September 13, 2026 | Saints Together

Saints Together | Philippians 1:1-2

Philippians 1:1–2

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. (ESV)

In “Saints Together,” Jed Gillis explores Philippians 1:1–2 to show how allegiance to Jesus shapes a church into a caring, serving community. Believers are saints, people set apart for God’s purposes, who mentor one another, share in the gospel’s advance, and find unity across their differences. Serving Christ gives lasting purpose to our efforts, even when others don’t respond as we hope. Grounded in God’s grace and peace, this message invites you to consider how your loyalty to Jesus can help your church reflect his character and love.

Transcript of Saints Together | Philippians 1:1-2

Starting a New Series

Jed Gillis: We are starting a new series. As we do that, if you are used to being here, you know, wait, we didn't pray before we started. That's 'cause we're gonna do it in just a minute. 'Cause we really do believe when we come to God's Word, it isn't just about what words get said. It's not just about what passages we go to. It's the Spirit of God working through His Word to transform us.

So that's our prayer for today, and I'm going to pray in just a minute, but first I wanna give a couple overview comments about, the series in Philippians. We've just come from a series through Ecclesiastes, if you were with us. Philippians and Ecclesiastes are very different, if you didn't know that already. Some of that is Ecclesiastes is a whole lot longer than Philippians.

Now, as we go into Philippians, what we're going to do is we're going to slow down much more than we did in Ecclesiastes. We're gonna take more time working through smaller sections, looking more closely at details. I think it's good for us to engage God's Word in different ways. Perhaps you have this experience. Sometimes you say, "I'm gonna read through Scripture." I, I've heard of people, I've done it before, where you read through Scripture in 90 days. That's a whole lot of Scripture every day, and it's a really great experience. It's a great thing to do, but you're also gonna get the 30,000-foot view, not the two-foot view. And sometimes you need to say, "No, I'm gonna slow down and I'm gonna really... this verse needs to... Maybe this word needs to really just center in my heart."

So as we look at Philippians, I'm, giving fair warning, we're gonna shift gears a little bit. We're gonna do two verses this morning, not a chapter like we did in Ecclesiastes. That also means that when you move more slowly and you look at more details, we may well find more disagreements. Because when you go over a chapter at a time and you get a big picture idea, it's kinda easy to say, "Yeah, basically, I agree with that." When you start staring at, what does this exact phrase mean, sometimes that can bring up more questions and maybe more disagreements. That's part of growth. That's part of why God gave us not just one genre of scripture, not just one book of scripture, but he gave us a collection of a wide range of different books.

And I wanna share with you my, overall prayer for this series. Often I have in my mind a theme, something that I think I really want God to do this within the body as we work through a series. Here's what's been on my heart as I look at Philippians. Maybe some of you have never walked slowly and closely through the Book of Philippians, in which case, fantastic. Maybe this is primarily new content for you, and if so, my prayer is that you will grow to love it like many people in this room. If I were to ask people to say, "What's your favorite verse in Philippians?" I bet a whole lot of us could come up with some verses. But maybe it's new to you, and if so, fantastic. I hope you grow to love it just like these people sitting next to you have.

But for many of us, this isn't new. For many of us, you've been through the Book of Philippians. The content isn't new. You may have studied it many times. Some of you have memorized it. Some of you have memorized it, forgotten it, and memorized it again. I realize it can be very familiar. Here's my prayer, is that the, shape of the Book of Philippians will shape our lives, individually and as a body. That's very different from knowing the content. It's one thing to say, "I know Philippians tells me to be humble." It's a whole different thing to actually be humble.

So my prayer is that the shape of this book, when we hear about things like humility, contentment, prayer, worry, selfishness, complaining, many other topics, my prayer isn't that we will know the content that says, "Oh, Paul said that wasn't a good thing to do," or, "This was a good thing to do." My prayer is that it will shape us. This isn't content that we master. That's not really what God's word is about. It's not a textbook to be able to come give the right answers. It's something intended to shape our souls.

Imagine if somebody came in and said, "You know, I've really kinda mastered humility." See, it doesn't work like that, does it? I've really mastered contentment. I just don't have any problems with it anymore. I don't think you're thinking about this the right way because it's about shaping your soul.

It's the same thing when you go do exercise. If you lift weights, you say, "I'm gonna do bench press." I've never heard anybody come in and say, "You know, I've done bench press before, I just don't think I need to do it again." Now you might have injuries and you might stop. But nobody says, "Oh, I've finished this exercise. I don't need to do anymore. I've run once. Why should I do it again?" Some of you actually probably do say that. But that's not gonna shape you the way running would if you kept running.

When we come to this book, that's my prayer for us, is that our minds won't switch off, our hearts won't switch off at familiar passages. Instead, it shapes and strengthens the patterns of our soul.

By the way, Paul was thinking like this, too. If you look over at Philippians 3 and verse 1, Paul says, "Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you." In other words, he says, "Look, I've already told you this before. You've heard it. You've heard it over and over, but it's not a problem for me, and it's safe for you." He wants them to be shaped by truths that they had already heard in many cases.

Now, I think as we go, hopefully there'll be things in here that you say, "Oh, I, I've never really thought about that piece. I need to consider that." Sure, I hope there are new things. But even if you had already heard everything that I'm gonna say about Philippians, God has given us this truth of His Word so that it will shape us, so that it will strengthen us to respond in worship to our King.

Opening Prayer

Jed Gillis: So with that as an intro, let's pray.

Jesus, you are our king. You are the one who deserves all of our worship You are the one that we want to bow before. And God, I pray as we come to this book, as you have used other books in your word, in our hearts and our lives, as you've shaped us with Ecclesiastes and Galatians and 1 Peter and John, and many other books throughout all of our lives. We ask you to do the same thing for us through Philippians We ask you to strengthen us where our natural human response is wrong, where we want to pursue selfish ambition, where we want to be proud, where our instinct is to complain, where we look to our own strength and our own treasures rather than counting all things as loss for the value of knowing Christ. Where we're tempted to worry instead of pray.

I pray throughout this book that you would strengthen us. Help us be a body of believers who are shaped by the mind of Christ. Let that work its way through us as a body, not only to each other, but to the others that you bring us in contact with.

And we'll thank you for it, in Jesus' name Amen.

Reading Philippians 1:1-2

Jed Gillis: So for this week, I'm gonna take our main text as two verses at the beginning of Philippians. I'll read it. "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."

These Were Real, Flesh-and-blood People, Like Us

Jed Gillis: This week, I want you to think with me, some background material about the people who were actually involved at the church in Philippi, and really as the church spread throughout the known world at the time. I want you to think about the people because there's a difference when we think about, ideas and when we think about real people.

For example, if we think about, we could talk about heroism or courage, and I could go and say, "Oh, it's kinda it's like a Marvel movie, and it's Captain America charging in to save everybody." And we can all say, "Oh, sure, that looks like heroism." But I am not Captain America. You are not Captain America. You will never be in that situation unless there's some major scientific advancements in super serum that I don't expect anytime soon.

But what if I say the name Todd Beamer? Who knows that name? I thought a lot of you might. He was one of the people on the flight September 11th, 2001, that was headed to Washington, DC who had a wife and kids at home who got on an air phone, found out what was going on and told the emergency worker, "Call my wife and kids." Tell him goodbye. And he looked at his fellow passengers and said, "Let's roll." And that plane went down in a field.

Heroism is not the same when you think about an idea versus a person. Because we all know I could be him. I might really sit in that situation. I'm never Captain America.

What I wanna do is encourage you as we read this book, think about what it would be like to be at Philippi. Think about what it would be like to be Paul or Timothy, or an overseer in that context, or these other names we're gonna get to which may sound funny, especially to those who may not have heard them, like Epaphroditus or Euodia, or all these weird names, right? Those weird names don't mean that they are ideas like Captain America. These were flesh and blood people involved in real communities, real interaction. And I think as we think about them as real people in a real community, there's an appeal to say, 'I want to be in a community like that.'

They weren't superheroes. Their room might have looked different. They had different technology. But they were a group of real people who sat together because Jesus had united them and because Jesus was their Lord.

Paul and Timothy's Global Vision of Christianity

Jed Gillis: So let's think through this. what's true about this community?

First, you have the statement Paul and Timothy, which reminds us, if you know your Bible, especially if you know the Book of Acts, you know Paul traveled with a whole lot of people. There was this global, really as far as the world was known at the time, this global community as Christianity just exploded. And you had people like Paul and Barnabas and Silas and Luke and Timothy and John Mark and Titus and all kinds of other people involved And there Paul and these other people are traveling. They have this vision for global Christianity. They weren't just looking at one little building saying, we'll try to handle everything right here." They're going, "No, how can we spread the gospel further?"

But they also spend a whole lot of time, case of like Ephesus, spent three years. In the case of some other cases, they were there for months or a year, and then Timothy would end up pastoring somewhere for a while, and then he'd move somewhere else. They were, let's say, obsessed. I think it's the right word, in a good way. They were obsessed with the fact that King Jesus reigns over all of these places, and they had vision to say, "How can we help that move forward?" And if we read through Acts, we see sometimes they're saying, we're gonna go over here." And that doesn't work out. I guess I'll just give up." No, that's not what they do. "We're gonna go over here." That doesn't work out. we're going over there. we're going over there."

And they're bringing other people. Paul is looking with Timothy. it's a mentoring process. Timothy is described later in this book as his son in the faith. He's looking at people. So if you imagine a group of people with the vision to say, "There's something bigger even than just right here. We want this church to be healthy, and we want another church to be healthy and another church to be healthy, and for people over there who don't know Jesus to come to know him." And in the process, Paul's saying, "Oh, Timothy, God's working in you. Come with me. Let's mentor you and help you grow so that you can pastor and you can shepherd. Let's raise up another leader." that's what's going on.

It's excitement, not survival. It's excitement about this, this mentoring leadership community spreading all throughout the known world.

Establishing Overseers and Deacons

Jed Gillis: Not only that, but he describes here at the end of verse one, he gives you two words, overseers, that's the word we get pastors from, and deacons, or elders and deacons. Says at the church of Philippi, said there are people who are leading spiritually within that body, and there are people who are functionally leading, who all love God. And Paul writes back to them and says, "Hey, Timothy and I love you all. Timothy and I want to help you make sure that you continue to walk the way you should. We want to encourage you." There's a vision for something local, a vision for something big, and there are leaders being raised up in all these different contexts.

Now, if you think about that, the alternative would be they're just sitting around, they go, this is just my habit. I show up. We do what we did last week. We do what we did the week before. We do what we did the week before. I don't know who this Timothy guys is, but I don't know if he should be doing anything involved with leadership.

There's all this back and forth, like there's real mentoring vision in this community. Paul and Timothy are writing, and it's not just a theoretical oh, they're leading, they're making decisions, but there's genuine care.

Paul's and Timothy's Love for the Philippians

Jed Gillis: Now, if you'll turn over to chapter two, you're gonna see where Paul gets to some biographical information, if you will, in verse 19. He's writing, in this whole context, he's basically writing Philippians as a big thank you note. They sent him a gift to help support him while he was in prison. He writes this back to say, "Thank you so much," and then to also say a lot of other things because, Paul doesn't just say thank you. But he says a whole lot of other things.

In the process, he writes this part in verse 19, "I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel. I hope, therefore, to, send him just as soon as I will see how it will go with me. And I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also."

There's genuine care, like Paul loves Timothy, like this is my son. Loves him so much he says, "I wanna send him to you, but I'm not sending him to you yet until I know what's gonna happen with me." We're gonna be together, Timothy's with me, but once I know how this imprisonment and trial and all this stuff goes, I'll send him to you 'cause I know he loves you every bit as much as I do.

Now again, this isn't like Captain America. It's not the idea that caring for someone somewhere is a good thing. That's true, but that's not the point. These are real live flesh and blood people. Paul's actually sitting in a prison. Paul's actually needing support from outside, and Paul's saying, "And I love you so much." And Timothy is so genuinely concerned, "I can't wait to send him to you for your good."

A Mentoring Community

Jed Gillis: I'd ask you when you look around, whether it's community here at Berean or maybe you're visiting with us, it's community somewhere else, when you look around at Christian communities sometimes we reflect that well. Other times we fall short. Sometimes we really do have this sense of we're mentoring, we're raising up leaders, we're doing all these things, we're excited for the work of Jesus Christ here, around the world, next door, all these different places. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we kind of circle the wagons and just try to survive.

Sometimes we have leaders which could be elders or deacons or ministry leaders, it could be any form of leadership. Sometimes we have leaders who genuinely care for their people. You don't have to go that far Doing a quick Google search will show you plenty to find leaders who don't.

That's the kind of community that was here in Philippi. That's the kind of community we should say, "That's what I want. I want to be part of that community." It would be exciting to be part of that community.

So when we ask how does this compare to our experience, don't just ask it like a consumer. don't think that looks right. I'll see if I can find it somewhere else. Nope, can't find it there. I'll go somewhere else Instead say, "How does that compare to my experience and how can I make it better?" If you were an overseer, a deacon, elder or deacon sitting at Philippi and Paul writes this, you weren't supposed to say, "Paul, come fix all the problems in our community." You were supposed to say, "I see what it's supposed to be like. Jesus Christ is truly Lord. We should care for one another. We should be excited for the advance of His gospel, both here and other places. How can I do that? How could I be part?"

As we go through and look at different characteristics of this community, there's always two pieces. One, wow, that looks good. I see what's here in scripture. Two, how can I make my community and my relationships more like that? How can I step into it? It's a mentoring community, a leadership, a caring community.

A Serving community

Jed Gillis: It's also a serving community. He says, "Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus." You may have seen on our bulletin that the title for this series is Allegiance, and the point of that is to try to capture the idea of a deep, committed loyalty to our King.

That's the point. When you... It, The word comes from medieval times when you had lords who ruled, and then you had their liege, the one who pledges allegiance, who pledges loyalty, who says, "I am committed to this master." And by extension, if you're committed to this one, you're not committed to some other one.

As we go through this book, we're gonna see the same thing that Paul starts off here when he says, "Paul and Timothy, servants." That word literally is doulos, if you know the Greek word for it. It's, the word we get slave from. He's, he was a slave of Jesus Christ. This is someone whose life and loyalty is completely directed towards their master. That's what this word captures. Paul says, "I'm a servant of the Lord, Christ Jesus. My life, my loyalty, everything is completely directed towards Him."

Notice he doesn't primarily describe himself as a servant of the church of Philippi. He doesn't say, "I'm your servant." Now, he does use languages like that sometimes, and he clarifies. Like in 2 Corinthians, he says, "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, Master, and ourselves as your servants, yes, but for Jesus' sake." Fundamentally, Paul says, "I'm not serving you at Philippi primarily. I'm serving Jesus, and in serving Jesus, I'm serving His people, yes. I genuinely care for His people." But ultimately, his allegiance is to Jesus.

Don't forget that when you serve others. It's not ultimately for them. That's really good because have you ever served somebody and thought later it didn't seem worth it? You serve someone and you relationally invest, and maybe you do that for years and then it kind of falls apart. They run off and do stuff. You're like, "Man, you made terrible choices. What was the point?" The point was they were never your master in the first place. You were serving Jesus.

It's true in all the things we do. If we, in our context in church, you know, when you go and teach a group of five-year-olds about scripture. Many times they grow up to love Jesus, and you can see that fruit, but you don't always. And many times you might stand in that room, and we have people out teaching children's church right now. It's entirely possible that at this exact moment, one of them is teaching something about Jesus and thinking, "These kids aren't listening at all." Some of you have been there, you know. It's entirely possible.

Why do we do that? Because our master isn't that five-year-old. Our allegiance is to Jesus. He says, "You are a servant." He, Paul, in Timothy says, "We are," and is pointing then for us to imitate them as they imitate Jesus. We are servants of Christ Jesus.

When you serve someone and they don't seem to appreciate it, remember who you actually serve. When you serve someone and they don't like the way you served, remember they're not your master.

Really, this is one of many problems with a consumer mindset in church. If what we do is we, cater to the taste of the consumer, right? Somebody comes in and they just say, I didn't like church that way." it's a really good thing that in fact you aren't the master of the church. We don't serve that person's tastes. We serve Jesus. Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ.

We also need to make sure we understand the, ancient context of servanthood and what that even meant. Now, it didn't mean, in that case, it did not mean that they were, like, awful, low-class scum of the earth. We hear that sometimes. We think, servants, they're just, they're way down here socially." But in the ancient world, that wasn't always the case. If you were a servant of a really great master, you were actually elevated in your status. There were people who would be described as slaves of Caesar's household. Those people were actually quite prominent socially.

Because when Paul says, "Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus," he is not saying, "We're absolutely terrible and you should pity us." He really isn't. He's actually saying, "We serve the best master ever. You think Caesar gives status? Let's talk about Jesus Christ." That's what he's actually doing with this. He's saying this allegiance here gives you something far beyond just, I'm miserable. I serve." No, because you're a servant of the King.

And when I use this word allegiance, I don't just mean, bare duty, as if Paul says, you've gotta have-- You gotta be a slave who just does whatever the king says, so you have allegiance towards him." No, in this book, he treasures Jesus. We get to chapter three, he says, "I count all things as loss for the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my..." What's the next word? "Lord." Don't zoom past the word Lord in Philippians and think that's just, a title for something. No. Lord, the one my allegiance is to. The ruler of all of it. I count all these things com- as loss compared to the surpassing value, the greatest treasure of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.

We know this in other uses as well. if somebody says, "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America," and they go through all that, and then they walk out and spit on the flag, we know that allegiance did not mean what it was supposed to mean. In fact, if they're just careless with it, if they just say, "I pledge allegiance to the flag," but they show it no honor and no respect, nothing, we say, "What was the point of that word allegiance?" It clearly didn't mean what it ought to mean because it's not just about bare duty. It's about actually treasuring and valuing something as well.

Your Allegiance to Something Shapes You

Jed Gillis: And this is important because when you show allegiance to something, it shapes you. What you're loyal to shapes you. We saw this a little bit in Timothy and Paul. Paul said, "He's like a son who's been with me. He genuinely cares for you just like I do." Why? Timothy said, "I'm loyal to you, Paul. I'm following you."

We see this in, you think of military men. There's a, a story of Dwight Eisenhower. There was a man, George Marshall, who was one of his mentors, and there were a group of people like Eisenhower and some others who were known as Marshall Men. They were known that way 'cause they were loyal and mentored by this man named George Marshall, and they developed a certain character. Because when you're loyal to something, when you have allegiance to something, it shapes you.

The Contrasts Emphasized in Philippians

Jed Gillis: So what does that mean for us with, our Lord? as we go through the book of Philippians, we're gonna see Paul put some crazy things together like you should be incredibly humble and incredibly confident. Wait, how do I do those things? Or he says, "You should be really content," and "you should forget everything behind you and press forward with everything you have for something."

How do I do those two things? How do I have ambition for Christ and contentment? How do I work really, hard at my sanctification and yet not rely on myself at all, but trust in something else? Like, how do I do that?

What your allegiance is to shapes you. So think about Jesus. Jonathan Edwards wrote this old-sounding sentence where he says, "There is an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies in Jesus Christ." Basically, he means there are things that we don't normally see together, but man, they're beautiful when they're together.

For example, infinite highness of the God of the universe and infinite lowness of the baby in the manger So how do you held those two things together? Glory and humility, infinite justice of the judge of all the earth and infinite grace of the one who says, "He who's without sin cast the first stone." The majesty of Christ along with His meekness, His reverence to the Father and yet, "I and the Father are one," this equality. The one who is totally worthy of everything good and yet the one who's perfectly patient in suffering.

See, our King has both of those things together, and many, more that we could talk about throughout this book. Paul sounds a lot like that. You go, "Paul, how are you so, you're humble and yet you're really confident? How do you combine these things?" Because your allegiance shapes you. Your allegiance forms you.

Part of what we'll return to over and over in this book, Paul does some things we think, "How on earth?" He's in jail and people are preaching Christ, but they're doing it trying to harm Paul. We'll get to that later. They're doing it out of, terrible motives, trying to hurt him, and Paul says, "I'm just grateful that Jesus is being really preached." Paul, how can you feel like that? I feel defensive for him, and I'm not even him. But he can because his knee is bowed to Jesus the King. And since Jesus walked that path as the one who deserved all glory but suffered, Paul says, "I can suffer." Why? Because his allegiance shapes him.

A Purposeful Community

Jed Gillis: So this community is people who are devoted to Christ, who are servants whose allegiance are devoted, is devoted to the master above everything else, to serving community. How about your relationships? How about you? In your life, in your community, in your care group, in your Sunday school class, in your whatever relational circles you have, is it really devoted fully to Jesus Christ?

And if you say, "Well, not all the time," well then, how can you take steps towards that? How can you help that allegiance really be to Christ and not be split among Jesus and something else?

He goes on and says, "To all the saints that are at Philippi." To all the saints It's a mentoring community, it's a serving community, and it's a purposeful community.

Say, where'd you get purposeful out of this? saints, the word just means sanctified ones, set apart ones. It's not a category of super holy Christians. It's not people who have always done the right thing. That's not the point at all. He's writing saying everybody at Philippi are saints.

When he wrote to Corinthians, he called them at the beginning to the saints, and then he proceeded to say about all kinds of really bad stuff that was going on in Corinthians. Because when he uses that word saints, he's not saying especially morally good people. That's not what it's meant to be at all. It's saying these are people who are sanctified, who are set apart. And why did you sanctify things? For a purpose.

It's probably not so common now, but used to be you would have, you know, the fine china. You didn't pull it out for a picnic. You didn't pull it out for your average everyday dinner. But there were moments when you pulled this china that was sanctified. It was set apart for a purpose. You pulled it out and said, "We're gonna use it for this purpose." You have different things like that are set apart for a purpose. When he says to all the saints, which means if you're a believer in Jesus, then you're part of that.

When he says to all the saints, he says, "You are set apart for a purpose." Your life is not a blank slate of meaningless options. And our life as believers together is not a blank slate of meaningless options to just, pick and choose whatever you want. No, our life as saints together is to say God has a purpose for every one of you being where you are in your walk with Him, for being in this room today, for being connected to Berean Bible Church right now for however long you have been or however long you will be. It's not random. It's not meaningless. To all the saints, the ones who are set apart for a purpose.

I think sometimes we act like life is just about earning enough to survive and enjoying enough to stay interested and being healthy enough to stay alive. That is way too low a view of life. You're set apart. You're sanctified for a purpose.

Now we could talk more about what that purpose is, and we will as we go through the book. But right now I want you to feel the weight of the fact that your life is not randomly purposeless. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you are a saint. You're set apart for a purpose.

So it's a purposeful community. I don't know about you, but I surely find that appealing. To say this isn't just about a random group of people getting together to do nothing that really matters. This is about the people that God bought with His own blood, set apart for His purposes, to reflect Him in this world, to love the people around us, to worship Him, to respond in our souls, to reflect who He is. All of these truths, all part of what it means to be saints.

A Diverse Community

Jed Gillis: Now, another piece of this community which isn't directly stated here, it's implied, but it's not directly stated, is this was a really diverse community. Now, I don't mean that in the modern sense of diverse. I really don't know what their, you know, ethnic backgrounds would've been or something like that.

But I want you to think about the people who might've been sitting in the room. You have overseers and deacons are listed here. Go to chapter two again, you'll see this man named Epaphroditus in verse 25. And Paul says, "You know, I think I need to send Epaphroditus back to you." Probably he carried this letter back to Philippi. He had brought the Philippians' gift to Paul. He had stayed with Paul. We're told here that he had gotten really sick. And in the meantime, while he's sick, the Philippians heard, and they were worried. They're like, "We sent this messenger over to somebody else, and now he's about to die, and we don't know what's gonna happen." Right? So Epaphroditus went sacrificially in a context where he knew there was danger. He knew-- He didn't know he was gonna get sick, but he knew it was a possibility. And yet his vision for King Jesus and what he was doing was more than just Philippi, so he said, "let me go over, and let me connect with another group of people."

Much like we have a, trip coming up in a, couple months headed over to India, and the Harrises and the Glasses have gone many times, much like Epaphroditus did, to say, "The Kingdom of God is way bigger than right here, and I want to demonstrate that, and I'm willing to risk discomfort and danger even, and those kinds of things, to go and be part of it." That's part of the community that's described here as the early church. Epaphroditus risked his life in what he's doing, and Paul says, "He's my brother and a fellow soldier."

Now, maybe that doesn't resonate with all of us, but I bet a lot of us go, "Man, I want a brother. I want a fellow soldier." That sounds like a good community to be in. That's part of what he describes. If we went over, we don't take the time to read through it, but if we went over to Acts 16, that's when the church at Philippi was founded. And you think about, again, who might have been sitting in that room when Paul wrote this letter and they received it?

You have someone like Lydia, who is a successful businesswoman. Scripture describes her as a worshiper of God. She faithfully prays, but she hasn't heard the gospel. It seems like, it's implied, but probably a good guess, that there weren't a lot of Jews in Philippi. it says that Paul goes to a place of prayer. He, his pattern was always to go to synagogues, and this place of prayer generally meant you didn't have a synagogue in town, so he went to the place of prayer. So probably what it was is you had fewer than 10 Jewish men in the town, because they would have formed their own synagogue, and he likely would have gone there. That's somewhat speculative, but it's a pretty good historic guess. So you have a city that's... It's a Roman colony. It's not a Jewish background. Lydia's a successful businesswoman who says, I know God. I'm gonna pray to him." She goes to this place, and Paul comes and starts talking to her, and she accepts Christ. And then not only that, she basically insists on Paul receiving her hospitality. Like she says, "If I've been found faithful, you come stay with me."

Essentially, she puts Paul on the spot and says, "Look, if you think I'm really a follower of Jesus, you gotta come stay with me. And if you don't come stay with me, I'm assuming you don't think I'm a follower of Jesus." Like she insists Paul receive my hospitality here. A successful businesswoman.

Then you have a demon-possessed slave girl who comes along, and you, can go read in Acts 16 if you want the full story. She made a whole lot of money for her masters in what she did, and then she comes around and is basically disrupting and annoying Paul. Literally, it says he was annoyed. So he cast the demon out of her. Now, I don't know if she came to faith in Christ or not. I really don't. I, kind of assume she probably did, but I don't know that. It doesn't say that in the text. But what I do know is it's possible she came to faith in Christ, and it's possible she was sitting in the church next to Lydia. Maybe Lydia's been mentoring this demon-possessed slave girl. I don't know, but maybe.

Then you have Paul and Silas get thrown in jail, right? And they're in jail, and in the meantime, you have this guy who's a jailer. He locks them all up. He walks off. They're in there singing at midnight while they're in jail, and there's an earthquake, which by the way, unless you think, do earthquakes just happen? I mean, was that really a miracle? There's an earthquake that, took the chains off of them, and everybody stayed in jail. It's a miracle.

So this jailer, whose allegiance was to the government, this jailer comes and he's about to kill himself 'cause he's "The government's gonna kill me anyway. I might as well get it over with." And Paul says, "No, wait, everybody's here." This man whose allegiance was to really ultimately Rome, the most powerful government in the world at the time, this man says God's power dwarfs anything Rome can give. And so he says, "What do I do to be saved?" Or, "Where is my allegiance gonna be now? 'Cause it's not to this puny government. Tell me about this God you serve." Maybe he's sitting on the front row when Philippians gets read.

Chapter 4 of Philippians, you see two women described here, Euodia and Syntyche. We aren't told a whole lot about it. There were two ladies in the church who were apparently arguing, and Paul calls them out in his letter and says, "You need to agree in the Lord."

Do people disagree in churches now ever? Yeah, that, that's pretty common, right? Maybe they had a doctrinal squabble back and forth. Maybe it was just a personal preference. Maybe it was a miscommunication that grew and grew. Maybe it was a failure to forgive. Could've been any number of things But those two ladies are sitting in church along with, he writes in—ESV translates it, "my fellow companion," could be a different name. It's hard to know exactly what that's meant to be. But he basically tells somebody else in the church, in a leadership context, says, "You help Euodia and Syntyche figure out how they can agree in the Lord."

So at least you have Euodia, Syntyche, you have that person who's probably an overseer. You have the overseers and the deacons. You have Epaphroditus who just brought back the message. You may well have the Philippian jailer, the demon-possessed slave girl, and Lydia all sitting in the same room.

Do you think they're gonna have some differences? Probably. Again, there's a difference between the idea of community or the idea of heroism and when you put flesh and blood on it. They're gonna have major differences. They're gonna have differences in what they understand about scripture, differences in their background, differences in their baggage that they bring into the context, difference in their preferences, difference in all of those things. How on earth can all of those people sit in a room and be united?

King Jesus.

Because every one of them, at least what they're supposed to be doing, is bowing the knee before Jesus as Lord. That's why they can sit next to each other with all of their different background and all of those things, and yet have a community that Paul describes in glowing terms, which we'll get to. But a community where he says, "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer making request with joy." Like Paul, I've seen some churches around, and I don't always think it's full of joy. Sure. This is the community of Philippians. Set apart believers for a purpose whose allegiance is to Jesus Christ alone. And that's why they can hear these different things like, "Do nothing from selfish ambition, but instead count others more significant than yourselves." Like how on earth? I've known humans a long time. They don't seem to do that easily. Right. But humans whose allegiance is to Jesus fully do.

Grace to You, and Peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ

Jed Gillis: So he gives this greeting, which we'll close with, "Grace to you," or as we read in Galatians, not undes- unconcerned forgiveness, not "Oh, yeah, you're okay, whatever happens," not, "I'll tolerate you," but grace, undeserved favor. Paul says, "You've done plenty of things that deserve a wrong response, that deserve condemnation." He's like, "But may God's undeserved favor be on you. Grace to you and peace," the rest in their soul that comes from the grace of God. "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the," say the next word, "Lord," King, the one who deserves all of our allegiance, "and the Lord Jesus Christ."

That's the greeting that he gives to Lydia, the Philippian jailer, the demon-possessed slave girl, used to be demon-possessed slave girl, the, Epaphroditus, to that whole group, to those real people sitting next to each other with all of their different disagreements and all of their excitements, to those people that he genuinely loved and that Timothy genuinely loved. God's undeserved favor and the peace that gives be to you from God and the one who deserves all of your allegiance, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how he starts his book.

And so I invite you, as you think about these different aspects of that community, if there's part of your heart that resonates with that and you say, "Man, that sounds like it'd be great. I would love to be in a community like that." And ask yourself, "Am I really bowing in allegiance to Jesus Christ? How can I make this community more like that? What purpose does He have for me sitting in this room to help this community to be more like those things I see and I long for?"

And this week, as you think about that May you hear God's word and Paul's word of greeting as you step into this book. God's undeserved favor and his rest be on you from the Lord.

Closing Prayer

Jed Gillis: I invite you to take a moment and respond in prayer. If God has put His finger on something in your heart He's either prompted you to start thinking, "What can I do?" Prompted you to say, "Here's something I've done that's, wrong." Whatever it is, just talk with God, do business. Ask Him to work through this truth of His Word in your heart and in this body.

So I'll give you a moment of silence to respond, and then we'll pray.

King Jesus, we bow before you. We pray that you would work in our souls, that our deepest commitment, our deepest loyalty will be to you and you alone. I pray that you would work in this body. Pray that we would be a community full of people whose hearts readily and eagerly bow to you. That we be a community full of people where there is excitement for the work that you are doing here and across this globe. That we be a people who are eager to be servants. Eager to be servants not of just of the people around us, your servants for their sake. That you make us people who even though we are different, and we have different backgrounds, and we have different baggage, and we have different, failures, different successes, all these differences. Make us a trophy of your grace that you can save people from all different situations, and not only you can save them, but you can unite them. We live in a world with so much division, and so many people who long for there to be real unity, let us show what real unity is.

Thank you for what you do In Jesus' name. Amen.