, to cobble together a form of righteousness by which they hope to stand before God. Contrary-wise, it is the business of the gospel preacher to proclaim perfect righteousness, ready-made, suited to our need, and given as a free gift by God. The gospel is not an offer of righteousness for sinful men and women. It is an announcement of righteousness already obtained by the perfect obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ, obtained on behalf of all for whom he died. The gospel is not an offer of salvation to sinful men and women.

It is rather the declaration of a gift freely given according to God's good pleasure. That is why we call it free sovereign grace. It's God's grace, and he is the sovereign king. It is His goodness and mercy, and it is freely given without payment, without condition, without obligation to all whom He has elected to bless in the covenant of grace and peace. This is indeed a glorious gospel. The gospel of God's grace is simply this.

Our blessed Savior, Jesus Christ, has, by his obedience and blood, cleansed our sin, redeemed our souls, and obtained perfect righteousness for sinners like you and me. He gives this great salvation freely and unconditionally to all who come to him by faith. justifying us before God, reconciling us to God, and uniting us with God, here on earth, in time, and for all eternity. Paul tells the church at Ephesus in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8, For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, nor of works, lest any man should boast. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

He tells the Colossians in Colossians 2, verse 10, ye are complete in him. This is the gospel. This is the gospel of grace. It is the gospel that Paul preached, the gospel of grace and peace. It was this gospel message of grace and peace that converted Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus.

In Acts chapter 9, it's one of the places where we read about the Apostle Paul's testimony. The Apostle gave his testimony, I think, on two or three occasions in his epistles. He does it again in Galatians. But in Acts chapter 9, we have a full account of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus.

This is the gospel that Saul of Tarsus heard, and he heard it from the lips of Christ himself. Saul was going to that ancient city. And there's a coincidence because that is the exact same city that Elisha went to in our reading in 2 Kings chapter 8. Well here he is in Acts chapter 9 going to that ancient city once again. And he is going on this occasion to arrest and torture Christians. Instead, Christ arrested him and showed him how great things he must suffer for Christ's name's sake.

And for the rest of Paul's life, because his name was changed, for the rest of Paul's life, he preached the gospel of God's grace and peace by the death of Jesus Christ to sinners wherever he could. One of the places Paul preached grace and peace was the city of Philippi.

Paul and some of his friends a man called Silas, a man called Timothy, a young man called Timothy, and Luke, who was the writer of the gospel and also the writer of the Acts of the Apostles. So he was a man who has given us a tremendous amount of history of both the words and works of the Lord Jesus Christ and the works of the apostles in the acts of the apostles. But Silas and Timothy and Luke and the Apostle Paul and possibly some others, we don't know, had been preaching in what is called or what is in modern were preaching in modern-day Turkey. It was not called Turkey then, it was called Asia Minor and a variety of Roman provinces, but they had been preaching in what is called modern-day Turkey. It was during the second missionary journey that Paul made. and they were prevented from going into certain areas where they had planned to go and preach.

And instead, Paul received a vision from God. In this vision, a man of Macedonia appealed to him to come over the sea a short distance into Europe. In the vision, the man said, come over to Macedonia and help us. And Paul and his friends boarded a ship and sailed to Macedonia. Another name for that area is Greece.

And then from the coast they went inland a little bit to the city of Philippi, a chief city of that region. Now, I mentioned a little bit last week in the morning service that was conducted with our friends in Osset about the ministry of the apostle in Philippi and about the conversion of Lydia and the Philippian jailer. And that sermon is on YouTube. It's on the YouTube channel. And you can listen to it if you would like to do that. I'm just going to mention very briefly the fact that these conversions took place.

Lydia of Thyatira was a businesswoman. She was a seller of either purple dye or purple cloth. And she was converted to Christ by Paul's preaching. Then an unnamed jailer, we don't know what his name was, who was charged with guarding Paul and Silas in the city prison, was brought under conviction of sin during an earthquake and he too trusted the Lord Jesus as his saviour.

And we read in Acts chapter 16 that these two converts and their households were baptised. It seems likely that they and their families formed the first Christian congregation in Philippi and therefore in Europe. And it is this congregation that the Apostle Paul is writing to in this epistle, this letter that we read from today. I mentioned yesterday in my little note, and I'm going to mention it again because I find it very interesting.

It's possible that when Paul and Silas, they were the ones that had been put in prison, they were the ones that the authorities in the town were extremely embarrassed and ashamed and anxious about having beaten and put in prison because Paul told them that he was a Roman citizen and they came and apologized and took them out of prison and asked them to leave the city. It was Paul and Silas who were in prison. Paul and Silas and Timotheus, we're told, then moved on to another city. So they left Philippi, they left that little congregation, and they moved on to another city to continue preaching the gospel. That city was Thessalonica.

But interestingly, it is quite possible that Luke was left behind in Philippi to assist those young believers. Now, I don't know that from the scriptures explicitly saying so. But I see it's interesting because at this point in Acts chapter 16, in what was Luke's narrative, it's Luke that wrote the Acts of the Apostles. At this point in the narrative, he drops the first person and moves to the third person, so that instead of saying, we did this and we did that, Luke now says, they did this and they did that, implying that he was no longer with the Apostle Paul. And that continues until Acts chapter 20 and verse six, when Luke rejoins the group of missionaries as Paul once again passes through Macedonia. So it's quite possible that Luke stayed in Philippi, in Macedonia, with these young believers for a period of time after Paul and Silas and Timothy moved on. I just leave that for your interest as well.

When Paul wrote this epistle then, that we read today, when he wrote to the church at Philippi, it seems probable that it was around 10 years since he and his companions had first visited the city. And we don't know how many other times in those 10 years that Paul had visited Philippi, though other visits are hinted at in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 13 and in 1 Timothy 1, verse 3. So he may have made several visits to the city. We do know that during those 10 years, the church at Philippi flourished and the believers continued to hold the Apostle Paul in great affection. And we also know that that affection was mutual.

As they loved Paul, so Paul loved them. And Paul's epistle to the Philippians is full of personal warmth and concern for the needs of his dear friends. In fact, he writes in verse 8 of this first chapter, He's speaking there of the love and the compassion that he had, the longing and affection that he had for the believers at Philippi.

Now that congregation was not without its peculiar challenges and indeed its strong personalities. And we're going to read about some of them in the coming weeks, God willing. However, these believers were themselves a great encouragement to Paul. And in chapter two, he calls The Philippians lights in the world. And in chapter four, he describes them as his joy and crown. So while they loved him, he also loved them. Now, as I'm suggesting, it's my intention to spend a few weeks looking at some of the key verses and some of the key themes in Paul's epistle to the Philippians.

Let me just mention for some of the younger ones that are perhaps listening, an epistle is just a letter. It's just another way of saying a letter or a piece of correspondence. So Paul wrote probably with a feather and ink or with a stylus on clay. He wrote a letter and that letter was carried to Philippi. He actually wrote this letter, it appears, he actually wrote it in Rome. We'll come to that in a moment. But an epistle is just a letter.

And it is called the Epistle to the Philippians because it was sent to the believers in the city of Philippi, which was, as I said, in Greece or in Macedonia. So Paul's epistle, his letter, was written by Paul and appears to have been written while he was in prison in Rome, so towards the end of his life. And it was carried by a man called Epaphroditus, who, again, is from Philippi, perhaps one of the pastors or the elders in Philippi, and he had come to Rome from Philippi carrying a gift from the church to assist the apostle while he was in prison. So the Philippians had heard that Paul was in prison in Rome and sent a gift by Epaphroditus to help him and support him while he was in prison in Rome. And this letter was returned by Epaphroditus as he was going back to Philippi. So that's the context in which this epistle to the Philippians was written and delivered.

And although Paul was an apostle, it's interesting that in this introduction, we read that he prefers to call himself a servant of the Lord Jesus. And I think he did that intentionally. In a lot of the other epistles that he writes, he writes of himself as an apostle, or an apostle of Jesus Christ, or called to be an apostle. But he mentions a lot of times this word apostle, but not to the Philippians, and indeed not to the Thessalonians either. So that may reflect something to do with the relationship that he had with these respective churches. He calls himself a servant here. And while an apostle is, in a sense, a servant, also a messenger, here he uses the word servant. And I think that it's a description that would have appealed to and resonated with the church members at Philippi with whom and for whom he had labored and suffered.

And in his introduction, he includes Timothy in the greeting. Now, we aren't going to forget that Timothy was known to the Philippians because he had been with Paul on that very first visit to Philippi. It was Paul and Silas and Timotheus That's Timothy and Luke who went to Philippi where Lydia and the jailer were converted right at the very beginning. So Timothy was known to the Philippians from that earliest time. We don't have Timothy's name recorded here because it was Paul and Timothy who were co-authoring this letter. This is an epistle from Paul, but he nevertheless introduces or reintroduces Timothy to the congregation at Philippi.

For this explicit reason, I believe, he was getting ready to send Timothy to them. And so he wanted to reassure them that Timothy was with them. He was united to him in his doctrine and in the expressions of his love and affection towards them. So Timothy also gets a mention here in this introduction from Paul. And Paul greets all the church members. in this opening couple of verses.

He specifies the bishops and the deacons. So he speaks about writing to all the saints in Christ Jesus, which are at Philippi with the bishops and deacons. So who are these bishops and deacons? Well, these were just the leaders in the church. This shows that the church had been organised according to the apostolic pattern and we should expect that because Paul was so interested in the church at Philippi and he perhaps had left Luke there at the very beginning It should not be surprising that the church had been organized accordingly. There was structure in this group.

Now, bishop is another word for overseer, someone who has oversight, someone who overlooks the affairs of the church. So it's a person in a leadership role. The other word that is often used is elder. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're older men, although it possibly could mean that. Men of experience, men of wisdom, men of Bible understanding. And so often the word elder is used instead of bishop. But by bishop or elder, we understand someone who had responsibility for the well-being of the congregation.

And by that, we may also assume that the numbers in the congregation had grown sufficiently large to require several of these designated workers. So Paul mentions to the people at Philippi, the church members at Philippi, he mentions the bishops and the deacons expressly, co-laborers with him, as it were, in the work of the ministry. And I think he does so first to register his personal approval of these men and also to encourage the respect of the larger church congregation for these men and the important and useful role that these faithful men fulfilled. So Paul had a purpose in what he wrote. And in such ways, we can see whether expressly or Implicitly, he is recognizing these men and the roles that they have and the esteem that they should have in the congregation of the Philippians.

I might just mention that, in general, it seems that spiritual leadership and preaching was the duty of the bishops or the elders and practical matters were the responsibility of the deacons but these were not hard and fast rules and no doubt the bishops would be involved in the practical affairs and the deacons would be involved in the spiritual leadership but in general The elders preached and the deacons took practical responsibilities for the management and the affairs of the congregation. Another thing that Paul does in these opening verses is he calls the church members saints.

Now a saint is not a title. of an exclusive category of super christian. Some churches like to pretend that that's the case and you'll sometimes hear about this man being appointed as a saint or this woman being given the title saint and then people are encouraged to pray to the saints as if those saints are going to carry the prayers of the people to God in some special way. That is just such a load of nonsense and it is contrary to the Word of God. It is Christ alone and the Holy Spirit that convey our prayers to the throne of grace. These names of saints are nothing to do with any special gifts or any special miracles that were performed by these people.

The word saint comes from the word sanctify or sanctified and it describes all who are born again by the Spirit of God. all who are set apart in the eternal covenant of grace and all who have been sanctified by faith in Jesus Christ. So if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have trusted in the Lord and your sins are forgiven, then you are a saint.

And it was to such saints that Paul wrote this epistle. He is writing to ordinary believers, men and women, boys and girls like you and me, who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as their saviour. And as always, I do mention this a lot, but I'm going to say it again, it is important for us to remember as we read the scriptures and especially as we read the epistles, the epistles of Paul and the other apostles who wrote. It is important for us to remember as we read these epistles, as we apply the message of the epistles that Paul is writing to believers.

The blessings in these epistles are not universal. They are not general. They are particular to those to whom they are directed. to those to whom the epistles are addressed. And that is a clear point that the apostle is making by addressing these individuals as saints.

And also remember this. These people had all the troubles that we have. Maybe more, given their circumstances in those days. But they were ordinary, like us, like our neighbours. They were ordinary people, except for this one great difference. They were sanctified by God's grace. They were converted by God's gospel. And they were united to God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And one of the key characteristics of every believer, every saint, and one that we all need to learn, is that we In ourselves are only sinners saved by grace. It is grace alone that causes us to differ from the men and women of this world. We are not blessed by God because we are in any way special, because we are in any way more deserving, because we are in any way earning more blessing from God by the things we do. It is entirely by grace that we are what we are. We have no grounds for self-worth. We have no grounds for self-pride.

Paul tells the Corinthians, who maketh thee to differ from another? This is 1 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 7. Now if thou didst receive it, why didst thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? If you had done something for yourself, then you would have something to boast in. But if all these blessings come from God by His free grace, you have no reason to boast. Let us continue with what Paul says in this little introduction. The salutation that he records in verse two is a salutation. That's just another word for greeting. It's a greeting that he makes use of a lot. It's his usual greeting.

And it is, in fact, used by Paul in all his epistles. But I want to mention something about that, because just because it is familiar to us does not make it any less significant or important. In fact, I would contend that the frequency with which Paul uses this little phrase about grace and peace is noteworthy. because clearly Paul's words were considered and purposeful. If you begin every letter you write speaking about grace and peace, that says something, right? Well, so it was for Paul. He mentions grace and peace in the introduction, in the greeting, in the salutation of every epistle that he writes.

And Paul's priority in all his epistles was to convey an immediate sense of the wonder and the importance of the divine grace and divine peace that flows to sinners from God the Father and God the Son. The message of grace and peace with God, by Christ, is, as we previously noted, the heart of the gospel. And Paul is at once setting out his main objective in writing to the church at Philippi as he did with all the other churches who received his epistles. He wants them to know more and more about grace and peace, the grace and peace of God. So that in this way, the apostle focuses all our attentions upon the great subject of God's grace towards sinners and the peace that comes by that.

Whatever else he has to say in his epistles, in his letters, and there are some short epistles and there are some long epistles, but whatever else he has to say in those epistles, the gospel comes first. He preaches peace and reconciliation by the shed blood and atoning death of Jesus Christ according to the eternal purpose of God in the covenant of grace and peace. And he takes his readers back every time to the great subject of grace and peace. The Apostle wrote to many churches, all of whom had their problems, but his priority was always the same.

He would not be distracted, he would not be diverted from this central message of grace and peace, and nor should we. Churches today, there are many, many churches, there are many, many denominations, there are many, many groups, there are many, many churches, and they major in lots of different things. Some emphasize worship, some emphasize evangelism, some emphasize the gifts, some emphasize community action, or family relationships, or social concern, or national morality, and many, many issue-based topics. all of which are important to a degree, none of which ought to be completely ignored. But unless a church is unambiguously and emphatically preaching Jesus Christ crucified and grace and peace by the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ, their message and their ministry is missing the mark. it becomes us all to think seriously about that.

Declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ was Paul's principal concern. From those earliest days that we read about when the apostle in Acts 9 was converted on the road to Damascus, all the way through to the end of his life when he is now in prison in Rome awaiting trial, It was the gospel of Jesus Christ that drove him on.

He says in Romans chapter 1 verse 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. That was the Jew. He was preaching in Jerusalem and also to the Greek. He was preaching in Macedonia, in Philippi. He recognized that these two different groups needed to hear the gospel.

For therein, he says, is the righteousness of God revealed. He said in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 23, we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. He said in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 16, necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. And he will tell the Philippians later in this opening chapter, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. Why this emphasis?

Why the necessity laid upon him? because Paul knew that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation for sinners, that God's free grace is essential in salvation, and that human effort and man's works and trying to please God by obedience to the law only brings shame on one hand for our inadequacies, and pride on the other when we imagine that we are doing good. He knew it was possible to find justification and righteousness with God only by faith in Jesus Christ. And he knew that there was peace and reconciliation with God only through the shed blood of Christ our substitute, only by the atoning sacrifice of the Saviour. And having once tried to suppress and destroy that message of grace and peace as a young man, as Saul the Pharisee Paul the Apostle now wanted to take that same message to the ends of the earth.

Let me speak personally and with this I'm finished. If the grace of God and peace with God ranked so highly in the Apostle's estimation, ought not we to value them highly too? May we all learn to treasure the grace of God, treasure God's peace, and most of all, treasure the one by whom these blessings come to us. Amen.

Grace And Peace

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Grace And Peace

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