Philippians: Joy in the Journey

In Philippians 1:6, Paul reminds us that our confidence is not in ourselves, but in God's faithfulness: "He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." No matter where you are in your walk with Christ, God is still at work in your life—and He always finishes what He starts.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Thank you, praise team. Awesome. Fun to see the kids going there. That's great. Praise God. Well, hey, just a couple announcements before we jump in. The first thing is we have a men's and women's Bible study starting next week. And so if you want more details, it's in the bulletin and you can look at that. Also want to just announce one more thing. We have an election coming up. And I was talking with some senators, and they were saying, man, if two churches just came together and they decided to vote, they would have the majority vote. Voting's important. We don't want to tell you how to vote here at FBC, but we definitely want you guys to consider voting. It's an important thing to do. And when you do vote, vote with your Bible open. That's all I'm going to say on that. But we have some voter guys out there that if you guys need some help knowing, I was looking up iVoter.com, iVoterGuy.com, and they have four hours of research per candidate that tells you what they really stand for. And once again, just make sure you vote with your Bibles open when you're doing that. Also want to encourage David to come forward to the stage. David's going to be going on a missions trip to Alaska, and uh he asked if we'd be praying for him, and he's going to talk a little bit about what he's going to be doing there.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

A few years ago, I started working with Samaritan's Purse. Uh I've been to uh several disaster sites and worked on uh mold remediation and floods and uh cutting trees and all that kind of stuff, and I really enjoy that, and it's a great way to serve. But they've uh every year Samaritan's Purse tries to build a church in Alaska. They find a Bible-believing church that uh is going well but needs some uh help with their building. And uh they found us the one this year is in Cordova, which is south of Anchorage, about an hour. And uh it's a Bible-believing church, they got a vi a vibrant ministry, and uh but their building is uh leaks water horribly, and they've got black mold and mushrooms growing in the in the Sunday school rooms, and it's in dire need. So Samaritan Spurs has decided to go in and for build a church uh with volunteers and uh and donors have provided all of the materials. So they end up with a brand new church, nice, big, beautiful, well-done church to give God the glory and uh the people a chance to have a community building then and a place to worship uh without the uh mold and diseases. So um I've never been to a place that I wanted to go to. I always go to scary, dangerous, uh uh Godforsaken places, it seems like. But every time I go to these awful places, I find God there. Uh God's already been there, and it's scary to us, but it's not scary to him. He loves those people. Uh but Alaska is a different kind of place. I've always wanted to go to Alaska, uh, never thought I'd go there to do it, to build a church. But so this has really been a blessing to get uh uh invited to go in. I applied and they accepted it. And uh the only thing I really have to be afraid of is bears, and uh so as long as I don't be food too foolish, I think I'll be fine. But I really uh I'm a firm believer in prayer. Uh the only reason that I think I survived South Sudan a few years ago was because of the prayers of this church family. Uh I'm I'm so honored to be a part of a church that believes in prayer, and that when people in this church say they'll pray for you, uh they're gonna pray for you. And uh so I would love your prayers, that my strength and health continues, and that I'm uh uh an ambassador for God. That as they see me and see my work, that God may be glorified and that people may be encouraged. So if you would pray for me like that, I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Well, let's pray now then. So, Father, thank you for David. I just pray you give him good health, and uh Father, that you would just help him to be that ambassador that he requested. Father, you heard everything that he said. And Father, we ask you to keep him safe and that may this be a great trip, and uh you would be glorified through it all. We pray for this church, the mold, there, the issues that are going on. We ask, Lord, that you'd use David as a vessel to be able to clean this place up and just may it be an encouragement to him and an encouragement to the church there in Alaska, Father. We thank you for them and just pray you continue to work through them. And all God's people said, You got bear spray, right? You're gonna need it in Alaska. Yeah. Well, we're kind of in the north too, you know. I don't know if you guys were around uh the lake this week, but man, we had a really full week as a family. My two olders were at Lake Ann Camp, having a good time there, learning more about the Lord, and then I had my two younger boys, and we ended up doing a fishing tournament with Bruce here, and uh, we had a great time, and uh went we ended up winning first place in Steeleys. So we got first and second place, and so yeah, Gibson, my youngest, he got second place, and Rocky got first, reeling in those Steeleys and lots of Keen salmon. It was it was amazing to see all the fishing charters and all the youth that was involved. It was a really fun community event, getting together, having some hot dogs, and eating a lot of good fish. We had uh tried Steeley for the first time. And what to say, I was pretty impressed. It was it was really good. The kids inhaled it, it was gone before I even got one, but I snuck a couple off the grill before I gave it to them. So I'm getting smarter as I age, you know. But it was a good weekend, and hope you guys are enjoying the warmer weather here in Pentwater. And we're also starting a new series, and it's the book of Philippians. So if you have your Bibles, open up to the book of Philippians, and it's titled Joy in the Journey. Joy in the Journey. And I want to ask you a question. Have you ever started a project that you've never finished? I know the wives are probably looking at their husbands right now, like I can list at least 10, right? Or maybe it's remodeling part of your house, or maybe it's cleaning up the garage, maybe it's a diet you decide to start and you start it, but it's really getting hard to finish. Or maybe it's one of those home improvement projects that's been lasting for six plus months, and you started it, but it's just not done. Dreams, maybe you've walked away from. The truth is, we're all pretty good at starting things, but we struggle with finishing them. And as I was thinking about this week, I realized that one of the reasons people become discouraged spiritually, and some of you came to Christ years ago with this incredible excitement, and you wanted to know God's word, you wanted to serve, you wanted to grow, but somewhere along the way, life became difficult. You struggle with sin. The enemy keeps coming in saying, you know what, you should have more shame in your life and guilt, and you start battling with fear, you start to lose your temper, you still wonder, why am I not further along? Maybe you can ask yourself, is God disappointed with me? Will I ever really change? Can I finish what I started? If you have ever asked those questions, then the opening chapter of Philippians is exactly what your heart needs this morning. Because Paul gives us one of the greatest promises in all scripture. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Church, our confidence isn't that we're strong enough to finish. Our confidence is that God is faithful enough to finish what he started. And that's the heartbeat of Philippians. I mean, before we jump into the text, let's understand where Paul is writing from. He's in Rome when he's writing this book. This isn't just another New Testament letter. It's one of Paul's most personal letters that he actually writes. He's not writing to strangers, he's writing to his dear friends. People he deeply loves, people whose faces he still remembers, people whose stories he can carry in his heart and understand Philippians. We must jump back about 10 years in Acts chapter 16, where Paul receives what we call the Macedonian call. A man appears in a vision saying to Paul, come over to Macedonia and help us. And Paul obeys. He travels to Philippi, but when he arrives, there isn't a church, there isn't even a synagogue there. Apparently there weren't even any Jewish men in the city to even establish one. And so Paul goes outside the city gate to a river where people gathered in prayer. There he meets a successful businesswoman named Lydia, and the Lord opened her heart, and she believed the gospel. And she became the first recorded convert in Europe. And here's a picture. And they actually made like some uh some nice landscape around the river where they think that Lydia probably got baptized after she received Jesus. The very first baptism and the very first convert in all of Europe. And they have like a little chapel there now in remembrance of that. And we got to see this place and just see this Macedonia call where Paul comes over to Philippi. And we see this convert happen. But it wasn't the end of the story. Soon Paul is on this missionary trip, this missions trip, and he encounters this young slave girl possessed by an evil spirit. For days she follows Paul, shouting at him. Can you imagine that? Just constant shouting. Finally, Paul commands a spirit to leave her in the name of Jesus, and instantly she's delivered. But her owners aren't celebrating. They're furious because her deliverance costs them a lot of money. They dragged Paul and Silas before the authorities, and false accusations are being made against these men. The crowd turns violent. I'm not trying to scare you on your mission trip, brother. This is what happened when Paul went on a mission trip, right? They're beaten. What'd you say? More prayers. Yes, you need to be praying. Yes, that's right. So they start to beat these men. They're backs, they're ripped open, they're thrown into prison. Their feet are locked with stocks. I mean, imagine that. God called them to go. You're obeying God, you're preaching Christ, you're helping people. You see your first person receive Jesus, an immediate attacks. Humanly speaking, it doesn't seem like ministry is going very well, amen. But then comes out of the most beautiful scenes of all scripture at midnight, Paul and Silas sitting there bleeding. They had every right to be complaining, amen? Every right to just be like super angry with God and question God. You brought us over here, and we're sitting here, and it smells weird. We're in so much pain and agony, and they decided to sing hymns. Hymns. Sing hymns to God. I mean, can you imagine all the prisoner listening? They'd be like, what is wrong with these two guys? They have every right to be complaining, and we've been here for some time, and they're just singing hymns. And knowing Roman law, this man who was guarding the gate, he saws this earthquake comes and everything starts to fall down. The doors of the prison walls come down and the chains fall off, and the guard looks over and he's like, I've never seen this before. He assumes that he he loses his prisoners, and Paul reaches out. He's like, Don't harm yourself. We're all still here. Sarah and I got to see it in Philippi, just down the road from where Lydia was baptized. You walk down a little bit further. We drove, but we go down a little bit further, and you could see right behind us the two pillars was roughly where the prison was sitting. Where these walls come tumbling down, and this guard is so scared for his life. He's he's thinking, I'm I gotta just I'm I'm gonna get injured here. And Paul says, Do not harm yourself, for we're here. And then the jailer falls at the feet of Paul and Silas and says, one of the most interesting questions in all the Bible, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And then Paul answers, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. So you're thinking about all this stuff that's happening in Philippi, all really close together. That night the jailer, his family, Lydia, the businesswoman, the former prisoners, people who completely different backgrounds, decide to make the very first church in Philippi. I mean, you think about that. The church wasn't born in comfort, it wasn't born in prosperity, it was born in ease, it was born through constant suffering. But through their obedience and their faith. And if you walk past that prison at night, you never would have guessed that God was planting one of the greatest and healthiest churches in all the New Testament. Isn't that how God oftentimes works? Sometimes he's doing his greatest work when all we can actually see are our worst circumstances. That's all we can see. But fast forward ten years, Paul is in prison again, and this time in Rome. Once again, in another prison. He's chained to a Roman soldier, more than likely. He doesn't know whether he's gonna be released or he's gonna be executed. He's sitting in another prison. And yet, remarkably, what's on his mind? This place of Philippi. And not only is it just Philippi, he's thinking of Philippi with this word joy. Joy. Forms of this word joy, rejoice, appear again and again all throughout this book, and total rejoice or the form of joy 14 times in the book of Philippians. And so that's more than any other book in the entire Bible. But how is this possible? How could this guy who's in prison writing in Rome to a church in Philippi have so much joy? Because happiness and joy, they're not the same thing. Happiness depends upon happiness. And when everything is going well, we're happy. But happiness rises and falls when circumstances of life come in our way. But joy is different. Joy is rooted in Christ. Joy remains steady even when life is difficult, and anyone can be happy when life is easy. The miracle of Christianity is that believers can have joy no matter the circumstances, no matter how hard life gets. So here's the question: How could Paul be so joyful while sitting in prison? How could he have this joy and mention it 14 times in this letter? Was it because he thought he would soon be released? There's no release day for this man. Was it because life was easy? We can tell it certainly wasn't easy. Paul's confidence rested on something much deeper. He knew something that every Christian desperately needs to know. God never abandons his work, God never quits on his children, and God always finishes what he starts. I mean, listen again to Philippians 1.6, and I am sure of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion the day of Jesus Christ. Everything Paul writes in these verses is moving towards that incredible promise. He's what he started in your life, he's gonna finish in your life as well. If you belong to Jesus this morning, God isn't finished with you. He's not finished. He has a plan for each and every one of you. And the first point, if you're taking notes, is this we share a new identity in Christ. We're gonna discover just in the first couple verses of this chapter, there's two characteristics of every healthy believer. And the first is this we share a new identity in Christ. If you open your Bibles to Philippians 1 and verse 1, it says this Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and the deacons, grace to you and peace from our Lord and Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Before Paul ever talks about his ministry, before he even talks about evangelism, before he talks about joy, he begins with identity. Where is it? That wasn't accidental because before God tells us what to do, he reminds them of who they are. Everything in the Christian life flows from our identity. You think about where is your identity this morning? If someone believes their identity is wrapped up in career, all they're doing is trying to move up the corporate ladder. If someone believes their identity is found in athletics, if you are victorious, that's where it's all about. If you're defeated in the fact that you can't do anything, it's devastating. Because it's all about athleticism. If someone believes their identity is found in money, you'll never have enough. What we believe about ourselves shapes how we live. What we believe about ourselves shapes how we live. And that is why Paul begins here. One pastor said the greatest problem in Christian life is forgetting who you already are in Christ. And I think the enemy is going around trying to make us forget. Where does our identity really come from? It comes from him. And we are servants of Christ, is what Paul says. Paul begins by introducing him and Timothy. And Paul doesn't introduce himself as an apostle. I mean, he could have puffed himself up. He could have said, This is who I am, but instead, Paul and Timothy are servants of Christ Jesus. That Greek word, doulos, it literally means a slave or a bondservant, and sometimes that can make us feel uncomfortable. But a bondservant belonged entirely to his master. His life no longer was his. And Paul is saying, I belong to Jesus Christ. I mean, what an amazing statement. Everything that came his way was all revolving around Christ and not himself. Now, his greatest joy wasn't because his own master. His greatest joy was belonging to him, belonging to Christ. And I think oftentimes in our culture, we celebrate independence. We celebrate doing things on our own. Live to be your own boss, to do whatever makes you happy. But the gospel says something completely different. The gospel says true freedom is actually found in surrender. That almost sounds backwards, but Jesus himself said in Matthew 16, 24, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Not puff ourselves up, denying, denying everything about ourselves. The Christian life begins where self-rule ends. We're no longer on the throne. We've put Christ on the throne. The question isn't whether you'll serve someone, you're going to serve someone. Maybe it's going to be you or it's going to be your spouse or your kids. You're going to serve in some aspect. But who are you going to serve? And the Bible says you can't have two masters. You'll either love one or hate the other. You'll either serve God or you'll serve yourself. Who owns your life this morning? Whom do you serve? Imagine buying a brand new pickup truck and you get a title for that truck and you start to go through all the paperwork. No one's going to question what you're doing with that truck because the title is in your name. You own that truck. Everything you do with that truck, it belongs to you. And Paul says, My life belongs to Christ almost like that. Jesus is saying, I mean, Paul is saying, Jesus has the title to my life. Everything I do is for him. I'm not going to question him because he owns me. I am his servant. I'm a bondservant to Christ. What does my master desire, church? That's real discipleship. When we get to that question in our life where we say, what does he want in my life? What does my master desire for me to do today? Lord, my calendar belongs to you. My family belongs to you. My future belongs to you. And we're all saints in Christ. Now, Paul now turns himself to the church. Notice what he calls them, to all the saints in Christ Jesus. The word saints may surprise you because we oftentimes think of an apostle behind stained glass. Well, that's a saint. But he's not saying that's what that word even means. He's saying holy or set apart, belonging to God. Notice Paul doesn't call them saints because they had earned the title. In fact, if you keep reading Philippians, you'll discover there's all kinds of disagreements. Church wasn't perfect in Philippi. There's all kinds of things that happened. They weren't perfect people, yet Paul still calls them saints. Why? Because they're in Christ Jesus. He was their new identity. He saw them through Christ Jesus. And over and over, Paul reminds us that believers, that everything they possess is found in Christ. We're accepted in Christ. We're forgiven by Christ. Everything. When God looks at his children, he doesn't merely see broken sinners, he sees people clothed in righteousness with what his son Jesus has done on the cross. Praise God. Amen. I mean, can I ask you simply a question this morning? Who is making the biggest decisions in your life? Is it you or is it Christ? Because we're saints because of what Christ has done. We are his servants. And I really believe when Paul had, I'm sure, many scars on his back, infections, smelling, all kinds of different things when he's in all these different prisons. He had joy. He had joy in the journey because of that. And when you make financial decisions, career decisions, family decisions, even retirement decisions, do you begin asking? What do I want? Or Lord, what would you have me do? You see, becoming a Christian isn't simply asking Jesus to improve your life, it's surrendering to his Lordship, saying, I am no longer on the throne. It is you. It cost everything to him. See, Paul, he had this joy because he no longer was on the throne. His identity was found in Christ. Number two, we share a confident hope in Christ. We share a confident hope in Christ. Moving on to the story in verse 3, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. Always in every prayer of mine, for you are all making my prayer with joy. Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, and I'm sure this he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. He says, I thank my God in all remembrance of you. I love this because Paul's thoughts aren't about himself, they're all about the people. I mean, that tells us something. Spiritual maturity. I mean, this man was not thinking of himself at all. He had every right to, but he didn't. He constantly put others first. And he talks about this gospel partnership and how this brought joy. I thank my God in all remembrance of you. Notice Paul remembers the good. He doesn't remember the arguments, the disappointments. He remembers God's grace in the midst of it. Every memory leads him to thanksgiving. And then we get to verse 4. Always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy. He isn't praying because he has to, he's praying because he loves these people. Then verse 5 gives us the reason because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And we look at that word partnership. It's one of the richest words in the New Testament. The Greek, it's translated as fellowship, which is a form of worship in a lot of ways. Fellowship in the Bible is a much deeper than just coffee and donuts. It's a common purpose, it's a common mission. These believers weren't simply just attending church and being spectators or going to a movie theater and just kind of watching the screen and watching someone talk. They were so involved. And that's what he loved about this early church. They were all coming together. They were a part of the body of Christ and they were doing things together. And that was what he loved. I mean, think about a rowing team in the Olympics. And I remember seeing this for the first time. It almost looks like they're on a two by six, and it's just like this really long, narrow kayak that somehow floats in the water. And think of the balance on these things. And they're going as a row team together, they're rowing all the way through, and you see just how good they're working together, just how seamless it all seems. And watching this rowing team put together, that's what Paul was seeing with this church in Philippi, that they were victorious because people were coming together and they were using the gifts that God had given them. Victory happens when everyone's rowing together. That's what he's describing. This gospel partnership that's going on. Every gift mattered. Everyone in that church knew that every gift, everything that they had mattered. Conversations mattered. Acts of service, it mattered. Every person mattered. Every person was a part of the team. Can I ask you a question this morning, church? I mean, if you disappeared from this church today, from FBC for the next six months, what ministry would be missing? Would there be anything? Now I know this is an interesting church setting because it's a vacation town, but thinking about your church, if you're from Grand Rapids or wherever you're from, if you were to leave that space for six months, would anything fall apart? Would there be things that would fall through the cracks because you've been so involved? I mean, that should be the answer for us this morning. Are we in a gospel partnership? Are we in a gospel partnership? Would anyone notice if a Sunday school lost a teacher, or would that someone lose an encourager, or would a widow lose someone who calls her? Would our worship lose their voice? What would happen if you didn't attend for six months? And God does not call us to simply attend, he calls us to participate. That's what he's saying to the church in Philippi. Christianity isn't a spectator sport. Every believer has a place in God's mission. And then we see later on the greatest promise in this passage when Paul says everything, he says something breathtaking in verse 6. And I want you to imagine hearing these words for the very first time. You've seen Paul suffer, you've seen him just go through the ringer for ministry, and he says this, I am sure of this. I am so confident. It's this Greek carries the idea of the settled confidence that Paul has, absolute certainty that's going to happen. Paul's completely convinced, and I am sure of this. That would be God. And then we'll bring it to completion. God doesn't just abandon his unfinished projects. I know we talked about at the very beginning that there's so many projects we start. God doesn't stop, though. He finishes what he starts. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. That's one of the most encouraging Bible verses in all the Bible. All the times that we're pressing on to fight the good fight, we're trying to run this great race. And it's difficult. There's discouragement along the way. But Jesus said in John 6, 44, No one comes to me unless the Father who has sent me draws him in. I mean, you're thinking back to your testimony when you met God for the very first time and you're thinking about that first salvation prayer. He drew you in. And he started this amazing work in your life. He began. He began a good work. It's so much deeper than a movement you trust in Christ. Sometimes we reduce salvation to a single event. We say, you know what? I got saved. I'm good to go. I got saved, I'm good to go. But salvation is this lifelong process. The Bible speaks of salvation in three tenses. We have been saved from the penalty of sin. We are being saved from the power of sin, and we will be saved from the very presence of sin. This is a constant thing. It's not just a one-time decision. It's a constant thing. God is working in all of our lives. He started and he will finish. God justifies you every day since he has been sanctifying you, and one day he's going to glorify you. There will be no more of this broken body. It will be in the presence of the Lord. And so, like Paul, as confident as this man was, as sure as he was, we can have that same assurance. We share confident hope in Christ. So we share this new identity of Christ. We share confident hope in Christ. Before I leave you, just thinking through the Olympics, I know I mentioned it a little bit with the rowing team. I started looking at the Olympics in 1992 in Barcelona with this British runner named Derek Redman was running a race. And I wanted you to see what happened. And as you watch this video, I want you to think about your Heavenly Father. That's what he does. You think about, you know, when the man pulled a muscle, Derek pulled that muscle and he was running, he was stuck on the track, and he was just sitting there. God's not sitting down just judging you. He's not thinking, oh, get up. Come on, finish the race. He leaves the grand stance, comes down. Comes down. He puts his arm around you. And he helps you. Helps you finish the race. I don't know where you're at in the race right now. But I can tell you, we can have that same certainty that the Apostle Paul has. Complete joy. Complete joy because we serve a God who will do that. He'll send his very best, his one and only son, to die a horrible death so he could have a relationship with you, so he could do that. He can come alongside you and help you finish the race you started. That's why Paul, he had so much joy. He says, I am sure of this. I have seen this. He had gotten a hold of my life and he brought me to him. I am sure this he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. I don't know where you are at in the race. That race of Derek Grant was only a 400 meter, but he planned years for that one moment. And I know you've lived for years. There's some that have lived longer than others. How many were even alive during the 1992 Olympics? Right? A long time, right? I wasn't even born then. I'm joking. I was born. Well, you think about that. I mean, just all these years of running and trying to do the racing, you think about that. Even the guy when he was holding his son, he saw the guy in the white shirt. I'm sure that guy said, Get behind me, Satan. You know? I am here with my brother, and I'm gonna bring him to the finish line. And that's what God does for us. He's not done. He wants to finish the work in all of us. And I take great comfort in that. That's why the believer can have joy. That's why all of us this morning can have joy. Yeah, there's gonna be some pain. You saw it in the race. There's pain. You saw not only pain physically, you saw this man just bawling. Of all that time he'd put into that and that happened, and seeing his father still approved of him. It's emotional to think about. All the things you've done in your life, and you're like, man, I just, God, I keep messing up. I keep messing up time and time again. And you're still willing to leave the grand sands to come and help me finish the race? Absolutely, he will. Just that same confidence that the Apostle Paul had in the midst of suffering. I have that same confidence. I am sure of this, church. This morning, I'm 100% convinced that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. That's the God I serve. That is him. He will do that for us time and time again. Father, I thank you for that. I thank you that we go through trials, we go through hardships, we don't understand. You don't just leave us on that track by yourself. You come down and you help us through. You guide us. We look at our brother, Apostle Paul, all the suffering this man went through, and how you guided him and you directed him and you comforted him, and he could say to the church in Philippi, I am confident of this, I am sure of this, without any hesitation, because of what you did for him. Father, I pray that we would live in that today. That we would be gospel participants. We wouldn't just be spectators in church. We would get involved because of what you are. We would lay down our thrones and we would serve you. We would put you back on the throne. That's what it's all about. And so, Father, I pray you would help us to do that. I pray, just like that guy trying to come and take the dad away, that we would be able to say to Satan, get behind me, I'm following him. And we would surrender our lives to him. We thank you for this joy that we can have in this life. We thank you that you started and you finish. Help us to live with that in mind. And all God's people say.