Convinced of God's Plan
Philippians 1:25-27 · Andrew Molloy · Mar 3, 2024
Philippians (2021-24), No. 09
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261934242046

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Philippians, oh, your video is blocking my view here. Philippians 1, 25 through 27 is where we're at this morning. I'll just go here. I like this very simple outline of Grant's flippings from FW Grant, and you'll see why. You know, sometimes I think my colleague has really detailed outlines, right? Yeah, he does. Like you can read his outline and you've read the whole letter, right? He puts it all in there. But Grant is very simple. He outlines it this way, Philippians, Christ, the governing principle of the Christian life. That's it, I like that.

Chapter one, and that's brought out in verses 20 and 21 of chapter one. Then the second division is Christ in his humiliation as the pattern for us. And we're gonna get into that very soon here in chapter two. That's brought out in verses five through eight. Thirdly, in chapter three, we have Christ in glory is the object before the soul, the goal and prize of the race, the Christian race. And that's brought out in chapter three, verses seven through 11. So it's all Christ, it's all manifestations of Christ's character and work, which I like in this outline.

And then fourth and finally in chapter four, Christ as known by experience in his competence in all the circumstances of the way. and that's brought out in verses 10 through 12, and then you look at, of course, Philippians 4.13, and that brings it out really well.

4.13 is, I don't have my Bible here, for I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, right? Is that it? Okay. Uh, yeah. So if you think about that verse, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That's, uh, that's your life experience. And so it's his competence that can get you through that. And that's it. That's the L which isn't kind of cool. Just four points there. So now I want to go, oh, let me look at this first. So as review from last week, Paul in verses 21 or 20 through 20, what did we cover last week? They were 20 through 21. Oh, no, it's 2324, right? So, reviewing last week versus 2324. 2324.

Yeah, okay. It's on the channel. Okay, oh, and there it is. I'm sorry, I do the same thing. It was being blocked, okay. Paul's choice of two options from last week, verses 21 through 24. He has two directions which to choose. One direction to live on in the flesh, meaning continued fruitful labor on the Philippians behalf. And then the second direction is to depart and be with Christ. That's very much better for Paul. And we looked at that. Departing is pulling up your tent stakes, tent stakes. And just breaking camp is how that word depart kind of is brought out in the Greek. And I just thought about this.

Oh, who is it? Simeon, who was in the temple every day. And he was waiting for the Messiah, right? Yeah. And finally, he saw him as a baby and he said, now let thy servant depart, right? That was his words. So let thy servant pull up my tent stakes and go. And I think the Lord took him home because God told him that he would not die before he saw the consolation of Israel, which is kind of cool.

Same word there. So there's our short review from last week. He has two options, live on or depart and be with Christ. And some more of this from F.W. Grant, and I really like what he said concerning last week, 21 through 24. He says, first, to reach the end, we must begin aright. Christ is the governing principle, is the starting point in the Christian race. and the necessary condition of the final result, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

And that's Philippians 4, 13. And that's where the letter ends up. So Paul looks around him and he realizes that the condition of men, he realizes where they're conditionally at and the labor for Christ himself on their behalf that he has to do. So he realizes that difference. Here's their condition, but I want them to get here in their condition to match their position.

And that's the labor of Christ himself. I have this, Grant says that Paul was uniquely gifted and chosen by the Holy Spirit, by Christ himself, to represent his person before all of them. He put in who all of them are, Philippi, Thessalonica, Ephesus, Corinth, Galatia, all of his missionary contacts that he had. So Paul was representing Christ's person before all of them. Paul was it as far as the gospel of, and let me know if you don't track what I'm saying here, he was the only one, he was it as far as the gospel of the mystery of the church, right, the church age, which is the indwelling indwelling Christ in us, the hope of glory. And that's the mystery of the church age. Also that the Jews and Gentiles will form together in one body in Christ. There's going to be one body. That's part of the mystery of the church.

And then all the heavenly positional truths that Paul taught. And so he was the only one that could bring this information to him. So he has two motives, two ways to go. And this is still review from verses 21 through 24. Personally, he'd like to depart and be face to face with the Lord. That's best for him personally.

And he said he has a desire to do that, a strong desire to do that. But on the other hand, he saw that He was drawn in his love towards these Philippian saints. And he, on the other path he could go is he saw the duty he had as a shepherd for them and to grow them with the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Grant says that the simple heart for Christ, which carried him through all perplexities, could decide that therefore he would remain, that their progress and joy might be ministered to.

So he saw that coming. And we looked at his perplexities last week. He was shipwrecked and had dangers from bandits and dangers from the Jews and danger from Gentiles. And he was flogged and stoned and all that. So those are the perplexities of his ministry. Grant says that it was not Rome, which was the head of the whole world. Rome could not, by imperial decree, decide the fate of this poor prisoner, Paul, when he was locked up in jail.

And here's reiterating this point. Paul looked around him and he realized the condition of men and the labor of Christ himself in their behalf. The decision of what direction Paul will take lie only in Christ, the Lord of all, and thus Paul can prophesy not merely with regard to the fact that he will continue to live, and that's what we find out today, but even a hopeful return to the Philippians once more One more time, that their glory may be abound in Christ Jesus through me, Paul, by my presence with you again, is where we end up today in verse 26.

So Grant says, a soul for whom Christ decides absolutely the path, and with such confidence, clear-sided, as he assures us it was, could not possibly be disappointed. And that's a good rule of life for us there. Let Christ decide absolutely the path. And that gives us confidence and a clear-sidedness. I like that. And we cannot be disappointed. So there's our review from those verses last week. And I'll read these from last week, 21 through 24.

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me. And I do not know which to choose, but I am hard pressed from both directions. Having the desire to depart and be with Christ, that is very much better. Yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.

Here's our verses for today, 25 through 27. I'm convinced of this. I know that I will remain with you, with you all for your progress and joy in the faith. so that your proud confidence in me may abound in Christ Jesus through my coming to you again. Only do this, only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel. Now we'll break out verse 25 here. And we begin with this phrase, convinced of this. And convinced is Pitho. There you see the Greek word.

And it's to have trust in the fact. He has trust in the fact that he will remain for their progress. and joy in the faith is the word. Pytho can mean convinced or confidence or a trust in. So Paul's continuing on in the flesh means assuring their spiritual solidification and grounding. This being convinced, this Pytho is a perfect active participle. So it's a settled confidence, not needing to be repeated, that's the perfect tense, and abiding confidence. So it's one and done. So he's convinced, totally convinced.

I know that I will remain and continue with you all. And just to look at that, I know that I will remain and continue. That's epimeno, right? Meno, the word meno. I know that I will abide with you all. I don't have meno in there, or epimeno, but that's that word.

But to know, I know, is ido, and is to see or perceive, to have knowledge of. If it's divine knowledge, then it's an absolute knowledge, Aido, which is interesting. And we says that, here's how he defines Aido here is as to know absolutely and finally, instead of gnosis, right? Or epinosis, which is to learn by experience or to know by experience. So if we remember what Grant said in one of his points there, and this is an interesting little part.

He said that the decision for Paul to depart or to remain with Philippians or to remain in ministry lies only in Christ, the Lord of all. And you remember that when he said that. And thus Paul can prophesy not merely with regard to the fact that he will continue to live, but perhaps see a hopeful return back to see the Philippians. And you see that I underlined that Paul can prophesy So does that mean, can we conclude that, and based on this word, ido, that, and Grant came to this conclusion, did Paul have a direct word from God himself that he'll be staying in the ministry for more time?

Because he seemed to, in verses 21 through 24, said, oh no, this could be the end. You know, who knows, I might depart to be with Christ. So Grant seems to think that he had a direct word from the Lord. And I know that last week, Bob, you brought up that fact right at the end there, that he knew he was going to remain. And that could have come directly from a word of God himself, right?

And I think it's that case. And some commentators say that's not it, but some do. So it's a prophetic word from God saying that this wasn't the end. He still had six or seven years left. And the next prison imprisonment he had, that was the end, right? When he wrote Second Timothy.

All agree with that? Does anyone good? I like that. Yeah. Well, you know, Paul says, you know, I'm convincing he uses that and other unconvincing either life or death or he has other times when he uses that phrase and I don't know. I mean, it. Aren't we convinced by his word? I mean, I'm trying to think it just to be maybe not think of Paul's. So we're convinced of God's word many times because of what, because he said it. So I don't know, it's interesting.

And I think that Paul got, you know, the Lord appeared to him on the Damascus road. Then he spent three years with him in the Arabian desert. And then he got the Macedonian call. Um, so he was, I think he was getting direct word from the Lord himself throughout his ministry. Um, he had the special sauce.

He was the last, so, you know, uh, so as an, as a, as a prophet and as an apostle, you're, you're gonna, you're directly, right. Yeah. Well, they certainly went in a different category then in that sense. You're right. But we have, as you said, Roger, the Word. We can go off that solely. So that's good. Hey, Andrew.

I think that when Paul went out into the wilderness, God taught him a lot of things. And he even said, there's a lot of things I would like to tell you, but I can't. And I think Paul knew of his whole program in presenting us with the mystery of the gospel not only did he think he was going to stay for the philippians but when he got to second timothy he was convinced that he was done with his ministry right and that's exactly and that's kind of exactly what you said last week that got me thinking to that point we just covered on the item um Which I thought was, and I hadn't thought of that before, but yeah, looking into it, I think you're right. He knew this, and he knew that second imprisonment, that was it, because you hear his words, and it's like he knows he's wrapping it up. So, but he got a lot of indemnity in his life, in his ministerial life.

So he knows he's gonna abide on earth here for the Philippians' progress and joy in the faith, is what he says in verse 25. And when I was first, read through several times Philippians when we opened the study, I took note of an overarching theme of Philippians and that's Paul, it's joyous, he has this deep expression of joy, a deep joy for the close fellowship of these Philippians and his expression of concern for them and financial sharing with them, but it's just all this He mentions joy several times, and joy is used seven times in the book of Philippians. Rejoice is used eight times. So that's how I got to where one of the overarching themes is joy. And he hopes that they have joy in the faith, right, in verse 25.

Similarly, he says this to the Corinthians in his second epistle in chapter one, now he who establishes us with you in Christ and anoints us as God, that's from verse 21 of chapter one of second Corinthians, and not that we lorded over your faith, but are workers with you for your joy, for in your faith you are standing firm." And that's verse 24. And we're going to look at that standing firm as well, too, in these verses that we have today. So verse 26, so that is a purpose clause up there, you see it underlined.

And he says, so that your proud confidence in me may abound in Christ Jesus through my coming to you again. Well, I had problems with this verse, because I almost, got it really wrong and that would have been embarrassing if I would have presented it the way I was reading verse 26. But then I looked at other versions and I said, oh wow, it's just because the New American Standard rendering doesn't render this verse very well. When I read it, I said, OK, so they're having proud confidence in Paul. So they're proud of Paul. And they might abound in Christ Jesus. And then they might come to them again. But boy, they're boasting in Paul or proud confidence in Paul.

But if you look at the other versions, and I just put these up here now, the meaning for me became really clear. So the King James, that you're rejoicing may be more abundant in Christ Jesus for me by my coming to you again. Or the ESV, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again. or at least in order that your rejoicing may abound in Christ Jesus through me by reason of my personal presence with you again." And then I was like, oh boy, their proud confidence. is and the glorying is in Jesus and not in in Paul right and you can see how I in the New American Standard it isn't very clear for that so it's so I just put it this way here at point G it's simply saying you Philippians will glory even more with joy in Christ Jesus if Christ sends me back to you in my physical presence.

And that physical presence is parousia. And Constable says that the proud confidence is kochema, and that means ground for joy. I like that. So he says that when you, Hawthorne says this in the Constable commentary, he says, by linking a proud confidence, or kawkema, and pericia, it's basically Paul saying, I expect you to, I expect to receive a king's welcome and reception when the Lord returns me to you, full of pomp and circumstance, is what he's saying there. Yeah, Andrew, I have an interesting piece of information.

Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, actually, I'm not a big fan of the, NASB came out with a 2020 version, Yeah, right. And this verse, they changed dramatically. And they, they made the correction that you saw. So, in the 2020 NASB, it reads. so that your pride in Christ Jesus may be abundant because of me by my coming to you again. They flipped entirely around and changed it. Actually, I think they saw what you saw, and they changed it, which is kind of cool. And that's crystal clear, isn't it? It is. It's much better.

I've been a little bit reluctant about the 2020 NASB, but in this case, they seem to really you know, your guesses to the text. Yeah, well, I think it's, you know, it's, it's correct probably in Greek, that verse 26 up there in the New American Standard, but it's how they, they, um, bring it across in English, right? Yeah, put it together with the propositional phrases, it, it kind of loses its meaning, but boy, that's good. So what they were, what happened then was that their customer service desk.

I guess the phones are ringing off the... Yeah, right. It's good to see that, actually, it's good to see that, you know, we're not alone in this endeavor, right? Men are trying to... What does it really say? What's the text say? Well, that makes me feel good. I don't feel so dumb then. if other people had that problem. Well, a whole lot of people. Wow, that's great. I didn't know that. And I don't, I, you know, I was using the version 2020, right? And the SB version 20. But then, you know what they did, I think, didn't they? They've done some other things I don't like.

Isn't it her and they? Yeah, I know. We thought they went woke for a while. Yeah, both. They kind of, which is true, but you, you know, you don't have to, Change the text to add in both years because people know, you know. Yeah, so I didn't like it for that, but yeah, I mean, in this case, so I've been actually I've been doing recently. I've been looking. Cross checking that 1995 with the 2020 just to see if.

Okay, what they've done is, you know, been helpful. Okay, good, good, good. So that's great. So that's verse 26, when you just rewrite it, it becomes perfect. And yeah, I don't think... We, yeah, I didn't do really any Greek word deep dives here because it was so simple when I read the other versions, and it makes it perfectly clear. So let's go on to verse 27.

Paul says, only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ so that Whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel. And let's look at this first phrase, only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Conduct yourselves is this word, you see it there, pulitumai.

It's an active middle imperative, so it's a command, active voice, and middle middle, active, tense, well, let's see, middle, voice, middle voice, your voice, I was losing that for middle voice. So that means the, the person who is doing the action is intensely involved in a pull it to my, um, And it benefits him or her in some special way. They have a vested interest in conducting themselves in a manner. My coffee's over here. Let me. Okay, that'll do it. They have a, they have a personal stake in pull it to my or conducting themselves is what I want to say.

And so, when. You look at that Greek word, what do you see? What do you think it means? Of course, it means conduct yourselves, but do you see any other thing that it could mean? Politics? Or polite? Yeah, well, that's good, Bonnie. When I first saw it, I said, oh, just be polite. Save your pleas and thank yous and which is, which is great. But I heard that. Yeah, Roger, you had the right answer. Politics, civil life. And that's what it means. Really cool.

To behave as a citizen, to avail oneself of or recognize the laws from Thucydides, Thucydides down, and he was a Greek general and writer and scholar, Thucydides. From him down, through all the Hellenistic writings, it meant to conduct oneself as pledged to some law of life, right? So when the Greeks, you know, they developed all the law and things like that, they are the ones I think might have been before them who kind of invented civil life and politics. And that's where we get our civil life and politics here in this country, you know, from all these Greek scholars.

Now we've gone totally off the Off the rails, right? But that's where, you know, our founding fathers got all the clear thinking. So that's pull it to mind, conduct yourselves. And in a manner worthy of, is axios, to act in a suitable way, worthy of the gospel.

And axios, I like that word. I think there's a company out there that's called Axios. It's a good word. I do know there's a new service called Axios. so that whether I am there in person or remain absent, I will hear of how you're doing," is basically what he says. And we've covered this very well in the past, that he knows he's gonna be going on continuing past this first imprisonment, but he doesn't know if he'll get back to Philippi or not, does he?

That's a little up in the air. And when I was working this up, I thought that when he says, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear how, you know, how you're doing. And I thought, whoa, that's kind of, it sounds like a teacher saying, don't let me hear that you kids are misbehaving. If she goes out of the room. I'm going to send this substitute teacher in here for a while. And she's going to tell me if she had an easy time or hard. It sounds exactly like that from grade school. But that's just me. Maybe not you, but there it is. But however it goes, whether he sees them or not, he wants them to know that. He wants to know that they're standing firm in one spirit, with one mind. And we have that standing firm is stēko, that's standing fast, preserving.

And hawthorn, I really like, it's a military term, as you'll see in hawthorn's definition. unflinching courage like that possessed by soldiers who determinedly refuse to leave their posts irrespective of how severely the battle rages. So that's a cool definition of that stake, entrenched and stuck there, and you're not going to retreat.

More of that, I was thinking that soldiers in a unit or a battalion must have one spirit, which the French call a spirit de corps. And so what I did was simply looked at Merriam-Webster, and a spirit de corps is the common spirit existing in the members of a group and inspiring enthusiasm, devotion, and strong regard for the honor of the group. And I thought, oh, that kind of fits with this staco and the military aspect of it. This standing firm in one spirit and with one mind. So the French, you know, had a good way of kind of describing that.

Spirit is pneuma, or the third part of man, his body, soul, and spirit. And I put that the body and soul and spirit is a triunity, or you could say trinity. And I was thinking that It's one of the ways we're created in the image of God. He's a triune being. And he created us, body, soul, and spirit. These three things melded together. But the spirit part is pneuma. And that's our spiritual organism. That's where the Holy Spirit dwells in us. and the mind the Greek word for that is suki and it's the mind is comprised of the spirit and the human soul and I Have that right right, right?

Well, that's Yeah from actually we're gonna do it again today, but I just love your dad's picture. I just I Use it so much and just find it so helpful Yeah, and I didn't refer... And you've actually redone it probably better than the original, I think. Yeah, and I didn't refer back to it, but...

The gist is the mind has two components, right? The soul and the spirit. And the spirit will be the Holy Spirit, thus will heal, and you abide over there. Or abide in your human soul, that houses the sin nature, right? So abide over there, and that's sin.

But that's actually that man, that head is, that's called, it's called the Charlie Brown man, did you know? I know your dad gave it a name, I had just, I had forgotten what he called it. Yes, it's Charlie Brown because Merriman, I think, invented it, basically, or came up with it. Who came up with it? Oh, Merriman, yeah, I thought so. Merriman. Yeah, Merriman.

So when he would draw it with that grease pencil, it always looked like this. Charlie Brown. And so he called it Charlie Brown. In fact, he has a lesson on his website called The Problem with Charlie Brown or something. Oh, Merriman does? Yeah. I'll have to go look at that. Something like that. Something about Charlie Brown. And that's his thing. And it's just a great illustration.

So he wants to hear that they're standing firm in one spirit, in one mind and striving together for the faith of the gospel. Striving together is sunathileo, sunathileo, and you see it there, to engage in a contest, contend in games or contend for a prize. And what word do you see in that Greek word, sunathileo? Athletics. Yeah. That's, that's exactly athletics. And you can see that public games a contest, striving together, which is really cool Greek is kind of cool and you see all these, how we get our English words from this, this Greek. And they're striving together as athletes for the confidence, the insurance, and the absolute certainty of the good news, which is the gospel. What that confidence and assurance and absolute certainty is, is faith.

That's the faith. I should put that down. That's what I was trying to describe there, is faith in the faith of the gospel, the good news. The gospel, I've restated it here in a different way, but the gospel is reality. It's one of the things of God. So it's the real things of God, the gospel. The terms of the gospel are Christ died, he was buried, and he was resurrected to newness of life for our sins as a free unmerited gift that saves us from eternal death by giving us an eternal life.

And that eternal life, as we saw last week, as well as Zoe, his life, right? And that's the gospel, and that's a real, because faith has that element of hupostasis, which is reality, the reality of the gospel, is what I'm trying to say here in point two and three, but probably not saying it as best I can.

So there we go. There is verses 25 through 27. And I don't have a, Complaints desk, so you can't. It's your mom. Oh, yeah, right there. Yes, slip her a little piece of paper. So we are the publisher of that New American Standard version 2020. That's great. Well, good. Yeah, that's great. And yeah, and now we're going to get into a really cool section of starting.

These verses that we covered today are sort of a transitional kind of verses to this next section, which is going to be really neat. I'll close this prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you that we could study your word in Philippians here and learn. And we pray that for Holly Hills, that we can emulate this by striving together in one spirit and one mind for the faith of the gospel and to be worthy servants of Christ. And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.