chapters, be short, a short series. I brought my study Bible tonight. I don't do this very often, but there are some good notes here. And I thought as far as historical matters, I kind of want to keep with that the way we've been doing with some of these letters. We tell a little bit about the history of the town and the the church and of course I didn't bring my my other Bible has the map in it let's see I've got one here okay so the book of Philippians is written of course to the church in Philippi The city of Philippi was not, many, most, a lot of the churches that Paul wrote to, if you remember from our study in Acts, a lot of those places were on trade routes. They were seaports, those types of things. They were popular metropolises of their day. They were, some of them were very large cities that he traveled to. Philippi was a large city, but it was not on the trade routes. It wasn't too far from the coast, but it was not a port city. It was, according to the history there in 356 BC, King Philip of Macedonia, who was the father of Alexander the Great, He took a town that was already there and expanded it, renamed it Philippi after himself. And this was during the Greek Empire. Philip, of course, was before Alexander. Alexander, remember, conquered a whole lot more of the known world at that time than his father did. But anyway, Then in 168 BC, the Romans captured it. It was a Roman colony. Octavian turned Philippi into a Roman colony. And if you turn back to Acts chapter 16, Philippi was a military outpost, a military colony as it was known as. The citizens were mostly soldiers and their families. And in our study in Revelation, in the Church of Thyatira, this past Sunday we talked about Lydia. in Acts 16 and verse 11. And this was, remember, Paul and his Macedonian call. The angel of the Lord came to him, and there was a man in his dream that was calling him to Macedonia. And so that's where the Lord had for him to go. Remember, Paul was wanting to go to Asia, parts of Asia, in western Turkey and he didn't get to go there. That's not where the Lord had for him to go at that time. In verse 11 it says, Therefore loosing from Shoah as we came, with a straight course to Sammartha, and the next day to Napoleus, And if you look at a map, you see Naples is south, it's actually on the coast, and Philippi is just a few miles north of there. And from this to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony. And we were in that city abiding certain days. So Philippi was a colony, it was a military outpost in that part of Macedonia it was the the capital city. This is a the chief city. So it was the capital city of that part of Macedonia It was a popular place And then we if you read on that story there you see Where they met Lydia she was from Thyatira, but she was living in Philippi at the time and And a church was organized there at some point after that. The Philippian jailer, if you go on down later in the chapter, in chapter 16 in Acts, you see the story of this Philippian jailer. And remember, Paul and Silas were persecuted by the leaders there, the city, And they weren't supposed to be, because they were Roman citizens, remember. Philippi is a Roman city. And so they were thrown in jail. The Philippian jailer released them. I remember there was an earthquake in the middle of the night. The Philippian jailer took them home with him, cleaned them up, cleaned up where they'd been beaten, cleaned them up. Once they were set free the next day, they went back to Lydia's house for a time and met with the people there, preached to them, and then went on to Thessalonica from there. And Thessalonica is another major city, but it's a little further away on another part of Macedonia. Now back in Philippians, It was not a commercial center like some of the other places Paul visited. There was not even enough Jews for a synagogue there. So it was not a popular place with the average people. It was a military outpost, like I said. The magistrates there were placed in a dangerous position by beating Roman citizens, talking about Paul and Silas. Paul and Silas were beaten by the magistrates there, ordered to be beaten. And they were, well, it was an embarrassment for them because they had beaten Roman citizens without knowing it. They assumed they were Jews. And we say they were Jews, but they were not. They were also citizens of Rome. And remember, we've talked about that. There were people who had never sworn allegiance to Rome. There was parts of the Roman Empire that weren't considered, the people there weren't considered citizens of Rome. But Paul was, and it looks as though Silas must have been too. because they were both in on that together. Paul first visited the Philippians on the third missionary journey, I believe it was. camera just died okay having technical difficulties I guess Anyway, when the people in Philippi, the church in Philippi, heard of Paul's imprisonment in Rome, they sent a man, and I'm not even going to try to pronounce his name, Epaphroditus, I think, with financial help for Paul. We'll read about that. It's in chapter 4 of Philippians. They helped Paul. in this way on at least two other occasions. And he mentions that in this book. Epiphranitus almost dies of an illness. But he remained with Paul long enough for the Philippians to receive word. So, upon his recovery, Paul sends this letter back with him to the church at Philippi. And Paul talks about that. From what we understand from history, Silas, Timothy, Luke, and Paul, who were traveling together, first came to Philippi 11 years before this letter was written. We'll see a few places in this letter that it seems that Paul wrote this letter from Rome. There are some that dispute that, but God's word pretty well sums that up. Tells us exactly. So that's a little bit of the history of the town of the church. We know, like I said, Lydia was there in her household. They were saved under Paul's ministry. The Philippian jailer and his household were also saved. So there were there's, looks as though at some point a church was organized there. And of course Paul wrote this letter to that church. We don't know, was Lydia still there? Was her family still there? Was her, was the Philippian jailer and his family still there when he wrote this letter? 11 years later, we don't know. Some, like we talked about the church at Thyatira, some of the history writers think that Lydia went back to Thyatira at some point and her family would have been the ones that would have been the start of the church at Thyatira, the Philippian jailer. Him being obviously in the military, the Roman military, we don't know if he, did he stay there? Did his family stay there? We don't know. He could have been shipped out for different reasons. But we know that at least according to the book of Acts, there were believers in Philippi before Paul wrote this letter, and they were there before he left there. So, let's start with chapter 1, and we'll start reading, and I don't know, we probably won't get all the way through chapter 1 tonight, but we'll look at the first little bit of it. Paul and Timothy, the servants of Jesus Christ, all the saints in Christ Jesus, which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons. So we see, not only are there saints there, or there are believers there, but there's bishops and deacons, which tells us there's a hierarchy of sorts. There's pastors and deacons there. They've got an organized church by the time he writes this letter. And we don't know how large it is, but if they had bishops and deacons, from what we understand from the scripture, it looks as though if they had multiple bishops and multiple deacons, it was probably a fairly large church. Because they would have had one man could not have handled the task himself. But we don't know how big it was. It doesn't tell us. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. Always in every prayer of mine for you, all making request with joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my bonds and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace. If you look back, he says, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. And he also says, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. So I mentioned earlier, we don't know who was there. Well, this tells us right here, that some of those people that were there in the beginning are still there. Whether it was some of Lydia's household or if it was some of the Philippian jailer's household, we don't know, but some of them were still there. So, and Paul remembers them. You think about that, look at all the places that Paul went, all the hundreds or thousands of people he met and taught. And yeah, you look at some of these letters and he remembers people. You know, you can think that he probably, a person in his position anyway, would remember some, but Paul seems to remember a lot of people. Not just what we see in the scripture, but you read letters from people in times past, from times past, And they seem to have a better remembrance of where they've been and people that they've met. And we wonder how that is, how we seem to have lost that today. But you think about what we're exposed to today. You know, we watch television and movies and We see things on there that they didn't see back then. Their mind wasn't cluttered with so much stuff as ours is today. And so Paul remembers these people. He remembers the fellowship that he had with them. And he says the fellowship in the gospel. He remembers the good times he had with them teaching the gospel and preaching the gospel. He says in verse 8, For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. In this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that you may approve things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense to the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. So he speaks pretty highly of these people. Not only are they precious to him, but they're precious to the Lord. They've been a good witness for Christ, sounds like. They have followed the teachings that were given them. verse 12, but I would, but I would, you should understand brethren, that the things which happen unto me have fallen, have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel, so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all other places. And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear." So, Paul mentions his afflictions here. And that they were, he knows, that they were for the furthest of the gospel. We need to remember that. That's not just Paul speaking. That should be all of God's people. The persecutions we go through should be because of the furtherance of the gospel. Not just because we're odd or because we're different than everybody else. Those are reasons also, but it should be for the furtherance of the gospel. Notice in verse 13, he says, so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all other places. He's speaking of where he's at at the present time. Paul, remember, was under house arrest and was held in one of the palaces there in Rome. And so he's writing to these people, you know, even though I'm in bonds, I'm in bonds for Christ. And remember, he was able to write these letters. A lot of the letters that he wrote that are recorded in God's Word were written from his imprisonment in Rome. And he had freedom to write those letters. He had freedoms that most prisoners didn't have. And a lot of that was because he was under house arrest, but it was also because he was a Roman citizen. And the Romans had strict laws. Remember, we've talked a lot about that in our studies on Paul, that they had strict laws on what they could do to a Roman citizen. if a Roman citizen was under arrest for something like Paul that wasn't against Roman law, really there was nothing they could do. They could hold them, imprison them, but they couldn't beat them, they couldn't kill them without just cause. And so Paul had freedoms that most prisoners didn't have. Remember when we were in the book of Acts in the last chapter, and he was with the other prisoners on the ship, He had freedoms that the other prisoners didn't have. The other prisoners were chained in bonds, but Paul was basically free to do what he wanted. And so it was in Rome. He was able to move around the palace, but he still had a guard with him all the time. So he mentions that his imprisonment is for the cause of Christ. That's why he was there in Rome, because he requested to meet with Caesar about what the Jews had demanded that the Romans bring him to bring him under, or to imprison him and eventually kill him. Remember the Jews were wanting Paul dead. But Paul sought to go to Caesar and his request was being met. And eventually he would get to preach the gospel to Caesar. Verse 15, some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife, and some also of goodwill. The one preached Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds, but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel. What then, notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." So even though he's in bonds, he still rejoices because it's for Christ, for a worthy cause. There were those that Paul mentions this here. He mentions it in some other places. There were those who saw the persecution he was under. Same way today. There are those who see one of the Lord's people in persecution and they think they've done some sin to deserve it. We know with Paul that wasn't the case. Why would it be with anybody else? It can be. Don't get me wrong. It could be the Lord's chastisement on someone, but it doesn't have to be. It could be, as Paul says, it could be for the furtherance of the gospel. And as in Paul's case, that's what it was. Verse 19, for I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer. and in the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor. what I shall choose I want not. For I am in a straight betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." Paul understood that to die, physically die, he would we think we'd be better off, no doubt. We'd be out of this world, out of this flesh. But he also understood that because of his role in things that the Lord had used him for as an apostle to the Gentiles and to the churches, that his death possibly could hurt them. He knew As you read his letters and you see, especially the Church of Corinth, you read some of the others that were struggling with false doctrine and false teachers that were coming in. There were false preachers and prophets popping up all over the place. And Paul was writing letters to correct those things. Who was going to do that once he was gone? No one else had the authority that he had. There was no other, the Lord had not given another man the authority that he'd given the Apostle Paul because he was an apostle over all the churches. It's like today, there's no one man that has the authority over all the churches. We're independent, we're local and self-governing. churches now. In their day, they were the same, but when the Apostle Paul came to town, you better straighten up and listen. That's how it was. And because he had the authority from Christ himself. We don't have anyone like that today. He talks about this boldness. You know, Paul had come to the point in his life where he didn't care anymore about the physical. Whatever the Romans decided and the Jews decided to do to him was fine with him. Whatever they wanted, he didn't care. He was that bold now that he was going to preach the gospel no matter what. Remember, he was the one who made the request to go before Caesar. He was the one, you know, he walked in to the temple in Jerusalem and basically let himself be captured. He couldn't have done like the others wanted. Remember the other apostles in the church in Jerusalem tried to get him to stay away. The church at Ephesus tried to get him not to go to Jerusalem. He went anyway. He had a boldness because he knew he needed to preach the gospel. And his desire was to go as high as he could in the government of the world at that time. 25 and having this confidence. I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance in joy of faith For that you're rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ For me by my coming to you again He knows he's playing I'm going to go see him again. He would like to Certainly they wanting to but he's probably he knows he's probably not going to get to I think Paul, by this point, has seen that this trip to Rome was his last trip. Yet, as strong as his desire is to be with his Lord in glory, he still has a strong desire to continue to preach the gospel. Verse 27, only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ, that whether I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel, and in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you a salvation in that of God. He's encouraging them, he says, with one mind striving together. Encouraging them to stay faithful to the truth. Not just a few of them, but the whole congregation. This is for all of them. He's encouraging them, you know, he says, He says, in nothing terrified by your adversaries. Their adversaries were the false teachers, the false prophets that were out there. They were causing... We've seen it in other churches that we've studied. We're seeing it in the seven churches in Asia that we're studying in Revelation on Sunday nights. The false prophets were out there. The false teachers were out there. mixing doctrines with other teachings. There were extra biblical teachings. They were mixing things of the world with things of the church. And some of the people were falling for it. This church in Philippi though, Paul is encouraging them to stay faithful. Notice this is not a letter of chastisement as it was as some of the other letters were. This is a letter of encouragement. He's encouraging these people to stay faithful. And he's telling them why. Because it's for the furtherance of the gospel. He says, For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake. having the same conflict which you saw in me and now here to be in me. So the same persecutions that he's gone through, they're going to go through. And he tells them that it's on behalf of Christ. That's why they're going to be persecuted. We see today part of the persecution that we see today in the Lord's churches. You know, we're laughed at and mocked for certain doctrines that we stick with. Things that God's word is plain on and others deny. Where the world as a whole looks at us and laughs for even being here tonight. You know, there's pastors that I've known that would tell you that when a church gets their numbers are down as low as ours are, you need to close and go join somewhere else. There's actually men that claim to be landmark sovereign grace pastors out there that'll tell you that, well, the Lord's done with you if you're that small. You know, there's two or three churches in your area, maybe you all need to get together and combined, but that's not what the Lord tells us. We're not promised numbers. We're not promised fancy buildings. We're not promised large bank accounts. The Lord has blessed us here and still does, still is. I think it's obvious that the Lord is not done with this church. with what He has blessed us with. And yet, so many will say that the Lord's done with you. But how do you know? If you're not a member here, how would you know? That's not for someone else to say. As Paul has taught in his first chapter, Be encouraged when we're persecuted. It should be an encouragement to us, whether it's the world, whether it's Satan himself, whether it's other, even if it's other folks of the like faith. You know, that happens sometimes too. As long as we know we're following the Lord's the Lord's examples, the Lord's commandments, and His teachings, we should be encouraged. We should have a boldness. Like Paul says, he had a boldness even through his persecutions. He had a boldness for the Gospel. We should have that. So we'll close there for tonight. We'll take up with Chapter 2 next Wednesday. We'll be done with this book, Lord willing, I'm sure, before the end of the year, the way things are going. But we'll see. I think around the first of the year, I want to look at... Maybe we'll go back to the Old Testament and look at one of the books there and do a study out of one of the books in the Old Testament. I don't want to overlap what our Sunday school teacher is doing with the Kings. But, well, I don't, we'll see. We'll see. So there's, like I said, there's several things running through my mind on where I want to go and what I want to study. So we'll see what the Lord has for us at the first year on that.