Greetings and Prayer
Philippians 1:1-5 · Roger Henderson · Jan 14, 2024
Philippians (2021-24), No. 02
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926193350325

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Who remembers our overview of the book last week? Give me, let's have some bullet points. Actually, we have Roger, who's gone first here, and raised his hand. I'm going to go around the room, and everybody may not, everybody has a one line. And have an insult by. It happened in Philippi.

Well, actually, one point that strikes me, it's on the Roman road, that special, that's the name for it anyway, that provided commerce, and so it was a place that was strategic. A lot of people went through there, so having a body of believers there was pretty substantial, pretty important.

What do you think? Yeah, thank you. I was trying to think of it. I couldn't think of a name via Ignatian. Yes, it was written from prison prison prison. Right. Okay. Roman colony. I'm sorry. Roman colony. Roman College, okay. I thought it was a resort, a Roman resort. Well, it wasn't a resort.

What do you remember about the people living there? They vacationed there, the Romans. Anybody remember anything about the people living there? Did they have special privileges? Yes. Yes. I mean, they didn't pay taxes. They really had a pretty lifestyle. So this is kind of a unique city of the times. Who named the city? It was named for King Philip II. I don't know what was in here related. Alexander the Great's father.

We're doing well here. So what you've done is have me eliminate the review slide that I was going to provide. All right, so we're going to move into the Epistle today. It's entitled Breathing in Prayer, and I think it's kind of interesting in ways, and hopefully you'll see that as we progress through the chapter.

So I'm going to read Philippians 1 through 1-5 today, and we'll come back to the verses sequentially. Verse 1, Paul and Timothy bond servants of Jesus Christ to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the bishops and the deacons. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, making a request for you all with joy, for the fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. All right, first verse.

Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are filled by the bishops and deacons. So this is kind of the standard salutation as the writer is identified here as Paul actually and Timothy, but the evidence is Paul wrote this letter. Timothy was with him, but the letter reflected the opinion of both of them. The addressee, who's the addressee? All the Saints. All the Saints in Philippi. And the greetings are those that are present here, but moreover what follows.

So what about Timothy or Timotheus? Actually, his name means he who honors God. I think that's kind of interesting. Did anybody really know that, that what Timothy meant? No. I think that's kind of interesting. He who honors God. What about Tim? It kind of reminds me of what about Bob? I guess that gets mentioned all the time here. What about Timothy?

His mother wasn't Jew, but his father was a Jew. Okay, so mixed background. Okay. Thanks, Bob. What are your thoughts about Timothy? He was taught by his mother and grandmother. What's that? He was taught by his mother and grandmother. Okay. Do you have your mic on, by the way? Everybody turn their mics on. Okay, well let's, I think Constable did it better than I could, so I'm just going to lift what he said and read it to you.

Timothy was an associate of Paul's and may have served as his secretary as Paul dictated this letter. That's speculation, but I think it's probably reasonable. But Timothy was not the co-author of this particular letter. The Philippians knew him since he had been with Paul when Paul had founded the church in Philippi. Remember we addressed that last week too. That's in Acts 16, 1 through 12. And on subsequent occasions also documented in Acts 19 and in chapter of Jesus Christ. Does it go back to Romans 6?

Okay, okay, that's good. We were once a slave to sin, but now it was like, okay. Okay. No, no, not yet. But all those, the doctor was there though. Yeah. All right. So we're going to come back to that in a second. I should have placed, in fact, McCauley's comments about Timothy too. Their backgrounds were as diverse as they could be, different in nationality, age, background, position, and experience. Despite this, they found a unity in their relationship of common submission to Jesus Christ. And that's related to the first point.

I should have dropped that up above what this next point is about bond service. So let's get back to bond service. sponsor us, one who gives himself up wholly to another's will. So back to Romans 6. Bob, you want to say that again for us? We'd have to read it, but we were once a slave to sin, but now we're a slave to Christ. So as a believer today, How would you describe being a bond servant?

Is this something that we have a chain around our leg and we're kind of dragged along here? Or is it something different than that? Well, we have his life, so that's so. But that doesn't, you know. Isn't this the exchange of life? So that bond servant now is one of love and dedication Energized by the Holy Spirit in a whole new life that we call the exchange life for me to live as Christ And of course to die is gain. I always say either way you win here.

It's like being part of the family, isn't it? It really is. So the bond sermon is like a blood-borne relative. In fact, our Heavenly Father is if you, the bad metaphors are Earthly Father, but nevertheless. Yes, we're part of a family of God and that's a new life. It's not making good choices. Right. Okay, good. To who is this letter being addressed? The church. It says all. All the saints. All right. Why all saints and just not some of them?

Senator question. Yeah, good. Pretty dull and not exciting. You're involved in Bob. You're involved. That's good. We're all saying to be set apart. And that's again, back to what we've just said about the life we live. It's a whole new creation. And that's kind of neat because polishing the old man just doesn't work. Does it? So. All right.

Of interest, in no other of Paul's epistles does he address elders or deacons in the church. Why? Why do you think he addresses them here? Now, I think most of you are sufficiently educated as other letters to kind of think about how we might compare the church at Philippi to other churches. Remember, this is a prison epistle. Paul's locked up now. Wasn't Philippi a more involved church?

I mean, they were more, what can I say, involved in the ministry, in the church. I mean, it was a pretty well-founded church. They had all the moving parts. I mean, they had elders and deacons. Maybe not every church had elders and deacons. I don't know. I have a note here that says it was the first church, one of the first churches in Europe to be established, so it was the first church in Europe. Yes, that's correct. Other thoughts?

Isn't it also the fact that the doctrine of the church, the way the church is set up, wasn't really established that much until the prison epistles, with 1st and 2nd Timothy, Philemon, Second Timothy, of course, followed this, some of the last epistles. So what was your point, Bob, on the shoring at Crespe? I don't think he really addressed the hierarchy of the church until later on during the prison epistles.

So we covered this some last week. What might have been unique about Paul's relationship to the church at Philippi? How about number one, he founded the church. So the whole church hierarchy in terms of administrative structure may have been very much a part of the way he set the church up. Now we're going to come to define what bishops and deacons means in a second, but it's presumably a higher authority, if you will, pastoral role or ultimately elder-like responsibilities. So what else happened uniquely to Paul that relates to this church in Philippi? We touched on this slightly. What do you think about Aphrodite's? Did he have a unique role here? What did Aphrodite's do? Their care and concern for him when he was sick.

Yeah, he carried a gift from the church back to Rome, right? He made the trip back to Rome, and ultimately that reflects some sort of a structure that occurred in the church of Philippi that ultimately led to his going back to buy a gift. And, of course, we learned also the Church at Philippi provided many gifts to other bodies of Christ, including the Church of Jerusalem. So I think we don't know an answer here to this question. I'm just asking us to think out loud why might we have addressed the visions that you've given.

So let's describe this. perhaps an elder of the local church who makes sure that things are done correctly. I mean, so that's a bishop. You know, in the mainline Protestant church, there were these bishops, kind of like cardinals of a Roman Catholic church. I mean, this name that maybe had some administrative responsibilities connected to it, to oversee a body of, say, mainline churches over a region. But yet, here the bishop was local. and ultimately, presumably, had administrative responsibilities to oversee probably the spiritual foundation of the church and how things are carried out.

Now, we'll be interested in what's a deacon before I put it up. It's described by, I think, Strong on the deacons. All right, that's a good answer, everybody. The ones that serve the bond. Today we describe it as servants of the bond. But interestingly here, according to the original description, it's one who, by virtue of the office assigned to him by the church, cares for the poor and is in charge of and distributes the money collected for their use. Is that what our deacons do here?

Some do. Some do. Part of that fits. Part of what? The money part. The money part. You know, it's by trying to compare back then and what the church is today because of the influence of so many other denominations who are all over the place, and mainly the Catholic Church. You see a lot of their stuff has been moved into the Christian church, you know.

The Book of Acts. Yeah, I'm sorry? The Book of Acts. OK, that's not an epistle, though, is it? No, it's not. We studied it here. The Book of James, right? A lot in James deals with the poor. But I think Paul relates to the poor in multiple epistles that he writes. The deacon was described here for a very unique purpose. In the Book of Acts, the deacons were originally set up so that the elders could preach the word and concentrate on teaching the word and let the deacons take care of all the others.

Okay, and that's effectively what they do today. I mean our elders Roger and Mike are really involved in the pulpit and also in classrooms teaching Sunday school. So again, that's their responsibility. They're spiritual leaders. Whereas the deacons are servants.

I think that's the best way to simplify what they are. But it's interesting what the strongest definition of deacons was in that time to think of what their purpose was. And the early church may have been more simplistic, too. And as Wayne mentioned, all the denominations that are out there today, too. All right, good. Good discussion. And the question to the class is, is this your role today? And I think we kind of touched on that in detail. Any other thoughts here? I was going to say one thing, Bob.

The ministry of the poor is, I think, sometimes hard to understand, almost, in our culture today. It's hard for us to even identify anyone who's genuinely poor within our bodies in North America. It's just so different today. But I guess one of the things that happens sometimes is a confusion with the social gospel mentality of we need to go out and feed. all the poor in Denver or, you know, and so we get some kind of confusing issues on some of these things.

But I mean, I think in terms of what we saw in Acts and this role of, you know, taking care of the poor, it's specifically those within the church, right? So why do we not have a large number of poor people in our churches today? The government's taking over that role. Well, in a sense, we had a discussion, Bob and Margaret, in our Bible study the other night, about the fact that the church used to take care of a lot of this. Bob, I think you made that point. You weren't at large on that point. Well, 60 years ago, The church, not only the church took care of the older people, but the families took care of their older people.

And then when Roosevelt come in and decided to start this socialism, then the government took over that, and now we don't. Our kids were still pretty young, actually. I used to take our three daughters down to do music down there. And remembering that is kind of an interesting experience.

But anyway, all that aside, the question was, how well did the Denver Rescue Mission rescue people from hell to begin with? Did they get saved? And ultimately, how well were they doing in rescuing them to a lifestyle that was more capable of being carried out on their own direction or the Lord's direction for them? I don't know, I don't have the data, but it was pretty dismal. The hurries were numerous.

And today with the homelessness that we're experiencing, but it's an atmosphere of entitlement by government today, isn't it? Rather than the church body reaching out to these people. They don't come to us except if they want a handout, right? And that's typically not on Sunday anymore, is it? Well, sometimes they go on Sunday. So, Miles, your thoughts about our thanksgiving candidates versus entitlement mindset there, too, I'm sure. Yeah, very similar.

I mean, I think in to Timothy, in 1 Timothy, Paul addresses the issue of widows and the widows indeed, you know, there are those even those who are in a difficult situation who are still don't, you know, I mean, he says the responsibility is the family's first and right. And when there isn't that, then the church can pitch in there. Right, it was a true blessing for us to take Margaret's mom in over her last five years to keep her from being institutionalized. Yeah, we didn't want to put her in a nursing home or whatever, and she loved being with us.

Now let's go on to verse 2 then. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is pretty common salutation. And what do you find interesting about this particular greeting? go back up again. Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, what about grace? Grace can be interpreted in several different ways. And what I'm gonna do here is share this with you. This is the Greek term charis, which we use commonly in this body of Christ here.

And this can be unmerited favor, which I think all the commentators, constable, everybody said that that's what it is. Or it can mean goodwill, loving-kindness, and favor. I mean, it's a general agreement. What do you think Paul means here? Is he talking about grace as unmerited favor, or is this kind of the standard goodwill, loving-kindness, and favor? I have an opinion, but what do you think?

Well, he uses this term in other epistles as well, grace and peace. I'm not sure how many times, but that's a pretty common set of words. So it makes me – I'm going to jump out here. It makes me think that I'm going to lean more toward this more in terms of a general greeting to people. That's not so much doctrinal information. How many people think this is a general greeting and not any people have done their bit of favor? How many are not voting? Okay. That's kind of the standard take. different opinion.

He says, in the case of the Greek, the favor was done to a friend, never an enemy. In the case of God, it was an enemy, the sinner, bitter in his hatred of God for whom the favor was done. God has no springs tied to the salvation he procured for man at the cross. Salvation is given the believing center, one of the pure generosity of God's heart.

So I think he initially says it was a favor, a good greeting type, but I think ultimately he's saying that this is really God's grace. I don't know. I think this is a general greeting and maybe not so founded in scriptural grace as we currently understand it today, but whatever. So he Any other thoughts in video land out there?

Kind of almost wonder if Paul, you know, the grace was a greeting in Greek culture. The Christian understanding of grace is greatly expanded through the grace of God that we understand. I like that. Paul was able to extend that even to the Galatians, he says, grace and peace to you. And they didn't really like him, but he still extended grace to them. So in a sense it could be a combination of both, could it? The idea is this is just a general greed, goodwill, favor, you know, I love you guys, kind of standard greed, you know, by the way, you're founded on the principle of grace.

That's good. Okay, what about peace? Peace is the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ. Again, putting a very spiritual connotation to this. And so fearing nothing from God and content with this earthly lot of whatsoever sort that it is. And that's Strong's definition of peace.

So I'm going to say to the class another question. We're keeping you going here this morning. Is this the peace of God or a peace with God? What do you think? Peace that passes all understanding. All right. Is that peace of God or peace with God? What would be the difference between the peace of God versus the peace with God? Let's deal with a peace with God. How do we have peace with God? Goodness is righteousness. Through salvation. Reconciliation. He hath made him who knew no sin to be made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

How can you beat that verse? So peace with God is the cross entirely, is it not? Bob? Yes. Is that kind of talking about our position that we're, you know, if we have a position with Him, then we have peace with Him? I'm fine with that. That fits perfectly well, Carol. Thank you.

But what is the peace of God? How is that different, maybe? I mean, it's all from the Lord. So, I mean, maybe this is, you know, picking at straws too closely here, but the peace of God, I think, is a little bit different. What is the peace of God? Do you have the peace of God as you walk day in and day out? Having peace with God allows us to have the peace of God.

This is Holy Spirit indwelled and lifts us up and encourages us and gives us joy through trials and tribulations. So what do you think here? Is this peace with God that salvation has occurred? We have positional, standing, and then care and thank you. Or is this the peace of God in our day-to-day walk? So, both. Okay, good. Am I trying to go too far with this? No, it's good. I think the peace of God and peace with God are somewhat different.

They are. They're all related to God's great grace and mercy. Well, as we walk in dependence upon Him and fellowship with Him, we have His life and therefore His peace. So that's the of peace with God part. So is it both the position and condition? I think our condition is the peace of God. We walk in peace. And that begins having peace with God.

That's all cross-dependent. But our day-to-day walk is cross-dependent, right? Our old man has been crucified. And so the walk we have through a new nature of power by the Holy Spirit is the peace of God in our day-to-day existence. Is everybody kind of okay with that, or am I stretching this a little too far? Miles, any thoughts on that? I think it's really good. Yeah. Hey, Bob? Yes. Hey, this just came to mind.

Someone said that when he says grace and peace, grace, Charis, was a Greek greeting. The Greeks knew that well. And then when you say peace as a greeting, that's Jewish. So it's like saying shalom. So it's a combination, a Greek greeting and a Jewish greeting to these saints.

Yeah, it's kind of a cool point. Yeah, maybe, but the term that I gave in the parenthesized piece, the handout, you may have, you may not have, but it's Ire. I mean, I presume that was Greek, not Hebrew. Oh, yeah, that's Greek. But he has a good point, I think. That's a good point. Yeah.

It's just he wouldn't substitute a Hebrew term in there, I guess. No. But the Philippian church is Gentiles mostly, right? But I think Andrew's point is that by Paul's nature, he's made it reflect his cultural background. We're kind of going off. We have all the room to go off on a rabbit. That's great. No, I love it. I love it. It's great. All right, let's continue.

I've combined the last three verses together, so let's see if that works. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, making requests for you with all with joy. from your fellowship of the gospel from the first day until now. So all of Paul's epistles except Galatians begins in a similar manner with Thanksgiving indicative of a warm sentiment. And I think, Miles, you mentioned that maybe the Galatians were not particularly, you know, that friendly with Paul in terms of all his messages that went to the Galatian church.

Ask this for a message to be overseen by the Philippian church. What do you think? What's their perception of this message? If you were in the Philippian church and you got this letter, let me go back up and make sure we all see this together. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine that he will trust in you, et cetera, et cetera. What would you think if you were a member of the Philippian church? that he loves them.

And they're his peeps. Is it maybe more than just the love that he has for them? Fellowship. That these people are important to him. All right. Does this maybe suggest a special relationship there, do you think? Yeah, that he cares for them, and they're kind of maybe his favorites. I think this is really a deep-seated greeting he's providing them.

If I were at the Church of Philippi, I might get a little cocky about this. This is really a very superfluous message in terms of Paul's love for them. Yes, his love, I think, is well stated. So this is really a message that would be uplifting if I were at the Church of Philippi to get a letter from the guy who founded the church, right? All right, let's go ahead.

Does Paul really mean every or all remembrance? I want to reflect on that. Weiss says that the word every in the Greek has the idea of whole. So that's all-encompassing, is it not? And Macaulay says the not have a specific incident in mind for which he's thankful, but rather is referring to his entire or total experience with the church at Philippi.

So again, that's a very special greeting. And if we can look back at the greetings of other churches, they're all warm and fuzzy. in every prayer of mine. Remember, Paul is praying from his jail in Rome. I wonder why that, I thought I got that. Anyway, so what will you make of this? Every prayer of mine. So how often is Paul praying in the Roman prison? A lot. A lot. Non-stop. If you were in prison, I'm sure you'd be praying a lot, too. If you saw this prison, you'd want to pray. What does Paul say about prayer elsewhere? And I tend to go to one verse because it comes back all the time. Pray without ceasing, right? First Thessalonians 5, 17. Yeah, Bob.

I was going to say that a lot of people think about prayer as get up in the morning, get down on your knees and you pray, or you pray before you eat. But prayer to me is continually all day long. It really is. If you see something, you say, thank you, Lord. That's a prayer. If you do something stupid, you immediately say, confess that to the Lord and get back in fellowship. This is something that goes on continually. Well, Bob, that's the new life in Christ Jesus. It's about this constant communication, right, back and forth all the time.

So prayer without ceasing. And by the way, one of the commentators, I'm not sure which one, it may have Not in the three things that Representative A. McCauley restored possible, but it was another one that said, his prayer list must have been long. And it referred me to the days where I was under law and I had this prayer list. And it made me kind of shudder for a minute or two, but that unfortunately was transient. All right, so he's making requests for you all with joy. For you all, I think, indicates that Paul desires to declare his love for all alike, and will not recognize any divisions among them.

Isn't that neat? And that's one thing I think we have a very special privilege of experiencing here, is the oneness we have in this body. All right, joy. Don't you think joy imparts a theme of this epistle? We touched pretty frequently on that last week. If you had to describe the epistle of the Philippians, I think joy would be near the top of the things that we might list. And by the way, joy is mentioned many other places in the book. So we could document that by its repetitive use by Paul in his letter.

So how should we interpret fellowship or koinonia here? But they were fellow workers. They were getting out the Gospels. Getting out the Gospels is one component of fellowship. What else would it be? I think as Carolyn said, he had a very special relationship with the Philippines. When we think about fellowship, what do we think about globally? If somebody said, are you having fellowship?

How would you answer that? You're like-minded. Like-minded. OK. Who's that fellowship with? Is it just spending time together? That's one component. All right, let's see what people smarter than me would say about this. Colleen, fellowship is viewed three ways in the Philippians.

First, there was fellowship with Christ, okay, which was revealed in suffering. Chapter 1, verse 29, we'll come to that. Second, there was fellowship with one another, that's what Margaret mentioned, and we all are experiencing that to some extent, which was revealed in Unity, that's chapter two. And finally, there was fellowship with Paul, which was revealed in financial giving.

So that's kind of the way Macaulay views this. Constable has a little bit more to say. Constable often has a lot more to say. The fellowship in view, as the use of this word in the New Testament indicates, means sharing together with mutual activity and mutual benefit in a close bond.

Partnership in the gospel includes partnership with God and with other believers that the gospel makes possible. It also involves participation in the work of getting the gospel to people. The Philippians had recently sent Paul a gift. and had done some more than once before. However, Paul's use of coronia here implies a broader meaning than just physical assistance. It probably includes all that Paul and his readers shared as committed Christians who sought to discriminate. to disseminate the gospel.

So that, and I just ask, we've kind of addressed this, how does this relate to our fellowship here today? And I think the fellowship goes beyond just one with the other. It's with the Lord Jesus Christ directly, and it's probably in part sharing the truth with the unsaved world, okay? And by the way, to end now, I like Lise's translation of verse 5 better. Let's see what Lise did to say.

I am constantly thanking my God for your joint participation in the furtherance of the Gospel from the first day until this particular moment. And when we think of first day, we can think of that reflects Paul's past and more recent events in and from the church at Philippi, which began with Lydia, remember?

The Philippian jailer will cover and also the gifts that Epaphroditus provided. So Paul's got this history of his relationship to the Church of Philippi that is very, very special. So from the first day, which would be no video experience in scripture, until the moment that he's in jail and prison, experiencing a gift from the Church. And that wasn't a simple trip that Epaphroditus made from Philippi to Rome.

All right, that's our lesson for today. Any passing or closing thoughts from anyone, please? All right, Myles, would you close us in prayer, please? Yeah, absolutely. Heavenly Father, we thank you for just what it is that you have done and are still carrying out today in the Church, the body of your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank you for the fellowship that we have. in the same way it carries on today as we seek to spread the gospel and to share your word. Lord, we just thank you for all that you're teaching us already in these first few verses of Philippians. We pray that you would continue to just teach us from your word and build us up in grace and the knowledge of you and of your son, Jesus Christ, in his name, amen. Amen. Thank you, boss.