This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Philippians” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, May 2, 1993.
About this sermon
Paul’s second missionary journey brought him to Philippi, and there the Philippians began to share in his ministry. Their participation was real, and traces of selfishness showed even in their gift to him. Paul’s gratitude does not require pretending the gift was flawless.
Sermon transcript
This morning we are reading first of all from Philippians chapter 1, beginning with verse 3. We are going back and starting all over again. Listen to the word of God. Philippians 1.3.
I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing. that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all because I have you in my heart, since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me. For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole Praetorian Guard and to everyone else, and that most of the brethren trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from goodwill. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached, and in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice.
For I know that this shall turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope that I should not be put to shame in anything but that with all boldness Christ shall even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
And you yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving but you alone. For even in Thessalonica you sent a gift more than once for my needs. Not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek for the profit which increases to your account. I have received everything in full and have in abundance, and am made full, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant aroma and acceptable sacrifice well pleasing to God.
And my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. Our Father, your word is what gives life. Your word is the very power of the new creation, having been the power of the original creation. So as we draw our breath in this world, we must give you thanks because of your word, and as we have been breathed upon by the breath of the Holy Spirit to witness of life, and our praise and thanks of you is multiplied in that because of your word. We thank you, Lord, that you have looked upon us, that you have looked upon us in Christ and that you have forgiven our sins through him.
Help us now, Lord, that we might listen, and that listening we might obey. For Jesus’ sake, amen. The Book of Acts records three missionary journeys of Paul. It was on his second missionary journey that he first ministered in Philippi. the account of which is found in Acts 16.
The circumstances were these. Paul and Barnabas had an argument. They argued over Barnabas’s desire to take John Mark, Barnabas’s nephew, on their intended trip to visit the churches which they, Paul and Barnabas, had organized during their first missionary journey. As a result of that argument, Barnabas and Mark went to Cyprus, while Paul and Silas, one whom he had chosen, set out for Asia Minor. Paul and Silas picked up Timothy, a young man born of mixed parentage, his mother a Jew and his father a Greek.
They then traveled west, avoiding the provinces of Asia and Bithynia because of an express command from the Holy Spirit, and they finally came to Troas. a city that stood on the northwest coast of Asia Minor along the shores of the Aegean Sea, near the site of the ancient city of Troy.
That city, in keeping with its rumored history, reminded all of the continual hostility between East and West. Those from Asia, lusted after things in the West, stole a king’s queen, set armies in motion, brought about their downfall through the cleverness of the Greeks. But then, later, Asia set its eyes upon Greece once more, the Persians this time invading. The Greeks withstood. And then from the North, Macedonia, one took to himself Greek identity, Alexander, and pushed eastward to make the East his servant. But now the world is poised, as these come from the East and set once more on the banks of Asia. is the Aegean Sea, and beyond that, Europe.
Two things of importance will take place at Troas. First, Paul’s company will have added to it one more, a Gentile described as the beloved physician, would eventually write the gospel that bears his name, and also write the account of Paul’s journeys that appears in the Book of Acts. The second thing of importance that would take place at Troas was a vision from heaven given to Paul, a great vision, an important vision.
A Macedonian appeared in that heavenly vision to Paul and begged of the Apostle that he come across the Aegean Sea to minister to those in Macedonia. It was a strange vision indeed. Macedonia, known for its strength, its power. The Macedonians are proud folk in need of nothing, yet this one in the vision, overcome by weakness, and actually inviting invasion.
The invasion that comes is of a different sort than those that had occurred previously, and so it is that the gospel now, officially, with an apostle at the lead, enters Upon landing in Europe, Paul’s party immediately makes its way to the chief city of that region, Philippi, a short distance inland from its seaport, Neapolis. Here you will recall in Philippi the gospel is preached. not in a synagogue, not in a public arena, but at a riverbank, where a group of women are assembled Sabbath by Sabbath to pray. They assemble there because there is no synagogue in the city of Philippi.
One of their number is a God-fearer. She is named Lydia. She is a prominent woman in the city. She is prominent as a merchant. She believes at the preaching of the gospel, and we are told by Luke that the Lord opened her heart. She then had her entire household baptized. But there is another female of importance in Philippi, a slave girl of extraordinary ability. She makes money for her masters by telling fortunes. She is actually the reason for the enslavement of others, though she herself is a slave. When she sees Paul and his company, she takes to them immediately.
She follows them, dogs their steps, harasses them, and even mocks their message. After a few days, Paul has had enough, and by the Holy Spirit He casts out that spirit which was in the woman, the evil spirit in the girl. The masters who had profited from her blasphemous gifts were incensed. They dragged Paul and Silas into court and charged them with sedition. Paul and Silas then, without trial, were immediately beaten and thrown into prison. and that in the custody of a jailer who was none too kind to them.
God had no intention of leaving his servants in this circumstance, nor that jailer in his sin. At midnight, while Paul and Silas prayed and sang hymns in the midst of their affliction, As if God with his finger had touched Philippi specifically, an earthquake struck, apocalyptic in its dimension, shaking the citizens of that city.
So violent was it that it sprung the prison doors and the chains of the prisoners fell off. The Lord comes in apocalyptic power and sets at liberty his people. There follows then that grand exchange between the jailer and Paul. The jailer was a superstitious and religious man. He connected the earthquake with the prisoners that were presently in his charge.
He pleads for his life in light of this sign of divine displeasure. He cries out to Paul, what must I do to be saved, and Paul responds, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and by house.” To which the jailer responded in faith, receiving baptism with all his house and then demonstrating his faith and repentance by washing Paul and Silas’ wounds and giving to them food.
The next day, the magistrates, the city fathers, shaken themselves by what had taken place the night previously, possibly making a connection between that earthquake and what they had done the day before, tried to cover up the injustice that they had perpetrated against Paul and Silas. The things were made all the worse in that both Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, and according to Roman law, they should not have been treated the way they were. Thus the politicians beg Paul and Silas to leave the city. Paul and Silas are willing to do that, their work there completed. So they take with them Timothy, they leave Luke behind.
But the church in Philippi is now established, the first church in Europe. having in its number the households of Lydia and the jailer, and we assume that slave girl, since her masters have no more use for her. Although Paul leaves Philippi and moves south to Thessalonica and then Berea, comes into Achaia and to the cities of Athens and Corinth, starting new congregations as he moves along through that journey. Still there remains that special bond with the people that he has served, ministered unto, at Philippi. He will be drawn back to them at least three more times. in the dozen or so years that are left to him in his life in this world prior to his martyrdom. Twice he would visit them during his third missionary journey, that journey famous for its diaconal ministry that brought gifts from the Gentile-based churches in the West to the poor-suffering Jewish-based congregations in Palestine in the East. East has given to West, and now West ministers to the East.” There is at least one more visit from the Apostle to the Saints at Philippi, and that comes following his release from his present imprisonment, the imprisonment out of which he writes this letter to the Philippian congregation.
That latter occasion is alluded to in 1 Timothy 3.1, Philippi possibly becoming the site from which Paul wrote his first letter to Timothy. The bond, then, between the apostle and these people, this church, a special bond indeed. and that for more reasons than what would be evidence from the regular visits Paul pays to these people, that even for more reasons than the fact that the Philippian church is the first congregation on European soil, of all the churches either started by Paul or in which he had a hand, it would be only the church at Philippi that is described in the manner that Paul describes it in this epistle. That’s why we went back and we read from the beginning of the epistle this morning, particularly the fifth verse of that first chapter. In the King James Version, we are told in that fifth verse that these Philippians had fellowship in the gospel with Paul. The New International Version speaks of it as a partnership in the gospel, and the New American Standard speaks of a participation in the gospel.
Not that the other churches didn’t have a bond with Paul through which they were seen as active in his ministry, but Philippi was alone in contributions to Paul. It’s almost as if Paul allowed this congregation, this congregation only, to give to his support.
He turning down gifts from other churches or refusing to take money for his ministry amongst various peoples. These gifts, then, were given to Paul personally. They were given out of love, they were given to him so that he might be relieved in his ministry of the Word. Such gifts to Paul from these Philippians were the rule from the very first. So we moved on to the fourth chapter of Philippians, and particularly that fifteenth verse, where Paul says, At the first preaching of the gospel among you, after I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving but you alone. And as if to add emphasis, Paul goes on to point out that they did not even wait for him to leave Macedonia, since more than one gift came to him. while he was in Thessalonica.
Spontaneous, generous, unique in quality, unique in the demonstration of love. That’s as it had been, but time has now passed some ten years. Not that the Philippians are any less spontaneous or generous. In fact, as we have repeatedly pointed out, this letter which we have in the New Testament was written on the occasion of another gift that had come to the Philippians.
But that gift, despite Paul’s gratefulness for it, gives evidence of something else besides the love that had originally animated this church. Something threatens that very love. Something threatens the precious and honored history of this congregation and its formulation. Something threatens the charter of this church as Europe’s first. the bond that exists between this church and Paul, this church and Christ.
Not that these Philippians don’t proclaim Christ, not that Christ isn’t preached at Philippi, but in this, the Philippians are not much different from the enemies Paul encounters in Rome, of which he spoke in the first chapter. And like those enemies of Paul in Rome, these Philippians, too, are presently boiling over in envy and contentiousness, born of selfishness.
Truly, Paul will rejoice that Christ is preached. Chapter 1, verse 18, he will rejoice that Christ is preached, but it isn’t enough that Christ be preached. Paul goes on in verse 21 of that first chapter to say that Christ must be lived. For to me, to live is Christ. And living Christ means the giving of one’s self.
And that without reservation, with integrity, There is then an inhibition, a restriction that is working its way in upon the Philippians, so that their gift, while lavish, threatens their very life. All gifts are good, are they not? Just the act of giving is a commendable activity, is it not? Not so! Not so, says Scripture. Not so, says Paul. Not so, says Christ.
This gift threatens their very lives. And what threatened those Philippian Christians becomes a spiritual cancer that is liable to invade the entirety of the Church that takes form in the West, so that what is given back to those in the East is marked and marred by the selfishness and the envy and the ambition and self-righteousness of those who extend the gift.
And we now, we of the West, have great wealth, we in this nation have great wealth. We make large contributions, we give lavishly, but do these gifts themselves bear testimony to the undoing of the apostolic ministry and Christ’s gospel, in that they do not carry with them the prelude of the gift of ourselves, and that without reservation. Such giving is after the senility of Christ, who gave himself for us. But where do we find ourselves presently?
Are East and West then pitted over against one another even as far as the Church is concerned? Incapable of ministering to one another anymore because of the suspicions and the greed that lies within them? move, it seems, beyond those primal hostilities, even if those primal hostilities have overtaken and infected the Church, for presently the Church, even in its Western expression, considering it alone, is being ripped apart by the conflicts of race and nationality and sex, so that all that concerns us is our rights, our interests, and what advantages may be gained for us through our gifts, our contributions. We have become ecclesiastical lobbyists. This is not the way of Jesus Christ. And we who know this must plead with Christ’s Spirit that we may show concretely that we know that this is not the way of Christ.
By our giving and by our living. For we live Christ and we must give like Christ. Our Father in Heaven, how great you are, how great your gift, how you give yourself how you do not hold back, how there is no inhibition in you, so that you give yourself without reserve, offering up yourself in your Son for those you love. Lord, there may be a cancer at work in our piety, even in our acts of charity. in the contributions that we have given today, in that they are not preceded by the offering of ourselves. Forgive us, Lord. Help us, O God, that in acknowledging the truth about ourselves we would find help in you. the wonderful things spoken of the Philippian saints. Gain the victory, yes, for them, but for us, if thou, as he who began a good work in us, completes it unto the day of Christ Jesus. Amen.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.