This is the very first speech I gave. This is also a sermon series that was given at Christ Fellowship and like the other blogs I'm going to put my own little views in. Over the next few days/weeks (since I don't know when I will past again) we're going to dive into a book study about Philippians. Philippians also happens to be my favorite book of the bible. I'm going to try to go verse by verse and probably won't be able to finish all the verses in the chapter simply because this blog won't be big enough. I encourage you to try and continue to ponder the remaining versus' on your own so that you can better understand the points that Paul wants to address. To save you some trouble my bible provides what it believes the key points in Philippians are; Humility, Unity, Christian Living, and Joy.
Now for some background on Philippians. The author of this book is the apostle Paul. Now Paul is in prison and is writing to the town of Phillpi which would be located today in Northern Greece. It's important to note here (because I will refer to it multiple times) that Paul mentions being Joyful 16 times in the entire book of Philippians (which happens to only be 4 chapters). Now hopefully everybody reading this knows how the persecuting Saul became the apostle Paul. If not I'm sure this will give me something to blog about later its a really interesting story. Lets get started shall we. Once again I'm using the NLT (New Living Translation) in case our versions read differently.
1:1-2 "This letter is from Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus.I am writing to all of God's holy people in Philippi who belong to Christ Jesus, including the elders and deacons. May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace." Now these first two sentences are like the opening or the greeting. There are two points in this section. The first comes when we see that Paul now realises that he is no longer living for himself he's living for Christ. He compares his living for Christ like a slave serving his matter. It's no longer his will be done it's his masters will that he strives for. The second point is Paul mentions that he is writing the letter to the elders and deacons. Now some versions actually use the word saints. It's important to know that back in the day a saint was any person who was willing to follow Jesus and preach his message. So technically today anybody and everybody could be considered a saint if they wanted to.
Verse 3 begins the "prayer of encouragement."
1:3-6 Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now. And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. I'm going to sidetrack away from here for a little bit and ask some questions. Are there ever times you feel God has put a prayer/vision in your heart and your so excited to do God's work for him, but after a few hours that feeling starts to fade off? Then your like where did that feeling go? Then you start to pray and read the bible because you want that feeling back. Maybe you get to the point where you start telling God "hey here I am use me," and you keep doing this constantly until it feels like your going through the motions. See its times like these when we're reminded that this is a walk of faith, NOT FEELINGS. It's faith that God has a plan for you and that he is going to work through you. Hebrews 11:1 reads "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see." The whole point of this section is that God will finish what he starts.
Verse 7-9 read:
"So it is right that I should feel as I do about all of you, for you have a special place in my heart. You share with me the special favor of God, both in my imprisonment and in defending and confirming the truth of the Good News. God knows how much I love you and long for you with the tender compassion of Christ Jesus. I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. Verse 9 points out that all of us have to keep on growing, in both knowledge and understanding because GROWTH IS INTENTIONAL. Imagine your favorite flower. Flowers don't just grow automatically. You can't just sit it on a desk and expect it to grow right? They need water, soil, and plenty of sunlight (depending on the plant of course). Things don't just grow automatically. This leads me to ask what are you doing to grow? What are you doing to grow in your walk with God? See I know people who think that just because they go to church or come to our schools religious organizations that they think they are "growing" enough. I remember a saying that went "Going to church doesn't make you a christian anymore than standing in a garage makes you a car." Now don't get me wrong as a leader for my FCA group I appreciate people coming and hearing me speak. On another note however, I feel as though maybe you should ask yourself if their is more you can do? Think of it this way if we all were to eat food once a week would we be strong? Surely not we'd all be weak and shriveled up. Yet many people out there are eating just one time a week. Paul wants us to grow in the word by that he means not just to read it but to study it and build a foundation on it. What can you do to make yourself a better foundation set in God?
Verse 10 reads:
"For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ's return." Hmm... that's a good statement. What really matters? We live in the age of technology; phones radios, TV, computers, emails everything. Did you know that last year alone digital information increased by 62%? That's a lot of information. It's an INFORMATION OVERLOAD! News. Oh how I admire you the informers of the world. So many news stands and TV channels to keep me up to date with whats going on in the world. If that's not enough information for me I can get little texts on my phone in case I'm not in front of a TV or by a computer, in case I want know what toothpaste Justin Beiber just used. I can find out just in the push of a button. Don't forget about those social networking sites. Lots of useful information on Facebook right? Information I can use about Farmville or when you plan on showering. Lots of useful information. If your a friend of mine please stop sending my Farmville requests I don't care :) Just tons of info. What Paul is trying to get across is the idea of what really matters.He wants us to weed out all of the information that we're exposed to daily to find only the information that matters. Do you understand that God comes first? Do you understand that our days on earth are numbered and that all this stuff won't matter when we die? What does matter is YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD. To tie this back into growing some of you may be wondering how to have a better relationship with God. Maybe some of you want to actually know what matters to him? How? The answer is simple by reading Gods word. Get into the word understand it and grow in it. Build your foundation. See if you don't understand it then you can't use it. I know that E=MC^2. I memorized that back in the 7th grade my teacher would be proud. Now if you asked me to explain it to you I wouldn't be able to do it. Simply because I never understood it. Paul wants us to know and to understand what really matters to God. When we learn what matters we start to grow spiritually and begin to understand Gods plan.When we learn what matters it gets deep down and changes us and re prioritises our lives. See when I start to understand what really matters I'm not going to waste me time on things that don't. I'm not going to waste my energy or my focus. "I want you to really understand what matters" is what Paul is saying.
Verse 11 is still part of the prayer and reads;
"May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ for this will bring much glory and praise to God." Here is what I know and was taught at an early age. You know the root by the fruit. I know that an apple tree will produce apples, an orange tree will produce....oranges, and a tomato tree will produce tomatoes right? See as Christians were like the trees. Christians are supposed to produce good fruit. People can filter out Christians from other because they can look at our actions (the fruit) and be able to tell that we're a christian. Yet every once in a while a vine (sin) may start to grow up and try to steal our life away. If the trunk of the tree (faith) is strong enough then the vine will wilt and fall off. That's where I'm going to leave you. I hope you liked this first little piece of Philippians. Again I encourage you to continue to read on and see just what you can come up with.
Remember there is only 1Way2Live.
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