Confidence in God's work.
Philippians 1:6-8 · JD McCulley · Jan 22, 2012
Philippians (2012), No. 03
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926258452527

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

Book of Philippians. So we've ramped up here with a few lessons with Bob and he's got us started. One of the things that I like to do and my experience in teaching verse by verse through books of the Bible has been more recent. Lots of times as you get started in teaching you end up doing topical studies and you move more gradually into verse by verse and the exegetical study of the scripture and and so I've been really excited that since I've been at Holly Hills and since I've got to Start teaching with Roger in first John To get more equipped and acquainted with the verse by verse approach through a book and and tell you I really really do enjoy it And I'm learning a lot as well But one of the things I like to do when I think about teaching a book of the Bible is get the big picture Get the smaller picture and then get really minute. I think I We've got a few handouts back here if you guys don't have one that would be helpful for you. But one of the things I like to do, like I said, is start with that larger context.

And so what we're going to do today is jump into Philippians chapter 1, verses 6 through 8. And I'm excited to do that because verse 6 has some interesting challenges to it. And the interpretation might surprise you in terms of what we came up with in regards to these verses. But let's back up a little bit and just get a running start into the book of Philippians. First of all, Paul's prison epistle to the Philippians addresses the following main issues, and what we want to do is just keep in mind the big picture, like I said.

One of the things that he wanted to do was reassure the Philippians about the important role of Epaphroditus. Apparently they had forgotten how important this guy was, and Paul wanted to remind them, hey, this is someone that has done something It was very important to the ministry. He has helped me in the imprisonment state that I've been in. He's been a support to me.

And so he encourages them in light of Epaphroditus. That comes up in chapter two, and we'll look deeper at that. But that's one of the key issues, I think, in this book. Another one is to express his thanks for the Philippians' love, gift to Paul in prison. So they were supporting him financially, and he was extremely thankful for this.

And so this book is different in that it takes an encouragement tone. It also takes a thankful tone. Usually in Paul's letters you get an exhortation that is correcting. In this case, it's small moral adjustments that he addresses, but for the most part, he's just overwhelming with thankfulness.

In fact, two of the three verses that we look at today are just completely full of the thankfulness that he has for people that are a thousand miles away from him, but equally important and equally a part of what he's doing, even though he's chained to the prison that he was writing from. He also wanted to announce Timothy's approaching visit in 219. And some have called this letter a thank you note to the saints in Philippi for their generous gifts. Others have referred to it as a letter of friendship and moral exhortation. That's what makes it unique. It's different.

1 John was not written obviously by Paul, but we had a very black and white, very, very steeped with this is the right thing to do. This is the wrong thing to do in light of Christian doctrine and understanding. He didn't explain how it was to be done, he just explained how the attitude was to be, and that's where we were in the past. It's a very personal note. Unlike what John was expressing, and equally important in the Bible, 1st John, 2nd, and 3rd, and we gain so much doctrine out of those books, in this particular book we're not gleaning a whole lot of new doctrine.

We're looking at a relationship. And we're looking at mission work being done in the early church. And so there's some really interesting things that we'll take from that. But I wanted to kind of give us that larger context. We got a thank you letter, a letter of friendship that he's writing back to the Philippians. Okay, let's get into the, oh, I got one more point here.

Of all Paul's epistles, Philippians is the most consistently positive and personal. It reflects a joyful spirit. One popular exposition of Philippians stresses the importance of living joyful in spite of circumstances. And so I think that's one of the things that we're gonna glean from this study is things are tough for you.

But there's joy. And joy is not based on your circumstances. Joy is based on a knowledge of the Savior and His message. And that's where Paul was. Even in prison, even in the state that he was, he expresses a great deal of joy and thankfulness to those that were free a thousand miles away.

Yet his joy was based on the truth that they shared and the support that they shared by way of the message and even the financial side of things, which we're going to talk about today. Big picture. Got it. Thank you letter. Friendship. Small moral address. He addresses small moral issues but for the most part. He is expressing a note of friendship.

Let's get to the immediate outline. I'm not going to go down into the verses that we're not looking at just yet. Salutation is what we've covered already, the greeting. I want to look at that really quickly just to get a running head start into it. The prologue and Thanksgiving prayer and progress report, that's where we are today. We're at the Thanksgiving side of things. You're thinking, what can I learn from Paul being thankful? What am I supposed to take away from this stuff? How does this matter? Well, let's back up.

I keep backing up, but you know what repetition is the key to learning someone told me once so I'll just say over and over until we get it Let's get the verse 1 here verse 1 was a person just we recognize that this is a personal letter from Paul rather than one giving correction He didn't need to address his apostle ship with them, his apostolic authority. He didn't need to convince them that he was who he was. It was very personal and it got down to personal nature very quickly.

But he does refer to Paul and Timothy as bond servants, stressing their love and their commitment to the Lord. And Paul recognizes also in verse 1 the plurality of overseers and deacons. This was a church that was already matured and had leadership in place. And I don't think that we can glean from verse 1 that there should always be a plurality. I don't think that that's a doctrinal statement, but I think that it's definitely a recognition of what was the case in Philippi. Not necessarily a case in other churches, but was there something to learn from the nature of a plurality with overseers and deacons? Bob talked about that, and there's obviously very huge benefits to that. And Philippi had that benefit.

Verse 2, Christian greeting. that points to the truth that before there can be any genuine peace, there must be a personal response to God's grace. And that's just wrapped in the grace and peace. The greeting that he gives in his book of Philippians here, his unmerited favor seen on the cross has to be accepted before peace. So grace comes before peace. Right.

And that's just if you say grace and peace in your email, you know, that's how we might use it. We don't write personal letters and have, you know, guy travel by camel or foot or whatever all the way across the country in order to deliver it we just push the button and it says in Christ comma whatever you know well his his his approach to that was grace and peace and the idea there being grace comes before peace and these Philippians knew that they understood it and as we'll see they had a deeper understanding than most recipients of most letters in the Bible So chapter 1, verse 1, verse 2, got a little bit of an overview. Let's keep going, we're going to get to verse 6 in a minute.

Verse 3, the Philippians must have been filled with joy to hear Paul, who was in Rome and Chains some 800 miles away, tell them that his love and interest in them had not changed. Every time Paul thought of them, he thanked God for them. So here's a guy that hadn't been there for over 10 years, I think was the time difference, and yet 800 miles away, lots has happened.

He started a bunch of other churches. If you know anything about starting churches, which I don't really, but I'm sure that you move on and you get acquainted with other people and you have your favorites. Well, I'm not sure that you could say that Paul's favorite was the Philippians by any stretch. I think that he was a more mature and humble believer than that. But nonetheless, he took a real special, he had a very special place in his heart for this particular church that was started many years ago. I mean, think about what was going on 10 years ago in your life. and then writing a letter that was as personal as this to someone.

Have you guys, in your mind, do you have those that you might refer to as a kindred spirit? You know, those folks that you meet and maybe you're traveling and you visit a church and all of a sudden you just connect with someone. Friendships, you go to have dinner with friends of a friend and all of a sudden you just have that kindred spirit.

When I was in Good Seed serving in Canada doing mission work, whenever we found that connection with someone, we called it a one speak. We speak the same speak. You know, we kind of come from similar backgrounds and all of a sudden we just connected. I think that was something that was a tribal term that came out of New Tribes, but whenever you're so foreign, Canada not being that way, but a lot of the folks that I served with had come from tribal missions all over the world, and so when they would go places like New Guinea, and all of a sudden there would be somebody that was familiar to them or that they would be able to understand, they'd call them a one speak. You know we can speak the same talk we come from similar backgrounds all of a sudden.

It's like a connection Well what this isn't necessarily what's going on here? But even more than that it was because of the relationship with the Lord and their shared interest in God's gospel message that they became instantly kindred spirits and I think that for those of us that have a real interest in the gospel which should be as we'll learn from this book every believer is For those of us that do want to see the gospel message presented clearly and presented often and clearly, when we find people that have that same interest, it's like, oh, you know, this is a good thing. I'm so glad that you're here, too.

And it often happens with doctrine for us. At Holly Hills, we have a specific way that we have learned the Bible. We go verse by verse through it. We take a very careful approach to understanding. And when we find someone that comes and visits, and we find out, hey, they've got a similar background, and they're all the way in Minnesota. And we're like, oh, you're one of us? You're kind of like us.

So you can kind of get the idea there that whether you're in missions or whether you're just a, you have a unique way of approaching the Bible and teaching it and learning it. You hear somebody say identification truths in your ears go, Oh, he knows what that means. Positional truths. And all of a sudden you think, okay, maybe this guy has connections here, he's studying the scripture in a similar way that I am.

These Philippians had that same relationship except for their interests were not necessarily in the identification or growth groups, it was actually in the gospel message. And that's where their interests were so, I guess, nailed down together. So, in verse 3, like I said, there's this kindred spirit that exists between them.

And we'll see that again in the thankfulness of verses 7 and 8 today. In verse 4, Paul fulfilled 1 Thessalonians 5 17, which tells us to pray without ceasing. And that's what he said he did for him. So 10 years gone by, 800 miles away, I'm in prison. Lots has gone on. We're a kindred spirit. And when I think of you, I pray for you. That's what's going on. And he does it with a spirit of joy. And again, joy not being related to his circumstances, obviously. Still moving on, verse 5.

Paul was moved by the participation in the gospel. Here he uses the word koinonia, meaning fellowship. Bob introduced us to that term last week. But we see, I think we see three different uses of fellowship in the book of Philippians. First, there was the fellowship with Christ that they each shared. These were believers. They were church saints, and they shared a fellowship with Christ that was revealed in suffering.

And we're going to look at that in verse 29. There was a second fellowship with one another, the unity of the body, and we see that in chapter 2, 1-11. We're going to cover that aspect of fellowship. There's a lot of fellowship going on in Philippians.

And then third, there was the fellowship with Paul, a personal fellowship that he had with him. He knew these folks. His mind's eye could picture them and imagine where they were and what they were doing. And it was revealed specifically in 419. And even today, there's a thankfulness and a fellowship that goes on from the financial role that these believers played in Paul's work some 800 miles away. So there's fellowship and verse five introduced us to that. Is this helpful?

We're running into Philippians. We're kind of getting started. We've got two classes going, but I thought, let's just take a few minutes or even more. quarter of the class here and review where we've been so that verse 6, 7, and 8 really stand out and hopefully we'll be prepped to move on. Okay, verse 6. Someone want to read verse 6, 7, and 8 for us because these are the three verses that we're going to hit today. And you can read from the screen if you don't mind.

Anyone that wants to read out loud and find themselves... of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart. Since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you are all partakers of grace with me. For God is my witness, how I long for you with all the affection of Christ Jesus.

Okay, so verse 7 and 8 take on a very thankful tone. We're going to get to that. But there's this verse 6 that I mentioned is one of my favorite verses in Philippians. There's others that have mentioned that as well. Let's reread verse 6 and then let's start to think about this. Let's start to break this down.

For I am confident of this very thing. What thing? This very thing, that he who began a good work... What is good work? This good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Okay, so we've got some questions that we need to start asking ourselves about this particular verse. What does it mean? So what do we got here? Verse 6. Let's break it down.

For I am confident of this very thing. The verb confident, it's present tense, showing that Paul is expressing a settled conviction. It's a done deal, absolutely 100% convinced, convicted, sure. I'm certain. No doubt about it. It's a sure thing. He's expressed this conviction and it could be translated, I have come to a complete and total settled place in my heart that this is the case. What is the case?

That he who began a good work in you... Who's he? That's actually not in the Greek, but it's implied. That he who began a good work in you The question that we find with this particular verse is what's the good work? Where is it coming from? Who's the recipient of it? And what is it? So I ask the question, is the good work here the work of God and the believer or is it the work of the believer in ministry?

What do you think? Let's start the discussion. Well, it's typically thought of as being the work of God and the believer. Okay. It is. In fact, this verse is often used as encouragement for what? Salvation? Sanctification. This is a Christian growth verse that is often used.

My question was, when I went to Vern and sought out counsel as I taught this, Is that the case? And he said, well, let's think about it. And he's he's worked with me through this. And I think that I've come to the conclusion that it might not be what is typically seen as the work of sanctification that God is going to perfect in the life of a believer.

Why? That's the rest of the class. The context of the verse has to do with the partnership of the Philippians with Paul and their support for their involvement with his ministry. So I'm going to suggest to you that this particular verse has to do with the context of God's work in the believer for their work in the ministry with Paul. Now, I'm going to bring this critical point back up in a little bit. Is any good work that a believer ever performs energized by themself? No. Okay, so if I say it's the good work of a believer, where does that good work motivation, capability, and so forth come from?

The Lord. And all his unique persons as he energizes and moves a person through the works that he's already prepared for them. Correct? So even when we say a believer's good work, what are we recognizing when we say that phrase? A believer's good works. Do believers do good works?

They do as motivated, energized by the Lord Himself. So, what I'm not saying is that this is the good work of believers on their own, Mr. pull up the bootstraps and get through the high tall grass themselves, figure it out. This has to do with God energizing a group of believers for good works that involved financial support and involvement of missionary support to Paul.

That's what I'm going to present to you. Let's look at it. Philippians 1-6 has to do with these good works and good deeds that are being perfected in these believers. The phrase good works or good deeds, what we want to do, and I'm learning how to do this better and better. I'm so thankful to the elders and the teachers here at Holly Hills to help us think us younger folks, think through how we come to an understanding of what's going on. And good Bible study, just good Bible study. The phrase good work, we need to look at that there's a synonymous phrase that's used in scripture, good deed. But there's the plural and the singular version of those.

So what we want to do is we want to go through the Bible, Do we want to go through the entire Bible or would it be wise to actually limit our research maybe to just the way Paul uses the phrase, good work and good deed? Would I have ever thought of this five years ago? No. I would have gone and looked in a commentary and seen what they said and said, here's what Walvard and Zuck and everybody at Dallas Theological or Moody or whoever, this is what they say. But when you actually take the time to just do a little bit of research in terms of, okay, Paul's got a set of writings.

We need to find out, how does he use the term good work and good deed and good works and good deeds? So, do you figure out where I'm going so far? And this is what we end up finding, that everywhere in Paul's writings, they refer to the expression, his reference to good works is by believers, not the work of the Lord in the believer. So when he uses the term good work or good deed, and I borrowed this from the teaching that Vern did years ago in Philippians now, years.

But what I did is I went and double checked it. Made sure he was right, and he was. Turns out, that guy is just so thorough. Singular, good work or good deed, here's the list of verses that we would want to look at. This is important for our understanding of this verse. The single good work or good deed in every one of these listings, these good works have to do with the good works of the believer, not God's good work in a believer. That's not how it's referred to. And in a plural sense, good works or good deeds, another list is produced here. In fact, Titus, let's see, is it one? No, is it? Which one? There's one of them that has both good works and good.

Singular and plural. I don't know where you can see it. It's the first time it's back to me. It actually has both singular and plural. And in every case of these verses, they refer to the good work of the believer. Just to prove it to you, I went and did a search in it. I look for good deed or good work, and this is actually in the New American Standard, and it was singular and plural. Here's Paul's epistles that we're looking at. 2 Corinthians 1 was mentioned one time. This phrase, whether singular or plural, both were all found.

And what's the book that has the most references to good works? Titus, actually. 1 Timothy is a close second. at four, but Titus actually mentions good work and good deeds six times. It's interesting, it's not important, but what it does help us understand is that within Paul's writings, he's consistent with how he uses the term every single time.

So, you've got the list of verses there and you can go check it out yourself. Those verses are an encouragement to what it is that God desires of the believer, but reminding us that those good works are always motivated and energize through identification with Him. Who does the good work through us? I love how Vern has always stated it.

I advise that you don't do it. Just do it. It's not something that you don't want to get yourself caught in. Just do it. Don't think of the pink hippopotamus, is it? Don't think of it. Don't think of it. It's the first thing you do. So every time you try to tell yourself not to do something, you get caught up in the doing it. You can't stop thinking about it. Don't do it.

It's a matter of recognizing Christ's role in your life of walking. He does the work. You walk by faith. You're trusting in a position of truth and He's doing the work. So even when we're referring to these good deeds and good works, ultimately who's doing this? Christ and the unique continuing person of you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you. Right? Question.

Actually, a statement that although most believers take this verse as meaning God's going to bring us to maturity. While this one, in its context, doesn't mean that, that still is a principle that is true from Scripture. Thanks for mentioning that. I was going to come to that, I think, but it's good to go ahead and set that disclaimer out there. We have used this verse in the past, or I've used it, to communicate the idea that God will complete what he started in your life, in terms of sanctification. Now, this verse I don't believe is teaching that, but do other verses teach that?

They do. So this is not a doctrinal issue, this is an interpretation issue. Doctrinally speaking, God is going to complete what he started, sanctification on you, and if you haven't already, I suggest that you check out Vern's teaching on what's God doing in the life of the believer, because that's the doctrinal position of how he is child-training us through to a place of completion, that being conformed to the image of Christ. So there's a whole wealth of Paul's teaching as well as other New Testament authors that have to do with the doctrine of sanctificational progression and growth and completion and glorification. That's not what we're talking about. Yeah?

But that's such a good point as far as interpretation and being careful in your study of scripture. Because I myself, and I know a lot of preachers, will take these verses out of context to teach something that is scriptural and is doctrinal. But that's not what that particular verse teaches, and you can easily lead yourself into some pretty gross errors if you're not very careful in studying, this is what that passage says, rather than, well this is the biblical truth, and let me find some passage that kind of teaches that. And that careful study of scripture is It's so important.

It is. And we use the term proof texting. A lot of teachers will take a text out of context and use it to teach something that may be very well true. The problem is that it leads to confusion because in that particular instance that's not what it's talking about. And you just miss out on the intention of the original authors. Okay, and so, good point, Jeremy.

I think that we just need to continue to ask ourselves, okay, maybe that's the case, but is that the case here? Being careful in study is not something that is easy. It actually takes time, and it takes, you know, being surrounded by more mature believers than ourselves in many cases. I know that's the case for me.

Let's move on. Critical point, a Christian's good works have their origin in who? the Lord not from their own self-effort." So just a reminder that while this is referring to the good works of the believers, it is not referring to them doing the work themselves. We're not going to go through this in great depth, but I want you to see it.

There's a comparison here. I got this from Vern's notes. I think he got it from a chart from a group of Moody scholars, Moody Bible Institute. folks put together some charts in regards to this, but he modified it, and he had all the Greek in it and everything, and it does match up, but the idea here being that Philippians 1, 3-7, and 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 are using a lot of the same exact terminologies. And interesting, they both have to do with financial partnership in ministry.

And I'm going to drive this home in a minute, so you can get ready. I'm going to jump on my soapbox. But nonetheless, It's important, and there's a reason to get on the soapbox, because it's mentioned at least two times, almost with the exact same verbiage. I am confidence, confidence.

He who began, began. Began what? These gracious works, and the things that these believers were doing, and that he's going to finish what he started. And these deeds should be an abundant for every believer. And when is it going to happen? It's going to be completed on the day of Christ Jesus, or the harvest of your righteousness. When is the harvest of your righteousness? When do you finally gather in all the perfection that was given to you in Christ? The day of Christ Jesus.

Same in Philippians. And then finally, you're takers of grace. Grace, grace, grace is the surrounding environment that these good works are occurring within. And that's the case in Philippians, same thing in 2 Corinthians. So just interesting, you'll have that for your own reference there.

Let's look at the last part of Philippians 1.6. So he will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. The term will perfect is a future tense verb and means to complete or finish a job. This verse is a statement of confidence in the Lord's ability to energize the work of partnership in Paul's ministry that has been started in Philippi all the way to the time of the Lord's coming.

So here's what's cool. What those guys were doing by way of supporting Paul financially, and he refers to as a partnership in the gospel. Okay, we're gonna see that. But their partnership in the gospel did Paul's writing and his enablement through financial support Do we have the book of Philippians sitting in front of us today? We sure do. You know why?

In part because of the partnership of these believers. They were supporting him and God was enabling Paul, even in the midst of imprisonment, to write letters and get the message of it. Does Paul share the gospel message in any of his writings? Yes, he does. He sums it up quite well.

So the gospel is being propagated until the time of the Lord, and we'll see what that means, until the Lord's coming, in part because of the financial ministry that these Philippians had in his life. Does this make sense? This is cool stuff, because it means that from a mission perspective, it's not just the willing missionary that's a part of the gospel going out. And there is a unique relationship between the partnership of those that are back home, the overseers, the deacons, the saints, and all their imperfections and so forth. There's a few imperfections that we see in Philippi. A couple ladies had a little bit of a misunderstanding, needed to get dressed. But hey, for the most part, they understood where they were, who they were, and what Paul was doing, and their role in it. And they were excited about their role in it. And Paul was excited about it, too, ten years later. You know, we get really excited about a missionary for the first, what, year? As long as we keep getting the newsletters, just tell me what's going on, please. You think these guys got newsletters very often? Well, they didn't have email and all that kind of stuff.

But nonetheless, if God started the good work, In terms of sending Paul out, obviously he was a unique style missionary. We don't have an equal missionary to Paul today. But nonetheless, he is not talking about his apostleship. He's not saying, thank you for supporting me and enabling me to be an apostle.

What's he thanking them for enabling him to do? Share the gospel. It's not about me writing, you know, inspired, inerrant word of God, that thank you for enabling me to write God's word, it's thank you for enabling me to share the gospel message. Can we still do that today? We can't do what Paul did in terms of sharing, you know, and hearing from God on the exact inerrant word, but we sure can share the gospel in the same way that Paul did. Can we do it from presence?

Some do. Ooh, look at that shimmering effect. I thought it was appropriate considering we're talking about the Lord's coming. And being a quote-unquote dispensationalist, I had to go big. Can you do that again? Yeah, do it again. Do it again? I don't know if I can do it again. Oh, how do I do it again? Okay, you've got to get all the effects. You saw that swinging one? Uh-huh. Thank you. See, now I'm going to have to outdo myself next week. This cool little chart, Byrne put this together, of course.

49 AD was the time in the book of Acts 16, I believe, when Paul, on his missionary journey, started the Philippian church. And so from that day until now, the time when roughly when this epistle would have been written from Rome in prison, He talks about remembering them. He remembers them. And then he talks about, in his letter to Philippians here, in this last part of verse six, the confidence of their good work in participation of the gospel going out until the day of Christ Jesus, which is the rapture.

And just for that, I'll throw a bunch more verses at you if you're the kind that likes to study handout notes. You know, I didn't know that you guys did it that way. until Jack McBride pulled me aside and said, I need your notes, I need you to be careful in how you put them together so I can study them through the week. I had no idea that people actually wanted to study what we do through the week. Never heard of that. That's awesome. No, I'm just kidding. Anyway, I've enjoyed doing it this way now.

So here's some additional study for you in terms of the rapture in Paul's writing, the day of Christ Jesus, the day of our Lord, being caught up in the air, all of the terms that Paul uses. These are some of the most explanatory in terms of that future event. Let's wrap up verse 6 and move on to 7. We're actually through a lot of the tough spots. Before I do this though, are there any questions about verse 6? Are you convinced? Do you feel like maybe you need to do a little bit more thinking on it? How are you guys landing with what's being presented here?

Jim? Yes. If this verse really isn't speaking to what God is going to, you know, that he's going to finish my salvation and bring, you know, all that stuff, and it's referring more to what I'm doing, if I do any good works at all, does that mean that it's wrong then for me to use that verse as an assurance to another believer, or is there a better verse that gives the confidence that God will indeed complete what he started when he saved you. Good question. And I think it's tied a little bit to what Jeremy brought out and what Nancy mentioned a minute ago.

The first question you want to ask yourself is what do you believe the verse is saying? This has to do with interpretation because we know the doctrine of sanctification up to glorification is well documented throughout scripture. So it's not If you want to encourage a believer about the completion of their sanctification, you've got a wealth of God's Word to deal with. The question for you is, is this verse an appropriate verse for you to use to do it? Do you believe that that's what it's saying? I did. Now I have my doubts.

So what I would encourage you to do is, the best thing for us as believers, and this is why Christianese exists. when we start saying things just because it happens to fit the situation, even though it doesn't necessarily mean that in the context. And I say that because we've all been in churches where, you know, oh man, Proverbs or Psalms, you know, let's just take it and build a whole New Testament doctrine on, you know, being firmly planted by the river. you know, and drawing our, you know what I'm saying? The prayer of J.J. And I'm not minimizing what you're asking here as much as I'm saying one of the things that I've come to see is it's very important for us to think about what verses we use to encourage or to teach or to share on a specific topic in the Word so that we don't Mislead and possibly introduce doubt into somebody's mind because if they took this verse from you and they said she said that You know that Paul is confident of this very thing, that this is going to take place, that he's going to perfect it until the time of the Lord, and I don't need to worry about it. God's going to get me through this and perfect me and get me to this state that is promised. And he or she that you encourage that starts hanging this verse.

You know how we like take verses and kind of like make them I don't know, almost like power pills. You know, I've got to take my power pill for the day. And so we write it out. We write verses up on chalkboards for memorization and stuff. But at the end of the day, if what we're memorizing and what we're applying that verse to is not actually what it's talking about, in some ways I think that it can be dangerous for us. You know, it just seems to me Romans 5, 1 through 5, is a good set of verses that you can use for this. Let's read them. Romans 5, verses 1-5.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance, and perseverance, proven character, and proven character hope. And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

There you go. That's a good set of verses. And there's many, many more. There's so many. And I like what Vern did in the class. I know I keep mentioning this stuff, but it's just some of the best teaching from Christian growth that I've received. What's God doing in the life of the believer? And he goes through a wealth of scripture there that talks about the conforming, the transforming, and the way that God utilizes pressures, circumstances, relationships, situations, to bring you to a place where you're growing in exactly the way that he's growing you.

And I think that it would be more appropriate in the case of Romans 5.1 to use verses from that to encourage a believer because it is contextually and interpretation-wise exactly what they're wanting to deal with.

So to sum it up, if you believe what we're saying here, that Philippians 1.6 has to do with the confidence of Paul for God, via the believer, to bring about the good works of financial partnership in the mission work that he was doing until the day of Christ Jesus. If that's the good work, and it's the good work of those believers, then the only way I would use this verse would be to communicate a real hope in terms of a person who's wanting to partner financially with a missionary today. This verse is great.

You get partnered up with a missionary who's out doing the work of the gospel and you're doing the work of financial partnership. It's going to go on until the day of the Lord, you know, just like the Philippians were. It's going to have this repetitive, ongoing recycling effect just like the gospel does, because you got alongside somebody and equipped them via financial partnership. Are there other instances of prayer partnership?

Yes. Obviously Paul expresses his prayer back to his financial support. And they are no doubt praying for him as well, sending him gifts. In fact, sending people from their church, Epaphrodites and so forth. There's an involvement here that's very personal and unique.

And so I would use this first to encourage financial partnership and the ongoing role that that has and effect that that has and God's promise for it. Does that make sense? But there's plenty of verses that have to do with the sanctification side of things for sure. Well let's wrap it up. We've got two verses that won't take us very long at all because verse 6 was the real kicker here.

For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all because I have you in my heart. So we're seeing here that Paul had an emotional connection with these people. They were one of heart for the message of the gospel. Both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me. Paul says that he's partaking of grace in the middle of imprisonment.

Again, we need to go understand the doctrine of joy now, because apparently Paul's got a kind of joy that the world doesn't understand. So this, if anything, would inspire me to go figure out what is this joy thing that Paul talks about. If he's chained, and obviously, you know, Verne's talked about the imprisonment situations there. It's far worse than what we would imagine in our, you know, Sunday school book stories and pictures. This guy is bound and chained, and yet there's joy. So this verse would very much so cause me to want to go research out what is joy according to Paul. We're going to figure out some of that in this book. But nonetheless, he has it, and he says that I am a partaker of grace in my situation. And you know what?

You're 800 miles away. We're 10 years apart from one another, as far as actually having seen each other. I'd love to come back, but this is the situation. You're a partaker of grace with me, even though I'm in prison and chained in Rome. I'm in Italy, and you're in Philippi. But we're both in an environment of grace, and he's got a joy and an emotional connection with him that he is just hanging his hat on in the middle of this situation. Pretty cool. I can relate to this to some degree, for sure.

I mean, I was never in prison, but I was more than 800 miles away from my home church at the time. But I had financial support that were enabling me to travel to nearby towns and spend countless hours in the night by fireplace with people that did not know the gospel or were interested in hearing. And as I constantly thought on my way home after I would share with different people, I'll get some really antagonistic situations.

Just like, oh, come on, Jim, really? I mean, you know, gospel, all this stuff, and what about this, and what about that? And I spent a year with one guy, particularly. Just wasn't having it. Had all the questions in the world. But I was so thankful to be able to do that. And then something happened in his life where he changed his mind about what he was hearing a year later. And on the drive home, I was just like, Lord, thank you so much that I was able to do this and that there are those back home that are probably, maybe they're just sitting there watching TV, but they have no idea what they were, you know, enabling me to do financially.

And as a missionary, I wanted to share that with them. And so it was very important for us to write back and encourage the hearts of our supporters with what was going on. So it's a double-edged relationship here that you have the missionary who is not, you know, of course in this time communication is very difficult, but there were things going on that he wanted to report back to them, but more than anything he was just so extremely grateful for them. And so there's something to be learned from the missionary here, but there's also something to be learned from the unity of the body that's back home and supporting, and that is, we're in this with these folks.

And when we give, we're doing something that has not, it has eternal benefit, but from this verse, we know that it goes on until the day of the Lord. Because the gospel will have its end as far as being shared, but it won't have its end in terms of being celebrated. And that environment of grace that Paul was experiencing will be the very subject that we'll study on into eternity.

But in his imprisonment, he was thankful for them as being partakers of grace with him in this, and it didn't matter whether Paul was under arrest or free, his friends at Philippi shared with him and what God was doing through him. That work concerned primarily the spread of the gospel. It was because of their partnership with him that he could propagate God's grace. Paul praised them for the concern that this good news was spread abroad. These people were gospel sinners. And if we need to learn anything from what we've learned so far in Philippians is that Paul was about the gospel and he was willing to go to the ends of the earth for it. And these people were willing to support him and get behind him to do it. They're gospel-centered.

And I think that we can take something from this and say, how are we doing? Lord, what can we do to think this stuff through a little bit more and kick ourselves around a little bit in terms of what you want to say to us about this? Now, I'm not talking about doing something out of your own motivation, but asking God. What can we do with Holly Hills just to take these verses to heart and teach us? Teach us where you want us to put our mind and effort.

Maybe it has to do with prayer. And I'm not advocating a prayer list or I'm not advocating a specific command here. I'm just quite honestly saying this is important stuff. The Philippians got it. Where do we line up with our understanding of it? Do we get it? Now that we've got it, what are we going to do with it? The Philippians is a really neat book and I think this is one of the things that drives home today.

Let's look at the last verse in the last five minutes. 1A, for God is my witness how I long for you with all the affection of Christ Jesus. Paul repeats how deeply he felt unity and love for these Philippians. It's not a very difficult verse here. It's just wrapping up the good work that he believes that God is perfecting in it.

I think it's really neat to see Paul getting outside of himself and encouraging these believers Because no doubt, you know how financial support to missionaries gets like, what's going on? Are they sharing? What are they doing? What's going on? I do think there's a lot that we should leave to God in terms of what's going on. I know on the support side of things, When we support missionaries, there are those of us that really want to know everything that's going on. We've got to just know the finer details of every single thing. I don't think that's a healthy thing either, because it gets us into a point of trying to control what God is doing, and maybe say, I want my money going to the right and exact use of the exact presentation, exactly how I want it said.

That's micromanagement, isn't it? You know, Paul talks about, and I forget the verse, he even talks about when the gospel is not necessarily even clearly presented, it's still, and the motivation isn't even right. He still uses it for his glory, and he still works in the mind of those hearers, and they get it. And the light bulb goes off, we talk about that.

So why would we as financial supporters, prayerful supporters, fellow partakers of grace in the gospel, why would we want to micromanage our missionaries? I don't think that we want to. I think that we want to get behind them and support them, and so long as we understand their heart and their direction and God's enablement of their ministry, give with a giving heart. Now to flip this back around on the missionary.

Should the missionary communicate? Let folks know what's going on? I think they should. As often as is natural for them. Those are a couple things that I take away from these verses. Paul, I mean obviously he couldn't do it for 10 years. Did they stop?

No. Now we have a different line of communication today, but nonetheless, the point is, sometimes we don't have a connection with what's going on out there, we should pray. And we should maybe get on the phone and encourage with them. And then on the flip side, it's important to be in communication both ways.

But nonetheless, it's God's work in the life of each individual believer, whether it be support in prayer or financial, or whether it be an actual communication of the gospel. It's God's work that's going on there. Jeremy? I wonder how, in talking about the person that's giving and what's going on there, I wonder how much of that stems from having this legalistic, earthly mindset, this idea that you can't out-give God, that somehow and you're looking for your return on it, and you want to make sure that it's being spent wisely.

I've known Christians that are like that, that it's like, they invest in this missionary just like they would in some stock, and they want to know all that's going on, and they expect to get the return. And it's not understanding the grace's perspective, that it's about the fellowship, partaking in the grace. It's not so much about the money, it's not so much about the material aspects, and it's even not so much about the results, it's about the graciously working through you, and you're partaking in the grace of God. I don't know, it's just discouraging to see Christians look at it as some type of investment. They want to see the perspective, they want to see all these things. They're missing the point of grace. I don't think we see that at all in scripture.

This give me a financial report or give me a numbers report. Now that's big in circles. I mean numbers and charts. I had a chart today and it was really cool. You saw it shimmer. But year end reports on how many people came to know the Lord, Let me go on record as saying, yeah, whatever.

We don't know what God's doing and how He's doing it. We do want to make sure that the gospel is being presented, the gospel, not some alter perspective. I think that's about as far as we can go in terms of making sure that when we do support someone that we're doing it in a right attitude and with the right biblical perspective. Are they sharing the gospel? Do you know what they're saying, generally speaking? Generally, they don't have to be perfect. You know, God uses the motivation to share the gospel, and so we just need to make sure that they're gospel-centered and that we are gracious in how we partner with them. So thanks for sharing that. I think it's really good. It's not an investment. It is a fellowship, just like what we see with the Philippians here. We're around about a minute over. Any final thoughts you just want to throw out there?

I learned a lot from this, and next week we'll look at 9-11, which is some additional learning that will bark in the area of thanksgiving and prayer. So, let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for Just what we're able to glean from the Word here. We pray that you would just fine-tune our understanding and we're thankful that you do desire to perfect us into the image of Christ and that sanctification is a hope that we can have and we can stake our claim in knowing that that is where you are taking each of us as believers. But this verse seems to have to do more with a gracious attitude in partnership with those that are sharing the gospel. And Father, I just ask that you would work in each of our minds and in our hearts to encourage us as to how we might respond to these verses in our own situations, in our own life, in our own church. We thank you so much that we have the Good News and that ultimately we have Christ. We have you to live and do the work through us. We just pray that you would be that through this church and through each of us. It is in your name that we pray. Amen.