and Review

All right. No, we're not doing Ephesians, we're doing Philippians. All these little books sometimes seem to get mixed up. All right, so this is our final lesson in Philippians, but we didn't make it through the last of the verses last week, so we're going to do that this morning, and then we'll do a very brief kind of wrap-up, summarize some thoughts from Philippians. more that we could do, but that'll have to suffice here. We spent all our time last week on verses 18 and 19, and I think to briefly summarize, we can say that in verse 18, Paul is saying that he has received a gift sent to him by the Philippians through Epaphroditus.

And we remember that Paul was under house arrest at this time. That's what I said last week. I found, I think, J. Vernon McGee said that actually he was in the Mamertine prison at this time. So I don't know. Like I said, it's a little hard to nail down exactly the circumstances and timeline of events in Paul's late life. But he was in prison.

And so he had needs. And he had no way of supplying, providing for his own physical needs. And so the gift from the Philippians took care of Paul's physical needs. And then we read in verse 19, Paul says to the Philippians, and my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. And we talked a little bit about needs, what are exactly our needs, and we looked at this verse in 1 Timothy 6 verse 8, if we have food and covering, clothing, with these we shall be content.

And so when Paul talks about needs here, and as we think of physical needs, earthly needs, needs are really much less than we often, I think, have in mind. You know, well, I need a new car, Lord, you know. If not, what? You know, all that in mind. But someone asked the question last week, does verse 19 refer to our physical needs or our spiritual needs? And that was kind of in the discussion conversation. And I sort of answered, well, both. And after thinking on that a little further after class, I want to clarify that answer a little bit. Why did I say both?

Obviously, in context, Paul is talking about material supply for physical needs. That's what the Philippians had said to him. Though I'm sure spiritual encouragement was involved in that as Epaphroditus came to him, but they sent a gift of some sort for his physical needs. So that is in the context, but that raises the question, if that's involved in what Paul is saying here, then does that make verse 19 a guarantee of physical supply for believers?

And if that's the case, would we say that no true believer is ever going to starve to death or die from exposure? Well, no. That's not the case. Many Christians have starved to death. In fact, some of my relatives going back a few generations, Communist Eastern Europe died of hunger. And they were believers. So there's no implied guarantee that God will always supply your physical needs.

So we need to be careful about taking this verse in that sense. And I think it was Bob Wolford last week that mentioned the fact that this promise supply is in accordance with his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. And so we could say that everything God supplies you and I with as believers is according to or consistent with the heavenly blessings which he has reserved for us in Christ Jesus. So, how do we put that together? Paul does have in mind, in some way, physical supply, physical provision. But it's not a blanket guarantee that you'll never be hungry.

And so I kind of thought we could maybe summarize it this way. We can rest assured that God will provide our earthly needs as is necessary in order to accomplish his eternal purpose in us. I think if we keep God's eternal purpose in our lives in view here, then the supply of earthly needs plays a role in that. And what is his eternal purpose? Can anyone put that into short?

That God will be glorified. How to be glorified? Conform us to the image of Christ. Conform us to the image of Christ. Excellent. Okay, so I put Romans 8, 29. Conform to the image of his son. Ultimately that he would be glorified. Put that together for sure. Very good.

So that's God's eternal purpose. then we can, within that sphere of his eternal purpose, we can recognize that his supply of our needs, in whatever way he sees fit to do that, is part and parcel of that greater purpose. So, in other words, we could say that You're going to be here on Earth as long as God intends for you to be here. God will not fail to supply what you need for physical life as long as He intends for you to be on the Earth. And the moment that God's done with you here, you're gone. He's going to take you home, right? And we're happy about that, right? We can rejoice in that.

So there's really no place for believers to go around worrying about our earthly needs. The Lord will supply our needs in exactly the way that he sees fit in order to accomplish his eternal purpose in conforming us to the likeness of his Son. And really, if you think about that, there's tremendous rest in that. Because how many of our worries and concerns and the things that we pray about, and we should, we can, but how much of that revolves around things that we would see as earthly needs?

And I think of just earlier in this chapter, Philippians 4.16, I don't have it on the PowerPoint. Sorry, 4.6, not 16. He says, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And so we do have earthly needs, but we need not be anxious about those things.

Rather, we just turn those requests over to the Lord, right? And we rest in that, knowing that He will then this is the guarantee that He will provide your needs in exactly the way that is needed to conform you to the likeness of His Son and to glorify Himself through you. So when we think of that, how many of our prayer requests could be turned around into a thank you instead of a supplication?

Thank you, Lord, that you are always carrying out your purpose of conforming us to the image of your Son. Thank you that you will never fail in that purpose. You know, whether I'm filled or hungry, whether I have abundance or need, I can thank the Lord for the way that he is providing in that moment. Even if he's providing you with a situation of need at the moment. Yes.

You know, we're not robots. God gives us a brain, too, to operate during times of stress and need, right? So, I mean, even though, you know, the Philippians have stated it well in terms of being anxious for nothing, we have the opportunity to kind of try to solve problems through the earthly and brain-serving aspects of our life here. I mean, in other words, I don't mean to overly dissect this, but I think I mean, if we're hungry, we'll look for something to eat, right?

It's not like we're going to let God. I mean, it's going to be a mess. Absolutely. Yeah, we know that elsewhere. Paul says, you know, if you don't work, you don't eat. I mean, it's all has to be taken within the full context of the Christian life, right? Doesn't mean we sit on our couches and wait for God to feed us there, right? Miles, I had a comment.

I had a neat brother at my work for about 20 years. Actually, Russ and I worked, and he was a paraplegic. He was a believer, pretty strong believer, and actually because he became a paraplegic as a young man, he was a baseball player and he slid home plate and nicked the back of his spinal column and became a paraplegic at about 19, 20 years old.

He was going to college at the time, but that kind of made it, turned his life around. He already was a believer. I'm not sure exactly about how strong a believer, but as a result of that accident and becoming a paraplegic. God opened up an entire ministry for him, sort of like Johnny Erickson. He just was a tremendous witness. And at his funeral, he died actually pretty young. He died about two years ago. Anyway, about 50 years old, he died. But at his funeral, there were over 2,000 people attending his funeral.

Just the most incredible thing I ever saw just amazing many me feel at work Just it was just an incredible thing to see this man. He's his whole life was was to the Lord But because he was a paraplegic it opened the doors in so many ways. It was just amazing so God can take our you know, what we call tragedies and and Really blessings so a little bit off the clock No, that's, that's, that's perfect, Roger. That fits in exactly because we're not just talking about food here, though. I just kind of keep using that as the, you know, but all of our, all of our trials, all of our difficulties, you know, we, I can only imagine that there was a great deal of anxiety, perhaps maybe he's just Maybe he's not like me, but, you know, to go through a suffering situation like that. And it's not that we don't feel the pain of loss and of tragic circumstances and so forth, and that we don't feel that anxiety and so forth, but the Lord, as we come to recognize, and it sounds like he did over the course of time at least, recognize that the Lord had his hand in all of that. and was using it for his purposes, he was able to rest in that, and the Lord used it powerfully in a way that he, I would say, probably could never have otherwise. Exactly. That was exactly right. Miles? Awesome. Yes?

There's a doctrine that hardly anybody ever thinks about, which I call dying grace. And in dying grace, If you're starving to death, if you're on the battlefield and the enemy is coming down on top of you, if you put your trust in Christ and relied on Him, you can actually rest in whatever happens. I'm reminded of Stephen. When they came to kill him, he stood up and he praised the Lord. So there is a doctrine of dying grace, which we all need to, especially as we're getting older and our loved ones are getting sicker, we really need to look into.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I appreciate that, Bob. Yeah. Yeah, we have really nothing to fear in death, right? And Paul's talked about that in this letter as well. So he was to He was okay with that thought. And he did die at the hand of the executioner, so not a fun way to go either. So, we better finish up our last verses here. Let's look at verse 20. Yeah. Spent two full classes on 18 and 19, but let's look at 20 here. Now, to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever. Amen. So, Paul, of course, is just bringing this letter to a close, and he gives us this short doxology.

And let's pay attention to the word glory in this verse. Now, depending on your translation, you may have just the word glory, as I have in the Let me see here. I think that's what I got, the NESB. Or you may have the glory. And so we want to just note that the definite article is present in the Greek. It is the glory.

And when we see the definite article in Greek, we want to think of it as a finger pointing to something specific. Roger and I talked about this a little recently. It's the pointer finger of the Greek. So what is it pointing to? We could ask the question, what, Glory? Which one?

And I think that in this case, it's simply pointing to the previous reference. So if I just talked about something specific and then I turn around and I, you know, just refer to it as the car or whatever, you know, I'm talking about the one I just referred to.

So, in this case, Paul has just used the term glory in verse 19. So, he said, according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. And now we have that to God our God and Father be the glory forever and ever. So in other words, the work that God has done in the lives of believers to glorify himself will glorify him throughout all eternity.

I think of Isaiah 46, 9. And a verse like this really causes me to remember that The things that go on throughout our lives that often seem so mundane and maybe sometimes just downright meaningless, you know, are not at all. Every detail of every moment is part of God's plan and purpose. And I think as we're encouraged here, as we look back, and we can't usually see it in the moment, but I think as we are able to, and I think throughout eternity, will be able to more and more see the purposefulness of God's dealings throughout history.

He will be glorified by that. And so, you know, like Roger just shared about this paraplegic, while some of what God is doing did become evident, over the course of time, but I think throughout eternity more and more the ways in which God is working in those seemingly mundane things will become evident and he will be glorified for that because of the awesome things that he was actually accomplishing all the time, every day. So I think that's kind of what he's tying back into verse 19. He's saying the glory that is due to the Lord because of what he is doing and carrying out in your life and in the lives of all believers and in everything will be due to him for all eternity.

Miles? Miles? Just the fact that he puts the word Amen there before it's all done, before the end of it, the verse. Does that mean it is certain? He's confirming that? Amen, it is certain. Yeah, that's a good point. I'm not fully aware of all the Implications of using the word amen there, but you're right. It does it does have that sense, you know, it is certain You know may it be or let it be so that kind of an idea so it's it's yeah, it kind of puts a puts a Sort of a Cap on the end of that that thought So no, I'm I'm not I can't probably comment much more than that on the use of amen there. In John 5, 24, it says, truly, truly, I say unto you. And what the Greek is saying is, amen, amen. I say unto you. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's. Yeah. No, that's that's right. That's that's good.

Alright, let's look at verses 21 and 23 here. So this is his closing greetings and he says, Greet every saint in Christ Jesus, their brethren who are with me greet you, all the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirits. We see here the bond of unity between believers, which is a theme that Paul has emphasized throughout the whole letter, especially in chapter 2, 1 through 4. But then we see here this seemingly strange comment in verse 22, especially those of Caesar's household, so we'll spend a moment on this strange comment. The word especially means chiefly, primarily, most of all. And this is interesting.

So who are these saints who belong to Caesar's household? Does anyone know? I think all the guards that protected Paul. They probably had three a day. And they were a captive audience, and Paul gave them the gospel. And a lot of Caesar, a lot of those guards, and their families, and the kings, became believers. Actually, this is fulfilled prophecy. If you go back to when Paul was saved, Ananias, God told Ananias that Paul would bear his name before the Gentiles and the kings. So this is prophecy that Paul would be a testimony to the kings.

And if he hadn't gone to prison, that might not have happened. Yes, yeah. No, that's really good. Yeah, I tend to agree, and that seems to be the way that most of the things you're going to look up will point you here. that this had to do with the fact that the guards, Paul was chained to these guards. We do have a hint at it earlier in Philippians chapter 1, 12 and 13, where he says, I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances, being chained to a guard, have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in Christ has become well known throughout the whole Praetorian guard and to everyone. And depending on your translation there, the Praetorian Guard, or I think King James has the word palace, but the Praetorian Guard was a kind of an elite group of soldiers who functioned specifically within the city of Rome, and they would have been involved in the in Paul's guarding it, it would seem. And so, yeah, Paul had this direct access into this group of elites elite soldiers, guards. And yeah, as Bob said, they were a captive audience. It was supposed to be Paul who was captive, but it turns out it was kind of flipped the tables on him. They couldn't get away. Not that they had necessarily wanted to.

I think Paul was a great guy to be around. Our oldest son, Tim, wrote a fictional story based on this event, and he has this Roman soldier who has kind of a chance encounter with Paul, and hears him say something and decides that he's going to tried to maneuver to have himself placed on guard duty so that he can spend time with Paul. And then through the course of events, of course, he becomes a believer and so forth. But it's a neat thought to kind of explore that, you know, that these men who were there got to got to hear Paul teaching everything, everything that he said. I mean, they were right there within earshot. Someone chained to Paul 24 hours a day, we believe.

So I just think this is one of those really wonderful little comments in scripture that shows us just where the gospel can go, where it will go, and really the amazing ways and circumstances and means that the Lord will use to get it there. The gospel really knows no bounds. Paul couldn't have just waltzed into the palace and started sharing the gospel, but the Lord got him in there in his own way.

Very, very cool. So, we'll just comment on the word grace here in closing, but sort of a neat closing thought that Paul just sort of drops almost offhand here in the closing comments that here he was in Rome with with less freedom to move around than he'd ever had, but really being used in a marvelous way like he never could have otherwise. So, let's comment on the word grace there. in the very closing phrase, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. And every single one of Paul's letters ends with grace. He begins with grace, grace and peace, and he ends with grace. And grace is the one word that sums up everything about the Christian. It's the one word that sums it all up. And I think we could say it like this.

Grace means that we are not dealt with according to what we deserve. but receive freely from God His unlimited love and blessing." And that's been something for me in recent times that has just added to perhaps my understanding of grace. I mean, we have our standard definition, which just kind of plays in there in the last half of that phrase.

But that first part, of course, is implied in the fact that it's unmerited, but I just I appreciate expanding it that way to understand the nature of unmerited grace is that we're not dealt with according to what we deserve. And that's both ways. Whether we think we don't deserve it or whether we think we do deserve it, that's not the case. We're not dealt with according to what we deserve in any way, shape, or form. But God has freely chosen to bless us. And so that is why it's such a summary of what it means to be a Christian. We're dealt with according to God's grace. All right, we better do some quick review on the...

I decided to just kind of do a brief book or letter, review of the whole letter and not just chapter four. So we know that Paul emphasizes unity throughout the letter. Seven times throughout the letter he uses the phrase, you all. Not just the word you, plural, but those two words together, you all. You got to put an apostrophe there between the why and the all, right? He grew up in Louisiana, right? Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll!

Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! Ya'll! We see in 1.27, so that I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind. And then in 2.2, he says, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.

In 2.14 we see, do all things without grumbling or disputing, implying that there was some, a little bit of disputing, perhaps, going on in the Philippian church. What church doesn't have some disputing that goes on from time to time, right? but that shows a lack of practical unity. And then, of course, he talks to Eurya and Syntyche and tells them to live in harmony in the Lord, in 4 verse 2.

I just said practical unity is very uncommon in local churches. Disunity is more common than harmony, I would say, unfortunately. Here's the thing, is that unity can't be produced through programs or gimmicks. So often churches are trying to develop a greater sense of unity, as if unity is gained by feeling unity. And so we'll develop some program or some group, some program or format, some gimmick to try to make us feel more united to one another. we have to recognize that can't succeed ultimately.

At best, it's a band-aid solution. Our unity must be rooted in a growing realization of our union in Christ. That's the only thing that will give us true, deep unity as the body of Christ, is to recognize that we have it, and to recognize that we are in union, an unchangeable union in Christ Jesus. And on that basis, and on the basis of the life of Christ in and through us, we can have practical expression of unity. So unity is a major theme in Philippians. The other major theme is joy. Paul emphasizes joy.

J. Vernon McGee said that he uses some form of the word joy 19 times in the letter. I tried to find them all and I couldn't come up with 19, so I'm not sure. Must be some other word that he renders as a in a number of some sort, but anyway.

Did you count rejoice too in that? I did. I used rejoice. I used joy and good things, but there was something missing in my search, so anyway. But he does use the word rejoice quite a bit as well. Did you use the King James version? Because, you know, J. Bernard McGee used the King James version. Yes, I did. Yeah, I did a version search. I'm not sure, so I thought, well, I'll trust him. He's, yeah. He knew more than I do. But in any case, we see that I counted both 16, and I'm sure there are other words that could be rendered something to that effect.

But we need to keep in mind that, as we've said, Paul was in prison when he wrote this letter. So his joy wasn't dependent on earthly circumstances. Not a lot of people that are overjoyed to be in prison, but Paul could rejoice regardless of his earthly circumstance. And we say Paul rejoiced in any and every earthly circumstance because he was focused on his heavenly citizenship, 3 verse 20. We could say Paul could rejoice even when people thought to cause him harm. Chapter 1, verses 17 and 18. Paul could rejoice whether he lived or died. 121 and 217. He could rejoice in the loss of all things. 3... 7 through 9. And he could rejoice in whatever circumstance. Hungry or full or rich. From chapter 4.

So Paul knew that nothing earthly could compare to the value of knowing Christ Jesus. And that really is, I think, at the heart of this letter to the Philippians, there in chapter 3, where he talks about that I may know Him. And there is a lot in this letter about earthly circumstances. and how that should be viewed and handled and prayed about and so forth, but ultimately we are to be aware that all of these things we rejoice because we can trust the Lord to bring us into a deeper, fuller knowledge of His Son, Jesus Christ. And so Paul encourages us to rejoice in the Lord, not in earthly things.

And we can do that. We can rejoice in Christ Jesus, in eternal union with Him, and sure, we can enjoy you know, all sorts of things in this world, in this life. But ultimately, our rejoicing is in the Lord, in Him. And because that's the case, we can rejoice always, no matter what.

So, really some wonderful themes to sort of draw out and reflect on now as we've gone through the course of the book. And it's neat to see that pulled out and sort of summarized like that. So, so there's, it's hard to do a summary like that without getting, you know, wanting to get a lot more into details of it, but we've been over it. This is, this is, all this is material we've covered and so we can just kind of enjoy seeing the big, bigger picture of it here.

So, any other comments? I know there's a lot we have to skim over to do a A quick summary like that, but anyone else have any thoughts on Philippians having worked through it now? This isn't a thought on Philippians, but this next week, if you love poetry, you ought to read the book of Micah all the way through, every day. And if you don't like poetry, do it anyway. Yeah, that's a good point. That's good, Bob. We're going to be getting Micah next. So, yeah. So, Miles, just one more point.

Great review, by the way. I think you really succinctly summarized the book beautifully. You included one of the verses that is my favorite in Under Joy. But, you know, there's probably no better statement of identification than from And that's a joy that we all have, but it's clearly, I mean, we speak here a lot in this body about identification truths. And Floyd, if there's not a verse, there are many verses that speak to it. Some directly, some indirectly. For me to live as Christ and die as Cain, either way you win, right? Maybe I'm overly personalizing that. I think it's really an important take home message for identification of truth. Absolutely.

St. Miles, the last thing I wrote down in my notes on this is Philippians is about our practice in Christ. So let our practice, our condition, our experience catch up with our position. That's great. You know, Bob, that relates to the practical aspects of the letter, doesn't it? Yes. I mean, it's a very practical letter in terms of how the condition relates to the position. I agree. Very good. Very good.

Yeah. Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, the Lord hasn't placed us in union with Christ and left us here just you know, for no purpose. He is working out in the day-to-day practical experience of the church and every individual believer exactly what he intends to do by having Christ manifest in and through us. So that's a great comment, Bob.

Thank you. Well, let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, We thank you for this letter. Paul to the Philippians, we thank you that you inspired it. We thank you that you communicated so much rich truth to us through it. Lord, there's so much more here than we have even been able to mine out over the weeks. But Lord, we thank You that You have taught us and You are continuing to teach us. Lord, we thank You that You are showing us more about our union with Christ, what that means, what that looks like in practical experience, the joy that is ours in Him in any and every circumstance. We pray that that would be proven out to us in our own circumstances, and that we would rejoice in coming to know him more fully every day. Lord, we just thank you for all that you're doing in our lives, and may it be to your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.