Rejoice and Share Philippians, 2:17-18

Good morning. I appreciated hearing from Matt actually not having met him prior to the morning here. I thought often, you know, the action and things going on there, even at the same time of believers in Iraq is there are now a small percentage that are Christians there and are dealing as they did with the oppressive regime before. now was the change, and trying to sort that out.

As we look here at this Philippians 2 passage here, this is a passage where Paul's continuing on with this message. Now remember, he started at the end of chapter 1 with this message of striving together. He is dealing with This ongoing issue, there's a divisiveness, a lack of cohesiveness that's going on in the church at Philippi.

And if you think about this for a minute, this is a church, certainly they're believers like us, but they're in a spot where this being a church is a tough thing. What Paul has taught them is entirely contrary to the culture they've been brought up in. They are together with other believers that prior to this time, they might not have even talked to each other. Cultural divisions between one and the next.

Here's, you know, one of the early converts in the church there is this Philippian jailer. Roman soldier through and through of several generations back. Then also is Lydia, apparently of Jewish background. So now you're looking at this church that is pulling together parts and pieces. Another may have been actually the slave girl who Paul set free from the demon.

So we've got a real diversity in the group, and they're being drawn together now as believers in a culture that is entirely contrary to them. Opposing what they're standing for. They now, the very people that they knew before, They now hold positions and practices that are in sharp contrast to the culture, and drawing together at a time like that was, I'm sure, tough for them. Paul's continuing to address that in his own position where he is writing from, remember, as we've talked about, he's locked up, chained continuously to a Praetorian guard, and now he's trying to tie that together, his example, to help them understand this unity that they need to have with one another that is based on their position in Christ.

Paul, as he writes this verses 17 and 18, breaks the thoughts up into kind of two main categories. And so we'll want to take a look at those. A good portion of verse 17 is the first part. And so we'll take a look at that separately. And then he develops a different idea that follows from it in the rest of verse 17 and into verse 18. And so we'll take a look at each of those parts of this passage here.

He's laying out here, remember, as he's telling them, look, you need to set aside your own kind of selfish ambition here and look out for the interests of others ahead of your own. And he gave them first the example, remember, of verses 2 through 5, excuse me, 5 through 11 in chapter 2.

And that focus was upon Christ as the example of one who looked out for the interest of another ahead of his own. Now he's shifting the attention here, and he's saying, by the way, we have some examples in myself, Paul is saying, and in Timothy, and in Epaphroditus. And by the way, that's not a disease. So he's now kind of turning the picture. He's put a substantial emphasis on Christ, and how Christ is an example. But he's showing, okay, here is how Paul and Timothy, and Timothy is there writing this letter with Paul, and Epaphroditus fit into the picture here.

Paul is making this point here, and he's moving on with this issue of disunity in the Church, and he's now giving these examples. And so here you have the verses, so you can look at those yourself, and we'll be moving in the next couple of weeks to the example of Timothy and Epaphroditus. and you'll have to practice that last name. The other thing that this does is that this gives an opportunity for Paul also to share about what his own perspective is. It also gives him a chance to bring an update on the lives of Timothy and Epaphroditus, people that they know there at Philippi. So he is both giving example as well as sharing with them. Here's what's going on with these other two guys, in addition to myself.

Now, what he is also doing in this, though, is he's not just saying, here's what's going on with me, but he is, on top of that, talking about how my relationship with the Lord, Paul speaking, my relationship with the Lord relates to you, Philippian Church, and to the Lord.

So he's spelling that out in these two verses. So let's take a look at this first one. This is where he says, but even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith. That's his first idea, first concept that he's putting together. What he's doing here is he's drawing some illustrations from the altar. You remember he draws one when he writes to the church at Rome, he talks about presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice. And what does he say that is? He says, that's the will of God. This is the will of God, and he says, it's your reasonable service.

And by the way, it's the same word for service in here. Next, farther on, Paul talks about an offering of the Gentiles. And then finally here, he makes this illustration of a drink offering. And we'll see that's the specific kind of offering. I don't think the King James text brings that out, but we'll see that in a minute. That's what's behind the Greek word.

And he uses that exact same set of words in 2 Timothy 4.6. And so we'll take a little bit of a glance at that.

And then later on in Philippians 4.18, he talks about their gifts. Members of Philippians have been sharing with him supporting him in his ministry. And so he looks at their gifts as a fragrant offering. And then finally, in Hebrews, see another example.

I have a footnote there. We're not certain that Paul wrote it. Matter of fact, some indications you may not have, but also see that first Peter two, five passage that the New Testament authors, Paul, Paul and the other apostles drew from the picture of the altar. Not that they were saying we ought to have one, but they drew from the picture of the altar. to illustrate presenting things before God. That was the idea.

We'll be looking particularly at this passage here in Philippians 2.17 and obviously the parallel one there in 2 Timothy 4.6 as we go through this passage this morning. One thing to take a look at is just to get an idea, at the time Paul was writing, this temple was still in existence. And even those at Philippi, because the vast majority of them were not Jews, and they had not seen this temple most likely, even at Philippi there were some comparisons that the Philippians could match with, with their temples. And we'll look at that in a bit here.

The altar was right where you see that red arrow pointing, right inside there. We'll take a closer look that will give us a view of where that was located. building that you see standing up above that was the NAAS and and that was the central part of the temple to the to the Jewish understanding of things because of their reading of the Old Testament that was the dwelling place of God so to bring something to the altar mean to meant to present it to God directly okay this was the the picture kind of illustration of what that would have looked like There at the altar, we've got a couple priests in action dealing with the sacrifice right up on this golden altar. And we looked at this when we went through the book of Revelation. So this is another revisiting of that. This altar was located kind of off to the side, off to one side of the entrance to that larger temple building that you saw.

And one of the things you'll note here, see Gentiles were allowed to go in here. And then they had the court of women, Jewish women were permitted in here, and then the men were required to take the sacrifice in, and then the priests were to deal with things.

Now, so here's Paul, he's making this illustration for the Philippian saints. He says, even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith. So here's what Paul's saying. Let's look at what illustration is he making.

Paul is being poured out as a drink offering, his own life, the very life of Paul is poured out as a drink offering, that's the first thing he's saying, upon the sacrifice and service of the faith of the Philippian saints. So here's this altar, as you see in the picture down below, here's the altar, the sacrifice and service on this altar is the faith of the Philippian saints, that's his illustration. are presenting this before God. That's what the altar is. The altar is to present something before the Lord. Paul is being poured out as a drink offering upon that. What they would do is they would have the sacrifice, and then around the outside of the sacrifice, they would have a drink offering. And so Paul is saying, you have this sacrifice, and my own life being poured out is in addition to that sacrifice.

So he's creating an illustration out of the Old Testament Levitical law. You have the reference on your handout there. Numbers 15, 1 through 26. Spell out how that happens in the Old Testament law. Notice he's not telling them, you need to get back to following the law. Okay? Not that at all. But he's simply making an illustration out of that presenting on the altar. Okay.

So here's the picture to make it real clear. The sacrifice and service of the faith of the Philippian saints That's on top of the altar, and Paul being poured out as a drink offering, they would use a ladle or a cup like this in order to pour out upon the altar. Alright, now let's take a look at this. I think it's helpful for us to understand why is Paul using this illustration.

These offerings, these literal offerings, were given to the nation of Israel It was never intended that these would be ultimately and finally effective for sin. It wasn't. There wasn't a thought, okay, you do this and the sins will be dealt with and that's great. You're going to be covering the basis. That was not the idea. The intent of the offering is that they pointed to the final and ultimate offering of God's dear son.

If you look at Hebrews 9 and 10, The author of Hebrews makes an emphatic point of that. These offerings, they keep doing them again and again and again and again, and the reason they do it is they point to Christ, but they don't accomplish the ultimate end, and that is to really, actually deal with the sin. They point to Christ dealing with sin on the cross, to God's dealing with sin with Christ being nailed on the cross. The illustration that he has here, this sacrifice in service of faith, service being the faith of the Philippian saints, and the drink offering was Paul's life, it shows that he is continuing to want to use the altar to point to Christ. Just like the altar and what was sacrificed on there pointed to Christ, so he's using this illustration to point to Christ as well.

See, that's his intent. This is pointing to Christ. He just told them about Christ in verses 5 through 11. Now these are pointing to Christ as well, lived out. You see, the repeated sacrifices that the Jews did every year, year in, year out, year after year after year, could never accomplish what Christ did. In the same way here, as those sacrifices pointed to Christ, he's saying his life and their lives are pointing to Christ as well.

Okay, we want to look at some key words that stand out here. Now, one of the things you're going to look at is you're going to say, Key words, I am being poured out as a drink offering. Is that a word? Yes. Can you imagine that? Okay, all that built into one Greek word. Let's take a look at it. Okay, the King James has, I be offered upon, okay? This is a more brief statement of it. It's spendomai, okay? And that isn't what you say when you look at your Christmas budget, okay? Right? That's not what it is. It sounds like it, but that's not what it is. Spendomai, okay?

This word is actually used in the Greek, and we talked about this last week, the Greek Old Testament, Genesis 35-14 is one place, where they would pour out a drink offering as a part of the offering of a sacrifice. And so it's a word that he's drawing from this word that's been around for quite some time. He's using the word figuratively here as an illustration for these believers here at Philippi.

Now let's compare in Philippians 2.17a and 2 Timothy 4.6. Here are some parallel passages, and notice the similarity of the words there.

In 2.17, we've just been reading, but even if I'm being poured out as a drink offering, and now notice, and by the way, 2 Timothy 4.6 is a little bit later. Paul is getting closer, matter of fact, as it's revealed here, very close to the end of his life. And the sense in which he writes is a little bit more impending, isn't it? It's like it's imminent. So instead of saying, as he does here, but even if I'm being poured out as a drink offering, he says, for I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has now come. This drink offering idea is basically the expense of one's life.

Now think about this. Do all of us spend our lives? Yeah, all of us spend our lives, don't we? Our life will be spent. What Paul is making a point of here is a couple of things. One is his life is going to be spent out sacrificially. His life is spent out sacrificially on behalf of others. And furthermore here, as he looks towards the end, he's saying, I don't have much time left. Things are looking a little uncertain here as I'm chained to this Praetorian guard.

But by the time he gets into 2 Timothy 4.6, he sees that this is really close to the end. You see the background picture there? That's one we looked at previously. And this is the inside of the Mamertine prison. It's believed by a number of scholars that that's Paul's last place. And what they did is there was a hole in the ceiling. You might see that little hole up at the top.

What they'd do is they'd just drop a guy down. They didn't care to put him on a ladder or lower him down on a rope or anything because after all they're going to cut your head off anyway. So why take care of the guy? It was nasty in there. They didn't treat them nicely.

But by that time Paul's writing, kind of with that perspective, he says, hey, I haven't got much longer here. Now, let's look at this next part. Sacrifice. Fusia. Not so tough a word. It's a sacrifice also that comes out of the Old Testament law. Here he uses it as an illustration.

We see it here in Philippians 2.17.

Romans 12.1 has the same word. It's this sacrifice.

Think about what does that Romans 12.1 passage say? You're to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. That's a funny thing. Living sacrifices have a tendency to crawl off the altar.

Here, you've got Philippians 2.17. He's not making that point. He's making the point that you, Philippian saints, you are making a sacrifice. That sacrifice in support of me is the sacrifice before the Lord here. That's the picture he's making. The sacrifice was the faith of the saints at Philippi.

That faith was lived out in their ongoing support for Paul. That's the one thing that they seem to have been united on, and he keeps appealing to that, doesn't he? There's another one, service. Liturgia, this is the word that's been brought over into our language as liturgy, although the initial meaning is quite a bit different. This liturgia, this was used literally for the service the priests would perform. It's a priestly service.

It is used, for example, Zechariah, who is the father of John the Baptist, he uses that in Luke 1.23, Zechariah's service in the temple. That's the idea. It's a priestly service. So what is he doing? He's making the comparison.

Since this is a priestly service, he's making the comparison, all who are believers in Christ in the Church are priests. Because he's saying, all of you are carrying out that service. And we know that's also true 1 Peter 2, 4-9 makes the same point. So your sacrifice that you are making and your service that you are offering as a priestly service, all those are based upon your faith in the Lord.

Now the next part that he comes up with here is interesting. We're getting into kind of the second half because he shifts away from this illustration that he's got He's looking for their ongoing involvement. They have exercised faith in supporting Paul all along. And he's made this illustration to kind of put the two together. Now he's turning it around to his relationship with them, their relationship with him, and their mutual relationship with the Lord. Let's take a look at how he does that. Okay. First of all, we have this word here that is part of the charis family of words. We brought this up before. This is a family of words all built around charis, the idea of grace or gifting.

As we brought up before, this word grace or gifting is a word that the Christians use way beyond the secular use. Because instead of being just something you did for a friend without expectation of return, it was something that was even done for an enemy without expectation of return. This is abundant grace. This is grace way beyond the bounds of the secular definition of the word.

Here's where it shows up in this particular passage, 17. and 18. And notice the pattern there, rejoice and joy, rejoice and joy. For some reason my rectangle slid up here, I'm not sure why. But the point there, we've got rejoice and joy, rejoice and joy twice in each one.

And there's a slight difference in the way he presents each one. We'll look at that in just a minute here. He is continuing on this common thread that goes through each one of the chapters. And he especially focuses that in these two verses. Rejoice and joy. Cairo, sung Cairo. Here's how he puts that together. These words are each, as we mentioned, used in verses 17 and 18.

Rejoice is the same root word in each case as is joy. Both are grace given with God as the source. The key word for joy, sunkairoi, is a very special word. Sunkairoi means to joy together. How about that? Joy together. And Paul is one who really likes to use this prefix, s-u-n.

He has that same prefix that's used in Ephesians 2.6 to say that we are seated together with Christ. He uses that same prefix. prefix to tie them together. It's not something that is incidental. It's not something that is a minor togetherness. It is a substantial togetherness, and it's a powerful togetherness.

Paul uses it a lot. As a matter of fact, if you go through a Greek lexicon and you look at all the places where he uses this little s-u-n, as we would transliterate it in English, prefix, it shows up about a half dozen pages. Just page after page after page, listing all the places where Paul has used it. Mostly Paul. Out of the whole New Testament, mostly Paul is the one who uses this.

He even uses it in our identification with Christ. In our identification with Christ, Paul keeps using that prefix. And he's using that same prefix here. In the same way that you have been united together with Christ, identified with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. All those suns, prefixes, are carried over into this.

Now, based on that identification, joy together. See that? Joy together. Here's the picture. Let's look at it graphically. The first part, where he starts in there, giving this picture. I rejoice and share my joy with you all. Do you see that direction there?

He starts off here, and then he's got the arrow going from God down to himself. And what does he do with that joy? He just kind of sits there by himself and says, boy, I'm joyful? No. Instead, what does he do? He shares that joy with the Philippian saints.

Where does the joy come from? It has its source in the Lord. Remember, this is the Cairo family of words, which means it's grace-given. That's the character of that joy. It's a grace-given joy. And so now he's got that. Now the second part of what he is just getting through telling them is this.

God is grace-given the Philippian saints' joy, and share your joy, and this joy is grace-given, right, with me. And so from the Lord's source of that joy, it comes to the Philippian saints, and Paul is saying, I urge you, share it with me too. You see that? So let's put this together. This is the picture. The Lord is the source of grace-given joy to Paul, to the Philippian saints, and each of them are, or he's urging them to do, to be sharing that.

So it goes like this, and like this, and like this. So now, when you walk out of church, you know what to do. Like this, and like this, and like this. It'll make people talk, but so what? This, this, and this. The point here, obviously, is not that we do funny hand signals. I don't think God's interested in funny hand signals.

But I think part of what he's talking about, when Paul uses that prefix together, he's not just making empty words. He uses that prefix in powerful ways, and he is intending to do that here. It means that, in application here, it means that here at Holly Hills, there's no reason why he wouldn't have written the same thing.

That there is a sharing together of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ among believers because of the identity that we have with Christ, because of who we are in Christ, because of his continuing life in and through us, there is that ongoing and eternal basis for sharing joy with one another.

And notice that that wasn't based upon how well things were going in Philippi, or how nicely the community was treating them, because we know they weren't. But there was a sharing of joy. Yes, were they personally experiencing joy? Yes. But there was a sharing of joy that Paul was seeking to do with them, and that sharing of joy he was urging amongst them and to be shared with him in return. That mutual sharing with God as the source is Paul's intent. I mean, that's his reason for the last part of verse 17 and all of verse 18. That's the bottom line exhortation that he's got there.

Let's look at how this looks. This is to kind of expand and explain it, to draw this together. Because I know a lot of times we look at all these words and say, what on earth does that mean? We're going to see what in heaven does that mean? Alright. Verse 17.

But even if I am right now continuing, because that's the sense, even if I am right now continuing to be figuratively speaking poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, even if that's going on, and it was, in which case both are pointing to Christ, the ultimate and final sacrifice. Paul's life being poured out as the drink offering, their sacrifice of faith, both of those point to Christ, and are pleasing to God in our present service.

This gets back to an issue we dealt with a couple of weeks ago, and ultimately a sacrifice was to please and appease God. It was to please God and God's character because of God's justice, because of God's holiness. It was the way that he could extend love and grace and satisfaction of all of his character. And our lives as believers continue to point to that.

That's what he's spelling out to them. He says, I rejoice with God's grace-given joy within myself. He does that. But he doesn't just rejoice quietly and privately. And share my grace-given joy mutually and together with you all. You think of it this way. He's explaining to them, you have the same life of Christ I have. Let's share that. It is not only I individually have it and you as individuals that have it, but we have it between one another as well.

That's what he's spelling out here. In a joy and unity that this world cannot begin to comprehend. He's spelling out a kind of joy. They're not going to see it among the other folks there at Philippi. The other people at Philippi aren't going to understand this.

So he's saying, but we do. So let's share that. Let's share that. We understand it between one another, even if nobody else does. And at least make them really baffled, right? Okay. All of you two, every single one, he's not saying, okay, we've got a joy group over here. You want to join the joy group? We've got a joy meeting. That's not his idea. All of you, too. This extends to every one of you. Every one of you believers. He's spelling it out. Everyone is included in this. Not just a special joy group, or, boy, that person's sure happy. This is for all believers.

I urge you, and why does he urge? Because Paul does that from time to time. It's because of the utmost spiritual importance. That's why Paul urges. It's of the utmost spiritual importance. I urge you just because it's a convenient thing to do, or I sure think it's a good idea, but instead he urges because it's of utmost spiritual importance. Spiritually, it's top priority.

Based upon who you are in Christ both individually and together. You see, we talk about being identified with Christ individually, but the truth is we are identified corporately as well. Those words that talk about our identification put us together. We hold the same position.

And rejoice with God's grace-given joy together within and amongst each other in the same way as you have seen in me. And likewise, share your grace-given joy which you have together with and in union with me. You have this joy within you and amongst you, and share that with me." That mutual sharing, remember this? That mutual sharing is a part of what he is wanting to communicate to them. Now, let's look at this. You might say, okay, what does this mean to me? How does this hit home? One thing to see is, he uses this picture of sacrifice.

Paul's ministry was costly. It was hazardous. It was hazardous duty. Can you see that? Hazardous duty, and ultimately at the expense of his life. A few years after Paul writes this letter, the indications we have from historical record was Paul was beheaded. Taken out of that Mamertine prison, as they did with all the other people, they dropped down the hole. And beheaded. Lost his life. His life was, as he wrote to Timothy, being poured out. But ultimately, it was costly, though not identical. I don't know about you, but I haven't been dropped down a hole yet, ready to be beheaded. Yours will be, too. You know, we brought up the point earlier, our life will be expended.

He's just saying, look, my life has been poured out as a drink offering, which was presented before the Lord. He's not asking us to do anything different. Our lives presented before the Lord. That's the picture. Our lives presented before the Lord. That's the message he sent to the church in Rome. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Now. Even now. One of the things you notice, we have a platform up here. We don't have any altars. I'm glad, especially because of the ventilation here, we're not burning anything. But, we don't have an altar here on purpose.

And the reason is, we are, each of us, priests, We are, each of us, in a place to directly go before the Lord. And what is the offering that we have is our very lives. We are both the priest and the sacrifice. Our lives are offered before the Lord, presented before Him continuously. Living sacrifices. So we have this unique position of being both the priest and the sacrifice. Isn't that amazing? And continuously presenting.

Notice, as we looked at that picture before, there was only a limited number of people that could get close to that altar. You had the priests, and then the males of the family could come in and bring in the sacrifice. Other than that, they were supposed to get out of the way. It was a very limited access. And you had to have the priest to really do all the basic work there.

Instead, here we have the situation where personally, We present our lives before the Lord as both priest and sacrifice, directly. No altar front. We don't have any altar calls because of that. There's no altar here. We present ourselves personally before the Lord. And finally, we rejoice in the midst of real life. That's grace given by God.

It's meant to be shared. In the same way that we know that these people in Philippi were not always having a nice time. They were having a tough time. In chapter 1, Paul had already brought up the fact that they had experienced some really severe oppositions.

So it isn't that he's saying everything's great, let's rejoice. But the rejoicing is in the Lord, not depending on circumstances. Circumstances may in fact, like Paul, and like the Philippian saints, be very tough. doesn't limit the sharing of joy in any way. You see that? There's no limitation on the sharing of joy because Paul's being chained to a Philippian, excuse me, to a Praetorian guard all the time, or because the saints at Philippi are constantly going through a tough time. He doesn't make that any limitation at all in the sharing, or in the source of that joy which comes from the Lord.

Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this passage, indeed our lives are spent whether we make a particular decision or have a particular perspective or not. But Paul is inviting us here to put our lives upon the altar as both sacrifice and priest. And Lord, he also is inviting us to to rejoice in our constant access as priests to you. And we thank you for that. And we thank you for what we can share that this world does not understand from a source, your life, that this world does not have. We give you thanks for that in Jesus' name. Amen.