Download The word there is ecclesia. It means called out ones. They name the

Philippians 1:1-2
Pastor Kevin Koop
June 27, 2010
Do we believe that God is in control, or has He somehow lost control? When we expect things to go one way and
then they go a totally different way and it’s not just an unexpected way but it’s an undesired way, can we trust that
God’s in control, that He’s seated on the throne, that He will use it for our purposes, for our benefit, for our growth?
Can we trust in that and rest in that, or do we cry out to Him as though He doesn’t even know our problems. God,
did you know what happened to me this week? Duh! Do you ever think God uses that phrase? Maybe not. But I
think sometimes I deserve that response from God. Do you know Who you’re talking to, Kevin? I’m aware, and
I’m still in charge, and it’s gonna be okay. Trust Me. Trust Me.
Philippians, chapter 1. We’re gonna just take a look today at two verses—the opening two verses of this letter. So
let’s just begin by reading them. Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus
who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Dear God, as we take a look at this introduction, this opening to a letter that Paul wrote to the believers in this
church he founded, I pray that we would understand some of the message that even these two verses contain—that
we wouldn’t just brush over it as if it’s like a “hey, guys, how ya doin’” type of an opening, but that there’s meat and
there’s depth right here in these verses. And I pray that you would help us to understand what he’s saying here and
even the message of joy that he wants them to understand. Help us to apply it today. And I ask you, Lord God, to
help me convey the thoughts that are on my heart adequately by Your grace and Your empowerment. In Jesus’
name. Amen.
This letter, the letter to the Philippian church, is often called the epistle of joy, or the letter of joy. Epistle’s another
word for letter. It’s a religious word. We sound spiritual when we say “epistle.” It’s a letter. Twenty centuries ago
there was a man, an itinerant tentmaker. He traveled around making tents. His name was Paul. And he was tossed
into prison for creating a public disturbance. And he’s in prison, and he’s in Rome, and he takes the time—he
makes use of the time that he has while he’s in prison effectively by writing letters. This is one of those letters that
he wrote while in prison. He was waiting for a sentence. He was waiting for a trial, for a hearing, and for a decision
to be made about his case. And he didn’t want to waste his time.
The emperor of the day was Nero. Nero was popular at the time. Think about it in today’s terms. When
somebody’s popular, they’re often the one that kids get named after. Could you imagine naming your kid Nero
now? But in that day, that wouldn’t have been unlikely. That would have been, probably, a common thing. Do you
think many people at that time would name their kids Paul—after a prisoner? Probably not. Probably not. That
would be unlikely. What was Nero popular for? Persecuting Christians. Let me give you some examples of what
Nero did to persecute Christians. He often crucified Christians and when the crowd got bored he would light them
on fire. Sometimes he would wrap Christians in animal skins and then throw them to lions or to wild dogs so that
those animals, critters, would devour the Christians. And a really, really cruel thing that he did was a way of
mocking Christianity. He enjoyed dipping Christians in wax and then he would impale them on poles around his
palace and he would light them on fire and he would say “now, you’re the light of the world.” Is that sick? He was
the emperor. He was the emperor of Rome.
Something else about Nero: Nero was a writer. He wrote a lot. He wrote constantly. He loved to write and
enjoyed writing. However, nothing of his writing exists today. It’s all been destroyed. It’s all lost and fallen apart.
Why? Because his words were not words that carried any weight. His words were not words that last. Paul, on the
other hand—at the same time Nero may have been in his palace writing impressive things and wonderful things that
he thought everybody needed to hear—Paul was humbly penning a letter to the Philippian believers who were under
the persecution of a man like him, fearful of a man like him. And yet, the words of a prisoner remain to this day and
the words of an emperor do not. I find that interesting. I find that interesting. T. R. Glover put it this way: “Indeed
the time has come when people call their dogs Nero and their sons Paul.” Things have changed a little bit since that
day. Hmm.
In the midst of Nero’s reign, Paul was in prison in Rome and he writes the letter of joy. Isn’t that a contrast? He
doesn’t write talking about how bad Nero is or how bad his jail keepers are or anything like that. In fact, he’s really
. . . because he’s awaiting trial, he’s got a rented house, according to other parts of Scripture. He has to pay for it
himself. He even has to pay for his own guards. And this church, these believers in Philippi have sent a man named
Epaphroditus with a gift of support that he probably used to pay the rent and to pay for the guards that were
watching over him. But he didn’t write to complain about how bad things were as he awaited trial or about how bad
the leader was. He wrote to tell them to have joy. Hmm. Is that what we would do? Is that the way we would
respond in the face of such persecution?
We’ve been going through the book of Acts the last two weeks—that I have been preaching anyway. We were
looking in chapter 16 at how this church, that he’s writing to in this letter, started. Remember, Paul didn’t even want
to go there. He wasn’t planning to go there. He wanted to go to a place called, I think it was, Bithynia. And he
wanted to go there and the Spirit of God would not let him go there. Put a road block in his way and said nope,
that’s not where I want you to go. Then God gives Paul a dream, and in his dream there’s a Macedonian man.
Philippi is a leading city in Macedonia. There’s a Macedonian man crying for help saying please come help us.
And Paul understands that this is a message from God. God gave him a message in a dream and said this is where I
want you to go. So, what did they do? They got up and went. Paul, and he took along Silas, and Timothy was with
him, and also Luke who was the one who penned the book of Acts. And they traveled, they went there, and they got
there and they observed the city a little bit. Remember, that the city was a city (we talked about it) that was not very
friendly to Jews. Normally, when Paul would go into a new city he would go to the synagogue and he would find
out those who were really seeking after God and he would preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them. But when he
got to Philippi there wasn’t even a synagogue there. Probably wasn’t enough Jews to warrant there being a
synagogue there. And the atmosphere within the city was hostile to Judaism. We found that out because they could
make a quick accusation of Paul, who was a Jew, presenting ideas that were counter to their culture. And just based
on that accusation, they could throw him in jail because he was associated with the Jews. They didn’t like the Jews.
It was not a friendly place.
So instead of going to a synagogue, he finds a place by the river where Jewish believers would meet to pray. A
woman named Lydia is there and he presents the Gospel to her and she receives that Gospel. And her and her house
are baptized, becoming the first people to get saved in this new continent, this European continent—the first church
established there.
And then the Scripture, in Acts 16, went on and it tells us about this slave girl, a demon possessed slave girl, no less,
who is following around Paul talking about how Paul is a servant of the Most High God telling you how to be saved.
And she was speaking the truth, but it was a demonic message meant to undermine the credibility of Paul. And so
he cast the demon out of her. And this slave girl’s owner was making money off of her and didn’t like it; so he can
make an accusation against Paul and he had Paul thrown into jail. But this slave girl, set free from demonic
oppression, probably becomes the next member of the church, set free from Satan’s hold.
And then Paul and Silas are in jail and at midnight they’re there and they’re praising and singing to God in the midst
of this jail cell and they praise God and worship God stoically. Right? They stoically just kind of sang a humble
little song. No! They were praising God and worshipping God such that God’s presence filled the place and
Scripture abounds with references of God’s presence coming down and shaking the earth. And it shook that prison
and it shook those cells and the chains fell off and the doors flew open because they worshipped God with an
intensity and with a passion and they were not gonna be bound by chains. They were gonna worship God no matter
what. And the jailer rushes in, recognizing that the God that they’re singing to is bigger than any chains he’s in
charge of. The God that Paul and Silas are worshipping is bigger than Nero or anybody else—Caesar, anybody.
Paul’s God’s bigger. And he falls at Paul’s feet and he says, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul ministers the
Gospel to him. He becomes a believer. His family becomes believers. Paul baptizes them in the middle of the night
into the church at Philippi. And then this jailer nurses Paul’s wounds from the beatings. The church was founded.
And look at this group of believers, how diverse it is. This is the people that Paul was writing to in Philippians,
chapter 1. These are the people. These are the founding members. I could just see—he doesn’t record it here, but
just remember how it got started--remember what happened when we were here. They had memories together. This
was a personal letter.
Do you guys ever get mail that pretends to be personal when it’s not? They’ve got this computer program and it
kicks it out to I don’t know how many thousand people, and it’s got some program that pulls our name off of a list
somewhere and inserts it in just the right places to make it look like it’s a personal letter written to you. But you
look on the front of the envelope and it’s sent bulk mail. And you know that they don’t even know who you are. Or
the telephone calls that somebody gets and they want to address you personally as if they know you. In my house
it’s easy to tell those things because they ask for Mary. Anybody that knows my wife doesn’t call her Mary. That’s
her first name. It’s what’s on the documents. But if they know her they call her Annette. Right? They call her
Annette; that’s what she goes by.
This was a letter . . . this was not putting on a personality or trying to make it sound personal. It was personal
because he knew them personally. And it was personal because they knew him. It was a letter from a friend, a
personal letter. These were a strange group, somewhat motley crew—demon possessed slave girl, jailer and his
family, Lydia, perhaps some of the other people that worked in the prison, perhaps even some of the other prisoners
that heard Paul and Silas sing were a part of this group. And then they would have witnessed to others and would
have grown. This letter is written about twelve years later. The church has changed a little bit. They’re probably
not quite as motley as they used to be.
Aren’t we glad we’re not as motley as we used to be either? Right? God has changed us, from the time that we first
came to know Him until now. Anybody could look at our life and see what a difference it is. And when we first
give our life to Christ, somehow we think that we’ll never become as we should because all we can know is what
we’ve been all along and we don’t know the changing power of God to come upon us and to work within us and to
change us and develop us and shape us into who we’re going to be. We don’t know what that is, but God does. God
knows the end from the beginning. He knows what He’s shaping us to be.
They didn’t know at the beginning, this church, what they would become. But now some of them have become
leaders, they’ve become overseers of the church, deacons in the church, ministers in the church. God has gifted
them and equipped them. They’ve shed things that they didn’t think they could shed, sins that they didn’t think they
could break free from. They’ve broken free from them now. They’ve lived it for ten or twelve years in this church
and Paul writes to this group of people. They were the called out ones.
The word there is ecclesia. It means called out ones. They name the name of Christ. By the grace of God these
believers are shining in a dark place. They are to be the salt of the earth, this church, flavoring the earth, flavoring
the society within which they live, preserving it from judgment that would come because of sin. How do we do
that? By presenting the Gospel over and over and over, by being a light into our world.
In spite of their pasts, how various they were, all these different things—we don’t even know all of it—but there was
a lot of differences between all these groups, different socio-economic classes. And yet they were called out of the
world and into this central place where they were together to work for God, to work with God, and under the power
of God to accomplish God’s purposes in the world. There was to be a unity amongst them that was consistent and
strong. They were to be united together for a common purpose.
I want you to flip over a page in Philippians to chapter 2, verse 14, for a second. Short verse, just a few words. He
writes to these people and says: Do all things without grumbling or disputing. Why do you think he had to put
those words in there? Huh? Now, understand something. This letter is a letter with huge joyful overtones,
encouraging overtones. This is not a letter to rebuke the church—at all. Of all the letters that Paul ever wrote that
we have that are recorded, this is the most encouraging and uplifting letter that we have a copy of, that we know of.
Very, very encouraging all the way through.
But it doesn’t mean that there weren’t issues. There was some complaining going on. There was some grumbling
going on. I mean, here you are, you’re the church of the Living God. God is most powerful; God is awesome; He
sits on the throne. But yet you sit and you face the persecution that goes on day to day undermining what you
believe, and I think there might have been some grumbling there—some God-don’t-we-deserve-better-than-this type
of an attitude going on. God, if we’re your people, we should be treated better than this. Why are you letting this
happen? So there’s this kind of grumbling and murmuring or disputing going on. Disputing, not so much between
them and God, but between one another. That can happen when we don’t understand each other, we’re not in
harmony with one another. We see things from different perspectives.
There were two people in particular—if you flip over to chapter 4, verse 2—that I’d like to point out to you.
Chapter 4, verse 2 says: I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord. There was a dispute
between these two ladies in the church. Message, word, description—whatever—had come to him, probably
through Epaphroditus, or maybe somebody else in the church; and Paul was aware of a dispute going on between
these two ladies. He doesn’t take sides in the dispute. He doesn’t say what the dispute’s about. He just says look, I
urge you to come together and live in harmony. He named names in a letter that will be recorded throughout the
history . . . not even throughout the history of the world . . . forever. The Word of the Lord shall stand . . . for twelve
minutes? No. The Word of the Lord will stand forever. Recorded down forever are the names of these two people
‘cause they couldn’t get along in a church. How’d you like to be that—oh, you could have just beat around the bush
a little bit; did you have to name their names, Paul? So there’s contention. There are things going on in the church.
There’s grumbling perhaps about their position, and maybe they feel like they deserve better and they shouldn’t be
treated the way they are—as we can sometimes feel. And sometimes some of the people weren’t getting along with
each other.
Now think about this. Back to the beginning—Paul is imprisoned for preaching the Gospel, writing to a group of
people who are complaining and grumbling and can’t get along, and his message is Philippians 4:4—rejoice in the
Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice—and they think
Paul, you’re nuts! We can’t rejoice. But see, Paul was uniquely positioned to be able to speak those words. If it
was some other preacher traveling through with a message that everything in life was sugar coated and wonderful
and everything was going great and he would have preached rejoice, they’d have probably chucked rocks at him.
But Paul was in prison. They couldn’t say well, Paul, you don’t know how bad we have it. You don’t really know
what it’s like for us here. Yeah, I do! Been there, done that, still going through it, and I can still tell you rejoice in
the Lord always—I say it again, rejoice. That was the point of the letter. No matter how bad things are going, no
matter how dark things seem to get, rejoice in the Lord, rejoice.
How do you guys feel about that message? It’s a message we need. Is it an easy message, though? Is it an easy
word? Isn’t it easier to make excuses? Isn’t it easier to look at our circumstances and situation and say I don’t have
anything to rejoice about. Yeah, we do. Yes, we do. We have plenty to rejoice about. Let’s face it. Everything in
the world is not wonderful, is it? It’s not! I mean, we can look at our Bible and we can know that things are not
great in this world. Jesus promised that it would be that way.
We don’t have to be Christians to know that. Right? We can read the newspaper headlines and know that not
everything in our world is wonderful. There’s issues. There’s problems. We can know it from our own
experiences. We can know it from the Live at Eleven announcements on the news. We can look around at all kinds
of things and know that we live in a fallen world that’s filled with all kinds of problems. Every one of us are at least
to some point acquainted with some sort or some level of despair or depression, disappointment, dissatisfaction.
Dissatisfaction is huge. We are so dissatisfied with things that we will change from one thing to the next, to the
next, to the next to find some kind of satisfaction. Go to a bookstore—see how many self-help books you can find.
Go look up the words motivational speaker online and see how many sites there are. There’s a zillion of them. And
you know what keeps them going? The fact that there’s a zillion people looking for some kind of answer. And they
could go to a hundred of those conventions and still don’t have it, but they feel good at the end of it—for awhile.
They don’t have the Source of joy. They don’t have the Source of joy. They tell you to find it from within. I know
what’s in me—and it’s not a source of joy. What’s in me apart from Christ brings hurt and pain and destruction.
That’s what it does. But there is a Source of joy. Otherwise, Paul couldn’t make the statement rejoice in the Lord
always.
What are we looking for in life? I mean, you guys are church people, you’re Christians, you go to church and you
love God and you’ve given your life to Him and everything. And so when I say what are you looking for in life,
you’ll have a different answer than most people in the world. But if you just go and ask the average Joe on the street
what are they looking for in life, what do you think they’re gonna say? I just want to be . . . happy. Yeah, I didn’t
even have to finish it. You guys knew. That’s what they’ll tell ya. I just want to be happy. I don’t need to be rich.
I just want to be happy. Of course, riches can buy my happiness, so they think—right? So if I attain more of that,
maybe I can buy something more.
But think about the word “happiness.” Happiness. The word “hap” is short for happen or happenings. It’s
circumstance driven. It’s a feeling we get because circumstances are right. That’s what happiness is. Paul does not
write to these believers that are undergoing persecution while he’s in prison and say be happy in the Lord always.
Be happy in your circumstances. No. He says rejoice in the Lord always. Not rejoice in the Lord once in awhile,
not rejoice in the Lord when things get better, but rejoice. And he uses the word “rejoice” because rejoicing or joy
is totally different from happiness. If you’ve been around the doors of the church very long, you’ve heard that
before.
Joy and happiness do not mean the same thing. Joy and happiness are two different things. Happiness is
circumstantial. When our circumstances are good, we feel good. When circumstances are bad, we feel bad. But
when we’re out of control of our circumstances, circumstances then dictate how we feel and we’re on this emotional
roller coaster. I love roller coasters. I’ve talked about roller coasters before. They’re great. Upside down, no hands
no matter how fast they go, around the corner—I love it! But I don’t want my emotions to be that way. Hello? I
want some kind of stability. And, you know what, I don’t want to be around somebody that’s an emotional basket
case, either. I mean, people that are just flyin’ high and then they crash down below and suck the life out of you the
next moment—I hate that. Okay? And you guys are looking at me thinking “you do that.” I hope I don’t. And I
hope you don’t.
Circumstances. Maybe it’s our job—we don’t feel like our job is going the way that we want it to go.
Circumstances on the job are not pleasant, so what do we do? Find a new one. Maybe it’s just the money. I’ll find
somebody that’ll pay me a little bit more. That’s so temporal, isn’t it? It’s never gonna last. In our culture in our
day and age, maybe our spouse isn’t happy or the situation with our spouse isn’t very good. So what do we do?
Trade him or her in for a new one. Throw away spouses. Circumstantial. Make a commitment before God to . . .
Whether things are good, whether things are bad—throw them away, start again. Feelings are determined by
circumstances so we gotta change our circumstances to feel happy. Same thing goes for boyfriends and girlfriends
when we’re dating and maybe looking for a mate.
Possessions are other things. If we need some more possessions, we gotta find something. If we were honest we
would come to a conclusion much like Solomon. Now, you guys are smart; but there’s nobody in this room that’s as
wise as Solomon—according to Scripture. Right? Solomon—he said he chased after happiness through all kinds of
things—whether it was planting in a garden, whether it was different kinds of technology, whether it was wealth,
whether it was knowledge—all these kinds of things; and he came to the conclusion: meaningless, meaningless,
everything is meaningless, it’s like chasing after the wind. No matter what we chase after, it’s not gonna suffice, it’s
not gonna last.
So what is Paul talking about? If he’s not talking about happiness and he’s talking about joy, can joy be found?
Can joy be found? How do we get there? What’s the difference between joy and happiness? Somebody said
happiness is like a bar of soap in our hands—one minutes it’s there and the next minute it escapes our grasp and
disappears. I thought that was pretty funny. But joy is not circumstantial. It’s not here today and gone tomorrow.
Scripture commands us to be joyful. The word joyful is used in the New Testament over 150 times, either joyful or
rejoice, the noun or the verb tenses of the word. Joy is the theme of this letter. I’m writing from prison; you guys in
Philippi are imprisoned by the circumstances that you’re in and you can’t change those. You’ve got problems in the
church and people can’t get along, and you’ve got problems from outside the church because there’s persecution
coming against you, and I’m commanding you to rejoice. To rejoice.
Now, I read two verses and you’re like—how are you getting all this stuff on joy or happiness from these two
verses? Well, that’s the theme of the book; it’s on joy. And I want to relate to you for a moment how these two
verses give us a couple of keys, a few keys to joy. There’s a secret of joy that is listed in these verses. I’m gonna
read them to you again. Verses 1 and 2, chapter one: Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Christ Jesus, To all the
saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons: Grace to you and peace from God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And you’re like—Pastor, that didn’t even mention the word joy. I know. I
know. But I believe what is said in these verses and the way that he is saying it provides a key to some joy in our
life, how we can find it.
I think there’s three keys here. The way that I find those is in comparing what Paul was writing and the way that he
wrote and opened up his letter to what a conventional letter of the day would have been written like. And when you
compare the two you see some distinctions between them that illustrate or show how they intend to convey that we
can receive joy. Normal convention of the day would just simply state who was writing—Paul. He writes Paul and
Timothy, and I’ll cover that a little bit later, but this letter was not written by the two of them. He was including a
greeting from Timothy by saying that. Throughout the letter, if you read it and you read through it in its entirety,
you’ll find that he’s writing in the first person: I did this, I experienced this, whatever. He’s writing in the first
person. Okay? So it’s not a letter from Timothy, but he opens up . . . normally it would just say that.
But he doesn’t just mention his name and Timothy’s name, he does something a little bit different. He describes
them. How does he describe them? Servants, or in this translation it says bond-servants. Bond-servants. You
would expect to say . . . you know Paul, we know who Paul is; I mean, he’s up there. And we learned last week
from Glenn Meldrum that he’s not quite up there as much as John the Baptist was, but he and Moses are like right
there, right underneath . . . Okay, maybe we’re not supposed to rank people, and they probably wouldn’t want us to
do that. But that’s the way I think. Right? Man, he’s one of the big ones. You would expect that the letter would
say this is Saint Paul to the believers at Philippi. This is Saint Paul. Instead you get this is slave Paul to the saints at
Philippi. He lowers himself from the position that we hold Paul in. That high regard—he doesn’t hold himself in
such high regard; he lowers himself. I would suggest to you that that’s the first key to joy: putting other people
first, thinking of other people first. In the very outset of his letter he’s putting other people above himself. And
secondly, with that, he’s elevating other people instead of lowering them, because he calls them saints.
What do you think of when you hear the word saints? Anybody. What do you think of? New Orleans—football
team. Okay. Maybe for some. What else? Saints. You guys didn’t grow up in a Catholic community did you?
(indecipherable congregational input) Okay—you think of the main character. But you still are thinking of the
word saint as we would use the word saint. But if you grew up in a Catholic home, the word saint was something
besides just a believer in the church. Right? Okay, in New Mexico where we lived, as I’d get to go into different
people’s houses and in their yards, they had these things—we call them up upside-down bathtubs. They were a
shrine that they would have sticking up in their yard, and it looked like a bathtub to me, and they’d have an idol,
image, whatever, of Mary, or Our Lady of Guadalupe. And she would be in there and they’d have flowers there and
they’d go out and they’d say the rosary prayers and different things at these things. And if you go into their houses
they had . . . in the walls there would be like these little indentations or concave deals in the walls, and they would
have saints that they would put in them, the santos. They would put them in those little things. Their house was
protected if they had the saints there—and you’ve got to have the right one. I don’t even know which one’s for
which. There’s one that’s like the saint for travel and you put him on your dashboard of your car and he’s gonna
protect you as you travel. Or whatever. And there’s different ones for different things. There’s all these different
saints. That’s not the word Paul’s using here. Okay?
First of all, to be a saint in that aspect, the Catholic aspect, there are stringent requirements. Number one, you gotta
be dead. He’s not writing to dead people, I promise ya. He’s writing to people that are alive and well. Okay? And
he calls them saints. But to be a saint in the Catholic church tradition you gotta be dead. And then also you gotta
have like three confirmed miracles that you performed in order to be voted to sainthood which takes place. I mean, I
don’t even think that Mother Teresa is voted and elevated to that place yet. But I guarantee you she had a
relationship with God. Her doctrine may have been different than ours, but I know she had a relationship with God.
If we have a relationship with God, we are servants of God, the Scripture calls us saints. Saints. Now, please
understand, I’m not saying this to dig on another belief system. I’m addressing this to let us know that the word
saint is a completely appropriate name for believers—when the saints go marching in, it’s gonna be a great day. I
want to be a part of that number, marching in—saints.
But he elevates them to saints, and then he includes with the saints something else—including the overseers and the
deacons. Now, I find this kind of interesting because in several other letters Paul is writing to establish authority
and to put down a law or something like that. But he’s writing to this church because this church is pretty well
established, it’s got overseers and deacons, and he’s saying look, I’m not writing to you to overstep the people that
have been placed over you as leaders. In fact, I’m writing to you the saints and that includes all of the elders. And
he’s like elevating the elders to that place so that the believers in the church, the saints in the church, would look to
them for leadership instead of looking to him. Okay? He’s not saying look at me; he’s saying look what God’s
done in your midst—He has taken you, who used to live in darkness and walk in darkness, and He has made you a
saint. And some of you He has even made leaders in the church; and He has given you, the whole church, those
leaders to lead this body. Trust in your leaders. He’s elevating others and lowering himself.
That is a secret of joy. As long as we are elevating ourself, then, man, circumstances gotta change. I don’t like the
way you’re treating me so I’m gonna find somebody else that’s gonna treat me better. I don’t like the circumstance
that I’m in, so I’m gonna change that. Why? Because I’m God. But when we have a servant’s mindset and a
servant’s heart and we lower ourself and elevate others, then our circumstances don’t matter. Joy comes because we
elevate other people. And this can be seen also in a verse: Philippians, chapter 2, verse 3—look at it, synopsis of
the point I’m making here: Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one
another as more important than yourselves. And Paul did exactly that by example in his opening words to this
letter: Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Jesus Christ, to the saints in Philippi along with your leaders. Others
first—it’s a source of joy—others first.
There’s a third difference besides that, that naming just himself and so forth—there’s a third thing that he opens his
letter with that is a little bit different from the writing convention of the day. Normally, it would say, you know,
Paul, from Paul, greetings, hope all is well with you, hope things are going . . . that type of thing. That’s the way a
normal writer of the day would open up a letter. And instead he writes the things that we stated already and then he
says grace to you and peace from God our Father. Grace to you and peace. He changes greetings to grace. I don’t
know about you, but I think grace is a much more powerful word than greetings. Nothing wrong with the word
greetings. Grace to you. What is grace? What is grace? Unmerited favor—undeserved favor. Is he talking about
anybody’s undeserved favor? Undeserved favor from whom? From God. Grace from God. Undeserved favor
from God. Not just undeserved favor from a bond-servant, but undeserved favor from God. Grace to you. Grace to
you. And peace.
I think there’s two meanings to the word peace. Number one, Scripture talks about how we can have peace with
God because of the Gospel message. When the Gospel message comes, it declares that I am a sinner, that I need a
Savior, and whatnot. And when I receive that Gospel message and get into right relationship with God, I’m at peace
with God because of the Gospel. Okay, that’s one aspect of it. The other aspect is peace between one another.
We’ve already seen, as we looked ahead in the letter, that there are differences of opinion, disputes going on within
the church, people that are grumbling. We’re not at peace when we’re grumbling with each other. We’re not at
peace when we’re at odds with one another. The peace disappears. And he says grace to you and peace. Peace
doesn’t come, true peace, God’s peace doesn’t come without grace. It comes in a saving relationship with God and
that comes only through grace. How are we saved? By grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Right? So grace is the
beginning part and peace is the natural by-product.
Do we have peace? Do we have peace? He says you need to have peace. You ought to have peace. Grace saves us
and peace fills us. I believe if we are to experience joy in the midst of our circumstances, number one, we need to
be humble, lowering ourself and elevating others; and secondly, the source of joy is not circumstances, but it’s God.
Circumstances change. They go up and down. They change with the wind. They change with a new fad. They
change with a new technology or something that we want. Circumstantial. Happiness is circumstantial, but joy
comes from a Source. The Bible says He does not change. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever. He’s the
Source of grace and peace. Through these gifts we can have joy, we can walk in joy. What’s your source? What do
you look to?
I’m gonna go ahead and close there. I find one other thing that I want to point out as I do. This idea of Paul and
Timothy—why did he include Timothy there if Timothy wasn’t a writer? Why do you think? Well, they knew him.
He was there when Paul first founded the church, and that’s fine. But the indication is—Paul and Timothy writing
to you saints at Philippi and the overseers and elders—it almost wants to indicate that Timothy is a writer. I believe
what Paul is doing by including Timothy there is another way of elevating somebody else and lowering himself.
Instead of taking the place of pre-eminence—I’m the top dog here—he says hey, Paul and Timothy, we send you
greetings. He’s the old statesman. He’s walked with the Lord a long time. Timothy’s the young whippersnapper in
the church. And they’re yoked together for the cause of Christ—the old and the young. The old and the young.
Sometimes we think in the church that we compete for the church. You’ve got the stability of the elders and the
older ones that have walked with Christ and the wisdom that they have in walking with Christ for a long time. And
sometimes we feel like that’s in competition with the zeal of the young people. And I think Paul gives us an
example of the two coming together for the cause of Christ, shouldering the load together. We need the stability and
the faithfulness of the elder ones that have walked with the Lord through thick and thin and they’ve seen how God
has provided for their needs. We need them in the church, the ones who’ve learned how to pray and to sit at God’s
feet and to worship Him. But we also need the young who may be filled with passion and with fire and all these
kinds of things and get excited about things and in so doing they might fall down flat on their face from time to time.
But the church needs both. The church needs both. And they need to come together for the same cause.
I was reading through some commentary and notes and I want to read this quote to you about this Paul and Timothy
thing. He says, “Do you know why there are certain problems in some churches in our land today? It’s because the
young people want to rule the roost and they want everything their way. That causes a problem because it ostracizes
older people who have different tastes and different needs and different wants in the congregation. But the converse
of that is also another problem where the young people are ostracized and it’s the selfish needs and wants and tastes
of older people that are always given sway. Paul says that there will be this joyous harmony and peace and unity
when both of us, no matter whether we’re young or old, sacrifice our wants for the interests of others.” And then he
writes at the end of this, “Don’t argue with me. It’s there in the Book.” I don’t even know who that was.
Humility—key to joy. If life’s about me, I’m not gonna have any joy, ‘cause I’m always gonna be looking for other
people to give it to me. But if we can begin to elevate others and serve others, there’s a joy that comes from that and
God is the Source. Does that make sense? It’s not circumstance, it’s not whether we’re in prison, it’s not whether
we have bad things or good things happening, it’s God and our relationship with Him. Alright?
Let’s bow in prayer. Worship team, would you come and we’ll get ready to close out today. Father God, I thank
You for this day. Thank You for some simple truths in a few short verses. Father, I pray that we as a body would
emulate that. I pray that we would be in the habit of elevating other people, lowering ourself. Father, I pray more
than that that we would elevate You, that You would be central in our lives, in our minds, in our church, in our
focus, in our vision, that You would be central and You would be elevated—we would be servants of the Most High
God and serving one another as well. Father, I pray for Your grace and Your peace to flow in this place through our
body that we may experience the joy that comes from You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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