What a blessing is to be enabled to announce the Word of God, to glorify the name of Christ. We have been saved from darkness to the light for that very reason, to announce the glories of Christ who saved us. I would like to draw your attention to Philippians chapter 1. Today we will read verse 1 and 2 of Philippians, the book of Philippians. So please read with me Philippians chapter 1, verse 1 and 2. The Word of God says, Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the overseers and deacons, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Oh, Heavenly Father, We pray, Lord, that your Holy Spirit today can open our ears and make us aware of the wonders of your love and your grace, that your Holy Spirit can remind us your word and can seal, Lord, your word in our hearts. And I pray, Lord, That you can have mercy on the weaknesses of the preacher today. And that you can bless your word today, Lord. That you can lead your sheep to hear your voice and be transformed by the power of the Spirit. And that we all together can glorify the name of Christ today, Lord. That's what we want. Help us, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. On January 8th of 1956, Gene Elliot, along with Nate Zane and two other missionaries, were attacked by the Guarani tribes inhabitants. They also are known as Aukas. And this word means savage. which was given to them because of their ferocity. These missionaries died as martyrs for the work of Christ. According to the narration of Steve Sain, the son of Nate, these missionaries died showing a deep interest in these people. They were indeed their sincere friends. These men deeply understood the letter to the Philippians, a letter that shows God's love, a love poured out in our hearts that is manifested towards our neighbors. But while these men are a great testimony for us, They were following an even more excellent example. The example of one who being Lord of the universe, came to serve this fallen world. One who did not count equality to God as a thing to be grasped. Instead, he became a servant, and being a servant, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the most horrible dead. the death of the cross. Let me quote for you Gene Elliott. This is coming from his diaries. And he said, Father, let me be weak that I might lose the clutch on everything temporal, my life, my reputation, my possessions. Lord, let me lose the tension of my grasping hand. rather opened my hand to receive the nail of Calvary. As Christ's hand was opened, that I, released in all, might be released, unleashed from all that binds me now. Jesus thought heaven, even equality with God, not a thing to be grasped. So let me release my grasp. It is clear the influence of the book of Philippians on our brother. And it's evident that has impacted his life to such a degree that even now we remember that testimony. May God's blessed spirit help us to receive his word today and be also transformed and impacted. Today we will begin a series of sermons on Philippians, which will take us to these amazing truths that shaped the lives of many brothers and sisters. But before I fully address today's text, I would like to give you a little bit of context. And I will do that in two parts. First, I want to give you a little bit of context on the Church of Philippi, how this church was planted. And second, we will briefly examine the context of Paul when he was writing this letter. So let's start with the first part. The Apostle Paul founded the Church of Philippi. He founded the church in the second missionary journey. I would encourage you, after the sermon, to go to the Book of Acts and read Acts chapter 16, and you will read the account of this event. And we can see in the first verses of chapter 16 how Paul takes Timothy when he passes across Derbe and Lystra. These cities mentioned belong to the province of Galatia. And these are the churches that Paul will write in the letter to the Galatian churches. After planting the Galatian churches, Paul considers it good to preach the gospel to the Roman province of Asia. He wanted to go to Asia and preach the gospel of God. But here we are informed by the word of God that the Holy Spirit prevented him to go to Asia to preach the gospel. Now to give you a little bit of context, Galatia, Asia, and Bithynia were provinces of the Roman Empire on what would be now Turkey. When you think about Turkey, the country, the western side of Turkey was what Paul was mentioning here as Asia. So Paul was going from Syria, what would be now Syria, Israel-Syria, towards Greece. And he was going through Turkey to achieve that goal. So in that journey, Paul had this wonderful desire of going and preach the gospel to Asia. But we see how God, in his complete control and authority over the apostle, prevented him to go and preach the gospel. And brother, isn't it the same with us? Sometimes we have good plans, which may be holy. and for the glory of God in our minds. But God will always have the power and authority to change our ways. And the wonderful thing of this, brethren, is that God always has a better plan than ours. In Paul's case, in his time, God led Paul to plant multiple churches in Asia, too. One of those churches we know very well. Do you know what church is it? It's the church of Ephesus. And we see later in the book of Revelations when Christ gives the announcement to the church of Ephesus that this was a faithful church that persevered in the devotion to the Lord, to God. Brethren, God is sovereign and we are only instruments for his glory. Guiding his sovereignty not only prevented Paul from going to preach to Asia before the appointed time, but he led the apostle to Macedonia. Paul had a dream of a Macedonian man begging him to come. And Paul now was guided by the spirit to go and preach the gospel to Macedonia. Brethren, without doubt, God blessed that preaching. And we saw miracles, we saw earthquakes, we saw demon-possessed people testifying that these people were coming from God. God was endorsing and validating the ministry of Paul in Macedonia. Paul was obedient to what God was showing him. But also another kind of miracle happened in Macedonia, in Philippi. We see the power of the gospel in this church by bringing people from completely different socioeconomic backgrounds. You see rich women, one of those is Lydia, coming to the gospel. We see a normal worker class man, a jailer, coming to the gospel with his family. We see a woman that was a slave, a demon possessed woman, coming to see the power of the gospel in her life. And most likely, all they come together by the power of the gospel to praise God, to serve God as a church. That this only can be done by the gospel. People that hate each other before that, people that there was no way to unite these people. Now by the power of the gospel, they were brought together and praising God together. Only the gospel can do that. Only the gospel can unite people in that way. In this letter, we can see also that power. Now, let me give you a little bit of context of Paul's situation when Paul was writing this book or this letter. Paul is writing from prison. We see this in many verses in this book. And probably, he was in Rome. He was writing to confirm and establish the Philippians' faith and to tell them for the support that only this church gave him for the missionary work. From this letter, we will see many passages that show us that friendship, that close relationship that Paul had with this church. They were their friends, his friends. They were his collaborators in the extension of the gospel. and Paul encouraged them to persevere amid the tribulation. This letter is a beautiful bond for all those who in the midst of tribulation need to receive encouragement and strength from God to continue living for him and to collaborate in the extension of the kingdom of God. Finally, this letter is a call for church unity, following the most excellent example, the excellent example of Christ's humility. And in that way, we can live worthy of the gospel, in a way worthy of the gospel, as Paul would say in this letter. So may God bless us now with his word. So join me now to address these two verses. And I will do that making two main points. The first point of these two verses is our identity in Christ. We are slaves and saints in Jesus Christ. We are slaves. and saints in Jesus Christ. And the second point is the blessings of the gospel, grace and peace in Jesus Christ. What are blessings? So let me start with the first topic, our identity in Christ. Brethren, these first two verses follow a typical pattern in Paul's letters. He normally will begin his letters with an introduction and then add a greeting. But in this letter, there is something that is not common than other letters. It's something that differentiates this specific letter than others. We see that Paul doesn't display his apostolic credentials here. Normally, if you examine all the other letters, most of the other letters, Paul will use his apostolic credentials. If you read Romans, Paul will say, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle. 1 Corinthians, Paul called to be an apostle. 2 Corinthians, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. Galatians, Paul, an apostle, not by men, but by God. And so on. You can check the letters of Paul. But in this letter to the Philippians, he doesn't use that. And it seems that this is more like a relief for the apostle. He doesn't have to validate his apostolic ministry to this church. Much less, he doesn't have to use his apostolic authority to apply a hard discipline to this church. No, this church, the beloved church of Philippi, didn't need Paul to validate his credentials. They fully believed that Paul's ministry was apostolic. They have a beautiful relationship with the apostle. They even sent one of his officials, Epaphroditus, to serve the apostle. They were willing to give themselves for the apostle. They didn't need Paul to validate himself. They were supporting him. They were, as Paul would say, collaborators with Paul. Brothers, we see the beautiful example of this church. And in the book of Philippians, we will see many key themes that we will explore in different sermons. But one way to see this letter, too, is as a report or as a thank you letter from a missionary to a church that is supporting him. And Paul is doing that too to the church of Philippi. This church really loved the apostle. And the question here for us, for all of us is, are we following this example? Are we coming to our church with a deep desire to be collaborators with extension of God's kingdom? Are we coming to our church thinking how I can collaborate with God's work. Or are we coming here just for self-fulfillment? And don't get me wrong. We are needy people. We come here because we are needy people, because we need Christ. But also, we come here with a sense of gratefulness to Christ. We come here because we are so thankful that Christ died for us, and we want to collaborate with the extension of his kingdom, his name. And that is the example that we see in the Church of Philippi. Brethren, when God established this world, he put Adam and Eve, and he commanded them to fill the earth with God-image bearers. But now there is a new Adam, Christ, and there is a new wife for this Adam, the church. And we are commanded to extend the gospel, to reach people with the gospel, and to fill this earth with God-image bearers, not by reproduction, but by the power of regeneration, People that are falling at the store can be made now more and more like Christ. And that is the responsibility we have. We have a responsibility. And it hasn't come as a command and a burden and obligation, but comes from a grateful heart. That was the heart of the Church of Philippi. They were amazed. Salvation came to this city. Salvation came to these people. And they wanted to collaborate. They wanted to collaborate. Paul didn't need to use his apostolic title. But he will use a different one. He will use servant. And he applies this title to him and to Timothy. Now, this title is a perfect introduction to this letter. Our Identity as Servants of God. Now, this word, the word that you're reading in your Bible, servant, in Greek, comes from the Greek word doulos, which basically means slave. And you have heard probably that word many times, a slave. Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ, slaves of God. And although in the context, this word applies principally to Paul and Timothy as servants, as missionary workers, it also applies to every believer. And we see that when we read the book of Romans that Pastor Jeff is preaching about now. Paul will say in Romans 6, we were slaves to sin, but now we are freed from that and we are slaves to God. Talking about every believer, slaves of God. And scriptures make it clear that we were born as slaves of sin. And Singh was a terrible master. A master that had no mercy whatsoever for us. Singh was ruling over us, dragging us to eternal condemnation and misery. The same sinful nature that influenced men and women to practice Singh. to hate God, even though they don't say that. That same sinful nature was in every one of us, ruling over us. But God, that is reaching mercy for his great love, which he loved us, he freed us, he freed us from this slavery. Brothers and sisters, brethren, someone else paid the price to deliver us as sinners from slavery. It was not gold. It was not silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the price for our deliverance from that state. And now, brethren, we are Christ's property. We fully belong to Christ, as we just saw before in the hymn. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, thou has bought us. Thine we are. We are his property. Brethren, a slave is someone that does not live for his or her own interests. but for the interest of the master. If a slave receives something from the master, the slave, they have the responsibility to invest what they receive, because one day the master will come for their profit. That profit belongs to the master. That person that receives something being a slave has to work for the master. And the question for us is, are we remembering that we are slaves? And moreover, are we remembering that our master is the best master? He's not the terrible master we had before. He's a wonderful, merciful master, Christ, that one that paid for us with his own blood, The question is, is he not worthy that we work for his cause? Brother and sister, are we using our gifts, whether it's spiritual or material, that the Lord has given to us for his cause? One day we will have to answer that. Paul and Timothy were a wonderful example to believers of what it meant to be, what it means to be a slave. And you can see the life of Paul and the life of Timothy. Paul was an apostle. He didn't enforce churches to pay him. And he had the authority to do that. He was working for them. But just for the sake of the church to not cause them stumble, he didn't do that. His will, even his liberty, was restrained to serve God. Now think about Timothy. He had a good name among the churches in Galatia. He was a faithful Christian. But then Paul came and basically called him to serve with him. What that meant at that time was to become a terrorist, basically. He was going to Greece, to the Roman Empire, to preach and to be accused to be a terrorist, somebody that wanted to make the empire unstable. And he happily accepted that. And moreover, think about this. Timothy was around 30 years, maybe, 40 years. And he accepted to be circumcised. A grown man accepted to be circumcised. Because? Because of the law? No. It was not required at all. But because he wanted to preach Jewish people. He wanted Jewish people to become saved. He restricted his liberty again in order to extend God's kingdom. That is what it is to be a slave. That is why when Paul and Timothy arrived to Philippi, to Macedonia, even the demons will testify, these men are servants of the Most High. These men are slaves of the Most High, and they are preaching the gospel. That is the example that we have in Paul and Timothy, brothers and sisters. When I was reading and kind of trying to understand the meaning of this word slave, I found an image that was a seal that the Baptist American Missionary Society will use normally to seal their leathers. They still had a figure of an ox in the middle. And to the right, there was a plow. And to the left, there was a sacrificial altar. And with letters, it would say, ready for both. And I thought, wow. That is the gospel. That is what. That is what the Spirit does in our hearts, to learn sacrificial service. Why? Because while we are learning that, we imitate our Lord Jesus Christ. That is why we do that. We don't do that because we are fearful people, but because we love Christ and we want to be like Him. And he was the best example of sacrificial service. But now let me address the second point of this verse. Paul also writes to the saints in Christ Jesus. So in the same way that our identity is being slaves. Once we are saved, automatically we become slaves. It's not a choice. In the same way, once we believe in Christ, we are saints. We are holy. We are united to Christ. We receive the righteousness of Christ. And Paul can call everyone in the church to all these saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi. In my country, in Peru, I come from Peru. You can notice my accent. Normally, 70% of the people will be Catholic. And if you go to the mountains or you go to the jungle, Normally, what they will have is a calendar that has a name of a canonized saint, a Roman Catholic canonized saint. And what they will do is, when they have a kid, a children, they will check the date, they will see the name, and they will put the name to the children. And believe me, some of those names were very horrible. Like, you wouldn't put that name to your kid. But when I was younger, I thought, how many saints? I wasn't a believer at all, but I was thinking, how many saints does Roman Catholic Church have? But then, by grace, as you, by grace, I've found the gospel. The gospel found me. Christ found me. I believe in Christ and I found a most comforting truth that everyone that believes and trusts fully in Christ is a saint. He's a saint. Not because of your works, not because of your performance, but because of our union with Christ. We are united to Christ. He is the head, we are the body. His holiness is our holiness. His righteousness is our righteousness. If we have placed our faith and hope in Christ, we are saints. Think about Paul calling the Church of Corinth the same. Paul would call them to all the saints in the Church of Corinth. We'll use the same expression. A church like ours, imperfect. And you know, when you read the letter to Corinth, you think, wow, right? They even have problems that even Gentiles wouldn't dare to have. But Paul will call them to the saints in Corinth. And this is because it's part of our identity in Christ. It's what we are in Christ. We are seen as saints before God by the blessed grace of Christ. And finally, we see in this greeting that Paul see or address a well-structured church that has bishops, that means pastors, and deacons. And this is the fruit of the labor of the apostle, who always sought to institute bishops to solidify the churches of the Lord. But now, let's move to the second verse where we see a summary of the gospel, of the blessings of the gospel. Grace and peace. We read, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is one of Paul's hallmarks in almost all his letters. A phrase that Paul would always remember to use. The Holy Spirit wanted to preserve this not only at the beginning of the letter, grace and peace, but that word grace will appear also when Paul closed the letters, grace to you. And this is something that we need to be reminded all the time. We have received grace from God and we need that grace all the time. But I first want you to pay attention to the combination of words that Paul used here. Paul says, grace to you and peace. Now, this word, grace, it's a variation for a very common Greek word that people will use as a greeting normally. Paul will change that wording a little bit from charen to charis to convey a most wonderful truth now, and also knowing that this will resonate to all believers that were from the Greek background. And we see how Paul will use that word, grace, charis. Now the second word, peace. I don't have to elaborate a lot here, because you know that this was a very common expression for Jewish people. Jewish will use this not only as a greeting, but even in conversations. And that comes from the Hebrew shalom. They will use that word a lot. And what we see here is how in the mind of the apostle, he sees the unity of the church, whether they are Greek or Jews. There are one church in his mind, and he greets them. And they are united in the Lord Jesus. But each of these words have such a deep meaning. And we don't have time to explore all what we can say about grace, because that will take us forever. But let me just address some things about these words. God's grace, the undeserved goodwill towards us, the blessed disposition that God has towards us. Even before he sent his son, God was already showing his grace and preparing this world to receive that big manifestation of grace in Christ. We read in the book of Hosea, I will heal your rebellion. I will love you of pure grace. And this grace was manifested in his fullness at the arrival of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus. Because the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. And it was displayed in all its splendor in the cross. Because Christ By God's great grace, he takes death for all. And one day, the blessed grace of God came into our lives. Through the power of the Spirit, who convicted us of our iniquities and made us penitent sinners, we were, as Spurgeon would say, we were sacred sinners. sacred repentant sinners. And we were led to Christ for salvation. Brethren, how much can we say about the grace of God who justified the wicked? God didn't wait for us to get better, but Christ died for us when we were weak. Such is the grace, the blessed grace of God. Just to finish, I really, really love a book of Spurgeon. It's called All of Grace. If you can read, read it. It's an amazing book. It's very short, very concise. Wonderful book. All of Grace. And in this book, he narrates a story. And the story tells us about one skillful painter that was well known in England because he was able to capture the essence of each of the cities. And he would travel from city to city, go across the cities, and capture the essence of the city. He was very skillful. And one day, he is in one of the main streets in London. And he will see this guy sweeping the street. And he thought, this is the perfect scene to capture. And he sent a couple of his servants. And could you bring this guy and tell him, please, that come tomorrow? I really want to capture this scene, because this is the way I will show my skillful art, my skills. The next day, this guy, the guy that was sweeping, comes. And it was a surprise for him, because he was told that they didn't need him anymore. And the reason was that this sweeper, this guy that was sweeping the street, he washed his face. And he rented a new suit, because he thought, oh, I'm going to be painted. I need to be better. But this didn't serve for the purpose of the painter. This didn't serve for the painter to show his skillful art, his skills. And this is the same for God's grace, brothers and sisters. And whoever that doesn't know God and Christ, we don't need to wash our face We don't need to cover us with our own righteousness, our own works, and rent it for a bit. We are called to come to Christ as we are, as sinners, because in that way, Christ is glorified. In that way, Christ transforms a wretched sinner And Christ show his power and glory in that way. That is the grace that we have received. That is the grace that we praise. And what is the result of that grace? Peace. Peace with God. As Romans 5 will say, we are justified And now the peace of God. The Spirit is pouring us. And brethren, think about this. In eternity, God the Father, in front of God the Son, delighting himself in the perfection, in the beauty, in the holiness of his Son, God the Son in front of God the Father, delighting himself in the beauty and perfection of God the Father in perfect peace. Nothing was interrupting that. And Christ will come and tell us, my peace I give to you. My peace I give to you. That is the peace of Christ. That is our inheritance. I can come to that communion with the Father. I can come in front of God the Father and have perfect communion with Him, even though I am a wretched sinner. Why? Because I am in Christ. And I can have perfect communion with the Father. I am in Christ. That is the peace that this world cannot give me. The peace of the world is useful, but whenever tribulation comes, that's it. No more peace. But the peace that Christ is offering us No matter what tribulation we face, we always can come in front of God the Father and know that there is no condemnation for those that Christ have saved. There is nothing that can separate me from the hand of God the Father and the Son. I can have that peace always. And that is the peace that An unbeliever will never be able to understand. And that is the peace that we can partake, grace and peace in Christ. That is why Paul says, grace and peace, not just stop there, in Christ Jesus. There is where we will find grace and peace, in Christ. in our union. That's what it means. In our union with Christ, we have that grace and peace. Grace and peace. I will finish this sermon just quoting Matthew Henry. I know you are used to hear Matthew Henry, because our pastor really loves Matthew Henry. I do, too. And Matthew Henry will say, there is no peace without grace. There is no grace and peace but from God our Father source and origin of all blessings. There is no grace and peace from God our Father except in and through our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ, as a mediator, is the channel of transmission of all spiritual blessings to the Church and direct their disposition to all its members. Glory be to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.