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Philippians 1:1-11

• Philippians 1:1-2
• Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus: To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons. 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
  • The opening sentence sets the tone of the whole letter. It is clearly a letter written to friends. With the exception of the letters to the Thessalonians and the little personal not to Philemon, Paul begins every letter with a statement of his apostleship; for instance, he begins the letter to the Romans: “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God”
  • In the other letters, he begins with a statement of his official position, why he has the right to write, and why the recipients have the duty to list; but not when he writes to the Philippians
  • There is no need; he knows that they will listen, and listen lovingly. Of all his churches, the church at Philippi was the one to which Paul was closest; and he writes, not as an apostle to members of his church, but as a friend to his friends
  • Nonetheless, Paul does lay claim to one title. E claims to be the servant (doulos) of Christ; but doulos means more than servant, it means slave
  • A servant is free to come and go; but slaves are the possessions of their masters forever. When Paul calls himself the slave of Jesus Christ, he does three things
    • He lays it down that he is the absolute possession of Christ
      • Christ has loved him and bought him with a price, and he can never belong to anyone else
    • He lays it down that he owes an absolute obedience to Christ
      • Slaves have no will of their own; their master’s will must be theirs. So Paul has no will but Christ’s, and no obedience but to his Savior and Lord
    • In the OT the usual title of the prophets is the servants of God
      • That is the title which is given to Moses, to Joshua, and to David. In fact, the highest of all titles of honor is servant of God; and when Paul takes this title he humbly places himself in the succession of the prophets and of the great ones of God. 
  • A Christian’s slavery to Jesus Christ is no cowering subjection. As a Latin saying has it, to be His slave is to be a king.
    • Kyle Idleman, in his book Not a Fan, says, “To call Jesus Lord is to make yourself His slave.”
  • The letter is addressed to “all the saints in Christ Jesus”
    • The word translated as saint is hagios, and saint is somewhat misleading. To modern ears, it paints a picture of almost unworldly piety. Its connection is rather with stained-glass windows than with the market place. Although it is easy to see the meaning of hagios, it is hard to translate it
    • Hagios and its Hebrew equivalent kadosh are usually translated as holy. In Hebrew thought, if a thing is described as holy, the basic idea is that it is different from other things; it is in some sense set apart.
    • In order to understand this better, let’s look at how holy is actually used in the OT
      • In Leviticus, the priests were to be different from other people, for they were set apart for a special function. The tithe was the tenth part of all produce which was to be set apart for God. The tithe was different from other things which could be used as food. The central part of the Temple was the holy place; it was different from all other places. The word was specially used of the Jewish nation itself. The Jews were a holy nation. They were holy to the Lord; God had separated them from other nations so that they might be His; it was they of all nations on the face of the earth whom God had specially known. The Jews were different from all other nations, for they had a special place in the purpose of God
      • Now the privileges and responsibilities had been given to the Church, which became the new Israel, the people of God. Therefore, just as the Jews had once been hagios, holy, different, so now the Christians must be haggis; the Christians are the holy ones, the different ones, the saints. Thus Paul in his pre-Christian days was a notorious persecutor of the saints, the hagioi; Peter goes to visit the saints, the hagioi, at Lydda
  • To say that the Christians are the saints means, therefore, that the Christians are different from other people. Where does that difference lie?
    • Paul address his people as saints in Christ Jesus. No one can read his letters without seeing how often the phrases In Christ (48), In Christ Jesus (34), In the Lord occur (50). 
    • Clearly, this was for Paul the very essence of Christianity. What did he mean?
      • Marvin R. Vincent says that when Paul spoke of the Christian being in Christ, he meant that the Christian lives in Christ as a bird in the air, a fish in the water, the roots of a tree in the soil. What makes Christians different is that they are always and everywhere conscious of the encircling presence of Jesus Christ
  • When Paul speaks of the saints in Christ Jesus, he means those who are different form other people and how are consecrated to God because of their special relationship to Jesus—and that is what every Christian should be
  • Paul’s greeting to his friends is: “2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
  • When Paul put together these two words, grace and peace (charis and eirene), he was doing something very wonderful. He was taking the normal greeting phrases of two great nations and molding them into one.
    • Charis is the greeting with which Greek letters always began, and eirene (Shalom in Hebrew) is the greeting with which Jews met each other
    • Each  of these words had its own flavor, and each was deepened by the new meaning which Christianity poured into it
    • Charis: The basic ideas in it are joy and pleasure, brightness and beauty; it is in fact, connected with the English word charm. But with Jesus Christ there comes a new beauty to add to the beauty that was there. And that beauty is born of a new relationship to God. With Christ, life becomes lovely because human beings are no longer the victims of God’s law but the children of His love
    • Eirene is a comprehensive word. It is translated as peace; but it never means a negative peace, never simply the absence of trouble. It means total wellbeing, everything that makes for a person’s highest good
      • It may well be connected with the Greek word eirein, which means to join, to weave together. And this peace is always connected to personal relationships—our relationship to ourselves, to other people, and to God. It is always the peace that is born of reconciliation
    • So when Paul prays for grace and peace on his people, he is praying that they should have the joy of knowing God as Father and the peace of being reconciled to God, to others and to themselves—and that grace and peace can come only through Jesus Christ
• Philippians 1:3-11
• 3 I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you, 4 always praying with joy for all of you in my every prayer, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. 7 Indeed, it is right for me to think this way about all of you, because I have you in my heart, and you are all partners with me in grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how deeply I miss all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, 10 so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
  • In our personal relationships, it is a great thing to have nothing but happy memories; and that was how Paul was with the Christians at Philippi. To remember brought no regrets, only happiness
  • In this passage, the marks of the Christian life are set out
  • There is Christian joy. It is with joy that Paul prays for his friends. The letter to the Philippians has been called the Epistle of Joy. The 18th century German theologian Johannes Bengal said “The whole point of the letter is I rejoice, you rejoice”
    • In 1:4 there is the joy of Christian prayer, the joy of bringing those we love to the mercy seat of God
      • There must always be a deep joy and peace in bringing our loved ones ad others to God in prayer
    • There is the joy that Jesus Christ is preached (1:18)
      • When we enjoy a great blessing, surely our first instinct must be to share it; and there is joy in thing of the gospel being preached all over the world, so that at first one person and then another and another is brought within the love of Christ
    • There is the joy of faith (1:25)
      • If Christianity does not make us happy, it will not make us anything at all. Christianity should never be a cause of anguish. Psalm 34:8 “Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in Him!
      • There is peace for no one where there are broken human relationships and strife between individuals. There is no lovelier sight than a family linked in love to each other, or a church whose members are one with each other, because they are one in Christ Jesus their Lord
    • There is the joy of suffering for Christ (2:17)
      • In the hour of his martyrdom, being burned alive, Polycarp prayed; “I thank you, O Father, that you have judged me worthy of this hour.” To suffer for Christ is a privilege, for it is an opportunity to demonstrate beyond any question of doubt where our loyalty lies and to share in the building up of the Kingdom
      • In Acts, when the apostles were brought before the Sanhedrin and beaten for spreading the name of Jesus, they left praising God they were worthy of suffering in the name of Jesus
    • There is the joy of news of the loved ones (2:28)
      • Life is full of separations, and there is always joy when news comes to us of those loved ones from whom we are temporarily separated. It is worth remembering how easily we can bring joy to those who love us and how easily we can bring anxiety, by keeping in touch or failing to keep in touch with them
    • There is the joy of Christian hospitality (2:29)
      • It is a great thing to have a door from which the stranger and the one in trouble know that they will never be turned away
    • There is the joy of those who are in Christ (3:1, 4:1)
      • We have already seen that to be in Christ is to live in His presence as the bird lives in the air, the fish in the sea, and the roots of trees in the soil. It is human nature to be happy when we are with the person whom we love; and Christ is the one from whose love nothing in time or eternity can never separate us
    • There is the joy of those who have done other souls for Christ (4:1)
      • The Philippians are Paul’s joy and crown, for he was the means of bringing them to Jesus Christ. It is the joy of parents, teachers, and preachers to bring others, especially children, into the love of Jesus Christ. Surely those who enjoy a great privilege cannot rest content until they share it with their families and friends. For Christians, evangelism is not a duty; it’s a joy
    • There is the joy in a gift (4:10)
      • This joy lies not so much in the gift itself as in being remembered and realizing that someone cares. This is a joy that we could bring to others more often than we do
  • Christian Sacrifice
    • In v. 6 Paul says that he is confident that God, who has begun a good work in the Philippians, will complete it so that they will be ready for the day of Christ. There is a picture here in the Greek which is not possible to reproduce in translation
      • The point is that the words Paul uses for to begin and for to compete are technical terms for the beginning and the ending of a sacrifice
      • There was an initial ritual in connection with a Greek sacrifice. A torch was lit from the fire on the altar and then dipped into a bowl of water to cleanse the water with its sacred flame; and with the purified water the victim and the people were sprinkled to make them holy and clean. Then followed what was known as the sacred silence, in which the worshipers were meant to make their prayers to their god. Finally a basket of barely was brought, and some of the grains of the barely were scattered on the victim and on the ground around it. These actions were the beginning of the sacrifice, and Paul uses the verb here. The verb used for completing the whole ritual of sacrifice was what Paul uses here for to complete. Paul’s whole sentence thinks in terms and pictures of sacrifice
      • Paul is seeing the life of every Christian as a sacrifice ready to be offered to Jesus. It is the same picture as the one he draws in Romans when he urges Christians to present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to the Lord (Romans 12:1)
      • On the day when Christ comes, it will be like the coming of a king. On such a day, the king’s subjects are required to present him with gifts to make their loyalty and to show their love. The only gift Jesus desires from us is ourselves. So, our supreme task is to make our lives fit to offer to Him. Only the grace of God can enable us to do that 
  • Christian Partnership
  • In this passage, the idea of Christian partnership is strongly stressed
    • Christians are partners in grace
      • There are people who owe a common debt to the grace of God
    • Christians are partners in the work of the gospel
      • Christians not only share a gift, they also share a task; and that task is the furtherance of the gospel
      • Paul uses two words to express the work of Christians for the sake of the gospel; he speaks of the defense and the confirmations of the gospel
        • Defense of the gospel means its defense against the attacks which come from the outside. Christians have to be  ready to be defenders of the faith and to give a reason for the hope that is in them
        • Confirmation of the gospel is the building up of its strength from within, the spiritual encouragement of Christians. 
        • Christians must further the gospel by defending it against the attacks of its enemies and by building up the faith and devotion of its friends
    • Christians are partners in suffering fro the gospel
      • Whenever Christians are called upon to suffer for the sake of the gospel, they must find strength and comfort in the memory that they are part of a great fellowship in every age and every generation and every land who have suffered for Christ rather than deny their faith
    • Christians are partners with Christ
      • In v. 8 Paul uses a very vivid expression; The literal translation is “I yearn for you all with the bowels of Jesus Christ” Bowels, in the Greek, were the upper intestines, the heart, the liver, and the lungs. These the Greeks believed to be the location of the emotions and the affections.
      • So Paul is saying: “I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ…I love you as Jesus loves you.”
      • The love which Paul feels towards his Christian friends is nothing other than the love of Christ Himself
      • When we are really one with Jesus, His love goes out through us to our fellow men and women, whose He loves and for whom He died. Christians are partners in the love of Christ
  • Christian Progress and the Christian Goal
    • It was Paul’s prayer for his people that their love would grow greater everyday (vs. 9-10). That love, which was not merely a matter of sentiment, was to grow in knowledge and in sensitive perception so that they would be more and more able to distinguish between right and wrong. Love is always the way to knowledge. If we love any subject, we want tot learn more about it; if we love someone, we want tot learn more about that person; if we love Jesus, we will ant to learn more about Him and His truth
    • If we really love Jesus, we will be sensitive to His will and His desires; the more we love Him, the more we will instinctively shrink from form what is evil and desire what is right
    • The word Paul uses for approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless is the word used for testing metal to see that it is genuine. Real love is not blind; it will enable us always to see the difference between false and true
    • Christians will themselves become pure and will not cause others to stumble
      • The word may come from sunshine and to judge, and may describe that which is able to stand the test of the sunshine without any flaw appearing. On that basis, the word means that the Christian character can stand any light that is turned upon it
      • Or it could be the word used to mean to whirl around and around  as in a sieve and so to sift until every impurity is extracted. ON that basis, the Christian character is cleansed of all evil until it is completely pure
    • But Christians are not only pure; a Christian may also be described as never causing any other person to stumble
      • There are people who are themselves faultless, but who are so harsh that they drive people away from Christianity. Christians are themselves pure, but their love and gentleness are such that they attract others to the Christian way and never repel them from it
  • Finally, Pauls sets down the Christian aim. This is to live such a life that the glory and the praise are given to God
    • Christian goodness is not meant to win credit for any individual; it is meant to win praise for God. Christians know and witness, that they are what they are, not by their own unaided efforts, but only by the grace of God

A couple of weeks ago, a group of us went to El Paso to see a Christian concert featuring TobyMac.  It was a great show, and I think all of us had a great time.  I’ve found myself listening to Toby’s new album almost constantly since the concert.  There isn’t a bad song on it, but the more I listen to it, the more one song really resonates with me more than any other.  The song is titled “Til The Day I Die” from the album This is Not a Test, and it really spells out what it should be like to live as a Christian.  I wish I could quote all the lyrics, however, here is what I really want you to know.  He sings, “Til the day I die, It’s Your name I’ll glorify. It’s runnin’ deeper than the ocean, this ain’t religion, it’s devotion.  365, every minute, everyday, so in the middle of the madness they can stretch me out like canvas, but I ain’t ever gonna fit in their frame.  I can’t stop, I can’t quit.  It’s in my heart, it’s on my lips.  I can’t stop, no, I can’t quit.  It’s in my heart, yeah, I’m all in.”

There is so much in that song, but what I really take from it is the commitment to be all in for God.  Being a Christian doesn’t mean just making a decision to accept Jesus one day and then going back to living like you were before you met Him.  It’s a commitment to be all in, til the day you die.  That’s what the song is getting at.  Look at this line again.  “This ain’t religion, it’s devotion.  365, every minute, everyday.”  Devotion, 365, every minute, everyday.  The definition of devotion is “love, loyalty, or enthusiasm for a person, activity, or a cause.”  Being a Christian calls for devotion, all day everyday.  We all mess up with this, but that’s when we just get up, dust ourselves off, and try again. 

We all need to be more devoted to Christ.  In fact, He warns us what will happen if we aren’t all in.  Revelation 3:15, 16 reads, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”  In other words, if we are just going through the motions, without any real devotion or commitment to Christ, then we are lukewarm, and He’s not ok with us being lukewarm.  I don’t know about you, but I want to be all in til the day I die.  Think about it this way.  We need to follow Paul’s example with what he wrote in Romans 1:16, 17.  He writes, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”  I’m not ashamed of my devotion to Jesus, are you?

Thoughts from a Crosseyed Jesus Freak

I’ve recently been given the opportunity to contribute articles on a weekly basis to our local paper, the Carlsbad Current-Argus.  It’s a faith/religion column that is run on Saturdays.  After the article runs in the paper each week, I plan on posting it here as well.  Here is the first…

Let Me Introduce Myself

My name is Kraig Birchfield, and I’m the minister at Central Christian Church located at 305 N. Oak St.   Since this is my first article that I’m submitting to the newspaper, I wanted to take some time to briefly introduce myself.  I’m 32-years old, and originally from East Tennessee.  My wife, Kelley, and I moved here about a year and a half ago to start our ministry at Central CC.  We absolutely love the community of Carlsbad, and look forward to being here for years to come. 

I’m excited about getting to contribute to the faith section in the paper, and would love to meet as many of you as I can.  We have a newsletter that we print monthly at the church, and I write on my personal blog as well.  In the blog and the newsletter articles, I refer to myself as a “Crosseyed Jesus Freak”.  That may be confusing at first look, so I thought I would take a moment here to explain where that name comes from.  Let’s look at “Crosseyed” first.  Simply put, this comes from my life verse of Hebrews 12:1-3.  I won’t quote it all for the sake of space, but it goes on to say in verse 2 to, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus”.  That phrase is where “Crosseyed” comes from.  That’s how I try to live my life, with my eyes fixed on Jesus, and what He did for me, and for us all, when He went to the cross for our sins.  In other words, I try to live my life, “Crosseyed”, constantly reminding myself who Jesus is and what He has done for me.

The “Jesus Freak” part really speaks to my age.  I was born in the early 1980’s, so I was a teen during the prime of one of the greatest pioneer Christian music groups of all time…dc Talk.  I was fortunate enough to see them as my first ever concert, and the tour that they were on at the time was called the Jesus Freak Tour.  “Jesus Freak” is one of the most popular Christian Rock songs of all time, and it’s where I draw the inspiration to call myself a “Jesus Freak”.  In the song, dc Talk sings, “What will people think when they hear that I’m a Jesus Freak, what will people do when they find that it’s true.  I don’t really care if they label me a Jesus Freak.  There ain’t no disguising the truth.”

Jesus is the best thing that has ever happened in my life, and I’m proud to call myself a “Crosseyed Jesus Freak”.  Like the song says, ‘there ain’t no disguising the truth”.  Jesus is my life, and He is why I love being in full-time ministry.  I can’t imagine doing anything else.  If you don’t know Jesus yet, I would love to talk with you sometime.  Ultimately, I want to see as many people become truly “Crosseyed Jesus Freaks” and living as true Christ followers as I can.  That’s my passion, and I look forward to sharing with you weekly about different aspects of my passion. 

Thoughts from a Crosseyed Jesus Freak,

Kraig Birchfield

I know the areas of my life in which I fail on a regular basis.  It’s human nature to not let everyone see the “worst” of us, but the thing about it is that it is not going to stay a secret.  In fact, God already knows those areas of our life.  It’s not just failing we’re talking about here.  We’re really talking about sinning, and to call it anything else than that is trying to sugarcoat it in an effort to make it seem not so bad.  So let me rephrase my first sentence.  I know the areas of my life in which I SIN on a regular basis.

The problem I’ve been seeing recently, even from people that I know would consider themselves Christians, is an attitude of trying to justify their behavior, or possible sin, by using the statement; “Only God can judge me!”  I get it.  Who likes to be told they are doing something wrong?  Who likes having to confront some of the worst parts of themselves, especially when having to deal with that is worse because we are our own worst critics at times.  It’s just easier to justify it, or gloss over the sin in our lives so that we don’t have to deal with it.  “God is the only one that can judge me”.

Is that a true statement, or are we just fooling ourselves when we use it?  The simple answer is, there really isn’t a simple answer.  First, let me deal with something that should be basic.  Saying God is the only one that can judge me as a justification for my bad behavior should not be a comfort.  God is going to judge all of us in the end, and we are told to confess our sins, not judge them or sweep them under the rug so to speak.  I John 1:8-10 reads, “⁸ If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.”

So with that out of the way, let’s dive in to the question at hand; Is God the only one that can judge us?  The good thing is that scripture does seem to speak to this, but at the same time, it doesn’t make one clear definitive answer.  Jesus talks about this idea on more than one occasion, but let’s just focus on one for this discussion.  Matthew 7:1-5 (click here) is where Jesus famously talks about not trying to get the speck out of your brother’s eye while you still have a plank in your own eye.  In other words, don’t judge someone else’s sin without being aware of your own.  Some people like to say that He is saying that it is not right to judge anyone at anytime.  In fact, that passage starts off with, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ² For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”  

It appears, when you look at everything here, however, that He is saying make sure you deal with your own sin first, before helping your brother with his.  In fact, that’s exactly what He says.  He ends with this; “first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”  Remove the speck from your brother’s eye.  We have a responsibility to help our brother, but only after making sure we have taken care of confessing and getting rid of our own sin.  And that can be an ongoing process.  That’s where I John 1 that I quoted earlier really comes into play.

Also, let’s look at some of the instructions from Paul to the church in Corinth.  I Corinthians 5:12, 13 read this way; “¹² What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? ¹³ God will judge those outside. ‘Expel the wicked person from among you.'”  This would make it appear that if the person is not a believer, then we really have no business in judging them.  That doesn’t mean that we don’t try to build a relationship with them in order to introduce them to our Savior, but it means that we don’t judge them with the same standards that we should one of our own.  That’s a topic for a whole different blog that I may try to get to later.  But Paul seems to clearly state that we, as Christian, are to hold each other accountable, and that is only done by seeing sin as sin and calling it out.  He even goes as far to say that if that person won’t deal with their sin and get rid of it, then they should be expelled.  Not a popular notion, but one that is spelled out.

So, can only God judge you?  If you’re a non-believer, then yes, but I wouldn’t want to be on that end of the judgement either.  If you are a Christian, you are responsible to God, but your fellow Christians are charged with helping to hold you accountable.  It all goes back to the idea of community.  We are supposed to be in this together, and just letting a brother or sister slide by when a sin is apparent is not a very loving way to share that community.  It’s not about judging for the sake of holding someone down.  It’s about holding each other accountable so that we can all grow closer to God together.

I came across a quote a few days ago, and the more I’ve thought about it, the more it bothers me.  There is some truth to it, but then there is some things that it alludes to that I think misses the mark.  The meme that the quote is found on is included below.

I agree that some churches have stopped talking about sin and eternity.  That is to their detriment.  Preachers are charged with preaching the whole word of God, so we have to preach against the bad, as well as preach the good.  I also agree that there is no promise in scripture that if you give your life to Christ, then everything in this life is going to go well for you.  That’s simply now there, however, some of these churches that have gotten away from preaching against sin seem to preach a “prosperity gospel”, meaning that if you are a Christian then you are going to prosper in this life.

What I have an issue with in this quote is that Jesus did care about the well-being of the people that He was ministering to, in their physical lives.  That doesn’t mean that that was His only focus, but most of the miracles He performed were done to help people in their lives, not necessarily only in eternity.  He healed the sick, lame, blind, mute, and even raised the dead.

He also said this in Matthew 11:28-30; “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Does that mean that everything is going to be great?  Or easy?  Not at all.  But I believe that it means that if we are in Christ, when the bad things in life happen, we have His help in getting through them.  Not that He will take them away completely, but that we have the God of the universe on our side.  He will give us help and rest when we need it.  Just having a relationship with Him should make going through the hard times more bearable, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this; Yes, we need to preach against sin, and we need to preach on eternity, because Jesus came to save us from our sin.  Our God, however, does care about us in the here and now.  That doesn’t mean that if we follow Him then everything is going to be easy, but it can mean that it will be easier to face the hard times in life when we have Him to lean on.