Philippians 1, verses 3 to 11. Hear the word of the Lord. 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. Let's go to our God and ask his blessing upon the word preached. Father in heaven, We pray that you would, again, bless the preaching and hearing of your word. Would you stir our hearts and affections for one another, and ultimately for the cause of the gospel, and for Christ, our Savior, and for you, our triune Lord. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. So, as is somewhat custom for Paul, he begins by giving thanks But this Thanksgiving is a bit unusual, for lack of a better term. He goes over the top in his feeling and affection for the Philippians by accumulating words of friendly, heartfelt love to them. We know what this is like. We text or email or write letters to people in which an ordinary thanks is not fitting. A normal thank you might reading like, thank you for this, or thank you for that, fill in the blank. But if we want to communicate more sincerely, we add things like, thank you so much, or thank you, what a great blessing. Thank you, this is so amazing. I can't thank you enough, et cetera. In Pakala terms, it would be, thank you, my dear precious buddies. And that's good. It communicates that there is a deeper feeling in the relation to that other. If Owen gives Grandpa Lyle help with some project around the house, and after he helps him, Grandpa embraces him and says, thank you, dear precious little buddy. It's not weird. However, if an employee from Menards helps Brother Lyle locate the part he's looking for, and Lyle were to use the same affectionate language, it would be a bit strange. And that's what we have with Paul in this letter. His fond feeling of affection is at the front here and will carry out throughout the letter. When we're making the transition here, and had some difficulty with the sale of our house, We had you guys continually praying for us, and a couple of pastor friends who I had reached out to and was in discussion with let me know that at several points they were praying for me at the church and at their corporate gathering. And that was so encouraging to me, and I wanted to express that in my response to them. But one of the things that's difficult about commuting this way is that we've sort of made every form of communication extra, if you know what I mean. Everything is awesome, amazing, super, superlative upon superlative. We really, I think, need to take this into account as we communicate. I don't think we need to be curmudgeon about it, but it's important because communication matters. What we say and the way we say things matters. It especially mattered for Paul as he communicates to the Philippians with this unique feeling and affection. So verse three, he begins with thanks. Now he's thankful to them for reasons we'll explore, but who does he direct his thanks to? First, it's to God. Thanksgiving is always in order in our approach to God because all we have comes from Him. Everything He was glad and thankful about on their account was due to God's work. Give us this day our daily bread should include a petition, without a doubt, a request to God, but it certainly implies an acknowledgment that God is the giver. God is the one who can, does, and has provided. And not just an acknowledgment, but a thankful acknowledgment. We are very prone to giving recognition to second causes, aren't we? But a bit slow to recognize the first cause in all things, which is God. Most common is the weather. We talk about the weather as if it's an animate creature, if the weather cooperates, et cetera. But every gust of wind, drop of rain, beam of sunlight upon the earth is at the beck and call of our triune God. Turn in the back your hymnals to the confession. Chapter three, verse one, and chapter five. Sorry, paragraph one. Chapter three, one. And five, one. Two delightful passages on God decreeing all things and God providentially ordering all things. And take particular note at the end of both paragraphs. Chapter 3 of God's decree, paragraph 1, God has decreed in himself from all eternity by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things whatsoever come to pass. Yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin, nor has fellowship with any therein, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established in which appears his wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing his decree. And now skip forward to chapter five, paragraph one. God, the good creator of all things in his infinite power and wisdom does uphold, direct, dispose and govern all creatures and things from the greatest even to the least by the most, his most wise and holy providence to the end for the which they were created according unto his infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of his own will to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy." Note at the end of both paragraphs how it doesn't take away second causes, and that it acknowledges this at the end of both paragraphs. It acknowledges and heightens the glory of His wisdom, power, and faithfulness. That's what we want to do. We want to do that as Christians. Do we not? We want to ascribe glory to our God in everything, even the small things. And to the contrary, unthankfulness is at the heart of ungodliness, as we'll see in next week's scripture reading. The digression of God giving over godless image bearers to their own lust is a pattern of unthankfulness. It's at the heart of it, at the root of it, of refusing to acknowledge God and instead attributing to the creature what is owed to God. The posture of our hearts and our conversations ought to be marked with a regular thankful acknowledgment of His sovereign and good providence in the entirety of our lives. In praying, in order to do so, we need to be marked by prayer. In order to be thankful, we need to be praying. Do we pray? Are we marked by prayer? Do we even need to pray? Are we ever in such peril that we would need to pray? Absolutely, we have a need to pray, a great need, daily, hourly, unless we think we're stronger than our Lord Jesus. Jesus prayed with sighs and tears. He prayed, as we learned earlier, for his people, for his reward, and for his possession. And what is prayer? Is it Paul just thinking happy thoughts about these folks? Is he on his evening walk and then thinks about them and so mutters up some things about them? I don't think so. That's more like a meditation. Prayer is a communion with God. It is a means of showing gratitude to God, showing our dependence, expressing our sole allegiance to God. It is a means of grace that God uses to change us and those for whom we pray. God uses prayer to change things. It is a plea, a petition, a supplication, a request, a begging. Prayer is work. Prayer takes time. This is not something done in passing or casually. Can you imagine someone wanting to petition a king? And as he is summoned to bring his request, he goes forward and walks by the king while submitting his request and doesn't pause or acknowledge the king. He just submits his petition quickly while passing by. How do you think that would go? He'd probably get struck down before leaving. But the idea is that of devoted time to prayer. It could be that Paul makes reference to his regular times of prayer here. He may have maintained the custom of praying for an hour, three separate times a day. Now, I say this in no way to steer us away, as I referenced back there, from conversing with God or praying to God in the middle of our day, or while doing duties and tasks. That's not what I'm trying to do. I think there's a sense in which we offer up short prayers in our heart to God. That's a thing. But that is not the sense here. It's not the sense in the Lord's prayer. It's not the sense of the prayer closet. We ought to devote time to prayer. It's hard work. The Lord grant us a supplicating spirit and to delight in it at that because, as we've already mentioned, of its nature of being a conversation in communion with our triune Lord. And Paul prays always. The idea is as often as he prayed, he prayed for them. He's obviously doing other things, so he's not always praying, but as often as he brought them to mind. Anytime he petitions the throne, they are in his mind and on his lips. He doesn't say this about other churches. It's the Philippians that have his heart this way. Do other churches and individuals get our hearts this way? Maybe it's an individual or struggling church that comes up every time you petition the Lord in a specific season. We ought to, we ought to have those. Or like Paul, maybe it's a church, a specific church that blessed you in such a way that you can't help but thank God for them and pray for the further blessing upon them anytime they come to mind. And for you all, Paul will not have He will not recognize any division amongst the Philippians. That's what's going on here. Whatever the division is amongst the two ladies, my prayer is for you all together as a unified body. I want you to be unified. I want selfless unity amongst you. And that's how I am beginning my letter to you. And now how, in what manner did Paul pray with joy, This note of joy, which Paul begins, will ring throughout the whole of the letter, as we already know. And this is huge. This is so important for us to grab hold of. Why is Paul such a strange creature in terms of worldly standards? Why is he joyful when he is in prison and seemingly on his way to a martyr's death? How can he be? It's because his joy is not determined by his circumstances, as we mentioned last week. It's a joy that is present. It is a joy that looks in both directions as well. It looks behind him to the work God had done at the cross, at Pentecost, and at the birth of the Philippian church, and the growth of the Philippian church. It looks at the current work of the gospel advancement in his imprisonment, and it looks eschatologically ahead to what is to come. God's continued work of advancing his cause in them and in the future glorified state that is guaranteed to Paul and all believers. Even death to Paul is much more better, as it can be rightly interpreted, much more better to Paul, because it is to be present with Christ. And what is joy? Is it just an inward disposition? Could someone be very stoic and yet be joyful? Or is it all outward, where joy is just the expression on your face and the vibe you give off around others, even if you're really miserable inside? You all know the answer, right? It's both. And they don't have to be together. You can be joyful inside and express that joy in an outward manner where they both coincide together, but you can also be in the midst of a trial and difficulty and still be joyful because you know what awaits you and what it's producing. And I think it is the eschatological nature of joy that is being expressed here. Whatever circumstance you're in, you can be joyful because that's not the end. Something better awaits your sighs and tears and struggle and sin. A world without that, a glorified state of existence in perfect conformity to Christ. It's a joy in Christ, because Christ is our life, both here and in the life to come, whether we live or die. This joy expressed in Paul's current situation looks like what the theologian of the cross was to Luther. For Luther, there are two types of theologian. That's Martin Luther. A theologian of glory and a theologian of the cross. A simple way to illustrate this is how you view reality. That's what Paul is doing here. Do you call something what it looks like? Or do you call it what it really is? The prime example for Luther is the cross. What does the cross look like to the average onlooker? A man dying, a criminal dying, a man cursed of God. It looks like weakness, defeat, failure. But that's the theology of glory because it prefers strength over weakness, glory over suffering, apparent wisdom over the foolishness of the cross. But the theologian of the cross sees it for what it really is, as the Savior. Dying on the cross, the one whose eyes have been enlightened by the Spirit of God, he sees the power, wisdom, and salvation of God that's hidden in the cross, hidden from the eyes of unbelief. Rather than defeat, the cross brings deliverance. Rather than a man dying through death, the cross brings life. In the cross, we see a great exchange, the imputation of our sins to Christ and his spotless life imputed to us. While the theologian of glory sees works as a means to his right standing before God, the theologian of the cross sees God's free provision and justification as his only means of standing rightly before him. Now, why do I go on about this? Because Paul is a theologian of the cross, to use the anachronism. He doesn't see his situation for what it looks like, but what it really is. What it looks like is here's a criminal in jail and on his way to die a shameful death. What it really is is his imprisonment has led to greater faithfulness of God's people, greater affection for one another, the advancement of the gospel. An impending death might actually be preferred because it means presence with the Lord, which is much better. It is all served rather to magnify Christ and bring glory to God in affliction and weakness and in suffering. We see this thought and idea in Luther's great hymn, A Mighty Fortress. The spirit and gifts are ours through him who with us sideth. Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also, the body they may kill. God's truth abideth still. His kingdom is forever. We see both the present and the eschatological aspect of joy come out in this wonderful hymn. And now we've seen his thankful prayer to God. We've seen the manner of his prayers with joy. Now what are the grounds of his joyful thanks with regard to the Philippians? And it's their fellowship. Their fellowship with him. What is fellowship? A couple definitions from the internet here for you. One, community of interest, activity, feeling, or experience. A community of interest, activity, feeling, or experience. Two, a friendly association, especially with people who share one's interests. What is Christian fellowship? Some saw Paul as rightly imprisoned and used it as an opportunity to preach Christ out of spite, which Paul actually rejoiced in. But the Philippians did not. This is what Christian fellowship is. They saw Paul's situation and used it as an opportunity to support him in the exercising of their God-given gifts. Rather, they saw Paul's situation as their own. They took it as a member of their own body being in a strait. They shared with him in his sufferings, in his imprisonment, in his love for the gospel, his love for the Christ of the gospel. And this was demonstrated both in financial gifts, but also in gifts of service. That's Christian fellowship. We want to cultivate that more and more here, don't we? We're folks from different walks, different generations, but we're united under the same Lord. We're purchased by the same blood and dwelt by the same spirit. And we live for the cause of advancing the same gospel that saved us in the same community and surrounding communities. We want to see that gospel go forward. So we look for ways to bring that about and encourage and exercise our gifts. We keep each other in our minds and hearts and prayers with affectionate prayers for one another. And we'll do it with the same confident expectation of perseverance of these things that Paul had for those in Philippi. God had begun it and had preserved His work in them up until now, and God won't leave unfinished His work in them. That is the Philippians. Corporately, first and foremost, but individually as well, God the Father in Christ, by his spirit, will bring his church and his people to perfection. Whatever work he has to do in Philippi and whatever work he has to do in Tama, he is going to do it. He will do it through us in this local body. He will do it through other faithful churches and Christians in this area. And whatever work he is going to do in you, Individually, whatever sanctifying work He will do in you, He will do it. For contributing to the body, for your own holiness and sanctification, He's going to work it. God is an artist. He is the artist, the all-wise creator. He works and fashions things for His own glory. He does it all in wisdom and power, with kindness and mercy and grace, and He will do it. In the old and new creation, He is not walking to and fro about the earth looking for something lovely for Himself. Though, as we learned, He is searching every one of us by His omniscience. But He's not out looking for something to please Him or that He finds lovely. Far from it, God is creating the lovely in us. He is making us lovely to Himself, collectively and individually, which is an expression of His own eternal, lovely union as our Triune God. He is and will bring us into that loving unity, that perfect state, whether at death or when Christ come again. Even so, come Lord Jesus. Let us pray. O Lord, we thank You again for this day. We thank You for Your Word. We pray that you would so soften our hearts to receive your word and will for our lives. We pray your blessing upon us as we go out from here. Conform us more to the image of Christ our Savior as we go forward into the rest of this week. Give us to be encouraging each other and stirring each other up to loving good deeds. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.