There is a hill like cherish where stood a precious tree the emblem of salvation the gift of how is it I should brive him while he is crucified yet as his life is taken So I was great in my wealth is in the cross There's nothing more I want just to know it's love My heart is set on Christ Now come on set a loss The greatest of my cross mean nothing to me now I give it up the cost and all my wealth is in the cross and will not post I have no pride but I will pose Jesus in the skin I get up because all my wealth is in the cross And when I stand in glory My crowns before the Lord Let this be my confession My wealth is in the cross My wealth is in nothing to be now cost and all my wealth is in the cross It's in the cross Well hi Redeemer friends and family This is our second Bible chat devotion We are working our way through the book of Philippians just chatting our way through it I'll read some, I'll talk some, not so much a sermon, not so much a Bible study, just sort of a Bible chat in the middle of the week for encouragement and to get us to open up the scriptures and understand this book of Philippians.
So this book of Philippians, interesting book because this guy, Paul, who's written so many of the letters in the New Testament, he is in prison when he's writing this letter, and yet, and yet he writes more in this letter about joy than in any other book.
I mean, what a lesson for us in these days, right now, when we are facing so much difficulty that even in difficult circumstances we can connect with and have joy.
So Paul is in prison, he's a prisoner, and while he is in prison, the prisoners are dependent on friends and family from the outside to feed them, to send them money and send them food.
Can you imagine being imprisoned, but you are dependent upon your friends and your family to supply for you?
I know there are even some of us that are knowing that reality in these days because you can't leave your house because of coronavirus, and you are having to be dependent upon friends and family to run to the grocery store for you, and certainly, you know, maybe toilet paper is the issue for you, and a friend has bailed you out.
You've been so thankful because you are coming up with solutions that you don't even want to admit to anybody.
So we know these feelings, but certainly not the level of despair that Paul knows that he is dependent upon these people.
So no surprise when he writes to them that we can feel his gratitude and his affection for these people.
Now, these people are a long way away.
They're probably 800 miles away or so.
That's the difference between Atlanta and New York City.
That's the distance between these people.
And these people have figured out a way through the treacherous route to risk their lives to support him, to get him money and get him food.
So, yeah, when we walk into and read Philippians 1, verse 3, that's the context of this man in prison writing to these people who have cared for him.
So here's how verse 3 starts.
I thank my God and all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you, all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership and the gospel from the first day until now.
And I am sure of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.
For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.
And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
Now, certainly we could spend a sermon series on those verses, but on a macro level, the thing that I notice right away is that he is thankful for them, he holds affection for them, and he is hopeful for their lives.
And the reason why he's all these things is because, yeah, they are partners, they are family in the gospel, and at the same time, he has such hope for them that they are in the grace of God made complete and whole.
And at the same time, that grace endears these people, and that grace also empowers change in their lives.
It's sort of like yesterday my phone was starting to run pretty dead by the end of the day.
I think I was at like 10%, you know that feeling, and you're going, oh no, you know, like I got to ration that 10% by the end of the day.
And do I have enough power?
Am I gonna make it?
Am I not gonna make it?
And what happens if I, you know, I need to get on and I can't get on, and the power and all that, you know, it's gonna be kind of stressful.
And so finally, you know, I kind of give in.
I walk back to my bedroom, I plug in my phone.
Right?
I need that electricity to charge up my phone.
My phone will never charge itself.
Right?
That beginning point has to be there.
That's why Paul began this letter there in Philippians 1, verse 2: Grace to you and peace from God.
That's why these verses are just laced with the grace of God because that is the beginning point.
That's the way we even continue.
Grace is the beginning, the catalyst, it's the very electricity by which we begin in a walk of faith, and it is the means by which we continue in faith.
And so he's thankful for them, he's affectionate for them, and he's affectionate for them because he's had the grace of God even tenderize his own heart.
And we think that this is a guy who persecuted Christians, and now all of a sudden, you see this tender heart for these people.
Man, that's a work of the grace of God inside of a heart that just slowly works on a heart to expose darkness and idols and all sorts of things that shouldn't be there, and just gets a heart more and more gentle toward other people to be able to be affectionate toward them and caring toward them and loving toward them because his heart is free.
He knows where his righteousness is, he knows where his absolution is, he is free in the gospel, he is already loved, already righteous and free to love others, and he is so hopeful for them that they will know that same truth, that same way of life.
Verse 6 jumps out to me, and I am sure of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
What good news for us! What we see is that Paul rests in the truth that God's not done in them.
And the good news for us is God's not done with you.
God is never done with you, he's never done with me.
Praise God, that's such good news that while I'm already righteous, he's still not done with me.
He's doing something right now, he's doing something in these days.
Now, usually becoming aware of what he's doing is going to have something to do with us getting quiet before the Lord.
Of carving out some time where we turn things off or put things away.
Or we go for a walk, we spend time in prayer, we read, we journal, we sit, we breathe.
We grow still.
We grow still to actually feel what is going on inside of us instead of covering it up and busying ourselves, we grow still to actually hear the voice of the Lord that is inside of us, the very Holy Spirit, God's Spirit in us, that is not only there to convict us, but to comfort us, to be our friend, to guide us in truth, about what is true about us, about who we are as God's beloved.
What good news that he's not done with us.
Even while we are made completely righteous, we are still not as free as he intends for us to be.
What lovely news that sure, yeah, we've failed a million times over.
That only makes us even more like this guy, Paul, who writes so much of the New Testament.
That's why he begins this letter where he says to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi with the overseers and the deacons, grace to you, because he needs the grace.
He calls himself there in verse 1.
Paul, you know, that he's a servant of Christ Jesus.
He knows his position as lowly and in need of grace and peace.
What a humbling and freeing and empowering position to know you're not perfect and yet you're perfectly loved.
To live in a position of receiving before the Lord.
A position to know that you are improperly valuing things around you and constantly needing confession within the kindness of God to be set on a path of greater freedom in Him.
And so we just look at this passage in Philippians 1 as he comes into these people with such gratitude and affection and hope, and we know that he would write the same thing to us here in 2020.
He would say, I'm so thankful for you, I'm so affectionate for you, I have such a tender heart for you, and what God's doing in you.
I know he's doing it.
We are partakers of grace, and I am so hopeful for your life and your heart.
So, Redeemer, friends and family, I am hopeful.
I am so hopeful for what God is doing in this season, in you and in your family.
Grace and peace to you.