Philippians 4 beginning with
verse 20. Now unto God and our Father be
glory forever and ever. Amen. Salute every saint in Christ
Jesus. The brethren which are with me
greet you. All the saints salute you, chiefly
they that are of Caesar's household. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you all. Amen. May the Lord add his blessings
to the reading of his word. Now let us bow our heads together
in prayer. I've entitled my message this
morning, Every Saint. every saint. Now these verses
that we are looking at today are usually referred to as Paul's
postscript to this letter that he wrote to the church at Philippi.
And in them we know that he mentions God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ several times. Last week we finished our study
looking at verse 19, that wonderful promise that God gives us through
the Apostle Paul, but my God shall supply all your need according
to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. One of the promises of
the new covenant, remember God told through the prophets of
old there would be a new covenant that God would make. And one
of the blessings and promises of that covenant is that God
would be our God. God has a people. God has an
elect people that he has chosen and named in that everlasting
covenant. And one of the blessings that
he bestows upon his people is he becomes our God. And the apostle
Paul here says, but my God, Think about that just a moment. But
my God shall supply all your need according to his riches
in Christ Jesus. Riches in glory by Christ Jesus. I think about that story in the
Old Testament, and when I say story, it's a history. It's his
story. We know that. But Elisha, that
time that the widow woman came to him and she said unto him
that the creditors were coming to take away her two sons, that
her husband had been a prophet of God and he had died and he
was, he left his wife, his widow, and two sons in debt, in need. And Elisha said, well, so you
go home and you borrow from your neighbors bottles. She had one
bottle in the house that had just a little oil, and he said,
you just go in and borrow all the bottles that you can, not
a few. And so she sent those boys out, I'm sure, to borrow
from neighbors all the bottles in the neighborhood and from
everyone that she could think of, and they brought them. And
she began to pour the oil in, and the oil filled every one
of those bottles. But my God shall supply all your
needs. And the apostle here refers to
God as my God. Who is this God? My God. Who is this God? That He can
make such a blanket statement, such a blanket promise to supply
all of your needs, be they spiritual, material, physical, whatever
they may be. This God, my God, He shall supply
all your needs." Well, we know, first of all, He's the God and
Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because the Apostle Paul said,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ, before the world began. There's only one way that God
may be your God and Father, and that is through Jesus Christ. There is no other way to the
Father. He said, I am the way. There
is no other way to the Father. For Paul to be able to call this
God his God, he had a relationship, a personal relationship with
God Almighty, but he had that relationship through his son,
Jesus Christ. When the Lord Jesus Christ called
him that day on the road to Damascus and revealed himself to Paul,
then Paul came to know Christ, who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus,
whom thou persecutest. He came to know the Lord Jesus
Christ, and knowing Him, he knew the Father. He had made pretense
of knowing God and serving God and worshiping God all of his
life. But that was the first day that He came to know God
as His God and His Father. The Lord Jesus Christ told His
disciples one day, He said, If you had known Me, you would have
known the Father. That's the only way to know God
in a personal way. That's the only way to know God
Almighty, and that is through the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord said one day, all things
are delivered to me of my Father. Now all things, you say, what
does that mean? It means all things. That's what
it means. It means you. It means me. It
means every person on the face of God's earth. It means all
things animate and inanimate. All things are delivered unto
me of my Father. Now when He said that, He is
speaking as the Mediator, the God-man. As God, all things have
always been His. But these things were given unto
Him as the Mediator between God and men. All things are given
unto Me, delivered to Me of My Father. And then He said, And
no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father. You see, in Him
dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead bodily, in the person
of Jesus Christ. Infinite. Only God knows the
Son. We know things about Him that
He chooses to reveal unto us, but no one knows the Son fully
but the Father. No one knows the Father but the
Son. That's what He goes on to say.
No man knoweth who the Son is but the Father, and who the Father
is but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal Him." It is only through the Son of
God, through the Lord Jesus Christ, that the love the grace, the
mercy, the forgiveness of sins, the adoption of children into
the family of God. It is only through Jesus Christ
that this is revealed, that God is revealed, only through Him. When Paul says, But my God, first
of all he's speaking of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. And secondly, he is speaking
of God who is God of heaven and earth, the only true and living God.
There's been and there are today many gods, spelled with a small
g, Men manufacture gods in their head the way they think God ought
to be and the way they want God to be. They make themselves a
god, but there's only one God who is God of heaven and earth. The Lord reigneth, the scripture
says. Let the earth rejoice. Not only
is He the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the God
of heaven, but He's the God of all grace. All grace resides
in Him. What do I need? What do you need? Grace. Grace. Unmerited favor. That's what I need. And He, my
God, Paul says, He's the God of all grace. And He's the God
of providence. Nothing happens in this world
by accident. We should get that word and just
kick it out of our vocabulary. As believers, as children of
God, all things are ordained of God. The scripture says He
knows the end from the beginning. He worketh all things after the
counsel of His own will. You will never worship, I will
never worship, anyone other than a sovereign God. He must be sovereign or man will
never worship Him. But thank God today, the God
of the Bible, the God that Paul is speaking of here when he says,
My God is a sovereign God. He rules. He reigns. He's the God of providence. But I want to call our attention
today in these verses to the use of the word saint. The Apostle Paul uses this two
times in verse 21 and then in verse 22. Singular in verse 21,
salute every saint in Christ Jesus. And then plural in verse
22, all the saints salute you. And I'm going to make three statements,
three simple statements, with the use of this word saint. Three
simple statements. Number one, a saint is a child
of God. A saint is a child of God, and
a child of God is a saint. Somewhere along the way, between
the writing of the New Testament and today, I don't know of any
word that has fallen more on hard times than this word saint. Because if you ask the average
person in a church today, go where you will, ask them the
definition of a saint, and most people would say, that's a special
kind of Christian. That's a special kind of believer. But I'm here to tell you this
morning, my friends, according to the Word of God, every saint
is a child of God, and every child of God is a saint. Now, I know that the false teaching
of the Roman Catholic Church has had a lot to do with the
misunderstanding of this term, saint. the era that is attached
to it. You hear people all the time
say, well, I'm no saint. If you're no saint, you are no
child of God. If you are a child of God, you
are a saint. If you are a saint, you are a
child of God. This last Pope that was so popular,
Pope John Paul II, died a few years ago. They put him on fast
track to sainthood, but he still hasn't made it.
But all the hierarchy in the Vatican is working, and they're
speeding up the process so that soon they will be able to declare
him a saint, and then people will be able to pray to him.
I say unto you this morning, There is not a shred, not a shred
of teaching in the Word of God that supports that at all. Nothing, nothing at all. Just a few years ago, they made
the first saint from Mexico. It's a political thing, but Juan
Diego, Juan Diego, the Indian to whom supposedly the Virgin
of Guadalupe appeared so many years ago. He finally made it
within the last four or five years. They declared him to be
a saint. Away with such trash, such error,
such false teaching, my friends. Paul, if you notice in the first
chapter of this letter, Philippians chapter 1, Paul addressed this
letter to all the saints in Christ Jesus. You see that in verse
1? Paul and Timothy, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints
in Christ Jesus, which are at Philippi. And now he closes this
letter by saluting all the saints. And what does that word salute
mean in our text? Well, it means to greet, to welcome,
to embrace, or to take leave. And so the Apostle Paul, writing
the end of this letter to this church, takes leave of all the
saints in the church at Philippi. A saint is a child of God. We recently studied And I think
in your bulletin today, we have these eight names of Jehovah
with another word. But we recently studied from
the name Jehovah Kadesh, which means the Lord that sanctifies. And we saw how in the New Testament,
each person in the Godhead is said to sanctify God's people,
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, each
one sanctifying his people. But the first time the word sanctify
is used in the Bible, it has reference to the seventh day
in the week of creation. And God sanctified that day. What does that mean? He set that
day apart. He set that day apart. Six days
he created, but on the seventh day he sanctified that day. Set
that day apart. A saint is a child of God. Now
listen, listen to me. A saint, and there are many saints
here this morning I'm speaking to, but we are persons who come
into this world like every other person. Like every other person,
we come into this world, every saint does. We were shapen in
iniquity. We were conceived in sin. And because we inherited that
sinful nature, the Apostle Paul says, we were children of wrath,
even as others. Saints of God, when we come into
this world, we come into this world as sinners, guilty, estranged,
alienated from God. And because we are sinful, we
deserve God's wrath, but God. That's the way he puts it, isn't
it? In Ephesians chapter 2. But God. God does something in us, and he's done something
for us. But God. But God, who is rich
in mercy, for his great love wherewith he hath loved us, even
when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace you are saved." The
grace of God in Jesus Christ came to us, and it may come to
someone here this morning. I pray that it shall. I pray
there's someone here today, you came into this building estranged
from God, way off from God, alienated from God, deserving of the wrath
of God. But God's grace, God's unmerited
favor may come to you today, single you out, separate you,
set you apart, apprehend you, regenerate you, and bring you
to Jesus Christ by faith. And you'll walk out of this building
a saint. A child of God, a saint! Look
with me to the first letter of 1 Corinthians, just a moment.
First letter of Corinthians. I want to read a few verses from
chapter 1 and then a few from chapter 6. Notice here in chapter 1, the
beginning of the letter, Paul called an apostle of Jesus Christ
through the will of God in Sosthenes our brother unto the church of
God which is at Corinth to them that are sanctified in Christ."
Who's he writing to? He's writing to those who are
sanctified. Those who have been singled out,
been set apart, been apprehended by the grace of God. Sanctified in Christ Jesus called,
and you notice those next two words are added by the translators,
they're in italics. And sometimes that's very helpful,
but here I believe it should not have been done. Because when
you read that called to be saints, somehow people get the idea that
God calls us, now we're working and gradually working to become
saints. No, no. Called saints. Called saints. with all that
in every place, all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus
Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours. I call upon him. Do you? Do you call upon the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ? He's addressing this letter to
all the saints, all who call upon the name of Jesus Christ.
Grace be unto you and peace from God, our Father. and from the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now turn over to chapter 6, 1
Corinthians chapter 6, and beginning with verse 9, the
apostle says, know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit
the kingdom of God? That's a question mark. Don't
you know that? The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom
of God. Then something's going to have
to happen. Because we come into this world
unrighteous, somehow we're going to have to be made righteous
if we inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived, neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor
abusers of themselves with mankind. But they say, oh, but my preacher
says this. A man told me that one day, said,
My preacher, and he's got so many degrees behind his name, he's got so many degrees behind
his name that he disallows the Word of God away with such degrees,
my friend. Let God be true and every man
a liar. nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the
kingdom of God. And such were some of you." He's
writing to saints. And he said, now some of you
were in this category. One of these or another, maybe
all of them. Who knows? Not all of them were
guilty of these things, surely, but some of them were. But now
notice, but you're washed. but you're sanctified, but you're
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit
of our God." Notice they were washed, they were sanctified,
and they were justified. Now washed, well that means preacher
they went to church and got baptized one day. Really? I like what
it said that Sam Houston said when he was baptized somewhere
up here in around Navasota. Preacher said, now your sins
are washed away. He said, pity the poor fish. I tell you, you could be baptized
as they used to say, do you have webbed feet? That won't wash
away one sin. Not the water of baptism. He's
speaking about being washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. Our Lord, that night, He washed
His disciples' feet when Peter said, Not me. And then He said, Well, then
wash me all over. The Lord said, He that is washed
is clean every wit. Every sin. committed, washed
away. What can wash away my sins? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
And then he says, you are sanctified. Notice that's the past tense.
Just like washed and just like justified. Sanctified. The Spirit of God must come. And He must give us a new nature. He must quicken us and give us
a new life that was not there before. We've been sanctified
by God the Father in election, sanctified by God the Son in
redemption, and sanctified by God the Holy Spirit when He comes
and reveals Christ in us. But you are justified, declared
righteous. How? By the imputed righteousness
of Jesus Christ. So that's the first statement.
A saint is a child of God. Can you remember that? I know
many of you, I'm not telling you anything you don't already
know. But I want to enforce that if I can on the mind of every
person here, every small child, every young person. A saint is
a child of God. Make no mistake about it. A child
of God is a saint. Number two. A saint may be found
among all men. I want you to turn back to our
passage this morning. A saint may be found among all
men. Verses 21 and 22, the apostle
said, When I say that a saint may be
found among all men, let me explain what I mean. There are several
things that I would use to illustrate that statement. A saint may be
found among all men. First of all, we may be sure
that there were some Jews and some Gentiles included in these
two verses. Paul was a Jew. We know that.
And he's writing to the Saints at Philippi, and we know the
jailer at least in that church, but most of that church were
made up of Gentiles. So when I say that a saint may
be found among all men, what I am saying is that there's no
particular nationality that is peculiar to the saints. God's
people come from all nations, all races of people. A saint may be found among all
men. It's not just Jews and it's not
just Gentiles, but it is Jews and Gentiles. And if you turn
back just a few pages to Ephesians chapter 2, he makes this ever so clear here
in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 11. And remember now, when you
read these New Testament letters, these letters were written to
believers. He's not writing an epistle to
the world. He's writing to God's people,
to those who profess to know Christ, to those who were saved. Look in verse 11 of chapter 2.
Wherefore, remember that you being in time past Gentiles in
the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision
in the flesh made by hands. In other words, the Jews called
you Gentiles uncircumcision. They called them worse than that.
One of their favorite terms for the Gentiles was dog. Gentile
dogs, that's what they are. That's what's so lovely about
that woman that came to the Lord. And he said, it's not me to take
the children's bread and cast it to the dogs. And she said,
truth, Lord. But even the dogs eat the crumbs
that fall from the master's table. Great is our faith. Great is
thy faith. That at that time you were without
Christ. Notice, you were without Christ,
being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel. You were not part
of Israel. You were not proselytes to Israel,
the nation of Israel. You had nothing to do with Israel
at that time. and strangers from the covenants
of promise. You probably didn't even know
there'd be such a thing as a covenant that God had made with Abraham
to bless his seed and in his seed all the nations of the world
to be blessed. You probably didn't know anything
about that, those covenants. And I'll tell you something,
I love to talk about the covenants, I love to read about the covenant,
I love to preach about the covenant, but my friends, a person can
be saved without knowing anything about the covenant per se. There's one person you must know,
and that's Jesus Christ. And I'd rather know him And anything
else, wouldn't you? And everything else. And not only were you strangers
from the covenants of promise, but you didn't have any hope.
That's the way you lived in this world. You didn't have any hope.
If you had a hope, it was a false hope. It was a hope of a hypocrite.
And just as soon as you needed it, it would disappear. When
you come to the river of death and Passover, if you had a hope,
it was a vain hope, and it would have deserted you in that time
of need. But now, without God in the world,
didn't know Christ, didn't know God. But now, thank God, now
in Christ Jesus, you who sometimes were far off, And I don't think
any of us truly appreciate how far off we were from God. Our
sins, our sins separated us from God. God who is so holy that
he charges his angels with folly. We had fallen so far away from
God, so far from God, but now you who were far off from God
are made nigh, how close, your children of God, nigh by the
blood of Jesus Christ. For he is our peace. So first
of all, a saint may be found among all men, be he Jew or Gentile. We may be sure that there were
some males and some females, some were young and some were
old in this group. The group that was with Paul
and the group that they were saluting, saints, males, females,
some were young and Paul was Paul the aged. Someone said,
well, how old does a person have to be to be saved? I can't answer
that as far as telling you what age you have to be, but I will
tell you this, you have to be old enough to know you're lost. And if you're old enough to know
you're lost, you're old enough for God to save you. Third, we may be sure that some
were free. Paul said, I was born free, Roman
citizen, and some were slaves. You say, why do you say that?
I say that because so much of the world at that time were slaves. I remember reading several years
ago in one of Martin Lloyd-Jones' messages, and he believed that
probably half of the members in these churches were slaves.
These churches at Philippi and Colossae and the Galatian churches
and the Corinthian church and the church at Rome that probably
over half of the membership that they were slaves. Slavery was
so common at that time. Look with me in 1 Corinthians
7. Some were slaves, some were free. In 1 Corinthians chapter 7, you see this when he writes to
this church. Verse 20 said, Let every man
abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called
being a servant? That word is slave, same word. Art thou called being a servant,
a slave? Care not for it, but if thou
mayest be made free, use it rather. For he that is called in the
Lord being a slave is the Lord's free man. Likewise, also, he
that is called being free is Christ's servant. So these people, these saints,
some of them were slaves. Some of them were free. And some
of them, we read from the context here, were actually in the household
of Caesar. I love that scripture where Paul
says, but the gospel's not bound. He was bound. He was a prisoner.
He was Caesar's prisoner. But the gospel wasn't bound.
And they brought soldiers, no doubt, to guard him. Some say
he was chained to soldiers at different times. But those soldiers heard the
gospel. And those who were called. And these of Caesar's household,
I doubt that they were soldiers. They were others in the household
of Caesar. But they were saints. And here's the third statement.
A saint in this world never gets beyond the need of the grace
of God. You notice that's his last word
to this church, to these saints. Grace be with you all that are
in the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. That's the way he ended the letter
of Ephesians. Here it is. The grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. A saint in this world never gets
beyond the need of the grace of God. Why was it that John
Newton, that former slave trader who himself had become a slave
at one time, why later after the Lord saved him did he write,
it was grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved? How precious did that grace appear,
the hour I first believed. Through many dangers, toils,
and snares, I have already come. Tis grace hath brought me safe
thus far, and grace will lead me home. A saint, a child of
God, never gets beyond the need of grace, the grace of God in
this world. Let me say four things about
this grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in closing. Why, why do we need, why does
the saint of God, if a person's a saint, why does he continually,
why does she continually need the grace of God? Why was it
that Paul could wish and desire nothing better, nothing greater
a blessing on this church at Philippi than to say the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. Let me give you
four reasons. First of all, it is this grace
that gives us the fruit of the Spirit. Remember he said, without
me you can do nothing. He also said in that context,
as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in
the vine, No more can you except you abide in me." Every child of God, every saint
of God, don't we desire to bring forth fruit? But it's the fruit
of the Spirit. And without His grace, we won't
bring forth that fruit. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
patience, kindness, temperance, faith, Will we bring forth these things
without the grace of God? No, no, no. Number two, it is this grace
that will restrain us. I thank God for restraining grace,
don't you? I look back in my life before
I came to Christ, before he came to me, and I see how he restrained
me. And I'm thankful and I still
need his restraining grace. I'm liable to say something,
do something that will bring such dishonor upon my Lord if
he doesn't restrain me. I need that grace, restraining
grace. Number three, it is this grace
that will animate and stimulate us in serving the Lord and in
our dealings with one another. A church, a local church. I mean, we're subject to come
to fistfights in this place. Really. Jealousy, envy, malice,
bitterness. evil speaking of one another,
murmuring, complaining, but by the grace of God. We need His
grace to encourage us and cause us to love one another, pray
for one another, help one another, encourage one another. And it's this grace of God that
will sustain us in every situation. Look in 2 Corinthians 12. Paul
gives his own experience. It is this grace of God that
will sustain us in every situation, every circumstance. 2 Corinthians 12 and verse 7. He said, unless I should be exalted
above measure through the abundance of the revelations, caught up
to the third heaven, I think he was tempted to pride. He was a man, wasn't he? But lest that happen, there was
given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet
me. lest I should be exalted above
measure. For this thing I besought the
Lord three times." I prayed about this. This thorn, whatever it
was in the flesh, wasn't pleasant. And I prayed,
God, take this away. God, take this away. Three times
I prayed. And he said unto me, My grace
is sufficient for thee. For my strength, God's strength,
is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will
I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may
rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure. Can
we say that? I take pleasure in infirmities. in reproaches, in necessities,
in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I
am weak, then I am strong." God's grace will sustain us in every
circumstance. May the Lord bless this word
to all of us. We live in uncertain times, and we live in an uncertain world. But having said that, my friends,
we know that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient.