Philippians 1:1-5
The following is a lightly edited transcript and may contain errors.
Contents
Make Other Believers a Key Part of Your Life
Consider Yourself a Servant
Slaves of Righteousness
Make Jesus the Center of Your Life
Closing Prayer
Good morning. How’s everyone doing? Good to see you all. The kids can head to class. And we’re going to begin in the book of Philippians. You can turn to Philippians. All right, Philippians chapter 1, starting in verse 1.
Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:1–6)
[audio unclear] “and then the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.” Let’s pray.
Father, we enter into your presence this morning and we acknowledge your voice. We acknowledge your power, your might. We acknowledge your grace and mercy which you extend to any who come before you, Lord. We thank you, God, that you are gracious even to unbelievers. Lord, we pray as Easter is coming up that you would use this time of season to bring many, many people to different churches across this nation and this world to hear your gospel, that many, many would come to know you next Sunday, God, that the gospel would go forth in power and in might. Lord, I pray that as we’re working through the book of Philippians, you would make our heart tender to what this word says, and that we would receive it, and we would act on it. And we thank you, Father, that we have a fellowship with you, and a fellowship with other believers. May we enjoy that fellowship, may we relish it, and may it be for your glory. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
All right, think for a second about most sermons. They really have, I’d say, three key things that are happening. One is there’s a focus, and maybe part of it’s application, but really it’s also the exegesis, and kind of tell them what the text is, but it’s you. Like, what does this mean for you? How do you apply it to your life? So there’s a focus where you look at yourself and how do you treat yourself. But there’s also a focus where you look at how do you treat others. So when the sermon is being given, there’s also, hey, how does this apply in my relationship to other people? How do I look at them? How am I supposed to perceive my brother? How am I supposed to perceive the unbeliever, but then also how do I treat them? But the same is true also of God. So as the text is being expounded, you should be doing two things that are occurring with God. One is how are you looking at him? Is your view of him being sharpened? Are you seeing him more clearly? Is it being brought out from the text, hey, this is who God is? So his character, his attributes, those should be clearly seen. And then also, how am I supposed to treat or interact with the Lord? Ultimately, you will see that over and over again. When we talk about looking at, it’s really more like the nature or being. How do I look at myself? How do I look at others? How do I look at God? We’re talking about like the nature of the thing or the being of the thing. How should I view myself? How should I view others? How should I view God? That’s really what it’s getting at. But then when we talk about treating, that kind of goes to action and interaction. So what is my responsibility to myself? You actually have a responsibility to yourself. What is my responsibility to others, and what is my responsibility to God? All of those things you should see. Maybe certain sermons might bring out particular things a little more strongly. There might be more of an emphasis on you. There might be more of an emphasis on others. There might be more of an emphasis on God in a particular sermon, but over time you should see that repeatedly occurring. What is the text saying about me? What is the text saying about others? What is the text saying about God? We’re going to see really those three aspects today, and we’re going to see an encouragement first on making others, making other believers, let’s say, making other believers a key part of your life. And we’re going to see each of these three brought out in the text before us today.
Make Other Believers a Key Part of Your Life
So make other believers a key part of your life. That’s my first point. As I said last week, the purpose of Philippians is a thank-you letter for the financial gift that the Philippian church had sent to Paul. Look in verse 5. He says, “because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.” Now that word partnership, that’s that word koinonia. We talked a little bit about it last week. So when we talk about partnership, we’re going to see what’s key to partnership, or key to fellowship. You can call it fellowship if you want. And one is a lot of times there’s a financial aspect to it. And then two, fellowship is with believers. So that’s how he begins the letter. I’m thanking you. I’m thanking you in part because we have this partnership. What is the partnership? Like you’ve partnered with me to send me to be an apostle and to plant churches is really what it boils down to. That’s how he begins it. But then look how he ends it as well. Chapter 4. You yourselves also know, verse 15,
And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. (Philippians 4:15–18)
All right, so he begins with that fellowship concept, he wraps it up. So he’s thanking the Philippians, acknowledging the gift and letting them know that it’s been received and it’s done its work. And then he uses a couple chapters in between to kind of exhort them, encourage them, and make maybe one minor correction for them. Here’s the point. Paul saw the importance of others. He saw the importance of others. Not just their value, but the importance of having them in his life. So he knew they were valuable and vital. He knew they were created in the image of God. But he also knew relationships with them were valuable and vital. And think about this for a second. Like he’s an apostle. Does he really need other people? Well, yes, the answer is he does. He needs others. And you’re like, well, he’s an apostle. He’s an apostle, yet he’s not actually distant from people. You think of this book and what we just read here in the first couple of verses, even in Thessalonians you see his heart, Corinthians you see it. Some of the letters maybe, maybe not as clear. But those letters, I really [audio unclear] He doesn’t lord it over people and he doesn’t use that as an excuse not to fellowship with those people. He’s not distant from the people. And even though he’s an apostle, he draws close to people. He doesn’t let the office. He doesn’t let his station in life. He doesn’t let his circumstances hold him back. Listen, if you want it easy in the Christian life, then just hold back and pull back from people. That’s easy. Don’t get to know anyone. Don’t put yourself out there. If you do that, you’ll rarely get burned. It’s true. But you’ll rarely get blessed. And you’ll miss out on what God has for you. I believe a lot of people miss this concept of fellowship. Everyone knows the fellowship. Everyone knows what that means. Everyone maybe even knows that Greek word, koinonia, it’s one of the few they probably know. But in terms of actually practicing it, I think a lot of people fall short. And it’s easy to just kind of do the church thing and give your 90 minutes or 60 minutes or 120 minutes and then just kind of check out. We’re made. God has made us for community with one another. He’s made us for community. He’s made us for community with him, but even within the Godhead there is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They have [audio unclear] with other believers. We see Paul doing this in his letter, we see him doing it, even when he says in verse 7, “it is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart.” This is someone who is very much invested in the relationships at the church of Philippi. He’s vested and he wants to continue to nurture that relationship. [audio unclear]
Do those commands if you’re not in fellowship with others? Like to actually walk out the one-another commands, I forget how many of them there are, there’s a lot. But to walk those out, it presupposes that you’re around other people. Not just from a distance, but some of those commands, some of the horizontal commands, like they’re kind of challenging. But to walk them out, it presupposes that you’re around people. So if we want to walk out the word, yes, we have to be in fellowship with one another. Notice at the very beginning of Philippians, he actually calls out not just the saints, so verse 1, “to all the saints,” but then he goes on, “in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and the deacons.” So you have the office of apostle, but then here he specifically, you could translate that “elders” if you wanted to. There’s just two offices when it comes to the church. You read some of these critical scholars and they try to argue. You get to books like 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy. What we see here is this was instituted very early in the life of the church. We’re talking like 50s, 60s when this letter was written. Well, the letter’s written so the church has already been established. So you have to back up even before that, a year or two maybe. And what do we see? Already in the church, there’s a church structure. That we have deacons and we have elders. A lot of us call them pastors today. The terms are synonymous. But you have these two offices. And listen, a biblical church is going to have these two offices. They’re going to have these two offices. They’re not going to make up their own offices. No, they’re going to have two offices and that’s what they’re going to have. You don’t see Paul talk about apostles to any of the churches. Why? Because that was an office that was for a specific time in a specific season. That office is no longer existing. Some people, you know, try to claim that title. That’s a very scary title to claim in my opinion. It’s scary enough to claim the title pastor, quite honestly. But we only see two offices. You go to 1 Timothy, that’s like the book that kind of lays out, hey, Timothy, I’m kind of delayed in getting to you. Here’s how to set up the church. Does he talk about apostles? No, this is how many times he talks about apostles: zero. But he talks about elders a whole lot. He talks about deacons a whole lot, and he’s like, here’s the qualifications for the elders, here’s the qualifications for the deacons. So it’s important for churches to have those two offices. Paul calling them out specifically, not in a negative way, but just acknowledging them. Maybe some have speculated maybe in part because he is thanking them for the financial gift and it would have been something that the leaders of the church would have been overseeing in some form or fashion, just like churches do today. But it doesn’t have this office of apostle, and I want you to notice that Paul identifies himself here as a servant. “Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus.”
Consider Yourself a Servant
Now, not in all letters, but in a few of the letters. I mean, this is how he starts. Now, in some letters, you’re right, he does identify himself as an apostle. But why does he do servant here? Part of what we’re seeing and what we will see is he’s saying, hey, I’m a servant, look how I’m serving, and then follow my lead. I’m setting the example. It also means you’re a servant, which means you’re called to serve. If I’m a servant, then you’re a servant. It’s not an office, per se. It’s actually a different word than that word deacon. So when we have that word servant, now, if we were kind of being honest, probably the best word to translate it would be slave. And [audio unclear] is this. Paul knew when to use it and when not to use it when it came to his apostolic office. He knew when to use that office and he didn’t [audio unclear] everything you have. Like, well, you know, I really did work hard for that bachelor’s degree or that master’s degree. Like that’s true, but the intellect comes from the Lord. He could have given you, you know, 10, 15, 20, 50 points lower IQ. He could have given you 10, 15 points, 50 points higher IQ, but he didn’t. So even those things, yes, you had effort there, but that blessing comes from the Lord. Your ability to have intellect and to be able to earn a degree, that’s from the Lord. Your ability to know how different things work and be really good with working with your hands, that comes from the Lord. All these things come from the Lord. So we don’t want to flaunt those things. We don’t ever see Paul doing that. He doesn’t flaunt it. If he’s using it, he’s using it for a reason, usually to exert his authority in a particular situation. So, one more point I want to make in regards to this fellowship. It has to be grounded in the gospel. Look what he says in verse 5, “because of your partnership,” and here’s the key, “in the gospel.” So the gospel is what allows true fellowship to occur. If you don’t have the gospel, guess what? You can’t have fellowship. You can’t have fellowship. Can you be friends with unbelievers? Sure, and you should be, but no gospel, no fellowship. Can you have fellowship with them? You can’t. You can hang out with them. You can go to the movies with them. Have them over for dinner. You can sit with them at your kids’ baseball game, but it’s not fellowship, not in the biblical sense. To talk about true fellowship, there has to be the gospel, which means there has to be Jesus present. Jesus has to be there. So when I’m talking about fellowship, this entire time and this entire letter, you’re going to see that a little bit more. Paul will bring it out just a little bit here. But a lot of this is about horizontal fellowship. If Paul didn’t have the relationship with the Philippians, he would have been missing a lot, and he recognizes that, not just the financial help, but the relationship. You know, so he’s an apostle and he’s a church planter and he plants all these different churches. But he doesn’t leave these believers to just flounder. He stays connected to them. He wants to see them grow in their sanctification. So what does he do? He ministers. Sometimes if he can’t make it, what does he do? He sends someone else. Colossians, he sends someone else. If he can’t be there, he sends someone else. Or what does the church do, the receiving church? They send someone to him, like Epaphroditus here. So very much connected, brothers and sisters, I want to encourage you when it comes to this topic of fellowship to take it to heart and realize you need your brothers and sisters in Christ. A lot of people maybe realize that, but it doesn’t come out really clear until they’re really in maybe a crisis situation or a tragedy has occurred. And then what happens? Well, hopefully, prayerfully, they see the body of Christ step up and minister to them. But as those relationships are there, it makes it a lot more feasible and possible for that to occur. We were, this is real recent. I’ll say it for a different time. But fellowship is very important. What’s going to aid you in your fellowship? Your approach and how you think about it. Because one, it’s not about you. So what do you need to do? You need to do the very thing that Paul did, and you need to consider yourself a servant. You are a servant. Are you a child of God? Absolutely. Are you a servant of Christ? Absolutely. If you take that attitude, it’s the same attitude that Jesus took, as we’re going to see in Philippians 2. But if you take that attitude, what are you going to do? You’re going to consider others’ interests above your own. You’re going to see the importance of others. You’re not going to have that lone-ranger mentality that’s like, I can do this. Now you’re going to welcome others into your life. You should be at a point, or come to a point, or realize that you need to come to a point, that if you don’t have others in your life, you’re missing out. Other brothers and sisters who can speak into you, challenge you, encourage you, walk with life with you. It’s a huge blessing. So one of the ways you help do that and put yourself into position is, you make yourself a servant. Now you are a servant, but will you follow it out and act like a servant? What does the servant do? He serves, right? Wherever, wherever the Lord tells him to, wherever he points him to.
So Paul saw himself as the servant, this great apostle who wrote how many letters in the New Testament, yet he identifies as a servant. And brothers and sisters, like this is what our Savior did. Turn one chapter over to Philippians 2. Verse 5: “Have this mind among yourselves”—so we’re being commanded. “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” It’s the same word, the word that Paul uses to describe himself. So what does Jesus do? He takes the form of a servant. You have the same position that your Master took when he took on flesh. He was a slave. You are a slave. A slave to what? Well, let’s look at a couple places where it talks about what we’re slaves to. Let’s look at, hold your book earlier, Ephesians 6. So here we get the command, verse 5, Ephesians 6:
Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. (Ephesians 6:5–8)
So, I mean, the passage starts in verse 5. He’s giving a command to the slaves, but he plays off that same term there, and he’s like, yes, you are currently slaves, right? What are they called to do? Obey your earthly masters. And then what does it say? But as servants of Christ, you’re not supposed to do it as a way of eye-service, not as a people-pleaser, but as a bondservant of Christ. You’re a slave of Christ. So what does that look like? Doing the will of God. I mean, it’s laid out right there for you to read. Doing the will of God from the heart, verse 6, with a good will as to the Lord and not to man. So, I mean, we’re slaves of Christ, and we have these commands. How are we supposed to, we’re not supposed to be doing it with eye-service either or as people-pleasers. We’re not concerned about trying to do this in the sight of men for the praise of men. You do that, what happens? Like you have your reward in full, right? But that’s more external. God’s concerned about the heart. If this is set right, then it produces good things. It’s going to produce the fruit of the Spirit, not the weeds of the devil. So we’re supposed to, verse 7, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man. We are slaves of Christ. We see something similar. Look at Colossians 3. Again, this is the context of service. Colossians 3:23, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” Right? Well, why? I mean, because we’re servants and we want to be faithful servants. Wherever the Lord plants us, at our job, at our home, at our church, in society, wherever the Lord plants us. We want to be faithful. So “whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” So yes, you’re going, you know, God’s blessed you with a job and you’re going there and very likely there’s bosses over you, right? But they’re not your ultimate boss. You have an ultimate boss. You have an ultimate master. It’s Jesus. So you’re serving them, but really, you’re serving him. And even in the context of your family, like you’re serving, the wife is serving the husband, the husband is serving the wife, right? Even the parents are serving the children. The children should serve the parents. But I mean, there’s some mutuality there. But why? Because ultimately, that’s not who you’re serving, not ultimately. But you can serve them. You can serve them in spite of all their sin, in spite of all the things that they’ve done, you can serve them because ultimately you’re not serving them, you’re serving Christ. Your service to them shows a sign of your service to Christ. And as you serve them, you’re ultimately serving him. Look, he makes that real clear, right? Even as you do unto the least of these, what does he say? What does he say? You’ve done it unto me, right? So, I mean, you’re serving people, but ultimately you’re serving Jesus. One more passage, let’s look at it, 1 Peter 2. So he starts out verse 13, 1 Peter 2:
Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. (1 Peter 2:13–16)
Right? So live as people who are free, and in that same breath he’s saying, but live as servants of God. So, I mean, live freely in what ways? In the ways that God’s called you to? Into that horizontal relationship, into the vertical relationship. Walk those commands out vertically and horizontally. How? Living as servants, or slaves if you want, as servants of Christ.
Slaves of Righteousness
And if we’re slaves to Jesus, then that means that we’re slaves to righteousness. We’re not slaves to sin, 1 Corinthians 6. No, we’re slaves to righteousness. And Paul brings this out in Romans. Let’s look at Romans briefly. Romans 6. Verse 15, Romans 6, [audio unclear] “death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.” Why aren’t we slaves to sin anymore? Because Christ has set us free. Right? So we’re not slaves to sin, but we’re going to be slaves to something. So not slaves to sin, but that means we’re slaves to righteousness. But what does that mean practically? Like we’re going to work towards being more and more sanctified. We’re going to work towards being more and more like Jesus. We’re going to see things in our lives, and we’re going to realize that either it does honor the Lord or it doesn’t honor the Lord. And if it doesn’t honor the Lord, we’re going to work to change, because why? We’re not a slave to sin anymore. If you’ve got sin in your life, it’s like you’re living backwards. You’re living upside down, because why? We’re a slave to righteousness. He goes on, “thanks be to God,” verse 17, “that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” Do you realize you’ve been set free from sin? I mean, seriously, but sometimes I talk to people and it’s like they’re just putting the chains of sin back on. They’re like they want to go back to Egypt. What’s in Egypt? Death, suffering. People want to go back to Egypt. No, you’re not a slave to sin anymore. You, verse 18, some of you just need to underline that. You’ve been set free from sin. You’ve been set free from sin. You don’t have to choose sin anymore. You don’t have to do it. You’ve been set free from it. You put yourself under bondage to sin again. It’s like you’re leading a double life. Truly. Why? Because you’ve been set free. It’s like you’re taking the shackles and you’re putting them back on. He goes on, verse 19, “I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.” Like that’s the goal. You’re a slave to righteousness which leads to sanctification. You should be growing and growing and growing. If you’re a believer, you should be growing in your relationship with the Lord. You should be growing. Well, guess what? Once a week here, hearing my sermons, I know they’re great and all, but I mean once a week here, that’s not going to cut it. It’s just not going to cut it. I mean, it’s good. You should hear it. You should be here. Make a commitment to be here, but that’s not going to cut it, especially if it’s 45 minutes here and then hours of TV and hours of social media, I mean, whatever you’re doing with your time. It’s not going to cut it. If you’re a slave to righteousness, then act like it. If you’re a slave to sin, you’re going to do sinful things. If you’re a slave to righteousness, you’re going to do righteous things. And you’re going to put yourself in a position to do those righteous things. So that’s going to affect how you order your life. It’s going to affect the things that you do, and it’s going to affect the things that you don’t do. So he goes on. Verse 20, “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.” It’s like, you know, you’re free from the righteousness. I mean, you didn’t have any. And all you knew to do was sin. That’s what sinners do. They sin, they’re great at it. They get passing grades all the time, A-plus, all right? But that’s not us anymore. We’ve been set free from it. Verse 22, “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.” Like the unbeliever has fruit, so to speak. It’s bad fruit. You could call it weeds, the weeds of the devil. But the unbeliever produces stuff. It’s unrighteousness. It doesn’t glorify the Lord. But what do we do? We see here, we get the fruit, verse 22, that leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. Earlier in the verse, you have been set free from sin. You’ve been set free. Been set free. Some of you, again, need to remind yourself of that. Sin has no hold on you. You might act like sin has a hold on you. It has no hold on you. You’ve been set free. Any sin, you’ve been set free. Now, you might not be experiencing that freedom, but I’m telling you, this word is true. You’ve been set free. You might need someone to come and hold your hand and help you experience that freedom and the enjoyment of it, but I’m telling you, you’ve been set free. And any sin, regardless of what it is, any sin, any sin, the chains can be broken. In fact, they have been broken. You might just be still thinking they’re there. I’m telling you, I’m just reading the word and showing you what it says. The chains have been broken. Galatians, just hold your place here because we’re going to come back, but just look what it says in Galatians. Galatians 5, “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” So here he’s like, Christ has set us free. Free from what? Free from sin. He said, but what are we free to do? Sin some more. Oh, duh. That’s why he says, “Stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Like if, yeah, if you have some addiction, if you have some habitual sin, that’s what you’ve done. You’ve submitted yourself again to a yoke of slavery. Mike, how stupid is that? It doesn’t make sense. You’re living contrary to the very thing Christ has done for you. But I’m letting you know, you don’t have to continue walking that way. Whatever the addiction, whatever the habitual sin, you can be freed from it. You have the power and it’s not like it needs to be given to you. You have the power. You have the strength. Yeah, do you need some brothers and sisters? Oh yes, you do. Why? There’s that word fellowship again. You need brothers and sisters coming along and helping you out sometimes. You dig a big enough hole, a deep enough hole, [audio unclear] to get that rope down to you and help you climb out. That’s what you need. But it’s possible. And that’s part of the reason you have brothers and sisters in Christ. That’s part of the reason that fellowship is there. You can go to your brother, you can go to your sister and be like, hey, I’m struggling, help me out with this. And many people have, and they’ve been freed. Hallelujah, amen. Totally, completely, entirely. Back in Romans, that fruit, verse 22, leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. And then we get this verse, we’ve all heard a lot, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” But everything that we’ve said leads up to this verse 23, wages of sin is death. Yeah, that’s what we’ve earned, our wages. That’s what we’ve earned is death. But what does God do? It’s this free gift of eternal life. Where is it found? In Christ Jesus. Who is he? He’s our Lord. All of this stuff ties together. We’re the servants. He’s the Lord. He’s our master. So we come and we submit unto him. So if Christ is our Lord, we’re his slaves. And to be called servants of the Lord, listen, it’s a distinction in the history of God’s people. So you look at that word, even in the Old Testament, you can just listen to these verses, but Moses was called a servant. In Nehemiah 10, it says that God’s law that was given by Moses, the servant of God. David was called a servant. Psalm 89, “I have found David, my servant.” Joshua was called the servant. “After these things, Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died.” Jonah was called the servant, 2 Kings 14. “He restored the border of Israel according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the prophet.” We’re in good company to identify as servants, how God’s people have been seen. But what does that mean? It means that we are at the total disposal of our master. He wants us to do something, he can ask us to do it. In fact, he doesn’t have to really ask, he commands us to do it. And what do we do? Yes. That’s our response, yes. He asks or he commands and we do it. It’s not too much of us to think of ourselves as servants. Here’s what one author said: “The title of servants for himself and Timothy points to Paul’s view of relationships in Christ. When believers in Christ freely and joyfully accept the position of servants of Christ, they will be united and effective in service. Relationships are ruined by envy, rivalry, and selfish ambition, but they will thrive when friends humbly serve each other before looking out for their own interests.” And of course this brings a measure of humility. It’s good to be reminded of our position, and it should bring humility, which Paul is going to discuss later in the letter.
Make Jesus the Center of Your Life
Finally, make Jesus the center of your life. He is the center of this letter. I mean, he’s really the center of every letter, and he’s the center of the Bible, the heartbeat, if you will. But the letter starts with Jesus. I mean, even if you just look back in Philippians 1, look how many times the Father or the Son are mentioned in the first couple verses. “Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” And then he begins his prayer. “I thank my God.” Like all throughout the word, the two words that occur the most are Christ and Jesus in the book of Philippians, and they occur a whole lot. Like on average it’s like every other sentence. Why is that? Because Jesus is key for Paul. He is the center. So three times he mentions him in these first couple verses. Listen, Jesus needs to be our center. I mean, it kind of makes sense if we’re going to be his servants and he’s going to be our master, but he should emanate through our lives. We are the living letters. We’re the living letters. We’re the examples for others. We’re the thing that unbelievers should be able to look at and see the embodiment of the gospel walking with two legs. They should see that. And that which you speak about is where your focus is going to be. Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. I mean, if we got Jesus in here and he’s our focus and we’re not a slave to sin and we’re a slave to righteousness and he’s our master and that’s where our focus is, then we are being consumed by him. So what’s going to happen? You’re going to see it in actions. You’re going to see it in words. It’s going to affect your thoughts. The entirety of us will be affected. Think about our Christian life. Jesus must ever be present. He is not tacked on, brothers and sisters. We don’t just come here for the 90 minutes, and that’s your Jesus fill for the week. I mean, if you’re coming here to get filled, actually, that’s a good thing. That shouldn’t be your primary reason for coming, but that’s a good thing. It’s good to come. We should gather weekly. We’re commanded to do that. But really, your ultimate purpose, your ultimate purpose for gathering is because you’re commanded to worship the Lord. Not necessarily that you get something out of it, but you give something out of it. Ultimately, your worship to the Lord. So yeah, there’s some weeks you’re, you know, you might walk out and I wasn’t really feeling it today. Well, who cares? No, I mean seriously, who cares? It’s not about you. It’s not about, are you the center? You’re not the center. It’s about him. So yeah, there’s going to be weeks where you’re like, man, that worship, I just wasn’t feeling it. Well, who cares? You should be able to come and worship wholeheartedly, completely, because you have this long, giant list of what God has done for you. And because you see God seated on his throne, and the only response you can possibly have is to worship him. That’s your only response. You see how amazing and glorious he is. You see what he has done for you in Christ Jesus, you realize that you’re not worthy of that, but he’s made you worthy. You realize the awful things that you’ve done in your past, like he’s wiped them away. What’s the proper response to God when you see that? It’s to worship him. And who cares if you have some great feeling about it? Now, I’ll put before you, if you’re worshiping God, you’re probably going to have a great feeling, because he’s God. I’ll also say though, at times you actually might have a pretty awful feeling because he’s God. And you realize how far short you’ve fallen. And the distance between him is a gap that only his Son can close. So, so yes, at times you might be so convicted and overwhelmed by your sin, you might feel even awful. I’m going to tell you, that can be a good thing. It’s okay to walk out feeling convicted. So what does this mean? Christ needs to be the center. He makes the calls, he guides your steps, he shapes your thoughts. He says, hey, this thing over here, this is good. You do it. He says, oh, this thing over here is bad. You don’t do it. A Christ-centered life, let me be clear, Christ at the center is not to be confused with a religion-centered life. Consider the Pharisees. I mean, you looked at them from the outside and you’re like, oh, they’re doing pretty good. But what was really their focus? It was focused really on the law. I mean, they did great at observing and obeying the law, it was all external. There’s no Yahweh presence, all external. That’s why it’s got to be here, right? It’s got to start here and then it exudes from there and it affects the thoughts and the words and the actions. So any man-made religion, it’s going to fall short. Any religion-centered life, yeah, and we’ve seen that happen at times with people that we know. No, God wants to have this right here. He wants your heart. He wants your heart. I mean, he wants all of you, but if he’s got your heart, I mean, he’s got you. So then that’s how you walk with Christ at the center. It’s a commitment to Jesus as Lord. Jesus as Lord. I mean, that’s a confessional statement that you’re making. And so when it talks about in Romans 10:9 and 10, that you confess Jesus is Lord, I mean, you’re making a confessional statement. Like who’s the master? Jesus. And even further than that, we won’t get into it, but you’re making a credal statement about your belief about Jesus, that he actually is the Lord and Savior, that he actually is God himself. That’s what Romans 10 plays on. It quotes, in verse 13, it quotes Joel, which is talking about Yahweh. Anyway, different verse for a different time. The point is this, we have a commitment to Christ. And listen, brothers and sisters, listen, we’re going to stumble in sin. We probably stumbled in sin this week. I know I did. But a Christ-centered person cannot bear living in disunity with God. Can’t bear living in disunity. They’re convicted by their sin. When they stumble, they realize it, and the Holy Spirit is convicting them, and they do something about it. If they have sinned against their brother or their sister, they go make it right. If they have sinned against the Lord, they go to prayer and they make it right. So yes, we’re going to stumble and sin, but with Christ at the center, we’re not going to continue living in a disunity. We will be quick to confess our sin. We’ll be quick to be restored to the enjoyment of our fellowship with him. How does this look and how does this work? [audio unclear] having that fellowship with them. Other believers, when we’re working in right relationship, there is a unity there, and brothers and sisters in Christ can accomplish so much for the kingdom that individually we wouldn’t be able to do it. Now we could do some stuff for the kingdom, but you bring a church together focused on a mission, united in the goal, hearts set fast on Jesus, and what can we do? We can take the gospel to other nations and we can see those nations claimed for Christ. We can see God do a work that he can only do in us and through us as we are in fellowship with one another. So we make other believers a part of our life. We invite them in. We look for those relationships. But that part of that, and one of the ways it helps, is making yourself a servant. It’s a lot easier to fellowship with others when you have that servant mentality. You’re not better than them. You’re not looking for that. You’re not looking for something from them. You’re looking to give. If you’re looking to give, you’re really not going to be disappointed if you don’t get anything back. What? You’re a servant. So you’re looking to give. Well, how do both of those things happen? Well, because Jesus is at the center. If he’s at the center, then yes, you can be the servant. If Jesus is at the center, then yes, you can invite other believers into your life. You can have fellowship with them. You can enjoy that fellowship with him. God himself has modeled it for us in the Trinity. The Father and the Son and the Spirit have a fellowship that has lasted since eternity beginning. Forever it’s lasted. It has no beginning and end. They have fellowship with one another. We, John 17, get invited to enjoy that fellowship with them. 1 John 1, we get invited to enjoy that fellowship with them. Are you enjoying the fellowship that we have? I mean, you have the fellowship, you actually have the fellowship, just like you got the marriage, right? You’ve got the covenant, the covenant is made. You’ve got the relationship with the Father. You have the fellowship, but enjoy that fellowship. It’s a sweet fellowship, brothers and sisters. And as you enjoy that, as you’re making Jesus more and more the center, then you can walk in the sanctification. You can walk in the righteousness. You can say no to the slavery to sin, and you can say yes to the slavery to righteousness, all for his glory. Let’s pray.
Closing Prayer
Father, we thank you for the fellowship that we do have with you, with the Spirit, and it is a sweet fellowship that you’ve blessed us with. You could have saved us apart from any fellowship, from any friendship, from any adoption. You could have done it, I guess, a different way, but how sweet it is to be adopted into your kingdom, to be your child, how sweet it is that we can come to you at any time and commune with you, the triune God. You have blessed us and blessed us and blessed us so many things. You have blessed us and blessed us and blessed us with yourself. And we thank you, Lord, for the gift of salvation. We thank you that it’s only by your Son that we are set free from sin. It’s only by your Son that we have the salvation found in Jesus. So, Lord, continue to work on us. As John the Baptist said, he must become greater, I must become less. Let us have that kind of as our motto as well. And let us, Lord, have a better understanding of what it means to walk before you as a servant and to be in fellowship with others, Lord. We pray that you would do this, God. Do this work in us. Use it, God, in our church, that we would come together with one mind, with one heart, to accomplish the goals you’ve set before us. And that your word would go forth, Lord. That the nations would hear your word and respond in faith. Lord, use us to continue to do that locally and abroad for your glory. Amen.