If you will turn your copy of God's Word to the book of Philippians, we're going to start a new series today. with the introductions and all of those wonderful things that we love to know about. The book of Philippians, a letter from the Apostle Paul, a letter that is full of theology and encouragement and commission. There's many things in this book. And today we're gonna look at just two verses in part. We'll read the two verses and then we'll talk about the context and then we'll get back to the text. So the scripture says, Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the bishops, which are overseers, and deacons, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May God add his blessing to the reading and the hearing of his perfect word. Well, this morning I want to introduce you to this famous epistle or letter from the Apostle Paul. It was written in either 61 or 62 AD to people he loved and admired and who lived in the city of Philippi. He loved them because he had planted that church 10 years earlier. He hadn't seen them in five years, but he admired them because they had undergone much persecution. They had much difficulty in their Christian faith. The city of Philippi was a city of opposition to Christianity. It was all out opposition to Christianity. Now, when we read this, I know that this is obvious to most of you, but I want to make the point that Philippi was a real place. with real people like you and me who lived in real time as we are living right now, who had real lives, had real joys and real sorrows just as we experienced right now today. And I say this because I want always to remind you that when we read the Bible, when we read the Bible, we are reading history. We are reading biography. We are reading geography. So all of these things, history, biography, geography, are all in this book. And they're important things because God is working His purpose out in His world among His people the way He wants. The world belongs to God. We're reading about God's creation and God's personal involvement in his world and with his people. And there is no book anywhere in the world that will ever be able to frame or form our understanding of the world better than the Bible. The Bible will give us God's perspective on ourselves. And it will give us God's perspective on our lives in relation to Him, to other people, our place in this world. It's better than any other source. We don't depend on psychology. We don't depend on Self-help books we look to God who is our author our maker the engineer of our lives the one who controls the universe We look to him as our source of information and our source of comfort and the recipients of this letter are were the people who made up the church that he had started in the Macedonian capital city of Philippi about 10 years earlier, or 5152. So this is one of Paul's so-called prison epistles, prison letters, like Ephesians and Colossians and Philemon. It was written because while the apostle Paul was in prison, But he wasn't in prison for any crime other than having faith. And I believe that we need to read this book and take this idea on because in this United States of America, we may one day be imprisoned for our faith. Now, not an invisible faith, not a faith that nobody can see, not a faith that you can have on Sunday and not have the other six days of the week. But Paul was in prison for his faith that he acted out, that he lived out, that motivated him, that moved him to say things, to do things, to be something that was contrary to the world, contrary to Caesar's empire, contrary to the Roman world. And if you live out that Christianity, you may be persecuted, you may be imprisoned too. And when Paul writes this letter of faith and joy, he is actually within months of being executed for his faith. So he is, in essence, writing a newsletter that includes a sense of farewell and exhortation and a testimony of his faith and trust, even while in dire circumstances that he says the Lord himself sent him into. So the church receiving this letter, as I said, is located in the Roman colony of Philippi, which was founded way back in 356 BC. And it was the capital of ancient Macedonia. The city is named after Philip II, who was the very, very famous father of the very, very, very famous general, Alexander the Great. When I was a cadet, we studied the tactics and strategies of Alexander the Great. Well, Philippi was a major city in Macedonia, and it was on the road from Rome to Asia. And Paul, of course, you know, wanted to preach in Asia. He wanted to plant churches in Asia, a little closer to home. And we read in Acts chapter 16 and 17 and Acts chapter 20 that when Paul was wanting to go to Asia to plant churches and preach and be with people he had known previously, the Lord said no. The Holy Spirit himself resisted Paul, and Paul was turned away and he went to Europe. In fact, the Philippian church is the first Christian church on the continent of Europe. So, Philippi was on the road from Rome to Asia, on a road known as the Ignatian Way. And Philippi, actually Macedonia, covered a territory we know today as eastern Albania and western Bulgaria and some of the upper eastern Greece just north of the Aegean Sea. And this place had been the site of the famous battle in 42 BC, where Antony and Octavius defeated Brutus and Cassius while they were defending Caesar. In 30 BC, Octavian made the town a Roman colony. In fact, this was sort of a an act on on Octavian's part to Be a benefit be a blessing to Roman soldiers who were still alive who had served in the Roman Army He made this a Roman colony where retired soldiers could could live and enjoy the full protections and the privileges of Roman citizenship And Paul alludes to this in chapter three. In fact, the city was very full of retired Roman soldiers. And its citizens were known for their patriotic nationalism and their strong identity with the Roman Empire. They were in full allegiance to the cult of Caesar, where they would say, Kaiser est curia, Caesar is Lord. Kaiser being Caesar. As opposed to Christ. Christ is Lord. In fact, Philippi's identification with the ancient Rome was so strong that when they built the city, they built buildings to look like those in Rome and they laid out the streets as a living model of Rome itself. So if you were familiar with the layout of Rome, you would have been very at home and had a sense of familiarity from the design and likeness that Philippi was to it. But when we come to the text itself, looking at verse one, the Apostle Paul begins this inspired letter with the specific words, Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Christ Jesus to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the bishops, that's new King James, or overseers, new American standard, but the Greek word there, is episkopoi, which means to look over. Overseers and deacons, diakonos, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So this letter, interestingly, opens differently than other letters. Paul opens this letter without designating himself as an apostle, which he usually did when he wrote to churches. He wrote to Rome, called himself an apostle. He wrote to Corinth, he called himself an apostle. He wrote to Galatia, he called himself an apostle. He wrote to Ephesus, he called himself an apostle. He wrote to Colossae, he called himself an apostle. But he didn't have to declare himself an apostle here. Because of his previous experience with these people, he had no need to reiterate the fact that he was an apostle and therefore he spoke the words of God to them by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And inspiration means that God so superintended the writers of Scripture, not only that they did not make a mistake, but they could not. And in fact, we see here that instead of exerting his authority as an apostle to give him that platform of authority to teach these people at Philippi, He now depends on their memory that he was an apostle, but he now depends on his reputation among them as a servant. in essence, not in essence, but in fact, as a slave. He had been a slave among them. And from his position of a slave, he was going to exercise his authority with them. So among these church members, Paul exerts the power that comes from servanthood. But Paul is not just talking about being a servant. He's upping the ante in their minds. He wants them to see what it really means to be a real servant. You know, sometimes, as pastor, I meet people, and they'll, people tend to say, well, I'm a Christian. For some reason, they want me to know that they're a Christian. I'm not their judge, so it doesn't matter. I'm not going to judge them on Judgment Day. God is. But I think about people who are living in adultery, living in fornication. They're liars, they're thieves. They practice these things, have no compunction. They have no affection for Jesus. They don't bother to try to come to church on Sunday and worship Christ and be with His people and learn about Him. And I think, Why are they saying this or are they trying to comfort themselves? And I think this is a fraudulent declaration from these people who are making a claim to something that their life bears out that they are not that thing. It doesn't look like a duck or quack like a duck at all, so therefore it's not a duck, so to speak. Paul wants us to know that there is something about Christianity that is really big. that takes full commitment, that takes real thought and real energy. It consumes our lives. It attracts us to Him in such a way that we embrace Him and we don't ever want to let go. We would not let go of Christ to be able to reach out and grab a handful of gold. We would not let go of Christ to reach out and grab a wonderful spouse. We would not let go of Christ for anything. He has to be first in our lives. And Paul is going to up the ante here when he says, when he uses this term bondservant, because it's really not the word bondservant, it's really the term, the stark and hard term, slave. And he knows what it is to be a slave. He knows what it is to be a prisoner. But here, he's calling himself a slave. But what kind of status is that for Paul? Why would Paul, why wouldn't he say, wait a minute, you remember me, I'm the apostle. And I'm not only the apostle, but I'm the Apostle Paul. And not only that, but I'm the apostle to the Gentiles, and you all are Gentiles. I am your man. I'm your man here. So what he did, he said, I'm a slave. Paul and Timothy, bond servants. Paul and Timothy, slaves. Slaves of Christ Jesus. So, what kind of status is that for the Apostle Paul? Well, if you've got your Bibles, flip over to Matthew chapter 24 a second. And I would bet you that all of us, I'm not going to ask you this, but even if you're a humble, humble, humble man, humble, humble, humble woman, humble, humble, humble young man or young woman, You want to be great, right? And you want to be great in God's kingdom. Well, Matthew chapter 20, 26b says, whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And the word servant there is deacon. A deacon is a servant. And whoever desires to be first, and the word first there is the word for prominence. Whoever wants to be prominent among you, interesting that deacons are servants and they're usually behind the scenes and humble. And yet you can't build a church without them. You have to have deacons. They're essential. They're essential components to any church. And they're an essential component to the way God runs his church. Whoever desires to be prominent among you, let him be your doulos. Let him be your slave. Do you want to be prominent? Do you want to be first? Do you want to be great in God's kingdom? then we need to have this idea that we're going to serve the Lord and be committed to Him so fully and so completely and so selflessly, which we're going to get to in Chapter 2 of Philippians, that we become slaves of others. And a lot of us have the idea, well, you know, I really would like to be a slave. I'd like to fulfill this position that God wants me to fulfill. And we always think that until somebody actually treats us that way, don't we? When somebody treats us like a slave, then we get our backs up. We get upset. We get angry about it. He's not going to treat me that way. But in essence, that's part of being the slave. Slave, come here and do that. No lip. Just do it. And that's what God wants from us. He wants us to read His Word as our slave master and He wants us to read it and He wants us to be committed to doing it and just do it without giving any back talk. So, slavery. And you might think, well, you know, I'm not wanting to go that far. I want to be kind of a lukewarm Christian, right? I want to be Really, really Christian when it's good to be really, really Christian. I don't want to be really, I don't want to be Christian at all when it's not time to be comfortable to be a Christian. I don't want to, this slavery thing is just too edgy, just too much for me. But let me let you in on a secret. You are never not a slave. I know I could have said that without a double negative. You are never not a slave. You are a slave right here, right now, right this minute. According to the Bible, which is always right, you and I are slaves this very day. And you are a slave by choice. In Romans 16, Romans 6, 16. Paul says, the same apostle who wrote Philippians, do you not know, and a lot of us don't know this, that's why he starts with these things, do you not know that to whom you offer yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness. So when we go about our week, we go out these doors, and we go home, and we go to work, and we do whatever we do all week, and we have an opportunity to sin, you know how we should think about that sin? We should think, oh, this sin, this unrighteousness wants to control me, and I'm gonna let this sin control me, because I want to be controlled by this sin. But you know, we don't think like that, do we? We think we're in control. But the Bible says, no, the sin becomes the master when we submit to the sin itself. It becomes our master. But when we have an opportunity for righteousness, And we look at that righteousness, we think about that righteousness, we can think, this righteousness wants to be my master. It wants to control me. I'm going to bow down and let this righteousness control me. I'm going to submit to this righteousness. Because you realize that you're either submitting to righteousness and the slave of righteousness, or you're the slave of sin and submitting to sin. And there's no middle ground. Romans 6, 24, when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. When you were slaves to sin, you were not a slave to righteousness. When you're a slave to righteousness, you are not a slave to sin. And this is a truth that is to all of us. Romans 6, 18 and 19. But having been set free from sin, from that master, you become slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and the word uncleanness there is a word for filth and perversion. Even in our thoughts, even... The world today and holy and on Judgment Day you'll be glad that you were holy today. You will be glad you were holy today. Jesus said in John 8, 34, 35, 36, most assuredly I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. But you see, pause there for a second, you sin, You don't know how Jimmy sins. I mean, Jimmy sins almost as much as Mike. And when he sins, he becomes a slave to sin. But I know Jimmy, and I know you, When you commit that sin, you want to throw it off, and you want to escape from it, and you want to rebel against that master, and you want to run to a different master, a better master, a righteous master, a master who has a future for you that is good and not destructive. Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave to sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever. The house there is the kingdom of heaven. But a son one who's adopted abides forever in the kingdom of heaven therefore if the Son of God makes you free you shall be free indeed you see I'm either a Slave to Jesus or I'm a slave to my sin and my the world the flesh and the devil that's a trifecta of slave masters versus the trifecta father-son Holy Ghost of slave masters So what does this look like in our lives? It looks like we need to think God's thoughts after Him. How are we going to do that? We're going to have to read the Scriptures and meditate on the Scriptures. And we're going to do the five things you do with the Bible. You hear it, you read it, you study it, you memorize it, and you meditate on it. Why? So that you can do it. We want to be doers of the word and not hearers only. John 14, 15, he who has my commandments and keeps them, he's the one who loves me. We can't show our love to Christ by lip service. We have to show our love to Christ by our actions. Same in John 14, 21. That's what our life can look like. Sanctify them in the truth. Thy word is truth, John 17, 17. Your life should reflect the good things of the scriptures all the time. And that is a level of commitment that would determine that you have chosen to be a slave of righteousness. A slave of righteousness. A joyful slave of righteousness. Well, Paul was a slave to righteousness. And therefore, he could be a good and useful servant or slave to the people. And on the basis of his servanthood as slave to righteousness, he had earned the right to speak to these people. His slavery to righteousness qualified him to serve God and to serve God's saints. So, we're now to that word saint. I'm glad you asked. What does it mean? Here we have saints. What is a saint? Well, when you read the introduction to Paul's letters in Romans and 1 Corinthians and so on, he is frequently addressing saints. Why? Why are they called saints? Well, let me tell you a little quick story. In the 16th century, there was a woman named Marguerite de Valois. when she was kentu, the king of France, and Francis I. And Francis entertained his family at his dinner table, and the palace was in the shadow of the Sorbonne, and there were other people that were guests at these dinners, at these meals that King Francis would put on. And this is in the early 16th century, We remember that the Reformation was really getting started and becoming known around the world. So Marguerite wanted to know about the saints. So she looks at this man who was a scholar at the Sorbonne named William Farrell. You ever heard of William Farrell? Fiery Farrell? He's the one that in 1536 challenged Calvin and said, Calvin, curses be on you if you don't stay in Geneva and lead the Reformation. That's the one. But this is before that. So it was before Farrell was even a Christian. but he was a scholar. So she said, I want you to go to the Sorbonne Library. I want you to write a book or write a paper on sainthood and on the saints of the Bible. So William Farrell, you don't disobey the king's family when they tell you to do something. So he studied, and he came back a few months later with his paper, and he announced to them that saints were not made by the church. Saints were not made by even the people. Saints, you can't make yourself into a saint. But saints were made through believing the gospel. Pharaoh found out that saints are not a special group of outstanding Christians who have done something particularly big or miraculous Saints are simply those people who have been convinced of their sin and misery have had their minds enlightened in the knowledge of Christ Have had their wills renewed and have embraced Jesus Christ as he is offered to them in the gospel so a saint is not one who does miracles, but rather one who has had a miracle of Worked in their lives to give them faith and life faith and repentance so saying is actually the New Testament word to describe every true Christian, so We think about the Saints here st. Joanne st. Doreen st. Jason st. Jonathan's we get two for one with the Jonathan Your Saints if you're if you're a true believer and As a saint You are a slave to righteousness. But we go further. Paul and Timothy bond servants of Christ Jesus to all the saints in Christ Jesus. Christ, just simply, is the Greek version of the word Messiah, the Anointed One. This Christ is the one who had been promised from the earliest times of the Newer Testament, from Genesis 3-5, all the way through the Scriptures. He's the Christ. And His name is Jesus, which means Yahweh saves. So He's the Messiah. He's the Anointed One who is the Savior. And then we talk about bishops. The word here is overseers, episkopoi. Episkopoi here, equal to presbuteros, which is Presbyterian. And in 1 Timothy 3 and in Titus 1 and in 1 Peter 5, we read about the role of elders and we read about their job in the church. And in 1 Peter 5, I wanna read this to you because I want you to know what a, what a elder is supposed to be here. Just a few verses. The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed, shepherd the flock, serve the flock, be a slave to the flock, be prominent among the flock. Be what the flock needs, take care of their needs. Shepherd the flock of God, which is among you, serving as episkopos, serving as overseers, not by compulsion, but willingly, not for dishonest gain, but eagerly, nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. What a great promise to those who are episkoposes, episkopoi in the church. So the main job is to assure that the church is pure. Episkopos. Paul writes a letter. He sends it to Ephesus. Word is out that the letter is coming to the church. The people of the church gather because they're hungry to hear the Word. The scroll is unrolled. It's laid out on the table. The people have gathered around. And Jimmy, the episkopos, stands over the shoulder of the one who is reading the scroll. to assure that what he reads is the word of the apostle inspired from God so that the people get it straight, so that the people get it direct. Isn't that great? God cares about what you hear. He cares about what you hear in church. And deacons, deacons are supposed to create an environment in which ministry can take place as efficiently as possible, Acts chapter 6. We conclude with the phrase, grace to you. and peace. There is no peace with God apart from the grace of God. He has to give you the grace of life, faith, and repentance. He has to give you the grace of salvation. In order that the hostilities, in order that the war between you and God will cease, a truce will be called and you will surrender to Him. And when you surrender to Him, then and only then is there peace with God. The hostilities removed and your future is assured. So brothers and sisters, as we start this book, There's a lot here. A lot of theology. There's a lot of life here. There's a lot of church here. There's a lot of confidence here, and there's a lot of struggle here. There, in this book, we're gonna see people at each other's necks. We're gonna see backbiting, and we're gonna see it addressed. We're gonna see all kinds of things in this book, because we need this book. We, as a young church, we as a small church, We're about the size of the church at Philippi, right here in this room. Probably we've got more people here in this room than we're at the church at Philippi. And yet, God used them, and God will use you. And it's important for you to get that in your mind, that God will use you. And why? Because you are His slaves, whom He adores, whom He loves. Amen? Amen.