For our scripture reading this
morning, turn with me to the book of Philippians, Paul's epistle
or letter to the Philippians. I'll also use chapter 1 as my
text this morning. 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. 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 unto the day of Jesus Christ. Even 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 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. In this I pray
that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and
in judgment or understanding, that you may approve things that
are excellent, that you 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. We will turn back with me to
Philippians chapter 1. I want to speak from several
of these verses and then hopefully emphasize verse 6. In most of Paul's epistles, he
begins his letter with the words, grace be unto you and peace from
God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace. You can't have one without the
other. And there's nothing that I want
more to say to anyone that I'm given the privilege of preaching
to than to say to them with some confidence, grace and peace be
unto you. Paul had confidence in these
people. He had them in his heart. He
saw evidence of their salvation. He said, I pray for you without
ceasing. You're on my mind. Your face
is before my eyes all the time. I don't go in my study and just
sit in there and study. I have your faces. I have people
that come in here, actual people on my mind and in my heart that
I want to preach to. And I know sometimes it just
seems like, boy, it's the same old stuff. You're just preaching
the same There's nothing I want to tell you more than grace and
peace be unto you. Nothing more I want to say to
you. But there's some things that have to happen. There's
some things you have to know. And I have to say those things
and then I have to wait. I can't do anything about it.
I have to wait on the Lord. Only the Lord can do these things.
He opens the heart. He opens the mind. He teaches
in such a way as He drives it home. All I can do is spit out facts.
And I'm talking about at the best. That's all I can do. Grace and peace to you from God
our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't much think about that,
do we? We think about Jesus, we think about that little baby
around Christmas time. Got little models of them put
out there in the manger, and we see pictures of him in his
humility and crown of thorns. Jesus Christ is Lord. I tell you, if that ever goes
home, if God ever reveals that to you, He's Lord, Winston. Absolute
Lord. He's Lord of the dead and Lord
of the living. No man liveth to himself, no
man dieth to himself. Whether you live or die, you're
the Lord. What's the Lord going to do with me? That's the question.
What's my Lord going to do with me? He'd be just if He didn't
do anything. Believers know that. They justify
God in that. David said, I'm on your side
in my own judgment. He ought to send me to hell.
I'm a sinner. The amazing thing is that he
didn't. All my soul, peace from God our
Father. Is God our Father? He is if you can believe. He
is, there's no other way to know. Grace and peace be to you from
God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Men and women are not born in
communion with God. I've heard that so often at a
birth. I heard it from my in-laws at
the birth of my own grandchildren. Probably said it at the birth
of my own before I knew God. Talk about how innocent this
little baby is. Not before God. Not before God. He's not innocent.
Men and women are not born in communion with God. Our lives
do not begin in innocence and then go south somewhere along
the way. But that's what religion says.
It says when you reach the age of accountability, whenever that
is, And then you make bad decisions, and now you're at enmity with
God. That's just not so. Scripture
said the wicked are strained from the womb, removed from a relationship,
set off at a distance. The wicked are strained from
the womb. They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
I didn't say that. The Holy Ghost said that. Oh, to be able by the grace and
mercy of God to look you in the eyes and with some confidence
say to you, grace and peace be unto you. God done something
for you. God done something for you. He's
arranged in His providence for you to hear. And then He gave
you ears to hear. I hear what you're saying. I
see it in the Word of God. I'm convinced of it. I'm convicted
of it. From a holy and righteous and
just God, from a sovereign, unchangeable and eternal God, from a God that
Carnal minds are enmity against, filled with hostility. I've had people tell me, preacher,
I don't hate God. You do if you don't obey Him. You do if you don't love Him
with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And what of, let's just say the
Lord did love you. Let's just use that for a minute.
The Lord did love you. And He comes and He brings salvation
with Him and He said, here it is. And you pull the shoulder. That's how the prophet describes
our unbelief. We pull the shoulder. We don't hate God? Yeah, we do. We don't hate God. You don't?
Why don't you obey him? Why won't you hear his gospel
and rejoice? Why won't you submit to his means?
Why do you question his authority? Why don't you love his son? We'd
be not born of fornication. One father, even God. He said,
if God was your father, you'd love me, for I proceeded forth
and came from God. This is God standing before you
and you hate my guts. Why won't you bow to his word?
I know you have every reason to disbelieve me, but you don't
have any reason to disbelieve God. None. There's no excuse. He told his disciples, go into
all the world and preach my gospel. Preach it to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth
not shall be damned. Now I tell you, when God says
shall, he means shall. He don't mean may. He means shall. He that believeth not the Son
shall not see life. But the wrath of God abideth
on him. And he said, this is the condemnation. You want to know what condemnation
of God is in this world? This is condemnation. Light come
into the world. Men love darkness rather than
light. In him was life, the scripture
said. Eternal life. Everlasting life. The very life of God. In him
was life. And that light was the light
of men. And the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in his face. It was the light of men. Now
listen to this, John 1 verse 5. And the light shineth in the
darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. God sent a man, John the Baptist. He was sent for a witness of
the light that all men through Him might believe. And God sends
preachers all over the world, apostles, evangelists. He is
a sentient gift to men. He came into the world, a world
made by Him and for Him, a world stamped with His name. His name
is stamped everywhere. His name and purpose in the world
knew Him not. John 1 11, He came unto His own
of people He chose and set apart and gave His word to, and His
own received Him not. But as many as received Him,
who are they? Who are they? Who received Him?
The world wouldn't. His own wouldn't. Who are these? Who did receive Him? People with
ears to hear, people with eyes to see, people
stripped of all their competence in the flesh, people shut up
to Christ, people He chose and made provision for before the
world was. He said, but as many as received
Him. How come they received Him and
nobody else did? Here's why. To them gave He power. I asked a man one time, I said,
is that talking about ability or permission? And he said, yes. Talking about both. To them gave
He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe
on His name. That's why they believe God enabled
them to. And how does it begin? It begins
in God's providence. God arranges His providence for
you to hear. It never ceases to amaze me. Somebody will come through the
door one day and sit down. Sometimes they hear and walk
out. Sometimes they hear and they stay. But God in His providence
arranges a hearing. Paul preached at Antioch, and
the Jews got angry, and they all left, and even the chief
women among the Jews spread rumors about it. Put the apostles in
a bad light. But the Gentiles said, we won't
hear you again. And Paul said to the Jews, he
said, seeing you judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life,
behold, I turn to the Gentiles. And he quoted an Old Testament
scripture talking about the Gentiles. And boy, when they heard that,
they was glad. The heathen was glad. They saw
in the scripture where God made provision for them. For them. And they was glad. And you know
what it says? As many as were ordained to eternal
life believed. To them gave he power to become
sons of God. John Kemp, I was reading some
hymns to my wife this week, and one of the verses in the hymn
is talking about pleading the promises of God. And the one verse reads, Till
thou shalt o'er the waters move, T'will bud of barren season prove,
Lifeless and cold will be the song, The preacher dull and the
service long if God don't move. But I tell you, He does move.
He does move. I heard a man preach. I've heard
him a thousand times. I heard that man preach that
night. I'm telling you, it was like God was standing there talking
to me, to this man. Paul can sit in his prison cell
and pen this wonderful letter to the church with this confidence. Philippians 1 verse 6, being
confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good
work in you. Has he? Has he? You hear? You're hearing? You know how
many people preaching the gospel that I'm preaching to you this
morning? A handful. Travel thousands of miles out,
you'll find a handful. On the internet, ain't but two
handfuls over all the world. And surely in a day with computer
knowledge and fast knowledge, somebody would acknowledge this
message somewhere if they believed it. He begun a good work, you hear. That's the beginning. What will
you do with it? You know, he tells us in Hebrews
3, he said, don't be like those folks over in the wilderness.
Hardened their heart, wouldn't listen. God was teaching them,
made for them a tabernacle, made for them all these types and
symbols, was teaching them how to worship, teaching them about
Christ. But they wouldn't hear it. He said today is the day. What day? That day when in His
providence He brings you to here. That's the day. That's the day. Don't turn your back on it. Don't
throw it away. Don't harden your heart like
they did in the provocation. Oh my soul. Paul could sit there being confident.
He said of this very thing, He which hath begun a good work
in you, And if he does, if he does, he'll perform it to the
end, to the day of Jesus Christ. Now, Lord willing, I want us
to see four things in this text here in Philippians chapter 1
this morning. I want you to see the beginning
of the work. You may not know it, but if God
leaves you to yourself, there's no possibility of salvation.
Here's what you're going to do, you're going to go out here with
natural reasoning, you're going to look around and you're going
to look at this work and that work and some other work and
you're going to find one that appeals to you, whatever it is,
it be intellectual, formal or informal or whatever it is, you're
going to find something that appeals to you, you're going
to join up and you're going to wake up in hell. That's exactly
what's going to happen. If God leaves us to ourselves,
there's no possibility of salvation. And you might well achieve a
renown in your family. You may well make your mark on
society. You may finish your days in service
to some religion as a preacher, teacher, deacon, or elder. You
may do anything that any other man has done, but without an
intervention of God. Without God's intervention. You'll
die in your sins. You'll self-destruct. When Paul
described those under sin, he said, destruction and misery
are in their ways. There's a way that seemeth right
unto a man, but the end thereof is what? Destruction. You're
going to self-destruct. But if God set His eternal eye
of mercy on you, set His heart of love upon you, determined
His purpose of grace for you and on you, there'll be a work
begun in you. He'll do it. And it'll be effectual. You'll kick. You'll squirm. But it won't do you any good. You can't get that message out
of your heart. You can't get it out of your mind. You think
about it day and night and you go on and you try to work, but
it won't leave. It just keeps nagging. It's there. And I'm telling you, it's effectual. It's effectual. The Lord unhorsed
that proud rebel Paul and threw him in the dust. Old solid Tarsus,
there he lay in the mud. He looked up and saw this bright
light, heard this voice, and the Lord said to him, said, it's
hard to kick against the pricks, ain't it? I tell you, we've been
fighting greenbriars all week. Big as your thumb, great big
old greenbriar. You don't want to kick one. You
don't want to get mad and grab it. It's hard to kick against the
bricks, ain't it? Oh, my soul. Blessed is that man whom thou
choosest and causest to approach unto thee. Draw thee. He told those Jews, don't murmur.
No man can come unto me except my Father draw him. It's written in the scriptures.
They shall all be taught of God. They're going to be taught of
God. God won't teach them. You can't teach a natural man
anything. But boy, you can when God gives him eyes to see and
ears to hear, you can teach him. He'll sit up. I remember Jesse,
before the Lord saved him, he was sitting there on that bench.
You know, he used to come with his mama and got a free meal
on that day for it to come visit. a meal after church and he pleased
his mama in coming and everything was going just great. And then
I come here to the pasture, he had to come every week. And he'd
run out of counting ceiling tile and this and that. Boy, I tell
you, God in his providence got a hold of that boy. Got a hold
of him. I looked out there one day and
he was gripping the back of that pew like this and his knuckles
was white, listening to me. Huh? You think I had that power?
I don't have that power. God does. God does. He'll make you hear. I ain't
listening to that guy. Oh, you will if God opens your
heart. You will. You'll beg Him not to stop. He causes us to approach unto
Him. God's mercy and peace begins
in electing grace. God chose the people. They didn't
do any good or evil. There wasn't nothing in them
to cause God to choose them. He chose them. Chose them. He said, I'm going to save them.
I'm going to love them. I'm going to keep them. They're
going to be with me for all eternity. He predestinated the adoption
of us unto the adoption of children. And the reason God did not burn
this world to cinders in the garden is because He has an everlasting
purpose of grace, and He has a people that He chose, and He's
going to save every one of them. Paul said, God has saved us and
called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began. Oh, he said, I give thanks unto
God for you, he wrote to the Thessalonians, because God hath
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he calls you
by our gospel. Is God calling you? Does God speak to you? When you
hear me this morning, is God speaking to you? Are you seeing
this grace? Are you feeling His Spirit? Are you stirred at all? He called you by our gospel to
the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not that
you're going to be glorified, but you're a partaker of that
glory, of that accomplished redemption. Every new face I see come through
that door, I take heart in. Could be the God of glory is
getting ready to add to his church. Such as should be saved. Could
be. Could be. That's the only reason
we're still here. All his elect not called. That's the only reason
we're still here. When the last one of his elects
saved, he'll fold this thing up like a paper bag. I don't know all the particulars,
but I do know that God's providence sets the stage for His work. And His providence opens the
door of opportunity. Bankruptcy, divorce, disease,
depression, loss of work, the list is endless. I don't know
what God does to a man to get him ready to hear. One man had multiple sclerosis. His name was John Howson. He
was up in Ohio and his family had left him after he got diagnosed
and the disease began to really take hold of him. His family
left him, his wife, his daughter. They just left him alone. He moved up to Ohio. I guess
he knew somebody up there and he moved up there and had a little
house there and it was just going downhill and downhill and downhill
and getting more and more depressed One morning he turned his TV
on and Brother Mayhem was on there preaching that Sunday on
television and he heard. And he called up somebody and
hired them and they drove him up to Ashland from where he was
in Ohio, drove him up there to hear Henry preach. And within
a month he was living in Ashland. and listening to him, and before
it was over, he was making tapes and sending them out to people,
those little cassette tapes, he'd record them and send them
out. But years later, he said this to me after service, he
said, I thank God for MS. I'd have never heard the gospel. I don't know all the particulars,
I don't know what God's gonna do to a man to get him ready
to hear. I don't know. But I do know this, God intervenes
by his providence and by the preaching of the gospel. And there's nothing more precious
to a man in whom God begins a work than God's preacher. You know,
he tells us in Romans chapter 10 after he said, how are you
going to call on him in whom you have not believed? Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how
are you going to call on Him in whom you have not believed?
How are you going to believe in Him of whom you have not heard?
And how are you going to hear without a preacher? And how on
earth is He going to preach if I don't send Him? So a fact is established. Faith
cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of the Lord. But here's
what that man's going to say. It says this right in the middle
of all this. How beautiful are the feet of them that preach
the gospel of peace. Huh? Oh, I tell you, first time
I heard the gospel, I wanted to run up and kiss that man's
feet. I knew God sent him. There wasn't a question in my
mind God didn't send him. I knew he did. And thirdly, he intervened by
the Holy Ghost. What does the Spirit do? Well,
the Spirit's work in a believer is to give him the spiritual
ability to become the Son of God. He gives him knowledge,
gives him revelation, convinces him of truth, convinces him of
righteousness, convinces him of sin, convinces
him of judgment. Not that there is one, you already
know that, you have a conscience. but of judgment satisfied, of
righteousness accepted, of you the sinner. All right, the second
thing I want you to see in our text is a sufficiency of the
work. There's a general call, a call
to all men everywhere to repent, a call to believe and be saved.
Paul reasoned with Felix about righteousness, temperance, and
the judgment to come, and Felix trembled But he wouldn't believe. And he wouldn't repent. He said,
I hear you again. I hear you again. But he never
did. He never did. But oh, thank God there's an
effectual call. In 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul gave
thanks to God on their behalf, saying, for this cause, thank
we God without ceasing. Because when you received the
Word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the
Word of men, man's opinion. How often have I heard, that's
your opinion. That's your opinion. Man's theory, man's reasoning.
But he said, as it is in truth, the Word of God, now listen to
this, which affectionately worketh also in you that believe. How did it work? Affectionately. Affectionately. They were affectionately
led to repentance. Affectionately constrained to
believe. Affectionately given an understanding. Broken to bow. Moved to desperation. I'm not a desperate preacher.
You will be if God gets a hold of you. God the Holy Spirit effectually
reveals the truth about Christ and shows us the sufficiency
of His work, and we're led of the Spirit to rest in Him. What's
this preaching all about? This preaching is to point you
to Christ. Salvation's in Him. It's all
in Him. It's always been in Him. It was
put in Him before the foundation of the world. It was prophesied
of Him throughout the Old Testament and pictured in types and symbols.
It was accomplished by Him on Calvary's cause. It's preached to you through
the Gospel. And it's made effective by His
Spirit. The sufficiency of His work. And then thirdly, I want you
to see this. He shows us the length of the work. He said, being confident of this
very thing, he which hath begun a good work in you, gonna let
you go somewhere down the road. No, that ain't what that says. He that hath begun a good work
in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. He's never
gonna quit. Paul said, what's going to separate
you from the love of God? Huh? Things in the present, things
in the past, things in the future. Distress, poverty, what's going
to separate you from the love of God? What's going to make
God quit loving you? Nothing shall be able to separate
you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Nothing. Paul said, I'm company. He'll
perform it under the day of Jesus Christ. And know this, he that
endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. And there are
two inseparable truths established concerning that doctrine of perseverance. The first is perseverance. We
are not of them who draw back under perdition. We're not going
to let go. Oh, we quit. We're throwing the
towel. Peter did. He said, I'm going
fishing. He went and got him, but he didn't draw back to perdition.
The Lord didn't let him. The king had found him. There's two inseparable truths,
perseverance and preservation. Peter said we're kept by the
power of God through faith unto salvation. Kept by the power
of God. Why do we persevere? Because
we're being kept. That's why. Men and women persevere
in the faith because he which hath done a good work in you
keeps right on performing it. And I know people make the mistake,
salvation is not an isolated act, it's not something that
happens somewhere along the way. You know, I got saved. I hear
that all the time. I got saved. Somebody said it's not a get-out-of-jail-free
card, but that's how people use it, or an insurance policy in
case something goes wrong. Salvation is life from the dead. You hath he quickened who are
dead, dead spiritually. He's light out of darkness, revelation
out of ignorance, peace out of conflict. That work, that glorious work
in 2 Corinthians 1, 9 and 10, Paul said, but we had the sentence
of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves,
but in God which raiseth the dead, who delivered us from so
great a death. Now watch this. and doth now
deliver, in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us. That's a continual work. He began
the work, he performs the work, he sends that, he makes you to
understand that work, and he maintains that work, and he keeps
right on maintaining that work clear to the day of Jesus Christ. God has set the means of our
preservation in place, and teaches us to take advantage of it. What
God sets out to do, he does. What he's purposed to do cannot
fail. What God has determined will
be done. His work is effectual, sufficient,
and can never fail. And here's my confidence, Paul
said, he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it. Work out your own salvation.
That's what Paul told them. Work out your own salvation in
fear and trembling, for it's God that worketh in you, both the will and the do of his
good pleasure. Yet begun a good work in you. A good work. You know, when I think of good,
I'm on a scale. And it's not at the top, but
good's up there pretty high. That's the way that rich young
ruler thought. He'd come to Christ, he'd see a good master, and boy,
he stopped him in his tracks. He said, why callest thou me
good? There's none good but God. If you're talking about a good
work, you're talking about good as God. This is a perfect work,
a good work. An irresistible work, an eternal
work, an unchangeable work. And then lastly, I want us to
see the glory of the work. He tells us in our text, He will
perform it under the day of Jesus Christ. There was a day when
Jesus Christ appeared in this world exactly as God had purposed. Exactly at that time, when the
fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son. There
was a time before the time, and when that time came, God sent
forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law. and he accomplished the redemptive
purpose of God. We're presently living in what
some call the Gospel Age, the day of grace and mercy, a time
when God will call his people to himself and call them out
of darkness into his marvelous light. 2,023 years ago, our Lord
rose from the dead, ascended back into glory. With all power
in heaven and earth given to him, he sends his evangelists
and pastor teachers out to preach. Every invitation, every open
door is to me a providential opening of the door. Somebody
called and said, could you preach for me next Sunday? Isn't that a door? Isn't God
opening that door? I didn't ask for it. that soon that door of mercy
and grace will come to an end, he said, in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. That's how fast. The day of Jesus Christ shall
be at hand, and at his name, and in the light of all that
he's done, and with all of his elect around him. Every eye is going to see Him
of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the
earth. Unobstructed by sin and ignorance and deceit, every
tongue, every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going
to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father. Satanic angels, they're all going
to confess it. They're all going to see it like
they never saw it before. And they're going to say everything
He did, He did to the glory of God. He's Lord. He's Lord. And they're going to bow to Him.
And I can't imagine the horror of knowing the truth, seeing
Him who is the object of our hatred toward God, seeing Him
in whose saving glory We've heard, and then going away into eternity,
damned, separated from God. Paul said, Exhort one another,
why it's called today, lest any of you be hardened through the
deceitfulness of sin. For we're made partakers of Christ
if we hold the beginning of our competence steadfast to the end.
And that day, we'll see the glory of His work, His person, His
mercy and grace as never before. Never before. We see through
a glass dimly now, don't we? Boy, then you're going to see
Him face to face. Your eyes are going to see Him.
What holds us back from rejoicing in Him now? Nothing but sin and
unbelief. That's all.