04-06-14 Philippians Farewell

After more than a year

with Paul’s letter to the Philippians

providing the home base for our Sunday morning studies,

we come today to the final four verses of this remarkable little letter.

Clearly these 4 chapters in the New Testament

have become a significant part of our Fellowship.

For those of you who have shared

many or most of these studies with us

you have grown accustomed to hearing me say

that, in a unique and powerful way,

Philippians is a book

given to us by our Lord

for the hard times in our lives.

It is one of Paul’s most deeply personal letters,

not written primarily to share doctrine

so much as to share

how his doctrine plays out

in the sometimes brutal realities of life.

It is one thing for Paul to write

in his glorious doctrinal treatise to the Romans,

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose...

and to hear him boldly proclaim that nothing...will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

But it is another thing all together

to see how Paul lives out those truths

when faced with the possibility

of his own imminent execution,

and the serious illness of his close friend Epaphroditus,

and the loneliness and isolation

that comes with years of imprisonment.

Philippians enabled us to do just that.

We heard him begin this letter

with the affirmation that...

Phil. 1:6 ... I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

Along the way we talked a great deal

about the way in which

Paul refused to fall victim

to the temptation to allow His circumstances to define for him

who his God was.

No circumstances could ever remove him

from the hand of his God.

No circumstances could ever prevent his God

from continuing His perfect work

both in Paul and through Paul.

There were times when evil intruded into Paul’s life,

when the sins,

and the hatred,

and the cruelty of others

caused him pain.

But he knew he would find

the love of His Lord sufficient for him

no matter what circumstances

intruded into his world.

Until we studied this book together

I must admit that I had a rather superficial relationship

with this amazing little letter.

Somewhere along the way

I had been told that Philippians

was the “JOY” epistle.

I don’t remember who told me that,

but I can understand why they said it.

The letter is seasoned

from beginning to end

with these obviously spontaneous

and exhilarating bursts of Joy.

We heard Paul begin this letter in 1:4

by telling his readers that he was

...always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all...

A few verses later

when he talked about some of those

who were preaching the gospel

from selfish or twisted motives he said

Phil. 1:18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice...

Then in chapter two

his proclamations of joy became

even more bold as he said,

Phil. 2:17 But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all.

Phil. 2:18 You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.

And as we reached the third chapter in our study

we heard Paul saying,

Phil. 3:1 Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.

And just so his readers would not forget,

one final time in the fourth chapter

Paul once again proclaims:

Phil. 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!

It is obvious

why I was told this was Paul’s “Joy Epistle”,

but whoever offered me that title

did me no favors

when they failed to tell me

about the circumstances in which this letter was written.

If I would have known

that Paul wrote this letter from prison,

anticipating his own execution,

at a time when his circumstances were miserable

and his future was bleak at best,

it would have dramatically changed

my perspective on this book.

This is not Paul lounging by the side of the river,

eating his picnic lunch,

dozing in the warmth of the sunshine,

jotting down occasional affirmations of the goodness of God.

This is Paul

up to his ears in the most brutal battles of life

boldly affirming the absolute goodness

and kindness

and adequacy of his God

for his needs

no matter what the circumstances.

Which brings us back

to where we left off our study

five verses from the end of this letter

in Philippians 4:19...

Phil. 4:19 And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

I know we’ve already spent eight weeks

studying this single statement,

but I will not let it go

until I offer one more parting comment about it.

This verse was given to us by Paul

to provide us with the perfect mirror

in which we can see reflected

how correctly we see our God.

Just one day before I wrote up these notes,

about 11:00 o’clock at night,

I had just dozed off to sleep

when I suddenly woke up to the sound of the voices of two young men

on the street outside our house.

They were screaming and cursing at each other,

one of them accusing the other

of having hit him on the back of the head,

and both of them were filled with rage,

and fear,

and fierce determination

to defend their rights

and protect themselves and their interests against the attacks of the other.

After several minutes of their screaming back and forth

I heard a car door slam

and a car roaring on down the road.

For the next hour I just laid there in bed,

praying for those two young men

and thinking about the nature of life without the Lord Jesus Christ.

Most of us don’t get pulled into the kind of

rage-driven screaming battles

like the one I heard outside my window that night.

But all of us are faced with our own brand

of the same type of battles.

Someone or something hurts us,

and that hurt makes us angry,

or frightened,

or determined to protect ourselves,

or defend ourselves,

or run away,

or get even with the one who hurt us.

There we are,

all by ourselves,

having to protect,

and guard,

and defend our little empires.

Some of us fight back

by becoming the biggest,

or the strongest,

or the smartest,

or the best at something.

Some of us fight back by running away,

or by perfecting subtle,

powerful manipulation techniques.

But the truth is,

being a created being

separated from our Creator

in a world in which

we cannot control

the circumstances of our lives

is a terrifying business.

Most people

spend most of their lives

looking for answers in all the wrong places.

“If only I was smarter...”

“If only I was richer...”

“If only I was stronger...”

“If only I was older...”

“If only I was younger...”

“If only I was prettier...”

“If only I’d had different parents...”

“If only I’d had different children...”

“If only I was married...”

“If only I was single...”

While all the time

what we’re really longing for

is the living reality

of a Creator God

who loves us deeply, eternally,

and Who, because of that love,

has chosen to involve Himself

every day,

in every detail of our lives.

Phil. 4:19 And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

As we leave our study of Philippians

I want to reaffirm once again

as clearly and simply as I know how

that everything we have heard Paul say to us through this book

is rooted in the brutal realities of “real life” at its most REAL.

There is nothing sugar-coated,

nothing even remotely close to any kind of man-made religious facade

in what we have seen here.

I don’t know what your circumstances of life are right now,

just as you don’t really know what mine are.

I do know, however,

that you can and you will find your God abundantly adequate for your needs

in those circumstances.

He may not change the circumstances.

He probably will not change them on your time-table.

But He can and He will show Himself strong both for you

and within you.

I mentioned a few minutes ago

that I see Paul’s statement that

... my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus...

as being the perfect mirror

in which we can see

the accuracy of our own perspective

on both ourselves and our God.

By that I mean simply

that when I find myself saying,

“I REALLY don’t need THIS right now!”

“I REALLY do need THAT, and I don’t have it!”

I am saying far more about myself

and my own distorted understanding

about myself and my own needs

than I am about my God.

For, you see, when we see

both ourselves and our God accurately

we will see that He is doing perfectly

what He has promised to do -

He is providing for us

just exactly what we need

for His work both in us

and through us.

We have four verses left

in our study of the this short epistle,

and we are going to find within them

a powerful illustration

of this central theme of Paul’s letter.

Now, the next thing Paul offers

following his affirmation that

my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus...

is a spontaneous outburst of gratitude to God.

He says,

Phil. 4:20 Now to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

And I hope you noticed

the two separate titles Paul used

to address God in that burst of praise.

He called Him both our GOD

and our FATHER.

Only the true child of God has that privilege,

and yet it is a privilege

every human being longs for.

We need to know that He is our GOD

in the fullest sense of the word.

He is all-powerful,

always present with us,

without limits,

without equals.

But we also long to know

that He is our FATHER,

that He not only created us,

but that through Christ

He also adopted us,

drawing us to Himself,

sheltering us in His deep personal love

as only a Father can do.

Those of you who have been around here when our Joni Sue was still in our home

allowed me to share with you

my own ongoing discovery

of what it meant to be a father.

You listened to me ramble on

about my longing to know

how I could best protect

and nurture

and guide

and love our daughter through the parenting process.

But do you know what the glorious fringe benefit of my adventure in parenting has been?

It was discovering that my God feels about me

the way I feel about my daughter.

He has chosen a union with me

in which He is well pleased

to call me His son

and to allow me to call Him Father,

a union in which He has committed Himself

to protect,

and nurture,

and guide me throughout life.

Now to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Then, following that outburst,

Paul adds two verses in which we find

a special little treasure.

He says,

Phil. 4:21 Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren who are with me greet you.

Phil. 4:22 All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household.

We’ve talked at length in the past

about that word “saint”,

about the fact that it means literally

“holy ones”,

and about the realization that it is God’s favorite title for the Christian.

We’ve talked about how uncomfortable it is for us,

and how even the Bible translators

were more comfortable masking the true meaning of the word

through the use of the word “saint”.

You see, God can never tell us anything other than the truth,

and the truth is, through Christ

we are now and forever absolutely holy and pure and perfect in spirit.

We are His HOLY ONES.

We sometimes have trouble

living out the reality of that holiness,

but it doesn’t change who we have become in Christ.

But that, of course, is a whole other study.

But the little treasure I promised you

is found in that verse 22:

Phil. 4:22 All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household.

The book of Philippians was written

less than 30 years after the resurrection

and departure of Christ.

What began with just a handful of disciples

of an itinerant country Teacher

in an obscure part of the Roman Empire

in less than 30 years

had penetrated into the very household

of the most powerful political leader in the world.

And what Paul could likely

never have accomplished

had he gone to Rome as a free man

he had been used by God to accomplish

through his imprisonment.

We don’t know the details

of who he came in contact with

as a result of his imprisonment

and his approaching trial

and his preparation for his defense.

But we do have a little glimpse into the results.

All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household.

Do you ever wonder why God has chosen

to put you where He has put you?

Do you ever secretly

or maybe not so secretly

think maybe He just might have made some mistake?

Do you ever look at your abilities

or your gifts

and thought perhaps

if you had just been somewhere else

you could have been so much more effective?

Can you imagine how Paul must have felt

as he sat month after month after month

under house arrest in Rome,

knowing what he could be doing

if only he would have had his freedom?

And yet Paul understood

perhaps better than most of us ever will

that God’s ability to live through him

could never be hindered

by what other people chose to do to him.

And so, after two years under house arrest in Rome Paul could write,

...The brethren who are with me greet you...All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household.

And then, finally, Paul leaves us

right where we met him at the beginning of this letter.

Phil. 4:23 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Do you think those simply sound like nice, meaningless parting words,

sort of like signing a letter, “Sincerely Yours”?

There are no meaningless words in the Word of God.

In his final, closing phrase

Paul reminds us once again

of the one thing that has the power

to transform a human being.

It isn’t a confrontation

with the moral law of God.

We already know the standard all too well,

and we know, too, how far short of it we fall.

It isn’t a confrontation

with the threat of God’s judgement.

The nation of Israel

lived under that fear

throughout most of their existence

under the Old Covenant,

and it had no power to change their lives.

The one thing that has the power

to transform a human being

is our discovery of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ -

to discover that the One we have been running from,

and hiding from,

and terrified of our whole lives

is the One who loves us more deeply

than any one else ever has or ever will.

The book of Philippians contains

what I personally consider to be

the greatest single concise statement

of true Christianity

ever expressed

by any human being who has ever lived.

It describes better than I could ever hope to

how the human spirit responds

when God is finally able to communicate to us

the true nature of His grace

as offered to us through Christ.

I can think of no better way to conclude our study of this book

than by reading that passage for us once again.

Phil. 3:7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

Phil. 3:8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,

Phil. 3:9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,

Phil. 3:10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;

Phil. 3:11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Phil. 3:12 Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.

Phil. 3:13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,

Phil. 3:14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Phil. 4:23 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.