Jesus Christ, Philippians, 1:1

I hope you enjoy the balmy weather today. It's supposed to be as warm as it gets all week, so I understand. Hal read for us the passage that we'll be actually kind of ending up at here today. We're continuing on with Philippians 1-1. And what we're doing here as we proceed through the book of Philippians, we're starting off carefully and slowly, taking it one step at a time here. One of the things we've done, of course, is we took a look at the life of Paul, took a look at the life of Timothy, the two co-authors of the book. We looked last week at what it meant in the context of the culture of the people that Paul and Timothy were writing to, to be a slave, a bondservant.

And today, we focus, it says, bondservant of Jesus Christ, of Christ Jesus. So then we need to ask that question. What does that mean? What's that telling us? Rather than jumping to the assumption, do we know what he means by Jesus Christ? We need to take a look at that, don't we? Make sure we understand what that word pair is telling us.

So that's what we're doing here this morning. Let's proceed with that. Here's Paul and Timothy. They're starting off this book and twice here in what we call the first verse. They've got Christ Jesus in there. It's interesting, here they're writing this letter to this church at Philippi, they underscore being of and in Christ Jesus, right at the outset.

Okay, so we want to take a look, what's in the name? Jesus Christ, typical sequence, it's funny, a lot of times you'll see the word switched, and no particular significance. But each word I think is worth taking a look at. That's one of the things we'll want to examine here this morning. Jesus is Greek. It means Savior. And Christ is also Greek. It means Christos, and it means anointed. And we'll take a further look at each one of those words as they're put together here. You have in your handout something similar to this. As a matter of fact, your handout kind of pulls it together several different slides in one piece here.

This name Jesus in the Greek is Yesus and it comes out of the Hebrew originally as Yeshua or you may recognize it as the Old Testament name Joshua. In the Greek and in the older English versions it came across as Yesus and then our modern English we've adapted it to Jesus. It's a little more easy to pronounce. Interestingly enough, the King James, people frequently think, well, I've got the original English Bible. Well, the King James that we read now has actually been revised several times. This is a copy of the original, 1611 version, and it actually had Jesus as the original name. Now, We look back here.

Here's Jesus Christ who is the Savior. That's the focus. Whether we have it in Hebrew or Greek or English, the bottom line is Jesus Christ is indeed the Savior. That's what's being presented. It isn't just his first name. We get used to first names and last It isn't just his first name he has identified as the Savior, it is not just a name tacked on, it is who he is. The Savior. In Isaiah, the Lord is speaking through Isaiah and he says, I am the Savior and there is no other. He is the Savior.

Isn't it interesting how this world will orient to this or that or anybody else as being the Savior? What frequently gets advertised on the TV stations and various other advertisements that are put in front of us is, this product will save you. Isn't that what's being presented? The bottom line is it's offering a message you can't really follow through on.

Jesus, however, is the Savior. Now this name Yeshua, which is behind Joshua as we understand it, He is in fact the same as the Old Testament leader that brought the Israelites into the Promised Land, which they had to take by battle. And it basically means God is salvation. God is salvation.

That's what's behind it. So when we say Jesus Christ, that's what it's founded upon. That's where it started. We'll take a further look into that in a bit. The other part of that, is Christ. The Greek Christos means anointed, or anointed one. It started off this way. The Hebrew word mashia, which is anglicized Messiah. See this here? It would be anglicized Messiah, but it's mashia. In the Hebrew Old Testament, that was the term that they used.

It got carried over in the Greek. Basically, they said, okay, what does anointed mean? How do we say that in the Greek? And so it's Christos. And so in the English, we've carried it over as Christ in our English New Testament. But that's where it comes from.

The bottom line, what is it saying? This is the anointed one. We'll take a look at what that meant in a little bit here. In Psalm 2, 2, and 3, and this is a Psalm that we looked at, by the way, when we were going through the book of Revelation, because this is a Psalm about the second coming. So the kings and rulers of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed. That's this word. Saying, let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us.

So it occurred in the Old Testament. This is just one instance of it. But very clearly, this is the Messiah. This is the one promised. Something to keep in mind, Israel anointed for three offices. They wouldn't just anoint everybody. They wouldn't just say, hey, you want to get anointed? You get it too. Three offices. One is they would anoint a prophet. Christ fulfilled that. We see that, of course, in Matthew 24.

And remember as we went through the book of Revelation for some 15 odd months, that too portrayed Christ as the prophet. Remember, the book of Revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ. They also would anoint priests. Jesus is represented in the book of Hebrews as our High Priest. And Revelation chapter 1, if you recall that, a few months back, Revelation chapter 1 presents Christ as the High Priest in heaven. And so those Those chapters show Christ fulfilling this role of priest, so he would have been anointed for that.

They also anointed kings. Psalm 2 presents that, and also Revelation 19 and 20. Remember, he is king of kings and lord of lords. So by all three criteria, he would be anointed. By all three criteria, he would be called the Messiah, the anointed one. This shows a Jewish anointing shofar. See, there's the Star of David there. They would open it up here and pour the anointing oil out of the horn in order to carry out this ritual. Now, here's a passage where we see both names not just said, but spelled out in terms of what they meant.

This is where the angel Gabriel comes to Mary Can you imagine putting yourself in Mary's place and thinking what this must have been like? Here you are, a poor woman in a small backwoods, backwater town in northern Israel, and you have this angel show up in front of you, and this angel is telling you, hey, you're going to give birth to the Messiah.

Okay? Amazing message, right? So here's what the angel says, and behold, You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. That's the English. The Hebrew behind that would have been Yeshua or Joshua, right? God is salvation. So you're going to give him that name. And by the way, that was contrary to the cultural tradition of the time. What? That's not one of the family names. But give him the name Jesus. Why?

He is the Savior. He is the one who will bring salvation. And, in the next verse, she gives him the justification for him being the Messiah, the Anointed One. Read with me in verse 32. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end. He will be unquestionably and undoubtedly a king.

Therefore, being anointed is certainly fitting and appropriate. So, the announcement given to Mary included not just the words there, but the very content, the meaning of the name Jesus Christ, Savior and Anointed One, by every qualification. If you look at it, the two names of Christ have a focus. The first name, Jesus as Savior, puts a primary focus on His first coming. Is He in a sense a Savior in the second coming? Yes, but the real root of His being a Savior is in His first coming. The name Christ, the Messiah, is substantially, not entirely, but substantially in His second coming. then he would come as king. King of kings and Lord of lords.

So the name Jesus Christ gives reference to both his first and his second coming in the name. Now, when we look at some passages here, these passages give us some insight into who Christ is before time began or at the beginning of time. Let's take a look at what that means. In the beginning, and John 1, 1-3, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being. Christ was not some sort of an afterthought, or God's great idea after the fact. It wasn't God's solution that he suddenly cooked up because he saw a need. It was exactly what God had in mind to send Christ before the world began. But Christ was a part of the Godhead at the outset.

1 Peter 1.20, For he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, before the world was founded and began.

In Colossians 1.17, He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

And in Jude 25, To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time. You see that? And now, and forever. So when we put this together, here's what we see. Jesus Christ existed Before the beginning, he existed with God and was God, that's the John 1 passage there. There was a love relationship with the Father, that's revealed in John 17. He had glory with the Father, also revealed in John 17.

He created all things, as we saw, and Revelation 13.8 spells out that he was slain before time. All these things were there before the universe was even brought into existence, or at the beginning of the creation, the beginning of the universe.

As we proceed through this, His first coming, this is where we said is the focal point of His name, Jesus. At that point, He was incarnated. Here, the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, became man. It was there that we see as crucified, buried, raised, ascended, and seated, and we picture it this way. Crucified, buried, raised, ascended, and seated at His first coming. Now as we proceed through time here, we look at it, we now, because we were identified with Christ, We now enjoy the benefit of having been identified with him and united with him in each of those five things. As this process is completed, we are now seated with him positionally.

Scripture spells that out. The next part of the time sequence, and this is When we say Jesus Christ, this is the focal point of His being Christ. He is the Messiah. As we look at His second coming, there is a cluster of events that takes place. Remember, as we went through the book of Revelation, we studied those in detail.

But that cluster of events includes that He will come for us, that He will reward us. By the way, if you're a believer, real important to keep in mind, He's coming to reward you, not to condemn you. Okay? Is there a judgment for believers? Yes, it's a judgment of evaluation, not a judgment of condemnation. He will come with us when He returns. He will reign with us, and the focal point will be Him, and not ourselves, but we will reign with Him. And He will share His glory with us. The next aspect that I think is important to keep in mind, it's easy for us to think that, okay, God became a man and he came and did whatever he had to do and they went back up and became God again.

That's not the biblical picture, is it? Scripture spells it out this way. Christ always was and always will be fully God. The second person of the Godhead. We show that with this blue line here. He always was God. He is and always will be fully God. But Christ became man at His first coming. That's what we show here with this brown arrow. He became man at His first coming, was crucified, buried, resurrected, and glorified as a man in His ascension and feeding, and will return as a glorified man. What is amazing is that from this point through eternity, He is also fully man. Not returning back to be a God after leaving it for a while. Fully God, always, always was, always will be. And He became man always to be fully man. Amazing, isn't it? Amazing thing. Now, you might say, Vern, you must be kidding me.

No. Colossians 2.9, for in him all the fullness of deity dwells.

And by the way, the Greek word there is present active indicative. It means it's continuing to dwell in bodily form. What does that mean? For in him all the fullness of deity right now is continuing. I mean, we're talking right now. Is continuing to be in bodily form.

Philippians, which of course we'll be studying later, Philippians 3, 20-21, For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. And one of the things, if you look at that, He is will transform the body of our humble state into the conformity of the body of His glory, which He has now. This is the maintaining of that manhood throughout all eternity. That is why John can write, We shall be like Him. We'll see Him as He is. He has a glorified body. We shall as well. That's what's going to happen. Now, something else to take a look at.

If we look at the book of Philippians, obviously Paul is writing here and Timothy right along with him. It's valuable for us to look at Paul's perspective on Jesus Christ. As we read through the Gospels, we need to understand that that certainly is telling us the truth about Jesus Christ. but that describes the rest of the apostles' personal testimony as to what they saw and heard. If we back up from that just a bit and think, what unique things was there about Paul's interaction with Christ that makes it different?

Let's take a look at that. Can you imagine, so far as we know, Paul did not personally know Christ as he walked upon the earth. So far as we know. The first mention that we have in scripture is here is Paul in conflict with what Jesus is bringing into Judaism.

That's his perspective. We first read of Paul and then saw here he is approving of Stephen's martyrdom. He's there holding the coats and being very approving of what's taking place. Isn't that an amazing thing? That's the introduction we get of this guy. He's approving the first Christian martyr being killed.

Now, next thing along the route, here's Paul, I actually called Saul at that time, was confronted by Christ himself on the road to Damascus. And it was a miraculous confrontation. It wasn't just somebody happening along the road, but it was an appearance before him.

Christ took Paul's persecution of the church as persecuting himself. Check that out if you'd like. If you look in Acts 9, verses 4 and 5, Christ twice points out, Paul, you're persecuting me. Paul thought, well, I'm just persecuting these obnoxious Christians that are going on ruining Judaism. And Christ says, no, Paul, you're persecuting me personally. Imagine being confronted with the Lord of Glory miraculously and being told, Paul, you're persecuting me. Wouldn't that be phenomenal? That would get your attention, wouldn't it? I think it did his.

This, by the way, is a portion of the road to Damascus. It may well have been a section of road that Paul walked on. We don't know if that's exactly where he was confronted, but I think it just points out this was a real place. This was a real event that happened. Paul had interactions with Jesus. One of the things we looked at here previously was this picture. Saul became a believer and was immediately opposed by the Jews. picture here that we've seen before. This is Straight Street in Damascus where Ananias found Paul.

Then, further on, and here's the thing that's unique, Paul not only became a believer in a unique way, and had unique experience with the Lord in that respect, but he unlike The other apostles, who were basically trained by the Lord on the earth for several years, Paul, unlike these apostles, had truths revealed to him personally and uniquely through Revelation.

And we have multiple passages to underscore that, and in some cases some detail as to how that came about. Beyond that, These revelations are shown to be unique because of the fact that Paul revealed truths that were exclusive to his teaching or almost entirely given only in Paul's letters. Several different categories of truths are brought out in Paul's letters alone.

Paul is commissioned as an apostle to the Gentiles, and that keeps being laid out again and again and again. Scripture. Paul lays it out himself and other passages underscored as well. He wrote letters to the churches in Gentile lands and as well as two delegates, that is Timothy and Titus, who were representing him in Gentile lands. He's implementing and underscoring his assignment to the Gentiles.

And just by the way, this is The oldest letter, the oldest collection of Paul's letters, and this is the end of Galatians and the beginning of Philippians there in this collection from about 200 AD. There are hundreds and hundreds of copies of his letters and this is just some of them.

Okay, Paul also had a unique appointment. Certainly we see that all the apostles suffered. Any record that we have both in scripture and out indicates that they suffered. But it's very interesting, from even chapter 9, where we first read of Paul becoming a believer, it's pointed out that this man will suffer for me. And it comes out again and again and again that it was appointed to Paul to suffer.

Now, isn't that amazing to think about? When this guy signed up, so to speak, that's what he signed up for. And so he continuously refers to it. One of the things we brought out here before is Paul had numerous prison events, beatings, things of that sort, and he wrote a number of his letters from prison. These are ones that we specifically know that he wrote from prison because the letters say so. There are others that he may have written from prison, but just don't have the specific statement in the passage that he did. We've been through some of these pictures before.

This was maybe the prison he was at in Philippi. This was where he was beaten with rods and condemned to the prison in Philippi. This is the Mamertine prison, which was probably his last home. And it was basically completely underground. They would drop the prisoners down through a hole in the roof into the floor. And if they didn't think you were worth the effort, they just dropped you without rope. Just dump you down the hole.

And so Paul went through all kinds of hardships. As a matter of fact, the evidence indicates that he went through more hardships than we have record of. And the ones we have record of are unfathomable. He went through all kinds of trouble, and that was a part of his assignment.

So it's this Paul that is writing this letter to the church at Philippi. And that's why, when we go through the first chapter, one of the things we're going to see is afflictions. Now, as we look at the Church of Philippi, here's the way Paul laid it out. Four chapters. The first thing, he wrote throughout much of the first chapter about the afflictions that he had for Christ.

And he is dealing not just, not writing to complain, he is dealing in order that the believers that are getting his letter would have the right attitude and understanding about the afflictions that he's going through. Isn't that amazing? Here he is going through an awful time, and what is he writing about? He says, I want you to have the right attitude about my afflictions. About that. I want you to have the correct perspective. I want you to have God's perspective on the horrible time that I'm going through for his sake.

The second chapter presents the mind of Christ, and he lays that out you need to understand the mind of Christ, as he spells out to the church there at Philippi. In the third chapter, I want you to have personal knowledge of Christ. Not just knowledge about Him. I don't want you to just collect a lot of facts. I want you to have personal knowledge of Christ, and he lays that out. And finally, in the final chapter, the peace of Christ, which he also spells out in the midst of affliction. The peace of Christ. Not because of circumstance, but entirely in spite of it.

In 1 Timothy 1, 15 and 16 that Hal read for us here, we get Paul's perspective here. Here is a man, and I think it's important to understand that by the time he had written 1 Timothy and the book of Philippians, three decades had gone by since he had become a believer.

Here's the perspective. Here is this guy that started off trying to get every Christian jailed and killed that he could. And now he's spent three decades doing the exact opposite. After that period of time, finally getting to a place where he's spending an awful lot of time in jail. This is the perspective that he comes to his friend Timothy with.

So as we're starting off this first verse in the book of Philippians, co-authored by Paul and Timothy. Let's look at how Paul writes to his friend Timothy. 1 Timothy 1, 15 and 16, it is a trustworthy statement, in which, by the way, he only says that to Timothy and Titus. Trustworthy statement. Deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am the foremost of all.

Now, we might be looking at this and thinking, well, this is telling us about Paul's character. No, Paul's not writing this to tell us about his character, not really. He's writing this to tell us about the character of Jesus Christ. That's why he's writing.

Verse 16, Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost... Boy, he underscores that again, doesn't he? In me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience. as an example for those who would believe in him for eternal life. Paul's very point in his writing to the church at Philippi, his very point in writing to Timothy here, yes, he will write about himself, but his very reason for writing about himself is to point them to Jesus Christ. He says, I'll talk about myself only as necessary to direct people's attention to Jesus Christ. And what is he demonstrating here?

It's the very character of the Lord. Here is the man who is going in the exact opposite direction. He is writing now, thirty years later, from the time when the Lord confronted him face to face and said, Paul, why do you persecute me? Now, three decades later, he's writing this. He's saying, the Lord has demonstrated his perfect patience with me. His very character has been laid out. And he's writing it to what appears to be his best friend on earth, Timothy. Timothy, I'm writing you for maybe what are some of the last words I'm going to write here.

And let me tell you about the patience of Jesus Christ. Isn't that neat? Let me tell you about the character of the Lord. After 30 years having all kinds of things happen to me and going to all kinds of places, one thing I'm convinced of, and that's the character of Jesus Christ. Let me tell you about it. Let's pray.

Lord, we give You thanks that we can depend upon Your very character. And we give You thanks that we can depend upon the very truth of Your Word to spell out for us in the weeks and months ahead the marvelous and unfathomable truth that you've laid out for us here. We thank you, Lord, for what you have done on our behalf. We thank you for the truth that you took the initiative to spell out through our brother Paul here. And we thank you for the way that that's going to be spelled out so practically, so real, so truthfully and so straightforward as we examine these words. We give you thanks in Jesus' name. Amen.