(LR) Sermon Manuscript: Philippians

      Let’s open our Bibles this morning to the book of Philippians.  We will be reading from the first chapter, verses twelve through eighteen.  Before we get into our selected text this morning, let’s travel back in time and place ourselves in the context of Christians in Philippi.  Close your eyes, please, and travel with me.
     As you look around you, you see very fertile ground, kept fertile by the multiple water sources around.  To the west is a mountain – Mount Pangaeus – which is flanked on either side by beautiful rivers.   The place where you live is a place not unlike many scenic paintings of nature others have seen.  There is every element of beauty near your home.  The city itself has plenty of activities for both you and your family.  There is a large theatre where people often gather for various events.  Among the many buildings in the heart of the city, there are two prominent temples for worship.  Finally, right in the middle of it all, lies the government center, which contains all of the various means of public speaking that takes place in your hometown.  Finally, about a mile west of town, there stands a great arch, marking the boundaries of the city.  If you wish to pray, often you must go beyond that arch and find a quiet place along one of the many riverbanks there.  To the north of town, there are gold mines which are well known in the city.  They are located in the mountains, and you know several people that work there.
     One day, you hear that Paul the Apostle has made his way to your hometown.  You have heard about this Paul, and are eager to hear what he has to say.  When he arrived, he went outside the gate of the city, near a riverbank, to pray.  At this river, they baptize a local woman you know – Lydia – and they are invited to her house.  As they are on their way, you notice a sudden commotion, and when you ask those around you, they tell you of a scuffle between this Paul and a local slave girl.  This girl was well-known in town, as she could often predict the fortunes of those who came to her, bringing much wealth to her masters.  Well, knowing of Paul, you got rather excited about what was to happen in this scuffle.  You made sure to get a clear view.  Suddenly, Paul turns to the slave girl and says in a loud voice, “In the name of Jesus Christ, come out!”  You knew this would not make the master’s happy and, sure enough, they grabbed Paul and a fellow with him (you later learned that his name was Silas) and drug them to the government center there in the heart of town.  You made sure to follow close on their heels.  You listened to everything there, and hear the verdict – Paul and Silas were to be scourged!  It was a terrible sight to watch these men get beaten so, and, on top of that, they were then put in prison.  You were sure that you wouldn’t see them for quite some time.  You went to sleep that night thinking of these two men.  What would become of them?  Suddenly, you were woken up, it was about midnight, and there seemed to be an earthquake.  You hurried and got dressed, grabbed a torch, and ran outside to see what was going on.  You saw nothing that night, but in the morning learned that the prison had been damaged.  You made your way back to the government center, and heard the officials publicly apologize to them and ask them to leave your city.  What must have happened?  You made your way to the jailer there, with whom you are an acquaintance, and he tells you that he has been saved!  Paul and Silas shared the gospel with him, and now he and his family are Gentile believers.  With him, Lydia, the slave girl, and others, you begin a church there.  It is small, but you believe in your mission and hope to see your friend Paul again.
     Now, open your eyes.  Can you picture the scene?  Can you feel the emotions of those receiving a letter from their beloved Paul?  Paul would return later, on his third missionary journey, and see the believers in Philippi again.  He would see them at least twice more and these have been recorded for us in Acts 20 and 1 Timothy 1.  Paul had a great relationship with these believers in Philippi, and this is obvious from his emotional letter written to them – this epistle of Philippians.
     Now, let’s look together briefly at the context of the letter leading up to verse twelve – our starting point for today.  The letter is addressed to “all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi”.  Paul knew these folks very well, and they knew him, too.  This letter was written to all those who were a part of that small fellowship planted there by Paul which likely included the Philippian jailer, Lydia, Luke, and others.  Go to verse three with me and take a look at the language here.  You can almost feel the emotion – even thousands of years later.  Imagine reading this letter for the first time and having a personal relationship with Paul.  You can imagine the emotional overflow.  I “thank” my God, in “every” prayer, with “joy”.  It would be the emotional equivalent of love letters between young lovers.  In high school, my then girlfriend, and now wife, used to write me letters that were folded up.  On the front it would say, “For Your Eyes Only”.  Oh, the excitement of anticipating what was contained in that letter!  Such it must have been with these Philippian Christians.
     Go now to verse seven with me.  “I hold you in my heart”, says Paul.  “It is right for me to feel this way about you”; the emotion is unmistakable.  Check this out in verses eight and nine, “I yearn for you with all the affection of Jesus Christ.  And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more”.  Folks, if you can’t feel the emotion here, check your pulse!  Paul is laying it on thick!  He misses these people, and is so grateful for their gift to him, and you can literally feel it when you read this.  This is the same degree of emotion that deployed husbands and wives write to their spouses overseas during a yearlong deployment.
     Why have we spent so much time delving into the emotional side of this letter?  Well, for one, if we are to actually understand the letter, we must put ourselves in the place of the readers.  It is easy for us to be far removed from this thing – now a couple of thousand years after its completion.  Second, and most importantly, tapping into the emotion of the letter helps prepare our hearts for the content of what Paul was saying.  We are now far better off to receive the inspired words of the apostle than we would have been had we delved straight into them.
     The title of my message this morning is “Unity In Spite Of Differences”.  Look at you neighbor.  Are they different?  I hope so!  It is a fact of life – we are all uniquely created and programmed and, consequently, there is no one else exactly like us.  This is good, but it can, and often does, create uncomfortable friction within the body of Christ.  How in the world can we remain unified when we are going against such a strong current?  Well, God, in all His wisdom, knew that we would be asking this question of Him!  So, let’s see what Paul has to say to us through the inspiration of the Spirit.
     In verse twelve, Paul says to the believers there in Philippi that “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel”.  What had happened to Paul?  Well, as Paul was writing this letter, he was imprisoned in Rome!  The believers in Philippi knew this and had sent Paul a gift – the very occasion for him writing this letter.  This brings us to our first point this morning, “Your testimony is uniquely powerful”!  Paul is saying to these folks in Philippi that his imprisonment has served to advance the gospel.  This is uniquely Paul’s testimony and it has served to advance the gospel.  How in the world is this possible?  Check out what Paul says in verses thirteen and fourteen.  “It has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.  And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”
     What is the testimony that God has given you?  Do you come from a troubled background?  Take heart!  The Lord can use…and He wants to!  Do you carry along insecurities with you, perhaps memories that you can’t seem to get away from?  The Lord can use you!  Ladies and gentlemen, Paul was sitting in a prison cell, the Roman government intent on cutting him off from contact with their citizens.  But, alas, submission to the Lord regardless of circumstances results in a powerful witness.  Do you know what happens when you yield these things to the Lord, as Romans 12:1-2 instructs us to do?  Just take a look at verse fourteen: it causes others to be “much more bold” and “to speak the word without fear”.  What a powerful testimony YOUR testimony can have for the sake of Jesus Christ!  Why are we holding back?  Share what the Lord has done for you, share where it is that He has brought you from, share what it is He has taught you and YOU will have a powerful testimony for Jesus Christ.  If you have heard nothing up until this point, please hear this now, for Christ’s sake: your testimony can be uniquely powerful, let the Lord use it for His glory.  Whether you be wealthy or poor, whole or sick, free or imprisoned, safe or in danger, for Christ’s sake, let your testimony of the Lord follow you wherever you go and be uniquely powerful.
     Now, in my opinion, this is the easier of the two parts of Paul’s address here in these verses.  Why is this the case?  Well, it is simply because your testimony is all yours!  You do not have to “share nicely with others” when it comes to your testimony of the Lord.  However, by virtue of being in the world, you will have troubles – often with other people, and often with other believers!  If you don’t believe me, believe Jesus!  He said so Himself in John 16:33.  Paul, in verses fifteen through seventeen, is in agreement with the Lord in this point.  This brings us to our second point, “Your temperament can be uniquely positive”.  Now, let me clarify this point by saying that this is only possible through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Paul himself says this in Romans chapter seven.  There is an old proverb which states, “When you are bumped, what you are full of spills out”.  This is what Paul addresses here in these verses.  He is addressing various motives people have in using the name of Jesus Christ.  In verse fifteen, he says that “some preach from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill”.  Now, I don’t know about you, but my natural reaction – my temperament – when I hear someone preach Christ out of envy or rivalry, is not one of a particularly Christian nature!  If we read on through verse seventeen, we even read that, in Paul’s case, the motives of these people were to “afflict me in my imprisonment”.  Does this not make your skin crawl when you hear of people like this?  You know, these types of people without Jesus irk me enough, but those who act this way and claim to be Christians really can make you upset!  Put yourself in Paul’s shoes.  Here he is, imprisoned for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and there are those who afflict him even more, using this very gospel!  When my wife and I started dating, there were people in her church that all of the sudden made “prayer groups” to pray for us, that we would break up.  These “prayer groups” simply consisted of a few women gossiping about us.  These things can really cause our own attitude to sour and our eyes to be taken off of Jesus.  When situations like this arise and our temperament is uniquely positive, in the Lord, our witness increases.  Paul says that when the name of Christ goes forth, He receives glory from it!  This is hard for us to fully comprehend, however its truth endures.  How is this possible?  How can our temperament be “uniquely positive” in circumstances like these?  Is it because we focus on the positive and ignore the negative?  Of course not!  It is by understanding who the Lord is.  God does not need positive things to be said about Himself in order for Him to achieve positive outcomes in people’s lives.  No, our God accomplishes all He does in our lives despite what we say or do.  In verse eighteen, Paul hits on how and why this is possible.
     In this verse, Paul says, “What does it matter?”  What does it matter that these people are seemingly abusing the precious name of our Lord?  “The important thing is”, Paul says, that “Christ is preached.  And because of this, I rejoice”.  What a wonderful attitude to have!  How in the world is this type of unity achieved?  Now we come to the title of this message and describe how this is possible.  How can Christians remain unified in spite of differences?  The answer is found here in verse eighteen – “Your trust can be uniquely peaceful”.  When you know who Jesus Christ is, you know that your trust in Him can bring about peace in every type of circumstance.  Let’s go back to the first point of this message, that your testimony can be uniquely powerful.  Go back to Romans 12:1-2.  As Christians, we are called to submit everything that we are to Christ Jesus – our mind, body, and soul.  In doing so, we can seize every moment for Him.  We are called, in Matthew 28:19-20, to “go and make disciples”.  This is discipleship in motion: no matter where you are, no matter where you are going, make disciples.  This is exactly what Paul is doing as he is in prison writing this letter.  It doesn’t matter where he goes, it doesn’t matter who is around him, it doesn’t matter what the circumstances are, Paul is going to have a powerful testimony and a positive temperament because he has a peaceful trust in His Savior, Jesus Christ.
     How many opportunities do we miss to impact those around us because we are insecure about our background, or because we are discouraged or made upset by others around us?  As Christians we are called to be unified under the banner of Christ.  This is only possible if we know who Christ is and we have a peaceful trust in Him.  Ladies and gentlemen, take heart this morning.  Jesus Christ has overcome the world.  He makes this known in John 16:33.  Take heart this morning, Jesus Christ can redeem you from your sins.  This is made known to us in Colossians 1:14.  Take heart this morning, Jesus Christ can break every chain that binds you.  You can read about it yourself in 2 Corinthians 10:5.  Take heart this morning, Jesus Christ can take your weakness and turn them into strengths for Him.  I would encourage you to study it in 2 Corinthians 12.
     This letter was written to Christians and so, as Christians, we should particularly pay attention to what is being said here.  Let the Lord use you for His glory.  Give your weaknesses to Him and let them be used as strengths for His Kingdom.  Each of us has a testimony – our own story of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  Let the Lord use that testimony, whatever it may be, to be uniquely powerful for Him.  Each of us have and will find ourselves in uncomfortable circumstances where our natural reaction is to get angry; to be upset.  However, let your temperament be the same as Jesus Christ.  Give this area of your life to Him – your emotions and psychology – and let the Lord use it for His glory.  If we can do this, the final step will be easy.  We can trust the Lord and have a peace that passes all understanding.  Let me encourage you this morning to give all these areas of your life to the Lord and see what He can do with you.