| |
October 19, 2003 |
"Philippians Series |
Pastor Brian Shimer
| |
"KNOWING HIM, KNOWING JOY"
Philippians 1: 1-3
| I.
|
It was our first anniversary. We did not have any money, but I wanted to take
| |
Karen somewhere special. So, we saved our pennies, and drove north to
the Santa Cruz area where my grandparents had a cabin at Mt Herman. I had grown up going there as a kid. It was a place that held rose-colored, wonderful memories of lounging in the sun, taking icecold showers in the outdoor shower, walking on the trails, finding salamanders at the creek. It had been a paradise and only a few minutes from the Boardwalk amusement park!
My mom got the key to us, and we drove from Santa Barbara up to the cabin. There was a sparkle in my eye-- this was going to be a romantic adventure! What I did not know is that no one had visited the cabin for over a year. Well, it had not been visited by people but had been the haven to a family of mice. So when we arrived, we opened the door to dust and mouse dirt everywhere -- throughout the shelves in the kitchen, on plates, in glasses, everywhere. It took four hours to clean the one room cabin. Then, we heated up the soup we had brought with us for that night and had forgotten it had caraway seed in it. The swelled caraway looked suspiciously like what we had been cleaning up all afternoon. I tried steaming rolls and they fell into the pan of boiling water. The night came in, the bedroom was off the back of the cabin, on stilts above the steep hillside. Karen did not find one aspect of this place romantic -- rather it was frightening. We were exhausted. The sparkle had definitely dimmed as I just tried to comfort my wife. The weekend moved from romance to sheer survival.
Do circumstances impact your feelings? Can the day take a definite dive when…
The boss wants to talk?
The principal calls you to her office?
Red lights flash in your rearview mirror?
Clouds roll in or the sun breaks through?
Events, circumstances and feelings can travel together in our lives.
Our experience of joy can be inhibited by the events of the day. And sometimes those events can be experienced like storms.
In storms in nature, all birds take to cover. They seek their nests. But this is not true for eagles. They are the only birds that do not shrink from storms. Instead, when a storm is rolling in, and other birds take to their nests, the eagle takes to the skies. The eagle laughs at storms, so to speak. The high winds send them joyously soaring. Do you think God had this kind of picture in mind when he wrote through the prophet Isaiah of those who put their hope in the Lord: "they will mount up on wings like eagles…"? I do.
| | II.
|
And Paul, who wrote the letter to the Philippians, is one who has eagle's wings.
| |
This little book to the church in Philippi radiates with the joy he felt for them. He loves them, he prays for them with joy, his heart is filled with rejoicing, he sees them as partners in the gospel with him. He says: "I rejoice and I'll continue to rejoice" (1:18).
What has Paul so happy?
A. Not his circumstances: Paul is writing from prison in Rome. He is chained to a guard 24/7. He gets different guards, and in this way is able to win many to the faith. He is awaiting trial and within two years of the date of this letter will be executed. So his circumstances do not invite joy.
B. Not the Christians around him. Paul loves some of those nearby him, but others wanting to have a name like Paul's, take his imprisonment as an opportunity to get known in the Christian world. They are sharing the gospel for wrong motives. They want to hurt Paul in the process. Others are bold because of his imprisonment and share the Gospel for the right reasons.
Paul rejoices just because the Gospel is being shared.
C. Not because he knows his life will be spared. But the possibility of death is a win-win situation in Paul's book. Either he stays and serves Jesus on earth, or he dies and goes to be with Jesus in heaven. Either way, Paul would say, he wins!
D. Not his past achievements. Paul has an impressive list of accomplishments. He is of the tribe of Benjamin -- the only of two tribes which stayed loyal to the Lord when the kingdom divided in two. He is a speaker of the Hebrew language, when many Jewish people in his era spoke only Greek or Latin. He was a Pharisee -- this is the strictest of sects in Judaism. Paul lived a faultless life -- according to strict regimen he kept the whole law. And he was zealous for the Lord -- battling the church, which he believed a heresy-- something he later was ashamed of.
E. And not because he has not had to suffer -- indeed there are few people who had suffered as much as Paul, who had been in jail, beaten up, nearly died again and again. He'd been flogged with 39 lashes 5 times; beaten by roman rods three times; stoned once and left for dead; shipwrecked three times; in the open sea for a night and a day; traveled through all kinds of weather year in and out; forded rivers; fended off robbers. Paul had been through more tough times than anyone, yet still had joy.
No there is some other reason for his joy, that irrepressible joy that leaps off the page and it is found in the first verse:
| | III.
|
"Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus…"
| |
Paul found his joy in relationship to Jesus.
Jesus was not a religious thing for Paul -- he had done religion for years and it left him empty. No Jesus was instead a personal friendship.
He calls himself and Timothy servants of Christ Jesus.
The word he used refers to the lowest form of servitude. It can also be translated slave. A servant may be able to come and go at whim, but a slave has been bought by his master. By calling himself a slave of Christ Jesus he is saying at least three things:
A. First, Paul is reminding them and us that he is the absolute possession of Jesus. The word "slave" recognizes that Jesus has bought him with his own precious blood, and that Paul can never belong to anyone but Christ. This speaks of the deep intimacy with Jesus Paul experienced. Jesus had bought him with the price of His own blood. Paul was immersed in the
reality of Jesus. This relationship was a sure thing no matter the circumstances
B. Second, Paul uses the word "servant" or "slave" for he owes an absolute obedience to Christ Jesus. The slave has no will of his own; his master's will must be his will, and his master's decisions must regulate his life.
Paul demonstrated this obedience always, but especially in relation to his first visit to Philippi described in Acts 16.
Paul was in Troas and had a vision in the night, Scripture tells us of a man calling to him, pleading: "come over to Macedonia and help us!" This Paul and his companions came from the Lord, so they traveled there immediately. The master had said: "come!"
Once there, they shared the gospel with some Jewish women by a river, and one of them, Lydia, a wealthy merchant converted. She invited them to her home, which became the young church's meeting place. Then Paul cast a demon out of a slave girl, which threw the city into an uproar. Paul and Silas were stripped, beaten, severely flogged, and thrown into jail. What storm clouds! They were not just placed in an ordinary cell, but were placed in the "inner" cell -- located down in a pit beneath the floor. And there they were placed in stocks. Bloody, beaten, forsaken, in the midnight hours, they praised God! They practiced soaring!
They sang from those stocks -- people were being converted, the city was in an uproar because of Jesus. Even in pain and suffering, they could rejoice. An earthquake followed and the jailer came to Christ. Freed from the kingdom of darkness, he and his family were baptized into the Kingdom of God.
C. Third, the use of servant or slave is comparable to the Old Testament regular title of the prophets as the servants of the Lord. That is the title which is given to Moses, to Joshua, and to David. The highest of all titles of honor is servant of God; and when Paul takes this title, he humbly places himself in the succession of the prophets. The Christian's slavery to Jesus Christ is no cringing and abject subjection. As an old latin phrase says, "To be His slave is to be a king.". (Wm Barclay, Philippians, p 12).
So Paul had never been freer as when he turned over his life to Jesus. What joy there was founded upon the relationship in Jesus, which could not be shaken by any degree of suffering. This is what Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians when he said in chapter four of the Second letter: "We've been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we're not demoralized; we're not sure what to do, be we know that God knows what to do; we've been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn't left our side; we've been thrown down, but we haven't broken. What they did to Jesus they do to us-- trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us-- he lives!" With this truth ringing in his heart, Paul writes to the Christians in Philippi.
| | IV.
|
They were the "saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi."
| |
A. The word "saint" in the New Testament does not mean a person canonized by the Roman Catholic church and declared to have achieved sainthood. No in the Bible a saint is a person who has committed himself or herself to Jesus. The word means "holy one." To be holy is to be set apart. It is to be a person who is different than those around them. Our difference begins as we are born again and then begins to show as we live that life.
B. To be "in Christ" can be compared to a bird living in the air, a fish in water or
roots in soil. This is where the pervasive truth in life is Jesus and everything is experienced through Him. Being "in Christ" is all that mattered. It is part of that relationship he had which gave him his "eagle wings".
The Old Testament character David lived his life in the atmosphere and experience of God. He was called a man after God's own heart. David experienced God wherever he was, even when fleeing from Saul. God was his rock, his fortress, his strong refuge when hiding in the wilderness. In this day, David would possibly call God: "car, house, home, bedroom, office, etc". David might be saying: "Lord you are this floor beneath my feet. I am surrounded by the walls of your grace. I praise you for you have rescued me from darkness and brought me into your Son!"
| | V.
|
Paul like David saw God involved in every event in his life too.
| |
He lived in that atmosphere. A storm means he need only spread his wings and soar.
As we study this book I am praying you and I can be granted wings and soar too.
For the storm clouds and storms come day by day -- in ways small and large. But I want to be one of those eagles that takes to flight rather than shrinking from the winds.
Is anyone here in a storm, unable to soar? Could I pray with you?
Come to the Lord. Come to the fount. Receive prayer.
|
|
|