God Always Finishes What He Begins

0:55And Paul, as he's writing this letter, is certainly living in his own uncertain time as well. He's writing this letter from Rome, most likely around 62 AD, and he's writing from prison. About 10 years earlier, he embarked on his second missionary journey, which got off to a very rough start. It began with a sharp disagreement with Barnabas, his co-laborer in Christ, which resulted in them parting ways. Barnabas took John Mark and headed to Cyprus, while Paul took Cyrus. And went back through Syria and then Cilicia.

1:34And after picking up Timothy, Paul and Silas attempted to preach the gospel in Asia, but the Holy Spirit didn't allow it. They then tried to go through Bithynia to preach the gospel, but again were prevented by the Holy Spirit. So they passed by Mycenae and came to Troas. Now, if I'm Paul, at this point, I'm pretty frustrated. I am committed to preaching the gospel, and I have traveled from modern-day Syria all the way to the northwestern corner of modern-day Turkey, and I've had exactly zero opportunities to preach the gospel.

2:14But God's ways are not our ways. I want you to look on the screen at what happens when they come to Troas. Acts 16, it says, And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us. And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

2:41So they board a ship and they head across the sea to a town called Philippi, which is an important city in what was known as Macedonia. Now, Philippi was named after Philip II of Macedon, who was the father of Alexander the Great. And in 42 BC, the army loyal to The murdered Julius Caesar defeated the rebel forces that were led by Brutus and Cassius, and to commemorate that victory and the prolonging of the Roman Empire, they declared that Philippi would be a Roman colony, something that was just unheard of outside of the specific bounds of the Roman Empire at the time. And the fact that it became a Roman colony meant that all of the citizens there had the privileges and responsibilities of Roman citizens, which is going to come into play in just a moment. So once the team lands in Philippi, they get right to work and they head down on the Sabbath to a place of prayer where they meet these different women. And one of these women is Lydia. She is a wealthy businesswoman, a seller of purple, and God opens her heart to receive the gospel.

3:47She then hosts the team during the rest of their stay in the city. Then, on another day, Paul casts out the demon from a slave girl. And while her response is not recorded in Scripture, I think it's safe to guess that she too believed in the Christ who had set her free, just as so many people did during Jesus' own life and ministry. Unfortunately, casting out that demon also got Paul and Silas in a lot of trouble because her owners, the slave girl's owners, were not at all happy that their means of profit through her fortune-telling had been taken away. So they dragged Paul and Silas before the authorities, who had them stripped down. Beaten with rods, and then thrown into prison. But that night, as Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, an earthquake unfastened all of the bonds in the prison. It opened up the doors, and just as the jailer was about to kill himself, Paul cries out, Don't harm yourself. We're all still here.

4:50And so the jailer comes and he throws himself in front of Paul and he says, What must I do to be saved? And he and his whole household are saved and are baptized. Well, the next day, the magistrates show up to try to let Paul and Silas go quietly, but Paul informs them that they are uncondemned Roman citizens. This is a big problem in a Roman colony like Philippi. So they come, they apologize, which I'm sure made everything okay, and then they let them go. They visited the church in Philippi and then they headed to Thessalonica. Now, from the rest of the book of Acts, all we know is that Paul visited Philippi two more times on his third missionary journey, once passing through the area and then once going back through towards Jerusalem. But when Paul got back to Jerusalem, he would be arrested and he would never again be out of prison during the rest of his life.

5:44And so he could have allowed his circumstances to dictate that he could no longer minister. But instead, what Paul did during his imprisonment is he redeemed the time. He wrote letters to all of the churches, some of them multiple letters, and many of them, Which found their way into the New Testament. So, today, what we're going to cover is the introduction to this letter, these sections that we are tempted often to skip over in our own private Bible study.

6:12And my hope is the same that it always is that you would see that these introductions are filled with truth that is there to be uncovered and believed. What we're going to learn today is that nothing prevents God from finishing what he starts. Nothing prevents God from finishing what he starts. Let's pick up here in verse 1. What I want you to see right off the bat is that in nearly every one of his letters, how does Paul introduce himself? Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God.

6:49That's probably because his apostleship was often questioned by false teachers everywhere that he went. But how does Paul introduce himself and Timothy in this letter? He calls them servants of Christ Jesus. Servants of Christ Jesus. If you do a survey of all of Paul's letters in the New Testament, you'll see that nearly every single time he calls himself an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. But only here and in one other letter does he use a different title. He calls himself a servant of Christ Jesus. And what does he call the church?

7:24What does it say? He's writing to all the saints in Christ Jesus. Who are at Philippi with the overseers or elders and deacons. Now, if you grew up in a Roman Catholic church or if you grew up in certain Protestant denominations, this is going to be very surprising to you. Because what would you expect it to say? You would expect it to say Saint Paul and Saint Timothy to the Christians at Philippi. And that's because from a very early age, we are conditioned with the idea that a saint is a particularly holy person who has done extraordinary things in their life, including perhaps performing miracles.

8:13But what I want you to consider is that the Greek word that is translated saints occurs more than 60 times in the New Testament. And never once, not a single time, does it refer to an individual believer. It always refers to the church as a whole. Remember, believers didn't call themselves Christians. Non-believers named us Christians. It was a derogatory term. They were making fun of us. It meant little Christs. Believers referred to one another in the early church as saints.

8:47It means holy ones or set apart ones. And friends, names matter, don't they? What we call a person or what we call something reflects. What we believe to be true. It's supposed to be an accurate representation of that person or thing. And as disciples of Jesus, what are we? By the grace of God, through faith in Christ and His life, death, and resurrection, we are not who we were. We are no longer sinners as an identity. We are saints, holy ones, set-apart ones.

9:24It's a reminder of who we are and a reminder of how we're supposed to live. We're supposed to live holy, set-apart lives. So, Paul closes the introduction with this customary blessing that you find in a lot of his letters. He says, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, we have peace because God reconciled us to Himself through the gracious work of Jesus Christ in His life, death, and resurrection. Without grace, there can be no peace.

10:02But because of God's grace, we have peace always, even in uncertain times. So, let's jump into the body of the letter now and pick up in verse 3. Verse 3, Paul says, 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. Now, remember, Paul has been apart from these people for a very long time, maybe close to 10 years, and yet he still thanked God every time he prayed for them, which was often.

10:50I think we know that time and distance are hard on relationships. The further apart we are, the longer that we've been apart, the more our care and concern for people tends to fade. But Paul sets a good example by praying for the Philippians, thanking God for them, even after spending years apart from these brothers and sisters. Why did he pray? He prayed because he cared. But don't miss this truth. He cared because he prayed. You will care about whatever you pray about.

11:37And so, if you want to see your care and concern grow for the local church, for believers in your life, for non-Christians in your life, if you want to see your heart grow for missions, if you pray about that regularly, you will begin to care about it. And you will keep caring about it. Because you pray about what you care about, and you care about. What you pray about. So, Paul prayed for them regularly, and you notice that he says that when he prayed, how did he pray? He prays with joy. Why?

12:13Because of their partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Now, that is certainly an apt description of the Philippians. They became Paul's gospel partners immediately after they came to faith in Christ. I want you to think about Lydia, that wealthy businesswoman, that seller of purple. When God opened her heart to believe the gospel, she immediately opened her home to receive the apostles and the evangelists who had come to Philippi. Think about that jailer who came to faith in Christ.

12:51When God washed away his sins through faith in Christ, he immediately washed all of the wounds that he and his fellow soldiers had inflicted on Paul and Silas. So when Paul says that the Philippians had been his partners from the first day until now, that was no exaggeration. Look at what Ralph Martin wrote. He says, we today might take the lesson to heart that the sign of our professed love for the gospel is the measure of sacrifice we are prepared to make in order to help its progress.

13:33Friends, if you profess to be a follower of Jesus Christ, could people say the same thing about you? That your life, while not perfect, is noticeably different than before you came to faith in Christ. It should be. And that life of love and sacrifice, of partnership in the gospel, is going to be an encouragement and source of joy to every co-laborer in Christ. And that leads Paul to what is the climax of this first section, verse 6. Take a look there.

14:10This is a great verse to memorize. He says, 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. Paul is certain that God will finish what he started. And he started the work of saving them. Now, you may recall that when we talked in 1 Corinthians, we talked about how salvation has past, present, and future dimensions. In terms of the past, God has saved us.

14:50Through faith in Christ, he's already forgiven us. He's already declared us righteous. Nothing can change our status before God now. didn't earn that status and it can't be taken away. We can't lose it. Look at what Paul writes in Romans 3. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in His divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

15:58So, in terms of the past, God has saved us. In terms of the present, God is saving us. Though that work sometimes seems frustratingly inconsistent in our lives, God is making us holier people. He's molding us into the image of His Son, Jesus. Even if you came to faith in Christ last week, you are already not the same person that you were, because God is at work. Saving you, sanctifying you. Look at 1 Thessalonians. Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it.

16:57So in terms of the past, God has saved us. In terms of the present, God is saving us. And in terms of the future, God will save us. God's work in us is not going to be finished until the day of Jesus Christ. That's what he says here in Philippians 1, when he returns to make us righteous and to give us those glorious resurrection bodies that he described in 1 Corinthians 15. Glorification is the end for every believer. It is our hope, but it's not a wish. It's guaranteed by the promise of God. Look what Paul wrote again in 1 Corinthians 15.

17:39Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable. And this mortal body must put on immortality. So, God has saved us, He is saving us, and He will save us. What that means, friends, is that we should not despair when you see uneven progress in your own discipleship.

18:21We shouldn't despair when we let ourselves down or when we let other people down. We shouldn't despair when you're not where you want to be in your spiritual growth. Because we have this promise from God that He who began a good work in you will complete it at the day of Jesus Christ. I came across this great quote from Alec Montier. Take a look at this: Salvation would be a wretchedly unsure thing if it had no other foundation than my having chosen Christ. The human will blows hot and cold, is firm and unstable by fits and starts. It offers no security of tenure. But it is the will of God that is the ground of salvation. The perseverance of the saints rests on the perseverance of God with the saints. Isn't that good news? That our perseverance rests on the faithfulness of God and His promise.

19:30See, the Philippians needed this reminder that God is going to bring that good work to completion. But you know who else needed that reminder? Paul. Paul is the one who brought the gospel to Philippi. He's the one who planted this church. He's the one who labored among them. And he hasn't seen them in years. He is 600 miles away in prison. He wanted to encourage them and to remind them of the truth. But I suspect that Paul is talking to himself, just like every pastor does, and reminding himself of the truth that God not only began the work, but he is continuing it, and he will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. So he didn't need to despair in jail either.

20:21Let's take a look now at verses 7 and 8. Paul's going to elaborate here on their gospel partnership. Paul says, It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. Paul felt great affection for the Philippians. He held them in his heart.

21:00Because they were partakers of grace with him. Now, that word partaker can be defined as one who participates with another in a joint concern. One who participates with another. So, a partaker is a participant, not a spectator. And how exactly did the Philippians participate with Paul? Well, first, he says they participated in his imprisonment. And no doubt, the first believers in Philippi stood with him when he was unlawfully arrested and beaten and thrown into prison. But even after all these years, when Paul is in prison once again, they are still standing by him. And, friends, then as now, imprisonment carried a serious social stigma. It was shameful to be put into prison. It was shameful to associate with people who were in prison or who had been in prison. And yet they did that. Look at Hebrews 13.

22:05Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. See, Paul says elsewhere that we should, if one part of the body suffers, we all suffer together. And that's because, you know, when your physical body has an injury somewhere, your whole body feels that. And so we are. Called because we're all in the same body. If somebody's in prison, if somebody is mistreated, if somebody is hurting, if somebody is mourning, we are all doing that together because we're all one body, the body of Christ. So they participated in his imprisonment. But second, he says they participated in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. Well, this word defense is translating the Greek word apologia. It's where we get our word apologetics, meaning to defend or to give an answer to the Christian faith.

23:04And then he uses this word confirmation, which means to cause to be known as certain. To cause to be known as certain. So what they're doing is they're giving an answer. They're defending the Christian faith. And they're also working to testify to its truthfulness so that others will believe. And friends, that's the exact same work that we are still called to as Christians today. Look at this charge that Peter gives to us. He says, but even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord is holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience. So that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

24:08So, when we read about how the Philippians stood by Paul in his imprisonment and how they put their hands to the plow to defend and confirm the gospel, it's no wonder that Paul held them in his heart. You're going to feel a deep and strong affection, a deep gratitude, a true partnership with those kinds of people. You're going to yearn for them, as he says here in verse 8. Hopefully, you have the privilege of knowing some military veterans. We have several of them here in our church at New Life. And one of the things that I've always found interesting is the deep connection, these lifelong bonds that are built between people who served in the military together. Why do they have that?

24:59Well, it's because they've been in battle together. They have had to defend ground together. They've had to advance and take ground together. They've experienced loss and pain together. They've experienced the full range of emotions together. That's going to bond you tightly to other people. And, friends, what we learn in Scripture is that we are in the midst of a spiritual war against Satan and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. So, it must be true that if we don't feel that same yearning, that same longing, that same partnership with our brothers and sisters in Christ, maybe it's because we're not participating with them in their trials. Maybe it's because we're not participating with them fully in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. We're not going to battle with them to defend and confirm it.

25:55But, church, we have to get in the fight and we have to stay in the fight together because every day lost souls are on the line. Every day, believers are subject to a barrage of Satan's fiery darts, of temptation, and doubt and discouragement. And so, we have to stay in the fight together. And that's why Paul closes with this prayer in the last three verses. Look at verse 9. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment.

26:38You see, we cannot love who or what we don't know. Knowledge is critical to love. So, Paul prays that the Philippians would abound more and more with knowledge. And there is no more important knowledge than the knowledge of God, of his character, his work. His ways, his will. Nothing is more important than that. For us to love God, we have to know God. For us to love other people, we have to know them. So Paul prays for our knowledge, but he doesn't stop there. He prays that our knowledge would be complemented with all discernment. And see, discernment is the ability to perceive something clearly. It's to sort things out, to be able to tell what's what. And that's really important because we need to know exactly how to love God and how to love our neighbors in our particular context. In the messiness of everyday life in 21st century America, here and now. How do we love God? How do we love others? We need knowledge, but we also need discernment. And so Paul prays for those things.

27:52Verse 10. So that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. When our love for God grows with knowledge and discernment, we are able to approve what is excellent. You see, before we came to faith in Christ, we didn't approve what is excellent. We didn't love truth and righteousness. We loved evil and unrighteousness. We gave approval, as Paul talks about in the early chapters in Romans, to sin, first to our own sin and then to the sins of others.

28:32And so, if you're a teenager, even if you're a college student, even if you're an adult, I suppose, this is what makes peer pressure so intense. Nobody likes to sin alone. When you're sinning by yourself, what Paul argues in Romans 2 is that your conscience, the word conscience means with knowledge, con science, with knowledge. You are doing it, you are sinning with the knowledge that what you're doing is wrong. But if you can get other people to sin along with you, if you can get them to approve your sin because they're doing it too, then you can say to yourself, well, look, even if this is wrong, everybody else is doing it too.

29:11So if I give approval to you, will you give approval to me? What we learn in the text here is that when our love for God grows with knowledge and all discernment, we learn to approve what is excellent. And we start approving what is excellent as God transforms our hearts and our minds from the inside out, making us pure and blameless for the day of Jesus Christ, as he says here. It reveals an inner purity and an external blamelessness that is given to us by the Holy Spirit, not something that we earn on our own.

29:46But you see, knowing and discerning and approving what's excellent, that's not the end goal for the Christian. Bearing fruit in keeping with repentance, that is the end goal. And that's why he says what he does in verse 11. He says, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. Now, the fruit of righteousness is most likely referring to what we would call the fruit of the Spirit, as Paul calls it elsewhere. Being filled with and producing the fruit of the Spirit is critical in any church, given how many different people, personalities, perspectives that there are, how many opportunities for sin and offense, how many opportunities for potential misunderstandings or miscommunications. Friends, we need the Holy Spirit to produce the fruit of the Spirit in us, because apart from Him, we can't live together in a way that honors God. We can't live together in a way that loves and serves other people.

30:55But we can by the power of the Holy Spirit. So we can't ever accept that division and backbiting and gossip and slander or anything else is just acceptable and the norm in the church. It's not. We can't settle for those things because we have the Holy Spirit and he is producing the fruit of righteousness, the fruit of the Spirit in us. Listen once again to Alec Mottyer. Look at this. We are called to become what we are.

31:30This is the mighty imperative of Christian ethics. Every other ethical system calls us to the costly effort of becoming what we are not. But in the full salvation already bequeathed to us in Christ, the new nature is already ours, waiting for expression, poised for growth, until its potential is triggered by our obedience to the word of God. Friends, that's the truth. That in Christ we are called to become what we already are: saints. Church, we are certainly living in uncertain times.

32:16But as we've often said over the past few months, what the pandemic has done is it has just brought to the forefront and brought to our realization that which has been true every day of every year of the existence of this universe, and that is that we are not in control. We do not know the future. We do not control the future. But the good news is that we know the God who not only knows the future, but who holds it in his hands, who is in control of every single thing that happens, working every single detail for our Good and for his glory.

33:04And that God who holds the future in his hands is reminding us today through the Apostle Paul that he will complete the work that he has begun in us. We don't have to fear for the future because our future and the future of every blood-bought saint is already secure in him. But you see, God must begin the work in you if he's going to finish the work in you. It's not something that you can start or finish on your own.

33:42And I suspect that there may be some here today or some watching online that have always thought that Christianity is the message that Jesus came to teach us how to live. And now it's up to us to try our best and hope that that's enough. My friends, it will never be enough. Our hardest work, our best efforts to make ourselves into saints will never be enough. Because we cannot be, we cannot become holy enough people to earn forgiveness and salvation from God. We cannot do it.

34:21That's why Jesus came. He came to live that perfect and holy life of obedience that you and I were called to live but failed to do. He came to offer himself in our place for our sins as a ransom to purchase us back. We were slaves to sin, but he has made us slaves to God who have been set free through his death and resurrection. And so maybe today God is beginning this work in you, calling out to you, drawing you to himself.

34:56And if so, your response needs to be not to promise to try harder, to do better, but to receive Jesus Christ by faith, his perfect life, his death, his resurrection on your behalf. If he's drawing you, he is beginning a work in you. And God never fails to finish what he begins. Let's pray. Father, we are so thankful that we have this. Excellent reminder that it wasn't us who sought you out. It wasn't us who tried so hard to be religious people and we brought our resume to you. Ask you to look it over and to consider us.

36:22But it was you who sought us while we were still your enemies. It was you who called us before the foundation of the world to be your people. It was you who sent your Son to save us and sanctify us and eventually to glorify us through faith in him. I know there are probably many today who, like me, feel like the Christian life is two steps forward and one step back. Just when we feel like we've gotten a hold of this certain area of our life, just when we feel that we've mastered this particular sin issue, our flesh rises up and we see that we still aren't perfect. We still fall short. We still need a Savior.

37:17And it's in those moments that we most need to be reminded that you, God, are the one who began the work and you will complete it. May we hope and trust in you. You and your promises today. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.