His Riches, Philippians, 4:18-23

Good morning. We want to at this time, it's not only a holiday season, but also some things to make sure that we get announced here. And so we want to bring those to your attention. The signups can continue and we need to have more of you sign up so that we know for these electives that are taking place over this next quarter and into the following quarter. And the signups are immediately to the left as you exit the door there. And I noticed looking at the list so far that Class House Teaching has got quite a few names on already, which is great. I imagine a lot of people are attracted by the free sample that's been offered. So anyway, signups in the lobby there.

We're going to be finishing Philippians, just so you know. And starting next week in a parallel study of Ephesians and Colossians. And next week we'll explain why we would study the two of them together. And no, I won't be reading two verses at one time. I'm not that good. Okay. But we'll start that. A Tale of Two Cities.

The next thing here, just to bring out, we realize that this can be a stressful time for a lot of people. And it's also a joyful time. And we recognize that as well. There's lots of things going on. People are doing shopping, of course. And there's presents to contend with. Shopping, of course. And there's food. Yes, you know about that. And shopping. And traveling to do. Of course, that you have. And some more shopping. And more food.

And we realize a lot of this is stressful. The stress gets to some people, and you see some people kind of react rather intensely. We understand that. Some people, well, you know how it is. You go around here, and especially this last week, you go to And it can get really wild. People sometimes develop some extraordinary skills. And so anyway, we realize it can get frustrating.

This is a time when it's particularly valuable. Do you like that? This is a time when it's particularly valuable to behold the Lord. Okay? Anyway, don't let it get to you. Okay? We're also particularly pleased here to be able this morning, in the midst of such extreme frustration out there in the world, to be able to offer the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we want to do that here this morning as we step into the book of Philippians. Turn with me as we study here. Philippians 4, 18-23. To do that, one of the things we wanted to begin with is looking at just a cultural insight.

We have practices as to the way that we write letters. We will, for example, in any letter say, to somebody. It doesn't matter if they're dear or not, we'll say dear, right? And then at the end, somebody might say sincerely, whether they're sincere or not, they'll say sincerely, okay? It was typical in New Testament times to write letters saying farewell and just kind of let it be ended. They didn't typically drag it out. However, there were some exceptions.

Sometimes, and especially in the New Testament era, There would be additional greetings added in other words to greet so-and-so and that kind of thing and So more than just a farewell Would be typical of New Testament time Why do I bring that up a couple of reasons one is because you find that more typical of Paul's letters, right? And some of the other Apostles Additionally one of the other reasons why it's a values that anybody ever comes to you and says all these letters weren't written during the first century they're written sometime later and This leans in the favor of them being actual, authentic first century letters when it was the classical and custom thing to do to state things where you're greeting people more than just a final farewell. Now, there was a letter that was written just a few years after this book of Philippians, and here's the way it ends. This is a pagan letter, but just to give you an example. It's best wishes to charitas and her children. and greetings from Herenia and her brother Pompeius Jr. You don't have to name any of your kids that, but that's just an example.

So Paul's letters were more typical of those during the first century in that he had more extended greetings. They were more friendly, intimate, and involved than the average. Typically as we read the New Testament era letters, just the common letters that people would write, and we have a number of samples by the way, They were less intimate involved. So here's Paul expressing something rather differently than what we see in most of those letters. They were also infinitely more spiritual, because a great many of them simply had nothing to do with anything spiritual, and that was exactly what Paul was focusing on.

So Paul's letters were typical in one way and unique in another. Something else to notice, and if we didn't take the time to point this out, it might escape our attention. So I do want to bring it out. I'll call them Philippians bookends. Paul brings up either specific words or topics in the first few verses of Philippians, and then brings them up again in the last few verses. Several examples here.

One of them, he mentions a partnership with the Philippians in Philippians 1.5, and then brings it up again in 4.15. He mentions them being sharers in 1.7, and then brings it up again in 4.13. He mentions in 1.5, I give my thanks to the Lord for you, for the fellowship, the sharing that we've had from the first day until now. And now in 4.15, he talks about the beginning of the gospel.

See the similarity there? Now let's look at the last one. Is it right for me to feel this about you? in 1.7, and now in 4.10, he finishes off with, you have revived your concern for me. That may not seem quite so similar until you see the Greek there, and notice the words that are underlined. He's returning with some similar thoughts and ideas. What was the laughter there all about? Anyway, in 1.1, there's more bookends.

In 1.1, all the saints, Haggaios, remember that. As you leave, make sure you greet another Haggaios in here. Just don't yell out Haggios. Nobody knows what you mean. All right. All the saints, Haggios in Jesus Christ in 1.1. And how does he finish up in 4.21? Every saint in Christ Jesus. Okay? Similar thing. Now, 1.2, he does it again.

In 1.2, he mentions grace and the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in 4.23, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Again. And finally, in 1.3, he says, My God. And in 4.19, My God.

Now, I may have missed some. So, your challenge, should you choose to take it on, is to look for some that I've missed. Some similarities between the beginning and the end. This technique of writing is called chiasmus, and Paul and some of the other New Testament authors did it quite often. Anyway, something to look for.

Now, as we look at this first verse, verse 18, he says, I've received everything in full and have an abundance. Let's take a look at this verse. It actually breaks into three separate thoughts. I have received everything in full and have an abundance, the first thought.

The second one, I am amply supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you sent. Specifically focusing on Epaphroditus having brought personally the gift that they'd given to Paul. And finally, he equates it with a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God. What Paul does in the first part is actually well-known business terminology of the day, and it was what people would write on kind of an accounting document or an invoice document in those times that says, I've received payment in full.

I've received payment in full. And he uses exactly that terminology to let them know I've gotten the whole thing. Every need has been met. I've received the whole payment. The second part, he acknowledges the gift from them sent through Epaphroditus, and letting them know Epaphroditus has been real instrumental in helping him out particularly.

And finally, he compares their giving to Israel's temple sacrifices. And you might say, hmm, what's this about? Well, so we have the question. Christian priests offering sacrifices? What's that about? Believers, every one of us, are called a holy priesthood. A holy priesthood.

1 Peter 2.5. This means, among other things, that we, as believers, everyone, have direct access to God. We need no priest. Why? Each of us, personally, has direct access to God. Direct.

And so he's underscoring this very same thing. There's another thing, and it shows up in your handout. By the way, for those of us who might be joining us for the first time, This is to show it's on side one of your handout, and as we go on, you'll see some on side two. So you can track with us on this.

The Christians can make sacrifices to God. Did you know that? I don't mean you need to get some altar out and start getting ready to slaughter the lamb. What it says is this. Our possessions in Philippians 4.8 are a sacrifice to the Lord. That's not all.

Our bodies in Romans 12. What do we do? We have a living sacrifice. Now, what's strange is the bodies keep crawling off the altar, but nonetheless, we can present our bodies as a living sacrifice. Converts, those with whom we've been privileged to have a part in bringing to the Lord by his doing, are also given as a sacrifice in Romans. And our praise, the sacrifice of praise, is mentioned in Hebrews 13, 15. And finally, our good works, in the very next verse in Hebrews there.

Believers can make sacrifices to the Lord. Why? We, because of the Lord's qualifying us, have direct access to the Lord. And what is Paul doing is he's making use of this terminology coming out of the sacrifices of Israel to compare them to the sacrifices that we as believer priests can make to the Lord because each of us as a believer has direct access to the Lord.

This example is given ultimately in Christ, and we know from Paul that Christ is, among other things, our example. And here we see in Ephesians 5, 1 and 2, "...therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us in offering and sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma." Similar message there too, only it is Christ himself. What we give as sacrifices are in in memory and in kind, pointing back to Christ's sacrifice. Okay, let's take a look at verse 19, the first half of it particularly here.

He says, and my God will supply all your needs. Okay, so he says that, and so the question, okay, are we needy? We need to talk about that in a minute. Paul says here, my God will supply all your needs. Notice he does not say, my God will supply all your greeds.

Okay. All right. Difference between those two, right? Now, then the question you're probably thinking is what's Vern talking about with this needing thing or needy. All right. What I'm not talking about is the Christian Pilgrim Doughboy here. That's not what I'm talking about. Okay.

What we are talking about is this, as believers, okay, As believers, at various times, we'll come across personal needs, won't we? Various times. And what Paul makes an appeal to here is that the Lord will supply all your needs. We notice not all your greeds. At times we may say, but Lord, I need this. How come I don't have it? How come I don't have it? That's the needy part, okay?

The truth is, the Lord is not simply there to provide every need so that we don't lack anything and are materially supplied with everything we need. The lack of material supply may in fact be something that the Lord is using to work in our lives, because he is not in the process of just making sure that we have every gratification that we might want. He is in the process of conforming us to the image of his Son. And that may in fact at times come through lack of one sort or another. One of the things that we see here as we look at the next half of that verse series is according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus.

One of the things we'll see as we go through Ephesians and I know the ladies who are studying Ephesians and Tuesday night went through this some time ago. But the first three chapters of Ephesians has an interesting set of things that comes out. The riches of the Lord. Always in those first three chapters is brought out the riches of His grace, the riches of His glory, the surpassing riches of His grace, the unfathomable riches of Christ, the riches of His glory. Get the point? The focal point here, and we'll go into each of those in more detail later, but the focal point here that Paul makes is the riches of the Lord, the Lord's resources. And I think as we look at this, that those stand out from these verses. The Lord is not lacking. The Lord is not lacking. And what he is not lacking in is quite apparent, is glory and grace. No insufficiency.

Look also then at this pattern that he uses here in Philippians, and this is according to, according to, according to the riches of his grace, according to the riches of his glory." What does that mean with? It means with in character both in quantity and in quality. In character both in quantity and quality. The Lord's riches are ample. That brings us back to these personal principles. Notice how he describes his riches in those Ephesians passages. His riches are surpassing, unfathomable, and will take eternity to reveal to us."

How about that? For passing. We might say, as a matter of fact, the Greek word there is, you know, hooperballo, overthrown. Just way, way past, okay? And unfathomable, unbelievable, in the sense, not in the sense we don't believe them, but it's just, it's hard for us to even comprehend. And then finally, it will take eternity for him to reveal those riches to us. That's hard for us to understand, isn't it? We think a thousand years ought to be enough, right?

No. You've just begun. How about that? The next point is there's no need for which the Lord's resources are challenged. Do you see that? They are surpassing. It's going to take eternity for Him to reveal them to us. The Lord is at no point saying, Oh, I wish I could help you, but it's just so hard. I just don't have enough. The Lord doesn't do that. His riches are ample beyond measure. It is as if we walked up to the Niagara Falls with a cup. Okay? Overwhelming, they are.

His riches are for us as we are in Him. It is based on our position that we already have, that the Lord has accomplished, that those riches are available. The riches are in Him. And finally, the riches are available to us in our condition as we behold Him directly. attention to that earlier that Hal brought it to our focus here. It's in beholding the Lord that they're available. There is no special trick. There is no do this thing just right and the Lord will give you all you need. It is as we behold Him, as we stand in our position. Then in verse 20 he says, And now to our God and Father be the glory forever.

As he's coming to a point of completion in this letter, he is saying, look, I've written to you about this thing and that thing. I've written to you about Euodia and Syntyche and their problems. I've thanked you for the gift. I've told you that I've been imprisoned with chains of this Praetorian Guard 24-7. I've told you about all these things. We've discussed a lot of different things and some heavenly and some earthly matters.

But the bottom line is to the Lord be glory forever and ever. and not for just a little while. You know, when we get to the place where we're glorifying the Lord, it's not going to be, hey, we've been doing this for 40 minutes, when's the coffee break?

Instead, forever and ever and ever, there will be no boredom. There will be no, hey, when's the next thing going on? It will be an activity that will be satisfying from age to age to age without end. Isn't that amazing? It will be satisfying to age, to age without end. In verse 21, it says, Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren who are with me greet you.

Now, one of the things to remember is that in New Testament times, although we do have a number of New Testament letters of both those in Scripture as well as a number of them outside of Scripture, we have a number of those letters available in this papyrus form, similar to what you see here. Here's one that's somewhat preserved and a few spots degraded, but it was rather uncommon for a letter. We have this nice postal system, or you might think so, anyway, we have this nice postal system that will deliver letters by the thousands and the millions and the billions. I understand we get something on the order of well over a billion, if not in the multiples, of credit card ads. You get those? And they come to us with regularity, sometimes much more than we'd like.

But in those days, getting a letter to somebody was a little bit more of a tough affair. There was a postal service available and it was rather expensive and a lot of people didn't trust it anyway. So if you had something you really wanted to get there, you sent it in person and of course that was a long time and took a lot of effort. So letters were just simply not that common.

So what would happen is since letters weren't that common, people would greet people on each end with, you know, be sure to send greetings to this one and this one and this one and everybody here greets you because you didn't get that often, you know, a letter between one place and the other. So once you got one, you say, hey, be sure to say hi for me and say hi to this one and say hi to that one. And that was the common thing that was done and you see it here in Paul's letters, the exact same.

So he says, the brethren that are with me, okay, We know that Timothy was with Paul, that was from Philippians 1.1.

We know that Epaphroditus was with him, and he was going to send this letter that we have here back with him, Philippians 2.19-30. Others may be as well. For example, we know that in Acts 28 that Luke went with Paul to Rome. So Luke may well have been present. And there could be others.

We do know, because of what is written in here, that by this time there are also believers in Caesar's household. And we'll talk about that in a minute, but think about this. The believers in Caesar's household would likely be Romans, right? Philippi was what? A Roman colony, right?

So, and it had been established a couple generations back, and considering the connections between Philippi as a Roman colony and Rome, they may well have had people that they knew, either by correspondence or official transaction, maybe even relatives, that were among Caesar's household.

So Paul would say greetings from those here at Caesar's household. So as we look at verse 22, there we see especially Caesar's household. Now, as we look at this Caesar's household, in the Roman Empire, the term Caesar's household included all those with direct involvement in serving Caesar. It could even be the slaves of Caesar. The soldiers, and remember there was a Praetorian guard that Paul was chained to. That was considered part of Caesar's household.

So you can imagine, here's a Praetorian guard, and he's been chained to Paul. Maybe his job is every third shift he's supposed to be chained to Paul. Can you imagine being chained to the Apostle Paul year after year and not being impacted? Some of those guys at first would be real obnoxious and hateful. Then after a while, Paul gets to them.

Hey, do you know Jesus? You can imagine being chained to this guy that's evangelizing you and you can't get loose. What would that be like? Okay. There were also freedmen that would be hired for certain special purposes. Anyone who served in Caesar's household would be honored to have that title and be sure to let other people know. Hey, I work for Caesar. Oh, wow. Okay. So that would be a special thing for them to do that.

And then we mentioned, of course, that here's Philippi being a Roman colony. They well have various kinds of connections, friends, relatives there in Rome. In the last verse here, he says, The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. It's interesting, Paul mentions that phrase, or similar phrases, in a lot of his letters.

It must be important. Think of what it would be like not to have the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ with your spirit. Think of what that's like. We can, if we're not too careful, take grace too easily for granted. But he makes a point of it. He brings it up, if you start adding this up, and this is a number of different people he's writing to, and saying the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. An important message that he brings across here.

If you think about it, isn't the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ the focal point, the point from which all other blessings flow? Without the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, would we have anything? Would we have our position in Him? So that's why he finishes off this marvelous, joyous letter, this encouraging letter. This letter where he is trying, contrary to the culture, to say thanks. And so he gives thanks to the Lord for them. As we look at it here, this grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is a simple statement. But it couldn't be more profound. Couldn't be more profound.

He's using the last... He saved the best for the last, sort of. He's using the last verse here to put the last of this Keres family of words that we keep bringing up. And we've seen through the book, he sows the Keres family of words Words that come across as grace, thanks, joy, giving. He's used those words and woven them throughout the whole fabric of the book, and now he uses it for one last time. That's tying off the end, right?

For you who are into such things. I'd like to have a stand and sing. We're going to do this a cappella. How's that for an experiment? Jesus, I am resting, resting. We'll just do this first verse. And it's because some of the messages in here come right out of Philippians that will do this.

Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what Thou art. I am finding out the greatness of Thy loving heart. Thou hast bid me gaze upon thee, and thy beauty fills my soul. For by thy transforming power, thou hast made me whole. Thank you. Be seated.

I just think that as we wrap up this book of Philippians, that this is the key message, that Paul has written joy through every chapter, in some chapters more than others, but he's written joy into every chapter, this chariot family of words, and this song says it. As believers, we are called to rest in the joy of what he is. Is any of what the Lord is grief? No. All of what the Lord is, is joy. In the joy of what thou art, I am finding out the greatness, the riches of thy loving heart. Thou hast bid me gaze upon thee.

I have the reference here, 2 Corinthians 3.18.

We could also put in Hebrews 12.1 and 2. Fixing our eyes upon Jesus. For by thy transforming power, And in truth, a part of that is even being conformed unto his death, the first step in our identification with him.

Thou hast made me whole. We have our position. We are complete in him. And that's been laid out here. Let's look at Philippians expanded and explained. And you have this yourself on the backside on page two. But I have received everything in full. You owe me nothing more. And now I have an abundance of supply to meet my specific and real needs. Remember that was the point we made last week. His needs are not vague. And it wasn't just, boy, I'd sure like to have a nice cushy couch here. He was in a prison condition, chained to a praetorian guard 24-7. He had real and genuine needs.

I am amply supplied, having already received from Epaphroditus what you have sent. Your gift to me is received as a sacrifice to the Lord, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God. And the God with whom I have a personal relationship will supply all your genuine needs in keeping with His glorious riches, excuse me, in keeping with the infinite quantity and eternal quality of His glorious riches made available to you by reason of your position in Christ Jesus. Now to our mutual God and Father, and our Father be attributed to glory, which is His very nature forever and ever." See, glory is His nature. The Lord doesn't just give out glory. It is who He is. So be it. That's amen. Amen is so be it. That's the truth. In kind of the jargon that Nancy and I grew up in our college years, we might say, right on!

Verse 21, I ask you that you who read this greet every believer who has been made holy because of his position in Christ Jesus. The ones who have the same Father and are therefore your brethren, who are with me, greet every one of you in Philippi as well. All the ones having been made saints here greet all of you, especially those who serve in various capacities in the service of Caesar.

The marvelous, matchless grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. As we look at Philippians and kind of tie up the loose ends and finish it up, this last thought that he has, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is so profoundly simple, but think about this for a minute.

If we think about what it means for the grace of the Lord Jesus to be with our spirit, It means that we're talking grace here. We're talking God's grace. We're talking grace that is rich. We're talking overwhelming, surpassing grace. If we think about that for a minute, it means we're not here to impress people. In fact, we don't have to impress God. There's nothing to impress God with. It's grace. It's marvelous grace. It's amazing grace. As a matter of fact, it isn't grace unless it's amazing.

And to think about this too, as believers, as believers, this marvelous grace says, I don't even say, Lord, please help me. Because he's not here to help me. I'm not here to be helped, I'm here to be replaced. And what a neat thing that is. I don't have to put out my 100% and say, Lord, I'm not quite there. Can you make up the difference? But instead, that grace with my spirit says, Lord, I'm not in this at all. You do it. It's yours to do. I'm out of here. I'm done.

The marvelous grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is unmatchable. This world cannot touch it. This world cannot even understand it. As we have this time of year where we remember Christ's birth, we also at the same time remember from Philippians, we're made conformable with His death. Why?

That's grace. That's grace. God didn't have to do that. We're being made conformable with His death. So it's no longer us, it's entirely Him. What marvelous grace. Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this final passage in Philippians, Lord, what overwhelmingly wonderful things that you have revealed here. Lord, we have this citizenship in heaven.

We have names written unerasably in the book of life. Names that cannot be blotted out. We have a citizenship which is given, even in the way that Paul wrote it, Lord. It makes it clear it's irreversible. And Lord, what tremendous, marvelous grace we can count upon You for. And we look to You for that now. We give You thanks as we will for eternity, even now. In Jesus' name, Amen.