Doug McMasters: Well, good evening.
Doug McMasters: I'd invite you to take your Bible and turn with me to Philippians, book of Philippians, chapter one.
Doug McMasters: We'll be looking at four verses this evening, verses three through six.
Doug McMasters: Shortly after Royal and I uh moved to the house in Maple Drive, we started to have a little bit of a difference of opinion.
Doug McMasters: We had the exterior painted.
Doug McMasters: I chose the color, and I swore it was blue.
Doug McMasters: But Royal, when she looked at it, she said, that's not blue, that's gray.
Doug McMasters: And uh, we kind of left off the discussion about that just uh agreeing to disagree about what color the house actually was.
Doug McMasters: I still think it's blue, she still thinks it's gray.
Doug McMasters: Have you ever had those moments where you see something and you've got a particular perspective about it?
Doug McMasters: Somebody else is looking at the exact same thing and they think differently about it.
Doug McMasters: Well, that was one of those.
Doug McMasters: And there's often those optical illusions that uh sometimes you run across, uh, like the Necker's cube, which is this transparent cube, a little wire-framed cube.
Doug McMasters: And as it sits there, you think, well, which is the face that's actually pointing at me, right?
Doug McMasters: Or are the Rubens base where if you look at it at a certain point in time, it it looks like a goblet, but when you look at it again, it looks like two faces, right?
Doug McMasters: So how how your brain switches from one perspective to another.
Doug McMasters: Well, we're gonna be looking at Philippians chapter 1, verses 3 to 6.
Doug McMasters: And it's one of those passages that opens up very much like a conventional opening in a letter, particularly in Paul's day, with a greeting, a thanksgiving, uh, with a bit of a report, and then the body of the letter.
Doug McMasters: And these verses are the the the Thanksgiving's portion of it.
Doug McMasters: And you would probably just read that like you might read any introduction uh to a letter.
Doug McMasters: For those of you that are under 20, people used to write things on paper and stick them in an envelope and put this thing called a stamp on them.
Doug McMasters: And there's a mailbox.
Doug McMasters: You could actually walk to a mailbox, and three or four days later, people would get that.
Doug McMasters: That's it's just an amazing thing.
Doug McMasters: But that greeting and that first word, sometimes you think, well, those are just the perfunctory words that we we often say.
Doug McMasters: Do we really, really mean them?
Doug McMasters: We we got to fill it in there before we get to the real stuff that we want to talk about.
Doug McMasters: It might be easy to look at verses three to six and think of it just like that, to read it quickly, say, look, I just want to dive into the theological stuff that's there in the book of Philippians.
Doug McMasters: I want to get right into the meat of it all.
Doug McMasters: I would encourage you not to do that.
Doug McMasters: I'd like for you to see this as more than just a perfunctory prayer or just a movement from the greetings down into the meat of it, which is going to be later in the book of Philippians.
Doug McMasters: Because if you stop with this, just like you might with a Nectar's cube or Reuben's uh vase, you're gonna see it from a different perspective.
Doug McMasters: And if you see it from this different perspective, it's going to do two revolutionary things for you.
Doug McMasters: You're going to find that it gives you a theology of relationships that'll enrich your life.
Doug McMasters: And secondly, it will offer you a promise that can hold you through the deepest of times.
Doug McMasters: But in the midst of this, I want us to see how Paul lays out his relationship with the Philippian church in the middle of being in prison, where he is obviously in difficulty and his life is tenuous, and yet in the midst of it, he's a joyful person.
Doug McMasters: And so I think here in verses three to six, we find some of that as well.
Doug McMasters: How we might find within our relationships opportunities to be joyful people, even if our circumstances are not good.
Doug McMasters: So let's read these verses together.
Doug McMasters: I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you, always praying with joy for all of you in my every prayer, because of your partnership and the gospel from the first day until now.
Doug McMasters: I'm sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: The prayer, the joy in this prayer doesn't come automatically.
Doug McMasters: In these four verses, we see that the joy grows out of something, that it has three roots that nurture and bring about the joy that's found here.
Doug McMasters: And this evening I want us to see where this joy comes from.
Doug McMasters: And it comes, first of all, from a gratitude that remembers well, and then secondly, a partnership that goes deep, and then third, a confidence that will not be moved.
Doug McMasters: So we're going to hang our look at joy within the context of those three thoughts.
Doug McMasters: And the first is this that the prayer of joy is born out of a heart of gratitude that remembers well.
Doug McMasters: And verses three and four give us that.
Doug McMasters: I give thanks to my God in every remembrance of you, always praying with joy for all of you in my every prayer.
Doug McMasters: Now, notice what Paul says there.
Doug McMasters: Every remembrance of you, to give thanks.
Doug McMasters: I have a lot of friends that I have a lot of great times with, but there are with friendships, there's always those moments where you think, I'm not sure I'm really grateful about that episode or that conversation or that moment.
Doug McMasters: There's always those things that you could bring into your thoughts about anyone in your life and say, that was a rough moment.
Doug McMasters: That was a difficult conversation, that was that one stung.
Doug McMasters: But here, Paul writes and he says, I am thankful for you in every remembrance of you.
Doug McMasters: Not just the good ones, not just the encouraging moments, not just the generous gifts that he had received from them, and not just the letters that had arrived just at the right time.
Doug McMasters: Every remembrance.
Doug McMasters: In the middle of prison, in the middle of loss, in the middle of difficulty, in the middle of opposition, where his name is being sort of smeared even by people who are professing believers and preaching that they might add to his imprisonment, and to say nothing to those who are in direct opposition to him, or those who are going to stand in judgment of him.
Doug McMasters: And in the middle of this, you find his heart moving to gratitude.
Doug McMasters: The circumstances aren't dictating what's happening to his heart.
Doug McMasters: And then he says that this thankfulness, which moves to joy, happens in always in every prayer.
Doug McMasters: This is a natural expression of a relationship that runs deep.
Doug McMasters: This is not a spiritual discipline that he has to force himself into.
Doug McMasters: This is not the Philippians, sort of two-thirds of the way down a list where he kind of at after a long morning of praying just goes, uh, well, Lord, you see the rest of this, and here's these people with all their needs.
Doug McMasters: Uh, please take my prayer list and do something with it, you know, like some people have done.
Doug McMasters: He is offering prayers for them with gratitude.
Doug McMasters: And whenever he prays, they come up.
Doug McMasters: And he mentions the joy here.
Doug McMasters: We saw that, right?
Doug McMasters: A prayer with joy.
Doug McMasters: I'm gonna I'm gonna steal a little bit of uh a thought from Mike Serenano's message next week because he's gonna bring us into verse seven.
Doug McMasters: So I'm just gonna I'm just gonna pull in a little bit of verse seven.
Doug McMasters: Is that okay, Mike?
Doug McMasters: Can I do that?
Doug McMasters: Here's here's where the gratitude comes from.
Doug McMasters: Here's where the remembrance comes from.
Doug McMasters: This is why he's always joyful in verse seven.
Doug McMasters: He said, It's right for me to think this way about you, because I have you in my heart.
Doug McMasters: The word in Greek for heart, cardia, is not how we often think of heart, you know, like a junior high student dotting their eyes with little hearts, or um Valentine's Day with little hearts, or watching the Bugs Bunny fall in love and the hearts kind of floating up in the cartoon.
Doug McMasters: When we use the word cardia or heart, we're talking about the seed of consciousness, that very center of mind, of thought, of will, of emotion.
Doug McMasters: Um, one of my seminary professors said it's the mission control center, it's the real us.
Doug McMasters: And Paul is saying that the Philippians reside there.
Doug McMasters: And that's why he's always thankful for them.
Doug McMasters: And that's why he's always praying for them.
Doug McMasters: Because he can't step out of himself and leave them because they they are right there in the innermost part of who they are.
Doug McMasters: And he's saying, I carry you with me, I think about you always, I feel for everything that you feel, I I want all that's best for you.
Doug McMasters: And when you hold people that way, when they're genuinely that close to who you are, thinking about them is not a duty, it's actually quite a delight.
Doug McMasters: And so here he is praying for them and grateful for them.
Doug McMasters: And this is the first root of Paul's joy, is by being in such a close-knit relationship with the Philippian church that just the very thought of them prompts and provokes a perspective of joy in his heart.
Doug McMasters: And that's an encouragement to us, but it perhaps could be even a challenge to us because it's easy to look at something like verse three and talk about praying for somebody, but still have them at somewhat of an emotional distance.
Doug McMasters: We could even say to a stranger, I'm praying for you.
Doug McMasters: But Paul is saying to pray for you and to be joyful about you and to be always concerned for you and to be grateful in every moment, it's easy to do because you're right here.
Doug McMasters: And so, just a question to present ourselves: are we cultivating, and by we I mean each of us individually and all of us collectively, are we cultivating that kind of depth of a relationship with the Lord's people?
Doug McMasters: To where we might be able to say, absolutely, I have a number of people that are right there, they're in my heart, the very depth of who I am.
Doug McMasters: So Paul's joyful perspective flows out of a prayer of gratitude.
Doug McMasters: Paul's heart of joy also is born out of a deep partnership.
Doug McMasters: We can see this in verse five.
Doug McMasters: He said, Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
Doug McMasters: And he uses a word there, which we translate partnership or fellowship, koinonia.
Doug McMasters: And it appears in verse five, and it also appears in verse seven.
Doug McMasters: And Paul is using this to talk about their partnership together in the gospel.
Doug McMasters: When we use the word fellowship, we're often thinking about enjoying a pleasant conversation with somebody over lunch.
Doug McMasters: Maybe we should get lunch and have some fellowship.
Doug McMasters: Or even people talk about their place where they put all the banquet tables and say that's the fellowship hall, right?
Doug McMasters: As though fellowship was wrapped around a buffet and some good food and a sort of a small conversation around the tables.
Doug McMasters: Or we might think of fellowship as coffee after a church service.
Doug McMasters: This is not what Paul's talking about here.
Doug McMasters: Paul is not saying that his joy for the Philippians is rooted in the fact that they simply have pleasant company with one another.
Doug McMasters: It goes way deeper than that.
Doug McMasters: Listen to what it says here.
Doug McMasters: Look at what it says there.
Doug McMasters: It says, your partnership or your fellowship in the gospel from the first day even to now.
Doug McMasters: This is not pleasant company, fellowship in general.
Doug McMasters: This is a partnership in the gospel from the very first day that the gospel took root in Philippi.
Doug McMasters: Now you might remember in Acts chapter 16, the Apostle Paul is given the Macedonian call, right?
Doug McMasters: He was wanting to go different directions.
Doug McMasters: He has this dream, he needs to bring the gospel into Europe, and so he heads into Macedonia and Philippi, and he lands in this place, and he looks around, and there's no synagogue to go to.
Doug McMasters: This is a little different for Paul.
Doug McMasters: This is outside his norm.
Doug McMasters: And so he goes down to the river to see if perhaps there's a place of prayer there.
Doug McMasters: In order for there to be a synagogue in any city, there had to be a minimum of ten men joined together.
Doug McMasters: Philippi didn't have that.
Doug McMasters: And so he goes there and he finds that there's a person by the name of Lydia who's a dealer in purple cloth.
Doug McMasters: She was a purveyor of some of the most expensive garments on earth at that time.
Doug McMasters: These were things that were actually banned from common folk, and only royalty could purchase these goods.
Doug McMasters: She's there.
Doug McMasters: And in Acts chapter 16 and verse 14, as Paul is there with him, it says this the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul said.
Doug McMasters: She believes.
Doug McMasters: They've been together with him.
Doug McMasters: They've supported him financially.
Doug McMasters: They've sent people to inquire about him and to help him.
Doug McMasters: They've prayed for him.
Doug McMasters: They've not been observers of Paul's ministry, they've been participants together.
Doug McMasters: And that's what true fellowship is.
Doug McMasters: It's a mutual working together for the effort of the gospel.
Doug McMasters: That's fellowship.
Doug McMasters: One way to look at how that pulls a heart together is found by a man by the name of Broughton Knox.
Doug McMasters: And Broughton Knox was a chaplain in the British Navy, and he was part of the preparations for the D-Day invasions in Normandy.
Doug McMasters: And he was saying that as the people were making their preparations, he said, during the months that were moving up to the invasion, he said, every man on board, regardless of rank, was focused on entirely on one thing, the success of the invasion.
Doug McMasters: They had one mission in mind.
Doug McMasters: Every one of them focused, zeroed in on that one thing.
Doug McMasters: And he said, nobody thought of their own interests, and everybody thought about how they might serve toward this shared objective.
Doug McMasters: And after D-Day, he lived through it, and he was reflecting on it, and this is what he said.
Doug McMasters: I remember noting in my mind that I had never been happier.
Doug McMasters: It's interesting, right?
Doug McMasters: But after the invasion, which was successful as we know, the ship returned to England, and he said the atmosphere on the ship changed.
Doug McMasters: The ship was still well run, the men were still friendly, but something was gone.
Doug McMasters: And some of the men talked to him about it, and he said this.
Doug McMasters: He said, During the months that preceded and followed D-Day, our thoughts had a minimum of self-centeredness in them.
Doug McMasters: We gave ourselves wholly to our shared activity and objective.
Doug McMasters: But once the undertaking was over, we reverted to our own purposes as people naturally do.
Doug McMasters: So for a short little bit of time, those men on that ship got a little bit close to what it might have been like for Paul to say, we in the Philippians have a fellowship in the gospel.
Doug McMasters: We have a unified thought about serving the gospel.
Doug McMasters: And as they served the gospel together, there was a production not only of a unification of heart, but of a joy in the work itself.
Doug McMasters: That kind of partnership produces joy.
Doug McMasters: Because there's a synergy in your hearts derived by the Spirit of God who activates your service together.
Doug McMasters: And what a wonder it is when you see a church that's moving all in one way toward the work of the gospel.
Doug McMasters: It's a beautiful thing to see.
Doug McMasters: And what's wonderful about it is this partnership in the gospel can bring together people who have never met each other.
Doug McMasters: If you've been anywhere and visited churches or been in other countries and you land in a church and you don't know the language, you don't know the people, but all of a sudden you feel this immediate kinship and you recognize the gospel is a unifying factor.
Doug McMasters: There's a great story about a World Congress of Evangelism in 1966 that was being held in Berlin.
Doug McMasters: And there was one of the men from the Wolrari tribe.
Doug McMasters: Is that did I say it right?
Doug McMasters: We used to call them the Akas.
Doug McMasters: He was one of the guys who was there in the killing party that killed Nate Saint and Jim Elliott and the other three.
Doug McMasters: And he was there with a translator.
Doug McMasters: And he got up and he spoke at this Congress and he talked about how they had lived in fear and in violence and tribal warfare, and how the gospel reached them through those early motions of those five men and then later their wives, as even in their grief they stayed and shared the gospel.
Doug McMasters: And as this man was speaking at the Congress, way back in the back of the building was a man who was brought out of tribal religion in Africa and still had some of his tribal markings on his face.
Doug McMasters: Of course, he would have done.
Doug McMasters: They would have scarred his face.
Doug McMasters: And he comes running up the aisle and jumps up on the platform and hugs this guy from South America.
Doug McMasters: And he realized he was speaking his heart.
Doug McMasters: This is absolutely the same thing that's happened to me.
Doug McMasters: The gospel met me in my fear, in my anger, and in our conflict with one another, and it's transformed me.
Doug McMasters: And he could hear a man who was almost halfway around the world from him saying the exact same thing.
Doug McMasters: And he said, Our hearts are one.
Doug McMasters: Our hearts are one.
Doug McMasters: And it brought him joy.
Doug McMasters: This is the koinonia, the gospel.
Doug McMasters: Serving the gospel, sharing the gospel together.
Doug McMasters: It builds within us an understanding of God's goodness and grace to us.
Doug McMasters: And out of that, when we see it amongst others, it brings us joy.
Doug McMasters: The last thing that Paul talks about that brings him joy is this prayer of joy born out of confidence.
Doug McMasters: And we see this in verse 6.
Doug McMasters: I'm sure of this.
Doug McMasters: He says that he who started a good work.
Doug McMasters: And you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Doug McMasters: What a confident statement.
Doug McMasters: I am sure of this.
Doug McMasters: No tentativeness, no hesitation in that language whatsoever.
Doug McMasters: Paul's not expressing a hope or a wish, but he's declaring a certainty.
Doug McMasters: And the certainty is not based on his confidence of the Philippians and their faithfulness.
Doug McMasters: It's not based upon what measure of growth he expects to see out of them or what kind of track record they've had in the past that he anticipates them to continue on.
Doug McMasters: He says this my confidence is based on this.
Doug McMasters: He who began a good work in you will complete it.
Doug McMasters: God started it, God's going to work it.
Doug McMasters: God's going to finish it.
Doug McMasters: This good work of salvation, which brought you to faith, which is transforming your life, is going to bring you to glory.
Doug McMasters: And he can say with confidence, this is going to happen.
Doug McMasters: Because it is originated in God Himself.
Doug McMasters: Just think about that verse in Acts 16, 14.
Doug McMasters: God opened Lydia's heart to hear what Paul said.
Doug McMasters: This was a lady religious, well-to-do, but it took God to open her heart to hear this message of the gospel.
Doug McMasters: The beginning is not the Philippians, it's God's.
Doug McMasters: And he will carry it on in the present until the day of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: The completion is not when we feel like we've grown up enough spiritually, or we might be able to say, I've been in this church for 20 years, or any of that sort of thing.
Doug McMasters: The movement of growth is until the day of completion when we bear the very image of Christ Jesus himself.
Doug McMasters: And Paul says, I have no doubt that that's going to happen.
Doug McMasters: No doubt.
Doug McMasters: So think about this.
Doug McMasters: When Paul is talking about that completion point being the day of Christ, the day of his return, the day of the resurrection and glorification, the day when the work that was begun in grace is finished in glory, and he's saying, it's going to carry you through even when you're struggling.
Doug McMasters: It's going to carry you through even when you're inconsistent.
Doug McMasters: It's going to carry you through even when you go through the worst of seasons.
Doug McMasters: It's going to carry you through even in those days, weeks, maybe even months, when it feels like your spiritual growth is invisible to everybody else, and even sometimes absent to yourself, God will carry it through.
Doug McMasters: And he knows this.
Doug McMasters: And he writes, I am sure.
Doug McMasters: And because it's locked into the character of God, he knows the outcome is certain, and therefore his joy is full.
Doug McMasters: It doesn't rise or fall with how the Philippians are doing.
Doug McMasters: Now, of course, he receives news about them and it heartens him.
Doug McMasters: But even in those moments of absence, even when his curiosity can't be satisfied, he says, I'm praying for you.
Doug McMasters: I'm doing so with gratitude.
Doug McMasters: I have you in my heart.
Doug McMasters: I remember our constant partnership together in the gospel.
Doug McMasters: And here in this moment, I can't let go of this thought that whatever God has started in you, He's going to complete.
Doug McMasters: So whether or not you're still struggling with the same sin, whether or not your faith seems to be cooling, whether or not you can see or feel any evident growth within yourself, know this.
Doug McMasters: If God has started to work in you, he will perform it and he will bring it about.
Doug McMasters: And there he can find joy because his confidence is in God.
Doug McMasters: One commentator put it this way: He said, Paul's confidence rests in the Godness of God.
Doug McMasters: He said, This God who is faithful to his purposes, this God who is incapable of abandoning what he's begun, this God who will complete his every promise, this God who starts everything, sustains everything, and will complete everything about your salvation.
Doug McMasters: The Godness of God will bring you joy when you lock into who He is.
Doug McMasters: So here we are this evening.
Doug McMasters: Perhaps joyful, perhaps not.
Doug McMasters: But one way we can understand how joy comes is by recognizing the vitality of spiritual relationships in which we hold one another deeply within our hearts.
Doug McMasters: It doesn't come by finding the things within ourselves so much as we find ourselves together with one another and doing so for the purpose of the furtherance and service of the gospel.
Doug McMasters: And in recognizing we have a God who is over us all, whether it's easy or hard, he will work his work until the day of Jesus Christ and bring it to completion.
Doug McMasters: And so with that, may your hearts rise above happiness and enter into joy, the joy of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray together.
Doug McMasters: Father, thank you for your word.
Doug McMasters: A very, very short, simple prayer, the one that offers us deep understanding and insight into how our hearts might abide in the recognition that you are performing a good work and that you are shaping lives to give priority to the gospel, and that you're deepening our relationships so that we might hold those who in any other place in this world would be very different than ourselves, deep within our hearts.
Doug McMasters: Here's a Jewish man speaking to those who were Gentiles and talking about just how vital they were at the very center and core of his person.
Doug McMasters: So, Lord, we pray that you would increase our love for one another, that we might truly love one another sincerely from the heart, and to do so fervently, that you might increase our service together for the sake of the gospel, and that you might increase our confidence in you that supersedes whatever circumstance we might be in.
Doug McMasters: And in that way, Father, securing our heart and joy.
Doug McMasters: And we ask this in Christ's name.
Doug McMasters: Amen.